THE GLAD TIDINGS AND THE LORD’S SUPPER
J. N. Grace
We have been speaking of the days in which we are, the last days, and in fact the last hour.
Our hymn referred to the Lord and how we are looking for His coming in a little while. I was thinking of these chapters which relate the last hours of Jesus, and that there must be some correspondence between the last hours of our Lord, and the last days of the assembly’s history. It is well for us to think over that as to what our expectations might be. We are not in the pristine days of the church’s history; we are in days of brokenness, in days of complete public failure; we have humbly to say that. But in acknowledging that, we have the understanding that the Lord has not changed, the Spirit has not changed, and the truth has not changed. We can go forward in the faith of our souls that the dispensation is going to end just as the Lord intended. The Spirit’s work will be as complete as the work of Christ and that completion, of course, may take place in a very short time, think the final touches of the Spirit’s work will be very short as regards the period of time, but what a work it will be in the way of quality!
So I was thinking of these two outstanding things connected with the last period of the Lord’s life when He had His own with Him in Bethany. One refers to the glad tidings and the other refers to the Lord’s supper. If we can lay hold of these two things as being what the enemy has attacked, but what the Lord will sustain, I think we will
continue to commit ourselves fully to them. We may set ourselves in our minds, beloved brethren, to the fact that the last days of the church’s history will be a time of stress, difficult times, times of sorrow. I think we are all aware of how much sorrow there is in the histories of individuals, in our own history, in the history of local companies, and in the history of what there is universally, what sorrow has entered into it.
In Matthew 26 the passover is about to take place, against a murderous background. The whole official line of things that professed to hold what was of God had gathered together in counsel against Jesus that they might kill Him. That is a very sorrowful condition of things; the Person of Christ was among them and they wanted to kill Him. He had no place in that world, and He has no place in the world now; the world does not want Jesus. They will have the outward trappings of christianity, they will have all that will minister to the glory of man, but the Person of Christ is not wanted.
But there was one woman who wanted Him and she was prepared to go forward in the face of hostility, into an atmosphere which was against her, with one object in her heart, and that was to make much of Christ. It does not say she was invited into Simon’s house, but she came there and she was not afraid of the indignation of the disciples, those who should really have appreciated everything she did. There was indignation when someone came in to make much of Christ! Think of that! This woman braved it all; what a sister she was! Come what may she was not going to turn aside from what was in her heart, which was to make much of Jesus, to make everything of Him. She had this alabaster flask of very precious ointment that had been saved up; it was costly; what it had cost her! What it costs so many today as we think of many prepared
to move forward in the face of sorrow, suffering, and hostility to make everything of Christ.
He says, “Ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always”. It is as if the Lord says that this kind of person is an exemplification of the glad tidings. I would like to be like this woman to whom the Lord called attention. We can preach, maybe; we can speak; but are our lives really a testimony to the fact that we love Jesus, and that, beyond all else, He means everything to us?
Well, that is what this woman meant; she poured out this ointment; there were no reserves.
How often we have reserves. The Lord had no reserves in relation to us; He has given His life, has He not? He has given His all. Well, this woman gave her all. The Lord says, “In pouring out this ointment on my body, she has done it for my burying”. She saw the way out that the Lord was taking, the way through death, beloved, and He has been that way for us.
He then says, “Wheresoever these glad tidings may be preached in the whole world, that also which this woman has done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her”. That is the value of this service in the sight of heaven, the value of an action that made much of Christ. This woman was an outstanding exemplification of the result of the glad tidings.
Along with the glad tidings there is the Supper. It is not only what we are in testimony in relation to the glad tidings. The Supper is not something we have instituted; it is something the Lord has prepared and given to us. In this gospel He says in effect. This kind of woman has to be sustained; this kind of testimony has to go through, and I will provide in the Supper just what is needed, the food and the drink; it will enable you to be maintained in the scene of testimony until I come. That is Matthew’s presentation of
the Supper; it is not the memorial exactly, which is Luke; Matthew gives us food and drink.
How considerate of the Lord, is it not, that He has taken account of us in a hostile scene, where everything is against us because everything is against Himself, and has provided exactly what is needed in this, the end of the dispensation, that we should be maintained in testimony in the face of all the opposition that the enemy can bring to bear.
We may have to go on just in smallness of numbers because in the decline of things others have given up the truth, but the Lord says in the Supper, I have provided just what you need.
“This is my body”. He says, an allusion to the way the Lord has carried out the will of God, and every time we partake of the Supper it just means that as we put our hand to the loaf we say to the Lord, ‘Well, Lord, we want to do the will of God too’. Then we drink of the cup, and as you drink something enters into you to strengthen your heart, and to stimulate and refresh you. A fresh sense of the love of God coming in in the giving of Jesus, and His own love expressed in the shedding of His blood; how wonderful it is! He says, “For this is my blood, that of the new covenant, that shed for many for remission of sins”. How liberating it is! It is no system of bondage, but your heart is liberated as you think of this. You think of others around you; He says, “shed for many for remission of sins”, and even if it is only a few of us gathered together to partake of the Supper, all the saints are in our hearts. It belongs to all, it really does; all God’s thoughts are available for them; He has in His mind that what is established in Christ is for all who will take advantage of it.
Oh I think that one of the results of the discipline and the sorrows that we have been through
is that our hearts have been enlarged in relation to the thoughts of God. We have been too narrowed up in our thoughts and affections; we have still to be narrowed up as to our feet, but we can go out in our affections when we think of the basis of everything being in the death of Jesus, and the love of God expressed in the shedding of the blood of Jesus, and our hearts can embrace all our brethren. You may say, ‘Well, is that so?’ The Lord says, “shed for many”; can you tell me just how many? I cannot tell you how many, but I hang on to that word
“many”. In the light of it your heart goes out to all your brethren. How many there are who need to be recovered to the truth; how many there are to be salvaged from all that the enemy has done, and if they were all recovered we would still think there are others to be gained through the gospel to come into the enjoyment of what has come to us by way of the shed blood of Jesus.
So our hearts can be assured, stimulated, and strengthened to know that in the covenant, in what God has done in the blood of Jesus. He has committed Himself to us and He is never going to go back on it. Do we trust Him? Do we think that because publicly everything has gone down—publicly the whole thing has broken up—God is not going to see us through?
We stand by the truth, and God will give us the persons. We not only know that as something that has been said to us, but we can prove it. So let us stand by the truth and enjoy what God has brought within our range, and be like this woman who poured out this ointment, poured it out, the Lord said that; there were no reserves with her. Well, let there be no reserves with us, dear brethren, but full committal to the testimony of our Lord.
Word in meeting for ministry, Melbourne, Australia
9 October 1979