THE LORD’S DIRECTION

J. Renton

John 4: 34–38; 6: 10–13; 13: 33–35; 20: 21–23; 21: 5, 6 (to “find”) It would not be necessary to emphasize in a company like this that the apostle John writes for the day in which we are—the Lord reserved John in view of writing suited to the end of the dispensation. Peter and John are mentioned at the beginning of the Acts and Peter was prominent there. John was held in reserve in view of his ministry for our own time, therefore John’s gospel is a very interesting one. John presents the Lord Jesus as doing things Himself.

Look over the gospel carefully and you will see that the Lord commits very little to the disciples in John. Other gospels record the Lord sending out the twelve, and He instructed and commanded them. Matthew 10 is a

whole chapter committed to the instructions the Lord gave to the twelve when they were sent out. John does not give us any such description. Luke records the Lord sending out the seventy, and again He commands them and instructs them: John does not mention anything of that kind. Other gospels tell us that the Lord sent two of His disciples to get the colt; John records that the Lord Himself found the colt—other gospels record that the Lord sent two of His disciples to prepare the passover; John records no such thing. If John wrote for the time in which we are, it is significant that he does not record these things.

I have read of some of the directions the Lord gives to His disciples. I do not pretend to have exhausted that subject, there may be some others, but there are not many. The Lord does not give much in the way of commission to His disciples in this gospel. That is significant. I believe, dear brethren, we are living in a time when the Lord is doing things Himself. It might help us to arrive at that and look for what the Lord is doing, not necessarily to be too busy ourselves. The Lord since He rose from the dead has never relinquished the initiative, and in our time He has a certain initiative which we need to recognize, and at least desire to be with Him in what He is doing.

In this first scripture the Lord says, “My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work”. He says, “My food”; He does not say, ‘My will’; He does not say, ‘My mind’. Think of the Lord feeding on doing the will of Him that had sent Him. Think of the devotion of our Lord Jesus Christ; what food for our souls! That was His food. The disciples said, “Rabbi, eat” (John 4: 31); they had been away into the city to buy provisions; they missed something. They went off—I do not think under the Lord’s

direction. I do not think the Lord would have directed twelve of them to go to buy food, one or two might have done it; they were therefore on some kind of expedition of their own choosing. If you had met them, they would say, ‘We are the Lord’s servants, on the Lord’s business’, but were they under His direction? This would be a challenge to us all. Meantime the Lord was in conversation with a woman, with a soul. The Lord was doing something but the disciples were not in it; they were ignorant of what was happening. We can be like that.

It says, “And upon this came his disciples, and wondered that he spoke with a woman” (John 4: 27). They did not expect the Lord to speak to a woman; they would have expected the Lord, of course, to speak to them, but to a woman they did not expect. They missed this, and we too can miss what the Lord is doing at the present time, because the Lord is working, there is no doubt about it. The Lord is operating in view of His coming for His own. The disciples wondered that He spoke with a woman; “yet no one said, What seekest thou? or, Why speakest thou with her?” They were not sufficiently interested to enquire as to what they were missing. Then they are concerned about the Lord eating, “Rabbi, eat”; and the Lord says, “My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work. Do not ye say, that there are yet four months and the harvest comes?” They went away to buy food, as if to say, ‘There is plenty of time; four months to harvest; we can take it easy; we can take our time’. The Lord says, “Lift up your eyes and behold the fields, for they are already white to harvest”, and that is the situation now, dear brethren. It is not a question of waiting for something to happen, or waiting for a more opportune moment, the fields are ready to harvest.

This reminds me of the ministry we had in London recently as to the extensive operations of the Lord at the present time. How we need to have our hearts enlarged as to what He is doing, and to look for evidence of what He is doing with persons at the present time. “Lift up your eyes”. He says, “Do not ye say, that there are yet four months and the harvest comes? … Lift up your eyes and behold the fields, for they are already white to harvest”. That is the situation at the moment; the Lord is operating, in fact the great harvest, the Lord coming for all His own, is imminent. What a harvest that will be when all the dead in Christ from Abel onwards (the first to die, as far as we know, was Abel) are raised. What a harvest there is going to be, and it is about to take place; the Lord’s coming is imminent.

The Lord here does not make too much of the disciples; it is not intended that there should be too much made of any one of us; there is only One to be exalted and that is the Lord Himself.

