FULFILLED RESPONSIBILITY
W. Lamont
1 Timothy 1: 18–20; Ezekiel 44: 1–3, 15–18, 23, 24
We have been speaking, beloved brethren, about the great privilege of being the subjects of God’s sovereign activities. We are here today on that account, because God has acted in His sovereignty. I suppose even the youngest would know what sovereignty means. When we speak about God’s sovereignty we mean that God acts as He pleases; not as you or I would exert our will, but God acts from His own side for His own pleasure. That ought to be firmly established. What God has ultimately in mind is what is for His own heart. Involved in that, of course, is His sovereign action in bringing you and me into blessing. It is a wonderful thing to have part in it. I am not too sure that one appreciates it enough. But what I want to speak about now is not exactly God’s sovereignty but our responsibility. I have been thinking, contemplating and reading about it again recently, the great matter of fulfilled responsibility. Some might not fully understand what it was all about. It is there to be read about, and there was conflict about it. One prominent man said, ‘It was only the Lord who could fulfil responsibility’. That is not true. He, of course, did fulfil responsibility, and fulfilled it perfectly. He said in John 4, “My food is that 1 should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work” (John 4: 34); then in chapter 17 as speaking to the Father He could say, “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”, (John 17: 4). Oh the perfection of holy manhood under the eye of God in the Lord Jesus Himself! But someone insisted that only He fulfilled responsibility, which is not the truth. When that conflict was going on, part of the wars of the Lord, land conflict according to Ephesians 6, at the same time Europe was aflame with the first great world war. I am not minimising that, because the loss of lives was horrendous, but more importantly the wars of the Lord were going on when the good warfare was being fought, the truth was being established, and it cost something.
I trust we all understand that all these vital points of the truth have come down to us at great cost. The enemy has opposed the truth right through, and he is doing so today, but it is wonderful to see that in doing so he only serves to bring out the glory of the truth itself and in every conflict he outwits himself. So as I said, it is seen in perfection in the Lord Himself, and behind it all lay His love for His God, and His love for you and for me, and His love for the assembly. The figure of the Hebrew bondman refers to Him, “I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go free”, Exodus 21: 5. I trust, beloved brethren, we are all of that outlook here today. I hope there is no one in this room having open options. The Lord had to face that in John 6, “Many therefore of his disciples having heard it said, This word is hard” (John 6: 60). We referred in the reading to persons who ought to be here but who have said that and acted on it. It says that many of His disciples went away back and walked no more with Him. The Lord challenged His own, “Will ye also go away?” (John 6: 67). I believe, beloved brethren, in this day in which we are, that we are nearing the end of the dispensation.
It is a day of recovery but it is also a day of departure, and the Lord is saying clearly and definitely to each one of us, “Will ye also go away?” I love that answer of Peter’s, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” Not, to what shall we go, not to brethrenism or anything else but “to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal”.
Paul says to this young man, “This charge, my child Timotheus, I commit to thee”. Several times in 1 Timothy Paul uses the word “enjoin”. It means to insist upon or to command, and if you read the note in Mr. Darby’s translation you will find that that is what Paul means when he says, “This charge”. I would like us all to understand that we are under charge. Later he speaks about being enlisted as a soldier, “Take thy share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ”, 2 Timothy 2: 3. We are not volunteers, we are enlisted persons, and as enlisted our duty is to please him who has enlisted us. I often think of that remark of Mr. Percy Lyon when he spoke about “Take thy share in suffering”, and I believe it is apropos at the present time, he said it is like a tent with tent pegs. If one peg goes missing or is lost it throws extra strain on the rest. We are not asked to take all the suffering, we are simply asked to take our share in it. We can share the burdens and the sufferings of the testimony. So Paul says to this young man, “This charge, my child Timotheus”. These things are very practical. It means that in localities things are to be maintained practically. It means attendance at the meetings is very important. If you are under charge you are obligated to be at the meetings unless there is a very good reason why not. Sometimes there are very good reasons. But when the announcements are made on Lord’s day morning of the meetings for the rest of the day and the meetings during the week, we are under charge, we are obligated to fill them out. That is part of fulfilled responsibility, we are responsible to fill out the assembly calendar.
