Acts 9: 15-20; 16: 10-15; 28-31; 20: 8-12; 21: 5, 6
These scriptures relate to the personnel who constitute the assembly. We were hearing in the previous word that the Lord Jesus is inseparable from the saints, and how true that is. Our hearts were touched on Lord’s day in the first hymn we had:
While thus we call Thee, Lord, to mind,
Thou dost Thyself now come,
In thine assembly here to find -
Where Thou hadst none - a home!
(Hymn 430)
The Lord Jesus came into this world with nothing, a babe in Bethlehem’s manger. He brought everything with Him in the way of grace. Who could say what was there as to the Lord Jesus Himself? Yet as to material things, He brought nothing with Him. He took the body prepared for Him. What went into the preparation of that body, what infinite affections! Whose body was it going to be? Whose life? This is the One with whom our minds and hearts and affections are to be engaged. How we can say ‘Amen’ to that! He is God’s object and He is to be our object. I am sure He is our object, but who of us would not say that He could be a greater object and fill a greater place in our lives and hearts? The Holy Spirit is here to make way for Christ.
How wonderful it is to be in the Lord’s presence. His presence provides the opportunity for us to provide for Him
Where Thou hadst none - a home!
Beloved brethren, what do we provide for Him? What is He acquiring in coming here? He has done the work that has set us entirely free. How wonderful that what He came to do has been completed. But what is there for Him, and what is for God from each of us? In Matthew 16: 16, Peter confesses the Person of the Christ. Then the Lord Jesus speaks of “my assembly”. How wonderful! “On this rock I will build my assembly”, Matt 16: 18. It is Christ’s assembly. What it means to His heart to have a vessel that is His, one that He can come to; one that He can confide in; one that He can enjoy because of her understanding of His heart! Which of us could say that we know all that is in the heart of the Lord Jesus? We would not take that ground, but there is something here in the collective thought of the saints. The saints together unitedly with one object before them have great capacity to provide something for the heart of Christ.
What it means is that whoever we are, whatever our age, whether we are man, woman, boy or girl, we are to fit into this wonderful vessel together, the assembly. The Spirit fits us, helps us, so that we are fitted together. The assembly is a wonderful entity. Think of the Lord Jesus in His manhood, coming here and what does He find? “He came to His own” John 1: 11. What a reception His own could have given to Christ had they recognised their Messiah, what an embrace. But for the moment there is no embrace with Israel as a nation.
There is, thank God, an answer from those of whom He is according to flesh (Rom 9: 5), Saul of Tarsus amongst them. He embraced Christ, He received Christ. How wonderful to have received this glorious Person. What is the answer to the heart of Christ? How can I fill out my place in the assembly for Christ - His assembly?
Ananias belonged to the Lord Jesus. I would love to know how Ananias was secured, how he was touched and came to the Lord Jesus. There is a wonderful intimacy of love between him and his Lord; and he is told to go to this house. It says, “And Ananias went and entered into the house; and laying his hands upon him he said, Saul, brother, the Lord has sent me, Jesus that appeared to thee in the way in which thou camest, that thou mightest see, and be filled with the Holy Spirit”. They were the hands of a brother - these were not apostolic hands, we get those elsewhere. This was the laying on of the hands of a brother from a local assembly, on another brother, giving him absolute confidence which I would say he lacked at this moment. Saul had come through such an experience that he needed a brother. Do we not all need a brother? As we heard earlier, as we look on the Lord Jesus exclusively, we can view the work of Christ in one another. We need to come into the gain of one another. Saul had this initial experience that would prepare him for the reality of what the assembly is to the heart of Christ. There are persons in the assembly who have feelings that belong to the assembly. What a privilege to belong to the assembly of God, the assembly of Christ. Am I filling out the place that is given to me as a brother or a sister, or a boy or a girl?
Further on in Acts we find the women in Philippi. It is very interesting how the assembly in Philippi is brought about, Paul having his part in it with divine direction and help. Every local assembly is an expression of the whole assembly. They each belong to Christ. The man in the vision says, “Pass over into Macedonia and help us. And when he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go forth to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us”. We could say that Paul had been invited, and eventually came to the conclusion that he had been called to come, that he was meant to come. Now Paul has come to that place, “And we were staying in that city certain days. And on the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where it was the custom for prayer to be”. There was no visible assembly here yet, but here were the women with this custom of prayer. “The women who had assembled” - there is something precious in being “assembled”. These people could be viewed not just individually but as the moral whole. The working out of the truth and the light and the joy of the assembly is found along with others. The enemy has tried to overshadow this precious truth, but it exists and it is divine. It has not come about by any human instrument, although Paul was used greatly. It is what divine Persons have done for their own pleasure.
