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standpoint of a recovered person; he was once in the work but
it became too much for him and he turned back; it became too
severe for him. Mark would tell you that at that juncture he had
never measured what full committal would mean, and when
the test came
he turned back and did not go to the work. May I appeal to the
brethren, particularly to our beloved younger ones here at this
time, that with resolve of heart, in the light of Mark’s gospel,
we commit ourselves unreservedly to this great work that is
going on at the present time. So we are not to be persons who
hold things loosely. We do not assemble in a loose way, but
we feel on the one hand the holy privilege of being called into
the work, but then too the responsibility of it; so that we are in
our localities as those that are committed, those that put their
hands to the work.
This passage in Mark 13 presents to us the Lord Jesus in
figure as a Man who has gone away.
He has left His house, but He has not left it bolted and
boarded up. He has persons He can trust, persons that are
faithful to Him. He has a word to bondmen; He has a word to
workmen; He has a word to door-keepers. All this is necessary
at the present time in our localities, because it is noticeable
that it is His house. It is not the field. The presentation of this is
not calling for labour in connection with ploughing, or with
sowing, or with reaping, or even shepherd care, but it is
connected with His house. So the word is to the bondmen.
True bondmanship has been set out in the Person of the Lord
Jesus Himself. Philippians 2 tells us that He took a bondman’s
form; it was not imposed upon Him. He took it, and He was
here absolutely and perfectly doing the will of God—“Lo, I
come (in the roll of the book it is written of me) to do, O God,
thy will”, Hebrews 10: 7. Oh think of it! He is not directing
something to a bondman that He does not know for Himself.
Exodus 21 tells us that He said distinctly, “I love my master,
my wife, and my children, I will not go free”. Think of this great