PRESENT RESOURCES

E.M.Walkinshaw

2 Kings 6: 14-17; Luke 24: 45-49; 1 Corinthians 1: 30,31; Philippians 4: 13

I am thinking, dear brethren, of the resources that God has for His people and for the maintenance and promotion of His testimony. They are often brought to light in a dark day when apparently everything is weak and has gone to pieces, but God has wonderful resources; and we can take encouragement from the fact that He is in charge of His matters and we are not. He graciously brings us into them as we are related to Christ, but they are His matters and He does what He will in His own affairs and He has wonderful resources available. The Lord would open our eyes to this, perhaps the eyes of young men and young women as with the eyes of this attendant. The world power, which Syria represents, I suppose was very great at this juncture, but in whatever circumstances Elisha is found he seems to be perfectly restful, I think because he is in the secret of God. That will always keep us restful. A little later you find that someone is sent to take his head off, he is in the most appalling circumstances of famine among the people of God; he is sitting in his house and the elders are sitting with him; grace has shown itself in him, his power has been exercised so that grace should be known, but it would appear to have been despised; but the man of God, the prophet, is in the secret of God and he is perfectly restful. I think the Lord would help us to be that. In circumstances of famine, world power apparently successful, he is a man who is with God maintaining what is due to God and, I do not doubt, restful in his spirit and buoyant too.

In this passage he has an attendant. I would like to be an attendant of the man of God. I do not mean exactly of any particular person who might be designated that or designate himself that, but to be an attendant upon that feature, shall I say, that is expressed in a dark day. Those men that have gone before us unquestionably were men of God, and they had attendants. Would you not like to be, you younger men and women, an attendant of a man like Mr Darby or Mr Raven or Mr Taylor sen? The word 'attendant' contains in it the word 'attend'. I wonder if you give attention to what God has said among His people through those men. It abides, it is not lost, it is the truth; and if the truth was the truth then, it is the truth today. I would love to encourage especially younger men and women to attend upon what God has given in the recovery for His people so that His testimony might go through. There is an awful neglect of it; we will not say too much about that but rather keep to the positive fact that each of us can be an attendant upon the man of God. It says that when they "rose early and went forth, behold, an army surrounded the city". What a situation! I suppose a situation that could be likened somewhat to today, outwardly everything surrounded, the world power apparently dominating. How much damage has been done by the world! The real issue is Christ or the world. The world has crept in, and I think where there is departure it is always in that direction. Here they are surrounded, and of course the attendant is very much like us even though we be attendant; he said "Alas, my master! how shall we do?". That is the cry of many today; they hesitate, they are at a loss what to think. Are you like that? There are many in this city, I understand, that are at a loss what to think. Sometimes I have to confess I am, and I do not doubt each one of us here would admit that at some time or another in his exercises with the Lord he has been at a loss what to think. "Alas, my master! how shall we do?" - everything has gone on the face of it, the opposing forces are successful, what shall we do? He is still an attendant; we may know the terms of the ministry and the truth and follow it up, and that would be honoured, yet at the same time, in the depth of exercise in perplexing situations, we may hesitate and be at a loss what to think. I think there are some among us like that, maybe the young people, and I would be very sympathetic. My youth was not like yours, my youth was when the Lord was using Mr Taylor sen in a most influential and powerful way, and for nearly fifty years there was no division; but you young people have come into peculiar circumstances, but the Lord has not changed. If I may repeat Mr Stoney: If the worst had not happened you would not have realised the Lord was equal to handling the worst. However bad the circumstances the Lord is equal to handling them.

