SPIRITUAL WEALTH

A. A. Bellamy

2 Corinthians 8: 1–5, 9; Revelation 2: 8, 9; 3: 14–20

The saints should be spiritually enriched and I trust the Lord will help us to some appreciation of what spiritual riches are. I think it is the Lord’s mind for each locality that this feature should be in evidence. In what He has to say to Smyrna He speaks not only of their being rich, but of their tribulation and poverty. In the pathway of Jesus on the public side those things were very evident, tribulation and poverty, but, to the anointed eye, what riches were there!

I read from Corinthians because, firstly, in this chapter we have a reference to the assemblies, that is, local gatherings. Paul is stimulating the brethren in Corinth by referring to other local assemblies. This is a thing we should notice and follow, because if there is spiritual prosperity in local assemblies the Lord would use it for the encouragement of all. Incentives are offered in human affairs, but in the divine system the blessed Lord is extending certain incentives to us so that local assemblies may be prospered, as they were in Macedonia. We have a letter to one of them—the letter to the Philippians. At Ephesus Paul had not held back anything of what was profitable; he had not shrunk from announcing the whole counsel of God. The intensity of the light that must have shone through the vessel of testimony at Ephesus may be difficult to measure, the tremendous light

the Lord gave. But when you think of the brethren at Philippi what immediately impresses you is not the light amongst them but the spiritual state, a state of enrichment, to which Paul adds in the letter he writes to them. We have a passage in the second chapter of Philippians the like of which we have nowhere else in holy writ, concerning the same One of whom he says in writing to Corinth, “Our Lord Jesus Christ … for your sakes … being rich, became poor”. How the Philippians would be enriched as receiving that letter!

Now Paul is speaking of these Macedonian assemblies and their forwardness in the matter of communicating. Actually the communication was in material things, but what underlay that was the spiritual enrichment of the brethren in those assemblies. I believe, beloved brethren, that the Lord is looking for a state amongst us, and in measure He sees it, which will lead to the greater knowledge of God, of the wonder of divine purpose, and of this very matter of enrichment. He is looking for a state amongst us that will make way for that. There has necessarily been much conviction, correction, and instruction in righteousness. These things have been, and will be, necessary; but with them I believe the Lord is ready to communicate a deepening sense of spiritual enrichment. Now are we ready for that? Can we facilitate it in any way? “To whom God would make known”, the apostle says, “what are the riches of the glory of this mystery … which is Christ in you the hope of glory”, Colossians 1: 27. It is the riches of glory that we are concerned with, not anything material at all; that is all passing and will have to be left behind. We need to be balanced, beloved brethren, in the present time.

What will keep us balanced is the knowledge of God.

We may do well in prosperity, but not so well in adversity. Take Job—a rich man, with camels, oxen, and sheep, and his family, sons and daughters. They are not said to be wicked persons, it was just social life, and God came in and took all that away from Job. And what did he do? He worshipped “Jehovah gave, and Jehovah hath taken away; blessed be the name of Jehovah!”, Job 1: 21. Could we, beloved brethren, worship God if He took it away? The thing is to see what spiritual enrichment is. Let us set ourselves to receive what God is so ready to bestow. You are a believer; you know your sins are forgiven and you have received the Holy Spirit; you know something of what God is ready to give. Think of the inheritance amongst the sanctified; the Lord said to Paul, “that they may receive … inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me”, Acts 26: 18. These are elements of the enrichment of believers. In local companies, dear brethren, how can we prepare ourselves? How can we arrive at the state needed for this? I believe it is only as we imitate these brethren of whom Paul says, “they gave themselves first to the Lord”. Mr. Darby tells us in one of his letters (Vol. 3, p.297) that he was a lawyer; but feeling that, if the Son of God had loved him and had given Himself for him, he owed himself entirely to Him, he longed for complete devotedness to Him. That is the spirit that motivated these brethren in the Macedonian assemblies. They gave themselves first to the Lord.

Perhaps there is someone here who has never done that. Think about it! Begin to think about it now if you have never done so before. The Son of God loved you and gave Himself for you, and it is time now that we should give ourselves to Him; not for Him, it is not what you can do for Him; it is what He has done for you in the first place.

We love because He first loved us; but we can give ourselves to Him. The marital relationship underlies Paul’s ministry. Here it is so, and it involves what a wife does—she gives herself to her husband. When I say the marital relationship, I am speaking spiritually as to your link with Christ, and the link of the local assembly with Christ. They gave themselves first to the Lord. What affection there was for Christ in these local assemblies! They would not have to spend long deciding whether this was permissible, or that; they would not spend long deciding how much they could give to the poor saints, for they had given themselves first to the Lord. How many questions are settled in a moment when you have given yourself first to the Lord. It is not the life of a recluse, nor is it monasticism; it is not physical separation or isolation, because these brethren, having first given themselves to the Lord, gave themselves. Paul says, “to us”. How serviceable they were! How they would serve one another in love! Well, I believe that is the condition which is required in order that we might be further enriched.

