THE SERVANT: HIS PREPARATION, TESTIMONY AND SUFFERING
[p. 76] THE SERVANT: HIS PREPARATION, TESTIMONY AND SUFFERING
It is hardly possible, beloved friends, to describe the importance of this scripture - this opening out of a new era - a new start, if you like. No one can understand where he is at the present moment as a christian who does not understand this scripture. That may seem a bold statement, but I think you will find it so. It is the first time that heaven is opened on a man. I do not mean opened to the Lord, or upon Elijah going up into heaven; but the point is, the heavens are opened; everything is changed, there is a new centre as well as a new start. Jerusalem was the seat of government; now the centre is the right hand of God. Christianity is going to be developed; the earthly thing is over and a new thing altogether comes in.
I will divide the subject into three parts: the first is, the preparation of the servant; the second, the testimony; the third, what the servant suffers.
It is a great thing for every one to get hold of the fact that is introduced here. Stephen was offering them the Lord to come from heaven, and they refused Him. One thing after another they had refused, until he comes to the peroration, the summing up, and he says, “Ye do always resist the Holy Spirit”. That is the testimony of the Holy Spirit touching the nation. There is now no forgiveness for the nation, though there is for the individual.
Now if I do not understand the beginning, I cannot understand what follows. If you do not begin right, you cannot be right. Many a christian has to go back and begin right. If a man were on the line to Edinburgh instead of to London, he must go back and get on the right line.
[p. 77] You will find in the history of the Lord’s ways that He always prepares the servant himself for what he is to accomplish. The apostle could say, “What ye have ... heard, and seen in me, do”, and “As ye have us for an ensample”. I look at a man who is explaining a thing to me - have you got it yourself? Yes, I have learnt for myself what I am explaining to you. Otherwise you are recommending a thing which has no moral effect upon yourself. That is what so often makes the teaching ineffectual. A child heard a doctor recommending that he should not take sugar, so he watched the doctor and saw him take sugar. The child did not think much of that recommendation. You find throughout the Old Testament that the Lord passes the servant through the thing in which he is to be effectual in ministry. He gets the good effect of it himself before he presents it to others. Before a stone is thrown at Stephen, God introduces him to heaven; “he... looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus”. The Holy Spirit conducts him to it as his rightful portion. That brings us back to the gospel. Here is the great point, to understand what has been effected for me by the death of Christ. Not only I am cleared of judgment, but I am entitled to a new place. The prodigal was not only kissed, but he was brought into the new place. It has been familiarly said that Adam was a gardener, and that he was turned out of his place because of misconduct. Now I take that as an illustration; supposing the gardener was forgiven: I meet him and say, Well, has your master forgiven you for the way in which you have acted? Yes, he has. Has he given you a new place? Oh, no, he has not forgiven me so far as to reinstate me. Now that is where many a soul is, and that soul is never at rest. And he has never pleased his Father yet. That is the reason why there is so little addressing the Father when you pray: you are at home with the Saviour, but not with the Father.
[p. 78] Suppose I meet the gardener again. How is it now? Oh, I am perfectly forgiven now! Why so? He has given me a better place than I had before. I am in favour now - not only forgiven. That is the new place - an unexpected place. A great deal of the uncertainty of souls is because they have not found their new place. This is what Stephen is introduced into. One thing more. When the Lord is about to leave His disciples, what does He present to them? He says, “I go to prepare you a place”. A great many people think He is preparing it now. It is prepared - “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise”. But you say, I am not in that place yet. No, but the Lord sends the Holy Spirit, the power of God from heaven, to dwell in my heart down here, to be the cheer of my heart whilst away from that place. It is an immense thing to understand that the new line is opened. It is beautifully expressed in the hymn:
‘And see! the Spirit’s power
Has ope’d the heav’nly door,
Has brought me to that favoured hour
When toil shall all be o’er’. (74:5)
If you say, I do not know that is my place, you have not pleased your Father yet - you have not accepted the place that will alone satisfy His heart for you.
I turn to another point that touches church ground. In the gospel it does not say that I can reach the place even in spirit, but says so in connection with the church.
