TRAVAIL AND ITS FRUIT

E. C. Muggleton

Galatians 4: 18, 19; 1 Chronicles 4: 9, 10; Isaiah 66: 8, 9

We had a word on Lord’s day about travail, quoting from chapter 53 of this prophet Isaiah, that the Lord would see of the fruit of the travail of His soul, and would be satisfied. As far as I can see from Scripture fruit is brought about as a result of travail. We must all have an ideal.

God’s ideal, of course, is Christ, the Man of the gospels; that is the divine ideal. We study the four gospels and we get an impression of God’s ideal in that glorious Man. Everything is perfect in Jesus. I think that God would have us always to think about that, to feed upon Christ as His ideal, a Man approved of God. There is no other man that has been approved of God. Every other man has been rejected, and terminated by God in the death of Christ. God has one Man before Him, the second Man out of heaven. Adam was never God’s ideal, though it is said that he was a figure of Him who was to come. But he was not God’s ideal. God’s ideal has never failed; there was never any thought of failure, or imperfection, with Jesus. He was perfect and holy.

So I am exercised, dear brethren, and I think all of us are, that we have occasions when there is not the liberty that we would like to have; there is a certain heaviness, and the Spirit of God is not so free with us. We have had occasions like that and I think it calls for some exercise with us. In Galatians Paul is the mother. It is not exactly that he is the father; he was that, as we know, but he was a mother, and what is needed at the present time is the maternal side. It is to be seen in formation in the saints, and that is something that requires exercise, toil, and pain too. I wonder sometimes how much we are prepared to go through this process of pain. You see, when a child is born a mother goes through a time of travail, but she goes through more travail after the child is born than she did at first.

I think we can see that working out with the apostle in Galatians. He speaks of them as “my children” and he says, “of whom I again travail in birth until Christ shall have been formed in you”. The answer to much that has come in amongst us as to worldliness is the Man who is before God. I think that ideal is to be seen formed in the saints. It is not only objective; it is to be formed. Christ is to be formed in the saints. So Paul had to travail. He says, “again”, and he speaks of them as “my children”. They were his children, but he is travailing again so that Christ might be formed in them. What pain Paul must have had in regard to those in Galatia. He went through a period of pain and travail in order that Christ might be formed in them.

That is what God is looking for, and I think He is raising the exercise with us at the present time. You will remember Hezekiah had to say, “the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth”, 2 Kings 19: 3. It is not only that we need to travail, to take up the exercise, but we need power, beloved brethren, to bring forth. So I think we can see in Hezekiah that he must have gone through a good deal of exercise as he speaks about prayer for the remnant. We are in such times, and we need to see, I think, that in all our localities the feature of the mother is really with us.

The mother has so much to do with the bringing up of the child, and she has an ideal too. Paul had an ideal. His ideal among the Galatians was that Christ should be formed in them. I do not think that is brought about without real exercise and pain, and Paul went through that. He was a true mother in that sense, the true maternal feature was there. As we think of Jerusalem above, she is our mother; how beautiful that is! The mother “which is now” is what is represented in Christendom today. She is in bondage with her children. But God’s great thought of Jerusalem is that she is in liberty. She is the assembly, a heavenly vessel. So that is our mother today, the Jerusalem above. Well, are the true characteristics of the Jerusalem above found with us? What exercises this raises with us. We speak sometimes about worldliness, and our behaviour, that kind of thing which we have to face, but I think what is required is the travailing and the power to bring forth so that there is something substantial in the saints, an answer to God’s ideal, that is, Christ really formed in the saints.

