The Lord’s Appeal in the Supper .................................. 125
“His face did shine as the sun”, Matt 17: 2. If all men’s pride accumulated together had thrown this world into perdition, in the Lord Jesus there was power that could bring another world into being for the glory and pleasure of God. We read 115
too: “And his raiment was white as the light”. He took them there in His divine rights, in His sovereignty as the Son, the One who had come forth from God in the power of His Person to accomplish the pleasure of God.
But in Mark’s gospel He took them up into the mountain as the One who was here for the service and pleasure of the Father. In His perfection, and purity, He led them on to the mount of transfiguration. There is something special and peculiar about it; He took them up into an high mountain apart “by themselves”. That is where the heart is tested—on the line of separation. You may say, I follow Jesus, my heart has been touched by His grace; when I was a sinner He saved me from my sins, and the things I once followed I no longer follow; I follow His Person—Himself. There may be a time coming in your spiritual history when you will be tested on that line. Are our hearts prepared to follow the Lord into a place of spiritual blessedness and glory and excellence, but “apart by ourselves” there? We carry for quite a long time a good deal with us that we depend upon as religious assistance, but as the Lord leads us in His faithfulness, He makes us feel that this prop and the other has to go, because we have been depending on this religious assistance to maintain us in the position, and not upon Himself.
I want by the Lord’s help to make clear from the point of view of the present condition of things—not from a doctrinal point of view, which only leaves the soul in uncertainty—how we are to get along in the state of things that exists around us at the present time. Let us consider this for a moment; if weakness has to be considered, we have to take account of our own weakness; if self-will marks the state of things around us, let us bear in mind that all the will does not lie outside these four walls; if there is breakdown, the breakdown is not all outside of ourselves; if failure is to be faced, and faced it undoubtedly must be, it has to be faced in our own history. But, blessed be God!
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we can face all in the light of, and in the presence of the One who is faithful.
So in the book of Malachi we find the precious light of the unchangeable goodness of God shining out. He speaks of the sin of Judah, of the abomination he had committed. Why is Judah singled out? Because Judah is spoken of as bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Judah stood in a peculiar relation to the one who was the centre of Israel’s hopes and expectations. Judah should have been in power instead of in weakness. But if he was in weakness, why was it so? Because he was defiled; he had dealt treacherously with the wife of his youth, chap 2: 14. He had got out of touch with his God; his heart had become first cold, then distant, and finally defiled and corrupt.
What a controversy God has with His people! But you say, God’s controversy is with Christendom. It is very little help to think of God in controversy with Christendom. Is it not better to face things as before God, to see whether there be not some hindrance or outstanding account with ourselves? What are we to gain by constant occupation with the complexities, the departures, and failures in that sphere of things? The Lord would give us grace to seek in nearness to His own Person to have the question of our own relations with Himself raised and settled. Where are we in divine things? Jehovah raised this question with His people, as we get it in Malachi’s record.
What a comfort it is to think that, if there has been departure, the Person who is presented constantly to our view is the Minister of the covenant! There can be no change there. The messenger of the covenant comes to the temple, to the very centre of things, to gauge the situation, and He comes with the fire of the refiner; He comes to bring in the light of the truth, exposing the whole matter as before God.
But He comes, too, with fullers’ soap; that is, not only with the element of divine searching, but also with the power of divine cleansing, testing the heart under the application of 117
the truth, but comforting the heart with the sweet comfort of His own ministry, and with the support of the Holy Spirit.
We were speaking this afternoon of the ashes of the red heifer, which had to be treasured up in a clean place.
There must be a clean place for the ashes, and I think the Lord would give us grace to maintain in our links together that which would be a depository of what would answer to Christ. Those ashes of the heifer were to be set apart, and when occasion arose for their use, they were to be connected with the fresh running water, typical of the power of the Spirit of God, according as the truth is in Jesus. They were to have spiritual efficacy.
How often there is such a lack of power with us, that an exercise arising in a locality which seems so simple to begin with runs on indefinitely, and the longer it does so the more complex and difficult it becomes! Is this not because we are unable in meeting the exercise to bring forward the ashes and the living power of the Spirit together. How often it has been proved that our intelligence has failed us in the presence of an exercise, and those whom we thought of little account in the assembly have been used of the Lord to put their finger on the spot, and healing has taken place! The Lord’s eyes take account of the situation; He comes like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap in order that He may put us on lines of spiritual rectitude; and thus we can rejoice to take account of the Lord as the One who has the refining process and the cleansing means in His own hands.
You will notice in the gospel according to Mark (I just touch on it as I pass) that after the mount of transfiguration (chap 10) the Lord comes to Judah, so to speak, and he raises the question with him as to the wife of his youth. The Pharisees in Judæa say to the Lord, “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife?”, Matt 19: 3. The Lord says that from the beginning it was not so. The same Person was raising God’s controversy with Judah. How are things with us?
Have we lost freshness? I ask it in the light of the fact that 118
One has drawn near to us who would restore freshness.
What we suffer greatly from is the lack of being spiritually saturated, so to speak, with the truth. We touch it; it touches us, but to be maintained free from defilement we must be kept in the truth.
One loves to think of the fullers’ soap. It suggests how the Lord in all His tender care for His people would touch them so that their freshness might not be lost, and if they have become contaminated with defilement as passing through this scene, that it might be removed from their spirits for His pleasure. What could be more touching than John 13 in that connection? The Lord well knew the elements of the scene through which His own were to pass.
He knew its testings, and the demand that would be made upon the spiritual capacity of His people, and so, knowing it all, before He left them He instituted that wonderful service of feet-washing. Not only did He do it for them as indicating that He would always do it for them, but He also did it as indicating how He would bind them the one to the other in the service, as He had bound Himself in it always.
He “took upon him the form of a servant”, Phil 2: 7. How low the Lord was prepared to go that He might secure and preserve His own! “Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish”, Eph 5: 25-27. “Without blemish”, think of it! The One with whom we have to do in all the searching dealings of His love is the One who gave Himself for the assembly—
the One who is constantly serving, tender, true, and ever moving in His affections towards that consummation of His own pleasure—the presentation of the church to Himself.
Need we fear His scrutiny? He will come with the fire of the refiner, but also with fullers’ soap. Come to examine? Yes; come to test? Assuredly; but come to cleanse, to free the spirit from bondage, and the power of associations that 119
would hinder our communion with Him, and to help the heart into the liberty of personal links with Himself.
Think of the Lord coming in that twofold way, and over and above all His coming as the Minister of the covenant, unchanged and unchangeable! If the heart be bowed to confess it has failed, the Lord will speak to it tenderly, shewing where and when and how it failed, and in the very process of confession set it free, renewed in strength and vigour, and fresh in its links with divine things.
So He tests His people, He refreshes them, and then finally, though it be a day of breakdown, there is that sweet allusion to what is recovered for the pleasure of Jehovah in it: “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another”. It is always a serious symptom when people only occasionally speak of divine things to one another. We cannot get on without it; there can be no question about that. You may tell me that your business hinders you. So be it. I have noticed in reading the gospels how very crowded, speaking reverently, the Lord’s days were; but He always knew how to speak a word in season to him that was weary. His ear was opened morning by morning as the taught One. The apostle Paul, too, night and day was unceasingly occupied with divine things. I venture to think that no businessman ever had his life so crowded with business interests as the apostle had his—crowded with spiritual interests; but crowded as his life was he spoke often to the brethren. And when the enemy put him in prison, he could not silence the apostle’s speech to the brethren; the most precious words that came from the apostle to the brethren came from his prison cell, when he was as low as man could put him on the line of sufferings.
It is a serious symptom when we become content with our formal comings together. We may say we see one another five times a week. If those occasions hold all their original preciousness to us we are safe, but if we have become 120
content with the mere form we are very unsafe indeed. They
“spake often ... and the Lord hearkened”, Mal 3: 16.
The things that were sweet and precious in the eyes of Jehovah were noted down; the pure, the holy, the precious things that had been wrought out in soul exercise had all been written down; a book of remembrance was kept. Think of it! “They shall be mine”, the Lord says,
“when I make up my jewels”, v17. The discipline, the trials, the things that the Lord allows us to experience are all useful in His blessed, unfailingly, tender and true hand, that there might be produced in us that which is for His own pleasure.
The Lord has set Himself to nourish and cherish His church. Why is it that He is spoken of as the minister of the covenant? Because Jehovah looked on to the coming of the Lord Jesus when He spoke that word. The minister of the covenant is the One who never gives His people up. He has all the saints before Him. When we are tested, we are tested because Christ loves us; when He comes near with the fire of the refiner, what has He in view? To use the soap of the fuller. When the disciples followed that blessed Person to the mount of transfiguration and He led them to a place apart by themselves, they did not understand the meaning of that word separation; but He did; He knew what separation would mean for His own.
Later they disputed as to who should be the greatest: but see how the Lord settles the dispute! He settled it in a twofold way, by the fire of the refiner and with fullers’ soap.
He put their hearts to the test, brought the light of the truth to bear upon them, gave them to feel how unlike Himself it all was. We need have no fear of the Lord in His methods.
He will tell us things about ourselves that our dearest friend might hesitate to state; He will tell us the whole truth, but He does it with no other object than our spiritual good. That is the fullers’ soap. It says, “His raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white 121
them”. There were two men on the mountain with the Lord that day—the greatest refiner apart from the Lord that the testimony of God has ever known, and the greatest fuller.
The Lord was supreme. The greatest Refiner—God’s own Refiner—was there; the greatest Fuller—God’s own Fuller, His sent One, the One who had come to do His will—was there. And Peter said, “Master ... let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias”. And then “there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him”, Mark 9: 5-7.
Beloved, our souls are safe if in our links together we hear the voice of the Lord Jesus, but if we only hear what is current, be it ever so correct, it will not carry our souls to the end. God grant that it may be correct with all the correctness of the ministry of Christ Himself; but let us not be satisfied with correctness and clearness of ministry without our links with the Lord being maintained in the freshness, and purity, in which the Lord Himself would keep them.
Now I close with just a simple reference to the apostle’s word to the Corinthians. In chapter 5 we get a peculiar point reached, the constraining power of the love of Christ, which lies in the fact that the heart has come to a judgment in respect of things here—the judgment which the Spirit of God would bring us to in connection with the type of Christ in the red heifer. The ashes of the heifer were to be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel. Thus the judgment which the apostle Paul had come to, I am privileged to come to, that “if one died for all, then were all dead”, 2 Cor 5: 14. May I ask, Have we come to that judgment? You say, I think I have. Let us be certain about it. Until we come to that judgment the love of Christ has not its way—its constraining power—with us. You say, He has forgiven me my sins, He died for them. But have you noticed that when the Lord Jesus died, in the sight of God 122
there was not a living thing on earth? To measure the grace of God and of Christ by the forgiveness of our sins is a very small measure indeed. Had I been as clear from sin as to conduct as it was possible to have been, Jesus would still have had to die. He died that the whole fact of my guilt might be settled, but His death proved that all were dead.
