ENERGY IN GOD’S SERVICE
1 John 3:13-17; 2 Timothy 1:3-8; Ecclesiastes 9:10; Nehemiah 1:1-6; 4:6,17; Mark 14:3-9
It will be apparent from the scriptures read that I wish to speak about activity or energy in the things of God, and about what every one of us can do for His pleasure. Paul could ask the Lord, “What shall I do, Lord?” (Acts 22:10); there is something for all of us to do if we are in accord with the will of our Master.
The first passage connects with what we have already been occupied with today. All believers are part of a company which consists of every one who has been washed in the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and know the presence of the Holy Spirit within them. It is a company that we cannot number, but the Lord Jesus knows those that are His, and I trust that every one here is among them. I trust that every one of us, as being accustomed to gathering with such persons, has experienced the joy of eternal life that is known there. It is a company in which there is activity for God’s pleasure. You and I, dear friends and dear brethren, if by faith we know Christ as our personal Saviour and we have the Holy Spirit within us, have a place in that vast company, and can experience the Lord Jesus speaking in His faithfulness to us.
We have spoken earlier of the great truth set out at the very end of Hebrews about those who are of the same order as that blessed Man who stands at God’s right hand, crowned with glory and honour. We do not deserve that, dear friends, but the Lord Jesus has brought us into this sphere of blessing. Now He does not want us to be silent, He does not want us to be inactive, simply enjoying what He would give us, but He would like to find us in activity here for His pleasure.
I do not think there is a soul in this room who does not know what this passage speaks of when it says, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren”. I do not think there is a soul in this room who does not love their brethren. I believe that is the case. Every soul here who truly loves the brethren, and in whom that love is in evidence, knows that this life is in them. The Lord Jesus is looking for that life to be manifested in activity. The apostle goes on to say, “Hereby we have known love, because he has laid down his life for us”: wonderful truth! May we ever draw on the greatness of what the Lord Jesus has done in laying down His life for us.
How precious was that life! There has never been a life more precious in this world than that life of the Lord Jesus Himself. There has been no life like it and there never will be. A Man “holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners” (Heb.7:26), and that glorious life in which God delighted was laid down for you, if you believe, and laid down for me. I wonder whether any of us would have had the courage in that way to link these two statements, but John goes on to say, “and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives”. You may say that the laying down of the life of Jesus was so special – how could I be linked in any way with that? But the apostle links these thoughts; he says that if this is what Christ has done for you, then you and I should lay down our lives for the brethren. I do not know what I could say about that. It is a broad thing, and I would like to illustrate, if the Spirit helps, some of the ways in which we find in Scripture souls who have been found in principle laying down their lives. It does not always mean that believers experience actual death, although some have done, and are doing so, and that is what the Lord Jesus has done, uniquely so. I would suggest that it means submitting our lives to Him and being found here in activity for His pleasure.
In the verse in 2 Timothy, Mr Darby’s note comments that the word ‘rekindle’ conveys, ‘To revive, rekindle, what is drooping … The whole subject of the epistle is energy in the darkening state of the assembly’ (note ‘e’). Beloved brethren, that energy is required now. We live in conditions similar to what Mr Darby referred to as the darkening state of the assembly. Does that mean the assembly is dark? No. Never could it be! The assembly shines in all her glory. Christ’s satisfaction is in her, and you and I may know something of what it is to be linked to that glorious Man, and to be part of that glorious vessel which answers to His heart. This whole epistle was written to remind Timothy of the need for energy in the days like those in which we find ourselves.
Then Solomon makes it very clear and very simple for us: “Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do with thy might”. There will come a time, if we are taken before the Lord comes for His saints, that we will be with Him in a state which the New Testament enlarges upon; “being with Christ, for it is very much better”, Phil.1:23. But that is not an active position. Souls who are asleep through Jesus, awaiting the rapture, are not active, although as Mr Coates helpfully pointed out, they are able to receive the communications of divine love1. How wonderful for those souls to be in that condition until the resurrection. But we are here at a stage in our histories with God in which activity is required, and Solomon in writing this says, “Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do with thy might”. The Scriptures are full of examples of persons who have found things to do in God’s service. You may say, I am too young or I am too old, I am very busy, but dear brethren, there is something for you and for me to do.
