FOUR CITIES

N. T. Meek

Luke 2: 4; 7: 11–15; 9: 10; 24: 13

We have read of four cities; Bethlehem, Nain, Bethsaida and Emmaus. I wondered if we might in some way relate these cities to our own. We each have our own place of responsibility. Be it Stockholm, Malvern, or whatever place we come from, we have our local responsibility. That is where largely we work out the truth. Let no one therefore despise their rightful place. This first city is Bethlehem which means ‘a house of bread’. It is a great element in the locality that there should be food. I suppose the normal thing is that someone takes up this exercise that there is to be food in the locality. If the saints come together they need to be fed. They do not come together to be entertained, I mean in the sense of being amused, although of course genuine liberty and joy are right. Characteristically we come together to partake of Christ, to speak about Him. We find the brethren like that food whether they are old or young. Thank God for a taste for Christ! I would just remark here to young persons, develop and keep that taste. Keep away from Egypt’s food; the onions and leeks will dull your delicate taste for Christ. I am speaking in the sense of food for our minds,

what our minds and our affections feed upon. It is a great thing to feed not only to live but for enjoyment. We need to feed on Christ to live, to maintain our constitution when the cold wind blows. So we have some warmth inside, because we are eating food, absorbing the calories. In a locality persons set themselves to make sure there is some food in the meeting, and whatever the occasion it is always appropriate to bring in food. We have that beautiful hymn

‘Jesus, of Thee we never would tire;

The new and living food’.

We have the manna, too; the manna is food also, so is the old corn of the land, and the venison, and in John 6 the Lord Jesus Himself. We are never too young to bring in food.

Andrew was young, he is called a boy in one gospel, and in a crucial moment he brought in food. That can come in by way of a question. A question sometimes opens the larder door and maybe the food comes out with peculiar freshness after a question. I would like to encourage the young men to ask questions and I would like to encourage the older men to make sure we provide a little food for God’s household. God loves to see His people fed with some impression of Christ, and how sustaining it is! God provided Elijah with food at one time and it says he went in the strength of that food for forty days and nights. What food that must have been!

Such is the uniqueness of Christ. What food He is! We read the Scriptures but then there is such a thing as meditating upon them, turning the food over. There are some animals that chew the cud; they take it and they turn it over, then they turn it over again. The Scriptures are like that; they can be turned over and over and you will find food upon food. You will never exhaust them and that is understandable because they speak of Christ. That is all I wanted to say about Bethlehem,

raising the exercise that food may be found in our localities.

Now I read in chapter 7 about Nain. This means ‘affliction’. I expect every locality has been through a period of affliction. Here a young man had died, he was the only son and his mother was a widow, it is a sad situation. We need not try to disguise it; our localities do pass through periods of affliction. In those afflictions we are intended to learn God in a fresh way.

We shall never know affliction in heaven, but the fruit of what we learn here in a scene of affliction, will be taken into heaven. How much richness will enter heaven through the way of affliction! You think of localities and the sorrows that localities pass through. Persons may turn aside, persons may die young. There is what we may speak of as the natural ordering of things; old persons become limited. Then there are the sorrows of the testimony and the way that the enemy seeks to infiltrate into a locality. These are the real sorrows. I do not suppose there is a locality in which there have not been tears shed. Along with the encouragement that the blessed Lord gives us in His favour, we also do know this side of affliction. Here the Lord comes into it, He comes into the sorrows of the saints. It says in the prophets “in all their affliction he was afflicted”, Isaiah 63: 9.

The Lord is not behindhand; we may be behindhand in taking up the sorrows, but the Lord takes them up. He becomes our resource, One to whom we can spread out all our affliction. I am thinking especially of localities now that may see numbers reducing; maybe you have seen it over the years. The Lord would sustain you; the Lord will have a word for you in it.

He is quite cognisant of the situation. Of course we know it individually, too.

I would encourage the young ones here to take their sorrows to the Lord. Spell them out to Him in an uninhibited way; you do not need to have any reserve with the Lord Jesus. Tell Him all about it; all your sorrows, all your hopes and all your longings, tell Him that you need Him. You will find He is near.

This is what the widow found here. I suppose it looked as if everything had gone when the young man died, but he was restored. Beloved, the Lord can restore. I suppose there is no locality that has not had its losses. As these sorrows are faced with the Lord maybe the Lord will restore for us. At Bethlehem in the book of Ruth they knew what sorrows were. There was a brother that walked out of the meeting there. Elimelech was his name. Then there was a sad period of history, but the book finishes up with a baby boy who would be a restorer.

