TENDERNESS

TENDERNESS

Isaiah 53: 1 - 3; Genesis 29: 16, 17; 1 Chronicles 22: 1 - 5; 1 Chronicles 29: 1

In reading these passages tonight one has in mind a certain feature of the humanity of Jesus, linked with the thought of tenderness. I want to speak of it first of all, as it is referred to in connection with Himself in the prophetic writings in the book of Isaiah, where the prophet alludes to Him as “a tender sapling” before Jehovah. Then I want to refer to how that feature comes out in the assembly in the Gentile world in relation to Paul’s ministry as typified in Leah. Leah, as we know, is a type of the assembly in relation to the Gentile world. And then I want to refer to that feature as it is to appear in us individually as it is suggested in the passages in Chronicles, where it appears in Solomon, first in relation to the house, in what we might call the rough side of the building and the construction, the nails and the iron and the joists; and then latterly from the palatial and refined side of the dwelling place of God as in 1 Chronicles 29 where it says, “this palace is not to be for man, but for Jehovah Elohim.” It is important that our souls should be nourished on this feature of humanity as it is seen in Jesus, because it is so contrary to all that is around us in this modern age especially, where, in the world controlled by the enemy of all that is spiritual and divine, hardness seems to have such a place. Where, in the life of teenage the enemy seeks to make it important that we should not be ‘soft’ as they say around us, but that hardness and self-confidence should be developed. Hardness has its place in a certain relation in God’s affairs, but not in what is linked with our lives generally, as growing up before God and in the development of the work of God in us. Paul said to Timothy that he was to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Hardness is all right in army life. The rigours of army life, involving the open fields of battle and the strong disciplinary measures and routine, call for hardness, not only in man’s world, but in God’s world, in the world of His testimony. It is important that hardness should be endured in that relation. But what the enemy is seeking to do is to bring hardness into families, hardness into the assembly, hardness into young souls, where tenderness should be present. Amenability to be divinely impressionable is a great thing. Every one of us should earnestly desire not to lose it. If we feel that we are not marked by an impressionable state of soul and of heart we should greatly desire it. We shall see, when we come to Leah, that one feature of the Gentile world is hardness. You remember how Paul alludes in Ephesians 4 to certain things that occur in the Gentile world because of hardness, the nations walking in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in understanding, and by reason of the hardness of their hearts having cast off all feeling. That is the Gentile world. But, as we shall see, into the Gentile world has come the operations of God to secure a company in which there will be correspondence to the humanity of Jesus in this feature of tenderness. There are many features of the humanity of Jesus that we do well to contemplate and feed upon. What must it be to God to have, in this modern age, persons that are like Jesus! If we could only get a sense in our souls of how precious and pleasurable in the sight of God the features of that kind of humanity are, we would perhaps lend ourselves more to the skill of divine operations so that over against the adversative circumstances and difficult material that we afford, there might be wrought in us the features of that humanity. Isaiah in this chapter is referring to what the Lord was in His humiliation. You will remember what the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews says about Jesus in the priestly station and office in glory, that “such a high priest became us, holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and become higher than the heavens,” Hebrews 7: 26. Think of that expression “become higher than the heavens”! It is not an arbitrary act; it seems as if the features of His humanity provide a moral basis for that wonderful position of exaltation which He fills.

