FEEDING ON FAITHFULNESS
D. B. Robertson
There is much in these verses but what is mainly in one’s mind is to speak of this matter of feeding on faithfulness, not only knowing about it but feeding on it. I was thinking about the faithfulness of God; “God is faithful”. Paul says (see 1 Corinthians 1: 9; 2 Corinthians 1: 18), totally reliable; we can count on God.
One would seek to bring a word of assurance and comfort to the brethren, God is totally reliable. It is not only that we can count on Him, but we can be inwardly affected by His faithfulness, feeding on it, taking account of it and allowing it to affect us in our moral constitutions. It is a great matter. Then we might think of feeding on the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus. I was thinking a little of that in the Revelation. It speaks about “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness”, Revelation 1: 5. It is a wonderful contemplation in the Christian’s daily life to feed on the faithfulness of Christ. There was never a moment when He was unfaithful. Through all the circumstances that arose in the Lord’s life He was ever faithful. Whatever test or whatever pressure arose, and what pressure of spirit especially He passed through as a Man here, He remained totally faithful. May it be, beloved brethren, that we learn to feed on such faithfulness.
Then I thought we could feed on faithfulness in one another. Onesimus is called the beloved and faithful brother (Colossians 4: 9). What fine qualities in a man, beloved and faithful. So we take account of one another, not in any abstract way but in a real way, and we all know something of one another’s histories, where one and another has been faithful to the Lord and we can feed on that. I do not feel that I should say much more than what I have said but I would certainly encourage the brethren to feed on this matter of faithfulness. I suppose we particularly prove it at the Supper, especially in partaking of the loaf. The Lord says, “Take, eat”, Matthew 26: 26. It is more than the physical act of eating, it is that we are affected inwardly, morally and spiritually, by feeding on the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus.
As feeding on the faithfulness of God and feeding on the faithfulness of Christ, feeding on the faithfulness of the saints, it may be that each of us can become a little more faithful. There is a great need to be faithful. We are in the last days of the testimony, and we cannot promise that there will be anything other than testing days, but the Lord will look for persons, young and old, who are faithful. It is to Smyrna that He says, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give to thee the crown of life”, Revelation 2: 10. There is a reward for it we may say. It may not seem so now, we are in difficult days, but what a thing it will be for Christ to give to us, if we are faithful, the crown of life. (The things that Christ gives are most precious. In John 4 he gives the living water for instance; then according to Matthew 11: 28 he says, “I will give you rest”.) That is a word for us, beloved brethren, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give to thee the crown of life”. May each of us be affected by this simple word, and whether the Lord takes us individually, or whether we are raptured together, may it be that we are preserved faithful to the end. May the Lord bless the word.
Word in meeting for ministry, Dundee
31 May 2011