HOW LUKE PRESENTS THE LORD JESUS
J. Renton
The Lord Jesus Christ is the great subject of the glad tidings. This evangelist, Luke, presents the Lord Jesus first of all as the One who has satisfied the heart of God; that is what we find in chapter 3. It says, “the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form as a dove upon him; and a voice came out of heaven, Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight” (Luke 3: 22). Is that not glad tidings, that God has found a Man in whom is His delight? Think of all the men who had gone before, all the history of the Old Testament, never was a man like this Man. He came from heaven, He was a Man of another kind, another order; in His Person He was God, “the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, John 1: 1. He was found here as a blessed Man, and it was a full answer to every desire of God for man. Is that not wonderful that God has found a Man in whom He has found His delight?
Then He had the work committed to Him of taking up the whole question of sin in which God had been dishonoured; and He honoured God and glorified God in the working out of the solution of the great question of good and evil. In this world there is a great problem, the problem of good and evil, and the Lord Jesus came here to solve that great problem of good and evil. His sufferings and His death have satisfied God as to that great problem. It still exists in this world; it will yet be worked out in the universe. It was worked out in the cross of Jesus; it is to be worked out in every man and woman who is to be blessed. The question of good and evil has to be solved, but the Lord Jesus has laid the basis for good to triumph and evil to be dealt with. It will be solved eventually; it is to be in every believer, but the great work of reconciliation has been accomplished, as we sang—
‘All His toil on earth completed,
All His work for sinners done’. (Hymn 404).
The One in whom God has found His delight took on that great transaction, and finished it to God’s eternal satisfaction. He suffered as if He had been a sinner; He took the sinner’s place, and laid the righteous basis for God to offer forgiveness to every repentant sinner. The work has been done, there is nothing of that work for the sinner to do, it has been completed. Is that not glad tidings? That God has found a Man in whom was His delight here, and who has completed the work committed to Him. The Lord said, “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”, John 17: 4. He came into manhood to undertake that work. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and He has completed the work, laid the basis whereby sinners can be saved.
The next thing is in chapter 4. He overcame the devil. There has been a blessed Man here who has overcome Satan. That is another feature of Luke’s gospel, he presents One who has defeated Satan. Every other man and woman succumbed to Satan’s power—or Satan’s craft; there was one blessed Man here who overcame Satan. It says, “the devil, having completed every temptation, departed from him for a time”, Luke 4: 13. Satan departed a defeated foe; is that not glad tidings? The devil is a defeated foe and he knows it, he will not tell you that, but he knows he has been defeated; and the believer has the light of the fact that the devil has been defeated by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Next the Lord says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor; he has sent me to preach to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord”, Luke 4: 18, 19. Another feature of Luke’s presentation of the glad tidings is that He is a Saviour
available for every human being. When He was here He met every need, even physical need.
He met every human need, and He will do that at the present time. He may relieve you in mercy, or He will give you grace to support what physical need you have, but His great objective is to meet every moral need, every need of the matter of good and evil, “to preach glad tidings to the poor ... to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered”. These are samples of the kind of need that the Lord Jesus as Saviour is able to meet. He is available for every moral need of every person, every sinner’s need; need of meeting guilt; need of meeting sinnership, the Lord is available. He has done the work; the work has been completed that satisfies God, that God can offer to every one forgiveness; that is God’s attitude, His present attitude to all because of the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That is how the glad tidings come to us, by the Man who satisfied the heart of God. God had desires for man which were answered fully in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has finished the work given to Him; He has defeated the devil, and He is available for every moral need. That is what God is presenting in the glad tidings.
I want to show you how we come into it. It is one thing to hear the glad tidings presented and the glory of them, the majesty of them, the greatness of them, the fulness of them, but then, how do I come into all the blessing of deliverance, satisfaction, joy, forgiveness? How do I come into it? That is why I read these scriptures in chapter 5. We come into it by repentance, the way Simon came into it, “I am a sinful man. Lord”. He had the manifestation of the goodness of God; had the knowledge and appreciation of the goodness of God which leads to repentance. He said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. Lord”. I wonder if you have reached this first step; I wonder if we have all owned before God that we are sinners and in need of a Saviour.
It is true of every one of us and we need to come in our soul history to facing the issue of good and evil. How is it met? It says, “But Simon Peter, seeing it, fell at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord”. On the one hand he said, “Depart from me”, that is, he felt the loathsomeness of his condition, his sinnership, his guilt before God, he felt all that keenly, but along with that he fell at Jesus’ knees, therefore he knew where the remedy was. The great subject of Paul’s preaching is “repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ”, Acts 20: 21. We see both in Simon here, but especially repentance, “I am a sinful man, Lord”.
