OCCUPATION WITH CHRIST
P. L. Druckenmiller
Psalm 16: 10, 11; Romans 12: 1; Philippians 3: 20, 21
I would like to speak of the Lord Jesus in relation to our brother’s pathway and his life. As has already been said, he would have loved to have attention drawn to the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ at such an occasion. But in doing so it is right to draw attention to the practical fruit of the expression of Christ in the life of our brother and in the life of any person. So on an occasion like this the object really is to set forth the blessedness of a believer’s having departed to be with Christ and the blessedness of the Lord Jesus Himself.
I wish to draw attention to the spirit of Christ in our brother who served some of us in regard to our own recovery. As having the spirit of Christ he knew when to act and when not to act.
I do not desire to be unduly personal, but there was a time when division came in, and I, for one, and a good many others, did not act in the spirit of Christ. I wrote a letter to our beloved brother; he knew it was done in a wrong spirit and he did not answer me. Later, when he had heard that the Lord had brought trouble into my life, he contacted me because he knew that the Lord was working and that that was the time to follow through.
These scriptures have been read because our dear brother set forth the truth of a delivered man whose body had been offered as a living sacrifice. Psalm 16 refers in a beautiful way to Christ. The Spirit of God in writing Scripture, and using David, looked forward to the spirit of Christ expressed in His life and in His death. So verse 10 especially has in mind His death, “neither wilt thou allow thy Holy One to see corruption”. The precious body of the Lord Jesus Christ in death could not see corruption. We know that we have to bury our dead out of our sight because of corruption, but we do that in view of the resurrection. The Lord Jesus did not see corruption; His body was perfect; it was raised in glory—glorious Saviour! And in His work He established the basis for our forgiveness and deliverance.
The scripture referred to earlier (Revelation 1: 5) tells us about our being washed from our sins in His blood, bringing with it the assurance of salvation. I have in mind to emphasize the difference between forgiveness and deliverance, the work of Christ having effected the basis of our obtaining both. If we were in the enjoyment of deliverance we would all be together, all be desirous of saying the same thing. There would not be the need of having to reassure ourselves that we have the forgiveness of sins, and that we are going to be with Jesus should we die, if we took, by the Spirit’s power, the next step of faith which involves personal experience of deliverance out of this body of death while we are still alive. This applies in the sense that the law of sin which yet exists in the members of our body is no longer able to dominate.
The Epistle to the Romans is written to christians. It starts with a wonderful view of the Son of God, but soon enters into the degradation that sin has caused in man. You may wonder why in an epistle to christians the writer goes to such pains to show what has happened in the race. He does so because christendom has overlooked God’s feelings about the breakdown.
This epistle sets out in an orderly way the truth of the gospel of the glory of the blessed God so that we might arrive at the truth of the assembly and the worship of God. Our brother’s life truly set this forth, for he was occupied in service, he was consistently present at assembly occasions, and shouldered responsibility in regard to the testimony. He also searched out the truth in connection with ministry and was sensitive as to anything that was not according to Scripture. We need to be like that. We are to base what we say on the Scriptures, but at the same time it is not just the literality of the Scriptures, it is the spirit and import of what is conveyed in Scripture. We refer rightly to many things by way of application, but that must meet the test of Scripture; the application is to be by the Spirit.
Forgiveness and deliverance are the fruits of the great grace of God reaching us through the work of Christ. These things are available to us, available for faith, to be appropriated livingly by the Spirit of God in our souls. Deliverance as we are speaking of it is that I myself have been superseded in myself by Christ. There are many believers who, sad to say, we do not see at the Lord’s supper, with whom we do not have the fulness of joy and communion, who say, ‘Yes, I am occupied with another Man’. But has that Man eclipsed you? Has He replaced you in yourself? Has He by the Spirit so filled your view that you have no other man before you and are enabled to see all things clearly? This is what our dear brother’s life set forth, without pretence, just simply going on in his day-by-day service, having presented his body “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God”. I commend this to all our hearts.
With regard to our associations of life, I have read in Philippians because it relates to what our brother said as to persons with whom God is pleased. ‘Associations of life’ is how the footnote to Philippians 3: 20 reads. Read these things for yourselves in the precious word of God, and if anything that comes into your soul here today strikes a chord, I would say, ‘Come and see’. Be attracted by what you hear in the word of God and by what you have seen in the life of our dear brother.
Our life is to be devoted to Christ in heaven where He has gone to await the moment when He will come to raise the sleeping saints and to transform those of us who are still here. This scripture in Philippians refers to “our body of humiliation” in which we are here, in which we feel weakness. In relation to this weakness the priesthood of Christ is operating to help us.
We do not have a High Priest for our failures; we have a Priest for our weakness, to help us not to fail. When we fail we have an Advocate with the Father to help us to feel it so that we may judge ourselves. I would desire to take on in some measure what I have seen in our dear brother; I believe we all would. As we do, the Lord Jesus will be more magnified among us. Our brother knew in himself when the lead was going astray. A man who is in the good of deliverance senses it; he waits God’s time and then in his measure he is not afraid to say something about it, because the Lord has passed us through a time when it was not enough to say, ‘Let the Lord do it’. The Lord wants you and me to be faithful, not just to sit around and wait and say, ‘Let the Lord do it’. There are times, certainly, when we have to wait; there is much that we have to wait about. Our dear departed brother waited; he waited in regard to my recovery and the recovery of others close to me, and many another. He followed us up in his prayers and his feelings, and he waited God’s time. But then he acted; he did something.
Our heart goes out to dear christians gathered in connection with the death of our brother; one longs that we could all sit down and eat the Lord’s supper together, and there is a way to it. The way is for you and for me to get near to divine Persons and to live in Their presence. I commend to us further the other reference in Psalm 16, “Thy countenance is fulness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore”. Our brother knew what it was to live in the Lord’s presence, privately and in the assembly. As we gather on assembly occasions we experience the joy of the Lord’s presence, and His presence is certainly deliverance for each one of us as we are conscious of the Holy Spirit’s help in our weakness as we continue, and finish, our pilgrim journey.
(Substance of word)
Words at the burial of Mr. H. C. Midgley, Brooklyn, N.Y.
26 March 1979