SERVICE AND THE SERVANTS
[p. 354] SERVICE AND THE SERVANTS
Revelation 1: 9 - 19; Acts 14: 19, 20
The verses read contemplate those who serve the Lord, John and Paul being amongst them, and it is thought that we should have before us the great matter of the service and those who serve, that we may see the place they have with the Lord, and how He regards them, and how they are to have a like place with the saints, the generality of the saints. Their lot is a suffering one, as one of them said, “I fill up that which is behind of the tribulations of Christ in my flesh, for his body”, so that the effect of His sufferings is to extend to the whole body of the saints.
That is the saints viewed as the body of Christ, “his body ... the assembly”. And so the verses in Acts 14 were read that we might see how quickly circumstances change in the powers that be, in the governing powers, and in view of this, those who serve and those who are served should be ready for every emergency, our lot ever being to show the spirit of Christ, as Paul said, “The supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ”. Paul and Barnabas were the great forerunners of the great missionary enterprise of the Lord among the gentiles.
The Lord had said of Paul that He would show him how much he would suffer for His name, and so it is evident that the apostle Paul became the leading apostle, the leading evangelist, and also the leading sufferer under Christ. We have spoken today of the Lord Jesus in His relations with the assembly, His marital relations. They must not be regarded as militant relations. The Lord would have His own rights and time, for He owns time; He made it, and used it, and has a right to it. So there is a day called the Lord’s day, and undoubtedly He intends to devote that day to His relations with the assembly. Not [p. 355] indeed that it is so regarded in the world, but love for the Lord would lead it to be so regarded, that we as the assembly should be available to Him, for His pleasure, and we can see how Paul led in that. The Lord had said He would show him how much he had to suffer for His sake, for His name. A very remarkable thing was that the matter of sufferings was in the first place in the apostle’s history and service. It is not the time for me now to detail the facts as to the suffering. The second epistle to the Corinthians helps as to the greatness of the suffering, and you marvel, as you read the facts detailed there, how much he suffered, but it is noticeable that Paul sets out as a sufferer as the Lord said, “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name”. The suffering was to be before kings, and the sons of Israel, and so he suffered.
We are told he spent two years in Syria and he spent two in Rome, as far as we can see, and much more elsewhere, but I mentioned these two important periods as showing how much he suffered. He suffered much more, of course, but he suffered during those two periods, and there can be no doubt that the suffering was intended to soften his constitution, to refine him, to make him more refined in the Lord’s hands, as a holy instrument, a holy vessel. He is called a vessel, “an elect vessel to me”. No one else is called that, in the same way. He is distinguished in the Lord’s mind in the way of service, but especially in the way of suffering, and we have all benefited by those sufferings. They are intended, however, to be participated in by us. The apostle intended the saints to join in with him, and so they do. In the verses I have read they encircled him, and I mention the word ‘encircled’, because it is a characteristic word entering into Christianity, which we all should cherish, the circle of the saints. Hence when the apostle was carried out as dead, we are told that certain ones from the provinces came: “There came Jews from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds and stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing him to have died”. Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up and came to the city, and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe. That is to say the Lord, in effect, said, ‘My service must go on, be the wickedness of the nations what it may, its violence what it may, the measures taken to murder him what they may, the service must go on’; and it went on the next day. And so we do well, dear brethren, to learn to have the servants in our hearts, in our affections, understanding what they suffer; if they do not suffer, there is something amiss, something awry, because suffering is the order of the day, according to the Lord’s own words, “I will shew to him how much he must suffer for my name”, and it worked out, according to the epistle of the Colossians. It is a peculiar epistle in this sense, because it says so much about Paul’s service, about his suffering and about the kind of service too, what functions he filled in the service of Christ, as if each one of us is to go to school, as it were to him. I mentioned the word ‘school’ because it was he that separated the saints into the school of Tyrannus. There was no uncertain meaning, for the Lord would teach us, would impress upon us the necessity of learning, and learning well, not simply as it suits us, but learning well, and so he directed the disciples to the school of Tyrannus, in which school he kept on teaching. Both he and Barnabas had been teaching in another school at Antioch, where the disciples were first called christians, as if they earned the name in that school. They taught, we are told, in the assembly, a large crowd. These words are to be noted; they were there for a whole year, showing the length of time the servants were there in certain circumstances. They began with the crowd, that is [p. 357] raw material; the material was woven, as it were, and fitted until it became an assembly, so that you can visualise what had happened at Antioch, when the building was first formed of raw material, uneducated spiritually, but gradually the crowd itself and the name became the assembly, as if I was speaking to five hundred people here. First we begin with raw