GENUINENESS

B. D. Fooks

1 Samuel 1: 5–17; 2 Timothy 1: 3–8; Philippians 2: 19–21; Acts 20: 28–38

I seek help from the Lord, dear brethren, to speak about genuineness—not a very well known thing in the world today. How fine it is to look at the faces of the brethren, the saints, and see what is genuine in love for Christ, for that is what is going through. We sang that in our hymn—‘Blessèd climax of love’s story—When Thy glorious face we see!’ So it is with that in view, and with the glory of Christ in the affections of the saints, and I trust in mine too, that we are able to carry something of the feelings of heaven while we are together. It is very important to be together, dear brethren; it is no light matter to sit down like this and have our Bibles open. It is very important that we look past the vessel and see what God says, and how He desires to encourage you. If we take up what we had recently in one of the magazines (Sept. 1989 issue, p.4), “The morning cometh”—oh what a time that is going to be, the morning. It is now the night season, the Lord Jesus is dishonoured. I trust there is not one of us here that is dishonouring Him; I trust we are honouring the Son of God. It is a very important matter. Think of the coming of the Lord—I speak of that feelingly, dear brethren; you look around on the saints and there are some who have been here a long time waiting to see the Lord. There is patience involved in that in the testimony, carrying exercises daily, carrying weakness in the body as well. How well He knows it! The blessed One who has been here knows all about you, dear brother or sister; He knows how much you love Him. Oh that we loved Him more!—that we were prepared to serve Him more, feeble though we may be.

He will take you up, if you love Him, to serve His people, to care for them. There are few things more wonderful than genuine care for the saints; it is the great commodity, you might say—one of the greatest anyway. The Spirit of God will support you in your love for Christ and His own.

It is seen in persons like Hannah whom we read about, a feeling woman who desired nothing but that God would be served by way of a man child—manhood. We are exhorted to be men in the testimony. The Lord loves to serve us in that regard. You may be a sister but it is needed that you be a strong person, strong in the Lord, strong in the truth and in what is right, what is holy, that you are holy and true, like Him morally. The Spirit of God, dear brethren, is, I believe, bringing before us the moral beauties of Jesus. We had it recently in Psalm 45, “fairer than the sons of men”. He loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. What a glorious Person He is! The Spirit of God just points you to Christ that you might be morally like Him here. You see, if you do not understand the assembly and what it is, you must learn it that way, and the moral road to it—loving righteousness and hating lawlessness. Are we all holy, brethren, and true, like Jesus? How testing it is to say, but it is to be true of us. The Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit; He indwells you; so you take account of your body; your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and we are not our own. You think of that; think of it as you sit in your seat. Just think of us sitting here, dear brethren, and what it means to Him! One of the greatest things on this earth is that we are here to hear what heaven is saying. There is nothing around like that; the world cannot provide it because it is just an empty shell. Oh that we would come to that more, that the world is empty, but we have what comes by way of Christ in heaven and the blessed Spirit here.

So, dear brethren, may we be like this dear woman in 1 Samuel; she wept much, it says, and entreated God. I wonder how much we do that; let us be encouraged to do it, to entreat much of God that there might be formation in the saints—manhood. A wonderful thing manhood, a priceless thing, is it not? Look around the saints, look at their faces, and see what is priceless there. You relate to that, dear brother, and you relate to what God has done in you. He has done something in you; He has given Jesus for you. You can always relate to the gospel in any meeting. The blessed Saviour came into the world to die for you. He loved you that much. Now, what would you do for Him? Would you take matters up, like this woman, feelingly, and be a genuine person in relation to the work of God in the saints? Do not be casual but be loving, and caring, and genuine. So you see Christ formed in the saints. We all know that the blessed product of this woman’s travail was to bring David in—“Arise, anoint him; for this is he”, 1 Samuel 16, 12. Oh to be able to say that amongst the saints! This is the Man. You follow Christ; do not follow anyone else; if you have any doubts, turn to Him and pray. We need to pray more, dear brethren, to use our knees in prayer like they did in Acts 20; Paul knelt down and prayed with them all. Scripture speaks much of prayer. You look it up and find out how many times it speaks of it. We need to pray more, to pray for the saints, to pray for men; think of the vastness of humanity today, the lawlessness of men away from God, not knowing Jesus; how much feeling enters into prayer.

As for this woman, Hannah, she was told she was drunk; Eli did not understand her. It may be someone might not understand you and your tears; your family might not understand you; but as you are with God He will support you in your exercise that there might be this genuineness in manhood brought to light, that the Lord Jesus may be honoured. Do you like honouring Him? It is wonderful to hear about Him, is it not? This current ministry is very affecting,

“The morning cometh”. It surely does, and you live in the light of it. I believe, dear brethren, if we lived in the light of it more we would be kept here in simplicity and in truthfulness and holiness. Just be a simple lover of Christ, and so be like Hannah, be like this woman, be genuine. As I say, you might be misunderstood, but how wonderful it is to bring Him in, to see the formation in the saints. How valuable the sisterhood is in patient prayer unseen by us; we sang in our hymn about it—

‘Patience waits, while love is yearning

For Thy presence in the air’.