“If one died for all, then were all dead”.
Now what about the living? The love of Christ constrains us “because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again”. A person who is living to himself can never be clear of defilement. Get your heart shut up to a blessed, living Person who loved you enough to go into death for you. Death to Him was a tremendous reality. He loved you enough for that, and He rose that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to Him who died for them and has been raised.
Just a word as to the apostle Paul. He says in 2
Corinthians 11: 2, “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ”. He had concern for them. He feared “lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty” their “minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ”, 2
Cor 11: 2, 3. Are these things as precious with us as they have been in the past? The truth is, if they are not more precious to us to-night than they were this time last week, they are less precious, for Christianity is a growing thing.
Have you learned any more of Christ this past week? Has His touch as the refiner been proved to you? Have you known what it is in any fresh way to come into contact with His own gracious ministry as God’s unfailing fuller? He is either more precious, or less precious. May God grant to us that He may always be more precious, that the chastity, the purity of the chaste virgin might be kept, so that at the end 123
of the Spirit’s ministry we may be able to answer to Christ according to His heart. The Lord Jesus will have realised His desire, the Spirit will have accomplished His end, and God’s purpose will have been given effect to. May the Lord in His grace give us a better understanding of how He values our exercises in regard of these things, for His Name’s sake.
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THE LORD’S APPEAL IN THE SUPPER
What is on my mind is to consider together, as the Lord helps us, the Lord’s supper and our remembrance of Him. One feels that however often we may do it, yet there must be in every fresh consideration impressions graciously granted to our hearts of the preciousness of the appeal of the love of the Lord Jesus.
Now what was particularly before me in suggesting this was, that we might look at it from the point of view in which the Lord in His care for us would help our hearts to be entirely free from all that would bind us in our spirits here, or at all involve us in our associations.
God brought His people Israel out of the land of Egypt. He brought them through the Red Sea, and in the way of His deliverance of them He shut up His people to the leader whom He had not only chosen, but whom He had, moreover, specially fitted to bring them through the wilderness into the land. God had absolute right over His people—a right that He was prepared to vindicate in respect of them in the presence of Pharaoh in all his pride. Whether it were a question of the obstinacy and opposition of Pharaoh, or a question of the weakness and hesitancy of His own people, God fully intended to vindicate His own rights, not only by an act of divine power, or the call of divine majesty, but by setting His people free from the bondage of Egypt. God must come in in His grace and consideration of their sore bondage, and He must not only clear their way, but in the manner in which He does it make a most precious appeal to the hearts of His people.
We never really get free from things which bind us, or with which we have become contaminated, until we begin to feel their burden. If our hearts have become denied by things connected with this world, whether it be the original bondage in which we all lay before we were converted, or 125
whether it be what is found even with those who have trusted the Lord, our hearts never get free from defilement until they feel the burden of it.
The first moment in which God made His approach to Moses in regard of His claims over His people was at the close of his forty years in the wilderness, during which time Moses had endured as seeing Him who is invisible. At the end of those forty years of personal suffering, God spoke to him out of the bush. Moses at Mount Horeb saw a wonderful sight. He saw a bramble bush burning, and the bush was not consumed; he turned aside to see this great sight, and God spoke to him out of the bush. Interest was awakened in the heart of Moses to inquire into this great sight. It was a remarkable thing—a bush burning and yet not consumed. The wonderful thing is that when God spoke to Moses, He did not speak from a thing that was wonderful in itself, or that would express greatness in itself. A bush being burned was in no way worth observing; but the strange sight was it was not consumed. The fear of Jehovah was in the thorn bush; that speaks of the government of God and all that was weakness on the part of His people.
Now when God begins to speak to Moses about His people, and when He tells him that the cry of their bondage had come up to Him, not only does He say He had heard their cry, and that it was His intention to effect their deliverance, but He puts before him a most touching consideration, it says that God “acknowledged them”, see Exod 2: 25. Whatever the accuser of the brethren might say against God’s people, however weak they might feel in themselves, God will acknowledge them. He has not only power to deliver, but grace to acknowledge. God then brings before Moses that in His divine power He was going to bring the people out of Egypt, but that supreme moment when He passed over His people in the land of Egypt had peculiar features that spoke, not only of divine power, but of divine affection. God might have cleared the way in majesty, but 126
when He broke the pride of Egypt in the slaying of its firstborn, He passed over the Israelites when He saw the blood—the blood that spoke to the heart of God and appealed to the eye of God. God could have come near in majesty; He could have swept the whole ground clear in power, but He wanted to win the hearts of His people as well as to break their bondage. There is readiness on the part of people to be cleared from bondage, disabilities, hindrances, and the weight of things here, but God only breaks the bondage of a heart by appealing to its affections.
There can be no doubt that the paschal lamb speaks of Christ; it could speak of no other. And they were not only to sacrifice the lamb according to the divine commandment, but they were to take it to them on the tenth day of the month and before they sacrificed it, to keep it for four sweet and precious days in order to have it under their attention and observation during that time. Why was this? Because before God passed through the land to destroy the pride of Egypt, He was making His own gracious appeal to the hearts of His people. The lamb was for the hearts of His people. God did not sprinkle the blood on the door-post and lintel for the people, and He does not do it for you. He draws near to you in the true presentation of His own glory and love in the Person of Jesus Christ, and so touches your heart that you sprinkle the blood on your own door-post. It is faith that does it, and faith springs from a heart that has been touched by the grace of God. Faith is found in the heart into which the light of the preciousness of Christ has shone—God’s own beloved Son—the Lamb of His own providing. He met all that was due to God, and took account of our deep need. In the Person of Jesus the light shines that breaks down all our pride, that turns our hearts to God Himself, and gives His truth entrance into them. I speak on this line because I want to come to the Lord as our leader.
Why is it that souls do not get out of Egypt? Because their hearts have not answered to Christ. It is the failure to 127
answer to Christ that explains why people remain behind, and find themselves, after light has reached them, still in darkness. It is not want of information. Wherever you go in Christendom you find there is information enough, but mere knowledge will never get hearts out of the world; it never cleared a heart yet from what is offensive to God. Only the preciousness of the appeal of the Person of Jesus—of His suffering love that enabled Him, the rich One, to become poor for our sakes that we through His poverty might be rich—will do it. God spoke to their hearts in the tenderness of love; the lamb itself was under their eyes.
I call your attention now to the gospel of John. The greatest exodus in the New Testament is in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus, bearing His own cross, went forth. He was the One who suffered without the gate. What does that mean? The gate, in that case, meant the way out, not the way in; He suffered without the gate. He did not suffer simply outside the wall, or the city, or the camp; He suffered without the gate. There was an opening made in His suffering for every simple and true heart to follow Him for His own sake. It was the suffering of the lamb in the land of Egypt typically that opened the way for the people, and if they had only known the heart of their leader, they would never have wanted to return to Egypt.
“Behold the Lamb of God!” What was the effect? The two disciples of John left him and followed Jesus. They did not leave what was wrong, they left what men would have considered religiously the best thing going, but they left it to follow Jesus. What did they find? They found a place where the Lamb of God was shut up under the eye of God Himself. Had you been in Egypt when the paschal lamb was provided, you might have seen an Israelite moving with a little lamb toward his home. It was to be kept four days before being sacrificed. What was he taking it home for? To consider it, to dwell upon it, to understand the lesson of it.
So when the two disciples left John and followed Jesus they 128
followed the lamb home, so to speak. “Master, where dwellest thou?” And He said, “Come and see”, John 1: 38, 39. They went to see, and they saw the Lamb under the eye of God, shut up, as it were, before its sacrifice. The sacrifice was the pouring out of all the preciousness of the lamb—its flesh for their feasting with bitter herbs, its blood for their sprinkling and for the eye of God. Had their hearts understood the preciousness of the lamb, they would have relinquished Egyptian things.
Now why do we cling to so many things? Because, my friends, we have considered the lamb of God’s providing so little. The lamb speaks of Christ in His capacity for suffering; it speaks of Him in His purity and preciousness, in His freshness and beauty, distinct and different from everything that was in the world—everything that our poor vain hearts followed, served and were in bondage to. “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. God made their exit when the time came; He did it in divine power that smote the firstborn of Egypt, but also in divine compassion and grace that appealed to the hearts of the Israelites when they came to the Red Sea. The Red Sea shut them up to the Egyptians, as they thought; but the cloud changed its position; the rod of Moses was stretched over the sea, and they passed through as on dry land. It was no
test to their hearts when the Red Sea opened; it was fear to their spirits before a way was made through, but it was no test to their hearts when they passed that way; the test was when it closed behind them.
I want now to speak a little of the song of their leader.
You remember the song of Moses. “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song”, Exod 15: 1. Sometimes we have said that they sang more than they knew. Well, they could not stop before their leader, and why did he travel the whole way in his song? Because he had travelled the whole way in his suffering. Had he not been over the whole wilderness? There was no step of the wilderness that he 129
had not trodden; there was no bitterness that he had not tasted. He knew there was no bread and water in the wilderness; he had doubly proved it was a howling waste with no resting-place; he had been through, and he sang the whole song because he had gone through all the suffering. The song of Moses carries you right over into the
“mountain of thine inheritance” (v 17), to the place which Jehovah had made to dwell in, and where God was bringing His people. Israel said more in their song than they had light to believe; nevertheless, the whole song was sung. We, too, have to do with a leader who is prepared at all times in our wilderness journey to sing the song that carries our hearts into the land. Oh! that we kept nearer to Christ.
That is the secret.
Formality exposes us. To be casual about the Lord and divine things is a most grave matter. I appeal specially to the young. There was never a time in what may seem to you the most ordinary of your days, when the Lord was not thinking of you all the while.
Then three days after the Red Sea the people came to Marah. It is said in the book of Exodus that Moses brought the people from the Red Sea, and they came to Marah. Let me say a word here, especially to the young, for it may be a help to you. You never come to your sorrows yourself. I am not for the moment speaking of what your waywardness may bring upon you, but just seeking to present God’s line.
It was Moses who brought them to Marah. Did they come there accidentally, or merely by a combination of circumstances? No! they came there because Moses, who was their leader, brought them there. Why did he bring them there? He brought them to Marah because until the soul tastes Marah in the wilderness, it never moves according to God.
It was not by their own choosing that they came there. Marah’s waters were bitter. Many attempts have been made, both human and religious, to sweeten the 130
waters of Marah, but none have ever succeeded. There is only one thing that will sweeten them, and that is the death of Jesus—the love of Christ which moved Him to die for you.
