INFLUENCE

P. Martin

Revelation 21: 22–27; 1 Timothy 4: 9–16; Nehemiah 2: 11–18; 3: 1, 2

I desire, dear brethren, to say a word as to influence. It is something that God has brought in.

Even in the creation God brought in influence; the influence of the lights, the greater light and the lesser light, that they might rule; even the sea is influenced by the moon. God has established these things. What God did in the creation had man in view. You could think of that in relation to everything that was brought into expression in the creation. God had man in view. Man is not like the rest of the creation, he is distinctive. Even an unconverted man is not like the rest of creation, it is said of man that God breathed into him and he became a living soul, it brings out the distinctiveness of man in the ways of God. You could not say that of a dog or a cat, but it is true of man, he became a living soul. God established the principle of influence in the creation and the principle of rule, and both those thoughts are important in the believer’s history.

It is a wonderful thing that in this dispensation we are taken up to come under the influence of a heavenly Man; it is a heavenly influence. There is no earthly centre in this dispensation; the disciples had to learn that. They thought that when the dispensation was inaugurated the earthly centre remained. It waited for Paul’s ministry that they should come into the gain of the fact that there was no earthly centre, that God was carrying out His thoughts from heaven.

That is a wonderful thing that we can, in this present day, come under the influence of the heavenly Man. It says in the Song of Songs, “In his shadow have I rapture and sit down”

(Song of Songs 2: 3). That is the influence of the heavenly Man. How much do we know about rapture in the

presence of Christ where He is? It is what makes Christianity distinctive that there is a Man glorified in whose presence you and I can have rapture and sit down. How wonderful a Man He is! Do you know Him? You say, I have been breaking bread forty years. So have I, but I ask myself the question. Do you know Him? Do you know what it is to sit under His shadow? The shadow is influence.

In Acts 5, they brought persons that they might come under the shadow of Peter and receive healing. Peter had influence, it was kingdom healing; that is one thing that marks Peter’s ministry, kingdom healing. He speaks of it in his epistle, “by whose stripes ye have been healed”, 1 Peter 2: 24. What a wonderful Person He is, “in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences”, Ephesians 1: 7. Peter brings it in from the point of view of healing, and how much healing is needed. Peter, as no doubt coming under the influence of Christ in the early chapters of the Acts, brings in the principle of influence so that even if his shadow should fall on them, they would be healed. These things are real. Peter had to learn early in his history that it was necessary to come under the influence of the Man in the glory.

How wonderful and gracious the Lord is! He tested Peter, “lovest thou me more than these?”.

Peter says, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest”, John 21: 15. The Lord was drawing him away from what had occupied him; it was the ascending Man who was there. While the Lord was ascending in His movements, Peter had descended, he had gone back to his old occupation.

How like that many of us are, we go back to what had occupied us before we really had a vital link with the Man in the glory. Peter had done that, he said, “I go to fish”. John 21: 3.

Everything is finished. Have you ever felt like that? Really Peter was saying, Let us just give up and find an easier path. “I go to fish”, I am an expert at that. The Lord had to teach him that he did not even

know how to fish, that he was dependent on Christ for everything. What a moment when we come to that, that we are dependent on the Lord Jesus for everything. That is what Peter had to learn and he is recovered and restored. What a restoration! Not only was he recovered but he was restored and he confirmed his brethren.

Well now I have diverted a little but the influence of the heavenly Man was known by Peter and it is to be known by ourselves, if we are to be kept here. We are to know what it is to come under His shadow and have rapture, to be entirely absorbed with nothing else but Himself. How glorious that that is open to us by the Spirit to enter into the presence of Christ and to know nothing but Himself, His own beauty, His own perfection, His own perfect righteousness in which we are accepted before God, all there is shining in one blessed Man.

Unless I prove it I shall be unstable in the scene of the testimony.

I have read in Revelation 21 because the assembly is a vessel of influence. It will come out to be seen to be so publicly. Today is the day of testimony, the testimony of the grace of God.

Then there will be an influence over the earth in the world to come. This vessel in which we have part is so great and glorious. I would love to have a greater sense of what the assembly is in the divine sight. The assembly is the greatest thing next to divine Persons. You say, Well but we are in small conditions and things are so weak and limited. How true that is from man’s side, but I would say to you, dear brother or sister, ask the Spirit of God to show you what the assembly is from the divine side, get a view of what the assembly means to divine Persons, and see the glory that is resident in this vessel, a glory that has been formed in the present dispensation and will shine in the coming one. You say, Formed in these conditions?

