(i) STEADFASTNESS
MINISTRY IN EDINBURGH
E.W.Johnston
Luke 9: 51, 59-62; Ruth 1: 14-22
I am thinking, beloved brethren, about the need for steadfastness. I feel the need to set ourselves related to the divine will and pleasure. In Revelation (chap 4: 11), it says, "and for thy will they were, and they have been created". We need to sit down and quietly think over our pathway - maybe up to this moment - as in the presence of God. There is infinite perfection in Jesus. To have our minds occupied with what has been expressed in Jesus will hold us, even the very youngest of us. Hebrews refers to an anchor both sure and steadfast (see chap 6: 19) and in this life of coming and going and swaying, a world of indifference, a world of casualness we need to be anchored. Casualness is a peculiar feature of this world, and we need to be steadfast in our minds in relation to what is for the divine will and pleasure.
We get here the perfect example in Jesus: "And it came to pass when the days of his receiving up were fulfilled, that he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem". Previous in the chapter there had been the expression of His glory, something to entrance our hearts and to hold them, presently (as it will eternally) in the midst of a world where there is the expression of man's glory and man's will. There is a certain hidden glory at the present time that is to be in the hearts of the saints. There was that hidden in the heart of Jesus – “thy law is within my heart", Ps 40: 8 - which related entirely and absolutely to the will of God: "Behold, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me - To do thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight", Ps 40: 7,8. In the day to come this whole world will be transformed when the dominion of Christ will take over the reins of government and there will be an order of things exactly and entirely for the divine will and pleasure. Meantime, it would appear that there is nothing related to what is for God's pleasure here except what is in the hearts of the saints, but through all that has come in these two thousand years of this long dispensation, this narrow way has gone through. The Lord speaks about the narrow way and about the broad way. The broad way would mean man's will and man's opinions, man's mind dominating whatever they could. In the present day there seems to be a kind of think-as-you-please attitude, but God's mind and God's will is the narrow way. The Lord says, the narrow way leads to life; the broad way leads to destruction (see Matt 7: 13,14). We need to be simple in these things and to bring it home to young people that they should become attracted to Jesus, their minds settled. We get this perfect expression of it in Jesus: "he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem". There are wonderful results of this one Man here for the divine will and pleasure. In the garden He said, "not my will , but thine be done", Luke 22: 42. It meant that He would go to Jerusalem, face all the ignominy and shame and scorn and spitting and the cross itself; the will of God was carried through in its perfection and entirety. That has been absolutely established now that Christ is in glory, established immutably. God in the gospel is pointing to that Man in the glory and every heart should be turned to Him in relation to His will, His pleasure.
I thought about Ruth as an individual. We come to these matters individually. There was a famine in the land. God has allowed certain things but He has designed the infinite resources that we can enjoy. I want to encourage each one of us, the youngest too, that we can be steadfastly minded in relation to the will of God. We have to sit down: we have to consider these things. One of the prophets says, "Consider your ways", Hag 1: 6. That is each one individually. What way are we on? Is it the narrow way? Is it the broad way? The narrow way leads to life. What do you understand by life? Here, in Ruth, Elimelech and Naomi had gone away, they had left the land and gone to Moab. There was a famine there in the fields of Moab and death - the husbands had died - and the daughters-in-law came back with Naomi, a sorrowful woman. Deep down in Naomi's heart there were feelings after God and for the gatherings of the saints, we might say - let us put it that way - where God would feed His people. God in His compassion was feeding them, giving them bread. We have known something of this, 'whose God is king' (which is what Elimelech means). Previous to that it says "every man did what was right in his own eyes", Judg 21: 25. But then God's will must predominate and we come under this benign, beautiful dominion, "translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love", Col 1: 13. That is a wonderful dominion! You young people, take it in. It is not hardness or demand but "the kingdom of the Son of his love" - a benign dominion, absolute and powerful, expressed even in the present time. One day it will come into expression publicly, but meantime the secret and power of the gospel and ministry are to bring us into His dominion, so that we are here related to the will of God - wonderful thing! Some of us have been brought into this and we appreciate it. Ruth comes with Naomi: she must have been attracted to Naomi who would express features of the hidden work of God in her soul. There is a hidden work of God in each of our souls, not in full expression although it would come out, but there is something hidden, and there was something in Naomi in these circumstances of depression and opposition. She was going back to Bethlehem which means house of bread. Think of God providing these things! - Jesus the Bread of life, this life in expression. She is coming back a sorrowful woman: "Call me not Naomi - call me Mara", bitterness: she felt the bitterness but there must have been something about Naomi. There is something in the older brethren and it is for us who are older to show something of the work of God, of what there is in the way of steadfastness of mind so that the young people can be attracted. We feel the responsibility of this. What is there with me? Is there anything with me that maintains steadfastness of mind in relation to the will of God so that God has something here in the way of an inheritance and at the same time there is something for us to enjoy, to respond to Him.