The people tasted the bitterness of things; the bitterness of death was their experience. They felt the reproach of being attached to Christ, and having no place in the world; but the cure was that Moses cut down fresh wood in the wilderness—God shewed Moses a tree and it was cast into the waters. What was the wood in the wilderness? “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God”, Heb 10: 9. “He weakened my strength in the way”. “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt”, Matt 26: 39. That is the fresh wood that goes into Marah and makes its waters sweet. “He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death”, Phil 2: 8.
Is there any heart here that is in difficulty about following such a Leader? “The Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”, Gal 2: 20. Who would forget Him?
Why should we need to appeal so much to souls to remember Him? Might we not challenge our hearts as to who would forget Him? The Spirit of God has to say of that congregation how they forgat Moses. Moses had suffered for them. Typically he had laid down his life for them; he went the way personally of all the penalties and trials of the wilderness; he stooped from eminence to be joined to them in their poverty. Yet they forgat Moses!
The only time the people were said to be jubilant in the wilderness was when they forgat Moses; they said, “As for this Moses ... we wot not what has become of him”, Exod 32: 1. The next thing is they are dancing before the golden calf. I look out on Christendom (and I speak humbly, because only the grace of God has saved any one of our hearts from its snares) and souls are made jubilant in Christendom, religiously jubilant, in the way they handle the things of God, but yet are unconcerned in their consciences as to what is pleasing to Christ. We do well to 131
consider these things. It may be said of Christendom what the Spirit of God has put on record when the Lord instituted the Supper: “The hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table”, Luke 22: 21. Look around, and what will you find? The spirit that would sell Christ, and what is precious to God and His people, for a paltry thirty pieces of silver.
The Spirit of God in John’s gospel follows this thing to its source. He tells you that when the woman anointed the feet of Jesus, it was Judas who objected. But the other gospels, including Luke, tell you that they all murmured against her.
We do well to search our hearts. But, blessed be God, there was a difference in their hearts; for the disciples loved the Lord, in spite of their failures, and He said to them, “Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations”, v 28.
You ought to be perfectly clear whether you love the Lord or not. You may have a sense of your weakness, and of your failure, but even with that sense you should still be able to say, I love the Lord. If you cannot say it, I appeal to you to look to it quickly, for there may not be much more time left to decide your choice. If any heart has at all appreciated the grace of Christ, I feel sure that when the test comes we can be confident that the Lord Himself will help such to make their decisive choice—to choose Christ and His interests above other things. You will find if your heart is ever so simply prepared to remember the Lord, you will have all the sweet confirmation of the fact that He never forgets you. We might well challenge our hearts, instead of bringing it as an obligation to bear on our spirits, as to who could possibly fail to remember the Lord. Fail to remember Him! My friends, He might have laid upon us some tremendous burden of service or sacrifice, and asked us to do great things; yet the one thing that Christ wants most is the sweetest and simplest and most wonderful thing. He did not leave it to His own to decide how they should respond—to decide what they would do—He instituted it Himself. It was He who instituted the Supper. He neither 132
asked them to make some great sacrifice nor to do some great service, but that they should remember Him. Might I make an appeal to our hearts in regard to the Supper? How shall we satisfy our hearts before the Lord, if between the times that we take the Supper, we touch things that displace the Lord personally? How shall we satisfy our own hearts, let alone satisfying the Lord’s eye as He looks on us?
We have to be exercised in regard of things which may displace Christ, such as personal feelings against a brother.
It is most solemn to think that it is possible for us to take the Supper together, and think we can ignore any feelings in our hearts against our brethren for the time being, and then rise from the Supper, resuming those feelings, and go on our way as before. If we were simple about it, there is not a breach between ourselves and the brethren that would not perish the first time we took the Supper together. Why bring it up again? You take the Supper together. Perhaps you cannot speak to each other, it may be you are not happy together, and yet you sit down at the Supper together. You say, Here we are on privileged ground. But we are not on privileged ground so far as that is concerned. You may maintain that you have been right. If you have, there will be some merit in your sacrifice, but there is no merit if you are wrong.
We read: “if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift”, Matt 5: 23, 24. That is very sweet. God intends you to come back again when the matter is put right. Do not take your gift away because things are not right between you and another. Leave it at the altar, and get a sense in your heart of the blessedness of the love of God that did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. The greatest sacrifice ever on the altar was Christ. Carry the sense of that in your heart and in the light of it deal with the thing 133
that stands between heart and heart. Then come back and offer your gift at the altar. You may say, We share the Supper together. Do you? What is it that makes that table for our hearts? The grace of the One who serves at that table. Is it only the table of the Lord in the sense that His power provides it? The Lord is host of it, and not only host in personal rights and power, but the great host who is among us as He that serveth. If there are one or two things you are not free from, what are you going to do? Because of these are you not going to respond to the Lord? Are you going on with these wrong feelings, or are you going to respond to the Lord? I feel sure you will get free from them, provided you keep near the Lord.
I add a word from John 11. I should like to leave this impression upon your spirits and upon my own, that the One whom we remember is the One who suffered. In John 11, “Lazarus, come forth” was answered by Lazarus from the tomb, but before the Lord exercised His power He suffered. “Jesus wept”, we read. He understood all that it meant to the spirits of the bereaved. He knew what the loss meant. Mary tasted Marah in the loss of Lazarus. What was it that sweetened the sorrow to her spirit? The power of Jesus? No. It was His sympathy. What must it have meant to her heart that “Jesus wept”; then the word of His power followed. The presence of Jesus quietened her spirit.
In conclusion I would appeal to your spirits that if you are to answer to God in connection with the altar, and know what it is to go on consistently, and exercised by the truth in connection with the Lord’s table, you must know what it is to follow the Lord as the One who suffered to set His people free. May the Lord help us in this.
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Genesis 24: 10-28, 61-67; 16: 13-16; 17: 9-23
What is on my mind to bring before you is the ministry of the Holy Spirit in relation to the purpose of the Father’s heart, and in relation to the desires of the heart of Christ. The Old Testament scripture from which we have read presents a very beautiful and distinctive picture of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
The moment came when in the mind of Abraham it was necessary to move in regard of the inheritance, and of the necessities of his son. There was a design in connection with Isaac. But this was not all. Connected with Isaac there were necessities which arose out of the sovereign purposes of God, and these had a two-fold bearing. In the first place, God had connected individual blessing with Abraham and with Isaac, but He had done more. He had made promise unconditionally and sovereignly to Abraham, and on the ground of resurrection in regard to Isaac He had made known wonderful thoughts of universal divine blessing and glory. “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed”.
Now for the accomplishment of these thoughts there was the necessity that there should be a wife for Isaac. I take the point of view from that side first. Apart from the desire of Isaac, there was all the necessity of divine purpose.
It was necessary that there should be one provided for Isaac; and in order that what was provided and procured for Isaac might be according to the counsels of divine sovereignty, according to the glory of God, we see the gathering together of exercises, of counsels, of wisdom, and discretion expressed by Abraham to his servant. There was a dignity about these words of Abraham. It is wonderful the way in which he rose in the faith of his soul, and thought according to the line of divine counsel. His soul felt intensely the necessity of separation in connection with the 135
counsel of God; he felt that anything other than what was pleasing to God would be altogether unsuited to Isaac, and particularly unworthy of the glory and the love that had touched him in the midst of idolatry. His soul was set in a most definite way to keep in spiritual accord with the manner and the nature of the blessing. Accordingly, he gives his servant instructions in respect of Isaac, and the servant moved out on his mission in connection with divine necessities. There was the necessity of a wife for Isaac from the standpoint of divine counsel, but there was also the necessity of a wife from the point of view of the desire of Isaac’s own heart. I think that is exceedingly touching.
Isaac was a special vessel constituting a type of Christ. He was an only-begotten one, one who was the entire and only vessel of his father’s pleasure. He was unique in every way, and specially so as having come to life again, as it were, from the dead. God had tested the faith of Abraham, and typically of Christ; Isaac had been taken to the mount of sacrifice, and Abraham had received him again from the dead in a figure.
And so, charged with a mission according to the divine counsels, and according to the necessities of divine affections, and the capacity of Isaac, Abraham’s servant moved in his mission. He began, I might say, from the heavenly side of the position. Isaac is undoubtedly a type of the heavenly One, so Eliezer came in from the divine side and he moves out on his mission. I pass over the details until we come to that remarkable part of the incident when he turns to Jehovah, bringing before Him what he felt to be the necessities of the case. I think it is wonderful to contemplate the exercises of the servant, and to see how he spreads them out before Jehovah in relation to the one of whom Abraham had spoken.
It was the God of glory who appeared to Abraham, and it was when things were disordered on the earth that He appeared to him. The faith of Abraham answered to the 136
light of a coming day, when the heavens and the earth should be linked together, when the end of divine purpose would be reached and his seed should be as the stars of heaven innumerable, and as the sand of the sea-shore for multitude. With Abraham’s faith there was the conception of God’s purpose—heaven and earth brought together in unity and power of blessing. But while he knew God as the God of the heavens, there was nothing but disorder on the earth. The time had not yet come when the heavens and the earth should be in unison; the full blessing had not been brought to pass. Abraham was still a stranger, separated from what was on the earth, and delighting in the God of glory, and he sends forth Eliezer charged with the mission that whatever sacrifices were involved, whatever difficulties had to be encountered, and however many sufferings were entailed, he was to keep this ever before him, that the bride for Isaac was to be a bride entirely separate from what was worldly—as entirely separate as the one to whom she was being brought. Isaac was a type of Christ, the heavenly One who “came down from heaven” (John 3: 13), “the second man, out of heaven”, 1 Cor 15: 47.
But Christ is not only the heavenly One in the sense that He is of heavenly origin, but He is the heavenly One as having re-entered heaven, as having passed into the presence of God as a man who came forth from the Father into the world, and has again left the world and gone to the Father, John 16: 28. And between His coming and His returning the righteous basis for the display of the glory of God has been accomplished, and there is not one iota of the divine counsel that has not been secured in the Person and work of the heavenly One. And the Spirit has come here charged with His service in relation to the heavenly One. Do you think the Spirit of God does not know what He is looking for? The Spirit of God is definite in His movements. I am not now speaking of His sovereign movements, because the Spirit of God moves sovereignly in the world, but of His ministry and His service in regard to the assembly—of the 137
place He has taken, and the place He has been given. He has come forth from the Father, and He has come forth from the Son in order that He might bring to the Father, in the power of divine ministry, the many sons given to Christ to bring to glory, and that He might bring the bride to Christ.
That is the ministry with which the Spirit of God is charged.
