FORMATION FOR TESTIMONY AND SERVICE
E. M. Walkinshaw
Philippians 1: 19–21; 2: 5–8; 3: 13–16; 4: 19, 20
It would never be Paul’s desire to occupy us with himself. It would never be the desire of any true servant to occupy the saints with anyone else but Christ. In fact the Lord Jesus is said to have left us a model that we should walk in His steps, “Who, when reviled, reviled not again; when suffering, threatened not; but gave himself over into the hands of him who judges righteously”, 1 Peter 2: 33. We may be brought into that position in the testimony, because it seems to me that those in it must expect in some way to suffer, because the path of Christ was one of suffering. The path of discipleship is that, although of course, through God’s infinite grace, we prove mercy in it.
Having said that, I think the Spirit of God loves to call attention to Christ as presented in others, because He has been formed in us. It is a wonderful thing to think of God being known in the heart of man. I wonder if we have pondered that. You may say that that is an expression of Mr. Raven’s, said many years ago, which is perfectly true; but the more we ponder it the more we shall see, I think, the wonder of it, that God, the unchangeable God, the Creator of the universe, has, in the expression of His disposition towards man shown that He desires to be known in the heart of man. How much room do you leave in your heart? How much room do you give Him in your heart in order that He might be known there? Sometimes we quote that verse—
Room for pleasure, room for business,
But for Christ, the crucified—
Not a place that He can enter,
In the heart for which He died!
What room do you give Him? I might ask myself the same question, because it applies to me. How much room do I give to Christ? Now God desires to be known in my heart and your heart, and He desires that we should be formed in His nature. How wonderful that is!—formed in love as partakers of the divine nature and that, as we are formed in His nature, we can have part in His testimony, and in His service.
I suppose that is the reason we have been left here. Paul speaks about being “pressed by both”, not knowing quite what to choose—“departure and being with Christ”, which for him would have been “very much better”, or whether, for the sake of the saints, to remain. So I might ask myself why I have been left here. You might ask yourself the question, Why was I not taken to heaven immediately I was converted? The thief on the cross was; almost immediately he was converted he was taken to be with Christ in paradise. That is not the case with you and me. Then why has He left us here? It is a sobering question and a very precious question to ask ourselves. I think He has left us here at any rate for two things—maybe others too. One is that we should have part in His testimony, that is, in the representation of Himself here, and the other is that we should have part in His service. What wonderful privilege that is, but for that, you see, we must be formed in His nature. It is not a theoretical thing, we are not just forced into it, but it is as we are formed in love, and in some degree, speaking carefully and reverently, like God, that we have part in representing Him here. Do you know that He has given, us His Spirit having in mind that we might rightly represent Him here, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, that we might have part in His wonderful service of praise in the assembly?
Paul as an individual had come to this, and, as we know, he was a quick learner—unlike most of us. How slow we are to learn, but how gracious and patient God is with us, as we sang in our hymn (No. 228), as we tread the heavenly road how patient He is with us. Think of what Paul had arrived at when he wrote to these persons, as we often say, as a christian, not as an apostle. Not that he had ceased to be that, and no doubt the Philippians would recognise him as that. He wrote as a christian, one in whom Christ was displayed, and I am sure that that would have had a great influence upon them. You see, his apostleship was asserted in Corinth, it was needed there, but here what is displayed more is Christ in himself. So he says, “For me to live is Christ”. I do not think that I could say that, but we know that Mr. Darby said, ‘Christ my life, Christ my strength, Christ my Object’. I do not think that he said it of himself exactly (although no doubt it was true), but he said it of a christian. The Lord would encourage us to know that the Spirit of God is dwelling amongst us so, that Christ should be our life, our strength, our Object.
So Paul says here, as having reached it, “For me to live is Christ, and to die gain”. That was his objective, and I believe that Christ found expression in him, having loved Christ for what He had done for him, and for what he saw in Him, and he himself lived for Christ. He adds, “to die gain”. You may say the former sounds very wonderful, but what about the latter? I wonder if every one of us here can say to die is gain! Another thing Mr. Raven said was that if a man died in the world to come, he would die out of his blessings, but a christian dies into them, and if he does not die he does not get into them! That is a profound remark, simple but profound; that if the christian is not prepared to die then he does not come into his blessings.