In saying “This charge, my child Timotheus”, you get Paul’s feelings as to “my child Timotheus”. What feelings were in Paul as he saw the potential in this young man. If we are left here, the young men and young women are potentially valuable and the Lord would look to you, but He would say to you, “This charge, my child”. The Lord would lay a charge upon you. Some of us here are getting older, and if the Lord does not come soon we might not be here too much longer. Then the burden of the testimony and the fulfilling of responsibility will rest on younger persons. So Paul says, “This charge ... I commit to thee, according to the prophecies as to thee preceding”. I have often wondered what that meant. I would suggest it is a
reference to Timothy’s secret history with God. That is how it appeals to me. If we want to grow in spiritual substance and in the manner of which we have been speaking, all of us, young and old, need to fill out what the Lord says in Matthew 6, “pray to thy Father who is in secret, and thy Father who sees in secret will render it to thee” (Matthew 6: 6). I can think of nothing more important for every one of us today than to have a secret history with God.
There is plenty that is public. We are here today and we see public conditions, but underlying it for every one of us must be a secret history with God. It underlies power in testimony and underlies living freshness in the service of God. So Paul says, “prophecies as to thee preceding, in order that thou mightest war by them the good warfare”. That is not fleshly, it is not fleshly argument or human thinking, it is a spiritual matter. I think it relates to Ephesians 6, “Put on the panoply of God” (Ephesians 6: 11), and that is vital. It would also involve, of course, wilderness conflict. I trust everyone knows the difference between wilderness conflict and land conflict, seen in type in the history of God’s people Israel. Paul says here, “thou mightest war by them the good warfare”. Wilderness conflict involves the secret private exercises that you have to go through yourself, and would include the exercises of the Roman epistle. How needed that is for every one of us to go through these rigorous exercises of the Roman epistle! Then land conflict is the displacement of the tribes of the land and the maintenance of the rights of God in the land; that would involve the maintenance of the rights of God and the rights of Christ in our local meetings and universally. It is an obligation, beloved brethren.
So Paul says, “This charge, my child Timotheus, I commit to thee”. What a word that is, “I commit to thee”. I believe it is a prophetic word for us today that we are under charge and something is committed to us. Paul tells Timothy later, “keep the entrusted deposit”, 1
Timothy 6: 20. Then in the second epistle he tells him the only way he will do that is, “Keep, by the Holy Spirit
which dwells in us, the good deposit entrusted”, 2 Timothy 1: 14. That is an obligation, that is our side. Things have been clearly established from the divine side. The truth is there in all its purity, in all its completeness, in all its greatness. Our responsibility is to keep it, and to be sure that we are in it in this way, as it says, “maintaining faith and a good conscience”. How important these things are. Then Paul says, “which last some, having put away, have made shipwreck as to faith”. We see the brethren here and we think of others who ought to be here.
It breaks your heart to think of how many have made shipwreck as to faith. Paul names two of them here, Hymenaeus and Alexander. We could not deliver persons to Satan, that was apostolic, but Paul did it, a remarkable thing. It speaks about these persons who had put away a good conscience and “made shipwreck as to faith”. Well that is a warning to us, beloved brethren. Let us accept the charge that is committed to us. It is a charge that has been made in love, a charge that has been given to us as God would have confidence in us. I would love to think of everyone here as someone in whom God has confidence. What confidence He had in the Lord Himself. One who always pleased the Father, not one second of His life out of accord with the will of God. What a challenge that is.
Now I go on to Ezekiel where we have the thought of the charge again mentioned. Ezekiel was a remarkable man. He is called “the priest”, not ‘a priest’ but “the priest” and he is said to be among the captives by the river Chebar. I think publicly that would be our position today, in reproach and captivity. The testimony is not popular in the world. So Ezekiel was there, he saw the heavens open and had visions of God somewhat like John on the isle of Patmos, but he is said to be “the priest”, that is, a man who considers for God. That is the first thing for a priest that he considers for God. Of course he also considers for the people, considers for the saints, but the prime responsibility of a priest is to
consider for God, and that was Ezekiel. So here in Ezekiel 44 he is brought back “toward the outer gate of the sanctuary which looked toward the east”. I am not dwelling on the fact that the gate was shut. There have been times when things have been shut, closed up; but I think we are in the day when, as the Lord said to Philadelphia, “I have set before thee an opened door”, Revelation 3: 8. Things have been opened up to us wonderfully. Think of the heritage that has come down to us in the recovery through men who have suffered in order that the truth should be expounded to us, and in order that we should understand it and come into the gain of it. Then “As for the prince”, I think the prince is an allusion to the Lord Himself, the part that He alone has, “he shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the way of the same”. So it is clearly established that the Lord has rights that are unique to Himself. These are established clearly right through Scripture.
