UNKNOWN YET WELL KNOWN

Isaiah 32:1; 2 Tim.4:8; 2 Kings 5:1-4, 10-15; John 6:1-9; Acts 20:7-12

All that we have been enjoying today is worth having; food that is substantial. It is of immense value, although not always easy to understand. I know some of the young people may have struggled with some of what has been said, but when it comes to the things of God, they are worth listening to.

The rights of God have been erased and eroded in this world, and many attempts made to eradicate them completely. This world has no room for them, but I read this verse in Isaiah because I find it a wonderful confirmation. A day is coming, beloved, when a King will reign in righteousness. That is one of the features that no longer exists in this world. Men want righteousness, they need it, but they cannot make it happen. One of the assurances that you can have today is that there is a day coming when a King will reign in righteousness, and He is our glorious Saviour! We live in a day when much is given up. Many of the things in relation to the Lord Jesus have been given up, but every one of us here can have the certainty that a King will reign in righteousness. What a glorious prospect! It is not a fable or something that you might wish for but would never happen. This is real. You might say that this scripture refers to Israel. They long for their Messiah, they look for Him, and they long for the moment when for the first time a King will reign in perfection and in righteousness. They have had their kings, God granted them that, but the One of whom we are speaking is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, whom they have rejected.

We need encouragement in a day when so much can discourage, and so much can bring us down. There is something here in Timothy that lifts us. Paul writes about a crown that is laid up, which “the Lord the righteous Judge, will render to me”, but he says “not only to me, but also to all who love his appearing”. We are waiting for the rapture; what a moment that is going to be! A moment when as the epistle to the Thessalonians so beautifully puts it, the “dead in Christ shall rise first; then we the living who remain” (1 Thess.4:17), an active hope of what is going to take place very soon for the believer. But I want to refer to this, “but also to all who love his appearing”.

You might be affected when you see how much in this world is against Christianity. Our brother referred to the institution of marriage; all these things are under attack. Anything that God has set up in righteousness according to His standard is the object of the attack of Satan in seeking to bring it down. I want to see my Saviour’s rights upheld, I want the wrong things that are done to be reversed. I want the things of man’s world which ride roughshod over Christianity to be stopped, but there is nothing that I can do about it. You feel weak, helpless; you feel that you are in the minority, but the true believer is numbered among those who love His appearing, because then His rights will be established. He will come in righteousness, and the evil that dominates this world will be dealt with. The One in whom our faith, our trust and our hope lie will be seen in all His majesty, and the wonder of that is that believers will be with Him. Men and women of this world aspire to great things, but they become disappointed. What a hope there is for the believer; not only to see a King reign in righteousness, but to be with Him and to see His rights established, His Person vindicated. Everything about Him will be seen in all its majesty. What a moment it will be, and as a believer that will be your portion, that will be my portion. You could not want anything greater. The knowledge of your sins forgiven is great, how great is your salvation, but the greatness of the Saviour, and who He is, is something that this world cannot understand. One day they will see Him, and you will be with Him. What a hope, what a prospect! As I said, these are sure things, these are things that lift us, these are things that hold us and encourage and sustain us. The world in which we live will continue its relentless attack against what is of Christ and against what is of God Himself, but we can rest in the assurance that not only is He coming for us, but the Lord Jesus is coming to reign in righteousness.

One of the greatest things that we can enjoy during the Lord’s absence until He comes is fellowship with one another. Most of the persons in these verses in the first passage I have read in Kings are unnamed. Such have played their part in the testimony. In this passage there is a little maid. She is unnamed. It does not say anything about her except that she was a maid brought as a captive from the land of Israel. What did she know? In her place on earth, she was insignificant, she was in captivity. She had a menial task as a servant; she was a nobody. But what did she have? Beloved, what do you have? Well, you say, I have nothing. The great men and women of this world have things, but what do I have? This woman says, “Oh, would that my lord were before the prophet that is in Samaria! then he would cure him of his leprosy”. She served a great man who had done great things, as it says “a great man before his master, and honourable”. God used him; Naaman was someone of stature, prominent, and God used him, but he was afflicted by leprosy. This maid did not say, ‘It does not matter’; she was prepared to speak up. She wanted to see healing come in; the interest of her heart was for the betterment of someone afflicted by leprosy. Through what she said, word got through and eventually Naaman came to stand before a man who had a solution to his leprosy. Her part was small, you might say, she is not even named. The things of God are not about prominence. Prominence is associated with what is in this world. She did what she could, and through it Naaman came to stand before the prophet, although still full of the flesh, as he appeared quite arrogant. He was angry; he wanted to do something better than he was told to do, and he turned away in a rage. He was marked by a characteristic that exists today in man’s world. But it says “And his servants drew near”. How many? We are not told. What were their names? We are not told. They spoke to him with respect. “My father, if the prophet had bidden thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it?”. They appealed to him; they used the relationship they had with Naaman, yet they are unnamed. They were insignificant servants in one way, but what an important role they played in Naaman’s blessing and in his salvation! He listened to them.

Beloved, one great aspect of fellowship as I can see it is that the company is working together, and has blessing in mind for all. These servants did not say, He is in a rage, we will leave him. No, they appealed to him. They had in their hearts the blessing of their master, they had in their hearts the blessing of someone they knew was refusing to listen to the prophet who was offering Naaman blessing, and they appealed to him. He responded, and what happened is “his flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean”. I just want to draw attention to this, “he returned to the man of God, he and all his company”. There are no servants now, “he and all his company” seems to indicate to me that there was a togetherness, a oneness. What had come about was blessing for Naaman, his freedom from leprosy. He was cured; he came and it says “he and all his company”. Beloved, each one of us is vital; each one of us has a part to play. We may feel our limitations, we may not feel up to certain things in our Christian pathway, we may feel our knowledge of scriptures is poor, our appreciation of divine things is weak. But everyone is vital, everyone is essential, everyone has a part to play in Christian fellowship together.

