WHAT WILL BE PASSED ON TO THE NEXT GENERATION

P. Martin

2 Peter 1: 12–18; John 20: 30, 31; 2 Timothy 3: 10–17; 2 Kings 2: 1, 2, 6–15

I desire, dear brethren, with the Spirit’s help, to say a word as to what is going to be passed on. These four men of whom we have read were each at the close of their path in the testimony, and it seems to me that what exercised them, as they came to the end of their pathway was what was going to be passed on to the next generation. From one point of view, of course, we do not look to be here for the next generation to take up the baton, but faithful stewardship would be exercised as to what is going to be passed on. I believe I am not alone, indeed I know I am not, for there is a good deal of exercise with older brethren as to how the testimony will continue if the Lord leaves us here. If something is to be passed on it must be given, and it has to be received, and that lays a responsibility on those of us who may be getting older as well as those who are younger. What is being passed on? These men, great men in their part in the testimony, had that concern. Each of them, speaking carefully, was leaving something distinctive.

Peter, the kingdom man, was desirous that something of his own experience as to the knowledge of the Father’s delight in Christ should be left here in the scene of testimony. No one can give me, or you, experience, that is clear. I could not enter into your circumstances and give you the touch that is needed for you to work out divine things in your circumstances, but there are older men who have had experience with God, like Peter had. He says, I would like to leave this impression of the experience that I had. Experience with God is necessary if there is to be any power in testimony. The maintenance of what is here for the pleasure of Christ is not maintained merely by insistence on the terms of the truth, but in the proving and experiencing what light from God would bring us into. What a man Peter was.

You look over his history, what experience he had. I find I am so like him in many ways, impetuous, always rushing in, but the Lord had His way with him. The impression that was left in Peter’s soul was not of his own failings, but the perfection of the One in whom the Father delighted. He says, “For we have not made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, following cleverly imagined fables”. One has particularly our dear younger brethren in one’s heart, because I know quite often younger persons do not always believe this, but we have all been young, all of us, and we have all been through soul experience and exercise with the Lord, I trust. We have had to work things out and arrive at things in experience with the Lord, like Peter did and, like him, we have not always been right. He says, I do not want to occupy you with that, I want to occupy you with the One whom the Father loves.

He says, I am not going to be here much longer, “the putting off of my tabernacle”, that was his body, “is speedily to take place”. The Lord had told him that. It has often been pointed out that Peter was the only person who knew that he would die before the Lord came. Paul did not. In fact Paul writes expecting to be here when the Lord came; he speaks of “we, the living, who remain to the coming of the Lord”, 1 Thessalonians 4: 15. But Peter had been told by the Lord. It says, “when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and bring thee where thou dost not desire. But he said this signifying by what death he should glorify God”, John 21: 18, 19. Peter was to take up that place in the testimony as one who knew that his tabernacle was speedily to be put off. You can understand the urgency in Peter’s word. He says, I am not telling you a fable; this is not an optional matter, he would say. There are many optional things presented to us in the world, but Peter is not presenting what is optional. He says, I know it is the truth because I have proved it. He knew what it was to be with the Lord. He had been with Him in various circumstances. Those three men, Peter, James and John, that the Lord took to the raising of Jairus’ daughter, and when He went to Gethsemane, these men were with Him, but Peter is not speaking of those incidents. He is speaking of another Man who is the centre of another world.

He says. It is not a fable, I want you to know that the Father loves that Man. “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand”, John 3: 35. What a wonderful thing that is, that the Father loves the Son. He drew out the Father’s love of course, but the Father loved Him because of what He was; He loves the Son. He gave Him cause to love Him as well, because He laid down His life that He might take it again, and because He watched everything that the Father did. The Father loved Him as One who was interested in what the Father was doing. I ask myself the question, and maybe you would too. Am I interested in what divine Persons are doing today? They are doing great things, you know. Great things are being effected. You say, Everything is broken and divided and spoiled; from man’s side that is true. Peter says, You come up with me to the holy mountain and get a view of what Christ is in the divine sight. One of the great needs I believe for myself, and maybe for others, is to be lifted up to get the divine view.

