"WHOM SHALL I SEND, AND WHO WILL GO FOR US?"
“WHOM SHALL I SEND, AND WHO WILL GO FOR US?”
Address at a meeting to commend brothers undertaking an extended service,
I wish to dwell a little on what is commonly called missionary service, which signifies the idea of one being sent. All Paul’s missionary journeys imply that he was divinely sent. Persons may be sent by men, but we are concerned with work growing out of a divine commission; as Scripture says, “how shall they preach unless they have been sent?” Romans 10:15. Thus the inquiry, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah 6:8.
Gifts, we read in Corinthians, are ‘set’ in the assembly. This, I apprehend, involves the right and means in God’s hand of the control of His servants, which sometimes means restriction. God, in setting gifts in the assembly, has them under His hand, and no one who is with God in His service would wish it otherwise. To be set in the assembly is to be in that in which divine order is seen and where divine authority is recognised and asserted. This is an important matter, for the servant is given a commission with a definite end in view, and the saints, as we see in Acts 13, have part in this. There must be an objective, both as to where the potential results of the mission are to be found, and the results themselves as fully secured. For instance, if Solomon is to have gold the mariners are not to go to sea whither they will (2 Chronicles 8:17,18), there is no such thought as that. They had a knowledge of the sea, but were necessarily under royal control. All the expenses would be borne by the king, whose right was obvious. And so it is, dear brethren, in the service of God; the field is His and He knows where the results He [p. 2] seeks are to be found. It is a matter of God’s knowledge and direction. Going back into the history of the testimony we see that the government of God enters into everything. He has a perfect knowledge of the field in which He operates. He said of Corinth, “I have much people in this city”. Acts 18:10. The Lord bade the disciples to “cast their net on the right side of the ship” John 21:6 — that was where the fish were and the Lord knew it. Had they cast the net on the left side probably they would have caught no fish. So you see that the area for the desired result is known to the Lord; He knows where they are to be found. Divine movements in testimony in Paul’s day were in a westerly direction; He seeks the assembly now; by and by He will seek for something else and will probably go east. What we see here is a movement westward and that by one who has prospered in the work and who is concerned about the assemblies already existing, that they should be confirmed; Acts 15:41; Acts 16:5. Thus the assemblies were established in the faith and increased in number every day. This is surely an important side of the ministry.
I wish now to point out that in this happy service under the blessing of God, Paul and those with him not only came under the authority of the Lord, but the guidance of the Spirit. He speaks twice here in a forbidding way and I think it implies that a gift moving in the dignity of his commission is given to understand that the Holy Spirit is here in that connection. As set in the assembly the servant may come under the criticism of his brethren. In the epistles we get the principle of the saints judging, and that is an important matter. A servant has to expect the faithful counsel and criticism of his brethren. It is his salvation to do so; if he is not amenable to his brethren, he is in independency. Here, according to Ephesians 4, Paul is in the liberty of one sent by an ascended Christ as provision for the assembly [p. 3] rather than one set in it. He is thus under the direct control of the Spirit. To respond to the Spirit requires a state of spiritual sensitiveness, so that one quickly feels His touch. Paul’s motive was right and he was so sensitive that the Holy Spirit could denote that the regions he proposed to visit were not to be his sphere of labour at that time. He wrought in these places later and had great results, but for the moment the Spirit does not suffer him to go there. Still the Spirit does not tell the apostle and those with him where they are to go, but Paul has a vision.
“A vision appeared to Paul” (verse 9), and who was in the vision? A man of Macedonia. This man signifies the potential result. God is not occupying the apostle with man in the sense in which the Greeks represented man. The Greek world stood for human development. You have that man in Romans 2 in the instructed Greek. That man is not asking a despised disciple of Jesus to help him, he is resourceful on his own account. Paul says there, “O man”! and the Athenians say of him, “What would this chatterer say?” they mocked Paul. It is not that man which is in view here — it is potentially a man according to God. Why should we go to Jamaica, or anywhere else, unless we had that man before us? There is “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”, 1 Timothy 2:5 and the testimony is to bring about other men after His order. That is what we should have in view in our service. Paul heard a man’s voice. There is suggested one in the intelligent sense of responsibility, but in felt need. It was intended to impress the minister as to need in the west, and it did impress him, for he proceeds to Macedonia, “assuredly gathering”, Luke says, “that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them”. Paul, as a true servant, takes a “straight course” (verse 11). There were no second thoughts, no selfish motives. It is a question of “assuredly gathering” that the Lord is calling him,
[p. 4] and answering immediately and definitely to that call. Then Luke comes in for the first time. On this line we may look for divinely given companionship. So we have “they” in verse 6 and “we” in verse 10. What an acquisition Luke must have been! He is in the company now. May we not hope that our dear brethren going forth from us will have some sort of companionship to encourage them in their service — companionship in the spirit of service? The Lord Himself valued it, and Paul also valued it. From the manner of the apostle’s reference to him later it is evident that Luke was sympathetic, and sympathy is a great thing in the service of God. Luke was a “beloved physician”. Colossians 4:14. He was a dear man, being heartily with the apostle. How he would minister to Paul and Silas in their physical sufferings!
Then what follows is that the apostle and his companions, having arrived at Philippi, “were in that city abiding certain days”. That is another thing. To arrive in a place is one thing, to remain there is another. They found something of God there. “And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither”. A fine position! They were only women, but they were praying women. “Where prayer was wont to be made”. The servants of Christ identified themselves with what was of God there. It is a fine thing, as finding something of God in a place, to ally ourselves with it. We honour God as thus recognising His work, however small it may seem. Nothing is inaugurated as yet at Philippi. And now the enemy attacks through a woman. It is a sorrowful matter that the enemy has a foothold there. He does not limit his attack to Paul — “followed Paul and us”. Luke puts Paul forward as the special object of attack, but he and the others with Paul were not excluded, for the enemy attacks as widely as possible. She says, “These men are the servants of the most high God”. It was an attempt at flattery, and diversion from the present character of the testimony, which if accepted means ruin. Many a servant of God has been damaged, if not ruined, through this kind of opposition. The Scriptures put us on our guard against it.
I would dwell briefly on the manner of meeting this attack. Paul was “grieved” — if we do not feel such things as before God, He may allow them to continue. Here the attack was for “many days, But Paul being grieved ...”. ‘What is there in me that this thing should continue?’ he would perhaps say. It was most harassing, as from a female slave possessed with a spirit of Python. Why does God allow these dear men to be followed day by day? Do you not think Paul challenged his own heart as to this effort of Satan? I am sure he did. It is as we feel things that God comes in. All the consequences have to be accepted and anything upon which God may wish to put His finger owned. Paul’s deep feelings about this matter brought in divine help. By the power of the Spirit he says to the demon, “I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour”.
I trust these remarks will be comforting to our dear brethren as they set out on their service. Paul was confirmed in his course by the results at Philippi. The ‘man’ was there; the Philippian epistle denotes from the divine viewpoint the man whom God had in His mind. The mind that is in Christ Jesus was reflected in the Philippian saints, and Paul wrote to perfect them in Him. Paul met with most severe suffering and imprisonment at Philippi, but in the prison he found a man — the jailer — who, as believing on the Lord Jesus, showed by the treatment he accorded to His servants that he had drunk into His Spirit.