THE LORD'S SERVICE CONTINUED TO THE END
THE LORD’S SERVICE CONTINUED TO THE END
Revelation 3: 14 - 22; 1 Samuel 7: 15 - 17
What is in mind in reading these scriptures is to show how the Lord continues until the end of the dispensation in which we are, such service as may be required. Outward appearances might seem to indicate that He has failed in this or relinquished His charge, as I might say, but the passages I have read show that the Lord continues throughout. Of Samuel it is said, as I read, that he judged Israel all the days of his life, and yet for a considerable part of his life Saul reigned. Now what I have to say requires that I should touch on the Lord’s judicial service as well as His direct service to His own whom, as it is said, He loved to the end. We have to consider that the Lord has His own and that they continue to the end, that His love remains for them peculiarly until the end: He “loved them to the end”. But their history, that is the public history of the assembly, shows that at times they were found sorrowfully mixed with what was not His own, and so it is today. So that, in view of such mixture, the Lord has had to resort to judicial service; not indeed that it is not the service of love, because it is, it has His own in mind — what He would be to all indeed. The blessing of Esau, as over against the blessing of Jacob, shows that Esau came in for favour as typical of those who may not be in themselves regarded as the Lord’s own. So the Lord has to take on, as I have said, a judicial service, and this is quite compatible with love. Indeed we read of a rod of iron used, not only by the Lord Himself, but by the overcomer in Thyatira, and yet it is not to destroy the nations. A rod of iron might seem to be for destruction, but it is not so; it is a question of severity because of the state of things.
[p. 377] So that the overcomer is to shepherd the nations with that rod. The nations are not to be annihilated as in the days of Joshua. Some of them will be, of course, but in the abstract they are not to be annihilated. The type is rather David who subdued the nations with great severity at times, but still he subdued them with that method. So the Lord Himself in the future, shepherds the nations with a rod of iron. They will need strong firm handling, but still they are the nations to be blessed; the blessing of the nations was announced to Abraham, and the blessing will come about. It has arrived at us now, we come into it by the gift of the Spirit, but the nations themselves will be blessed as nations. “The nations shall walk by its light; and the kings of the earth bring their glory to it” (Revelation 21: 24). They will contribute to the heavenly city. But I am speaking now of severity as being quite compatible with love; indeed more than that, it is love, because of what has to be done, because of the state of things. And so in the last of these addresses to which we so often and rightly refer, the address to the Laodiceans, we have this same principle of severity in service. The Lord is presented to the bondman John in judicial garb, not in the sense of being attractive personally. When He was inaugurating this wonderful period, He presented Himself, we are told, living — that is the beautiful side, “white and ruddy”, He presented Himself as attractive to His own, living after He suffered, the suffering One but now alive. Here He does speak to John as living; He lays His right hand on him to infuse, as it were, the spirit of life into him for the service that was now opening up to him. John needed that; but the general appearance of the Lord is that of a judge, a judicial person clothed with a garment down to the feet and girt about the breasts with a golden girdle; His hair like [p. 378] wool and His feet as fine brass, and so forth, and His voice like the voice of many waters. It is impressive, and yet He is about to serve. There is a girdle, a usual sign of service, but service by One whose love is driven back; He is not able to love freely, but still the love is there. So the apostle says, “Our mouth is opened to you, Corinthians, our heart is expanded” (2 Corinthians 6: 11). That is, there is a change, but before that he was restrained in seeking to serve them. And that is often so, dear brethren, at the present time, for all services such as this should take on the character of Christ’s service. What are they if they are not Christ’s service? The service is carried on mediately by this and that one as He pleases, otherwise of what value would it be? So He is presented in a judicial garb, and as the Son of man, not the Son of God — that is a term that denotes much in the way of affection and glory. He does speak of Himself as the Son of God to Thyatira, because there was interference with His rights in the house, as I apprehend. But all judgment is given to Him because He is Son of man, and we may expect the utmost sympathy and consideration; although He has to act judicially, He will not fail to be as considerate as possible, and the chastisement or judgment will be as lenient as possible.
