SUDDEN EVENTS
Acts 2: 1-4; 9: 3-6; 16: 25, 26
These four scriptures make reference, dear brethren, to events which happen suddenly; it is with this thought in view that I have read them. God works suddenly and we must be ready for sudden operations. We are aware that in the present time of being in fragile conditions; a measure of suffering falls upon many brethren, and a great number of brethren have fallen asleep, so that the public position is marked we could say by great weakness. But the whole position will be suddenly changed in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye. We must have this sense. God loves to work suddenly, I think, and to bring to light thus if there are persons sufficiently interested to remain waiting and watching in the expectation that what He is on the point of doing. I believe the Spirit would help us greatly so that knowing the suddenness of events we should be maintained in a spirit of watching and waiting.
The Lord sometimes acts suddenly in a judicial way. We read in Malachi that the Lord will come suddenly into His temple; but it adds: “who shall endure the day of his coming?” (chap 3: 2), and again, “he shall be like a refiner’s fire, and as fullers’ lye. And he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver”. We have therefore to be exercised to be ready in view of what the Lord might do or for the light that He might bring in. The book of the Acts of the apostles in particular shows us how suddenly the light was given. We see this in chapter 2. The Spirit of God came “suddenly”. We see again in chapter 9, “suddenly there shone a light round about him”, on Saul of Tarsus. How much was involved in that light, and what development of the truth followed, and yet it had shone in a sudden and completely unexpected way. All this must therefore direct our minds to the necessity of waiting and of being maintained in dependence and moral conformity with all that God may be pleased to bring in.
We have another example of the suddenness of the Lord’s operations in a judicial way when Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses. Jehovah spoke “suddenly” to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, and called them to go out to the tent of meeting. What a solemn moment for Miriam and Aaron, when Jehovah suddenly called them to come into His presence and face the question of their opposition to His honoured servant! He puts the thing before them suddenly, really in an unexpected way. All those who truly serve the Lord can be assured that He will not be slow to defend their cause, if they are spoken against. They can leave all in His hands, as it is said in Isaiah 54: “every tongue that riseth against thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn. This is the inheritance of the servants of Jehovah; and their righteousness is of me, saith Jehovah”, v 17. Those who serve the Lord in whatever measure can therefore be certain that He will take their cause in hand, if they serve Him, if their motives in the service are pure, the Lord will ensure that they are sustained in every need. I mention this only in passing, dear brethren, but I believe that we will find a great interest to arrest our attention on cases where the Lord in the Scriptures has intervened suddenly. It is certainly a test for us to continue in faith and patience not knowing when the time will come. Indeed, one of the most marvellous things in Scripture which one would not even try to explain is that the Lord Himself takes the position of not knowing the time. “But of that day or of that hour no one knows”, even the Son, He says in Mark 13: 32. All this is, I believe, in view of giving us a deep impression of the necessity to seek the grace to continue patiently, day after day, with the Spirit who has made His abode in us, for it is only thus that we will be truly ready for all that the Lord may bring in suddenly. We read in Colossians 1 that Paul prayed for the saints so that they might be “strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory unto all endurance and longsuffering with joy”, v 11. Notice this well, I have often been impressed with this expression, “with joy”. We must be strengthened with all power in view of that day, but it must be “with joy”. There again, we prove how real the service of the Spirit toward us is, if we are in some measure to be sustained in joy until the coming of the Lord.
