GOING FORTH

A.A.Bellamy

Jeremiah 38: 14-23; 15: 1-4; Ezekiel 14: 12-14; 19-21

In the course of the Lord's ministry amongst His own He outlined certain conditions that would come upon Jerusalem, and it called forth enquiry on their part as to when these things should be, what would be the sign of His coming and of the completion of the age. We know that those passages, particularly in the gospel of Matthew, have a distinctly dispensational meaning and yet they are there for our instruction, and the moral application of them is always beneficial; that is to say, we might intelligently raise that enquiry as to when these things were coming. Men in the world would like to know what is coming. The saints are not ignorant, they have been made acquainted with what is coming, so when it comes they are not surprised. In the course of His teaching at that time the Lord Jesus referred not only to external matters such as wars, rumours of wars, earthquakes and famines – things that could be taken account of by anyone – but also to something that only the initiated could take account of – the parable of the fig tree, when its branch becomes tender, which would be a sign. That relates in the application of it to conditions among those who are faithful to Him, involving the substantial work of the Spirit in anticipation of and preparation for this great moment to which we are looking, when He will actually appear in glory.

I would like to share with all the brethren here an exercise which I have carried for some time, and it is this, that we are prone to evaluate the current conditions by virtue of what is public, conditions in the world, and draw the conclusion that the coming of the Lord is imminent, which is perfectly true. But how far do we set out the condition which the Lord speaks of in the parable of the fig tree – the tenderness, the evidence of spiritual life, the susceptibility to His word, devotedness to Himself, the appreciation surely of what has gone before in the faithful service of others and the holy determination not to give one inch of ground? How far do those things mark us? That is my exercise and that is why I have read these passages, from the prophets, which may not be so well known amongst us as they should be, particularly from Jeremiah, of all the prophets a great suffering prophet. He had word from God to the people from time to time and he suffered on that account; he was not accepted, certainly not popular, but he communicated God's word to the people and on that account he suffered. We do well to look into what he says.

I read these sections beginning with the passage in chapter 38 where the king, that is the responsible element in Jerusalem, seeks the prophetic word. I do not know that we can say much in regard of Zedekiah; he was a vacillating character, a weak kind of man who went in the direction in which those around him went. He came under influences which were not good, but then he also came under influence that was good, and when Jeremiah communicated God's word to him he was under good influence and yet he did not heed the word. The word was that they should go forth from Jerusalem. We are accustomed to the idea of going forth, according to Hebrews: "therefore let us go forth to him", chap 13: 13. Notice those words "to him". It is not simply to occupy another position publicly, or to set up anything novel, but the point is that we go forth unto Him. He is outside; our blessed Saviour suffered as the sin-offering outside the gate, and if persons go forth and miss the thought of going forth to Him they become just a sect, something which is set up which has no divine authority. The key at the present time is unto Him, He being outside and under reproach. The youngest believer knows that; the child at school as confessing the name of Jesus as Lord finds that that name is under reproach. As in Matthew 11, after the Lord's patient ministry to those cities Bethsaida and Capernaum – wonderfully favoured cities in which He had ministered the truth of God, in which He Himself had laboured and they had rejected God's word – He was outside but He was saying something. At the end of that chapter we have the words of Jesus, "Come to me" (v.28), the rejected Saviour, our Master. Writers of the epistles refer to the Lord Jesus in that way; some, Peter says, "deny the master that bought them", 2 Pet 2: 1. Well, we would no longer be at home in what hated Him.

