A TIME OF INGATHERING

A. A. Bellamy

2 Kings 4: 17–24; Ruth 1: 22; 2: 1–9, 14–16; 4: 18–22

These passages have been read because of the references in them to reapers. The present is a time of ingathering, the harvest being for God; though the relief of man preoccupies many of our fellow-believers. We thank God that, whether in pretext or in truth, Christ is preached, but the harvest is for God. I believe the Spirit of God is increasing the impulse amongst us along that line, and the more we get free of self-centredness, collectively as well as individually, the more we are able to think of what is towards God.

Our brother referred in the reading to Ephesians 3: 21, “to him be glory”. We have to keep that before us, “to him be glory in the assembly”. It has often been said that the gospel in a sense is the greatest matter. Of course, where everything is so great we can hardly speak of the greatest, but the ministry of what God is to men has to be distinguished from the ministry which unfolds what men are to be for God—John’s ministry relating particularly to the first, and Paul’s to the second. Paul carries the assembly up to heaven, John sees it coming down.

The present is a time of ingathering, a time of great joy along with the sorrow. Great matters are on hand in regard of the dispensation in which we are; the latter glory of the house will be greater than the former. It is a time of gathering and ingathering. The enemy has scattered the saints, and scattering is worse than division because the sheep get lost. That is part of our sorrow. But then the Spirit of God remains true to what was committed to Him and He is acting in power in gathering.

He is gathering the saints to the great Centre of everything for God, another Man in another world.

Now it is in mind to say a word as to the young people in these scriptures. They were among the reapers. One of them died. I do not know that we read anywhere of the death of the other.

In this section in the book of Kings we are also in the presence of a great woman, a wealthy woman. No doubt she typifies in many ways the assembly. And then there is Elisha, the man of God. He was not present when the child died; he had to be made room for, he had to be brought. We are told that the woman conceived and bore a son. That is on the line of what is for God, a son, “Let my son go, that he may serve me” (Exodus 4: 23). So we have the local assembly and an expression of sonship there. And then it says, “the child grew”, and “he went out to his father to the reapers”.

This is really very searching, searching for every one of us, because this young person complained about his head. One of the devices of the enemy has been to propagate and promulgate just what is of man’s mind, and it is taking us a little while, dear brethren, to get round this corner, if I may so say, and to find that only what has its source in the Spirit of God is trustworthy. What is of man is of no account, certainly not what is merely the product of his mind. We are all to some extent affected by it; we cannot go down the street without in some sense being affected. But what is it? We have to recall that we are where Jesus died. He died here; He died where He was crucified, and that was Golgotha, the place of a skull.

This young man might suggest someone who thought that he could encompass the things of God with his natural mind. That is a terrible snare, and one would appeal to the beloved younger brethren that if you find your mind-working, close the book and enter into communion with God—pray. So he complains about his head, “My head, my head!” The woman was a wealthy woman, she would, no doubt reflect what Paul says to the Colossians as he brings in another source of wisdom. He shuts out the vanity of the human mind as he brings in the glory of Christ as the Head of the body, “For in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2: 9).We are to derive from Christ.

Well, the word by the father was, “Carry him to his mother”, and it says “he sat on her knees till noon, and died”. Wonderful things happen at noon! The conversion of the chief of sinners, a conversion by light, occurred at noon. The Lord Jesus came out of heaven to get that man, a pattern man, a pattern of every conversion. There is something in every true conversion akin to it, not in measure but in character. If any one of us has been converted, that would be found in his conversion—“Jesus that appeared to thee in the way in which thou camest” (Acts 9: 17). We have all come different ways. Some might say, My parents were converted before me, and my grandparents. That is part of God’s ways in mercy. He has gone upstream. But “Jesus that appeared to thee in the way” is peculiar to every one of us. We shall come a little more to that in speaking of Ruth, our direct links with Christ.

This young man sat on his mother’s knees till noon and died. How tragic! We should feel this, beloved brethren, as to what has overtaken many of the generation following. But, we should not think that all is over and hopeless. The mother does not think that—no, she is a feeling person. What feelings there are in the assembly! The young people here need to realise that maternal feelings surround them. One mother says, “Let me not behold the death of the child”, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs in the wilderness (Genesis 21: 15); but there was something going on in that lad. God takes account of everything going on in the soul of a lad or a maiden. The word came, “God hath heard the voice of the lad there, where he is”.

