THE GOSPEL AS GIVING LIFE
W. Dickson
John 8: 12; 6: 32–35; 4: 13, 14; 1 Corinthians 15: 45
I have been pondering the verse of 1 Corinthians 15, and also verse 15 of 2 Corinthians 9,
“Thanks be to God for his unspeakable free gift”. The more I ponder the verse in 1
Corinthians 15, the more I think it is marvellous. Then no one, except under the direction of the Holy Spirit could have written such a verse as the other, in which there is embraced in a few words the magnificence of the glad tidings. You could go over in your mind as to what might be included in that gift, the abundance of the blessings God bestows upon man. If you were to ask many believers, What is your impression of the gospel? they might say, God has found in the work of His beloved Son a basis for forgiving us our sins and assuring us that we will go to heaven when we die. We are thankful for any one who can say that; it is not to be minimised. But what impresses me is the wealth of it, “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable free gift”.
One of the blessings I want to speak of tonight is the blessing of life. I would say that life is the great need of mankind at the present time. You might say, Well, how does it become available? That is why I gave out hymn 266—
‘Life is found alone in Jesus,
Only there ‘tis offered thee;
Offered without price or money,
‘Tis the gift of God sent free’.
Only in Jesus is life, and only in Him is it available. When Peter, after the healing of the lame man in Acts 3, addressed the men of Israel, he said to them, “the originator of life ye slew”
(Acts 3: 15). What does that mean? It means that the great source of life is Jesus. The Father, as we sang in hymn 136 this afternoon ‘Father, spring and source of blessing’, is the great
source from which blessing originates, but Jesus, the Originator of life is the great source from, which life comes. He sets the thing on, and He continues it at the present time in blessing for mankind. God’s answer to this death stricken scene is life. The wonderful thing about it is that while the physical body gets weaker and dies, the life that God imparts in the gospel remains. Will it remain with you? If the physical body dies, is that the end of life as you know it? It is a solemn consideration. It is a thing you have to think about, and the older you get the more you think about it. It is a well-known medical expression that even with a baby one day old the ageing process has commenced. The ageing process does not start when you are fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty. No, the body under the penalty of sin is subject to death. Man’s only hope lies in the gospel, which offers him the gift of life.
In chapter 8 of John’s gospel there were these accusers, and Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world; he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”. There are very powerful darkening influences in this world today. What is the answer? The Lord says, “he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”. What a relief that is from walking in darkness, in uncertainty, in doubt, in fear of the future, and wondering whether you are right with God. Is there anybody here walking in darkness? The Lord Jesus says, “shall have the light of life”, think of that! Where does that light come from? It comes from Jesus up there in heaven, a glorified Man; the glory shining in His face. Oh, has it shone in your heart? What a deliverance it is when you change from darkness and start walking in the light of a glorified Man in heaven. “I am the light of the world”; oh, would that that message, went to every, member of the human race tonight—that there is no need for the darkness. Follow Jesus, get your eye fixed on the Man in the glory; and then you will know what it is to walk in the “light of life”. In the
gospel God would deliver us from the power of darkness and give us to walk in the light of life. Young people have their problems; they try to please the Lord, to be faithful to Him, and a man with a clever mind comes along and tries to shake their faith. You say, What am I to do? To resist that darkening influence you have to follow Jesus. That is the answer. Keep your eye on Him where He is, the light of life is in Jesus.
In chapter 6 we find the bread of life spoken of. The manna is not spoken of in John 6 as a type, but as a contrast to the true bread which Jesus represents. Because, solemn thing, many ate the manna in the wilderness and perished. So it is a contrast, and the Lord says, “It is not Moses that has given you the bread out of heaven; but my Father gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world”. Have you appropriated the Lord Jesus? Have you reached out in faith and appropriated the bread of God? I am speaking about something which is vital. The whole of this vast system that we see around us; Why has it been built up? It has been built up because Satan wants men and women, and young people to appropriate it, to feed on the things in it, business, sport, religion, even. The human race has fed on these things since the fall of man and still hungers. There is the bread of God, the true bread out of heaven, coming from there, untainted, shall I say, unaffected by the hand of the deceiver. Would you like to taste heavenly things? Things that satisfy and that fill the heart, would you like to taste them?