And so Eliezer, type of the Spirit, spreads out before Jehovah the features that he was looking for, the things that he would immediately recognise as being in accord with Isaac.
He tells Jehovah what it was he wanted to see.
Behind that, beloved friends, there is the sovereignty of God’s touch. I am not now thinking of conversion simply, but God comes in and touches your conscience and mine, and He brings light to us. We get peace with God, the knowledge of forgiveness, and justification, and the Spirit is given to us, and so soon as the Spirit is given to us, He begins to form in us what answers to Christ—to produce it sovereignly. He begins to promote the features that are sweet and precious in His eye; He is set for what answers to Christ. We may feel ourselves very small, and we are; beloved friends, the whole truth of the matter is, that on that line we are generally much smaller than we feel; but small as we may be, there is no question but that the Spirit of God is moving with us, searching us, and producing in us what answers to Christ. It is that which He has come for.
So Eliezer tells Jehovah what he is looking for, and he points out the features of grace, and the lowliness of character that would answer to Isaac. You may say, It was never with us until God produced it. I grant it, but do you not see that the Spirit of God comes to take up what has been provided sovereignly? That is exactly what happens in regard of Rebekah. Eliezer turns to God for direction, and he tells God what he wants to see. There was the God who was moving as sovereignly in regard of Rebekah as He had 138
moved in regard of Abraham—just as sovereignly and faithfully and certainly as ever, and God brought Rebekah forward, and Eliezer recognised the features as he stood by the well in the eventide. You may say, There is not much to be expected at that time of the day. The truth, I believe, is the Spirit of God is more active now in His operations in respect of the bride of Christ than ever He was.
It is at the close of the day that you will see the marks of the Spirit’s intense movements, heading up in view of the return of Christ. Cannot you feel them? Cannot you see them in the comings together of the saints? Cannot you see the dropping off of formalities with which they may have been content a few years ago, and the seeking after what is vital and precious, and that has spiritual moisture in it? I see in that the work of the Holy Spirit in view of the near return of Christ. This is no day for contentment with merely correct, ecclesiastical position; what we want is a better understanding of what the Spirit of God is doing.
You might know me very well and might come to see me, and drop in just when I was packed up and ready to go away; you see me busy getting ready for departure, and you say to me, I have just come in to have a quiet chat about things in general. But when I am going off it is no time for a conversation about things in general. I am going away and I want you to know where and why I am going, and I labour in the short time at my disposal to give you an understanding of the urgency of the case, in order that you might be rightly directed.
Let us not intrude what is superficial upon the ministry of the Spirit. The time has come when He is, so to speak, packing up. The Spirit of God is getting the saints ready for the rapture. The Spirit would have us to be exceedingly careful, to be wonderfully definite; He would convince our souls that the most urgent thought of His mind is to get the saints ready for Christ.
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Here, as the servant takes his stand at the well’s mouth, at the evening time, Rebekah comes on the scene.
She is carrying a pitcher on her shoulder. It was at the time when the daughters of the men of the city came forth to draw water. The day is very exacting indeed in the matter of moisture. We pass through a scene that will take all the spiritual moisture out of us, if we are not being constantly refreshed. “He restoreth my soul”, Ps 23: 3. The Lord Jesus would keep us in spiritual freshness. He would see that the fountain is never checked in springing up; He would see that the well’s mouth is never covered; He would see that the refreshment and renewing of the Holy Spirit is never interrupted.
And so Rebekah went down to the well, and it was as she came up again with her pitcher full that the servant spoke to her. He did not speak to her with an empty pitcher; he did not bar her progress going down to the well. She had come for water. And I want to say this to you, You will always prove the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. There may be times when He touches you, and tells you that when you ought to be full you are empty, or well-nigh so; but you will find that though your emptiness, or nearness to emptiness, be your own fault, He will never stop you before you are full; He will wait. This is soul history. It is not only the blessed, complete history of the Holy Spirit’s ministry, but it is individual soul history as well. She went down to the well, and she came up again with her pitcher on her shoulder and her pitcher was full, and when she came up with a full pitcher, he said to her, “Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher”, Gen 24: 17. And she let down her pitcher upon her hand and gave him drink. It was a personal act, and she did the whole service.
You may think I am dealing too much with detail, but I think even in such a scripture as this, the Spirit of God would bring out the traits of the Spirit of Christ, He would present Christ to us. She takes the pitcher from her 140
shoulder; she does not put it into the hands of Eliezer and say, Here you are, drink for yourself. She does not put it on the ground and say, Well, there it is, take as much as you want. She takes the pitcher and lowers it to her hands in personal service, and she gives him to drink. That is the answering mind in Rebekah to the capacity of the affections of Isaac. She had not yet seen him. She did not know who, nor what he was; she neither knew the greatness nor the gentleness of his person, but the gentleness of Isaac comes out in a wonderful way.
Three times we read that he went from well to well, and as he digged the first two wells the herdmen of Gerar strove for them, he never resisted, he only retreated and dug more. He never was without water. You will never find that in the mind of Christ you will be without refreshment. If we go our own way we may often find ourselves parched, but you will never be without water if you go on the line of the Spirit of Christ. Isaac retreated, and he dug again. He might name his well ‘Quarrel’, but he never strove. He might name another ‘Opposition’, but he never opposed; he retreated from the strife.
That was the mind of Isaac, and here we see it had been sovereignly produced in Rebekah—a beautiful and sweet answer to what was true in Isaac. The heavenly One is being reproduced in Rebekah and coming out in formation in the bride for the heavenly One. She lowered her pitcher down on her hand and gave the servant to drink; she took the remainder and poured it into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water and watered his camels until they ceased drinking.
These are affections connected with the bride of Christ, affections that bring pleasure to the heart of Christ and affections that bring pleasure to the heart of God the Father. Who is the bride? The bride is the vessel that is filled with affection, and sensibilities, and intelligence, that are according to Christ Himself. She is the fulness of Him 141
that filleth all in all. Rebekah watered the camels, and remember this, they were the camels of Eliezer’s master.
You see the spirit she had was coming out: she drew water for all his camels, and a camel can drink abundantly. It is a wilderness animal, and a wilderness animal can drink abundantly. Might I say a word to any one here who would serve the saints? Get into nearness to the Lord, get near to Him and understand His way of doing things, and get your instructions direct from the Lord Himself.
And then the man begins to speak to her. He asks her who she is, and she tells him. She is no less than, we may say, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. That is who Rebekah was, and when Eliezer finds it out, he takes the anticipative emblems of union and association, and puts them on Rebekah. “And the man bowed down his head, and worshipped the Lord”. He has found the one who is suited to Isaac, and he has found her not only in the proof of sovereignty, but also in the sweet and appealing proof of the spirit and mind that answers to Isaac. That is what the Spirit is looking for. He is looking for what answers to Christ, and rest assured He will find it. I want to say this for our encouragement, the Spirit of God is not disappointed in His ministry.
We were seeing this afternoon in John 13 that the Lord is not disappointed. You will find elsewhere in scripture in regard of His title as Son of man and His ministry to Israel that He says, “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain” (Isa 49: 4), but there is no such word in John 13 or 17. “Thine they were, and thou gavest them me”; and “all mine are thine, and thine are mine”; “those that thou gavest me, I have kept, and none of them is lost”, John 17: 10 & 12. There is no plaint of unrewarded services, and disappointed desires in John’s gospel. No, beloved, the Lord’s own are sufficient for Himself. We need not hesitate to say it, and we need not hesitate to get into the presence of it. The nearer we come 142
into the contemplation of the truth, the more will it empower us, and the sweeter will be the light that will shine out on the most ordinary human circumstances of those who are His own people.
I come now to the closing scene; I pass over intervening details and come to the hour of Rebekah’s departure. The hour for departure having come, everything was at issue; the time had come when those who were attached to her after the flesh would have detained her; they say, “Let the damsel abide with us a few days, at the least ten”. I think we can see in the history of the assembly here what the results of tarrying ten days are. “Ye shall have tribulation ten days”. Ah! the One who was the Lord, the Head of the assembly, knew how to meet these ten days of tarrying in the world! He met it with ten days of discipline, with ten days of suffering and reviling and reproach in the world, that He might bring to a termination the time of tarrying. It is when the Lord sees our affections held that He comes in in disciplinary dealing. When He can free us by no other means, He frees us by discipline, by experiences that get at the foundation of the objects that may be detaining our hearts.
Here the time comes for departure, and there is the attempt to detain Rebekah, but Eliezer will not be detained.
If he will not be diverted, if he will not be disappointed, he will not be detained. There is infinite patience with the Spirit. You have doubtless had the experience of this in your soul, as I have had in mine. How infinite has been His patience, how wonderful His consideration! But at the end we shall always find that if He has not taken one way to attain His end, He has taken another, and has not been defeated. Eliezer would not be defeated, and so the time comes when the whole thing is put to the test, “Wilt thou go with this man?” Concentrated in the ministry of the Spirit is the Person, the worth, and the glory of Christ. “He shall not speak of himself ... for he shall receive of mine, and shall 143
shew it unto you”, John 16: 13, 14. When the Spirit of God begins to speak to our hearts and to shew us things, and when in the freshness of the Spirit we speak to one another, who is in evidence? Surely not the mere vessel that might be used, but the Person who is the one and only subject at all times of the ministry of the Holy Spirit—the Son of God, the Son of the Father, the heavenly One, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And she said: “I will go”. For brevity it is matchless.
“Wilt thou go?” “I will go”. Beloved friends, at the end of the Spirit’s ministry it will appear as if our answer to Him had been as brief as His question to us. There will be wiped out of the records, as it were, all the tarrying, all the hesitations, all the misgivings, and the end of His service will make it appear as if we had answered on the instant, and never thought otherwise. She said, “I will go”. And Eliezer took Rebekah and she went with him. You will not be able to hinder the Holy Spirit claiming what belongs to Christ. I have seen many attempts, but I think we can say this with all boldness and confidence, that you will never prevent the Spirit claiming what belongs to Christ. He will have it; it might be very near the end of the day, but He will have His own. He took her, and she went with him. In the support of the Spirit of God, she travelled over the desert as though it never existed. There are no details; we find the details elsewhere.
