A VOICE
Brian Deck
Revelation 1: 9-19; Song of Songs 2: 8-13
Both of these passages involve a voice. John ''turned back to see the voice" - a remarkable statement! The voice denotes that there is a person. You may not see the person, but the voice discloses who the person is. Oh to have ears spiritually attuned to hear the voice! The Lord says of His sheep, They hear My voice; they know My voice. They would detect the voice of a stranger that it is not His voice. How important, beloved brethren, to have sensitive ears, spiritual ears, assembly ears, to discern the voice. I hope the little that can be said now may quicken that desire.
The voice involves, as I said, a person. It began in the garden: ''the voice of Jehovah Elohim", Gen 3: 8. It is remarkable: "Where art thou?" God searches with a voice. Oh, the feelings they had over that voice. Sin had invaded that garden, disobedience. "Where art thou?": in some sense that voice continues and would search every one of us. Man was driven out because of his disobedience, driven out of paradise. Jesus came to recover man to paradise. I wonder if we could get some sense of the voice that would lead us back into the paradise of God. You can trace it through the Scriptures. Elijah heard a "soft gentle voice", 1 Kings 19: 12. That was God's consideration for His servant when he became despondent. It was not in the earthquake - I am diverting a bit - it was not in the fire; it was not in the wind; but "a soft gentle voice": "What doest thou here, Elijah?". Dear brethren, that would come home to us too. What are you doing here? Where are you? Elijah became despondent; he thought he was the only one left. We get like that sometimes. We should not. God might use the discipline of an earthquake or a fire or a wind. That would be discipline, but there is nothing that breaks us down more than the exceeding grace of a soft gentle voice. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is the greatest moral power in the universe. Oh that something of that power might come to us now. It assured that beloved faithful servant that there were seven thousand that had not bowed the knee to Baal. Be assured that the testimony of the Lord is going through, and do not be ashamed of it Paul says to Timothy (see 2 Tim 1: 8). We are in a day of small things, nothing outwardly, nothing to boast in, nothing to cater to the flesh. In some way the testimony is concluding as our blessed Lord did publicly - the cross and the grave. It affected in some sense how his beloved apostle Paul finished - a prisoner, a martyr. This is not to depress our spirits; it is to quicken us. It is to enliven us to see the urgency of the time we are in and to rise to it. The time is running out. Very, very soon He will come. There will be no delay. "What doest thou here, Elijah?" He says, Oh, I have been jealous and all these things. But God has His reserves. The testimony is going through. My concern soberly is that I would like to go through with it, please God. It is not dependent on ourselves. God has His reserves, and His testimony will go through. Do not be ashamed of it! He has not given us a spirit of cowardice. There is power to go through and be with Him in it. He is the testimony. Make Christ your life! For Paul to live was Christ: that can be for you too.
It was to John here. He had heard that voice. He had heard it at the grave of Lazarus, the same voice, the same Person. He had heard Him crying, "If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink", John 7: 37. That voice could meet any situation - the thirsty soul: come to me and drink. John heard the cries from the cross too. I suppose John heard the cry, "a loud voice ... which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?", Mark 15: 34. We could say much as to that, if we dared, because we are in the presence of the greatest things that ever happened. We can only do it in the spirit of John here at the feet of Jesus.
If you want more homework to do, you dear young brothers and sisters, search the Scriptures and find those who fell on their face at a time of crisis. You will find Moses. You will find Joshua who said to that man that met him with a drawn sword - typically the Lord - "Art thou for us, or for our enemies? ... No; for as captain of the army of Jehovah am I now come", Josh 5: 13,14. Then Joshua fell on his face. I wonder if we are sufficiently marked by the holy spirit of reverence as we touch the things of God. They are too wonderful, so take your shoes off when you are standing on this holy ground. Dear brethren, we are touching holy ground and it becomes us to act becomingly because of it.
John had heard the voice; he had lain in the bosom of Jesus and on His breast. He knew nearness as we can. We could not stress too much what we said: cultivate your personal links with Him, your own secret with Him. It is your own, not anybody else's. By the Spirit we are joined to the Lord. Nothing can break that, not death itself. That goes through. The highest power of man is the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is joined to our spirit so that we are the children of God. Nothing can break it. What a wonderful company! Now, John here is on the island called Patmos, alone apparently. A barren island in the Aegean Sea, is it not? There was nothing to minister to him. Hostile! If we are faithful, that is what the world is to us. If I find a place in the world, I would have to say, where am I with the One the world rejected? I speak simply because we are all in these things. There are temptations all around us, especially when we are young. I know it. We have been through our teens, and we did not win all our battles either. I did not. So we speak tenderly: beware of the world! Do not get as close as you can to it! Get as far away from it as you can! You will find the company of the One who accepted rejection and suffering for you.
