FINDING OUR JOY AND STRENGTH IN THE LORD
Harold Glass
Mark 5: 1-3, 8, 15, 18-20; Psalm 40: 1-4, 16
I wondered if we might consider in these scriptures the way that the Lord deals with us to bring us to find our joy and our strength in Him. It seems the Lord went across the sea, I suppose the Sea of Galilee, to the other side to deal with this man and his difficulty and then He went back across the sea. He took that journey just to deliver this one man to bring him into the joy of things – just one man. Some of the older brethren here will know what is said in one of the books of ministry about the Lord Jesus going into a movie house once. He does not normally go there, He would not have us go there, but He can go to places that we cannot go or should not go. He went into a movie house to save one man and then He went out. Well, I wondered if that is what He does here. He goes across that sea, all night across the sea, and He comes to this one man who was in a terrible plight. Maybe some of us do not think much about what transpired in our souls when we came to know the Lord; others think a good deal about it, but this man would never forget it and we are not to forget it. We would do well to go over things; not just the wonderful transaction that it was, for it was a wonderful transaction, but maybe if we took account of it in the light of what we see in this man we might realise how great it is, how great it is to have what this man got. What a state he was in. It says he was possessed by an unclean spirit, he was dwelling in tombs, and no one was able to bind him, not even with chains. Think of it! The enemy had such a clutch on that man. Well, this is where every one of us has been without Christ, without the knowledge of salvation. But the Lord took him in hand; He had power over unclean spirits. He is the only One who has that power and He took this man in hand and He cleared him of all that held him. Whether we have really had what you might call a very outstanding kind of conversion, or whatever we have had, we might do well to think about this, that what the Lord did for this man was to take him out of the clutches of Satan.
Then what I wish to speak about is what He made the man into. It says in verse 15, “And they come to Jesus, and they see the possessed of demons sitting and clothed and sensible”. Here is a man who is different from what he was before. I think he has come into what we were speaking about in the reading. He came to know the God of peace; he came to know what it was to be in a restful state before God. Before, he was just so full of all that the enemy has in his power in this world, but here he is now, sitting, clothed and sensible; he is with Jesus. What a place to be! I wonder if we think about that enough. I wonder if we think about it every day, what it is to be with Jesus, to be in His presence, to be in His company. A brother locally said in a reading recently, You know what the Lord Jesus wants most of all: He wants to have our company. He had the company of this man. The man is restful there and we need to learn how to be like that. We have a lot of burdens, a lot of things to think about, and we have our responsibilities. Some of us here still go to work even though a lot of us do not, and we all have responsibilities. Those who have young children have a lot of responsibilities. You wonder how some of them manage all they have to do, but to be clothed and sensible and with Jesus, we need to learn something of that every day. As I said, it looks like He came on this great journey just to save one man. He was prepared to do that. (We are often reminded He has paid the same price for each one of us, but I wonder if we realise the price that He has paid). Here is this man and Jesus is going to leave and the man asks to go with Him. It says, “the man that had been possessed by demons besought him that he might be with him”. Well, why not? He had such a wonderful transaction; he found everything in Jesus. Have we really found that? Are we sure that we have found everything in Jesus? Most of us have a very strong independent streak. I know what it is like anyway. You know, Just leave me, I will get on all right. Well, we will not be all right without Him. So the man wants to be with Him. We should want to be with Him. But what does the Lord say to him? “He suffered him not, but says to him, God to thine home to thine own people, and tell them how great things the Lord has done for thee, and has had mercy on thee”. You see he has become a trustworthy person. This is what the Lord is looking for in each one of us. Have we really found what it is to love Him so much, to know how much He has done for us that we want to be in His company, so that He can dismiss us and set us on our way and find that we are trustworthy persons in the pathway, that we can be for Him as He wants us to be? This is a wonderful matter and this is what He says to this man, “Go to thine home to thine own people, and tell them how great things the Lord has done for thee”. This is the kind of person that is reliable here, reliable in the testimony, reliable in the local assembly, the kind of person that the Lord can trust. Paul says that it is whom the Lord commends that really matters (see 2 Cor 10: 18). Can He commend each of us? I think He commended this man. You might say He commended this man to the local position in the place. This man had quite an influence; he went throughout the Decapolis. (I understand that means ten cities). We do not know what proceeded in the course of the testimony but we know that the testimony spread out; there were thousands added every day. Here was a man who because of the Lord’s great work and influence on him was there and reliable. You can see him there in one of those places filling out a responsible position.
