THE FAMILY AND ASSEMBLY IN FUNCTION
James Alex Gardiner
Zechariah 12: 5-10; Nehemiah 2: 11,12; 8: 16-18
It is a marvellous privilege in these days in which we are that we can touch the assembly in function and have access into the spiritual realm, the realm of the Spirit where the Lord has perfect liberty and His headship is known and His manifestations come freshly through the body. I believe the Lord would seek to encourage every one of us to go forward and grow in our experience in what is spiritual. The progress that we make depends upon ourselves, and upon the desire of our hearts, the extent of the desire which we may have to grow and advance in our spiritual experiences. In a way it is an individual day. "Let every one who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity" (2 Tim 2: 19) is individual. There are certain matters we have to follow and to pursue: righteousness, it says, faith, love and peace, with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. The path is individual; we are going on together with those that call upon the Lord, a priestly company and priestly attitude, out of a pure heart. They love the Lord and they are seeking to be pleasing to Him. Now we have the next verse which speaks about the bondman of the Lord. A bondman is one who loves. You might ask yourself - and I would do well to ask myself - How great, how deep, how extensive is my bondmanship, is my committal? The more earnest and true and sincere and genuine I may be in my committal to the truth, to these great principles of leadership which stand related to the kingdom, I am going to find enlargement in my soul and in my affections and I think bondmanship is going to increase with me. As we move on that line we will prove divine support and help. God makes way for us as we do that. We are still in the great house, in no way can we get out of it; our position would relate to the corner of the housetop. It is better to be there, it is better to accept the limitation of that position than to dwell with the contentious woman (see Prov 21: 9). There is liberty to work out the truth in that position. So it says about the bondman that he is gentle towards all. He is in no way limited in his outlook or constricted in his affections despite the narrowness of the way and the smallness outwardly of the position. He is gentle towards all and he is apt to teach. He is not contentious, seeking to set right those who oppose. He is looking for recovery and revival, looking to see if God is giving anybody repentance; that is what he is looking for in the house, the great house. He is looking to see if God is working and whether He is giving anybody repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth. These are the great features of the kingdom, beloved.
I read the scripture in Zechariah because I think you could say that these qualities - righteousness, faith, love and peace - are like the leaders of Judah. Judah is the great realm of the kingdom and the sphere and area where the service of God is carried on and these features are maintained with s in family affection. I suppose the inhabitants of Jerusalem would be that: "And the leaders of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength through Jehovah of hosts their God". I believe as we maintain these things in our hearts we are going to come to the spiritual realm of things that is really the assembly. God is making way for it. I think the Lord would help us, as He has done in these meetings, to understand what the assembly is as a spiritual entity, and it needs to be cared for and protected. The kingdom is a great area of protection and care. It has often been referred to as the bulwark of the assembly. The force and power of the devil can come against it but it stands; "hades' gates shall not prevail against it" (Matt 16: 18), the kingdom stands, and Peter is the great kingdom man. So we have here these beautiful references to the leaders of Judah; they "shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength". These are persons - the bondmen of the Lord - who contend; they are gentle towards all but they maintain inviolate these holy principles that protect and govern and make way for the greatness of the spiritual realm. Because what is to happen, as we see in the next verse, is that if these principles are operative they make way for Jerusalem, make way for the assembly. "Jerusalem shall dwell again in her own place, in Jerusalem". How beautiful that is, beloved! We may publicly be captive and we do not have everybody; only two tribes came back in the recovery under Ezra and Nehemiah, ten were lost, but then the Lord knows those that are His, they are taken care of. We are to maintain the principles of the truth inviolate on that line of things, in affection, in second Timothy 2 principles and in second Timothy 2 days and we will find that God will make "the leaders of Judah like a hearth of fire among wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; - and they shall devour all the peoples round about". We find we will prove the power of it as making way for the establishment in our souls of the greatness and glory of the assembly. All these alien features which would seek to intrude and impinge on the greatness of the holy commonwealth which has its existence in the heavens, these elements which would seek to divert us from the enjoyment of things, would fade away. These principles maintained in our hearts, it says, "shall devour all the peoples round about, on the right hand and on the left; and Jerusalem shall dwell again in her own place, in Jerusalem". Oh, beloved, how beautiful that is! The local meeting, the assembly there, is the prime matter; everything then is regulated by it, Jerusalem, the assembly, is regulated by it. And the family side is a great support for it; love for the truth, love for the assembly is prominent in the family side of things.
So God comes in here and he says, "And Jehovah shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem be not magnified over Judah", God in that way, beloved, is making way for the family side. The official side is not to becloud it or be magnified over it. What is to be magnified is the great family side of the truth where we are together as the brethren of Christ. How wonderful and beautiful that is! He goes on then to say, "In that day will Jehovah defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that stumbleth among them at that day shall be as David". How glorious it is, how wonderful to find divine support like this, God coming in to support and to extend that line of things, upgrading things in a way. As it says here, "and he that stumbleth among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David as God, as the Angel of Jehovah before them". Would you not like, beloved, to be as David, a man, a woman after God's own heart? His place was in Jerusalem. He that stumbleth among them, or tottereth among them, shall be as David; there is weakness and we are weak and feel it and we struggle along, we totter along you might say. I feel I am tottering along in this address, but the Lord is coming into it and we find that God supports it because His main concern is Christ and the assembly. I think the Lord has shown us without doubt in these days the truth in its fulness and its glory relating to Christ and the assembly, that it is practical and workable in these days of brokenness and public ruin.
It is very remarkable that we should have these precious touches in the book of Judges as we have them in the book of Joshua. That is to confirm us in our souls as to the greatness of divine things that in themselves are inviolate. The Lord would encourage our hearts, beloved, to set ourselves to have increasing entrance into that wonderful realm.
So he goes on to say, "And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem". All these attacks, all these suggestions that come up in your own heart and in your own mind that would seek to nullify the dominance of the glory and the workability of the truth of the assembly that you are being regulated by: God says He will come against them. The Spirit of God would help us to have judgment of them and make clearance in our souls that we are settled in our disposition about this glorious matter, the prime matter with God. "I speak", says Paul, "as to Christ, and as to the assembly", Eph 5: 32. So he goes on to say, "And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications". How we need that. How we need to be increasingly identified in our souls inwardly with the preciousness of the death of Christ: "and they shall look on me whom they pierced". It is looking on to the day to come, but to think of the wonder of it! The more we are occupied with the greatness of Christ's death who loved the assembly and delivered Himself up for it, the more it will have its place in our hearts.
I just want to refer to Nehemiah because I think it is a great encouragement to every brother and sister, and to myself I would say especially, to seek to take up responsibility that relates to the furtherance of the bringing into more prominence the great matter of the assembly. It says here that he is an exercised man and he says he told no man what God had put into his heart to do for Jerusalem. Have you ever had an exercise like that? Have you ever asked God to put something into your heart to do for Jerusalem, asked God to put something into your heart to work out to a result for your local meeting that there might be some greater evidence in expression of the humanity of Christ in the place? Because that is what it is. He had this exercise, he did not tell anybody, he was just himself. He might have thought, well, it is a pretty hopeless position, the whole thing is in ruins: you do not know where to start. You do not know my locality and you do not know the place where I come from: we would not even know where to start. Nehemiah's situation was something like that. He says, There was no place for the beast he was on to move, the whole thing was so much in ruin. You, as a bondman of the Lord and seeking to be a bondman of the Lord, follow this line of the truth, ask God to put something into your heart. He knows what you are capable of and He will help you to do it, put it into your heart to do something for Jerusalem and bring it through to fulfilment. The job he had to do was to build the wall - quite an extensive job - but he did it. He restored the great side of fellowship and the service of God proceeded on that basis and he sustained it.
