THE LORD’S SUDDEN MOVEMENTS
C. F. Dadd
The death of our brother has reminded us that sometimes the Lord moves suddenly from His own side. The Lord has a right to do this in our lives. He moved that way in relation to Paul of whom we have read. At the time of Saul’s conversion it says that “suddenly there shone round about him a light out of heaven”, and the Lord’s voice brought about the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, who was later called Paul. So it was very sudden with Paul, and I referred to this section to show how the Lord came in suddenly to intervene in the circumstances in which these two ministers found themselves, and then how matters opened up for the blessing of the gaoler. How wonderful that the Lord in grace moves according to His own skill and wisdom to reach out and to bring in blessing!
Our brother moved in and out amongst us as a man with a beautiful spirit, the spirit of Jesus. I believe all of us would recognise that the most effective thing that we can have is the spirit of that Man who is seated at the right hand of God, and this is what our brother set out. Every one
of us, I think, would know what it has been to have our affections drawn out to our dear brother who is now with Christ. It is a wonderful thing, a great comfort to all of us, that Paul speaks of “departure and being with Christ” which is “very much better”, Philippians 1: 23.
So we can think of our brother, full of years, but now his part with Christ is very much better.
It is interesting to see the way the Lord moved in his circumstances so that things happened very quickly. It was only a couple of weeks ago that our brother was in our home, and he said to me at that time, ‘If the Lord should take me, I am ready to go’. I just wonder whether all of us could say that, whether we, each one of us, in our own links with the Lord Jesus, would be able to say, ‘If the Lord takes me, I am ready to go’.
Here Paul and Silas were in prison. They were coming into Europe to preach the glad tidings, and we know that there is a tremendous power against the glad tidings; the enemy is against the idea of the word getting into my heart and into your heart. These men had come to preach; they had come to spread the glad tidings, to bring within the range of men the glory of what God’s thoughts are for them. God “desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth”, 1 Timothy 2: 4. Well, the enemy had them put in gaol, but at midnight, the most difficult moment, you might say, in the middle of the night, they were singing. What a victory over their circumstances! And the prisoners heard them.
Then it says, “suddenly”; I read this because of the force of how the Lord comes into a situation suddenly, as He did in the life of our brother. He came in suddenly at various times, and even in his departure He came in suddenly; but our brother
was ready. Well, He came in suddenly here with an earthquake; and this earthquake reached right into the soul of the gaoler, who would have committed suicide. He would have taken his own life for fear that the prisoners that he was supposed to guard had fled. But Paul says, “Do thyself no harm, for we are all here”. And then the gaoler comes in and says to Paul and Silas,
“Sirs, what must I do that I may be saved?”
Well, it is like our brother in his own life, how he worked things out in his own relations with the Lord Jesus, so that he could say, ‘I am ready if the Lord should take me”. And why was he ready? Because he had come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as his own personal Saviour.
That is what set him up so that he was ready. Paul and Silas say to the gaoler, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house”. Oh, what a message! Some of us here are householders, and we want to be sure our households are saved.
Our brother basked in the joy of his salvation; he basked in the joy of his knowledge of Christ as his own personal Saviour. The conditions are the same, coming right down to the day in which we are, gathered here to bury our brother, who was in the joy of these things. We can say that the word to us now, coming in suddenly under these circumstances, is the same,
“Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house”.
What a glorious object of faith Christ is! And He is available to us as our hearts would be softened at a time such as this; it is a time when we are softened, a time when we are amenable, a time when the word of God can have entrance into our hearts. May we know what it is to receive into our affections, and have as an object of faith, our Lord Jesus who has accomplished everything for
God and everything for men. May we embrace Him and know what it is to have salvation—“thou and thy house”. May it be so.