DIVINE FEELINGS
[p. 334] DIVINE FEELINGS
1 Samuel 30:1-6; Luke 19:41-44; John 11:32-36
I hope to dwell this evening, dear brethren, on these scriptures as presenting to us something of the depths of divine feelings, for that which came out in our Lord Jesus Christ in this respect conveyed the feelings of God — an expression that bears consideration, so that there should be corresponding feelings in His people.
It is said, “Jehovah repented that he had made Man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart” (Genesis 6: 6) — a brief remark by the Spirit in early times, but which became amplified later, when it found its full expression in Jesus. In the Son of God as become Man God had the means of expressing His feelings. Of course His love underlies all, but I would confine myself on this occasion to His feelings, so that there may be concern as to corresponding feelings with us, for one is conscious in oneself, and one observes it, too, in others, how extremely shallow our spiritual feelings are.
And so I wish to show how divine feelings express themselves, first in relation to man, generally, then in relation to God’s chief interest on earth, and finally in relation to a brother. I think under these three heads we may hope to acquire some perception of divine feelings and compassions. There is particular aptness in the manner in which the gospel of John alludes to man. I refer to this because the gospel of John has such a direct bearing upon us. We owe to it, indeed, under God, the recovery of family affections and brotherly relations in life which we enjoy, and so, lest we should be unduly occupied with the family to the exclusion of the race as a whole, the gospel of John introduces man as primarily in the mind of God [p. 335] in the incoming of His beloved Son, for immediately after we have the statement of His Person it is said: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1: 4).
We are thus notified at once that men were in the mind of God, and, as this gospel applies peculiarly to the last days, we see that God has not overlooked or forgotten men; the race is before Him today, as it was when Jesus was born. Hence, you find men introduced almost immediately and throughout “There was a man sent from God, his name John” (John 1: 6), and again: “The true light was that which, coming into the world, lightens every man” (verse 9); “But there was a man from among the Pharisees ... he came to him by night” (John 3: 1, 2); and so you find throughout in that gospel the prominence of men.
Co-relatively with that is the prominence given to the Son of man — the title Son of man. Then the Samaritan woman is a further illustration, for she went into the city, and spoke to the men. The Lord Himself speaks of a woman when she gives birth to a child remembering no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world — not a child or a babe, but a man (chapter 16: 21); and then again, in chapter 17: 6, “the men whom thou gavest me out of the world”. All these references remind us of the place that men, as such, have in the mind of God.
I have read from Samuel, because I apprehend that the passage alludes to what the Lord Jesus found in this world as coming into it. All was lost. It is not a question of man’s responsibility, it is a question of the triumph, for the moment, of the enemy, as in another connection it is said, “A man that is an enemy has done this” (Matthew 13: 28). What devastation met His eye! Not indeed that it was new to Him, but now, being in manhood, the Lord Jesus could weep, He could feel, and express divine feelings. What awful desolation [p. 336] met His eye! He alone knew perfectly the divine mind as to man — what counsel had been taken as to him, what forethought, what provision! The glory of God, indeed, is bound up with him.
But as I have said, the passage in Samuel contemplates the immediate triumph of the enemy; it seemed to be complete. It is only in a little measure that we are in the presence of such circumstances — that which seems to be a complete triumph of the enemy, something irretrievably lost, and that the thing which is dearest to us, the thing which we most cherished wrested from us, and on which all our thoughts and counsels depended, and on which all our desires centred. But think of the infinite knowledge of Christ as become Man in regard of all these things! What man was to God, how He had come into the garden to walk with him, as it were, calling for him, what His thoughts were, what He intended to set out in that being, how He intended that His glory should shine there.
Everything was perfectly in the mind of Jesus; He saw everything as it was in the mind of God; He was in every respect the expression of the mind of God and the feelings of God; He understood everything, as Man, as it was in the mind of God, and thus He took account of the scene as coming into it, and now He could weep.
