MOTHERLINESS

J.D.Gray

Psalm 22: 9; Exodus 2: 5 (from "And she saw")-11 (to "and looked on their burdens"); 1 Thessalonians 2: 7, 8

I want to say something in regard to what is motherly, what is protective and affectionate. We sang in our hymn 'The manger and the cross' (No 188); they both come into Psalm 22 which opens with expressions of the Lord's deep feelings in the time of His atoning sufferings. It is well for us to ponder these words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?". In the position of abandonment, what it was for Jesus! "Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us, that we might become God's righteousness in him", 2 Cor 5: 21. That was the position that Jesus took up. "My God, I cry by day, and thou answerest not; and by night, and there is no rest for me". No one else could say those words in such an absolute sense as Christ could say them. We never have known those circumstances, the circumstances that Jesus went through. I sometimes wonder what experiences David had when he penned this psalm, and yet it was prophetic under the hand of God that he should have such experiences, to know something of the feelings of Christ, but in its absoluteness only Christ knew those feelings, only Christ knew the abandonment in its awfulness and in its fulness. And in the midst of the psalm the Lord brings out this matter; "thou didst make me trust, upon my mother's breasts", He goes back to that, human infancy, "make me trust, upon my mother's breasts". The Lord had such an experience, of what it was to have a mother, as it says in the gospel, "the mother of Jesus was there", John 2: 1. He knew what it was to be nourished by His mother, what a sphere of protection and affection was in a mother. It is a most remarkable thing that He should touch humanity in such a way that as a babe He understood something of what it was to trust there. You may say, how did He know that He trusted there, a child or an infant has no memory; but a child who is an infant displays the features of trust in relation to its mother. Because you do not remember something it does not mean that nothing has been wrought in your soul. Memory is good, memory can be used of God, and you should commit the Scriptures to your memory when you are young. Memory of itself is not an indication of spirituality or formation entirely, because you can go through experiences with God that you may forget about to some extent; yet what is formative remains and will go forward to the divine glory. But the Lord Jesus had experiences that it says of Him "thou didst make me trust, upon my mother's breasts". Whatever understanding was there in Christ in relation to that we have to leave. The Lord was a Babe and outwardly appeared as any other babe. Whatever stage of growth He was at physically He appeared in relation to that stage of growth. Being about twelve years old He was a boy and in subjection to His parents. In the hour of His trial He looked at His mother standing by His cross and He took care of her, saying to the disciple whom He loved "Behold thy mother. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home", John 19: 27. How the Lord's care in regard to His mother came out even in those circumstances when He was about to complete the matters that related to the work of God in regard to redemption!

In Exodus 2 a child is born. Children are born into this world, into believing households and unbelieving households. I want to speak of the children that are born into believing households. There is an opportunity for the child, but there is a responsibility on the parents, there is a responsibility on the mother. The world was making a demand for these young children; in this time in Exodus the command was to kill them at birth and then subsequently to throw them into the river. The world is after our young people right from their infancy. The mother brings out the sphere of nourishment and protection; that is very important. But you know, dear sister, your time is limited in which to nourish and cherish a child. That child that you may nurse and cherish today is going to grow up, and how is it going to grow up? Not that you or I can impart God's work to them, but we can impart something to them. Baptism and naming the excellent Name upon them is one thing and it is a right thing; the ark in the river here suggests that in type. So they are baptised to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. That is a completed matter when it is done. But it is the beginning of your exercise as a mother. Household baptism is in the faith of the parents; infant baptism is practised in Christendom and often there is no more care taken of the child in relation to God's interests. But as we baptise our children to the name of divine Persons there is responsibility on you. What have you that you can impart to the child? This woman here was given this child to nurse. She had a limited time, she had to give it back to Pharaoh's daughter. She nourished it, she imparted something to that child that was out of her body, something of her experiences with God went into the child. What experiences with God have you had, dear sister, in your life that you could impart to your child that God can use and which will come out in its own time as the work of God? Faith must be active; faith is not inactive, it involves activity. If in faith you baptise your child you must then be active in relation to bringing it up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. You young brethren, listen to this: the exercises of a mother have been imparted to you in your early years in view of formation that we trust in God's time will stand on its own feet. There is no fault in the mother here; she did what she could, she nursed that child which she had travailed to produce. Consider all that has gone in to your upbringing - the travail and the sorrow, the anguish and anxiety as well as the joy, to bring you up for the Lord. And so Moses is brought up, nursed by his mother who was not interested in the wages of Pharaoh but in the welfare of her son who was fair to God. She had in mind the testimony. Dear sister, do you have in mind the testimony for your family as they grow up? The child is going to grow and come to a position when it may exercise its own will for a time, certainly exercise its own mind in regard of matters; but if something has been imparted of your life and your experience with God, it will come out in its own time. Moses left his parents' home, that time came, and he was brought up in the courts of Pharaoh and called Moses by Pharaoh's daughter; but will he stand? O, the exercise! Did that mother give up her concern about the child once he had come into Pharaoh's courts? I do not think so. That mother would follow in prayer daily her concern in regard to her son.