In Luke 2, we have what immediately followed the coming in of Christ into the world, and it is remarkable that the shepherds should thus come into evidence. It is striking to see what honour is conferred upon them. The angel says to them, “behold, I announce to you glad tidings of great joy”, then, “to-day a Saviour has been born to you in David’s city … And this shall be the sign to you”. The shepherds are the objects of attention and particular honour. I think that God ensures that there are conditions which please Him among those to whom He communicates or gives light. There must be conditions prepared for Him. We read for example in the book of Malachi: “unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise”, chap 4: 2. It is therefore a matter of conditions being suitable and we have these shepherds here. Shepherds are very honoured in Scripture. Shepherds give their life for the flock. They serve with a love that spares nothing. They have at heart the welfare of the saints. “There were shepherds in that country abiding without”, it is said. It is what marked them, they were without, apart from all that was passing in the world of men, we might say. They were shepherds characteristically, and I think God loves those who are shepherds. We have a great need of shepherds in the present time, I would say, in a spiritual sense. I would not say there are none. There are some, I am sure, who are such. But we need among the people of God persons who take real care of their souls; and if we would carry on this service with God and in an effective way, we must be characteristically without. Separation from all that is of man of his world is essential if we desire to be useful at all to God’s people. They abode in the country; it was not fortuitous that they abode there; they were there characteristically, and it is to such persons that the angel of the Lord appeared. They kept “watch by night over their flock”. It was night. Night is always a test. The present time is the night of the Lord’s absence. And the question arises how are we found in it? Chapter 13 of Mark to which we have already made reference brings in also the thought of what is sudden: “lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping”, v 36. It speaks there of the cock crow, and at several different times of the night: “Watch therefore, for ye do not know when the master of the house comes: evening, or midnight, or cock-crow, or morning; lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping”. These shepherds were not sleeping. It was night, but they watched, sustained, persevering in their service by love, keeping their flock, and the angel of the Lord—only one brings this news, that in the city of David is born to them a Saviour who is Christ the Lord. Then the angel says: “this is the sign to you: ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and lying in a manger”. How marvellous are God’s ways! The sign of the coming in of Christ the Lord would be a babe lying in a manger. How entirely different from the thoughts of man God’s thoughts are. How different from the ways of man are God’s ways! We have to be ready to recognise fully what is God’s way of acting in this day, to pursue the most precious things in conditions of outward weakness. May the young people in particular understand this well! They are sometimes tested by the smallness of the position, but such was the sign, the sign of the coming in of Christ the Saviour. The One who was going to deliver men from the world, a swaddled Babe in the poverty and outward opprobrium of a manger. We have to accept that such are the conditions in which God is pleased to operate.
But then it says, “suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host”. Suddenly, the scene becomes glorious. The shepherds up to then had only their flock which they kept by night, and an angel of the Lord had appeared to bring them glad tidings, but suddenly it was shown to them that they are linked to a vast system of glory and response to God. Men were not yet engaged in this; but it is men who were in view as being the great means of expressing glory given to God. A multitude of the heavenly host “praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men”. We have this great idea, this double idea, dear brethren, which was in view in the introduction of Christ into the world, glory to God and good pleasure for God in men. The introduction of Christ had this in view. All was with a view to securing men according to Christ’s order; and He has become Man so that the divine ideal could be manifested. And from the moment of His coming in, although in the smallness of a Babe and outwardly in the reproach and poverty of a manger, the multitude of the heavenly host announced the divine intent, that there would be glory to God and God’s good pleasure in men. And indeed, we might say, the assembly was in view there. It is a good thing to enlarge our thoughts to grasp the immensity of God’s purpose concerning the assembly, a great vessel of glory for Him; at the same time, glory in the sense of what is rendered to Him and also of what is manifested in it as an expression of the blessed God: Glory to God’s good pleasure “in men”. What an end: we have been chosen for nothing less than this. What a marvellous thought of men before Him! Why has He chosen men and not the angels? It is a matter of His sovereignty. He has chosen men in view of dwelling with them, so that they should be to His glory. Look at the divine thought, and it began to come into evidence when He who is over all things, God blessed forever, came into the human condition and was found here as a Babe, a little swaddled Babe.
Mr Raven said once that all that will fill the world to come was found in this Child; there will be nothing added. Think of the immensity of this fact, on the marvellous character of God’s ways! We have been chosen by divine grace so that through redemption and the work of the Spirit in us, we should take our character from Christ and live in His life. All must be of Christ. Nothing which is not of Christ will subsist before God. And yet it is in men that God secures the realisation of these great thoughts. Our appreciation of the assembly will be greatly increased if we can consider it as the fulness of Christ, as the body of Christ. What possibilities for God to be found in her! The Lord knows God perfectly and finds His pleasure in giving Him a response, but think of the possibilities of a vessel which has the same feelings as Christ, in which the Holy Spirit dwells, and which moves under the influence of Christ. What possibilities for the glory of God in such a vessel, and what possibilities for God’s good pleasure, as He sees the features of Jesus develop in the saints! So John, at the end of his marvellous gospel, says, “There are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they were written one by one, I suppose that not even the world itself would contain the books written”, John 21: 25. Is that extravagant? No, it is not an extravagant statement. This only speaks of the marvellous moral excellence in God’s eyes, of the acts of Jesus, and those are now to be continued in the saints, in the heavenly city. Every act of a saint, fulfilled under the influence of Christ, is one of the things that Jesus did: “if they were written one by one, I suppose that not even the world itself would contain the books written”; but God desires that this vessel, the assembly, the heavenly city, should be great enough to express them. You can be certain that every little thing undertaken by one of us under the influence of Christ forms part of these things that Jesus did, and which gives pleasure to God. That is what confers value on the details of our ways down here, even in the most common things, if only we could fulfil them a little more under the influence of Christ and realise that all that is done by the saints under the influence of Christ is a part of the things that Jesus did and that God will see perpetuated under His eyes for His pleasure in the assembly. In truth all the families of the redeemed are in some way formed according to Christ, and this gives us a great impression of the immensity of the glory that is before us. It would suddenly open our eyes. The whole system of glory that God is securing for Himself in Christ by the work of the Spirit is on the point of opening up before us in the twinkling of an eye. We need to think therefore of all this so as to the better grasp the value of the system to which we have been redeemed. We need to apply ourselves by the Spirit to grasp intelligently the truth which is dispensed to us. I am sure that we all feel how small our measure is, but what we are given of God in the ministry of the Spirit is in view of forming our minds and should enter in substance into our praise.