This is the gospel to men; this is not only teaching for believers, this is the gospel. The Lord is saying to men, You are perishing, you are appropriating the wrong food, here is the bread of life. That is what Christ is, the bread of God that came down from heaven. You can feed on that Man, and you will never hunger and you will never thirst at any time. What a happy state! When you feed on this bread you will have no ambition
in your heart to shine in this world because Christ fills and satisfies the heart. But you have to come to Christ. That word runs through all these passages we have read. It is not sufficient to say it is there. It is there all right, but you have to come to Christ, you have to appropriate it, you have to embrace it by faith, a divine provision that God has made for your blessing. You will never make a better choice than when you come to Jesus and appropriate the bread of life.
When we come to John 4 we have the water of life. Think of this woman to whom these words were addressed. She lived in an environment of moral death and she was thirsting.
There is nothing so telling to the human body as to die of thirst. To die of thirst is worse in a sense than dying of hunger. We can apply that in a moral sense. Here was this woman, her whole background was a moral desert and she was dying of thirst, but the great Giver of the water of life was there beside her. What a gift! “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable free gift”, the light of life, the bread of life, the water of life. The Lord says to her, “Every one who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever”. I would commend it to you. I often think of the great development of leisure facilities when compared to what existed in my youth. It is something to think about that millions of money are poured into leisure facilities. They say it is part of a caring state, that may be, but the real reason is this, that men and women naturally prefer anything but Jesus. To a heart satisfied with the water of life these things mean nothing. A believer rises in the morning and drinks the water of life. You feel that blessed stream flowing through your veins. Have you felt it? The water of life, the gift of the Holy Spirit flowing through your veins in a spiritual sense, and your heart rises up, “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable free gift”. I am not raising a question of what it is. It is the Holy Spirit undoubtedly, but the Giver of it is Jesus, you have to come to Him.
You have to ask of Him, Lord Jesus, I want this living water. The woman says, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst nor come here to draw”. I would like the gospel meeting to do that, to create the desire, the thirst for this living water. You will find, as you drink it, that there has been nothing that tasted anything like this in your life.
Now I turn to 1 Corinthians 15, because I want to speak of the breath of life. “The first man Adam became a living soul”, in other words that is a reference to our physical existence. We are part of Adam’s race; that is physically we have an existence. But, have you ever been breathed into by the last Adam? Have you ever known that experience? What does it mean? It means that you have the power to enjoy the wealth of divine things made available in the gospel, and have part in the testimony amongst men. Christ is up there in the glory, the last Adam. There will never be another. When the antichrist comes, he will have a breath, and that influence, that breath of his will create nothing but destruction and sorrow amongst men.
The last Adam, Jesus, the Man enthroned on high, is energising in living power believers to go against the stream, the current of things in this world, to be separate and to have nothing before them but Christ. How can they do it? Because they have the quickening power of the last Adam in their souls. The breath of God, the breath of life is in a believer. That is why a believer abhors smoking. He is indwelt by the Holy Spirit; and anything that would militate against that, he judges as being unseemly and inconsistent.
The day is coming when the whole scene will respond to the touch of the last Adam—‘Fill with song the radiant air’, that lovely hymn No.380. Think of it, that quickening touch the Spirit will impart to the bodies of the saints, and they will go up, responding to the touch of the last Adam. What will heaven be like? It will be a scene of joy, of peace, of satisfaction, and one
of absolute adoration and occupation with the One who by His own work, the shedding of His own precious blood, enduring the sufferings on the cross, became the Originator of life in blessing for men. We have a physical life to live, and we know it is just for a time. Men spend a lot of money these days in what they call, retarding the ageing process. They may, but whatever they do, the day, the hour, the minute is on the divine calendar and the Lord puts in His claim. But the glory of it is that in these physical bodies with all their weaknesses, there is the power of a spiritual life working in believers that will go on right through to eternity, and find its happy enjoyment looking up to that blessed source of life, Jesus Himself.
May the Lord bless the word for His name’s sake. Amen.
Preaching at Edinburgh, 6 October 1991
GOD SEARCHING FOR TREASURE
J. C. Evershed
I expect you are aware that at the present moment there is a great search for treasure going on; not a search for a sunken ship full of gold or anything like that, but it so happens that you and I are the object of the search for treasure. One great aspect of the ministry of the word of God is that it searches out the work of God wherever it is, and in believers as assembled particularly.