The ministry that carried Rebekah from the country of Syria to Isaac’s side of the desert, to the well of Lahai-roi, was the ministry of John 13—the blessed refreshment of the mind and the spirit with the love and the tenderness of Christ. The Spirit of God sustains that service, and rest assured that every little bit of refreshment that comes to your spirit in the power of the Holy Ghost is meant to be good to another. You pass it on. There is a saying somewhere, and I think it is true, that ‘joy shared is joy doubled’. Pass it on; it will lose nothing of its sweetness, 144
provided you connect it with the right Person. Do not go and only say to a brother, ‘Do you know I saw something in John 13 to-day that I have never seen before, I do not know if you have seen it’. It would be better to say, ‘I was shewn something in John 13 which I have never seen before. Come and let us see it together’. The Spirit of God is here to shew us. “He ... shall shew it unto you”. Think of it, beloved! Not a divine thing do we ever find out by ourselves— it is shewn us. The Spirit of God is the great Revealer in that way. He spreads things out before us, He opens them out to us. He puts His touch to-day on a word that we may have read many times before, but now He illuminates it; and He touches another to-morrow, and so the work of the Spirit of God goes on. He continues to the end of the journey.
How many questions Rebekah asked Eliezer during the wilderness journey I do not know, but you will find in the hands of the Holy Spirit the scriptures of truth are written to answer every question of the bride, from the time she follows the Spirit until the time she reaches Christ. But what God has been pleased to put on record is the first and last question, and the first and the last answer. The first question in the land of Syria was, “Whose daughter art thou?” and the last question that Rebekah asked Eliezer was, “What man is this?” and he said, “It is my master”.
There is the last question, and there is the last answer. Can we not see it in the ministry of the Spirit? Can we not see it in the movements of the saints, in the way that those who are dear to the Lord are beginning to be increasingly exercised about spiritual verities? Can we not see the shaping of this question, and answer, “Who is the man that is walking in the fields to meet us?” When Eliezer answered,
“It is my master”, she lighted off the camel, and the last part of her wilderness journey was finished on her feet; she walked the rest of it, leaning on the arm of Isaac. The last part of her journey in the wilderness was in company with the beloved. “Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?”, SofS 8: 5. That was 145
the end of the Spirit’s ministry, and you will never divert the Spirit.
May the Lord give us grace, beloved. We need the grace and nearness to the Person that the Spirit may have room to work. Isaac came from the direction of the well Lahai-roi at the eventide. His place was in the south country. He had travelled as it were a certain distance to meet Rebekah, and from the time Eliezer answered her question, she had travelled on a certain distance to meet him, and they finished the journey together. Before he took her into his mother’s tent, he presented her to himself.
Christ will present the church to Himself a glorious church, Eph 5: 27! Before He presents that vast and wonderful company of those—the many sons whom God has given Him to bring home to glory—whom the Father has given to Him, the Leader of their salvation, He presents the church to Himself “a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing”—all in contrast to the desert. No trace of weariness, no trace of the desert, no decrepitude, no marks of defilement, nothing but what is pure and blessed and glorious, and that answers to the mind and the services of Christ.
At the end the Lord’s work in the assembly will be so wonderful, and in such measure, that it will appear as if we had never resisted it, as if we had never failed to respond to it; the end of His work will be that the church will be just as He would have it, perfectly suited to Himself. And we shall also find, to the eternal joy and satisfaction and rest of our hearts, that the One in whom all these wonderful counsels and services will have their end is no less a Person than the One who saved us from our sins at the outset. He came from the direction of the well Lahai-roi, and the first to drink from that well was Hagar and her son Ishmael. The one who saw that well first was the poor, perishing sinner. We saw it first that way, but the blessed Person who brought in the remedy for our need, the refreshment for our utter 146
weakness, is the One who is also the Object of divine pleasure.
Object of eternal pleasure,
Perfect in Thy work divine!
Lord of glory, without measure,
Worship, joy and praise are Thine.
It is the same Person; and it is the same well from which He walks to meet Rebekah after her wilderness journey is over. And so the heavenly Man comes into possession of His bride! It is the same well from which the poor, perishing sinner first consciously drank.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus, and what we have already tasted of Him, move our hearts to a better understanding of what lies within His own heart, for His Name’s sake.
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THE SUFFERINGS OF THE LORD JESUS
CHRIST AND THEIR RESULTS
My desire is to speak to you a little concerning the sufferings of Christ. I can hardly conceive that any subject could be of greater interest to us, or of greater concern than the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are aware that in Christendom generally these sufferings have a very small place, and one very serious consideration in connection with that fact is this, that it professes to stand on the work which involved those sufferings. I think it is a very solemn fact that systems that profess to stand in relation to them give no living indication that those sufferings have any place in their hearts. We may add to that, that on account of a better understanding of the truth of the sufferings of Christ, there are those with whom they have a very great place. I feel encouraged to say that in general among those with whom we walk, that subject is a cherished theme. Yet, there are times when both locally and individually there is a question as to whether in our appreciation of Christ the truth of His sufferings has sufficient place with us.
I would be free to urge this upon you, that no truth of divine interest can ever be nearer to our hearts than the Lord personally. All our knowledge of doctrine, and clarity of mind in regard to matters of divine interest, will not suffice to take the place of Christ personally in our affections. By reason of our clarity, we may be able to speak easily; it may give us ability to speak of those things as though we were in them, but I believe that in His ministry the Holy Spirit engages our hearts with the sufferings of Christ, when the Person of Christ is near to our affections.
There are things in which we need to be constantly helped of the Lord, for we are passing through a world that is entirely against God’s principles. If divine things occupy a 148
casual place with us, we shall find that things which we once discarded will acquire power over us again.
We can never be self-supporting, either in the human sphere or in the divine sphere, so that we have constant need of being preserved in seeking a spiritual outlook by the Lord’s help. The psalmist had the sense of it when he said,
“Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust”, Ps 16: 1. There are times when that is what we need, and, brethren, we forget sometimes that we need it. Our circumstances sometimes bring in a reminder of our need.
I believe that the Lord’s ways with us in assembly, and also in our individual histories, are definitely directed to the end that we might learn our need of Him. It is not the young only who need His help, the most matured need it also. Our need increases as our knowledge increases. The more we know of divine things, the more we need the Lord, and only as we are near the Lord and supported by Him, will our knowledge of divine things be of service to our brethren; so that we need to have our affections drawn to the Lord personally.
Now the Holy Spirit is given to us as the Comforter, and nothing should be remote to our affections. The Lord Himself speaks of the Holy Spirit as the Comforter—One who would be in us, would dwell in us, and abide with us, so that every divine reality might be nearer to our affections.
The Spirit is within, so it is what we might speak of as an internal ministry—as near as Christ was near His own—
there was to be no diminution. When the Lord was going on high, there was to be a great divine addition and nearness—the Comforter would come and there would be an abiding nearness that was not possible when Christ was here. The Spirit was to come identical with Christ in that sphere, so that whatever moves in the Spirit of Christ, is transferred to the believer. He brings Christ before the affections of the saints; He never occupies them with their own sufferings, but with the sufferings of Christ; so I would 149
desire to speak of them in their blessed divine appeal, as in the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
I read this Old Testament scripture because I wish to speak on the thought that the Spirit of God presents—the way the ark had come as set forth in the staves. Every item of divine history presented in the Person of Jesus was to be constantly in remembrance. No incident has been recorded merely to give us the history of Christ on earth, but to set before us the ways of our Lord Jesus Christ in relation to the will of the Father, in relation to the testimony of God, to the pleasure of God, to the service of God, and to the expression of the Father. We may take up the gospels to find the history of that which comes out in our Lord Jesus Christ, but in the power of affection we come to the gospels to see Him personally, who He is: His ways, the moral glory of His Person, His patience, His meekness and lowliness, and to have our hearts brought under the power of these.
All has been recorded that Christ personally might be known.
The epistles have been written to shew all the divine result brought in by our Lord Jesus Christ by His work, by His sufferings, and by His death. The accomplishment of it is seen in the gospels; you can trace His ways from the outset to the finish. In the epistles you can follow ideas and doctrines, but you follow the Person in the gospels. You may follow Him step by step, and in that pathway you come by the Spirit to see beauty; you see it in that One, and it increases in power over your soul. It is the Person of Jesus, and there is nothing that we can less dispense with than that. No one, whatever knowledge he possesses, can afford to dispense with the contemplation of the Person of Christ.
He was indeed the ark of the covenant of the Lord; He was the ark of the covenant, whether in heaven or on earth.
Everything that was morally excellent shone out in that blessed Person; nothing was superficial; He was the 150
expression of everything that was pleasurable to the heart of God.
I would speak now for a moment of His grace, so that we may not think of what came out in the Lord Jesus as merely the traits of what was expressed in a man. He was here in lowliness in the world, where men were in pride and haughtiness, but think also of who He was, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest ... for I am meek and lowly in heart”, Matt 11: 28, 29.
There is no haughtiness in God’s world. When God’s end is reached, every man will be lowly. What a contrast to what is around us! Before the enemy made man independent, he was dependent on God. God made man dependent, and as a creature he must ever remain so. Independence is the very opposite to the mind of God for man; independence is felt far more in the assembly, when it exists, than in the world. In the latter case it is not seen in such contrast to Christ as it is in the assembly.
These things are permanent and abiding; His lowliness went right on to the end of His sufferings. They are more intensified in Psalm 22 than elsewhere in scripture. There you get the appeal of Christ in His absolute obedience to God. The answer—and He answered it Himself—is, “But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel”, Ps 22: 3. There it was the abandonment of our Lord Jesus Christ. God was a holy God, and must have a holy people, and in order that this might be brought to pass Christ suffered. What marks this present day, beloved, is the solemn refusal of those who name the name of the Lord to depart from iniquity. If you have a sense of the holiness of God, you must move.
Whatever you look at in Christianity, you cannot separate it from the sufferings of Christ, and the appeal that those sufferings would make to our spirits. It represents the service of God. The Spirit of God records that the staves of the ark could not be seen from the outside; they were to 151
be seen in the holy place. The things in the holy place and the things in the holiest were one. In the former everything stood in relation to the responsibility of the people—the candlestick and the shewbread were there, the one expressing unity and the other the divine pleasure. The staves, I think, spoke of the way the ark had come; you see the end in view. You would think that but for the ark, the way would never have been. The table of shewbread and the candlestick shining over against it give the thought of unity according to God. When you look at the table of shewbread and the twelve loaves, all in their equal size and in order, you get the impression of what the people of God are at the end. It cannot be so seen publicly. If we only thought of what was public, we should have no power to come together, but God has given us in His mercy to see that every divine truth is abiding, and is capable of being put into practice in principle until the Lord comes.
There are those—we do not speak of them unkindly, but feelingly—who recognise the truth of the one body, but who assert that it cannot be put into practice. If it cannot be acted upon, it is like saying not only that man has failed, but that He who is Head of the body has failed. We cannot claim to be it, but it is a question of humbly holding to the truth of it, and the Lord loves to support that, and it is sufficient if there are only two. We are responsible to act according to the truth of the one body. The Lord is Head of the body, and let us not say that it cannot be acted on.
