"SENT"

“SENT”

2 Kings 2: 1-8; John 14: 25, 26; John 20: 19-23; Hebrews 1: 13, 14

One is confident, beloved brethren, that to some extent there is a desire in all our hearts in accord with the words of the apostle Paul, that whether present or absent we should be agreeable to Him (2 Corinthians 5: 9, N.T.). I am sure we would not be the Lord’s at all, we would not know Him, if something of that desire were not with us — to be acceptable to Him. The apostle says he laboured that whether present or absent he might be acceptable to Him. Nothing could be more blessed to the heart than to be consciously acceptable to the Lord. So I would like to suggest a few things without which we shall never be in accord with heaven, and never be acceptable to the Lord. I am sure that our spiritual histories are greatly affected by accepting definitely the control of the Lord. Christians that live their lives without the sense of obligation to the Lord and to His people never move forward very far. One observes it everywhere in every local company that those who have the sense of obligation in their hearts are those who prosper. Those that just come and go, more or less as onlookers, never get very far, never get much of the positive enjoyment of things; and certainly are never trusted by the Lord with anything particular to help His people. What one has in mind is to suggest a little that might help us to accept definitely — each one of us — the principle of obligation to the Lord, so that in our lives here until the Lord comes, we accept this position that we are sent. You see a man (or a woman) that is sent is not at liberty to do as he likes; he is not at liberty to go where he likes; he is not at liberty to read what he likes; he is not even at liberty to think what he likes. You see, as being sent he is under the control and direction of another, and one does have some desire that we all might come to it that our position in relation to the Lord and in relation to God is that we are sent. That is the position He wants us to take up. I am sure light comes thereby. We look at everything differently in the acceptance of that principle. You remember the man in John 9. He was in darkness. There were wonderful things going on around him; the greatest things that have ever happened were going, on. “The Word was God,” it says in John 1: 1; and “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1: 14, N.T.). The apostle says: “We have contemplated His glory.” John the Baptist looked upon Jesus as He walked; but there is a man that is blind. All these things and more were going on around him, and he had not the faintest conception of it. But what I want us to see is that he is able ultimately to see everything rightly. His whole outlook is revolutionised by washing in the pool of Siloam, which, being interpreted, the Spirit of God says (it is interpreted so that we should not miss the meaning of it) is “sent.” The meaning of “sent” comes home to him; he washes in that pool. Then the light of the whole position dawns upon his soul. One desires, dear brethren, that we might wash in that pool tonight and afresh get our vision clear as to what is of God; and if there is one who has never washed, the Lord says, dear friend, go to the pool of Siloam and wash. This man said, I went, and I washed, and I came seeing. I am sure if we accept the principle behind that great word “sent,” our eyes will be opened to see what God is doing, and indeed to see the glory of Christ, as that dear man’s were. He worships the Son of God. That is where it ends. He comes into the shining of such a glorious Person as the Son of God, and worships Him. You can see I am sure that God’s dealings have always been on that line. When God wants to move, He has always moved on the line of sending. How many servants He has, has He not, ready to send? It says in Daniel 7: 10, “Thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him,” and every one of them waiting for a word to be sent. One loves to think of those hosts (Psalm 103: 21), “Ye ministers of His that do His pleasure” waiting for a word to be sent anywhere, as God instructs. And so God has always approached men like that. It says of Joseph that He sent a man before them. God sent him. Think of Joseph going like that. He was sent, consciously sent as he himself indicates. He said: “Do not grieve; God sent me before you to preserve life.” Joseph travelled from his father’s house, right to the throne of Egypt as the sent one, sent by God, consciously so. He was ready to go at the divine behest. So with Moses. He asks, when they say “What is His name? What shall I say unto them?” And God said unto Moses: “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” (Exodus 3: 13, 14.) Moses came from God to Israel in Egypt as “sent.” Joshua 24: 5 says: “I sent Moses also and Aaron.” You find that with all the prophets. God says to Samuel: “How long do you mourn for Saul? I have rejected him. I will send you to Jesse, the Bethlehemite” (1 Samuel 16: 1). “I have found a man amongst his sons. I will send you to Jesse.” Thither Samuel goes. That is it you see; the man who is sent goes and carries out his mission. God has acted like that. I think it is six times recorded in Jeremiah that He rose early and sent the prophets; daily in one place. Think of God speaking like that to His people! He had risen early and sent His servants the prophets to them in His care, and His service towards them. So you find that line maintained all through the Old Testament, right up to John, where you find a man sent from God whose name was John. “Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me ... “ (Malachi 3: 1.) John comes on his mission as sent by God to prepare the way. That brings us to the Sent One. That is what I want to come to. God gathers up all that He had ever expressed from Joseph right to John the Baptist, and indeed much more, and He brings in that blessed One who is said to be “Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent”; and again of whom it is said “The Father sent the Son, as Saviour of the world.” (1 John 4: 14, N.T.)

