PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BELIEVERS
[p. 133] PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BELIEVERS
My exercise in regard to this meeting is that there are many believers in Christ, who are private believers, whereas the Lord’s thought is that one should be a public believer. The instance of this girl of twelve years, and her resuscitation, shows that there is a great deal that is private, but the Lord’s intention is that every believer should be public; that is to say, you should be ranked among the public followers of Christ. If you are a believer He will expose you; He will not suffer you to remain hidden. That is what I have in my mind.
Now Christ has what is private. He works in private, especially in households. Household affairs are not to be published, but individual believers must come out into the open in order to be led into the private apartments of Christ. There, you will be clothed in raiment of embroidery (Psalm 45). “All glorious is the king’s daughter within” (within the private apartments of Christ). “She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of embroidery”. The Lord will not suffer you to remain in your own private apartments! If your faith is genuine He values it, and it is so precious to Him that he desires it to be displayed, to be known. If this is not the case with you, He will drag you out of your hiding-place through some course of dealing. How much happier to begin with some public acknowledgment of what Christ has done for you! The Israelites did not go out privately. They are, as we know, typical of a believer in Christ at the outset of his faith, going out of the world. Did the Israelites go out privately? They went out “in the sight of all the Egyptians”. They were not ashamed; they were very glad to get out. Now,
[p. 134] before proceeding further, I would say, you will never experience the full joy of salvation until you come out into the open. Are you timid, fearful, afraid to say a word for Jesus? You will never come into the good of His protection, nor will you realise His sympathy, till you come out.
To refer to Jairus (as the woman with the issue of blood comes in incidentally), he was a remarkable man, and the Lord’s thought, in reviving the girl, was to re-establish conditions that existed here according to God. Luke gives this side; John gives the heavenly side, the new order. In Luke, the Lord re-establishes relationships which God had formed on earth, then He leads men to the light of the heavenly. Jairus’ daughter was only twelve and she was about to die.
It does not say she was his only child, but she was his only daughter. In the next chapter you get an only child. Luke presents the effect of sin in extreme cases.
In chapter 9 the man who brought his son possessed with a demon to the Lord, says, “He is mine only child”. In chapter 7 you get an only son and the mother a widow; in other words, the incident in that chapter presents an extreme picture of desolation and destitution, a widowed heart, bereft of everything, bereaved of an only son. In the case of Jairus’ only daughter, there was disease working, but in chapter 7 there was death, absolute death, and the Lord met the funeral. Death had done all its work, and as the dead man was carried out “a very considerable crowd” was with the widow, and “a great crowd” too with the Lord. The daughter of Jairus had not as yet died; she was about to die; all that appeared to be life was ebbing away. Her father Jairus was a man of note, a ruler of the synagogue, and he falls at Jesus’ feet and beseeches Him that He would come to his house. It is a household affair, and the Lord’s intervention here is of a private nature.
Well, I leave that for the moment, but I would [p. 135] like to call attention to the remarkable way in which children become a means, in the Lord’s hands, of reaching the parents. It is very humbling to admit it, but it is found in Scripture; the Lord uses children to get at the parents. Very often it is because the children are regarded in the light of nature, for, at the outset, parents take them up on the ground of nature. Take, for instance, Job; he had seven sons and three daughters, a very creditable family, as regards numbers! We are told of them after we read that Satan got his commission from the Lord, for we must remember he did get a commission from the Lord as regards Job. Satan is only a servant in that way, and will do his worst; he will go to the utmost limits as regards that, if allowed by the Lord. After he received his commission, the first record we have is that, on a certain day, all the children of job were feasting in their elder brother’s house; Job was not present. There was some discrepancy there. Why was Job not present? Evidently the family thought they could get on without him! When such is the case there is something wrong. It was not the divine intent, for they were not married, but what you notice is the feast was celebrated in the house of the elder brother; it was all on the ground of nature. All seemed very fine, seven sons, and three daughters, but they left their father out. You may depend upon it, God is displeased with that. It is to Job’s discredit, but much more to the discredit of the family. And I would say this, any son who disregards father or mother is apostate in principle. God has placed authority in the parents where it is most likely to be sympathetic, in the one who loves you most, and the disregard of that is, in principle, apostasy. “Without natural affection” (Romans 1: 31) is one mark of apostasy in the last days. I warn you, if you are a child, that if you disregard the authority and the claims of parents, you disregard the claims of Christ.
[p. 136] I warn you to regard authority and recognise divinely ordered relationships. Satan struck that house, and Job suffered in his fine family. It was wiped out, and Job was left alone. God did not charge the “wicked one” to spare Job’s children; He charged him to spare Job. Job was preserved and the family goes. It was not destroyed first; it was destroyed last, for the flocks and the herds went first. Pious as Job was, his greatness was all based on nature. The feast was in the elder brother’s house, as I was remarking. The elder brother nearly always goes wrong in Scripture, not the younger, because the firstborn is always certain to be taken up on the line of nature. The eldest son of Abraham and the eldest son of Isaac were born after the flesh. Jacob just narrowly escaped: he was a twin and was crooked, but he was not the firstborn. The eldest brother is almost always marked by want of sympathy with his father; that is what you find in Luke 15. Not to have sympathy is next door to apostasy, and, as a matter of fact, the elder brother of the prodigal was left outside. It is dangerous to be in the elder brother’s house, for the influence of the elder brother is not to be trusted. The father’s house is the place for you. I am not speaking literally, remember, but rather of the spirit of things as presented in Scripture; that which is first is natural, always; and beware of it!
