RESULTS INWARDLY
John McKay
Luke 12: 15; Genesis 16: 6-10, 13,14; 1 Peter 2: 9,10; Acts 26: 12, 13, 19;
We have spoken today a little of what is outward and what is inward. I want to extend that further in these passages but first to refer to the great fact that the Lord Jesus was here as a Man of sorrows. Why should it be that He in whom the full light of God was (for He was God), He in whom the unmixed and full disposition of God towards men was disclosed, why should it be that Jesus was here as a Man of sorrows? What a question that is in Luke 12, “I have a baptism to be baptised with and how am I straitened until it shall have been accomplished!” How was it for Jesus when He was here amongst men? He was rejected, He was misunderstood and in spite of the light that was in His soul as to God’s thoughts, not only in compassion for men, but in rich blessing for humanity - in spite of all that He was straitened. We feel it when we are frustrated, when we are prevented in certain things, when we are limited. Let us remind ourselves that He knew limitation in a way that we shall never know it. “I have a baptism to be baptised with” - He was going on to death, the path of Jesus was to end at Calvary, it ‘led only to the cross’. He was going out as despised and rejected of men and, as Isaiah says, He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. There has been grief amongst us, we are acquainted in some measure with it, the Lord Jesus knew it fully. Scripture speaks of “the sufferings which belonged to Christ”, 1 Peter 1: 11. They were His, they were not another’s, the Man whom we love, the Man who was here in complete devotion to the will of His God and Father, He was here sufferingly. I believe one of the things that the Lord is saying to us at the moment is that we are not to settle down in the scene where Christ has been rejected. Is there not a danger that we should settle here? Is there not a danger that we should live in relation to seen things in a disproportionate sense, even though we have the light that our inheritance is elsewhere? The Lord is seeing to it that we do not settle for less than His thoughts in blessing for us and that involves, not what is earthly, but what is heavenly. So in spite of the fact that the full light of heaven was here in the heart of Jesus – ‘Thy law’ He says, “is within my heart”, Ps 40: 8 - He was here in a pathway of suffering and restriction. “How am I straitened”, that straitening was characteristic of the whole of His life. It was not only at the cross, it was not only at the moment of His final rejection, but there was a straitening known through the whole of His life here. He was misunderstood by the world and the believer in some sense finds himself as a follower of Christ treading in the same steps. Let us then not have expectations of great things in man’s world. We are to be here in the light of what is revealed of God to us. It is most important to know that we have received things from God, but let us be here as treading in the steps of Jesus, He who was ‘the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’. Our hearts would be drawn out to Him in the circumstances of this present time as the One who knows every sorrow. He felt in His spirit everything that He took away in His power.
I want to come on to Genesis because Hagar is a very interesting person in scripture. What had preceded this in the household of Abram was the introduction of human expediency, a degree of human energy introduced in view of reaching divine objectives, so the background is a mixed one, and we know what that means. We are measured like those persons in Nehemiah 8 when the word of the law was read among them. I suppose we all, if we are honest, are measured by the divine standard as it is brought in amongst us. But there is wonderful grace in this passage, it says, “And the Angel of Jehovah found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur”. I trust that we are all available to be found today. God is not dealing with humanity in the mass. He is working with persons, and if the truth is to rightly affect us it is to have an effect on me personally and on you personally. If in some sense the circumstances of recent days have made us realise that we are having to do with God, let us surrender to it. I am going to make an appeal today as to how the light of God has found a response in your life, how the way God has made Himself known to you is finding an answer currently, or will find an answer in the days that lie ahead.
So, as the Angel addresses this woman, he says, “Hagar”, he knows her name, “Sarai’s maidservant”, he knows her position. Another has said that the power of rebuke lies in relationship and it is very interesting that this woman is addressed as Sarai’s maidservant. That is the relation in which she stood publicly and God knows what relations you stand in publicly and every relationship is to be rightly filled out in persons who stand related to God. Righteousness is a very wonderful thing, it means that we are rightly adjusted in every sphere of life. Business life, social life, life amongst the saints, family life, every relationship is to have its own place in persons who stand related to the God who Himself has brought all these relationships into being. So this question comes to this woman, “whence comest thou? And whither art thou going?” I have been impressed by this because I think God would halt us in our tracks in regard of the whole circumstance of this present time. This question has a penetration all of its own, “whence comest thou?” What is your background? How has God been active towards you? “And whither art thou going?” What is the future? What is the course on which you now are and where is it leading? God has a right to introduce these questions, particularly where He Himself has been active. All here have been in an environment like that. God has acted towards the saints and we are among them. He has acted towards us in abundant blessing, but we are very responsible in view of how we shall now respond to the way that God has made Himself known. The principle of revelation is a divine one. God reveals Himself. This woman comes on to that. She says, “Thou art the God who reveals himself” – it may be that through the sorrowful circumstances of this time God is revealing Himself to someone. That is a very blessed thing. You cannot in any way by human means discover what God’s mind is, but it is very blessed when He discloses it to you. The principle of revelation is something that is very beautiful in scripture and in particular in the Christian dispensation, the principle of what is revealed.
