The Assembly of God Part 23

But more than this. Although the disciples were called upon to look out for men competent to take charge of their temporal affairs, yet the apostles alone could appoint them. Their words are, "Whom _we_ may appoint over this business." In other words, although there is a vast difference between a deacon and a pastor, between taking charge of money and taking the oversight of souls, yet even in the matter of a deacon the appointment in Acts vi. was entirely divine; and hence it affords no warrant for a church electing its own pastor.

We might further add that _office_ and _gift_ are clearly distinguished in the word of G.o.d. There might be, and were, many elders and deacons in any given church, and yet the fullest and freest exercise of gift when the whole church came together into one place. Elders and deacons might or might not have the gift of teaching or exhortation. Such gift was quite independent of their special office. In I Cor. xiv., where it is said, "Ye may all prophesy one by one," and where we have a full view of the public a.s.sembly, there is not a word about an elder or a president of any kind whatever.

[XXIX.] Let the reader carefully note that _gifts_, as evangelists, pastors, teachers, prophets, being given directly by the Head of the Church for the edification of His people on earth (see Eph. iv. 8-13) were never appointed or "licensed" by apostolic hands or any others.

Elders and deacons were to act as guides and to serve in the a.s.semblies in which they had their place. To this position or _office_ they were appointed by an apostle, or one sent by him. [ED.]

THE MINISTRY OF CHRIST

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

(Scriptures read before lecture, Exodus xxi. I-6; John xiii. I-10; Luke xii. 37.)

"For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." (Mark x. 45.)

It is very necessary, beloved friends, to retire from all thoughts about our service to the Lord, and our work for Him, and to have our hearts occupied with His service toward us. And when I say this, you will not suppose for a moment that it is my desire or thought to weaken in any heart in this a.s.sembly, in the smallest degree, the desire to work for Christ, whatever sphere He may open for you, or according to whatever gift He may have bestowed upon you. Quite the reverse; indeed, I would seek in every way to strengthen and intensify that desire. But then one knows, both from experience and observation, that we may be so occupied with _our_ work and _our_ services that our hearts may lose the sense of what Christ is toward us in His marvelous character as a servant.

And here let me say that my immediate thesis to-night is the Lord Jesus as the servant of His people's necessities. That is the field into which we are introduced by those scriptures which have been read in your hearing. The Lord Jesus is the servant of the soul's necessities in every stage of its history, from first to last,--from the depths of your ruin and degradation as sinners, in all your weakness and failure as saints from day to day, until He plants you in the joys of His own kingdom. And His services will not end there; for, as we read in Luke xii. 37, He will gird Himself, and serve us in the glory. Thus His work as a servant overlaps the whole of the soul's history, past, present, and future. He has served us in the past, He is serving us now, and He will serve us forever.

And here allow me to say that the line of truth which I have to bring before you to-night is of a directly individual character. We were speaking, on this night week, of the truth with respect to our corporate condition and character, and therefore I feel all the more free on this occasion to enter upon what is more directly personal--to speak of truth which bears directly on the soul's individual condition and wants. And I would ask you, my beloved hearers, to place yourselves, so far as through grace you can, in all simplicity and reality, straight in view of this theme--Christ the servant of our necessities.

It is possible there may be souls in this room who want to begin at the very beginning with this most precious theme. They want to know Christ as the One who came into this world to serve them in all their deep and varied need as lost, self-destroyed, guilty, h.e.l.l-deserving sinners. If there be any such present to-night, I would ask them to ponder deeply that verse which I have read, "The Son of Man is come to serve and to give."

This is a divine reality. Jesus came into this world to meet our need, to serve us in all that in which we need His precious service, and to give His life a ransom for many; to serve us by bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, and working out a full and an eternal salvation.

