BUYING AND SELLING
BUYING AND SELLING
Acts 20: 28; Matthew 13: 44-46; Acts 4: 36, 37; Acts 5: 1-11; Revelation 3: 14-22
The Spirit of God through the prophet Ezekiel seems to make clear what many have overlooked, that Satan is really behind the commercial world. Tyre in scripture represents the world of commerce, and the prophet discloses, by the Spirit, that behind its king, that is its authority and power, is Satan himself. That I believe to be the import of the word in Ezekiel 28. The king of Tyre, doubtless as associated with God’s people Israel, is there said to be the anointed cherub that was in “Eden, the garden of God.” He was set there as a protective covering, but because of the multitude of his merchandise, everything was corrupted. He used the position of power and glory and trust that was committed to him, to acquire by commercial means, a glory and power that only resulted in pride. This spirit is also seen in the king of Babylon, in Isaiah 14, another representative of satanic pride. He says, “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God... I will be like the Most High.” The Spirit of God has used these kings as figures, to make clear that Satan himself is behind the great world of commerce as also the world of idolatry. All the selfishness, the cruelty, the greed, the falsehood, which marks Satan’s world, has its origin in himself. It is well to remember that.
In speaking of the world of commerce, I am not of course referring to the ordinary buying and selling in relation to the necessities of life, but to the great commercial system marked by greed and pride and cruelty — sometimes dreadful cruelty: behind all that is enthroned the devil himself. Those of us who have to touch it, need to remember this, lest we get drawn into its vortex, lest our minds and spirits and souls get drawn into this great system over which the devil rules. The Lord speaks of Satan as “the ruler of this world,” and the apostle says “the god of this world”; these are most important things to recognise. With the Lord’s help I want to touch on buying and selling according to God, so that our spirits might come under the influence of another world, and of other principles.
In Acts 20, the apostle speaks of God Himself “purchasing.” He says “the church of God, which he has purchased,” not with His own blood — that is not the correct rendering — but “with the blood of his own.” That is quite a different thing. The idea of death could not possibly apply to God as God. That is clear from the general teaching of scripture, and while our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was Himself God in Person, yet scripture invariably speaks of His death, as that of a Man: not that it was unreal, for that Person who “became flesh” died. Scripture speaks of the “death of his (God’s) Son.” God’s Son died. Immortality is inherent in God alone, so that it cannot be said that God died. The apostle’s word in Acts 20, refers to the death of God’s Son, He was God’s Own, the assembly has been purchased with the blood of His Own. What a wonderful transaction that must be! What value must God put upon His assembly, that He would purchase it at such a price! There are those who say, I am not interested in the assembly, I am only interested in the gospel. How little such persons understand the thoughts and feelings of God. The apostle understood when he told the elders that God had purchased the assembly “with the blood of his own.” If God put such a price upon His assembly, if it is of such value to Him that He would purchase it at such infinite cost, does it not claim the profoundest interest, the most ardent affection and the most diligent service of every believer?
I would for a moment dwell on the price that God has paid to have the assembly for Himself. The assembly is so great with God, that He is going to secure glory to Himself “in the assembly in Christ Jesus, unto all generations of the age of ages,” Ephesians 3: 21. What a wonderful thought for us, that God is to have glory to Himself, a glory that will never diminish, but will continue throughout all the generations of the age of ages, and it is to be in the assembly — the assembly over which Christ is Head. The apostle says, “That now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church (assembly) the manifold wisdom of God,” Ephesians 3: 10. This assembly is composed of those who are the sons of God, the brethren of Christ. God is to have in His assembly, innumerable sons who are intelligent in His mind and who respond to His heart, as being that which “he hath purchased with the blood of his own.”