I wanted to commend the Lord to us all as the “Sent One,” so that we might be prepared to be sent; coming under the wonderful blessed fact that the Lord Jesus took the place as the sent One, and maintained it every day here, prepared to go wherever He was sent. He would not stay in one city all the time. He said I must preach the gospel in other cities for therefore am I sent. He never considered Himself, but carried out the mission which had been committed to Him, for He took the Servant’s form, and became obedient unto death — became obedient — that is the place of a sent one. The sent one is simply to carry out the will of the one who sends him, whatever it may mean.

I thought we might get some help, looking at second Kings like that. Elijah is undoubtedly there as a figure of Christ, and in those few brief words there is the summing up of the great mission of Christ. He says: “The Lord hath sent me to Bethel.” “The Lord hath sent me to Jericho.” “The Lord hath sent me to Jordan.” Will he go? Nothing could stop Elijah from going. He tests Elisha. He says: “You stay here, but the Lord hath sent me to Bethel.” One would like to feel that the answer of Elisha was our answer. “As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.” One loves to think of Elisha following Elijah like that in the spirit of adoration. With what profound feelings he would follow that one here who was going to heaven. He knew it. He was in reality going to heaven, typical of Christ in that way. It says, “When the Lord would take Elijah to heaven,” Elisha knew it. He knew the one he was following belonged to heaven and was going to heaven, as it says of the Lord in John 13: “He was come from God, and went to God.” Knowing that, He rises from supper. In the light of the greatness of the one he was following, Elisha says: “I will not leave thee.” He followed Elijah to these three places. We are not told what happened in detail, but one can fill in the detail from the New Testament. We can all do that. “The Lord hath sent me to Bethel.” That was one place the Lord was sent to. He was sent to Bethel. How we love to follow Him there! Bethel is the house of God. He was sent there. In being sent into this scene as the sent One, one place to which He was to go by the divine command, the divine injunction, was to Bethel. How beautiful to see the Lord in Bethel — in the house of God! How He fills the picture! How He fills the scene! We can follow Him there. See the “zeal of thine house” devouring Him! See Him make those whips of small cords and cleanse the temple, saying, “Take these things hence; make not My Father’s house an house of merchandise” (John 2: 17). God grant that we might be with Him as we see Him do that, to allow the zeal of the house of God to enter into our hearts; that we refuse to make the house of God a house of merchandise. How obnoxious it is to divine Persons that the house of God should be a house of merchandise, where people trade and make gain for themselves! The Lord would not tolerate it. It says: “He drove them all out of the temple.” We can stand alongside Him like Elisha, and watch Him, and let the same spirit enter into our hearts, that we will not allow in the house of God the principle of making gain out of the things of God. We need to be with Elijah at Bethel to get the sense of that. We follow the Lord to the golden altar in the house of God, and we hear Him pray: “My house shall be called the house of prayer” (Matthew 21: 13). What a wonderful thing it is that some of the prayers of the Lord are recorded, even verbatim, for our adoring hearts to hear. “My house shall be called the house of prayer for all nations.” How can we be in the house of God rightly? Only as like Elisha, we follow Him to Bethel, and we see Christ there. He was sent to Bethel. See His behaviour in the house of God. Never was such behaviour since the house of God appeared on the earth. So every feature of the house of God was adorned by His presence there. Psalm 42 speaks of the Lord saying: “I went with them to the house of God.” Think of Judas going up with Him and being unaffected by his sojourn at Bethel. One would like to be like Elisha, to go up with Elijah and not to leave him. “And they two went on.” Elijah says: “Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho.” That means that Elijah is going to Jericho. As God’s servant whom He rises early and sends, He will carry out the will of the Lord. “The Lord hath sent me to Jericho.” We are not told in detail there what happened. The Gospel of Luke largely fills that in. We see the blessed Lord going down to Jericho sent there. It says of the priest (Luke 10: 31) that he happened to pass that way; passing the man that went from Jerusalem to Jericho. There was no such thing about the Lord; He was journeying. You see He was on this journey that God had sent Him. As He journeyed, He came where he was. One would like to be like Elisha, alongside the Lord in Jericho, and see that vessel of divine grace in Jericho in the scene of man’s lawlessness and wickedness and ruin. See how He acts in Jericho. Think, dear brethren, of Him journeying, and He had with Him the oil and the wine. It was in His charge. He was carrying it so as to be able to meet every need on the road to Jericho. It does not appear that the Samaritan had to go and buy the oil and the wine. He had it and poured it in. He had plenty evidently. He had all the means of providing what man in his ruin needed. Then, as He entered Jericho, there was a blind beggar, and the Lord has all that He needs to provide for the blind beggar. Think of the grace of it. This blind beggar cries out: “Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.” It says He stood still to heed the cry of need from a blind beggar at Jericho. How are we going to move through this lawless, ruined, empty and broken scene? It is as we accompany the Lord to Jericho that we will know how to have grace for man in his ruin. That is the only way. We will only know how to behave in the house of God as we are with Him at Bethel; only know how to have grace for the need of men around us as we accompany the Lord to Jericho. He came to the city of Jericho, and there was a man who wanted to see Him, making plenty of mistakes, climbing up the sycamore tree, but still in his heart he wanted to see the Lord. The Lord, full of grace, going to that city; looks up, and says: “Make haste and come down.” He sees Zacchaeus, and says, “Make haste and come down; for today I must abide at thy house.” What grace on the part of the Lord! We have much to learn from the Lord’s sojourn in Jericho. May our language be like Elisha’s: “As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee,” so that we may learn how to be in Jericho rightly.