How you yearn for Him! It is the time for that, but then He has not come yet you see. The Lord did not come last week or last night, we are still here, we still have to go forward humbly in these bodies of flesh and blood, but the Lord will be with you and He will give you grace, and He takes account of genuineness.

We need to get through to it that it is not a matter of a position; no it is not; you must get free of that idea if you think that (and it is very easy sometimes to be carried along with a crowd), but it is because of a blessed Man in the glory. How much do you love Him? How much He has loved His own right through the generations; what faithfulness has carried the saints through. You get to a point and you say, What can I do, Lord? Cry to Him if you feel like that, dear brother or sister, bring Him into it. As I say, how often He has carried the saints through on His shoulders.

A brother reminded us recently as to the sheep. You are a farmer; you pick up a lawless sheep; it wanted to run off on its own way; it kicks and you may get wounded. The Lord Jesus did all that for us. He has carried us on His shoulders right against our will. Oh how self-willed we sometimes get; maybe I still am sometimes self-willed, wanting to go my own way. Be pointed towards Christ, the One who said, “To do thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight”, and by doing it He set aside one order of things and brought in another in new creation. Wonderful it is to see new creation. Oh, in your affections, dear brother and sister, see it, get through to it by way of travail if necessary, get through to what is new and abiding and firm, and you be like that, too, be a stable person in the testimony so that nothing will shake you. Why should we be shaken?

Now I read from Timothy because in his case too there is the parental line of things. Paul had taken things up in relation to Timothy with a view to him getting through to something, remembering the parental line of care, the unfeigned faith of a grandmother and a mother. I would say simply, stop and think what God has done by way of godly parents. Maybe you can look round and see them; they may be sitting next to you. They were probably on their knees before you were born, praying that you might honour Christ in your walk here. Oh that we may not dishonour Him in the little time that is left! In these bodies that we have, may we be pure and holy. The word to this dear young man was, “Keep thyself pure”. In that way you are humbly available to God and His people. You are not to be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, “nor of me his prisoner”. How important it is, dear brethren, that we take up this line, like the beloved apostle, and are fathers and mothers to the dear young brethren, encouraging them by reminding them of the faith of their parents. You remember how your father and mother prayed for you. I remember a dear mother who prayed on her knees before her son was born that he might not dishonour the Lord Jesus. What fine faith that is! You relate to it, and you relate to the work of God in yourself. It is a wonderful thing, and thus stability comes about.

So when we get to Philippians Paul says, “For I have no one like-minded who will care with genuine feeling how ye get on”. Are you like that, dear brother? I speak very feelingly because we need one another. We need that kind of feeling for one another, genuine feeling.

A brother in our meeting said, ‘I do not often hear somebody come up and say. How are you getting on in your soul?’ How are you getting on, dear sister, with the Lord Jesus? Do you find Him as attractive to you as you did when you were converted? It may be we need fresh conversions, dear brethren; maybe there is someone here who is not converted, who does not know the Saviour. That is solemn, is it not? It is a very real matter not to be looking on to His coming and to the morning. Hence the word of the prophet, “The morning cometh, and also the night” (Isaiah 21: 12); it is what was in that ministry, “If ye will inquire, inquire, return, come”. It is a time of testing for us, the Lord would speak to us, I believe, as to getting through to genuineness, what is real. Can you love what is real, when a brother loves you and can come up and say that to you—How are you getting on? A beautiful thing that!

So Timothy was like that, and he had tears. You really feel things, do you not? You feel it if a brother is going away, or if a sister is not getting on too well in the testimony. What about the tears? What about what is happening around us,

the coldness of hearts as to Christ? Do you feel that? Are there any tears of feeling that the Lord Jesus is so set aside today? Man will go on with his sport on the Lord’s day, on any day, and set Him aside. Scripture speaks of “the man whom the king delights to honour” (Esther 6: 6)—Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh may we, dear brethren, honour Him; He has done everything for us; He is carrying us through, and He is going to carry us through right into eternity. What it is to be with Him! I trust we are all with Him. I trust that you are a genuine person, not just carried along with the crowd, as I said, You say, Well, it is meeting time tonight—you come because you love Him, and you want to see what is of Himself being formed in the saints; you have that feeling, and maybe tears with it. Pray before you come to the meeting, ‘Lord help us in the meeting tonight; we need Thee, Lord’. We do need Him. I think we need to be kept dependent; there is so much independence in my heart; the more we call upon Him the more, I think, we are preserved from that.

