PLEASING HIM WHO HAS ENLISTED US

R. Taylor

2 Timothy 2: 3, 4; Genesis 24: 21; Ruth 2: 5–7; Daniel 1: 8, 9

I just call attention to this verse in Timothy, dear brethren, as to pleasing Him who has enlisted us. The contrast to that is being entangled with the affairs of life and that is something that tests us all. To be entangled is a very stressful thing. If you get caught in a thorn bush, you get entangled in it and struggle to get your way out. It is like being caught in a mesh and there is only one way to get out and that is to cut it. The affairs of this life—that was Martha, she got distracted with the affairs of this life; not unrighteous things, but she got troubled with them. You will find, if you just look back at these things, you can see that these people become very discontented. Martha was complaining, and that is a very easy thing to do, it was maybe quite just what she was saying, but she was entangled. Paul is contrasting that to one going as a soldier. In wartime soldiers are conscripted. Volunteers are what they have nowadays and they are calling out for them; but there is nobody in Christianity who is a volunteer. Paul said, “God, who ... called me by his grace”, Galatians 1: 15. He was conscripted, called into it. Volunteers think that it is a credit to them, and they think they can go out when they like, but as a soldier you are conscripted.

God has called us, and what a calling it is, dear brethren, “called me by his grace”, Paul says. What joy filled Paul’s heart as he thought of what he had been called into. Once an insolent overbearing man, there he was entangled with the affairs of this life. He was into all sorts of things. He thought he was righteous, but it did not hinder God from calling him. He “called me by his grace”, and he was enlisted; “that he may please him who has enlisted him”. May our hearts, dear brethren, appreciate the grace that has enlisted us. We are in a world that is going on to destruction, judgment, but He has called us out of it. He has enlisted us into something better. And a sense of that in our souls is to give each one of us this desire that “he may please him who has enlisted him”. It is a very interesting thing to look at scriptures and see persons in whom God found pleasure. Some of them He calls them by name. Some names He repeats twice, “Abraham, Abraham”, “Moses, Moses”, and others. He shows His pleasure in the persons who are seeking to please Him.

I read of Rebecca as someone who, in type, was pleasing to the Spirit. It says that the man was astonished at her. None of the persons that I read of were conspicuous, outstanding persons. Rebecca was a young maiden but there was something about her that the man was astonished at, seeing the work of God. That is what God finds His delight in. He does not find His delight in the things that men would praise, but He finds His delight in seeing the work of God expressing itself in the souls. How delightful Rebecca was to the Spirit. You wonder at it. It says, “the man was astonished at her”. He had come out, as the Spirit has come, seeking vessels who will make room for Him. That is one of the things that the man says to Rebecca, “Is there room ...?” (Genesis 24: 23). The Spirit would say that to us tonight dear brethren, “Is there room ...?” She says, there is plenty of room to spare.

She was not entangled with the affairs of this life. Had she been entangled she would have said, ‘Well I have got this, and the next thing, all pressing on me, I will do what I can’. No, but she says, There is plenty of room. The man was astonished at her. And you see how delightful she was to the Spirit. He unfolded to her some of the secrets that he had in his own treasure. All the treasures of his master were under his hand, and that is what is under the hand of the Spirit dear brethren, all the treasures of his master. That is what was here available to Rebecca typically. Think of these silver things, gold things, clothing. Something she was suitable to be entrusted with. That is something to desire dear brethren. That there is something in us that is suitable to receive what the Spirit would bring out from the great treasures of God. He had the treasures of his master all under his hand, and he delighted to unfold them to her. He brought forth silver and gold and clothing and gave them to Rebecca.

How ready the Spirit is to impart, but if we are entangled with the affairs of this life the Spirit is hindered. He still has them but He has them available to persons who are ready to make room for Him. So you see how beautifully she comes into the great thoughts of divine purpose. Things that in that time, and in our time too, are hidden from man, the great things that God has prepared for them that love Him. So Rebecca comes into some of the joy of that. I do not know if any of these people knew very much about Isaac, maybe they knew of him as a distant relative, but here is Rebecca and she comes to know Isaac as the son of the Father’s love, the one in whom everything is deposited. What treasures He is prepared to open up to us as we are committed to please Him who has enlisted us.

Well, she takes her journey. What a journey it must have been. What a pull there was. Each of these persons could have put forward a very legitimate reason for doing something else. She could have said, ‘Well I will have to ask my father and mother or brother. I will have to see what they say about it’. No, she was not hindered by the affairs of this life, nor was she hindered by the pull of nature. Natural things have to be attended to but the Spirit gives us power to rise against the pull of them. And how strong it is dear brethren, none of us is immune from it. It can overtake us any time, but the Spirit gives us the power to rise above the pull of it. That is what Rebecca does. She says, “I will go” (Genesis 24: 58). I would have liked to have seen the servant’s face as he heard those words, and as the Spirit would hear it from us tonight, dear brethren. She had been asked, “Wilt thou go with this man?” And she said, “I will go”. She must have been attracted by the way the servant spoke, as she was drawn to him to know those secrets that came out.