That is how we begin to come into the blessings God has for us, it is by means of repentance.
I would just challenge every one here, Have you come to face the matter of your sinnership, owning your sins before God? The Saviour is available. We live in a wonderful day of grace, when God is forgiving repentant sinners. Because of the value of the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ, God can afford, being holy and righteous as ever He was, to forgive repenting sinners, because of the glory and the worth that He has in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. I would urge every one here who has not yet faced that situation, own now your sinnership before God. It is the first step and the only way to come into the blessings that God has for us in the glad tidings. The glad tidings tell us the blessings God has for us, but then there is a way into them by experience, so that the blessings He has for us becomes ours, and the only way is repentance.
Then the next thing that is emphasized is faith. The Lord Jesus was teaching and it says there were “Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, who were come out of every village of Galilee and Judaea and out of Jerusalem; and the Lord’s power was there to heal them”.
Think of the grace of the Lord Jesus. His power available to help and bless these Pharisees and doctors
of the law, but apparently they were not interested. It is a great thing to first of all be interested. Think of being a sinner and not interested in forgiveness. O, what an awful state to be in! The Lord was there and His power available. Then they bring “upon a couch a man who was paralysed”, and they sought to bring him in and put him before Jesus. “And not finding what way to bring him in, on account of the crowd, going up on the housetop they let him down through the tiles”. This man must have realised that there was only one Man who could meet his need, and that was the Lord Jesus. He was helpless, he could not go himself, he had to have others to carry him. It says of Jesus, “seeing their faith”, that must have included the man who was paralysed. I can see them coming to this house and they could not get in because of the crowd. The man would say, I must get in somehow; I am so urgent about my need that I must get in somehow. So the four men opened the roof and let him in before Jesus, I have no doubt urged by the need of this man who was paralysed. There was faith with the men who carried him, but I can see him being really concerned about his, need and that it be met. He would say, I must be brought before Jesus because He is the only One who can heal me. So it is now, He is the only Saviour, “for neither is there another name under heaven which is given among men by which we must be saved”, Acts 4: 12.
So this man is let down before Jesus, and what is the word He says? The first word that Jesus says is, “Man, thy sins are forgiven thee”. He does not say, What is your story, what is your guilt? How did you come to be paralysed? What have you done? It is God’s attitude, dear friend, “Man, thy sins are forgiven thee “. Where there is faith, where there is repentance as well as faith, the first words are, “Man, thy sins are forgiven thee”. God can afford, being holy and just as ever He was, to say to a repentant soul that has faith in our Lord Jesus Christ,
“thy sins are forgiven thee”. Would you not like to be assured of your sins forgiven,
be sure that that is a settled matter for time and eternity, never to rise in your life down here, and never to rise in the hereafter? “Thy sins are forgiven”. This is the wonderful day we are living in let us value it.
He is still lying on his couch, he is still paralysed, his sins are forgiven, but he is still lying on his couch. There were those that challenged what the Lord was saying, they say, “Who is able to forgive sins but God alone?” God was there in the Person of the Lord Jesus. “But Jesus, knowing their reasonings, answering said ... which is easier, to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say. Rise up and walk?” It was no easy matter for the Lord Jesus to be able to say;
“thy sins are forgiven”. He had to bear these sins; He suffered for these sins, and for the sins of every believer, “who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree”, 1 Peter 2: 24. That only applies to believers; He bore the sins of believers. He bore the sins of this man. What an ordeal it was for the Lord Jesus to be made sin, to be made the very thing He hated most; to be made sin. We can hardly understand what it meant to the Lord Jesus, to undertake the great transaction that no other one could undertake. What a work! What a cost to Him! Value the cost to our Lord Jesus Christ that forgiveness is available to you.
He says, “which is easier, to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk?”
