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PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD

John Bellamy

This morning in the room where I was we sang a hymn at the end of the meeting:

Thine own Son, the joy of heaven,

In Thy bosom dwells (Hymn 377)

and it occurred to me, dear friends, that that is what God is seeking to arrive at with each one of us in His glad tidings, that what He finds His joy in, we might find our joy in and as the One who fills the heart of the blessed God in His bosom, that that blessed Man might find a place in the affections of each one of us. With that in mind I refer to these three scriptures in Luke’s gospel. Luke alone of the gospel writers gives us this first passage that we read and then throughout his gospel he proceeds to give us examples in men and women of the very ones that the Lord Jesus was speaking about here, those that are “poor”. He preached “to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord”. We have not time this afternoon to read all the examples that Luke gives us but he gives us these two that we have read. You may wonder why we are speaking of persons that are “poor” and “captives deliverance” and “the crushed delivered” and “the blind”. There may be those here this afternoon that think that they are not among such. Well, let me say this to you: the region in which the Lord Jesus is working is that very region and it is necessary that you and I find our place among these if we are going to come into the gain of what the Lord Jesus has in mind in the glad tidings. You say, Well, I am not poor. There was a man in Luke 7 that thought he was not poor. I suppose he really prided himself in what he had in the way of material possessions. His name was Simon. But the Lord Jesus says to him, “Simon, I have somewhat to say to thee. …There were two debtors of a certain creditor: one owed five hundred denarii and the other fifty; but as they had nothing to pay, he forgave both of them their debt” (vv. 40-42). You see, Simon had to put himself in the place of being a debtor and not having anything to pay if he was going to come into the gain of what the Lord Jesus had in mind for him. Psalm 49 tells us something similar: “None can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him, For the redemption of their soul is costly, and must be given up for ever” (vv. 7,8). You and I, dear friends, have to find our place as really bankrupt, having “nothing to pay”. There is nothing we can contribute to God for our own salvation, nor for that of our brother, but there is One, let me tell you, who is the Redeemer. He is here in the section we read and He has the resources with which to meet that need. The scripture in Corinthians tell us that: “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sakes he, being rich, became poor, in order that ye by his poverty might be enriched”, 2 Cor. 8: 9. How wonderful that is! The hymn tells us that:

He who was rich in glory

Came down to earth below

In love, O wondrous story! (Hymn 246).

What a story the glad tidings is, God finding us here without the resources or means to do anything for ourselves, but the Lord Jesus has come to preach to the poor – “glad tidings to the poor”!

And then He says that He has come “to preach to captives deliverance” and that brings us to the first scripture that we read in chapter 13. This poor woman had been a captive for eighteen years, we are told. The Lord Jesus tells them that Satan had bound her for eighteen years. Well, the Lord Jesus has come “to preach to captives deliverance” and so He calls to her. It does not say that she sought Him out. It says that “Jesus, seeing her, called to her, and said to her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity”. Well, the Lord Jesus is looking around this room this afternoon. He is looking for persons in need of help and blessing and, in His grace, He calls to us. It says, “seeing her, called to her, and said to her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity”. The Lord Jesus is preaching “to captives deliverance” this afternoon. Then it says, “And he laid his hands upon her; and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God”. You see, dear friend, as we come into touch with the Lord Jesus in a living vital way, what a transformation, what a change takes place! Here this poor woman had been in the synagogue and the synagogue could not do anything for her. Eighteen years like that and she comes into the presence of the Lord Jesus and in a moment of time He calls to her, “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity”! Well, you may say, I am not a captive. I am not bound. It reminds me of something our brother Mr Gill told us once, that he was speaking to a man about his links with God and the man said to him, Oh, I am not interested in becoming a Christian. He said, Christians are all in bondage. He said, they cannot do this and they cannot do that. I do not want any part of that. Mr Gill said to him, has it never occurred to you that God in the glad tidings so affects the hearts of believers that they have no desire to do the things that you are speaking of? And he said, what is that in your hand? The man said, that is a cigarette. Mr Gill said, so have you ever tried to give up smoking? Oh, yes, he said, but I cannot give it up. Mr Gill said to him, who is in bondage? These things the enemy uses to captivate us. Young people in this world largely sport is their idol. They are attracted to it, pleasure, other things, some things no damage perhaps in themselves. A lot of people spend their lives up on the mountains in our part of the world but it becomes an idol, inoffensive in itself, but Satan uses these things to hold us from coming into the wondrous blessing of having to do with God and the knowledge of His grace and of His love. Both Paul and Peter touch on this. Paul says, I think it is in Romans chapter 6, “Know ye not …ye are bondmen to him whom ye obey” (v.16). Well, what are you obeying? Are you obeying God? Are you obeying Satan and his world? Peter tells us too in his second epistle. He puts it a little differently but nevertheless it has a similar bearing. He says in chapter 2 of the second epistle: “for by whom a man is subdued, by him is he also brought into slavery” (v.19). Well, men in the world around us, men and women, do not realise it but they are slaves to sin and the Lord Jesus has come to bring in deliverance, “to captives deliverance”.