I need not say there is nothing said about weeping in Genesis 6, but it is said that “Jehovah repented that he had made Man ... and it grieved him in his heart”. But now we have, not only the grief, but the expression of the grief, not in words only, but in tears. And so here we have this remarkable statement that they “wept, until they had no more power to weep”. Can we doubt for a moment that the very greatest disaster from the divine point of view is before us? Can we doubt that the picture represents something more than a mere city or a few hundred [p. 337] men and women taken captive? It is surely the divine view of what Satan achieved in securing man and turning him away from God; but then we have also in man here those infinite depths of feeling expressed in such language that there was no more power to weep.
Although we have others with David, yet the Holy Spirit singles him out as peculiarly distressed, for added to the awful grief of the captivity of these people and the burning of the city, the men who were with him spoke of stoning him.
Let us dwell, for a little, on the feelings of our Lord Jesus Christ, when here upon earth, as He took a survey of things, as He alone could — in going on to Gethsemane and the cross. We have to follow His footsteps; we have to follow Him into the garden and on to the cross to realise the depths of feeling in His mind — those infinite depths of feeling in regard of the disaster; and in the picture in the chapter in Samuel we see that the people speak of stoning Him. It is only thus, I apprehend, that Gethsemane can be understood. There was there combined what words can never express — His sense of the disaster, His sense of what it meant to God, and then what was before Him — the awful desolation of the cross when all forsook Him and fled — He alone, left to weep, as it were, left to express His feelings in regard of the general position, for He never was diverted for one moment from all that, He was with God in it — infinitely so. He felt it as He alone could feel it; He felt is as a Man — divine feelings expressed perfectly through a Man. He looked for comforters but found none. One would seek to direct the brethren to the narrative of His holy sufferings in Gethsemane and on the cross, so as to understand the depths of feeling that were there and how perfectly they were expressed.
Well now, what comes out — and I want to enlist [p. 338] your sympathy, dear brethren, if I can — what comes out is that a note of victory is sounded from the outset. In humility David has recourse to God, as the Lord did. The Lord prayed three times in Gethsemane; the perfection of His manhood comes out as in His extremity He turns to God. It says, “he began to be amazed and oppressed in spirit” (Mark 14: 33). Think of that, think of the feelings that were there! He prayed three times and then went resolutely to the cross.
And so with David, he strengthened himself in Jehovah his God; he had recourse to prayer and made enquiry, and the answer was that he would recover all. Now I would dwell on this particular feature although it is elementary; it is really the truth in Romans worked out in our souls. What you find in the chapter is that, having the mind of God, David proceeds, and a vessel is secured. One great feature of Romans is that it secures the body of the believer — it secures him in newness of life, in newness of spirit, and with the renewal of his mind, so that he presents his body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is his intelligent service, and in which he proves that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And now what you find in this chapter is what corresponds with that — a vessel who had not only been taken captive, but who had been employed by the enemy, and I may say that is what refers to every one of us. Our bodies have been instruments of our own wills, of sin, but they are now to be yielded up as instruments of righteousness to God.
The young man whom David found receives bread and water; he receives refreshment — a cake of figs and two clusters of raisins, that is to say, he is made to live. If we understand how through the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ everything is secured for God, then we say our bodies are to be presented as living sacrifices, for we have come into [p. 339] a living state of things. Romans teaches us that things are to be new, they are to be living, for the Spirit is life; so that, as being recovered, our bodies are available to God, to be employed in His service. I believe that the Lord would lay it upon us at the present moment to rise to the divine thought as to man, and that as in life we are to be available to God, so that men may be sought after as such, and that there may be men for God.