Then the Lord said to the paralytic, “I say to thee, Arise, and take up thy little couch and go to thine house”. That was power; what a sinner needs is forgiveness on the one hand but also power, that is power to move, power to be here for the will of God, and that power lies in the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is one thing to have our sins forgiven, that is a very blessed matter indeed, but then we need power. This man has to go to his house, it says, “Arise, and take up thy little couch and go to thine house”. He had to take on responsibilities, and how can we do that except in the power of the Holy Spirit? We need power, and so the Holy Spirit is available to us as
power. It is one thing to commit ourselves in the preaching; to face the matter of good and evil, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but we have also to go out on Monday morning and maintain our committal, and that is in the power of the Holy Spirit. When we are forgiven and desire to do the will of God it is then that we feel the need of a power outside of ourselves. We are not able in ourselves but the Holy Spirit is available in the glad tidings as power. The Lord has power on earth to forgive sins, and there is power in the believer to be committed to the will of God, and to fulfil that committal in the power of the Holy Spirit. So it says, “immediately standing up, before them”. You cannot prove to anyone that you are forgiven, it is a secret you have, you cannot prove it to anybody else; it is a matter of faith, we are justified by faith. When the world to come is set up, it will then be manifested that believers are forgiven and justified, but in the meantime it is a secret we have in our souls.
When he rose up and departed to his house there was testimony; power was evidenced in a change with him; he was a different person in his house; not a victim of circumstances as he had been before, but now he is an overcomer in the power of the Holy Spirit. The way into the blessings that God has in the glad tidings is by way of repentance and by way of faith.
Then in the next incident, what is called attention to is obedience, another very important feature. If we are going to enjoy the blessings God has for us there has to be obedience. This man’s right hand was withered, and the Lord said to him first of all, “Get up, and stand in the midst”. That was a command which called for obedience, and this man was obedient. His hand was withered but he could get up and stand in the midst, and that was simply obedience, and that is a very important feature in the history of the believer, to maintain obedience, to come under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ as this man does, he comes under the authority of the Lord Jesus. It says, “And having risen up he stood
there”, he was obedient. The way to blessing, and to be maintained in the way of the will of God, the way of joy and satisfaction, is to be obedient. That is, we confess Jesus as Lord, own Him as our Lord and come under His dominion; in other words, come into the kingdom. The kingdom consists of obedient persons, who have submitted to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. It will yet be set up publicly, meantime it is in mystery, it consists of those who come under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ in obedience.
The first command is what he can do, what he has strength to do, but then the second command involves faith, because the Lord said to him, “Stretch out thy hand”. He might have said, But my hand is withered, but he got the power in obeying, the strength came in obeying.
The first command was, “Get up, and stand in the midst”, which he could do, and he did, he was submissive under the Lord’s authority; the next word was, “Stretch out thy hand”, and the hand that was withered he stretched out. He received the power in obeying the command, and that is another very interesting feature the believer needs to understand. You might say, I have not faith for this, but then you always have faith to do what is right; you always have faith to come under the Lord’s command as this man here. He might have said, I cannot, it is withered; but he got the strength in obeying the word of the Lord, it is the obedience of faith.
That is all I have to say. There is abundant blessing available, righteously established in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. The way into it, and the way to be maintained in it, is by repentance, by faith, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and by subjection to the authority of the Lord Jesus. That is how the great question of good and evil is settled in the believer’s soul. I remember an old brother in Edinburgh often told us, The kingdom exists for the solution of the question of good and evil. Come into the kingdom; come into the area of what is good where the judgment of good and evil prevails. May the Lord bless the word.
Preaching at Dundee, 29 March 1992
THE LAMB OF GOD
A. McBride
John 1: 29, 35–37; Revelation 21: 9–11
I desire with the Spirit’s help to speak a little about the Lamb of God. There is much pressure at the present time; pressure in the bodies of the saints; pressure in the circumstances of the saints; pressure in the localities of the saints, all entailing a great deal of suffering. All of that would make us think about the Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God. One of the most touching of the descriptions or names of Jesus is the Lamb of God. He has many names; many titles that we could enumerate. The most precious to His lovers and to the assembly is surely that of Lord Jesus, but John here would focus our minds on Jesus as the Lamb of God. That means He was the Sufferer; He was the Offering; it means that He was here for God in a suffering way that is intended to awaken every spiritual emotion that we have in relation to Him. John sees Him coming to him, and says, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. How great that is! He is able to take your sins away; thank God He has taken mine away, and He is able to take away the sin of the world. That is, not only sins but sin, the whole principle that marks the world. Jesus will take it all away. How great He is! John saw a Man coming to him, a Man who was coming to die, and he says He was the Lamb of God.
How affecting it is that He came to die.