Now there is another aspect to which I wish to draw your attention in this matter of going forth, not going forth to Him outside the camp exactly, but another aspect of going forth. You will see that it comes into this section I have read in Jeremiah 38: "Thus saith Jehovah the God of hosts, the God of Israel: If thou wilt freely go forth to the king of Babylon's princes". We need to understand the bearing of that going forth. Those in Jerusalem at that time were maintaining things; they might have said, we are here in Jerusalem, do you not understand the tradition that lies behind the position that we occupy, how far back it goes? and we are keeping things going; the king of Babylon and his forces may be all around but we are just going on with what is traditional up here in Jerusalem. That is a very great danger, beloved brethren, even in our history as brethren, because there has been more than a hundred years of that kind of history. We may easily fall into the idea that we are the natural successors of those who have gone before, and what are we then but a mere sect? The word is to go into captivity. You say, to go into Babylon? I do not say to go into the world but to go into captivity. That is something to think about, to accept the government of God. How powerfully it is operating in the world among the nations, operating in Christendom in the church so called, but the thing is to accept that the position is one of captivity. Have we contributed to it responsibly? We have, and we have to own that. When we come to the other scripture the reason for what has taken place is given, and the reason lay in what Manasseh had done. That may have a voice to us. Accepting the captivity is not just lying down under circumstances but involves a certain intelligent understanding of God's ways. Paul went into captivity, and out of the captivity into which he went came the very best. The Ephesian epistle, the Colossian epistle, and the epistle that we read this morning, came out of the captive conditions that he had accepted. He had not accepted them with any heart-burning, he did not repine in captivity. "I, the prisoner in the Lord", Eph 4: 1. O, what a principle it is to see that captivity is to be accepted under the ways of God! Blessing will follow. That is the word of Jeremiah to the king but he would not listen. So you find in these chapters that the prophetic ministry goes on, the word comes constantly and people do not listen to it. They become complacent in their conditions and are held in certain fetters of religious pride and that kind of thing. They had to do with Jeremiah; the hierarchy in Jerusalem and the proud men that were there caused the suffering that came upon the prophet, not to speak of those who prophesied falsely. These things are extant in the profession. I once heard it explained in great detail that we were no longer in the great house but that somehow we had got out of it into a nice little secluded position, and what went on all around had nothing whatever to do with us. Our position, I need not say, is secluded, very secluded, but in the responsible setting we cannot get out of the great house, and therefore there is the need to go forth, and not to refuse to go forth; that is, to accept the ruin that has come in upon the whole profession of Christianity and accept our part in contributing to it.

Now I read from chapter 15 where evidently the conditions in which these prophets served were very bad. I do not want to dilate upon the badness of public conditions but we should feel things more deeply, if I may say so, than we do. We should not merely sit in judgment, although judgment and discernment is called for, but we need to feel things. There was a father in the gospels who felt things; he felt things because his little daughter was at extremity; and that is the position in Jeremiah 15, it is an extreme position. Do we realize that we are in extreme conditions as this dispensation is about to close? The apostate drift is more and more apparent, the drift away from God; we should feel it. "My little daughter is at extremity", Mark 5: 23. If you look at public conditions in a practical way in so far as we are aware of them (I am not referring to what is political) there is the situation where in five localities in this country only one brother, that is, the executive side, the side responsible for maintaining the testimony and the service of God, is reduced to one prepared to walk in the truth. That is extremity, dear brethren, and we need to feel it and be with God about it and perhaps weep a little more about it, because Jeremiah is a weeper, Timothy too and others. Those tears were not wasted, they are the kind of tears that God puts into His bottle. Nevertheless, in these extreme conditions God is speaking: "And Jehovah said unto me". Jeremiah is saying what God said to him. It is not exactly a communication to be delivered to the people, it is a prophet, a man that God is saying something to, and of course he will have something to say to the people. "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, my soul would not turn toward this people". What a situation!

Now one great feature of this dispensation is intercession. We referred to that in connection with the Lord upon the cross: "Father", He says, "forgive them, for they know not what they do", Luke 23: 34. Was that prayer heard? Surely. He came to die, He came to change the dispensation from law to grace. O, thank God that He came! Do we thank Him for coming? Think of the mission of Jesus to change the dispensation from law to grace. He interceded upon the cross. He intercedes also in John 17 but not for forgiveness; He is demanding certain things of the Father, not praying for the world – "I do not demand concerning the world" (v.9). The world has fixed its doom in the rejection of the Son of God, but He prays for us. Well, God speaks of these two great servants that He had had, Moses and Samuel; Moses first, a man who stood in the breach and diverted God's consuming anger from the people, typical of Christ. O what feelings are bound up with that! They are reflected and brought into the present dispensation, for we see the same in Paul, how he intercedes for his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh (see Rom 9: 3), and as the note says, he was beside himself. I just raise the question; how much do we feel these things? Do we feel them like Moses in any measure? There the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

