"WHY LINGEREST THOU?"
“WHY LINGEREST THOU?”
Acts 22: 16; 2 Samuel 19: 11, 12
I am thinking tonight of those who delay in the settlement of their souls’ relations with God. There are many in this class. There has been no delay on God’s side. When the fulness of time was come He sent forth His Son, and as need came up in detail, we find great activity on God’s part to meet the need. He never delays, but hastens when the need is evident: we see in the well-known parable in Luke 15 how the father ran to meet the returning penitent — he ran.
In the Old Testament even this was foreshadowed. Isaiah, who is the leading evangelical prophet, speaks of his own conversion and relief, for there is not only repentance but relief. Repentance is one thing, but that is our side. Isaiah said, “Woe is me! ... because I am a man of unclean lips”. He judged himself, and he also had a judgment of the people around him. He was no worse than those around, but he was as bad, so he said, “I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips”. How did he discover it? “For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts”. The King came within his range. That was one thing. Many arrive at that stage, and we thank God for it. Heaven is moved in every instance where there is true repentance, but that is not the end. God opens a door of repentance, but then, in addition to that, there is remission of sins. The light of God only makes one more miserable, but forgiveness and remission give relief. And so the prophet, as I said, repented. He felt his condition and owned it. “Woe is me”, he said. That word ‘woe’ is a strong word; it is used many times in his book, for the evangelist does not hide from us the consequences of sin. No [p. 369] evangelist will hide the sadness and consequences of sin, and Isaiah speaks of these. He says, “Woe, woe, woe” to certain persons, but he says it of himself, too, and that is the end of the matter for him. Then you see the activity of the seraph, he who covered his face and his feet and flew. That is a power beyond what is natural; to the christian it is the power of the Spirit, to the evangelist it is the power of the Spirit. The seraph flew, it is said, showing how alert God is, so to say, and He has agencies to relieve need, that is, felt need. Every one has need, but it is felt need, the acknowledgment of the guilt, that God would remove. So one of the seraphim flies, we are told, and takes the tongs. The seraph did not die for Isaiah; no evangelist can save you. He takes the tongs, but he does not touch the coal. Jesus the Saviour felt the full weight of the divine wrath — no other; we can only take the tongs, as it were. So he took the tongs from the altar and a coal, that which was to consume the sacrifice and did. It has done it, for Jesus has suffered the full weight and awfulness of the judgment of God. He said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” So the seraph takes the coal from the altar and touches the lips of the penitent. That is the manner of procedure; the lips being the organs of sin they become the medium of it; the poison of asps being under the lips, they convey what man is in his guilt. So the lips are touched and it is said, “thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged”. What a relief to the penitent! Thus we see that from the divine side there is no delay whatever.
But then, there is delay with many who, although the light of God has come to them, stop and stifle their consciences, and go into the world and have their fling in it, holding themselves at a distance from the people of God, asserting, it may be, their independence; they hold themselves aloof, they are not [p. 370] moving. Others indeed, come to the gospel meetings and listen attentively to what is said, and speak of it, and say it was a fine word, and yet there is not a single move, not a single bit of relief in the soul. The gospel presents wonderful things to men.
I read in Acts 22 about a well-known penitent. Never was a man more repentant than Saul of Tarsus and never should a man be, for he was a terrible sinner. He needed to repent, and the Lord had him in His mind and saw to it that he did repent. Afterwards he said of the Lord that He “loved me and gave himself for me”, that is to say, the Lord had loved Saul before, and in due course the light shone into his soul, and he fell to the ground. But here he is in the house of a christian and he is speaking well of a devout christian whose name was Ananias living in Damascus. Possibly we should never have heard of him were it not that he had come into contact with Saul, for he was a devout man, a pious man and he visited this penitent in the house where he was. Well for him he was there. Well for you that you are here. You are surrounded here tonight with great interest, by people who are interested in your soul. Most of us have been praying for those in need tonight. It is well for you that you have turned in; whatever motive, whatever the influence that has brought you, it is well that you are here. You can get converted here easier than outside; you can get help here; you are within the range of the Spirit’s activities, and so was Saul, for the Lord had been before with Ananias and had prepared him to receive this repentant sinner.