Then it says, “Again, on the morrow, there stood
John and two of his disciples. And, looking at Jesus as he walked”, not exactly coming to him, but “Jesus as he walked”; he had a view of this precious One in His movements, in the wonder of them, the glory of them as He walked. He says, “Behold the Lamb of God”. We spoke this afternoon about our emotions, and John’s emotions would be in this, when he said,
“Behold the Lamb of God”. I do not think it was just the words that made these two follow Jesus; would they not receive an impression of John the baptist’s feelings for this blessed One who was walking? O, how blessed that is! It says they followed Jesus.
Would that we were followers of Jesus—would that we found our feet in that pathway. There is nothing more interesting to Jesus than someone who wants to follow Him. Whether young or old, if we set our feet, set our minds to follow Jesus, how it awakens His interest! He would challenge us, you and me, “What seek ye?” They say to Him, “where abidest thou?”
He says to them, “Come and see”. We said it in the reading, and it is true, that in John’s gospel the darkness never lifts; he tells us in the first chapter that “the light appears in darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not” (John 1: 5). It (darkness) is never lifted in John, that is why John makes so much of light. Jesus speaks of Himself as the light of the world; speaks about believing in the light; about sons of light, and these persons were that characteristically, following in the midst of moral darkness all around them. The light was there in Jesus, there was no darkness where Jesus abode. He says, “Come and see”. It would be a short time, relatively, they spent with Jesus in that house. What would they speak about I wonder? What would they learn? I think they learned something by way of contemplation of that precious One. When Paul went to Antioch, for instance, he stayed a year; when he went to Corinth he stayed a year and a half; when he went to Ephesus he stayed three years, and there were great lines of teaching developed in these places producing something for the
development and progress of the saints in the knowledge of the truth, but I think the suggestion here is that this was a relatively short time. What they would enter into would be in the spirit of contemplation. I feel we need to contemplate the Lamb of God.
I think Abel was a contemplator, he begins the line of faith in Hebrews 11. John the evangelist says, “we have contemplated his glory” (John 1: 14), the glory of Jesus, “a glory as of an only-begotten with a father”. How precious that was! But Abel I think was a contemplator. What was it that led to the offering he brought? He brought of the firstlings of his flock to offer to God. He had a brother, Cain, who was no contemplator; he brought the fruit of the ground. But what was it that made Abel bring what he did? Abel’s sacrifice was not the first one. There was one before that, one that God made when He clothed Adam and Eve with the coats of skin; that involved sacrifice, a sacrifice that God Himself brought in.
What animal was used we do not know, but it was sufficient to cover these two before the eye of God, and I think Abel had contemplated that. He realised in principle that what would do for God was nothing else but what spoke of Jesus, the Lamb of God.
Abel brought this sacrifice and God looked upon Abel and on his sacrifice. What divine pleasure there was. I just wanted to touch on the Lamb of God as bearing on us individually as in Abel; as typically showing a man who was able to appreciate Jesus. I trust every one of us here realises that we can only approach God, or have any standing before God, in the worth and blessedness of this precious One who suffered for us, the One who gave Himself for us. It says, “And Jehovah looked upon Abel, and on his offering”, Genesis 4: 4. We might have thought that God would look upon the offering and upon Abel. No, He looked upon Abel and on his offering. The divine accuracy of Scripture shows that the man himself was in keeping with his offering.
How God values a personal appreciation of Jesus.
There are many instances in Scripture which speak of the preciousness of Jesus in this Lamb character. We could refer to Genesis 22, regarding Abraham and Isaac; there was the fire and there was the knife, with Abraham, and the wood laid upon Isaac. He says, “where is the sheep for a burnt-offering?” (Genesis 22: 7), and Abraham says that God will provide it. The reference there, if you look at the note takes us directly to the lamb of Exodus 12. Now that was a lamb for a household. So I would like to speak, not only about what Jesus should be to us individually, but what He should be to us householdly. God intended that lamb for a household. Moses says, “Seize and take yourselves lambs for your families” (Exodus 12: 21), a lamb for a household, a lamb that spoke of Jesus! Would it not have been enough for the whole nation? Of course it would, but what God wanted was an appreciation in every household of His rights. He wanted an appreciation of Jesus there, and an appreciation too of Jesus in every member of the household. Jesus is enough for the whole world, but is He known as enough for you and your household, and for me and my household?