This mother, although the child died, immediately gets into action and makes way for the man of God. One feature of the enemy’s attack at the present time is against the ministry of one whom many of us have known, and who was well known in this city, too, against a ministry that had its source in the Spirit. Hope lies in our getting back in practice to the application of the truth of that ministry. The light is not diminishing, beloved brethren, amongst us. Thank God for that—it is not diminishing. The sun is not setting; in one sense it is standing still. What light there was in the upper room in Troas, and yet a young man fell asleep and fell down. Some thought he was dead, but he was not dead. This young man was dead; it says, “he sat on her knees till noon, and died”.

Then the mother gets into movement. Oh, what energy. We sometimes say, ‘We are carrying the matter’. Well, thank God for the power to carry such a burden. But what energy marked her, “Drive and go forward”, she says, “slack not the riding for me, except I bid thee”.

Gehazi, with Elisha’s staff, produces nothing, “neither voice, nor sign of attention … The lad is not awaked”. What a time of suspense this must have been.

Well, Elisha comes. He goes up there into the prophet’s chamber, shuts the door, and prays.

Then he reduces himself to the measure of the child. What a service, beloved brethren, this is—what a service! Oh for a dispensation of pastors, Mr. Darby said. It is a service which, alas, may have fallen into disuse in many of our localities, and we resort merely to external administration. But the man of God was in the upper chamber, reducing himself to the measure of the child—“his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands”, and the signs of life come into evidence straight away.

No doubt, as I think another has said, it refers to the wonderful truth of the incarnation; Jesus came into such confined conditions to reach us where we were. What restrictions they were into which He came in love, ever remaining who He was in His Person, the half-cubit measurements of the ark involving the inscrutability of that Person divine, who came into those conditions to suffer and to die. Well, there is to be some reflection of this in the services going on amongst us in our localities in view of the generation following, beloved brethren, that we may not regard all as lost, but make way for the prophetic word. That is what was here, the prophet Elisha, always in a company too, not isolated away up there on the top of mount Carmel like his predecessor. What a man he was, how he could stand alone; but Elisha is always in a company. And; typically, the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ flowing in, so that no case was lost, everything, so to speak, was preserved and carried through in his ministry.

Now in Ruth we have a very different person. This is a recovery, persons are returning from the fields of Moab. They are coming again into the land, they are really beginning to touch in their experience the purpose of God. What is natural is first, that is chapter 1—but there is no hope of continuity in relation to the natural. Death is rolled in upon us in Ruth 1, but then God was working in Naomi and Ruth, and at such a time, the beginning of the barley harvest. How auspicious, beloved brethren, this moment is. Would you rather have been alive at some other time in the course of this dispensation? Would you rather have been protected from the experiences that we have had, and are having? I say, What a time it is! We feel the Lord’s presence amongst us; He is showing where He is by the ministry He is giving. We can carry the secret although we cannot show it to others. It is for the confirmation of our faith.

So we have not to claim anything, nor have we to decide whether the Lord is here or whether He is there. If we know where He is that is enough; we go on there, and we are not alone. So it is all so near, and yet it may be so far from some. How can these precious things be brought into the range of our experience? By committal. That is what we see in Ruth committal; committal to the people of God, staying in the company. She was carried through in her early experience, as most of us were, in the bosom of a company of persons. Then she has to do with Boaz, a mighty man of wealth, and she has her direct link with Boaz, typical of Christ.

Someone said to Mr. Raven, Should we abide in the company? He replied, We should abide in Christ. That is how you trace Ruth’s history typically, she is a person of that character; she abode within the range and influence of Boaz, she did not stray away.

Ruth gleaned in the fields after the reapers; she is a good gleaner. Christianity is a heart matter really, it is an affair of the heart. The Roman epistle shows the importance of a believer’s mind—“I myself with the mind serve God’s law” (Romans 7: 25). But Christianity, in the experimental side of it, is an affair of the heart, it is a love matter. So we have this book of Ruth in which the word ‘love’ occurs but once, and if love is there, that is enough. You do not need always to be speaking of it if it is there. Undoubtedly it is there—committal, Ruth’s committal to Naomi, and then her committal to Boaz.