We do not often think of these features of the humanity of Jesus such as tenderness, and also, for instance, the feature of ‘harmlessness.’ What a wonderful feature of the humanity of Jesus harmlessness is! What a challenge it is to any of us as to whether we are harmful in our influence. Could it be said of us that we are harmless? You will remember how the letter that brings before us Christian experience, Philippians alludes to the children of God as harmless. It is a feature of the children of God, that they are harmless. Are we harmless, or are we careless about what we say and what we do; not bothering about who may be damaged, or who may be impaired by our careless conversation, or deportment, or behaviour? How important it is that we should be like Jesus in that feature of His humanity, that we should be harmless. When we think of the apostle Paul and of all the things that they accused him of at Corinth and the way that his enemies spoke of him, yet when he writes the second letter he draws attention to this feature of humanity as seen in himself, and his service among them; he says, “Receive us: we have injured no one, we have ruined no one,” 2 Corinthians 7: 2. What levitical skill and quality in service is seen in Paul! Think of that feature of harmlessness! When we go out at night, young people, is our conversation harmful or is it harmless? It is so easy to stir up the propensities of the flesh in one another; and especially those that are older, that have to do with those that are younger, how important it is that we should be like Jesus, that we should be harmless, that we should injure no one, that we should ruin no one. There are persons whose influence has been ruin to some, leading them into the paths of carelessness and the paths of sin and shame. How important it is that we should be harmless, like Jesus, and harmless as the children of God. And then this feature of tenderness. What a feature it is! It says, “he shall grow up before him as a tender sapling.” He is alluding to the arm of Jehovah. He is alluding to divine intervention in Jesus, and he comes to this chapter that is so replete, so full with references to the moral glory of Jesus. How we need to be nourished, in the midst of all that obtains around us, on the features of humanity as seen in Jesus and especially this feature. You will remember that we had today how in the midst of difficult circumstances there was a place that was prepared for the woman in the wilderness and it was a place where she was to be nourished. It was not a place where she was to be instructed; she was an instructed woman, for, “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet,” speaks of all that attached to the former glory under the old covenant, and the “twelve stars” refers to that. They all would speak of her intelligence, her apprehension of the place in relation to the great operations of God in administration and government. So that it was not a place exactly for instruction. Thank God for the places of instruction. Thank God for the fellowship meetings and the three-day meetings and all the meetings. But, dear brethren, let us think of the nourishing. She was to be nourished. And what better nourishment could be afforded any one of us than the food that the humanity of Jesus affords, the features of which humanity are so wondrously delineated in the holy record in the gospels. A tender sapling! What it must have been to God, as we think of Jesus in Luke’s gospel, as we think of all the stages of human growth physically, as they were seen in Jesus - the Babe, the Boy, and the Man - the tender sapling growing up before the Lord. Think of what it must have been to God! Think of what it was to God to have an Elizabeth and a Zacharias walking blameless in all the commandments. Think of what it was to God to have a Simeon, under the touch and impulse of the Spirit, ready to move at divine direction. Think of what it was to God to have an Anna, in her aged years, so burning in holy desire in regard to the subject that filled her mind and thoughts as she spoke to all those that waited for redemption in Israel. Think of what all that was to God, and Mary herself, in her subjection, the bondmaid of the Lord, ready for what the Lord would do. But think of the coming into the midst of all this, and the growing up in the midst of it all, this tender sapling! What food for our affections! In the early years of Jesus’ life, He was a Babe, and what a Babe! As we go back into the secret inner history of the years that are linked with His humanity here, as the Psalms prophetically afford us an inlet into them; what must there have been for God? “Thou art he that took me out of the womb; thou didst make me trust, upon my mother’s breasts,” Psalm 22: 9. Think of what all that was for God. The food that it was to God, as God refers to His food in the Old Testament, “My bread for my offerings,” Numbers 28: 2. Think of what it was to God as He comes into the realm of human language and can speak of His food! Think of what humanity was in all its normality in Jesus, over against its abnormality in the world as ruined by sin; the fair creation that God had designed and made, ruined by sin, and human life in it so affected and dislocated by sin. What must it have been to God and to His affections to take account of these stages of tender growth in Jesus - the Babe and the Boy! There are boys and there are girls here tonight; it is wonderful to think that Jesus was a boy like you, sin apart. He was five years old, He was eight years old, He was ten years old, He was twelve years old; and so on up the line of the years. So that, whatever your problems may be, whatever your difficulties at school may be - and sometimes in our early years we have many problems - remember that the One who is our Priest on high is the One who was in these circumstances of human life here below. And all the energy of His sympathetic love exercised towards us in priestly service, is, if I might say speaking reverently and soberly, enriched by His human experiences here below. He knew what it was to be under the influence and control of parents; we are living in a day when natural affection is cast off. Thank God for the assembly, the realm of salvation, where the tenderness of family links in what is instituted by God is preserved and maintained. While Christianity involves what is spiritual, it does not impair what is natural in the sense in which I am speaking of it. Indeed, as by the power of the Spirit we take up the relationships in what is natural, there is an added glory to them that there could not be in unregenerate men. How thankful we ought to be that we are in the realm where this kind of humanity is known and appreciated! It is appreciated in heaven, but it is appreciated here below. A tender sapling! Think of it! As we grow up we tend to get crystallised and tend to get hardened and we begin to draw away the shoulder; we want to assert our own rights, we want to be left alone and to do as we please and to choose what we like and to go where we think best ourselves. It says of Jesus that He went down to Nazareth with His parents, and was in subjection to them. Think of the grace of it! On the one hand, there was the assertion, in such a conscious way at twelve years old, of His sonship, as he says, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?” and on the other hand, accepting the circumstances into which through grace He had come, and so it says, “And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and he was in subjection to them,” Oh, the tenderness that is seen in Jesus! The tender sapling! Think of what this prophet says of Jesus earlier on, “The Lord Jehovah hath given me the tongue of the instructed, that I should know how to succour by a word him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed,” chapter 50: 4. We have often thought of Samuel, how God wakened Samuel’s ear in the tenderest stages of life, but think of what it must have been to God to have the ear of Jesus, in the perfection of a humanity in a condition that had never before been seen under His eye here below; for there never was a condition in the world like the condition of the humanity that Jesus came into, and there never will be again. He laid it down in death never to resume it, but the traits of that humanity, the grace of it, is carried forward into the new order of things, for the traits of that humanity belonged to an order of manhood that came out of heaven, and what food these traits furnish for our souls, “A tender sapling”! You want to know how this feature of tenderness can be preserved? I believe it is on the line of the scripture I have read, our morning by morning links with God. How do we awaken? Does God awake us? Or does the alarm clock? I speak soberly, dear brethren, and reverently. It says of Jesus that God awakened Him, “He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed.” It was not just one morning, “He wakeneth morning by morning.” I speak reverently and guardedly and soberly, but think of what it must have been to God when Jesus was asleep. Jesus slept, as we do; He was “wearied with the way he had come” according to John 4, and He slept in the boat, according to Luke 8. Oh, mystery of mysteries, wonder of wonders, that Jesus who is over all God blessed for ever, should come into that condition of humanity where He could taste and know all the circumstances that we experience, sin apart. You can understand how God was watching every movement of Jesus; and, as He slept, think of how God would be watching for the morning! We often speak about our watching for the morning, but have you ever thought of God watching for the morning? He was watching for the morning with Jesus, so that He could waken His ear. He could give Him a word,