The Lord’s address to Laodicea in the Revelation links with this in a sense, although from a negative perspective; it gives us an insight into His thoughts. He speaks about being lukewarm. Being lukewarm might be the state of anyone who is not concerned to do very much, perhaps thinks that it is not for them to be active, or maybe they are not interested in being active. It is something of which the Lord speaks about in a terrible way; “Thus because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spue thee out of my mouth”, Rev.3:16. God would not have us to be lukewarm, He would not have us to be inactive. God would have us to be here faithfully for Himself, here in activity in testimony to the Lord Jesus.
If you turn to the beginning of Scripture, Noah was given nine verses of instruction on how to build the ark and then there is one verse in which it says, “And Noah did according to all that Jehovah had commanded him”, Gen.7:5. What would have happened if Noah had left that job to someone else? I do not wish to speak lightly. He was given something to do and it was not an easy thing to do. He would have to cut down trees and hew the wood and put it together. It does not tell us how long he took to do it, but there, in the very beginning of Scripture, was a man acting under God’s instructions who had to work, and I would suggest that you would have found Noah at work morning, noon and night. He knew that his life depended upon it, indeed the salvation of mankind depended upon it and he was active in the work that God had given him to do.
Later in the Scriptures, you find the old patriarchs who were in activity. You find Joseph who was taken by wicked hands and cast into prison for something he had not done. Maybe you have suffered injustice in the world. Did Joseph sit there in his prison cell saying, ‘It was not my fault that I am here; there is nothing that I can do’? What did he do? Joseph was found in activity there in that prison cell. He was there talking to and serving the other inmates in that prison; he spoke to them about his faith and his hope. He was able to give the cup-bearer and the baker clear direction as to what would happen to them. Eventually, he was taken out of that prison cell, but was he then in idleness? No, he was there, a busy man you may say, appointed to help Egypt come through those difficult years. He was a man of activity.
Then think of all that Moses did; it was said of Moses that he was “very meek, above all men that were upon the face of the earth”, Num.12:3. In effect, he said to God ‘I am not up to what you want me to do. Why me?’. So much was given Moses to do and God gave him the strength for it. He reasoned with God and God provided help. There is a hymn to the Holy Spirit which says:
‘More skilfully in service learn to move,
And for the power rely alone on Thee’ (Hymn 401).
These are not activities that we can carry out in our own strength. These are activities to be undertaken in the power of the Holy Spirit who would help us here in whatever service God would give us to do. The work of Moses was so full – he wrote the first five books of the Bible; he was in activity. All the things which he did as he led the people of Israel through the wilderness, as he wrote all those books under God’s hand – it was all under God’s instruction; He was a man of activity.
Then take Joshua. You first find reference to Joshua when the people were in the wilderness and there was a battle to be fought against a power which was against the children of Israel (Exod.17:8-13). Then Moses called him and he was able to leave that battle and he was able to secure those people from the enemy that was around him. Joshua was also a man who was found in the tent of meeting; when Moses left it, Joshua remained there (Exod.33:11). You may say, what sort of a warrior is he who has spent his life in the temple of Jehovah? A man very suited for the battles that were yet to be won. We find Joshua later on, when the children of Israel cross the Jordan and he is in great activity. We find him there, as a man whom God desired to strengthen, being exhorted by Him to be very courageous. God would give us that instruction too, I believe: “Only be strong and very courageous”, Josh.1:7. Stand firm, dear friends, in this waiting time. The Lord will not be long but He expects us to stand for Him, to await His coming in vigour and life. What does Caleb say? ‘Here I am, eighty-five years old, I am still as strong as I ever was, ready and suitable for war’ (Josh.14:10,11). That was not a natural man’s strength. Caleb, like Joshua, was in type a man maintained by the Spirit of God Himself, ready for the work that he had to do.
