RESIGNATION TO THE WILL OF GOD
[p. 232] RESIGNATION TO THE WILL OF GOD
Jonah 1:11 - 17; John 21:18 - 19
I have in mind at this time to speak about resignation, and I have chosen Jonah and Peter, both in relation to God’s dealings with them to bring them to submission to God’s will. Jonah was a man like some of us, under commission, and he failed to carry it out. The work of God is based on the principle of submission to God’s will, not on the principle of each doing his own will, but doing the will of God. The apostle Paul made much of this principle. There are many in whom there is a work of God, serving professedly, but making little of this principle of surrender to God’s will, and hence much irregularity, to say the least, enters into their service. But God in His mercy takes up some of us in His service and disciplines us so that we may serve better if not entirely well, and so He took up Jonah. Jonah was destined to have great prominence in the service of God, indeed rising to be a remarkable type of the Lord Jesus, and it is within the range of every one who is serving to rise to this great privilege. Even the youngest here who is not specially commissioned may become, as he pursues the line of the will of God, if not a type of the Lord Jesus, at least a model patterned after Him, for the Lord sets Himself before us in this way, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me”, Matthew 11:29. Learn from Me, not simply of Me, but Learn from Me. That is learning from the Lord as a model so as to become like Him in some degree, however little, because He is the model of all that God has in mind.
When Moses came down from the mount, everything was to be made according to pattern. It is thus we have the tabernacle, and it is said to be made entirely according to divine commandment, absolutely so, and nothing [p. 233] else would do for God. However much we say, and however well we may serve, unless there is adherence to that pattern we cannot please God, and we are labouring hopelessly if we do not please God. Enoch set the example of pleasing God, and if we serve in any little way according to His will we are pleasing Him in doing so, and so we rise, it may be, to be like the Lord Jesus, even as Jonah is seen typically in the chapter before us. Jonah was commissioned as I said, but he had a will contrary to God’s will, and he had prejudices which interfered with the service committed to him. He had national prejudices and he allowed himself to be governed by his own will. He had national prejudices and religious prejudices, and these prejudices may be with all of us. However learned or gifted we are, we may become affected by prejudice, and our service may be marred and so we may have a hard way to travel. Poor Jonah had to take a hard way, the way of his own will.
I am not seeking to preach the gospel as is often the case in taking up Jonah, but I am leading up to the idea of resignation, entire resignation to the will of God. I have spoken of the hard road and any one affected by prejudices either national or otherwise is sure to come in for a hard way. Servants of God have often been affected by them in this sense, but they come in for a hard way. You will recall what is said about another great servant, namely Elijah. He set out on a journey too, of his own will. He set out in fear, he was afraid of Jezebel. In one sense it was quite right to be afraid of her influence, but it was not right to quail before her in the maintenance of truth. God said to him, as he set out, “the journey is too great for thee”, 1 Kings 19:7. We all remember how God in His mercy came in for His servant. Elijah came into the wilderness of Beersheba in fear. The very term “the well of the oath” reminds us how God has engaged Himself to look after us and take care of us, but Elijah laid down in the wilderness of Beersheba in fear. He [p. 234] went in disregard of the will of God and in fear of Jezebel. He is about to say, God should slay him, but you will remember the angel came, and made cakes for him on hot stones. Such is God’s way to keep His servant in the path of His will, and the angel did it even twice. Now Elijah took his journey, a long journey, which God felt as well as he, but he took it; he went to Horeb, and he went there to resign his commission. In a certain sense it is better to resign than to carry on in the exercise of one’s own will, instead of the mere nominal execution of the will of God. Scripture speaks of the denial of the truth. It is better to give up and resign than to carry on thus. We know how christendom carries on in this way, doing their own will in all these religious “isms” in which the will of God and the Scriptures are contravened and disregarded. We should be thankful if such gave up, if every cleric gave up the false position so contrary to the will of God. Pardon me for alluding to what may bring forth some resentment, but I am speaking of it being better to resign a commission than to carry on, if it is not according to the will of God and the holy principles of Scripture. This is what Elijah did, but God did not give him up; he was too great and too valuable a servant to give up. God would restore him. That is God’s way, the restoration of His servants so that we may really serve, really do His will. There can be nothing greater than doing the will of God. “He that does the will of God abides for eternity”, 1 John 2:17.
