GIRDING

^[p. 334] GIRDING

Job 38: 3; John 21: 18, 19; Jeremiah 1: 17 - 19

I wish to speak to the brethren about girding. It is a service that each renders to himself in ordinary circumstances constantly. It is usually a self-service, and it is so presented in these three passages, the first person mentioned being under discipline, under the discipline of God. He is being delivered from his captivity, for anyone under discipline in the house of God is in captivity. Job was delivered from his captivity when he prayed for his three friends. Jehovah is endeavouring to bring this about in Job’s soul. He is taking him on, after Elihu has served him, and he served him well, preparing him for the direct service of God. It is the direct service of God that perfects the work of recovery. He loves us so well; He would take us on Himself. He took on Job here and He said to him, ‘Now, in what I am going to say to you, I wish you to be in the attitude of a man, not to hide yourself behind trifling subterfuges, but to be manly in your attitude and in what you say’. All else is rubbish, and has to be thrown out of the window as quickly as possible, or burnt. Paul says, “When I became a man, I had done with what belonged to the child”, 1 Corinthians 13: 11. And God, whilst He takes care of the little ones, and as the Lord says, “Their angels in the heavens continually behold the face of my Father who is in the heavens” (Matthew 18: 10), a very precious word for parents, yet in His governmental dealings and His dispensations He deals with men. In giving the disciples to the Lord Jesus, the Lord says to His Father of the giving, “The men whom thou gavest me out of the world”, John 17: 6. It was a transaction between the Father and the Son; the Father gave the Son men. He had revealed things to them as babes, but He did not ^[p. 335] give them to Him as babes; He gave them to Him as men. They were worth giving, and worth receiving. And if we are to have to say to the things of God in His house, we are to be in this worth, this standard of value, men. Even to the Corinthians, although they were very poor and low down, the word was, “Quit yourselves like men”, 1 Corinthians 16: 13.

Now Jehovah says, ‘Gird yourself now’: “Gird up now thy loins like a man” (Job 38: 3), a very direct word, “and I will demand of thee, and inform thou me”. God is ready to receive answers from men, even from Job. Now, this is repeated later in the interview between Jehovah and Job, and the speaking is almost entirely by Jehovah. Job had learned to listen. He was a great talker, and an eloquent talker, and thought he knew, but at one point it says his words were ended. But still God is ready to hear from him, and He proceeds in chapters 38 and 39, telling Job about creatures, about thirty in number in those two chapters. It was no matter of the lower creatures with God, neither was it a matter of botany, but of reaching Job’s soul, getting him right. He was worth it. He was lost to God, and God knew it, but he was worth restoring, but it was on the principle of a man.

As God went on to speak to him, Job breaks out again and makes a confession, which was good. They are rare. Confessions of any value are rare, and Jehovah said nothing about his confession, whether for good or bad; but He again challenges him as He did here. Gird up your loins like a man and answer Me, as if God were to say, It is not worth discussing with you the importance of your confession. I am not saying one thing or another about it. I want the man to talk to Me. He was making headway with Job, and in chapter 40, which many of you have preached from, it is said that Job answered the Lord, “Behold, I am nought: what shall I answer thee? I will lay ^[p. 336] my hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, and I will not answer; yea twice, but I will proceed no further. And Jehovah answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, Gird up now thy loins like a man: I will demand of thee, and inform thou me” (verses 4 - 7). I have more to say to you. That is in effect what God said. He was not saying that what Job said was wrong. It was not wrong. He was pleased with it, doubtless, but it did not lift Job out of his captivity. He had to hear about two great creatures from Jehovah’s mouth. One of them, He says, was made with you. His name is behemoth. It is a creature, I made him with you, God says. He lifts the creature to the level of Job in that sense. They were made on the same day, as it were. He is the chief of the ways of God. Job, you are not that. You might think you are important, but you are not that. We are humbled by comparison. He also spoke to him about leviathan. Job was not leviathan, either. He was not the chief of the ways of God, he was a violent creature. He was the king of all the children of pride, but Job had to hear about him, for he was not wanting in pride in his time. He was getting rid of it; he was unloading; but he had to hear about this creature who was the king of all the children of pride. And Job says, I know that You can do everything.