This scripture tells us of Him who searches the hearts. It might have said, He who searches the heart, as much as to say that that is a characteristic of God, but it reads, ‘He who searches the hearts’ Therefore if there are a hundred and thirty people here. He is searching a hundred and thirty hearts. Do you realise God is searching your heart? If you never have, I trust you will realise that He is doing so now by His word. It may well be that as a believer on the Lord Jesus you have realised that God searches your heart. A child might have got up in the night to see whether father and mother were still there; perhaps the Lord had come and they had gone. Well, God was searching a heart. You have been at the preaching when you have said, It seemed to me as if the preacher knew all about me and was speaking to me, and yet he might have been a complete stranger, as I am to many here.
Perhaps you say, I do not like the idea of God searching my heart, because I am afraid of all the things He will discover that I do not want Him to see. Well, that may be so. When a miner goes down and digs for gold he finds quite a lot of things that he does not want, which he has to reject, but he goes for the gold. This scripture says, remarkably enough, not that He who searches the hearts finds all kinds of things that are dreadful and terrible, but “he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit”. And if in the course of God’s searchings He makes me conscious of things that are unsuited to Him and to His testimony, things for which Christ has died and I have not judged, that is one of the parallel issues of God’s work in the soul; when what He is searching for is the real you and me, as Paul says, “I myself”.
Now each one of us as coming under the hand of God for blessing, and knowing what it is to have the work of God in us, can say, ‘I myself’, and that is what God is searching out in us.
You might say God knows already what the mind of the Spirit is, why does He need to search hearts to find it out? I would understand that, I certainly would because God knows everything. God knows all, even the things that we may try to hide from Him, He knows already. “But he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit”. He is searching, and finding out in the heart more and more
that is formed in accordance with His own Spirit, because, it says, “he intercedes for saints according to God”. How little we appreciate, and perhaps even less understand, the mighty operations of the Spirit of God in our souls to bring to light the hidden treasure! The miner goes down to bring to light the hidden treasure that is in the earth. Of course, you would readily understand that God has many instruments with which to search the heart, far more than the most advanced operating theatre of this world’s hospitals, precision instruments in order to search the heart; not to damage it, not to spoil His own work, but just to search it out.
In any case I would not know what they all are, but I know what some of them are.
I have been reminded in thinking of this meeting of something that I read of in the 1920s. An English firm of steel makers had produced what was then the finest steel thread that there was, and they sent it over to some competitors in Germany to show them what they could do.
Their competitors in Germany split it down the middle and sent it back in two parts. That was a wonderful thing I have no doubt. God can do more than that. By His word He can penetrate to the dividing of soul and spirit. He can divide between joints and marrow; He is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (see Hebrews 4: 12). He can always go behind what there is. We might spend a lifetime trying to discover the distinction between soul and spirit, but God is able to do that. The soul is one thing, what a wonderful thing it is, but the spirit is something especially in touch with God which would, in a way, control the feelings and the motives of the soul. The marrow would be what produces the joints, makes them work. Thee intents of, the hearts are what lie behind the thoughts. Do not think I am trying to make anyone uncomfortable, I have been uncomfortable enough in God’s presence when I have realised that He not only knows my thoughts, He knows the intents that lie behind them; but He has done it for blessing, and He has done
it in order to penetrate to His own work. That was not the end of that steel thread. They wrote back and thanked them, and complimented them, and said, How did you do it? Have you ever turned to God and thanked Him for searching your heart, and asked Him how He did it?
Another instrument, you might think an unusual one, it is not the word of God as I understand it, but it is more powerful than a mighty wind that would break the rocks; it will do the work that an earthquake could not do or a great fire, and what it is called is, “a soft gentle voice”, 1
Kings 19: 12. It was that that brought Elijah out of his cave—a soft gentle voice. You say, that will not get very far. It is just as if I was to come up to each one here quietly, and say, How are you getting on in your soul? I have known how that has searched my own heart.
Elijah knew how it searched his heart. Well, we are not saying to you what are you doing here, because we know that you are here to hear the word of God, and thank God for those who made sacrifice to come here, and for the young people who have given up their time.
Nevertheless, God draws near with a still small voice, and says, How are you getting on in your soul? That is intended to go right home to you. God has an interest in you not only for your sake, but because He is looking for an answer Himself to His own work.