Another example is Ruth. We were speaking locally this week of the wonderful things we learn from faithful women in Scripture. We have been reading about Ruth; the first thing she said when she came into Bethlehem with her mother-in-law was, “Let me, I pray, go to the field and glean”, Ruth 2:2. It was Ruth’s initiative. You say, what can I do? I am not like Noah, I am not like Joshua. Ruth went and gleaned in the field. I wonder what you and I know about gleaning? It meant that someone who was in great need of food went into a field which was being harvested by the reapers; you may say that the main harvest was going on and all that was gathered in that way was for the farmer to benefit from. But little stalks of corn would be left behind on the ground there in the field and Ruth was gathering these together for herself. She wanted to collect those grains firstly that they should not be lost but secondly to sustain her and her mother-in-law. She went herself and gleaned.
What that speaks to us of in Scripture is being prepared to lay hold of little impressions you may find in the meeting, something you have heard that affects you, such as a touch of the beauty of Christ, or of the greatness of His work and of the influence of the Holy Spirit, and you take it to yourself. You glean; little by little you acquire something you did not have before, an impression of the Lord Jesus which has attracted your heart.
Dear brethren, I trust all of us are gleaners. I suppose we will be gleaners for the rest of our lives here, and the result is what makes up the treasure that is so precious to the Lord Jesus, a knowledge and understanding of Himself. It is acquired by gleaning, it is an activity that every single one of us can do. And it is not just in the meeting. It is in prayer and reading the scriptures at home and in conversation among brethren. You will find that there are things that you will learn which are worth keeping, worth treasuring, worth being exercised about. These are examples of the activity of gleaning. It was said about Ruth, “her sitting in the house has been little as yet”, Ruth 2:7. It was a characteristic of the woman, she came a stranger into that city and at the end of the book she was married to the wealthiest and greatest man of that city. What a reward for one who was found here in activity.
In Nehemiah, we have a man who had feelings, as was explained in the passage that I read. Someone described to him the condition of the children of Israel in Jerusalem– the city had been ransacked and destroyed. That which had been pleasurable to God had been ruined and the people taken captive. The word comes to Nehemiah, and what does he do? He goes to pray. There is not a soul here who cannot pray. But first of all, he had to feel the way things were as God felt them. I wonder whether you and I, dear brethren, feel the state of the testimony as it stands at the moment, just before the Lord Jesus comes. In an outward sense, it is not far from the picture of ruin which Nehemiah saw here. But there are those who are faithful to Christ in activity; it goes on, it will go on, and one thing that we have often noticed is that, however dark the day, the Lord Jesus will always preserve that which is faithful to Himself.
And so Nehemiah took it upon himself to do what was needed. How many other persons were there in the captivity at this point who knew that Jerusalem was in this condition, how many Israelites were there who knew the terrible state of things and what they had degenerated into. But Nehemiah takes up the point himself and he goes to pray to Jehovah. And what does he pray about? He prays about his own failure. He does not point fingers, he does not say that this is the reason it all went wrong or ask that help should come in from elsewhere. Rather, he takes it upon Himself in the activity of prayer, he speaks to God and God answers him. God encouraged Nehemiah to build the wall of Jerusalem and he and the remnant of the people took up their tools and restarted working together to rebuild those walls, to form a sphere of protection in which the presence of God would be known.
If you read the chapter, you will see there were some very unlikely men, if I may put it in this simple way, who got their hands dirty in building with the stones and the mortar to build up that wall. There were people who were perfumers, there were priests, there were goldsmiths; the leaders of the people worked together. It comes back to what we spoke of in the reading; it was a wonderful picture of unity, of people working together side by side to build up what had been knocked down, what had fallen down, and they all had a common object; God Himself. It says, “for the people had a mind to work”.
There was much to discourage them. There were enemies, Sanballat and Tobijah, who tried to put them off by ridiculing what they were doing. Did that affect them? No. Did it affect Nehemiah and his resolution? No. He was determined. I trust every one of us here is willing to hold fast to what we believe to be right, to stand for what is right and to suffer reproach as a result and to be like these men who had a mind to work, or as the footnote ‘i’ puts it, they had a heart to work. I trust, dear brethren, there is not one of us here who thinks that such work is not for them. There is always something that you can do.
