THE POWER, LOVE AND GRACE OF CHRIST AS ATTRACTED BY THE ASSEMBLY
THE POWER, LOVE AND GRACE OF CHRIST AS ATTRACTED BY THE ASSEMBLY
Ruth 3:8-13; Genesis 29:16-18; Genesis 29:30-32; 1 Samuel 25:23-26; 1 Samuel 25:32
It is laid upon one’s heart, dear brethren, to speak a word this afternoon as to the assembly, as winning her way and place in the affections of Christ and as drawing out certain features in relation to the particular circumstances. We have often heard, dear brethren, that the great feature of this dispensation that makes it so unique, is this very subject of Christ and the assembly. No other epoch or age has ever, as it were, had in it a family like the assembly. And divine Persons are continually seeking to help us in regard to the dignity and the glory of the assembly, it being as we might refer to it, the chief thing in the ways of God at the present time. Everything is held up in relation to the prophetic clock in order to make way for this wonderful dispensation. A great servant has described it as a nondescript dispensation, and in it the assembly has come to light under the divine eye.
We all need to understand more, the great place that the assembly has in the divine mind, and I would counsel and exhort and urge the younger ones coming on in the truth to set themselves more and more towards understanding and appreciating the great truth in regard to the assembly at the present time. You want to be helped and divine Persons will help every one of us as we set our faces toward it to arrive at the truth concerning Christ and the assembly. As we reach Christ as He is and where He is as the centre of the heavenly domain, and by the Spirit are given to enjoy our link with Him in union, His interests will become our interests, and we shall see the nearer we get to Christ, that His chief interest on earth at the present moment is the assembly. The glad tidings, too, is of great interest to Him, and the nearer we get to Christ and the more in the power of the Spirit we enjoy union, the more our hearts will appreciate these two features of the interests of Christ, the assembly and the glad tidings.
The assembly, as has often been said, is the family of families. There is no family in the universe of God that will ever have the same dignity and glory as the assembly has. Every family, of course, in God’s universe will bear the touch of the Father’s impress - He who gives names to every family. And in Ephesians where the Father is referred to as naming every family in heaven and on earth, the writer does not go on to speak of these families, he goes on to speak of one family. The other families recede, as it were, from our view, as he goes on to speak of the great family that is found in the assembly, the vessel to which there is glory to God at the present time.
Now there are many ways in which the assembly may be viewed. We think of the type in Eve. Jehovah saw that it was not good that man should be alone and he furnished in Eve a counterpart, a helpmate for the man. We find too, in regard to Rebecca, that the father sends the servant out on that glorious mission of finding a wife for Isaac his son. But that is not the side that I wish to speak of. We find also with Joseph, in Egypt, that a wife is given to him, Asnath, but I do not have in mind to speak of that side in regard to the assembly. I want to speak of the assembly, dear brethren, as she is in herself, a woman of worth; as she is in the types we have read about, a woman, who can make way for herself in the midst of difficult circumstances and difficult matters. Now we are to understand the assembly from this viewpoint, because as we do we shall be helped in our localities, in taking on this feature of the assembly, to work out things ourselves, to be industrious, to be energetic, to make a way for ourselves in whatever it may be in regard to the truth and to draw out what is in Christ as standing related to us. You might say, is not all that is in Christ toward us and available to us, and is He not constantly moving toward us in relation to it all? He is, but He loves to have things drawn out from our side. He loves to take account of us in the working out of matters as making a way in His affections, winning our way in His affections, for that is what the woman of worth involves. It is right that we have been given to Christ according to the counsels and purposes of eternal love, in the divine mind before time, but it is also right that the assembly comes under the divine eye, as furnishing divine Persons with a reason why They should do this and why They should do that. Matthew’s gospel shows us that whatsoever is bound on earth is bound in heaven. The assembly, you see, comes under the divine eye in her judicial glory as doing things and divine Persons are with the assembly in what is done. The Lord Jesus says, “I am with you all the days until the completion of the age,” to remind us as we do things, as we operate, the Lord is with us. The Lord is operating from on high. Mark tells us that and He set himself down at the right hand of God and the servants go forth and the Lord is working with them. The Lord is operating but He loves to see us operating, and this thought as to the assembly is to intensify this in our minds, that we have to operate, and in the operating, we are to draw out the resources of Christ. There are marvellous resources in Christ, dear brethren, and they are all towards us but the Lord Jesus loves to have them drawn out or drawn upon. And, each of these women, Ruth, Leah and Abigail, represents the assembly from the standpoint of the woman as drawing out the resources that are in the man.
