THE CAKE OF FIGS AND PRACTICAL CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP

James 3:12; Luke 6:43,44; Mark 11:12,13; 1 Samuel 25:18,19; 1 Samuel 30:11,12; 2 Kings 20:7

I trust that these passages will serve me to speak about how practical unity can be restored and maintained among the Lord‘s people. These scriptures might make that proposition attractive and, I trust, awaken some desire to promote the maintenance of practical unity among the brethren.

We have had a lot of teaching which goes beyond the sound interpretation of scripture to include a great deal of application of scripture. It is a scriptural idea to use the Bible in that way, provided it is done intelligently. Young people sometimes say they think such use of scriptures by older brothers appears to be rather adventurous. They ask me how I know, for example, that a pearl speaks of the assembly; or that a mustard tree speaks of the Christian profession. Of course, there are examples in Scripture where the picture in the narrative and the explanation are both given, but there are many where it is not so. My answer to the question is that, from my reading, I have found that the use of scriptures in this way has been a matter of enquiry, and that spiritual men have arrived at answers which have unlocked the teaching potential of many scriptures. They have arrived at these things in a spiritual way; their use of the scriptures is sound and consistent. You can take an application and see that, if you apply a different scripture in the same way, that application seems to work.

Now, many of us would recognise the idea that an olive speaks of what is spiritual, and that is because the anointing oil was made from olives. We might also recognise the idea that the grape, or the vine, speaks of God’s sovereignty; because Israel was taken up sovereignly by God, and He Himself in the prophet Isaiah compares them to a vine. These things enter into fellowship. Fellowship is a spiritual idea; it is not a social idea, and it is not an institutional concept. It says, “in the power of one Spirit, we have all been baptised into one body”, 1 Cor.12:13. So we can speak about how what is spiritual enters into fellowship. The anointing oil ran down to the hem of the priest’s garment (Ps.133:2); that may speak of where fellowship is enjoyed. The thorn speaks of the flesh, and how the contrariety and the awkwardness and painfulness of the flesh can so easily intrude. It will do that naturally and very quickly. There might be occasions when things of this kind arise with individuals among the people of God. We may be bound to leave such with the Lord, but sadly, we do sometimes bring things in which have no place in the assembly because they are of the flesh, and they are disruptive and disturbing of Christian fellowship.

So our links together are spiritual, and are manifestations of God’s sovereignty, and that is a very precious thing. We have not chosen one another, the Lord has chosen us and has set us together. He has set us together in our local meetings. He has ordained whether those local meetings are strong, or not so strong. There are localities where things are very small indeed, and it is the Lord’s ordering, in His sovereignty, to do that. Numbers in my own locality have diminished over my adult lifetime by about ninety-five percent. What remains is under the Lord’s ordering. We have to work out practical fellowship in the circumstances in which the Lord’s ordering places us. Whether we find all our neighbours congenial is something that we have to work out with Him.

But a fig is not an olive, it is not a vine, it is not a thorn. I would like to suggest to the brethren, and they can weigh whether what I say is sound, that the fig might have some application to practical fellowship. I say this carefully, but fellowship is not entirely a spiritual matter. Perhaps there would be less difficulty among us if it was. We make practical arrangements: after all, this fellowship meeting is a practical thing. Our relationships together depend upon us being able to work things out with one another in practice. I do not only mean the things we enjoy together, but things that arise among us that we have to overcome and reach some common ground about. There needs to be an understanding that there is – or should be – resource in the local meeting and among the Lord’s people to meet things that arise so that the sweetness, as Jotham’s parable speaks of it (Judg.9:11), of practical Christian fellowship is restored and allowed to go on undisturbed. It is a painful and grievous thing if it is otherwise. I am not talking now about the need or otherwise for discipline – it is inescapable – but I am talking about those who seek to go on together, and whether they do so in a spirit which promotes in everything they do and say the sweetness of practical Christian fellowship.

I read the passage in Mark’s gospel to show that this is something very attractive to the Lord Jesus Himself. We gather, beloved, not only to the Lord’s name, but we gather to create a circle into which He should be free to come, not just on Lord’s day morning but on every occasion. The focus of practical Christian fellowship should be the desire that the Lord should come and find His enjoyment in that circle. The scripture says that “he hungered”. What a wonderful thing to read of the Lord’s desires, and as yet, unfulfilled desires. If the Lord Jesus has an unfulfilled desire, then it might be possible for me – for us – to fulfil that desire and so gratify and satisfy His heart. What He found, when He came to this fig tree, was nothing but leaves. In other words, there was a profession, there was the outward appearance of a healthy, strong, vigorous state of things, but when the leaves were parted in pursuit of fruit, nothing was found.