Well, I read of Ruth, another young woman, who was tested by the affairs of this life. Her mother-in-law says to her, ‘Well just you go back. There is not much future in the things I have to face. My journey back is going to be a difficult one’, and it was; she even called herself, Mara—bitterness. That is how she felt. She felt quite bitter in her spirit. But there Ruth goes to this area, and I only call attention to how she was delightful to Christ, as typified in Boaz. He says, “Whose maiden is this?” (Ruth 2: 5). There must have been many of them there who had a better claim to Boaz than she had at this time. But he says, “Whose maiden is this?” And there was someone who was able to give a good commendation about her. He says, “And she came, and has continued from the morning until now—her sitting in the house has been little as yet”. She was not entangled with the affairs of this life. Naomi was sitting in the house. She might have asked her, ‘Just you stay with me today and keep me company, I have sorrow in my heart’ and so on but she says, ‘I must be going’. Sitting in the house—now that is not an unrighteous thing—but she was not content to succumb to that. “Her sitting in the house has been little as yet”. She was industrious. She was anxious to fill her soul with the heavenly food, she was gleaning among the reapers. It was not the easiest of jobs, a most difficult job, her back must have been sore, but you see how she is growing in her soul. You go over these chapters and you see she is able to carry six measures of barley, fresh impressions of Christ. She is a type of a young woman who has committed herself to the things of Christ.

And then of Daniel it says, “Daniel purposed in his heart”. Now if anybody had an excuse for leaving things and being depressed by the breakdown it was Daniel. He was in the most difficult of circumstances. Taken captive, you may say publicly he was ensnared in the things of this life, because he had been taken captive, but he found a way out of that to be pleasing to Him who had enlisted him. You go over the book and you see the prayers he makes to God and he was heard for his prayers. He is one of the men who is called “greatly beloved”, Daniel 10: 11. He was pleasing Him who had enlisted him. May it encourage our hearts dear brethren, seeing these simple persons who committed themselves. It says, “Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not pollute himself with the king’s delicate food”. What a temptation this world has in its pull on us in different spheres, as persons in the flesh, in sport, and in the fashions of the world, and all these other things that would appeal to us. Daniel said he would not pollute himself. He would not become worldly. He would not be overcome by the circumstances in which he was, although they pressed him hard to submit. And they were very tempting.

Who would rather have pulse instead of wine and the king’s delicate food? Well Satan will offer you everything, and Christendom offers you everything. You can get whatever you want in Christendom. You can get enough to dull your conscience and go on with worldly things. That is one of the delusions of Satan today. In the world there are all kinds of denominations and sects that will give you a form of Christianity, and they will allow you to do what you like. You will be entangled with the affairs of this life and you will lose the joy of being pleasing to the Master. Daniel was pleasing Him who had enlisted him. He had purpose of heart. May we know more of this purpose of heart. Captured as he was, breakdown all around, but he was sustained by some impressions of Christ that he had.

Where did he get them? He got them by the Spirit and reading. It says, “I Daniel understood by the books”, Daniel 9: 2. He did not take his bearings from things around and say, ‘Well that is what they are doing and I will fall in with it’. He understood by the books that all that was going on was passing. They were in Babylon in captivity but the breakdown is not God’s purpose; His thoughts are centred in Jerusalem. Daniel had assembly light in type, if I may call it that; he had the light of another day. Surrounded by enemies then but Jerusalem was the city of God, the city of the great king, and Daniel’s heart was set on it. He was an assembly person and that became his chief joy. Amidst all the things he had to do, and he did them righteously, but three times a day, the windows of his house being open toward Jerusalem, he prayed before his God. It is like David, “If I forget thee. Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill; If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to my palate”, Psalm 137: 5, 6. He was pleasing Him who had enlisted him. He was drawn into the great sphere of what God’s interests were. God’s interests today, dear brethren, are not on the affairs of this life. He helps us in them, but He wants us to be pleasing Him who has enlisted us. May it be so that they are more in our hearts as they were in Daniel’s. For Christ’s name’s sake.

Word in meeting for ministry, Kirkcaldy
9 March 2010

EDITOR’S NOTE OF AMENDMENT

In the November 2010 issue of NOTES OF MINISTRY, page 23, the reference at the end of Mr. J. B. Stoney’s extract should read—Vol. 12, pp.76–78.

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