Another instrument that has come to my mind is sometimes called by its wrong name—
sometimes we call it disappointment: it ought to be called ‘His appointment’, and if the things that come in and disappoint us we can regard as God’s appointment for us, then how that will blossom out in our souls in order that there might be more for God by way of a subject soul and heart. I suppose a classic example in the Scriptures of disappointed persons is the two going to Emmaus in Luke 24, and you would say they had every reason to be so by the news that they had. One whom they had known
and adored had been crucified; everything that He had set on appeared to have failed, all their greatest thoughts that they had treasured up had come to nothing. What was the answer to it?
The answer was communion with the risen Lord Jesus, and a word from Him in such a way, that they said afterwards, “Was not our heart burning in us as he spoke to us on the way”, Luke 24: 32. Can you say your heart has burned within you? Can you say it is burning within you now? Can you say it has burned within you for five minutes? The hearts of those persons burned within them for anything up to two hours I suppose. Think what that must have been for them and for God. When we get to the background of their disappointment and what they thought they had been deprived of, how God is able to come in, and the answer to every need of our souls is the ministration of the Lord Jesus Christ in His grace in some way, and He will draw alongside. These things are real, I know. A young person might have a disappointment, he wanted to go from home, as we have known in our time, and father has said, No, I do not want you to go away from home; we have accepted it perhaps with a bad grace. But you have accepted it and seen the wisdom of it, you have got the gain of it; God has got something from your soul which He would not have had otherwise. Someone else might lean towards the world, worldly accomplishments or pastimes or whatever it might be; social contacts, that kind of thing which would be injurious to the soul. Those who are concerned and watch over our souls say, That is not the thing for you. It is a disappointment perhaps for a time, but it is all answered in an increasing knowledge of God and of the care that He takes of His own work, in order that it might be magnified and built up for His own glory.
So I read this scripture in Job. I do not suppose anyone here has any lingering doubts as to the authority and inspiration of the Bible as a whole. If anyone should have, and I can understand persons, thinking
persons as the mind develops, wondering a little on that line, I would say, Do you not think it is remarkable that in maybe the year 1977 B.C., Job, in describing the activities of a miner in his day, should be giving us food for our souls in 1977 A.D.? So that we can draw from this and see somewhat in detail without being fanciful, the ways in which God by His Spirit is searching the hearts and bringing the treasure to light. It says, “Surely there is a vein for the silver”. Well, surely there is. Do you know where it is? Perhaps the children learn about the silver mines in different parts of the world, the Argentine is so called because of the silver found there. Well, that is right, but there is a silver mine in Dundee; we have one in London, I know that because we live on it and many others live on it, or in, I do not know which is the word. There are persons, their households are controlled by the fact that we have been bought with a price—“ye have been bought with a price”—ye are not your own—“glorify now then God in your body”, 1 Corinthians 6: 20. That is where the silver mine is. So, “Surely there is a vein for the silver”. Every fifteen foot board in the tabernacle was in two sockets of silver, representing the rights of redemption. So that our attention is drawn to the fact that Christ in dying for us and shedding His blood has removed every liability that lay upon us, but it draws attention to the value of the person who is ransomed. Let it increase the value of ourselves and of one another because of the price that has been paid. It does not even say, You have been bought with a great price. I have often wondered about that. It says, “ye have been bought with a price”, but whatever the price was it has been paid, and it was paid in the blood of Jesus.
There is also a place where they refine gold. In connection with refining of gold, which I really know little about, I do believe that when they refine gold a lot of the things they have to take away from it are things that in themselves are quite nice and worth something. So you may think that there are things that are of value
naturally, but they have to be discarded because they belong to an old order of man to which Christ has died. Paul even said that he would not have the righteousness that was by the law, even if he could keep ten out of ten of the commandments he would not have that righteousness, because he said. It would not suit me; what I want, what I need is a righteousness which is of God, it is God’s righteousness which is by faith of Jesus Christ.
That is the gold being refined. All the nice things I may keep in the law they all have to be set aside as well as the evil things, the dross, in order that the gold might be refined. Through the word of the ministry and in many other ways God is refining the gold.