It is very beautiful to see in Genesis 6, where it is said that Jehovah repented that He had made man and that it grieved Him in His heart, that it is immediately said, “But Noah found favour in the eyes of Jehovah”. One man had found favour with God, and in that one man finding favour with God we have the gospel; we have a Head for men. And so the woman of Samaria, who represents what the truth in the epistle to the Romans can produce, as I understand it, understood that her body was to be a vessel for living water. She left her water-pot; she might have taken it back full and nothing been said about it, but the Holy Spirit says she left it, for He would call our attention to the fact that she understood the Lord’s teaching — that her body that had been so corrupt is now to be a vessel of living water, and so she speaks of Christ — the Head. She says to the men, “Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done: is not he the Christ?” (John 4: 29). She presents a Man for God; she has found Him — the Man in whom God could reveal His mind and through whom He will accomplish everything, and she presents Him to men.
Is it not within the reach of every believer here to do that? She was only a woman. It is not a question of gift, it is a question of the use you are making of your body. If the Lord has recovered you like that young man at Ziklag, and made you to live, then you are to be a vessel, a living vessel for the divine [p. 340] use, and in that way the glad tidings become spread abroad in this world. I make every distinction for gift, I make every allowance for it, for the preaching necessitates gift, but the believer’s body is to be available to God, whether he has gift in this sense or otherwise. The point in John 4 is that the woman understood that her body was to be available for Christ, and so she went to the men and said to them — not preached to them — said to them, “Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done: is not he the Christ?”
My exercise and desire are that we might be awakened in our sympathies to feel with God about men. I doubt whether we shall ever have an evangelical spirit without such feelings. You say, Is that love? No, not exactly, though love is behind it, but it is love that can express itself toward men: “when the kindness and love to man of our Saviour God appeared” (Titus 3: 4) — that is the idea of it, that is the kind of feeling, and I doubt whether you will ever find a truly evangelical spirit until the state of man is seen and we begin to feel with God about it.
If we move about the world, and see the awful darkness in which men are, we begin to feel things. One need not go away from this very country to see it, but think of two-thirds of the race in the grossest darkness in Asia! You may say, You are speaking of things beyond us; but the spirits of all these people have been given to them by God, they did not come into the world by accident; God thinks of them. It is not that we can undertake to evangelise the world now; it is a question of feeling with God, of being with God, and being with God we shall then find something to do in accordance with His feelings, and He will prosper us. And that is why I press the thought that John emphasises the idea of men, because God would not have us to be narrow, but to [p. 341] have His thoughts before us, to think with Him in regard of the whole race; for it is out of the race in that sense that everything is being developed.
Then you find that after David had recovered all he sends blessings (as it may read), or presents out of the spoil, not only to the elders of Judah and his friends, but to all the places where he had been accustomed to visit in his rejection. You see there is the idea of results from men. With regard to our families we have the promise of God that they shall be saved, but what about men? The Egyptian was found in the field, and in that way represents the race. The divine idea is in reference to the race and every development of God is to come out of it; hence Jesus has become Man, and He has acquired right to the whole race. He has given Himself a ransom for all, He has therefore the right to all, and He is developing that which is for God out of the race.
I am only seeking to bring the light of the thing under our attention so that we may be with God as to the position. God is developing His thoughts out of the race, out of men, and hence the Lord Jesus became Man and gave Himself a ransom for all, and has a right to men. He has by Him, too, all that men need, so as to bring them in according to God. So, we read, in Genesis 6, Noah found favour with God, and from that point God works out a new world, and that is what is going on at the present time.