That is one side of it, but what I really wanted to draw attention to was that he began to proclaim “how great things Jesus had done for him”. Have you ever thought enough about the great things that Jesus has done for you, have you really thought enough about it so that you do like this man? He is set free; he is taken completely out of the clutches of Satan. Through death Jesus overcame who had the power of death that is the devil (see Heb 2: 14). The Lord has done it, He has gone into death to do that. We often repeat these words, I know, but how much of an effect has it really had on them that through death He has overcome the power of death. It is to have an effect on me as it did on this man. He went and proclaimed the great things that Jesus had done for him. What testimony that is! A brother like that comes into the meeting, he may not go on about the details of his personal life, but the power of it comes out in that he is full of joy because Jesus has done great things for him. That is really what I wanted to speak about. This man was full of joy in what Jesus had done for him. He is set up in a responsible position, yes, but he is set up in a position of joy where he can go on. What we need perhaps as much as anything is to have brethren to sit down with who are full of joy because of what Jesus has done for them. You know it is a very great matter to have brethren that we can walk with. How we need to give thanks that there are persons we can walk with in this world of darkness, in this world of contrariety, it is a great matter that God’s provision is that we have brethren to walk with. It is another great matter that God in His wondrous love, has given us the light of the truth, the truth surrounding His beloved Son, the truth surrounding what has been established here in the circle of the saints. These are wonderful things. But one thing that you need along with that is to know this joy of what the Lord has done for you. It says he proclaimed it everywhere, he proclaimed what Jesus had done for him. I just think we need something of that in our souls at the present time in the midst of all the pressures, in the midst of all the sorrows that there are. We have to carry them, but in the midst of it all how is this matter of the peace of God and the joy of things going to be known? I think it is known that our hearts and our souls are filled with what Jesus has done for us.
In the Psalm we have David. What a history David had! Our brother referred to it – a young man saw something in David; he could play well and Jehovah was with him (see 1 Sam 16 :18). It is a great matter to look at someone and say God is with him. That was David, Jehovah was with him. Jehovah chose David. Have you found out that God has chosen you, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world (see Eph 1: 4)? These are wondrous matters. Think about that, just as you sit here in your seat today. You are not out having some great place in the world, you are not out finding your joy in the entertainments of the world, but God has chosen you to have a part in these great things. He chose David and we get the words of David here. David goes into the matter of the depths of things in his soul in this Psalm, and in others. This is what I would like to encourage each of us in, that we might find the depths of things in our souls. He says, “I waited patiently for Jehovah; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry”. You might say, I went through this before I came into fellowship, I went through it forty years ago or something like that. I think David was in the joy of it when he wrote it. If you had to write something down today, could you write something like this and could you write it as being in the joy of it, that you waited on God and He inclined unto you and He heard your cry? Could say something like that if you had to write it down today? Then he says, “And he brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay”. That is the same thing as the man in Mark 5, is it not? He proclaimed in the Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him. So David says He brought me up from that, He brought me up out of the pit. How often David speaks about that in his Psalms. He brought me up out of the pit. Do we think enough about that, the pit of this world? The god of this world has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving so that the glory of Christ might not shine forth for men (see 2 Cor 4: 4), but is it not a great thing to be delivered from that, from the god of this world and to be brought out of the pit of destruction and out of the miry clay? Then what does he say? “He set my feet upon a rock; he hath established my goings”. I wonder if we have found that, and I wonder if we are being sustained in it? It is a great matter to be sustained in the joy of this. David was. When he wrote this he was in the joy of it. What I would like for each one of us, and I need it as much as any, is to find this, that He has set my feet upon a rock and established my goings, and not only do I know that in a somewhat historical sense but I know it now, I know the joy of it now. I am living in the joy of this that my feet are on the rock and He has established my going. These are great matters that each one of us needs to know. If we are going to go on here with what is for God’s pleasure we have to have the joy of it in our souls and have it today. Not that we can say I knew that whenever, but to have the joy of this in my soul today. He says, “And he hath put a new song in my mouth”. These are great things, to have a new song in your mouth, to be able to say something about Christ. It will come out, it will come out among the brethren, it will come out everywhere you turn if you have got a new song in your mouth. A lot of us have to say rather humbly we have not really been as great in testimony as we might have been, but I would like to be like this, I would like to be in the joy of having that new song in my mouth.