Now job’s recovery was marked by a household.
The household was restored; thank God for that!
There was the same number of sons, and the same number of daughters, and the latter were the fairest in all the land. It does not say anything about the eldest son in the last chapter of Job, and what you find is that the daughters are given an inheritance by job among their brethren. In the first chapter he did not direct his children to meet in their elder brother’s house, whereas in the last chapter all is directed and regulated by Job. He “gave them inheritance among their brethren”, not in their elder brother’s house. All is now on the ground of purpose; the second family are given an inheritance entirely on the ground of gift, not on the ground of nature. When Job is restored, all his relatives come to him, his brothers and sisters and acquaintances; then his family is reinstated according to God. It says, “Jehovah blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning”, so that in the last end of job he was blessed, and he had his place in his house. God restored him, but He also restored his house to him, and job had his place there. He gave a portion to his three daughters amongst their brethren. His family is now regulated by himself, and the divine institution established in man is recognised and recovered. Then Job having his place, his daughters are richly endowed amongst their brethren; that is where we ought to be endowed spiritually, among our brethren, not in the world. The Scriptures are not meant to be read in the letter, but in the spirit. All is brought in on spiritual lines. Satan attacked Job through his children but God came in and restored everything; the family is brought under the authority of its proper head and Satan is completely defeated. Satan was only a servant, but God used him, and allowed him to do his worst on Job. Then God deals with job directly.
Now, in the incident in Luke 8, the house of Jairus is invaded, and the Lord is on His way to re-establish things as they ought to be. I will come to that presently. Incidentally, this poor sin-diseased woman in the crowd touches the hem of his garment. ‘My disease is private’, she says, ‘and I want to get relief privately and to go home and enjoy the relief and say nothing about the Reliever’. Is it so with you? I am persuaded that there are a great many private believers, and the Lord wants you to come out in the open, and to confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord. You say, ‘My quiet and unobtrusive life is enough’. Is it [p. 138] enough? Certainly, in a woman nothing is more delightful than a meek and quiet spirit. God loves that; it is the spirit of Christ, and, in the sight of God, it is of great price. But what about those people who live near by? Yea, what about the throng of people-for here, there was a crowd-what about them? Apparently they were getting no good from the Lord. Peter said, “The crowds close thee in and press upon thee”, but no one got healing. If you have got healing, why not make it public, so that others can see how it is to be had? If you have got it, tell it to the next person you meet! There is a crowd; those who compose it are not changed; they are simply curious. Millions of people are interested in God in some way, but they are not changed a bit. Why not let them know there is a change to be had, that there is virtue there? Tell them how to get it.
Well, the Lord said, ‘Something has happened’. He was the only One who knew-thank God He did know. I believe in having a secret with the Lord; that is what the “white stone” sets forth, for there is a white stone spoken of in Scripture. No brother is any good unless he has such a secret, but the white stone, I need not say, is not conversion. It refers to some exploit of your own, when you stood for Christ, that only He knew about. The world knew nothing about it, and you did not want them to know. That service you rendered, you did not want any to know but the Lord. But this peculiar disease others have, others are suffering just like you. All the crowd has it! If you have got healing, then let others know. Power, however, has gone out; “Power has gone out from me”, the Lord says. In spite of Peter’s protest the Lord held to it, “Some one has touched me”. Who that someone was, is another matter; He sees to it that she comes to light.
“The woman, seeing that she was not hid, came trembling, and falling down before him declared [p. 139] before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was immediately healed”. She did not say first of all that she was healed; she tells the cause of her coming first, she tells Him all that He knows; that is self judgment. There is the frank acknowledgment of the secret trouble you had; others did not know of it; your walk was fairly commendable, more or less righteous, but there was this secret disease which was not known. Men are very superficial; it is wonderful how people pass muster before an unexercised crowd, but are we to pass muster before the eye of God? “We must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of the Christ” (2 Corinthians 5: 10), we are told. The word also says, “Each of us shall give an account concerning himself to God” (Romans 14: 12), and that “the Lord shall ... make manifest the counsels of hearts”, 1 Corinthians 4: 5. So too, “what ye have spoken in the ear in chambers shall be proclaimed upon the housetops” (Luke 12: 3), where the congregation gather, where the gossip goes on. “All things are naked and laid bare to his eyes, with whom we have to do”, Hebrews 4: 13. It does not simply say ‘open to God’, but “to his eyes with whom we have to do”. He sees it all.