It says, “She came and gleaned in the fields after the reapers”. Who are these reapers? They stand in relation to Boaz; not independent persons, no independent service here, they are all in the matter together, and they have this servant over them. That brings into view what lies in the authority of the blessed Spirit of God in this dispensation. When the testimony came into Europe the Spirit of Jesus was there, and He said, Not this way; that way (see Acts 16: 7). So it came that way, and it came to us, and it came us, us in this country too. It was a question, you see, of the reapers going into the harvest and securing what was going to be for God, but under the direction of the Servant who was over them.

Let all of us who may have any part in this matter be always sensible of that, not to be independent. Apollos’s gift was very distinctive, he was mighty in the scriptures, and an eloquent man, and he served in relation to Paul. When it was suggested that he should go to Corinth, he would not go. If Paul had not a place in their hearts, he was not minded to go.

These are evidences of what is under the hand of the Servant, the Spirit of God, as in control. We are not setting up anything, no ‘organization’, the Lord has finished with that. It is a question, beloved brethren, of the Spirit.

This young woman was gleaning, a humble kind of service, stooping down to do it according to her measure; not wandering in another field, her eye, on the field that is being reaped. You say, What is the field that is being reaped? That is really a big question. We might have to be in the temple to get the answer to it. But there is such a thing as the field that is being reaped, and she was to have her eye upon it. “The present truth” (2 Peter 1: 12), Peter says. It is all out, there is no further revelation; Paul completed the word of God. There is nothing in that sense to be added, but what freshness the Spirit can give, and does give, to every feature of the truth. I believe that for us that is the field that is being reaped.

So we are in a good time, dear brethren, and let us not be complaining. At meal-time Boaz said, “Come hither and eat of the bread”. To partake of the Lord’s supper, we have to be conditioned, beloved brethren, by self-judgment being constantly maintained, resorting, to the cross of Christ in the spirit of our minds. In the presence of God we maintain self-judgment, “and thus eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (1 Corinthians 11: 28). Let us never forget that. “Dip thy morsel in the vinegar”, these words have certain associations in other scriptures involving the sufferings of Christ.

It says, “she sat beside the reapers”. What holy feelings she would have as served by these persons. Oh, these are wonderful things! Acts 20, it has been said, is a love chapter, love at the beginning, love in the middle, love at the end. The apostolic service has been completed in love, and if I have not love I am nothing. If we had faith to do it we might remove a mountain, but if we have not love we are nothing. We do not look to others to supply it, we each of us need to bring in our quota; love among yourselves. That is what this is. She sat beside the reapers.

So when Paul writes to Philippi he does not have to speak of his apostleship or exercise his authority, it is the affinities between the servant and those whom he serves in love. These things are coming back amongst us. Ruth rose up to glean and she was to glean among the sheaves, and special provision was to be made for her. Let us not forget the pure mental milk of the word in every reading. Mr. Lyon used to say, Keep a bowl of milk on the table. It is what is there of purpose; you see, handfuls of purpose, “leave them that she may glean, and rebuke her not”.

Finally, the end of the book is in mind in relation to what is for God; these generations that followed on, beginning with a man who broke forth. Pherez—the great feature of spontaneous energy in the service of God. We have in these last five verses the generative side, the generations of Pherez. I think there has been a period perhaps when the generative side has, in our apprehension of it, lapsed. Absalom had no sons; he had a memorial, but he had no sons. This is the line of sonship, what is generative leading up to David through the worshipper Obed. “Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David”. That means, beloved brethren, the best for God—the best for God at such a time as this too. All this happened in the days when the judges ruled. There may be other domination, “lords many and gods many, but it is wonderful to see what God is effecting in spite of the breakdown, and—indeed because of it; what is so, precious assembly-wise, the bonds between the saints as together in the truth, “love amongst yourselves”, and each with his own knowledge of his personal link with Christ, and all leading in the direction of David, the best for God.

May the Lord encourage our hearts and stimulate us in every exercise that may have been referred to in these meetings, for His name’s sake.

Address in Brooklyn, N.Y.
16 June 1973