It is not only important that we should give a response to God in affection, but that we should be intelligent to discern His glory, and enabled in the power of the Spirit to express ourselves suitably. Hence this period of formation and education, which has lasted nearly two thousand years, the assembly is so great in the mind of God and the position she is to fill in eternity so glorious, that God has needed two thousand years to form such a glorious vessel. All this in its essence was in the Babe. It is a mystery that the human mind cannot grasp or define, but everything was there in its essence. God was there in the Person of Jesus. If God is to secure men for His pleasure, it must be men according to Christ’s order, the Man who in Himself is God. He in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily. I do not doubt that the shepherds had been greatly impressed. It was a word addressed to them “To-day a Saviour has been born to you”, and “I announce to you glad tidings of great joy”. This sign was not given to Herod; it was not given either to the chief priests; or the Pharisees either, nor the Sadducees. It was given to some humble shepherds who kept watch over their flocks and abode in the fields. That is what pleased God, saints who abiding without maintained a rigid separation from all that was of man and his world (even in its religious character) and who devoted themselves to what was living and precious to God.
I pass now to chapter 2 of the Acts because we find there another great event that happened suddenly, and find there also suitable conditions for God’s operations. We have these conditions in the first chapter. “The crowd of names who were together was about a hundred and twenty”, it is said, v 15. It was the kernel of what God was on the point of introducing. There again, God began with something very small. In Jerusalem, there was a crowd of people, they comprised people of high social positions in the world, the secular world as well as the religious world, but all these had nothing to do with them. They also abode without, so to speak. The apostles had received this instruction from the Lord to abide in Jerusalem until they had received the Spirit, they had to await the promise of the Father. They had received the instruction “not to depart from Jerusalem, but to await the promise of the Father, which said he you have heard of me. For John indeed baptised with water, but ye shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit after now not many days, Acts 1: 4, 5. The “promise of the Father”: how touching it is! The Father has those who are here in testimony for Christ in His heart, and that we should also be for His pleasure. But how could this be realised? How could people like us answer to divine demands? It required the Spirit, which is why the Father had promised the Spirit. We need to have an appreciation of the Spirit in the present day as being the promise of the Father. It is as if the Father has said, I have great things before me, the testimony of Christ must continue, and what is for my constant pleasure must abide, all tis in the presence of the opposition of the world; but I promise you the presence and support of a Person of the Deity, I promise you the Spirit. The Spirit must be appreciated in this light. He was the promise of the Father with a view that not one of God’s thoughts about the saints should fail to be realised. What the Lord said to the eleven is that they must remain in Jerusalem and await the promise of the Father; then He adds: “ye shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit after now not many days”. He does not tell them the time. In fact, He said to them: “It is not yours to know times or seasons, which the Father has placed in his own authority”. In the same way, we are placed in this position of patience, not knowing the moment exactly, but continuing in dependence and patience, without stumbling, without slipping, without being discouraged. The disciples had been set in this position; they were just to continue one day at a time in dependence, in prayer, not knowing at all the moment when the Spirit was to come. It is just as if the Lord had said, ‘In a few days’.
Then He is taken up from them, and two men stood alongside them and said to them that “This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, shall thus come in the manner in which ye have beheld him going up into heaven”, v 11. The dispensation has been inaugurated by His entry into heaven, we could say, it was no more than ten days after this until the Spirit came; and it must end with His coming out of heaven; He will come out in the same way in which he has gone in. The dispensation will not suffer any change, it will end just as it has begun; that I think is the idea. It must be characterised by Christ, it is the Man who has been received up in heaven which gives it its character, and the same features must be borne to the end as at the beginning.