Young people should not despise the daily family reading because the Scriptures will become formative in you, and they are able to make you wise unto salvation. That is what was wrought in Moses; in type he knew the sacred letters which were able to make him wise unto salvation when he was grown. You have to earn your living, you have to be educated in regard of things of this world that are right and proper in their place, but the time comes when you are grown. What a time! What a crisis in your life! When you are grown, when you are on your own away from your parents, without their eye upon you, how is it going to be? What is the determination in your life when you reach that stage? It says of this man Moses, when he was grown, "that he went out to his brethren and looked on their burdens". What was he going to do? Go back into Pharaoh's court, with a life of pleasure, a life of ease and comfort, skilled in all the wisdom of this world? Is that what it is going to be? Or are you going to look on the burdens of your brethren? There have been men, sons of faithful men, who have gone astray and have made names for themselves in politics and the like who never looked upon the burdens of their brethren and identified themselves with them, choosing rather to go forward with the course of this world and its politics. Dear young brethren, are you going to be true to what has been imparted to you by your mother? Will you despise her nourishment, her skill, her nursing, that bond of affection that she sought to form in you in relation to the work of God in you? Will you despise it or will it come to fruition? Moses looked upon his brethren and their burdens. He did not have the burdens, but he looked upon the burdens and he said, If those burdens are the burdens of my brethren they are going to be mine. He was furnished to become, not only a leader of God's people, but a nurse, who nursed and carried two million people through the desert in his bosom. What a man Moses became! The bosom of Moses, the affection of Moses, the experience of Moses, go back to what was placed there by his mother, Small beginnings, yet how important they are!

In Thessalonians, Paul's concern was not only in regard to an individual but also in regard to a local assembly. What exercises have we in regard to the saints? Who can go into a place and give a sense of "gentle in the midst of you, as a nurse would cherish her own children"? I want to bring out one or two features that are there. One is travail, "Her own children": if a child is your own you have travailed for it. Paul had travail in regard to the Thessalonians. He brings out in Galatians that he had travailed and he said he would have to travail again "until Christ shall have been formed in you", chap 4: 19. I think we can take it, dear brethren, that the allusion to travailing again brings out the normality of Paul's exercises in travail in the establishment of every local assembly. We do not establish local assemblies in that way, but the matter of travail can be that of a minister, an elder or a local brother; the maternal side should be with each in relation to being among the saints. If we have never travailed in relation to the local saints, in relation to assemblies which we may have visited, we will never handle them as our own children, and may handle them as hirelings. Moses' mother never handled Moses as if she was being paid wages· that was not in her mind. Paul said "we might have been a charge as Christ's apostles" (v 6) but that was not how he was among them; he was among them as "gentle in the midst of you, as a nurse would cherish her own children. Thus yearning over you, we had found our delight in having imparted to you not only the glad tidings". That was wonderful in its setting, that Paul should impart the glad tidings to the saints in Thessalonica, but it is not only the glad tidings, it is not only the ministry, but it is our own life also. It is something of our own experiences with God that is imparted to establish the saints. The Thessalonian saints were going to be severely tested and Paul knew that their establishment in the truth was essential prior to his leaving them because the great matter of weaning would bring out the persecution. I hope we understand that, dear brethren. He nursed them and he cherished them; that was private and exclusive, related to an area of protection and affection; but a time came when features of Christ in the brethren, in the saints, came on to the public view in Thessalonica and they became the target of the enemy's opposition. It was the weaning that brought out in Isaac's case the mocking by Ishmael. The weaning of the saints in Thessalonica brought out the attack of the devil, because he saw features of Christ which had been produced by the nourishment of the mother. When Paul had to leave them to stand on their own feet they were weaned, able to stand and withstand the persecution. Divine Persons, dear brethren, are concerned about the saints. I remember Stanley McCallum saying many years ago, how is it that young believers can stand against the course of this world? He said, it is the holy, unseen, unknown by the world, protection that enshrouds the believer; as the scripture says, "the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God rests upon you", 1 Pet 4: 14. All divine property is precious in the eyes of heaven. What property that is! In Isaiah 8, when the Assyrian passes through the land, God says "he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel!" (v 8). Think of divine pathos, divine feeling, in regard to the saints! And so in Thessalonica the saints are "in God the Father"; that is where they are left, after being weaned by Paul, left in the area of divine protection that is related to "in God the Father". Well, may the Lord encourage us, dear brethren, with these words.

LONDON

20 May 1978