I do not know any word in scripture that expresses in so forceful a way what is the secret value of the assembly to God. It ought to appeal to us more and more — “the blood of his own.” Think of the Lord Jesus Christ as His own! With what delight God could look down upon Him here on earth, for it clearly refers to that, “his own,” is Christ in manhood here — God’s Son — His Only-begotten. In what manifold ways God’s delight was evident. First of all He could say, “This is my beloved son.” God could identify Him in this way among men, and to the Lord Himself comes the word, “Thou art my beloved son, in thee I have found my delight.” Through the prophet Isaiah God calls our attention to Him and says, “Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth,” Isaiah 42: 1. Matthew understood it as he referred to the fulfilment of it in Jesus, Matthew 12: 18. The apostle Peter says of Christ that He was “chosen of God and precious.” David in Psalm 2, tells us of Him, and the disciples in Acts 4 referring to this, speak to God of His Christ — “the kings of the earth stood up... against the Lord, and against his Christ,” Acts 4: 26. That blessed anointed Man was the One whom Paul designated as “His own” — God’s own.
In understanding something of what Christ was to God, we come to realise the value of the assembly to God, for God has given up that precious life in order to have for Himself the assembly. He has purchased it “with the blood of his own.” How this should make us realise the great value that God sets upon His assembly, the apostle is using this to encourage the overseers to feed the flock of God, to lay down their lives in service to that which is so precious to the heart of God. One desires, dear brethren, that something of that may enter into the heart of every one of us so that we may live for God and His assembly, as realising more the preciousness of that which God has purchased with “the blood of his own.”
Coming to Matthew 13, we have the Lord presented as selling and buying. I do not refer now to the treasure, wonderful as that is, but I have the pearl particularly in mind. The Lord speaks of Himself under the figure of a merchantman: He uses a commercial expression, applying it to Himself. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant man, and the activities of a merchant man are to buy and sell, but the Lord here reverses the order, He sells and then He buys. What did He sell? It says, “He sold all that he had.” What for? To buy the pearl of great price, to have something that was of exceptional value to Himself. That is what a pearl is. People do not buy pearls to use them in the ordinary matters of life; they do not buy them for what service they can render, they buy them for their intrinsic value and for adornment. It says, “when he found one pearl of great price went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
That pearl of great price was composed of those who were drawn to Christ here and who loved Him. He found it in the love of His disciples, of Martha, and of the family of Bethany. The love of Mary prompted her to pour out the precious ointment upon Him, even as that unnamed woman who anointed His head in the house of Simon the leper. These affections were the evidence of the presence of the one pearl — there were like affections in all their hearts hence they were one — it evidenced the work of God in their souls. The pearl is the aggregate of this work. In the work of God evidenced in those who followed the Lord, He saw anticipatively the whole pearl — the assembly which God Himself valued, yes, purchased “with the blood of his own.” But in Matthew 13, we see the Lord’s side of the purchasing.
In order to have these affections set together as one — for they were really one, the nucleus of the assembly which is His body — He gave Himself, that is, “sold all that he had.” It is like a man adorning himself with his wife, for the normal position is that the wife is the adornment of her husband, as the apostle says, “the woman is the glory of the man,” 1 Corinthians 11: 7, so the Lord finds in the affections of His own, that which shall be for His glory. As He said in John 17: 10, “I am glorified in them.” Thus He found the pearl, and He went and sold everything that He had.
You say, He must love the assembly to sell all that He had? He does. Scripture says, “He was rich” — “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich,” 2 Corinthians 8: 9. All that by title belonged to the Lord Jesus as Man here, He surrendered by going into death in order to have the assembly. All that God placed under Adam as head of the creation, all that was Israel’s, Christ as the rightful King of Israel, had title to; in fact, everything that God had given to man — life, glory, authority, man’s whole inheritance — all was the inheritance of Christ. He had established His title to live and therefore all was His. He did not sell what belonged to Him in the Godhead; that could never be sold. It does not say that He gave all that He had, but that He sold it to enable Him to secure the pearl for His own heart for ever. The thought of selling is brought in to suggest the surrender of what He already valued.