Then Elijah says: “Tarry I pray thee here; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan.” What a journey! What a commission! The Lord hath sent me to Jordan. What an amazing thing that the Lord should send him to Jordan. We must dismiss entirely from our minds at this point, another side of the truth which it is well at other times to remember; for the apostle Peter says, “Of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers” (Acts 7: 52). That is not the point before us now. “The Lord hath sent me to Jordan.” Jordan is the great figure of death — death in all its power; death that overflows, like Jordan, all its banks. Scripture speaks of the swellings of Jordan (Jeremiah 12: 5; Jeremiah 49: 19). Think of the Jordan rising up and swelling and overflowing every barrier! Elijah says: “The Lord hath sent me to Jordan.” The blessed Lord Jesus Christ, the true Elijah was sent, dear brethren, wonderful to relate; He was sent to die. “Thou hast brought me into the dust of death” (Psalm 22: 15). The Lord was sent into that river. We would follow Him adoringly. Think of the Lord being sent — the Lord Jesus Christ, sent into that mighty river at the behest of God. Elisha followed Elijah. He sees him take his mantle and fold it up and smite the waters. They part hither and thither, and they cross over. What a place the Lord would have in our hearts if we did that! To follow Him at the close of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and see Him stand by that mighty river! See it swell up and overflow everything! Death is there in every aspect. All the power of death is there. It was not all at the Red Sea, but it was all at the Jordan. See Him take His mantle and smite it. What is His mantle? The blessed character of Christ as Man, superior in virtue of His own blessed character, superior to every feature of death, in the power of what He was Himself,

in the power of all that is seen in Him; for His mantle refers to what you can see. It is not what is inside exactly; the mantle is what is wrapped round the person visibly, what is visible in the blessed Lord, those moral excellencies that make Him superior to death in virtue of which He can smite it and pass over, superior to Satan’s, power, superior to the hatred of men, superior to the judgment of God, superior to death in every form. I want to point out that He was sent there. Think of the obedience of the One who went wherever He was sent, even if it meant obedience unto death — even the death of the cross!

