FOUR FEATURES THAT ABIDE
J. Strachan
It is very interesting to see what God secures at the end of the dispensations. In the time before the flood God had Noah, one who was “a just man, perfect amongst his generations”, a man, who “walked with God”, Genesis 6: 9. That dispensation did not finish without God having something. In the end of Malachi we are told of those that feared Jehovah and spoke often one to another, and thought upon His name (Malachi 3: 16).
It is quite clear that that dispensation did not finish without some spoil for God. So in the one in which we are the finish will see something for God according to His own mind, according to His own thoughts; there will be persons waiting for the Lord to come, those who will be suitable to Himself.
So I have read these verses particularly having in mind what the Lord says about John, “If I will that he abide until I come, what is that to thee?”. Now I know that John being spoken of in this way may carry some reference to his ministry, what the Lord gave John to continue, and that particular line of ministry has a very clear bearing on how things will continue till the end of the dispensation, how faith will be sustained in the gain of that. When the Lord comes He will have persons who are going on with the light that has been presented as to these wonderful things that lie in the realm of life and love. But along with that John is a sample of the kind of person that the Lord will have—“If I will that he abide until I come”.
Now there are four things said of John that I want to speak of because they would enter into the constitution of persons who continue until the Lord comes. One is that he was the disciple whom Jesus loved; another is that he is following; then that he leaned at supper on His breast; and the fourth is that he said, “Lord, who is it that delivers thee up?”, that is, he had a spirit of enquiry. I just want to enlarge on these things in order to see how we may come into the gain of them for ourselves; that is, they should not merely be things said about John, but things that are true of us. There is nothing in these things that are said about John that any of us should be excluded from. In fact, when John is referring to himself in this way he does not exactly say, ‘I was the disciple whom Jesus loved’, he just refers to “the disciple whom Jesus loved”—he leaves him unnamed, and therefore you can see the possibility immediately of any believer coming into that.
I would like to mention this matter of following, because the Lord is speaking to Peter here and He is saying, “Follow me”. Then Peter turns round and looks at John—is not that just like ourselves? We turn round to see what So-and-so is doing. But the point is that you are to get your eye on the Lord. John did not have to be told to follow, he was already following.
Peter was being instructed to follow, and the Lord has to be emphatic with him, “Follow thou me”. Do not worry about John; he will be all right because he is following. If there is somebody who is following the Lord, he is all right, he will be safe. But the Lord is working with Peter to get him into the same situation as John was already in.
Now the Lord is very interested in persons who want to follow Him. You will remember that there were two of John the baptist’s disciples who heard John speaking about Jesus—a very brief word it was, “Behold the Lamb of God”, and it says they “followed Jesus”, John 1: 36, 37. Now that is a great result from a brother’s ministry, that someone should not just follow the person who gave the word, but that they should follow Christ. That is the point in ministry. If it does not lead us to Christ then it has not fulfilled its objective. But John’s word was immediately effective and they “followed Jesus”. And He saw them following. It is a great matter, you know, to come under the attention of
Jesus; each one of us can come under His personal attention. If He sees us wanting to follow, then He might say what He said to those two, “What seek ye?”. They answered, “Where abidest thou?”. They wanted to see where He lived, His dwelling conditions, and He took those two on “and they abode with him that day”. That must have been a wonderful day, a day with Jesus. Well, He was interested in seeing persons who wanted to follow, and He took them on. You know, the Lord will take us on—and what a vista is open to us in divine things.
Well, there you have persons who are on the line of following.
Now John enlarges on this line in his gospel. In chapter 10, for example, we get the relations between the Shepherd and His sheep, the Lord presenting Himself in that way, “My sheep hear my voice … and they follow me” (John 10: 27). How simple! How attractive! It is what the Person has become to us. What has Jesus become personally to us, dear brethren?
Christianity without Christ is worthless. So it is, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them life eternal”. It is a fine thing to be able to follow the Lord by hearing His voice. We do not see Him by actual sight, but I think we know something about His voice. Blind people depend a great deal on being able to distinguish persons by their voices. It is very remarkable how acute their power of discernment is. Now is it like that with us, dear brethren? Do we hear a voice and can we say, ‘That is the Lord; that is the Shepherd’s voice’? I think we are to become characteristically persons like that, able to detect the Lord by His voice. I am sure His voice is heard amongst us, dear brethren.
We know His voice and, therefore, we follow Him. Oh the arrangement is so simple!
