THE FAITHFUL COMPANY

THE FAITHFUL COMPANY

Since God called out Abram, there has been a testimony by His people on the earth. To weaken or frustrate that testimony has been the great effort of the enemy; and though every testimony has degenerated from its original power and beauty, yet God has always preserved it; and specially at the close of a dispensation, or a period, there was a remnant who maintained the great leading characteristics of the period; so that though the mid-day was clouded, yet that the same sun which had introduced the day should close it. If the sunrise was brilliant, the sunset would be beautiful. The last moment would be characteristic of the beginning. This is especially true with regard to the church, because we find from Revelation 3: 7 that Philadelphia was to continue to the coming of the Lord — that there is a faithful company to the end. The great thing that we are assured of is the existence of this faithful company. One might assert that he has not found it, and that he does not know where it is. Still, God must be true, though every man a liar, and it is plain from this passage that the faithful company exists whether one can find it or not. In a similar way Timothy is told to purge himself from vessels to dishonour, and to follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. He was bound to find them; and they were in existence, or he would not have been enjoined to find them.

^[p. 149] When God called out a people for Himself on the earth, it was that they should testify of Him here. Abram was called to be a pilgrim in the land. He was to be in the land, not only a pilgrim in it, but looking for a city which hath “foundations, whose builder and maker is God”. This, as I understand, was the first testimony. If the present testimony be maintained by us, all the previous testimonies are embraced and fulfilled. A heavenly man on earth is the real pilgrim, but this can be maintained only in faith. No testimony can be maintained but by faith; there is nothing here to aid one with regard to it, because it is a divine course, but the very reverse where everything most of God is most opposed. When Abram falters in faith he is out of the testimony. My personal relationship with God remains unaltered, though I have slipped from the testimony; but I am not in the current of His mind, nor in the line where His power moves; for wherever is His testimony, there, like the trade winds, His power pre-eminently continually is. The more Abram is in the testimony, the more is he freed from every one who would be a clog to him in it; and the larger the blessings conferred upon him. The declension, from Abram’s time to the close of Jacob’s life, was very painful, and yet Jacob died a real pilgrim. Worshipping God — predicting future blessings for Joseph’s sons — he could say, “And as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when yet there was but a little way to come unto Ephrath: and I buried her there in the way of Ephrath; the same is Bethlehem”. Thus there is a streak of the same beautiful light, which shone out in Abram at the beginning, illuminating Jacob’s death-bed. That dispensation was ended.

The next testimony properly begins with Joshua and ends with Samuel. The testimony now was possession of the land by the power of God. God had brought them in, typical of our being seated in heavenly places in Christ. Soon the brilliant morning at Jericho seemed to ^[p. 150] fade away into the darkness of night, though according as there was any one faithful, the Lord used him for the deliverance of His people. We have not, in what we are meditating on now, so much to do with the alternations of cloud and sunshine in that stormy day, as with the faithful company at the close. Samuel represents this. He believes that God is as much to be reckoned on as ever He was, as the support of His people in the testimony. Of course if I do not know His testimony I cannot count on His support, but if I do know that there is testimony for Him now here, and that He has called me to maintain it, I am assured that all His power will be at my disposal to support me in it. Samuel reckons on the intervention of God as much as Joshua had done, simply because it is His testimony; yet in Samuel’s time Israel was in the most deplorable state. The Philistines had overwhelmed them like a flood. They were in the place for testimony, but were so embarrassed by the incubus of the Philistines that to all intents and purposes they had not possession of the land; they were not then for God, a most grievous state, strangely resembling that of many in this day, who hold the truth avowedly but who have not the power to testify of it. Samuel first insists on SEPARATION which necessarily must be the prelude to all help from the holy God. And this many acknowledge and adopt, but stop there and do not accompany the separation with FASTING or practical abnegation of all human support, and a retirement from ministering to the flesh by the positive silencing of it. Then follows a marvellous interference of God on their behalf. Ebenezer is set up and the Philistines come no more into the land all the days of Samuel. There is as beautiful a light at the close of this dispensation as at the beginning, though amid a general decay, and complete national disorganisation.