in season, to speak as the instructed. Oh, those tender links with God! And they are to affect us as we feed on them, dear brethren. How do we waken? What comes into our minds when we awaken? How did we go to sleep? Were we reading a novel in a secret room, maybe, where our parents did not see us, where we may have had it under the mattress, or hidden in some crevice? Was that how we went to sleep? Or did we go to sleep committing our souls into the hands of Him to whom we can say “Preserve me, O God: for I trust in thee,” Psalm 16: 1. Think of how God has delight in waiting for the morning in the life of a person like that, so that He can waken our ear and that He can give us a word. How does ministry come? How do words in season come, if not through God wakening our ears in the morning? There is nothing like the morning to get an impression, when the body has been rested in sleep. God does not deprive us of sleep. He giveth His beloved sleep, as it says, “It is vain for you to rise up early, to lie down late, to eat the bread of sorrows: so to his beloved one he giveth sleep,” Psalm 127: 2. It is a wonderful thing, the normality of the life of piety in its relations with God. And think of God waiting for Jesus to awake, when He could waken His ear to hear as the instructed. And the Lord Jesus conscious of it. I am not seeking to be sentimental in speaking on such a holy subject as the humanity of Jesus, far be the thought, but this is the Spirit of Christ, in the prophet, giving us the words of Jesus prophetically. “He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed.” So that as we are awakened we should be like Jesus. We should have a conscious sense of God entering into the awakening, God having to say to us, for He loves us. He loves us so much that He would delight to waken our ears and commune with us and we with Him. How blessed to nestle into the warmth and the fulness of our relations with our Father and our God in these circumstances. How Jesus knew them! “He shall grow up before him as a tender sapling.” What it must have been to God over against all the hardness around on every hand! He was a root out of a dry ground. The soil, as it were, added nothing to Jesus; it imparted no sap to that tender sapling. Where did the sap come from? The sap came from heaven. It came from those wonderful links with His Father and His God. His humanity was nourished in that relation, for Judaism afforded nothing to Him. In the midst of the teachers and the doctors of the law, it says He was hearing and asking questions. Where did His knowledge come from? He was like the root out of dry ground; the ground was arid, as far as He was concerned, and yet that root out of dry ground becomes this tender sapling. We are to be helped to see that our circumstances, however much they may seem to be against us and devoid of what would help us spiritually, as our relations are right with God, they are intended to develop us in this feature of the humanity of Jesus - tenderness.