Well now, in speaking thus, I have to refer to His comings, for His judicial service requires that He comes Himself; so He, on three occasions, speaks about coming to the assemblies. Singularly enough He is not said to have come to Smyrna, a church against which He has nothing to say; nor is He said to have come to Philadelphia, an assembly against which He has nothing to say but has rather to approve. We might have expected He would come to these rather than to those He threatens to come to, but it is, dear brethren, just because of what I have been saying, that He is dealing judicially, not in the direct [p. 379] expression of love. Were He entirely occupied with those who love Him, it would be to those He would come, as we get in John 14: 21, “He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me; but he that loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him”. There He is dealing directly with those who love Him and those whom He loves. But here He is dealing judicially, and instead of coming to those against whom He has nothing to say, He comes to those against whom He is obliged to say much. First, after saying a good deal to the assembly at Ephesus, He says, “I am coming to thee, and I will remove thy lamp out of its place, except thou shalt repent” (Revelation 2: 5). It is a question of judicial service, not to rob the assembly of everything, but to remove the lamp and, of course, in principle that was taking away from that assembly its proper primary status as set up under Paul. A most solemn thing, dear brethren, that, if the Lord finds conditions in an assembly or a meeting that are displacing Him, if love is on the wane and disappearing, that is the threat, “I am coming”, He says. But it is not what we call coming into an assembly to serve in it as its Head; it is coming judicially, a most solemn matter, and so it is that that assembly loses, as it were, the franchise; assembly conditions, the chief of which as based on righteousness, is love for Christ and love for one another, being wanting, what is there save that the Lord should take away its assembly status? Much could be said on that line, but I am only touching on the conditions in relation to the Lord’s service to the end. He also deals with Pergamos similarly; He says, I will come to you too, but it is not to fight against the assembly exactly, but to fight against certain ones in it; this is another matter, that there may be that. He has much to say in regard to this assembly, where it was and so on,
[p. 380] but there were certain there that had the doctrine of Balaam and taught the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes; but He says, “Repent therefore: but if not, I come to thee quickly”. The whole assembly has to take account of this; it was in their midst; whatever is in our midst in any gathering, whether with one or two or more, is the responsibility of all. But He says, “I come to thee quickly, and I will make war with them with the sword of my mouth”. It is the word of God, a sure weapon against all such opposition. That is seen in Pergamos. How the Lord has served in that way, how He dealt with the terrible evil teachings that had their root at that time and have come down to us! The Lord has not been quiescent in the presence of all these things, nor is He ever, so as long as the Spirit of God is down here and there are those who answer in any way to Him. This service is going on and will go on to the end.
I pass over Thyatira, for He does not say there that He will come but He speaks of dealing with her at a distance, for the greatest distance had sprung up morally; a wicked woman cast into a bed as non-repentant! How could He come! He deals with her, but still there was a remnant. But in Sardis He says, “I will come upon thee”, not ‘come to thee;’ that is another matter. Worldliness having crept in in such a way, with much light, not violent opposition as in Thyatira, but a worldly indifference which the Lord hates, worldliness setting in and indifference with it, He says, “I will come upon thee as a thief”, that is as He comes upon the world, a very scathing way of showing the Lord’s disapproval of worldliness and the indifference and deadness that go with it. He hates it, and He says, I will come upon thee as a thief. A thief does not come to the person he intends to do harm to, he comes upon the person suddenly. And then the letter to the Laodiceans which I have read shows how, in spite of all these things, the [p. 381] revival in Philadelphia being in mind, the assembly comes up in the Lord’s mind; how refreshing it is to Him! He uses the pronouns ‘thee’ and ‘thy’. How stimulating that is in the little gatherings here and there, in the smallness that marks us, to have the sense that the Lord is identifying us with the assembly! He comes in too, but He does not speak of that, for He is speaking about His judicial attitude — and let us all be on our guard as to it. He may come into an assembly that is more or less right, but we cannot always say He comes in as Head; He may come in judicially to help us, to adjust us. Well, to the Laodiceans He says He has settled the matter. There is no virulent opposition as there was in Sardis against Him; it is lukewarmness, not exactly deadness, for there is plenty of pretence to having things, to knowing things. He says, It is a lukewarm state of things, a thing that is hateful to My taste. The allusion is to taste; it is the kind of thing that is most distasteful to Him; it is a most humiliating way of expressing His judgment. He says, It is all settled; I am about to spue you out of My mouth. But, in the meantime, He is jealous over His position on the Father’s throne, and that must be kept clear that there is no change in the dispensation in spite of all these things. This is a great matter in our service that we never lose sight of the dispensation; it is a fixed matter up to a point and it must not be interfered with in any way. Christ is there on His Father’s throne; He is about to take His own throne and transfer the overcomers to Himself in that relation, when we shall have to do with Him in His service in regard of the nations, but to the last minute of that session the character of the dispensation must stand. Now, He says, I am about to spue you out of My mouth, but, in the meantime, I am ready to give you counsel. That is a beautiful thing, the Lord is in an attitude of grace towards such people, towards [p. 382] us all. Think of the Lord, after saying so much to them, saying, I am ready to give thee counsel, “I counsel thee”. This is, as it were, going on now in this gracious ministry the Lord is giving throughout the world; the Lord is in this attitude and it is to maintain the dispensation until the end, that He will be whatever He can be in the exercise of grace. It must not cease, grace must reign until the last minute of His session on the Father’s throne, for the term ‘Father’ denotes the character of the dispensation; it is God in grace and not in judgment. So that judgment is judicial, it is disciplinary; so He says to this assembly, “I rebuke and discipline as many as I love” — the ‘I’ is emphatic, meaning that, so far as I am concerned, this is what I am doing, I discipline the persons I love. So you need not wonder if that happens. “I rebuke and discipline as many as I love”. I have many things for you, and if you do not want them as a gift, I am ready to sell them to you; you must have them, your need requires that you shall have them, and while I am on the Father’s throne, I am ready to serve you in that way.
