"DOING THINGS"

“DOING THINGS”

Mark 2: 1 - 12; 2 Kings 2: 9 - 15; Exodus 4: 1 - 7

In reading these passages I have in mind to say a word on doing things, and the spirit and power in which they are to be done. There is a good deal to be done, and there is little time left in which it is to be done, for the Lord’s coming is very near. We are on the eve of the translation and it is important that what is to be done should be done, whether in ourselves or in others. Christianity is marked by this great feature. The Lord Jesus inaugurated Christianity, and He not only said things, but He did things. That is one of the great features linked with Christianity. Many have set out trains of religious thought in the world, but they have not been accompanied by the practical side of things being done; but Christianity is a very practical matter. It is not something in the air, it is not a picture just to be looked at; it involves what is worked out in a very practical way with every one of us. And the means are supplied by which and through which things are to be done. If we have been taken up in the ways of God in sovereign mercy, God would have in mind that we should all be employed in His testimony, in the promulgation of all that is linked with His testimony, and what thoughts are linked with God’s testimony! Soon it will be displayed to wondering worlds. It will all come out soon in wondrous display, but in the meantime it is a period of faith. It is not our time yet, we may say, just as it was not the Lord’s time. His disciples wanted Him to go up to the feast and manifest Himself to the world, but it was not His time, and we are to understand that it is not the time of display. It is the time of faith and we want to have our eyes open to see in a spiritual way all that is linked with the testimony of God in its power and glory, a testimony that is being carried through by means of divine power and divine resource and nothing in this world can stop it, and divine Persons would desire to impregnate our minds and our souls with the stability and fixity of divine thoughts in relation to the testimony of God. We often have to own that with ourselves there is much vacillation, much fickleness, a good deal of lightness and shallowness, but the knowledge of God as it comes to us in the glad tidings has in mind to bring about depth where there has been shallowness, and to bring about steadiness and stableness where there has been instability, and it is important that we should all make room for the fundamental teaching of the gospel in our souls. I am speaking to ourselves, beloved brethren, as having known and tasted the initial benefits that the glad tidings have brought to us. But how important it is that we should understand the teaching of the glad tidings, and all that enters into that teaching, as forming us inwardly and subjectively in relation to the knowledge of God as it comes to us in those glad tidings.

And I want to speak first about this case of paralysis in Mark 2, having in mind that we all might be helped to put our hands to things. It is not a time for letting others do things. It is not a time for sitting by and letting a few do things. It is a time for us all to put our hands to matters, and Mark’s gospel would impress us with the brevity of time. How compressed time is in this gospel and it is a gospel that brings before us service, and we need to understand service better, every one of us, brothers and sisters alike, but especially those who take part in the assembly in matters that we are privileged to take part in. It is important that we should understand this gospel. Everyone who is privileged to have any little part, however small it may be, in the service of God publicly or on the inward side, should understand Mark’s gospel, because it is a gospel into which compression enters. The more we read Mark’s gospel, the more we shall understand compression. Whether it be in regard to service, ministry or suffering, Mark would teach us compression. And we are to understand compression, understand what it is to condense and compress things, and how to work out things with the help of God where compression is marking the circumstances and the moments in which we have to do with divine things. It is important that we should be freed from fickleness. The writer of this great gospel, for it is a unique gospel, was one who had to judge in his own heart the elements of shallowness and fickleness. John Mark had gone forward in the work with two great servants of God, but because of what the work involved, he went back from them, not going forward in the work.

This gospel stresses that the Lord Jesus, in the figure of the one who goes away, gives to His bondmen the authority and to each man his work. And it is important that we should understand the work from this viewpoint. I know that we are sometimes inclined to think the work is linked with those who are out serving in the ministry, but it embraces much more than that, and we are all to be in the matter. We are all to put our hands to do what is to be done. We must not deprecate in any shape or form what we have. Some of us may think it may be becoming and it may be humility and lowliness to make little of what we have at times. It may be at times, but at other times it may not be, and Mark would especially help us as to how we are to be in the work, how we are to do what is to be done in the several places in which we are set, learning how to do things from the One to whom Mark draws our attention, the Son of God. “Beginning of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ, Son of God.” We are to learn from Him in all things, and especially in this matter of how we are in the testimony from Mark’s viewpoint, doing what we are required to do.

