"GOD IS ONE"
E.T.Maynard
1 Timothy 2: 1-10; 1 Thess 1: 8-10
We were remarking earlier as to the various ways in which the Lord Jesus is referred to, and the ways in which He refers to Himself. It is a wonderful theme. You covet to have some little part in what God is setting out in Christ, His beloved Son, with a view to securing finally a universe for the pleasure of God. I do not suppose there is any here from the youngest to the oldest that does not appreciate family life. A little one might not be able to give a lecture on family life, but it surely knows what it is and the enjoyment of it, an institution of God. Alas, much has been done – we do not want to say too much about that, but yet you cannot forget it by way of the destruction of family life. It is of the devil, but God delights in families. It is a wonderful thought, family life. Gideon, you remember said to the men, those ruthless men, Zebah and Zalmunna, "What sort of men were they that ye slew at Tabor?" (Judges 8: 18). They had to admit, of course, the quality of the persons that they had had to do with. They said, They were all like you, everyone of them just like you, all "resembled the sons of a king" (v 18); and think of his feelings you love to think of it - he said, "They were my brethren, the sons of my mother" (v 19). He did not mention his father, he could have; it was the feeling side that was emphasised, the maternal side. He said, "They were my brethren, the sons of my mother".
I mention this because of God's delight in families, and what family is like the assembly? It is the finest of the families of God. You and I have been privileged to be drawn into it through mercy, and I trust that everyone here has a sense of being of the family of God; if not, from the youngest to the oldest we trust you will be drawn into it. God has the wherewithal to meet the requirements in the shedding of the blood of Jesus - precious blood, precious to us, we have to say how precious He is. So, Peter quoting from the prophet Isaiah, the evangelical prophet, and adding his own quota to the response that is due to God because of the preciousness of Jesus, says, ''To you therefore who believe is the preciousness", 1 Peter 2: 7. I trust that the Lord will help us in the time that we spend together, a little time, that we might be increased in our desires to be more like Him in a scene where He is still publicly rejected. But it is a scene where He is soon coming to set everything right so that finally God will show how He is able to keep men in flesh and blood conditions for a thousand years for his pleasure, and then bring in what is to abide eternally. These are real matters, and I think the Spirit of God would use the glad tidings to stimulate us further into the experience of these things. "God is one" the apostle says. Why should he say that? It is wonderful. Is it not, among other things, to occupy us primarily with God? And with the uniqueness of His greatness and His being, and the vital necessity of paying attention to what is in the mind of God for men?
I read the passage in Thessalonians, coupled with this passage in Timothy, because we need to be encouraged if ever there was a day when encouragement was needed; and when was there not a time when encouragement was needed in the history of the testimony? But we have to face what is current in our own day, as those who have gone before us faced what was current in their day, and we need, beloved brethren, to appreciate more what the Lord said as to this service, "Others have laboured, and ye have entered into their labours" John 4: 38. How was the testimony held in this city, and in other cities in Canada and in America and in every place that you could think of? How was it held for God's pleasure? In weakness and outward smallness, and yet in reality. It was held by persons who were prepared to suffer. We have to face up to this fact. We were saying a little of it before, that we are only of value in the testimony as we are prepared to take our lives in our hands.
The brethren will remember the passage in Psalm 119 - what a Psalm that is to go over - where the Psalmist says, "My life is continually in my hand" (v 109). Well, what does that mean? That is not a person who is going on in this world occupying himself with what relates to it, even what is legitimate, and seeking for a good time in the world without being concerned as to what is in the mind of God for men. It is just the opposite; it is a person who is committed to the maintenance of what is for God, what has been secured at such infinite cost in the death of Christ. "My life", he says, "is continually in my hand". Well, that links on with what we had earlier, a person who is prepared to lose his life in this world. That is the kind of man that would say that, the only person that can say that - not that one knows so much about it - but what the thing is in itself is open to us and we need to encourage one another along those lines. That is the kind of men and women we relate to the practical side of how the testimony is held. There is a time when the sisters are sons, not women, sons, as well as brothers. That has its place and its time, but the practical side is also to be appreciated; the testimony has been held down through the ages by godly men and godly women. We need to appreciate that, and one would encourage the beloved younger brethren, and the young children, to learn to appreciate parental care and exercise, both as it is seen in the assembly and also in the household, because that is the way that the testimony has come through to us, and that is the way it is going to be held from the divine side until the rapture.
