T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 5

The Need to be Filled with the Holy Spirit

"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: and I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship" (Exodus 31:1-5).

"But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light..." (1 Peter 2:9).

"That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:7-8).

We are occupied, as we have felt led of the Lord, with the matter of the Supreme Necessity for the Holy Spirit and for a fresh knowledge of the Holy Spirit and His work in this day in which we live. It will be necessary to come closer to the more distinctive features of the Holy Spirit's work, but for a little while we will be taken up again with that inclusive, all-embracing object of the Holy Spirit's presence here in the church in this dispensation. It is a test, of course, for us as the Lord's people, but it is also a setting forth of the great encouragement that we have, to expect the very highest, greatest and best from the Lord.

Now, I have read this portion in Exodus 31:3, in order that we might get into touch with the tabernacle for a moment. You will see that the chapters which precede are occupied with all the details of the tabernacle. From chapter 25 where the Lord commanded Moses to speak unto the children of Israel to bring an offering of "every man whose heart maketh him willing", and then the things which are to be taken as forming not offerings but one offering, "take an offering", the many phases of this offering, the many parts of this one offering. These are mentioned and set forth in that chapter, and then the instructions for the making of this tabernacle are given in the subsequent chapters until you reach chapter 31. And you have a coming back in that chapter; a retrospective word and movement of God. Before any of this can be done there has to be an instrument chosen of God and especially filled with the Spirit of God unto this work, and Bezaleel is appointed. And the Lord says, "See, I have called by name... and I have filled him with the Spirit of God". Now, why that necessity? For the simple reason that the tabernacle was intended to set forth the glories of Christ. It was to be, in every detail, to the most minute point, an unveiling of the Lord Jesus and His glories. Everything was to speak of Him, to show Him, to declare Him, and only the Holy Spirit can do that and we therefore need not wonder at the special endowment and the special supervision of the Holy Spirit in order that every part of this tabernacle might perfectly express the thoughts of God, because here are embodied the thoughts of God concerning His Son and "no one knoweth the mind of God save the Spirit of God" and he to whom the Spirit may reveal those thoughts.

The Spirit alone has a right and an adequate apprehension of the Lord Jesus according to the Divine mind, and so Bezaleel must be filled with the Spirit of God in order that in all the work of the tabernacle there should be a right representation of God's thought concerning the Lord Jesus. Nothing is left to human judgment, nothing is left to man's thought, ability, ideas, surmises, arrangements, apprehensions, scales of values; nothing is left with man in this matter, and would to God it were more so in the church at this time. There is no room whatever for man's thoughts in the things of God. God has never left a place in the church for man naturally. God has filled His own space with the Holy Spirit for a full and perfect revelation of His own thoughts. And so the necessity was that there should be in the executing of this Divine pattern, this Divine plan, an instrument who was not only just externally actuated or helped by the Holy Spirit, but literally filled with the Spirit of God unto everything, and you note how explicit and detailed the Lord is about it, "all manner of workmanship". His devising was by the Holy Spirit, his cutting, his carving, his everything was by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. It was, as we have said, because the tabernacle was to set forth the glories of Christ.

Now, we linked that with 1 Peter 2:9: "To show forth the excellencies of Him who called you (us) out of darkness into His most marvellous light". Peter deals with present things - his aspect of truth is the present pilgrimage of the church - but Paul goes beyond the earth and the present pilgrimage and sees the church in the heavenlies, and embraces the eternities, and carries this word on into the ages to come. "That in the ages to come He might show forth the exceeding riches of His grace in us", so that the thought is one throughout; the thought that is in Exodus is in Peter and in Paul; one thought: the presentation, the unveiling, the showing forth of the glory and the excellencies of the Lord Jesus. And the one truth underlies that in every case: the absolute necessity for the Holy Spirit to do it, and in order that He may do it, for those concerned to be filled with the Spirit. That comes in in Ephesians. And the showing forth of the exceeding riches, and the excellencies of Him is by the Holy Spirit. That is why the Holy Spirit has come.

Now we look at ourselves and we surely deplore the very little manifestation of His excellencies and we contemplate this requirement perhaps with misgiving, perhaps with despair. But let us reassure our hearts that despite all that we are that we would not be, and all that we are not that we would be, the Holy Spirit has come for this object: His mission is to glorify Christ, and not to glorify Christ apart from the saints, but in the saints and through the saints. His coming into the saints is in order that they might show forth the excellencies of Him who called them out of darkness into His marvellous light. So therein is our hope, assurance, confidence, strength; therein is the certainty that this thing can be.

