"FOLLOW THOU ME"
A.J.E.Welch
I was impressed, as our brother was speaking, with the holy care which enters into the provision the Lord makes for this time in which we are. No detail escapes His eye; what love would furnish He delights to furnish abundantly. In this chapter He was about to leave the scene and He takes up with Peter this course of searching which begins with the verse we started with: "lovest thou me more than these?". The Lord initiates that searching; it is a matter which He from His side deliberately takes up in view of the time of the Spirit being furnished with such a man as Peter, secured in the fullest sense in relation to Christ Himself. How Peter shone in authority! When the Spirit came and the need was for the testimony to come into distinctive and powerful expression, Peter is ready with just the touch of authority that is needed. And John is with him, a fine demonstration of the wonderful effectiveness of the Lord's service as touching these two men that are in question in this chapter - Peter and John. But the Lord is preparing Peter that he might be ready for his place, the work that was given him to do. The Lord is doing that Himself and, in His tenderness and consideration for this wonderful time and what is to issue from it for God, He takes up matters Himself in His own skill and raises this challenge with Peter: "lovest thou me more than these?". He discerns with Peter, maybe, some tendency just to look around on others, as eventually, of course, he does in the question that he raises: "what of this man?". But the Lord is bringing Peter through to be in thorough relation with Jesus Himself, understanding the bearing of the Lord 's word; "If I will that he abide until I come". That is, speaking simply, the Lord has a will as to these things, He has a will right through the dispensation; right until the time that He comes His will is to be regarded, and especially in our relations with Him as to service, that what His will is is to govern us.
I did not read the detail of the passage which is well enough known, but He probes Peter, you might say, to the very root of his being, brings him to the point of appreciating Christ and the distinctive place that He is to have. He is brought through to see that the Lord has the most intimate knowledge possible of himself and of all, and he is brought to attach himself in his own affections to Christ as perhaps he had not been attached before. And he is not to be looking aside at another brother, close as the link might be with that brother, but he is to attend to what the will of the Lord is, to be in touch, in communion, in full relation personally, by the Spirit, with Jesus. So that, as we find our place in the work, as our brother has been saying, let our links with the Lord personally be strong; let us be undivided in our attachment and allegiance to Christ in whatever we may take up. How we are searched as to mixture of motive sometimes! The Lord would use this incident to instruct us that there is to be no mixture of motive in what relates to His interests, but that His interests are to go through in connection with His will. The Lord knows that He has a John and He reminds Peter that He does know that He has a John. The Lord would remind us of what He has in those whom He has taken up, in whom the work of God is, but He would attach every one of us in the strength of a living link with Himself to an understanding of what His will is. "If I will that he abide until I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me". That is the simple word, dear brethren, that I would seek to leave with all of us: "Follow thou me". It enters into what our dear brother has been saying to us, in the way in which the work is conducted, the way in which we may remain for a short season until the Lord comes. We may not remain very much longer, but how shall we remain? The word here is very clear, very simple, very pointed: "Follow thou me".
LONDON
10 August 1976