READING IN LUKE 12
READING IN LUKE 12
In the course of His instruction the Lord presses upon the disciples the importance of being free from care. Concern as to what they shall “eat” and what they shall “put on” hinders many. The Lord says, “be not in anxiety ... your Father knows that ye have need of these things”, verse 30. They are set in the light of the Father’s perfect knowledge of their needs and His care for them. They are to seek His kingdom, and all these things should be added to them. But more; it was the Father’s good pleasure to give them the kingdom. They were no longer of the fold; they were a “little flock”, and the Father would give them the kingdom. What a place they had with the Father and the Son!
[p. 65] The kingdom would be given to them. Israel was losing it in rejecting Him in whose Person the power of it was set forth among them, but it should be in the possession of the little flock, and that by the Father’s gift.
The term “little flock” is a touching testimony to the diminutive character of things at the outset as regarded in the Lord’s mind. A flock is moveable; it is not stationary like a fold. A fold has a fixed protection; a flock is exposed in a peculiar way, but it has the protection of the Shepherd. Judaism was a fold, but now there is “one flock, one Shepherd”,
Girded loins and burning lamps admit of no ease or comfort in this world. The figure here indicates that they were to be in constant vigilance; their loins were to be girded and their lamps burning, and they as men who wait for their own Lord. There is a distinct object before them. There is no telling when He may issue forth from the wedding, so that they must be constantly on the alert, in order that when He comes and knocks they may open to Him immediately; this is not the rapture, the Lord is contemplating the position of the disciples while He is away, and the responsibility attaching to that position. The whole point is, that they should be thinking of Him and His return. And ye like “men who wait for their Lord”. The coming of the Lord is appreciated by those who love Him. The Lord is before you; this is the secret of understanding the full bearing of His coming. The Lord does not say anything here as to the results of His coming. It was simply a question of the place He was to have in their minds and hearts.
“Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them”,
[p. 66] Luke 12: 37. That shows what will come in at the end, and the wonderful way in which those who are faithful now shall be treated in that day. Responsibility shall then be over; our service shall be ended. There is a sense in which we enter into rest now, but as “bondmen” we are not to take our ease while our Master requires our service. While in the position of bondmen we are not flattered; even as having done our work we are to regard ourselves as “unprofitable servants”, for we have only done our duty! See chapter 17: 10.
The thought of the thief in verse 39 is to emphasise the uncertainty of the time of the Lord’s return; and then Peter inquires as to whether the parable was spoken to the disciples or to all, and the Lord’s reply indicates the other side of the servant’s occupation; that is, care for the household. On the one hand, the servant is thinking of the Lord; he is in readiness to receive Him; on the other, he is occupied in looking after those of His household. The reward for the latter is that the Lord makes the servant “ruler over all that he hath”.
But there would be departure in heart from Christ in the servants, and in view of this the Lord utters His warning. The servant who said “My Lord delayeth his coming” had lost interest in Christ. Losing interest in the Lord, he lost interest in His household and became a persecutor. It is a picture of Christendom as it stands, in which the Lord’s coming is deferred, and not thought of, and the true servants are beaten. Where the Lord is displaced in the affections of the servant he will make an attack in some way or another on other servants. A man-servant or maid-servant has no conspicuous place in the establishment; normally they are orderly and quiet people. It is not any special servant that is attacked, but men-servants and maid-servants as a class. And then there is self-gratification — the [p. 67] wicked servant eats and drinks and is drunken. What a picture of disorder is here given us, and the beginning of it is in losing heart for Christ. The wicked servant receives special retribution in that he is cut in two, and gets his portion with the unbelievers as well.
Following on this we have the principle that responsibility is according to what we may have received from the Lord. He had come to send fire on the earth, and it was already kindled. Since the flood fire is the token of God’s judgment. It was there morally in the ministry of Christ, and it is here now by the Spirit, who maintains, among the saints, what answers to God’s judgment. The fire works in us in the way of discipline, for we are baptised with the Holy Spirit and with fire, but when it is applied to the world it consumes it root and branch.
Notwithstanding the great activity for good and blessing which marked the Lord’s life, He was straitened until His death was accomplished. Then He would be free to carry into effect all the counsels of love. At His birth the angels had announced peace on earth, but now He declares that He had not come to give peace on earth but division. The division, however, should be unequal. While Christ is rejected all effort to bring about peace is anti-christian. There is no peace to the wicked. It is when they say “Peace and safety” that sudden destruction comes upon them, 1 Thessalonians 5:3. At the Lord’s birth it was “Peace on earth”, but when He was entering Jerusalem to die it was “Peace in heaven”; peace is now in heaven. That peace is now brought to Christians, the “sons of peace”, by the Holy Spirit.