Now, when we come to John 14, we have another wonderful expression. It speaks there of the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, “whom the Father will send in My name.” There is another divine Person on earth now. Elijah goes up to heaven. Then comes the spirit of Elijah into the heart of Elisha. So the Lord says — “the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name.” That is repeated half a dozen times at least in Scripture, that the Spirit of God is sent. The Lord says, I will pray the Father, and He will send you another Comforter. Peter says: “By them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven” (1 Peter 1: 12). That divine Person has taken the place of being sent. How it would help us to judge the lawless movements in our own hearts to do as we like, to see that the blessed Lord Himself is sent, and the Spirit of God is sent, sent down from heaven! Will He fail in His mission? Never. I believe that is what the meaning of the Comforter is. “I will send you another Comforter.” What a comfort it is to feel that there is even a Divine Person here, sent from heaven to care for the interests of Christ! “I will send Him in My name,” in My interests, on My behalf. What would we do if that were not true! Think of the unfaithfulness of the church! Think of all our unfaithfulnesses! How many they are! Everything would disappear from the earth for God if the Comforter were not here. He has been sent, and He will carry out His mission; He will never turn back until His service is completed. One has enjoyed the word “another Comforter.” What a Comforter the Lord was, was He not? The word does not mean there, as in the gospel of Luke, the Lord having compassion, and saying: “Weep not.” It does not mean that at all in the gospel of John. It means that He was competent as here to take up everything that ever arose. The word is the same as the word “advocate.” We know if we have ever been in a legal difficulty what it is to have a good advocate. That is the comfort. You feel things are in good hands if you have the best advocate you can have. So in every matter that arose, what a Comforter the Lord was! What an Advocate! You think of Luke 10. Martha comes to the Lord and complains about Mary. “Do you not care that my sister has left me alone to serve?” But Mary does not have to take up the matter. The Advocate is there, you see. Mary has not got to answer. The Lord takes up the matter. He says: “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things.” He is such an Advocate that Mary is comforted to leave her interests in His hands. So you find that all the way through. Mary is again complained about. Why was not this ointment sold, says someone; why this waste? Mary has not got to answer the matter. The Advocate says, the Comforter: “Let her alone, against the day of My burial has she kept this!” He speaks for her; He takes up all matters. You find that all through the gospels. All matters of difficulty He takes up. They did not have to fight them out. The Lord says: “I will pray the Father and He will send you another Comforter.” One delights to think of the Spirit of God being here like that to take up and care for the interests of Christ. Oh, you say, if we do not do something, everything will fail and fall to pieces. No, it won’t. What are they going to do in such and such a place? We will have to do something,

somehow. Indeed you need not. The Comforter is here. The interests of Christ are in His hands. He is a Divine Person. You do not need to be alarmed. I do not mean to say you are not to be concerned and exercised when things are wrong. But you don’t need to think everything will fall to pieces. I will pray the Father, and He will send you another Comforter. “He will come in My name.” The Spirit of God is sent here and will carry out His mission faithfully to the end. That is why things that are wrong, dear brethren, never drift into oblivion — they are never passed over. If a thing is wrong in any locality on earth, if it is a dishonour to Christ, it will never get through. You say: “Brethren at the other end of the world do not know.” I say it has no hope whatever of passing. Why? Because the Comforter is here “in My name.” He is here to take up the interests of Christ, and He sees everything. He will not pass anything that is dishonouring to Christ. You can be sure of that. You need not think it depends upon you and me, though we should be faithful, but it does not depend upon us. Any action or doctrine that is dishonouring to the Lord never does pass. There will be a division over it before it could pass, if people will not judge it; but the Spirit of God will not allow anything dishonouring to Christ to pass amongst those who desire to please the Lord. That is a comfort. That is the bearing of the Comforter. “I will send you another Comforter.” There is much more. “He shall glorify Me and take of the things of Mine and show it unto you.” How is it there is a living ministry maintained to the end amongst God’s people? It is because the Comforter is here. “He shall glorify Me; for He shall receive of Mine and shall show it unto you.” It does not come from the brains of men; it does not come from the universities; it does not come from education according to this world, but “words which the Holy Ghost teaches.” The Spirit of God is here on behalf of Christ. He will see the saints are fed. What a comfort that is!

One more word or two. I wanted us to see that the Lord’s thought is to send us. The Lord in Luke 10 calls 70. He had previously sent out the 12. Then He calls 70. You and I might come into the 70. We are not in the 12; that is peculiar to the apostles. Then He gathers 70 others. He says: “I send you forth as lambs among wolves.” I send you. Every one of that 70 would move out from that moment with the sense that they were sent, and that henceforth they were under obligation to the Sender. They were to move as He moved (in the gospel of Luke) like a lamb in the midst of wolves. You say: “How”? In the power of the Sender. The Lord does not send us on any mission we cannot fulfil, because He gives the power. He is the vessel of divine power for men — power unlimited resides in Him. Out of that fulness of power He gave the 70 the power to go on the mission. He says, “I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions”; “Carry neither purse nor scrip nor shoes.” You do not have to go stocked up. You want to go in dependence like a lamb. A lamb is dependent. What can it do if it does not depend upon someone? So the Lord is like that in Luke — as the lowly dependent one — so often seen in prayer in the gospel of Luke as the dependent one. He says: “I send you.” I am here; you do not need purse or scrip. I will provide what you need. I have sent you. Do not wear sandals. That is, you are to go as a servant. He says: “I am among you as he that serveth.” The Lord sent them out. One desires that from the youngest to the oldest we might accept that place that the Lord’s mind for us is to be sent with an inevitable obligation always to the Sender. Nobody would have a servant who was sent and did not take account of his mission. So the Lord says to the 70, which embraces all: “I send you forth as lambs among wolves.”