I am not going to follow the history, because all the preachers here have used these scriptures, but Job reached the point of recovery, the point of deliverance from captivity; because it is not only deliverance from one’s own self, but captivity. That is a great leading feature of recovery with God; He led captivity captive and gave gifts to men. Deliverance from captivity would mean you come into the benefit of gift. In captivity it is the lash, but deliverance from captivity is that you come into the realm of gift, gifts to men, and that was what Job reached.

^[p. 337] But it was men; God was operating with men, and He indulged them as delivered from captivity; so that Job becomes a priest, a high priest. He intercedes for his three friends; that is the order, dear brethren, of what ensues from this girding, and hence the importance of following Jehovah’s advice. Who can give us better? “Gird up now thy loins like a man”; notice, it is the loins in these three cases except Peter; the loins are in question, because the loins are the seat of the affections. We may gird them up in an illegal way, but the word is, “Having girt about your loins with truth”, Ephesians 6: 14. The affections are rightly adjusted, usable. And another very beautiful thought in that connection is the virtuous woman. She strengthens her loins; she girds them with strength. Another does not do it; that is the point I would make; it is a self-service. A common expression nowadays is ‘self-service’, and this is a self-service. If it is not done, then you are not doing it, and you are missing it. You cannot complain. If you do, you complain about yourself. She strengthens her loins; she girds them up with strength. That is to say, it is the assembly in principle; for she represents femininely the highest divine thought in service in the last chapter of Proverbs. It is the wise man speaking; he says in one place, “One man among a thousand have I found, but a woman among all those have I not found”, Ecclesiastes 7: 28 — a very solemn word for the sisters, but still he has an ideal in his mind; “Who can find a woman of worth?” Proverbs 31: 10. And then he describes her, and among the many things that she can do is, “She girdeth her loins with strength”, verse 17. One is reminded of the assembly in Philadelphia. She had a little strength, and that is the best way to use it: to gird up the loins with it so that the affections are under control, and the service flows out evenly. She is in no way preferential; love is never preferential. Love flows ^[p. 338] out itself from its seat in the service of others if it is girded up with strength. And it is not beyond our reach collectively to do a little. Indeed, there are things being done collectively, not very much, but I think the Lord would be pleased to see a little collective girding up of the loins with strength, unity in the care meeting, and the administration of affairs, of divine bounty, that the loins are in it, girded up with strength, and the arms made strong, too. She does it herself. This self-service matter, dear brethren, is one of the most interesting things for us to look into, because it makes us independent in one way. Others, of course, are served. God has a wonderful system that He has brought us into, in which He has a great Priest above. But this is a self-service matter. It saves us from a lot of grumbling and complaining. There is so much I can do for myself. So that the apostle says, “So then I myself with the mind serve God’s law”, Romans 7: 25, “I myself“: it is taking up this attitude that strengthens the whole position, and as we proceed individually in this self-service, we can serve each other in this way, this ‘self’ way; “Its self-building up in love”, Ephesians 4: 16. It builds up itself in love.

Well, I have spoken of these things, and it comes home to one as to what there is in the way of collective strengthening of the loins. We certainly cannot do it by debate in the meeting. It is a love matter, this collective self-service. The assembly is the greatest vessel in the universe in this dispensation. I am not speaking of divine Persons, of course. They are never to be compared; They are always left by Themselves. But the assembly is the greatest vessel in the universe; she comes down in the light of sonship from God. Her description plainly indicates she is ready for self-service, but she is ready also for universal service; she serves the universe. It is the idea of girding up the loins with strength.

