ATTACHMENT TO CHRIST
Eddie Johnston
Ruth 1: 6-11 ("me?"), 14 -19 ("Bethlehem")
I have a simple thought as to the reality of what is in each one of us. I think it involves affection for Jesus. Our brother has been speaking about what is substantially set up at the present time in the midst of the confusion and breakdown in Christendom. It is a tremendous thing to me that God is operating where there has been confusion. We are familiar with the end of Judges: "every man did what was right in his own eyes". That is the present condition of things. It is then a question of coming into subjection to the will of God, and God has provided for us. It is a wonderful thing - He will provide (see Gen 22: 14) - no one can hinder Him in what He is doing and He is doing things for His own pleasure. I encourage the young people with this in what our brother read, if there will be the sacrifice of praise on our lips related to the divine pleasure. These things should be substantial with us. Affection for Jesus is one object of God's whole working out of His counsel and purpose. Young people - initially, we are all young people - it is wonderful to get a sense of Jesus in your soul, as Saviour. He was there day by day. The awful character of what is Pharisaical was in opposition. Our brother has been speaking about the ecclesiastical sin, and the opposition to Jesus was greatest from the Pharisaical character. They had their own ways, their own ideas, they had drifted, departed from the truth of God but Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life", John 14: 6.
You young people can know Him as your Saviour, feel that you are pleasing Him every day, in your prayers, your intimacy with Him and your knowledge of Him. He will listen to you! He is in glory now. Jesus was the true ark of the testimony, the ark went all the way, the centre for the earthly people, through the Israelites' movements and journeys related to the will of God. It set forward the way for them to go. That is why it was called the ark of the testimony. Jesus sets forward the way we should go.
We are all just simple people but in the midst of such a world of corruption ecclesiastically we need to get the truth into our souls vitally. I say to my younger brethren, take heed where you are now and the atmosphere, the purity and love and holiness, all that Jesus stood for. The world is not safe, but this is a safe area. I remember a brother saying, I want to die in the testimony. I thought that was a strange thing because I thought, Well, a Christian is a Christian. Nobody can take that away from you, your eternal salvation. But what he meant was to be in the testimony related to what our brother has been saying, going "forth to him without the camp, bearing his reproach". We claim nothing but thank God - how wonderful it is! - that He has directed our footsteps to where the truth is spoken and upheld; to lead us to understand what relates to Christ and the assembly. It is a wonderful thing to understand what is for the divine pleasure, what is for the heart of Christ.
Here I am thinking about the sorrowful, sad condition of things that existed - Naomi, sad, sorrowful woman, a widow. It is the character when Christ is, absent. And here was a feeling woman. We need to have depth of feeling. I would like to convey to you something to resuscitate, something to maintain our affections. You might wonder if you went round numerically those available to you and those whom the Lord has taken, how the testimony can go through: but it will be in souls, in hearts. Jesus glorified is the testimony that God will have at the latter end all that He has designed in counsel and purpose. Naomi gives the opportunity to her daughters-inlaw, Orpah and Ruth, but it says, "And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave to her". Ruth's affections were moved in relation to her, "Ruth clave to her". Do you cleave to Jesus? He is a Man who sympathetically understands. He has been here, "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief". I love that! "His visage was so marred more than any man": He is supreme in suffering, supreme in glory. He says "Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?" Luke 24: 26. It is a wonderful thing to appreciate by faith, that Jesus is in the glory. These are realities to lay hold of.
It comes down to us, each one individually, "And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave to her". As an individual she clave to her. She was related to the testimony in Naomi: There was something in that woman that foreshadows the feelings of Jesus at the departure of everything that was around. Then it says, "And when she saw that she was stedfastly minded to go with her, she left off speaking to her. And they two went until they came to Bethlehem". The testimony was in weakness, feebleness, but she was going to meet the mighty man of wealth. He was the central object in this whole book, but all I wanted to call attention to was one who was "stedfastly minded to go with her". And just this point. "Call me not Naomi - call me Mara" meaning bitterness. Her spirit now in complete submission to the will of God.
Well, to encourage one another there is no-one else but Jesus. The ark of the testimony goes forward, right through the wilderness, all the way. It is not called the ark of the testimony beyond the Jordan, but all the way through the wilderness and we are in the wilderness at the present time. May the Lord bless the word for His Name's sake!
EDINBURGH
18 April 1995