“A WORD IN ITS SEASON”

R. D. Plant

2 Kings 5: 1–4, 12, 13; Luke 24: 13–21 (to “Israel”), 25–27; Acts 18: 24–28

I wanted to say a word as to what the scripture calls “a word in its season”—“A word in its season, how good is it!”, Proverbs 15: 23. I think, dear brethren, it bears thinking about in these days in which we are, that we might each one of us seek help from God and power from the Holy Spirit to be able to speak a word in its season. I do not think it involves exactly a word in the ministry meeting. I am not thinking of a formal word at all but of the way in which we are able to speak to one another and help one another unofficially at the present time. We often say, do we not, in certain situations, ‘Well, you do not know what to say’. We need to be able to speak a word which will contribute something towards what God is doing.

Words have been used, and perhaps still are being used, which might cause offence. We are apt to be careless in the use of words amongst the brethren, and maybe if we look back now we can see that in what we said at certain times we were not wise, or that our motives sometimes were not pure, and that it may be we would have been better to have said nothing. We need wisdom, dear brethren, to be able to speak positively a word in season.

So I read these scriptures. I thought of the word in Isaiah, “that I should know how to succour by a word him that is weary”, Isaiah 50: 4. In the close relations in which we are in our localities we might find one another a little irksome. We do need to be able to speak to one another, to converse together, in a normal way, to be able to impart things and to find help in adjustment and encouragement and other things. Maybe you prefer it when you have a platform to speak from, or perhaps you find it easier to say what you have to say at the ministry meeting, but I think we need developing in being able just ordinarily and yet spiritually to speak to one another a word in season. Among the things that test us, beloved, are the seasons. It is not always summer, is it? We are not always feeling at our best, are we? We are not always feeling as if the sun is shining in its glory upon us.

Sometimes it is winter-time. The seasons roll over us. We may know what it is to look at the truth in its glory, to have our health and strength, to have things going well in the meeting; it is summer-time. Or we may see things perhaps springing up in the next generation—the spring-time.

But sometimes we have to face the autumn too, when things begin to fade physically and perhaps spiritually with us. We have seen the round of these things in our places, dear brethren, and sometimes the seasons, sadly, have brought loss amongst us because we were not formed enough after the divine nature. Then the winter-time comes. We think of some of our beloved brethren who face the winter at the present time. Have we the grace from God to be able to speak a word whatever the season, whether it is the north wind that is blowing or the south wind that is blowing gently? Think of the varied conditions amongst the saints. We should stop and think about that sometimes if we get irritated with one another and find that things do not go just so well. Just pause a little and consider all that rolls in upon the saints, and consider the treasure that God has in one and another. We look at the saints here today and see persons who through the divine work are going to grace eternity. Yet here we are in these bodies of humiliation, and sometimes we test one another. I think we need help to be able to speak a word in season.

In the scripture in Kings there is this little maid, and she is ready to speak a word to Naaman’s wife. It might involve what is outside in the testimony. It might involve that you may be able to get in a word just by virtue of where you are, and it may be effective. This is a little maid, and yet what she had to say in simplicity was great enough to test Naaman and to try two kings, for it really showed that they were inadequate; they could not cope with the situation. Yet there she was, a little captive maid. The teaching we have suggests that she was typically an Ephesian. In 2 Kings 4 you read the history of the woman in need and then her selling the oil and living on the rest. Then there is the rich woman, and the man from Baal-shalishah, from another place. It is like the believer’s course of experience from Romans to Ephesians, and publicly where is the product of all this heavenly line of the truth? It is in the little captive maid. That is all you are outside in the world, beloved. She would not have wanted anything else; do you? Are you unable to speak a word for Christ because you have gone in for a position in the world? In the government of God this little maid was a captive, and she accepted it at His hand. Let us not wrestle against the government of God.

I would just speak to the younger ones here today. You may find as you look for employment that because of what is involved in things you have to take something less than perhaps your abilities merit. Accept it from His hand. In the midst of this country, Syria, was one who was typical of the product of Ephesian truth, who was, as far as the world outside was concerned, a little captive maid, subject to the will of God, accepting His government where He placed her, bearing no animosity towards her captors. Are you like that outside? Do not bear any animosity to any. If you bear animosity towards anyone you are not like God, whether it is persons outside or the brethren. It speaks of Jesus when He was here as “doing good”, Acts 10: 38. Are you like that? Has Christianity broadened our affections so that there is an attitude to our fellow-men of seeking their good?