The disciples had to wait five, six, seven days, and the Spirit had not come. They had to persevere, and we are told that they did not fail to do so: “they gave themselves all with one accord to continual prayer, with several women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren”, v 14. They persevered, marked by the same features as the shepherds. They were without, maintaining an uncompromised separation from the world around them, continuing patiently in prayer one day after another, awaiting the promise of the Spirit. But not knowing when He would come. We come then to chapter 2 where it is said, “they were all together in one place. And there came suddenly a sound out of heaven as of a violent impetuous blowing, and filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues, as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit”. What a change, an instantaneous change! A moment beforehand, they were just a company of a hundred and twenty, without apparent distinction; but they persevered waiting for the moment chosen by God; and behold all of a sudden the position is changed: God intervenes in the power of the Holy Spirit and the testimony begins. This is the way things happen in Christianity. Up to chapter 3, the apostles had not begun to do great things. They simply remained in dependence on the Spirit. Now Peter and John go up together to the temple at the hour of prayer. The lame man had been there at other times, I suppose, and they also no doubt. But a particular moment has arrived and the Spirit operates suddenly. The Spirit moves Peter to say to this man: “Look on us”, and things change suddenly; this man becomes a remarkable testimony and confounds all the opposers who on his account had nothing to refute. It is thus that the Spirit of God works. This is what I had before me, that we should be preserved from the whole human system of service or testimony, from all that is organised, and that we should be preserved patiently and in expectation. Soon the Lord will come into the position and manifest His power. And in a twinkling of an eye; meantime, we must be dependent on the Spirit, waiting until He intervenes in the position, and that suddenly and at a time that pleases Him. There is no reason that we cannot prove the presence of the Spirit each time that we are together. I think that we will prove it. It is not the mind of man that is to be expressed, nor the voice of man heard, but the voice of the Spirit. We must certainly wait on each occasion when we are together. You will remember that it is said in Acts 1 that the Lord came in and went out among the disciples all the time from the baptism of John until the day when He was taken up into heaven. According to the gospels, it could be thought that He was always with them, except on certain particular occasions, for example when he sent them by themselves to the other side of the sea; but when we come to the first chapter of the Acts, we see that He assembled with them, that He came in and went out among them, in view of habituating them to the idea of assembling, to the thought of His coming in and going out. And we must get used to the idea that the Lord comes and manifests Himself, and goes, and that He comes again. Naturally, the Spirit does not come at all in the same way, because He abides with us continually, but He is able to make us taste His presence in a distinct way if we are ready to give Him room. “There came suddenly a sound out of heaven as of a violent impetuous blowing, and filled all the house where they were sitting”. As our brother Mr Taylor has said, God loves that things should be filled. His house will be filled. On this occasion, all the house was filled by the Spirit. God desires that we should be filled. How little, if I may speak for others, we really know what it is to be filled with the Spirit; and yet we are enjoined to be filled with the Spirit. God has not pleasure in emptiness. “The earth”, it says in Genesis 1: 2, “was waste and empty”, but that was not the condition in which God had created it, and it was not that in which He could find pleasure. We therefore have here the beginning of the public testimony. The Acts of the Apostles does not deal with the service of God, but gives the line of the testimony of God, and the power for the testimony to be introduced in this sudden way, by the coming of the Spirit in undoubted power. I desired to draw attention to the circumstances in which the Spirit came. They were all together. It is an important question, “all together in one place”. It is important not only to be together physically, but to be together in affection, dear brethren. It is a most important matter. If we are not together in affection, in a mutual respect and consideration, how can the Spirit be free to operate among us? They were all together. I do not doubt that this signifies that they were literally together, but this goes much further, I am sure of it. If we are together physically, but not together in mutual affection and consideration, we are not together according to God and there are not the conditions that allow the Spirit to identify Himself with them. He looks for these conditions of affection and mutual respect. Each of us has a right to respect. God reproves kings for the sake of the saints, so honourable are they in His eyes, as having been anointed with His Spirit. He did this for Abraham and others in times past. He reproved kings for the sake of the saints; and we have to consider one another in this light; we have been ennobled by God as having been anointed by the Spirit. And as such my brother has a right to my respect. He is the subject of the work of God, he is born of God, and on this account, he loves the saints. Those who love God also love one another. Let us see the saints as God sees them; in doing this, we will be enlarged in our affections one for the other; we will respect one another, and this will really help us in our mutual relations. If we keep before our hearts the true bearing of the death of Christ, we will put the old man aside. Let us do it once and for all, as completely as God Himself has ended him. We come to that determination, that we are not going to make room for the man that God has done away with in the cross of Christ, and we consider the saints with respect as being the anointed of God, and with affection as being born of God. We will be together to the extent that these things are realised, and this is essential so that the operations of the Spirit of God are entered into among us.
