HOW MATERIAL FOR THE HOUSE IS SECURED
[p. 261] HOW MATERIAL FOR THE HOUSE IS SECURED
1 Samuel 20:41, 42; 1 Peter 3:15 - 20; Ephesians 2:17
The Lord took the ground here on earth, as in subjection, of being shown what the Father did; and in taking up servants He laboured to reveal the mind of God to them, to bring them into accord with the mind of God. We should read the gospels in that light. They were not written from the standpoint of relief for men, though they contain wonderful records of relief; they were written from the standpoint of revelation, and the Lord is seen in them labouring to bring His apostles into accord with the mind of God.
In Luke we find the Lord spent the night in prayer before He called them; and having named them He descends from the mountain with them on to the plain. They were, as knowing God, to come down to the level of men to reach souls. It was necessary that they should come down to the level of men as the Lord did, carrying with Him divine grace so that it might be available. At the end of Luke’s gospel they are told to tarry in the city of Jerusalem until they should be endued with power from on high. They were to understand in the tarrying what was in view: that repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in His name to all the nations, and that they were to begin at Jerusalem. They would learn in that tarrying their own impotence. Every moment of the day would remind them that the great work was not to be undertaken at their own expense; so they were charged to remain in the city of Jerusalem until they should be endued with power.
That is the point of view in Luke. The great work had to be undertaken, the enlightenment of all the [p. 262] nations through preaching, and so the vessels must be in accord with the work. It must not be undertaken in their own energy but in the energy of power from on high. There is another power; alas, we are made to realise in these days, how that power is operating! It is said, “this is that power of the antichrist”. 1 John 4:3. We have to meet that power of antichrist of which we have heard; but the enlightenment of nations from Luke’s point of view was to be undertaken by vessels clothed with power from on high. This is heavenly energy as seen in Acts.
The evangelist is to be a sympathetic servant, as the apostle Paul said, “to the Jews I became a Jew” 1 Corinthians 9:20; he became all things to all men that he might gain some. He was out for material for the house; he was a workman who shrank from nothing, whatever had to be done, to further the great mission entrusted to him. The Lord had come down to the plain. He stood by Paul in the roughest part of the work, and as he set out from Antioch what rough work he had to do! But he finished the work, it says, “which they fulfilled”, Acts 14:26. Those chapters of Acts, beginning with chapters 13 and 14, should be read studiously by all of us, but particularly by those who decide to go to Lebanon with the levy to bring down the timber. Such labourers must be prepared for rough experiences, but they can undertake it as endued with power from on high. The apostles, particularly Paul, shine in the acceptance of all the circumstances of that labour.
In the end of Matthew we see that the Lord told His disciples to meet Him in Galilee, not in Jerusalem; they had to be brought into accord with the mind of God about Jerusalem. Luke would lead them on the grace side to present the gospel in Jerusalem, but not Matthew. We have in our service to understand the government as well as the grace of God. The government implies that the city is to be [p. 263] destroyed; the grace, that the gospel is to be preached. We have to hold in our souls the government of God; it is favourable to the gospel. We are enjoined to pray for all in authority. We have to understand the government of God; it is on parallel lines with the ministry of the Spirit. So in Matthew the Lord said to His disciples, “I will go before you to Galilee”. Matthew 26:32. And later He sent word to them that they should go into Galilee and there they should see Him. We have to learn what it is to meet the Lord in Galilee in the service of God. There we learn the government of God. He passes over nothing; Jerusalem was doomed; Paul said wrath is come upon them (the Jews) to the uttermost. The Lord announced that all power was given unto Him in heaven and on earth. The power is to be exercised outside Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the city of the great King, but He is outside His city, He is in Galilee, and says, “All power has been given me in heaven and upon earth. Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations”. Matthew 28:18,19. There is no thought of ‘if’ here, they had all power behind them. These eleven men were to go forth in the light and knowledge of the government of God, and of all power in heaven and upon earth being behind them. Then further He says, “Behold, I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age”. Matthew 28:20.
In Matthew all nations were in view, in Luke all men, more — the race; in Mark creation is in view. We have to know God in government, in grace, and in creatorial rights. The Lord is representing God in all these phases and the disciples are to be in accord. In Mark He says, “Go into all the world and preach the glad tidings to all the creation”. Mark 16:15. He looks at men according to Mark as creatures, and God as a faithful Creator; He has in view to bring out of creation “a kind of first fruits”, as James says, “of his creatures”. James 1:18. In John it is not only His governmental rights, His rights on men in grace, or His [p. 264] creatorial rights, but His rights of love. Who is the evangelist great enough to present the rights of love, the rights of the love of God? “God so loved”; He had a right to give His Son, He gave Him in love. God so loved, not now the nations, not now the race, not now creation, but “the world”. Think of the kind of love that could rise above the history of the world and love it! John, the most profound of all the evangelists, says, “Grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”. John 1:17,18. We have hardly touched that, and yet to rightly preach the gospel we have to understand the viewpoint in this wonderful gospel — to understand the love of God.
The Lord laboured to bring His people into the abiding-place where the love is to be known, so He says, “As the Father sent me forth, I also send you”, and He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”. John 20:21,22. It is as receiving the Spirit of Christ in that intimate and holy way that one is fitted to stand up and announce the gospel of the love of God. Hence John says in his epistle, “We have seen and testify that the Father sent the Son as Saviour of the world”. 1 John 4:14. It is a wonderful thing to get in your soul the thought that, “The Father sent the Son as Saviour of the world”. We are to be brought into accord with that — the heart of God. In regard to such a service there is a great work to be undertaken in calling men out of the world, and creating material for the divine pleasure; God would equip us by the understanding of love as presented in the gospel.