The shewbread sets forth the unity of the people of God; they are united by the spirit and mind of our Lord Jesus Christ. The loaves were put on the table, frankincense was placed over them, and the fragrance of it ascended to God. Then over against it was the candlestick that supported the light. The light shone on the table of shewbread and it lighted up the holy place. It was constantly attended to, and the priests took the oil from the people. It was not a matter of quantity but of quality. The 152
least appreciation of Christ Himself in our local assembly has a far greater effect than we are conscious of. We are tested on the simplicity of our light.
You may think that the young need advice—it would be strange if they did not—but they get it from those who are walking with the Lord. Oh, beloved brethren, let us take godly account of what God is doing with our young. It is a matter of quality, and not of quantity; it is a spiritual matter, and the least of our company who love our Lord Jesus Christ may bring some contribution; but no one is qualified to do so save as the sufferings of Christ are felt.
You will not then discriminate in your affections. If there is distance of heart and mind, you will be a grief to the Holy Spirit, and His ministry will be restricted, and you will lose the gain of the holy things with which He would move your soul. May we see afresh what God would give us in the ministry of the Spirit as to the sufferings of Christ.
The sufferings of Christ are not confined to the assembly—a world of bliss will be based on them. When that holy city comes down from God out of heaven, it will be the dwelling place of God. The Spirit of God opens, as it were, the door of eternity to us, and He speaks of Christ to our hearts. In our time here, it is always accompanied by the feeling of suffering in our spirits, but there will be no shadow on our hearts then. Whatever we handle in levitical care, we may handle with the sense that all emanates from the sufferings of Christ. The Lord would thus speak to the affections of His own. I did not read the whole narrative in Luke, but only the portion in which we see the recovery of the two who were going to Emmaüs, and the ministry that springs from it for their affections. They returned to Jerusalem with that which the Lord had brought to pass by a strong reminder of His sufferings—the memorial of it—He was known to them in the breaking of bread. When we learn the truth of the Lord’s way with His own, we find that this has been more the way of recovery than any other way—
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that is, not only in the way of light, but in the breaking of bread. He asserted Himself to these two in their affections.
I believe that the Lord is constantly doing this. They returned to Jerusalem, not occupied with their fatigue.
It is remarkable how infirmity encroaches upon us when the Lord becomes remote to our affections. We become cold in our spirits in our relations to the brethren, and then we feel our infirmity, and our weakness, and the demands of the love of Christ become remote to us. It is a question as to what things are near to us. The truth cannot be nearer to us than the Lord Himself.
When He broke bread, I can understand how their affections awoke—no one else had ever done that but the Lord Himself. The apostle says, “I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you”; Paul delivered it in the compelling power of the fact that he had it direct from the Lord, and he delivered it to the saints. He says, “that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: and when he had given thanks, he brake it”. We have no right to handle anything in the things of God unless we give thanks to God for it. Then it says, “After the same manner also he took the cup”, 1 Cor 11: 23-25. They saw it—they saw the memorial which brought Christ livingly before them—the One who had suffered, and who had appeared to Simon. The Lord had moved in each case for recovery; and although it has not been told us what passed between the Lord and Simon, yet the results of it are seen.
He had his last impression of Christ—going out in suffering.
You can understand how the Lord fixed in the soul of Peter the certainty of his recovery.
When a soul has been recovered in any sense of the sufferings of Christ, it cannot fail. I am not overlooking what the heart of man is, but no soul who has a God-given sense of what Christ suffered, could be anything else than recovered, and God has done it sovereignly that we might be blessed. There is a necessity that we should be preserved 154
in the sense that all we are, and all we ever shall be, are the fruit of the Lord’s sufferings. Now in Luke the Lord shews His hands and His feet. It is the service of Christ to bring man into the pleasure of God, brought to pass through the work and sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ—that which He endured and through which He had passed in accomplishing God’s will. We must not be casual in the things we handle together. God has given us the Spirit—
the grace of the Lord Jesus is favourable to us, and there is too the power of the Holy Spirit.
And now I come to another side, that is John. The Lord shews them the marks in His hands and His side.
These stand connected with the expression of the holy love of God to the world. The soldier with a spear pierced His side; it is not confined to the house of His friends; it is a mark of world-wide significance, but it is a mark that stands connected with the side of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then it says, “forthwith came there out blood and water”, John 19: 34. It is God’s holy thought—the divine pleasure—that man should be cleansed by the water, the moral cleansing, that he might be sanctified by the Holy Spirit and that he might live for God’s pleasure. Oh, beloved, how blessed, holy, pure, and eternal are the results of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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“Charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up”
The effect of God’s work in the soul has been likened to the pricking of a bubble; man’s self-importance collapses as he owns his true condition before God. Perhaps it may be still more truly likened to the pricking of a balloon, for the deflation is sometimes very partial at first and not complete till long after; we cling to a belief in ourselves, and only alter many bitter lessons turn away from ourselves to find both rest and motive power in Christ.
Of all forms of self-regard, the subtlest is found among those who take the name of God upon their lips, and the contrast between the inflated and the contrite mind receives its most direct illustration in the parable of the two men who went up into the temple to pray, Luke 18: 9-14.
The one, with his eye on himself, thanks God that his mind and conduct have a distinctive character, marking him off from the rest of men. His individual statements may have appeared correct; it is not denied that he fasted twice in the week and gave tithes of all he possessed. But the man is blinded by his own self; he does not see God; he is unaware of his own hollowness. The other man, “standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other”. The parable tells of the first discovery of the soul that turns to God, but our Lord uses it to enforce a principle that is true from beginning to end of our course—namely, that “every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted”, Luke 18: 13, 14.
The self-judged soul does not talk of itself. The woman who washed the Lord’s feet with her tears in the Pharisee’s house speaks not one word during the whole 156
incident; it is no concern of hers to excuse or commend herself, and thus the way is left open to the Lord to interpret and justify her actions, Luke 7: 36-50.
No one will question the necessity of repentance at the beginning of our Christian course; it is an obvious condition of conversion to God. But we easily forget that self-judgment is just as necessary throughout—an essential condition of righteousness and of true fruitfulness to God.
The Christian who turns his eye on himself, seeking to find pleasure there, is like a branch trying to live on its own fruit.
Fruit for God is produced, not by any attempt on man’s part to make himself blossom, but only by abiding in Christ—
feeding on Him, deriving from Him, and consequently expressing Him.
Peter had partly learnt the lesson of self-judgment when he cried: “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O
Lord”, Luke 5: 8. Only partly, for later, in the presence of the transfiguration glory, he must needs draw attention to himself and his fellow disciples: “Master, it is good for us to be here”. The voice from the cloud bids him regard the unshared glory of the Lord: “This is my beloved Son: hear him”, Luke 9 : 28-36. When, years after, Peter recalls the same incident in his second epistle, the majesty of the Lord alone fills his soul, and he has no longer a word to say of the company present, 2 Pet 1: 16-18.
Sometimes the lesson, if partly learnt, is forgotten again. The Corinthians offer a melancholy instance of this.
A great work at Corinth (Acts 18) had been followed by a great decline, and the decline was accompanied by a re-inflation of the company there. True, they were enriched in all utterance and in all knowledge, and they came behind in no gift; but they had largely succumbed to the glamour of words. No doubt they could speak beautifully. But they had neglected the teaching of the cross, and had lost its power; they had forgotten that the apostle had been with them “in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling”
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(1Cor 2: 3), and that he had eschewed enticing words. Thus they were “puffed up for one against another”, 1 Cor 4: 6; see also verses 18-20 and chap 5: 2. They were, apparently without knowing it, re-inflated, and the apostle found it necessary to prick the bubble. “Let no man deceive himself.
If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise”, chap 3: 18.
“Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth … if any man thinketh that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know”, chap 8: 1, 2. Thinking is dangerous if we ourselves are the subject of it.
Further progress on this line led to the bland self-complacency of the church of the Laodiceans, a self-complacency in no way more commendable because it took a corporate character. “Thou sayest , I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing”, Rev 3: 17.
Why did she talk of herself at all? The words read like a parody of the apostle’s statement, “Ye are complete in him”
(Col 2: 10), written in an epistle which was commanded to be read in the church of the Laodiceans in earlier and happier days, Col 2: 10; 4: 16. Insensibly perverting this very truth in the course of their deep decline, they had come to assume that they were complete in themselves!
The final development of this mind is found in Babylon: “She hath glorified herself … she saith in her heart , I sit a queen, and am no widow”, Rev 18: 7. She is not even, like Laodicea, called upon to repent. The judgment of the Lord God is at hand.
It is a relief to turn from these unwholesome manifestations of self-consciousness to the humility of the church which the Lord loved. Philadelphia makes no mention of herself; her care was for His word which she had kept and His Name which she had not denied, Rev 3: 7-13.
She seems to have learnt something of the mind that was in Christ Jesus, “who, subsisting in the form of God, did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; 158
but emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form, taking his place in the likeness of men; and having been found in figure as a man, humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”, Phil 2: 6-8.
And when this path of self-humiliation and suffering came to an end, it was not by any change in the “mind that was in Christ Jesus”. His exaltation was the act not of Himself but of God. “Therefore God also hath highly exalted him”.
Did not Philadelphia in some measure exhibit this mind and temper? She was surrounded by the impious pretensions of those who laid claim to religious privileges on earth, “those who say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie”. She had a little strength, and none of the self-confidence of Laodicea or even of Corinth. Her care is for the interest of Christ, not for her own (indeed she had none apart from His word and His name), and it is left to Him to exalt her, and to intervene in words of great power and beauty, of tender affection, and of glorious promise.
“Behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee”, Rev 3: 9. The fundamental principle has not changed: “every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted”.
Golders Green
From Mutual Comfort, vol 12 (1919)
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My desire is to say a little to you of the love of the Christ. We all know something of the wonderful sacrifice He was prepared to make for His own. He laid down His life to secure them for Himself and for the glory of His God and Father—such was His love. In speaking of it I want to present it not as a subject under various headings, but as reality.
There is nothing He would desire more than that we should speak of His love, the activities of it, the magnitude of it. Indeed it should be the great subject of our fellowship together and of our intercourse with one another. If we do not speak of His love, too often the door is left open for conversation which only hurts and distresses us, but He would have us so in the enjoyment of His love that it becomes the one subject of our conversation, and in that way the door would be shut on what is a matter of distress and care to us and to Him too. May the Lord help us on this line.
Now the passover to us is no less than Christ Himself:
“our passover, Christ, has been sacrificed for us”. His great love has been expressed to us in sacrifice, and now in line with His love and sacrifice, we are to “keep the feast”, not in connection with the old order whose outgoings were in malice and wickedness, but “with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth”. Those are the conditions brought about for us by His sacrifice, 1 Cor 5: 7, 8.