In chapter 9, we find Saul on the way, drawing near to Damascus; “and suddenly there shone round about him a light out of heaven”. Paul certainly did not understand at that time how great was the light that shone, but it amplified himself in his soul and gave character to his ministry. What a light it was, and how distinct! There was another side to the question; it was a sudden and powerful intervention by the Lord in the face of opposition. Saul of Tarsus was the great head of the opposition against the saints at that moment, and suddenly the Lord ended it. “The assemblies then throughout the whole of Judæa … had peace” (v 31), but that is not the main point of the incident, it seems to me. What stands out in particular is the extraordinary light that suddenly intervenes, and it is still a point which must keep us on the alert. The Lord can give a fresh light, a development, new truth, which we had not had so far. Paul's own writings show us how the light of mystery, the light of the heavenly calling of the assembly, was in the Scriptures in a hidden way. You will remember with what wonderful dexterity he loves, in his epistles, to introduce quotations from the Old Testament, showing how these, in a hidden way, alluded to the mystery, but this came to light only after that the Spirit had come and raised Paul; although the light of the mystery was there in a hidden way. But now this light was shining, and it penetrated into Paul's heart. “Why persecutest thou me?” And he said, “Who art thou, Lord?” And the Lord says, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest”. Jesus, the Name of the One we know and love, this name that implies that He is God. He is the Anointed of God, the Centre of all His thoughts, and the saints are Himself: “Why persecutest thou me?” I wonder if we have really grasped this in our hearts, that we are for ever vitally linked to Christ in glory, that we are part of His body. The assembly is His body, His fulness. It is in it that God will realise His good pleasure in man. All this was condensed into these few words addressed from heaven to Saul of Tarsus: “Why persecutest thou me?” It was a sudden light that dawned in him.
Later, he was caught up into paradise and heard “unspeakable things said which it is not allowed to man to utter” (2 Cor 12: 4); and without a doubt this would have greatly developed his understanding of the truth that had been entrusted to him; but this truth was wholly entirely in this word, and was the light shining suddenly out of heaven that had brought this enlargement. Even for the twelve, I suppose that it led to change; up to then their thoughts had been coloured above all by God’s relations with Israel. He transformed completely, so to speak, the character of the testimony; it was clothed with a heavenly character, and the full light of the assembly developed gradually from this point of departure.
What I desired to emphasise, dear brethren, was this thought of what is sudden, and for this purpose I would insist upon the importance there is for us to be ready for that which it may please the Lord to say or to do suddenly. Have we faith to continue by the power which is in the Spirit in patience and in dependence until suddenly the position is changed? It will be changed entirely and triumphantly, in the twinkling of any eye, but in waiting for it, it could be that we have the experience of other things arising suddenly. In Christianity, it seems that sometimes the way God acts in introducing things suddenly. He may, naturally, direct His thoughts before us through a gradual development, but it seemed also that He loves to introduce certain things suddenly, to see if they find us ready.
In the last passage, in Acts 16, we find Paul and Silas in tribulation, in prison in Philippi. “And at midnight Paul and Silas, in praying, were praising God with singing”. They justified God’s intervention by their conduct. They were in prison, I repeat, in the inner prison, feet in the irons, and at midnight, at the darkest hour, they sang God’s praises. Thank God if we can be marked by this until the end! We have the Lord's help, we have the help of the Spirit. If we gather tomorrow, we will be marked by this, I trust. At midnight, the darkest hour of the night, they sang God’s praises; and if the pressure increases, let us not stop, by the grace of God and with the support of the Spirit, to sing God’s praises. We have here, in a representative way, all the power of the Roman Empire exercised against these two men, for Philippi was a colony, having the same rights as Rome, and there were the prætors there, the jailer, the prison, all representing the power of the Roman Empire against these men. And now suddenly there was an earthquake, and the whole system was shaken. The result was the formation of an assembly in Philippi; two baptised houses were secured for God in this city, and an assembly was formed which, as far as we can say, continued brightly, at least during Paul's days. “From the first day until now”, he says in his epistle, Phil 1: 5. They had been maintained in fellowship with the gospel since the commencement until that day. An assembly with an excellent spiritual constitution had resulted in part at least from this sudden intervention by the Lord, and all the opposing power had been shaken, and instantly broken. I only mention this because it is another example of the way in which the situation can be suddenly changed, in an instant, by the Lord’s powerful intervention.
May the Lord encourage us to seek to be maintained day by day, to continue in patience, in prayer, in joy! This is the important point, to continue in awaiting the great things that are before us and which will come to pass suddenly. How important it therefore is to seek the grace to be ready for all that the Lord may do. May the Lord bless the word!
LEWISHAM
28th July 1956
From Paroles d’Édification Mutuelle
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