May 26, 2002

     Dear Friends,

     The Lord is truly worthy of our praises. He is the “blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen” (1 Tim. 6:15b, 16). Amen, indeed! In spite of God’s holy separateness, there are those sinners who have been struck by the lightening of His saving power, utterly transformed within to enjoy oneness with Him – referred to in the Bible as the “blessed:” “Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple” (Ps. 65:4).

     The Lord’s book, His living word, was broken today – can we ever be thankful enough? He, GOD, talked to us today. My prayer is that truly, we, with spiritual ears, heard the Savior’s voice. May it be that if there are those of us who yet lack the ears to hear, He would be so inclined to grant them!

     In addition to all the reasons He has bestowed upon us for which to be thankful, there was yet one more today – His sending of the Warrens. What a joy, what a blessing to meet those who uphold the sovereignty of the Almighty in salvation, in operation, in preservation, and also have heard the call of the Shepherd to “come out of her, my people,” in these the last of the latter days.

     In our continuing look into the parable found in Lk. 16:19-31, we focused on the phrase “fine linen” today. “Fine linen” is actually a rendering of one Greek word, bussos, which comes from a Hebrew word, buwts. Please note that “fine linen” and its adjective form, bussinos, are found in Lk. 16:19, Rev. 18:12 & 16 to refer to the “white” part of the “whited sepulcher” – a “false gift” (Prov. 25:14) - whereas in Rev. 19:8 (twice) and vs. 14, it refers to the true, “durable riches,” that is, “righteousness” (Prov. 8:18, see also v. 35), of Christ imputed unto the true saints of God, the eternal church, the Bride of the Lamb. Let us compare the following: “That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27), and “But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:” (1 Pet. 1:19).

     The first OT reference of interest for buwts was 1 Chr. 15:27. However, at this juncture we took a slight detour to delve more into the spiritual truths inherent in the background information with regard to the ark of the covenant being brought up “out of the house of Obed-edom” (1 Chr. 15:25). For this 2 Samuel 6’s account of Ahio and Uzzah, the sons of Abinandab, was studied. First we noted that Uzzah was positioned near the rear of the procession, near the ark itself, and Ahio his brother “went before the ark” (2 Sam. 6:4). When the oxen shook the ark, Uzzah “put forth his hand to the ark of God” (vs. 6); and for this “error” he was struck dead. More careful analysis revealed that the whole procession was a mockery of God’s specific commands regarding how Israel was to carry out the transportation of the ark. Ex. 25:14, 15 & Num. 4:1-15 insisted that the ark was to be borne only of the staves in the rings, and that by the sons of Kohath. No cart, no oxen was ever mentioned, and certainly no one was to touch the most holy things. This, we saw, was exactly parallel to the wilderness journey of the Jews. They were so repeatedly rebellious that they were called a “backsliding people,” and ultimately “Sodom, and…Gomorrah” (Jer. 23:14; cf. Eze. 5). They had, as a nation, utterly perverted God’s laws, and this is what is typified by the incident at Nachon’s threshing floor, when Uzzah is smitten of God.

     There was a second picture to which 2 Sam. 6 was parallel – that of the shipwreck in Acts 27. Just as the ark of the covenant was en route to the City of David, here the ship with Paul is sailing for Rome, a type of Canaan – the Promised land inhabited by heathen people. Verse 27 zeros in on a time clue – “fourteenth night,” and vs. 33, “fourteenth day.” Please remember that Mt. 1:17 gave us the information that “from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations,” thus making biblical the conclusion that the shipwreck is a picture of the end of the church era, or the beginning of the Babylonian captivity. It is in the record of the shipwreck that we find that “falling into a place where two seas met…and the forepart stuck fast, and remained unmovable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves” (vs. 41). Just as the procession of the ark came to an end with the death of the man at the rear, so too, here we see that the journey of the ship, a parallel type of the church with the oxen and the “new cart” (2 Sam. 6:3), coincides with the breaking up of its “hinder part.” Furthermore, just as the ark was removed to the house of Obed-edom, a measure not part of the original plan, so the 276 souls (vs. 37) aboard the ship escape to the island called Melita; and just as the house of Obed-edom was blessed because of the presence of the ark (“The LORD hath blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God,” 2 Sam. 6:12), so the people of Melita are healed of their diseases, most notably the father of the “chief man of the island” (Acts 28:7, 8). Finally, the time duration of this unplanned visit, both for the ark as well as the 276 souls, is three months (2 Sam. 6:11; Acts 28:11).

     After the three months’ hiatus, David correctly, in perfect observance of the law of God, brings up the ark into the City of David. This time, the Levites are the ones bearing the ark. Let us note that David, as well as “all the Levites that bare the ark, and the singers, and Chenaniah the master of the song with the singers” were “clothed with a robe of fine linen” (1 Chr. 15:1-29). This, remember, is after three months, a time period typifying the first part of the great tribulation, following the death of the church. Therefore, we must now see the parallel between David and his Levites with the following: “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands…What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9, 13b, 14). (Please note that the picture in Rev. 7 is after the completion of the second part of the Great Tribulation (“came out of great tribulation…”), whereas the picture in 2 Samuel is the beginning of it) After the end of the church era (typified by the oxen, the new cart, Ahio and Uzzha), a new procession toward the City of David had begun, that which no longer perverted and twisted God’s laws, led by those covered in fine linen. Truly, we are seeing a description of the Latter Rain.  

     We ended with the observation that buwts had a related word, bowsets, found in 1 Sam. 14:4. What will God teach us next week? Let us pray for wisdom, and express to Him our desire that we might “behold the wondrous things out of [His] law” (Ps. 119:18).

     In Christ,

     Zin Yi