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THE DEPOSITORY

R.D.Plant

2 Timothy 1: 12-14; Psalm 132: 1-6; Exodus 3: 1-8 (to "Egyptians");

It may seem from the first scripture that was read in Timothy that I would like to speak about the deposit and that is so, but really I would like to say something also about the depository. You will notice that in the section of the scripture that I read Paul speaks about the deposit twice; in verse 12 he says, "able to keep for that day the deposit I have entrusted to him", and in verse 14, "Keep ... the good deposit entrusted". We will never be able to know anything, beloved, about the second deposit unless we know about the first. Paul is an old man here; soon, as he says later in the book, he is going to die. He speaks here in feeling language - I am sure we have all been affected by it - in a day when everything had started to break down publicly. He says, "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep for that day the deposit I have entrusted to him". We will never know about the other deposit, beloved, unless we know about the first. Paul was an old man and he had never had cause to regret what he had given to Christ. It is a great day for deposits and deposit accounts, and there are enough bankers amongst us; all the different kinds of interest that are offered you, higher deposit accounts, special long term accounts, all with more and more offered, beloved, but there will never be a greater return than on the deposit you entrust to Christ, never. Paul had committed to Him not his money, not anything that related to finances, but he had committed his soul to Him. There are persons in this room - the most anyway, perhaps all - who have committed their soul, their life to Him. As the hymn says, 'My heart, my strength, my life, my all' (No.187) have been committed to Jesus.

I like to bring in the gospel, because we all need it, especially in these days, and Paul was one who loved the gospel, he loved Christ. This is a day in which men are anxious about what the future will hold; anxious about the great nations, the armaments and all these kind of things; persons take out insurances, seek to have assurance about the future. The greatest assurance is to put your faith, your trust, your confidence, and your heart and your life with Jesus. He will never let you go; that is the gospel. He will take you, and me, persons in whom sin has wrought in our own will; in all the grace of the gospel day He will take you on. His precious work at Calvary is so great, He can take on any one in this room, any one in this city, who puts their trust in Him and He will never let you down. Go through the Scriptures and you will find persons who put their trust in Him. You may not feel able for very much, but Jacob was like that when God appeared to him, and spoke to him, (see Gen 28). He said he was going to give him everything, was going to bless him and keep him for ever. What a wonderful committal it was and yet Jacob was not ready for it. He says, if you will be with me and keep me, feed me and clothe me and bring me back to my father's house in peace, I will give you a tenth of what I have. You may say, that was pretty poor, but I believe God accepted the deposit. O, if you have anything to deposit with Christ give it Him today. If there is anything in your life, anything you can give to Him, any thought of your heart, any consideration, any love, any belief, give it to Jesus; you will never regret it. At the end of Jacob's long life the Scripture shows us that his deposit was very worthwhile.

Jonathan was another who saw David, typical of Christ, as he took on the Philistine, Goliath, down in the valley of Elah and it says he loved him as his own soul. It is the effect the gospel has. God opens your heart to allow you to see beauty and attractiveness in Christ, and Jonathan saw David there, able to take on what he was not able to take on himself. It says he stripped himself of his robe and his dress, his sword and his girdle and gave it to David. It is typical of a believer coming to Christ. Ah, but some one will say, as has often been said, he did not give him his shoes; thank God for what he did give him. That is the gospel, beloved. What a wonderful gospel it is, for later in his life Jonathan falls away in his attachment to David. He stays with his father, Saul, and leaves David rejected upon the mountains, but before he left he asked David to show kindness to his house should he die, and David never forgot (see 1 Sam 20: 15). Later when Jonathan was dead, he says, Is there any left of the household of Saul that I might show the kindness of God to him? You will never, never regret what you give to Christ, never. Paul said, I am "persuaded that he is able to keep for that day the deposit". I do not know where you are going to put your trust in this day in which we are, for there is nothing here reliable - beloved friend, beloved young friend, the only thing that is stable and reliable is Jesus, and He is for you. So David says as to Jonathan's family, Is there any left of the household of Saul that I might show the kindness of God to him. O, what a lovely Saviour we have; He will never forget you nor anything you may commit to him and you will never regret it. So Paul says, "the deposit I have entrusted to him".

