THE SECOND

D.L.Stewart

Numbers 9: 9-13; 1 Kings 19: 3-8; Mark 8: 22-26

What is in mind in the passage in Mark's gospel is the second touch. The blind man needed a second touch. It would be true to say that every one of us needs that; indeed, as our history proceeds, we need more than one second touch. It does not indicate, indeed we could not think that this suggests, that there was something incomplete about the Lord's work. This man came under the immediate attention of Christ Himself. It says in an earlier passage as to another incident that the people said "He does all things well", Mark 7: 37. There is not anything to be added to the work of Christ. His work for our salvation is a work that abides and will abide to all eternity. The need of a second touch would relate to our experience: we do not make progress oftentimes as well as we should. I think everyone would admit it, and the wonder is that the Lord is ready to serve us, serve us with a second touch. We want to come under His hand; we want to make ourselves available to come under the hand of Christ for another touch. It says, after Jesus laid His hands again upon his eyes, that "he saw distinctly" and that he "saw all things clearly". What a matter to have that kind of eyesight! There are so many problems that we have to face in our spiritual histories and so much confusion around us and in the Christian profession that we need to be under the Lord's hand to get this touch and to see distinctly.

I think that this second touch involves the gift of the Holy Spirit. The ability to see things and to discern relates to making room for the Spirit. It is a marvellous thing that there is not only Christ's work in all its excellence and perfection and permanency, but there is the work of the Spirit, and the wonderful fact that God should give us of His Spirit. The woman in chapter 4 of John's gospel said as to the water, "Sir, give me this water" (v 15). The Lord had said that the water would be in him "a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life", and the woman says "Give me this water"; she asked of the Lord. He is the great administrator; God has placed everything in the hands of Christ as a Man, a glorified, exalted Man, and He is the great administrator of all God's bounty.

Then another scripture speaks of the Father giving the Holy Spirit. If we have a need, a spiritual need, a need of satisfaction, a need of spiritual eyesight, we can go to the Father and ask. I wonder if every one of us here has had the experience of asking for the Holy Spirit. You could not ask for anything greater in this scene; and the Father, it says, will "give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him", Luke 11: 13. It is spiritual persons that have eyesight, it is the spiritual that discerns (see 1 Cor 2: 15). If we give way to the flesh and develop worldly tendencies our spiritual sight gets blurred and things look difficult and we do not know where we are going; but a person who yields himself to the blessed Spirit can see things, see things clearly; in spite of all the difficulties there may be outwardly, a spiritual person can see the Lord's mind and see what He would have us do and where He would have us to be.

Then it says in this chapter that "he sent him to his house, saying, Neither enter into the village, nor tell it to any one in the village". You will find that in many gospel incidents the Lord sends persons to their house. The house is the place where we are probably weakest, and where we have perhaps failed most, and He would send us back there in the power of the Spirit and enable us to be a testimony in our own house. It is not a question of going to the village or to the city or going to the world with the gospel, but what the Lord would bring to bear upon us is this question of going to our house. He says to another man, "tell them how great things the Lord has done for thee", Mark 5: 19. Well, we want to be on the line of coming under the Lord's hand and His touch, His second touch, and then His word as to our house.

In the scripture read in Kings what is in mind is the second time. Elijah is a great man; who of us could stand alongside him? How careful we should be in what we say as to an honoured servant of God, a man who was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind (see 2 Kings 2: 11). How outstanding a servant of God was this man! Yet in this passage he is running away from his responsibility. Now who of us has not run away? Who of us has not felt like running away? We get down in our souls and lose sight of the Lord and of the blessing. He sat down under a broom-bush and "requested for himself that he might die". "Take my life", he says. I do not know if we have got as far down as that, but scripture gives us such as examples. How is the Lord going to treat us when we let Him down, as we do? Is He going to say, I have had enough, this is the end? Elijah lies down and sleeps and an angel came and touched him; at his head was a cake baked on hot stones. It is a wonderful thing to have relations with divine Persons. What infinite grace enters into the way the Lord would handle us! How carefully, how gently, how perfectly He does it, even when we let Him down, even when we give up and run away! The Lord would not have us to run away from our responsibilities. The Spirit is the power, and the alone power, to fulfil every responsibility. So it says that the angel came and touched him "the second time", and he rises up and goes in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. It is a wonderful thing to get back to the great basic thoughts of God, the mount of God. What a place to go back to! It was the place where God had revealed His thoughts for His people (see Exod 3). He indicated what He was to be to them, and the purpose of His love. He Himself was to be their deliverer and He was to bring them out and to bring them in to the good land of His purpose. These are God's thoughts at Horeb. It is not Sinai, it is not the mountain of demand; it is the mountain of supply, of grace and purpose, of God's love, and God's heart being made known. So he goes in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. Well, this is the second time, emphasising God's dealings, the Lord's dealings, His care for His own, His perfect care for us.

