GATHERING

E.C.Burr

John 11: 49-52; 2 Thessalonians 2: 1, 2; Acts 27: 44; 28 : 1-6

It will no doubt be clear to those who have followed the reading of the scriptures that I would like to say a word with the Lord's help about gathering. It would seem from these scriptures, and from others, that gathering has long been in the divine mind; scattering is not in the divine mind, gathering is the divine mind. We find for instance in Ezekiel, in relation to Israel, that God says that He will gather His people, that is the Jews, out of all the countries where they are scattered (see chap 11: 17); and it says, I will both search for my sheep and gather them (see chap 34: 11-13). And if that nation is yet to experience millennially the blessings that God has in view for them it will be because they have been divinely gathered. It will not be because they have returned to their own land in apostacy and politically and with resources outside themselves, it will be because they have been gathered by the Shepherd of Israel.

The section we read in John 11 involves great things as to its scope. Caiaphas who was high priest that year makes this kind of political speech to the people saying that they did not understand that one Man should die for the nation rather than that the whole nation perish; and the Spirit makes the comment that he prophesied; as if, in spite of his being a political high priest, the Spirit was able to intrude and make him say what he would not himself have said; and what he said was not just that One was going to die for the nation; he prophesied that He would gather together into one the children of God scattered abroad. Now this actually took place; He did gather into one the children of God who were scattered abroad. It is not that He did it by His life, it is "I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all to me", John 12: 32. By being lifted up out of the earth, which involves His death, He has gathered together into one the children of God scattered abroad. He has become the great attractive centre for those in whom the Father is working. The brethren will remember the title of one of Mr Raven's addresses: The Lord the gathering point for all and He is that, and He remains that in the present day. What was prophesied of by Caiaphas in this section actually took place as a result of His death, and His burial, and His being raised, and His ascending, and the Spirit coming. At the beginning of the Acts the children of God scattered abroad were gathered together into one. It was seen there, not for long, but seen thee; the prophecy came true. It is a solemn thing that, according to the Pentateuch (see Deut 18: 22) this might have served to accredit Caiaphas. What a solemn thing that is, that his prophecy actually came true, and therefore people would know that he was a prophet, and yet he was a politician. All these things are a sad and interesting commentary on the way in which what is worldly had intruded into the church. But what Caiaphas said came true, at Pentecost the children of God scattered abroad were gathered together into one. There were people there of every kind on whom the Holy Spirit was able to come, albeit as cloven tongues of fire, but He came on them, and there is one Spirit. One thing to grasp in your soul as one of the fundamentals of the truth is that there is one Spirit, and if persons are given the Spirit there is still one Spirit. You are not given one Spirit and I another. It is a remarkable thing in John's epistle that it says, "he has given to us of his Spirit" (1 John 4: 13) and in Ephesians 4: 4 "one body and one Spirit". (Those verses in Ephesians 4 I feel fairly confident are a statement of one of the creeds of the early church - "one body and one Spirit") and, "in the power of one Spirit we have al I been baptised into one body", 1 Cor 12: 13. As soon as the Spirit came and He, the one Spirit, sat upon each one of them, this prophecy of Caiaphas came true, and the children of God scattered abroad were gathered together into one. There were Parthians and Medes and Jews and people from every nation, Cretans and Arabians, people from every quarter to take account of it; and they were gathered together into one in the power of one Spirit. They were gathered together because Jesus had been glorified. They were not gathered together by ecclesiastical dictate, or invitation, or by the power of man; they were gathered together into one because Jesus was glorified and the Spirit had come. And the prophecy of Caiaphas came true, and it remained true, at least in the teaching that runs into the epistle to the Ephesians. The sense that "through him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father" (Eph 2: 18) is a manifestation that He had gathered together into one the children of God scattered abroad; Jew and gentile representative in a racial sense of all the nations of the earth. The Jews and the rest is how the Jews looked at it, but in Christ the Jews and the rest were baptised into one body, and by the cross He made both one and slew the enmity. And He makes that effective by the word of the cross and by the power of the Spirit, and through Christ and by one Spirit we have access to the Father. It is a manifestation that what Caiaphas prophesied of came true. He prophesied (and he did not know what he was saying) that He should gather together into one the children of God who were scattered abroad, not that nation only. Thank God it was not that nation only or where would we be, any of us here? Jews have been converted (and you remember what Mr Darby says, 'You know I love a Jew when they love the Lord, how rarely are they brought'; he found delight in those who had the promises having their part in the assembly) but most of the assembly now consists of gentiles, not the Jews only, but the children of God scattered abroad gathered together into one.