With the kings a different testimony came in: the temple and the city. So much so, that, when the faithful company returned after a long captivity, their great ^[p. 151] work was re-building the temple and the city; and it was predicted that the glory of the latter house would be greater than that of the former one. Hence our blessed Lord when here supported this testimony, as it was written of Him “the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up”. And when He was leaving the temple for the last time, He commended the faithful company of that day — the poor widow who cast the two mites, even all her living, into the treasury of God. Surely this was great zeal for God’s testimony, so that one might well prefer to be like her — the very last of that dispensation (or faithful company) — than even to be Solomon, the most honoured builder, for there was a devotedness about her, which was not surpassed in the glorious day when Solomon completed the temple. True, there was a great declaration to the world in Solomon’s day, and there was none in the poor widow’s act, yet surely in the latter there was a tribute to the Lord’s interest never surpassed by the other.

Now consequent on the rejection of our Lord and His sitting down at the right hand of God, another testimony came in; and that is comprised in the words “he shall testify of me”, which characterised the mission of the Holy Spirit sent by Christ. This is the church’s testimony, and we learn from the seven churches in Revelation that there will be a faithful company to the end, as described in Philadelphia. The candlestick was in existence when the book was given to John, and ever since, though historically unknown to the church generally, this faithful company existed, and will to the end, even though, like short-sighted Elijah in another day, one is ready to say as he did, “I am left, I alone”, while the Lord sees seven thousand that have not bowed the knee to Baal. It might be like the widow in the temple, unseen and unknown, but still it was before the eye of God. And the Lord grant that a great number of His people may be found in this faithful company as we draw nearer to His coming. However, one great thing ^[p. 152] is that it exists. A man might say that he could not find it, but that would be because of his own spiritual short-sightedness. Many a one was near our Lord when on the earth, and yet could not recognise Him.

Next, our Lord has a special interest in this company. His aspect has none of the inquisitorial character that we read of in the first chapter. It is an aspect fraught with the greatest support: I am “he that is holy, he that is true ... that hath the key of David”, and so on. There is no ‘and’ in this description. It is cumulative, that is, these three qualities make up one thing; they are parts of a whole, not several things, but one thing. Holiness and truth with power — one combination — a most important thing, that there cannot be this aspect, unless all the three parts are combined. Hence He gives to this faithful company an open door that no man can shut, because they have a little power, and have “kept my word, and ... not denied my name”. They hold to the beginning. They have nothing of the ostensible greatness of the church at the first, but they retain the characteristic trait. They have a little power, the power flowing from union with Christ, for that is power by the Spirit of God. They are for Christ here; they keep His word, and they do not deny His name. They bear up against all odds. They very much resemble Samuel in his day; though on the right ground they are hindered and embarrassed by the Philistines, yet they rise in faith in God; they know that He will support them if they are in a condition for it, and as they are true, they would not expect it otherwise. Therefore they separate from all false worship, and prove their faithful dependence on Him by fasting, that is, positively refusing any human power. The lack and consequent failure of many in the present day has been, that while separating very truly from systems of religion so-called, which separation has been magnified into the testimony, they have not abnegated (as must those in the testimony — the faithful company) all resources that are not of the Spirit ^[p. 153] of God, who, here on earth, is the only One able and qualified to carry them on in the testimony. The faithful company must always be characterised by the devoted maintenance of that which peculiarly distinguishes the testimony now from every other. The testimony now embraces all the previous ones, because our blessed Lord on the earth fulfilled every one of the previous ones, and now, He being rejected, the testimony is Himself, and the Holy Spirit is sent here to maintain it; and hence the faithful company are necessarily under the leading of the Spirit of God, and every member is necessary, though we must, like Gideon, refuse to be kept back by the cowardly or the worldly. And as the faithful continue, the testimony prospers in their hands, because He opens the door, and no man can shut.

It will be remarked the more faithful the people of the Lord are, the more He causes them to be owned by others, even as Isaac was owned by Abimelech when he got to Beersheba.