In other words, all our blessings are really centred in a risen Man, a Man who has died, and who has been raised again, and who is sitting at the right hand of God. It gripped the soul of the christian Paul—“our beloved brother Paul”—it gripped his soul, and what shone in Jesus above shone in Paul here. Hence he says, “For me to live is Christ, and to die gain”. I do not think he had any moorings to earth, any business projects that were so urgent that he must postpone things for a little; “To die gain”. Nevertheless, he was prepared to submit to the Lord’s will. To depart and be with Christ is very much better but not the complete thing.
What we need to keep before us is the full blessing, that is that our bodies will be transformed and brought into conformity to Christ’s own body of glory. Nevertheless, Paul was prepared to be obedient to the will of the Lord. With us if there is any thought of us dying we do our best to put it off. It is not natural to want to die, but I think that the Lord brings us to it that we must in some way face death in a moral sense in order to understand that our firm and abiding link is with a Man who has been raised from among the dead.
So Paul, I believe, was held by Christ and because he was held by Christ as his Object. Christ in character found expression in him. We might go into great lengths to explain what the testimony is—but the testimony is Christ. Christ was the testimony, and everything was embodied in Him, that blessed Man, and I suppose we could rightly say that the expression of Christ in the saints is the testimony now.
Have you a part in this? I would like myself (although I know little about it) to be in the secret of the present testimony that God is setting forth, and in the power of it; not simply to be in the light of it, but to be in the power of it, and to understand what God is doing. And I know this, that whatever He is doing, it will be a simple, present witness to Christ and to what He is presently going to display. The saints will not be left on earth one day longer than is necessary. The Lord says to a certain assembly, “Ye shall have tribulation ten days”, Revelation 2: 10. One wise man said, ‘All Satan’s power could not make it eleven!’—or nine, for that matter; it is precise; and in the ways of God we are left here for education and, as I have already said, on the one hand to be in His testimony, whether at school, or work, or home—representatively in testimony; and, on the other hand, to have part in responding to Him in His praise in the assembly.
Now Paul said this not as being in a company of persons, but as an individual he was set for it. I would like to encourage every one of us to go in for the knowledge of God and I would really like to encourage the younger men and women to go to the Lord for yourselves. Do not depend on someone else; learn what it is to pray. It is a wonderful thing to pray, a wonderful privilege. You may have to wait a long time for the answers, but I am sure that God will answer prayer. I would like to encourage you to go to the Lord and, as with Him, go over what He says to you, perhaps an impression you may get in a meeting like this, or from a passage of Scripture.
It may be some impression from a conversation within the temple—go over it with the Lord. That is one simple way of growing in the knowledge of God. You get to know Him by keeping company with Him. If you desire to get to know someone, you keep company with the person. Enoch as an individual walked with God and was formed as he walked with Him. I believe Paul kept company with the Lord Jesus. I wonder if there was anyone who was so near to Jesus as Paul.
We must be careful about comparisons because John and others kept company with Jesus, they spoke with Him. Mr. Darby says, ‘Speak to Him daily as with a familiar friend’. Tell Him your difficulties, your problems; ask Him to help you to keep lowly and humble in the presence of every difficulty in life, and as you speak to Him thus you will find that He speaks to you, and in all this you will find yourself growing in the knowledge of Himself. Also you are learning to confide in Him and not in yourself or in anyone else, and in learning you will find that it teaches you to stand on your own feet to stand before God. It also teaches you to link on with others. It is very plain that if I am with God, dependent upon Him, and growing in His knowledge, and you are too, that we shall be together. How could it possibly be that two or more persons growing in the knowledge of God, confiding in Him, and receiving from Him could be at variance with one another? If they are, something is wrong somewhere—someone is not subject to the Lord and to His will, maybe more than one. Two wrongs do not make a right! You cannot say that because Mr. So-and-so is wrong, then I am right! Maybe I am wrong too. Mr. Taylor had to point out several times that two wrongs do not make one right! One locality is wrong, so another locality supposes that it must be right! Both may be wrong. Each may have a lesson to learn and therefore we all need to keep lowly.