If we consider the passage of Israel from Egypt to Canaan, we find that they went out of Egypt early in the morning with their dough unleavened. It sets forth that in the wisdom and mind of God they carried out with them elements which were to maintain them in their pathway through the wilderness for the pleasure of God. The very 160
peace and freedom which has come into your soul, as you appreciate Christ as our passover, that which has brought you on to the line of joy, is to be with you in the line of power. God has brought into your soul elements which He intends to call upon in your pathway here. The moment came in the history of Israel when the unleavened bread was baked; it had to be subjected to the fire of testing. We have to maintain our joy in the power of separation. Your joy will be your power in the place in which you are set here.
Perhaps you were getting on very well in the world before Christ became precious to you. All too well, it may be! Now the Lord intends you to see the necessity of separation, of cleavage. He brings you into circumstances which test you. He will call upon what He has put in your soul for His own pleasure, that it may become power in your soul to enable you to answer to Him in your path here. God intends to make His own call upon what you have. You need not be afraid that He will call for too much. The manner of His call will be very gracious indeed. He never asks for more than we have spiritual power and revenue to answer to, but what He has brought into our souls He will call upon, that He may find pleasure in us. So if we are here, and our hearts are right with God, we shall desire to be here for His pleasure, answering to Him in every circumstance. God will come to our aid, if our heart is set upon His pleasure; He will come in and so minister to us that we may be able to answer to His call.
Well, that is the beginning of our path. I do not speak of the manna or the water which followed them, but rather of the unleavened bread which is for the maintenance in power here in the scene through which we are called to pass.
It is a very serious consideration, if the Lord tarries, as to what may come upon us who are left there, as those who desire to be here for His pleasure. The nature of things has been fully demonstrated in the reception given to 161
Christ; but it is the combination of those elements of evil which we see to-day, and we need to be fortified against them. That is why I desired to call your attention to the love of Christ; it is our great stand-by; it will never fail us. We may have desired to see Him come in and give the affront to our enemies, and to come in in power and vindicate us, but He does not do this in His love and wisdom. In the gospel of Luke we see the whole situation reviewed and the conditions fully taken account of, but the Lord does not propose to alter them, nor to relieve the situation by a display of His power, but what is prominent is the love of Christ, which supports us in them.
Were the Lord to come in and meet the case of exercise as we should like, we might well lose all the good of the discipline. The Lord is never indifferent. He is always near in His tenderness and the care of His love. How wonderful is the all-powerful, unchanging love of Christ.
There is nothing the love of Christ cannot, and will not, do for us in line with the will of God. He will secure every good for us that is in line with that will. Never a circumstance wrongly measured, wrongly interpreted by the love of Christ! Even things which we know are deeply humbling as evidencing our own failure, He will turn to the greatest profit for us in His love.
If we think of Peter; he essayed to maintain his links with the testimony in his own strength; he took up things in his own sufficiency. He thought himself equal to meeting the test in all the searchingness with which it fell upon the blessed Lord. He placed himself in circumstances which were too great for him. But the Lord stood behind the scenes. In His watchful love He gave indications which should have been a guide and check to Peter. He tells him Satan had demanded to have him that he might sift him as wheat, but then He adds, “I have prayed for thee”, Luke 22: 32. The test came and Peter fell, and how extreme was the anguish he must have felt. We can well understand that 162
even his faith was well-nigh overthrown by such a failure.
Who was it that supported him in his hour of need? The Lord Jesus. “I have prayed for thee”. What a wonderful reality is the love of Christ! What use He made of that failure to Peter in the end, as He was going to God from whom He had come. How He brought home to Peter the root of his failure in that self-sufficiency in the threefold testing He gives him: “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?”
If he has denied Him threefold, he shall attest his affection threefold, and with what grief that it should need thus to be questioned. “Thou knowest that I love thee”, John 21: 17.
Who was it that charged him with those dear to Him? It was the Lord Jesus. He could entrust to Peter the care of His sheep and His lambs, as He says, “Feed my sheep”,
“Feed my lambs”. The charge given to Peter was given to a man who had been tested and who had failed, but it was given to him by the love of Christ.
One’s desire is that there may be more room in us for Christ. That (so to speak) we might be more pleasing in His eyes; not just that we may be pleasing in one another’s eyes, but in His. It would be a very poor ministry that fashioned us after our own ideals, or after the ideals of others—we need to be formed according to Christ. And in all the discipline He must needs put us through to free us from ourselves—behind all discipline is the love of Christ.
* * * *
Now in Luke 22 we read that “the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh”. I would speak of that as answering to condition on our part. If He is valued preciously and tenderly in our hearts, there will be opportunity given to the love of Christ; He will wait on His own. I want to speak of the exercises of His love in the midst of His own. In this scripture the mind of the Spirit is occupied with the contrast between the spirit and attitude of Christ and His own, and the spirit that marked the world outside. In that beautiful enclosure marked by the unleavened bread the Lord can 163
come and sit down with His own. What a spiritual contrast between that sphere of things and what marked the outward situation. There was the large upper room furnished, and there they prepared the passover, and Jesus Himself sat down with them. The mind and spirit that marked Him was to mark them, and He will be there.
It is so to-day. Ah, you say, those are but ideals. But if so, we are of all men most miserable. Indeed, our position would be one of peculiar misery—but they are not ideals, but possibilities, for Christ has set Himself for their accomplishment. The intensity of the love of Christ has set itself to bring about conditions in which He can secure His own for His own pleasure and delight. In the world where He has apparently lost all, He has secured a spot where He can have His own around Him for His own joy. His love has effected that. We have seen the grace of Christ going out in blessed activity after His own, recovering them; gathering them into His own enclosure, and is not His love just as active to-day? Could anything be more pitiful than to see the remedy for wrong things and yet not to see it in operation practically. But His love is always active in the service of His own, and He sees, and He finds, and He rejoices over what He sees in His saints as the result of the activity of His own love to them.
Now He wants us to see that too; He wants us to seek out and find and rejoice in the evidences of His own grace in one another, so that we may be found together in His own Spirit, loving and cherishing in one another the fruits of His love. What an upper room that will provide for Him and us in a state characterised and brought about by the exercises and discipline which love has meted out to us, things which may not be revealed to us at the moment—loss, bereavement, sorrow, woe—but the result is a state of recovery.
We cannot always see what goes on in the hearts of the saints. People may say, ‘So-and-so preached so well to-164
night’. May be! But there was an upper room behind that—
upper room furnished. One had come on the scene with an earthen pitcher of water. They knew nothing about it: He did. He had seen every movement of exercise in line with the will of God, He had known perfectly the mind of the Spirit as to that one, and where the Spirit of God is, there Christ is treasured. The Lord give us grace to regard the preciousness of the saints as bearing the marks of His own preciousness.
Luke tells us of the man bearing an earthen pitcher of water; that is how you see things are maintained. Things may try you or you may be proved, but He will claim the earthen vessel. There is no reason why any vessel may not hold the blessedness and virtue of Christ. I like to think that there were those who carried earthen vessels of water right down the Dark Ages. In those very times there were pitchers of water, and so things were maintained. Even at the time just after the Reformation, when all that had been so hardly secured was being depraved, when Calvin was moving to establish a State church again, there was that special testimony rendered that the church was a heavenly stranger. There was a vessel of water there—indeed, it is always so.
In Luke, in connection with the Supper, all comes into the light—the light of the love of Christ. A question had arisen among them as to who should be greatest. That is the very first note struck after the Supper. Fancy the possibility of it in such circumstances! But all is brought into the presence of the love of Christ. Have we not seen it over and over again among the saints, that in the light of the love of Christ things have been disclosed and the situation saved. What a disclosure we have had. Very sad that it should be so, we grant, but disclosed in the presence of the love of Christ as at the Supper, how all is met! Such things are rendered possible by the feast being kept.
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Or again, we may say there is no freshness in the meetings; why is it? Perhaps some one is not keeping the feast; or it may be they are allowing conditions which reject Him. When the children of Israel left Egypt from Rameses, the Egyptians were burying their dead. An appeal is made to the heart on the line of greatness here. Are there any elements of greatness lurking in your heart? Bring them forth into the light of the love of Christ. You might be ashamed to tell me of them, but Him you need not fear. He has judged it all; He has suffered for it all; He has died for it all. You need have no fear of bringing it all out there.
So here in Luke we see how the Lord puts His hand on their spirits, and how He meets it all. “I am in the midst of you as the one that serves”, Luke 22: 27. He is on high now, but unchanged; the glory has made no more change in the heart of Christ than the humiliation did; He is the same Jesus. We have seen more souls harmed by prosperity than ever were hurt by discipline. How many have we seen ruined by possessions—but with Him there is no change; He is as entirely unaffected by the glory as by the humiliation.
Think of Him here, in the darkest moment of His humiliation—He “took bread” and gave it to them, and the cup likewise, He would have us together as those who keep the feast. He would provide conditions in which He can come to us. He is no more changed by the glory in which He now is than by the suffering and humiliation in which He was here; His love is the same.
Now in John 13: 1 it says, “Jesus, knowing that his hour had come that he should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end”. The Spirit of God sets all these wonderful circumstances together; the Supper going on, and the devil putting it into the heart of Judas to betray Him—all that the Lord knew too, His having all things placed in His hands, and that He came out from God and 166
was going to God—it is then that He rises from supper, lays aside His garments, and takes a towel, girds Himself, and pours water into a basin and begins to wash their feet. All the elements the Lord used were there ready: the basin, the linen towel, and the water. How were they provided? The man had been there who had the earthen pitcher of water!
All was ready to the hand of the Lord; He passes His hand over the whole situation; all the elements are there. The basin was suitable for personal service; it was not like the laver with its thousands of baths, but it was a basin, that which would shew the personal character of the love of the Lord Himself.
He began to wash the feet of the disciples and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. The Spirit of God says, “He came to Peter”—He had a service to render to Peter. One can understand the situation—how the Lord would look at Peter—He looked up, now down. He was washing his feet. How many a conflict we have had as to what the meaning of “part with me” means—we have almost quarrelled over it. But it is very simple; the Lord removed His garments and girded Himself, and He got down and washed their feet. Peter looked down to speak to Him. He says, “Lord, dost thou wash my feet?” And Jesus answered him and said, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me”. What does it mean? Why it refers to what He was then doing—it was part in that service of love. Let us begin at the very bottom.
What could it have meant at that moment but to take the place in which He then was? He was at the feet of His disciples, bringing them refreshment—cleansing. It was the fruit of His love; “having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end”—and because that was so, in the intensity of His love to them He would leave them available for one another. He would so minister to them that He would make them available to one another in the 167
same blessed grace in His own dear and unchangeable circle.