And Mark flinched in the crisis, when the pressure got severe, when he measured what full committal would entail for him. He was not prepared to go all the way, and I would earnestly encourage every one of us, especially the younger brethren, to face the matter of full committal in the light of Mark’s gospel, so that we may not be in the meetings lightly or loosely, but with settled purpose of heart, as helped by the Lord and strengthened by the Holy Spirit whom we have, to commit ourselves fully to what is on hand in relation to our part in the testimony of God. You remember what is said as to the young man in this gospel. When the crisis linked with the cross drew near, when there were those that were around who were taking Jesus to crucify Him, there was a young man who fled leaving his garment with them. His garment, as we know, was lightly cast about him. We do not want to be in the testimony thus in any light, shallow and superficial way. The gospel tells us of another young man, at the end, after the Lord had risen from the dead, who was sitting clothed in a white robe, a great example for us in regard to any part, however small it may be, that any of us may have in relation to the testimony of God. It is important that our robes are white. It is important that our manner of life should be unstained by the things that are around us in the world, that we should be free as marked by purity, not only purity inwardly in our hearts and souls, but purified circumstances, as the white robe suggests. And Mark had learned these lessons. It involved much for him, but he had learned these lessons. He had turned back from the work when he was most needed, and we ought all to learn, especially the younger ones, the need of standing true in the present moment of the Lord’s rejection, to Himself, as to the requirements of the testimony and all that the testimony calls for, to “take our share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” We have to learn, as Paul says to Timothy, to “be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus.” What a resource that is for faith, for every one of us, in a day when things are difficult, and they are difficult; they are difficult in business, difficult in school, difficult in every way, but the great thing is to see that the grace that is in Christ Jesus remains unchanged. Whatever may have changed with us, or with our circumstances, or in the dispensation, “the grace which is in Christ Jesus” represents an unfailing, unchanging resource that we can constantly resort to and be strong in, according to Paul’s word to Timothy.

Now this gospel is dealing with service and it is a time when service needs to be understood. There are small gatherings and there are large gatherings in this country, as in other countries, and there is much to be done in the way of service. Things are to be done, not just to be spoken about. It is easy to speak about matters, but what is needed is the doing of things, and many of us deprecate and make little of what we have, but whatever the Lord has given to us, let us make the most of it, and if with any of us there has been a waning of spiritual energy and spiritual desire, let us “rekindle the gift of God” that is in us. In the midst of the public waning of energy in the darkening state of things around us, let every one of us seek to rekindle what is within us, not to make little of it, not to deprecate it, not to set it aside. But let us each make the most of it. Mark’s gospel would help us as to this great matter, because Mark himself had proved things experimentally. It is a gospel that is written by a brother like ourselves that had a definite experience, who knew what it was for his courage to fail in the time when it was needed, and who amongst us has not known that? We have faced crises in our businesses and in our lives and oftentimes we have experienced what it is to fail at the moment when courage was most needed. But then Mark’s gospel brings into our view one who has got the full gain of the experience he has passed through. He did not lose that gain. We might say he kept it by the Holy Spirit. The gain that he had reaped through that experience comes into this gospel and it is embodied in it, as he is helped by the Holy Spirit to draw attention to Him whose courage never failed, Whose service was marked by perfection from beginning to end, Whose energy never waned. Whose devotion never deviated from the path of full and unreserved committal to the will of God. He is the One we have to learn from. He is the One into whose spirit and grace we are to drink. He is our great Model in service.