The Lord has His agents here upon the earth, as we see in the book of Ezekiel; the Lord is seen above in the amber spot, and all below is under His control. The wheels and all that wonderful array of power described in Ezekiel 1 are under the control of a Man in heaven. Those cherubim with straight feet, who [p. 371] went straight on and did not turn as they went, are under the control of a Man in heaven, and so are the saints, and so was Ananias. The Lord said to him, “Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me”. He prepared Ananias to receive this repentant sinner, and he was in the house of one called Judas, and Ananias goes to that house. The Lord had prepared him to go, and he said wonderful things to him; he is telling him about what God had in His mind for him. “The God of our fathers hath chosen thee”, he says, “that thou shouldest ... see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth”, Acts 22: 14.
There is much that I could tell you tonight about the purpose of God, and what His thoughts were about you before the world was. God was thinking of you before the world was, and Ananias was telling Saul about God’s thoughts — that He had chosen him to see the just One, which is morally the greatest sight in the whole universe — the One who had come into this world, who loved righteousness and hated lawlessness, the One who went to the cross on account of righteousness. What a wonderful witness grouped around that cross! You remember the dream that Pilate’s wife had. God would call attention to the just One. Pilate had Him before him; Matthew tells us that He stood before the governor. Think of the Lord of glory standing there. He was at the bar ostensibly, but really Pilate was at His bar. Who was the greater? The just One. So Pilate’s wife sends to her husband and says, “Have thou nothing to do with that just man”, or righteous man, not that innocent man, but that righteous man. Judas called Him an innocent Man, but Judas never learned righteousness. You say he repented; no, he had remorse, and he spoke about innocent blood, but it was righteous blood he had betrayed. Pilate’s wife was different. Doubtless God had been with that woman. We hear nothing of her afterwards — in [p. 372] Scripture anyway — but she learned that Christ was a righteous Man. She says, “Have thou nothing to do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him”. Pilate had not suffered anything as yet on account of Him, and so, what can I say as to Pilate? Shall he not suffer many things in a future day on account of Him? His wife already was suffering. Doubtless she was feeling the need of a Saviour, and that Saviour was standing before her husband. Pilate washed his hands as if that could clear him, but nay; Jesus goes down being condemned as guilty — but He was a righteous Man. The centurion again says, “In very deed this man was just”. The most wonderful sight, as I may say, morally, is to see the just One, not a just man, but the just One.
Now, this is what was told to Saul, that God had chosen him to see the just One and to hear a voice from His mouth. What a privilege! Many of you have heard the voice of Christ through His servants, but that does not save you. Now, Saul was listening to these things; they were very blessed things, they were right things, they were wonderful things, and he was hearing them. Ananias says, “The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth. For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard”, Acts 22: 14, 15. Now, these were very great things, that is to say, they were the mind of God about him. So the gospel conveys the mind of God in regard of man, what He has in His mind regarding men, what He will do for man, how He converts him, how He works in him, how He forgives him, and how He gives him the Spirit; it is said, “whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified”; indeed, there are predestination, calling, justification and glorification; all these [p. 373] things are in the mind of God for all. But then, you may hear all these things and say they are very good, but you are sitting there and not moving, they are not affecting you, your conscience is not reached by them. Is it not beautiful, you say, but what about that conscience? what about that past history of yours? what about your responsibility in all these matters? For God works with responsible beings, not with the animals of the lower creation, but with persons who have consciences and who are moral beings who have to answer to God. Then, what about you? what about your responsibility in this matter? What was Saul doing?