That is how the matter is, and I want now to show briefly from 1 Samuel, the detail. I have alluded to the fact that the Spirit says of Samuel that he judged Israel all the days of his life. When he died and was buried all Israel mourned. It is the time of self-judgment, not in the sense of penalty always, but of judgment. Nothing is more needed in the way of service than judicial service; our so-called care meetings, eldership — all enter into this. And so Samuel continued all the days of his life, even in the days of Saul, to serve Israel — not a section of it, but Israel. Now what is to be noted both in Revelation and Samuel is that those who serve, especially the Lord Jesus in Revelation, are traced to their source, as it were; it is constantly brought out whence He is. He was challenged as to this in the days of His flesh, for He says, “Ye know whence I am”. That is a great point made in Scripture as to whence the servants, the witnesses, are. So with Samuel, we have him from his source, his mother, his father, his circumstances, all remarkably depicted by the Spirit of God. He is not in the royal line, nor is he exactly a priest although he serves as a priest; he is Samuel the prophet, but he is the judge of Israel. These verses I have read bring out the details of his service, and what could be more interesting, dear brethren, than to read the accounts of the various visits of this great prophet of Israel, as he visited those cities! I am speaking to the young people for a moment, to arouse your interest in what the Lord Jesus is doing in this way, His judicial service, His service in love too, but how He comes to the place He has in mind to visit. What interesting history it would be if it could only be written down, all these movements of Jesus since Pentecost till now. What a book we should have; still it is all existent in the Spirit, so that it is spiritual history, and, after all, what else is of value but spiritual history? All that is in relation to heaven, it is kept in heaven; kept down here too in the presence of the Spirit; but what a volume it would be, dear brethren, if we only had it written down! Indeed it is written down, I may say, in these epistles, the Spirit of God opening up all that there is to hear in the ministry. The ministry of the Spirit in relation to any of these assemblies will give us to understand how the Lord came in and what He came for. As I was saying, I am speaking to young people now. In this book of Samuel we have at least two instances of visitations; the first alluded to is in chapter 9, and what comes out is that the spiritual discern that he is there. Saul did not, Saul was looking for asses and he was in distress, and he was concerned he could not find them in the particular places he visited, and the servant says, “Behold [p. 384] now, a man of God is in this city, and the man is held in honour; all that he says comes surely to pass”. How did he know? Later we are told he came that very day. Now think, you young people, of the Lord coming to this borough where we are. Did you know it? He has been here; have you known it? Well, the young man, Saul’s servant, did know it, and he says, What he says comes to pass; he knew about him. What I am saying now, dear brethren, is that you young people particularly may prick up your ears, as it were, and begin to think about this matter. Has the Lord ever been where I am? Did I know it? Well, this young man, the servant of Saul, says, There is a man of God here and whatever he says comes to pass; he will tell us what to do. What a fine young man that is! What encouragement to young people to get the mind of God, and be sensitive enough to know that in the very neighbourhood is the man of God. The Lord is actually there; and then the Spirit of God opens up the whole matter to us, as if to honour that young man. He knew better than Saul. The Spirit of God tells us that a man like Samuel used to be called a seer; now he is called a prophet. The thing has taken on greater dignity; he is now called a prophet; and other things happen, which I cannot dwell upon, but they go forward to the city and they meet some maidens coming down. Young sisters here ought to think of that. We have spoken of it before, but it is well worth speaking of again. These young maidens are accosted by Saul and this servant of his, who say, “Is the seer here?” They knew all about it; they knew where he came to and what he came for. He did not come for judgment that day, so far as they knew; he came for company, he came to bless, to sacrifice, and there were people invited. Think how beautiful that was; about thirty people, we are told, were invited to that meeting, and these young maidens can tell the coming [p. 385] king of Israel and his servant about the man of God, the seer, what he came for, what he does; and, he is just about to do it, they say; they knew all about it. And Saul and his servant go up to the city and they find Samuel. See how the Lord is on the alert for us if we are at all interested in matters, as if the Lord honours the knowledge of these young women; and there is Samuel ready to meet them, the first man they met, as you might say. Another side to the position of Samuel is given in chapter 16, that he might come in a judicial way and cause trembling or fear to the place. It is a very important matter that we should have the fear of God before us, and not speak too lightly about the Lord’s coming to us, because He may come judicially and cause dread and fear. But it says he came peaceably. The allusion here is to a circuit; it is well known in this country, there are circuit judges, but the word has a great place in Scripture. The Lord entered into the temple, we are told, and looked round on all things, and went out to Bethany for the night. He came back again judicially, but He looked round on all things, not only on the persons, but on the things that are in the locality. Then, we are told in the same gospel, that is Mark’s, that the Lord, in designating His brethren, looked round on them. I think it is very beautiful to be in a circuit where the Lord looks round, as if He looks round complacently. They were sitting around there, that is, He is the centre of things, He is everything and in all there. They are sitting round Him and He looked round on them, and He says, These are My brethren. Well, I touch on that, dear brethren, as entering into what I am saying. How beautiful it is to think of the Lord coming to us in this way, looking at us in this way — those who do the will of God, He adds; (Mark 3: 34, 35).
