THE HERO AND THE SERVANT
THE HERO AND THE SERVANT
In a world of evil, man, when naturally susceptible to it, is continually under it, and therefore anyone who would help him can only do so by delivering him from its pressure. Now we find that there is a certain sense of need and a desire for deliverance in many before it [p. 325] comes. God in His unchanging mercy raises up labourers here and there to render the desired help, and it is well for us to ascertain on what their usefulness and real service depends. Is it on human energy or on the simplicity of their obedience to Christ? It is not because the labourer has not a true purpose and heart for the Lord that he drops into the natural or heroic line, but because he is not simply subject to the word of God and the control of the Spirit. The pressure exists, the deliverance is needed, the earnest labourer tries to effect it, either by human means or simply by the Spirit of God. The point for us to consider is the difference between a service done in a human way, and the same done in the leading of the Spirit. In a scene of evil there must be pressure, though at times, from carelessness, as with Israel in the times of the judges, it reaches a greater height, and thus it is more manifest the way in which every labourer seeks to help. The greater the pressure, the deeper the darkness into which the people of God have fallen, the more distinct and palpable are the lines of action of every leader who is set on delivering them. There has never been a revival of truth, an awakening of souls for the pure word of God, that the leaders in the movement have not more or less been drawn away from the path of Christ to the human line. There is a true energy of the Spirit abroad. The Lord gives the word, and great is the company of those who publish it, but the wile of the devil is to induce the labourer to consider for the people more than for the Lord. Aaron, when he had made a golden calf in consideration for the people, is an extreme and fearful example of how one in the greatest eminence can be deluded when he turns his eye from God. A wile or by-path is very specious; it runs so near and so like the right one that its real snare lies in the difficulty to discover it. Now the servant of Christ, while always for the Lord, devotes all his energies to the good of man; he is really set entirely for man’s blessing; but [p. 326] he begins with Christ and knows no blessing for man outside of or apart from Christ. This is a servant of Christ.
Yet a labourer, though really gifted of God with the truth in his heart, is ensnared and diverted from the path of Christ when, regarding the state of the people, he allows himself to act with respect to it merely, and not simply according to the word of the Lord. Thus it was with King Saul when he offered the burnt offering because he saw that the people were scattered from him; 1 Samuel 13: 12, 13.
A leader among men does not originate the state of things in which he is foremost, he merely gives it a head in himself. It is not possible for man to introduce anything entirely new; he may discover things hitherto unknown, and he may introduce new combinations of known things; it is only the Spirit of the Lord that can set forth or propound what is entirely new and divinely appropriate in any given crisis. This is really Christ’s path, the path of wisdom — an invisible one; and if the servant he not kept in this path, he descends to the human one, which man commends; and as he is useful therein, he makes a mark on society in improving it, and obtains a name among men; he is a hero or benefactor. First it is admitted that the Lord gives the word, and that great is the company of those who publish it. So far there are many true labourers; but then comes the necessity for caution and waiting on the Lord, lest, though a true labourer in heart, one should be turned to man for the line of action, and not to the Lord simply; that is, man’s prudence dictates and defines the manner of serving, and not the Holy Spirit, who is the source of the service itself.
Now the first mark that it is the object of my service which forms my line of action, is that I trust to or use human means to effect or accomplish the service. Unless a labourer walks in faith, has an invisible path, and can introduce something entirely new, he must resort to [p. 327] what is at hand, and, like a hero, he gives force and prominence to feelings or wants which he has himself, so that others can co-operate with him. A labourer, with the purest intention, given of God, may resort to human means to accomplish it, for he knows no better; but then it is man that is before his mind and not simply the Lord. His thought is from man upward, instead of from the Lord coming down to man; and this was the case with Moses when he first attempted to deliver Israel. He had a true purpose of heart to deliver the people of Israel from the thraldom of Egypt; but not knowing the Lord’s mind, and having the people pre-eminently before his mind, he resorts to the only means at his command, and, hero-like, with his own hand slays the Egyptian. Forty years afterwards when Moses had learned that the Lord is the source of true service, he entered on the purpose of his heart in quite a different way, one entirely new and incomprehensible to man — one of faith, and thus distinctly of God. In the times of the judges, many human expedients were resorted to in order to effect deliverance, and the Lord favoured each with success, and men were greatly signalised. But when Samuel — the answer to the cry of faith — serves, it is by turning to the Lord in prayer. Then a new mode of action with a new form of power is introduced; God and His way of working command one’s whole attention: “The Lord thundered ... on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them”, 1 Samuel 7: 10. The nearer we are to God, the more our work is in divine power, and the less it is in human effort. If one has the heart and purpose to serve, it is plain enough that if he does not know the divine way, he must resort to the human way, and it is not his purpose or his ability which I impugn, but the line of action in which he seeks to effect his true and good intention. When such a one turns to human means in any measure, he drinks of the old wine, and spoils his taste for the new; he has stooped [p. 328] to human effort, natural energy, and is unable to understand or see the invisible path of the Spirit of God. And hence the labourer, using human means in any way, persuasive words, sensational appeals, or thrilling anecdotes, either does not know the Lord’s mode of action, or, having drunk of the old wine, he does not straightway desire the new, “for he saith, The old is better”.