I think of the Lord Jesus of whom it is said, “Who, subsisting in the form of God, did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God”. But “having been found in figure as a man, humbled himself”. He did not humble Himself because He was wrong. So Paul says, “Let this mind be in you”. The footnote says that it could be rendered ‘be found amongst you’, and if in your locality it is only found in you, then it is found amongst the brethren, the mind that was in Christ Jesus. He solved all the problems, and He solved them by going down, even to the death of the cross; ignominy, shame, reproach—all uncalled for.
“When reviled, (He) reviled not again; when suffering, threatened not”, “even unto death, and that the death of the cross”. You have never been treated so ignominiously as that. Has anyone ever spat on you? Has anyone ever buffeted you? He accepted it in meekness and went down even to the death of the cross. You know, that affected Paul—I think that was what held him, the going down of Jesus; there was no going down like that, Jesus says in His own ministry when He was here, “Every one that exalts himself shall be abased, and he that abases himself shall be exalted”, Luke 14: 11. How wonderful, dear brethren, to feed on the lowliness and the going down of Jesus. I think that helped Paul so that the character of Christ came out in him. “I … entreat you”, he says, “by the meekness and gentleness of the Christ” (2 Corinthians 10: 1), and “I was with you … with all lowliness” (Acts 20: 19)—the humility of the man was, I believe, produced by his feeding on the Man of Philippians 2.
In Philippians 3, Christ is in heaven. Paul says, “I do not count to have got possession”. Well, I am quite certain that if Paul had not yet possession, then certainly I have not—far from it! “One thing”, he says, “forgetting the things behind, and stretching out to the things before, I pursue, looking towards the goal”. In a race you never look over your shoulder to see where the other man is. Always look at the goal. Paul says, “Looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”. That is what gripped him, and how wonderful it is to be held by a Man in the glory! I think of Him on the cross in chapter 2, but He is not there now. He is in the glory and the prize of the calling of God is on high in Christ Jesus. So Paul goes on to say, “As many therefore as are perfect, let us be thus minded”. I wonder if you are thus minded to pursue, and is it your mind to forget the things that are behind? How often we feed on them, do we not? Many things have happened in the past few years which tend to engage us, but Paul says, “Forgetting the things behind, and stretching out to the things before, I pursue”. How much, dear brethren, we could afford to forget. There is something before us “the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”. I think it is sonship there in a Man; it is the setting forth of God’s purpose for man in a glorified Man.
How far does a glorified Man hold my soul? The wonder of it is that you and I are going to be exactly like Jesus—we are going to be conformed to the image of the glorified Man—not the humbled Man, but the glorified Man. Paul is “stretching out to the things before”. He is not yet in a body of glory. Paul, with us, will be just like Christ, “Conformed to the image of his Son, so that he should, be the firstborn among many brethren”, Romans 8: 30.
I address myself to the younger men and women—Are you thus minded to have your mind on Christ above, and to pursue; are you committed to Him and to His will? Or is your own purpose and your own will before you? When we are young we are apt to have our own mind and our own purpose before us. And what about the older ones? The same applies to them.
You will allow me to quote Mr. Raven. He said the older a man becomes the stronger his will becomes and the less power he has to control it. Therefore it is imperative that we should learn to judge our own will when we are young. Let us learn to keep God’s will and God’s purpose and God’s ways before us. I think we shall find that this leads to spiritual prosperity.
So there are others “thus minded”. You may say it is all very well for Paul—he was distinctive; but in this epistle he is Paul the christian, and he sets out what can be true in every christian. I could never be an apostle and, have Paul’s place, but as he was a christian, so I can be a christian, because I have the same Spirit as he had, and the same end is before me.