John had that in Revelation; he writes under the Lord’s direction to those seven churches, and you might say as he went on what failure there was, and then he comes to Laodicea where the Lord is not even allowed within the door. You might say, John are you going to give up? “Immediately”, he says, “I became in the Spirit” (Revelation 4: 2), and I beheld in the heaven a throne and One seated upon it, and round the throne twenty-four thrones and twenty-four elders. What a view. Is everything lost? Mr Stoney said that everything is lost to those who say it is lost; but it is not

lost. In the divine view there He is seated upon the throne. That was John’s view in the presence of the breakdown of man’s responsibility. John felt the breakdown but he is lifted above it; and if we are to move here rightly as desirous of pleasing the Lord in His absence, we will only be able to do so if we have the view of an unbroken world where everything is for the divine pleasure. Peter is saying these are not cleverly imagined fables.

We need faith to lay hold of the greatness of God’s thoughts. I ask myself and you, dear friend. Have you got faith? Without faith it says it is impossible to please Him. Have you faith? Does it operate in your soul? You say, Is this a gospel preaching? It is the truth, I think, that you and I need to be, and if there is a desire for it we will be maintained, in the exercise of faith, faith in divine Persons. Faith in God, the One as Abraham proved, who raises the dead, faith in the Lord Jesus who has come out of death and is glorified, faith in the blessed Spirit who is here strengthening persons to take up their path in relation to a glorified Christ. I ask myself the question. Have I got faith? It is not a fable, it is a reality. Peter is bringing that on to the view of these believers to whom he is writing. He says, “For we have not made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, following cleverly imagined fables, but having been eyewitnesses of his majesty”. You can understand the kingdom man speaking of the majesty of the King. Here He is, he sees Him in His regal glory, “we were eyewitnesses of his majesty”. It says, “For he received from God the Father honour and glory”.

Dear brother and sister, I would say to you today, be careful; we are moving through a scene that places Christ on the level of other men. Peter is saying that here is a Man who has received from God the Father “honour and glory, such a voice being uttered to him by the excellent glory—This is my beloved Son”. What a voice, such a voice. Peter had never heard a voice like that before. He speaks of it in his epistle as having gone over it with the Speaker (one might speak reverently) he says, “such a voice uttered to him by the excellent glory—This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”. What a voice. Have you heard it? The voice distinguishing Christ in His excellence and in His majesty?—for how worthy He is to be distinguished. He is distinguished by the Father and He is distinguished in the assembly by His saints. Peter is distinguishing Him here in his affections and he is saying to these believers, I want to leave this impression with you. If there is anything that I have gained from my experience I want to leave it with you that Christ is standing in all His uniqueness and glory, and He is standing there as the One who is great enough to be exalted by the Father and to be held in the affections of His own.

I come to John because he was writing at the close of his day. John had seen the church broken. It has often been said (these sayings that older brethren quote are useful because they set the truth in order in your mind) John wrote in the light of Paul’s broken church. What is he going to write? He writes as to the greatness of the person of Christ. He says there are many other things that could have been written. John wrote under the divine direction of the Holy Spirit. He could have selected many other signs. All the other gospel writers only refer to a few days in the life of the Lord Jesus, but John says there were many other things that could have been written which are not written in his gospel. He says elsewhere, “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they were written one by one, I suppose that not even the world itself would contain the books written”, John 21: 25. John’s writings are a written testimony, not just to the actions of the Lord Jesus, but to the glory of the Son of God. There is a world that does contain all the books that could be written. You can wander through its library, dear believer, under the power of the Holy Spirit, and He would unfold to you one by one the glories of this blessed Man that were seen here in lowly humiliation, and yet not hiding the majesty of who it was who was here. John says that “these are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in his name”.

What a need there is for that as you look around publicly today. John was exercised that there should be life in His name. It has often been said he writes to make believers of believers; not only persons who may assent to the truth but persons in whom the truth has had a moral and formative effect in their souls; he writes to make believers of believers. He says, “that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in his name”. May we cling tenaciously to the distinctiveness of Christ. There is life in His name. I do not think John is referring here to our initial conversion exactly, as important as that is, but he is referring to persons who are here in the scene of testimony being maintained in life as having a living link with Christ where He is. There will be life if we are united to Him, “he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”, John 6: 57. There will be maintained living conditions as we are feeding upon that glorious Person, the One who has been into death and has come out of it, who ended one order of life which had to be terminated in death, and established another order of life in Himself, a glorious Man in the presence of God. What a Man!