What we need to think about more in a day when changes are so rapid amongst men, and even in the public profession the churches and professors are adapting themselves to men's exercises and desires and practices, is that the economy of love that we are brought into is unchangeable. Divine standards never change. Hence we can see how persons who have held the testimony ahead of us had to go against the current; they couldn't just go with the current, they went against it, and that entails suffering. The apostle says that persons who would live godly must suffer persecution. "And all indeed who desire to live piously in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" 2 Tim 3: 12. I am saying all this because I feel for myself the need of appreciating more, first of all what God has secured in the death of Christ; such a one as He had to die in order that you and I should be in this place of favour; and then from the practical side the way the testimony has been held, to appreciate that others have gone before and at the cost of their lives in suffering have held the testimony inviolate. Thank God for the way we are being helped into it after the recent breakdown. Divine things will never change. That is a wonderfully stimulating and stabilising thought, and that helps me to encourage the brethren in what the apostle says, "God is one". How many persons in this city and in other cities today are having each one his own thoughts about this thing and that thing, and perhaps about God. Alas, the Lord said to the disciples, as we said earlier, "Who do men say that I the Son of man am?" Matt 16: 13; and various persons were saying various things. It is the same thing today, it is current. But the apostle would focus on the living God, the God of our salvation, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, "For God is one, and the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for all, the testimony to be rendered in its own times". That is a wonderful thing. Everyone, every generation has had its time, in the rendering of the testimony. And currently, those who are here, this is our time. The testimony is being rendered in its time. What testimony this is, that God has given His beloved Son to die in order that you and I might live. God is interested in each one here, even the youngest. What did the Lord say when the disciples thought that only the older persons should be occupied with Him in His teaching and His service? "Suffer the little children to come to me", (Mark 10: 14). He was interested in the little ones, and He has not changed, as we are together now. He is interested in the little ones as well as the big ones. God's interest is in every child here, and every woman, every man, God, the blessed God, and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He looks down into the hearts of the little children, and He says to them, Come to me. It is wonderful that, "the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus". It is a wonderful thing to contemplate that in the most adverse conditions and in the most, you might say, excruciating situations, the blessedness of the manhood of Jesus was protected from heaven's side. It had to be so.
What a day it will be when every knee shall bow to Jesus. They will have to; it is not a question whether you want to or not in that day, but what a blessed thing it is now for young ones as well as older ones, for everyone, to bow the knee to Him happily. What a precious privilege. And so you remember we referred earlier to the centurion. What a dark time it was, the Lord of glory crucified; I feel for myself how little I really understand the immensity of the death of Christ and of his crucifixion, lifted up ignominiously from man's side on a cross and taunted, and jeered at, insulted. Well, we might say there is nothing darker than that, there could not be; and in those times God provided persons to signalize the uniqueness and the blessedness of Jesus: the centurion, "Truly", he says, "this man was Son of God" Matt 27: 54. What better could a man say? Could he say anything better, except to praise God? And the thief on the cross. What a dark time it was for men as such, the Lord of glory dying on the cross when everything, you might say, had ceased for the moment to function, it had to; darkness over the face of the whole earth, how could it be different? The Lord of glory dying, giving Himself a ransom for all, it says. God provided this man to call attention to the uniqueness of the manhood of Jesus in those conditions. He said to his fellow, you remember, "Dost thou too not fear God, thou that art under the same judgment? and we indeed justly" Luke 23: 40 - we are getting the reward of what we have done. That was a righteous judgment, a righteous pronouncement. Then, he says, "this man has done nothing amiss" (v 41). Was that all? No. God had the wherewithal to meet the man's exercises, as He always has; He has now what is needed to meet our own exercises, whatever our needs are individually God has the wherewithal to meet them. He said to the Lord Jesus, "Remember me, Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom" (v 42). What a heart of love, what response. "Today", He said, "shalt thou be with me in paradise" (v 43). No waiting. He meets the exercise immediately. Well, that is the glad tidings.
