DIVINE DISCLOSURES EFFECTIVE
A.J.E.Welch
It just impressed me that every disclosure of Christ is to be productive. It is a thought which would follow the point of stirring up which we have just had. From His side, every disclosure of Jesus is perfect in itself, but the efficacy of that disclosure involves what takes place in ourselves and the way in which the Spirit is free to act in us and among us to bring in a result pleasing to God. From the divine side the movements of the Lord Jesus, and His voice to us, and what He may disclose of His person to us, are perfect. Christianity involves, however, that things are operating in the saints, operating in men, and that God is securing delight for Himself in what those operations are yielding. Every occasion of assembling is to be marked by fresh and rich fruit of that kind; every working through of personal exercise with the Lord is to bring a result of that kind. Though we be in days of smallness in an outward sense, an immense volume of God's work is developing under the ever-skilful touch of our glorious Head in heaven. Every touch of His is to find effect.
So this woman in John 4, of whom there would be no need to read a great deal in detail to get the point of the scripture, was stirred up by a disclosure of Jesus that was personal to herself. It had in view more than what was personal to herself, but it was, as a disclosure, personal to herself. There may be what is personally disclosed to us in our links with Christ, and in moral history, and it is to be available for the furtherance of what the Lord is doing. It is to extend, as this woman's action would suggest to us. The Lord covered a lot of ground with her; how skilfully He uses time to cover ground with us! We may not always spend a long time in the Lord's presence, but the Lord can do much as we are rightly in His presence; how richly He can reward every desire to ensure His presence with impressions that, so to say, crowd in He loves to do it, to furnish us with rich food and nourishment, stimulation, and refreshment of spirit through deeper and deeper entrance upon the links with Him which are to characterise every one of us. The Lord brings out something in this woman; she makes progress. The Lord speaks of the greatest matters to her, briefly at least, and He intimates to us that He is not speaking thus without result. We see very little of the consequences extensively in this woman, but the Lord would assure us that not a word of His was wasted; not a disclosure of His was misspent, even in such a woman's case. So her testimony is clear: "Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done". The Lord had covered much ground to give this woman a sense that whatever she had done, the Lord knew it and had told her about it. "Is not he the Christ? They went out of the city and came to him". So the stirring up was, to that extent at least, extended. She becomes a testimony of a clear, positive, definite kind, and there is at least the fruit from her testimony that they went to Jesus. Her testimony was powerful to that degree at least. Just what effect there was among them, we cannot say, but they "went out of the city and came to him".
In Acts 1 we have a collective touch, reminding us of what is peculiarly precious to Christ, to find His place and part in the assemblings of the saints. So the word is used, "Of the men who have assembled with us all the time in which the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us". There were those who were in peculiarly close touch with Christ in the course of His service, viewed now not so much as individuals but as part of a company. What should be available in the maintenance of the testimony is complete, as seen in this number twelve. That is an important element, beloved brethren, that what is complete is among us, that there is no want of any element spiritually and testimonially that the Lord would sustain in His interests. Although we are in a time of brokenness the moral and spiritual force of the number twelve still remains, suggesting something which operates in love but is none the less complete, in a certain sense, for the administration of heavenly things. This is the completion of the twelve. Is any one of us going to be unavailable, even in this city, so that the twelve, in its bearing upon us, is not here? Shall we not all be concerned that we may be available? There is no scope for any one of us to be missing from the effective part we may have in impressions of Christ in the assembly. What touches we get at the Supper! It is the prime time for what I am speaking of to operate effectively. As the Lord comes in in the glory of His person, and in the glory of the moment of His incoming, He discloses so much to those He loves, those who are drawn in love to Him. What a time it is! The Lord would make it increasingly effectual in what is fully and freshly, and in a certain radiant buoyancy, available to sustain the pleasure of God in all its features. So the one who was to fill out the number of the twelve was to be of "the men who have assembled with us all the time in which the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us". If there was one that was not there for the whole time he was, in that sense, not a qualified person to take up this service. That is to remind us of the necessity of being thoroughly in the flow of what the Lord is doing, and not being missing from the disclosures that He is pleased to make of Himself. It is remarkable how the Lord secured in twelve men at the beginning a basis for the testimony to sound out and to continue right down to the present time. There are many features in the twelve that we may think about, not always positive features, but the fact remains that the Lord secured through His service twelve men who became a basis for the testimony to go out. It went out from Jerusalem, and later in a wider way as Paul was brought in, and it comes right down to us at the present time. One longs that there may be available, in such a city as this, what is so full of potentiality in the interests of Christ that a certain completeness enters into the whole course of the service of God and the testimony. It will appear as all that is disclosed in the Person of Christ becomes effective among us for God's praise.
LONDON
8 April 1975