I must go on to Paul because whilst John leaves a written testimony to the glory of the Son of God, Paul is leaving something that he had come to himself. I want to speak carefully of Paul’s conduct and his manner of life. We are not in any sense setting the apostle up as equal to Christ for there was one life which was perfect, but Paul in his life was a lover of the Lord Jesus and he became, he says, “a delineation of those about to believe on him”, 1 Timothy 1: 16. He became a delineation. What Paul was leaving behind was not only what he had said but what he was. Something had been set out in the life of Paul. He speaks of what he had said. He says, the things thou hast heard of me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, such as shall be competent to instruct others also”, 2 Timothy 2: 2.

You will notice that he does not say, the things that thou hast heard from me, but “the things thou hast heard of me”. He was the mouthpiece for what the Lord was conveying to the church, and there was something that was wrought out in Paul, that in some measure expressed what he said.

I feel very searched by this but, dear brethren, if the truth is not expressed, but only held in terms, there will be nothing to pass on. We have the books on our bookshelves, some may be left to us by those who have gone before, but that is not the way the truth is passed on. The truth is passed on by persons who walk according to it. He is speaking of the last days and we are in those last days, difficult times, when persons are rising up saying things which are not according to the truth, but he says, “But thou hast been thoroughly acquainted with my teaching”. Then he says, But thou, abide in those things which thou hast learned, and of which thou hast been fully persuaded, knowing of whom thou hast learned them”. There is much literature in the world, Christian literature, so called. I do not want to speak disrespectfully but just for identification, much Christian literature, but Paul would say to Timothy, You abide in the teaching of the things thou hast learned, “knowing of whom thou hast learned them”. There is the good teaching, dear brethren. The good teaching has to be fully followed up, and Timothy was to do that, he was to commit himself to it. There is grave danger in reading literature where the source is unknown and the fruit of it unknown.

I would commend it to the young people, and to myself, to commit yourself to the reading of the good teaching. You say, I find it difficult. Get into it, read a little. I may surprise you if I said, Read Mr Darby’s Evangelical pieces. How simple they are, what light they contain.

Read a little and you will begin to find it attractive. Read a little of that which has opened up the truth that the saints have found so precious; let it get into your soul, and do not only read it but ask the Holy Spirit, speak to Him about it, and ask Him to unfold it to you and make it good in your soul, and He will. Keep within the field that is being reaped. I would say this soberly because the enemy would seek to lead astray persons who may unwittingly have given themselves to things that are not according to sound teaching.

Paul is not only leaving the sound teaching, he says, “thou hast been thoroughly acquainted with my teaching”, and adds, “conduct”. This is an exercise for me and I am sure for others that we might live according to the truth, that there might be something displayed in our conduct. What has affected those of us of our generation, in men who went before, is not the eloquent setting out of teaching but the character of the men who lived here in a godly way before God. Is that going to be passed on? Paul speaks of it here, saying, “conduct, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings” and then he goes on to say,

“And all indeed who desire to live piously in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”. What a need I find in my own soul to be pious. Piety does not take me back to live in the seventeen hundreds, to live a life with a horse and in a simple barn, to live as those men; that is not piety, that would be eccentric. Piety means that I work out the truth in the present circumstances and bring God into them. I am not in any sense criticising those who have gone before, they lived and worked out the truth in their circumstances in which God had set them; but you are set, and I am set in certain circumstances in which, I believe every true heart would be desirous that something of God Himself might be expressed in the way the truth is worked out in these circumstances. That was seen absolutely in Jesus, “the mystery of piety is great. God has been manifested in flesh,” 1 Timothy 3: 16. God was there in the circumstances of a Man, a carpenter, first of all the carpenter’s son, then the carpenter.

God was manifested in those circumstances. Now in the circumstances in which you and I have been set, there is to be the desire from every true heart that something may be manifested of God Himself. Paul says, those “who desire to live piously in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”. I feel ashamed for what can one say of persecution. The more piety there is, the greater will be the enemy’s opposition, because he is set against the expression of all that God is. May we take it up in exercise that there might be a display of piety in the lives of persons here.

So Paul says, “thou hast been thoroughly acquainted with my teaching, conduct, purpose”. What a purpose Paul had. We have spoken of his teaching and his conduct; what a purpose, what a view, what a committal to the divine view he had; and then his faith, so that like Abraham he “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness”—then, “longsuffering, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings”. These things were seen in the life of a man here and he wanted to leave an impression of it with Timothy; not only were the truth and its terms to be passed on, O may that never be tampered with, may we never fall short of it, but that the expression of that truth might in some measure be passed on.