So here was this little maid. The light had really been placed there in Samaria where historically the opposition to God’s people was, and there in the midst of it was this little maid and she had the opportunity of speaking a word in its season. It is not always that you are able to go and preach on the street, yet sometimes in our circumstances we have greater opportunities. Here was a man who had a need. For all his glory and his history, and the way that God had helped him, he had a need, a pressing need. I believe that many of us are often in situations where we can speak just a word in its season; but we need grace for it. She says, “Oh, would that my lord were before the prophet”—not just any prophet—“the prophet that is in Samaria: then he would cure him of his leprosy”. She did not say it to the man himself, she said it to her mistress. There was a certain skill about that. I think we need help in this, beloved, because the opportunities that come to us are not exactly that every now and again congregations are lined up for us to preach to. The opportunities that come to us are often fleeting. The opportunity sometimes comes at the office or at school when someone confesses his need or expresses anxiety as to the way things are going. Or perhaps they have a sorrow in their family or anxiety as to their health. These are the sort of opportunities I think we need help in.

She says, ‘Oh that he were there!’ The feelings of heaven come out in this little maid. She was not apologising for the gospel; she was not talking about a religious society or a church. She said, ‘Oh that you were before him, because you would be cured’. You have to love Christ to be able to speak of Him properly. You have to know what it is to have your heart full of Jesus before you in any way reflect Him. So she says, “Oh, would that my lord were before the prophet that is in Samaria!” Her soul, I think, came out in it. Are we like that, beloved? I need a lot of help as to my part outside at work, because you find that you can just avoid things, and maybe there is someone in your office or your school, or in your street, who is crying out for a word in season, for a word that will help him in some exercise of soul. I believe God would speak to us today that we might be ready just to speak a word for Christ.

The world is full of sorrow and pressure. You will find there is hardly a person who at times has not a great burden on his heart. Sometimes it is covered by a mass of other things, but occasionally it is uncovered. Mr. Churchill said during the war that there are times when all men pray. There are times when men feel the weight and the burden and the fear of things.

Here is this little maid, an Ephesian. It may be you, destined for a great place in glory, destined eternally for a place with Jesus in the presence of God, but here in smallness. She says. ‘Oh that he were there!’ Let us have a heart like that, beloved. Let us have the courage for it. Let us be compassionate towards our fellowmen. This was a proud man. He was going to make a great show; he was going to get angry about the venue; but the course of things set on by what this little girl said ended in that man receiving blessing. I do not know whether she knew about the end of it, but she had to do with the beginning of it. Be prepared, beloved, in the testimony to speak a word and leave it. Do not let us be involved in what is argumentative. But you never know what season it is; the work of God is tremendous. I do not think we have the slightest conception of the number of persons who will be secured by Christ before the dispensation ends. I think there will be far more for Him than against Him.

In the scripture in Luke there were these two who were going away, and they were discouraged. One of the things we have to face is discouragement. Almost every one in this room at some time or another has been discouraged. Here they are going away; they have an alternative place to go to. Most of us have that. If all else fails we have still got an Emmaus we can go to. It is not full committal to Christ. But the Lord knows us; ‘He knows all about us, and His patience with us is wonderful, flow patiently He has gone along with me! In the wilderness the rock that followed them was the Christ (see 1 Corinthians 10: 4), knowing all their weaknesses, knowing all the things they said about Him, and how they hankered after going back to Egypt. The rock that followed them was the Christ. Where would we be without His infinite patience? These two thought they had seen the disappointment and eclipse of everything they had hoped for and they were discouraged by it. Are you discouraged, perhaps feeling that things are not turning out as they should be? We need help to be able to draw alongside one another at times like that. It would not be any good getting up in the meeting and giving a word to the effect that we should not be discouraged, not to these two. They would say, ‘We know we should not be, but we are!’ You cannot answer it like that.

But who can draw alongside a soul? Who has the grace and affection to be able to draw alongside and speak a word in season? So they went off by themselves, talking about things. It says they were downcast. What they were talking about was the truth. It has been said that you can talk about the truth and not have a ray of joy in it. You can talk about the truth as if it were some kind of dry and dusty dogma. It is a very real thing to be discouraged. It is a very real thing when things do not work out as you think they should have done. Here it says, “Jesus himself drawing nigh, went with them”. How far can you go? You may not be serving someone to say the truth is this and it is in the ministry and you should read it. Maybe there is a heart here that is crying out for someone to talk the truth through with them, for someone to share the sorrow they feel in their heart, to feel the weight of things that is burdening them, to feel the crushing disappointment they have suffered. Some of us have known something about this. We knew something of it at the turn of the seventies when things you had set your heart upon collapsed around you. The sadness of it was that there were very few who were able to come along and sympathize and understand.

Would that we were developed in spirituality enough to be able to speak to one another and help one another, to share the load, to pick up the weight and carry it. Jesus listened to them.

He said to them, “What things?” Get it out. Are you one of those persons who, if someone says perhaps that they do not agree with the blue books, or something like that, you put on your hat and go? Or can you wait and just talk—take the strain? Can you bear some of the sorrow? can you share the weight of your local brethren, take some of the strain that they may be feeling, help to carry it?

“What things?”, the Lord says. It is a wonderful thing to be able to listen to one another. Do not cut someone off. Let them get it all out. I think many of us know something of that time ten years ago when everything seemed to fall to pieces, and you just needed someone to be able to speak to. That facility should be available in the local assembly. I do believe it is. Are you available for it?