I have read this chapter to draw attention to this man who is affected by paralysis. Many of us are more affected by paralysis than we would care to admit. It was a great matter that this should be taken account of. We find that there are persons here, they are not named, they are called four, as it says, “ ... borne by four.” It says, “There come to Him (men) ... “ The ‘men’ is in brackets, but it no doubt involved men. “There come to Him (men) bringing a paralytic, borne by four ... “ I think the service is open to sisters as well as brothers as to this matter of burden-bearing, for that is the thought that comes up here. Mark’s gospel is the pressure gospel. It is the gospel that gives us pressure as no other gospel gives it to us. The sufferings of Christ in Mark’s gospel are drawn attention to in a way that is peculiar to this gospel, and Mark would impress us in his teaching with the need of understanding how things are to be borne. I need not refer you to the great matter of what the Lord has borne, what it cost Him to go all the way to the cross and to bear our sins in His own body on the tree. He did not turn back. While in Gethsemane He was tested by the awfulness of what He was to pass through, and His language there was, “Nevertheless not my will but Thine be done.” The will of God was uppermost in His soul, and the will of God should be uppermost in the soul of every one of us, whatever it may cost us. And of course He went where none of us could ever go. He bore what none of us could ever bear - the full weight of God’s wrath and judgment against sin and sins. We think of His moral glory as the great Sin-Bearer; the holy, spotless, perfect One of God, yet made sin, Him who knew no sin, that we might become God’s righteousness in Him. Think of what He has borne, the heaviness of sin’s load which He has borne, that we might go free, that we might be liberated to have the blessed conscious part that we have in the testimony of God at the present time! Think of what it cost Him! Are we not ashamed of ourselves as we think of the lack of devotion that marks us, when we think of all the way that in His suffering love He has trodden, bearing the full weight of that awful load of God’s wrath and judgment unsparing against sin and sins? We are to learn from that, and the more that it enters into our minds, into our souls, the more we shall see that there is no time to be lost in regard to filling out, as we can fill out with the help of the Holy Spirit, every one of us, our part and place in testimony, wherever we are set, for the pleasure of God. And so there were these unnamed persons; men, they are called, but the door is open for all, men and women, brothers and sisters alike, to carry these kinds of burdens. There is someone here in this section who is paralysed. We know what paralysis is. We know how it operates, and the helplessness that it brings about. We know full well from practical observation the state of weakness that is linked with it. But here there are those who are taking account of this matter, measuring what it involves, and taking full account of how it can be met. They know how it can be met. They know where it can be met, and they know Who can meet it, and surely that is a word to all of us in our gatherings, that we learn how to carry these kinds of burdens. There may be persons that are put our way, that are perhaps near us and by us, who are not functioning as they should in the energy of life in the service of God. What are we doing about them? Are we sitting by and pitying them, looking on them and observing them and just commenting on their helplessness? Or are we entering into the matter feelingly, as the Lord Jesus entered into all these matters feelingly, feeling in His Spirit what He took away by His power. What an example He is as we take account of Him in these matters! And we are to look around and see what can be done for persons like these. It may be a brother or a sister who is affected by moral and spiritual paralysis. It may be paralysis through fear, through the fear of man. It may be paralysis through certain things in the world that have come into their lives and affected them, producing a spiritual paralysis. It may be their businesses. It may be we are too much engaged in our work, too much time taken up with it, producing a moral and spiritual paralysis that renders us ineffective in our part and place in the testimony of God.

Well, there were four here who knew what was needed and knew where the need could be met, and how important it is, this great matter of caring for need amongst us in our gatherings, moving forward to do what is required, and they do it. But what I want to stress in regard to the man himself is that they bring him to the right source of help. It is a great matter that we should be brought to the right and the true source of help. The difficulties were many, but faith can overcome the difficulties. You will remember it says, “But Jesus, seeing their faith ..:” I wonder whether the Lord sees our faith operating in our localities in relation to these matters of need, where spiritual and moral paralysis may have set in. What a matter it is to be marked by faith! These four were not only marked by faith, but they put their hands to the matter. They bore the man and carried him along to where he could be helped, showing how real this matter of serving one another is. That is the blessedness of being in the assembly, of being where God has set us in relation to the testimony, that we are in a sphere and an environment where we can be cared for and helped as we need it.

And Jesus says in relation to this man that was set down in His presence, “But that ye may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, he says to the paralytic, To thee I say, Arise, take up thy couch and go to thine house.” Now that is a word for any of us. The Lord said, “To thee.” He has had words to say to others in this passage. He saw the faith of those who were carrying the exercise in regard to this person afflicted in this way, but now He has a word for the person. There is what we have to do, and the Lord says, “To thee I say, Arise, take up thy couch and go to thine house.” This is a word to us, that whatever has been holding us, whatever we have been held by, the Lord would help us in energy by the Spirit, as it would mean to us now, to arise from the circumstances that are holding us and to take up this matter which we have been held on - the couch - whatever it may be. We all know best what is detaining us, what is hindering the testimony from getting the best from us, and we should all be concerned that the testimony of God should get the best from every one of us. And that is what the Lord has in mind in saying to this man, “Arise, take up thy couch and go to thine house.” The house represents the local position. He is not sending him to some other place. He says, “Go to thine house.”

