THE SPIRIT OF LITTLE ONES
[p. 188] THE SPIRIT OF LITTLE ONES
The Lord has been bringing before the hearts of His disciples the blessedness of God as known in grace. They had come under the influence of Jesus and had learned in Him something of the spirit of “little ones”. If God is to be great, man must be small. We know that in the coming day all the greatness of man will be brought low and “Jehovah alone will be exalted in that day” (Isaiah 2: 11), but that can be anticipated spiritually.
The Lord warns His disciples that offences are inevitable. The enemy would make persistent efforts to ensnare them, to take them away from the spirit of “little ones”. The Lord’s influence ever tends to reduce our dimensions, but the enemy is at work all the time to counteract that influence and to take us away from the place of littleness. Whatever does that is a snare, a stumbling-block, an “offence”. A great many of our difficulties, when traced to their root, are found to arise from self-importance, but to have a sense of the greatness of God in grace is a marvellous reducer!
One feels how much we need to be exercised continually that we may be preserved in the spirit of “little ones”. If we are little, there is room for God. It is a great favour to be kept small enough to give some expression of God. Such a person would manifest that a divine influence was pervading him instead of self-assertion, and he would bring in the influence of God. We should covet that.
How solemnly the Lord speaks! It would be more profitable, He says, to be cast into the sea than in any wise to be a stumbling-block to “one of these little ones”; and every true saint would say that he would rather even that should happen to him than that he should be exerting an influence counteracting the Lord’s; anyone who would do it deliberately would be an adversary to the Lord and would be judged as such.
[p. 189] The Lord tells us (verse 3) how we may be tested. A brother who has sinned against you may be an asset if you know how to regard him rightly, for he affords a valuable opportunity for the activity of grace — grace that can restore. The Lord supposes that one may be naughty enough to sin against you seven times in one day. If that happens to you — it has never happened to me! — you are to take heed that even that does not move you from the spirit of grace that marks a little one, one who is not thinking of self at all.
Of course, forgiveness is not administered until there is repentance, but it is to be in your heart; that is why you rebuke your brother, so that he may be restored, not that you may get your due. This preserves from legality. If you have to rebuke a brother it is in order to bring home to him that he has done what he ought not to have done, and there is a gracious opportunity for repentance. You do not stand off and wait for him to stoop to a low depth of self-abasement. The moment he says, I repent, there is to be free-hearted forgiveness. We might say of a person who sinned against us seven times in one day that if he had really repented he would not have repeated the offence, but the Lord says, Yes, he may! To deal with such a case makes a great demand. To rebuke one who has sinned against us, we need to be steeped in the wonderful grace of heaven, because the flesh may easily come in under such circumstances. We must own that a great deal that causes trouble amongst saints is simply self-importance, but the Lord refers here to some positive wrong having been done. It is to be met in this wonderful spirit of grace. The Lord’s name would be hallowed in it, and all would be edified.
The disciples felt this to be a great test, and we may all feel, as they did, that we are not up to it. It is easy for the flesh to come in at all times, and a rebuke given in the flesh raises the flesh in the person rebuked: a rebuke given in the Spirit subdues it. There are very few Christians who could resist a rebuke in the power of the Spirit of Christ. To us naturally the effect of seeing wrong in another is to exalt self.
[p. 190] The Lord warns us here against what would interfere with the normal effect of the teaching of grace. That teaching would keep us very small. The trouble continually is that I am too big. It is faith we need. The Lord says the smallest bit of it — “as a grain of mustard seed” — would introduce a principle powerful enough to uproot all the self-importance from the heart of any man! The principle of faith is that God is great to us, and the smallest bit of the knowledge of God in grace is adequate to deal with the self-importance that is natural to man and dispose of it effectually.
Our spirits are to be governed by the light of grace which has been brought to us by the Son of God. Simple to say, but most searching in the working out of it in practice.
Faith is the light of God as known in grace, and we are to be governed in everything by the light of the dispensation. If we allow things to govern us practically which are not according to the revelation of God, faith cannot operate. If legal principles come in they are most damaging. God has discarded them as useless, and they will not work in His assembly.
The Lord warns His disciples further (verse 7) that they might even become self-important through diligence and faithfulness in service. If God allows us to do any little bit of service, and we were to do it as perfectly and as faithfully as it could be done, it is no credit to us at all. I am a bondman. If I had done everything I ought to have done, as it should be done, I am to say, ‘I am an unprofitable bondman; I have done what it was my duty to do’. Personally I could not say that; very few of us could.
Our strength lies in having the greatness of God in grace before us, and the greatness of the Person in whom He has made Himself known — no thought of honour for self at all. It must need much grace to be an abundant labourer and yet not to think that anything is due to one for what one may have done. The Lord knows what self-important thoughts come into our hearts, but His grace would enable us to judge [p. 191] them in secret with Him. It is not that the Lord will not approve or praise or honour those who serve Him, but this has reference to our own spirit. What do I think of myself? I am a bondman, and an unprofitable one too!
It is all a question of what place God has with me. God is to be great, the Lord is to be great, the brethren are to be great, but I am to be small. The bondman does not seek any place or reputation; he goes on with the little bit of service he is given to do. No bondman need be jealous of another. What the Lord has set each to do is just as much as he can manage.