He says, “I have sent you to reap that on which ye have not laboured, others have laboured”. Is that not true at the present time? Have not others laboured, those that have gone before us, have they not laboured? “Others have laboured, and ye have entered into their labours”. Let us appreciate, and benefit from, these labours; let us be available to do what He indicates in the moment in which we are. This would apply to young as well as old. When I was young I used to think there was plenty of time, and I always intended eventually to commit myself to the Lord in a full way. Every believer intends to do that; he would not be a real believer if he did not; but the tendency is to have other interests. But there is a great advantage in committing ourselves when we are young. This is the time; already the fields are white to harvest; let us be committed to the Lord Jesus and His interests down here.

Chapter 6 provides one of the few instances where the Lord gives directions to His disciples in John’s gospel. In chapter 4 the Lord requested of the woman. He gave instructions to the man in John 9 and to persons around the grave of Lazarus in chapter 11, but not much is given to the disciples to do. It is all in view of the glorifying of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the other gospels the Lord is said to allow the disciples to distribute the food, but not here; He does it Himself; what He does allow the disciples to do is make the men sit down. This is a word for us too, “Make the men sit down”; to have relaxed conditions, not to contemplate crisis conditions. There was a crisis here, five thousand men to be fed; there are many crises in John’s gospel and they increase in intensity, but what comes to light is that there is only One who can meet each crisis, only One. Have we not experienced that in recent years? No one that I know of has come out of any conflict with any credit, it has all been for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So here He says to them, “Make the men sit down”. We can do that, dear brethren; we can contribute to a relaxed atmosphere in our gatherings; we can contribute to a normal order of things; these people sat down in an orderly way. The disciples were permitted to do that, it was a command, “Make the men sit down”, and then the Lord operates; He only can meet the situation. Andrew did not have anything and Philip did not have anything, and Peter had nothing, but there was a little boy. Andrew says, “There is a little boy here who has five barley loaves and two small fishes” (John 6: 9), and the Lord uses what the little boy had; but the disciples were to make the men sit down. What do we need in all our gatherings, in our care meetings?

Do we not need to make the men sit down, so that there is an orderly condition for the Lord to operate, to show His mind? The Lord came into the situation fully, and then He says,

“Gather together the fragments which are over and above, that nothing may be lost”. They are commanded to do it; they are commanded to make the men sit down, and they are commanded to gather together the fragments which are over and above. They filled twelve hand-baskets.

You can understand these disciples filling the baskets, and every basket they filled they would be worshipping the One who had come into the situation; they would be glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ in relation to every basket they filled; they would say, Another basket! If the Lord comes into the matter not only are matters settled, but there is spoil for His glory.

How necessary it is that we should at least desire to make room for the Lord to come into every situation that occurs in our localities. The Lord may bring us to realize that we are not able for a certain situation; it is too much for us; such a situation has existed for many years, known to all of us; we may need to make way for the Lord to come in, and not only will the matter be settled, but there will be spoil. The twelve hand-baskets were like spoil from the whole occasion; they contributed to the glory of the One who so operated, our Lord Jesus Christ.

In chapter 13 there is another word that the Lord gives the disciples. He does not ask them to do great exploits. He says, “A new commandment I give to you, that ye love one another”. It was a new commandment because they were going to find themselves in new circumstances.

They had always been accustomed to the Lord being with them; He loved them, His love kept them together; His love was sufficient for every situation when He was here with them, but He is going away, He is going to

leave them, and His word to them is, “A new commandment I give to you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you”. I need not make much comment about that, but you can see the importance of it in the absence of our Lord Jesus Christ, the need for loving one another “as I have loved you”. They had proved His love, how in every situation He had come in and, helped them, and now all they would have, in one sense, was one another; they would no longer have the Lord with them as He had been with them, but they were to love one another—“as I have loved you, that ye also love one another”. It is the feet-washing chapter; He said earlier, “ye also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13: 14); this positive, practical service needs to be rendered to one another, to wash one another’s feet, to refresh one another, and love one another. This would have its own appeal to our hearts at the moment.