The apostle says in Colossians, “Seek the things which are above, where the Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God”. Stephen got a sense that he had found the place - he is over Jordan. The moment you reach Christ you are over Jordan. “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ”; in the previous chapter we are dead with him. Now I am risen; I am where [p. 79] He is, and I am to seek the things where He is. Stephen is prepared. One word more before I leave this subject. It is a very great thing for the soul to be waiting upon God, so as to understand that He is preparing it. He is preparing every one for what is coming. That is Psalm 23, “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures”. What for? To see the vastness of the resources. “He leadeth me beside the still waters”. The same principle is beautifully exemplified in the case of Elijah. The Lord is going to send him somewhere. He gives him a breakfast. He falls asleep; he is awakened, and gets another breakfast. God prepares him for what is coming. You say, I feel very happy in the Lord, and how great the Lord is. The Lord makes the provision for you before the demand. If you are really walking with the Lord, you will not trouble yourself about what is coming. Many a man has failed in different straits. Why? Because he had not gone out provisioned.
Stephen reached that spot in spirit before he was actually there. He reached the other side. He saw the glory of God; he sees within the veil, and he has not the least fear - he is quite at home.
Now for the testimony. This may be expressed in a few words - there is a Man in heaven. The new thing is inaugurated. The testimony had failed in man’s hands, and in connection with the Jews, and now it is going to start from heaven. Stephen turns round and says, “I see ... the Son of man”, not the Son of God. That was really the fulfilment of Ezekiel’s vision; when the glory was leaving the earth on account of man’s wickedness, in the brightest spot of the glory of God there was the figure of a Man.
But I will say a little more as to what the testimony is; I will show you how it is developed. Stephen is the first witness of it. The meaning of the word ‘martyr’ is ‘witness’, and the word ‘witness’ refers to testimony. What is he testifying? “I see...
[p. 80] the Son of man standing on the right hand of God”. They would not have it.
Now I turn you to Ephesians 3: 9, “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery”, to show how the thing is developed. Here it is the introduction, a new centre for man. In Matthew 22: 44 the word in Psalm 110 is used by our Lord:
“Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool”. The right hand of God is now the new seat of government. If you want to understand that better, look at the scriptures where the words “right hand” occur.
I trust you are interested in the history of Stephen, because it is of immense importance. He is a pattern man. The testimony is, ‘There is a Man in heaven’. How is this developed? We are members of the body of Christ. This truth has not come out, but the Holy Spirit has come down and connects the believer with Christ in heaven.
The apostle says, “To make all men see”. What? The exemplification of the heavenly Man upon the earth. It is not merely a justified man going on to glory, doing his business along the road, but I am here to be descriptive of the Man there, not of the man here. As I am characterised by Him there, I am descriptive of Him here. That is the testimony. It would be a bare statement merely to say there is a Man in heaven, and you might not be able to make any expression of that Man; but when you understand Ephesians 3: 9 you understand that it is that all men should see the beauty of the heavenly Man down here on the earth. I do not know anything more magnificent; it is like the plumage of a beautiful bird - a bird of paradise, if you like.
Saul says, I was by when Your first martyr was killed. He was the very man whom God used to fill up the testimony of Stephen.
[p. 81] I want you all to understand what your portion is. There is nothing between me and that bright spot where my Saviour is. The Holy Spirit can conduct me up to it - He ‘has ope’d the heavenly door’ - that is your own portion. Having got your own portion, what now? Now we are to be the expression of the Man in heaven. If you are characterised by Him where He is, you will be descriptive of Him where He is not. The wonderful testimony is, there is a glorified Man in heaven, and I am, through divine grace, called to be descriptive of His exaltation in the very spot where He was the rejected Man. There is one thing that marks the man that is heavenly - he is occupied with the interests of Christ here. If you were in heaven for five minutes, it is the interest of Christ that would occupy you, and not your own. The most striking mark of the heavenly man is that man is occupied with Christ’s interest here on the earth. What is your place? Heaven is my place. If that is your place, you are occupied with Him there and with His interest here. The moment you understand what He is to you, the question is, What am I to Him? Suppose every saint on the face of the earth tonight were to say, Well, I have to do with Him, what would be the effect? All would set forth the heavenly Man on earth, and it would be one grand whole, every man in his place. It would be a beautiful exemplification of the exalted Man in the place where He was rejected.