So he encourages us, “Let us”, he says—not a command, exactly, but an appeal—“Let us be thus minded”. He says if you are otherwise minded God will reveal it to you. If you keep company with the Lord and speak with Him as with a familiar friend He will reveal to you anything that is otherwise minded. I would like to say this—if you are set to grow in the knowledge of God, there is no power anywhere that will be able to frustrate you. The enemy will try to divert you, but if you are set to acquire the knowledge of God there is no power that will be able to stop you from doing so.
Now in chapter 4 we have again, if I might repeat it, Paul the christian, and he speaks of his God. “My God shall abundantly supply all your need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus”. I agree that immediately following he says, “Our God and Father”, but first of all he speaks of “my God”. I wonder if you have ever sat down and considered how many persons in the Scriptures say ‘my God’? How many persons in the New Testament say ‘my Lord’? You will find that there are not many. I believe that Paul and anyone else who said it, said it because they knew God personally and experimentally. This does not set you at variance with others who know God in the same way, or set you at variance with the brethren. I believe a personal knowledge of God helps to bind us together. So he says, “My God shall abundantly supply all your need”. We might say, ‘You speak with a lot of confidence Paul! Do not you think that is presumptuous?’. He would say, ‘I have learned God—I have learned Him as my God; I have known what it is to abound, I have known what it is to be hungry, I have known what it is to be scourged, I have been in extremely difficult circumstances, but in them I have learned to know God and I have learned Him as my God. I am confident that He will supply all your need because He has supplied all mine’.
Then he adds, “But to our God and Father be glory to the ages of ages, Amen”. So he leads from his own personal experience of God, and speaking of Him as “my God”, to this wonderful title, “our God and Father”. You will always find that although Paul had such a distinctive knowledge of God, and knew Him from individual experience, he always goes on to pursue the truth in the collective sense, because he knew what was very near to the heart of Christ, that is, the assembly. He knew it was close to the heart of Christ and it was close to his own heart, and he shows us in many passages (you will find them if—you care to search them out) how everything that is individual moves into what is collective, I and we; notice the distinction in the pronouns, and God would help us to see that while what is precious and valuable is available to the faithful individual in days of breakdown, what the Lord always has before Him is the assembly, think that He will always keep us walking in the light of it and we should pray that He might do so. Then, at the same time, if we are to be kept in the power and reality of it, and kept in the testimony of God and in the service of God, I believe it is imperative that each of us should individually be seeking the face of God, and growing in the knowledge of God, day by day.
May He give us grace for this, every one of us, by His Spirit; from the youngest here to the oldest. May we come more and more into the knowledge of God in our hearts, and may we expand in our hearts, giving Him increasing room, until He commands them altogether. The Lord tests all of us on what we say, there is no doubt about that; He tests us with a view to increase, and it is always for His glory. May the Lord, help us to go our way in humility and quietness of spirit; and may we be kept with Christ and, to use the words of another, realise ‘Christ my life, Christ my strength, Christ my Object’, for His name’s sake.
Address at Doncaster, 27 July 1974
DIVINE INTERVENTIONS
C. R. Byng
Mark 10; 13–16; Acts 9: 3–6; 1 Thessalonians 4: 15–18
We have been speaking together of the elevation of the mountains, and we would be increasingly affected by the glory of divine Persons in Their purposes of love and in Their grace. But I think the Spirit would remind us that although God is so great, operating in an elevated and glorious sphere of things, He is never very far away from us. The scriptures we have read refer to divine interventions, and we can always count upon God to intervene on behalf of those who are doing what is right. God’s normal interventions are always in blessing. In Genesis 22, after the testing of Abraham, a voice came from the heavens a second time and Hebrews tells us it was God intervening (Hebrews 6: 17). God intervened by an oath, so that the confidence of persons rested not only on His promise, but on the oath. He can intervene in judgment, but that is when men have rejected every overture of grace. In the very midst of the feast of the king, in Daniel’s day (Daniel 5: 5), there came the divine intervention of the fingers of a man’s hand that wrote on the plaster of the wall, pointing forward to the coming in of the Son of Man. What grace was in view in the heart of God, but the king despised the warning and he was slain that night. That was an unusual intervention of God.
