LOCAL ADJUSTMENT
[p. 451] LOCAL ADJUSTMENT
Luke 10: 38 - 42; Acts 18: 24 - 28; Acts 19: 1 - 7
I have on my mind to speak a little about adjustment in the things of the Lord. The word has application at the present moment, both in regard to each Christian, and each company of Christians, and also in regard to those who minister. I am particularly concerned about the local setting of the saints. Luke has this in view; he presents to us the moral side of the truth. He is concerned as to what is suitable to God morally, which includes our general conduct. Thus he makes much of Peter’s conversion, not in the way of confession of guilt so much as his state. Peter is a kind of model from that point of view, as the woman in the seventh chapter is from the point of view of sins. Mary of Bethany in chapter 10 represents adjustment in regard of the word of Christ. She is listening to Him as a choice.
All these things are from the standpoint of moral adjustment, what Luke has in mind to bring about, culminating, as it does, in a company of people who are gathered together in relation to the eleven apostles, and who are saying certain things that indicate that they have learnt morally. You will all remember how the gathered company is presented at the end of this gospel. They are saying, “The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon”. That is to say, they are occupied with what has happened to the Lord, and that He has appeared to one who has erred. That is what they are saying. You can understand how they would regard the appearance to the erring one; it was grace. “The Lord is risen indeed”. He has come out of death as the righteous Man, for Luke presents Him from that side. Faith recognises that He is righteous; that He has “done nothing amiss”. The centurion also says, “Certainly this was a righteous man”. According to Matthew and Mark he says that He was the Son of God, but in Luke He is a righteous Man. So that a righteous Man is risen — righteousness is vindicated. The Lord says Himself that the Holy Spirit would bring in the demonstration of righteousness because He was going to the Father. Righteousness is vindicated, which is a great moral triumph. It is seen in Christ as with the Father; John 16.
Then He is righteous in the sense of dealing with erring ones. He prays for the forgiveness even of His murderers; He had looked on Peter, and Peter had wept bitterly, and now the Lord had appeared to him. It is a principle by which we should be governed locally. Luke makes much of what is said; so of the two who came back from Emmaus, “what happened by the way”. But it is not only what happens by the way, but what happened at the end of the way, which was that He was known to them in the breaking of bread. They recognised Christ in the breaking of bread. They were qualified for the assembly, and were contributors. In the midst of that company He comes; He stood there.
That is what Luke has in view, and I want to point out that Mary of Bethany in chapter 10 is a kind of example of what the Lord has in His mind in the local company. You will remember that this chapter begins with the Lord sending out the disciples two by two into every city and place where He Himself was about to come. The Lord has in our own times moved on the line of “every city and place”, indeed, the epistle to the Corinthians takes up that thought. To put it more exactly, Luke takes up the thought of 1 Corinthians, for he would support the word to that assembly. So that in that epistle we have Corinth as a city, and then “every place”. Here we have it in every city and place to which the Lord will come.
[p. 453] What the Lord particularly deals with in His instructions to the seventy are the houses and the cities. These are the two main features. He speaks specially of the city as the area of testimony. They were to enter into a city, and if they were received, they had certain instructions, and if not received, they had certain instructions, and in either case the wonderful testimony of God had been brought to the city. They were to go out into the streets if the testimony were not received, and they were to shake off the dust of the city and say, “Be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you”. It was a time when the testimony of God was brought to cities and places. The cities are particularly held responsible, so that He adds that they were to say to that city that rejected the testimony, that it would be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for it. It may be thought that the matter of cities is of little importance, but it is of great importance in the sight of God, for there is not a city that is not under His eye.
We are here in the presence of an actual case of the Lord’s visitation to a village, and we have brought before us in that village — in a house in it — two remarkable persons, Martha and Mary. Martha became serviceable later, as John shows us. You say that she was serving here, but she did not know how to serve, however much she was exercised. So far removed was she from the idea that she reproves the Lord. “Carest thou not that my sister has left me to serve alone?” she says. It is well that she was serving alone, for the more service in that spirit, the worse for the locality. If others are added to you in that spirit, He is not adding them. The sequel shows that she was a genuine believer, she received Him into her house, but that is not all.
A striking contrast, and one that you will do well to note, is Lydia; Acts 16. She was a type, as Mary [p. 454] was. She was not like Martha, for she attended to the things, spoken by Paul. She was like Mary. She says, “If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house” — a very different house! Lydia is a type of material for a local assembly, for the believer’s house contributes to the character of the company locally; we are told that after Paul was released, he came to her before he left Philippi. I need not speak of that assembly, for it was the joy and crown of the apostle. Can you not picture Paul entering into that house? There were no complaints, you may be sure; and in no sense would she convey to the apostle that she was patronising him — it was an honour for her to have him. Now you see Martha was not adjusted to Christ, so that she upbraids the Lord. We should all be so adjusted as to be ready to hear what He has to say, through whomsoever it is spoken. Both the Lord and Mary were criticised by Martha, but the Lord was not turned away by this. He stands firmly by Mary. He says, “She has chosen that good part, and it shall not be taken away”. One has often thought that one would like to be a model in that sense. In chapter 7 the Lord says, “Seest thou this woman?”