Oh the things He is wanting to lead us into, dear brethren—life eternal, into this area where we are not affected by the pressure of death. The effect of death is all around, but the Lord would say, ‘I lead my sheep into an area where they can be free from that’. Free from pressure, free even from the pressure of death, the greatest pressure that can be on the human spirit; and the Lord would say, ‘I will lead you into an area where you can be free for God’.
Well, that is what He is doing with persons who hear His voice. He says, “I lay down my life for the sheep”, John 10: 15. That is how He has proved His love. How thankful we should be to be amongst His sheep, those of whom He says, “I am come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly”, John 10: 10. People have a mistaken idea that if they go in for Christ and His things they will be losers, by giving up life in the world. Well, that is a poor kind of life anyway. The kind of life that the Lord wants to impart is life abundantly, a life that never takes anything away from us, that is always on the line of giving, of supply. You get an impression of the wonderful resources that lie behind what the Lord says, and, you know, we need never be at a loss because the shepherd, according to the illustration that the Lord was using, always went before the sheep. And all the way that we are led down here He has gone before, every step of it. “My sheep … follow me”, John 10: 27. They will not follow strangers, He says, “because they know not the voice of strangers” (verse 5). That is, you are able to distinguish. We have to habituate ourselves to this idea of being able to discern between the voice of the Shepherd, and the voice of a stranger.
Now another thing He says is, “If any one serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there also shall be my servant”, John 12: 26. Well, that
is a good thought to have, to serve Christ, to be serviceable to the Master, but do not let us serve, dear brethren, without Christ. He has to lead you in it and then you can be safe in following. The point is—‘Where I am, there also shall be my servant’. If you are going to serve Christ, you want to be where He is. It is a matter of detecting where He is, following Him and being with Him where He is. It is a question of what He is doing, then we come in and follow Him and find we are serviceable as we follow. Well, John had got the benefit of these things he is portraying in his gospel and represents them in himself as one who was following.
Then he is “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. Now, that is open to us. In John 13 we are told how the Lord washed the disciples’ feet. That was the service of His love towards them; he went round to each of them in turn, then, after that. He has John in His bosom. John understood the affection of Christ. He lay there at supper in the bosom of Jesus. Now that is open to us, dear brethren. You get right to the heart of things in christianity in the bosom of Jesus. We must not say that was for John alone. I think it represents what is open to each one of us to find our place, you might say, just nestling in the love of Christ. If we are amongst those who are to be abiding until He comes, it is to be known by us, what it is to relax in the atmosphere of the love of Christ, to be in His bosom. Jesus is in the bosom of the Father. “No one has seen God at any time”, John tells us, “the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”, John 1: 18. That is, the whole declaration of God is characterised by a Man in the bosom of the Father. Wonderful!
Therefore we are to understand something of
what the bosom of Jesus means. The Lord’s supper gives us an opportunity for that, when we can just relax in the sense of the love of Christ. That is, you are not occupied with anything else but just Himself and His love. What a thing it is just to take time to enjoy the love of Christ for its own sake. John understood that and would make it attractive to us. He was also a trustworthy person. At the cross Jesus saw the disciple whom He loved and committed His mother to him, indicating that such a one would be trustworthy. Then John was interested when Mary of Magdala came and saw the stone rolled away at the tomb. She came and told Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved, someone who would be interested in anything that pertained to the Person of Christ.
John 21 is probably the last chapter to be written in the Scriptures, and it is a recovery chapter. It is a man who had known something of recovery who is being spoken of in this way, with the possibility of abiding until the Lord comes. Is that not wonderful encouragement for ourselves? We no longer speak of the recovery as if it were something apart from ourselves; we have had to prove in experience what it is to be recovered and as recovered persons there is the possibility of abiding here until the Lord comes. Just think of that, the privilege that is open to us, not as those who had never departed at all, but as recovered persons. That is what John is here; that is what Peter is, because there had been a departure at the beginning of this chapter. Peter says, “I go to fish” (John 21: 3) and the others say, “We also come with thee”, and then the Lord has to recover them. And who was the means of recovery? The disciple whom Jesus loved. The Lord, of course, effected the recovery, but John discerned Him. He says, “It is the Lord”, and Peter heard that and
moved. Others were affected that way. Someone is able to say, ‘It is the Lord’, and just think of the possibility of someone else being affected and being recovered. John became the means of Peter being recovered because he was able to say, “It is the Lord”, and I think he was able to say that as a result of being the disciple whom Jesus loved.