I want now to refer to Leah in Genesis. It is very striking that it says of Leah that “the eyes of Leah were tender.” As I said, dear brethren, Leah represents what the assembly is as in Paul’s ministry. Rachel had the first place in Jacob’s affections. The Lord Jesus came to His own - Rachel - but they received Him not, but in the ways of God, Leah was given to Him. She was the hated wife, as we have often had our attention drawn to it, and in the book of the Acts we can see how Leah was hated; on the Jewish side there was the hatred of Leah. She is a type of the assembly as in the Gentile position in relation to Paul’s ministry. “The eyes of Leah were tender.” That is, this correspondence with Christ’s humanity comes out in Leah, not in Rachel. It says,

“Rachel was of beautiful form and beautiful countenance,” and Romans 9 shows the beautiful form and the beautiful countenance of Rachel as in the divine mind, as it speaks of “whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the law-giving, and the service, and the promises” (verse 4). What beautiful form and what countenance which would link with the glory. But Leah brings in the tender side; she brings in that side that corresponds with Christ on the line of tenderness; so that we get, in Paul’s ministry in the Gentile world, a development of the truth of the body. You do not get it in the Jewish world, in the world of the twelve. The great idea of the body, the organism, the delicateness and the sensitiveness of it, the tender relations between one another, is developed in the Gentile world through Paul’s ministry. Not that I am saying it was not there in the early days of the Acts, but I am referring to the way that the scripture presents the truth of the assembly as the body as it comes out in the Gentile world, in the tender, delicate, sensitive, balanced relations of the saints between one another, and between the assembly and Christ, as in Colossians and Ephesians. We know that in the basic and foundational epistles, Romans and Corinthians, the relations of the body to the Head are not brought forward. We have no allusion in the foundational epistles to the body’s relations with the Head, the great point in the basic and foundational epistles in the body being our relations with one another. In Romans this is to save us from independency, and in Corinthians it is to save us from clericalism and the operation of man’s will in the assembly of God, the anointed vessel. But in the matured epistles, in the epistles that bring on the heavenly side and bring in the formation that belongs to the assembly, we have the delicateness and sensitiveness and tenderness of the assembly’s links with Christ in the wonderful organism of the body. What the body is to Christ, as Head and the impulses that come into the assembly from Christ, how delicate they are! How wonderful! All this, I think, is linked with the Leah side. Because you will notice that we get in the children that are born of Leah, first Reuben, which means ‘See! a son’; that brings in the tender side which is well set out in Solomon as we shall see. You remember what he said in Proverbs 4: 3, “I was a son unto my father, tender and an only one in the sight of my mother.” Sonship, as nurtured in right parental settings, brings in that wonderful feature of tenderness, and Leah was one of those that built the house of Israel. We are told in Ruth in regard to Rachel and Leah, “which two did build the house of Israel,” chapter 4: 11. There is no bickering referred to in the book of Ruth, no feelings of rivalry there, but as the line of David is coming on to view, introduced through the marital links of Boaz with Ruth, we get the great thought of the building of the house of Israel. Solomon is a product of that for he comes into the house of Israel, and in that section in Proverbs he is tender and beloved in the sight of his mother. Then we get the thought of Simeon, meaning ‘hearing.’ What tenderness is needed in hearing the word of God! We have been speaking about the Lord Jesus, in Isaiah, having His ear wakened morning by morning and hearing. We want to be good Simeons! We want to be ready to hear; we want to be like Samuel, young brethren, “Speak, Jehovah, for thy servant heareth.” It is Leah that brings in these features. Then it says another son was born, and he was called Levi, which means ‘united.’ No thought of division, no thought of distance, but the idea of uniting comes in, which is a great word in Christianity. Not that I am going to apply it to union in the exalted side, in Ephesians; but the germ of it is in the word ‘united.’ It brings in much into the spiritual mind.