Where we read in Mark 10, the disciples for the moment were out of keeping with the feelings of Jesus, but the Lord intervenes to protect those that brought the little children to Him. When the disciples were right the Lord intervened to help them. When men did not realise that the Son of Man was Lord also of the sabbath, and ventured to criticise the disciples because they fed in the corn fields, the Lord intervened to defend them. Here (in Mark 10) He intervenes because the disciples are not right. We are living in days when little children are being brought, when young people are being laid hold of by divine love and grace. Mr. Lyon used to say it was the lambing season. It is always the lambing season, because grace is gathering in persons in view of continuance, if the Lord leaves us here. Do not let any of us put off coming to Jesus. We are here today in the light that the Lord may come today. All the more need, then, for us all to come to Jesus. Where there are those who would seek to bring little ones to Jesus, the Lord will always help them. He takes account of the prayers of the parents and of the elder brothers and sisters, and He would help them to bring the little children to Him.
How wonderful it is to remember that there was a time when Jesus was a little Child and He was brought by His parents into the temple. There was a man there who had come in the Spirit and he received the holy Child Jesus into his arms, understanding that there was the Saviour who had come in as a light for revelation of the gentiles. That is, He had come in to bring the gentiles out of darkness into light. It has been pointed out that there had been darkness holding the gentiles until then. But the Lord comes in with wonderful light, the true light, to bring those who had been in gross darkness into the light of the blessing of God.
That is what little children are being brought into in the presence of the One who is the light of the world. So they have their place in the heart of Christ; “Having taken them in his arms, having laid his hands on them, he blessed them”. One hand of the Lord Jesus refers to power, but when He uses both His hands it means He is committing Himself to something. Think of the Lord committing Himself to these little children! Have all the younger ones here today a sense that the Lord is blessing them? May every one of us get a fresh sense of the personal interest of the Lord Jesus. One who knows everything about us. We might have to say He loves us in spite of all that we are in ourselves, yet He is urgent to bless. I believe the Spirit of God would give us a sense of the urgency of the heart of Jesus to bless every one of us; not only that He has loved us and has died for us, but that glorious living Man would make sure that every one of us can come to Him for His blessing.
So the Lord is gathering the young ones in. There is an appeal about the words of the Lord Jesus Himself which would reach through to the heart of every one who loves Him when He says, “This do in remembrance of me”, 1 Corinthians 11: 24. He is appealing to every one who loves Him to remember Him in the light of His glory. It is urgent to do it. If the Lord leaves us here till tomorrow we shall expect to be together for the Supper, but it may be the last time.
The Lord is intent on blessing every one of us, and often He intervenes when we least expect it. Where we read in Acts 9 the Lord intervened on behalf of the brethren in Damascus. They were praying to Him, no doubt, about, the coming of the persecutor. They knew what Saul of Tarsus had done elsewhere, and this was no light matter. There was a man here with letters from the high priest. He had power to persecute the saints. How thankful we can be that at the moment God is holding back the forces of persecution! We can meet here in quietness and without fear as part of the goodness of God. But in Damascus they knew not what was coming. Yet before Saul of Tarsus arrived in Damascus the Lord Jesus intervened. He did not intervene to slay Saul—He intervened to bless him.
Perhaps we need to be encouraged in our faith in the recovering grace of Jesus. We know persons in the places where we live and we might say they are most unlikely persons to come into blessing, but the Lord Jesus can affect them. Is that not what the Lord is doing in these days? We hear of, and meet, persons who have been recovered in many parts; not persons who have been recovered to the brethren, but persons who have been recovered to the truth, so that we can walk with them afresh in happy fellowship. It is not only that we are unlikely persons to have been blessed, but the Lord is intervening currently to help persons who are unlikely. Let us be strengthened in watchful prayer to go over in the presence of God the names of persons with whom we once were walking. We can expect the Lord to be working with them, so that we should be ready to be directed to draw near to them.
