RECOGNITION OF WHAT THE LORD IS DOING
John 10: 16, 27, 28; 21: 19-22
I have read these Scriptures from the Old Testament because I believe they indicate from the history of God’s people of old, that after a crisis in the testimony in which the Lord has manifestly come in to preserve the truth and save His people, there is a danger which sometimes manifests itself of some not being entirely carried by what the Lord has done, and even, in a greater or less degree, opposing it, and that is a serious matter, and a danger which may not be entirely absent at this present time.
In Numbers 16 there had been a banding together, as we know, of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, and two hundred and fifty men of renown, and the Lord had come in and met the crisis. The glory of the Lord had appeared and the situation had been saved by the intervention of the Lord. There was no doubt that it was of the Lord—it was perfectly manifest, yet the remarkable thing is that “the whole assembly of the children of Israel murmured on the morrow against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of Jehovah”. I am not suggesting, of course, that there is anything widespread that would correspond with that at the present time, but that there may be that element of murmuring against what the Lord has done, and personal feeling against those the Lord has used in the matter, and this is very serious—that it can manifest itself among the people of God on the morrow after a crisis in which the Lord has manifestly intervened for the maintenance of the truth and the salvation of His people.
We know that in the case of Dathan and Abiram, their wives and their sons and their little ones perished with them. I have no doubt that if they had separated themselves from Dathan and Abiram they would have been saved, for God is not unrighteous. We learn from a later scripture that the children of Korah did not die. We do not know on what ground they were preserved, save the ground of the mercy of God, which, thank God, is always there. God has rights in mercy which He is not slow to exercise, but I believe He looks for a certain moral basis for the exercise of His rights in mercy. But, alas, the wives and the sons and children of Dathan and Abiram did not dissociate themselves from Dathan and Abiram, and the result was they perished with them. That is, they allowed the strength of natural affection and of natural feeling to have first place with them rather than giving first place to the rights of God and what the Lord was doing.
This incident is the last one mentioned in 1 Corinthians 10 where it says, “Neither murmur ye, as some of them murmured and perished by the destroyer”. It was the spirit of murmuring and complaint. In order to preserve us from this the Spirit of God goes on to remind us of the cup of blessing which we bless, and He says, “Is it not the communion of the blood of the Christ?” That is to say, He would emphasise and reassert, so to speak, every time we bless the cup, the supreme rights of the love of Christ over each one of us as testified to in His death, and the moral import of His death too, as effectively delivering us, if we take it up, from everything that will hinder us from responding wholeheartedly to the Lord’s rights over us. If we really apprehend the import of the death of Christ (and it is there His love has been expressed), it means that no claims of natural affection have any right whatever to interfere between us and what the Lord looks for from us. Paul says, as in the light of the death of Christ, “we henceforth know no one according to flesh; but if even we have known Christ according to flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer”, 2 Cor 5: 16.
And so we find later that the sons of Korah had a judgment about this matter, for in Psalm 84, “Of the sons of Korah”, they say, “I had rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God, than dwell in the tents of wickedness”. It is an allusion to this incident, for Moses, as commanded by Jehovah, spoke to the assembly of the children of Israel and said, “Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men”. The psalm therefore shows that the sons of Korah had a judgment of it.
The daughters of Zelophehad also had a judgment in their day, see Num 27: 3. They had at that time no husbands, nor had they a father, yet they evidently had a judgment of the matter. There is no reason why every sister, as well as every brother, should not have a true judgment in regard to what the Lord has done. It is important we should all be clear about the matter, and that there should be no element of a spirit of murmuring or complaint in regard to what the Lord has done in this city and in this country.
In I Kings we find that Adonijah said, “I will be king”. But God had said, according to what David says in 1 Chronicles 28: 5-6, that Solomon should be king. That is a matter of the rights of God—His sovereign rights. Who is to question the sovereign rights of God! It is foolishness, and worse, for any one of us to set himself against what God may do in His sovereignty. Of what avail is it?
That was the position—that God had said Solomon should be king. Adonijah said, “I will be king”. But it is a question of the sovereignty of God, and Adonijah was assuming to set himself up against that which God had already sovereignly appointed. There was a reason why God said Solomon should be king, and that brings me to something else, that sometimes we hear it said that too much is being made of the assembly and not sufficient is being made of Christ. But then, it is a question of following what the Lord is doing. If we think of the history that is illustrated in the Scriptures, we find that in Samuel’s day David was the great point of the testimony. It was a question typically of Christ being brought forward and made attractive to the people of God in order that the first man, as in Saul, should be displaced and David, the man after God’s own heart, enthroned—and that was effective.
Then David, having become king, begins to set himself to bring up the ark to Zion, and he does it. It is a question of a ministry which would bring Christ forward before the hearts of the saints, not only in His moral supremacy in displacing every other man, but as Centre of the thoughts of God, that the whole system of which Christ is Centre should take definite form in the hearts of the saints, and Christ be apprehended by them in that relation. That ministry was also effective. Then Solomon is brought to the throne, and God greatly magnified him, see 1 Chron 29: 25. Thank God, Christ has been greatly magnified of recent years. The truth as to His Sonship has been set out in clarity in its true perspective, and Christ has been greatly magnified before the hearts of the saints. But when Solomon was established as king, what was the next matter? He was to build the house, and the house is the assembly, and the assembly in all the grandeur of it according to God’s thoughts regarding it. It took Solomon seven years (a complete period of ministry) in order to bring about the desired answer that God had in mind—the house in all its glory, typical of the assembly, and bound up with it the service of God. All Solomon’s energies were directed to the house, and all those with him too. It is a most important matter for us all to discern what it is that the Lord is going on with: what is the characteristic feature of the ministry for the moment, and the work of God for the moment, and Solomon’s day corresponds with our day. The great thing then that God was bringing about was the house, and that was typical of the assembly.