Now I come to Elijah. He was about to go and it says, “And it came to pass when Jehovah would take up Elijah into the heavens by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal”. We have not read all the chapter but it is an interesting one. You think of the movements of these two men. They went, both of them, an old man and a young man. I suppose that was the same with Abraham and Isaac, an old man and a young man. It was the same with Abraham and Jacob too because he dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob. It does not say Esau, he had other interests, but Abraham dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. It is safe for young men to keep nearer older men. I have not always done it but I have learned the safety of it. It is safe for young men to be near old men, and there is blessing too I think in older men keeping near the younger men.

They went, both of them; Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. Elijah tests him; God loves to test His work, He loves to test commitment. He maybe today testing your commitment, I do not know, but you know. Elijah says to him, You abide here while I go on, and Elisha says. No, “As Jehovah liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee!” So they go on and he tests him again, “Abide here, I pray thee; for Jehovah has sent me to the Jordan”. Things are being worked out, Gilgal and the Jordan. One need not go into the teaching of these matters, they are well known. Elijah says, “Abide here” and Elisha says, No, “As Jehovah liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee!” What steps they were, the old man and the young man just going on. Elijah knew that he was going to be taken up.

Here was a young man who was going to take on the mantle, and what was going to be left behind would not be the testimony that Peter had, or even the writings that John gave, or the conduct that Paul left behind, but the spirit of a man who was caught up. We are tested in our spirits. It is possible to be faithful to the rights of Christ and maintain a right spirit. It is not possible to maintain the rights of Christ in a wrong spirit, because immediately Christ is misrepresented. So they went on and Elijah said, “Ask what I shall do for thee, before I am taken away from thee”. “And Elisha said, “I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me”. In its typical teaching this is a reference to the heavenly Man who has been received up, and the spirit of that Man is here in testimony. I just want to apply the scripture, if one may be given the liberty, to speak of the spirit which each one of us may leave behind if the Lord should take us. What kind of a spirit would it be? Elijah says, “Thou hast asked a hard thing”. Indeed it was a hard thing; if the Spirit of Christ was to be seen here in testimony it required His going out by way of death.

It may be, dear brethren, for each of us a hard thing if the spirit of the One who went down is to be formed in us. Paul says to the Philippians, “let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus; who, subsisting in the form of God, did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself”, Philippians 2: 5–7. What a spirit, you know.

Brethren will know that Mr Lyon said they came out of Jerusalem to humble Him and attack Him with swords and spears, but they found a Man who had humbled Himself. The enemy was defeated. It says of Christ, “who, when reviled, reviled not again; when suffering, threatened not; but gave himself over into the hands of him who judges righteously”, 1 Peter 2: 23. Dear brother and sister, it does not matter what persons may say against you personally; you go on, there is One who judges righteously, but when it comes to the rights of Christ they must be held unflinchingly. O how He did it! Who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession, Paul says (1 Timothy 6: 13). What a spirit of the Man who was taken up. You can understand when from the cross, the Lord Jesus said, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23: 46), if one might speak reverently on such a holy matter, what pleasure the Father had in receiving the spirit of that blessed perfect Man, who in every detail displayed all that God was in perfection.

So Elijah is caught up; he was not taken up by chariot but he was taken up in a whirlwind, and Elisha takes up his own garments and rent them in two pieces. What does that mean? He is not going to move forward now in the features of the first man that had to be removed in the death of Christ, but he is moving forward now in the dignity and power of the heavenly Man. It says he “stood by the bank of the Jordan; and he took the mantle of Elijah which had fallen from him, and smote the waters ... and they parted hither and thither, and Elisha went over”. Here is a man now moving in the spirit of Christ, in the power and dignity of that anointing and

there is a testimony to it. These men say, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha”. What kind of spirit am I going to leave if the Lord takes me? What kind of spirit will it be? Will it be the spirit that marks man according to the flesh, or have the garments been rent in two, never to be taken up again. I raise the question more to myself than any other. What is going to be passed on and what is going to be received? You remember in the relay race at school, someone would come up behind you with the baton. I was always conscious of the need not to drop it and be disqualified. I say to you young persons today, you have the opportunity of taking up the baton and running the race in relation to the testimony of our Lord. I would plead with you not to drop it, but that you might be found in committal to Him and running the race with endurance “looking stedfastly on Jesus the leader and completer of faith”, Hebrews 12: 2. May it be so, for His name’s sake.

Address at Aberdeen
9 September 2006