A
Conference Message
Reading: Phil. 1:29-30; Col. 1:28-2:2; 4:12.
There is
much more in the Word of the same nature that could be
added to these passages, but these are sufficient, I
think, to indicate something we need to lay to heart. I
always feel that one of the great factors in our own
spiritual enlargement is a real active concern for
others; not in the sense that we look after another's
vineyard and neglect our own, become
"busy-bodies" as the Apostle would term it,
occupied with everybody's business except our own, but
that there is a right and proper and fruitful concern for
others. What the Scriptures that we have read bring
before us is that God's great revelation of purpose in
the Church is not going to be realized without some
tremendous and terrific conflict. There have to be those
who throw themselves into that conflict for that end.
The
Importance Of Taking The Initiative
So here
the Apostle says, "What great conflict I had for you
and for them of Laodicea," and for many others.
"Striving according to His working, which worketh in
me mightily." "Epaphras... a servant of Christ
Jesus... always striving for you in his prayers." It
is the laying to heart of this matter about God's desire
for His people in such a way as to draw us into
tremendous spiritual conflict over it. Now, we are
meeting the conflict perhaps, without seeking it
directly, but it is a very true thing that very often the
advantage is with those who take the initiative. Do you
not recognize that when the enemy takes the initiative in
the matter of spiritual assault, we usually find
ourselves at a disadvantage. When it comes from his side,
we turn in upon ourselves, we begin to ask questions. We
find ourselves sometimes almost paralyzed by the
pressure, the tenseness and the forms in which his
assault comes. It affects us in such a way as almost to
overwhelm us and put us out. That is because he is taking
the initiative, and he knows enough of strategy in
warfare to know that it is with the one who takes the
initiative that a great deal of the advantage lies.
Now we
shall always of course meet that and he will always be
doing it, but what about the other way round? Paul met a
very great deal of the onslaught of the enemy upon spirit
and mind and body. It came along every line and by every
channel and means conceivable. He tells us a good deal
about the nature of his conflicts, spiritual and
temporal, in his ministry and life, but Paul by no means
left things there. He also makes it perfectly clear that
he took the initiative as well, and these words which we
have just read concern the initiative of the Lord's
people on this matter. If the enemy is out with all his
might and all his cunning to frustrate this purpose of
God in the saints, namely, their coming to the fulness of
understanding, their having the full knowledge of Christ;
I say if he is out by every means to frustrate that,
there has to be some initiative from the other side.
There has to be a real throwing of ourselves into this
matter in a spiritual way against this assailing of the
children of God, so that God's end shall not be
frustrated.
"What
great conflict I have for you," says the Apostle,
"striving." You know how he uses that word in
his Corinthian letter about the Olympic games. "If a
man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned,
except he strive lawfully" (2 Tim. 2:5). He sees
this man in the arena or on the track stretched out,
throwing himself into the battle, striving for the
mastery. It is the same word. And here it is striving for
the mastery over the enemy and for the will of God, that
His people might know the mystery of God, even Christ,
unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding,
and so on. Well, the emphasis is clear and does not need
a great deal added to it of words from me.
My deep
feeling is that there has to be another side to our
concern about this matter of the Lord's desire for His
people to come to fulness, beyond the personal, and until
that other side is brought in the end will not be
reached. That means there must be those who will really
throw themselves in to strive, by the enablement, the
energy of the Spirit, to strive over this matter.
An
Old Testament Illustration
When I was
thinking about this, there came back to my mind the very
familiar story of Elisha and the Shunammite, and her son.
It seems to me to be a propos of this very matter.
Elisha, as you well know, sets forth in type that which
was ordained to remain here on this earth after the Lord
was risen, had passed through the
Jordan, the Cross, and been translated to
heaven, and the great issue upon which that continuation of
the testimony here depended was that there should be with
him a double portion of his master's spirit. His
request was that. He was put on probation over that. He
was tested and drawn out concerning that, but, having
been approved, Elisha received a double portion of the
spirit of his head. The sons of the prophets always spoke
of Elijah in those words - "Knowest thou that the
Lord will take away thy master from thy head today?"
(2 Kings 2). Elijah was his head. Now when the head was
received up into heaven, the double portion of the Spirit
came upon Elisha. He was here on this earth in the power
of the Spirit to maintain and carry on a testimony of
life, so that at every move, in every connection, Elisha
is found meeting conditions of death. He is called upon
to prove that the Spirit is with him as the Spirit of
resurrection by having to encounter death in many forms.