Now I want, with regard to David, to refer to the character of the dispensation, and to show that things are on the earth at this moment in a southern aspect, that is, that God’s attitude is favourable to man. You will remember the setting of this passage in Samuel. Jonathan had been enlightening David [p. 265] through a remarkable instrumentality as to the murderous attitude of Saul; the incident was represented, and had its antitype in Jerusalem in our Lord’s time. Jonathan had brought weapons, and through these he was to acquaint David with the attitude of Saul. The lad had gathered up Jonathan’s artillery, and had gone into the city with these weapons: “instruments of cruelty” Genesis 49:5 were there in Saul’s house, as of old they had been in the habitation of Simeon and Levi. But David was outside, just as the Lord had gone out from the gate of the city realising the murderous attitude of His enemies. He suffered without the gate, and said of Jerusalem, “Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves”. Luke 23:28. There was divine compassion in that dreadful hour, and so on the cross there is no change of heart; He retains the attitude of grace in all His infinite fulness: He says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. Luke 23:34. It was, as it were, a ray of divine grace from the south, from the favourable aspect, in that dark hour; and so David as fulfilling the type was led of God.
Jonathan was about to go after his weapons. It suggests that he was to maintain a long distance connection with David. Jonathan was characterised by this, like many Christians today, who keep at a distance from the Lord. The connection may be cut, and we suffer with the ungodly. One wonders often how it is that many believers can stay so far away from the Lord; one knows they love Christ, but how can they stay so far away? Jonathan elected to stay far away, and yet David shone, as it were, on Jonathan; he arose from his place in the south. What wonderful grace in that dark hour! “Father, forgive them”.
So at Pentecost the position is unchanged. There is not only the announcement of forgiveness but the presence of the Holy Spirit, a divine Person come [p. 266] down in the very city of Jerusalem. Marvellous grace! And all for them. As David arose from his place in the south on that eventful day, after the lad had gone, and exceeded Jonathan in his weeping, so the Lord arose in holy splendour, and shone from heaven in the gift of the Spirit, and in the announcement of forgiveness on that city. Peter says, “The promise is unto you, and to your children”. Acts 2:39. What shining, what warmth there is, as the Lord Jesus shone from heaven! Again, we read, “Being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath shed forth this”. Acts 2:33. That is the initial feature of this dispensation, and onwards from this time the material is to be brought in in that wonderfully favourable circumstance. It is the southern aspect. David arose from his place in the south in the energy of life, his heart unchanged to Jonathan, as later we find his love unchanged; there was grace, too, even for Saul. This is the favourable aspect in which we are to go out and bring in the material for the assembly.
In 1 Peter 3 and Ephesians 2 we have in keeping with this the wonderful warmth of the moment; this is the acceptable year and the day of the glad tidings to men. Peter says, “Christ also hath once suffered for sins”. Peter was a witness of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow. He “once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by [or in] the Spirit”. Look at the Spirit. It is the Spirit in which He died and was quickened. In that Spirit going, He preached, and see what the distance back was: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”. John 5:17. The Spirit lights up that moment, the hundred and twenty years while the ark was preparing, and shows that the Lord preached then. “In which also going he preached to the spirits which are in prison, heretofore disobedient, when the long-suffering [p. 267] of God waited in the days of Noe while the ark was preparing”. Such was the energy of the Lord, He was preacher then, He was working then. Preaching and building went on, Noah was the instrument, but Christ was the Preacher.
It is a tale of glory as one sees it stretching back through all those years. What a spirit in the presence of the most dreadful violence and wickedness existing. The Lord testified in wonderful patience through one solitary man, but His Spirit would not always strive: it strove one hundred and twenty years through one man! These were wonderful days; though days without result in the way of conversion, yet there was the fragrance of the testimony, the Spirit of Christ was there, and thus there was something for God.
The other side is in Ephesians 2:17, the sun, as it were, shining above us. It speaks there of Christ “coming”, not “going”, as in Peter. Coming He has preached the glad tidings of peace to those afar off, and to those nigh. The position is this, the Lord Jesus has come; John says, “This is he that came by water and blood” 1 John 5:6: He brought the means of cleansing with Him. The Son of God has come, and Paul says, “and, coming, he has preached the glad tidings of peace” to those who were far off, and to those who were nigh. The Lord Jesus is the Preacher, He takes up weak vessels like ourselves, but the preaching is His.
We have spoken of the Gentile territory from which material for the assembly is secured, but there is also the Jewish territory. In Matthew 15 the Lord preached first to the Gentiles; according to the record there, He went first to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon and then into Galilee, and in the light of the next chapter (Matthew 16) we see that God is preparing material, those far off and those nigh, that He might now reconcile both in one body to Himself by the cross. So that now we “both have access by one Spirit to the Father”, we draw near to God. Reconciled by the cross, brought out of everything in which the flesh prides itself, brought together in one body, through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. There is no long distance with God, but the most intimate relationship; we draw near to the Father by one Spirit, so that we are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. And all this is through the preaching.
In Ephesians the house is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. The Lord coming He had preached to those who were afar off and to those who were nigh; He followed up His servants in all the rough work and sufferings entailed, and the material was brought in — the preaching was not in vain. The wonderful result is that we are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Not only is a sure foundation laid in Zion, but the grace of Christ gives character to the whole structure; “Jesus Christ himself being the corner-stone”, Ephesians 2:20 in whom, too, we grow to a holy temple in the Lord. We are today being fitted together as living stones and increasing to a holy temple in the Lord; through us the divine mind will be known in that day.