Then he speaks about another deposit, "Keep, by the Holy Spirit which dwells in us the good deposit entrusted" (v 14). If there is to be that in the glad tidings presented where we can put things which belong to us with Christ it is a very wonderful thing also that the Lord Jesus has something down here and He wants you to be a depositary of it. He says, "Keep, by the Holy Spirit which dwells in us, the good deposit entrusted". Paul was going off the scene. He was not a man like Hezekiah who only thought about his own lifetime, you know, he was a man who was looking to the future; as long as the Lord Jesus would leave His people here on earth, Paul was looking on to it. God had to say to Hezekiah you may recall, that because of his unfaithfulness, all would be carried away to Babylon, but it was not to be in his lifetime. Hezekiah says "Good is the word of Jehovah ... there shall be peace in my days" (Isaiah 39: 3-8) that is it will be all right in my lifetime. But Paul was looking on to the end of the day, taking that long look that our brother referred to, and he says keep the deposit. Now what is the deposit that he is speaking about? I think it is something on the line of what we were speaking about. It is not just the Scriptures, precious as they are; it is not just the truth that has come to us in the ministry, precious as that is, and important as it is. I believe it is what there is in the hearts and souls of men and women of the way in which God has made Himself known in these days in which outwardly Christ is rejected. It has been cherished and treasured and kept and carried from generation to generation. Paul was concerned that it might be carried through; he says you will need another power to do it. It is the power that we were speaking of in the reading, the Holy Spirit, "Keep, by the Holy Spirit ... the good deposit entrusted". There is no one here with power sufficient to hold the precious things of God in their own strength; we need to see that there is a power that God supplies, the power of the Holy Spirit; but Paul says, Keep it. He says, "all who are in Asia ... have turned away from me". It is a day of turning away, beloved, it is a day when persons may be contented enough, to accept what Christ would hold for them against eternity, but the many are careless as to the holding of divine things here. Think of God trusting men with something as precious as the deposit. When Jesus was here He held everything for God, here in lowliness yet carrying in His heart and His life every precious thought of God and carrying it through without any of it ever being lost.

I read these scriptures because I am concerned about the depository. Where is it He is going to entrust it? The Psalm refers to David and he is speaking about the ark, which speaks to us of Christ, Christ here in testimony. David says in this Psalm "we heard of it at Ephratah, we found it in the fields of the wood". He would have heard about the ark; heard about the divine prescriptions in Exodus which gave its size, and its pattern. It was a chest, not very large yet covered in gold, and the top of it, the lid of the ark was the mercy-seat made entirely of gold. The mercy-seat becomes the throne of God, it is where God said he would meet with Moses and speak with him (Exodus 25: 22). David would have heard about all these things when he was a boy; he would have heard about when the children of Israel went through the wilderness from Egypt and across the Jordan into the promised land, and the ark of God at the centre of the glorious system that was to go, treasured in their midst. He would have heard how the ark when they first set out on their journeys, instead of travelling in the midst of the camp went out before them, as it says, "in the three days' journey to search out a resting place for them", (Num 10: 33). He would have heard about these things when he was a boy and how the nations were afraid of Israel because of the way that God was amongst them. I would like to apply it to each of us for we have heard of the Lord Jesus since we were children, heard about His boyhood, His manhood and we have heard about His precious death; heard the truth as to the One who took upon Himself and discharged before a holy God all that belonged to me, my sin and my state. But then David says, "we found it in the fields of the wood". Where did he find it, beloved? In a totally unsuitable place. The latter history of the ark of God shows how little right care there was for it. When they came into the land it was at Shiloh, and Eli, the official priest of that day, had so little sensitivity for the ark of God, that he allowed the young Samuel to sleep in the place where it was. We read about the way it was taken and captured by the Philistines through the unfaithfulness of Eli's house. David describes it in his Psalm, "And gave his strength into captivity, and his glory into the hand of the oppressor" (Ps 78: 61); that was the ark. And David found it in the house of Abinadab on the hill where it had been for well over forty years, uncared for, neglected, just like the testimony of Jesus is today, beloved. The word of the glad tidings, the truth of God come down in Christ to meet man in his lost condition, comes to us today and to all men. Is He not worthy of the best? Yet where do you find Him publicly today? In the established churches men seem to be more intent upon their own things and their own interpretation of the things of God, accommodating what is of God to their own will and opinion; you read of the synod of the Church of England meeting together and discussing what is the consensus opinion on the virgin birth of Christ. Is there to be a vote upon such a precious truth, beloved? O, think of the place that publicly the ark of God is given! The church of Rome and many other places - thank God for the true believers that are in them, but as to the systems they are heartless to Christ. He becomes an incidental in their worship; and as to brethrenism, what has it been, beloved? There was a time when the ark of God was stood at the side of the idol Dagon, idolatry; there has been a time even among us, beloved, when we have allowed idolatry to stand alongside Christ. Think of His feelings! Where is the depositary to be? In the great churches of London or Birmingham? No - the depository of the precious truth of Jesus is to be in the hearts of His people, where He is truly loved and known and appreciated. David says, "we found it". What is it like in your meeting, beloved, His dwelling? Is it the place where He is loved, where His name is honoured, where His truth is known and spoken of, appreciated, a place where He is the centre, or do sometimes our local meetings, the gatherings of the people of God, sometimes fall from the level of what is proper to Christ? The depository involves that men like David, and men and women like you and me, should say, I will not rest until I have made it better. Beloved, might we make it better in our places. You will not make it better as long as you are only thinking of things as a system, as something that fits into your pattern of life; you will only be exercised to make it better as you get a real appreciation of Jesus. Heaven has accorded Him everything, beloved. The Scripture says, "Whom heaven indeed must receive till the times of the restoring of all things" (Acts 3: 21). God has given all to Jesus, the hymn-writer says, All shall prosper in His hand. Every agency, every gate of heaven has been opened to receive Him, the Saviour, the King of kings, mighty in battle. Soon the heavens are to open and the Lord Jesus will come - hope of the believer's heart! Would that He was more in my heart and yours, so we might say, like David here, I will not sleep until I have made the place of His rest better here. Let us not be content, beloved, with anything less. Let us see to it that in our life time at least, we have committed ourselves to improving the place of the ark amongst us. It is in persons like that, I believe, that the good deposit is to be kept. May we not rest until there is an improvement, we may say, for Him in the place where He dwells.