Amongst
these many instances is the one of the Shunammite's son,
full, I think, of helpful features and elements if we
were dealing with it as a whole. We only have one thing
in mind at the moment. Here, for instance, in grace the
Lord had visited her and given her that son; for I think
it is quite evident that she had closed that chapter in
her life as something which would never be. You remember
she asked the prophet not to mock her, and then later
when the son died, she said, "Did I desire a son of
my lord?" as much as to say, I had closed that
chapter, that was something which I killed in my heart, I
was not any longer thinking in that direction; you did
that. It was something that could not be, but the
impossible was done. The thing that she no longer dared
to think about or hope for had become an actuality by the
grace of God. It was something God had done in grace, and
the son existed.
Now the
son dies. Strange mysterious ways of God, to give
something altogether of Himself, something beyond our
powers and beyond our expectations, and then, having done
something so much of Himself, to allow it to fall under
what looks like a mere calamity, to die. Strange ways of
God! The Lord does do strange things, things that are
strange to our understanding. He is beyond us.
When the
boy is dead, there is one there who has not been by the
way of the Cross and the anointing, namely, Gehazi. He
was not there to go through the Jordan with Elijah and
Elisha. He did not come back again across Jordan in the
power of the anointing, triumphant over death. He was not
under the anointing of the double portion; he was a mere
professional, not an anointed one. He came to a very sad
end, a very tragic end. The leprosy of Naaman the Syrian
clave to him. That, by the way, happens to people who
take up Divine things not crucified, uncrucified people,
unanointed people. Gehazi went to this death chamber and
tried to do something for this boy, and nothing happened,
and he had to go away acknowledging that there was
nothing. Elisha came, and you remember his procedure. He
went in and he stretched himself upon that body, hands to
his hands, feet to his feet, lips to his lips, eyes to
his eyes. He got right down on this situation, so to
speak. He got into it, he identified himself with it, he
made himself a part of it. But he was in the good of the
power of resurrection. It is safe to do it when you are
there. He was under the anointing, and because he was a
man under the anointing on the ground of resurrection, he
could come into touch with that situation, not to his own
undoing but to the undoing of it. It was as though he
literally lifted that boy out of death.
Few things
in the New Testament more amply describe that sort of
thing than these words about Epaphras: a servant of Jesus
Christ striving for you in his prayers. It is like that.
I am not just giving you Bible Study. This is the point:
I do not believe things are going to happen until we get
down to it. I believe God is waiting for a getting down
to this situation. There have to be some people who
really do get down to it.
The
Factor Of Prayer In Relation To The Lord's Purpose
Take the
present situation among the Lord's people. God has a
purpose, but are we taking it for granted, are we waiting
for something to happen, looking out all the time,
observing, spectators, weighing it up, judging it? This
is not happening and that is not happening, this is all
we can see! I do not believe anything will happen until a
people really get down to this; a people, mark you, who
stand on resurrection ground, who have the anointing, and
then get down to it to break the deadlock of death, to
break the bonds which bind. It is real business. There
has to be a striving over this matter. It is not going to
happen, it is not just going to come to pass. All this
that Paul says and all that is here in the Word is sheer
nonsense if the mere fact of a thing being in the will of
God ensures its happening, apart from any other
consideration. What are you striving about, Paul? There
is no need for all that agony, travail, striving of
yours! The Lord purposes it, it is the will of God; you
just believe and be quiet and it will come to pass, the
Lord will do it! Well then, all this is unnecessary, and
therefore it is nonsense. Is it? Does this not represent
something, count for something? You see what I mean.
In
Colosse, in Laodicea, and for many others who had not
seen his face in the flesh, all those churches, their
being knit together in love unto all the riches of the
full assurance of understanding that they may know the
mystery of God, be presented every man complete in
Christ, that hangs upon this man's conflict and the
conflict of Epaphras and others. How much of this are we
doing? It is so easy to criticize one another's spiritual
life, and the spiritual life of other people. It is so
easy to take account of small measure, little growth, the
arrest and limitation. It is so easy just to be
lookers-on. Yes, in our hearts we are troubled, we are
perplexed. In a way, we ask the Lord continually to do
something, we are not detached altogether, but are we
quite sure that we are where Paul was? "How greatly
I strive for you." How I get down to this, how I
identify myself with this situation, this need! - this
that has come in which is just the opposite of what God
intended, this that has interfered with the continuation
of progress and development in a life that God produced,
this which undoubtedly is of the Lord but locked up,
fallen under something in the way of a blight, a lack, an
arrest, a hold up.