Now, John knew intimacy, and he hears this voice. He is in the Spirit on the Lord's day. He had learned the secret of retiring to that precious link with another divine Person. Do you think John would have any problem about addressing the Spirit? I am sure he would not. He would know Him, "another Comforter"; in his “tribulation ... and patience" would he not instinctively turn to the comfort of "another Comforter"? Oh, beloved brethren, learn intimacy with the blessed Holy Spirit. He is a divine Person. God is here dwelling in the heart of every believer who has received the Holy Spirit. John knew that intimacy, but here he hears a voice "as of a trumpet": "and I heard behind me a great voice", and he turned back to see the voice. Remarkable! You do not see a voice! You see a person! And that is what he saw in a way he had never seen Him before. The view here is not just as a Shepherd who leads the sheep out and they follow Him because they know the voice. John had been that way. Oh what a wonderful thing to belong to that flock - John's way of speaking of the assembly. You follow the Shepherd's voice. Where does He lead you? "In green pastures ... beside still waters", Ps 23: 2. If you go “through the valley of the shadow of death" He will be with you. Oh, what a Shepherd we have! But it is not that here. It is the depth of the Lord's feelings as corning out to the vessel, the assembly. As to her public expression here below the feelings of Christ are coming out judicially. That does not mean His love was not there; it was there. Oh how He feels the public ruin of the church! How much do we share His feelings, beloved brethren? John had never seen Him like this before with "his eyes as a flame of fire" and His garments described judicially; and he "turned back to see the voice". He was arrested by it. Let us be arrested too! I feel sometimes we speak too easily about the breakdown of the church. We are it. How deeply have we entered into the feelings of the Lord Jesus about what is next to His heart? He would invite John, as it were: You come into my feelings. "Fear not", He says. He had put His hand upon him. What a wonderful thing to be conscious of the nearness of Jesus! Think of what has come in! The ravaging! Who feels it as the Lord does? "Grievous wolves" (Acts 20: 29): Paul saw the danger of what was coming in, and he met it prophetically. I think we could say in every case the Lord has met things prophetically, but alas we did not always discern the prophetic edge to the word. In some sense we live in a very critical time, but it is not just critical, it is a wonderful time. There has never been a time of greater privilege than the moment we are in, those "upon whom the ends of the ages are come", 1 Cor 10: 11. We stand responsible in regard of the generations of faith that have preceded us, that we are to fill out our responsibility in love's committal to the Lord at the end.
I do not mean to describe these garments, even if I could. "And his voice as the voice of many waters; and having in his right hand seven stars". What a description of this Person! And John says, "And when I saw him I fell at his feet as dead". I wonder whether we have ever felt like that. He was prostrate in the presence of the greatness of the One whom he saw. The Lord appraises everything. He does not yet spue Laodicea out of His mouth. It is lukewarm! "The love of the most shall grow cold", Matt 24: 12. Do not be among them! Let us be quickened in our affections and in our interest and deepened in our committal. How the Lord feels it, but He is still walking amidst the seven golden lamps. I may be an overcomer in Thyatira and Sardis. There was one in Philadelphia, and there was one in Laodicea. As I see it, that is how the testimony of our Lord will complete, in the overcomer, maybe the ones and the twos and the threes who are faithful and will represent the whole assembly. Wonderful that He credits the whole assembly with the faithfulness of even two, as He did with Joshua and Caleb. It points to the outward smallness and fragility of the position, but carries through what is immensely vital and precious to His heart. Oh, let the appeal of it come home to us, beloved brethren!
So it says, "and he laid his right hand upon me". That is the hand of power. There was John prostrate on his face before his Master and "his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the living one". Oh, dear brethren, that is the side of victory, "the living one". He says, "I became dead, and behold, I am living to the ages of ages". What depths were in this: "I became dead"! That could not be said of anyone else but Jesus. He did not die in weakness; He died in power. He laid down His life. It was not taken from Him. If we are left here we will finally die from weakness because we cannot sustain life. There was no weakness with Jesus! He cried with a loud voice. He died in vigour. Who could explain it? Let us not try! It is too momentous. It is inscrutable. We must be careful not to intrude into what is inscrutable, the humanity of Jesus and His vicarious work involving the cross, the three hours, and the grave, and the resurrection, and His being received up in glory. Think of that, that wonderful vicarious work of Jesus! What is becoming is to be on our faces at His feet! And then He puts His right hand upon him.
