COMMUNICATIONS
Richard Hesterman
1 Corinthians 2: 13 (from "not in words"); John 11: 4,5, 27-29, 33-35; 40;
The thought of how spiritual means enter into communication has been impressed upon one's mind lately. We can see how Satan is set against the saints communicating on right lines, particularly on a spiritual level. I think it would come home to us in a very definite way through the recent strikes by the postal service and the controllers' unions, how Satan would desire to use various powers to hamper right communications between the saints. But one is not leaning heavily upon that. One is thinking of the great need at the present time that the saints should all think one thing. We have been indeed gifted and also set up and provided with the spiritual means by which God desires that the saints should grow and learn and come up to His full thoughts for us.
We can see in Philippians that God has an objective for the saints primarily. But there is an objective too to be reached among men. We can see the spiritual means which God applied in relation to meeting man where he was. Think of God coming down in the cool of the day in Genesis 3, meeting man on His own terms, as it were, in favourable conditions. Think too of the Lord Jesus moving about in His own meekness and lowliness, coming within the range of man, meeting their hopeless conditions. But when we have to do with the assembly we have to do with spiritual things. We can learn from John's gospel because it is through a spiritual line of things that the Lord moves and on which He communicates with His own.
One read in Corinthians primarily to bring out one's desire, akin to Paul's own desire, that, while there were various divisions among the saints in Corinth - each party had its own leader, or one naturally esteemed, or set up as an object - Paul very early in the epistle sets this aside and brings in the great need for things to be communicated spiritually. One has pondered how this might be undertaken, how we might avail of spiritual means to communicate spiritual things in view of helping each other on, in view of learning from one another to the best advantage. We assemble together collectively, and this affords us a time to learn, in a temple setting, to learn from one another. One could speak as to helpers of one another. Indeed those who have gone before us in the testimony have spoken of the learning time in which we are. One desires that I may make myself available, in a receptive way, to learn from my brethren. May we all learn from our local brethren.
But then, I think that the communications are to stretch out, as it were, to go out between localities, so that there is evidence of the saints coming to things in relation to one mind. We think of Paul speaking to the Corinthians and telling them that they had the mind of Christ - that thinking faculty - the ability to receive the things of Christ, to be communicated to from the Head, in order that the body would be in relation to the Head, so that there would be a correspondence between Christ and His own.
I thought that John would set out the way that the Lord communicates spiritually. The objective was that God should be glorified, and that the Son of God should be glorified, and that God should be glorified in Christ, in the Son of God: "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it". So I think that the Lord circumstantially brings in conditions which necessitate the need for communicating. A difficult situation arises where Mary and Martha's faith is tested in relation to the word of the Lord. In this way the Lord would have to do with Mary and Martha. And then it says that "Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus". I think that is one of the links with Philippians where we read: "if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit". Consolation of love! I think John 11 is a setting where the consolation of love is evident. The Lord Jesus is feelingly entering into the circumstances which were brought about indeed by the activity of divine Persons in order that person may believe and may be able to see the glory of God, may be able to see this objective. I think that the Lord Jesus, in loving Martha and her sister and Lazarus, would suggest to us that, in order that things may be communicated spiritually, love must be the motivating factor in communicating with one another. Love must be operating. I was thinking of the spiritual means. Think of the spiritual means that the Lord availed of. We can surely learn from Christ when we think of spiritual means, the way that Jesus was moved in His spirit, the way that Jesus wept. I think that, as we desire to communicate spiritually, we need to have our feelings moved. We do not need to be afraid of right feelings. We do not need to be afraid of weeping, or of conveying something in the same spirit, with the same feelings, that Jesus manifested.
I desire that we should be exercised to communicate spiritually, and I think that Philippians sets on the way that this can work out. It says "if... any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love" - we have touched on that - and then "if any fellowship of the Spirit". It is a wonderful matter to contemplate the fellowship of the Spirit because it involves that those who are communicating are availing of the Spirit, partaking of the wealth of that divine Person - fellow partakers. Think, simply, of two persons having to do with each other in relation to the truth, even privately. As both persons are drawing on the Spirit, the same Vessel, how could it be that the same mind would not be reached in a matter? But how much greater if the fellowship of the Spirit could be known in our locality and broaden out to the whole assembly.
So Paul desired that his joy would be fulfilled in "that ye may think the same thing, having the same love, joined in soul, thinking one thing". Then, just in passing, one would touch on the next verse, and how this may enter into our spiritual communications: "let nothing be in the spirit of strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind, each esteeming the other as more excellent than themselves, regarding not each his own qualities, but each those of others also". One has felt that if we are to be of help to one another we must esteem one another, draw out the qualities in one another, draw out the Spirit of Christ in one another, not arouse the flesh. Well, how can we regard the qualities in one another? One has thought, do I do that, contemplate the saints, think of them in regard to their qualities, whether I really do? We sometimes get a general view of the saints but I think the Lord would have us single out the saints, as it were, and devote our attention to one another's qualities. I believe that, as the Person of Christ and the features of Christ in one another are reflected upon and magnified, the communications can be brought up to the right level. As we see the Spirit’s operations in one another in the formative work of God we see the way that God has operated in one another and brought to light certain qualities. We do not all have the same qualities or the same make up, but the desire is one, that we should build each other up and learn from each other. It is not one or another only, but the least of us can be learned from, and there are qualities that the Spirit of God has had to do with in one another, in relation to our souls, that we may be joined in soul, joined in relation to feeling matters, having the same love. Paul could say, "holding the truth in love, we may grow up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ ", Eph 4: 15. May we all grow up to Christ, who is our Head. May we avail of the mind which is in Christ Jesus. May we experience that thinking faculty in its operation in the assembly, and that we need one another. We need the saints collectively in order for this to work out, and the Lord would help us in relation to the spiritual means whereby we can communicate, and whereby we can build each other up, and see the progress of God's work in one another's souls, for the glory of God.
We might well think of the day of display, when every knee shall bow to Jesus. Christ will come out, every knee shall bow to Him to God the Father's glory. Men will see the glory of God when Christ comes on to public view, and the assembly will come out, having the glory of God. Then things will come into display, but now it is the time of what is secret. In John 11 Martha called her sister Mary secretly, saying, "The teacher is come and calls thee". I think that it is for us now to see the glory of God. Stephen, in the Acts, looking into heaven, saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing there. How beautifully Stephen would have set out these features in relation to spiritual communication!
Well, may we be helped to be of this same mind in relation to communicating with one another, that Satan may be defeated in his efforts to hamper us and to thwart and to dampen the spiritual level of things which proceeds under the hand of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. May we be helped in the Name of the Lord Jesus.
PLAINFIELD
4 August 1981