He did not come to get--He did not come to take--He did not come to be ministered to--He did not come to be gazed at--He came to be used; and therefore, while the soul that is exercised may be raising this hara.s.sing question, "What can I do for the Lord?" the answer is, "You must pause and see and believe what the Lord has done for you. You must stand still and see the salvation of G.o.d." Remember those words of divine and evangelistic sweetness, "To him that _worketh not_, but believeth on Him that justifieth the unG.o.dly, his faith is counted for righteousness." (Rom. iv. 5.) You can never intelligently or properly serve Christ until you know and believe how He has served you. You must cease your restless doings, and rest in a divinely accomplished work.

Then, but not until then, will you be able to start on a career of Christian service. It is most necessary for all anxious souls to understand that all true Christian service begins with the possession of eternal life, and is rendered in the power of the Holy Ghost, the indwelling Spirit, in the light and on the authority of holy Scripture.

This is the divine idea of Christian work and service.

Now, though the primary object of this meeting, brethren, is for those who are saints of G.o.d, who have set out on their course, still I do not think it would be according to the heart and sympathies of Christ to overlook the fact that there may be some soul in this congregation that wants, as I said, just to begin at the very beginning with this precious mystery--Christ the servant. I say, there may be some here to-night that have never taken the att.i.tude of simple repose in Christ's finished work. They have, it may be, begun to think of their soul's salvation, to think about eternity; but they are occupied with the thought that the Lord is claiming something from them: "I must do this, I must do that, and I must do the other." Now, my beloved friends, if such be here, I repeat, with deepest earnestness, you must cease altogether from your own doings, cease from your own reasonings, cease from your own feelings; because, be a.s.sured of it, it is neither feeling nor thinking nor reasoning nor doing at all, but it is pausing and gazing. It is hearing and believing. It is looking off from yourselves and your service to Christ and His service. It is ceasing from your restless and worthless doings, and reposing in full, unquestioning confidence in the one offering of Jesus Christ, which has perfectly satisfied and perfectly glorified G.o.d as to the great question of your sin and guilt.

Here lies the divine secret of peace--peace in Jesus--peace with G.o.d--eternal peace. Nothing will ever be right till you get on this ground. If you are occupied with your doings for Christ, you will never get peace; but if you will only take G.o.d at His word, and rest in His Christ, you shall possess a peace which no power of earth or h.e.l.l can ever disturb.

Now, my beloved hearers, I ask you, before I proceed, this question, Is there a heart in this congregation that has not yet rested here? Is there a heart here to-night that will say, I am not satisfied with Christ's service: I cannot rest in His work? What! The Son of G.o.d has stooped to serve you. The One who made you, the One who gave you life and breath and all things, the One to whom all are responsible, He has stooped to become your servant. It is not a question of asking you to do any thing, or asking you to give any thing, because--mark those words--they are words which sweep all through the history of the Son of Man--they are words which, in all their length and breadth and fullness, you can take up and use as if you were the only object of this service in the world--"The Son of Man is come to serve and to give." He is not come to get; He is not come to ask. The legal mind leads you to think that G.o.d is an exactor--that He is making demands upon you--that He wants your services in one way or another. But oh remember, I pray you, that your first great business, your primary and all-important work, is to believe in Jesus--to rest sweetly in Him, and in what He has done for you on the cross, and in what He is doing for you on the throne. "This is the work of G.o.d, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent." You remember the interesting question of the Psalmist--a question asked when his eye rested on the magnitude and mult.i.tude of Jehovah's benefits--"What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits?" What is the reply? "I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord."

Is this the way to "render unto the Lord"? Yes, this is just the way that gratifies and glorifies Him. If you really want to _render_, you must _take_. Take what? "The cup of salvation"--a full and br.i.m.m.i.n.g cup, most surely; and as you drink of that cup, as the glories of G.o.d's salvation s.h.i.+ne in the vision of your soul, then will streams of living praise flow from your grateful heart. And you know He says, "Whoso offereth praise, glorifieth Me."