material, indeed, the term is quite applicable, because so many are uneducated (spiritually I mean). We may be highly educated otherwise and not spiritually educated. The fact is, the more highly educated we are the less likely we are to be spiritually educated. Not that I make little of it, but it is not necessary to make much of ourselves as individuals in this world, because we are being fitted for heaven, another world, for that world and the resurrection, and we want to see that we are fitted for it now. And so individuals cease to be one of the crowd, and begin to be one of the assembly, and that is what I am aiming at, that the brethren may understand that Paul was a great assembly man, and that he laboured to that end, as he says, “Until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ”. Then he says that we should no longer be babes, that is no longer raw material but finished material, finished for the assembly. Hence Paul says again, “That we may present every man perfect in Christ”. That is not impossible for women. The divine idea is that we should be perfect. ‘Perfect’ has its own meaning, and we have to understand that, for every man is to be presented perfect in Christ. Not simply perfect in the ordinary sense, but in Christ Jesus, and Paul laboured to that end; he suffered for it, and was carried out as dead. Think of the suffering the brethren had to go through.
And so I read the passage in Revelation, because John, another apostle, says, “I John, your brother [p. 358] and fellow-partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and patience, in Jesus, was in the island called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus”. Now this is John, and he testified the great theme of the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is said to be given to Christ: “which God gave to him”. The “Revelation of Jesus Christ”, and it says that it was sent to His bondman “to shew ... what must shortly take place; and he signified it, sending by his angel, to his bondman John, who testified the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ, all things that he saw”. I should add the next verse, “Blessed is he that reads, and they that hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things written in it; for the time is near”. That is to say keep, not only read, but keep the things that are written therein. Not only to know the things that are written therein, but to keep them. Now John says here, addressing himself to them, “I John”, he says, “your brother and fellow-partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and patience, in Jesus”. That is to say he is calling upon us, assuming that we are in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. He is in that kingdom; the Lord is considering for him. He is one of the twelve, and apparently intended to be one of the last to go to heaven, as far as we can see. The Lord said to Peter, “If I will that he abide until I come, what is that to thee?”. And so it would appear from that that he lived to be a very old brother; apparently his service was not impaired by his age, and so we are not to assume that because a brother is getting old (he is apt to be called old too often), his ministry is on the wane and apt to be weakened; and that he is about to be superannuated. There is no such word in the divine vocabulary as that. There is very much of it found among official circles of the world, but certainly not in the divine vocabulary. A brother is to go on and on to his last breath, and the Lord may say, ‘I will make that one longer than the previous one’. He certainly did so for Moses; he lived to be one hundred and twenty, whereas he himself tells us by the Spirit of God that seventy years is the allotted age for man. If it exceeds that by ten years it would be labour in sorrow, but the Lord can change that, you know. We must never assume that divine Persons can be restricted. They are not restricted by Their own laws. We must always assume that God is God. I am quite sure that “I am Jehovah, and there is none else” includes Deity. And so God can make a man to live one hundred years, or one hundred and twenty years, as Moses certainly did, and the Spirit of God says, “His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated”. How marvellous that God should be pleased to honour His servant in that sense! There was no lack, no want. God has His favourites, you know. He is entitled to them; let no one say He is not, because He is. John here was a disciple, the one whom Jesus loved; he was a favourite one, he was a speciality, and the Lord kept him a long time, and we may be sure that he was to the pleasure of the Lord every moment of his time. He would not set aside his individuality to serve, nor should anyone here assume that his time is up; it is not up, it is a question of what God wills. God directed that Moses should go up and die, and he did. He showed him the land of Canaan first. It was God’s right. He did not take him into it, but He showed him all the land of Canaan. In designating the land of Ca designated it by all the tribes that inherited it. He might say, You will be among all those tribes presently. And so it will be as another has said,
‘Nor what is next Thy heart Can we forget;
Thy saints, O Lord, with Thee In glory met’. (160:8)