I commend it to our hearts for consideration in order that we may understand the value of the assembly to Christ. That which He had here was of more value than we can ever compass — and who valued it as Christ did? In the language of Psalm 16, He said, “Yea, I have a goodly heritage.” The understanding of this calls for the same kind of surrender and devotedness in all our hearts in relation to that which is precious to Christ. I wonder whether we are ready for it? He wants the same spirit at the end, as that which marked the saints at the beginning. In Acts 4, the saints at the beginning were ready to lay down everything; it says, “neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own.” Thus, dear brethren, these things indicate to us the kind of buying and selling that the Lord would have continued. One feels this really lay behind the act of Barnabas. He had lands and he sold them. He need not have sold them; nobody commanded him to sell them, but something of what we have touched upon — that God had purchased the assembly with “the blood of his own,” and that Christ had “sold all that he had” to have the assembly — something of that came into the heart of Barnabas, and, having lands, he went and sold them and laid the price at the feet of the apostles, for the service of God in the assembly. As a result of this, the apostles gave Barnabas a name.
This passage shows how names that abide are obtained. People seek after names today — that is poor work! Men will sacrifice their all upon the altar of fame to get a name that will perish in a few hours. Barnabas got a name that will abide, and which heaven recognises. He got it by sacrifice. That road to divine approval and recognition is still wide open for every believer. Not many take it. The Lord Jesus secured His name by surrender and death — He has a name above every name. It says He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. That was the extent of His sacrifice in obedience to the will of God: “wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.”
Barnabas made the sacrifice, and the brethren gave him a name; they called him “the son of consolation.” Ananias and Sapphira thought also to secure a name without sacrifice, and God’s judgment came upon them. We all need to judge this, perhaps young men especially. The young men are brought into the matter here, no doubt to suggest the need of their learning the lesson. The young men carry out both Ananias and Sapphira, as much as to say, they must feel the burden of this for their own education. The attempt to get a name amongst the people of God except through sacrifice will lead to the judgment of God. Sacrifice that is real and that which God recognises, must not be merely external.
I commend this to the young men especially because if they remain and the Lord tarry, and they take up the service of the Lord in a pleasurable way, these lessons must be learned. Let us be content, dear brethren, that our names are written in heaven, and in response to the grace thus shown to us, see that we are amongst the saints of God on the principle of sacrifice, and as surrendering all that we have, let us first yield our bodies to God — sacrifice starts there. God does not want your money nor your time, unless He first has your body. The apostle says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice,” Romans 12: 1. It is the body — the whole man; it includes all the members, the whole vessel, retaining no part for yourself. We must face that if we wish to contribute to what is of God. If we would follow the example of Barnabas, we must face this, for everything that is of value in heaven and amongst the people of God, is secured on the line of sacrifice.
The Lord brings us face to face with this principle of surrender on the first day of every week. The Lord “the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread,” 1 Corinthians 11: 23. Each scripture that refers to the supper, brings in the betrayal of the Lord. You cannot separate this from the Lord’s supper, for the Spirit of God has joined them together. Now the betrayal of the Lord was a commercial act. We read that they weighed the silver, and Judas made the contract. Outwardly, he had a link with the Lord, he went about with Him, and was recognised as one of His disciples. The Psalmist speaks of him prophetically and says, “we went up to the house of God together.” Judas heard the Lord pray; he had thus what few on earth have ever had. He had all this outwardly but his valuation of the Lord was expressed in the act of covenanting with the Jewish leaders for the thirty pieces of silver.
You may enquire, What has all that to do with us? When the Lord said, “One of you shall betray me,” Matthew 26: 21, Peter said, “Lord, is it I?” They owned in that question that their hearts were such that they could do it. I believe the Lord would have us to face this question again and again. What is our valuation of the Lord? That is the question. The Spirit of God raises it through the prophet Zechariah. He says, “If ye think well, give me my price; and if not, forbear.” In business, in our domestic relations as husband and wife, or parents and children, in our friendships, in our reading, the Lord is saying to us every day, “If ye think well, give me my price.” For what will you part with communion with the Lord? What will you give in exchange for His support? For what will you part with your place of liberty in the house of God? Do not evade it. Let us face it honestly. We cannot go on with unrighteousness in our business life and be at home with the Lord and His people.
