HE DOES ALL THINGS WELL
J.Lovie
I have been thinking a good deal as to Mark, and how he wrote his gospel as a man who was recovered. At one point he abandoned the work and took a path away from the path that Paul was moving on (see Acts 15: 38), but was restored Paul can say, "Take Mark, and bring him with thyself, for he is serviceable to me for ministry", 2 Tim 4: 11. He writes with a sense of urgency as if there is very little time left. He is writing, I think, with a deep sense, as Peter said, that for the rest of his time he will live to the will of God. Peter, like all of us, had many ups and downs. He said, "For the time past is sufficient for us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles", 1 Pet 4: 3. The rest of our time for the will of God: what a happy thing it would be if we came to this resolve in our links with God, not a human resolve, but a resolve prompted by the activity of the Spirit of God! We have to-day; the rest of our time would be to-day.
Mark introduces his gospel with "Beginning of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ, Son of God". The Lord comes into public service immediately in Mark. The Spirit comes down and descends upon Him, and the word is "Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight" (v 11). The Lord is personally addressed in Mark. The first thing that the Lord does is to call out certain persons. He begins with a few fishermen and they are mending their nets; this gospel has in view the great need of mending. The repair work is going on at the present time. What a mending time it is! and we need to continue with the repair work. Breaches need to be repaired. The Lord can do this personally, but then there is what the Lord does through ministry. Isaiah alludes to that: "and thou shalt be called, Repairer of the breaches, restorer of frequented paths", chap 58: 12. These fishermen are mending their nets. Mending, I think, is continually a feature of activity in local meetings; that is, to repair as if there had never been a break.
The Lord then proceeds to cast out an unclean spirit. I would like just to warn young people here as to the uncleanness that exists in this world, and as to the unclean literature and Satan's activities to get in through the mind through what is unclean and to damage the soul, if possible to destroy in the soul the enjoyment of the forgiveness of sins. The Lord casts out that unclean spirit. Then He deals with the feverish condition in Simon's house. All this is in chapter 1. What comes to light in this book is that "He does all things well; he makes both the deaf to hear, and the speechless to speak", chap 7: 37. He identifies Himself in grace with conditions of weakness and suffering in humanity with a view to their relief. The Lord is showing His disciples how He is doing things as if to impress them with the way He met conditions meeting the most difficult cases, meeting desperate conditions in humanity and doing it in grace. In this gospel, the Lord touched the leper: what that must have meant to Him! It meant that He had to die. It meant that He had to be forsaken of God. It meant that His soul was made an offering for sin. Who did that to Him? God did that to Him: "When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin", Isa 53:10. He was made sin.
Then in chapter 3 of this gospel the Lord looks round in a circuit and says "Behold my mother and my brethren" (v 34). The synagogue is not sympathetic with what the Lord is doing. His relatives say He is out of His mind. "And looking around in a circuit... he says, Behold, my mother and my brethren: for whosoever shall do the will of God, he is my brother, and sister, and mother". In this gospel the Lord is securing brethren on moral grounds. John secures brethren on spiritual grounds, but in the synoptic gospels they are secured on moral lines.
Dear brethren, the testimony of our Lord is to be considered. It is to have weight and way with us. The Lord is not here now; He is in heaven, exalted, but His Name is here, and we gather to it. We hold that Name in renown and honour. It is dishonoured in this world; but as naming the name of the Lord we are identified with the testimony of our Lord, and the testimony of our Lord makes certain demands upon us. He was taken by wicked hands and crucified and slain, and they would have given Him a malefactor's grave, but God saw to it that "he was with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was there guile in his mouth" Isa 53: 9. I like to think of the answer to His moral worth in His burial and in His resurrection and ascension and exaltation in glory. He is exalted in heaven on the ground of moral excellence. Of course, He is there too in the right of who He is, because in coming into manhood He never ceased to be who He is because of what He became but was perfect in what He became. He was with the rich in His death; God gives the reason for it. How morally right it was for the Father to intervene and raise Him from among the dead in that selective resurrection, the glory of the Father intervening in the place of death and taking out from the millions who had died such moral excellence as was seen in Jesus! Think of His ascension on the ground of His moral worth! Heaven received Him. Hebrews says, 'saluted of God' (see chap 5: 10 note). He entered into heaven with salutation.
