CHRIST'S CHIEF INTEREST
CHRIST’S CHIEF INTEREST
WT You said something last night about Romanism and radicalism. Would you mind going over it again?
JBS 1 Timothy 4: 1 - 8. Every one knows that is popery. It is a man exalting himself religiously. He proposes an abstinence which everyone could not take. “Forbidding to marry”, etc. That was after all only followed by a few monks and nuns.
WT That would be part of the danger at Colosse?
JBS Yes. They wanted the flesh to help on christianity. Here it broke out in what we know as Romanism now - a spurious sanctity. A man was more holy who did not marry and did not eat meat.
WT Is there any expression of this idea amongst us? I mean in our ways. You said we were much nearer Romanism than we thought.
JBS We are always near it when we think we can by any means help christianity by the flesh. It ends in Laodicea. You carry on Christ’s work without Christ. The moment a man tries to make an impression by human means he has got into Colossians. A man might be singing like a Colossian, looking to the flesh to raise the thing. I heard an organist in a chapel saying to the minister, I will gather the congregation and you will keep it. It is right for the flesh to be a servant, but that is a very different thing from being a contributor. A servant does what he is told, and nothing else. He is like a good telescope - by looking through it at an object I tell you exactly what the object is like. A bad telescope either takes from it or adds to it.
WT Then a proper servant would not give his master [p. 38] any counsel?
JBS Certainly not. If a man gives a verbal message he sometimes says to the servant, What are you going to say? Very often he will give you his own impression with it. That is a contributor. Nothing can serve Christ but the Spirit of God. In the end of John 15 He says,”He shall testify of me” - not they.
WT But it says they also.
JBS Yes, but that is the former testimony on the earth. “He who now letteth will let” - not the church, but the Power in it. We have to learn it is all new. There was natural power before; there is not now, it is the Holy Spirit. People quote Daniel and Moses, but that is all gone. You might be the most stammering person that could be found, and you might be more used than the most eloquent man in the kingdom.
WT I do not quite understand what you mean by Moses and Daniel.
JBS ‘Put on thy sword’, etc. They used natural power.
WT But the Spirit of God guided them in their prophecy?
JBS There is no question that they spoke by the Spirit of God. The important thing for young christians to understand is that everything is new - newness of power, of life, of place, of interest. Oh, but, a man says, I have my family interests. You must make them all subservient to the new interest. It is the most incongruous thing that ever was that we are left on the earth where the Lord was rejected. You cannot account for it at all unless you understand it is all new. If you say, I will have a little of that and a little of myself, you will certainly come to grief.
WT Then the remedy for this is in the end of the chapter, continuing in the apostles’ doctrine?
JBS Yes, quite so. Nothing can be a greater difficulty to a man naturally than to say, You must [p. 39] give up this man you are in and get another. All the difficulties and heresies have sprung up from not being clear about that point. It is either Adam or Christ. You bring in religion and have a fine opportunity of making much of man by religion. It is all wrong - exalting the man, the first Adam, and refusing Christ. The moment you admit Christ absolutely, then you find your place in relation to Christ. You belong to Him - that is the new interest.
CE Would you please say that again?
JBS I say, if you look at the cross, it is an incongruous thing that we are in a place where Christ has been rejected. Therefore we are entirely of a new order, although we are in the old order. “Love one another; as I have loved you”. That is the new interest. Therefore the world will hate you. A man that wants to get smoothly through the world does not bother with the new interest. He keeps to his own line of things. The apostle says, “All seek their own”. The real test is, what interest have you on earth? Very likely a man would say, My family, or something else. He would not be right, would he?
WT No, I do not suppose he would.
JBS It is different from the Old Testament time. You are here like a wife in a house from which her husband has been sent away. He says, Stay here, but do not take any support from those who sent me away. You may say it was a great thing when Constantine countenanced the church. I say it was a terrible day for the church. I have one simple test for every denomination: what is your chief interest? One man will say, Preaching the gospel. It is a good work:
but if he comes from his Master he ought not to call it his chief interest. I say to a man, Do you know anything of the Lord’s chief interest? No. Well, I cannot believe you are so in His favour, and have such evidences of His great support as you say, if you do not know what He is most interested about. “The [p. 40] secret of the Lord is with them that fear him”. He likes to communicate His mind to a person who would value it.