So here we have this widow-woman. There is what is of the character that says "I sit a queen, and I am not a widow; and I shall in no wise see grief", Rev 18: 7, but, quietly, powerfully, unobtrusively, the work of God goes on in souls. Ruth here must have wondered at Naomi. Orpah goes back to her people and her gods and Ruth had evidently been considering. It is a wonderful thing to get down and consider things before God. There is nothing more powerful: the enemy is defeated when you are on your knees before God. You are in the presence of divine power, divine grace, divine love. These are wonderful things to experience but they are reality. Ruth must have seen something distinctive in Naomi. I have experienced it myself, not understood much, but seen something that attracts you - satisfaction, peace, steadfastly-minded persons who are related to the will of God. It says, "And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave to her" - wonderful thing: knowing little, but introduced into an order of things which would subsist in life. Then Naomi says, "Behold, thy sister-in-law is gone back". Naomi was faithful she tested this young woman, and Ruth said'. "Do not intreat me to leave thee". These are beautiful words: we know the words; we have read them often. There is something quietly going on in this book. Another has said that there is quietness, and growth goes on quietly - the barley harvest and the wheat harvest - things going on quietly and silently. Ruth had come to something: "Do not intreat me to leave thee, to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people". But then "And when she saw that she was steadfastly minded". That is what I am trying to get at. It is the features of Jesus coming into expression in her: "And when she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, she left off speaking to her. And they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they came to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and the women said, Is this Naomi?" There is a return by Naomi, coming to the house of bread. "And she said to them, Call me not Naomi - call me Mara". It means there was a humble spirit in her. Ruth had gone with Naomi and had come to the house of bread.
"So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, who returned out of the fields of Moab". (Jeremiah speaks about the "arrogance of Moab", chap 48: 29). In the ways of Jesus, the lowly, humble spirit of Jesus, you are engaged with that blessed Man. He "emptied himself, taking a bondman's form" so that the will of God might be established here. It is persons with a spirit like Jesus who get the gain of a steadfast mind. And it says here, "and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barleyharvest", the expression of all that comes in as a result of Christ in resurrection! It comes into your life - a renewed order of things established for ever, an order of things that death cannot enter into, and Christ there and we enjoying things here, quietly it may be, yet quietly the silent growth is going on. So we have to set our minds to go steadfastly in relation to what is for the will of God.
Just a simple impression, beloved brethren! May we just think over these things and be helped for His Name's sake.
EDINBURGH
14 April 1992
(ii) RECOVERY
J.D.Gray
The way of moral death is a sore way. That is what this scripture brings out prior to bringing out the recovery for the sinner. It describes, I suppose, what is literal in the decline of a man, but the Scriptures are moral teaching for us. God has His own ways to bring us to Himself . This scripture brings out that it is "In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings on the bed" that God can intervene for our blessing. "Then he openeth men's ears, and sealeth their instruction, that he may withdraw man from his work, and hide pride from man". Thank God for the fact that He has entered into our lives by way of recovery. That is what our brother has been speaking about. He entered into the life of Ruth with a view to her recovery. "He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from passing away by the sword". God does that, but there is chastening.