Yes, in the conditions in which we are now, in the lives of men and women here, in local companies, with maybe only four or five gathered together, but still there is

something being formed that is going to shine eternally, and shine millennially. It will shine as having the glory of God—what a triumph, what a vessel!

It says where we read, “And I saw no temple in it; for the Lord God Almighty is its temple”.

There will be no need for a temple; the earthly Jerusalem will have a temple. While this city is coming down out of heaven, she is not sent, she is coming in her own dignity as united to Christ. How glorious it is, she is coming down to display the greatness of all that God has wrought in His greatest thoughts. She is coming down to display the light that God has bestowed in her. That is a wonderful touch, “the Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb”. How accessible He will be, how close in the millennial day the presence of the Lamb will be known; He will be the temple. Every outshining of divine light will flow from that blessed Person. Dear brethren, we are about to enter into these eternal conditions. We shall be in eternal conditions when we are caught up to have our part in its fulness in this wonderful city, but the city itself will shine in the millennial day. It is coming down, although it will not actually come to the earth. Her testimony on the earth will have been completed, that is in this dispensation, and she will have been taken to heaven. Then she will come down out of heaven and will cast an influence over the earth. The whole of the earth will come under the influence of this wonderful city.

It says, “And the city has no need of the sun nor of the moon, that they should shine for it; for the glory of God has enlightened it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb”. Everything in it is derived from divine Persons, there is nothing that has originated with man, all that will have been removed, as it has been morally in the death of Christ. It will shine in its glory and everything that it needs it will find in divine Persons. What a wonderful city. That is true of the assembly today, it is true of the local assembly, that there is nothing of man that it

needs. What is of man hinders the outshining of the glory of what the assembly is.

The assembly derives everything from divine Persons and it will shed its influence over the earth. “And the nations shall walk by its light; and the kings of the earth bring their glory to it”. How they will bring their glory to it we are not told. They will not enter into it, but they will bring their glory to it. They will find in the assembly such an outshining that they have never seen before, the glory and the grandeur of it, enlightening the whole earth, and the kings of the nations will bring their glory to it. The earthly Jerusalem will be influenced by the heavenly Jerusalem. The earthly Jerusalem referred to in Ezekiel has a temple but in the heavenly Jerusalem there is no temple, it is divine Persons Themselves. The mind of God will be fully expressed in that wonderful city which will shed its influence over the whole earth and men will walk by its light. You say, Well this all sounds very wonderful but we are not in it. But we are; it is wonderful, dear brother and sister, and we are in it. I trust you have a part in it. What we are touching now in character is the same as what will shine in the world to come. It is the same character of glory, the glory of God enlightening it. It is the same character of glory, so that even now to the principalities and authorities in the heavenlies might be made known through the assembly the all-various wisdom of God. Think of the greatness of the influence, even heavenly beings, in the present day affected by the wisdom of God shining in the assembly.

Dear brethren, we have been called to great things, not to little things. This is not a small thing; it is a cube. It is as high as it is wide, and the breadth is the same as its length. Think of the substantial character of it and there, in the midst of it, the Lamb is known. God will find delight in that city coming down out of heaven from Himself. He will find delight in it enlightening the whole universe and showing what God has wrought in a

creature vessel that has been formed under His own sway and secured according to His own purpose. I would love, if I were able, to go on to speak a little more as to it. The principle of eternal life will cover the earth in the world to come. The actual enjoyment will have been known in those who comprise the assembly but the principle of it will remain upon the earth.

Men will build a house and they will not die before it is built and a man’s life will be the same as a tree. You get these references in the prophet and they bring out the principle of eternal life. We, through wondrous grace, form part of the greatest thing that God ever had in His thoughts; there is nothing like it. If we had been called to have our part in Israel’s blessing, that would have been precious, but we have been called to have part in what is infinitely greater than Israel’s blessing and which Israel knows nothing about. But you and I, beloved brother and sister, because of the indwelling of the Spirit, can know what it is to have our part in a vessel that in itself is beyond what man could ever conceive.

Now I come to Timothy who was to be an influence, and we are all an influence. It is important to remember that. You meet some brethren and they lift you up in your spirit, exercise you in your conscience, but lift you up in your spirit. Some of us may depress the brethren, we are an influence. Some brethren are always looking upward, some are always looking down. Whatever way, we can be an influence for good, or we can be an influence for bad, for a hindrance. Now Timothy was to be an influence for good—he was a young man.