I want to refer to Ruth as drawing out the resources linked with power in redemption. The glory of redemption enters into this book and Ruth draws it out. She operates with a view to drawing it out; Boaz is a wonderful type of Christ, as a mighty man of wealth, not just a man of wealth, but a mighty man of wealth. In him is strength. In this book it is power in relation to redemption, the taking up of the right of redemption. The assembly, typified in Ruth, is drawing it out; she is winning her way in the heart of Boaz. He was a great operator, with a great range of operations under his hand, and in the working out of these operations there comes under his notice this maiden called Ruth. Just as in a gathering like this the young people may come under the attention of Christ in His mighty operations and as subject to Christ in relation to the area, the limited sphere and area of His operations, they come in for His attention, and that is chapter 2. Let none of us think that we are not getting the attention of Christ. I believe the Lord loves to see every one of us here. He loves to look upon a gathering like this and see the young brothers and the young sisters, loves to see the children too, not that we are forgetting the older ones, far be the thought. The controlling influence in this book is the older ones, Naomi, who is furnishing Ruth with the opportunity to make her way. I would say to the older brethren, in the light of the type in Naomi, it is a great thing to help the younger ones, to make their way in affections of Christ, to promote the idea of winning their way in the heart of Christ, so that His power may be drawn out towards them because they have to face much, as Ruth had to face much.
The right of redemption involves that there was power with Boaz to take up Ruth’s condition, to take up Ruth’s position, we may say too, and to bring her into what she is brought into at the end of this book. I would point out about Ruth that she is a subject person. Now this is one of the prime features of the assembly, as in its members, making their way in the love of Christ, in the affections of Christ. Subjection is a prime feature - not only subjection to Christ but subjection to Naomi, subjection to the brethren. It is a great thing that we should see, dear brethren, in our local settings that none of us is greater than the assembly, the assembly is greater than any of us. As a brother said in a critical moment, “I have two features of responsibility, one is to protect the assembly in the setting in which I am and the other is to be subject to the assembly.” It is a great thing and it is the secret and the basis of all spiritual prosperity. Insubject persons will never make their way in the affections of Christ, which never varies, but the Lord would love to encourage our hearts to make our way in His affections. Naomi is helping Ruth towards this end and she encourages Ruth at every step of the way and our young people need instruction. When they come up before the tribunals, surely they have got to stand on their own feet. They have got to give witness and testimony to what is in their own souls but, dear brethren, they need to be helped, and they need to be shepherded, and they need to be instructed and the Naomis are needed for this. The spirit of Naomi in the local gathering is needed in regard to the teaching and the instruction as to the young persons making their way in the affections of Christ, to draw out His support, to draw out His help because if Boaz does not come in, we might say, the position is helpless and that is the point with all of us, dear brethren. If the Lord does not take on our matters, where will we be? We want, more and more,
to engage ourselves with drawing out His love toward us.
But I want, first of all, to speak of drawing out His power in redemption. Leah, suggests more the side of drawing out His love, Abigail the side of drawing out His grace, but Ruth suggests more the idea of drawing out His power. I would say in regard to the Ruth position and the assembly viewed in its members in this type that the exercises of Romans have to be faced and the glory of redemption is shining in the teaching in the early chapters of Romans. We have got to face the world, and to face it in a real way. Our fathers and mothers have faced it, but we have to face it, and we have to face what is in ourselves, sin, in all its working, which would bring us into enslavement to law and to the flesh. But as we face these matters rightly, we shall draw out the Lord’s power toward us. We will draw out all that He is in His resourcefulness to help us and to carry us through. Peter had to leave the boat and walk on the water and how is he going to get through those exercises - how is he going to reach what was before Him? He had to draw out the activity of the power of Christ in the way that he spoke in relation to the Lord, and the Lord was ready. So that let none of us avoid what is involved in the working out of the truth. There are many that shirk it, and sink into a state of apathy, because they are not prepared to face the working out of the truth in their souls, in all its soberness. I would encourage the young persons this afternoon, to set themselves to the working out of the truth, whatever it may cost them, and they will draw out the power of Christ toward them.