Oh, what a transformation, what a change took place in this woman. It says “and immediately she was made straight”. Being straight, I think, suggests righteousness. She is made righteous, “made straight, and glorified God”. Indeed she is qualified immediately to have her name written in the book of Jasher. You say, what is that? Well, God has a book. He keeps books and one of them is the book of Jasher and what it means is the book ‘of the upright’ (see note ‘b’ to Joshua 10: 13). And this woman was made upright; she was qualified to have her name in the book of Jasher. And that means one other thing, something else. It means that she became a lover of Jesus. Mr Taylor wrote a tract – a brother reminded us of it in our meetings a couple of years ago – and the tract said the upright love Jesus. This woman was made upright and she became a lover of Jesus. Are you a lover of Jesus this afternoon? I trust you are. I trust there is none here who is not a lover of Jesus because let me assure you, dear friend, there is no place in heaven for a person who is not a lover of Jesus. Heaven will be filled with lovers of Jesus and God has in mind in His glad tidings that you and I might become lovers of Jesus. How wonderful that is! Well, the grace of the Lord Jesus comes out into this. He says to them, “And this woman … whom Satan has bound, lo, these eighteen years, ought she not to be loosed from this bond …?” How many, alas, poor creatures, poor souls, are bound in this world! They are all around us. You see it and your heart goes out to them.

Then we read of another man. This man was a blind man and we often speak of him because it is beautiful the effect, the transformation, that came in as the result of coming into touch with Jesus. So the Lord Jesus preached “to the blind sight” so He knows all about this man. He knew he was there. Indeed, it may be that that had something to do with Him going this way, a certain neighbourhood of Jericho. Preached “to the blind sight”! Well, you say, I am not blind. Are you not blind? Isaiah tells us in chapter 53 – I will read the passage; it is well known but I just want you to see that what we are saying is based on the authority of scripture. It says in chapter 53, “For he shall grow up before him” (v.2) – that is speaking of the Lord Jesus growing up before God’s eye – “as a tender sapling, and as a root out of dry ground: he hath no form nor lordliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him”. Are you among those that do not see any beauty in the Lord Jesus? I think we have all found ourselves there at one time but through the operations of divine grace we have come to see attractiveness and beauty in Jesus and God has in mind in this meeting this afternoon that everyone in this room should come to see beauty and attractiveness in Jesus.

This man was blind. He knew he was blind because the Lord Jesus said when He came to him, “What wilt thou that I shall do to thee? And he said, Lord” – He said “Lord” to Jesus. Have you ever said “Lord” to Jesus? This man was well on his way to blessing. He knew something about Him. I do not know where he had heard of Jesus, but he had, and you have heard about Jesus. You have been at the gospel preachings week after week and you hear about Jesus but have you ever come to have a living link by faith with that blessed Man? First of all he calls him, “Jesus, Son of David” and then he says, “Son of David, have mercy on me”. The Lord loves to hear such a cry. He loves to answer such a cry. His ear is attuned. There was never a cry such as this that went unheeded by the Lord Jesus. Let me tell you, dear friend, whatever the need may be as you cry out to Him, the Lord Jesus, just as sure as I am standing here, will answer your cry. “And when he drew nigh he asked him saying, What wilt thou that I shall do to thee? And he said, Lord, that I may see. And Jesus said to him, See: thy faith has healed thee”. Then look at this again: “And immediately he saw, and followed him, glorifying God”.

Well, the woman we read of, “she was made straight, and glorified God”. This man follows Jesus and glorifies God, and Luke would help us in that. His gospel preaching has in mind that persons might be secured in view of God being glorified, that there might be a result not only in blessing for the persons involved, but they may be secured in relation to a world that is for the pleasure of God, and that you might be numbered among them, that you might glorify God. I read somewhere that the woman really represents Lydia in the Philippian epistle and the man here represents the jailor in Philippi. The two together were the seed plot of the assembly in that locality, and that is what God is interested in, that persons not only might be blest but they might come to have a living part in His assembly, and that is what is in mind, that is what Luke has in mind, that there might be a result from the preaching of the glad tidings, of this character. Very fine!