Now what this young man needed was his eyes opened; how often we need that! Elisha says, "Fear not, for they that are with us are more than they that are with them". Then he says, Lord, open his eyes. That would be our prayer for our younger brethren, if they are hesitating and at a loss what to think or say. And it says "Jehovah opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha"; he saw the resource, the unseen resource that God had, because his eyes were opened. Now we have a resource, dear brethren, and I think the Lord would open our eyes to it so that we might see the power available for the maintenance of the testimony. Elisha said earlier, "My father, my father! the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!" (2 Kings 13: 14); not to take Elijah to heaven but to continue God 's testimony here. So the resource is there, dear brethren; what is needed is that we should pray for one another that our eyes might be increasingly opened to see it, that round about one who in this instance was the vessel of the testimony was the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire. So in that day those that were for the testimony were more than those that were against it. But what grace was shown! What was his attitude? What power was available to the man! The king of Israel says as to these persons, “Shall I smite them?” The eyes of the young man were opened, the eyes of the Syrians were closed. Shall we smite them? No, he says, put a repast before them. What a day of grace we are in, dear brethren, a day of grace, food available! Oh that many might hear that God has visited His people in giving them bread! What a repast it was, set before them in grace. Grace is predominant, although there is the severity of God - "Behold then the goodness and severity of God" Rom 11: 22. So if grace reigns and God has visited His people to give them bread and shows them the resource that He has to carry through His testimony, any despising of that might well bring His severity. We are to take heed: "if thou shalt abide in goodness, since otherwise thou also wilt be cut away"; that is, cut off from what is of God down here as suggested in the olive. We need to be watchful, to be prayerful, so that we might be maintained and kept in lowliness in the goodness of God in what is for His pleasure down here in the testimony.

I read from Luke because there we find the Lord Jesus referring to "the promise of my Father". We have often noticed that He interpreted the Scriptures to them: "He interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (v.27); but then it says "he opened their understanding to understand the scriptures". You might be an attendant upon the ministry and the Scriptures but if your understanding is not opened you will never understand them. It is very necessary to see that; "he interpreted to them". We have the interpretation; I do not doubt the application was right when it was said that in the books we have the interpretation of the Scriptures. God has given it to us in Mr Darby's Synopsis and Collected Writings, Mr Raven's ministry, Mr Taylor sen's ministry, a great unfolding of the Scriptures, the ministry of the recovery which is progressive and is still going on. One thing I think I can see the Lord is doing, and that is He is consolidating us in what He has given in the recovery so that it might not simply be held and known by persons who are attendants but that they might be formed in it. Then what He may do is His matter; we may continue a little, on the other hand He may take us; and when we say 'us' we mean all the saints. In the meantime I believe He is forming us according to the truth so that there should be a substantial answer in persons to what He has given progressively over the last one hundred and fifty years, and my responsibility is to put myself in touch with Him to see what He is doing. Will He help me? 'Lord, open his eyes'. Of course He will help me, He will help any exercised believer, help them to see where He is and what He is doing. So here it says "he opened their understanding". You ask Him to open your understanding. "Think of what I say, for the Lord will give thee understanding in all things", 2 Tim 2: 7. He does not say, If you think about it you will be able to work something out and arrive at certain conclusions. "Think of what I say", that is your responsibility, your privilege, but "the Lord will give thee understanding" is what He will do. He will honour your thinking about what Paul says; and, after all, the ministry of the recovery is Pauline in its character, not forgetting John of course; but John does not add anything to Paul, he comes in in his own distinctive way to establish in life what Paul has already taught, so that things should be living; and that is what the Lord is doing, I believe, at the present moment. Then He speaks of power - interpretation, understanding and power; He says, "ye will receive power, the Holy Spirit having come upon you", Acts 1: 8. Now we need to recognise this, that our resource, what God has given us, lies in the Holy Spirit. What an advantage we have over those in previous dispensations in that we have the indwelling Spirit. Here of course it is coming upon the saints so that there is power; not only is there the privilege of having the Holy Spirit but there is power to do things effectively so that God should be glorified in it. So the Lord here says, "Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but do ye remain in the city till ye be clothed with power from on high". What a clothing that is, beloved brethren! I suppose it is akin to the anointing, that is, God's wonderful committal to His people, but the clothing suggests that the Holy Spirit is upon us so that our resource, our strength, our life, all that we have, all that we think, all that we say, all that we do is in His power. That is the simplicity of the truth which is available and into which we are to enter. Now does the breakdown change that resource? What do you think? You may say 'no' and act as though it has; that is what I find. In dealing with it as an abstract truth I would say it is impossible. The Spirit is unchanged, and yet when I act I often do not act in the light of that; but faith laying hold of it would act in the light of it so that the resource is still available for what may be needed at the present moment.

