THE REAL SERVANT HAS TWO EXPERIENCES
THE REAL SERVANT HAS TWO EXPERIENCES
There are two parts in every service; one, the nature and object of the service: the other, the manner in which it is received - the effect produced by it. The servant of the Lord, because of the perfect nature of the light committed to him on the one hand, and the hardness and wilfulness of man’s heart on the other, enters into both in a supreme degree, and thus has a twofold experience as to his service; one of joy, and the other of exercise and sorrow; and as one is great, so is the other.
In communicating the truth given to him, he has, when simply acting from the Lord, the sense of what is perfectly good and true; and if his service ended here, it would be one of unmixed satisfaction; because it is all on God’s side; but when he turns to man’s side, and sees how indifferently the truth has been received and appreciated, he is filled with a sorrow which is only augmented by his sense of the goodness and greatness of what he had communicated.
The husbandman in spring-time, when the sun shines brightly, joyfully sows his ground with the choicest seed. At this time all is favourable and encouraging; but this [p. 46] is not all: there is a time coming when he must look anxiously at the crop which is the effect of his happy spring work; the harvest-day alone can decide what that will be. This is the other side of his work. It is not simply the brightness and hopefulness of spring-time, but he must wait and see how the soil will requite or acknowledge his work.
The real servant cannot confine himself to God’s side where all is perfect and beautiful, but as he is really for God, he will be solicitous as to the effect on man of God’s favour; and this not so much respecting those who utterly reject the light, or have not accepted it, as those who have professed to do so. Thus the unfaithfulness of the people of God has, at every time, been the source of deep and continued sorrow and exercise of heart to the servant of the Lord; and according as he is sensible of it, he is, like the prophets of Israel, used to warn the people of God and awaken them to the indignation of the Lord, and the chastening which the jealousy of His love, like a most vehement flame, will impose.
If we follow and note the history and ways of any true servant of the Lord, we shall see, that while on the one side they, like Moses on the mount, or Paul in Arabia, are entranced with the brightest and most marvellous display of divine glory; yet on man’s side, those who know most of the divine ways, suffer most because of the indifference of those who have professed to be God’s people. It is nowhere admitted in Scripture that a servant can be merely the herald of the light of God’s grace; that is, that he should only have the joyful side of service. For every real servant, be he evangelist, teacher, or anything else, there must be the side of suffering, exercise, and humiliation.
Moses after all the varied and wonderful works in which were displayed the mercy and goodness of God to His people; after all the glowing sense he must have had of what it was to be God’s instrument in expressing [p. 47] things so great and beneficent, is filled with the most poignant anguish because of the idolatry and perversity of Israel. He is ready to sacrifice himself, anything - to secure the honour of the Lord in His people. He says, “Oh, this people have sinned a great sin ... yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin -; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written”. And then after his intercession for the people is answered, he finds his relief in the prayer, “I beseech thee, shew me thy glory”. He falls back upon God Himself as the true and unfailing resource of his heart.
No man had ever seen more of God’s wonderful works for His people, or had with deeper sorrow witnessed the desperate rebellion of the human heart. The very goodness of God, and the delight that Moses as His servant had in expressing it, only made him more sensitive to and aggrieved by the wickedness of man. Hence his only resource was in God, and he cried, “I beseech thee, shew me thy glory”. This great servant had not only been used in the most remarkable manner, but he suffered on man’s account, so like our blessed Lord that he longs for a sight of God’s glory; and in a partial way it is vouchsafed to him. Everything to cheer and delight his heart among God’s people had ceased to be; and hence he turns to God and asks to see His glory; and then he learns the grace that will make him sharer of it even then. And in a little time he was to see his Lord on the holy mount; he was selected by God as the fit one to bear Him company at the moment, when, as the perfect Man on earth, He was saluted with the words, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”.
Elijah, the other companion of the Lord in that wondrous scene, had also deeply entered into the declension and idolatry of Israel. He could say, “I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword”. In him too we see that the servant most [p. 48] honoured of God, and gifted by Him is the one most afflicted on account of the failure and indifference of His people, and that the greater his light, the greater will be his sorrow because of man’s indifference to it; and this he especially feels with regard to those who have accepted it.