Now, as I said, Elijah was restored, and God made him to be a commissioner and an appointer for service. God honoured him and He took him to heaven. Think of that! Think of what our God is to His servants. What a God to serve, to serve well, so as to please Him. But Jonah had a hard way as I said, going down to Joppa. You know what that is today. What wills are at work there! What there is in Palestine at the present moment! The news is full of Palestine, and God is saying that it [p. 235] will be so. We have to wait and cherish that which we are going on with, namely Christ in heaven and the Spirit here, and the assembly here. That is what we are called to go on with. It is for us to clothe ourselves with humility, not to make any show, but go on in a lowly way.
‘Lord! let us wait for Thee alone:
Our life be only this —
To serve Thee here on earth unknown;
Then share Thy heav’nly bliss’. (411:1)That is the idea, that is the delight of the saints now, every one of us. We are bound to say what a wonderful thing it is to have part in such a service. Well, Jonah did not. He chose a hard way. This has often been before us in preaching. There are many here who have been preaching on Jonah and rightly, but I am speaking now of the hard way of the disobedient servant, a disobedient person who had been commissioned by God to carry out what He had committed to him. You must not forget that. If we serve, we are to do so as commissioned, heaven as it were committing itself to the service.
In Jonah 1:2, the word is “Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me”. That was Jonah’s commission, but he turned right round like a deceitful bow. Think of what heaven thought of that movement of a man committed to the service of God! Nineveh was a great city and Jonah turned right away and chose another path. He sought to get away from the divine presence, and the road was hard. There were no free passages in those days, there were no lifts given to the weary passengers, Jonah had none. We can thank God now for any liberality and kindnesses shown to us, but Jonah paid his fare whatever it was! It was a question now as to heaven and the mariners. The shipmaster was not hard. He was a kindly man who had the [p. 236] government and the management of the ship. Jonah is on it. Thank God for any kindness we have experienced. The men in the ship utter kindly words and where you get kindly men in government you can thank God. They utter their kindly convictions which were right; leading men of the world in recent times have often uttered kind words, convictions which are right and which have liberated the saints of God, and we ought to thank God for them. The kindness of these mariners of the Mediterranean calls for thanks. Jonah was a run-away from God and the question came up, “For whose cause this evil is upon us”? Jonah 1:7. I need not read all, but there is one thing to be said about him and that is recorded in Jonah 1:9, “And he said unto them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear Jehovah, the God of the heavens, who hath made the sea and the dry land”. That was a good speech, a certain confession, for the word Hebrew denoted reproach, the reproach of Christ, as in Egypt, as shown in the early chapters of Exodus. He was making a good confession, showing how we may be in the path of self-will and yet make a good confession, but that does not make up for self-will. God is not forgetting that. So there may be fine speeches, or a fine gospel address, as indeed the great servant understood in saying, “lest after having preached to others I should be myself rejected”, 1 Corinthians 9:27.
A servant may preach well, as to terms at least, and yet become a castaway, a solemn thing! So we can make good speeches and fail as to the will of God. God knows how to appraise this. Heaven is thinking of its own rights, and its commissions, and the persons who are called into the service. And so Jonah went on. You will notice in Jonah 1:9 that he speaks of “the God of the heavens” and His creative power. There is many a place where the children are taught bad doctrine about the creation, and about Jonah too. Lies are being taught at the schools. Jonah is telling the truth, at least as to [p. 237] God and His creative rights and power. It says in Jonah 1:10, “Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, What is this thou hast done? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of Jehovah: for he had told them”. There may be someone here in this case. Jonah had told the men. The brethren know, they know what has happened, what God has said. They know what has happened in your case. Maybe God has said something in the ministry meeting which was intended to be a rebuke to you, so that you may be saved from your self-will. God’s thought is that we may be controlled in the path of God’s will and be resigned to it, that there may be unqualified resignation to it. Jonah had not resigned himself, for he had selected a way for himself to get to Tarshish. At that time God’s mind was towards the east, but Jonah went to the west. The testimony of Israel and the commission of God’s servant was towards the east, the great city of Nineveh, a very great city. God had sent Jonah expressly to it. There is not time to say much of that, only just to touch on this matter of resignation. Before we thoroughly surrender and return we have recourse to devious ways and means and deception of all kinds. In Jonah 1:11, it says, “And they said unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea grew more and more tempestuous”. God has power in the sea.