The substance of Paul's ministry, and of John's gospel, all tends in this direction that the children of God, and not that nation only, were to be gathered together into one. "And I have other sheep which are not of this fold: those also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one flock, one shepherd" (John 10: 16) is parallel to the prophecy of Caiaphas. As I say, if you had looked at them, looked at their histories, you might have said, These are not the children of God, how can they be? They are distant, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and from the promises, but they are persons on whom God can put His Spirit. It is the result of the work of Jesus that there were persons there in the beginning of the Acts on whom the Spirit would come. You might have said, They are just a random crowd come up to Jerusalem to see the sights and to be there at Easter or for the Passover, and to stay there for this famous crucifixion; but God sees them, or some of them at least, as the children of God scattered abroad gathered together by the One who said "I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all to me", John 12: 32. The result of that is that there is one body and you see it straight away as a manifestation of one body. As I say, it goes on into Paul's ministry to the Ephesians and it runs on right down to the present day. I do not speak of its totality because we do not see it, but we see enough to know that the gathering together into one not only took place but was sustained.

Sadly breakdown has occurred in the history of the church. Many of us speak of these things as if we had no part in them. A lot of us say, for instance, that sin came in, it is a common expression. I hear it from preachers, even preachers of the gospel; they say that sin came in, almost as if the door was left open and it happened. But sin 'came in' because the working of sin was in the members of men and women because of Adam's sin, and people are constituted sinners not merely by what is spoken of as original sin but by the fact that they commit sins themselves. If you do not think you are wrapped up in the package of sinners just consider whether you have ever committed any sin. You do not need to go back to the doctrine of original sin, you only need to look at your own life to discover that sin has come in, and sometimes you feel that you have to enter into the responsibility that by one man sin entered into the world. Have you ever felt that that was you? Adam has been dead for centuries but have you ever felt that perhaps it was you through whom sin came into the world? Of course it came in through Adam, but the feeling that you yourself have been a means of sin entering into the world, as you are by every sin you commit, is something that is calculated deeply to sober even the most active and alert of us. And breakdown has entered into the church, but it has entered into the church because you and I have broken down. An element of it entered into the church when two parties could not agree on how their widows should be treated in the Acts: and further when a man and a woman professed to be doing something for the assembly when what they we re really doing was seeking glory for themselves; it was met then but it came in again and continued right on. It has impressed me very much that the church history books make a great deal of the fact that Constantine embraced the Christian faith as if that was a great victory for Christianity; it was one of its biggest defeats. If Constantine was converted, thank God, but the alliance between the church and the world, which he instituted, has been one of the biggest defeats that the church has ever suffered. And you can follow breakdown right down to the present day. So the best thing beloved, when you talk about breakdown, is to say what I did in it. I hear at the present time a great deal of what we did and I hear very little of what I did. If you want to get the point of breakdown the thing is to dwell on what I did and not so much on what we did. I think that is where you feel that breakdown has come in, it has come in in yourself.

Now there is going to be an answer to that; the section I read in Thessalonians shows that. Paul says to this beloved young assembly that he would not have them upset; he begs them "by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him". Our gathering together to Him will not in substance reconstitute His gathering together into one the children of God scattered abroad; that exists before God in any case. God knows now perfectly who make up the assembly; He knows you, He knows whether you go to make it up or not, He knows whether you are here this evening as a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ and whether you have the Spirit. He knows whether the man passing by has, too. I am not saying what he is doing on a Saturday night, (people go about their own business), but God knows precisely who forms the assembly or the body of Christ actually at the present time. As I say, our gathering together to Him will not in substance reconstitute His gathering together into one not that nation only, but the children of God scattered abroad; what it will do will be to bring it again into demonstration. It is not in demonstration now. If I walked home from this meeting room I wonder how many different churches I would pass on the way. I suppose quite a number, and it is all evidence that the gathering together into one is not to be observed at the present time. I speak of what is outward, I long tor myself and for the brethren that they might have their hearts enlarged to the extent of what God has before Him and what Christ has before Him. I long that we might all enter more into the fact that "we, being many, are... one body" (1 Cor 10: 17) and that not just ourselves but the whole of what will be the Christ's at His coming. I know that in a certain sense you could say that the emblems remind you particularly of those who are immediately available, but the "many" and the "body" is as extensive as the totality of what Christ has at the present time; and I venture to urge the brethren to let their hearts also expand themselves so that narrowness may not hinder us by diminishing in our view the extensiveness of what Christ has. But for the moment we do not see this gathering together into one, not of that nation only, but of the children of God scattered abroad. They are still scattered, but at our gathering together to Him we shall see assembled everything that Christ has. What a day that will be when you and I for the first time see the whole assembly! Are you looking forward to it, seeing the whole assembly from the inside too, you part of it, and to see the whole thing, something that you have never seen before? Whatever consciousness you may have of it in the power of one Spirit, to see the whole assembly at our gathering together to Him! It shows how He is able to transcend man's failure in responsibility and man's breakdown, that our gathering together to Him will not just be Paul and the Thessalonians, it will be you and me and Paul and the Thessalonians and everyone who has believed in Christ and who has the Spirit. What a thing that we should see the whole assembly as being part of it! Will you not long to look round at that moment, not just to check up who is there (you will not know most of them) but to see the vast extensiveness of what one Man secured through His death. This, again, will be the answer to the prophecy of Caiaphas.