You may say we are greatly fallen. The real defect is that we have not grasped the beginning - you have not got your own side of the story. If you had got hold of the fact that you have a place in heaven - crossed the border, at home in that bright place where Christ is, the necessary mark would be that you would be descriptive of Him here.
Everything now comes from this new centre; it is the seat of power. You are to look at everything from that point.
[p. 82] The prodigal son only went in. Now Stephen comes out. The mark of the heavenly man on earth is that he is occupied with the church. It cannot be otherwise. You say, I am occupied with the salvation of souls. Quite right, but you will not lose that if you are occupied with the other. A great many are occupied with the salvation of souls who are not thinking at all of Christ’s interests. You should look for the salvation of souls, and that this should be for Christ’s service here on earth, like a recruiting officer, recruiting for his corps. I am always glad to hear of a death-bed conversion, but I would rather the person stayed down here to be a witness for the Lord upon the earth. Suppose the company here tonight were to say, I have found my portion in Christ outside this scene, and I am going to be descriptive, according to the measure I am called to, in my walk here on earth, of that Man in heaven. There is a great dignity about it; where He was ill-treated, that is the very place in which I would like to magnify Him.
Nothing encourages one more than to hear of a young man saying, I will give up everything to follow the Lord, to be for Him, but I will only say that if you give up your business for the Lord and do not work as hard in the Lord’s service as you did in your own business, you will come to grief. We are born to labour. I do not advocate a man giving up his business, but I do advocate a man making Christ’s interest paramount to his business.
Now I come to the third part - what does the man go through? Stephen is here confronted by all the Jewish magnates of the religion of man.
It is a bad general who underrates his foe. It is a great thing to form a right estimate of your enemies. ‘Forewarned is forearmed’. Stephen is here before all the religious dignitaries of the day. What does he go through? If you turn to Psalm 22 you will get a description of it. The sufferings there are put, not in [p. 83] their historical order, but in their moral order. Stephen is learning that he is above the things for which Christ suffered. The first suffering is, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Christ was alone in that; Stephen enjoys the effect of it. The second, “a reproach of men, and despised of the people”. Stephen suffers but is superior to it. The great and wonderful fact comes out that when you know the power that carries you over Jordan, you know the power that enables you to face every opposition here. “Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you”, Joshua 3: 10. The meaning of that statement is that when I know the power of Christ to carry me over to the place where He is, I know the power that can quell every foe that is against me down here. The believer is practically superior to everything that is against him.
We like to stand well with people - to be popular. “A reproach of men, and despised of the people”. That does not mean merely wicked people, but religious people. The religious element is what is to be dreaded.
But Stephen is superior to it all. The bulls of Bashan - the Jewish Sanhedrin, that great court - they gaped upon him - what had Stephen found? ‘I triumph in thy triumphs, Lord’. He does not yield an inch - not a feather is stirred. What a wonderful thing in a man like yourself! What about the bulls of Bashan? Superior! Brought down into the dust of death; no weakness equal to that. Superior! What a wonderful thing to be so sustained! If you visit people in suffering they tell you: ‘Thank God, I can really bear up quite wonderfully’. Stephen is so superior to the thing that he is not talking about himself at all; he is thinking of Christ’s work. “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”. Satan thought he had done when he had got rid of the first witness, but Paul came in to ratify what had been inaugurated by Stephen.
[p. 84] It is not that Stephen was not in suffering, but he was so supported that he kneels down and prays for his enemies. He overcomes evil with good.
I trust the Lord has awakened your heart to understand the great thing that is to be apprehended before Him - even that we are each of us to be descriptive of the heavenly Man here on earth. You will find the power that carried you up to heaven will enable you to be superior to the combined forces against you here. Some people will say, That is a splendid impossibility. I want you to leave out the ‘im’, and say, It is a splendid possibility; we can all follow in Stephen’s steps; if we cannot be Stephens, we might at least be little Stephens.
The Lord alone can make His own word effectual, and therefore I would ask you, dear friends, to join me in praying that He may make it so.