It is often said that the nation that rules the seas, the seven seas as they are called, is the winning nation. That may be so, but at any rate, the Lord Jesus, the ultimate Victor, will yet put His right foot on the sea and His left foot on the earth, Revelation 10:2, as if He made much of the sea. When He takes hold of things presently He will make much of the sea. He is not making much of it now; as a matter of fact the Lord Jesus is considering about the assembly and the gospel, not the government of the world. It is a question of the gospel and the assembly; the Father has control of other things. He [p. 238] has kept them in His own power so that it is to our advantage to know what the Lord is actually engaged in now, what His work is. But still we do well to recognise the seas, and God’s government, and the way it can act against us. I hope to go across the sea shortly. I can do it with equanimity, although God may do things, and we do well to commit our way to Him. The Atlantic is very turbulent at this time of the year. I only speak of this to bring out the sea question and the government of God and what He may do with it. We have to bow to God’s will, and though we have a certain godly fear as to what may happen, we are cast upon God that nothing may happen on our voyage, we hope nothing may happen. But now as to Jonah, “they said unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us”? Jonah 1:11. It was God in His government, and He has power in the sea. He can use it, and it may get worse and worse, in any case it did in what I am depicting here, and things will get worse and worse in the path of self-will, and He inaugurates a course of discipline so that you may resign your will.
In this case the point is not that the men were dealing directly against Jonah, they were favourable to him, but God’s sea was raging against him. Who could stand before God? “If God be for us, who against us”? Romans 8:31. But what can we do if God is against us? We must submit to the will of God, and give up the will of the flesh once for all, and the sea will become calm. It yields fruit, maybe it yields the things you need, but in the meantime God is saying I have power against you, yet not against you, but against your will. God is for us at all times. He is for the believer. So Jonah came to it. He said to them, “Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you”. Jonah 1:12. He knew just exactly what would happen, showing he was doubly responsible. Many wayward, self-willed believers know what God teaches, and what the Scriptures teach,
[p. 239] therefore they are doubly responsible as pursuing their own will. Jonah knew, and he said, “Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you”. Jonah 1:12. Notice that! God was dealing with Jonah. Jonah was thinking of them, not of himself. He is coming to the point; he is already becoming a type of the Lord Jesus. “Cast me forth into the sea”. Jonah 1:12. He is now becoming a figure of the Lord Jesus for the first time. He has been doing his own will up to now, but God is successful in reaching him, as He is with all of us. He tells the mariners what to do, for he says, “for I know that because of me this great tempest is upon you”. Jonah 1:12. How sorrowful that a christian should bring a tempest on the poor world lying in the wicked one; it has enough indeed, to bear. Yet the christian in his waywardness can bring a tempest. The awful thing which has happened commenced through the disregard of the will of God. The will is in all these matters. Nothing has happened by chance at all; it is all according to divine will, and if we have come through mercifully, then it is God’s mercy. We can take no credit for it at all. We may have pursued our own wills, our own way. Terrible things have happened, but they have passed, but other things may happen. We must seek the will of God and give up all national prejudices. It is time for getting ready to go up, and for disallowing all that is of man and man’s ways.
Now I want to make the matter clear and bring out the part the worldly man has in this; though these men were not wicked men, but they are worldly men, yet somewhat affected by the mercy of God. God is helping men to say what is right, it is given to them of God. It is for us to hide ourselves and to bring God into everything. The things scientific men are talking about are God’s things, and they can be used of God or He may hinder them being used, but it is a question of the saints and our submission to the will of God. The scripture says here, “But the men rowed hard to regain the land; but they could not”, Jonah 1:13.
[p. 240] How could they? God was against them. Who can stand against the waves if God raises them up. When He wants to deal with somebody, or with a nation, who can stand against Him? It says here, “They could not”. Yet we have, “Ah, Jehovah, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man’s life”. Jonah 1:14. I believe there is something like this, not that I am venturing to prophesy, but I believe there is this movement of mercy on God’s part in the gospel so that some may be saved. Here they cried unto the Lord and said, “Ah, Jehovah, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou Jehovah hast done as it pleased thee”, Jonah 1:14. What can we say to that? If the men are saying that, whatever they are doing that is right, we can say “Amen” to. Thank God for such a speech as this. It came from God; there was some movement in these men’s hearts. Surely all that was done here in this great gospel book is so that we may see how the mercy of God acts towards the 120,000 persons and the much cattle of Nineveh. There are some men who say Jonah was a myth, but the christian knows differently. Let me show you how he knows.