Then I come to the point of the commendation of “the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok”. Those who know the Scriptures know that Zadok lived in the time of David’s reign and in the time of the rebellion of Absalom; he was faithful to David in the time of the rebellion. That is an important thing. Another element of fulfilling responsibility is our faithfulness to Christ in the day of His absence and the day of His rejection. So here he brings forward the sons of Zadok like Paul to Timothy. One thing that was said about Zadok was that not only was he a priest but he was a seer, a thing that we do not often consider. We speak often about what is priestly, but we do not speak too much about the seer. I think a seer is a person who is with God in matters. A priest would be too, of course, but a seer is a person who is with God in exercises and sees things as God sees them. Oh, beloved brethren, for the ability for that, for the capability to see things as God sees them! Things come up amongst us and we can be all awry, sometimes we are at sixes and sevens. Oh to be seers! We are often
very clever at hindsight and see things in hindsight, and some of us think, oh well, yes I saw that. It is a great thing to be a seer and see things beforehand, see the direction in which things are leading. That is important. When exercises come up among the saints, a simple question to ask is, Where is this thing leading? Is it leading to Christ or is it leading to the world? A matter that is often spoken about is the matter of what is evangelical. Would that we were more evangelical. But I notice Mr. Darby’s comments as to Mr. D. L. Moody, while not doubting his earnestness, ‘I fully judge it will foster worldliness in saints; it will foster heresy and false doctrine’ (J.N.D. Letters Vol.2, p.257). He said, thank God for many who were converted under his preachings, but it led to the world. Where are things leading, beloved brethren? That is a simple question to ask ourselves. When an issue comes up in your life, or comes up among the saints, where is the matter leading? Be a seer and be with God in the matter.
So he says, “the priests, the Levites ... that kept the charge of my sanctuary”. That is a wonderful thing in a day of breakdown, a day of rebellion, a day of departure, in type, against Christ. In the day of David’s rejection there were persons who kept the charge of God’s sanctuary, “when the children of Israel went astray from me”. So it says, “they shall approach unto me to minister unto me”. What a privilege to be able to keep the charge. “This charge, my child Timotheus”, was said to an individual; here it is collective, “they shall approach unto me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to present unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord Jehovah”. I think that suggests what we often refer to, and should never forget, that the great ultimate is what is for God. The great ultimate is the service of God, and that is what the priest thinks of. No matter what conditions are publicly, the priest considers for God. As priestly persons our obligation is to maintain conditions in faithfulness and with a good conscience, so that there should be conditions where the
Lord’s supper can be partaken of rightly, and the service of God can be maintained in living freshness and power and purity. That is what this speaks of.
There is much detail in it, but I want just to come down now to “they shall be clothed with linen garments; and no wool shall come upon them, when they minister in the gates of the inner court, and towards the house”. That is mentioned earlier in Leviticus. “They shall have linen tires upon their heads, and shall have linen breeches upon their loins; they shall not gird on anything that causeth sweat”. That is another feature that marks the priest. I think some of us have been slow to learn it. Wool is typical of what causes friction, causes excitement.
Sometimes, (I am being practical) beloved brethren, the care meeting is an opportunity for some of us to wear wool, and heat is produced. Sometimes tempers rise and things are said in heat. Let us wear the linen, let us learn increasingly to maintain spiritual linen in coolness and purity. I think that is a challenge to all of us, “they shall not gird on anything that causeth sweat”. Then further down, “they shall teach my people the difference between holy and profane, and cause them to discern between unclean and clean”. That refers us back to Leviticus 10 where they were told not to partake of anything that was unclean. Then you have a whole chapter, chapter 11, where it is delineated for them, what is not to be touched. It is there that only the unclean animals are mentioned; then it goes on to speak about feeding on creeping things “which have legs above their feet with which to leap upon the earth”
(Leviticus 11: 21), representing persons with spiritual energy to rise above all that would detain them down here.
There is another duty of the priest, these persons that have been faithful and kept the charge;
“in controversy they shall stand to judge”, that is another priestly matter. If there are any controversies, persons of this character who are with God, who are seers, who maintain a good conscience, who maintain the truth, “they shall stand to judge—they shall judge it according to my judgments”. So that no merely human element or thought, however clever, however reasoned it may be, should enter into matters among the saints. It should be
“according to my judgments”, God states that clearly; “and they shall keep my laws and my statutes in all my solemnities; and they shall hallow my sabbaths”. You see it all leads up to holy, pure, conditions where God can rest, culminating for us, those of the assembly, in that great day when the tabernacle of God will be with men and God shall be with them their God, when God will eternally be in conditions of rest, but rest among persons who have learned down here in these sometimes strenuous exercises that we have been speaking about today.
May we keep the charge, for His name’ sake.
Address at Kirkcaldy
14 November 1999