“HOLD FAST WHAT THOU HAST”

A. J. E .Welch

Revelation 3: 11: 2 Timothy 4: 3–11.

This word from the Lord Jesus in Revelation 3 is very testing, yet it is full of encouragement.

The times are very searching, yet the searching is to prove the more what He is to us. The Lord in grace is drawing very near to those He loves. He would draw near to us in this meeting, and He would speak to us Himself. We long that He may do so—that the Lord might speak. Because these words are His, the words of Jesus, “Hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown”. So, dear brethren, do we have anything? Are we in possession of anything which is of God? Are we in possession of an inheritance, and have we tasted the blessings of the inheritance? A brother referred to Joshua this afternoon, and the great matter of the inheritance. It is not a question of knowing that an inheritance exists; it is a question of making it our own, coming into it in possession.

Have we entered into anything in possession? If so, it is not because there was any deservingness in us. It is all in the grace of the God who has brought us to Himself. What a need there is to be humble!—and in being humble to relinquish nothing that belongs to Christ. We are not speaking of our own things in this sense. We have an inheritance, and God has established it for us and given us a place there. It was not our own deservingness at any point. Oh, dear brethren, let us keep humble! As J.N.D. used to say in certain connections, claiming nothing, but standing in what God has in in His love committed to us, in that simple faithfulness that God loves to see.

This word, therefore, is very brief and very penetrating. “Hold fast what thou hast”. Have we entered into anything of a spiritual character? Thank God, I believe we can say we have. We have to speak the truth in this matter, as to our experience. We are not to claim anything to our own credit by reason of that experience; but if God gives us an experience He would have us to acknowledge that we have had it. It would dishonour God if we did not acknowledge that we have had it. Do we not know something of heavenly things? Have we not experienced something of what the heavenly inheritance is? Is this outside of our experience? I would very humbly say it is not outside of mine; but it is all of grace that it is anywhere in my experience and it is God who brought me into that. On my side there was no deservingness at all.

So, dear brother or sister, are you in possession of anything, in the sense of having come into the experience of it? The Lord’s word is, Hold it fast. It is to be held as something most precious. Think of what history enters into what is being shared amongst saints today. What a history of suffering enters into it, supremely in the sufferings of Jesus Himself, involving the uniqueness of His being forsaken. Think of His precious blood shed, of the life that was laid down! Does this not mean something to us—the cost in the sufferings of Christ, without which everything would be in ruin and there would be no hope?

Then there are the sufferings of the testimony. Think of the sufferings touched on in the second passage read. Think of the martyrdom of Stephen; think of many who have been martyred since Stephen. The history of God’s testimony is a history of intense suffering and yet of glory; too. What glory there has been in God’s testimony! What glory there still is in testimony that is according to God. Let these things stir our hearts. It is a day publicly of the hardening of the hearts of men. How men have hardened today! Are we hardened in heart?

Are we unfeeling about all these things—unfeeling about departures, unfeeling as to church sorrows? The Lord would appeal to us, “Hold fast what thou hast”.

He says, “I come quickly”. What does this mean to our hearts? We used to speak of this as characteristically the hope of the church, and it is still the hope of the church. There may have been a dimming of that hope on our side because of the elements of darkness that came in; but it is still the hope of the church. The Lord would say, “I come quickly”. You may say to me, “Is that the rapture?”, “Is it the appearing?” I believe it is the whole matter of the Lord’s coming in to settle everything that relates to the glory of God. The rapture is the next thing. It may happen before this meeting is finished. It may happen at any instant. We are not looking for any outward event to herald it. The Lord may come at any instant, and we shall hear the assembling shout. What a majestic expression that is! And not one shall fail to answer that shout. What a throng of persons shall answer to it! Are we awaiting it? Is our mind or heart in other directions? Do we want a place among men here in the scene of the rejection of Christ?

What is our outlook in these things? Are we not longing for Him to come, when all the weakness will be done away, when all the pressure of the times will be done away, and when we shall be with Christ? And once we are with Christ what more need be said? “That where I am ye also may be”, John 14: 3. The great point to our hearts will be that we shall be with him.

That was clearly very much before the beloved writer, Paul, in the second scripture. Is it before us? Are we arranging everything with that in view? How appropriate the word is,

“Hold fast what thou hast”. Most of us have many books of ministry in our bookcases. We thank God, for every one that opens out the truth; but the word is, “Hold fast what thou hast”.

It is a challenge, a test, how much of it is in our hearts and wrought in ourselves. But in any case do we value what God has given in those ministries, standing upon the precious Scriptures? They represent the Spirit’s activity to unfold the Scriptures to us. My mind goes back to the word we read, “I have yet many things to say to you”, John 16: 12. Do we value these things? Do we want to come into them fully? Are we prepared to turn aside to other things? Are we seeking other things? Do we not long after the things that Jesus would say to us? “Hold fast what thou hast”—all that He has committed to saints; let none of it be done away.

Let us be watchful, dear brethren, that what God has committed to us finds its answer fully.

The enemy would break in upon the truth, including what we speak of as the truth of separation. How the enemy would draw us away. Do we hold dear all that is dear to Christ?

