AFFINITY

N. J. Henry

1 Samuel 30: 11–13, 15; Romans 12: 1, 2; John 19: 25–27; Genesis 18: 22–26; 19: 1–3

What I would like to speak about now is the question of affinity. I feel the thought laid on my mind, I trust it is of the Lord. It may convict some here tonight. Where do your affinities lie? It is a solemn thing to say. We have spoken of such wonderful truths together, matters that the wisdom of .the world cannot see, that have not entered into the heart of man, into the mind of man either, the things that God has prepared (see 1 Corinthians 2: 9). They are so great that man in his wisdom stumbles and misses it. The things that we have spoken about these days are so wonderful and we need the Spirit to take them in.

I want to speak briefly about affinity. In 1 Samuel 30, David’s men found this Egyptian in the field. He confesses he was the servant of an Amalekite. There was an earlier conflict at Rephidim. Why did that young person not know about the conflict with Amalek? Why did he not read about it? But he confesses that he was a servant to the Amalekite. One thing about the operations of David with this young man, is that he changes his allegiance. There is nothing like coming under the lordship of Christ, nothing like finding affinity with Christ.

David is a type of Christ. This young man confesses and says, “my master left me”. Christ will not leave you, I will tell you that, dear friend. You might say, If I commit myself to Christ I might fail. Leave that alone, He will not leave you. The Amalekite master will leave you without bread and water to sustain you, but David will not, the true David will not leave you without what you need to sustain you and revive you. They gave him “water to drink”. It was water he needed, then “a piece of fig-cake and two raisin-cakes, and he ate, and his spirit came again to him”. Think of the operations of divine grace! I often feel that every believer should go back in his history and trace his relations with Christ. When were you revived? Has everybody in this room been revived by Christ? You have served the flesh long enough, you have found him a master that is intolerable, he pursues one course and that only, as John says, “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”, 1 John 2: 16. It is all part of the world as a system, and it is outside the love of the Father. We have all served him, and we need deliverance.

I wonder if every person here has been delivered from the force of what the Amalekite represents, that is sin working through the flesh, an early exercise with the children of Israel but one that you and I have to come to. What this young man says to show his conversion is, “Swear to me by God, that thou wilt neither put me to death nor deliver me up into the hand of my master”. Where did his affinity lie now? It was with his new master. You have to give up one master. It is never free will. That is the time we are in just now; you can do as you want, bring up the children to think the way they wish and to express themselves, ‘free expression’ they say. It is all part of the corruption of the world. But it is a new Master you get, and that Master is Christ, and He will never let you down. He will never fail you. You ask the oldest brother here and he will tell you, ‘Christ never failed me, never!’ What a Master He is! He is worth serving and that is where your affinity should lie. Dear friend, if your affinities are not with Christ you are, according to James 4: 4, “constituted enemy of God”. Friendship with the world is a solemn thing. James is an extraordinary writer, he says, “Adulteresses”, you spoil the whole thing if you are friendly with the world. Come under a new Master, that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

When you come to Romans chapter 12, you have an affinity with the altar. You have come through the teaching of Romans. The older brethren used to press Roman teaching; it brings solidity into your soul. You find when you come to Romans 12 you have an affinity with the altar. You are not conformed to the world, “Be not conformed to this world”, your affinity lies with the altar. I know the altar is not named, but it is inferred in chapter 12. Go through the epistle and you will find how things are dealt with in the light of the sacrifice of Christ. The altar was where the sacrifice of Christ was made. Remember the holy atmosphere of the altar. Have you taken account of the offerings in the type? Think of what was maintained at the brazen altar, God’s holiness. Everything that had thwarted God, that stood against Him had to be met judicially at the brazen altar. Christ had to say to the opposer, the devourer of men. He had to say to matters at the altar. In Romans 7, it is the body of the Christ, “ye also have been made dead to the law by the body of the Christ” (Romans 7: 4). That involved His offering of Himself. The death of Christ broke every claim of the law on the person that is in mind that he might be to another, that is the new husband. It has been said that the first few verses of Romans 7 are like the heading of a psalm, and then the working out of it is the rest of the chapter. But here you have affinity with the altar. Dear brother and sister, let us not be far from the altar. It is the sacrificial side of the death of Christ. In the days of the tabernacle system, if you were in Daniel, you would make your way to where the tabernacle was. You would be seen taking your offering. What is offered at the altar speaks of Christ.

Now you bring and offer your body. Your body has been redeemed. It is no longer your own, it belongs to God. Remember that, your body and your soul and your spirit are for God. Your body is the most tangible thing you have. Do not wait until the end of your life, at the point of death. It is a living sacrifice. You are there offering your body, as it says, “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service”. Then it says, “be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God”. That is the result of the teaching of Romans. I want to appeal to you, to make it attractive to every person here. In Hebrews 12 there is a cloud of witnesses surrounding us (see Hebrews 12: 1). Why not look at the examples we have to help us on the way, to run the race, not to fall out of it, but to complete the course? That is the will of God for us, to complete the course. So you need to have affinity with the altar in chapter 12 of Romans.

Now, when you come to chapter 19 of John, you have affinity with the cross. That is something else. If you look at the synoptic gospels, it is only the women that were at the cross and they were afar off. They were very sympathetic, feeling the matter before God as to this spectacle of Christ lifted up, the One that Israel had hoped for, and there they were viewing things from afar and feeling things with holy emotion. They had come out of Galilee and had ministered in affection to Christ. Many of the women referred to in the gospels are choice cases. Think of the woman in Mark 14, she had resurrection in mind when she beforehand anointed His body for the burial. She accepted His resurrection before the rest did, because if she had waited there would not have been time to anoint Him afterwards. How wonderful the resurrection of Christ!