You found yourself in the company of such this morning. How wonderful it was, your soul, your spirit caught up, out of this material order of things altogether. It did not even come into your thoughts, engaged with that wonderful world that God has secured for His pleasure. Are you enjoying that, dear friends, young persons? We appeal to you! We long for you to have a part in it and to be enjoying it with us! I know on a practical level, dear young people, that our localities are very small and it might give rise to feelings of disappointment. I heard one person express one day that the smallness of our gatherings was pathetic. Outwardly that may be so. That doubtless is man’s view. If they saw our little gathering in Vancouver, half a dozen people there, of no account in the world at all. We pass a church on the way to our meeting-room, fifteen hundred people there on a Lord’s Day morning, great in the eyes of many. But let me tell you this, what God is working out in the company of the saints is infinitely precious under His eye and He wants it to become precious to you and me. Do not allow the smallness of things to discourage you or dissuade you!

I want to tell you a story briefly about Mr D’Arcy Champney. He was attending theological college in Cambridge, England, and he was boarding in the home of an old sister. One day he said to her – and this is to her credit – I would like to come to your meeting. And she thought, well, we are only just such a few and there is that brother there that is illiterate and has trouble expressing himself, how can I invite this gentleman who is going to Cambridge to the meeting? And he said, No, I want to come to your meeting. And he came and this old brother got up and prayed and afterwards Mr Champney said to his landlady, who was that gentleman that prayed? And she said, that is Mr So-and-so, and he went over to this old man and Mr Champney said to him, how do you do it? How do you do it? Here is a man in the joy of speaking to God and Mr Champney sensed there was something there that he wanted. The old man said to him, When I comes ‘ere, I leaves myself outside. That is all he said to Mr Champney, but that spoke more to Mr Champney than he would have ever found in any theological college. He came into fellowship and served effectively amongst us for many years. If you search your hymnbook, you will find there are 11 or 12 hymns of his much used by us and that old man was used for his blessing. Do not despise the smallness of things! Indeed, the first chapter in 1 Corinthians tells us that, that God has chosen certain things. We need to remember this. It says, “For consider your calling, brethren, that there are not many wise according to flesh, not many powerful, not many high-born. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world, that he may put to shame the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world, that he may put to shame the strong things; and the ignoble things of the world, and the despised, has God chosen” (vv. 26–28). I think we need to be encouraged to think of what is of value under God’s eye. What we have been speaking of together these last three days, beloved, is of infinite value and precious under God’s eye, of no account to the world around, but let us get our eye off the material world of sight and sense for all these things are just going to go. They are not abiding, but what God is working out in the souls of His people is going right through, beyond death, to fill eternity, God’s presence eternally.

Well, I speak these words, beloved young people, for your encouragement, that you go on because there is infinite blessing to be found as you continue faithfully amongst the saints. That is the area of salvation for you, the area of salvation for me. Wonderful area that God has a company of persons here on earth in which I am safe and preserved because I am not exposed to all that is going on outside that naturally, as in the flesh, appeals to my heart. God has sent these things. What a provision! God had waited for four thousand years for this day when the Lord Jesus says, “To-day this scripture is fulfilled in your ears”. It says too “and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon him”. Let me tell you too that the eye of heaven was fixed upon Him! God had waited four thousand years or longer for this moment when He had a man here on earth. I think in one of the earlier meetings here our brother Mr McKillop spoke about a Man here in consonance with God in heaven, and that is what it necessitated, that is what God awaited. Before He could open the floodgates of His grace, He had to have a Man here that answered perfectly to what was in Himself. That is what He was waiting for. We sang at the beginning:

O God, Thy grace no limit knows.

God was waiting all those years to pour out His grace in the glad tidings, the gospel, to men. We also sang:

Jesus, the Lord, our ransom paid

In matchless, condescending grace!

Came to the world His hands had made,

And stooped to take the sinner’s place (Hymn 407)

What grace that was, dear friend! Does it not appeal to you, does it not lay hold of your affections? That is the way God has gone to secure each one of us. Well, may He bless the word for His name’s sake!

Denton

20 April 2003

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