Dear brethren, this chapter is wonderful encouragement for us to think of recovery. We can think of it as to ourselves. What are we? Recovered persons, and the Lord is continuing to work in recovery. I think we should continue to look to Him for recovery. He has in mind these hundred and fifty-three great fishes, spiritual personalities being recovered. Just think of what the Lord will have in the way of recovery. I do not think it indicates any great public change, but it is how persons are being recovered, persons who can be numbered. It says of Reuben, ‘let his men be easily counted’ (Deuteronomy 33: 6, note)—such as can be numbered, and available to be here till the Lord comes. Well, this is what sustains someone who understands what it is to have a place in the affections of Christ, “the disciple whom Jesus loved”.
Then he “also leaned at supper on his breast”. Now that is a little different from being in His bosom. In His bosom, I think, is how you can relax in the sense of His love, but to lean on His breast means that you prove something of the support of the love of Christ. And we need that. The situation in John 13 was the time when the Lord said, “One of you shall deliver me up” (John 13: 21). You can understand in a situation like that how a sense of the Lord’s support would be needed. John felt that, and he filled out that position as leaning on the breast of Jesus. There are positions in the testimony where we need the consciousness of the
support of the love of Christ—difficult testimonial circumstances. We think of assembly exercises, perhaps household exercises, and as we feel them pressing in upon us we feel the conscious need of the support of the love of Christ. Well, the Lord would afford us that.
I was thinking of Paul in Romans 8 where he says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”. He says, “We have been reckoned as sheep for slaughter”—difficult, trying, testimonial circumstances—but he says, “In all these things we more than conquer through him that has loved us”. That is, in the knowledge of the supporting love of Christ he is able to go through triumphantly, buoyantly. You cannot do that apart from the support of Christ, leaning on His breast—that is the idea, that you are proving the consciousness of His support.
The same man says, as to the time when all deserted him, “No man stood with me”, but then he says, “The Lord stood with me, and gave me power”, 2 Timothy 4: 16, 17. Think of a man having to stand in the presence of the representatives of all the power of the Roman empire.
How could he do it apart from the consciousness of the support of the love of Christ? Well, that is to be known by us, dear brethren. John himself, in the beginning of Revelation, when the Lord was coming in judicially in the presence of the public breakdown of the assembly, says, “He laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not” (Revelation 1: 17)—what a touch!
Oh the supporting power of the love of Christ in difficult circumstances in the testimony, dear brethren! Well, that is to be known by us.
The other thing is that John had said, “Lord, who is it that delivers thee up?”. Peter did not ask this question; Peter made a sign and John asked the question. Now what we ought to be
exercised about is to be able to go to the Lord with an enquiry and ask of Him; to be able to do that ourselves, not to depend on somebody else doing it. That was a difficult situation—
the Lord in John 13 had said, “One of you shall deliver me up”, and John asks, “Lord, who is it?” (verse 25). The Lord did not name him, but indicated how they would know. The Lord may not give us the complete answer immediately, but would give us an indication that should lead us to understand what His mind is. As He proceeded it would become obvious, but we have to follow step by step to reach what the Lord is indicating. Now, dear brethren, I think this is very important in regard to exercises that occur in the testimony—in our localities or in a wider way; what even might occur in the whole area of Christendom that affects the name of Christ—that we might have this enquiring attitude and seek to have understanding of the Lord’s mind so as to be with Him sympathetically.
As we learn what His mind is about things it preserves us from being self-sufficient, from assuming to know everything. The Lord knows everything; He can say, “I know”. Well, we would want to be in the secret of His mind. If He knows, He has all the answers, dear brethren: He has the answers to things that may affect us in our localities, and to things that may affect the saints universally. He would say, “I know”; but He is looking for persons who will be sufficiently interested to seek Him, to seek to understand what His mind is. Well, that is open to us too. John was in that position of being near enough to the Lord to enquire. O, dear brethren, would that we had the exercise to be near enough to the Lord just to enquire and understand what His mind is about matters. He might show us that patience is needed; patience is needed in the working out of things.
That is a great matter. The Lord is working something out and He says of one assembly,
“Thou hast kept the word of my patience”, Revelation 3: 10. Think of God working out the whole dispensation on the principle of long-suffering towards men; what patience is being exercised from the divine side! The Lord Jesus Himself is patiently waiting to have the assembly with Himself—He is waiting for that moment, and we can be sympathetically with Him in seeking to keep the word of His patience, exercised just to go on until what He has in mind is worked out, and seeking to be with Him in some secret understanding of what His mind is.
Well, may the Lord encourage us, dear brethren, to set ourselves to take on these features.
They are compressed just into one verse, you might say, to give us a view of a sample of the kind of believers that He will have when He comes. May we seek to be found amongst them, for His name’s sake.
Address at Alnwick
10 December 1977