“LET EACH SEE HOW HE BUILDS”
P. W. Hickmott
I have been thinking a little about this foundation and what was built on it. The foundation, Paul says, is Jesus Christ. Paul says in the previous chapter, “I did not judge it well to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 3: 2). It is another Man altogether, another order of Man altogether. So Paul was concerned about the kind of material that was being built on this foundation. The question would be, in our review of things, as to whether we can perceive what is gold, and what is silver, and so on. Right down through the dispensation there has been building going on, and the line of the truth has been preserved in the power of the Spirit. But there has also been building of other kinds. Church history would show that what is spurious came in very early. The devil has attacked the truth constantly right through the whole Christian period.
So we come to the present day and ask, ‘What is being built on this foundation?’ If you go into a Christian bookshop you will see shelves full of books, but look through a page or two and you will find that a lot of it is not even the truth.
Some of it would have elements of the truth in it, sufficient, in God’s mercy, to arrest souls and point them to Christ, but generally speaking you could not really say it was built on this foundation. You see, these devotional books scarcely ever contain a reference to the removal of the first man in the death of Christ. I am sure this foundation of Jesus Christ must include that idea. Paul would have nothing else; he would have nothing of the first man whatever built on this foundation. It would be true to say that generally in Christendom the removal of the first man is not taught or understood. Even those who speak most about new birth seem to overlook the fact that new birth had to be, that there had to be a new beginning. The acceptance of the fact that the first man has gone in the death of Christ is essential to our understanding the truth of the assembly.
So I was thinking, beloved brethren, as we consider the privileged time we are in, that there have been servants whose work has stood the test. This scripture says, “the fire shall try the work of each what it is”. Certain ministries have stood the test. But the exercise I would raise with myself and with us each is. How do we assess, how do we value, those ministries? Do I read them just to be able to quote them? Or do I read them to learn how those men thought, to see how they used the Scriptures? What was the concept in their minds? How did they bring the light in through the Scriptures? I believe it is only in that way that we shall really lay hold of what those reliable ministries were aiming at. We do not have to protect the servants who have gone before. They are with their Master. But we do have a responsibility to understand, practise, and uphold the truth that has been ministered. Not that any servant is infallible. The servants themselves would repudiate that. What they would have longed for
would be that such as ourselves should follow, in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, the light that they had, and see it in the Scriptures, so that we too have it in the Scriptures. There is a touching reference at the end of an .address by Mr. Raven which bears on this. (See the quotation at the end of this word—Ed.). Such men would repudiate any idea of apostolic authority and succession coming down in the revival.
I believe that those who have had part in the history of recent decades need to have a sober review of what has been laid on this foundation in the days in which we have lived, and in the whole period of the revival. In this way we shall be able to say that certain things are there for sure; they would come into the category of gold, silver, and precious stones, that would stand the fire. Other things you would have to name as spurious, others again as distorted or out of proportion. And as to what we have done ourselves, we need to look back and review it in our secret links with God, to find that certain things, through the mercy of God, were right and would stand the fire, whereas other things contributed to the building up of a great wooden structure of pride and presumption that perhaps looked right to us for a time, but the fire came and showed it up for what it was. May we be preserved from building up anything like it again.
The Spirit of God has preserved what is sound in ministry, what is vital in ministry, to be valued by us, understood by us, and answered to by us, so that we can continue here in our measure, though small indeed it is, filling out our part in our time of responsibility, building along on these lines, gold, silver, precious stones, something that will stand the test of the fire. May the Lord help us in it for His name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Christchurch, N.Z.
27 December 1982
Following are the remarks by Mr. Raven, at the end of an address in London in 1891, quoted in the preceding word—‘I commend the truth to you, and pray God it may be blessed to every one of you. As I said last week, if I had to wait till I could speak without defects I should have to wait long enough. I can only bring the truth before you according to my little apprehension of it, and commend to you, not so much what I have said, but the truth to your attention, and to your consciences and hearts’. (Vol. 7, p.147).