GOD FOR US NOW
Paul Martin
1 Corinthians 1: 27 - 31
John 14: 25 - 27
Romans 16: 1, 2
I have been thinking a little today of the way the saints of this dispensation have been provided for. We sometimes sing -
He leaves us not alone to trace
Our path across the waste;
(Hymn 244)
and how true that is. We have One who has gone before. Peter says that “ye should follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2: 21): what footsteps they were, the footsteps of the Lord Jesus, one step after another, steady, measured, perfect. Peter says He has left those steps for us to follow in: what a provision. One might sometimes say, where do I go from here? That is often a question raised; but just look at the footsteps of the Lord Jesus. We are to follow in His steps: “who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, who, when reviled, reviled not again” (v 22); what footsteps they were.
I have read these passages because they speak of what divine Persons are to us now. What a comfort, if I might speak reverently: we have a glorious living object in the Person of Jesus. We are more than thankful for what we learn of His pathway here. The manna was treasured by God and is provided for us to feed upon, but also our Lord is living for us, and that is what led me to this passage in Corinthians. We are moving through a world which is corrupt and vile; and things which in the eyes of men seem so important in the eye of God are so insignificant. How thankful we are that “God has chosen the weak things of the world”, and we are to feel our own weakness. What led me to this passage is what Paul said to the Corinthians, who were in need of much help and guidance, as we always are. He says, “But of him are ye”; you think of the wonder of that. He says to those Corinthian saints that they were of God. I wonder if I grasp that. You look round a little company like this and Paul would say, ‘Ye are of God’; not of the world but of God. We do not gather according to fleshly principles. He says, ‘Ye are of God’. There is something there that is substantial; it is born of God and belongs to God. Oh, to lay hold of that!
Nothing can overthrow what is of God. We may not always be up to what God’s thought is for us, but nothing can overthrow what is of God; that remains, because it is of God. He says, “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus”. If we are of God, our standing before God is in another Man altogether, in Christ Jesus. He does not look at us in what we were: He looks at us as standing in all the worth of that blessed One. Everything in that blessed Man, in the Lord Jesus, was perfectly for the delight of God. God has taken us up and we are of God in Christ Jesus. He has taken us up in all the worth of that blessed Man, so that we should be here fully provided for in the scene of the testimony. He says our Lord Jesus “has been made to us”. Not just that He has been made, but He “has been made to us”. These features that Paul speaks of are available to us. How great that is. He has “been made to us wisdom from God”. How I feel the need of that, “wisdom from God”. Where do we find it? - we find it in Jesus. He “has been made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness”. We cannot stand before God in our righteousnesses. As we know they are as filthy rags (Isa 64: 6), but if we want to learn righteousness, we find it in the Man who is called “Jesus Christ the righteous”, 1 John 2: 1. How wonderful to learn that that is available to us. That standard of righteousness that God found in Jesus is the standard in which God takes us up. As occupied with that blessed Man the features of righteousness are to come into expression, increasingly, in our pathway here; “and holiness”; where was that found? It was found in Jesus. He says He is “the holy, the true”, Rev 3: 7. Who else could say that? He is made that for us, that blessed feature that is so evident in Jesus, that we might feed upon it as occupied with Him and that it might mark our walk increasingly. He then says, “and redemption”, the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. How great to be conscious that we have been redeemed: “ye have been redeemed, not by corruptible things”, Peter says, “as silver or gold, from your vain conversation handed down from your fathers, but by precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish”, 1 Pet 1: 18, 19. Oh, to walk in that light, not only that I have been saved from judgment, but to walk in the light of the fact that I have been redeemed. God has purchased me for Himself. That makes a great difference in the believers walk as knowing that God has purchased me to be here for Himself and to be with Him eternally for His pleasure. That redemption is in another Man. Paul says we cannot boast because it is all in Christ; it is not to make anything of us, but to make everything of Jesus.
That led me to this verse in John, because of the reference to the service of the Holy Spirit; and how wonderful the Holy Spirit is. I long to know Him better. We are to know Him. When the Lord Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit in John’s gospel, He speaks of Him as a Person, a living Person, not just an influence or a power. He is influential and He is powerful, but He is a living Person. The Lord Jesus speaks of Him in that way. He speaks of Him as “he”: “When he is come”, John 16: 13. How wonderful to know such a divine Person.