All the narratives of his conversion are commendable to him, save this one incident, as far as I remember. In the first record (Acts 9), Ananias needs and receives adjustment, but not in this one. In this one there is this little bit of condemnation, and it is a most serious matter; it had to be mentioned, and Saul mentioned it himself. Ananias had to say, ‘Saul, why do you tarry in the light of all this?’ There he was, inactive. What about you here tonight? You have heard the gospel times without number and perhaps enjoyed it, for it is about you; it is about Christ, of course; it is the “gospel of God ... concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord”, but then, it is also about men, it is about you; it is the mind of God about you. You will remember those two persons in Luke 7. There was Simon on the one hand and the woman on the other, and the Lord spoke the mind of God about them both. “When they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both”. Who was moved? Certainly not Simon; he got no good out of it at all. Why? He was not moved by it; he remained Simon the Pharisee, whereas the woman does, and the Lord said to her, “Go in peace”. “Thy faith hath saved thee”. She had something and it showed itself. She had already [p. 374] justified herself in her attitude towards Christ, for she had acknowledged her sins in her weeping.”Seest thou this woman”, the Lord says. Could He say that of you? could He call any one’s attention to you as a model repentant person? Heaven loves repenting persons. There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents. “Seest thou this woman?” The Lord calls attention to her. Simon was oblivious to it, he was adamant to it. There was no movement in the man, and so with Saul here. “Why tarriest thou?” What hinders you? why are you not a happy confessor of Christ? The difference is that one had moved on in the light, and had appropriated what had been presented, but the other had not. Why not? “Why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptised”.
Now, this was of very great significance with Saul. It meant the complete cutting off of that in which he had lived. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees; he had been brought up according to the strictest sect of his religion; he was an educated man; he lived in it. He was a missionary from Jerusalem with a mandate from the high priest; he was a great man, and that must have meant much. The Lord said to His disciples in Mark, “He that believeth and is baptised”. It is of great force there. It is not a question of when he was baptised, but is baptised. It means that the world is left behind. I have placed baptism — identification with Christ in death — between me and the world. The gospel is not intended for people to remain in the world. If you remain in the world, you only adorn it if you are a christian — content to build it up and strengthen it. “He that believeth and is baptised”. I say, I am a baptised person, not simply that I have been baptised historically, but I am a baptised person, that means a buried person. “So many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ were baptised into his death”. For a Jew like [p. 375] Saul it meant much; it meant the turning of his back on the whole Jewish world, and he was not doing that yet. And it may be you are not doing it, and that you do not want to give up the world. If the brothers say, What hinders you? you cannot tell them, you will cover up the real cause, maybe; you may say it is the school books, you will have a lot of excuses, but the real cause is this, you are hankering after the world. That is it. You do not want to give it up just yet. If you can have Christ and the world, you will be satisfied. But there is no relation whatever between them. Do not be deceived. Christ is infinitely far away from the world. He died to it and He lives to God; you cannot have Christ and the world, but you can have Christ tonight. “He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved”, Mark 16: 16. “Arise, and be baptised”. That is the force of it. It meant something in those days; it meant a complete break with the world, and that is what Saul was not prepared for just then. But he arose. According to chapter 9 he had no difficulty about it, because the Holy Spirit does not wish to throw any reflection upon the thing in that chapter, but in this chapter Saul says it himself. Chapter 9 is the report of the Spirit, and this chapter is Saul’s own account, and like a truly converted man he tells us he was slow to be baptised. He is a transparent believer, and he tells us that he had need to be told to move.
So, tonight, I do urge you to settle this matter between your soul and God. Do not tarry, do not delay over it. “Why tarriest thou? arise and be baptised, and wash away thy sins”. Is it not worth while to blot out that sinful history? You know you have sins. More than others? No. I know that I am not innocent; I know from Scripture and my own heart that you are not different from others, for “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”. Sins of omission and sins of commission, the [p. 376] heart-knowing God has reckoned them all. “Wash away thy sins”. You say, I thought it was the blood of Christ. So it is, “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin”, 1 John 1: 7. But then, what about my past public history? Am I not going to let the people know that I have cast in my lot with the Sin-bearer, that all my sins have been borne away by Him, and that I have gone down under that wave in Christ? My history is blotted out. Baptism is a figure of that, and my friends and neighbours, my connections all are to know it. Baptism is a public matter; it is the wiping out, as before God, of a guilty past, so that I begin over again. I have done with the world, I walk in newness of life. “Like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life”. Now you are different. I have no confidence whatever in converts who do not become different and change in walk and ways. You are different; it is “newness of life”.