And Samuel, at one of the darkest points in Israel's history, says, God forbid that I should sin in not praying for you (see 1 Sam 12: 23). Well, God speaks to this prophet about a condition of things where intercession is unavailing. John says "There is a sin unto death: I do not say of that that he should make a request", 1 John 5: 16. There is a mysterious allusion in that passage. You say, what does it mean? Well, what does it mean to you? We are in solemn times; the moral issue is a solemn issue; and so God draws attention to this condition that it might affect us, and there again we have the thought of going forth. The people say "Whither shall we go forth?" What are we to do? There is the sword and there is death, there is famine and finally there is captivity. Salvation lies in accepting captivity, in not rebelling against the ways of God but humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God and in due season, as Peter says, He will exalt you.

Now where I read in Ezekiel, Daniel is referred to with two others – "Noah, Daniel, and Job". God selects certain servants to speak about them, three of them. They had ministered and one of them was still ministering – for Daniel was contemporary with Ezekiel – and the word was that if these men were in a land that had departed from God it would be unavailing. "When a land sinneth against me by working unfaithfulness"; a land, any land, I suppose ; we think of this land in which most of us were born , what favour God has shown to it, how He has preserved it, even in our histories God has preserved this land from invasion; but "when a land sinneth against me by working unfaithfulness... though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job should be in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness". It is not a question of them going into captivity here; it is the principle of deliverance by their own righteousness, that if these men were in the land they would save only themselves. History shows that they all had saved others. Noah was instrumental in the salvation of others; he preached righteousness; he was a man who would be firm as to the rights of God in mercy; he saved his house; he was a righteous man. Daniel was a holy man; the first impression you get of him is as a youth amongst his companions, and what is current in that company of persons, Daniel and his companions, is holiness. What a word that is to all of us! I was going to say to those who are young, but however old we are or however young, a constant exercise is as to holiness. That was Daniel's exercise; he went on a long time serving on that principle of holiness; he saw empires fall, and we have seen one fall, in the lifetime of persons in this company an empire has fallen. You might say that conditions go on, we are thankful to God for mercy and are we not committed to God? Dear brethren, at what level may I ask are we committed? Jacob's committal was at Bethel; he vowed a vow there; he said "If God will be with me, and keep me on this road that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and a garment to put on... then shall Jehovah be my God", Gen 28: 20,21. And not only so, but Jacob says, I will give Thee a tenth. That was committal, but that is not Christianity; Christianity is Romans 12: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service" (v.1). That is full committal, nothing held back. Dear young people, confess the Lord's name , that is initial ; the next step in committal is to take the Lord's supper and identify yourself with Him in His death, and accede to the desire of His love: "this do in remembrance of me", 1 Cor 11: 24. Now reverting in closing to the passage in Ezekiel, God speaks of these three men; He likes to speak of them. There is a chapter in Daniel where you have the names of three men again and again: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. God likes to speak of them. Then we might speak of three men, three distinguish ed servants and their ministry, and say, we have their ministry and have read it, and we thank God for it. But God says of these three men in Ezekiel that if they were in the land which was sinning they would save only themselves. It is not merely by acceding to what is right in ministry that we shall be saved; the principle of salvation is to do what is right, and that is individual, as in 2 Timothy 2: "every one who names the name of the Lord" (v.19). That is not to say that such will not be used to the blessing of others or the deliverance of others, but God is bringing home here the current conditions in a picture of what Christendom has become, and the great importance of what is individual in our exercises day by day. Those of us who have read Mr Raven's ministry a little know that he stressed what was individual, and certain persons today, believers, take that as indicating that what is collective is finished. That is not true. We must be fair to those men who have gone before us, and if we quote part let us quote all; we shall find that in that same ministry there is equal emphasis put upon the company.

Well, I think I have said enough to raise exercise as to what is current, and fully to accept the need of going into captivity, because it is a question of obedience and of resisting the tendency, the ever-present tendency, to continue on just as things have been, and to seek to maintain in an outward way the appearance of what is right without the vitality that really attaches to it. May the Lord help us by deepening our exercises and to find the answer to every one of those exercises in Himself, in His own presence, in His present love, His love for every one of us and His love for the assembly. For His Name's sake.

BARNET

27 January 1979