As to Exodus, I think the stress there is on the people of God, "And Moses tended the flock of Jethro his father-in-law". We have been taught that the in-law position is a right one; it is legal, in a right sense, but it is not necessarily affectionate! You know, beloved, God does not want His truth held by persons only in a legal way but by those who hold it affectionately. The position you take up as a lover of Jesus is given in the Scriptures; you take up a position here. 2 Timothy shows you that there is confusion in the public church, and to find your way through it, it says, you gather with those who call upon the name of the Lord out of a pure heart (chap. 2: 22). That would be right, it would be legal in that sense, but we are to be not only in that position but in it affectionately. Moses had been brought up as the son of Pharaoh's daughter; but God's work was there in his heart, and one day, he saw one of the overseers of Egypt smiting one of his brethren and he smote him back; there was something that answered to God's work in his heart. As a result of his indiscretion he has to flee from Egypt, and he spends all these years keeping the flock of Jethro; he married his daughter and he looked after his sheep, that was his job. He was contented, brought up in the court of Pharaoh, in the area of the greatest things in man's world, he had seen man's glory in its full in Pharaoh's palace, yet he was content to keep the sheep of Jethro in the backside of the desert. What had happened? Hebrews says, he chose "rather to suffer affliction along with the people of God than to have the temporary pleasure of sin", (chap 11: 25), and God was going to have him as a depository for his thoughts about his people. One of the things I believe that is included in the deposit that is entrusted is the people of God. I do not see how you can hold the truth, or presume to hold the truth, if you have no care or regard for the people of God. John, writing in his epistle, would measure your professed love for Christ by how you love those who love Him and serve Him. It is a great test for us, beloved. But Moses here was serving his father-in-law, and one day, he saw in the desert a flame of fire out of the midst of a thorn-bush, and he stopped and turned aside to see it. It may be that some one, perhaps out of these scattered thoughts, might stop, perhaps a young person might stop today and turn aside to see what God would have you see. It would not be a rare sight in the desert to see a thorn-bush on fire, but never before a thorn-bush that was burning and yet not being consumed. Jehovah spoke to Moses out of the middle of the thorn-bush, and it gave him an impression of the way that God was amongst His people. Moses never forgot it, God was changing him from the in-law position to the affectionate position; he never forgot what God had given him in this experience of the value to him of the people of God, he never forgot it. You can trace it all the way through his history. You will find how he stood there and supported the children of God, how he helped them, how he interceded with God for them, even at one point where God said he would cut them off, it says, "had not Moses his chosen stood in the breach", Psalm 106: 23. The record shows he was prepared to be cut off rather than the people of God, and blotted out of God's book, see Exod 32: 32. I would like especially some younger ones here to turn aside in their thoughts and hearts at the present time. If there has been any movement of heart in the way we have spoken together about these things today, would that someone will stop and turn aside. God will notice it. He did here, He will see some one who turns aside from the ordinariness of mere meetinggoing to really see what God is doing here? He spoke to Moses out of the midst of the thornbush. He will speak to you, He will entrust to you such an impression of what He is doing amongst the saints, and what He is doing down here in the testimony that I think will make its mark on you for the rest of your life, and you will never forget it.

Lastly in Acts. I come to Paul; what a man he was - naturally one of the best of his day; highly educated, and with everything in the Jewish world open to him and yet here in chains before Agrippa he says, "I saw, O king, a light above the brightness of the sun", greater than anything the world had shone upon him, what a change in a man. Have you ever read the writings of Paul? You cannot fail but be stirred by the writings of the man. He had gone to Athens, and it says he was painfully excited in his spirit at seeing the idolatry that was there, the indifference of this world of learning; yet there was a shrine to the unknown God - he says, I will announce Him to you, he had found out about Him; God that he had heard about but did not know until Jesus made Himself known to him on the Damascus road. Paul becomes a lover of Christ and here because of it he stands in the midst of this august audience, cynics, monarchs, governors, there they all were in all their finery, and in the middle is a man who stands and as we were saying in the reading, out of his belly was flowing rivers of living water. Such was the power of the flow that even King Agrippa says, You almost persuade me to become a Christian. What an answer, "I would to God, both in little and in much that not only thou but all who have heard me this day should become such as I am, except these bonds". The power of the Spirit of God in Paul, one who uniquely by the Spirit of God had held things for God here, and had kept the deposit, the truth as to Christ and the assembly.

May we be encouraged, beloved, to become depositories, not just in title, not just in name, but in spirit and in heart, and may the rivers, the rivers of living water flow more from us, so that what is continued is continued in the power of the Holy Spirit for His Name's sake.

LONDON

15 February 1986

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