God has in mind that our exercises currently should be met. One would trust that we commit ourselves with this idea in mind in faith, that currently, the week that lies before us if we are left - if we are left, we have to take that attitude at all times (there are two sides, we may be left and we may be caught away) - but if we are left, God has in mind that our needs should be met, and met "according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus" Phil 4: 19; not met on man's level or creature level. The simplest thing in our affairs, and in our need and what relates to us currently for our maintenance is supplied on the level of where Christ is. That is a wonderful thing. Paul says to the Philippians, "my God shall abundantly supply all your need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus". That includes everything, it is on that level; isn't that wonderful? Most encouraging; most, you might say, uplifting, exalting, in a scene where we are lightly esteemed - as a brother said to me this morning - from the public point of view we are nothing in this world. We might as well accept it. The more we do, the better. But in God's sight and in God's realm we are everything for God's pleasure, like Christ. So, you get here, "the man Christ Jesus".
Pilate, was a man in government, in dignity, as Paul said in 1 Timothy - these men we are exhorted to pray for, and of course whatever they be as to themselves personally we have to think of the office that they fill. God will have government, and He is over ruling; a day will come when the Lord will govern directly, but for the moment government is in the hands of men. We need to pray for them. Why? That we should live piously and soberly and in a way that the testimony continues. But think, beloved brethren, of being held in an area available for God to demonstrate the glad tidings. That is in these passages that I have read; what I may be able to say - and I trust it might be profitable, I trust I will be saying what is right and what is suitable - but how little can we say. But, as you look at the work of God in the saints it is a demonstration of glad tidings. I think that is what is meant in Paul saying the glad tidings "sounded out" from the Thessalonians. It is not just the words, it is the substance of the thing in the brethren, the work of God, that you walk through the area and the neighbours - they are responsible for what they see; if they see the work of God they are responsible. That is glad tidings, that is part of it. Very little can be said as I am saying it now, but what God is demonstrating in the saints as they move about amongst men is the thing. It is sounding out; persons who turn "to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to await his Son from the heavens". Wonderful thing that, "turn to God" - it is the positive thing - "from idols"; the way it is put is wonderful, it is not turning from idols to God although that is true, but it says they "turned to God" as though attracted to God in the glad tidings, and it is from what previously engaged them, idols, "to serve a living and true God, and to await his Son from the heavens"; that is loving His appearing.
Well, I trust beloved brethren that we might be encouraged, that we go in more and more, that we experience really what is meant in the beginning of Proverbs when it says, "the path of the righteous (just) is as the shining light", not 'going on and dimming', but "going on and brightening until the day be fully come" Prov 4: 18. Well, God will use the local meeting to promote these things, that in every meeting you come to there should be something that is some indication that it was better than the one before. That is how I understand it, and that is not saying too much, not too much to expect, "going on and brightening"; that means each day will be brighter than the day before, that is how we understand it. Well, God is able for it, and if we desire it He will meet our desires in Christ and in the Spirit. But let us be encouraged to be available to one another, everyone in the local meeting, from the youngest to the oldest, is needed for the practical maintenance day by day of what is to go on. If we are available, as these two passages show, God is ab le: He has the wherewithal and the Lord directs His attention to persons that He can call on, and not only call on them but count on them, to furnish an answer to what is in His own heart. And so we go on, and being helped the service of God will be enriched, the glad tidings enhanced, and persons are saved. Think of being sympathetic with God in His own desires. His desire is that all men should be saved. That is a wonderful thing. You might say, well, it won't be. Well, that is not any deficiency, speaking reverently, from God's side. It is man's will against God 's will, and this brings us to further appreciate the one that said, "not my will, but thine be done'', (Luke 22: 42), Jesus. Well, I trust we may be encouraged, for His Name's sake.
TORONTO
9 December 1973