Paul speaks to him in the next epistle of his history, and how God had gone back in his history before Timothy was born. God does that, you know—He is so interested in you, dear brother and sister, that God goes back in your history before you were born. He speaks of the faith that was in Timothy’s grandmother and in his mother. Now some of us have had the privilege of being brought up under believing parents, parents in whose hearts faith had operated. A mother had been an influence, it is an

important part of what we are speaking of, that mothers are to have a right influence in the household. Mothers teach the young ones to pray. That is often the case; fathers are at work and the mother teaches the little one to pray. That is an influence for good. I can remember my mother doing that, and I thank God for it. Dear young person, you may remember your mother teaching you to pray and maybe sing at your bedside, hymns that we do not sing in the meeting perhaps, but they leave an impression upon you. If your mother did that you can thank God. Timothy’s mother would have done something like that I am sure, and his grandmother too; faith had been in them.

It is like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, they lived together. It says of Abraham, “having dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise”, Hebrews 11: 9.

He had been an influence, how much Jacob must have learned from Abraham. I think he died when Jacob was about fifteen years old but they lived together in tents, and Abraham’s influence as a man of faith would have had an effect on Jacob. It did not have any effect on Esau. It is a wonderful privilege, dear young brother or sister, if you have been brought up in a believing house, and your mother has not only prayed with you and your father prayed with you, but they have been praying for you too.

Well all that lies behind what we are saying and now Timothy was to take things on. Paul writes to him, “we hope in a living God, who is preserver of all men, specially of those that believe. Enjoin and teach these things. Let no one despise thy youth”. How was Timothy going to effect that? “Let no one despise thy youth”. Was he going to tell older men that they must respect him? I do not think so. I think Timothy in his behaviour among the saints, in his conduct, in his manner of life, would have given older men a cause to respect him. Paul sent him to Corinth; there were kings at Corinth, but I am sure that Timothy’s presence there

would have caused the most to respect him. There was something about a young man who was living soberly and piously that would have had an influence at Corinth; Paul sent him there for that very reason. Now each of us is to be conscious that we are exercising an influence over others, so he says, “be a model of the believers”. That was what Timothy was to be, he was to demonstrate in himself what the believer’s pathway really was to be. He was to be a model of the believers. Paul speaks of having been something similar, “a delineation of those about to believe”, 1 Timothy 1: 16. He had set out the truth in himself; the greatest service that anyone can render the saints is to set the truth out in themselves. Paul had done that and he is encouraging Timothy to do the same thing here. He says, “be a model of the believers, in word, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity”. The wide scope of this exhortation is laid upon Timothy. The Lord Jesus would lay things on each one of us.

We shall come in a moment to Nehemiah, but it was not laid upon Nehemiah as it was with Timothy. It was in his heart. God put it in his heart, but here it is being laid upon Timothy as a responsibility for Timothy to carry it out. There are the two sides in the believer’s history.

There is what the Lord lays upon us and it is our responsibility to answer to it. There is also the side in which He put things in our heart and it is love for Him that moves us to respond.

He says, “Till I come, give thyself to reading, to exhortation, to teaching”. Give yourself to it, I would that I had done it more, and I expect all of us have heard brothers say that. I would appeal to my younger brethren to do it, to give yourself to reading, to exhortation and to teaching—give yourself to it. That means it becomes your way of life. A man in the world gives himself to sport, he devotes his whole life to it. Paul is saying to Timothy, you give yourself to these things. The reward is great. Do not do it for the reward, but the reward is great. Do it because you love the Master, that you might please Him who has enlisted you.

That is the character of Paul’s exhortations to Timothy “that he may please him who has enlisted him” (2 Timothy 2: 4); do it to please the Master.

So he says, give yourself to these things. A time will come when you will not take in what you read, and that time comes quicker than you think. I say to you, do not waste the time, take it up and give yourself to these things. It says later, “Occupy thyself with these things; be wholly in them”. That is a link with the Lord Jesus. If you trace the footnote back you find that the same expression was used in Luke’s gospel as to the Lord Jesus, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?” Luke 2: 49. Even as a young boy of twelve, He was occupied in His Father’s business; it was His life. Dear brother and sister, may it be yours to “Occupy thyself with these things; be wholly in them, that thy progress may be manifest to all”. Now as I say that was laid on Timothy, and it is laid on each one of us to take it up.