God takes iron out of the dust. Any schoolboy who has done an experiment with a magnet, and dragged it through the dust, will soon find the iron clinging to it. Remarkable thing, God is able to make a strength in our human frame made of dust, able to make the strength of iron, and it has been proved; persons whom you might think the weakest of persons, persons who might be under the extremes of pressure in their bodies. In their circumstances, they have had the power given to them by the Spirit, of iron. All those pieces of iron, they cling to the magnet, that is the secret of it. It is almost like the name of Jesus in this world, that what is of iron in character clings to His name; taken through the dust of the world for the testimony of the Christ. Where God has placed this iron it comes, as to a magnet, to the Person and the testimony of the Lord Jesus. Have you come? Are you like iron? “Iron is taken out of the dust, and copper is molten out of the stone”. You would hardly expect to get copper out of stone, but scripture says here that you can. Copper you will always connect of course with the copper or brazen altar; the measure of suffering. Read the history of the martyrs, you will find some of the most unlikely persons were ready to suffer death for the name of the Lord Jesus, and as we are often told it needs peculiar grace
to die a martyr. You also need peculiar grace to live a Christian, and to have one’s body laid upon the altar as we read of this afternoon, but that is how copper is molten out of the stone.
Then something has to be done in order to get these treasures out you see—“Man putteth an end to the darkness”. A miner would not get very far without a light; he might have a perfect map of the mine, all the workings and everything about it, but if he took that down the mine and no light, you would say, How stupid. The first thing is light. God has brought in light by His Spirit. When the Lord Jesus was here, of course, He was the light of the world; He brought in light here, and those who were of God came to the light. Those who were of darkness could not put the light out; the darkness apprehended it not, it could not take it captive or put it out, but those who were of God came to the light. The light is now shining, the truth of God is shining, the testimony of the Christ is among believers, and the light is shining to bring to light the treasure. He “putteth an end to the darkness”. Has He done that in your soul? You say, Well, I am often finding there are dark parts that I did not know. I quite believe that, but the great thought is that He makes an end to the darkness. Why should it not be a complete matter? Why should we settle for it and say there will always be some darkness in our hearts? He “exploreth to the utmost limit”, it says, “the stones of darkness and of the shadow of death”, so do not be surprised if in your circumstances, or if in the ministry, or in conversation, or in family reading, you find things that search, and search, and search, and bring the light of God to bear upon you. It is all in order that these precious things that God has placed there might come to light.
“He openeth a shaft far from the inhabitants of the earth”. You might think that God has forgotten all about you in your exercises; some have known what that is, “forgotten ... away below men they hover”. I
should think the man in Romans 7 would have fitted into this verse. If you read it there, it seems almost as if he is hanging there away below men, and there is nothing on which he can put his foot that is firm. Actually I suppose there was never really such a man in whom there was a total desire to do right, and a total inability to do it, but nevertheless the scripture is brought forward there, as often is the case in God’s work, in a very extreme form in order that we might readily take up the blessing. So you may find in your experience you might have depression, or you might feel that God had forgotten you, or you might feel that, Well, after all is it really the work of God in me? The enemy can lay hold of all that kind of thing. Take courage from my word this evening, that God is searching your heart. He sees it necessary to allow you to go through that experience, but He has opened the shaft; He knows what He is doing. It is opening His way to shine the light in order that the treasure might come to light.
He is not going to leave you because He is going to provide you with food on the way—out of the earth cometh bread. Thank God for that!
Why should Job suddenly go off in describing the work of a miner and say you get bread out of the earth, and it is very warm down there, as if God would bring in food and warmth; two of the great things that are needed to promote His work amongst the saints? These things are all available to us, and thank God for it. I have no doubt it is warm in the bosom of the earth.
I think this is just a reminder that in order that we might have these blessings it has meant that One has had to go to the heart of the earth, and we read that the Son of Man, that is the One who has come in on your behalf and mine, would be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. What that was we would not know! As we have sometimes said, man in his scientific ability has been two hundred and fifty thousand miles up to the moon and back again, but how far down has he been? One mile? One mile and a half? He cannot go far
down. I know that is physical, that is the old creation, but then Jesus has been to the heart of the earth. Why was that? That was all necessary; think of His going out of sight, and out of sight for a lengthened time. That means that all that is abhorrent to God in the old condition that He has had to judge, the old man as the Scripture speaks of it. He has judged it in its totality, and even though we still speak of bottoming things, perhaps we can never do so fully, but Jesus has. He has done so, and He has bottomed sin and sins in their totality. That is too much for us to understand, nevertheless it helps us to realise it.