Well now, this circuit began with Bethel, that is the house of God. I was speaking of the judicial part [p. 386] of the service, but when the Lord has the house of God in mind and He will come to a place, for it says, He is here today, He will have something on the house of God. We may look for that; it is what comes out that indicates what He has in mind; how much could be said about that! He touches on it in the letters to the assemblies when He says, These things says the Son of God, that is, He is over the house. He is in the house as Son of God and He is very jealous about it, because He wishes to maintain family relationships according to God. Now we have been speaking today of how parents think of their firstborn, and think how much they will make out of him as shining in this world. Universities are becoming very traps for the people of God, to destroy them, to deaden their sensibilities and build them up in pride; for that is what these great seats of learning really have in mind, and it destroys the family thought, the spiritual family, that is, the taking away of the first to establish the second. That is what the Lord has in mind in the house. Of course He is concerned about His dwelling-place, like David, but He is concerned too to maintain spiritual family relations amongst us. Then, as you will notice, the second place is Gilgal. We may look for the meaning of that name, but the Spirit of God gives us the meaning of it in Joshua 5, and that is the thing to keep in mind whatever the actual thing may be, for there was more than one Gilgal, it is the thing we have to think of, for the Lord is coming in relation to the allowance of the flesh in that locality. If He comes with Gilgal in His mind, He will certainly say something about it and the terribleness of the allowance of the flesh which is always against God, “The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh” (Galatians 5: 17) and “It is not subject to the law of God; for neither indeed can it be” (Romans 8: 7). So that the Lord, if He comes with that in His mind,
[p. 387] will not fail to stress the need of setting the flesh aside drastically. And then finally he came to Mizpeh, and then finishes in Ramah for, if we have the family thought, that means the flesh must not be allowed, circumcision must be strictly enforced. Then the need is to watch, for you know the exercises of today will not do for tomorrow; the word ‘Mizpeh’ has that in mind, it is watchfulness, and it comes in, I believe, dear brethren, in view of the Lord’s service to us. He says to Laodicea, “These things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness”. He is finishing the thing, and He would have us to be on the watch, because what we get today we may lose overnight; the thing is to watch what we have, to watch against the enemy too. If the Lord comes with that in His mind He will stress it in the ministry He gives. And finally, there is his own house, that is Ramah, he was on the up-line; and one feels that in these last days we are on the up-line — thank God! Let us not turn downward, “The path of life is upwards for the wise” (Proverbs 15: 24). There is really no safety for us, dear brethren, unless we go to the limit of the thing, the full thought of God, and that is moral elevation, that is where Jesus is, where He has His own sphere, where He opens up His heart to His own, and where the worship of God is carried on and maintained; for there he built an altar, as you will observe, unto Jehovah. May one not suggest that the Lord is working on these lines? He is working in relation to assembly service. The family relations must be maintained and the circumcision must be maintained, for the apostle says, “We are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and boast in Christ Jesus, and do not trust in flesh” (Philippians 3: 3). And watchfulness must be maintained. “What I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch” — watching in the protection of what we have and in the refusal of what is extraneous or evil;
[p. 388] as Habakkuk the great man for high places, said, “I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower” (Habakkuk 2: 1). Habakkuk comes in there beautifully, for it is a question of the high places of God and our feet on these high places and a song with stringed instruments. That is what the Lord is leading up to; it is unmistakable. May the Lord forbid we should turn back! Let us keep on with it, for there are great things for us as we keep on. Ramah leads up to the heavenly position and the translation of the assembly to be with the Lord for ever. So the altar is built there to Jehovah. There is the service of God maintained in its dignity, carried on in the power of the Spirit of God.
That is what I have to say, dear brethren. I commit it to you and ask the Lord to bless it to us.