May the Lord just grant it—that we may find rest and comfort and refreshment in our own home circle! That we may come there to the joy and reality of divine affections and divine relationships. He would have us take special account of and special care of the circle which is our own and which is His. He wants us to be available for the saints, available in the circle of the love of Christ. But we will need to be in great lowliness; we must be stripped of our garments as He was, we must be at the feet of the saints.
Long before a child has any service in a family, it has a place there as an object of affection. It can be something long before it can do anything. Have we not many a time seen a sorrow bridged over by the coming into the world of a little child? Yes, and so it may be spiritually. You may be able to do but little, but it is open to us all to be objects of affection in the circle of Christ. May we all seek this place for His Name’s sake.
From Mutual Comfort, vol 14 (1921) 168
I have in mind to speak of the way in which the Spirit of God would direct our hearts into the consideration of Christ. It is a wonderful consideration, not simply that our desires may be met, or our expectations fulfilled, but that the Holy Spirit has been given to unfold to us by His ministry all the preciousness of Christ. At times, maybe, there is a lack of desire on our part, I may get occupied with things that displace Christ in my heart, but it is a great comfort that the Spirit of God comes to us charged with a ministry that is in accord with God the Father and the tender desires of Christ, and which appeals to our hearts in respect of the love of Christ.
There are times when we have been conscious of having decreased in freshness, when we have found that while our information was increasing, we were decreasing in communion. But there is never a time when the Spirit of God appeals to us in any other way than by presenting to us the beauty of Christ; His freshness is never impaired, there is no change in the beauty of Christ, no falling off in the glories of Christ.
When we come to the book of the Revelation it is not the Spirit ministering through apostolic vessels, but the record is given to us by the Spirit of the words the Lord had to say to His saints here. Changes had taken place with them, but He never changes. There is no change in the Lord’s thought as to His assembly, no change in His care or faithfulness. That is not only a comfort to our hearts, but it works out in the actual accomplishment of all the things that the hearts of divine Persons are set on, for at the end the assembly will be presented to the Lord by Himself
“having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such thing”, Eph 5: 169
27. When the Spirit of God speaks of the love of Christ in Ephesians, He speaks of the fact that He loves the assembly, not only in giving Himself by laying down His life, but in delivering Himself up for the assembly. The present movements of the Lord Jesus as Head of the assembly are for the assembly. His every thought is for the assembly, His every care is for those who compose it. “Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word”, v 25, 26. Not merely His death, but His present life is devoted to the realisation of that end. He died to accomplish it—truly, but He is living to produce and bring it to pass. There is never a time when we are outside the thoughts of the Lord as Head of the assembly. I am in the thought of God at all times; we can say that as individuals, but there is something more than that, we are at all times in the thoughts of the Lord who is Head of the assembly.
The Spirit of God never changes, His ministry will never be unsuitable to the heart of Christ. It is not His object that we should be well informed, though there is nothing to be deprecated in that. I value the heritage that has been given to the church, but what I see is, that the whole concern and consideration of the Spirit, and the very essence of our happiness, is that we appreciate the Lord.
We are ever in His thoughts; He never varies in His thoughts for His assembly.
In the beginning of the Revelation we have a different ministry for each assembly, but it closes with the tender expression of the Lord’s ministry for the assemblies, “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star”, Rev 22: 16. There is nothing connected with God’s pleasure on earth, nothing due to God, that has not been realised, but our souls must be kept in the sphere of the Spirit’s activities. There are very sad changes in the religious circles in respect of the 170
Holy Scriptures and of the glories of Christ. Those responsible in the sphere where His Name is nominally owned are discrediting the Scriptures, and dishonouring the Lord. Small wonder then that the Spirit of God should bring before our hearts that the Lord is the “root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star”. The Spirit’s movements are in the assembly wherever there is a heart that has a link with Christ. All the knowledge that has come to us, has come by the suffering of those who preceded us. It did not come easily, nor should it be held lightly. But further than that, every item of our blessing has come to us from the sufferings of Christ. How should we have known one another if Christ had not suffered? I should have been occupied with my own things, and you with yours; we should have been vainglorious, self-centred, full of ourselves, had it not been that Christ has suffered and died. The reason we know one another is because of the sufferings of Christ, every blessing we have comes to us on that ground. There is nothing that we enjoy together but has come to us because Christ suffered and died. It is as the Spirit of God holds our hearts in relation to Christ and His love that we retain the preciousness of the things that have been committed to us, no matter what the changes are around us.
From the scripture in Genesis 24 we see typically how the Spirit of God is working in view of the presentation of the saints to Christ, though He may have to wait in patience, as He does. The first time the Lord speaks of the Comforter He says, “another Comforter”. He was to be like Christ, His every movement was to be synchronous with the movements of the heart of Christ. One whose work was to be the presentation to His own of the movements of the heart of Christ. He moves in sympathy with the heart of Christ. The Lord is Head of His assembly here, and whatever He desires for His assembly, whatever He presents to His assembly is made good by the Comforter. He works 171
in us a response to those desires, an answer to the ministry presented.
It is so in Genesis 24. We find the desires of the heart of the father are all for the glorification and pleasure and extension of the affections of the son. Eliezer is charged with a ministry which is measured on the one hand by the pleasure of the father, and on the other, by the glory of the son. He was free in his movements, yet held in his movements. He came with the grace that was able to accomplish the result. “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hands”, John 3: 35. Shall we ever find the Spirit varying from that? Shall we ever find Him making much of any one but Christ? Shall we ever find Him encouraging us in our thoughts of ourselves? How often has the Spirit been hindered, alas, because we have been elevated on account of our knowledge, when He would have held before our hearts the preciousness of Christ.
Now Eliezer went to seek a wife for Isaac; his movements were confined in a certain sense. If we look into John’s gospel, we find the sphere in which the Spirit moves for the realisation of the pleasure of the Father and the glory of the Son. In John 3: 16 we read: “For God so loved the world”. What are the confines of the Spirit? Just this, the pleasure of the Father, and the glory of the Son. And His sphere?—“God so loved the world”. That is the sphere in which the Spirit moves in seeking out a bride for Christ.
Look at Saul of Tarsus! He persecuted those who bore the name of Jesus unto death; but the Lord laid His hand upon him. He spoke to him: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”, Acts 9: 4. Little Saul understood it then; deeply he was to understand it afterwards, that the Spirit was here to work out a response for the pleasure of the Father and the glory of the Son.
Eliezer came for a bride for Isaac, and he found her in her own conditions. He bore witness to her of the glory 172
and the greatness of the one he represented. He brought forth the bracelets, the ornaments and the garments, and it had its effect. We all know something of the grace that met us when we were outside; but there comes a moment when our hearts are given to hear the appeal of the tender love of Christ. Have you heard that? Good for our hearts to hear it. We will never be satisfied with what is individual if our hearts have listened to that appeal. What has God given us to satisfy our hearts? He has told us of the pleasure of the Father in the Son, and of the glory of Christ, and the Spirit is here to make much of Christ in our hearts. Her friends would have hindered Rebekah when the claims of Isaac were pressed; they would have detained her “but ten days”.
But no, the servant of Abraham insisted on his ministry. He said, “Hinder me not”. If there is a lingerer here, the Spirit of God is being hindered. You remember in the Lord’s address to the assembly in Smyrna He says, “Ye shall have tribulation ten days”. Why did that tribulation come in for that assembly? Because the heart of the assembly was becoming engrossed with earthly objects, and the tribulation was allowed to bring about the emancipation and freedom of those whom the Lord possessed so that they might respond to His affection. You may find saints in tribulation to-day. When our hearts become self-centred, then the Lord allows tribulation to come in in His desire to stir us up. The Lord has claims over His assembly, He loves the assembly and has delivered Himself up for it, that He might “sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word”. So that at the end He might present it to Himself
“a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing”.
Eliezer came to Rebekah and gains her for Isaac.
“The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hands”. So they send Rebekah away with her nurse, and Eliezer conducts her through the wilderness. The Spirit of God has given us no details of the wilderness journey, 173
but he gives us Rebekah’s words at the start, and her exercise at the end. You remember how she answered, when the question was put to her, “Wilt thou go with this man?” ‘‘I will”. But she said more; she said, “I will go”.
Sometimes we hesitate, but the Spirit of God never varies in His ministry till the time comes in our soul’s history when we answer decidedly, “I will go”. It means that I have to go out of things here, to leave my possessions here, in so far as they hold my heart, but, blessed be God, it means going out to Christ, not merely in the sense of going to be with Him actually at the end of our course, but we go there in heart and spirit now. We often say we live in a world where Christ is hated, but I am delighted to say, I am a little part of a world where Christ is loved. There is a world where He is not hated, where He is not rejected, where He is not disallowed of men, but where He is known as the “chosen of God, and precious”, 1 Pet 2: 4. That is where the Spirit of God would carry our hearts.
Then we are told what Rebekah said at the end of her journey. “What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us?”, Gen 24: 65. No familiarity marks those who are in the hands of the Spirit. The servant says, “It is my master”. “He shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak ... All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you”, John 16: 13-15. What a sphere of satisfaction, what a sphere for rest and happiness! The Spirit carries the hearts of the saints to Christ.
Notice that Isaac comes from the direction of the well of Lahai-roi. You remember that well, it was the place where God met the need of your heart. It was there He met Hagar in all her destitution, misery and need, and it was she who named the well, the ‘well of the living who was seen’. I wonder if there is any one here who has had that sense and has lost it. Is there one? It is there we learnt what it was to be refreshed and satisfied and supported in the 174
knowledge of the love of God. Have you lost it? It is because in one way or another something has intruded that has made little of Christ, though perhaps much of you. Never let us think we can retain the joy of the love of God, and at the same time be allowing something that makes little of Christ. Our link with Christ will never be broken, that link will be vindicated at the end, the Spirit will be sovereign in the day of Jesus Christ, but remember, anything that displaces Christ spoils my joy, breaks my communion, because it grieves the Spirit. “It is my master”, and he came from the well of Lahai-roi, the place where grace met the need of the needy.
In Abraham we have the love of the Father for the Son set forth; all things are given into the hands of the Son. Let us dwell on it for a little. We are in the secret of the love of the Father for the Son, let us measure it in its comfort and sweetness. We love the Son, and “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hands”. He has given us to the Son, for the glory of the Son whom the Father loves. It lifts our hearts above temporal differences, differences of station, differences of circumstances, of thought or feeling. Our identity is eternal, but we each love the Lord.
I can speak from my own experience. My earliest impression of Christ was when I was less than two years old. There is only one object worth pursuing and that object is Christ. I was less than two years old when I was taken to a Sunday school picnic on the banks of the Clyde. I was sat down on a log of a tree and we sang a hymn: