CHRIST IN RELATION TO SUFFERING SAINTS
[p. 476] CHRIST IN RELATION TO SUFFERING SAINTS
Revelation 5:5 - 14; Revelation 6:9 - 11; Revelation 7:1 - 3; Revelation 8:1 - 5
This book affords us many features of Christ’s position in regard to things on this earth. As most of us here will be aware, chapters 1 to 3 present the Lord as dealing judicially with “the things that are;” that is, the seven churches; in chapter 4 we have presented to us the Lord sitting on the throne in relation to the creation of God; and chapter 5, from which we have read, introduces Him not sitting on the throne, but standing in the midst of it, and symbolised as a “Lamb as it had been slain”.
I want to speak of Christ in this latter connection because it is Christ in relation to suffering saints. He Himself had suffered, but He was now in the place of authority, in the midst of the throne. It is not my thought to open up any prophetic line from these chapters, but to bring before you the relation of Christ to His suffering people. Another thing that I may remark on is the position of the writer of this book, John, who is not here as an apostle, but as a prophet. In describing his own exercises and position, he calls himself a brother of the saints and their companion in tribulation; thus, one well qualified to speak to them.
One would not essay to speak to the Lord’s people unless one was in sympathy with them in what they were passing through. One might not be in the exact circumstances of the saints, for our circumstances are all varied, yet one would seek to maintain in the soul a sympathy and companionship in spirit, at least, with all sufferers for Christ’s sake; not that one would encourage in any who are suffering peculiarly, any pride in martyrdom; for any glory that accrues from suffering here is not for us, it is for God. We come into the gain of it, but it is not to minister [p. 477] to the flesh in us. All the fat is for God. Even the possession of the Holy Spirit might be boasted of by the flesh to exalt itself, whereas any greatness or dignity which the Holy Spirit produces in us is alone for God. All the fat, as we read, is for God; so one would deprecate any development of the spirit of martyrdom with which the flesh would clothe itself in the people of God; and one would be reminded of what the apostle Peter says, “the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world” (1 Peter 5:9). Peter intimates to those to whom he wrote that their sufferings were not exclusive to them, but general. The people of God in this world suffer characteristically, as true to Christ, as it is said, “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12).
Well now, that is how John stands in this book. He is a brother, which every true minister of Christ would seek to be, for one cannot serve his brethren unless he has them really before him as being one of them. And then he says, “and companion in tribulation”. Although shut off from them in presence in Patmos, yet he was a companion of the saints in their tribulations. I make a point of that. As having passed through and as passing through tribulation, he could be a companion of theirs in their peculiar distress, and in the exercises occasioned by their sufferings. And I would further remark, dear brethren, that we have a great Priest over the house of God; not only a high Priest, but a great One; that is to say, One who is capable of taking into account the exercises of every one in the house; indeed we have a suggestion of it here, not that it applies directly, but it says of the Lamb that “he had seven horns” (that is, the perfection of power) “and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth”. That is a very comforting thought in regard to Christ.
[p. 478] I come now to this passage in chapter 5 in order to present the true bearing of the passages in chapters 6, 7 and 8. John weeps, not on account of his tribulations, for they were his glory, but on account of the fact that there was no one in view, so far as he could see, equal to the task of opening the seals, of opening the book of God’s thoughts in regard to this earth. In other words, John was with God; he was thinking for God; and that was his qualification to speak for God. He was a man who would weep, not on account of his sufferings, nor even the sufferings of the saints, but because there was no one available, as far as he could see, to open the book and to loose its seals. Such was John, and like John the baptist, too, he was entirely with God in his exercises.
Well now, one of the elders reminds him that he need not weep. Much sorrow amongst the people of God is occasioned through lack of intelligence. Did we only know more, and the knowledge is available, for the Son of God has come that we might know Him that is true, did we know more, we should suffer less in this respect. So the prophet is reminded that he need not weep; the elder says, “Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof”. I want to dwell just upon this glorious Person, known here as “The Lion of the tribe of Juda”, because it is an immense thing to be maintained in the sense of victory in our souls, whether it be the victory that Christ has achieved in death, or whether it be the victory of the Holy Spirit in the saints.
You will remember how Rahab mentioned to the spies, that she had heard about what the Lord had done at the Red Sea, and what they had done to Og, king of Bashan. The former refers to the death of Christ; the latter to the Holy Spirit’s power typically. This woman of faith had light as regards [p. 479] these two triumphs of God; one the death and resurrection of Christ, and the other the Holy Spirit in the saints. It was a dual victory, and she was aware of it; so that she takes account of the spies and hides them in the light of these great facts. She had beforehand the light of victory. She might well hide the spies. There was no danger, however it might appear outwardly; her faith surmounted the power of the king of Jericho, for she was on the winning side. She was already on the side of victory, and her faith enabled her to ally herself with the victors. She had heard of the victory of Jehovah at the Red Sea, and the triumph of the people over Sihon and Og, kings of the Amorites.