Well, that is Ruth, and in chapter 2 she comes before us as a person who is seeking to make her way in the love and affections of Boaz. Did not Boaz know all about her? He certainly did, just as the Lord Jesus knows all about you. But that is not enough, she has to make her way in the affections of Boaz, and this is how it is done. She has to sacrifice personal reputation. We all have to do that. Let us not think of our personal reputations, and let us not think what it cost us to enter into the path of winning the affections of Christ. We may have to give up a better job, we may have to allow the truth to become the great governing light in judging wrong associations, there may be many things that may be beneficial to us and would help us in the ways of God here, but if we are to make our way in the affections of Christ, we have to be prepared to sacrifice, to take a risk. Ruth is really risking something here. How does she know how the man will react, for she was taking her life, in principle I mean, in her hands, just like Esther in the book of Mordecai. We have to learn to do that, we have to learn to take a risk. There are many persons who are not prepared to take a risk spiritually, but we want to take a risk, in the sense in which I am speaking about it, because it will draw out actively the power of Christ toward us. It says, “It came to pass at midnight that the man was startled, and turned himself; and behold, a woman lay at his feet. And he said, Who are thou? And she answered, I am Ruth, thy handmaid, spread thy skirt over thy handmaid; for thou hast the right of redemption.” Think of the members of the assembly seeking Christ to spread His influence over them! I wonder what influence is exerting itself over you; it may be the influence of a world; it may be the influence of a young man or a young woman; some are even prepared to risk the fellowship to gain a husband and to gain a wife, prepared to marry out of the fellowship in order to get a temporal gain, but not Ruth. Ruth is taking a risk the other way, for she is risking all that temporal gain would bring to her, and we have to come to that, if we are going to get the gain of the truth of the assembly from the light in which I am now referring to it. She says, “Spread thy skirt over thy handmaid.” Have you ever asked the Lord to spread His influence over you and to cast His shadow over you? Have you ever asked the Lord, got near to Him and asked Him to take you on in this light? How the Lord loves it and he says, “Blessed be thou of Jehovah, my daughter! Thou hast shown more kindness at the end than at the first, inasmuch as thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, fear not: all that thou sayest will I do to thee.” All that thou sayest, not what Boaz says, but what Ruth says. Think of getting at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ in this way, drawing out His attention, arresting His attention and drawing out His interest in this way. The assembly is in mind, in the teaching, in the type, but I am speaking now of how the truth works out in those who are the members of the assembly, those who have had a history of sin and shame, such as many of us have had, but have been extricated from it; that is, Ruth.
And he says, “all that thou sayest will I do to thee; for all the gate of my people knows that thou art a woman of worth.” I would ask every one of us as to what kind of testimony we have among the brethren; it says of Timothy that he had a good report, he had a good testimony among the brethren. It is a great thing to have a good testimony among the brethren. The Lord loves to draw attention to it in the type here and he says, “Thou art a woman of worth. And now truly I am one that has the right of redemption.” That is, he is prepared to take on the matter; there is something to be adjusted, something has to come in, and the Lord takes up that position. In what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son, has done, a wonderful thing to take account of. And so I finish. Ruth is taken on and she becomes his wife. She has drawn out the activity of his power in the right of redemption, and she becomes his wife, and she makes way for that glorious line in the testimony that culminates in David. Now I would commend it to our minds and to our hearts, the assembly, from this viewpoint, drawing out the activity of Christ on the line of redemption, the right of redemption, as it is said in the end of the book, in the working out of the results, in verse 14 of the last chapter, “And the women said to Naomi,” notice how Naomi becomes part of the matter, “Blessed be Jehovah who hath not left thee this day without one that has the right of redemption.” Ruth in principle merges into Naomi, and Naomi merges into Ruth. It says, “May his name be famous in Israel! And he shall be to thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age.” That is, things are on the principle of being built up, of being invigorated, revived, and that is what we want in our local gatherings. The great thought of the assembly from this viewpoint as to what is working out in the members, drawing out the power of Christ, that resourceful power, exercised in the right of redemption, that can set persons up again in their inheritance, with all the wealth and the dignity and the glory that belongs to it. That is what the right of redemption means, that persons who have got down in their souls, persons who have got away from the truth with their affections grown cold, there is ability and power to set such persons up again, in relation to the glory of the inheritance, and that is the power that Ruth is drawing out.