The interim is marked by failure and breakdown and shipwreck, but He did gather together into one that nation and the children of God scattered abroad, and He will yet do it again. He will do it in actuality. Will you be there? I shall be there. Will everyone here be there in that day? Who else do you know that will be there? Who else do you know that will be the Christ's at His coming? Have you ever taken the trouble to find out anybody else who is looking for the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour? Have you ever sought to be the means of converting anybody to looking for God's Son from heaven? Have you ever cared enough about another soul to long that they might be there in the day of our gathering together unto Him? Would you not like to be someone who, under the Lord's hand, has helped to swell the multitude that will be Christ's in that day? Would you not like to start tonight? Would you not like to start being more active in the Lord 's service so that even by you someone might have been brought not only to know Christ but to know the assembly. Some of the old hymns speak of it (not that we sing them, not that they are all doctrinally impeccable), hymns like, 'Will there be any stars in my crown'; will there be any stars in your crown, anyone that you have secured for Christ in the day of His rejection because you thought it mattered enough to get somebody else converted to your Saviour and to the knowledge of the assembly and of the truth? Have you ever tried to lead somebody in the Episcopalian Church into the knowledge of what the assembly is, or into the knowledge of the fact of the Head and the body so that they do not need a clergyman? Have you ever tried to induce anybody to understand that assembly experience is possible even in a broken day? They will be there when we gather together unto Him but it would be good if they had some preliminary experience, and we could serve the Lord by being evangelical in relation to the assembly. To be evangelical in relation to man's sins is one thing but to be evangelical in relation to the assembly is a very distinctive service not only to men but to Christ. Therefore I say that the prophecy of Caiaphas was fulfilled in the beginning of the Acts and it will be manifested to have been fulfilled when we gather together unto Him. The interval is sad, the interim is grievous.