In a word, then, you must, first of all, allow your soul to dwell upon the marvelous mystery of Christ's service toward you in all the depth of your need; and the more you dwell upon that, the more will you be in the true att.i.tude to serve Him.

Take another striking ill.u.s.tration. When David, as you remember, in that remarkable pa.s.sage in the second book of Samuel (chap. vii.), sat in his house of cedar, and looked around at all that G.o.d had done for him, he said, "I must rise and build a house." Immediately the prophet was despatched to David to correct him on this point: "You shall not build Me a house, but I will build you a house." You must reverse the matter.

G.o.d wants you to sit down and gaze yet more fully and intently upon His actings on your behalf. He wants you to look, not only at the past and the present, but to look on into the bright future; to see your entire history overlapped by His own magnificent grace.

And what, let me ask, was the effect of all this upon the heart of David? We have the answer in that one pithy statement: "Then went King David in, and sat before the Lord, and said, 'Who am I?'" Mark the att.i.tude, and ponder the question. They are full of deep meaning. "_He sat._" This is rest and sweet repose. He wanted to go to work too soon.

No, says G.o.d, you must sit down and look at my work, and trace my actings on your behalf in the past, the present, and the future.

And then the question, "_Who am I?_" In this we see the blessed fact that self was for the moment lost sight of. It was flung into the shade by the l.u.s.tre of divine revelation. Self and its poor little actings were set aside by the glory of G.o.d and the rich magnificence of His actings on behalf of His servant.

Now, some might have thought that David was an active, useful man when he was rising to take the trowel to build the house; and they might have thought him a good-for-nothing man to be sitting still when there was work to be done. But, brethren, let us remember that G.o.d's thoughts are not as our thoughts. He prizes our wors.h.i.+p much more highly than our work. Indeed, it is only the true and intelligent wors.h.i.+per that can be a true and intelligent workman. No doubt G.o.d most graciously accepts our poor services, even stamped as they so often are with mistakes of all sorts. But when it becomes a question of the comparative value of service and wors.h.i.+p, the former must give place to the latter; and we know that when our brief span of working time shall have expired, our eternity of wors.h.i.+p shall begin. Sweet thought!

And let me further remark, ere leaving this part of our subject, that no one need fear in the least that the practical effect of what I have been saying will be to cripple your service, or lead you to fold your arms in culpable idleness or cold indifference. The very reverse is the case, as you may see in the history of David himself. Study at your leisure, I Chronicles xxviii, xxix. There you have a splendid presentation of service--a most triumphant answer to all who would place work before wors.h.i.+p. There you see, as it were, King David rising from the att.i.tude of a wors.h.i.+per into that of a workman, and making ample provision for the building of that very house of which he was not allowed to set one stone upon another. And not only does he make provision according to the claims of holiness, but, as he says, "Because I have set my affection to the house of my G.o.d, I have of mine own proper good, of gold and silver, which I have given to the house of my G.o.d, _over and above all_ that I have prepared for the holy house, even three thousand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver, to overlay the walls of the house." In other words, as we should express it, out of his own private purse, he gave the princely sum of over sixteen millions as a free gift toward the house which was to be reared by the hand of another. This, as he informs us, was "over and above what he had prepared for the holy house," which latter greatly exceeded the amount of England's national debt.

Thus we see that it is the true wors.h.i.+per that makes the effective servant. It is when we have sat and gazed on the actings of Christ for us that we are enabled in any small degree to act for Him. And then, too, we shall be able to say with David, as he surveyed the untold wealth prepared for the house of G.o.d, "It is all Thine, and of Thine own have we given Thee."

I. But we must now turn for a few moments to the opening paragraph of Exodus xxi--"If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh, he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever."

Here, then, we have one of the shadows of good things to come--a shadow or figure of the True Servant, the Lord Jesus Christ, that blessed One who loved the Church and gave Himself for it. The Hebrew servant, having served the legal time, was perfectly free to go out; but he loved his wife and his children, and that, too, with such a love as led him to surrender his own personal liberty for their sakes. He proved his love for them by sacrificing himself. He might have gone forth and enjoyed his freedom, but what of them? How could he leave them behind?