^[p. 339] Well, I go on now to Peter, to show how this matter of girding comes into individual history, because the Lord has that in mind in dealing with Peter, that he is to be a historical man. In the world there are men who fill history, fill the history books. In some cases we get their lives. Usually there is an attempt by the biographer to give a life-size history. Peter is intended to be a man of that kind that the Spirit of God can use to depict a life-history; and that life-history brings us back to the time of our birth and what immediately follows. The most interesting babe that we get in Scripture (I am not speaking of the Lord Jesus) is Solomon. He was said to be loved by Jehovah just when he was born. The young people here, I am sure, would like to have a reputation, a distinction like that, and to keep it up. There is no discrepancy in Solomon until he comes to the throne. Jehovah loved him. Well, you would say, I want to get the whole history of that man, a man that was loved so early. Well, the Lord, of course, gives us the history of that man; but when he was old he did not do so well as Peter, so I prefer to keep to Peter, I prefer to keep to a man that gets better and better, and does not drop out before he becomes old. And Peter serves in this matter of girding. The Lord says, “^[p. 340] When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst where thou desiredst”, John 21: 18. This is history, you know. How we see young people whose hearts are not fixed. I wonder if there are any young people here whose hearts are not fixed. Where shall I go tonight? Every evening brings up its problem, and my mind is not fixed, I have nothing certain before me. You may, as a last resort, say, I will go to the meeting tonight. Your heart is not fixed but you have to gird yourself according to the decision you have come to. Where shall I go? What shall I put on tonight? You have to attire in relation to your decision. But heaven is looking on.

“When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst where thou desiredst”. Turn around the corner, and you are gone. Who knows where you are going? “Walkedst where thou desiredst”: a remarkable word at such a time, when Peter was just restored. He is like Job who had turned aside. He had been self-confident. The most potent causes of downfall are self-confidence and pride and he had both. “Lovest thou me more than these?” (verse 15), the Lord says to Peter; Peter, of course, would say, I love the Lord better than them all, but the Lord did not think so, and Peter had to come to think as the Lord did. And so it was that He challenged him and challenged him and challenged him, and He committed His lambs and sheep to him. He has come back to trustworthiness. One of the most important items in any brother or sister, if he is to be used in the service, is that he is to be trustworthy, that the Lord can commit something to him. How can I represent the Lord unless He has committed something to me? see how, before sending them out, He breathed into them. That was committal; it was not only formal. They were to represent Him. How can I represent Him without His Spirit? And so we had today, “The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip”. It was the Spirit of the Lord that did that. The Lord was in it; it was a question of authority, but the Spirit Himself was in it, too, and He caught away Philip. So that it is a question of trustworthiness. How can I represent the Lord in any little way without His Spirit? A criticising spirit is no representation of Christ at all. Martha had that. If we did not have John’s account of Martha, we would never know she was a christian, and yet she was. She was a real one. How often we are hidden up by our naughty, complaining, criticising spirits! The Lord intended that those who represented Him should have His Spirit, and I want to have His ^[p. 341] Spirit. There is a rich supply of It, the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, says the apostle. I must know where to get It, and get It, and get the measure I need. If we are to represent the Lord there must be that.

Now Peter is trustworthy. The Lord has brought him to it, and He says, “Feed my lambs”; “Shepherd my Sheep”. ‘They are apt to stray as you have done yourself’. As a rule, what we are used in by the Lord is what we have experienced at some time. He puts us through experiences which He intends to be useful in our services. If I have wandered a bit, then I know what a wandering person is, and I have sympathy.