Now in chapter 20 the Lord sends them out. John does not record a sending previously, as other evangelists do, but he records this sending out, “Peace be to you: as the Father sent me forth, I also send you”. “As the Father sent me forth”; think of the Lord Jesus being sent forth, as being with the Father, sent forth from with the Father. Paul tells us in Galatians that

“when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son” (Galatians 4: 4), sent Him forth from the communion that He enjoyed with Him personally. That scripture speaks about the Spirit being sent out, that is the width, the scope, of the Spirit’s activities; but He sent forth His Son; “as the Father sent me forth, I also send you. And having said this, he breathed into them, and says to them. Receive the Holy Spirit—whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained”. They are trusted persons, but before He says, “whose soever sins ye remit”. and so on, He breathed into them saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit”; it is persons who are animated by His breath who can be trusted with any administration, with any acting for Him during the time of His absence; it is only thus that the Lord could trust us.

Things come into our hands in the time of the Lord’s absence; it is a very solemn consideration that things in our localities are in our hands and the Lord’s interests can prosper in our hands or otherwise. Dare we undertake for the Lord unless we are animated by His breath? They are sent forth as He was sent forth, and He commits things into their hands, but He breathes into them; that is, all they undertake is to be in the breath of the ascending heavenly Man. We have His breath by having the Spirit because the Spirit of God is also called the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God’s Son. We have His breath, we have the wherewithal, as receiving the Spirit, to act for the Lord in the time of His absence, to do things just as He would do them if He were here. But the question would be whether we always act as animated by the breath of Jesus. How important this is! They are sent forth, they are commissioned to be like ambassadors for the absent Lord, but let us remember, dear brethren, that what is needed is His breath. His Spirit, to animate us and to govern our motives in all that is done in His name in the time of His absence.

Now in chapter 21 the disciples, at least some of them, had gone off in their own independent way; they were not acting in the breath of Jesus; that is obvious. So where we began to read the Lord says to them, “Children, have ye anything to eat?”, and that word, “children”, means ‘little children’; it is not the same word as “children” in chapter 13; it is the diminutive; it is the same word as John uses for the little children in his family. The Lord is saying, ‘Little children, have ye anything to eat?’ Who is He addressing? He is addressing the very persons He spoke of to the Father in chapter 17 as “the men whom thou gavest me”. In the divine mind they were men, but they were acting like little children, and we can be like that. While men in the divine mind, in divine purpose, we can act like little children. There is a mild rebuke in what the Lord says here, “Children”. There was also tenderness in it. We have all been involved in this kind of thing, but the Lord said, “Have ye anything to eat?”; the Lord is concerned about food. As we said in the reading, we have light, but there is a great need of food. There is great need to feed individually, and to feed one another, to feed the brethren in our localities, to feed the young people. What was the commission to Peter? “Feed my lambs” and “Shepherd my sheep”. Shepherding would involve feeding and also teaching; I believe we have something of teaching, but there is a need of food, “Feed my lambs”, “Shepherd my sheep”, and “Feed my sheep”. This is a great food chapter.

So He says, ‘Little children, have ye anything to eat?’ What do they say? ‘No’. Their independent move had been fruitless. The Lord gives them instructions, “Cast the net at the right side of the ship and ye will find”. They are now acting under the Lord’s direction. What I am somewhat labouring to get at is this, that we should be on the outlook for what the Lord is indicating, to make room for what the Lord has in mind; not to have too much in mind ourselves but to be on the outlook for what the Lord is indicating. So He says here (they do not know who is speaking, they do not yet know it is the Lord), “Cast the net at the right side of the ship and ye will find”; they acted under the Lord’s instructions and there was a great result. So the Lord says to them, “Bring of the fishes which ye have now taken”; taken under His direction. They are now in the place of contributors; they had answered Him, ‘No’; nothing to eat, but under His direction it is now, “Bring of the fishes which ye have now taken”. They saw a fire of coals there and fish laid on it, and bread; the Lord had the food supply, but He allowed them to contribute to this food supply as they acted under His direction.

How important it is, dear brethren. We all tend to do things and say things and afterwards endeavour to justify what we have done or what we have said; but that is the wrong way round, that is surely the wrong way round. The Lord would have us act and speak under His direction. I know it is a high level; we have to overcome much to get into this line, but it is what the Lord would say to us, I am sure, in the time in which we are now at the end of this dispensation. It is John’s message for us from his gospel, from one point of view; to be sensitive, to be exercised, to see where the Lord is and what He is doing and what He is indicating. So He says, as we well know, “Come and dine”. How full is the Lord’s provision!

I have said enough, dear brethren; I trust it is acceptable; I trust we will all benefit, for the Lord’s pleasure and glory; not for our glory, but for His glory, for His name’s sake.

Address at Dorking
9 July 1983