“The stones of it are the place of sapphires, and it hath dust of gold”. Then there is a path for faith, “It is a path no bird of prey knoweth”. Are you in the path of faith? The vulture can see from I do not know how far up, further up than you can see the bird, it can see its prey. But eyesight of that kind will not make the path of faith for us. It is only in reliance upon God in faith, and upon the activities of the Holy Spirit. The strength of the lion is no good in the path of faith. We might have a strong disposition, or powers of concentration or whatever it might be, strong personality as they say, but that is in itself no good. The fierce lion is not able for anything of that kind, but all this is by the operations of the Spirit of God, and He will draw us into them. It is a path. Are you in the path or are you wandering? God would have you to be in the path of discerning what He is doing, what He is doing in your soul, and what He is doing in others.
So it goes on to say, “Man putteth forth his hand upon the flinty rock ... He cutteth out channels in the rocks, and his eye seeth every precious thing”. Think of God searching. “He bindeth the streams that they drip not”. There is the control by the Spirit. What do we know of the control of the Holy Spirit? The last of the nine varieties of fruit of the Spirit is self-control (Galatians 5: 22, 23), and that is by the Holy Spirit—
self-control—“He bindeth the streams that they drip not”. But “his eye seeth every precious thing”. Think of God’s eye looking into your heart and into mine, every one of us, young believers, old believers, finding all kinds of precious things; gold and silver, precious stones, all the things that have come from pressure; all those things He discovers, and it says, “what is hidden he bringeth forth to light”. I think that means that we are able to share amongst ourselves the knowledge of the life and enjoyment of what God is doing. We sometimes speak to one another about things that are comparatively trivial, but do we speak to one another about things that are more important, things that are very important in our daily lives?
Do we speak much to one another about the way in which God brings forth His treasures to light? May we do so more for the Lord’s name’s sake.
Address at Dundee, 29 October 1977
READINESS FOR DEPARTURE
N. T. Meek
Acts 20: 7; Deuteronomy 33: 22; Judges 16: 26
The scripture in Acts came to one’s mind where it speaks of Paul being “about to depart on the morrow”. There will be a day come when it will be our turn to depart. Whether it is to be with Christ or whether it is as caught up at the rapture, the time will come when we will depart, and I suppose the question is as to whether we are ready to depart. Elsewhere it speaks about “having got our effects ready” (Acts 21: 15), but the greater thing, of course, would be ourselves, not our baggage but ourselves, whether we are ready to depart or whether we have a few more things to see to. It is very blessed, dear brethren, that we are intended to be
light travellers. The assembly is a light traveller, it does not carry too much baggage that tends to be an encumbrance. How easy it is to get lumbered up with encumbrances in our lives. You have to mow the lawn; and perhaps there is something more important still to do and you find yourself tied. I suppose the Lord would teach us to amass as little as possible and to be prepared to leave it. Sooner or later we will have to leave it, but it is a great thing to arrange our circumstances as far as we can so that we are ready.
It has been said the assembly is on call twenty-four hours a day. I suppose that is true, but that requires that the personnel are free. One of the great features of the world system is that it tends to hold us, pin us down, whereas it is intended we should be free. I hope I am not being impractical in this. I can just see that it is easy to become encumbered. It says there that Paul was “about to depart on the morrow. And he prolonged the discourse”. How welcome it would be if somebody had left a copy. We have not a copy of what he said, what the discourse was about. I just say for the sake of the younger ones, there is a dispensational aspect here, “having long spoken”, it says. The aspect is that that has marked the end of the dispensation especially, the brethren being together and speaking together. It is not anything official but being just together in liberty and being ready to depart. I suppose that all of us agree that it is difficult to be clear of much. We work too near the margin, give ourselves not enough time to get to the meeting so we are late. The assembly and the assembling of the saints together is intended to be in order. I do not know what the time-keeping is like here, I have not enquired, but generally it tends to slip back, and perhaps it is because we carry around too much.
Then I suppose there would be a way in which this scripture could be applied in relation to the rapture. Very soon now and we are about to depart; happy when
that is the case, when we are free. It is like leaving work. It says of the disciples, “having been let go, they came to their own company”, Acts 4: 23. I often think of that as like a piece of elastic when it is stretched. We used to play, with these things when we were children, a good piece of elastic and a cork, and we would pull the elastic and let the cork fly. Well that is not a bad thing when you close, put the shutters up at the end of the working day, or the factory hooter goes for your release, you make for home and then for the prayer meeting.
