RIGHT FEELINGS AFTER FAILURE
A. B. Parker
As our brother was speaking, this scripture came to mind and although I hesitate to say much I did feel that there was an impression that the Lord may have for us in it. It was when our brother was speaking of the feelings of God for His prophet and for the people that I thought of how the prophet Amos was tested in what Jehovah showed him, which he discerned to be an indication of what was in the mind of God with respect to His people whom He felt the need for disciplining. I am sure, dear brethren, that we feel that the hand of God has been heavy upon us—I do not speak of that lightly, I speak of it feelingly. There has been a feeling, I think, in certain parts that there is a great flow of precious ministry and that there is a restoration of substantiality and distinctiveness in the fellowship. I do not think we want in any sense to despise what God is doing in the way of seeking to help us, but we do need to keep humble and to realize that Jacob is small. Any pretence to greatness after the experience that we have had would be uncomely; at the same time we would not undervalue in any sense the wondrous grace that has been granted through Jehovah coming to His people and giving them bread. The conditions in Bethlehem the report of which came to Naomi I think aptly describe the conditions which God has been pleased to grant amongst us, the sense of God visiting His people and giving them bread.
This particular scripture gives the side of the feelings that God is looking for in His people.
It is after the king’s mowings. The sickle certainly was put in judicially; the increase which had taken place amongst us numerically, the outward prosperity, certainly was suddenly cut down. We do not want to dwell on that except that it is wholesome to keep it in mind, “after the king’s mowings”. But there is a fresh growth, “in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth”; this I think is what we have witnessed and we do not want to be thrown off balance by it. We are thankful for the richness and blessedness of the ministry, and for the indication of fresh growth which is pleasing to God, but the test is for that freshness to continue. We need to be constantly on our faces and on our knees because each one of us must know to some degree the tendency that discouragement would at times bring about a lack of constancy in the blessedness of communion and in the sense of the Lord’s presence being actively with us. This, dear brethren, is witnessed to in a sense by the fact that our meeting room has so many empty chairs, on an occasion when in the scriptures it says, “the whole assembly come together in one place”, 1 Corinthians 14: 23. That is to underlie and characterize the meeting for prophetic ministry. We cannot say that all are present, we thank God for those that are, but we do need to keep humble and be concerned as to this latter growth, which is not the main harvest yet is very precious to God.
God had indicated earlier to the prophet Ahijah that the kingdom was going to be destroyed, and that took place after the reign of Solomon. Division came in and that division left one tribe, it is said, although it constituted Judah and Benjamin, just a fragment so to speak of the numbers that had been in such wonderful prosperity in the beginning of Solomon’s reign.
And this recovery, or this remnant, was almost annihilated. God was about to do it, but He gave them one more opportunity
in sending prophets; and they listened to the prophets and they humbled themselves before God, and so He said He would preserve a lamp for David’s sake (1 Kings 11: 36). So Judah was preserved, and they became presumptuous. What a word to us, dear brethren. If there have been the characteristics of Judah in the sense of a remnant being preserved, and if God comes in in any sense in blessing and in strengthening and in increase, let us not be puffed up, let us not in any sense speak of largeness, let us be constantly in the consciousness that it is just the latter growth. Yet it is very precious to God; what is real comes from roots that are already there. It is a wonderful thing to think that the same roots bring out the latter growth—
it is not latter sowing, it is a latter growth; it is from the same roots. If the public position had to be drastically dealt with, there were roots that remained and those roots, thank God, are the work of the Spirit; there is something that we can take account of as the latter growth.
But God indicated to the prophet that He was about to send locusts to destroy it, to eat it up, and it awakened the feelings of the prophet. Now it is a wonderful thing to see that the beginning of that tremendous prosperity, we may say, under Solomon, the establishment of his kingdom, was in part through the threat of division. Solomon asked for a sword and proposed to divide the child, but the mother of the child would not have it; “Give her the living child, and in no wise put it to death”, 1 Kings 3: 26. Solomon had no thought of dividing; the Lord has no thought I trust of dividing us, dear brethren, although He may allow the threat of division to awaken us to the seriousness of conditions. Let us not boast; conditions are such that the Lord has had to allow the threat of division, and that threat of division does not diminish either. We need to be very concerned
that the Lord is allowing something to exercise us to awaken mother feelings and right feelings, feelings of care for one another, feelings of concern that the freshness of the latter growth should be preserved, and the cry to God is, “O Lord Jehovah, forgive, I beseech thee!” Think of the feelings in this, “O Lord Jehovah”. Not, ‘O Lord God’, but, “O Lord Jehovah”, the God who had placed Himself in relationship with His people, “O Lord Jehovah, forgive, I beseech thee! How shall Jacob arise? for he is small. Jehovah repented for this—It shall not be, said Jehovah”.
May there be this state of feeling amongst us, dear brethren, feeling for the saints, feeling for God’s testimony, feeling for what has been, brought about in latter growth after the king’s mowings, after the devastation that has taken place, that the freshness of new growth, the latter growth, may be preserved, may be maintained, may increase, at the same time being conscious that Jacob is small. May the Lord help us to have feelings that are in keeping with His. For if He has given us some vision as to the locusts it is intended to bring to light true feelings of concern and care, true feelings in relation to the smallness of things. But while it is small it is precious to God. May it be preserved and may we be preserved in it.
Word in meeting for ministry, Brooklyn, N.Y.
10 July 1979