This lamb in the house was available for all in that house according to their capacity. God makes allowance, in wondrous grace, for our growth and He says, Jesus is enough. You young children, fill your hearts with this blessed Saviour Jesus; the One who came in to give Himself. Those of us who are responsible for our households are responsible to bring Jesus before them. Think of that, a lamb for a house; for every house in Grangemouth; every house in Peterhead; every house wherever it may be protected by the blood of the Lamb. How valuable to God is that precious blood on the door-post and on the lintel. Moses says, “None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning”, Exodus 12: 22. Sadly some have gone out of the door while it is still night, but the blood never
loses its value. Remember the word of Paul to the Philippian jailor, “thou and thy house”; hold on to that! The blood of Jesus will never lose its value in the sight of God. He says,
“when I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exodus 12: 13). Then we need to eat the lamb roast with fire. O, the severity of the sufferings of Jesus! There was no mitigation at Calvary.
It speaks of the severity and the absolute totality of the sufferings that Jesus went through. It had to be roast with fire, and we are to feed on that. Beloved brethren, as we feed on it, it would deliver us from the world and its power. We need power to say No to the world, and to move out from the world. What power the feeding on Jesus would give us, the Lamb roast with fire. What a precious Saviour He is!
Then we could think about our localities. Think of the time in the history of Samuel, when he was about to be rejected, and they wanted a king (1 Samuel 7). The Philistines came up against Israel at Mizpah. Do we not know that kind of thing in our localities, the way the Philistine would lay siege to our places? It is the mind of man operating in the things of God; the mind of man that very readily operates in you and me and lays siege to the local gathering. What will they do? Will they arm themselves and rise up and fight? That was not Samuel’s way. Samuel would say, No, that is not the way, put away your idols, judge yourselves, and accept the weakness. So they “drew water, and poured it out before Jehovah”, accepting the weakness and humiliation of disunited conditions. Dear brethren, if that is so, accept the weakness of it, and bow before the God with whom we have to do.
Then it says, “And Samuel took a sucking-lamb”, so dependent, with no resistance. The way to solve many a difficulty is to go down. The way to solve a difficulty in your own soul, or in your own house or in your own locality, is to go down, in the spirit of this sucking-lamb. It says, “And Samuel took a sucking-lamb and offered it
as a whole burnt-offering to Jehovah; and Samuel cried to Jehovah for Israel, and Jehovah answered him”. A sucking-lamb is not a yearling-lamb, a sucking-lamb is a lamb that is most tender and at a vulnerable stage, and that is the way to bring in Jesus. It tells us in that chapter, that after that the Philistines came no more there. It says, “And the Philistines were subdued, and came no more into the borders of Israel” (1 Samuel 7: 13). What wonderful victory! God answered the spirit of that sucking-lamb; He answered with His own thunder.
He can deal with it, and the Philistines came no more. That is what God can do. He can do that as the Lamb of God is kept before us in the affections of the saints. O, that we were able to do that in view of the deliverance of the dear brethren!
Now we could refer to other scriptures but we could hardly go out of the Old Testament without referring to Isaiah 53, “he was led as a lamb to the slaughter”, the precious obedience of Jesus. These things are food for our souls, that precious One who was “led as a lamb to the slaughter, and was as a sheep dumb before her shearers”, Isaiah 53: 7. We spoke recently in Grangemouth about the Lord Jesus before the high priest and then before Pontius Pilate, and it is an interesting thing to look up where Paul refers to the Lord Jesus as witnessing the good confession before Pontius Pilate (1 Timothy 6: 13). If you go through the gospels you will find how little He said. Isaiah says, “he opened not his mouth”, Isaiah 53: 7. The witness was not only in what He said, the witness was in the spirit of a suffering Man, the Lamb of God.
When we come to Revelation we find in chapter 5, the seals about to be opened; God’s rights in government about to be exercised. Revelation 4, as the brethren know, refers to God’s rights in creation, and chapter 5 to His rights in redemption. It says John wept much because no one had been found worthy to open the book. Someone said the lion of the tribe of Juda will open the book and its seven seals, but what did, he
see? He saw a Lamb standing as slain. The precious One who made Himself of no reputation, there He was, the One able to deal righteously with all God’s claims and all God’s rights. In chapter 10 we find another book, a little opened book. That deals, not with Israel, but with the western world, of which we form part, and Christ is able for all these things. How great He is! Let us be in this worship, “to the Lamb, blessing, and honour, and glory, and might, to the ages of ages”, Revelation 5: 13.
I want to come now briefly to this great city, the bride, the Lamb’s wife. Some people took exception at one time when much was being made of the assembly, they said that it was derogatory to the Lord to make so much of the assembly. That could not have been further from the truth, because this presentation of the bride, the Lamb’s wife, only goes to show what a great Person the Lamb must be who has a wife, so glorious as is described here. The angel says, “I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife”. One of these angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, had had to do with a false bride, the great harlot.