WT “Piety .. . having promise of life, of the present one”. What is that?
JBS You are better off in every way. It is not a question of the world. You have deeper enjoyments now.
WT You would not apply that to a man getting a fortune?
JBS No. I would not call that life. The more you walk with the Lord, the more you have the enjoyment of life.
WT We have everything swept away by this doctrine.
JBS Yes, but you have “joy unspeakable and full of glory”. I have no doubt that with a man who is following the Lord it is not a question of what the measure of his prosperity is. People think that there is gain with the accumulation of property. Very often there is no gain. There is a saying in the world, A man’s mind is his kingdom.
WT We have everything new. The life that now is is not new?
JBS No, but it is all from a new supply, connected with “giving thanks... for all things”, not praying for the thing to be blest but thanking God for it.
WT Saying grace is all right instead of praying for a blessing?
JBS I think thanking is the thing. God had put Himself upon that ground that I can speak to Him and He can speak to me. It is the new interest that throws you out of the old one. How much time have you spent this week thinking of Christ’s chief interest? I have often challenged denominations with it. Give me on one sheet of notepaper your idea of the church and I will tell you where you are. Persons say, I am very much occupied in doing good works, preaching [p. 41] the gospel, holding meetings for the good of the poor. I do not object to any one, only you ought to have begun at the top. Where do you think I ought to begin? I was thinking of visiting at the infirmary or preaching in the country. The place to begin is the assembly. The Lord will come and act upon you, and give you light as to what you are to do. If we really understood the assembly better we should understand that it is there the Lord leads out souls.
JHS It is not a question of speaking in the assembly before speaking outside?
JBS Not at all. In Ephesians the first circle is “using diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace”, not even a question of gifts. The three parables in Matthew 13: 44 - 48 are inside. Four parables are public and three private. Any learned man could tell me about the first four, but only a spiritual man about the last three. They tell me what Christ’s treasure is, and where it is. It is not in heaven; it is hid here on the earth. It is a wonderful link for our hearts to this world, though not connected with it.
WT Mark does not give those three. He says, “Unto them that are without all these things are done in parables” - not spoken.
JBS What do you get from that?
WT You said a clever man might explain those given to the multitude. They are done - people can see principles at work, acted out.
JBS Yes, any intelligent man might say, There was a great preaching in the town, hundreds converted. But he could not tell what was to be done with them, because he never was inside.
WT The vessels are inside?
JBS Yes. It is not the mere catching; it is selecting. What are you? An evangelist. What is your chief interest? The church. I am dragging the net, putting the fish out, and every good one I am [p. 42] putting into a vessel. Why? Because Christ’s interest is my chief interest. That is right. You are a first-rate evangelist. I have no hesitation in saying I feel this earth intolerable to be in unless I believe that Christ has an interest here which is not in heaven. I would not be three days in a man’s house before finding out what his chief interest was. You may be like Joseph and his brethren - they lived for seventeen years on his bounty, and then they said, Peradventure he will hate us. That was not intimacy. Paul says to Timothy, Stick to two things; one is the doctrine, what Paul taught - the church; the other, the Scriptures. A man in the kingdom talks of the Bible, but never of the church or the Holy Spirit. If every one of us started on Monday morning, saying, I have got a new interest, paramount to every other, and I am going in for that, and I will make my fortune at it - how everything would be affected by that! I believe that is what calls out the hatred of the world. I like people that are no relations at all to myself. Look at John 15; the world is like fire and sea, trying to swamp this little company. Why? Because they are so devoted to each other. The world will hate you the moment you circumscribe yourself and say, These are the people for me. What relation are they? None at all. And yet you are devoted to them? Yes I am. You say it is narrow. It is narrow. All in Asia had turned away from Paul.
WT What is meant in John 17: 14 - “I have given them thy word, and the world has hated them”?