Impossible. He loved them too well for that; and hence he deliberately walked to the door-post, and there, in the presence of the judges, had his ear bored in token of perpetual service.

This was love indeed. There was no mistake about it. The wife and each child, as they gazed ever after on that bored ear, could read the touching and powerful proof of the love of that servant's heart.

Here, beloved, is something for the heart to dwell upon--yea, something over which the heart may well break itself. We see in this Old-Testament type the everlasting Lover of our souls--Jesus, the true servant. You remember that remarkable occasion in our Lord's life when He was setting before His disciples the solemn fact of His approaching cross and pa.s.sion. You will find it in the eighth chapter of the gospel of Mark: "And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He spake that saying openly. And Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him." Peter would fain, though he knew it not, have interrupted the True Servant in His movement to the door-post. He would have Him pity Himself, and maintain His own personal freedom. But oh, brethren, hearken to the withering rebuke administered to the very man who just before had made such a fine confession of Christ! "But when He had turned about and looked on His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, 'Get thee behind Me, Satan; for thou savorest not the things that be of G.o.d, but the things that be of men.'"

Mark the action. "He turned and looked on His disciples," as though He would say, If I hearken to your counsel, Peter--if I pity Myself--if I retreat from that cross which lies before Me, then what is to become of these? It is the Hebrew servant saying, "I love my wife, I love my children, I will not go out free."

It is of the very last possible importance for us to see that there was no necessity whatever laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ to walk to the cross; there was no necessity whatever laid upon Him to leave the glory which He had with the Father from all eternity and come down here; and when He had come down into this world, and taken perfect humanity upon Him, there was no necessity laid upon Him that He should have gone to the cross; for at any moment during the whole of His blessed history, from the manger of Bethlehem to the cross of Calvary, He might have gone back to where He came from. Death had no claim upon Him. The prince of this world came and had nothing in Him. He could say, speaking of His life, "No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself." (John x.

18.) And on His way from the garden to the cross we hear Him saying, "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" And may we not say there was much more truth than the utterers were aware of in these accents of mockery which fell on the blessed Saviour's ear as He hung on the cross--"He saved others; Himself He cannot save"? But they might have said, Himself He will not save.

Ah, no! blessed forever be His name! He did not pity or spare Himself, but He pitied us. He beheld us in our hopeless ruin, guilt, misery, and danger. He saw that there was no eye to pity, no arm to save; and--all praise to His matchless name!--He laid aside His glory, came down into this wretched world, became a man, that as a man He might, by the sacrifice of Himself, deliver us from the lake of fire, and a.s.sociate us with Himself on the new and eternal ground of accomplished redemption, in the power of resurrection-life, according to the eternal counsels of G.o.d, and to the praise of His glory.

Now, we cannot possibly overestimate the importance of dwelling upon the fact that there was no necessity whatever laid upon our blessed Lord Jesus Christ to die on the cross, and to endure the wrath of G.o.d.

Neither in His person, in His nature, nor in His relations was He obnoxious to death. He was G.o.d over all, blessed forever. He was the Eternal Son of G.o.d. And in His human nature He was pure, spotless, sinless, perfect. He knew no sin. He did always and only the things that pleased G.o.d. He glorified Him, and finished His work; and He has saved us in such a way as to glorify G.o.d in the most wonderful manner. He was, to use the language of our type, free to go out by Himself; but ah, beloved, had He done so, your place and mine must inevitably have been the lake of fire forever.

To all this the Holy Ghost delights to bear testimony, as one of our own poets has sweetly sung--

"And, Lord, Thy perfect fitness To do a Saviour's part, The Holy Ghost doth witness To each believer's heart."