In writing to the Philippians, as I have said, Paul adds to what was already there in what he discloses in chapter two. To the Corinthians he says, “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sakes he, being rich, became poor”. “Subsisting in the form of God”, as he says in Philippians, and “being rich”, are allusions to His deity. He emptied Himself; that is related to His deity. He left one condition and He took upon Himself another condition.

“Being found in figure as a man” was the condition into which He came; such an One, as the footnote says (see note ‘c’, 2 Corinthians 8: 9, ‘such a one as he’), came into the condition in which we are, that is, flesh and blood, sin apart. He came into it that He might die out

of it, that He might open up for us a way, here and now, into the purpose of God. Do you not love Him for that?

I say it is time, beloved brethren, that we gave ourselves to Him. One might say, ‘How do I begin?’. That is a good question. You have a body. Paul says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service”, Romans 12: 1. The word used there for

‘service’ means priestly service. That is how you begin. That is how this change in a person’s life comes about. Let me say this, it is an irreversible change; it is a change of that kind, so that we never can be what we were; we can never go back. I do not speak lightly; I would speak in the spirit in which Peter spoke, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”, John 6: 68. That is the language of a person who has given himself first to the Lord. We may say, ‘He made many blunders’. And so have we. The Lord does not, in that sense, hold against us our blunders. He looks on the heart. He looks on the heart of every one of His own, and He looks on the heart of every local assembly. The prophet was to speak to the heart of Jerusalem (Isaiah 40: 2). Every local assembly has a heart, and the Lord speaks to it—“This is my body, which is for you”, 1 Corinthians 11: 24. It is in that language that He speaks. What an incentive to devotion, to committal!

I have read from Revelation where, again, it is a local assembly, Smyrna, to which the Lord is communicating by the pen of John the apostle, the prophet, the brother. “These things says the first and the last, who became dead, and lived”. That is how He presents Himself.

“Became dead”, a touching allusion to His becoming what He was not before; it is how He speaks to John, “I am the first and the

last, and the living one: and I became dead”, Revelation 1: 17, 18. Think of that—the Word became flesh, being found in fashion as a Man; He came into that condition in order that He might become dead. How deeply these things should affect us! Not only did the Lord come down from heaven, but from the position He had taken in having come down from heaven He descended into the lower parts of the earth in becoming obedient even unto death. He says here, “who became dead, and lived”. He not only lives, but He loves. Do you realise that?

John says, “To him who loves us”, Revelation 1: 5. He is writing in the present experience of Christ’s love. Well, He became dead and lived, so there is such a thing as life beyond death, but there may be those here who have not begun to think of that yet—life beyond death; not life on this side of death; on that side of death. “That world, and the resurrection”, the Lord says (Luke 20: 35)— that world. Do you find your affections drawn to the One who is the Centre of that world, the One who was lifted up? “I, if I be lifted up … will draw all to me”, John 12: 32. Do you find your affections being drawn to Christ, the One who was lifted up?—drawn out of the world, surely, quickly, too. Come out of it! Flee for refuge! We are among those who have fled for refuge; we are indeed. Whence have we fled? I trust that we have fled the world, yea more, we have fled from the earth. Flee from the earth to heaven!

The epistle to the Hebrews is written to incite our interest in better things. Solomon has much to say about better things in Ecclesiastes; Paul has more to say about better things in Hebrews. Solomon speaks of what is under the sun, important things. We would not set them aside for a moment. “Better is a handful with quietness, than both hands full with labour and pursuit of the wind”, Ecclesiastes 4: 6. That is one thing that Solomon speaks of as being

better. He speaks about young people, too, of youth. “Better is a poor but wise youth than an old and foolish king, who knoweth no more how to be admonished”, Ecclesiastes 4: 13. So perhaps you could come in there, under the heading of a poor and wise youth. The same book speaks of a poor and wise youth, and of a poor and wise man who delivered a city. These are the principles on which God operates, poverty of spirit, unpretentiousness, lowliness, meekness. These are the principles of God’s world. I would say again, Do you find your heart drawn to the One who is the centre of that world? Have you ever heard a voice in your own soul, speaking from the unseen world? Mr. Darby heard it, you know, in 1832. He was at that time quite a young man, with his life ahead of him as far as he knew, when he wrote—

‘What powerful, mighty Voice, so near,

Calls me from earth apart—

Reaches with tones so still, so clear,

From th’unseen world my heart?’