JBS The “word” is not the scripture, but the counsel of God. What has come out is Christ rejected on the earth, but His own are here. He looks upon them like an island in a violent sea. He says, The world will try to swamp you, but I will send the Holy Spirit, and they will not swamp you. In chapter 16 the world and the Holy Spirit take opposite sides. The world is in the dock and the Holy Spirit in the [p. 43] witness-box. Sometimes people would like to put a leg in each, but they cannot do it. If you want easy times, sleep, and the devil will sleep, too. If you become active, the devil will become active, too. Satan does not work upon a buffalo, or a lion; he works upon man, because he wants to disparage God by His best creature. Therefore Scripture is so definite - a man must see whether he has counted the cost. The Lord says, I must tell them the plain truth. They must build on the new ground; they must sit down and see if they have got the right stuff.
WT What is making it “put thy field in order”?
JBS You plan it out - take counsel before you do it.
WT It is part of your education?
JBS Yes. People think it means counting what it will cost to be a christian. Not at all. It is counting the material to build a tower.
EBG What do you mean by a tower?
JBS Something that will resist, stand like a rock in the sea, invulnerable, invincible. That is why they went round Jericho armed to the teeth, but did not strike a blow. But no one could strike them. That is Ephesians 6. The armour is aggressive.
EBG Though we have little strength we may have a tower?
JBS Quite so, and the point is that you have a little strength. “Thou .. . hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name”. That is really what has given such distinctiveness to the truth that has come out of late years, that the Name of Christ was brought in. You never met a Protestant that would not uphold the Bible.
EBG The word was recovered at the start.
JBS Yes, at the Reformation; but further on it was the Name.
EBG Still, truth was recovered in a [p. 44] large measure,
and then the Name was attacked. I mean in Bethesda.
JBS Yes, quite so - the Name is where failure would come. That is the great argument in John 14 - John 16, the Name - for yourself, for service and for testimony.
EBG “The name of the Lord is a strong tower”.
JBS Yes. It was in keeping with all this. “Where two or three are gathered together unto my name”. There it is the power of the Name. It is “to” in Matthew, but “in” in Acts 3. Peter and John say, “Silver and gold have I none, but... in the name”, etc. If I take His name I put Him forward - not myself.
EBG You take it that in Philadelphia “thou hast a little power” is a commendation?
JBS Yes - I like the word ‘power’. There are two parts in the history of every christian. Every christian knows something of how Christ is related to him - but do you know how you are related to Christ? No person gets thoroughly established in the first unless he is up in the second. I want to be occupied with Christ’s chief interest here on earth. It is a glorious mission. A man says, My chief interest is the success of a new patent I have in hand. Do you understand?
WT Yes, I should think so.
EBG The success of a new power is a great thing.
WT Yes, the new power alone can carry it on.
EBG What is the secret of our weakness in this?
JBS The want of personal affection for the Lord. In John 20, John has light about the resurrection. Mary has no light, but she has personal affection for the Lord. She will not go till she finds Him. The consequence is that the Lord reveals to her what He did not reveal to any one else. If a woman brought in misery, to a woman was committed the greatest light. From that day to this the woman takes the lead in a [p. 45] place. The first time Paul came into Europe a woman received him.
WT Abraham was to listen to Sarah?
JBS Yes. Isaac would have been a better man if he had listened to Rebecca.
EBG It was well Job did not listen to his wife?
JBS It was. It is a most wonderful thing, the new interest, connected with all the power of God. If I take up the publications, how few are really occupied with Christ’s interest on the earth. They talk of it as if I must give myself entirely to the Lord. Not at all - Paul worked day and night - business was so good at Ephesus he supported himself and the poor. At Thessalonica he had not enough to make the two ends meet. It is not toil that does harm, but care. There is no more industrious person than a labourer, but he sleeps the whole night through without a single care in his head.
WT Will you keep the ‘Voice’ up to the mark?
JBS I wish I could. You might try and help me. There is a beautiful thought at the end of Revelation - “The Spirit and the bride say, Come”. They are found together. That is exactly where we ought to be, in company with the Holy Spirit. An almighty Power here on the earth is going a certain road - am I going with Him?
WT “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us”.
JBS Yes, how beautiful it is!