These are great facts that might be brought home to the soul of every believer today. It is an immense thing to be in that way in the sense of victory. “This is the victory which has gotten the victory over the world, our faith”. What a statement that is! “Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:4,5). Wonderful statements these! They belong to the weakest believer. It is for you to know that victory. Well, that is what is suggested to us, I believe, in the Lion. The lion is one of the three things which have a stately step, and it says of him, that he turns not away for any. That is the lion. You see the symbol in full measure in Christ. He had to face the most powerful combination in the whole universe against God, and He turned not away from it. His sweat as great drops of blood in Gethsemane was not because He feared death itself, He turned not away from death, but He dreaded the forsaking of God. This became Him, surely. He instinctively, and of course rightly, recoiled from the thought of the forsaking of His God. As the Lion of the tribe of Juda He prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.
[p. 480] Now the next symbol referred to is not that of a lion. I want you to note that. It is not now a question of the Lion, which is in regard to victory in our souls, but John speaks of a Lamb. The lamb is not a militant creature. Symbolically, the lamb is a passive creature, as so beautifully expressed in Isaiah 53:7; “He was led as a lamb to the slaughter”. The lamb is very different from the lion. The Lion is not seen as if He had been slain; you do not find any such thought in regard to Christ in that respect. It is said that “A living dog is better than a dead lion” (Ecclesiastes 9:4), but that is not spoken of the Lord. As a Lion, He lives, He has gone through death and triumphed over it, and that is victory for our souls. But as regards the public position, He is the Lamb, and in this respect He is the Leader in Christianity; He is the Sufferer. He is Leader in many things, but He leads in suffering. The Leader of our salvation has been made perfect through suffering. What a suggestion for us! What a wonderful thought for our hearts! The scripture says, “Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” (Hebrews 12:4). The Lord did that, He went through it, and as it is said, “is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (verse 2). What a Leader! He is “the leader and completer of our faith”. The Leader begins the thing. Abel was not the beginner of faith, Christ began, and Christ completed it, and that course involved suffering, and we are to be connected with a suffering Christ; hence in the early chapters of the Acts He is announced as the “Nazarene”, the suffering, despised, rejected Man in this world. That is what He is, and so here we have Him presented to us as a Lamb as it had been slain, not sitting upon the throne as in chapter 4, where the question is as to His rights, which are God’s rights in creation, but standing in the midst of it, surrounded by the elders and living creatures, and as the Lamb. He is the suffering One;
[p. 481] but although the suffering One, He has the perfection of power, for that always attaches to Christ. “Having seven horns”, it is said, too, “and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth”. What a thought for our hearts there is in that! that the Lord in this light is perfectly cognisant of the circumstances of the saints in the earth; He knows everything.
I want now to draw your attention to the seals but not to make a prophetical application. They are opened by His own hands, not by angelic ministry, and I want to show you, dear brethren, that in opening these seals, while terrible things happened on the earth, what comes to light is the suffering, praying saints. The Lamb has His eye on them. Things are happening today that are dreadful to men, but the Lord is concerned about His saints. He will bring them to light; He will see to them. If He is going to open these seals, and to bring to light the mind of God in regard to the earth, He is not going to overlook His saints.
Now in chapter 6, when the fifth seal is opened, there are seen under the altar the souls of them that had been slain, and they say, “How long, O sovereign Ruler, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” The answer is that white robes are given to them; not vengeance, mark, but white robes; not but that vengeance will come, but they needed white robes, thus their service is owned of God. Though dead, they live to God of course; they are not risen yet; but I just want to point out to you that the answer to their exercises in regard to vengeance is that they are to get white robes. They did not yet get all that God had in His heart for them, but they did get, we may say, what they needed for the moment. Let us not miss the white robes in this hour. Of course, I am not making any prophetic interpretation here.
[p. 482] I am only deducing certain principles for present application, which is perfectly right, for every scripture is profitable in this way. Suffering, as viewed from God’s standpoint, brings about purification, cleansing and holiness; indeed, after it is said of the Lord that He sat down at the right hand of God, having gone through the whole path of faith as a Man here, the word is, “ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord” (Hebrews 12:5). They had forgotten that God disciplines. Suffering and persecution may be turned to account in the way of discipline by the Father, and under His hand they become the water of purification; so that we become white and pure in our thoughts, aspirations and hopes, and in our associations.
Now all these things and more besides develop as we accept suffering from the hand of God. They are, as it were, in His hand; our sufferings are from the Father of spirits and for our purification. And so to these souls the word is, “that they should rest yet for a little season until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled”. Other things have to happen yet; it may seem hard, but it is the divine way, and to those who are subject, who have faith, and accept the will of God, it is His perfect way, and in the sense of this one would not have anything altered. The will of God must be accomplished, so that it was a question for those slain ones of waiting in patience “until their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled”. In other words, a waiting attitude becomes us, in order that every item of the will of God should be accomplished.