I do not mean that we may not be at the meetings, and even partake of the Lord’s supper, but we cannot enjoy what is available to us while we go on with unrighteousness. The Lord would say to everyone again and again, “If ye think well, give me my price.” Are we going to be like Esau, who, for a mess of pottage sold his birthright? What a birthright a saint has! The fulness of the blessing of God is available to him. Esau preferred a few minutes pleasure and self-gratification to the blessing of God. There came a day when he wanted the birthright back, but he could not get it. Many wake up when too late to the fact that they have missed the blessing of God — their present inheritance among them that are sanctified, and too late to be available to God.
If I am addressing anyone who is going on with what is known to be wrong, if you are in principle, selling the Lord, may He help you to judge it before it is too late. With Judas though filled with remorse, his act was irrevocable, for there was nothing there for God. The Lord had spoken to Judas indirectly among the disciples about the one who should betray Him, but Judas was entertaining covetous principles; he was a thief and had the bag. He allowed covetousness a place in his heart until the devil took possession of him. We should all learn to judge these covetous, unrighteous movements in their beginnings, otherwise we are in danger of parting with the blessed Lord and the fellowship of His people for worldly gain. Parting with the eternal and precious things of God,
for something in the way of advantage in this world.
The Lord would continually appeal to each one of us as to our valuation of Him. In Revelation 3: 18, the Lord says, “I counsel thee to buy of me” — whatever the state of His people — poor, wretched, miserable, naked, blind. He does not say I will give, but “I counsel thee to buy of me, gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve that thou mayest see.” This great Merchantman has wonderful stores! The bride in the Song of Songs has “all the powders of the merchant”; all the fragrant odours that come from her were procured from Him. How we love the fragrance of Christ as it is discerned in His own.
Think of Stephen — even to this day the odour remains — the fragrant incense of his closing words — he secured it from Christ. Who is the Merchant that has all these fragrant powders? Stephen had paid the price, and so, too, Paul and Silas in the prison of Philippi. What fragrance goes up — and it abides to this day. The bride, the Lamb’s wife will have all the powders of the Merchant, for the fragrance that is proper to Christ will pervade the assembly; but she has to buy it.
It is secured as what is of man after the flesh is surrendered and judged. The buying involves that we judge in ourselves the glory of man and of this world which are worthless, in order to have the gold tried in the fire. The glory of man and the glory of this world are to be surrendered and judged, if we are to have the gold tried in the fire, and the white raiment which the Lord offers. As we allow the Lord to expose the filthy garments we see them in their true character, those unholy ways in which we may have been clothed.
The Lord wants us to face and judge these things, and in that way pay the price for the white raiment that He sells. And then eye-salve that we may really see — that we may have spiritual vision. May the Lord help us to make room for this kind of buying and selling, that He may give us a right estimate of the price He has paid for the assembly. May we be more prepared to sell what we have and use it as sacrificed to the glory of His blessed name. We have in Judas and in Joseph’s brethren solemn warning of how we may act in regard to Christ. Joseph’s brethren heedless of his agony, and heedless of the effect upon him or upon Jacob, his father, sold him to the Ishmaelites. How the Lord felt the action of Judas! In the language of the Psalmist He said, “it was not an enemy ... then I could have borne it.” Touching words!
The Lord takes account of what enemies do in a very different light; it was when we were enemies Christ died for us, but Judas was in the place of a friend. Those of us who are professedly friends of Christ, who are known publicly in that way, let us think of the heartlessness of one who would sell our blessed Lord! The Lord help us to judge the initial movement that would make room for Satan’s activities in our hearts. May we each say in self-judgment, “Lord, is it I?” And then if we are made sensible of need and poverty, let us hearken to the Lord who says, “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed... and eye-salve that thou mayest see.”
May the Lord help us that buying and selling according to God might mark His people, and that we may not be dominated by that great commercial system of Tyre over which Satan is ruler.