I want to refer to that principle as seen in these passages. Man’s world runs on other principles. Man’s world runs on the principle of what may be investigated. What may be discovered through investigation can at best be tentative because it is the result of human activity and thus it is limited by human ability. By contrast what is divinely revealed is immutable in its character, is unchanging in its nature and can be fully and totally trusted. Oh that we should realise, dear brethren, that God would reveal Himself to us, even in the testing circumstances of the present time, God would reveal Himself to us in a way that is compelling and a way that would have abiding results.
So this question is very telling, “whence comest thou?”, “whither art thou going?” – where is your course leading to? Does it need changing? We are having to do with God, let us fear Him, in whose hand our breath is. Hagar says, “Thou art the God who reveals himself, for she said, Also here have I seen after he has revealed himself”. God speaks in His grace, it may be in an occasion like this. What happens after that? This woman was affected. The word was, “Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands”, that is get back rightly into the relationship in which you are set. Let us realise that every relationship needs to be rightly adjusted according to God’s will to fulfil righteousness. She does that, but sadly gets little further benefit from the God who revealed Himself. Let it be that from this day we make progress in our knowledge of God. In chapter 21 we are told that she comes to another well and she takes a flask, fills it with water, and gives it to her son, but she does not partake of it herself. She never became characterised by the way God disclosed Himself to her. I would appeal today that if God is having to say to us we should surrender and allow Him to operate to secure the results according to His pleasure.
These other scriptures refer to two men, Peter and Paul, whose lives were radically changed by divine revelation. Peter uses the expression, “wonderful light” - “the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness to his wonderful light”. I wonder if that finds an echo in the heart of every person here, God’s wonderful light. What is of man fades: what is seen, we are told is for a time, what is unseen is eternal. Can I attract you to God’s wonderful light? It involves what is eternal, it involves what reaches you in your present circumstances, but takes you out of them. God has power to do that. I suppose the first touch this man got of light was when his brother came and found him. In the beginning of John’s gospel we are told that his brother Andrew came and found him. What an experience that was, “and he led him to Jesus”. That was the beginning of a brotherly relationship that was not going to deteriorate. These two men, one leading the other into the presence of Jesus. That is the place where relationships are maintained at their true level. He began that way, soon to become attached himself to the Person from whom the light was shining. The Lord had come into the world and according to John’s gospel, “the life was the light of men”. But then there were some who were getting the benefit of it, and Peter was among them. He was soon to be regarded as a man who was attached to Jesus, when asked the question, “Will ye also go away?” he says, “To whom shall we go? Thou hast words of life eternal and we have believed and known that thou art the holy One of God”. Peter became a person who was attached in an irrevocable and complete sense to Jesus. What had been revealed of God in Christ actually possessed him, it took him over completely so that at the end of his life the word was “when thou shalt be old … another shall gird thee, and bring thee where thou dost not desire. But he said this signifying by what death he should glorify God” (John 21: 18,19). This man became a martyr, he was taken over completely by the light of revelation, not a general thing, but something specific to himself. The Lord said at one point to Peter, “flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in the heavens”. There was something in Peter that came from the Father. We pay tribute today, and I think we should, to the quality of the work of God in the saints, there is something here that came from God. The character of it will take over a person’s life. I appeal to you to surrender to what is of God in your soul; you will never regret that. Peter was taken over by it fully and following in the steps of his Master he gave his life publicly in the testimony in devotion to the One whom he once denied. He was not perfect, he made some serious mistakes and they are written large in the scripture for our instruction, for our comfort and for our consolation, but this man responded to the light of God. I ask, have we all responded? We are looking for results from the scene of sorrow through which we pass, and it may be in this that persons will respond to the way God has made Himself known to them.
We have also read the words of Paul in Acts 26, “a light above the brightness of the sun”. He says I have never seen anything like it. Paul was a man of great energy. Mr Darby said, God allowed him to use that energy to separate him from what was in Jerusalem so that he got him entirely on his own and then the light from heaven brought him down. What an intervention of grace it was, but what God had in His mind was to secure a vessel, the product of what had been revealed to him. It says in Galatians, “God was pleased to reveal his Son in me”. That means, not only did the light come to Paul, but it was formative, it transformed the vessel, he was an elect vessel to Christ and he was secured totally and completely for God’s testimony. These things are very great. We are in the presence of what God is able to do. The principle of what is revealed continues, the passage in Corinthians confirms it, “Things which eye has not seen, and ear not heard … but God has revealed to us by his Spirit”. Let us complete the course as those who respond to what is revealed to us. Let us not hold back, but rather go forward in the assurance of divine confirmation as to all that we have been brought into, the whole wealth of Christianity is available to us. Are we spending our energies on things that will fail, or are we committed fully and completely, as these men were? Paul says, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision”. He had never seen anything like it but he submitted to it, he went along with it, he was obedient to it, there is authority in everything that God discloses. May we prove that that authority is for our blessing. For His Name’s sake.
GLASGOW
April 2001
These meetings followed the burial of a young sister who, with a young brother, died in a boating incident.