This ship in Acts 27 set sail - you wonder at the similitude - with Paul and others on it. Of course Paul was being taken off to prison, but you think of the great ship that set sail, and of the way the testimony sailed out of Jerusalem and into Antioch and into Europe by way of Philippi - I know that actually most of it is over land - but you can think of this great ship sailing that way. Think of it coming to England and Ireland and America, and think of the way that the Lord operated in the last century in relation to the fact that there had been shipwreck in what was so fair. I think we have little conception of what the assembly was intended to be as the vessel of the testimony. We are so intimate with the breakdown, so intimate with what has happened, what we have shared in, that we have little conception of the fairness of this vessel which first embarked when the Spirit came, initiated largely by Peter, cared for and adorned in the ministry of Paul, multiplied under the service of Paul, fed and nurtured by Christ as the assembly's Head, nourished and cherished as a man would his wife or his own flesh. Think of it in its pristine character. Perhaps we cannot imagine it; the truth of it lies in the Spirit. It set out on seas that were themselves at first fair, but storms blew up and things were thrown overboard. How much has been thrown overboard in the public history of the church; and in Christendom things are still being thrown overboard in the hope of saving the ship, but the ship is already wrecked. The tragedy is that men do not see it, and churchmen do not see it, and they are willing in the present day even to throw overboard such things not only as the deity of Christ but the existence of God in the hope of getting the ship through, but it is already wrecked. We, beloved, are here in the last days after the shipwreck. When the shipwreck actually took place who could say? We know that within Paul's lifetime everyone in Asia had turned away from him. It is easy to calculate what a short period that was. It is thought that Paul was martyred in A.D.69; Jesus died in about A.D.33; there is a range of 36 years, and Paul was not ministering all that time. Paul was not converted at the beginning, then he spent time in Arabia, and then in one place and another; but within the space of about thirty years the church had come into its pristine existence, had been adorned by the ministry of Paul, and all in Asia had turned away from him. The thing had gone up to its zenith and it had come down to "thou hast left thy first love" (Rev 2: 4) in a very short time. I do not attempt to put a date to the shipwreck; all I know is that some able to swim and some on broken pieces of the ship have actually come to land. I trust they all feel safe. There are many who cling to particular doctrines as to Christ, thank God they do; thank God for everybody who still loves the Bible, wherever they are. I even have quite a feeling when going into a hotel in this country - it is a long time since I needed to - you find a Bible in the bedroom. You thank God for that. I have my own but the next man might not; thank God there is a Bible there and, if he is idle, he might read it. Well, may he be idle, may he have a spare moment, may he open it somewhere. Thank God that the Bible is still here. Thank God for everyone who insists on the existence of God. Thank God for everyone who insists on the deity of Christ and the presence of t he Spirit as a subsisting thing here, thank God for it - "some on broken pieces of the ship" (A.V.) And there is the shore of this island Malta, littered no doubt with pieces of the ship, and everyone on the ship has got safe to land. Arid what does Paul do? Does he have an inquest? Does he say, If you rummage about enough we could get all the bits back? Does he say, We will be able to start again? He was a wise architect; I daresay he could have built a ship as well as a house. I think if he had been given the bits he could have put the ship together again, but he does not. All Paul does is to gather a bundle of sticks together. I think that collectively that is about all we can see at the present time. We cannot see the ship save as the Spirit gives us any concept of what this great vessel not only was but is and will be; we have that by the Spirit. I wonder if you think of yourself as any more than a stick in a bundle. Do any of us think that we are in the bundle as some special kind of wood, that we are a bit better wood than the other stick? All you are is a stick; Paul gathered sticks into a bundle. That, beloved, is a thing that needs to go on now. The barbarians (I suppose they were gentiles, people that had come in not from "the nation only"), they had lit a fire and there was at least some heat in the rain and the cold, there was at least a little comfort. There is at least a little comfort in every place where saints gather to the name of the Lord Jesus as apart from iniquity. Is anyone concerned to improve the heat and the conditions? I am not talking about raising the temperature, I am talking about improving the comfort; Paul gathered sticks into a bundle, I think that is all that we can think of in relation to what we may speak of as the recovery. We cannot speak of being the assembly but we gather in the light of it and on the principle of it. We certainly cannot speak of being the body of Christ; we gather on the ground oo it and in the light of it. There is a bundle of sticks. A bundle in a sense represents the totality of what was there originally but it is reduced just to these small dimensions, you might say dimensions that one man is able to handle. Think of Paul's service. He says in chapter 20: 33 "these hands have ministered to my wants, and to those who were with me", and in chapter 28 the same hands are ministering to his necessities and those with him; that is, he is gathering sticks into a bundle because it is necessary for Paul and necessary for those with him; "having gathered a certain quantity of sticks together in a bundle".