We are reading at home in our morning read the early chapters of the book of Acts. We have read in chapter 2 as to the Spirit descending at Pentecost. Then the word went out, they spoke in tongues or in dialects so that those who were there in Jerusalem heard them speaking in their own tongue. What a wonderful moment, a witness to Jerusalem, where Jesus had just been crucified, that a divine Person had come. Immediately there are operations of power in the healing of the man who had been born lame, chap 3. Immediately there is the operation of divine power. There is a testimony again that a divine Person was here. Do I believe that He is still here? I ask that question of myself. Do I really believe that the power that came at that time is the same, or do I feel that it has diminished? What an insult that would be to a divine Person if I felt that the power that was there had diminished. The power is the same, even though we are not in Pentecostal times and there may not be the public witness to His presence. The vessels through which He operates may not be the same. We have to be humbled by that. I remember Mr Lyon said once, ‘The reservoir is always full of water, but the tap is inside the house. If you open the tap full, you could never contain all the reservoir, but the house can be filled with what flows from the reservoir’. That is where I find I am tested, whether I am maintained in self-judgment in order that the Holy Spirit might have His way and that He might fill the vessel.
The Lord Jesus says here when He comes, “the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things”, all things. If I am exercised to grasp the truth, if I am exercised to receive the word of God livingly in my soul, the Holy Spirit is ready to do that; “he shall teach you all things”. And He says, “and will bring to your remembrance all the things which I have said to you”. How wonderful that that is so. You think of the apostle Paul writing, not having seen Jesus when He was here, but the Holy Spirit putting into Paul’s heart the things that the Lord Jesus said, “remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that he himself said, It is more blessed to give than to receive”, Acts 20: 35. How wonderful that the Holy Spirit was conveying that. It may have been conveyed to Paul through a vessel, but it was of the Holy Spirit. He is able to receive it, “all the things which I have said to you”.
I come to Romans. I was thinking of the advantage that we have of having one another. It has been remarked in the past that this epistle to the Romans was actually a letter of commendation. We have letters of commendation at times, if someone changes locality, perhaps. What a letter of commendation this is. Here was a sister Phœbe: “our sister, who is minister of the assembly which is in Cenchrea”. She was to be received at Rome. It does not say that she was a minister to the assembly; she was a minister of the assembly. Sisters do not minister publicly, because, as Paul says, “it is a shame for a woman to speak in assembly”, 1 Cor 14: 35. That is an important matter that the enemy is seeking to overthrow in the church publicly, saying it is only what Paul said. Phœbe was not a minister in that way; she served as having the assembly in view. This is part of the resource, divine provision for the continuance of the testimony here, that there is the place of a sister as being a minister, serving the saints with the assembly in view. That is a wonderful service, a service that is particularly precious as carried out by a sister. “I commend to you Phœbe, our sister, who is minister of the assembly which is in Cenchrea”. We might ask ourselves, as to everything that we do and say, does it have in view the support of the assembly and the continuance of the testimony in the assembly? Phœbe had that; it says “ye may receive her in the Lord worthily of saints, and that ye may assist her in whatever matter she has need of you; for she also has been a helper of many, and of myself”. “A helper of many”, Paul says, “and of myself”. You might ask, 'How would she have helped Paul?’. We are not told. She would have no doubt ministered to him in a practical way as well as in her spirit, in order that there might be the increase in the assembly that would be for the pleasure of God. It is a portion that is open to us all; it was carried out by Phœbe, and she was to be commended.
I leave these words with us, beloved; what resource there is. We are in a broken day; we feel that, we feel broken hearted as we think of the conditions which prevail in the church publicly, and our part in it; and the smallness of the companies in which we meet, and yet the provision from the divine side is unchanged and it is available to us, as in lowliness and humility we seek to draw upon it.
May it be proved by us increasingly, for the Lord’s sake.
Word in a meeting for ministry, Malvern
17th September 2019