'Received in glory bright up there,
The Father's greetings, honours rare,
Are heaped upon His Son's blest brow;
He is the mighty Victor now'. (Hymn 350)
So the testimony of the Lord makes certain claims upon us, claims upon us as to what we do and where we go and with whom we associate, and many other things. The testimony of the Lord is not in honour in this world; it is despised; but Paul enjoins Timothy not to be ashamed of it (see 2 Tim 1: 8).
I read therefore, in chapter 5, as to these hard and difficult cases that came under the Lord's attention in this gospel.
'Disease, and death, and demon,
All fled before Thy word,
As darkness, the dominion
Of day's returning lord!' (Hymn 189)
He is healing the souls of men. When the Lord was here He healed their bodily needs, He raised the dead, He healed the sick, but He is healing the souls of persons to-day. Here is a man who could not be subdued and he comes under the Lord's touch, and the Lord says to him "Go to thine home to thine own people, and tell them how great things the Lord has done for thee". What has the Lord Jesus done for you? Could you tell me some of the things that Jesus has done for you? Wonderful things He has done for us! Paul enlarges on the great things that have been done for us, what He has done, you might say, outside of ourselves altogether, what He has done for us when we could do nothing for ourselves. Can you go to school or to the office or go among your workmates and tell them what Jesus has done for you? Oh, that we could enlarge and expand in appreciation of the things that have been done for us! The blood is on the mercy-seat in its efficacy and power - a wonderful fact! The older we grow, the more we are to be steeped in the sense of the mercy of God that has wrought in the things that Jesus has done for us. This man went away and proclaimed in this place of ten cities "how great things Jesus had done for him; and all wondered". That woman in John 4 went to the men of the city; "Come, see a man" (v 29). She told them of some of the things that Jesus had done for her: "who told me all things I had ever done: is not he the Christ?" He is God's Anointed. Christ is the One who does things for God. He is not only doing things for the sinner, He is doing things for God. "Is not he the Christ?" It was not all for us. No. Much was for us, but what He has done for God! He has retrieved the race for God. God has a new Head for men in Christ because Christ restored what He took not away.
With this woman in Mark 5 it is what is done in her. It says, "But the woman, frightened and trembling, knowing what had taken place in her, came and fell down before him". Think of God's work going on inwardly in a soul. This might link with what we were speaking about in the reading, what is done in us. Colossians involves the work done in us. The epistle to the Romans is a good deal of what is done for us. There is more than that in it, of course, but in Colossians it is what is done in us: "your life is hid with the Christ in God", chap 3: 3. It is that hidden life, the inward side of things that is being built up through contact with Christ - "buried with him... raised with him... quickened together with him" chap 2: 12,13. Quickening is an inward thought: what has been done in the soul. The gift of the Spirit is an inward matter; He has been sent into our hearts; that is a great inward experience. Quickening involves the power of life in an inward way. It is life through contact with the Head in glory. How many believers are content just to go on with singing 'Happy day!' in the enjoyment of what has been done for them, and rejoicing in it, but who are not sufficiently exercised to proceed in relation to what God is prepared to do in them! The inward work involves the formative work of the Spirit. Genesis 1 is creation, God acting in His power in creation; chapter 2 involves formation, man being formed: involving the activity of the Spirit of God. Formation is by the Spirit. God has much to do in us on the line of formation. The Spirit will form more of Christ in our hearts if we give place to Him. Soon we are to be conformed to His image; the full condition proper to sonship will be realised when, with Christ in glory, in bodies of glory, we shall be like Him forever, and in that condition suited to having the Spirit eternally. Yet we have the Spirit now in this mixed condition in these bodies of humiliation, and the Spirit is pleased to identify Himself with us and come into our hearts with a view to formation in us in the divine nature. He sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts (see Rom 5: 5). This woman reaches it through power being transmitted from Christ, flowing into her, the Lord "knowing in himself the power that had gone out of him". It went out of Christ, but it went into this woman. This is the experience of contact with Christ. If we lose contact with Christ we lose interest in the meetings, we lose interest in the truth, but to be maintained in living contact with Christ involves that you are livingly identified with His body down