I say again, the way of moral death is a sore way. That is what is seen in the chapter: "He is chastened also with pain upon his bed". That is the way that we have all been on at some time before God intervened in our lives to bring us to Christ, or when we have failed Him after having come to know Christ. If we have been on a selfwilled way it is a painful way. The pains that are introduced in this section - "He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and with constant strife in his bones" - are the divine handling of us, the divine way to bring us to ourselves, "to shew unto man his duty". You will notice the note to that word 'duty' that it involves self-judgment. What a way it is to realise that "his soul draweth near to the pit, and his life to the destroyers". I think we can take account of this way which we have been on once recovery comes about. You can look back on it and see the divine hand working with us when what was proceeding was my soul drawing near to the pit, and my life to the destroyers. It is a personal matter. This book is personal. It is a young man speaking in this chapter in relation to Job after very much speaking in the book by him and his three friends. There is an appeal by the speaker for the messenger: "If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his duty". How he is appealing that there might be light shining for a man on this way, that he might be delivered! God takes no pleasure in the death of a sinner, and I am speaking in a moral sense mainly. God takes no pleasure in that! "And his soul draweth near to the pit, and his life to the destroyers". It brings out for us as recovered persons the appreciation of the One who said, "Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom". That is the turning-point in the section. It brings out our own helplessness in the situation in which we are. Another has provided a ransom with a view to divine intervention in our lives. It sobers us all to take account of it because these are real matters which enter into the fibre of every believer to some degree or other.
"Then he will be gracious unto him". What an act of favour of God: "the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all", 1 Tim 2: 5,6. He is available for all. But this scripture brings out the personal side of it. That is what I want to bring out in what I may say. "Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom": that is me. That is what you have to say: that is me. The duty of man is in relation to self-judgment, but self-judgment in relation to the cross, the cross of Christ, "Jesus Christ, and him crucified", 1 Cor 2: 2. Such a One as that was crucified. Scripture says of the princes of this world: “for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory", 1 Cor 2: 8. The wisdom that we find in this world will lead to moral death, but there is another kind of wisdom that proceeds from God. What a transformation! - "His flesh shall be fresher than in childhood; he shall return to the days of his youth". Fine days, the days of youth. Jeremiah brings that out: "when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land not sown", Jer 2: 2. The young believer is brought back to put trust in Christ. The pathway ahead is through a wilderness, "a land not sown" There are no roads in the wilderness. Life involves faith in God, but there is a freshness attached to it because the trust is in the One who has become the ransom. Appreciation of Christ is in the One who has been a ransom for me. It involves a freshness in the soul:
O, happy day that fixed my choice
On Thee, my Saviour and my God!
"He shall pray unto God, and he will receive him with favour". That is the God that we have been brought to know: justified, received into the favour of God - that is Romans 5 - leading on through tribulation, endurance, experience, and hope, to the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit, the establishment, as another has said, of a beachhead in the heart from which God can operate to secure the whole heart, the whole being. So it goes on through Romans 8 - the power of life in the Spirit: ''for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God" (v 14) - to Romans 12, the body laid on the altar, prepared for the Christian pathway as appreciating the One who has become my ransom, who has delivered me. As the apostle says, "Who shall deliver me out of this body of death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord", Rom 7: 24. He is delivered; he has his ''freedom from sin, and having become bondmen to God" his "fruit" is "unto holiness, and the end eternal life", Rom 6: 22,23. These are the blessings that energise the believer as he puts his body on the altar, prepared for a life of committal to the interests of Christ and the will of God.
So "He will sing before men, and say, I have sinned, and perverted what was right, and it hath not been requited to me; He hath delivered my soul from going into the pit, and my life shall see the light". That is the only true life. It is the kind of life that God has in mind for us over against the line on which we once were, brought into a pathway where the end is eternal life. And there is appreciation of the turning-point. What a word that is! - "Then he will be gracious unto him, and say, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom". May the appreciation of that ransom be ours to appreciate more so that we sing before men. The testimonial side comes out in singing before men: "and say, I have sinned, and perverted what was right, and it hath not been requited to me". "How that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself" (2 Cor 5: 19): what a blessed ministry that was, the Lord Jesus Christ here on earth "reconciling the world to himself"! Then "the word of that reconciliation": how God would appeal to us! "Be reconciled to God. Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us, that we might become God's righteousness in him" (v 21). That is the great divine end; the work of reconciliation has been established. We can lay hold of it and come into the blessedness of it, but it involved "Him who knew not sin" being made "sin for us, that we might become God's righteousness in him". Sin has never been overlooked by God. He has “condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom 8: 3) by the cross of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ had not only to bear our sins in His body on the tree but He was made sin. The cry that rang from the lips of that holy Man was "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?", Matt 27: 46. It is a testimonial utterance too, bringing out that this blessed Man who had ever known the perfection of holy communion with His God should cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? " If He had not cried it, we would never have known it, but He cried it. It is written down for us as a testimony that it may affect our hearts in relation to the turning-point in all our lives as to the ransom. May the Lord bless the word for His Name's sake.
EDINBURGH
14 April 1992