Now I want to speak a word on Leah. She is a remarkable type of the assembly. I suppose Ruth is not one of the major types of the assembly, but nevertheless she is a type. Leah is one of the major types of the assembly, another type from the viewpoint in which I am speaking, as active and energetic in winning her way in the affections of Jacob, in the affections of Christ that is. Jacob loved Rachel, who is a type of Israel. The Lord Jesus came to Israel and He served in view of securing Israel, but He has got Leah, and Leah is a type of the assembly, especially from the Gentile viewpoint. She is hated, she is not loved, a remarkable thing, the Jewish position entering into that. When Paul brought the truth of the assembly in to view, the animosity and the hatred of the Jews was activated, so much so that it results in his being cast into prison and the book of the Acts ends with him in prison, all through the hatred that stood related to the Leah side of the assembly in Paul’s ministry. Leah represents this great thought conscious that she is in a place of reproach, conscious that she is in a position of being hated, and over against the Jewish position, she is working and operating to make a way in the heart of Jacob. She is like the assembly today, by her industry making a way in the affections of Christ. The Jewish position is not changed because the hierarchy around us has no use for us. It has ostracised us; and reckons us of no account. In fact we are hated; such is the position from the Jewish viewpoint. But we are to learn to accept the reproach and the hatred connected with the public position, where the truth of the assembly is cherished in this light, and in the face of all the opposition, in the face of all the hatred and reproach, we are to learn how to pursue, making our way in the heart of Christ, drawing out His love, as Leah says, “For now my husband will love me.” She feels the position, she feels the circumstances, but she persists in her activities and in her operations to draw out the love of Christ, to draw out the love of Jacob. We are to continue on that line, dear brethren, in our local gatherings, however great the reproach may be, however difficult the exercises may seem, we are to persist like Leah, in drawing out the love of Christ, in winning our way in the affections of Christ.
What mixed exercises there are in these two chapters, what soul searchings, what heart searchings, as difficulty after difficulty arises, and Leah is made to feel the keenness of things, and in her desire to be conscious of the activity of the love of Christ towards her, she has to make her own way. It is not a question here of God, as it were, making way for Leah, although there is the thought in verse 31, “And when Jehovah saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb.” God comes in a little, you see, but Leah still has to persist in making her way, to draw out the love of Jacob. The assembly, in that light, has to persist in making its way in drawing out the love of Christ. And it says, “And Leah conceived, and bore a son, and called his name Reuben.” You notice it means “See! a son.” That is, sonship is the first feature of the truth here; and then Simeon means “hearing,” that brings in the ministry. The first thing that comes up in making her way, and the thing that comes up in all our gatherings, in making our way in the affections of Christ, is whether we have an ear to hear. “He that has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.” Have we an ear for the truth and are we going to be subject to the truth or not. Now time will not permit to go into all the details, but I submit to the brethren the interesting type of the assembly in Leah, as affecting all our local gatherings. That we are to be conscious, whatever the pressure, whatever the difficulties, whatever the anguish of spirit and of soul, we are to keep at it in making our way in the affections of Christ, and drawing out His love, and we will find that on this line the house of Israel will be builded, as it says in Ruth, “which two did build the house of Israel.”
Now I want to speak a word as to Abigail, another unique type of the assembly as winning her way in the affections of Christ. Not as Eve or Rebecca or Asnath, or as Solomon’s wife who set out more the result of divine Persons in Their own operations but as suggesting the assembly itself operating, the saints operating, to bring out divine resources. They are all there, dear brethren, but they have to be brought out. They have to be drawn out from this viewpoint and therefore there is much room in the light of Proverbs 31 for the side of the woman of worth in our local gatherings, in keeping on with the gospel, and in keeping on with the exercises as to the assembly. There is plenty of room in spiritual industry to work our way into the affections of Christ. With Abigail here, it is a critical position, it is a crisis in her life, and we are in the midst of crises in these days, not one crisis only but many crises. How important it is that we should learn that in difficult conditions, in difficult circumstances, where the truth as it were for the moment may be lost, we want to be industrious and active in making our way to draw out the resources that there are with Christ. And what I would submit, dear brethren, in the type of the assembly in Abigail, is that she draws out this great resource; not the power of Christ as in Ruth in relation to redemption, nor yet the love of Christ as in relation to Leah and Jacob but the grace of Christ. The assembly understands the character of the dispensation, and the necessity, as it were, for drawing out the activity of the grace of Christ to meet the situation. Oh, what the Lord thinks of the assembly, in all our localities in this light, and in our activity and industry in this way! We see that this woman has a remarkable knowledge of the truth, she is a product of the truth in the prophetic ministry, she has followed up the ministry. You can tell that in reading what she has to say. I would say, dear brethren, on this line, that it is a great thing that we should follow up the truth, follow up the ministry and that we should be intelligent in regard to the truth. She is intelligent in regard to David, and we should be intelligent in regard to Christ. “David said to Abigail, Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel, who sent thee this day to meet me. And blessed be thy discernment, and blessed be thou, who has kept me this day from coming with bloodshed, and from avenging myself with mine own hand.” There is need for the spirit of this in our local gatherings, that would draw out the grace of Christ, to meet the conditions as they exist, whatever they may be.
May the Lord bless the word.