Then I wanted to come to this simple fact that I think the Lord is still speaking and still acting among His people. You may say there is no Mr Taylor sen, no Mr Raven, no Mr Darby, but we have often reminded one another that more than any of these servants is here because the Spirit of God is here in the assembly, and the Lord may yet raise up leadership among His people. I think there is leadership generally, but He may raise up leadership in a universal way; He may not, He does what He will in His own affairs. It is not for me to say that He will, nor is it for me to say He will not, that is His mat ter. My matter is to relate myself to Him and be vigilant, watchful as to what He is doing among those that are in the bond of the truth. That he is doing something I am convinced. I have mentioned one of the things that He is doing; no doubt He is doing other things too, and we need to wait upon Him and be with Him, finding our resource in the Holy Spirit that He has sent.

Now in Corinthians we find what has actually been called God 's great resource - Christ. "Of him are ye in Christ Jesus". Some were saying "I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas", even saying "I of Christ", no doubt they thought that sounded superior; if they had said 'we are' they would have been nearer the truth; but "I of Christ", what divisions! But he says "of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who has been made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption; that according as it is written, He that boasts, let him boast in he Lord". We are not left with very much if anything to boast in save the Lord. I well remember reading (I have forgotten where it is) the simple remark of Mr Darby's in which he said that Jeremiah lived to see everything taken away and being lost that God had given, until he was brought back to the God alone who had given those things. How wonderful that when everything appeared to have gone, God Himself remained in the soul of Jeremiah despite all that he suffered. Now "He that boasts, let him boast in the Lord"; because after all our whole resource is in Christ Jesus: wisdom or whatever it may be is in that Person and He has been made that to us from God. We need to understand this, dear brethren, as the Corinthians needed to understand it; and I think the fact that Jesus is added to Christ means that it is intended to be formative, it has what we call a subjective bearing. It is not just that you are to know the fact but you are to appreciate it and experience what it is to find your whole resource in that Person no matter what the circumstances may be. Do we find that, dear brethren? What about the younger men and younger women, do you find your resource there? I would urge you to go in more for the things of God, set yourself for them, read the Scriptures, pray over them, go over them with the Lord, read the ministry, go over it with the Lord, and you will find He will form you according to what you read. It will no longer be a theory, no longer be Mr So-and-So's ministry or what was said in the meeting, but you will be formed in it, it will become your own, and that is the divine intention. So He is made these various things to us - wisdom, righteousness, sanctification (or holiness) and redemption, "according as it is written, He that boasts let him boast in the Lord". Then I draw your attention to the fact that Paul goes on to the great and glorious truth of the presence of the Spirit here and of the Spirit being our alone source of power, our alone source of thought and 'action, word, deed, whatever it may be; I think that is the force of "the spiritual", the source of everything for them is in the Spirit.

Now just briefly I touch this word in Philippians. Paul says "I have strength for all things in him that gives me power". Now, as we know, Paul's circumstances at this juncture were not very congenial; still he does say "I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound". I do not doubt that in certain parts of Paul's life he was cared for, he knew what it was to abound, but he knew how to comport himself in the circumstances whether he was abased or whether he was abounding, "In everything and in all things I am initiated both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer privation". How the circumstances of the apostle changed! Would he be elated if he was apparently successful? Would he be downcast if he was apparently unsuccessful? He knew how to behave himself in all these circumstances, and God put him in these circumstances no doubt for that purpose. When he wrote this he was in prison, but he says as from the prison, "I have strength for all things in him that gives me power". There is no thought of defeat whatever because he was in the secret of God. He was like Elisha, he knew his resource, he drew upon it and was sustained in whatever circumstances he was in. Now I do not think that he is referring exactly to service here; perhaps you could not exclude it, but he is referring rather to the strength that he found in Christ and the Spirit for enduring everything that came upon him in the testimony. He was made equal to it by Christ and by the Spirit. It is only in that way, dear brethren; let us not boast in our own strength or our own knowledge, our own ability, whatever it may be; let us understand that if we have strength at all our strength is in Christ and it is known in the Holy Spirit. Nothing at all nourishes the saints or the body of Christ save what comes from Christ Himself. It is essential that we should understand that. However excellent an address a man may be able to give, however clearly he may lay out the terms of the truth, he will not nourish the body of Christ unless it is coming from the Head, and as coming from the Head it brings food, it brings life, it brings all that is requisite for the building up of the body of Christ. Nothing, may I repeat, can build up the body of Christ save what comes from the Head. So here he found strength in Christ, that was the secret of his being carried through. May the Lord help us all, dear brethren, to see what resources there are, however dark the day, to see God's testimony through, and may we each relate ourselves more to Christ into whose hands God has placed everything.

CROYDON

13 July 1974