CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 6
The Lord, as if beginning again His ministry, goes back to His own country. He gives them another chance, and they reject Him. His disciples follow Him. The many who heard Him teaching in the synagogue owned the greatness of the word He spoke, but they lost it all because they could not recognise His moral glory. “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” They were offended in Him. There is no greater mark of a person being unspiritual than his not being able to accept the word of God without some [p. 153] outward thing to recommend it. It comes to me as the word of God, thus I might receive truth from a child.
In the gospels, to get profit you must seek to be in company with the Lord. Where He was best known they give Him no honour, which morally condemned them. In Matthew we see how He “bare our sicknesses”. He has gone through all these scenes to show that He can help us in similar ones. What we suffer from is that while desiring to serve the Lord our own tendencies come out. Failure in our own house is caused when we expect to carry on natural things in a natural way, but I have a new power in which to carry out my relative duties, as the mill that was once worked by water is now to go by steam power. He could do no mighty work there, save that He laid His hands on a few sick folk and healed them. A beautiful touch! Consideration for the weak.
Verse 7. He called the twelve and began to send them forth two and two. There shall be no excuse; He sends the word everywhere, to every range of society - each sent one fulfilling his orbit would have a great effect. He does not allow those He sent forth to take anything with them, to see what manner of appreciation they would get. He gave them power over unclean spirits. The Lord always connects power with His own word. Thus Paul says (2 Timothy 4), “The Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear”. Where the Lord’s mind is, there is power, if only two are in the testimony, like Caleb and Joshua among the spies.
When the Lord gave the word great was the company of those that published it. Divine force is connected with the witness. When the Lord is giving the word it must go forth. “Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their language to the extremity of the world”, Psalm 19: 4. It has been said that exclusives [p. 154] had the gifts. Why? Not because they are better, but because the Lord will maintain the truth. The mass may go wrong, but I believe the gifts would be right. There were six missions; the apostles were sent out two and two.
Those who are neutral are on the dissenting principle. They assume to take right ground but do not hold it in faith. Nothing is more difficult to hold than the truth of the body, because it can only be held in faith. All the difficulties that arise are upon the truth of the unity of the body, and as to our power to maintain it in faith; practically also the self-seeking of one member injures the whole body. If I read a novel or visit worldly relations, I grieve the whole church of God.
In Ephesians I find I must get up to heaven (chapter 1) before I can act for God on earth; chapter 4. People lose sight of the magnitude of christianity. You cannot reduce it to a science. It is altogether above the human mind.
Verse 14. King Herod is on the throne. A more determined expression of opposition comes in. It gives an insight into the inward corruption that was on the throne of Israel at this time - a state of moral degradation - carried away by a foolish girl.
When John the baptist was cut off, it was an indication of the Lord’s own rejection. Consequent on it a new thing comes out: you get the advantages, benefits and blessings of His people on the earth now, in contrast with those of the Jew. This is what you get in belonging to the new structure.
“Come ye yourselves apart”. He goes to the desert, and the poor of the flock follow Him there and we get unfolded to us how the Lord will minister to His people after His rejection. He is setting forth the manner of His support in each new circumstance - five loaves and two fishes - very small resource, but the Lord teaches them that it is quite enough. He can [p. 155] use the smallest means to bring out more power. Here you have what is the nature of His support at the present time and how He meets you now; your resources are not adequate, but the Lord sustains you. The fragments are more than the means, for you must not look at the means. You are in a world from which your Saviour has been rejected. How are you to get on there? This question must come first, then you get the answer - He sustains you in it.
It is a great snare to use influence or to make an effort, to be looking for means. The Lord does not set aside means. I must not despise means. He might use my voice, but I must have the sense that means are inadequate. The Lord reproaches them (Matthew 16), not because they have no bread, but because they have no faith. When people use means in faith they do not go out of the way to get the means. David would use the stone in his sling - not Saul’s armour. Elisha says to the widow, What have you in the house? And he uses the cruse. God never leaves us so that we could say we could not recover ourselves. You have all that you require - with faith, and more than you will use.
It is important to see that it is a new day and a new order. I get nothing from Judaism, nor from the world. I get all from Himself up there. It is very hard to get hold of the fact that the church is an entirely new thing. It has no antecedents, and you are always in this new structure.
You must act like a son in His house now. We get power, not from what is in this scene, but from Him who is outside it. In Mark we get the ministerial character of our Lord.
In Matthew it is dispensational, and you get what is to supersede this state of things, so there you get Peter in two ways - walking on the water and confessing that He is the Christ.
Verse 46. He sends them away to show how a [p. 156] little ship could bear up against the storm. It was not a power here that was to support them, but One who was not here. If I am in concert with Christ now, where He is outside this scene, He gives me grace to act as He would in this scene. “He also who eats me shall live also on account of me”. You do not get Christ at all but through His death. What He was down here is the manna, but it is in resurrection you feed on Him, as the One who was the humbled Man down here. His walk down here is like the headline of a copy - I might look at it for ever and not be able to follow it, but I get skill, divine power to be like Him by being in concert with Him where He is, in the place whence the power comes.
I ought not to begin my day without a store of manna, I mean before any occurrence. I have not to go out to buy a store, I know I have resources in the Lord. I am conscious of my store in Him as the manna for daily need and daily vicissitudes. Feeding on the old corn of the land is my enjoyment of Christ in the scene where nothing can hinder. It is the same life here or there, but in different circumstances. If I am really feeding on Christ in heaven, it is as the old corn of the land. When He supports me in this scene, it is as the manna. Great harm has been done by trying to follow Christ as a Man - trying to adopt Him in a human way. It can only be in resurrection and in the power of His Spirit.. .. “I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God”.
Suppose I visit a sick person, and, having prayed to be useful, I am not. Why? Because I was thinking of being useful - not of the Lord. Next time I go with my eye on Him, it is quite different. “Without me ye can do nothing.” The church is left here for Christ. He says, You stay here for Me. Do not turn for anything to those people who cast Me out. Keep your eyes on Me, I will support you. Paul in 2 Timothy is an example of this. It is a great thing to [p. 157] mark that His grace has not stopped after His rejection - nothing could be more beautiful - as many as touched Him were healed.
In chapter 6 we see how Christ was superior to all the things outside. Everything in this world was against Him, but He was superior to it all. He made space for Himself. It would be the same now for us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Stephen was made superior to the suffering; he was sustained by the power of Christ. Much of our suffering comes because of failure. “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you”. But suffering may be not for anything you have done, but in grace to keep you from what you might do, and there is some suffering that we may glory in. In Peter’s epistle there are five different kinds of suffering. The first is most common - the testing of your faith. The test is to prove to me that I have the faith, not that I have not faith. The whole of a believer’s time down here is a life of faith. Christians ought to be like civil engineers - they rejoice in a difficulty which calls forth all their skill! We know what poor things we are in a difficulty, but a difficulty with us is always God’s opportunity; with us there must be exercise. You can never lead anyone beyond where you are yourself. If a man (a servant) gets on in the world he must lead in the line of giving up. If prosperity comes to him unsought, and he has self-abnegation, he will not be a bit better off than he was before. Satan takes care that if you refuse one thing he has something else for you on the other side. The small stone stops the wheel.