BONDMEN

C.F.Dadd

Exodus 21: 1-6; Philippians 2: 3-11; Luke 19: 13-20

It is my desire at this time, beloved brethren, to say a word about bondmanship. Over these days we have considered the thought of "some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers" (Eph 4: 11), and now I thought we would consider the thought of bondmanship. It should be attractive to all of us because we are all open to this wonderful lowly service of being a bondman or a bondwoman. Scripture speaks of both, therefore we are in a position, beloved, where none of us has to think of ourselves as outside the possibility of being here in faithfulness to Christ as a bondman or a bondwoman. I think Christ makes this service very attractive. As we read this section in Exodus, the glory of that blessed Man who stooped into manhood, that One who was none less than God, stooping into manhood to fill out the place of a bondman, becomes very attractive to us. We see the attractiveness of it in Christ, and one of the things that makes it so attractive is that it does not require gift; it is just a question of love, love for God. Love is the beautiful feature that comes out in the Hebrew bondman. There is no name given, there is nothing to suggest that he was prominent in any distinctive way, but it comes down to the question of his own affection, his affection for God, and that came out in Christ in all its beauty, His affection and His feelings for God. As Christ moved through this scene, how attractive God was to Him, how beautiful was God to Him, so that in John He could say to those about Him, "That the world may know that I love the Father" (John 14: 31). I think those words are beautiful, beloved, "That the world may know that I love the Father". It is beautiful also to think of the love of God for Christ, how it came out so early, God's affection for Christ. How attractive Jesus was to God. At the beginning of His public pathway, He could open the heavens upon Christ, and He could say, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight", Matthew 3: 17. How attractive that is - "This is my beloved Son ...". How the Father loves the Son! It says "The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand", (John 3: 35). How wonderful that the Father has so loved the Son and has such confidence in Christ that He has committed everything to be in His hand. Beloved, it could not be in a better hand than the hand of Jesus, the hand of Christ. Then how the Son loves the Father and how this came out in His manhood. I love to think of Jesus at the age of twelve, in the temple amongst the doctors of the law and the dignitaries of the day, and how they marvelled at His answers and His questions. Would you not like to have known some of the questions that the Lord asked when He was twelve years of age? I would. And as just a lad of twelve, would you not like to have heard some of His answers? I would. At twelve years of age, what answers they must have been. But all this was under the eye of a loving God, and what was coming out in Christ I think was the beauty of bondmanship at a very early age, the beauty and attractiveness of bondmanship. He was here to serve. He was going to serve God, His prime responsibility was Godward and, our prime responsibility is Godward. Our prime point of righteousness is righteousness towards God, and that is what came out in Christ in all its beauty as He moved through as a servant under the eye of a righteous, holy God. He came to the Jordan to be baptised of John, and John said, 'I should be baptised by you'. But no, the Lord said, "it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness" (Matt 3: 15). I think what was coming out in the Lord at that time was His devotion to the will of God, His devotion to what was pleasurable to God, His committal in righteousness Godward, so that He said, "it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness". I wonder if that is our language, beloved. Is that your exercise and is it mine, that every feature of righteousness should be filled up? It was filled up in the life of Christ, and now I think the Lord has left us a pattern that the feature of righteousness might be marking every one of us. So are you right with God? Are you right with heaven? We have been together these two days and various things have come before us, but I would like to ask you now, are you right with God? Are you fulfilling your righteous relationships with God? Are you here moving according to the will of God? It could be said prophetically of Christ as to the body that was prepared for Him, "Behold, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me - To do thy good pleasure, my God ..." (Psalm 40: 7,8). Think of that, the filling out of the will of God was seen in that blessed One, and every way He moved He was filling out the will of God. I think that links with bondmanship, His committal to serve. I think it links with His love, "I love my master", but then he loved his wife. How wonderful! You think of the way Christ loved the assembly. If we are spared till tomorrow morning - if the Lord will and we should live - we will be reminded of this as we proceed in the service of God, how Christ loves the assembly. He loves His wife. That has come out in the way He set Himself to secure the assembly. It was bondmanship, it was committal, it was a whole-hearted life of devotion in which He had as an objective this glorious vessel which He was to secure on the basis of His own love, "Christ also loved the assembly, and has delivered himself up for it ... that he might present the assembly to himself glorious, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things (Eph 5: 25-27). Think of that beloved all moving, you might say, on the basis of His own committal and His bondmanship as He served His own when He was here. In John 13 it says, He "rises from supper and lays aside his garments" (v 4). Think of the dignity of Christ, think of the glory that belonged to that blessed One, and yet it says He rose up and He laid aside His garments and He girded Himself with a linen towel. I wonder if we can see Jesus in that position as serving His own. that He laid aside momentarily His dignity and what belonged to Him as He moved here in relation to His own, and as a bondman He would gird Himself with a linen towel, having in mind that His own should be served. I wonder if we are able for this beloved. Are we able for this in our own localities, that there should be committal on our part and we are ready to help the saints? If correction or adjustment is needed we are ready for that, or for refreshment and that is the way I would like to think of John 13 for the moment, how the Lord just laid aside His garments and took up the linen towel and girded Himself - the glory of the Bondman committed to serve His own - and He washed their feet, He refreshed them. He refreshed them for all He had in view that He was about to unfold to them, because those chapters 13 through to 17 of John's Gospel are full of glory and of uniqueness, because it is the only Gospel which gives them to us. If John had not given them to us we would not have the glory of what the Lord outlined in those chapters, which all pertain to a line of things involving the purpose of God. So He served His own in this way as a bondman.