Solomon had no less than seventy thousand bearers of burdens, see 1 Kings 5: 15. How touching it is! How God loves to bring love out among the saints! Love is one of the great features of the assembly. Solomon had seventy thousand bearers of burdens. All the different burdens that arise among the saints are only intended to bring into expression the love that will bear them, and provide a real spiritual furnishing for the assembly according to the mind of God.
All this was in mind when God brought Solomon forward and set him on the throne. Adonijah said, “I will be king”, but God met it in a signal way. Adonijah did not at once lose his life. Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet and Benaiah were to take the king’s mule, and cause Solomon to ride on it and anoint him, and it was done. What is needed is the priestly element, and the prophet (one who has the mind of God and can state it authoritatively), and the element of courage seen in Benaiah that is prepared to support what God is doing, and as these are found moving together God’s end will be reached.
But what is so solemn is that after Solomon is enthroned, and Adonijah’s life spared, it comes to light that Adonijah and Joab and Abiathar were still together. They were not carried by what was being done, but moving in an insidious way in order to disrupt, if possible, what the Lord had so clearly done. Solomon discerned what was at work and dealt with it, and the throne of Solomon was established.
What God is going on with, and that it should be established, is the great thing in mind. I believe there may be a danger of this being ignored, and it is therefore for everyone to take account of what the Lord has done in recent crises and see to it that there are no reserves, no murmurings, no going on with what marked us previously, no maintenance of links other than links in the truth. If there is anything of this nature going on, the Lord, who is jealous for the truth and the house of God, will expose it.
The passages in John, I believe, have an important bearing on what I have been saying. In John 10 we have the passing over from the individual to the collective side of the truth, and it is most significant that as soon as we come to the collective side of the truth in John, we have an indication of the line on which the Lord intended to care spiritually for His assembly. We get the figure brought in of a flock and of a shepherd. The Lord says of the sheep that they hear His voice and follow, and what answers to hearing the voice of the shepherd at the present time and following, is discernment of what the Lord is saying to His assembly in the ministry and taking it on, and it is only thus we shall reach the end the Lord desires His people to reach. The Lord, in speaking of His own, the Gentile sheep says, “I have other sheep which are not of this fold: those also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one flock, one shepherd”. That is the principle upon which the Lord is intending spiritually to feed and guide His assembly—there is to be the recognition that there is one flock and one Shepherd, and that involves that there is one voice for the whole assembly. It must involve it. The Lord does not intend to have one voice for one part of the flock and another voice for another part. There is to be one voice in ministry which can be recognised as the Lord’s distinctive voice for the whole assembly and we are all responsible to hear that voice and follow it. It raises again the question of the Lord’s sovereignty, and who would challenge it? It is folly to challenge the sovereignty of the Lord. He has a right to use and take up whom He will for the ministry which is to constitute the distinctive voice which the sheep are to hear and follow.
So in verses 27 and 28 He says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them life eternal; and they shall never perish”. The line on which we are preserved in entering upon our inheritance of which eternal life speaks is that we hear the Shepherd’s voice and follow it. We recognise the distinctive voice He maintains for the whole assembly, and take it on, and as we do so we shall reach eternal life as known at the present time.
But perhaps it is said, Has not each servant his own ministry, his own line? I venture to say that while each servant has his own gift and impression, there is no thought of servants having their own independent lines of ministry. It might be said, What about Apollos? For he was not a product of Paul, nor accepted direction from Paul as Timothy and Titus did. Apollos was sovereignly laid hold of by God, and immediately brought by Priscilla and Aquilla under Paul’s teaching and imbibed it. So Paul later says, “I have planted, Apollos watered”. Apollos, while having his own gift, was careful to see to it that what the Lord was doing through Paul was that which governed him in his own service, so that if Paul planted at Corinth, Apollos would water what Paul had planted, and later when Paul wanted Apollos to go to Corinth, Apollos discerning doubtless that if he went the Corinthians might set him as a rival against Paul, refused to go at that time. In John 21 the Lord commissioned Peter to feed His lambs, shepherd His sheep and feed His sheep, and having done that He says to Peter, “Follow me”. He says that to a man with such a distinctive gift as Peter had; He commissioned him to feed His lambs and His sheep, and then having done so, He said, “Follow me”. Following the Lord involves recognising the distinctive voice in the ministry which He has for the whole assembly, and taking it on. Peter was to see that in his own ministry, his outlook was upon what God would be doing through Paul. We know that Peter, in his second epistle, refers to Paul, “our beloved brother Paul”, and recognises the authoritative character, as Scripture, of his epistles. And so as his final word, Peter refers the brethren to Paul, directing their attention to all his epistles.
So with John also. John was following too. Peter turns and sees the disciple whom Jesus loved, and he was following! So the gospel of John was written, not as a rival or independent ministry, but in order to support Paul’s ministry, which had all come out before the gospel was written, and give application to it according to the circumstances of the last days, in view of which John wrote. So Paul speaks to us of our having been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ, and John in his gospel, begins in the third chapter to direct the saints on to the line of what is spiritual and heavenly. The whole trend of the gospel is on to the line of what is spiritual and heavenly. The whole trend of his gospel is to support Paul’s ministry and bring to light the personnel of the assembly, and in chapter 20 he introduces us in his own way in the Lord’s words to Mary Magdalene, to the highest privileges belonging to the assembly of God.
I trust this will command the attention of the brethren as to the real danger there may be, after the Lord has intervened in a crisis, of some secretly or openly murmuring in regard to what has been done, or retaining special personal links otherwise than in the truth.
May the Lord bless the word.
SYDNEY
4th February 1948
From Notes of Readings in New York 1957, vol 26
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