When you come to Nehemiah it says, “I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days. And I arose in the night, I and some few men with me—but I told no man what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem”. Why did God put it in Nehemiah’s heart? He put it in Nehemiah’s heart because Nehemiah felt things as God would have him feel them. He felt the breakdown, he wept; men around him, even the king knew that Nehemiah was feeling the breakdown. O, dear brethren, how we are to feel the breakdown! We have had a sober part in it; perhaps one of the greatest parts of the breakdown in Christendom has been our part but we are to feel it. The breakdown began not in 1960, 1970, 1980, the breakdown began in Paul’s lifetime. How Paul felt it, how Timothy was to feel it, how John felt it, and we are to feel it, that immediately the assembly was seen in its pristine glory the enemy did all he could to overthrow it. Publicly he caused that it should be in ruins but in its essential character it remains ever the same; but we should feel the public ruin.

The king said to Nehemiah, “Why is thy face sad?” Nehemiah 2: 2. We go through this scene, dear brethren, but we are not entering into the frivolities of it. The believer’s part is not in that. I was in a hotel this week and I was appalled by the behaviour of men. The world is frivolous to the extreme, Why? Because the One who has been rejected has no place there.

Nehemiah felt it, and we are to feel what has come in in Christendom, but we shall only feel it as we understand what is normal from the divine side. We shall never know what the breakdown is if we have never seen the assembly in its dignity and excellence. So God put it in his heart, and God puts things in the hearts of men who are feeling things with Him, and He would put it in your heart.

It was put in Nehemiah’s heart to build the wall. You say, How could one man build the wall of Jerusalem? Nehemiah did not ask that question. If God put something in his heart, God would see that he carried it through. He would give him the strength to do it. Immediately Nehemiah sets himself to the work you find that persons are rallying to it. That is a great thing, dear brother and sister, if you move out of affection for Christ as a feeling person others will rally immediately to the building of the wall. There is that in the saints that will always rally, and there is that in testimony man-ward that will be affected. There was that here, persons affected by what Nehemiah had committed himself to do, and they rise up in opposition, but there were those who rallied to the work immediately. They saw Nehemiah at the work and they said they would join in. They put their backs into the work. It is a moment to put our backs into the work; there is much to be done. We are at the end of the day and the work has still to be completed. It calls for men who are prepared to stand up and put their backs into the work, to be affected by what others have done. “Remember your leaders”, it says, “and considering the issue of their conversation, imitate their faith”, Hebrews 13: 7.

Think of the men who have gone before us, who devoted their lives to the Lord and to His interests. It is incumbent upon lovers of Christ to take it up and to carry on with the work.

So Nehemiah does that. It says, “And Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brethren the priests, and they built the sheep-gate. They hallowed it, and set up its doors; and they hallowed it even to the tower of Meah, to the tower of Hananeel. And next to them”. You go right through this whole list of persons who built, persons who were not used to taking up bricks and mortar, like goldsmiths, refined people used to dealing in intricacies; they came up and put their hands to the work and they built the wall. That is a link with the scripture we began with in Revelation because one thing that characterises the city is the wall. It says it is a great and high wall. I have often wondered about that. If you think of the city as twelve thousand stadia high, the wall was very small, but the scripture says it is a great and high wall. It was a necessary part of the city that showed the glory of divine administration in its purity. Here Nehemiah has in his heart to build in relation to what would be suited for the service of God, and for the maintenance of the purity of what was here for Christ. Now those two things go together. If there is to be an answer to God in service, as there is and we thank God for it, it is dependent on there being the maintenance of what is suited to His presence.

Nehemiah realises that and he sets up the doorkeepers and the singers. The doorkeepers and singers have to be one in our local companies; if there is to be a true response Godward there must be faithfulness in the door-keeping so that there is what is suited in the city. In the world to come there will be nothing unsuited in the city, but in the scene in which we are there is to be what is suited in the city. It is not our city, it is not our local assembly; it is Christ’s, and what is there must be for Him and suited to Him in love.

Now, am I going to take it up and, in taking it up, am I going to influence my brother that he might put his hand to the work alongside of me so that the wall might be built? Men that built over against their house, that is you in your local company and I in mine, building over against our house. Our houses are to be in keeping with what is built in the wall. We are to be an influence, each of us, and to be an influence for good, to be a model of believers. The Lord will have to say to it if I am not building in a constructive way, for all must be in the light of what will come out in display. The city will shed its light, the outshining of God through it. May the Lord help us in these things to commit ourselves to what is so infinitely precious, for His name’s sake.

Address at Manchester
18 March 2000