That is what the old brethren can count on presently, going into it. But how long is a question of the will [p. 360] of God, and how sweet it is to nestle under the sense of the will of God! “The good and acceptable and perfect will of God”. And so John says here, “I John, your brother and fellow-partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and patience, in Jesus, was in the island called Patmos, for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus”. There is a note to these words to show that they are bound together. John the prophet and the saints were bound together in holy bonds, bound up by the Lord, in the use of the word, to show how he intended the saints to be bound up with his service, and so we should learn to link ourselves up with the servants of God, great or small, and regard ourselves as serving with them, so that the service becomes the property of all. Why not? Those who maintain the servants, who lodge and feed them, are bound up in their service, and the Lord values it accordingly. “Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me”. John says, “Your brother ... in the tribulation and kingdom and patience, in Jesus”, and he says, “I ... was in the island called Patmos”. That is to say, he bound himself with the testimony, and of course that is what every true servant is thinking of. He is thinking of the testimony of Jesus Christ. If a brother has gift, he is to be used, but the gift is to enhance his testimony, just to enhance his testimony of Jesus Christ. John was in that, and he is the brother and companion of the saints in it. And so he says that he was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind him a great voice as of a trumpet. And now I just turn briefly to these verses, only to bring out, as I have already pointed out, how the saints are bound up with the service, and of course, we all should bear testimony. We are all together as one. We are one body, we are all bound up in the testimony; it is an agreed matter. And so it is in chapter 12 of the first epistle to the Corinthians that Christ is [p. 361] mentioned as the body, as the total of the saints, so that we are all in it, a great fact, and hence the greatness of those who are gifted, they enhance the testimony, they can say things better, in power, so that people are affected by it; here John says, “I heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying, What thou seest write in a book”. But I want just to go to one point, and it is that he says, “I turned back to see the voice which spoke with me; and having turned, I saw seven golden lamps”. I want you to see, beloved brethren, that the Lord, while the assembly is His, His spouse, His wife, the bride of Christ, yet that He at times presents her rather than Himself. Let no one say I am making more of the assembly than I ought, because I am not, nor do I intend to, but in this particular passage John says, “I turned back to see the voice which spoke with me; and having turned, I saw seven golden lamps”. Now I am stressing this because you see the Spirit of God places the assembly before the Lord in this passage, and we have to learn to do that, if necessary. He saw seven golden lamps, and in the midst of the seven lamps one like unto the Son of man. That is what he saw. We were speaking today of Isaac, the type of the Lord, seeing the camels, not Rebecca. Why cannot the Lord do that? And so here John sees the golden candlesticks first. Let no one say that John is thinking of putting the assembly before Christ. Christ is everything to him, but the assembly is everything to Christ, and in a certain sense the assembly must go first, in certain things, and we are to learn to think that way, and to see how important it is in testimony, and to learn to revere every thought of it, and to see how very near it is to God. Next to divine Persons, the assembly has the nearest place to God, and so John sees the lamps before he speaks about the Son of man. I hope the brethren will not think anything wrong, as I said before. You do not need to be fearful about it. What [p. 362] I am saying is the truth, and the truth here is set in the saints, and the candlesticks are mentioned before Christ, but then He is mentioned in the midst of them, as if the Lord would say, ‘I am not going to be separated from My body’, nor is He.
Christ is in the midst of the seven golden lamps, and throughout these addresses, seven, He is in the midst of the lamps, and we have to learn to listen to the prophet, because John is a prophet, not the apostle, here; he is the bondman of Christ, but he is a great prophet. The book of the Apocalypse is a prophetic book, and John is the writer of it, and so the passage goes on to say that he is to write. It says in verse 13, “And in the midst of the seven lamps one like the Son of man, clothed with a garment reaching to the feet, and girt about at the breasts with a golden girdle: his head and his hair white like white wool, as snow; and his eyes as a flame of fire; and his feet like fine brass, as burning in a furnace; and his voice as the voice of many waters; and having in his right hand seven stars; and out of his mouth a sharp two-edged sword going forth; and his countenance as the sun shines in its power. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead; and he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not; I am the first and the last”. I am going to say a word about John, and the seven golden lamps, but I want you just to notice how He is clothed. It is intended to inspire fear; it is as an antagonist. The Lord has the means of dealing with the disregard to the rights of God. He has the means of dealing with all that, but not yet, He is not doing it yet. He is clothed with garments in which He will do it, but He is not doing it yet. So John rightly fell at His feet as dead. The Jesus whom he had been accustomed to is now clothed with these fearful robes, and the Lord is saying that He is going to deal with all that is contrary to God, and so He says to John, ‘You do not need to fear’, and He would say to us,
‘You do not need to fear’. Many things are being done by scientific man which might make our blood curdle, but we should learn to think of the Creator, and the power He has of carrying the assembly through, and keeping it out of the great tribulation, and the power He has to take us to heaven, and He says, “Behold, I come quickly”. I am endeavouring to quieten the spirits of the brethren. We should learn to know God, learn that nothing can happen without God, not a thing, whatever men say, and whatever loud phrases and themes they bring forward; the people listen, but they can do nothing without God allowing it, and the Lord is seen here in the midst of the whole scene of judgment, about to burst forth, yet nothing can be done without Him. John fell at His feet as one dead, owing to fear, and He put His right hand upon him.