Now this angel is speaking about the bride, the wife of this precious One, the Lamb. It says,
“And he carried me away in the Spirit ... and shewed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her shining was like a most precious stone”. How glorious that is! We belong to that, dear brethren, we belong to that glorious city. How do we belong to the glorious city? Because He has brought us into it by way of suffering. We owe everything to Jesus.
If we are going to come out in a day to come to reign, it is because He has suffered and met every claim of God, and now there is this wonderful answer. Is it not worthy of Him that there should be an answer in our hearts; an answer in our houses; an answer in our localities?
It will all come together in this wonderful
vessel, the assembly, the bride the Lamb’s wife. How much suffering there is among the saints today. How much there has been over the whole course of the testimony. Think of the martyrs; think of others who have suffered; think of the labours that have gone into the recovery times, how much there is in the way of suffering; the sacrifices the saints have made; the righteousnesses of the saints that are spoken of in Revelation 19, they all come together and form this wonderful vessel. It says, “Her shining was like a most precious stone, as a crystal-like jasper stone”. That, I understand, is an answer in the assembly to the sufferings of Christ. The “crystal-like jasper stone” is an answer to what appeared in suffering in that blessed One.
Now, you and I, in wondrous grace, have been given a part in it, now let our hearts be stirred!
May our affections be moved; let our very inwards be moved towards this blessed One, and let us each take a fresh view of the Lamb of God. That is all I have to say. I would like to be able to say more but it is beyond me. But may this One, the Lamb of God, have greater place in your heart and in mine, for His name’s sake.
Address at Peterhead, 25 April 1992
FAITHFULNESS
W. Lamont
Revelation 2: 8–11; 1 Kings 21: 1–4, 13–15; Matthew 14: 6–13; Acts 7: 54–60
I would like to say a word about faithfulness. It involves being true to One whom we love, and maintaining matters that we regard to be precious. Sometimes it is a very scarce commodity; we can all
challenge our hearts as to it, as to how faithful we are. Well might we sing of the Lord Jesus,
‘Faithful amidst unfaithfulness’ (Hymn 230). Faithfulness to God shone in Him in every moment of His life; He was faithful to God; it cost Him His life.
I want to speak briefly at this time of these three martyrs of whom we have read. It is quite a thing to contemplate, and a challenge to all of us who live more or less in comfortable circumstances, to think of persons who were prepared to die for what they held precious, persons who were prepared to give up their lives in faithfulness to God and to the testimony.
It is a great challenge, beloved brethren. The word to Smyrna was, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give to thee the crown of life”, Revelation 2: 10. The reward far exceeds the suffering. He gives them the crown of life. The exhortation was given to Smyrna, a church that suffered much. Who could compute the sufferings of such a church? These ten days represented times of severe persecution, severe suffering under that terrible cruel Roman emperor Nero and others. What a contrast to the Lord Jesus of whom we sung, ‘We wonder at Thy lowly mind’, are such ruthless, cruel men, who account human life as of no account.
How God values the saints comes out here in the Lord’s words to the church at Smyrna, “I know thy tribulation and thy poverty”. We live in days of great affluence, but it may not last too long. Affluence can be destructive of piety and of exercise. What a time it was in this church, “I know thy tribulation and thy poverty”, the Lord says, “but thou art rich”. These persons had treasure in their souls, the knowledge of the Lord Jesus.
Dear young ones, the most precious thing you can have, the richest thing you can have is a knowledge of the Lord Jesus, a knowledge of God firmly in your soul. By the Spirit of God you can know that you have a living link with that Man where He is, the One who says,
“These things says the first and the last, who became
dead, and lived”. He was put to death, slain by wicked hands, and yet He says here, in this setting, “who became dead”, not that He was killed exactly, but He became dead. It reminds one of what it says at the beginning of John that, “the Word became flesh” (John 1: 14), an act of His own volition. ‘No one takes My life from Me’, He could say, ‘I lay it down of Myself’ (see John 10: 18). He became dead. What it was for the Son of God to lie in death!
But He adds a further word, “and lived”. Earlier He had said to John, “I am the first and the last, and the living one—and I became dead, and behold, I am living to the ages of ages, and have the keys of death and of hades”, Revelation 1: 17, 18. What a position of power the Lord Jesus is in. It says that He has “the keys of death and of hades”. At the end of Matthew He said, “All power has been given me in heaven and upon earth” (Matthew 28: 18). Men today are seeking to prove who is the most powerful. There is One seated in the presence of God who has all power in heaven and upon earth, that is a tremendous comfort, and men can do nothing but what He allows. What He allows is all for the working out of God’s ways.