And now the Lord says, ‘When you were young’. It is a question now, Peter, of your whole history, and it is just as well to face the whole matter. The whole history has to come up; it enters into the present history, ‘When you were young’. Well, that directs Peter back. How young? As soon as I began to walk and talk and run about; he girded himself; he did what he liked, and girded himself accordingly. If it be a football match, I must gird myself for that; or a cricket match, I must gird myself for that; or a theatre, I must gird myself for that, I walk where I like. Oh, beloved young people, the Lord would say something to all of us as to when we were young. One says, I have been young, but not any more; now I am old; and it is those who have come through that who can talk with some measure of authority. The Lord says to Peter, “When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst where thou desiredst; but when thou shalt be old, ...” The Lord is saying to Peter, There is to be no more turning aside. Oh, you say, did he not act very naughtily to Paul? Well, but there was no definite turning aside. The Lord does not challenge him about that; He does not warn him about it ^[p. 342] even. He is a recovered man; it is a settled matter, and the Lord knows what he is going to be when he is old. He will glorify God. He will not say, I will go here and there, any more. “Thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and bring thee where thou dost not desire”. He has thorough recognition of the will of God. And so the Spirit of God says, “But he said this signifying by what death he should glorify God”. I do not want that death to be in the battlefield. No. Many, doubtless, have such deaths as that. The Lord is not alluding to a death like that; He is alluding to a death in which Peter had no sword in his hand, no gun on his shoulder. He had taken the sword, and the Lord says to him, Peter, put that into its sheath where it used to be, not in your hand. Let others take it. The Lord is not saying a word against that. Others have to take it, for the powers that be have swords, and we are to pray for them with those swords. But it is not for christians to take the sword; not young christians; no, they have no swords in their hands, according to this picture. The Lord says of Peter, “Thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee”. If I be a soldier, I put on my accoutrements; if I be an officer, I will put them on as showily as possible. We love to do that, and the world offers us that. If it were not for the glory of the ranks, the recruiting of armies would be much more difficult than it is. There is the appeal to pride in it. Time was when soldiers had plenty of rank. They do not have so much now. There is a good deal of supervision among them. But here it says, “Another shall gird thee”. What kind of a girding would it be? Prison garments — a jailer would put them on, carrying him forth to the arena, perhaps, to be destroyed by the lions, or be beheaded in the prison. “Another shall gird thee”. How appealing that is to the heart. So that Peter was taken, undoubtedly,

^[p. 343] and murdered. We are told in Rome very likely another girded him. As usual the prison officers do that, “And bring thee where thou dost not desire”. But what was that for? It was to glorify God. Naturally, Peter would never go that way. He failed to go that way in the high priest’s palace; he denied his Master there. He would not go that way, but now he is going that way without a murmur. He is a martyr of Christ. Paul says, “Thy martyr”, about Stephen. He thrilled heaven; Stephen thrilled heaven with a wonderful reflection of the Spirit of Jesus in his martyrdom; and so Peter — can we not assume that Peter was equal to Stephen? Certainly. The Lord is speaking about it here. He is anticipating it. What a martyrdom that should be; girded by another; carried out to the arena or whatever it was to be murdered by a cruel emperor. But the Lord spoke of that not as a mere matter of history Peter may have, but of the glory of God in it. And that is the point, dear brethren. We are coming to the end of things, and how are we going to die, if death must take place? It may. It is just as well for us to face it. The Lord has taken a good few of our dear brethren, and am I immune from the influences of these things? They have died before our eyes, have been taken away to be with the Lord. Our time will come. If the Lord is going to carry on for a while, there are many of us who will have to go that way. We are enjoined to number our days. You say, How can you tell? Well, that is what Scripture says, ^[p. 344] that we may acquire a wise heart. But then, it is how we are going to finish; whether we are going to glorify God in the finish. “But when thou shalt be old”. Old age, of course, has certain disadvantages even in the service of God. It weakens our powers, and in the weakening of powers we cannot give the same effectiveness in service, and it is apt to mar our joy in death. It is well for us to anticipate. Let us number our days so that we may acquire a wise heart and be ready, so that we are not taken by surprise. It is the Spirit of Jesus, dear brethren. So that the apostle says, I desire to depart and be with Christ. I would like that. It was his desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Great as his victories were, and his ministry among the saints, he says, It is far better.