That is, we are going to serve best in our local position Sometimes we think, Oh if we were only somewhere else in somebody else’s local position we should be so much freer, so much better in serving. But the word the Lord would give to us is, “Arise, take up thy couch and go to thine house.” That is, the sphere of our local responsibility, and it says, “And he rose up straightway, and, having taken up his couch, went out before them all, so that all were amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it thus.” What a wonderful thing it is when persons, brothers and sisters, get help in regard to what has been crippling them, in regard to what has been holding them down, helped through the service of the Lord personally, helped through the prayers and the service of the brethren towards them! How we should be thankful for the service represented in the four, the brethren that we have to care for us! In whatever way they may render service to us, if it sets us free from moral paralysis, how thankful we should be, because they bring the man to the Lord, and the Lord sets the man free, and I believe in the light of Mark’s gospel the service is calling for it that every one of us should be set free in regard to whatever may be detaining us, whatever may be hindering us. There is no time to be lost. The Lord would have us all free, because great matters are on hand. The Lord is doing great things in view of the completing of the dispensation - the taking of the assembly home to be for ever with Himself - and we are all to be in it and the Lord would help us as to what we are to do, as He says, “Take up thy couch and go to thine house.”

Now I want to speak of Elisha just for a moment. It is another condition of things, in which we have set out for our encouragement in one called Elisha the spirit in which we are to do things, the spirit and the power in which things are to be done. This passage is well-known. Elisha was greatly attached to Elijah.

I should like to ask all our hearts if we are attached to Christ. Is there one in this hall whose heart is not attached to Christ? How important it is that they should be, and how important it is that, we who have had our hears attached to Christ should be held in that attachment to Him, because there are so many things that would detach us from Christ, which would keep us at a distance from Christ. But what shines in Elisha is that he will allow nothing to keep him away from Elijah. And we should see to that, dear brethren.

The testimony presents another view in this chapter. Gilgal, Bethel, Jericho all represent ramifications of the testimony of God, and the Lord is having to do with it in all its varied features as typified in Elijah, and Elisha represents any one of us as coming into the testimony and learning from Elijah, learning from the Lord Jesus Christ, and allowing nothing to come between us and our links with Christ. That is the teaching in this passage. There were those who would suggest certain things, those that would cause Elisha to deviate, but Elisha’s mind and affections were on one person, that was Elijah. And that is a word for us. We are to have one Man before us, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are to allow nothing to cause our thoughts and our affections to deviate from that one Man. And now the working out of things in Elisha’s soul, in his history, involves that the time comes when he has to do things. Elijah has been doing things, and doing things wonderfully. Think of what the Lord Jesus did in the gospels! We have been reading about what He did in Mark. Think of what He did in Matthew as well as Mark, and what He did in Luke and what He did in John! All the wonderful things that Jesus did, and that He began to do and carried through! What an example for us as learning from Him! But now the time comes for Elijah to go on high, and the Lord Jesus has gone on high. How are things to be carried on then? When Elijah goes up, who is going to carry on, speaking reverently? Elisha! And now that the Lord Jesus has gone on high, that He has ascended up into heaven, who is carrying on now? Well we have been left in the position of carrying on in the testimony of God.