So I read about Jabez. His mother bore him with pain. Are we going through pain, dear brethren? It is not only that the children are there, but are they being brought forth? Is Christ really being formed? I think that is what God is looking for. The Lord saw the fruit of the travail of His soul. He saw it in the seed, those who were characteristically of His order. And so the mother of Jabez went through this pain. She bore Jabez with pain. That is a remarkable thing, showing that the maternal side is necessary if there is to be the bringing forth. She called his name Jabez “saying, Because I bore him with pain”. Paul went through that pain with the Galatians, and there was something brought forth. When he referred to “the Israel of God” he spoke of the rule of new creation (Galatians 6: 15, 16). He gets the saints through to what is in the mind of God so that they correspond to what is in His mind, that is, “the Jerusalem above … which is our mother”. That is our mother today; Christendom is not the mother; the “Jerusalem which is now” represents Christendom, and she is in bondage with her children. That was what was characterizing the Galatians. But Paul went into labour, he took up the pain, he took up the travail, in order that the saints might be set free, according to God’s thoughts of the Jerusalem above.

So sonship is related to it, and I think we can see how the Galatians were liberated as true sons of God, the Spirit crying in the sons, “Abba, Father”. That liberty, what freedom! That is all related to the Jerusalem above. So Jabez comes before us as the fruit of pain as his mother bore him, and the maternal feature is to be seen amongst us. I believe, dear brethren, that the Lord is calling attention to it in regard to this point—“until Christ shall have been formed in you”. Jabez is a remarkable man and he called, it says, “on the God of Israel saying, Oh that thou wouldest richly bless me”. Is that our language? God loves to bless us richly. He has

“blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”, Ephesians 1: 3. We can call upon Him. Jabez “called on the God of Israel”, not the God of Jacob, but the God of Israel. I think he had the light of God’s purpose, His thought in regard to His people. Then he says, “Oh, that thou wouldest richly bless me, and enlarge my border”. We need enlargement, too, and Jabez represents that feature, not only that he would be richly blessed—and God loves richly to bless us—but I think the bringing forth must be the fruit of travail and prayer.

And I think the power is the power of God to bring it forth. So it says in Isaiah 66, “as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her sons”. There was fruit, you see; there was the bringing forth of something that was for God’s pleasure; not only the objective, but Christ being formed in the saints. The features of that blessed Man are to be seen in the saints. I think it would be a preservative to us from the world and the present course of things. What is coming in amongst us? May we be exercised that the maternal feature is with us, so that there is a bringing forth of what is suitable, and what is pleasing to God, in all our localities. I think we should take up the exercise and see that there must be pain with us, we must go through the process of feeling these things that there might be some real fruit for God. So it says, “as soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her sons”. God is looking for sons, that is, the fruit, and that was the result of Paul’s travail with the Galatians; they were brought into the liberty of sonship. That is new creation; we touch a realm, an order of things, where there is no trace of anything worldly or evil. Jabez says, “that thy hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil”. Well, if we go on with worldliness—and it has come in amongst us, dear brethren—it is evil; it is evil in the sight of God, and we need to be delivered from it. I think we need to go through the exercises of the mother, the maternal side that is needed that there might be the bringing forth of what is for God’s pleasure. I feel it is the fruit of travail, and I feel humbled in speaking about it. How much pain can we go through when we feel that things are not as God would have them amongst us?

Jabez says, “and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!” That is a good prayer. There are at times things that grieve us; if they grieve us, they grieve God. God was grieved in His heart in the beginning of Genesis and repented that He had made man on the earth. Think of God being grieved. So we need to be grieved too, with grief according to God. It says as to Jabez, “And God brought about what he had requested”. Well, what a prayer! and what a man he was. He saw the secret of the power for bringing forth. There is not only the maternal side, but Jabez was the fruit of his mother’s pain. Then he takes up the exercise, and you find that he is a man God can use, and God brought about what he had requested. I think we can see in Galatians that God brought about what Paul had requested.

He went through the pain, he went through the travail, that Christ might be formed in the saints.

I just had this impression. I think the Lord will help us to face up to it, that there has not been the maternal exercise, and the pain, with us so that there might be that which is pleasing to the blessed God. May it be worked out in us.

Word in meeting for ministry, Colchester
1 July 1986