The Lord hears them out. Of course it is Himself distinctively, but they did not know it was, and He hears them out. Think of all that they had before them. “We had hoped”, they say. They had followed the pathway of Jesus and hoped that He was going to redeem Israel. They had seen the miracles and the power that was in His hand. They had seen disease and death and demon flee from before Him. They had seen a Man with unconquerable power, but now He lay—they thought—in the stillness of death, and everything for them had collapsed. He said, “What things?” Christianity is nothing, beloved, if it is not real; it is about reality. It is about men and women and their vows, their committals, their affections, and their desires.

Would that we were able to help one another on this line that I have spoken of. All comes out. Then He has to say to them, “O senseless and slow of heart to believe … And having begun from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”. There is the one answer to depression. It is Christ! But you have to draw near to persons in the power of the Holy Spirit and be able to help, and bring in the things concerning Himself.

I do not want to labour the point, but I do believe that in matters which arise in our localities there is a need of just being able to talk to one another in this way. A local meeting is a sad place if persons cannot talk to one another like this. Where links between us are strong enough to take the strain, where you know that someone will be able to sift out what is real and what is unreal and value the work of God that is there, that is the local assembly, that is the family. Things are not normally allowed to go on indefinitely in a family, are they? Things are quickly remedied. We need more of that, to be able to speak a word in relation to it, in its season.

In the scripture we read in Acts we have a man, “Apollos by name, an Alexandrian by race, an eloquent man, who was mighty in the scriptures”. He was a man whom God was using, and was going to use further, but he was not exactly accurate in the truth. It says that Aquila and Priscilla “took him to them and unfolded to him the way of God more exactly”. Dear brethren, we do need accuracy in the truth and we need the grace to be able to help one another as to the truth without being official and without causing offence. Here were Aquila and Priscilla at Ephesus and they were listening to this man. They would be impressed with his eloquence and they would be impressed with his mightiness in the Scriptures. Sometimes we might be overwhelmed with these things. One thing is prime in these days, beloved, that the truth is maintained in its purity. The fact that one might be eloquent and able to speak well does not alter the fact that we need to maintain the truth in its simplicity and exactness.

These two saw the need of a certain adjustment with this man who was so useful to God and could be so much more useful. They did not challenge him in the meeting. They did not give a word on Tuesday night as to him. It says they “took him to them and unfolded to him the way of God more exactly”.

We need the truth amongst us, beloved; there is a great need for teachers amongst us. There are those who are able to teach and we need to pray for them and pray that the truth might be continued in the coming generation, not just the truth in terms, but the truth held in the hearts of the saints. Here they took him to them. What would they say? How would you react if you were in a position like that? What would you do if someone said what was not exactly right?

Would you leave it because he was eloquent? Would you leave it because he was prominent amongst the brethren? No, the truth was too precious to Aquila and Priscilla to leave it, and Apollos was too precious. So they took him to them and unfolded to him the way of God more exactly. I am just going to leave that, beloved brethren, that we might seek grace to be able to speak a word in that way that would maintain in its precious and inviolate character the truth that has been recovered to us through the years. It is not to be changed. It is not to be watered down or to be spoiled by the innovation of man’s mind. It is not to be spoiled either by the incompleteness of someone’s knowledge. The truth involves the Person of Jesus. I would love to be able in such a way to draw near and be able to help while the whole thing flows on. Here there is no offence and no interruption to the power or the service of the man.

Beloved, there is no one who at some time does not need help, does not need a word of comfort, a word of encouragement, a word perhaps of correction. There is no one who should be offended at the receiving of it, but let us have the skill to be able to speak it in its season, whether it be summer-time or winter-time, or spring-time or autumn. Let us seek grace from the Spirit of God to be real persons in our localities.

I wanted to find a scripture as to what to say when there is sorrow amongst the saints. One of the things we are tested in most is where there is sorrow and we do not know what to say.

There is only One who knows in fulness how to come in when there is sorrow in a person’s soul. There is only one Man who has borne all the sorrows, all the grief and all the distress. It is all going to be removed in the eternal day; “grief, nor cry, nor distress shall exist any more, for the former things have passed away”, Revelation 21: 4. He places the sorrows amongst us, beloved, for us to feel them, and to help as to formation in our hearts; to wean us away from this world in which we are to the place where He is. Dear brethren, what we can do is to assure one another of our love. Sometimes there is nothing more you can say, but the love of the saints is a very precious thing. To know what it is to be loved in a scene where many persons are loved by no one, to know what it is to be in a circle of affections which, as the hymn-writer says, are all divine (Hymn 207), is a precious thing. Beloved, when there is sorrow we need peculiarly the love of Christ. May we be able in some way with skill and the power of the Holy Spirit to speak a word properly as it is needed, for His name’s sake.

Address at Grangemouth
20 September 1980