OBJECTIVES
J. R. Cumming
John 10: 17; Daniel 1: 8, 9, 17–21; Numbers 14: 6–10; 1 Samuel 1: 9–11, 24–28
I was thinking, beloved brethren, that our hearts should be more affected by the love of the Lord Jesus. The chapter we have read from in John’s gospel brings Him before us in all His attractiveness. In this verse that we have read the Lord says, “On this account the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again”. Now twice over in the chapter it is said that He lays down His life for the sheep. So it is fine to retreat into this indistinguished company of sheep in this setting—as far as the public side is concerned we do not matter, and really that is for our salvation. Abraham had lots of material goods. Jehovah blessed him, but he found his way unknown in this world, and was under influence to none in this world. So the sheep here are only attracted to one Person, and they do not answer to any other voice.
The Lord says distinctly, “I lay down my life”. This is the way He took, beloved brethren, that you and I might be in this company. Throughout the readings today there has been emphasis on the cross and all that it meant for the Lord Jesus—“I lay down my life”. What willingness in love par excellence. Now that, we might say, is the end of that life—“I lay down my life”. There is something very final about that. But there was an objective, and it is that touch that I would like to speak about particularly, and that is why I have read these Old Testament scriptures. The Lord says here, “that”; there is a reason, “I lay down my life”, and the reason is—“that I may take it again”. That involves a new condition. A life laid down, that life infinitely pleasurable to God in every detail, and every day and night, it was laid down. You can understand then why the Lord says, “On this account the Father loves me”.
We love the Lord, all of us here I take it; we love Him because He has gone this way. The Father loves Him in perfection, because everything in the way the Lord went was answered in His love.
Now we come to the object, “that I may take it again”. Here is a life that is out of death; a life that is going to continue before God in all its perfection, with no deterioration whatsoever, and the grace of it is this that we are to share in that—“that I may take it again”. So there is something carried through, something carried forward, and I think, beloved brethren, if we get a touch like this to us, and what we have had working out amongst us today, especially as we are at the end of this dispensation, it would give us more purpose in how we approach things. Paul writing to Timothy in the second epistle speaks about difficult times; well, that is current, but he goes on to speak about many things in that chapter, including the things that Timothy knew about him, and he includes “my purpose”. I think it is the idea of his objective in life.
Well, there are young people here. What is your objective? To get married? Good! To get a good job? I think that is Jacob, you know, but there is nothing wrong with that; I think Jacob wanted to get to the top quicker than the rest. I think it has been said in ministry that he finally met somebody who was smarter than he was; so we have to learn that way. In the meantime it is essential to include the Lord Jesus in your objective, and a great thing to include the assembly in your objective. We are oft-times encouraged by Paul I am sure, and we get the idea in that scripture we read today; he says to these Corinthians, “let your heart also expand itself”, (2 Corinthians 6: 13); his heart was expanded. In Colossians he says—it is the gospel really—“Christ ... whom we announce, admonishing every man, and teaching every man, in all wisdom, to the end that we may present every man perfect in Christ”, Colossians 1: 28. What an objective! You see we, twenty-five of us here, subject to the local brethren, we come in here to a comfortable room and we get help as we speak over the Scriptures. Think of the hundreds of people out there with nothing; nothing but themselves before themselves. Paul would view potentially all these persons as belonging in here, so let our hearts be widened when we think of what the gospel can do.
I also link with this what Paul says to the saints in Ephesus—“until we all arrive”—that was the ministry—“until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ”, Ephesians 4: 13. That was his view in ministry. I oft-times wonder, beloved brethren, I include the sisters in this too, How do we approach the brethren? With any reserve, with any particular prejudice against any? I am only asking questions, I am not making any statements. Paul viewed all the saints in regard of this fulness of the Christ, and that is what he ministered.
Well, Paul laboured and toiled with these two great objectives before him, and I think he is an example to us as to how we should work. Again I say to you young people, Have the Lord Jesus and the assembly in your objective.
We will turn to Daniel, a young man, and he is speaking for other young men. What he does is to take a stand in separation from the world, and it is fine in verse 9, “God granted Daniel favour and mercy”. We were speaking earlier about what a Christian, a believer, should be conscious of, and as you go through exercises, whatever they are, it is very confirming when you feel that God has given you something in the exercise. Well, we know the result here.
How much easier it would have been the other way; everything that the king had under his hand could have been taken by them; instead of that they decided for pulse and water; in other words, they wanted to make room for Christ in their lives, and not have their lives polluted with all that is in the world. This is the faithful element, beloved brethren, which goes on, and it continues right to the end. I trust I am being accurate in what I am saying.
