THOSE WHOM THE LORD HAS
[p. 332] THOSE WHOM THE LORD HAS
1 Chronicles 11: 10; Matthew 26: 36 - 45; Luke 22: 28 - 30; John 21:15 - 22
You will observe that in Chronicles the Spirit speaks of the chief of those whom David had, of the mighty men whom he had. The narrator of Chronicles mentions these mighty men at the beginning of David’s reign, stressing that he had them. We also find their names in 2 Samuel but there it is given at the end of his reign. So that we are reminded that the Lord had and will have certain ones. There were mightier at the beginning and there will be mighties at the end. I need not suggest the importance of being amongst them. For God, as we are told, when He counts (and His people are not uncountable — it is a feature of excellence that they are countable) writes up according to the birth place of each, so identifying each with his local setting.
I wish to stress what David had, having in mind that they were the nearest to him, the most trustworthy, so that he can commit charges and responsibilities to them. They are the nearest, as I have said. We read that “these are the chief of the mighty men whom David had, who chewed themselves valiant with him in his kingdom, with all [p. 337] Israel, to make him king, according to the word of Jehovah concerning Israel”. The setting is, therefore, very clear. They were with him. I wish to indicate from this how sympathies are to show themselves for the Lord.
You will all remember the touching psalm in which it is said of the Lord that He looked for comforters (Psalm 69). He looked for sympathy and found none, and He looked for comforters and there were none. The reality of the Lord’s humanity is asserted strikingly in that psalm in that He felt things. He has [p. 333] never lost that humanity, beloved brethren. He is as really a Man now as He was in Gethsemane. He feels sympathy now as then. There can be no change in the humanity of our Lord in that sense. There is indeed, in another sense, for He took a condition provisionally in order to accomplish the will of God in atonement. That condition of flesh and blood He laid down, never to take it up again. In that condition He suffered. He arose in another condition, but as really human as the first; it is an abiding condition, a condition disclosed in the terms “flesh and bones”. So that He remains a Man, and in that condition He is susceptible to sympathy as much as He was when in the condition of flesh and blood; He looks for it and, as I hope to show, finds it too. The old dispensation, the law, perfected nothing. So that we have entered on an era of perfection, and that applies generally, as I have said. Therefore it includes sympathy.
And so in Luke 15 the Lord opens up in the most touching way the conditions that should prevail after He arose. For the chapter depicts the gospel and its results, not as Christ preached it when here, but as it is announced now. For what you will observe is that in the three cases mentioned, the lost sheep found, the lost piece of silver found, and the son found, there is sympathy with the finders and they look for it. The shepherd comes home rejoicing with the sheep. That is Christ as He is now. The woman who sweeps the house is the Spirit as He is now, not as He was in the Old Testament. And the father of the prodigal is God as He is now. And in each case, the shepherd, that is the Son, and the woman, that is the Spirit, and the father, that is God, all seek sympathy. But not sympathy in sorrow, beloved, but sympathy in joy. It is a rejoicing time; and God never relinquishes that state of things. And that chapter is to bring us all into it. God is not taxing [p. 334] us in that way. So that Luke 15 need not go a-begging. The appeal is to the friends; the shepherd calls his friends. You might have expected that he would have called them in in the sorrow. But it is after he finds it he calls for rejoicing. He would bring us into this. So that in His glorious condition now He is susceptible to our sympathy with Him in His joys.
The chapter is most exhilarating. I would commend it to you. It is the Lord’s answer to the cavil of His enemies. He answers in this powerful way.
And He calls upon us as His friends. If there is anyone here who is not a friend of Jesus he is worthless morally. So the woman finds, for there is no idea of not finding. It is a dispensation of perfection; ends are reached. As we have been saying, “the end eternal life” — it is reached. There is no such idea as its not being reached. So that the sheep is found, the money is found, and the prodigal is found. God is not taxing us; He is calling us into it as though we would share His joys, for we are to sympathise in joy as in sorrow.
Well now, I wanted to show you, dear brethren, from the gospels that the position in Chronicles and Samuel is seen antitypically in the disciples. It did not seem to be much outwardly. But they were the only ones that the Lord could reasonably expect sympathy from, and He did expect it from them. He had just had them around Him at the institution of His supper, and they had sung a hymn together. You will observe that it does not say He sang, but they sang. He had them with Him on mutual lines and in happy feelings, and they sang a hymn, and having sung it, they went out to the mount of Olives.
And then He says to them, according to Luke, “But ye are they who have persevered with me in my temptations”. He gave them credit. The Lord is lavish, beloved, in the credit He gives us. We may [p. 335] be sure that nothing will be omitted in any little attention that we pay to Him and His interests. As He says, “Seest thou this woman?” How pleased He was to point to her. And He goes over the details of the credit side of her account. And so He says, “But ye are they who have persevered with me in my temptations”. They had continued. The period had not been very long, perhaps not as long as the experience of fellowship of most of us here. The period in which they continued with Him was comparatively short, but they continued, they continued with Him in His temptations. How real His humanity was, beloved! — He was tempted. He learned obedience, we are told, from the things that He suffered. He was tempted in everything as we. And they were cognisant of it during those few years.