Levi comes in on the line of Leah. How Paul’s ministry develops the thought of what is united even in Romans 7, there is the thought that we should be to another. The idea is that we are united to Him who is raised from the dead. The germ of union is there. Then in 1 Corinthians 6: 17 we have “But he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit.” These are wonderful thoughts, dear brethren, and they all come in in relation to Leah, by way of Paul’s ministry, all on this line of tenderness. What an impression you would get of tenderness with Paul as you read his delicate language in the epistle to Philemon and the love letter to the Philippians! What delicateness, what tenderness! “My brethren, beloved and longed for, my joy and crown,” Philippians 4: 1. What the saints were to him! All this comes in on the line of Leah, not on the line of Rachel. Then the last is Judah, meaning ‘praise.’ Think of how the assembly gospel brings in the line of tenderness in connection with the praise of God. Think of how Jesus Himself in praising the Father, the Lord of the heaven and of the earth, in Matthew 11: 25, had before His soul’s view the babes, the tender impressionable state, that subject of divine operations in those who had heard Him. Then as He comes into Jerusalem in kingly and royal rights and glory, the children are there, and He says, “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise.” Think of how Paul’s ministry makes way, like David’s, for every stage of growth in the family of God. Think of what Timothy was to Paul. Think of the tenderness, and think of how the praise of God is linked with that side of things in Paul’s ministry.

I want to say a word now as to Solomon. It is a glorious section that we have read from, and it is linked with the fortieth year of David’s reign. If we take an extended view of this whole section from chapter 22 to the end, it is linked with the fortieth year of David’s reign, and what a time it was, what a time of glory. You might say, Well, the glory is so great, there is so much doing, so much activity, so much preparation, so much construction and plans for construction on hand, that this feature will be passed over. But at the very doorway into this section it is mentioned, and at the very exit from this section it is mentioned; I refer to chapters 22 and 29. Is it not striking, dear brethren, that after the iron and the nails for the doors and the joists and the brass in abundance are mentioned, David should say, “Solomon my son is young and tender.” I would speak to the ‘Davids’ here; I would speak to the line of experience in the assembly. In having to do with the nails and with the iron, so essential in construction, and the joists and what is referred to in the brass, involving matters that come up in regard to sin and the dealing with sin, and the principles that enter into the holding of things together, let us never forget that which is, as it were, in the foreground, in relation to it all: “Solomon my son is young and tender.” You will remember how the Lord Jesus said at the end of John’s gospel, “Feed my lambs.” Think of that! A gospel that begins with such a vista of glory as to the Person of Christ, ends with such a touch of tenderness, “Feed my lambs.” We need to think of the lambs of Christ’s flock, dear brethren, in our gatherings. Now, in chapter 29, it is not so much what is connected with our side and the application of the truth and maintaining what is due to God, but it is God’s side, it is the palatial side. It is the side of refinement now, and we have this word: “David said to all the congregation, Solomon my son, the one whom God has chosen, is young and tender, and the work is great.” Let us not think that the young people are to be kept out of this matter. You may say the ministry is beyond me, the truth is above me, but Solomon is right in the midst of it, young and tender. That is what we love to see. What a sight to heaven to see the living creatures and the features of the living creatures allied with the twenty-four elders in the maintenance of all that is due to the throne, in consistency and in keeping with it. What it is to heaven to see the young and the old going on together as seen in David and Solomon. David the one in whom the ripened fruits of spiritual experience with God are seen, and Solomon the one in whom the features of tenderness, impressionableness and amenability to divine touch are seen. How wonderful these things are, dear brethren! The palace which is for God, which is so great, requires these things. God loves these thoughts in His palace. There is what David represents and what Solomon represents but they all fit into the great thought of the assembly in its majesty and glory, as the greatest creature vessel, the vessel that is nearest to Deity, the palace which is for God, and not for man. Think of the blending of these precious thoughts. It is like the half-opened flowers alongside of the cherubim in the walls of the house in 1 Kings 6: 29.

May God help us as to this feature of the humanity of Jesus - tenderness, and may more room be made for it in us and amongst us, for His Name’s sake.