Naomi would have a restorer in her old age. Such is our God, dear brethren, that as we pass through these exercises He may in His grace in some way come in. I would like to encourage the brethren. Most localities are small. You are hardly allowed to forget local sorrows. Let us always realise that the Lord can bring in a restoring touch from Himself.

The next place was called Bethsaida. In the previous section the twelve had been out to preach. Bethsaida is the ‘house of fishing’. I am taking the meaning of these names from Davidson’s Concordance. What sort of locality is it that does not have fishermen? It says that Philip was from Bethsaida the city of Andrew and Peter. Peter was a preacher, he had three thousand converts at one preaching. I do not know whether we could stand that! Bethsaida was a place of fishing. I am sure we need to maintain the gospel, maintain the preaching, whether it is outdoors or indoors, whether it is putting tracts through people’s doors

or whatever it is, let us ensure that we know a little bit about fishing. That is how persons are secured, how Peter himself was secured, and the Lord made him a fisher. I suppose Peter knew how to cast a hook. He knew where to put it in the lake. There is a certain amount of skill required. “The wise winneth souls”, Proverbs 11: 30. Now it also needs a little bit of courage to be a fisherman, I mean, to take the gospel to somebody in the street. You can say,

‘Excuse me, do you mind if I tell you about my Saviour?’, and probably the person will walk away. Just carry on, you do not always land a fish at the first try.

The disciples went all night once and did not catch anything although they were quite skilled fishermen. Still they did not give up fishing and on the day of Pentecost Peter did not have to preach for long; he really got a netful. I would just like all our localities to contain this element of fishermen. It may be the same person who is the provider of food for the saints. It may be the same person who cheers the saints in their afflictions. There is such a thing as an

‘all-rounder’, wherever you put him in the field he will fit and be useful. Nevertheless there is such a thing as persons being specially equipped, and if you have a feeling for the gospel, a feeling for men’s souls, ask the Lord to direct you. It is a great thing to be under the Lord, even in fishing. The apostle Paul in Acts 16 was told where the fish were going to be, and he obeyed; let us thank God he obeyed, because that is how salvation came to us. When, as it were, the gospel stood at the crossroads in Philippi, would it go into Asia? No, it was to come to Europe! Thank God the fishermen took the instruction.

Now I would just like to speak about Emmaus. We often speak of it somewhat negatively, yet it is

not entirely negative. The name contains the idea of ‘earnest longing’. There was some longing there, and earnest longing too. These persons had become disappointed. What we might speak of as the testimony had taken a turn that they had not expected. They talked together about it and they were downcast. Is there anyone here who has never been downcast? I would like to meet you! I think we have all been downcast; we have all made the pillow wet as we laid our head down at night, maybe because of our own sins, or some sorrow. These persons were downcast. The Scriptures are beautiful because they give a kind of life-picture that we can understand. The Scriptures are not about superhuman people, they are about the likes of you and me, ordinary people with emotions and sorrows. Thank God, some joys too at times; this is what life is made up of, but the Lord came into these persons’

circumstances. He went with them and their longings were satisfied. They had Him, they had Him in that locality.

Dear brethren, that is possible now, to have a sense of the Lord’s presence. We may not be many, but if the Lord is there what more could you desire? You say, I wish more persons were there; so would I, and, thank God, the day will come when He will satisfy the desire of every living thing. That is a testimony to His greatness, to satisfy the desire of every living thing. He is going to do it with His hands, those hands which were pierced. They pierced and nailed Him to the tree. Does it not affect your heart, the sufferings of the Lord Jesus? You will find in Him an answer to your every longing. I suppose afterwards in Emmaus these two would speak about these things. I have no doubt that when they got back to their place they would for long for many a week and maybe for many a year, recall and enjoy and go over this experience. We have an occasion every Lord’s day, it is called the

Lord’s supper and, amongst other things, dear brethren, it is a time of satisfied longings, a time of the Lord coming to us, a time of feeling the warmth of His affections, and our own affections going out to His. I think He is absolutely wonderful. There is no one like Him; there never will be. I think we all here love Christ, but if we do not let us start right now, for His name’s sake.

Address at Stockholm
December 1989