Passing on to Acts, I wish to show how the principle works out in that book, and to observe that in the verses read in chapter 19 it is a question of passing from one ministry to another — not a bad ministry, not an imperfect one, but one that was right and of God as far as it went. John the baptist’s ministry was of God. You will remember how the Lord questioned His enemies as to it: “Is it of heaven or of man?” It was of heaven, it was of God. Now what I want to say is, we may often put what is of God between us and something else that is of God. You will remember how in John it says, “I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment”, and then he tells us what the old commandment [p. 455] is. It is that which was from the beginning, that which they had heard; and then he says, “A new commandment I write unto you”, seemingly inconsistent.. Now you might take the old commandment, and put it between you and the new. You might say that the first is of importance, and particularly because it refers to what is in Christ. The new one refers not only to what is in Christ, but what is in us also, and that is what many are afraid of. They tell you that you are occupied with things in yourself, but the new commandment is that which is true in Him and in you. It is a most important commandment; you must not be without it. Hold to the first one surely, but do not shut yourself off from the one which speaks of what is true in Christ and in you. It is a most precious thought that there is something true in Christ that is true also in me! It is further said, “Because the darkness is passing [not past, but passing] and the true light now shines”. Not “has shone”, but “shines”. It is a new commandment, and refers not only to Christ, but what is in the saints by the work of God. In us it is the work of God, which thing is true in Him and in you. Thus the darkness is actually passing, and the true light is actually shining.
Now am I ready for that? That is the test. What you find in Apollos is that he is ready for it. It is remarkable how John the baptist’s ministry prepares for a greater ministry, and it in nowise is made to stand between the saints and the ministry of Christ. You will all remember how that in the first chapter of John it is said that John stood, and two of his disciples. There were three who were standing. He had said, “There standeth among you one whom ye know not”. Now John is standing and two of his disciples, and Jesus was walking, and John as he looked on Jesus as He walked said, “Behold the Lamb of God”, and the two disciples hearing him [p. 456] speak, followed Jesus. That is, they were ready for the new thing — the greater thing. That is the importance of being ready for anything that the Holy Spirit says; if you are not, you may be shutting yourself off from much. What you find is that those two followed the Lord, and the Lord said, “What seek ye?” John’s ministry was spiritual; they had begun to learn what was spiritual, and their answer to the Lord is, “Rabbi, where abidest thou?” That is, they were ready. What was in their minds was that they had been learning from a very wonderful teacher, and now a greater had come. They addressed the Lord as Rabbi — teacher. So here you get a similar thing in Apollos. He also was a disciple of John. He followed the thing up exactly, we are told, showing that he was a thorough man, and thoroughness is what the service of God requires. But then he only knew the baptism of John. Great man as he is, he is ready to be taught; he can take on a new ministry. That is the point. You can never be serviceable to God until you acquire that habit; taking on what the Lord gives.
Now Aquila and Priscilla knew God, and they knew how to act in this particular circumstance, because Apollos was no ordinary man, and required particular care. He had taught in the synagogue; but they had not questioned him there; it would have been unwise with such a man as that. They “took him to them” we are told. See what a man he was, ready to be taught, great teacher though he was, by two tent-makers, a man and his wife! They acted wisely, they instructed him in the way of God more exactly. Note the word ‘exactly’, because we are too general sometimes. There are no non-essentials in the things of God. They taught him the way of God more exactly, and now he is qualified to minister, and to be commended. When he wishes to move to another quarter, he is commended by the brethren.
[p. 457] He is taught the way of God more exactly. It is very important that one should be ready to learn from any one whom the Lord may use. If the ministry is of God, be ready to accept it. The apostle left these two people at Ephesus, and they had the honour of instructing this great man — a reminder that we should not despise any one if he has anything to give. Why not have it, if it is of God? It may be the way of God more “exactly”. In this way adjustment goes on.
In the next chapter we have the thought carried through, only in the presence of the foundation of the assembly in its universal features, not in its local character. So that you come to what is greater, what the apostle presents, a spiritual structure in which God dwells by the Spirit. “Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye had believed?” It is saying virtually, “You can have no part in this great spiritual structure apart from it”. You may be baptised, and have much teaching, but there must be the recognition of the Holy Spirit, and for that you have to get more instruction.
Then the apostle goes on to show that he was not against John’s baptism. There was a need of the baptism of repentance, but John announced One that should come after him, and that is Jesus. So the apostle announces to them the glad tidings of their salvation; compare Ephesians 1: 13. Is there any one here who needs that instruction? Without it you cannot have part in the great spiritual structure that Paul speaks of — the habitation of God by the Spirit. Is it not therefore worth your while to inquire whether you have the Holy Spirit? or whether your teaching is imperfect? They immediately submitted; they do not contend with Paul, and say that John’s baptism was good enough for them. They were ready for the new thing, and so having heard that, they were baptised to the name of the Lord Jesus.
[p. 458] It is so blessed, that they are baptised to that. How the apostle would enlarge to them what Jesus had done for them! And now they submit readily, and he lays his hands upon them, and they receive the Holy Spirit. Then immediately, as if to show that that is the point, it says he laboured three months in the synagogue there. The material was so important, that he labours in relation to that, and then it is intimated later than he laboured two years in the school of Tyrannus. It was a question of this great structure. I wonder if we are all in that. If not, is it not well to ask as to whether you have the Holy Spirit. It is a question of a spiritual structure, the habitation of God. To have part in it you must have the Spirit, and for that you need instruction. The Holy Spirit fell upon them, and they prophesied, and spake with other tongues. It was a real thing in those days. There is such a Person as the Holy Spirit, but what about the reception? “Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye had believed?” the apostle asks. Now I must not say more; I was thinking more of the local setting of Christians, but this last is more universal. Of course there was an assembly at Ephesus, but in the epistle to the Ephesians Jew and Gentile are brought in together, and reconciled to God in one body, so as to be His habitation by the Spirit. What an immense thing!