Now a word as to John 20 — another side altogether, in keeping with that wonderful gospel. The Lord, like Elijah, was just about to go into heaven. “I ascend,” He says, “to My Father and your Father”; but before He actually ascends He gathers His own round Him, and says: “As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.” You say: “I could never be up to that.” None of us could in ourselves. No one could in himself. “As My Father hath sent me” — what a wonderful, dignified position that is! “As My Father hath sent Me” — in all the unspeakable greatness and dignity and liberty and heavenly character of the Son — that is how He was sent. “The Father sent the Son.” In John’s gospel, how often it is repeated. It says: “He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father.” Think of the majesty and heavenly character of the “sending” in John’s gospel: The Lord says: “As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.” “I send you just like that.”. Every one of us would shrink back and say: “I never could undertake the journey; if I am sent like that, I am not equal to it.” The Lord knew we were not equal to it. It says: “And when He had said this He breathed on them, and saith unto them, ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost.’” I believe that is one of the greatest acts recorded in Scripture. It stands at the head of the heavenly family in the same position as God breathing into Adam, who was the head of the earthly family. God says: “Let us make man in our image ... on the earth” (Genesis 1: 26). How can He do it? He is out of the ground. It says: “The Lord God formed man out of the ground.” Something out of the ground could not represent God. The cows are out of the ground; the sheep are out of the ground; the trees are out of the ground. They could not represent God as God’s image. How can man represent God? It says He breathed into his nostrils. God imparted something from His own being that elevated man to be able to represent God on earth. It is the most marvellous act, in connection with the creation, of all the acts — that is what makes the difference between man and beasts, that man has had the breath of God breathed into him by God. Now the Lord says: “I want you to be here as heavenly, not as earthly, to be representative of God in an earthly setting, but I want you to be on earth in a heavenly character.” “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly” (1 Corinthians 15: 48). “I send you out as heavenly ones.” How could it be possible? He breathed into them the breath of life of the heavenly Man. That is what the Spirit of God is in that connection. It is the very breath of Christ imparted to the believer once and for all; for neither in Genesis nor in John is it ever repeated. It passes down in the first case through the history of man on earth, and in the second case it permeates the heavenly family. The breath of Christ is that which makes the person heavenly.

One word more — I wanted us to see that the angels are sent. The apostle says, “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation” (Hebrews 1: 14). I believe that would give us great quietness at the present time to see that these hosts, innumerable, are sent out by God, and they never rebel. His holy angels they are. They are sent out to serve those who shall be heirs of salvation. You see that in the Old Testament. Listen to the voice of Daniel from the lions’ den. “My God hath sent His angel.” What can all the lions do when one angel arrives? Then see Peter in prison. How can those doors ever be opened? He will never get out. He says, “Now I know of a surety that the Lord hath sent His angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod” (Acts 12: 11). See Paul in the shipwreck. You say: “Everything has gone now.” No, it has not gone. The apostle Paul says, “For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve” (Acts 27: 23). You say, dear brethren, the avenues are closing up everywhere; the power of evil will crush the saints; there is no outlet anywhere. Yes, there is. “Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation?” God has hosts of mighty servants, and He sends them out, and they will do the divine bidding. The angels are sent in God’s providential government to make iron gates open when they are shut, to shut lions ’ mouths when they are open, to see that God’s people get through, and with the sense of that we can rest like Peter. Peter was sleeping with confidence in God, and he awakes to realise God has sent His angel. I am sure we shall have that experience if we keep in subjection to the Lord, for it is to those who shall be the heirs of salvation they are sent.

Do not think salvation means that we are going to heaven when we die! It is connected with the acceptance of the authority of the Lord over us. Those who shall be heirs of salvation, and who accept the authority of the Lord — for such the angels are available. They are innumerable. No one knows how many. No one could know. Gabriel said to Zacharias, “ ... I am sent” (Luke 1: 19).

The Lord help us. If the Lord Himself is the sent One, if the Holy Ghost is sent down from heaven, if the apostle Paul accepts the place of being sent (as he does, for it says, “Unto whom now I send thee” (Acts 26: 17), if the angels are all prepared to be sent, let us live the rest of our lives in the definite acceptance of the place of obedience and obligation to the Lord who sends us!