If we study the life and ways of the apostle Paul who was at once the greatest of evangelists and of teachers, we see that while the highest and deepest truth was committed to him, so that he could say, “Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in the Christ, and makes manifest the odour of his knowledge through us in every place”; yet he was deeply exercised about those who had received the light from him, either for conversion or growth. He says, “I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears”. These were saints who were brought to the knowledge of the Lord through his ministry. And to the Colossians whom he had never seen he writes, “For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh”, Colossians 2: 1. He had previously stated as to himself, “Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church”, Colossians 1: 24. And again to Timothy he writes from the prison at Rome, “I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory”, 2 Timothy 2: 10.
Thus we see that, whether as an evangelist or teacher, his service did not end with being blessed to souls in the communication of the truth, but that he followed with a devoted interest every believing soul as a nurse would, and was not content with being a father.
Lastly, when we look at our blessed Lord, God’s greatest and only perfect Servant, who can comprehend fully the sense that He had of the counsel of God, which He only could understand or accomplish? No one else [p. 49] could have so deep and full a sense of its gravity and magnificence; and yet no one else felt more keenly the perverse soil of the human heart. He - the Son of man, was the Sower of the seed. Everything perfect was offered to man by the Holy One of God; but man saw no beauty in Him. He was charged with everything on God’s side to impart profound and increasing delight to Him in His mission to ruined creatures sunk in darkness and misery. He had everything in abundance to meet their need. On that side His joy was unspeakable, and yet He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”. “He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows”. His “visage was so marred more than any man”, at death. “He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled”. He wept with the sorrowing Mary. When He beheld Jerusalem He wept over it. He not only loved the assembly and gave Himself for it, but it is said, “No one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as also the Christ the assembly”. He proves His love by washing our feet. His unceasing occupation as our Saviour, Intercessor, is to sanctify and cleanse us with the washing of water by the word. And when failure and corruption were found in the assembly, He adopts, as we see in Revelation 1: 3, the aspect suited to correct and judge it. In all its failure and declension; after all His unequalled services to it; after conferring the greatest gift - the gift of the Holy Spirit; the assembly is still the centre of His thoughts and services.
Thus we see in the history of every servant, and most of all in that of the Lord Himself, that the true servant becomes charged with the state and condition of those who receive the word of the Lord from his lips; and that he cannot confine himself to the happy side of his work, which is that of being appointed and gifted of the Lord to bless souls; but that the more he walks with the Lord in the exercise of his gift, the more will his heart be exercised by the state of those who bear His name. I am not pressing that a servant should look for results in the [p. 50] form of conversions or pupils; this I believe he should leave to the Lord. It is not that the actual result of work should either cheer or depress; but the manner and the effect of the truth which he has received of the Lord, and has been the channel of communicating will, I believe, produce deep exercise of heart in him, in proportion to the truth and reality of his service. Paul could say, “As a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation ... let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon”.
It is incompatible with all divine service that a servant should be merely an orb of light, like the sun or stars, communicating much, but passive and unaffected by the condition of those to whom he has imparted light - with no feeling of care or charge, respecting those whom he has served. The attempt to be a servant like an orb of light merely, is really to appropriate all the joy and gratification of ministry, without enduring the afflictions of the gospel, or being weighted with the condition of the saints. It really limits the truth and light to its benefit to man, irrespective of what is due to God for so great a revelation. The return due to God is overlooked and disregarded; and a servant of this kind can never be deeply taught in the mind of the Lord; for he does not in any measure fulfil that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ; he knows nothing of the Lord’s feelings when He wept over Jerusalem, or of Jeremiah’s, when he exclaimed, “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!”. He has not on his forehead the mark of the men who “sigh and ... cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst” of Jerusalem; and he fails in his own soul to taste of the heart of our blessed Lord, who with inconceivable light and power, is ever increasingly interested in, and intent on serving those who believe in His name.