I go to John. Here we get a well-known scripture that refers to a large company that needed feeding. There was a company of persons and the Lord Jesus Himself took account of them. They were coming to the Lord because they saw all that He did for the sick. There was attraction; they saw something about Him that appealed to them and if they had sickness, they knew they could go to Him. They saw that no one was left uncured, no one left unattended. But now there is a test coming for those who are close to the Lord – the disciples, persons who were associated with the truth. They knew the Lord, and the Lord “lifting up his eyes and seeing that a great crowd is coming to him, says to Philip, Whence shall we buy loaves that these may eat?” Now those close to Him took account of what they saw, the number of persons that were there, and they said, ‘It is impossible, we do not have the money, we do not have the resources’. “Loaves for two hundred denarii are not sufficient for them, that each may have some little portion”. Immediately (and who of us is not guilty of it) the natural side came out. We start to evaluate things in relation to this world. The Lord was testing them. One of them said “There is a little boy here”; again he did not have a name. He was insignificant in this world, not prominent, so it says he “has five barley loaves and two small fishes; but this, what is it for so many?”

It seemed impossible; in man’s calculation it is impossible, five barley loaves and two small fishes, but what he had was more than sufficient. In our pathways we need to remember that if we keep simple in our relations with the Lord Jesus, keep close to Him, we will find that there is more than enough for our need. It is a resource that is exhaustless! That store cannot be emptied, it is there for us to draw upon and this young boy had something which no one else could see. You all have something, beloved young persons, you have something that the Lord can draw upon, in your simplicity, if you have an appreciation of the Lord Jesus. He will use it, He will draw it out, and that is what He did here. What is impossible with man is possible with God! God will use you young people, if you stick close to the Lord Jesus. You will find that He will draw upon you for blessing; it may be for your parents, for those around, for those that you are in fellowship with and enjoying Christian company. He will use it. You may think, I have nothing! What is God’s view of that? Let us be simple, and see what God can do with what we have, and you will find that He will pour out a blessing. Did these people go hungry? No, they went home not only sustained but satisfied, which is essential. How vital is this spiritual food! If we feed on the Lord Jesus and on spiritual things relating to Him, it will form us in our constitution, and build us up as believers.

I read about Eutychus; now we have found someone with a name. Some of us would say that at times we have known how he felt. One of the things we see here with Paul is that he spoke at length. You might well think that that was not fair. If it was warm, Eutychus was going to be overpowered by deep sleep, for Paul was speaking for a long time. Beloved, I think that what Paul was saying was worth hearing. Paul’s ministry was centred in Christ and made nothing of himself. I know we can sometimes apply Eutychus to someone who has maybe become a bit disinterested, chosen a place that was slightly on the fringe, put himself in a bit of danger. But I want to concentrate for a moment on Paul. Paul had been an insolent overbearing man (1 Tim.1:13). He did not deserve the mercy and goodness of God, but that is what he received. If we think about ourselves, that is what has been bestowed upon us as believers. We have come from what we were at a distance from God and now we are set in relation to God as believers, and we do not deserve that. That is the unmerited favour of God towards us. So here it says that this youth was overpowered while Paul discoursed, and then he fell down. What did Paul say? Did he say that Eutychus was not listening, he had put himself in danger, it was his own responsibility, he should have been more careful? No. “Paul descending fell upon him, and enfolding him”. This is not just about theory, it is practical Christianity in its expression here. Not only did Paul have to say that which was worth hearing, what is foundational and builds us up in our spirits and our souls, but he also showed what he was in his character, he displayed it in his manner of life. He went down himself; he was able to say “his life is in him”. What an encouragement, beloved! We need everyone; everyone is vital. You might say that Eutychus had chosen that place, but Paul saw the need for him to be held, revived, brought back to life and recovered. We have a responsibility for that; every single one of us has a responsibility for each other. None is to be lost, none is to be left outside the enjoyment of these things; the fellowship that we enjoy is for all believers. We have our responsibility; we have our part to play in going in for the things of Christ ourselves. All of the things relating to that glorious One are worth having, and we have a responsibility to go in for them. But Paul shows us here that we also have a responsibility towards one another; that is what love is, that is what was displayed here by Paul. So that is the characteristic that should be shown by us. Paul went down and took this youth up, and it says “And they brought away the boy alive, and were no little comforted”. What a joy! Beloved, fellowship is enjoyed in the company of persons who have the glorious hope of the coming of our Lord Jesus in their hearts, the wonder of the moment when He will appear; persons who love His appearing. Is that you? Do you have that in your soul? I commend it to you. You might not be of significance here, but when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ, you are of great importance, you are precious, you belong to Him. One day you are going to come out in the triumph of a King who will reign in righteousness; you will be numbered amongst those who will come out with Him.

What a glorious prospect we have! Let us not be earthly-minded people, let us not have our hopes and aspirations here, because that will bring disappointment. Let us have our hopes fixed on our glorious Saviour. Let us have our lives committed to Him. And let not any one of you young people think that this is too hard for you to enjoy. You can be in the full enjoyment of Christian fellowship among the people of God. Those of us who are older bear responsibility to help you, but beloved, what a hope, what a prospect, what enjoyment we can have together.

May we all be in the gain of it, for His name’s sake.

Address at Manchester

30 November 2013

S. T. Eagle