I thought that Philippians would help us to see the mind that was in Christ Jesus, the going-down mind, but the appeal of the apostle is that this mind might be in you, and this is the test for us. He said, "For let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus; who, subsisting in the form of God, did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself, ..." "For let this mind be in you" ... He "emptied himself". Think of the Lord corning in, taking humble ground, taking humble ground to serve God, taking humble ground to serve His own that He might fill out the idea and the glory of bondmanship which is so precious under the eye of God. Such bondmen are persons that the Lord can confide in. Would you not like to be one of the Lord's confidants? Would you like to be so near to Christ that He could have confidence in you, He could make things clear and open up things to you? I like to think of the apostle John. He presents himself in Revelation as a bondman. You might think of John as an apostle, you might think of him as a prophet - both would be true - but it is very attractive that he presents himself as a bondman, and it is to the bondman that the Lord made His mind known regarding the prophecy of the Revelation "to shew to his bondmen what must shortly take place; and he signified it, sending by his angel, to his bondman John, who testified the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ, all things that he saw" (Revelation 1: 1-2), I suppose John would have taken peculiar pleasure in being able to think of himself in that regard as one who was committed to the will of God, one who was so devoted, one of whom the Lord could say, "If I will that he abide until I come, what is that to thee?" He could say that to the apostle Peter (John 21: 22), and John just fills in this beautiful service of a bondman, and one who could be the confidant of Christ. Beloved, I believe this is open to you and me that we can be near enough to Christ to have His confidence. Do you ever go into the presence of the Lord and ask Him about things, about things which are proceeding at the present time? Do you ever go in to the Lord and ask Him about assembly matters that are proceeding at the present time that might be perplexing to the beloved saints? Would you not like to be able to go into the presence of the Lord and spread these things out and have the sense of the Lord communicating something to you? That is a test to us, is it not? Has the Lord ever spoken to you, has He ever spoken to me? And yet it is open to us, beloved, it is open to us to get into His presence and know His mind, and I believe He is letting His bondmen know. He let His bondman John know what was going to proceed, what would come in after this dispensation closes down. Think of it, the things that were, the things that are and the things that are to come, and He discloses all this to a bondman. How choice!