That is the hand that would effect all these things. He says to John, ‘You do not need to fear’. You can be restful and quiet when these things happen. The Thessalonian saints were afraid that the day of the Lord had come. It has not come yet. We are still in the dispensation of grace, and the Lord is showing what power He has, in the scripture I read. Then it says that “When I saw him I fell at his feet as dead”. Now Abraham began with that. Jehovah said to Abraham, in a critical time when he had no son, no heir, but God said to him “Fear not”, and He is saying that to us today, dear brethren. We are to learn not to fear, but to be restful under the wing of the Lord; nothing can happen without Him, and He is taking care that it will not happen while we are here. “I also will keep thee”, He says, “out of the hour of trial”. He is not mincing the matter; we are going to be tried. We can hardly realise, ourselves, the terrible tribulation that is to come, but the Lord says, ‘I will keep thee out of it’, not ‘I will take thee out of it’, and that would mean that each one of us girds up his loins. If you are told you are not to go [p. 364] through the fire, well, keep away from the fire. We have no right to go into it, but to keep ourselves away from the world, unspotted from the world. So the Lord is saying to us now, “Fear not”. We have all come here in faith, in measure at least, and we are not afraid of the Lord. We have learned to address Him, and to nestle under His wing, and we have learned to sit under His shade with great delight. I have rapture, said one, and sit down in His presence.
“In his shadow have I rapture and sit down”. We are learning to be restful in the knowledge of the Lord. He has made all things. Whatever was made was made by Him, so that our Saviour is a Creator and nothing can happen without Him, and so He says here to John, “I ... have the keys of death and of hades”, so that the beloved John is as beloved as ever he was, maybe more than ever. He is now the devoted servant taken on by the Lord in this great matter. “And he signified it, sending by his angel, to his bondman John, who testified the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ, all things that he saw”, and I would venture to say that he was never more lovely in the eyes of the Lord than he is now, and so He would show us how lovely we are, according to what He has made us, and He is going to keep us out of the great tribulation. Our hearts are to be restful in these facts, and then we must continue to do something, whatever the Lord has given the servants let them do it, and do it well. Keep on doing it with all your might. “All things which Jesus began both to do and to teach”. Keep at it till the last breath; He says to John, “Write therefore what thou hast seen, and the things that are, and the things that are about to be after these”, three sets of things. John, you are to write them. You can understand his remark in his gospel that the world itself would not contain the books that should be written. If the Lord says, ‘Keep on writing’, there must be paper, and there [p. 365] must be ink; let the work not cease. Your labour is to go on even to your last breath. The Lord will take account of it. Do not write as you like, do it in the order He has given you, not as you think it ought to be. Be a good Berean and have the Scriptures before you. Read like Apollos who was mighty in the Scriptures, and taught accurately; Aquila and Priscilla made him more accurate; the Lord is looking for accuracy. Do not forget to have the right things, said well, but accurately. We are not to fear, we are to go on, and keep on writing to the last moment. The Lord knows when to take us, and I venture to say that we shall not be taken until everything is finished. Whatever is to be done will be done. The Lord is patiently working out the idea of the assembly, and it will be finished; there will not be one left out. Everything will be done, and done well; as Paul says, “Complete the word of God”. Well, may He help us all, and the thing particularly on my mind is that we should be restful, and go on quietly with the work of the Lord, so that whatsoever our hands find to do, let us do it with our might.