I venture to suggest to the brethren that this is needed still. Paul did it, as if Paul sees what will be required following all in Asia departing from him, that someone will have to gather sticks into a bundle. Are you prepared to be Paul? I am not using the title or the name in any sense in the way in which it has been used in the past. The service here was menial, lowly, humble, quiet - I will go softly all my days, but I will gather sticks into a bundle. As I said, the purpose was not to raise the temperature, it is too easy to do that, brethren. Remember that where no wood is the fire goes out (see Prov 26: 20); that in its context is a thing to remember. But here is a fire that must be kept going. The external conditions are wet and cold; they remind you of nothing so much as the external conditions in Laodicea, the Lord outside, the church neither cold nor hot, the Lord knocking, things wet and cold; but Paul gathered a certain quantity of sticks into a bundle. The question is, beloved, whether we are prepared to humiliate ourselves into service as lowly as this. As I say, it is a quiet, lowly, humble, patient service; it is only service, that is all it is. The result, you might say, is that there is more warmth for a while and then more sticks to be gathered. I think where Paul would start in gathering the sticks would be in what is nearest to him. I do not think he would think of going over to the other side of the island in order to gather sticks. Malta is not a big place but it would certainly be a long walk. I think that Paul would start right where he was in gathering sticks. If he could gather sticks in just moving his hand to one side or the other I think it is those sticks he would gather first. I think, when Paul had got the fire going and maintained, he might begin to think of other sticks, he might, like Jesus, be thinking of other sheep, and they should be in our minds; but the first place to start gathering sticks is in what is nearest to you; and it would have been no service to anybody to have started scattering sticks. Certainly it would have been no good playing a game on this day, would it? Lady Powerscourt said that to Mr Darby: Let us put our toys away. So, start with what is nearest in gathering sticks. Of course you are careful what you gather. There are things that you cannot gather into this bundle. You cannot gather what is clerical, you cannot gather clergymen as clergymen, you can gather them as believers if they will come into the bundle, if they lay aside copes and vestments and that sort of thing, gather them. How much Mr Darby longed after his fellow clergy. People who are persisting in going on with iniquity, you cannot gather them; but they can depart from iniquity and become a stick available to be gathered into the bundle. You cannot, you dare not, gather iniquity into the bundle; you dare not gather what is merely organisational, you dare not gather what is merely a matter of profession and claim and pretension. What needs to be gathered are what I might call true sticks. They will be tested; you could not gather a stick that did not believe in our Lord Jesus Christ; you could not gather a stick that did not believe in Him as Saviour; you could not gather a stick that had not the Spirit. I do not think you would mind if they got warm by the fire but they could not be gathered into the bundle. But there are sticks that can be gathered. Beloved brethren, start nearest to where we are and gather the sticks. There have been localities where the gathering of sticks needed to be done in the very meeting room where the breaking of bread is, as near as that. You would not even have to have a very long arm to collect those sticks, but the thing is to gather a certain quantity of sticks into a bundle. You will not be able to build the ship again, it is not possible; the essential materials in many respects are missing. Things that adorned the ship have gone. Apostles, where are they? Prophets, what can you say as to prophets? Evangelists, do you know an evangelist? If you do, lead me to him. Do you know a shepherd and a teacher? These are things that adorned the ship but many of them are not visible now. Gifts of healing, have you ever met one? Things that adorned the ship - governments, helps. Have you ever met a help, have you ever met a help in the assembly? You should have done, for these things adorned the ship. Some of them have gone not to be recovered, gifts of tongues gone not to be recovered. You cannot build the ship again, but what you can do is to gather a certain quantity of sticks into a bundle. There is a need for it, especially after a shipwreck. I do not here dwell on the viper; the conditions were enough to bring to light something that was unsuitable . Nobody had to go around as a snake catcher, or snake charmer. Oh, no, the warmth and the heat brought out into the light what was inconsistent with the bundle of sticks that Paul was gathering. You might say to yourself, How did Paul come to gather a viper? You might be very clever, cleverer than Paul, and say, Paul, what are you doing? we see you gathered a viper, we could have told you that was a viper. I think Paul would say, I was gathering sticks and I knew that there was the power in the bundle to drive out anything that was unsuitable to it, power to drive out evil by the maintenance of the principles that belong to the bundle. Beloved, we need that, we need the moral power amongst us to drive out evil. Evil is not meant to be driven out by argument, we need the moral power that exposes evil and it is shaken into the fire and everyone is able to go on. There is very little time wasted over that incident. The people hung about gaping for quite a long time, they thought Paul would swell up or fall down, but Paul in fact did neither. I think that they watched Paul gathering more sticks; I guess that is what he was doing. The bundle is in a sense the earnest of what there will be at our gathering together to Him. It certainly is not the whole thing, but it is gathered in the light of the principles that govern the whole thing, it is gathered in the light of the assembly, it is gathered in the light of the one body, it is gathered on the ground of separation from iniquity being God's principle of unity, it is gathered on the ground of grace being the power of gathering. All that enters into Paul's bundle and it is the earnest of what there will be when we gather together to Him.

Well, beloved, it should command our interest and our activity. If we are gathering sticks like this we shall not have a free hand for other things, certainly no free hand for throwing stones. May the Lord help us, may He remind us that gathering is what He began with and what we shall end with, and it is what is to mark the present time. We can only gather in humility and weakness, lowliness; you could say humiliation again and again and again; but, beloved, let us not forget in our humiliation that a bundle of sticks can still be gathered and that warmth is what will be promoted by it. Let us addict ourselves to it for the rest of the time for His Name's sake.

BROOKLYN NY

27 November 1971