I would like to say a short word as to Luke 19 where the Lord presents this parable of a man who was going away to receive a kingdom, and of course the Lord is speaking about Himself. He is speaking about the fact that He is about to leave the scene of testimony, and He did leave this scene by way of death, "and that the death of the cross". So before He goes He is speaking about this and about a high-born man going into a distant country "to receive for himself a kingdom and return. And having called his own ten bondmen, he gave to them ten minas, and said to them, Trade while I am coming." - "Trade while I am coming." It is very interesting the way the Lord puts that. He does not say, 'Trade while I am away', He does not say, 'Trade during my absence', He says, "Trade while I am coming". It is very suggestive, is it not? The Lord is in the act of coming and that is the way it has been for the whole dispensation. He is in the act of coming, and now we are just at the threshold of the Lord being about to return and take His assembly to be with Himself. He indeed will take all those that have died in faith - wonderful thing! Think of all that belonged to the previous dispensations, think of all that belong to our own dispensation, and He will take them all. He knows every one, He knows where they all are, but in the meantime He has committed certain things to us. He has given a mina. You say, 'What is a mina, it does not appear to be very much'? But what is a mina? Well, when the Lord came into manhood He brought within our range the knowledge of God. He brought within our range the love of God. He brought things to us that pertain to heaven and, beloved, He has left these things with us, He has given these things to us and He is saying to us, 'While I am coming you trade with that and we will see upon My return how the matter works out'. Now, we are looking for Him to come. All those that love Him are saying with the Spirit, "Come, Lord Jesus". That is the characteristic cry, we might say, of the Spirit and the bride. How united the Spirit and the bride are in saying, "Come" to the Lord Jesus, and while He is coming He is saying, 'I want you to trade with this mina'. That is a very interesting enquiry because when He comes back He is going to hold you and me responsible for what we have done with it, and I believe as we have had these two days there has been the idea of the trading. We are putting into motion, we are putting into circulation what the Lord has left with us, what He has given us, and that is the way it becomes expanded, it becomes enlarged. He has given us the capital to work with, brothers and sisters alike. He has given us capital to trade with. You cannot function in a business very well without capital. Well, the Lord has put us into business, and it is the King's business; the King's business requires the first place in our lives. His business is very attractive to many of us. Many of us have spent much time of our lives in business circles, but, beloved, this should be our prime business, the things of Christ, the things that He has left with us that we might put them into circulation and they might be expanded in our hands and there might be an increased answer to God. Tomorrow morning as we sit down together and we participate in the Supper, for the brothers it is our responsibility to participate verbally, give out a hymn, get on to our feet. We are tested as to what we can say to the Father. We are tested as to what we can say to the Father about Himself. We can speak to the Father about Christ, and of course that is always so acceptable to Him. We can speak to Him about His Son but, when you get into the presence of the Father, what can you say to the Father about Himself? And what can you say about the Lord where He is in glory? Ofttimes in the service of God we are speaking to a historical Christ, we are speaking about the Lord when He was here in manhood in flesh and blood. We are speaking about what was historical, but the test to us, beloved, is what can we say to Christ about Himself where He is in His present condition? He is not in flesh and blood now, He is the glorified Man, seated at the right hand of God. What can we say to Him about Himself now in His current condition and in His present place? This all relates to our trading with the mina. It relates to how we are handling the capital that the Lord has left with us. So we find we are together in meetings like we have had and you find that your mina is growing, your capital account is growing, and then you get home into your own locality and you do not stay home from the meetings because you find you want to put into circulation what you have got. Well, a sister might say, how do I do this? How does a sister do this? I believe when a sister comes up exercised and has matters in her mind, the Lord has His own way to work them into the temple and bring light to shine on them. Many a sister, I am sure, has said, 'I was just thinking of that when you spoke about it', or, 'When you gave out that hymn, I was thinking of that hymn myself', showing how the exercises of the sisters can be worked out in the local expression of things. So therefore this is attractive to the sisters too, because, beloved sisters, you are to have part in administration in the coming day, That is why I am sure it is such a fine thing, amongst other matters, that the sisters are in the care meetings. I hope the sisters are all exercised to go to the care meetings because it is a tremendous help to the brothers if you are there. But the thing is, you set into motion what you have, and what you find is that things are expanded, and then when the Lord comes back He says, 'Now I want to speak to you. I gave you a mina, I asked you to trade with it while I was coming. Now what have you?' And the one bondman says, 'Well, I have ten minas'. 'Oh', He says, 'that is fine. You have been a profitable bondman. You have set into circulation what I gave you and it has built up and now you have ten minas', showing, beloved, how we can be built up in the things of God and how it can be that the Lord would say to this bondman, 'Be over ten cities'. We are going to have part in the administration. That should be attractive to us. If we suffer with Him we will reign with Him. We are in a suffering time now, and there is a lot of suffering amongst the saints, but the time is coming, beloved, when we will reign with Him. What a marvellous thing it will be when the assembly comes out with Christ to have part in administration for He will set on an administration in this world - this very world in which we are - such as the world has never seen in history. I suppose there has never been more confusion amongst men than there is at the present time, confusion amongst the nations one nation trying to dominate another, confusion in the military world, confusion in the political world, terrorism, anarchy - the world is just in one great mess, but think of the Lord coming in and setting up the kingdom in which there will be righteousness. Oh, what a shortage there is of righteousness at the present time, but the Lord is going to establish a kingdom in righteousness and beloved He is going to reign, and when He does we' are going to reign with Him. Oh, I think that is so attractive that the Lord is not going to reign alone. 'No', He says, 'you are going to reign with me’. Is that not attractive to us beloved, and now we are in the trading time, now we are learning what it is to work with the things of God, with the things of Christ and in a coming day we will be that much more trustworthy. The Lord will be able to say, "Well done, thou good bondman" or "Well done, good and faithful bondman” Matt 25: 21. Oh, would you not love to have that said when the Lord comes! Would you not love to think that you would really be the recipient of an expression like that from the lips of Christ? "Well done ..." So it says here, "And the second came, saying, My Lord, thy mina has made five minas. And he said also to this one, And thou, be over five cities". We do not want to be like the bondman that buried the mina in a towel. The Lord has left certain things with us, and He has given us capital and when we finish our time we might not have anything further than what we began with. Would that not be sad, would that not be really sad that we have been left here, we have spent all these years, it might be going in and out amongst the brethren, and possibly we have gathered up very very little and we have very little to show for what the Lord has given to us? The Lord is intent, I believe, upon our putting into circulation this capital so that as He comes He is going to be able to say to us, 'You have done well, faithful bondman'. What an attractive thought it is, so that our part with Christ in the kingdom will depend upon our faithfulness in testimony. Now, we want to think about that. Your part in the rapture and mine, when we are called up, will not be related to responsibility, it is really related to the purpose of God, it is what the Lord will bring about. Oh, how wonderful, what a moment that will be in the history of time. The place that you have in the kingdom will depend on your faithfulness in the sphere of testimony and you want to think about that because those that suffer with Him will reign with Him. Well, beloved, He is about to come. May we be ready for His coming!

 

EDINBURGH

31 May 1986