That would be the feature of the assembly as the wife, “the bride, the Lamb’s wife”. The wife would hold to all that is precious to her husband, and that is a love matter; affections enter into it.

Do not affections enter into all these things? Shall we not stand true to our glorious Lord?

Can we not reach into the affections of the saints? How hard we did become! I would have to speak for myself anyway. But the Lord would reach into our affections with this strong appeal, “Hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown”. Why does the Lord say, ‘no one’? He knew that there were those who were the instruments of the enemy’s attack; it evidently was so in Galatia—there were those who were the instruments of the enemy’s attack.

“Let no one take thy crown”. What is the crown? I believe it would involve the sense of the Lord’s approval, a sense of delighting the heart of Christ, holding the ground for Himself until He comes. These are very distinctive moments, in one sense the most remarkable moments of the most remarkable dispensation. The Lord would strengthen our affections to go through true to Himself, because that is the feature of Philadelphia; there is faithfulness to Christ and His thoughts. Things are in smallness. The Lord can say, “Thou hast a little power”, but, as another has said, it is power; it is not weakness. A little; but the Lord values what it is, though it be a little. So the Lord is scrutinising things, seeing everything just as it is. It is comforting to realise that. He knows the hidden pressures and sorrows of the saints; He knows them all. We may not know them. We may have a wrong view of many things.

The Lord has a right view. I may think I am right in a matter; the Lord knows whether I am right or not. He may have to adjust me. He knows—we have to realise that all the time.

Well, I would leave the appeal, dear brethren, of that single verse in Revelation 3. It is a moment for our love for Christ to shine out in this sense, “Hold fast what thou hast.”

Paul is at the end of his course in the well-known passage we read, addressed in deep affection to his beloved child Timothy. He was concerned that the testimony might continue, and continue in its true character. Let us go back to the beginning and see what the character of the testimony was. We should see the character of the testimony as it was in Paul himself, the unworldly ways of that beloved servant; they were ways in which the mind of man was not in evidence, ways in which Christ and the Spirit would be in view. Christ is to be the great Objective, the blessed Spirit the characteristic power for what is done.

So he says, “I am already being poured out”. It was a life that was laid down for the testimony. We are given to understand that Paul died as a martyr. That is not exactly Scripture, so we would be guarded in saying it; but his life was laid down for Christ and for the truth in any case. What a labour of love that life was! Think of the full life of the beloved servant Paul. It is a searching point how we fill up our lives for the glory of Christ. Paul did that. He says, “I am being poured out”. It is the final touch of the sacrifice, the pouring out of a life for Christ. He says, “The time of my release has come”. He speaks of his combat; but all to stimulate Timothy.

Are these elements of devotion to disappear though Paul be taken? I would like to put it to you in that way. Shall there not be a continuance of these features of devotion? They have entered into the testimony in our time. I am not saying that many of us have had part in that; most of us have fallen very short in sacrificial suffering; but what sufferings sacrificially have entered into the testimony! How fragrant to Christ! How fragrant it is to God as reflecting the Spirit of Christ—the acceptance of the sufferings of God’s testimony. Is that to cease, dear brethren? Is there to be a decrease of this? Was there any decrease of suffering in the life of Jesus? We are not looking for that, are we? “Hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown”. The suffering path is what is before us. It is well for us to be simple about that; one loving Christ does not look for anything else. There are mercies on the way; God is very good to His beloved people in many practical matters, but the testimony of the Christ is a suffering testimony, a testimony which honours the unique Sufferer, Jesus, and honours God who is to be the One who reaps the fruit of every feature of suffering.

So Paul reminds us of those who had departed. “Demas has forsaken me, having loved the present age”. What depth of feeling is in those words! Do we love the present age? Is there any feature of the present age which is attractive to us? How near the enemy is in the features of man’s world; the ambitions, maybe, of man’s world. All these things are very real, especially when we are young—but not only when we are young. Let us be alert in love for Christ against all these elements of departure. Oh how grieving to Jesus they are! Let us think of it from that viewpoint, and yet do what Paul does here, that is to say, value what is available and seek to be strengthened by it and to strengthen it. Thank God there is what is available to Christ. He will see to it that there is what is available to Him, but does that not quicken the longing of our hearts to be in it? It is not a matter of claiming to be in it, but of bringing out what belongs to Christ and to His testimony, standing firm and standing faithful, realising that He is about to come, realising that we are at the very end, but answering to the searching of the moment and rendering what is precious to Christ. It is not a question of what our minds may conceive; it is a question of what the Lord delights in.

So he says, “Take Mark, and bring him with thyself, for he is serviceable to me”—a recovered man. And every one here would be thought of as a recovered person. Some of us in divine grace have been recovered from very, very much. Paul is saying, “He is profitable”—a truly recovered man to be available to Christ to stand in the testimony until He come.

The Lord is appealing to us, dear brethren; but it is not only an appeal. There is an urgency in His voice to the saints at the present time, an urgency to face the immediate realities of the present moment and to rise up and answer to what is due to the Lord. May we be thus stimulated and strengthened, for His Name’s sake!

Endbach, Germany
23rd September 1972

 

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