ATTRACTION TO CHRIST
It is a great thing to know the Lord Jesus as the Shepherd of His flock. The sheep in John’s gospel are not like the sheep in Luke’s or Matthew’s gospel, where they are straying sheep which have to be sought and found; the sheep in John’s gospel are not regarded in that light at all. I know that sheep have a proclivity for straying, and so they become an apt illustration for each one needing a Saviour. But they are also marked by this feature, that they move together and respond to the voice of the shepherd. That is how they are looked at in John’s gospel, as characterised by recognising the Shepherd’s voice, refusing every other voice, and following the Shepherd. So in John 10 the sheep are those the Father has given to Christ: “My Father which gave them me is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand”.
Now the beginning of chapter 10 has in view that many of those who belonged to Christ, to whom He had a right, were found in conditions which were the opposite of liberty, that is, in a fold. The Lord found His sheep in Israel in those conditions, and He led them out. The disciples were attracted to Him and followed Him; they were led outside the Jewish system. In Acts 1 we have the upper room, separated from Jerusalem, although in it; the secret was that the Lord had called them out. Many of those who belong to the Lord Jesus are still found in conditions in which liberty is not known. It is important for such to hear the voice of the Lord, “To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out”. It is only in the process of extrication that the sheep are called by name. The moment anyone who knows what it is to be held by any religious system begins to move and is exercised to be free of it all, the Lord takes account of that. “He calleth his own sheep by name”, such being objects of special interest to the heart of Christ, and He will make His word suit the particular exercise or circumstance in which you are found. But the point is to lead you out. When He has led you out, He gives you your place in the flock. He no more calls His own sheep by name in this sense once the extrication is complete; once the sheep are found in the flock, together they are to hear the Lord’s voice. Now that raises an important matter, as to our having an ear to hear what the Lord is saying to the assembly. The Lord does not cease to speak to the assembly. Anyone who wants to be pleasing to Him, who wants to follow what He indicates, will soon get the sense that the Lord has a distinct voice for the assembly. You have it in ministry; a word for the moment. We should all have an ear to hear what the Lord is saying to His own and should follow. The point is that the sheep are to be in movement: “shall go in and out and find pasture”. “The Lord Jesus came in and went out among us”, Acts 1: 21. After His resurrection “he presented himself living ... with many proofs; being seen by them during forty days”, putting the stamp of movement and life upon what He now brought in. And now, dear brethren—although the Lord is not here personally, although He is on high, the Spirit is here, and by the Spirit the Lord speaks to His people, and His intention is that we should follow what He is saying, and respond together, in order that He might lead us into all that He has in mind for the assembly. I venture to say that it is the responsibility of those who lead in every local company to see that they are peculiarly attentive to the voice of the Lord for the moment, and make what He gives their own, for it will colour the part they give in ministering locally. It is of urgent importance.
I only read those few verses in order to stress the point of the sheep knowing His voice and following Him. Later on in the chapter He says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life”. That is characteristic of the sheep. Whatever the Lord says they recognise as His voice, and they follow. That is, I believe, a matter of the greatest importance. The Lord not only will lead out of what is contrary to the truth, and bestow personal attention on each one, as understanding the exercises involved, calling His own sheep by name; but, when He has done that, He puts them amongst the sheep. Exercises are not finished, they have only begun, but I take on exercises of a collective character, because the Lord has in mind to bring His own livingly into the enjoyment of what is proper to the assembly.
In chapter 12 we see that the power of attraction in Christ enables His own to accept His reproach. The Lord refers to His cross, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die. That was not God’s doing, but man’s, the way He was lifted up from the earth, and yet so attractive is Christ that, although crucified, He draws all to Himself. All down the centuries there have been those who have been prepared to accept the rejection of Christ, identifying themselves with a crucified Man in spite of the reproach. So the Lord says, “Now is the judgment of this world”. There is nothing like the crucifixion of the Lord to give us a moral judgment of this world. He is worthy of the highest place, and God has raised Him from the dead and given Him the highest place. On the one hand, the world puts Him on the cross; lifts Him up from the earth: on the other hand, God says, If that is your judgment, My Judgment is that He shall have the highest place. He raises Him from among the dead and sets Him at His right hand in glory. The whole world system becomes exposed to us by the position of Jesus, as given Him by the world, and by the Father. “Now is the judgment of this world”. Judgment is not yet executed, but the world system is exposed, and it is intended to be a judged thing in our souls. “Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me”. That is the power of attraction in Christ, as it says in Hebrews, “Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach”. It is a sorrowful thing when you see those who have had their part, outwardly at any rate, in the path of separation to the Lord Jesus, leaving it. It shows that they have lost sight of Jesus as lifted up from the earth, but raised from among the dead by the glory of the Father. “This he said, signifying what death he should die”. He was lifted up from earth in all the ignominy of the cross.
In chapter 10 the Lord leads out of religious bondage, and in chapter 12 He leads out of the world entirely, as a system that has rejected Him. When we come to the end of chapter 13 and chapter 14, He is leading in to what is heavenly. It answers to the types of the ark going into Jordan, and Joshua the spiritual leader of God’s people who led God’s people over Jordan. The Lord leads into what is heavenly by the power of attraction. He leads that way and we follow Him. In Colossians we identify ourselves with the positions Christ has taken. He has died; we die with Him: He is buried; we are buried with Him. We pass out of sight in regard of this world. If He is raised from the dead, we are risen with Him, “through faith of the working of God who raised him from among the dead”, and the Spirit makes it good in our souls. God has “quickened us together with Christ ...”. We really enter upon Christianity by being attracted after and attached to Christ, and as such will follow His movements. He calls us out, if we are involved in anything opposed to the truth, causing His own voice and the authority of His word to be felt in our hearts, to liberate us from it; He exposes the true character of the world that gave Him a cross. As delivering us from every hindrance, we move in the direction He would have us go, following Him, for our blessings are spiritual. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. “That was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural: and afterward that which is spiritual”. In these days of the Holy Spirit we have come to what is spiritual. It is for us to lay ourselves out to enter more and more into what is for the pleasure of Christ and of the blessed God. May the Lord help us more and more!
PECKHAM
4th September 1943
Extract from address
From Words of Grace and Comfort
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