I might touch briefly on what the fig tree speaks of. Israel was a vine: it says, “My well-beloved had a vineyard upon a fruitful hill. And he dug it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine”, Isa.5:1. That was Israel in the mind of God, planted in the land of Canaan, but it produced wild grapes; and the wall was broken down and the people went into captivity. But some came back, a remnant of Israel. The Lord in Luke’s gospel spoke about a fig tree planted in the vineyard (Luke 13:6). He did not say more about the vineyard and what the vine might have produced because the nation had already been shown to be unfruitful, but there was something else in the vineyard, a fig tree planted in the vineyard. It speaks of the remnant of Israel, of those representatives of the people of Israel who were here when Jesus came. They were in the vineyard, that is, they were in the land, but they had a different character. We learn in that parable that there was no fruit on that fig tree, and the Lord said it should be removed because it was making the ground unprofitable. That is what happened to the nation of Israel, because it was unprofitable. Notwithstanding its profession, it has been taken out of its place.

That has an application to the time in which we are. We are called together in God’s sovereignty, suggesting that there might be in the vine what we can enjoy, the privilege of being the recipients of God’s sovereign blessing as He has set us together in the enjoyment of Christian privilege with one another. But then there is also what has the character of a remnant, because after all there has been a lot of reduction and departure. There is unfaithfulness in the profession, and we have lost the fellowship and company of many of our brethren. I value practical Christian fellowship, beloved, because I cling to it as something that I have tasted for myself. But it can only be maintained rightly; we should have a burning desire that it should be held in a proper, orderly way as the foundation of our enjoyment. So this passage is especially pointed: the fig tree represents what is left, and the question is whether it is fruitful, or is there just a profession? Is it just living or is it fruitful? Let us be exercised about those questions, bearing in mind the depths of the Lord’s desire that we might be fruitful, because it says He hungered. He had not found what He wanted anywhere else and He looks among His own, among other things, for what He can enjoy where practical unity is maintained among us.

I come to these passages in the Old Testament and I draw attention firstly to Abigail, because Abigail is a woman in whom features of the assembly are seen. She responded to a difficulty that had arisen, and which might have led to loss and dishonour for David, with a number of carefully chosen provisions, one of which was fig cakes. In other words, if you follow my application of this scripture, what she thought would meet this situation was a reassertion of the value – I might say the nutritional value for the Lord’s people – of the principles of practical Christian fellowship. She thought it was important and that it would meet the difficulty that had arisen, and she was right. It was not just one fig but cakes of figs. It was something to share out among a company of men who had become embittered and vindictive, people who were angry and self-righteous – even David was in danger of staining His record irrevocably. The assembly is a place where there are resources that are available to meet such a thing. They are there in the assembly, and there are those who would hasten to bring in such resources. I trust no one would assume something else. I trust there is no one who would say, ‘well, we have other things on our minds, we want to drive this point home or that point home’. We need to be exercised about the way we meet the evil that arises among us, in order that practical Christian fellowship is maintained.

The same thing should enter into the way we preach the gospel. Chapter 30 speaks of an Egyptian who had an Amalekite master. He represents someone who was under the bondage and domination of Satan; and he had been left. It is a common enough thing for people like this to be left behind. I say carefully, if matters arises and a party spirit forms, there will be people who may be very quick to promise support, but you will find after a while that you have been left behind, because people in that spirit do not have the resources to sustain you. Those resources here were with David, and he used them for the salvation of this poor man. David reached out to him with provision which represents the normal fare in Christian company, and he was able to revive him; it says, “and his spirit came again to him”. There is no case that has gone so far that the assembly does not have the resources to meet it. I say that without in any way wishing to diminish the issues that may have to be addressed. I am not pretending that there are no issues, or that the solution to the difficulties that arise is to pretend that there is no issue. What I am talking about is where there are issues, where things have arisen. The question is whether, when these real questions arise, we are ready to use and draw on the resources that are available which have the power to restore and maintain Christian fellowship.

The last scripture speaks about a boil. This boil is a curious thing, because it says in verse 1 that Hezekiah was sick unto death, and the only thing that is said about his symptoms is a boil. Of course, boils are manifestations of quite serious illnesses, but I am trying to apply this today, and you would be rather disappointed if a boil endangered somebody’s life, because a boil is local. It is local. My burden is about how such a thing comes to affect the fellowship generally, so that its health is affected by it. Who would allow such a thing to spread into the body at large, to be responsible for that?

It is interesting that this story is given three times in scripture; in Kings, in Chronicles, and in Isaiah the prophet. They all tell us that Hezekiah was ill, but only two of them tell us about the remedy. Chronicles, which is usually a very positive book, does not tell us about the remedy, but gives us the moral cause of the problem. There was an initial failure on Hezekiah’s part to be humble (2 Chron.32:24-26). That allowed this matter, which should have been confined and dealt with, to spread throughout his body until his life was in danger. That is a very solemn situation which we should never allow to arise.

I said that fellowship is a spiritual matter, manifesting the exercise by God of His sovereignty, and that is true. But fellowship also depends on the acceptance of certain principles that govern fellowship, because it is also practical: and if there are not principles that govern practical fellowship, then things will fall into a state of disorder and conditions of this kind will spread. The Scriptures contemplate that the assembly will go on in a state of normality. Departure is provided for but it is not accommodated – how thankful we can be for that! But difficulties do arise, and they have arisen in the history of brethren. The difficulties we have now do not raise questions that the brethren have not had to face many times before, and which, on previous occasions, they have met successfully. That was because they were guided by the exercise and judgment of spiritual persons who have seen the benefit of avoiding the spread of disorder among the people of God; and the way to do that is to confine matters of disorder when they arise.