Soon He will step in Himself, and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and of the increase of His government and of peace there shall be no end (see Isaiah 9: 6, 7). What triumph there is in that! That is the One we love—I trust every one here has given their heart to Jesus.
Well, He says to this church, “Fear nothing of what thou art about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast of you into prison ... Be thou faithful unto death”. I suppose literally that would involve martyrdom. It is not ministry, it is not Scripture, but I would recommend the young people to read Fox’s Book of Martyrs. It would instil into your soul what is involved in faithfulness, for some persons it cost them their lives. I want to impress that upon you.
What is the measure of your faithfulness? Are you prepared to go so far and no farther? Or are you prepared to lose your life for the sake of the Lord Jesus? I do not know how many
martyrs there have been, God only knows. The area we live in had many of them. Just near us there is a monument to three young men who were chased by dragoons on horseback over the moors for miles till they became exhausted, and they were shot on the spot. On the monument is an inscription, ‘They lived unknown till persecution brought them into fame, and pushed them up to heaven’. Undoubtedly they are worthy of the crown of life. I keep thinking of these men in our area who in winter time slept in holes on the moors. They would not yield an inch to the enemy and many were faithful unto death.
Then we read of Naboth, a man who comes suddenly on to the scene. It says Naboth the Jizreelite; it does not say what his profession was; it does not say what his social standing was; it just says, “Naboth the Jizreelite had a vineyard”. That vineyard was the inheritance of his fathers. He did not say, It belongs to me, there is no sign of selfishness with Naboth.
Something had come down to him, something very precious; Ahab wanted it, but Naboth would not yield it. He said, “I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers”, and it cost him his life. He was a man who was faithful. It is a good thing to be able to say ‘I will not’, in this sense. I am not speaking about the assertion of the human will, I am speaking about the holy resolve of a person who values things according to God and is prepared to say that he will not yield, “I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers”. Ahab was even prepared to buy it; obviously he had plenty of money and wanted to buy it for himself, for his own selfish ends. A vineyard is typical of an area of blessing, an area that would yield fruit for God, it is not an area that is to yield for human selfishness. That is what a local meeting ought to be, an area where there is something for the pleasure of God. They are of course for our satisfaction too. We often remind ourselves that not only has God planned for His own glory (God Himself is His own Object), but He has provided for us. We
often refer to that classic statement, Eternal life is for man, sonship is for God. Naboth was faithful unto death and, in principle, is worthy of the crown of life. It is quite significant that in 2 Kings 9 it is still referred to as the plot of Naboth the Jizreelite (it is not Ahab’s), and that is where God’s judgment came upon Ahab’s son; it is where God expressed His judgment against this kind of man. I think one of the things we need to cherish today is what has come down to us as a result of the labours of faithful men, “others have laboured, and ye have entered into their labours”, John 4: 38. In that sense we have not much of our own, others have literally laid down their lives. We have to make the truth our own; not like the man who lost the axe head and cried, “Alas, master, and it was borrowed!”, 2 Kings 6: 5. Do not let us just borrow things, let us in real exercise make the truth our own; buy the truth and sell it not, one could say.
Then we come to John the baptist, another very interesting man, a man who made much of Christ. Now, beloved brethren, that is the secret. The world is full of men whose ambition is to make much of themselves; that is human ambition, human pride, human arrogance, but manhood according to God is expressed in persons who make much of Jesus. John the baptist could say, “He must increase, but I must decrease”, John 3: 30. Luke tells us that he was in the deserts until the day of his showing to Israel. The significance of that is that John the baptist grew up, I would think, without any negative human influence upon him until the time of his shewing to Israel. That is the kind of man God can produce. The universities or the colleges of this world can never produce a man like John the baptist, a man who is morally great. I am not saying anything against education, it is good to be rightly educated, but these institutions can never produce a moral result in you. They will give you knowledge of all sorts of things, and all kinds of qualifications, but they will not help you morally. John the baptist was a man who was morally great. The Lord says, There is not arisen among the born of women a greater than John the baptist. But he who is a little one in the kingdom of the heavens is greater than he (see Matthew 11: 11). One who served the Lord said, Yes, positionally greater but not morally.
There was not a greater morally than John the baptist, a man who made much of Jesus.