The second mark that the labourer has man pre-eminently before him for his service is that he is occupied with results. It is his success which cheers and approves him, and not the simple fact that he has done the work and will of the Lord, and has His approval irrespective of result. He rejoices when, like the disciples of old, he can say, The devils are subject to us through thy word; he knows nothing of the patient toil of the one who can say, “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought”. He is like an Elijah in one day, a John the baptist in another; well nigh confounded when success or open acknowledgment does not accompany his labours. He knows nothing of the service of Paul at Philippi; baffled, hindered, and suffering every way, and yet when, as it were, all hope is gone of service in that place, when he is a prisoner and human energies are at an end, the jailer, broken down by the power of God, falls down before him, crying, “What must I do to be saved?” The brightest time in a servant’s career is when, to human eyes, he has no results to show, even as it was with Paul in prison in Rome, or with John in Patmos, for the word of the Lord and the testimony of Jesus Christ. It is only the thoroughly dependent servant that can be entrusted with the arduous service of maintaining for God single-handed against all comers; like Isaiah, who, having found a holy rest in the glory of God, is prepared to descend to the worst state of things in Israel; or like Daniel in Babylon, or Paul before the Roman tribunal. There are Jonahs nowadays pining because their service is [p. 329] not successful; and they must learn, as he did, that their only resource is in God.
The third mark is that labourers who do not rise above man as the object of their service never lead souls beyond the benefit of salvation. They are occupied with the need of souls, which is right in itself, but there is a great difference in whether my service is measured or defined by the need of souls, or by the purpose of God in His love. True, if I could not feel for man as man feels it, I could not meet his need; but on the other hand, if I do not see God’s purpose in grace, I cannot present the remedy according to the divine measure; I must present the gospel only to meet man’s need; I cannot lead the heart of the needy one into the fulness of God’s grace, for this I do not see or apprehend for myself. Consequently the fruits of such labour, the converts, though they be true and happy in the assurance of salvation, are not devoted in self-surrender or world surrender, simply because it is not Christ personally who is the joy and object of their hearts, but their own forgiveness. Whereas if the gospel were presented as it is in God’s heart and purpose, to meet the need of a lost prodigal, it would lead him, not only from the far country to taste of his father’s forgiving love, but to enter on a new and unknown sphere of eternal blessedness within the sacred precincts of His presence; and this can be done by no impressiveness of human effort, but by the Holy Spirit’s power alone. The gospel which conducts the soul into the greatest height is the gospel which must have reached the sinner’s greatest depth. For nowhere else is seen as in the height of glory, how every speck of sin and every taint of unholiness is swept away in the cross. There is an end there to human things, to man himself, and the new divine path of life is opened out to the soul; and in this the servant of Christ treads, and to this he leads the soul he serves; and a soul once upon it cannot depart from it or bring in the smallest part of [p. 330] human effort without proportionate loss and defeat.
The fourth mark is that the labourer who employs the human element is always attractive to men. Man is his object, and he becomes a hero to men. I do not say that at no time are great numbers led together to hear the word of God, but, as at Antioch, it will soon arouse opposition and persecution; Acts 13: 50. I merely present the fact that the more popularly the gospel is presented, the larger the attendance and the natural assent to it. A man of eloquence or a man of position preaching the gospel will command a congregation, which a man walking in simple dependence, with neither of those adjuncts, seldom will. The human element suits the human mind, and really there are but the two ways — man’s or God’s. Now though God uses the human vessel, body and mind, to convey His mind to man, yet it is always by His Spirit; while even a truly gifted labourer who uses human means to influence man can necessarily never go beyond man, for man cannot advance a man beyond a man. What is of the flesh is flesh: what is of the Spirit is spirit. No one ever served man as the blessed Lord, and no one was ever left so alone and so unacknowledged here. Where the apostle laboured most, there all were turned away from him (2 Timothy 1: 15). The master-builder of the church was reduced in his own person to the experience of a solitary man in chains.
May every worker be a servant of Christ, and then he will be the true benefactor, and well pleasing unto the Lord; and may we keep, and encourage one another, in the one only divine path of service.