Well, I think the Lord is prepared to help us. He helped that man in Mark 5 so that he was able to stand on his own feet, he was able to go there in the midst of all those persons that wanted to get rid of the Lord, and he was able to speak of Christ and the great things Jesus had done for him. So here David uses the same language, “he hath put a new song in my mouth, praise unto our God”. What a matter! “Many shall see it, and fear, and shall confide in Jehovah”. We have been speaking about communication. I think there is communication with David and I think there is communication with the man in Mark 5. They had a new song in their mouths. I wonder how much I have got a new song in my mouth? It is really quite a concern whether I am in the joy of things so that it can be called a new song, something that is not usual in this world. It is something that is full of joy, full of the Person who has done everything, full of the One who has given Himself for me. So David says, “he hath put a new song in my mouth, praise unto our God. Many shall see it, and fear, and shall confide in Jehovah”. What a pathway we have been brought into! “Blessed is the man that hath made Jehovah his confidence, and turneth not to the proud, and to such as turn aside to lies”. These are quite serious matters to be kept in; to be kept in satisfaction, to be kept in the stability of having confidence in God, to be just sure that we rest everything there no matter what comes around us to unsettle us. We have been reading about that, that if we go a certain route that we will prove the peace of God, we will prove the God of peace. This is the way that David went and he is able to say these wonderful words, “Blessed is the man that hath made Jehovah his confidence, and turneth not to the proud, and to such as turn aside to lies”. “Blessed is the man”, we need to know something of blessing. When you are affected by the sad features of this world and men so involved in them, you feel for them as deprived of blessing when the Blesser is there all the time ready to bless. So David has quite a bit to say. We read verse 16, “let all those that seek thee be glad and rejoice in thee; let such as love thy salvation say continually, Jehovah be magnified!” What a word! That would be a word to us today, “Let all those that seek thee be glad and rejoice in thee”. Think of it being available! Think of the Lord Jesus able to give us a sense of it today, give us a sense of all that He has done, give us a sense of all that He is.
If we are to enjoy our place in the local assembly we enjoy it from Him. He is Head of the assembly, directions come from Him. It is a great matter to have all the privileges of the fellowship, to have the teaching, to have the knowledge of the principles that are to operate in the path of the truth. These are very great matters, but we need also the matter of being glad and rejoicing in Christ, the One who is Head of the assembly, the One from whom directions come, the One who is ready and able to fill our hearts, each one of us. We should not be discouraged but find our way and find that there is a pathway of joy. It may look otherwise. There are so many burdens and so many illnesses among the brethren but the Lord has called us into a pathway of joy, and he says, “Let all those that seek thee be glad and rejoice in thee”. What a matter that we have a way that we can rejoice! There is a way and we find it in Him; “such as love thy salvation say continually, Jehovah be magnified!” That is the man in Mark 5. The Lord would affect each one of us. Think of Him being available, think of Him being able to touch the heart of everyone of us here. He has the ability to touch the heart of everyone in this great city and to bring every person that belongs to Him into the joy of this. But we are here in this great privilege of being under the sound of His word, and may this go deeply into our souls that such as love thy salvation say continually, Jehovah be magnified! May our hearts be filled with this, may we think of the great things that Jesus has done for us, may we think of Him where He is and may He touch us and fill our hearts with joy, and give us to find satisfaction in the path that we have been called into. For His name’s sake.
NEW YORK
26 August 2001