The scripture goes on to say, “And a certain woman, by name Lydia”. It is not only the women, but “a certain woman”. Beloved sisters, each one of you has a great responsibility. One would ask, are you filling out that place? Or are you thinking, ’I have not a great place, I do not count for much, I fill a seat, and I attend the meetings?’. Thank God for that, but there is more to it than that. I am sure each heart would allow the challenge, as to whether I am filling out the place that God has given me. A woman has her place locally in His ordering. In Philippi, where God was going to have His assembly represented, it involved women; and not only women, but a woman. “A certain woman, by name Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, who worshipped God…whose heart the Lord opened to attend to the things spoken by Paul”. She is distinguished by name (we each have a name), by the place, and by how God is operating in her for His own pleasure. The things of Paul have to be attended to, not just by the brothers but by the sisters who are so vital to the truth of the assembly. May these things just touch our hearts afresh.
Then we have this dear man, the jailor. This is God’s amazing ordering, this is His route, not our route, not our choice; it is God’s plan, God’s wisdom. The jailor was going to kill himself. He had not succeeded in his responsibility. But God is going to take him from that situation and use him for Himself and add him to the local assembly. How wonderful that is! He was possibly a hard man - God takes on hard people. He takes up all sorts of people. Who are we to say what God can do? He took up this man, “Sirs, what must I do that I may be saved?”. That is the first thing. How can we help others of the household or the locality if we are not saved? Thank God for salvation. You might say he did not deserve to be saved, he had just beaten them, and he belonged to something completely different. God is acting and we recognise it. How much Paul and Silas recognised it - what grace! “Do thyself no harm, for we are all here”.
“Believe on the Lord Jesus” - if we belong to the assembly we have come by way of believing on the Lord Jesus. What salvation is in His Name and His work; just believe and confess. How wonderful! It is not a complex formula. God has provided the Saviour. I am the sinner, and through faith I receive the Saviour and I am received on that ground before God, justified. Beloved brethren, what God has given to us! We have no means of our own. The jailor is serviceable and his house is secured. A household - how precious! What is the enemy attacking today? Households. We grieve as we think of those who are giving up, those heads of houses. They may not feel that. We are not charging anyone, but beloved brethren, it seems that someone leads. If we were without feeling about these things we would not really represent God or Christ: what feelings enter into these things. However, we do not speak without hope either.
In Acts 20, a most wonderful chapter, we have a young person - “overpowered by deep sleep, while Paul discoursed very much at length, having been overpowered by the sleep, fell from the third story down to the bottom, and was taken up dead”. But it was the very one who was discoursing at length who descends upon him and embraces him. We would embrace you, all these persons found in the assembly, man or woman, boy or girl. We find all these kinds of people in chapter 8 of Luke’s gospel. There is a man secured from his deranged and unclean state; the blessed Lord Jesus helps him. There is a woman who needs help, her life is ebbing out. If your life is ebbing out, beloved sister, the Lord Jesus has the power to prevent that continuing. What a Saviour! Then we have the girl raised up. How wonderful! We need the boys, the girls, we need the youths, we need everyone. This is just my simple point, that the work in us is needed. Are we filling out our place?
Then we have the children. How precious are the children, such potential in our children. Moses said, “We will go with our young and with our old”, Ex 10: 9. We will not leave the young behind, we will not do it. It is not God’s way. “But when we had completed the days, we set out and took our journey, all of them accompanying us, with wives and children, till we were out of the city. And kneeling down upon the shore we prayed”. It comes in again, prayer. This is the only way we are kept. What prayers have gone up for each of us here, what prayers! How good it is to look upon one another as those who are the work of God and to realise that we are here through the sovereign grace of God, through the mercy of God and doubtless through many prayers.
May we be encouraged and strengthened. For His Name’s sake.
Malvern
5th April 2011