Ananias was directed to go to Saul of Tarsus and he caught on something of the feelings of Christ Himself, so that he does not address him as the persecutor of the saints, but he draws near to him and says, “Saul, brother”. The Lord is intervening in many places; there is no doubt that He is doing far more than we know.
The Lord is working in grace. As we resort to the tower of Habakkuk (Habakkuk 2: 1), and are near God in elevation, we can discern that grace is moving persons to come so that the testimony may be strengthened and the service of God in localities enriched. Persons are being gathered, but the final gathering is very near. The Lord intervened from heaven to draw near to one man in Saul of Tarsus, but He is just about to intervene for all the saints. He is not going to send an angel; He is coming Himself. When do we think this is going to be? Do we think there are many things to be wrought before the Lord comes? The Spirit will never help us to think that way, for that would be deferring the coming of the Lord.
Paul, as he wrote to these beloved brethren in Thessalonica, was expecting to be amongst the living who were going to be here when the Lord came, and we are expecting to be amongst the living who will be here when the Lord comes, and we are expecting Him today. It is not just to be a form of words when we say, ‘If the Lord will’. The Lord is just about to come. Yea, indeed, He says in John, “I am coming” (John 14: 18), so in our hearts we understand that He is really already on the way, and we are to be those who are just watching for Him to come.
What a moment this will be, maybe today, when the Lord Himself will come with an assembling shout. Not one lover of Christ is going to miss that assembling shout. How we long there might be more that might hear the Lord’s word to them to assemble tomorrow for the Supper; but not one is going to miss this assembling shout, for it is going to be with archangel’s voice. It is not an archangel; it is Jesus that is coming; but the kind of voice that marked God’s interventions through archangels is going to be heard in an overabounding measure when the Lord Himself comes.
No archangel is great enough for this matter. And it is with the trump of God, that penetrating, liberating sound that is going to penetrate into every grave and gather up all the dead in Christ, not one forgotten. There are those amongst us who are missing those who have gone to be with Christ. The Lord takes account in special grace of the widows and the orphans; and He remembers every one who is dead in Christ. They are already in the portion which Paul says is “very much better”, Philippians 1: 24. We miss them still; but they are with Christ, and the Lord is coming to gather them all up. They are going to rise first—the peculiar privilege of those who have gone before—and then we, the living who remain, are going to be caught up together with them in the clouds. It is not to meet the Lord in heaven.
The Lord, it says, is going to descend from heaven; He is coming into the air to meet us. This is not One who is to be a long way off; He is coming near to meet us. We are to go up to be for ever with the Lord. We are thankful to prove the way the Lord Jesus comes in as we are together in assembly; it is a glorious anticipation of the reality of being with Christ when, in the Spirit, we are caught away to another world altogether. In Spirit we are taken up to be with Christ in heaven. Yet when the occasion is over we find we are still here; but when the Lord intervenes in this way to catch us all up, we are to go up for ever. We are to go in, to go no more out.
We look for the intervention of Jesus today. The Lord is not going to take us away because He has not power to keep us here; He has power to keep us here doing what is right, to the end. He is going to take us away because He wants us to be with Him for ever. He has been waiting in patience for nearly two thousand years. Let us hold fast the word of the patience of the Christ. Do not let us be lacking in patience because the Lord has not yet come. No wonder the Spirit says, “Encourage one another with these words”. So let us be encouraged to have our loins girded and our homes ready to be left for the last time. We are thankful for mercies here, but the moment is very near when we shall need these mercies no more and we shall hear the voice of our on Lord and Saviour. In the meantime we say, ‘Lord Jesus, Come’. May we be strengthened to expect Him today and be ready for Him to come, that we may be with Him for His own glory and for the glory of the blessed God Himself. May we be encouraged by the word, for His name’s sake.
Address at Cologne
17 May 1975