Now, in the passage in 2 Samuel, we have the same thought, only that it is a question now of bringing the king back, as the passage states, which involves Christ’s place in your heart in the house. Some have delayed, it may be. They have been baptised, the sin question is settled, they have confessed the Lord, they are quite clear on that side. They have on the armour of light, but what about the house? what about the king? what about the place that Christ would have here? You see the wonderful thing is, although He is exalted in heaven — “being by the right hand of God exalted” — He seeks a place in human hearts. He looks at that tiny heart of yours and says, I would like to be there. Think of the Lord of glory desiring that — that my heart might be a dwelling-place for Him. “Son”, He says, “give me thine heart”. The book of Proverbs is really an unfolding of His desire as the King’s Son to have a [p. 377] place in the hearts of the sons. “Give me thine heart”, He says.
Hence, David sends those two noble persons, Zadok and Abiathar; he had them by him. Now we are on priestly grounds. It is not the mere evangelical service I am attending now. I am seeking to be a priest with a message from the King to you, that He in all His infinite greatness and glory desires a place in your heart. It is a message from the King. “King David”, it says. And the message comes by those two nobles who had been with him in his rejection. “King David sent to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, saying, Speak unto the elders of Judah, saying, Why are ye the last to bring the king back to his house?” It is King David, and he has chosen important men, men of experience, men who have shared his rejection, priests unto God, and he sends them to the elders of Judah. They are responsible, and you are responsible now in regard of that heart of yours. Romans makes us responsible beings as justified; it makes us particularly responsible as regards our bodies. The Lord claims them. He seeks an entrance into your heart. That is the thing. So, as I said, I would speak to you for a moment, as it were, as a priest, as a representative of the King, I would beg of you as responsible, as having a heart, and as having a body, for the King seeks that and He has a right to it. He says, “ye are my bones and my flesh”. Think of that! Think of Christ recognising that relationship with you! He says, I want that heart. It may be it is full of other things. How many things one might mention. I am not speaking of wicked things, because I take it your heart is purified by faith, but the Lord wants to get into it, and He says, ‘Wherefore then are ye the last to bring back the king?’ Here we are around you. We have opened our hearts to Christ. We come together on the first day [p. 378] of the week because our hearts belong to Christ, “when the doors were shut”. We shut out all else to make room for Christ, and why should you be the last? Let me appeal to you. Why should you be the last to bring the King back? He seeks a place. He says, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me”. That is the appeal. It says, “the speech of all Israel is come to the king, even to his house”. Here we are witnesses to it, and there are thousands of others likewise. We have brought the King back, so to say; He has found a place in our hearts; why should you be the last? He says, “ye are my bones and my flesh”, and “he bowed the heart of all the men of Judah”, we are told, “even as the heart of one man”.
May God grant that your hearts may be bowed and yielded up to Christ. He seeks them. He who has gone into mansions of glory on high deigns to enter into your heart; He seeks and claims a place there. Why should you be the last? and then it is said, “say ye to Amasa, Art thou not of my bone, and of my flesh? God do so to me, and more also, if thou be not captain of the host before me continually in the room of Joab”. That is, Joab is to be cast out, one who has proved utterly unfit as the man after the flesh in the service of God. Christendom is full of such, and God is calling for men to take their places, for the work has to be done, the conflict goes on, and the King needs you. It is an appeal to you, not only to bring the King back to His house, but to have part in the conflict, in the great war between light and darkness, and as the light comes into your heart, as Christ has a place there, you pass it on to others. Every gospel preaching is a conflict between light and darkness and an effort to rescue souls. Christendom is full of Joabs who are not doing the work, but David [p. 379] wishes to replace those in his service. The Lord wishes persons in whose hearts He has got a place to be captains in their place, that is, to lead on in the war between light and darkness, that men may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. May God bless the word to you.