Now I want to proceed to Luke 19, because there you have the feelings of God, not in regard of the race of men, but in regard of His chief interest on earth. That is another thing. I have no doubt we have been rightly concerned about this — about the assembly — God’s chief interest at the present time, but I am inclined to believe (I do not exclude myself) that we have forgotten man — the race, and that man is the basis whence everything is developed, and that God adheres to that; He is adhering to it. Almost the last word of Scripture is, “He that will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22: 17). The water is there; he is to take it. Luke 19 refers to the chief interest of God on earth — at that time Jerusalem — now the assembly. Was it nothing to Christ as He drew nigh to the city and beheld it? What holy thoughts came into His mind, what holy thoughts were there! He would revert with his own intelligence to all the ways and thoughts of God, to the mercies of God, the counsels of God in regard of that city. Think of His feelings! It was “the city of the great king” (Psalm 48: 2), the city of David, of Solomon, the site of the temple, that which God had desired sovereignly (Psalm 132: 13, 14) — that which He loved: “This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it;” “the mount Zion which he loved” (Psalm 78: 68). Now in the Lord Jesus there is the expression of all this in tears. Does it not touch your heart? As I say, one is conscious of one’s shallowness and superficiality of feeling in regard of these things.
Look at the assembly today as it is; no one who is with God will limit himself to the few christians he is walking with, but will look at the whole thing as it stands, and as you look at it, does it not bring tears to your eyes? Think of what it was! Think of the divine thoughts that lodged there and found their home there! Every divine thought found a home in the bosom of the assembly at the beginning; everything that God loved was cherished there. God Himself was loved and He dwelt there. The Lord Jesus Christ visited it: “I am coming to you”. Think of all these things! What about it now?
Think of the birds of the air roosting in its branches! Think of the desolation that marks it, as you look abroad upon it! Can you not feel with Christ as to all this? “As he drew near, seeing the city, he wept over it”, we read. Things were hidden from their [p. 343] eyes then (verse 42); but He loved Jerusalem, and He expressed the depths of His feelings as He looked and wept over it. Now as we look abroad and see the corrupting influences that are at work in the assembly — in the public body, the fowls of the air — these wicked men who oppose God, blaspheming the name of the Lord Jesus — being recognised there, and honoured there, and He has no place in it, are we moved by it? Is it nothing to Him? It is everything to Him, and He feels it all, and so, in Revelation, He clothes Himself with habiliments that signify His feelings and He announces His mind to it in message after message which He sends. But think of the depth of feeling that underlay all that; as He said to one, “thou hast left thy first love” (Revelation 2: 4).
Well, I cannot proceed further as, to that — what it meant to Christ, but I desire that we may all be brought into sympathy with His feelings in regard of the public ruin of the assembly — that which is His chief interest on earth, and be more exercised as to what we are doing in relation to it; whether we are taking sides wholly with Him, and having judged the thing we are overcomers. The assembly will yet be known universally as the object of His love, as He says, “and shall know that I have loved thee” (Revelation 3: 9). There is that which Christ loves and which He will honour and which He will display and make all know that He loves it.
Now there is just the last thought and that is in John 11 — the depths of the Lord’s feelings in regard of a brother. We come down now to very narrow limits, and God can come down to these limits. He can come down to the very weakest amongst us, to “the weak one, the brother for whose sake Christ died” (1 Corinthians 8: 11) — note the very narrow limit, to one individual, the weak brother. We know what His feelings are in regard of the weak brother, and I would ask myself, What are my feelings? One is [p. 344] conscious of how little one loves the brethren, of how little one values them. Now in John 11 we have the Lord weeping, and we see the depths of His feelings in regard of a brother.
One has been impressed of late at the readiness with which a brother is given up, the readiness with which brethren pull away from one another as if they wished to be rid of each other. How sorrowful! Here, death has deprived a family circle of one of its members — of a brother, for it was a question of the brother. And so the Lord arrives at Bethany. Martha meets Him; she, was, as we may say, the least of the three, the least in the assembly, for she is obviously the least spiritual of them, although the most active. But the least in the assembly is not to be despised. Martha went and met the Lord. He did not brush past her and say, Martha, you are not spiritual, I want to see Mary; that is not His way; but He remained where Martha met Him; not a step further did He go until Mary came. Mary had to come, but He would show His interest in the least.