I just read from chapter 8 because no doubt Nehemiah never expected things to turn out as well as they did. In the circumstances in which he was found (he comes out of the captivity) he comes up to Jerusalem and now he comes to this wonderful point where they celebrate the feast of booths, the great expression of the family side of the truth that runs right on into the eternal day. How beautiful that is! They have the whole of the family before them; there are persons not there, not available, but there is room for them. This beautiful reference to the open space of the gate of Ephraim: Ephraim is not here, where is Ephraim? Who knows? The Lord knows where Ephraim is, but his place is here. And we hold Ephraim's place in our affections. The Lord therefore, as we move on that line, brings us out of our own circumstances and we come into divine circumstances right through to the eighth day. These are very beautiful and practical matters in the working out of the truth so that we have increasing access into the glory of the spiritual realm, the eighth day of the week - "eight days after, his disciples were again within", John 20: 26. So that the Lord's day, the first day of the week, is to be hallowed and cherished in our affections and all the other days are to be regulated by what is to happen on that day. The maintenance of these wonderful principles that God has set out in the kingdom are to be cherished by us, we are to follow them, follow them with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. We will find we come to this position at the end of verse 17 where it says "And there was very great gladness". Have you that in your soul, beloved - "very great gladness"? It relates back to the days of Joshua the son of Nun. Something unique, something distinctive is going to happen in these days in which we are found that will equate to what was at the beginning. Joshua, as you know, is the spiritual link between Moses and David, between the side of authority in the Lord and the great reign of grace that comes in through David. It goes back to that day and it says "there was very great gladness". The Lord would fill our hearts with gladness. He is concerned, beloved, that we increase in our practical working apprehension, you might say, of the function of the assembly in the local place, the function spiritually of the local assembly. We understand then what headship is. The service of God therefore, on the line of the Lord's ascent, is going up; there is an increase in the way that He moves. His headship in function means that the company is being enriched as the service proceeds. Then as He goes on to the Father He brings all this wealth with Him. It is like that kid of Manoah's and the oblation; He is going up wealthily with this great company to present them to His Father and to His God. The answer then is equal to all that has come out in Himself. The offerings in 2 Chronicles could not be numbered, "which could not be counted nor numbered for multitude", 2 Chron 5: 6. A great buoyant, affectionate response to God in sonship is going to fill His house for ever. Beloved, how great that is! Alas, for many of us, many a time it is something that I know, something that I have light about, that I read about in the books, that I enjoy singing about, but the power of the thing is to work in our souls. How blessed it is when it does, the power and leading of sonship so that we are consciously touching the greatness of God's rest. God rests in that, no more work to do, all the work was finished under Solomon. When we arrive at that we touch the rest of God.
May the Lord help us and encourage us. I feel how feebly I have been able to set out these things but I can see tremendous encouragement for us that, in days such as we are in, the function of the local assembly is possible at the level and at the quality and in the character morally and spiritually of what it has always been down through the dispensation. If we maintain the family side, that function is inviolate. May we be encouraged in it and helped in it for His Name's sake.
CHILDREN AT PLAY
From the book of Job we learn that "all the beasts of the field play" on the mountains, while one of the Psalms refers to animals of the whale tribe playing together "in the great and wide sea". We, in our own day, find great interest in the lambs and even young cattle gambolling in the fields, whilst creatures such as dolphins and even killer whales may be seen in many a seaside reserve, playing a game like 'hide and seek'.
The Lord Jesus evidently watched the children playing in the market-places of Palestine at games such as 'weddings and funerals'. It seems that the games were not always played properly and fairly - and Jesus observed that, too! Some of the children had to complain against others for not doing as they should. "We have piped to you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you and ye have not wept" they said.
There was a great lesson to be learned by all this, and not only amongst the young ones. The grown-ups too were not doing as they should in matters infinitely more important than play. John the baptist had come in converting power, but some of the people said that he had a demon because he seemed so severe. In truth he was the herald making way for Jesus, the Saviour. Not only did they refuse John, however, but they refused also Jesus Himself, speaking in divine grace. They complained that He was "the friend of sinners". But the sinners did not refuse Him, they loved Him. Do you?
J.C.Evershed