Daniel represents this element. His outlook was towards Jerusalem; that got him into trouble. Men could not find any fault at all in him, not even travelling at sixty miles an hour in a thirty mile limit (I am sure one brother here will not mind my saying that!).
These men said they could only catch Daniel out in regard to his allegiance to God. What a testimony! He persevered; he had his windows open to Jerusalem, he always thought about the assembly.
Now in Numbers you have Joshua and Caleb; they had been in the land, they had brought the produce of the land back with them. They took God at His word, and the description they gave as to the land in testimony was that it “is a very, very good land”. I think these men really had a touch of eternal life in their hearts, and as they came back amongst this argumentative company they just give a testimony that they knew was right. It was a testimony which was true, and it is a great thing when we talk about eternal life that we demonstrate it ourselves. We know the history, that whole generation had to pass off, and there were forty years of travelling, but I really think that every day in that forty years Caleb and Joshua evidenced the truth of eternal life in their hearts, and eventually they came into it in fulness. I was reading the other day that Mr. Taylor told a brother than during the time when the conflict as to eternal life was going pretty strongly, he saw Mr. Raven among the saints in one of the meetings in America in perfect liberty and happiness, and said to himself,
‘That is eternal life’, and he said that it helped him to see the point in the conflict. So let us not just be college graduates, you know, in regard to the truth, let us be manifesting the thing in our lives, because if there were two men who might have gone under the load that they had it was Caleb and Joshua, but they had that feature in them of what God had given them in the way of promise, and they held on to it.
Well, eternal life should be seen, not just spoken about, and that is one thing you young ones can be in as well as those of us who are older, and I trust we will all take the little reminder, that our actions here should be in the light and in the gain of persons who are in the truth of eternal life. Just as the enemy was completely against Daniel and his companions, so he was against men like Joshua and Caleb. But when Caleb was eighty-five he wanted a mountain; he did not want a park in a city for a seat, he wanted a mountain; he held God to His promise about that (Joshua 14: 12).
Let us be more energetic. In Joshua 24, he says, “but as for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah” (Joshua 24: 15). I do not think you can shift men like these, and these are the kind of men that put not just physical weight into a locality, but moral weight.
Just a few words on 1 Samuel 1. Here was a sister who felt things in her locality and also felt the whole public position, and she saw what was needed. It is a great thing to have a right motive because of a need, and Hannah was rightly concerned. She was misunderstood by her husband, she was misunderstood by Eli the priest, but that did not put her off. Where we read it says she was in bitterness of soul and prayed. What an asset to have in a company, you know, a sister in real concern. She prayed for what was needed, a man child. Complete unselfish devotion was there with her, that the little one whom she wanted more than anything in the whole world she was prepared to give to God. You see how the affections of Christ work out amongst the saints, and it is that that always wins the day.
Eli says to her, “How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee”. Think of all that was happening in his house which had brought in really the distaste of God against the priestly system. Hannah does not say anything about that, but I think she felt it and carried it.
So the child arrives, the child that she prayed for. It is a fine thing to see exercises come into fruition. We have to be solemnized when we think of various localities where difficulties go on, and go on, and go on, and you just wonder if there is not someone there who would come forward with this spirit, especially as we are affected by the soon coming of the Lord, and have all these matters sorted out. She brings this child forward after she has weaned him. God does not work with prodigies; God works with what is morally substantial. So this mother, Hannah, had the wisdom for that. She did not put this little child into things more quickly than she should. I think there is divine skill in that. It says after she had weaned him she took him with her, along with her own offering, “three bullocks, and one ephah of flour, and a flask of wine”, I do not think you get that prescribed. What a spiritual sister she was, and salvation is then before God as to this boy being handed over on loan. As to a loan, you can sometimes say, ‘Well, I will take it back’. She lent this little boy to the Lord “all the days that he lives”.
Well, she had got something, this sister, and we get something through her. It would encourage us, beloved brothers and sisters, to see if there is any lack in our localities and to fill it out, to take responsibility for things. That should be paramount in your list of objectives, you young men, to take responsibility, and the Lord will bless you. You have got this boy who grew, you know; this is well known by all. None of his words fell to the ground; God was with him right through, you might say, until David comes in. I think that is borne out in chapter 2 where it says, “Jehovah will judge the ends of the earth; and he will give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed”, 1 Samuel 2: 10. That is in line with what God has promised, and therefore may our localities be held sensitively for God, and all that we seek to do and to say in them be measured on the line of what we have been speaking about, and there will be results for God, for His glory, for His name’s sake.
Address at Vevey
14 September 1990