What is God's thought for you, for me? It is a wonderful thought, it is indeed a marvellous fact, that He would take us from all our selfishness, sinfulness, and loathsomeness, and display in and through us the excellencies of His Son. Can we grasp that? Can we believe that? We will see in a moment what that means, but it is God's thought concerning us and God has made all the provision necessary to realise His own thought in you and in me, and that provision is the Holy Spirit. And, as long as we do not frustrate the work of the Holy Spirit, the day will come when all the excellencies of the Lord Jesus will be radiating from you and from me - they will be seen; they will be displayed. That will be the consummation of the Holy Spirit's work, Christ openly set forth to the universe in all His spiritual and moral excellencies in us. The work is going on behind an ugly network of scaffolding just now and we can see very little of what is happening, but it is going on.

Every Divinely permitted temptation, trial, adversity, pain, sorrow, which brings in the activity of the Holy Spirit unto the refining, purifying, mellowing, strengthening, illuminating, and enriching of our souls, is a movement towards a display of the excellencies of the Lord Jesus. You and I are not able, and rightly and properly so, to grasp our own spiritual improvement. The Lord does not allow that and He will very often bring along another spiritual trouble to stop us getting spiritually proud, but He is working in us. The devil says, "You are getting worse". In a sense we are seeing more and more how bad we are, but we are not getting one whit worse than we ever were. We are not getting worse; we are seeing it. But the Lord is doing something, and very often it is an essential to our spiritual growth and development that we see a little more of how bad we are. Sometimes the consciousness of sin is the very pathway to glory.

When you come to this tabernacle and recognise that it was intended to set forth the glories of Christ in every part, of course you want to take up every part and look at it and see what glory of Christ is displayed in it. Let us go back to Exodus 25 to this inclusive offering called a heave offering. It is remarkable that that term is applied to the tabernacle. You can understand that term when it is applied to one of the sacrifices, but when you find that the tabernacle, in all its material, is to comprise one heave offering unto the Lord, it is striking; it is impressive. It means that it is something that is lifted up before the Lord, held before the Lord. Of course, this is Christ in His fulness as presented before the Lord, that with which the Lord alone can be well pleased, and in that we have to find our delight and our pleasure. We have to find our pleasure in that with which the Lord is well pleased and that is the Lord Jesus. And then you break up, so to speak, that whole heave offering of the tabernacle, which is Christ in full exhaustive presentation. You see what it is that you have to delight in, and you see what it is the Father delights in, and then you see what it is that, being the Father's delight and our delight, is to be revealed in us of Christ and you pass from chapter 25 and the earlier phases and you see these various phases and parts of that one heave offering.

We will just remind ourselves of the first three materials. You have brass, silver and gold. Looking at the connections of each we see their significance. We have a brazen altar, for instance, and that is the place where the fires of God are maintained. And the brass speaks to us of judgment and it is the very first thing that you encounter as you enter into the court of this tabernacle. You cannot get anywhere until you have been faced with the question of judgment: the judgment of sin and the judgment of the sinner; where the fires of God have been let loose and have done their work. And in that brazen altar the types of the Lord Jesus are offered in the very fire, the very judgment fires of God. And the judgment fires of God exhaust themselves upon that offering and there is no more judgment of the sinner or of sin under the wrath of God.

Now, that is a brief word upon a large doctrine, but it is something of the excellency of Christ that ought to be displayed in you and in me. Oh, how many of the Lord's people today are going about as though the judgments of God were hanging over their heads! They are still afraid, if not of the great judgment, of some kind of judgment. To put it the other way round, we are not all exulting and rejoicing in our absolute deliverance from condemnation in Christ. We are not; we are bound under legalism that makes us afraid; we allow the accuser to take up things which the blood of the Lord Jesus has dealt with forever, and use them to bring again under condemnation and rob us of our testimony and of the glory of Christ in its display, and take from us His excellencies. I am impressed with how constantly the enemy is trying to get hold of Divine things and turn them to his own use, to his own account.

You notice in these chapters when Moses went up into the mount and God gave him this pattern and spoke about the gold, silver, brass, linen and all these things, because he was away (as the people felt, too long) they revolted. In reality, the devil got in and provoked them to a line of action independently of God and His servant, and you notice what happened. The first thing they did was to bring gold, the earrings and such like of all, to Aaron to make them an image of gold. And it seems to me as though the devil said, in effect, "God shall not have the gold - I will have it". God had said to Moses, "Go and bring a heave offering to Me of gold," and the devil said, "I will have the gold" and he tried to get in first to frustrate God, to anticipate this Divine thing in making impossible an adequate offering of gold, by capturing it himself.