The answer to infidelity today is the sign of Jonah, but it is for us to see what came forth in the mercy of God from the mariners of the ship, and so it says, “And they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea”. Jonah 1:15. It was at his own behest, his own suggestion. Here he is a type of the Lord Jesus, who died for us. I am not going to pursue that; I only point it out by the way. Then we read: “and the sea ceased from it’s raging. And the men feared Jehovah exceedingly”. Jonah 1:15,16. You may say, What became of them? Well, heaven had been watching what was happening, we may be sure, and would take notice of this. How the Lord regards every movement towards Himself, whatever the motive; and God regards it! And so the men “[p. 241] feared Jehovah exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto Jehovah, and made vows”. Jonah 1:16. That is all I am going to say, though I may add, that the next verse is to bring out what some christian, some person here may be doing in pursuing his own will, and so may any of us in some measure, but what I am speaking of now is what is available to you as giving up your own will and returning to the brethren, returning to the assembly, for the assembly is the great vessel and in it the service of God is carried on as in Jonah. The fish was the prepared vessel, divinely prepared, and it was to contain a great worshipper. How did Jonah become a great worshipper? Because he resigned his own will for the will of God, and so he became a worshipper. Just as in Corinth, in the assembly there, a man comes in while prophecy is going on and he is convicted of all, the whole place is affected by this man. He is convicted of all, judged of all, and he falls down and worships and reports that God is amongst you of a truth. Jonah became all these things in that vessel; how extraordinary! The service of God began in the fish’s belly and it entered into the ears of God in His holy temple, Jonah 2:7. It shows what may come to pass if we give up our own will. “Cast me forth into the sea”. There is nothing else for that will, the man must go, the will of God must prevail. And so, as the will of God prevailed, His service was carried on in the fish. The fish was the vessel, and so the assembly is the vessel in which the service of God is carried on.
I want to say a word about Peter, and while Peter is a commissioned man too, or was, he also was a Jonah in the sense in which I have been speaking. He is the leading brother in John 21. He is the leading brother, in Matthew 10; it says “first”, “Peter”. But here in John 21, John is led by him, and they are both wrong, showing that the leading brothers may not be always right. I may not always be right. I may make mistakes. Pardon me for speaking of myself as a leading brother.
[p. 242] I may not be always right and I have to see to it that I yield to the principle of resignation and come to the will of God before I get old. Here the word to Peter is “when thou shalt be old”. Peter was yet young. Most of you here are young. I urge you not to wait until you get old to resign to the will of God. Do it now. Die! That is the idea of christianity, to lay down our lives, for the brethren it may be, to lay down our lives for the will of God. But there is more than that here, the old man is to be the one who has learned in his youth. Heaven speaks of it in Ecclesiastes 12:1, “Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth”, and then we are told how quickly we get old and what happens, “the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be shattered at the fountain, or the wheel be broken at the cistern”, Ecclesiastes 12:6. The golden bowl and the silver cord refer to what is of God in all of us. The pitcher is broken at the fountain; death may come. Do not wait for that; that is the point. Begin when you are young. Come to the point of resignation, give up your self-will and your ambitions and aspirations in that which is great according to man, and be simply a follower of the Lord Jesus. “Follow thou me”. That is what the Lord said to Peter. “Verily, verily, I say to thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst where thou desiredst; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and bring thee where thou dost not desire”. John 21:18. That is what I mean by complete surrender. That is what baptism means. It means the giving up of one’s life. Peter did not do it, but the Lord is telling him he will do it when he is old. The Lord knew his man perfectly. He was doubtless watched by heaven. Peter surrendered. “Thou shalt stretch forth thy hands” that is, giving up. “And another shall gird thee”. He was not going to do any more girding for war, for conflict or for anything. Others were going to do it. The idea is [p. 243] giving up, submitting to the will of God and facing actual death. “When thou shalt be old”. Many of us are old. Some of us are young, and the point is to yield, to resign, even going so far as to say “having the desire for departure, and being with Christ, for it is very much better”, Philippians 1:23. We often say that, but the Lord does not say that here. The Lord is not holding out any rosy path. “Another shall gird thee”. He is speaking of execution. Men would put him to death, for doubtless Peter was martyred. It is a great day when each of us faces martyrdom. I am not saying that to frighten you. What difficult times we are in now and they will continue, and we are to be resigned to the will of God. The Lord says, “Fear not those who kill the body, and after this have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, who after he has killed has authority to cast into hell; yea, I say to you, Fear him”, Luke 12:4,5. That is the idea, accepting martyrdom, doing the will of God. Peter had the martyr’s crown. The Lord assigned that to him. Stephen had it; Paul had it, and other crowns too; he says, “Henceforth the crown of righteousness is laid up for me, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will render to me in that day; but not only to me, but also to all who love his appearing”, 2 Timothy 4:8. Then there is the crown of life; there are several crowns and they are all available to us, but there must be resignation to the will of God and this is a safe, right and honoured path for every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.