“Having been let go they came to their own company”, they had no doubt what direction to take, their lives were purposeful. Would that we knew more about life that is purposeful and that is orientated in the way that God would have it. It is for us to discover how to do that, the Lord would help us in it.
We read about a young man named Dan in Deuteronomy. He is spoken of earlier in Genesis, and there it says something not too good about him; it says,
“Dan will be a serpent on the way,
A horned snake on the path,
Which biteth the horse’s heels,
So that the rider falleth backwards”, Genesis 49: 17
What a character of person to be! That was what Dan was once, that is part of his history. We all have a history that is not creditable, there is always that side that things have entered into our histories which are not to our credit. It is never intended we should gloss over things, we should acknowledge them, that side to our history. “Which biteth the horse’s heels”, I suppose it is like the brethren making a little progress in the reading, and this difficult brother bites the horse’s heels so they fall backward. I think this is actually referring to a particular snake that lies in the ruts made by the cartwheels, and the unsuspecting driver drives the cart along and the snake bites the horse’s legs, and the result is an upset, “the rider falleth backwards”. It is a kind of underhand thing to do, and that is not an unknown thing. The older brethren in their long histories could no doubt
remember persons who characteristically were uncooperative. I would not like to be one of those, would you? I am sure we would all credit each other that we do not really want to be like that, to be that kind of person that is always upsetting things.
But he evidently got help. Of course it is the tribe that is referred to, but morally he continues in this scripture in the end of Deuteronomy where it speaks of him in a different fashion, here he is a young lion. Some of David’s men were like that, they were lion-like. When something vital was at stake they were like lions, they did not give way. It says,
“Dan is a young lion;
He shall spring forth from Bashan”
Why was he in Bashan? He must have got inveigled into it. It is no place for a believer according to the psalm, it is where the Lord’s enemies roam around. “Bashan’s strong ones have beset me round”, the Lord said prophetically (see Psalm 22: 12), but here Dan springs forth from Bashan, it is a fine thing to see persons spring out of whatever is holding them, especially bad company or whatever it might be. Young persons go through a period in their lives when they are in danger of bad company, and we need to get away, as it says, “spring forth from Bashan”. What a fine thing to see that, to see someone coming out to the meeting a little more regularly—it is that kind of thing; he sprang forth from Bashan, he got clear, he is coming home earlier for his tea and for the meeting, he is springing forth, he is arranging his circumstances.
Now the brethren will be sympathetic with you if you have problems; but let us not always be a problem, let us aim to be a source of encouragement, be a cheer, a consolation to the saints.
Paul speaks in one of his epistles about some “who have been a consolation to me”, Colossians 4: 11. What a privilege to be a consolation in our locality! The brethren are glad to see you and to have you without partiality, equally glad with anybody
else. The world makes its bid to hold us and to keep us, but this young man, he got free, he got clear. The brethren would know his history, the elders would remember his history; they would not talk about it in a negative way, but somebody comes and visits the locality and says. How is So-and-so getting on? Oh fine! He is getting on fine, he has sprung forth from Bashan, his energy now is evident, you are always glad to see him, you are always glad to hear his question; and it would be the same for a young sister too.
It is not so easy to speak to young sisters as they do not take part audibly. I would encourage them then to take part quietly. Let the meeting claim your attention. As we come together, how easy it must be, dear sisters, for your mind to wander, to think of legitimate things, but try to let the meeting claim your attention and hold you. You will find that you have a current link. How it works may be somewhat in mystery, but it does work; the spirit that is in a brother is the same kind of spirit that is in a sister, and something can run along that channel.
Sisters can influence the meeting, I am sure they can, for good or ill. But here is this man, and the brethren are speaking well of him now; and you do not know, young people, how much the brethren watch over you, and how much they pray for you, and what you mean to them; you do not know. You have to wait to be old before you will know; but I will tell you this, that they do follow your movements with interest, not just with curiosity but with interest. I wonder how often your name is mentioned in heaven. How often at the prayer meeting does your name sound out in heaven. A brother said that to me once, and it is a very searching thing that my name should ever be mentioned in heaven. You say, the brethren pray down here in the meeting room. Yes, but heaven takes account of it. “I will hear, saith Jehovah, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth”, they hear the prayers and ‘amens’ down here (see Hosea 2: 21, 22).