Worldly dancing has been a snare to many. It cost John the baptist his life (Matthew 14: 1–
13). “But when Herod’s birthday was celebrated, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod”, then she, prompted by her mother, asked for the head of John the baptist on a dish, and it was given to the damsel, and she carried it to her mother. That resulted from the celebration of Herod’s birthday and a worldly dance—You see the need to watch our conduct; the things we participate in, and be fearful of the consequences of them.
Sometimes we go in for things and fail to see the terrible consequences that may come as a result of dabbling in things that are not of God. This cost John the baptist his life. The feeling heart of Jesus is brought out here so distinctively, “And his disciples came and took the body and buried it, and came and brought word to Jesus. And Jesus, having heard it, went away thence by ship to a desert place apart”. How the Lord must have felt the death of John the baptist! No doubt He would think of what was before Him, His departure that He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem; He went away by ship to, a desert place apart. The Lord must have felt it keenly! He feels for us as great High Priest in His present position. Whatever happens to us, whatever sorrows we have, whatever tribulation, whatever circumstances may come upon us, the Lord feels them, and feels them keenly, and by the Spirit He is able to convey these feelings. Who of us has not in times of stress, times of trouble or trial, as in touch with Him, felt the comfort that He brings in. So John the baptist was faithful unto death and undoubtedly is worthy of the crown of life, not that he had part in the
assembly. John the baptist was here on earth when the Lord Jesus was here, but having no part in the assembly; in one sense he just missed it, but I am sure, in principle, he will have the crown of life.
Stephen was a man who knew the history of God’s people. Dear young ones study the history of the testimony, not merely from a mental standpoint, but study what God has done and the movements of the testimony right from the beginning; learn to chart your path through all the confusion, and arrive at certain conclusions. Where is the Lord in it all because He is somewhere in all the confusion? Discover that for yourself. Do not exactly rely on someone to tell you about it, though it is good to be guided, but discover for yourself the history of the testimony; for instance the origin of open brethrenism because of neutrality as to the Person of Christ. Learn the history of the testimony. Stephen went over it all right down to the time of Solomon, “Solomon built him a house”, he stopped there, he did not go any further. He rested his case, we might say, in the fact that dwelling conditions for God had been arrived at.
Every exercise should produce conditions that God can be in restfully.
Stephen tells all that to the Jews and the result was that they were cut to the heart but not by way of repentance. In the beginning of the Acts persons were affected by Peter’s preaching, saying, “What shall we do ...?” Peter said, “Repent, and be baptised each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for remission of sins, and ye will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”, Acts 2: 38. This cutting to the heart was human rage against the expression in a man of what was of God. “But being full of the Holy Spirit, having fixed his eyes on heaven”; he was not occupied with what was going on around him; but “having fixed his eyes on heaven, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God”. With his physical eyesight Stephen saw Jesus there in the presence of God.
Christianity has been attacked all down through the centuries; Christianity was based on fact, actual witness by persons who with their physical eyesight saw a risen Christ; that is the basis of Christianity. We enter into it by faith, and by the Spirit, but it was established clearly in fact as Stephen saw that Man there, “the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God”. What a sight that must have been! In spite of all that they were doing to him, having cast him out of the city and stoning him as it says, “And they stoned Stephen, praying, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”. He was shining in the spirit of his Master, who when reviled, reviled not again, when suffering threatened not, (1 Peter 2: 23). He was shining so brightly in the spirit of his Master, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”. Then he says, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”. It is almost like what the Lord said on the cross, “Father, forgive them”; but there is this difference, the Lord added, “for they know not what they do”, Luke 23; 34. These persons were fully aware of what they were doing; it was a rage against the fact that there was a man expressing in a very full measure the beauty of the work of God, and they just could not stand it.
Let these things affect us; these examples of persons that were prepared to lay down their lives; the principle of martyrdom should be in our lives. John says, “we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives”, 1 John 3: 16. That is what we were speaking of in the afternoon; we ought to regard the saints, our brethren, with such regard, such affection, that we are prepared to lay down our lives for them. That is we are prepared to serve them, to help them so that the work of God may be furthered in them. May what has been said in feebleness stimulate God’s work to increased faithfulness in all of us, old and young, for His name’s sake.
Address at Birmingham, 12 January 1991
Edited and Published by J. Strachan, 59 Frederick Street, Dundee, DD3 9DE, Scotland Printed by Crystal Stationery, 22 Western Road, Billericay, Essex CM12 9DZ, (T) (0277) 650661