And they continued with Him. Think of what they saw! We can understand the remarks of Peter in regard to the apostle to be appointed: he was to be one who had assembled with them during all the time in which the Lord Jesus had come in and gone out among them, beginning from the baptism of John until the day in which He was taken up. What wonderful things they saw! How real were these feelings of the Lord in encountering opposers, in encountering the bitterest opposition of the enemy in a multitude of ways, in every conceivable way in that wonderful life! But the disciples continued.
And then He says, “And I appoint unto you ...”. I touch on this, dear brethren, at this particular juncture, so that we might understand that the Lord is in the position of appointing. “I appoint unto you, as my Father has appointed unto me, a kingdom, that ye may eat and drink at my table”. Think of that encouragement in continuing with Him. What a reward to eat and drink with Him in His kingdom at His table, and to sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Think of all the greatness [p. 336] that entered into that, the change of circumstances that He contemplates as a consequence of their continuing with Him in His temptations. Are we not, dear brethren, encouraged in such a word, of course, making due allowance for the twelve? For there were only twelve thrones. There would not be two on a throne. But elsewhere we are told that we shall judge angels, and if we suffer, we shall reign.
Well, now having shown that the idea of the mightier was there, I want to show you how He disposed of them at the final test. For we shall be tested, dear brethren. We say the times are serious, but they may be more serious. It is well to be forewarned, for to be forewarned is to be forearmed. As far as I see the Lord never intends that the saints should expect relief from privilege of this kind. We do read that for the elect’s sake the days shall be shortened, an important thing, and the promise to Philadelphia is, “I also will keep thee out of the hour of trial, which is about to come upon the whole habitable world”. That is a promise. So we shall not go through what the Jewish remnant will go through. But the thought is that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived”, 2 Timothy 3: 13. Darkness increases. We are on the very edge of the last days. The Lord would encourage us to see that there is a certain amount of advantage and privilege in the special stress. That is to say there is to be testing. The Lord has great pleasure in looking on as to what the capabilities are. He sits as a refiner. We wonder at times why He does not stand and change the matter. But then He is looking on, watching, taking pleasure in the enduring feature of His own workmanship. Well, I do not want to miss that.
The Lord had these men. “These are the chief of the mighty men whom David had, who showed themselves valiant with him in his kingdom, with all Israel, to make him king, according to the word of Jehovah concerning Israel”. Now He had them. His enemies might not attach importance to those few fishermen that He had. But He had them. They were His. I love to think that the Lord has me: He has you. It is an immense thought to get into your soul, the mighty men that David had; he had them. And as He approaches the last and most demanding part of His blessed life here He disposes of them according to His wisdom.
Matthew and Mark mention Gethsemane because they want us to understand that the circumstances are extremely pressing. They pour in all the severe features of the position. Love would not hide from us what we have to go through. It is well we should know. So that He goes to Gethsemane. Luke says the mount of Olives; John says a garden. But Matthew says Gethsemane, pressure. You say, ‘You are discouraging me’. But it is no kindness, dear brethren, to hide from you what discipleship means. The Lord did not hide it. When a man said, “I will follow thee”, the Lord told him what he had to do. Now He is entering into the place of pressure and He has got His disciples and He disposes of them. He says, “Sit here until I go away, and pray yonder”. And then He selects three, Peter and the sons of Zebedee. Well, you might say, ‘Why did He not take them all with Him?’ Why did He say to some of them, “Sit here until I go away and pray yonder”? And then after He said that He selects three and takes them with Him, and He says, “Remain here ...” And He went forward a little and prayed; He went beyond them. Think of what all this was to heaven! Think of what heaven saw! The Father was there, although not in evidence. It was not the time of deliverance; He was not in evidence, though there. And the Lord invokes Him in the tenderest terms, “Abba, Father”, as Mark says. But there are some [p. 338] of them away here sitting down, and three of them nearby. Now, dear brethren, this is all extremely searching. They are being tested. But then the Lord had them. They were gold in His eyes, every one of them. And His heart was burdened as never before. His sweat became as it were great drops of blood. He prayed more intently. The Spirit does not fail to bring forward the evidences of His humanity. Why should it be said, “And being in conflict he prayed more intently. And his sweat became as great drops of blood, falling down upon the earth”, Luke 22:44? To show how real His humanity was; the greater the pressure, the more intent the prayer. But then these three selected ones are asleep. It does not say those that were sitting beyond were asleep. We do not know. But the three selected ones were asleep. You may say, ‘I should not be asleep’. Would you not? You may be sure the Lord’s selection was the best. It is to bring out what we are capable of when the test comes. But then the Lord did not abandon them. They were still His. And I speak for the encouragement of everybody here, we may give way under pressure, but that does not prove the Lord has not selected us. And so the Lord comes to them three times. He is bringing into evidence what they were. He is not intimating in the least degree that He had made any mistake in the selection. He had taken these three into Jairus’ house and to the mount of transfiguration, and now He has selected them for this unique experience. They were tried men, but this pressure was greater than any experienced and they give way under it. But the Lord made no mistake in His selection. So that we need not be discouraged. There is no licence for giving way. But if it happens, it is no evidence that we have not been rightly selected. The Lord would encourage us to go on. So that while the law perfected nothing, and Matthew came in under that [p. 339] dispensation, the Lord was minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises of the fathers. But even with Him His disciples were reduced from twelve to eleven. Things were not perfected. It required His death and resurrection and the Holy Spirit here to bring in perfection.