Well now, just one word at the end about Jeremiah. He is a great servant. It is a question now of a prophet. Peter is not here viewed as in active service, he is viewed in martyrdom (that is what the Lord is dealing with) in his old age. He was dealing with Job to recover him from his captivity; he was a captive brother. Jeremiah is starting out in his great service in this chapter, and Jehovah says to him, “Thou, therefore, gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I shall command thee”, Jeremiah 1: 17. That is the point I wish to stop with. In service it is a question of the divine commandment, especially for the prophets. The fact is, christianity really implies that we are under orders, every one of us. The government of this land is doing its best to bring all the citizens under orders, big and little, men, women and children; and they are very wise, too, to get them under hand. The independence of this country is baneful. It is not for me, of course, to talk about politics, but I am illustrating that God would have His people under hand, under orders. What good are we if we are not under orders? And you may depend upon it, that what I am saying is right; the governments are wise in getting the whole nation under orders. They can put their hand on this and that one, and they know all about their history, when they were young, and what they are now, and what they are going to be. They have their whole history. One great general said he robbed the cradle and the grave. Some of the nations may have to rob the graves and the cradles. It is an awful time ^[p. 345] for us, but God has to say in these matters, and God is getting His people under hand, and in getting them under hand, He is bringing them into the presence of the leaders of the world. He is getting their voices heard, getting their words heard as they assert their loyalty to Christ; their words about the sword and about non-combatant service are heard. These words are vocabulary words now; they are emblazoned in the minds of people. Is that for nothing? It is bringing in the kingdom of God, alongside the other kingdoms where the sword has a place. There are two kingdoms, and they are both to be under orders. I am speaking now of the Lord’s people, to get under orders.

And so it is here that Jeremiah is taken up. If you look through the chapter you will be impressed by what I am saying, but in verse 17 Jehovah says to him, “Thou, therefore, gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I shall command thee”. That is it; “All that I shall command thee”. In our ministry meetings, and this meeting that I am seeking to serve in now, or whatever it be, it is a question of divine commandment. Christianity is divine commandment. Read John’s writings especially in regard of this matter. It is a wonderful thing that the Lord says that even eternal life is a divine commandment. It is not only a promise, it is a commandment. It is a great thing that it is a promise, but it is a greater thing that it is a commandment, because it must go through. The whole power of God is behind it.

Well now, Jeremiah was in this position. God says to him, “Be not dismayed at them, lest I cause thee to be dismayed before them”. The servant is simply confounded before the audience unless he carries out the commandment. There is nothing that will do but the commandment. It is as if it were God Himself. His commandment is Himself in that sense. So that Jehovah says, Now you are a young man;

^[p. 346] you are starting out in your service and I want you to have this before you. Gird up your loins like a man, and do not be afraid of hurting people’s feelings if it is a question of the commandment, and the truth of God. That must be stated at all costs. And He goes on to say to him, “And I, behold, I appoint thee this day as a strong city”. Think of a man being that. If every soldier on the continent of Europe were a defended city, think of the change! Whoever heard of a man being a defended city? God says, I have made you that. One would have liked to have met a man like Jeremiah, but still it is not so far away from us, because God does give us power in service. You can never be overthrown. No matter who is standing for God in His testimony His commandments can never be overthrown. Fear not those that kill the body; they can do no more. So He says here, “And I, behold, I appoint thee this day as a strong city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls, against the whole land; against the kings of Judah, against its princes, against its priests, and against the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee, saith Jehovah, to deliver thee”. That is the end of what I had to say; what the servant is in girding himself for this matter. Think of the immensity of the thing that is proposed in all these necessary subdivisions of men. You have to contend with them, and God says they will not overthrow you; I will be with you. So that one is to fit oneself, if he is going into the service in any little way, with these thoughts and gird himself accordingly. If I meet you on the street I will know how you are girded, what your attire is, what your mind is, what your outlook is, where you are going, and what you are going for. It is remarkable that Timothy is the only one said to be a man of God in the New Testament. As it were, God would furnish us in these last days ^[p. 347] with that principle, the man of God. And that is what Jeremiah is here. No one can overthrow him; he will go through. And he did. His book is a testimony to it. He went through with the word of God in his mouth.