THE SERVANT FOR A CRISIS
THE SERVANT FOR A CRISIS
The good of power is to make me equal to the occasion, but then it is of great moment whether I regard the occasion as man does, or as God does. It is possible to meet a crisis in a way commendable, in the judgment of men, which would not be at all acceptable to God. When Moses killed the Egyptian, he was equal to the occasion according to man’s judgment; but as it was not according to the mind of God, he had eventually to succumb and fly. In order to be equal to the crisis according to the mind of God, I must enter it from God’s side and not from man’s. The mere fact of being able to make a stand, as the children of Benjamin withstood the power of Israel for a time, is really no evidence that you are in the power and counsel of God. We are set in an evil world where man has departed from God, having used the power with which God had entrusted him, to crucify the Lord Jesus Christ. Unless we understand the nature of our circumstances here, we cannot in any measure comprehend how we are to meet them for God, nor can we be prepared to do so. We are here to live Christ, in the place, and among the people where He has been rejected; and the difficulty is ten-fold increased by there being, instead of avowed hostility to Him, a universal profession of His name. No one can properly or truly act for Him in any [p. 23] circumstances, unless he knows the relation in which those circumstances stand to Him. The saint is set here for Christ, and as everything, whatever its name may be, is really in opposition to Him, he never can discover his true course, by (as a great general would) obtaining information from anything transpiring around, as to how he is to be master of his position - I must therefore in order to be a man for the crisis come into the circumstances, not only with the power of God, but assuredly from God; that is, I must be so formed in God’s presence with that which suits God, and savours of Him, that when I take my stand in the scene here, I am not swayed by anything here, but I am set and empowered to insist on, and maintain that which is due to God; and thus only am I equal to the occasion for God.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God. The moment the eye rests on the circumstances here, then the tendency is to borrow from natural things, in order to overcome natural things. We must not answer a fool according to his folly; we must come from God. It is the very opposite to human generalship; we are to know nothing of what is here, but what is of God, and whatever is due to God, on that we are to insist. Peter, although enlightened with the revelation of one of the greatest of truths, (Matthew 16: 16, 17), savoured of the things which be of man, and not the things which be of God, when he chided the Lord for speaking of His death. As a man, and among men, I know of nothing but human ways and means of doing anything; when I am enlightened by grace and my heart is turned Godward, I may have zeal like Peter when he cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant, but I am not a man for God in the crisis when I use carnal weapons to repress carnal evil. I have come from man’s side into it, and have looked at it as man and not as God sees it. No amount of human energy, however successful at first, will eventually maintain for God, for it will surely come to nought. It is really so simple, that it ought not to require [p. 24] exposition, that in a scene where everything is organized in opposition to God, the saint in order to walk in it for God, must come, not only with the heart for God, but he must be so distinctly imbued and coloured with the mind of the Lord, from association with Him, that he comes into this scene to insist on, and maintain, a novelty even - the ways and walk of the perfect Man in heaven, in contra-distinction and separation from the man here; - free from any bias or direction from what is here and with the simple purpose of acting in it according to God. Just as a ray of light enters a dark room, to establish itself irrespective of all that had previously occupied the room, so is it with the man who comes from God; he has a mission of such distinct importance, that morally he is to “salute no man by the way”, Luke 10: 4. The Lord was the light that shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. He was the Son of man which is in heaven. He came from God; that is the entire secret, in order to be for Him in any emergency. I have no power but as I abide in Christ, and I have no proper plan, and no skill for the exercise of the power imparted, but as I am moulded into His mind, from association with Him in His own things, His word instructing me; and as I am thus moulded, I come not only with the spirit of power but also that of love and of a sound mind to act here for Him.
Abraham was imbued and coloured with the counsel of God, respecting himself, through the teaching of Melchisedec before he encountered the king of Sodom, and therefore he was enabled quickly and positively to refuse all the offers of the king; he was a man for the crisis, while Lot, though a saint, returns with his goods, etc. to Sodom. The latter was doubtless thankful for the mercy vouchsafed to him, for truly there was more attention visibly paid to him in his need and suffering, than there was to Abram. This teaches us how to acquire wisdom and strength to rise superior to things here which would influence and pervert us. Moses in [p. 25] connection with the testimony of the Lord (Exodus 32), comes from the presence of the glory of the Lord to witness the apostasy of the whole congregation of Israel. He insists on what is due to God, and faces the whole army of Israel without fear or compromise. He exclaims, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” he is not afraid of them that kill the body, he thinks not of the imprudence of his course; he stands for God, and is as bold as a lion; he is a man for the crisis, and pitches the tabernacle of the testimony outside the camp.
Samuel came after the judges. After every kind of human expedient - a knife, a hammer, an ox-goad, a jawbone of an ass in the hand of the strongest of men which had proved only temporarily effectual - he by prayer effects the desired end. “The Philistines were subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel: and the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel”. God answered his prayers in a very remarkable manner. “The Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them; and they were smitten before Israel”.
I must add a word on Stephen and Paul. It is of all importance that I should know that my ability to be for the Lord in the crisis depends on my own state with the Lord at the time; so that it is what I am that determines what I shall do, and my own state is the first thing to be secured. Stephen, “being full of the Holy Spirit having fixed his eyes on heaven, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus”; he is prepared now to encounter the combination of the greatest evil here bearing down upon him; he makes no display of power, he assails no one, and there is nothing visibly marvellous, and yet never was there such a man for the crisis, or a man so superior to his circumstances: he is tranquil and unmoved, so superior to everything which most bitterly affects man, that he makes those who are battering him to death the objects of his consideration. Never in a mere man was seen before such a witness on this earth of power [p. 26] according to God, with love and a sound mind. Stephen properly closes up all hope for an earthly polity, during the absence of Christ, leaving his last moments here as a legacy to the assembly because then was opened out the new line, and how the Spirit of God would sustain the saints by association with Jesus in heaven.
Now with Paul another thing is taught, even that when left alone, deserted by those who evidently were not men for the crisis, he whose earnest expectation and hope was that “in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death”, even he can face the array of the great Roman power and succeed in proclaiming the truth of God because the Lord stood with him. Thus we see that the man who is simply for God in the most broken condition of things here, is supported by the Lord; and though he be forsaken by all, even by his own friends and supporters, yet by him will the preaching be fully known, and all the gentiles shall hear. Stephen in his last hours shows us the way to leave this scene; Paul, in his, shows us how to be in it.