Then think of Naaman and his wife’s little maid. We are not told how old she was but she was a young girl. You may say, what could she do? There is nobody here who has not heard about what that little maid of Naaman’s wife’s did. You would have heard or read about it since you were very young. She represents a young person at the present time who loves the Lord Jesus. I suppose that this maid could not have explained very much, but she knew one thing, that there was someone who could heal Naaman. She represented one who knew the Lord Jesus in a household that did not know Him. She said in simplicity, “Oh, would that my lord were before the prophet that is in Samaria!”, 2 Kings 5:3. She was a young soul, but in principle she preached the gospel in simple language and the result was that a great man who was a leper was healed. You may say, you cannot get much weaker than a little maid, for she was a slave, she was not in her own country, but she expressed what she knew, a simple word, and the result was salvation.
Let us not try to think necessarily where such things will lead, but let us take up the work that our hands find to do. Or you may be an older soul and you may say, I have been active during my life but now there is not so much that I find I can do. I wonder if we value enough the prayers of our older brethren, maybe in limited circumstances, maybe not able to be out at the meetings any more, but we know that they are often in prayer, carrying us before the Lord and seeking strength for the testimony here. Dear brethren, there is something for all of us to do. Let us do it with all our might, let us do it under the influence and power of the Holy Spirit Himself and let us be conscious that there are things in which we can work together, “the things of Jesus Christ”, Phil.2:21.
There is an interesting scripture in Proverbs 22, “Hast thou seen a man diligent in his work?” (v.29). That is what I am speaking of, that we should be diligent in our work, then it says, “He shall stand before kings”. When we think of a king, we think of the Lord Jesus Himself. The proverb speaks to us as believers in the Lord Jesus being faithful to anyone who diligently takes up activity for His pleasure. The verse before that is also very important “Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set” (v.28.) That speaks, dear brethren, of the many truths that have been established and defended down through the history of the church from the apostles’ day to the present. There is that which has been stood for by men and women and young persons, to preserve and to work out, under the hand of the Holy Spirit of God, the truths of Scripture, and those landmarks are to stand. We are not to be working to try to introduce something new, something different. No, that would be wrong! I would encourage you to work within the landmarks that have been put down in the history of the truth, church history as it is sometimes spoken of, and that includes things in the past two hundred years or so down to the present. It is important to understand that these landmarks are of God and they are to be preserved. In Hosea, God speaks very disapprovingly about the princes of Judah becoming like persons who “remove the land-mark” (Hos.5:10), emphasising the importance in His sight of maintaining them. It is important that we stand by the landmarks that have been set.
I read lastly in Mark to provide another example of one who was active. This woman was not one of the disciples, she was not one of those who were prominent but she had gathered this very precious ointment and she used it for something more precious still; she anointed the head of the Lord Jesus. It was an activity that not everyone understood, but she did it in love for the Lord Jesus Himself. It was her love that caused her to do it. These words are often quoted and I suppose they lie at the heart of what I have been speaking about, “What she could she has done”. May that simple statement stay with us, dear brethren. Mr Taylor made a remark along these lines, that if we could do something for the Lord but we do not do it, we experience failure and the Lord takes account of it. Let us not be like that. The scope of the things that we have spoken of would leave us with much to do. We cannot all be engaged in everything but when we take account of such things as the testimony, and prayer for one another and for people around us, we can all be found here in activity. This woman had a wonderful privilege which she took up and the Lord Jesus said, “What she could she has done”. And He also said, “what this woman has done shall be also spoken of for a memorial of her”.
I feel I have spoken feebly but may we be encouraged together in what our brother has spoken of as a darkening day in the history of the assembly. Let us be found in energy, let us be found in activity in whatever our hands find to do. The Lord will help you and you may find you do one thing and then you find there is something else and I would suggest, dear brethren, that it grows with more activity for the divine pleasure. And we will find that the more we are exercised about this, the more we will find to do. Let us do it under the direction of our blessed Lord, and in the power of the Holy Spirit of God who helps us here, for His name’s sake.
Maidstone
6 February 2022
Alan C Croot