In John’s gospel they stood by the cross and John is there too. John is a person who helps us as to affinity with the cross. I would like you to have affinity with the cross of Christ, because it is over against the world’s system. By the cross of Christ is not the best place to be in a natural sense, but it is a safe place to be. You have to have affection to be identified with the One who was denied, cast out, disowned. Oh, the humiliation! Mr. Darby says His last utterance in the presence of the world and before the angels was to exclaim, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, Matthew 27: 46.

There was no answer to that cry while on the cross. The solemnity of it! He was publicly refused of men and then forsaken of God. John would encourage affinity with the cross. He would love you into the truth, he would make it attractive and more or less say, ‘It is irresistible, why can you not take the step and come alongside myself?’

In Genesis we have a man who has affinity with the righteous. Abraham waited for a city, it says in Hebrews (Hebrews 11: 10), but he is not a man that is linked with a city. I do not know if there is another reference to a city in Abraham’s time apart from those that were under the judgment of God that was about to be executed, that is Sodom and Gomorrah. He is a remarkable man, he was looking for another city, and here what marks him is that he has affinity with the righteous. Peter called Lot righteous, “righteous Lot”, 2 Peter 2: 7. What basis is there to call Lot “righteous Lot”? Well, I think Peter got it from Abraham, because Abraham said to God, “Wilt thou also cause the righteous to perish with the wicked?”. He must have had Lot in mind. Time after time Abraham served Lot. Then there is irritation between the servants and eventually they part their ways and he gives Lot the choice. Abraham of course would not leave but I suppose he knew in the back of his mind that Lot would not choose to be a sojourner. Who would? Only one that knows God is prepared to be a stranger and sojourner. Abraham said, Make your choice, and Lot makes the choice, and off he goes to the cities of the well watered plain of the Jordan. Yet in Abraham’s view Lot is still classed as “righteous Lot”. Is that not amazing? We should not give up our brethren.

Some of our brethren have gone. How far some have gone! We still hold them potentially for God in our affections and pray for them. Oh that there might be recovery.

Abraham gets three visitors, involving a full impression. Lot never had that, he only had two visitors and they were there judicially. It was not a full impression of Christ, you cannot get that in the cities of the plain. You cannot get an impression of the Trinity there, that is reserved for those who are strangers and sojourners in the land. Abraham walked in it as a stranger and sojourner without actual full possession of it, but it was promised him and he was prepared for the way. I wonder if we are prepared for the way. The waiting time is a time of patience. It is a difficult time, when things have not yet materialised, but they are just at the door. As we said yesterday, in the plains of Moab you are nearly there but there will be a final test. If you do not keep your eyes on Christ and the true promises of God, then you might succumb and go into the area of judgment. Lot did not have the same food as Abraham. Abraham had the calf tender and good, and he said to his wife, “Knead quickly three seahs of wheaten flour, and make cakes”, Genesis 18: 6. Lot did not have that, but one thing he did have was unleavened cakes baked for the two angels who came to him. At first they would not come into the house, saying, “No; but we will pass the night in the open place”. (What a rebuke to Lot that they were not prepared to go under his roof because of the position he was in). But eventually they went in when pressed, and it says, “he made them a repast, and baked unleavened cakes; and they ate”. It is not like the fare they had previously at Abraham’s dwelling in the tent, but there were unleavened cakes, there was something there. Lot was to be saved out of Sodom. They said, ‘Flee to the mountain, the judgment is about to be executed on these cities’. Lot is like a worldly Christian. He says, ‘Well, let me turn into this small city, it will be quite safe to turn into this small place’. Poor man. What a result! What was the offspring from him? Moab and the children of Ammon. What a sad reflection on a Christian in principle! Lot was not prepared to take the high road, awaiting the effectuation of the promise of God. I raise the question again, Where do your affinities lie? Do they lie with what God is in and with what He is going ahead with? Abraham had affinity with God, and he had affinity with the righteous. He did not leave his place, he did not go down. He had gone out when the kings were fighting, he went out and recovered Lot, but he did not go down to the plains of Sodom and Gomorrah. But God rescued Lot. It was divine grace. It may be we have to wait for that for some, but we pray for them. We want all to come together as having affinity with the thoughts of God.

We have touched a lot these few days together. Is it a common sharing? That is what fellowship involves, a common sharing of things together, the truth that has been put into our hands. Think of the ministries that have been given to us. Do we appreciate the ministries?

You say the books are on the shelves but maybe you do not know much of what is in them. I will tell you one thing, I did not have much of a taste for the ministry but I started with a little. Just take a little and you will find you will start wanting more and more. As the river in Ezekiel, you find there are waters to swim in (see Ezekiel 47: 5). That is what issues out from under the altar. It is not a natural thing, it is a spiritual thing. I will tell you one thing about the river in Ezekiel. Normally when you go into water the ground is going down and you are getting deeper into it, but in Ezekiel the river rises. It is a spiritual thought in Ezekiel, it is the river that is rising, not the ground going down. What a day is in mind in that prophet! Our privilege is to have affinity with the crucified One now, to find our part and place in the testimony awaiting the satisfaction of the heart of God being arrived at. May we be in it, beloved brethren, old and young, for His name’s sake.

Address at Toronto
3 October 1998