Now in Acts 20, “shepherd the assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own”. We need to do that, dear brethren, increasingly. The preciousness of the brotherhood and the sisterhood should be so much valued by us that we would do anything to shepherd it in whatever measure it may be. Why? Because “he has purchased (it) with the blood of his own”. Of what value it is to heaven! The saints, in this locality, in other localities, in my own locality—How much do I value them? How precious they are to heaven! The apostle laboured night and day with them, and, as he says elsewhere, “if even in abundantly loving you I should be less loved” (2 Corinthians 12: 15), it did not stop Paul loving them. Someone might not understand you; the little admonition you might provide in love might not be understood; but be genuine in it anyway, and the love that goes with it, and the spirit of Christ. How important it is, because it will maintain us and keep us close together. It says they fell on Paul’s neck. Think of that; what affection! They did not take offence as to what Paul had said, but they fell on his neck and embraced him, and that is what the brotherhood is; you embrace the brethren in your locality, and wherever they may be.

It is wonderful to move around amongst the brethren. It is one of the greatest experiences my wife and I have had to meet brethren whom we have never met before; the faces of most of the brethren here we have never seen before, and yet we feel we know you. Why is that?

Because we have the one Lord Jesus—“The word ... and my Spirit, remain among you”, Haggai 2: 5. How wonderful that is! How cheering it is to your soul and spirit; it will keep you, keep you in the night season, for we are in the night season; but He is coming soon; it is nearly the morning. May we be preserved till the morning, dear brethren, in faithfulness. Let us not be turned aside by anything; let us be like the Lord Himself and turn not aside for any.

He set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem. Why? It was for His own, His assembly; He loved the assembly. “Christ also loved the assembly, and has delivered himself up for it”.

What would you not do for His own, dear brother, what would you not do in love for Christ, in love for His own? There is not much time left; maybe you are wasting it in some way or other; maybe I am; it searches us all. Take up this injunction in the Scripture—“shepherd the assembly of God”; take it on as your own. Look at a brother and say, I will protect that; it is Christ’s and very precious, the greatest thing. The young sister, the young brother, the little child growing up; take care of them, dear brethren. Let us take account of those who are precious under the eye of God.

Well, how are we going to be from now on? There is not much time left for us. It is very important, I think, that we relate to the work of God in our hearts. If we are not too sure, feeling that our measure is small, and we may feel it is slipping, let us pray to Him about that.

Ask the Lord to help you to be genuine, and to be like Him here in this world, holy and true and pure. There is so much unholiness in the world, and certain things have crept into some homes of the saints, but we need to be holy, we need to have that kind of judgment which is in the light of the death of Jesus. God has met every issue in that way; feelingly He has had to deal with it all. Psalm 22 would come to you, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” —then, “and thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel” (Psalm 22: l, 3). All these things, dear brethren, are intended to keep us, to keep us holy and true, and genuine. Oh that we might get through to that! Go away with something tonight anyway; the word of God says I need to be genuine, not put on a good face and make out I am something I am not; that is no good to heaven. Be like the Lord Jesus, be like the True, how wonderful He is! We cannot say enough about Him. Dear brother and sister, you commit your life to Him in the little time that is left and you will find how wonderful He is. He is a Shepherd, the great Shepherd of the sheep. Take character from Him, and thus you protect what is here of Himself.

Well, beloved brethren, that is all I have to say, it is my message the Lord has given me. I do desire that we might find great joy in being here while we are waiting for the Lord. Then it is not some irksome thing to come to the meeting or to go to brother So-and-so’s house, and spend the night speaking of the Lord Jesus and singing about Him, or maybe praying with a brother. It is a good thing to do that, to pray about the testimony with a brother. It is very much needed, dear brethren, this genuineness that should mark us in our feelings, proper godly feelings as to things that are happening; to take our part in them, to accept responsibility for all the departure there has been, because there is great blessing ahead for us. The greatest things are in the mind of the Spirit, to bring us into them; a greater knowledge of Christ and His glory, then what is to be seen, and is being formed now, in the assembly, the faithful vessel in His absence, the woman of worth, her price far above rubies, what is chief to His heart—we sing,

‘Nor what is next Thy heart

Can we forget;

Thy saints, O Lord, with Thee

In glory met’.

They are the formation of all this love that is flowing. Oh that we would relate more to it! I am sure the Lord will encourage us in the last days in which we are living. We may not see one another again; a few days He has given us to see one another. In the glory we surely will see one another again.

May we be preserved in fidelity to Him: He has done everything from His side, the Holy and the True, and He has provided us with means in the Spirit and in one another. It is wonderful to have the saints to fall back on in times of need; an arm to lean on; homes to go into, maybe a breast to lean on, someone to shed a tear with; all these things are practical, but they are real and wonderful, and part of this genuineness that the Lord is looking for till He come. What a blessed climax it will be, beloved brethren, when we see Him face to face! In the meantime, may we be preserved in this genuineness in love for Him that goes through, for His name’s sake.

Address at Redbridge
26 August 1989