We enjoy Christian fellowship together, beloved, because we have confidence in one another. When I was commended for fellowship, the brethren had confidence in those who commended me for fellowship. When I break bread in Newport tomorrow, it will be because the brethren who meet here have confidence that, if I was at home in London, the brethren in London would receive me to the breaking of bread. So, when I move about, I have to be very respectful of my local brethren, because I rely upon the confidence that they command among those I visit. That is especially important if someone is serving. I learned this from Mr A J Gardiner: he never forgot that he was a local brother who depended on the confidence and prayers of his local brethren.

Happily, there are occasions when a new meeting is created; and the way in which that is done – as we know in this area – is that the brethren in the meeting nearest agree to extend fellowship to these nearby brethren if they meet in the place where they are. It might be said that a local meeting’s responsibilities are confined to its own locality. Clearly not, because if another meeting is established in a neighbouring place, then it is done on the basis that the neighbouring brethren commend them, and agree that if they break bread in that place, they will receive them. It would be a very solemn and lawless thing to have a breaking of bread where that had not first been established. By the same token, we rely on brethren in other meetings for assurance about those with whom we can have fellowship. Difficulties arise among the brethren, and there are occasions when questions arise about whether it would be right to receive from a particular meeting. What was arrived at over many years by spiritual persons is that this is decided by whether brethren in the place would be received in their nearest meeting. That is the principle, and the reason is that, if a difficulty has arisen, confining it to the meeting where the difficulty has arisen, and its neighbour, prevents the boil infesting the whole body. That is the reason for it; and we should be thankful that spiritual men have arrived at something which works in that way. It is for our salvation and for our preservation simply to recognise that.

Now, it may be said that, in a small meeting, a decision is just an individual judgment of a matter. But we have seen how the Lord has devolved responsibility for dealing with these things in the way that He has, and the next thing alongside the confidence that underlies practical Christian fellowship is a spirit of submission. It must be so. Mr Darby wrote to Mr Wigram, ‘I never could understand why the church of God is to be the only place where flesh is to have its way unrestrained’¹. Imagine a spiritual man having to raise a question like that – as if anyone’s personal opinion about a matter decided anything in God’s assembly! The result of asserting these things is that confusion and infection spread among the people of God. I speak of these things candidly, beloved, because they are such a sorrow to me. Have we not gone on long enough for outbreaks of this kind to be contained as they always were?

I raise these questions because I believe the Lord Himself would express them; and now I draw attention to the remedy. Isaiah says, “Take a cake of figs. And they took it and laid it upon the boil”. It may be assumed that a company where there is a lot of privilege is somehow preserved from these things; and, lest someone should think that, I would draw attention to a passage in Ephesians where Paul says, “put off falsehood, speak truth every one with his neighbour, because we are members one of another. Be angry, and do not sin; let not the sun set upon your wrath, neither give room for the devil … do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God … Let all bitterness, and heat of passion, and wrath, and clamour, and injurious language, be removed from you, with all malice”, Eph.4:25-31. Notice that this was the company to which the highest Christian teaching was vouchsafed. Paul did not write, ‘do not let these things in’; but ‘put them off’. Alongside all the light and privilege, there was this infection of what was fleshly, even in the Ephesian company. And what was Paul’s answer? This cake of figs: “be to one another kind, compassionate, forgiving one another, so as God also in Christ has forgiven you” (v.32).

Let us think about the way in which we were forgiven. Was it because God agreed that what we had done was not really so wrong after all? Were we forgiven on the basis that God would, out of His love, accept our judgment of our moral history? Were we not forgiven because God took unsparing account at the cross of the things we had said and done? That is the standard, but it does not hinder us being kind to one another. How painful it is to hear people getting angry about things that have arisen in God’s assembly. Let us “be to one another kind, compassionate, forgiving one another, so as God also in Christ has forgiven you”. Principles do have to be stood for; we cannot complain if things have to be stood for, but let us not allow that to undermine the civility and courtesy and brotherliness of Christian fellowship. To fail in these things is not right; it is a manifestation of the flesh among us if such failure manifests itself in this way.

We must go on together. We must go on together; we must face things that arise among us. We must face the departure from principles that has sadly come in. We must seek to recover those who have departed from them to the principles that have preserved happy, practical Christian fellowship all these years – things we value so much that surely someone will act in the spirit that is needed to heal this condition that so easily arises among us. One will perhaps say, ‘I will wait for Mr So-and-so to say he was wrong about this’. Isaiah was not waiting for anybody. You do what is right. My mother taught me a principle that I will carry with me as long as I can remember: ‘There is always a right thing to do, and it is that thing which the Lord will help you to do.’ It does not depend on what other people do, it depends on each of us maintaining what is right and normal for Christian fellowship, and setting an example – perhaps to those who have fallen from the standard you would like them to maintain.