"And I became dead, and behold, I am living to the ages of ages, and have the keys of death and of hades". They are in good hands. Leave them there! He knows what is going on. The Lord is in control. He would say, You must trust Me. We do not know what belongs to that condition. He does: He has been there. He has established His rights in the very domain of death. He is in control there. He has the keys. Presently He will use them as to those who are sleeping in Jesus. They will hear the voice - that is another voice - of the Son of God. That is the next thing to take place; the voice of the Son of God will rend the tombs of the saints. "Then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air'', 1 Thess 4: 17. Oh let the faith of it rise within us to see the tremendous privilege that attaches to the present time. So John ''turned back to see the voice", and this is what he saw. Let us be sobered by the whole public path of the testimony and be identified with it as an overcomer!
Now, I want to speak of another voice, not the judicial side, ''the voice of my beloved"! It turns me to the Song. "The voice", she says, "of my beloved! Behold, he cometh, Leaping upon the mountains, Skipping upon the hills." This is the lover of the church, the same Person. His love is not changed; His Person is unchanging; He is the assembly's Beloved. He is the Father's Beloved. That belongs to Him alone, uniquely, to the lover, but we are ''taken ... into favour in the Beloved" (Eph 1: 6), but He is the assembly's Beloved. May I ask you, Is He your Beloved? It says here, "The voice of my beloved!" What is He saying? "My beloved spake and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away". This takes us to the Supper, but it will take us into more than that. What a sense we have, when the Lord comes in in the breaking of the bread, that He is near, that He has come to us. He lifts us out of the wilderness conditions with all its sorrows and its anguish. Who of us are without them? He says, You come away, I will lift you up out of this. Beloved, at any moment that will be in its actuality. "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For behold, the winter is past, The rain is over, it is gone". Wonderful that we can touch this in our spirits as in assembly! Let us know it more! I would venture to say that perhaps we need a deeper awareness of His coming in and taking control. He would say, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away". He wants to take us somewhere else. He takes us where there is the lovers call. It says, "And the voice of the turtle-dove is heard", not in 'my land' but "in our land". It suggests that there is a land He shares with His assembly: "head over all things to the assembly, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all", Eph 1: 23. What a wonderful prospect to share that headship in a heavenly sphere; Emmanuel's land, if you like. It is "our land". We are so united; we are so one; He said, You come into "our land". The voice of the turtle-dove is love's call. That is where it is heard. I suppose there is an allusion to the Spirit underlying it. Oh the lowliness of the place which that blessed divine Person has taken - the lowest place. The Father is in the place of supremacy; the Son is in a relative place; the Spirit has taken the third place. Oh the wisdom of the ways of God in revealing Himself to persons such as you and me, that we should know God and grow in the true knowledge of God against all the error that persists in the profession. Oh let us be free of it and be "growing by the true knowledge of God", Col 1: 10.
He says, "The time of singing is come ... The figtree melloweth her winter figs". How wonderful that is! They have come through the winter, through the rigours, through the problems, through the church sorrows. When we look round on our older brethren we thank God for them. They have stood in their generation. They have been mellowed in a maturity and are valuable. Get alongside of them. Talk to them. We know the Lord is about to come, but if He delays, we need to step into the ranks of those whom the Lord takes. I heard a dear brother say once that he looked forward to his dissolution; he looked forward to the experience of his departure to be with Christ. It is much better. If we are here when the Lord comes we will not have that. I suppose when we are young we think that might be the best, but it is not. In any case we can be absolutely restful. It is in the hands of the One who loves us more than we realise and He is coming.
So it says, "And the vines in bloom give forth their fragrance". Then He repeats it, "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away! " Let us be ready, dear brethren, at any moment to rise to that call. He is coming, the Lord Jesus! "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come", Rev 22: 17.
"Come, Lord Jesus"; He says, "Yea, I come quickly", (v 20). May the Lord help us!
VANCOUVER
December 1990
Minor revision by E.C.B.
BAPTISED CHILDREN
Over fifty years ago Mr James Taylor wrote in a letter that, as household baptism became more recognised, the proportion of children turning to the Lord and accepting the fellowship of His death would become larger. Although baptism is not necessary for salvation of the soul, it is ordained in the Scriptures. It seems that the apostles were not baptised, but were sent out to baptise other people into the public profession of Christianity.
Most children reading these things will doubtless have been baptised in infancy and will have no memory of the occasion. Very briefly, it involves going out of sight through water and reappearing, even as the Lord Jesus was buried and rose again. The full name of the person to be baptised is called and followed by the baptismal words “to the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit".
Believing parents, in the exercise of faith, recognise that it is right to have their children baptised, leaving it in confidence with God that He will work in their hearts to bring them into the full blessing of Christianity. As you will remember, there are instances in Scripture where households have been baptised, such as that of the jailor at Philippi and that of Stephanas. As in our own day, the young people there would understand that household baptism calls for obedience to parents. The commandment in the early Scriptures to do this is the first one with a promise. Do you enjoy it?
J.C.Evershed