I just thought to speak about Samson in this third scripture. We know his history, what a sorrowful history it was, but we also know that in spite of the most humiliating circumstances, what was, of real life began to show itself. It says his hair began to grow (Judges 16: 22). Maybe no one noticed it. I suppose the Philistines did not notice it, but God saw it. That was a sign, that was an evidence that something was happening, there was something vital, there was some real life there, “the hair of his head began to grow “. Now here he is in outwardly most sorrowful circumstances; but he says to this lad, “Let loose of me”. The Philistine system would go along with the system of Egypt. I suppose the Philistine system is more intellectual, there were giants among them. That, too, became a power of hindrance for Israel. It is the world in that mental character. Here is this brother in these circumstances.
He had once been mighty. As they looked back on his history they may have recounted his might, how he tore up the gates and carried them to the top of the mountain before Hebron, Judges 16: 3. What feats he had accomplished! I speak not only to the young but I speak to myself and older ones, that there is always room for recovery for us. I suppose he represents that. He says to the lad, “Let loose of me”; he is really addressing the world in doing that,
“Let loose of me”. The world puts in its claim upon believers; you have to counter it by saying, “Let loose of me”. I think it is the instinctive reaction of a true soul, you must get clear of every other influence and know the influence of Christ. Exercises have come up from time to time as to associations, that is the kind of thing to say in relation to them, “Let loose of me”, I want to be clear.
Remarkably, it may be a miracle when you think of it, I suppose the lad guided his hands to those pillars. You do not know how the Lord might come in for you, you do not know what route He will take, it may be most unexpected, maybe most singular. These things are in
the experience of believers, and the world system was broken. You say, Samson died too.
Yes, he did, but the teaching is that the system was broken. So it is not a bad prayer, if you are encumbered with business over much, or whether you are tied in your hours too much, to say this prayer, “Let loose of me”. You want to be free for God’s service, and you want to be free for the support of His testimony, do you not? I am sure you do. I have no doubt, especially at times like this when we are in happy relations together, we should be able to touch the best in one another. If there is anybody here who is in an entanglement of any kind, learn to say this, ‘Let loose of me”.
May the Lord help us in these simple things, dear brethren. The time must be getting near for all of us. We say, well that has been said many times. Yes, but it must be getting nearer, must it not? And for some of us it may be very near. May the Lord help us to be ready when He comes, and not only when He comes to take us away, but when He comes to listen at the reading, when He comes to listen at the meeting for ministry and the prayer meeting, especially when He comes at the Supper, as He may take us away. Paul was ready, ready to go. May we too be ready, for the Lord’s name’s sake.
Address at Vancouver, 5 September 1992
EXTRACTS
The question is constantly being raised as to young people, what are we going to do with them? Give them the best thing you have; they are worthy of the best. They brought little children to the Lord that He might lay His hands on them and pray. You may say, ‘Why did they not bring those little ones to Peter or John, they could have understood Peter and John better than the
Lord’? But they brought them to Jesus. The very best that heaven could give them was there, and those who brought these children knew it, so they did not go to any one inferior, they brought them to the Lord, and it was that He might lay His hands on them and pray. Think of the Lord interceding for the little ones! Could I expect the Lord to pray that they might become more accomplished in earthly pursuits? No, He would not pray for them in that relation. He would pray for them to be delivered from that. He laid His hands on them, and blessed them, and departed, thence. What did He depart to do? To die for them. He has gone into heaven for them, and He gives heaven’s best gift to them—the Holy Spirit. What the Holy Spirit has brought into the world is the best, and it is not too good for them. It is a question of wisdom, how to bring it to them, but be sure of this, they are worthy of the best, and they understand more than we give them credit for sometimes.
J. Taylor (Vol. 36, pp.302, 303)
We must begin with Christ. If I do not come from Him in heaven, I am not qualified to maintain suitably for Him here. It is by His power only, and as I am consciously in heavenly places in Him that I can keep the unity of the Spirit. The church cannot be my object but as Christ is my object. Hence I must be in spirit where He is, and learn Him there, before I can be here for Him according to His mind, or before I can make His interest—the church—my interest. According as I am His friend He will instruct me as to His interests here; and the saints, the first circle of His interest, must be the paramount circle to me.
J. B. Stoney (Vol. 11, p.178)
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