So here, the woman turns and tells the Lord before all the people what had taken place. The Lord did not take her aside and say, ‘Tell Me privately’. We might have said it was rather hard on the woman, but the Lord loved her, and He wanted her to get all the benefit of her confession, of her light; and you want to get it. So “falling down”, it says, “before him declared before all the people for what cause she had touched him”. That is, she proclaimed before the Lord and before the crowd all about that secret disease, that sin that worked within her members, in spite of her fair exterior. That sin working in your members, the Lord forces you to tell it all out. She told “for what cause she had touched him”. It was [p. 140] a frank acknowledgment of the inward sin-stricken state of the woman. It is not here a confession of sins; the woman was not marked by transgression. It was a question of an inward secret state, sin working in the members, and she told the Lord all about it, why she touched Him, and that publicly. She told Him, too, how she was healed. Others would get the benefit of that; it was as good as a gospel address, better in fact. We do not know how many were there, but there was a crowd there, and the woman was forced to tell out what was wrong and how she was healed. Suppose there was one there like her, such an one would get the benefit of the secret. How important to make a public confession! In Romans 10: 9 we read, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord”. I would not disparage the testimony seen in your life; if there is not that you are not a christian at all. God will use your life, but confession is with the mouth and public. It says, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from among the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart is believed to righteousness, and with the mouth confession made to salvation”. You believe in the heart, but confession is public. The woman was as justified and healed before the confession as after. Belief of the heart sets you right with God, but confession sets you right among men down here. You do not want to be numbered as one of the world, and you are until you confess publicly. To refer to the type, you have gone out in the sight of all the Egyptians. The Lord went out of Jerusalem publicly, but He did not go to heaven publicly. There is plenty that is private; the Lord went to heaven privately; there is much that is private, shut in with Christ, but the Lord demands the public things. I would add another word, He calls her ‘daughter’. You own Him publicly, and He owns you publicly, it is the beginning [p. 141] of relationship. The Lord is not ashamed of you now. He would have been ashamed of you with that foul internal sin working in your members; but He is not ashamed of you now as healed, for it implies the gift of the Spirit. No one is fully healed except by the gift of the Spirit.
To go on now to the girl, she was twelve years of age, and the woman had been ill twelve years. This girl was the only daughter of her parents, so it was an urgent case. It was a household affair, and most urgent. So we find the Lord is on His way to it. When He comes He assures the father, “Fear not only believe, and she shall be made well”. Then it goes on, “When he came to the house he suffered no one to go in but Peter and John and James and the father of the child and the mother”. It is now entirely different, the crowd is shut out; even the friends are shut out and only the parents and Peter, John and James are admitted. The Lord takes with Him His three great apostles and the parents of the maiden. It is quite obvious that it is a private matter. The maiden is simply a continuation of the woman, healed as regards the working of sin, but now made whole, revived and brought into life. You make a public confession and the Lord owns you publicly in relationship with Himself. ‘Now’, He says, ‘I want to introduce you to what is private’. The public are shut out now; they are not to hear what is going on inside. Family relationships are private, not public; family affections are all private. He took the father and mother, Peter, John and James, and put the others all out. Well! He takes the girl by the hand saying, “Child, arise”, and then it says, “Her spirit returned, and immediately she rose up”. She was made to live in the family circle. You will get all that is private there; there is no need to say much. The girl is set in relation to her parents in life. It really is a continuation of the woman with the issue of blood; she is [p. 142] healed of a disease and made to live in family relations. One other thought, the next thing is “he commanded something to eat to be given to her”. In spite of the fact of being healed and made to live, she must eat. The question arises as to what kind of food you are to give your children, or to have in the assembly. It is quite obvious that you must eat; if not, the life will ebb out again; it must be sustained. What one finds is that a great many christians devour poisonous food, and it really eats the vitals out of them. Satan is dealing out literature at the moment, positively poisonous; if he cannot keep you from confessing Christ, or from the family circle, he will endeavour to poison your mind with bad literature. You may be subject to your parents, and yet devour poisonous literature. “He commanded something to eat to be given to her”. The parents are the best judges as to the best kind of food. You should not take any food which your parents do not pass. So, in another sense, God provides food, and it is life-giving, health-giving, “the bread withal which I shall give”, Christ says, “is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world”,
John 6: 51. He gives His own flesh; He comes down from heaven and dies that we may have food to eat, so that we might live.
What a remarkable girl this was! We find in Luke that where children are restored, the responsibility remains with the parents. In chapter 7, the young man is given back to his mother; in chapter 9 the boy is restored to his father; and here it is the same, the girl is left in the house. In John’s gospel, it is the reverse, the point there being, you do not go back to nature. Thus Lazarus in John 12 is found with the Lord. It is not the reinstatement of divine institutions, but the becoming attached to Christ. He is the great centre in John, and if Lazarus is let go, he is found with Jesus. So that John gives us that point of view, whereas in Luke, it is the gospel, hence relief,
and if a parent’s heart is wrenched, the Lord will restore the child. So here, the young girl is revived, made to live, and was to be sustained by good food. The Lord only can supply good food, and it is for each of us to see to it that the light He has given us should be sustained by good food. Let us seek the food Christ provides!