There is
the sovereignty of God, of course, in this, the
sovereignty of God which works over the enemy in order to
draw out some people. As we said at the beginning, our
own enlargement is bound up with our vocation; or, to put
it in another way, we shall not make much progress
spiritually until we take spiritual responsibility. It is
vital to our growth that we have concern for souls, our
own spiritual growth. I do not believe people do grow,
however much information they accumulate along spiritual
lines, if they are all the time turned in on themselves.
Responsibility is a tremendous thing for enlargement, and
here is a man who took responsibility to the full. But he
turns to these Philippians and he says, "To you it
hath been granted in the behalf of Christ, not only to
believe on Him, but also to suffer in His behalf,"
and these sufferings are very often along this line, soul
suffering for the saints. "I... fill up... that
which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ... for His
body's sake, which is the church" (Col. 1:24). The
sufferings of Christ; it is given to you to suffer with
Him. The sufferings of Christ for His Body's sake which
is the Church - I fill up that which remains of that.
It might
be that the edge of a great deal of the enemy's assault
upon us would be blunted if we were a little more of the
assailing kind. I think we feel the keenness of it
because we wait for it. I think there is something that
really does save us when we are turned out in the
aggressive. There are values, great values, to our own
spiritual life, safety and growth, by a positive and an
aggressive spirit in the interests of the Lord; for
undoubtedly a positive state is a protection. To be
fervent in spirit is a great protection.
I do not
want to say a great deal more. I felt that the Lord
wanted that emphasis this evening. You are concerned and
I am concerned in a way. We recognize a need, a great
need, and in relation to that need perhaps we come to
wonder why this and why that. Then we begin to try and
interpret it and explain it, and we give this
interpretation and that interpretation, and all too often
it again becomes a turning in on ourselves or on
ourselves collectively.
Well, let
us face this to begin with, that the Lord's people never
did in all their history come through to His end for them
without terrific conflict, a great withstanding. It was
always so, and they have never come through only as the
Lord has had a vessel which has taken up that issue in a
most positive way. It was like that with Israel in their
getting through to the land. Joshua and Caleb took up
that issue and fought it through, and by them a
generation came in. Daniel took up that issue when the
people were in captivity and fought it through in the
heavenlies. The coming back of the remnant was
undoubtedly to be laid instrumentally at Daniel's door.
And here is Paul in the same thing on the higher
spiritual level; Satan out to withstand this coming of
the Church to God's end in fulness. Amongst others, here
is Paul taking it up, fighting it out. It always has
been, it always will be. In every city Paul had to meet
it and fight it through. He is there himself on
resurrection ground under the mighty anointing, but look
at Philippi and the jail and the stripes, look at
Corinth. There was evidently very real need for the Lord
to say to Paul about Corinth, "Fear not, I have much
people in this city" (Acts 18:10). It was very
necessary for the Lord again and again to come alongside
and fortify His servant because of what he was meeting in
the city. See what he met in Ephesus: the sentence of
death, he despaired even of life. Right in the conflict
in every city, but fighting it through. The Lord needs
that kind of instrument.
Again I
say, while there may be various subsidiary causes for
arrest or limitation, here is the big issue, that the
enemy is out to prevent our going through, to prevent the
Lord's people from knowing what His thoughts are about
them, being brought into touch or led into touch with
that which will be for their enlargement. It is all a
mighty campaign of the enemy, blinding, nullifying,
neutralizing, hindering, putting up blankets, clouds and
smoke, everything and anything. It is all a part of this
determination of his that the saints shall not be brought
through to completeness in Christ.
Over
against that, there have to be those who, together in the
Lord, standing on the right and sufficient ground, take
up this issue in the Name of the Lord and fight it out.
"How greatly I strive" has to be true of a
company of us.
The Lord
give us grace for this and really work in us, and we
shall see things breaking. No one will doubt, no one will
dispute, that we are in a life or death issue. We are
going to live and live triumphantly, or we are going to
die, going to fade out. Perhaps in the Lord the issue
rests with us along this line. The Lord add to the
company of Epaphras!
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Nov-Dec 1943, Vol 21-6