So that John’s gospel is intended to show perfection. He brings in what we may call an appendix. Chapter 20 records the failure even of Thomas after the resurrection. Thomas was absent and the Lord came to His own, only ten apostles. Judas had gone definitely and Thomas was absent. But the appendix, that is chapter 21, is to show that we must not take any notice of that, that there is perfection. The period of the Spirit is the period of perfection. Well, you say, ‘There is Peter failing, gone off with six others of the leading men fishing’. ‘Oh’, you say, ‘that is inexcusable. The Lord had been with them; He had shown His hands and side; had said, Peace be to you; had breathed into them. Why, this is the worst of all’. But is it? It is not how a horse falls, as we have often heard, but how he rises. It is the power in the person to get up that is shown in John. Of course, the Lord can lift you. He does, and steadies you. But the point is you get up. See how quickly they got right here.
And so in these verses the Lord says to Peter, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?” Peter says, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I am attached to thee”. He says to him, “Feed my lambs”. He says to him again a second time, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” He says to him, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I am attached to thee”. He says to him, “Shepherd my sheep”. And then again the third time the Lord says, “Simon, son of Jonas, art thou attached to me?” Peter says, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I am attached to thee”. Now that last “knowest”
[p. 340] is in the original, a different word from the others. That is how perfection shows itself in the mighties that the Lord had. The word translated “knowest” in verses 15 and 16 refers to what is called conscious knowledge. The Lord was conscious of everything. That is what Peter said, but he changes his word after he says, “Thou knowest all things” and uses, in verse 17, an objective word: “Thou knowest that I am attached to thee”. He means that, ‘There is something in me now that You can see that proves that I love You’. That is the horse getting up.
There is power in that. He is saying virtually to the Lord, ‘You see something in me this third time’. That is what we rely on when the brethren go astray. It is the work of God, and the third time brings out whether it is there or not. If the Lord probes you three times and there is nothing for the brethren to look at objectively, you might as well give up. You have just been living on light and there has not been the formative work of God. The Lord had given them every advantage in His disposition of them in Matthew and they went to sleep. And later on Peter denied the Lord. Yet all the time the element of perfection, of mightiness was there and in due course it would come to light, for he was now in the era of perfection, as we are.
The Lord is going to finish in a glorious way, but in virtue of the work of God which never fails, but always gives an account of itself. No matter how far one gets away from God, if the work of God is there, it will show itself. Sooner or later something will come to light to show that the work of God is there. And He says, ‘I can trust you now’. I shall have no hesitation in trusting a brother or sister, who was genuinely recovered, with divine things. Genuine recovery makes one more trustworthy than ever. It is the work of God. And so the Lord does not hesitate. He gives Peter the charge of the lambs, the [p. 341] shepherding of the sheep and the feeding of the sheep. He is handing His treasures to trustworthy hands. That is what the mighties that the Lord has are to be employed in, dear brethren. He would entrust us with things. So if you do not want to be among them, I would appeal to you, to every one, so that the Lord can say, ‘I have got this one and that one; I have got them all’. “And these are the chief of the mighty men whom David had, who shewed themselves valiant with him in his kingdom, with all Israel, to make him king, according to the word of Jehovah concerning Israel”. That is what the Lord is calling for, dear brethren, those who as with Him are valiant, not turning aside from the enemy, but standing upright, trustworthy.
Peter turns around and sees John. The Lord disposes of those He has. He had disposed of Peter, given him his work, and Peter says, “Lord, and what of this man?” The Lord said, “If I will that he abide until I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me”. You say there will not be any mighty men when the Lord comes. But the Lord intimates that there will be. I do not say He says so definitely, but He intimates that there would be some such as John. He was a man who lay in Jesus’ bosom. He could ask the Lord questions. Peter beckoned that he should ask the Lord about the betrayal. He would be an important man to have in the last days, one who could lie in His bosom and ask a question throwing light on the whole position.
So that, as I said before, there are the mighties whom He disposes of, whom He has. He is not without them. He has got those whom He can employ, set in different positions in relation to the work. They are not to interfere with one another. The Lord would say, ‘I have him and her; it is not for you to interfere’. He has got them. As far as I am concerned, and I am sure you, too, it is a question [p. 342] of being amongst them to whom He can reasonably look for sympathy in what He is doing, for participation in His joys. It comes into one’s heart often on the first day of the week, what He has, hundreds of gatherings who enter into and rejoice with Him in what He has, those who become valiant with Him in His kingdom, to make Him King, according to the word of the Lord concerning all Israel. It is universal feeling and sympathy that you are with the Lord in all that He is doing and all that He has in this scene at the present time.