Corinthians makes provision for the least — the least esteemed in the assembly is to take the place of the magistrate in the city; instead of the magistrate, if a judgment of things pertaining to this life between brethren has to be decided, the apostle says those who are little esteemed in the assembly are to be set to judge. You cannot ignore the weak brother; he is to judge in such matters; he has more wisdom than the circuit judge (1 Corinthians 6: 4). Though he may be little esteemed in the assembly, he has got some wisdom, and he is to decide in such matters.
So Martha hastens to meet the Lord and she has much to say, much that is orthodox, but unspiritual; nevertheless, she was a true lover of Jesus, and she was loved by Him, and He did not go past her, He honoured her; but He remained where she met Him.
[p. 345] She secretly goes and calls Mary, and Mary comes in haste. It is evident that she had more influence than Martha, for when she arose quickly to go to Jesus the Jews who were in the house followed her; they had not followed Martha. The more spiritual you are, the more influence you have, and the more valuable relatively you will be. Nevertheless, Martha was a member of the family, as was Mary, and as was Lazarus; but the mourners followed Mary, they did not follow Martha. You may depend upon it that the saints are ready to discern those who are more spiritual. It was when Mary arrived that the Lord Himself was moved. Martha did not move Him to weep; but when Mary came, and when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He resented that which had affected the brother; He groaned in His spirit, and was troubled, or as it is rendered, ‘shuddered’. There was depth of feeling there that words could not utter. Think of the groans of Jesus! We read of groaning in ourselves “with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8: 26), but think of the infinite depths in His heart just uttered by groans! The groaning of Jesus was the indication to death that it should be robbed of its spoil. But then there was not only the groan, there were the tears.
How many tears have we shed in regard of the brethren who have left us, and are not available to us? We are speaking now of what is a question of feelings — of how much I am moved, and whether I have shown it. In having a brother, am I on the line that inasmuch as in me lies I would remove that which hinders him, that which holds him and deprives the family of him? The Lord Jesus as a divine Person disposes of death and calls Lazarus out of the grave. We could never do that, but there are many things we can do. The Lord did not remove the grave clothes. How many are held by grave clothes! He says, “Loose him, and let him go”. Then again He says, “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained” (John 20: 23).
Note, remission comes first. May it not be that some brother is held in bondage for want of remission? You say, he has not confessed. The Lord does not say anything about confession in John 20, He leaves it with us. True enough we have to retain sins; thank God for the power! How could we get on without it? The mandate to retain sins is from Christ. There are those we are compelled to use that against; we have to do it in love to protect the Lord’s name, and to maintain a place suitable for Him. But then how many there are whose sins we might remit and we have not done it, hence, the brother is lost for the moment; he is lost to the family.
The point that I would seek to emphasise is that the feelings here were family feelings. Mary wept, those that were present with her wept, and the Lord Jesus wept. His weeping is stated after the weeping of Mary, and this is remarkable. It shows, I think, how He comes in and confirms right feelings. You have the feelings, He would say, and I endorse them. Could He do it in a more forcible way? He felt with the members of the family. “Jesus wept”. The Holy Spirit sets that down by itself; it stands there, Jesus wept, but it comes in after Mary’s weeping and after the weeping of the Jews. They could do nothing, but they had the feelings, they felt the loss of the brother. The Lord could secure the brother, and He did.
May I not suggest, dear brethren, that if we have the feelings, the Lord will come in and secure the brother? He can do it; and I believe that according to our faith it will be. If we have the feelings He will gratify them; He will give the one back to the [p. 347] family. And so He delivered back Lazarus to the family. The family is thus set up again on the principle of resurrection.
I need not proceed further, but the time of the cessation of all these feelings of sorrow is drawing nigh, when as John tells us, “God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7: 17); and it is a precious thing that He does it. It is a beautiful thought that it is a divine operation to wipe away all tears from all eyes. Meanwhile every tear that is in correspondence with the tears of Jesus is precious, and is put into the divine bottle.
May God bless His word.