Now in the book of Numbers we have the second year and in the passage read the second month. This relates to the history of the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt and a whole year had passed. It is a question whether every one of us has gone through to the second year. The first year is the year of God's grace, the way He meets everything and supplies everything Himself; in that year the tabernacle was reared up and the cloud came upon it, and we learn in the second year that God has a centre upon earth, He has a testimony on this earth. It is not now a question of our blessing only, it is a question of God Himself having set His testimony here in this scene. Our blessing then is linked up with God's testimony and that testimony is Christ. There is no other testimony. There is a vessel of testimony: Christ is on high now but the Spirit is here, and the Spirit is indwelling the assembly of God and the assembly is the vessel of God's testimony.

The question arises here as to the keeping of the passover, and certain persons were not able to do so. It was one of God's requirements that Israel should hold the passover. It was the reminder of the fact that in Egypt the destroying angel had passed over the houses of the Israelites because of the blood of the lamb upon the doorposts and upon the lintels. He says "When I see the blood, I will pass over you", Exod 12: 13. That was ever to be remembered. Every year there was to be a remembrance; they were to eat the lamb roast with fire. It is a necessity that we should feed upon that kind of food. If we are going to make progress month after month, year after year, the basis of it lies in the food that we eat, and the basic food of the Christian, as of Israel here, is the passover lamb. Paul in Corinthians would indicate that: "our passover, Christ", he says, "has been sacrificed", 1 Cor 5: 7. So there is the need of feeding upon the lamb roast with fire, the fact that Christ is God's lamb, that He bore in an unmitigated way the judgment of God in relation to sin, bore it in His body. We have to feed on that kind of food. The unleavened bread is a kind of bread that does not inflate the flesh; it keeps us lowly, keeps us humble. The bitter herbs are for self-judgment. We have constantly to feed upon that kind of food if we are going to make progress.

These persons here missed the feast of the first month for some reason, and there is a provision made that they would be given another opportunity. In the history of things in the Christian dispensation there were the days of Pentecost, the days of the apostles, when things were in their flush, in their power and in their glory. Wonderful days these were! The Lord had just gone on high and the Spirit had come here, indwelling men and women in the assembly, and the power of these days was marvellous, nothing could stand before it. Paul goes out in his mission and the world as it were is brought down. But we do not belong to these days; we belong to a time when everything publicly has broken down, everything is in pieces outwardly. Yet the Spirit of God would indicate to us that there is the second month; there is an opportunity for us to enter into these things and have the enjoyment of them and have a little sense, a little experience, of the power of Christianity, by the Spirit, even although we have missed these extraordinary days at the beginning of the dispensation. So it says, "according to every ordinance" of it: there is not a thing in Christianity that we cannot enjoy by the Spirit in spite of the smallness and weakness of things now. It is for us to set ourselves in relation to it. These men were anxious about it, anxious not to miss anything. The Spirit of God through Moses indicates the fact that there is an opportunity for them in the second month. Well, that is the kind of opportunity that is open to us. The first feast of Israel's dispensation was the passover. It opened the way for the other great feasts of the year (see Lev 23). The great matter in Christianity is the Lord's supper; that is the basis of all our Christian life, our Christian experience, assembly experience; everything flows from it. For two or three meeting together in His name all the blessings of Christianity in a spiritual way are open as we take part rightly in that great institution of the Lord's in relation to Christianity. May the Lord help us to stir ourselves in relation to these things. Some are neglectful of the Supper in these days; yet there is His grace on the one hand, the second touch and the second time and then the opportunity that is open to us in the second month. May the Lord bless His word.

 

EDINBURGH

20 April 1976