Most true; and we might with equal truth say, "His fitness to do a servant's part," because it was the very height of His glory, the very dignity of His person; it was the glory whence He had descended, that enabled Him to stoop down to the very depths of His people's necessities. There is not a necessity--no, not one--in the deepest range of His people's history, or in the lowest depths of their condition, that He has not reached in His marvelous character and His divine ministry as the servant of His people's necessities.

Brethren, let us never forget this. Nay, rather let us constantly cherish in our hearts the most grateful remembrance of it. The more we dwell upon the height of Christ's personal glory, the more fully we shall see the depths of His humiliation. The more profoundly we meditate upon the glory of what He _was_, the more we must be arrested by the grace of what He _became_. "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich."

Who can measure the heights and the depths of those two words, "rich"

and "poor," in their application to our adorable Lord and Saviour? No created intelligence can fathom them; but most a.s.suredly we should cultivate the habit of dwelling upon the love that s.h.i.+nes all along the pathway of the divine Servant as He walked to the cross for us. It is as we dwell upon His love to us that our hearts shall be drawn out by the Holy Ghost in the power of responsive love to Him. "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again." (2 Cor. v. 14, 15.)

II. Having thus glanced at our Lord's service toward us in the past, let us look for a few moments at His present service--at what He is now doing for us continually in the presence of G.o.d. This we have most blessedly presented to us in that part of John xiii. which I have read for you this evening. The same precious grace s.h.i.+nes in this as in all that on which we have been dwelling. If we look back at the past, we behold the Perfect Servant nailed to the cross for us; if we look up to the throne now, we behold Him girded for us, not only according to our present need, but according to the perfect love of His heart--His love to the Father, His love to the Church, His love to each individual believer from the beginning to the end of time.

"Now before the feast of the pa.s.sover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. And during supper [see Greek], the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him; Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from G.o.d, and went to G.o.d; He riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments; and took a towel, and girded Himself. After that He poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded."

Here, then, we have a most marvelous presentation of Christ's present service toward "His own which are in the world." There is something peculiarly precious in the expression, "_His own_." It brings us so very near to the heart of Christ. It is so sweet to think that He can look at such poor, feeble, failing creatures as we are, and say, They are Mine.

It matters not what others may think about them; they belong to Me, and I must have them in a condition worthy of the place whence I came, and whither I am going.

This, brethren, is ineffably precious and edifying for our souls. It was in the sense of His personal glory, in the consciousness that He had come from G.o.d and was going to G.o.d, that He could stoop down and wash His people's feet. There was nothing, could be nothing, higher than the place whence Jesus had come; there was nothing, could be nothing, lower than the defiled feet of His disciples: but, blessed and praised forever be His name! He fills up in His own divine person and marvelous service every point between those two extremes. He can lay one hand on the throne of G.o.d, and the other on our feet, and be Himself the divine and eternal link between.

Now, there are three things in this scripture which I am anxious to put clearly before you this evening. In the first place, we have the special action of our Lord toward His own in the world; secondly, the spring of that action; and thirdly, the measure of the action:--the action, its spring, and its measure.

(I.) And first, the action itself. You will bear in mind, beloved in the Lord, that what we have presented here is not "the was.h.i.+ng of regeneration." That pertains to the first stage of our Lord's service on our behalf. "His own which are in the world"--all who belong to that highly privileged cla.s.s (and that is simply all who believe in His name) have pa.s.sed through that great was.h.i.+ng, in virtue of which Christ can p.r.o.nounce them "clean every whit."

There is not a spot or a stain upon the very feeblest of that blessed number whom He calls "His own." "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but _is clean every whit_: and _ye are clean_, but not all." If a single spot could be detected on one of Christ's own, it would be a dishonor cast upon Him, inasmuch as He has washed us from all our guilt according to the perfection of His work as the Servant of our need, and, far above all, the Servant of the eternal counsels, purposes, and glory of G.o.d. He found us clean never a whit, and He has made us "clean every whit."