Now I read the passages in chapter 7 to show you that under the Lamb’s administration in opening the seals the four winds of the earth are held up in order that they should not blow. What for? That the [p. 483] servants of our God should be sealed in their foreheads. That is the way God comes in; we may reckon on that. On the one hand, we see God’s suffering saints, and there is great gain in suffering, but on the other hand, we see that God can come in and alter things governmentally at His pleasure. I want you to consider this, that men have not everything their own way in this world, however it may appear.
I want you to see that there are angels delegated to act on this earth for God governmentally, in the ordering of government; and that they are here, as it says in Hebrews 1:14, “for service on account of those who shall inherit salvation”. So here we see that the angels hold back the four winds of the earth. I wonder whether we are accustomed to reckon upon this sort of acting on the part of God, knowing that He can come in in His governmental ways with the world and alter things according to His pleasure. It is all a question of His pleasure. How restful the soul is that knows this! “And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God ... saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads”. God is coming in to give a little respite to His people. Conditions on the earth are stayed or altered for the moment in order that this operation might take place. I wonder if our souls are waiting upon God for that. Think of this suggestion of “the seal of the living God”! As marked by life you are not drifting like a dead fish in the stream. You are able to go against the stream, to stand against the current. You are in the energy of life. That is a very wonderful thing, and then it says, “I heard the number of them which were sealed”. It is not now a question of being in fellowship. Today the question is that of having life.
[p. 484] You will remember how that the Lord is said to have shown Himself alive to His disciples for forty days; their souls were to be impressed with that kind of life, and that they might be exercised to come into it. That is the idea in Scripture. Think of coming out here in the life of Christ! I am not going to speak of that to develop it, but the Holy Spirit is life to the Christian. Not yet developed life, it is true, but he has the Holy Spirit with a view to righteousness being brought about in him. “The Spirit is life on account of righteousness”. I can conceive of nothing that is a greater witness to what God is morally than a righteous life in this world, the acknowledgment of the will of God and the rights of others, and a gracious, giving spirit in the people of God. And so the winds of the earth are held up in order that the bondmen of the living God may be sealed in their foreheads. These are the ones who count. It is not what we profess to believe simply. It is life that tells. I am only dealing now with the suggestion here.
I pass on now to chapter 8 before I close, and I wish to show that the prayers of suffering saints are all presented efficaciously by Christ. It says that “when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour”. I suppose, if we come to the prophetic side, something happens that heaven cannot openly condemn or ratify. And then it says, “I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar”. I want to speak a little about this angel. It says he “came and stood at the altar”, not the altar of burnt offering, but the altar of incense; I suppose the passage refers to the tabernacle. That is, it is Christ as our High Priest, One who takes account of our prayers and makes them efficacious before God.
I deal with this just for a moment, because our [p. 485] prayers are very indefinite sometimes, very mixed. Mixed motives often enter into them, but I would remind you of the word in Romans 8, that He who searches the heart knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He intercedes for the saints according to God, and with groanings which cannot be uttered. So that from the saint who has the Spirit there is constant intercession Godward according to Him. That is not to say that all our utterances in prayer are according to God, but the Holy Spirit’s motions in us are according to God. I thank God for all this.
One is conscious of needs that cannot be understood or expressed, but He reads the groanings of the Spirit in the saints; He knows how to read the motions produced by the Holy Spirit, but that does not mean that all our prayers are accepted; so the Lord Jesus takes them into His hands and presents them to God. I think this is very encouraging; not that we would encourage imperfect prayers, for our prayers should be the expression of the Spirit’s motions in us. It is said, “If we know that he hear us ... we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him” (1 John 5:15). That would be direct prayer, that He hears, unmixed and acceptable; but being what we are, in a mixed condition, it is as well to admit it, that our prayers are very imperfect, and yet we know that what is sincere and according to God goes up to God, they are not lost. Such is the system of grace with which we are connected; as it is said, “the throne of grace”. God will rightly interpret any right petition, however imperfectly it may have been expressed.
The Lord then is symbolised in this angel, who stood at the altar having a golden censer; he is acting officially. The elders and living creatures are said to have golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints, but not censers. They are not seen presenting the prayers of the saints [p. 486] to God. Christ alone can do that; He alone has that place of dignity, so He has the golden censer, that is the official vessel for the presentation of prayers to God at the golden altar; and we read, “there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the, prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand”. The time is gone; so I do not dwell upon these verses, but I would commend them to you in closing, that we may have clearly before our minds that the Lord Jesus is at the golden altar, and He is there in order to make our petitions efficacious before the throne of God. They go up in all the fragrance of this much incense; it is the fragrance of Christ as appearing before God as Priest.
I leave these thoughts with you, and I trust God will use this word for our encouragement in present circumstances.