(J.N.D., ‘Spiritual Songs’, ‘The Call’)

So he became devoted to Christ. Why not you and I? It is the time for it. The Lord will add quickly on the line of enrichment where He has the heart devoted to Him.

Now the Lord says, “I know thy tribulation and thy poverty; but thou art rich”. I feel I need help, dear brethren, to understand what the Lord was speaking of when He said, “Thou art rich”. I think it was the way in which He was held in their affections and in their thoughts.

The value put upon Him by this local assembly involved what was truly their wealth. What a model! The persecution, the railing of those who held themselves to be Jews, He knew. He knew it, and He knows it. When He was reviled, He reviled not again; there was another order of man. “Concerning whom does the prophet say this? of himself or of some, other?”, Acts 8: 34.

Oh what a day it is when the soul gets another Man in view, the order of Man that is before God in Christ, which the Spirit of God is forming in the saints at the present time—features of the second Man out of heaven. He is the last Adam; there will be no more Adams, but many more like Him as the second Man out of heaven (1 Corinthians 15: 47). I think that in this suffering assembly that kind of man would be appreciated. Mr. Raven said, I think, that the first man is superseded. The first man was not adequate, you see, to sustain the greatness of what God had in mind for men, so he has been superseded by the second Man out of heaven. The old, man “corrupts itself according to the deceitful lusts”, Ephesians 4: 22. What has happened to him? He has been removed. This is not new, I suppose, to anyone here. It is not new doctrinally to us. But the thing, beloved brethren, is to arrive at it, not only that God removed the man that was offensive in the death of Jesus, but I am concerned to arrive at that in myself. This would enter into a way being made for the spiritual enrichment of persons, and of local assemblies.

Now in closing it is not my thought to enlarge on what the Lord says to the assembly in Laodicea, only that we should notice the contrast between the wealthy state of Smyrna, known to Christ, and the impoverished state of Laodicea, in spite of its claim to be rich. It is very important at the present time to make that distinction. “I am rich, and am grown rich”.

What a time it is in the world for that. Maybe never before has there been such opportunity on such a scale as at the present time. The natural man would say, ‘I must not miss it; it is now or never’. The Spirit of God would say in our hearts, in regard of devotion to Christ, ‘It is now or never’. Beloved brethren, how little time remains! Let us not squander time. Mr.

Taylor

remarked that it is a valuable commodity and it is in short supply. If the love of Christ does not affect us now, when will it? He loves us. Even in Laodicea there are persons He loves. He says so—“As many as I love”. Think of the Lord’s love for those who may be marked by Laodicean features. His love does not change. We may say, ‘Will not discipline come upon them?’. That question was put to a servant when someone went out of fellowship. A brother said, ‘Will he get discipline?’. The answer was, ‘Yes, when he comes back’. Such is grace!

The present moment is one of grace. If you want material things, He may say, ‘I will not prevent you’. “He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul”, Psalm 106: 15.

Which will you have? Ask Abraham. From a thread to a sandal-thong, he would not come under obligation to the world for a moment in regard to anything material, for he had lifted up his hand to “Jehovah, the Most High God, possessor of heavens and earth”, Genesis 14: 22.

The Lord presents Himself to Laodicea as “the beginning of the creation of God”. Think of the scope of the creation of God! Well, there it is—“Thou sayest, I am rich, and am grown rich, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art the wretched and the miserable”. May the Lord keep us from it! Paul says, “Demas has forsaken me, having loved the present age”, 2 Timothy 4: 10. He just loved the present world; he loved to live on the earth. If you spoke to Lot he would tell you how to do that; you see it in Lot’s history. The greatest need is heavenly-mindedness, beloved brethren. So the superiority, morally and spiritually, of divinely-given riches is to be laid hold of by us. Esau says, “Feed me … with the … red thing there”, Genesis 25: 30. The red thing is what attracts nature. How many go after that! Esau was a man about to

die, a profane man. We are to feed upon Christ once humbled here; ‘God’s treasured store’, is to be fed upon in Christ. So that you say, ‘I want more of Christ; I desire Christ for my gain’.

The Lord grant that it may be so in all our hearts, and in our local assemblies, so that there is what He can commend and even draw attention to, as I said at the outset, “The grace of God bestowed in the assemblies of Macedonia”, mentioned to quicken the footsteps, and to awaken the desires, of the Corinthians who might perhaps have been a little inclined to dwell upon the earth.

Address at Peterhead
14 May 1975