here, the vehicle in which the Head is expressed. The body is descriptive of the Head in heaven; that is, life expressed through contact with Him who is our glorious Head above, and the more we enjoy that, the more we shall be found here among the saints in the support of His precious interests and finding formation is going on by the Spirit in view of completion. God will perfect His work in us; He will complete His work; He has begun a good work in us and He will complete it unto Jesus Christ's day (see Phil 1: 6). Jesus Christ's day is the day of display, the day when it will shine. It does not shine in this world; it is hidden: "your life is hid with the Christ in God", Col 3: 3. Neighbours may see you going to the meeting; they may outwardly respect you; they do not quite understand you; you do not go here and there; you have no television or radio. Young people sometimes wonder why there is not a television in their home. It is because their parents do not want to have the world in their house. We do not need radios in our cars either; many of them come with them, but we can take them out, we can dispose of them. Our "life is hid with the Christ in God". When He who is our life shall appear, what a day that will be! when He who is our life above comes out in manifestation and display. We are not yet in the day of display; it is not the time of display. This world and its social ongoings is full of display. It marks man's day; man likes to display himself. But the present time is the hidden time: "and your life is hid with the Christ in God". Something had happened in the soul of this woman that had been imparted through contact with His garments. She had come into touch with what was representative of Him here. In Luke it is the "hem of his garment" (chap 8: 44), what is down here, and you find you can touch Christ in the local meeting; you can touch Him there; you can identify what is there as expressive of Christ, the Head in glory. The power that flows from Him into this woman is a wonderful experience; and we can be consciously affected by the impartation of life from Him who is our Head above.
Then this daughter of twelve years old: this chapter is so wonderful in the personnel that comes to light. It is house conditions, not synagogue conditions; synagogue conditions are unsympathetic; they are not helping the Lord in His service as Jehovah's servant. They do not understand who He is in chapter 4 when He rebuked the winds and the waves; "Who then is this...?" Who is this? God over all, blessed for ever, found here among men in that lowly path. It is the boat that the Lord is in that gets attacked. There are other ships but you do not hear anything of them. It is the ship that the Lord is in that is seeming to be engulfed by the winds and the waves. In that chapter the Lord is the sower, but He is also viewed as a sleeper. Oh, to have confidence to leave things in the Lord's hands! Many things we may get burdened and anxious about. The disciples got excited in the boat but things were in the Lord's hands; we can leave things there and be restful when He is in charge. He is not in every boat but He is in this boat and Satan is attacking this boat where the Lord is.
The Lord raises up the damsel. He takes His disciples with Him at this point and shows them how He does things. Many times we set out to do something and we know it would be right to have it done, but one great lesson we need to learn, I believe, and keep learning, is how the Lord does things, the spirit in which He does them, the manifestation of divine grace in all He did in His way and walk here. Mr Darby says in that remarkable short article on the need for grace: 'man is not all conscience; the whip and the scourge may be righteous, there is no winning of the heart of man with these'. 'How often', he says, 'we may have hammered at the conscience with the heart ungained and maybe even unsought and the Master's lowly work so little done'. Oh to be affected by the way in which He did things. As to this girl, He says that something should be given her to eat. You find that in the local meetings; among the brethren you find food that is suitable. You do not need a Sunday school; "something should be given her to eat" - that is in our gatherings, there is the ministration of food to build up the soul constitutionally. There is the development of normal 'house' conditions as the Lord has His place there. There is the man, the woman and the child in this chapter, and, you might say, there is the personnel in view of 'house' conditions over against the hardness and unbelief in the synagogue that is unsympathetic with the Lord's activities.
May the Lord help us in the development of maturity, in the formation of the divine nature as we make room for the Spirit of God, for soon we are to enter our eternal home in final conditions. I was thinking to-day of the word "as much as they can carry", Gen 44: 1. How much love can we carry? What is our stock of love? What a stock of love Paul had! How much he carried! May the Lord bless the word.
KILMARNOCK
28 June 1980