Elijah had suggested to Elisha to ask “what I will do for thee.” Think of the Lord promoting with us this spirit of asking, this spirit of desire! The Lord is prepared to do much for us. Elijah was prepared to do much for Elisha. He valued the affection that Elisha had for him, and so does the Lord Jesus. He values our attachment to Him. He values our preparedness to cover all the points of the testimony of God in attachment to Him and in devotedness carrying on and moving on with Him in all that He has in mind in these various points in the testimony. And the Lord would answer these movements by promoting increased desire with every one of us, and he says, “Ask what I shall do for thee before I am taken away from thee. “And Elisha said, “I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.” I want to be brief about this section. In the type it alludes to the way that Elisha comes in for the spirit of Elijah, and that really represents the manner and way and spirit and power in which things are to be done. The Lord Jesus has gone on high and His Spirit has come here, and O what a resource we have in the Holy Spirit to do things, so that we are not lacking in what is needed to do things. If there is a lack, it is on our side, it is not on the divine side, because the Lord Jesus in going on high has shed forth the Holy Spirit in order that we might be empowered to do things for God in the testimony in which He has set us. It says of Elisha when Elijah’s mantle was about to fall, “Then he took hold of his own garments and rent them in two pieces. And he took up the mantle of Elijah ... “ Now that is an important principle in this matter of doing things, that we deal with what attaches to ourselves. That is our biggest stumbling-block in our part in the testimony of God. Elisha deals with what is connected and linked with himself in order that he might pick up the mantle of Elijah. He understands that if he is to go forward in the great things of God, he is to go forward not in his own strength, or what attaches to himself as would be suggested in his garment, but he is to go forward in the strength and power of the man who has ascended up, who has gone out of sight. And if we are to be effective in the testimony wherever God has set us, it can only be in the Spirit and power of the glorious Man who has ascended up into heaven and who is seated in heaven and who is the Centre of the great administration which is working out in relation to the testimony of God, and in which through grace we all have part. What a wonderful thing it is to make use of the Spirit according to this principle, because that is the thought. The Spirit is available; indeed we have received the Spirit, we who believe and are subject to the Lord. But the thing is, are we making use of the Spirit in this light - the power of the ascended Man, not our own resources, not our own strength, not our own mentality, or our own ability according to nature or the flesh, but this power which is resident in the assembly; for the Spirit is not in the world. He is here in the assembly, and He is here, the Spirit of the ascended Man, available to be made use of so that we might go forward. It says of Elisha, “And he took hold of his own garments and rent them in two pieces. And he took up the mantle of Elijah which fell from him, and went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan; and he took the mantle of Elijah which had fallen from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is Jehovah, the God of Elijah? He also smote the waters, and they parted hither and thither, and Elisha went over.” Think of the power exercised by Elisha! There was this great barrier, the Jordan! Think of what it means. We speak of difficulties which stand in our way. We bring up difficulties which hinder us from going forward. Dear brethren, there is no difficulty which cannot be surmounted as we take up the Spirit from this viewpoint - the power linked with the ascended Man in heaven. Think of the dynamic character of that power, that power to go forward in the testimony of God, however formidable the barriers may seem or the obstacles may loom. Let us take hold, reverently speaking, of the Spirit of the ascended Man and move forward in the Spirit of the ascended Man to meet what may stand in our way, because the ministry as it comes out in Elisha is a ministry that is linked with succeeding crises - one crisis after another - and Elisha has the power to meet them as having taken on the mantle of Elijah. We want to understand the power that is resident in the Holy Spirit and the resources that are linked with the Holy Spirit, so that we may go forward wherever we are set, not daunted by what may present itself in the way of obstacles and difficulties, maybe in the way of exercise in our gathering, maybe in our profession or our business, not daunted by these things, but realising that we have a power in the Spirit to go forward and to surmount every difficulty. It says, “And the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho on the opposite side saw him, and they said, The Spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.” If there is any better testimony that we could desire or covet, I do not know of it - the Spirit of Christ resting upon a brother or a sister in the way they do things, the way they go about things, the way they move forward in the testimony of God!

I wanted to allude to Moses in regard to how God educates him in relation to his part in doing things, how he is shown the awfulness of what may be used of God in certain circumstances, but if it gets out of hand may become a power of evil and terrible to our sight. So it is said of Moses that he fled from it. What an awful thing it is, for the staff would represent with us what is of God in that relation, but if it gets out of divine control, how serious it may be! How we may well flee from it, because of the seriousness of it, but then God would help us to see how He has empowered us to take things. Moses was to take it, and it became a staff again in his hand, a staff that was used in the liberation of the people of God, in the help and leading forward of the people of God. Then the matter as to his hand is something we all have to learn. We have often heard of it, often spoken of it. He put his hand into his bosom and every one of us has to learn the wickedness and awfulness of what is in our own hearts if we are to serve effectively in the testimony of God. Many of us have been far too occupied with what is in other persons, without discovering what our own hearts are capable of. None of us will be effective in doing things in the testimony of God unless we learn, through the help of God, what is resident within our own hearts.

May the Lord help us as to this matter of our part in the testimony of God, that things are to be done, and the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit would help us to do things, however small our capacity or ability may be. The Lord Jesus said of the woman, “What she could, she has done.” May the Lord help every one of us, wherever we are set, to do what we can with divine help.