The one thing the enemy seems to concentrate all his forces against is the maintenance of the Lord's authority in the midst of two or three gathered in His Name. He hates it, and will apparently put up with anything short of that. He will tolerate independent "believers' meetings" of every shade of opinion. Much that was done in the days of the apostles may be zealously adopted and the imitators be left comparatively unmolested. But for two or three to seek to act under the Heavenly Administrator's direction and with His sanction is more than he can bear. By calling it pretentiousness, spiritual assumption, and all the plausible condemnatory names he can, he will frustrate it if possible. Outside resemblance to what is scriptural and orderly matters little to him if, by the power of the Spirit, the Lord's authority is not jealously guarded. In Egypt there was really only one rod of authority. God put it into the hands of His chosen representatives, and that rod triumphed in the end.
The magicians, Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim. 3:8), by imitation, withstood Moses for a time. They "did in like manner" with their rods, which became serpents. "But Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods" (Ex. 7:12) in the end. So it will be again. The Great Appointed Administrator will in the end "put down all rule and all authority and power." All that disputes God's authority must be reduced to subjection, and death itself be swallowed up in victory.
Take another illustration. Suppose a large family of grown-up children. On certain topics, as they grow older, they cannot all agree. Friction is caused by constant discussion, and eventually four of them, pretty much like-minded, decide to enjoy their own opinions together in another house. The father is grieved and remonstrates but they are determined to go. It is not that they do not love their father; but all the same they go.
Having left, they spare no pains in making their new residence as much as possible like the one they have left. Patterns of furniture, household regulations, and everything else are zealously studied in view of adopting the closest imitation in all.
Then they do not forget to show acts of kindness to their father, and pay general respect to that part of the family left with him. But, with all this, one great essential is missing. They have severed themselves, not from their father as their father, but from their father as the home administrator. Dying to get on as well as they can without him only proves their loss. But they persist. Suppose, further, that, as time goes on, the others remaining under their father's roof disagree also. Three more, to their father's grief, leave home and take another separate house. Only two are now left adhering to home authority. Can these claim the exclusive right to sonship and the family name? No. But they keenly feel the selfish slight upon their father's rule on the part of the two parties who have taken independent ground. Even if the two parties became united, it would make no difference on that score. True, it might look a little more like what their father valued, for he loved unity. But it would be still a unity independent of him and his authority.
Under these circumstances could you not understand one of the two remaining with their father, when invited to join a so-called "united" family party at their brothers' house, declining to go? 'You know I love you,' he firmly replies, 'so does father, and you must be well aware that we mourn together over the open shame of a family rupture. How, then, can I possibly sanction your position? It is a constant grief to mother and a public slight on father, and I would not, by my presence, sanction it even for a single half-hour. No, it would be unrighteous to father to do so.'
Now, these two positions illustrate the great distinguishing difference between every sectarian association under the sun, including the most correctly ordered independent believers' meeting with no name, and every true answer to God's thought of His assembly where the Lord's presence and supreme authority as in the midst of those gathered to His name is maintained and respected.
This leads us to another important matter.
The Relation Between One Gathered Company Owning the Lord's Authority and Another Doing the Same
It may be asked, If there are in one place a few "vessels unto honor;" as the Spirit speaks of those who seek to honor their Lord's name and authority, and a few in another seeking to "follow" also (2 Tim. 2:23), what relation has one such company of saints with the other, and with every other such company on earth?
Their relationship with the same Lord determines that. There can be no independence, if the authority of the same Lord by the same Spirit controls each.
It cannot be too clearly understood that each company has its own distinct responsibility to the Lord, and must answer to Him respecting it. Godly counsel may be offered, pastoral care be exercised, but private judgment must not intrude itself to the setting aside of the judgment of an assembly. But only as each gathering is acting according to the revealed will of the same Lord can they be mutually right.
Take another figure. The Queen of England has various households—Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, and Balmoral Castle. Each household is responsible to the Queen for the carrying out of her mind in that residence. Those in responsibility at Buckingham Palace have not to be occupied with the "management" in Windsor Castle. Each, no doubt, will exercise jealous care to carry out the Queen's pleasure in that particular place, and mutual help, by Royal arrangement, might come in between one place and another to that end.
Now, although one code of regulations applies to all alike, the responsibility of each is not the less distinctly marked; and who would dare to intercept his own private opinion between the Queen and any one of the responsible heads of her residences! The figure is feeble, but what it seeks to set forth is momentous, beyond all figures to express.
The act of a company gathered in the Lord's name, and seeking grace and guidance to act under His authority in one place, will therefore be very jealously respected by those gathered by the same Spirit to the same Lord elsewhere. The Lord Himself may surely be trusted with any difficulties that may arise by leading any or all to remember that if the eye be single the whole body is full of light.
The seriousness of rashly, though with sincerity, attaching the authority of the Lord's name to our own opinion, and the equal seriousness of not respecting what, with all sincerity, is done in His name, are brought before us in connection with the history of King Saul the first kingly administrator in Israel.
The history of David takes us back to the days of Joshua. A covenant had been made with the Gibeonites by Joshua and the princes of the congregation, who were deceived by a plausible story. How was it they were so taken in? They had the word of God by Moses and the privilege of prayer, but they resorted to neither. "They received them by reason of their victuals and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord" (see margin, Josh. 9:14).
Forgetting that the book of the law was to be in his thoughts day and night (Josh. 1:8), and that God had said, "Thou shalt make no covenant with them" the inhabitants of the land (Ex. 23:32), and without consulting either the Lord or His word, Joshua and the princes did make a covenant with the Gibeonites, and swore to them by the Lord God of Israel that they would let them live!
Solemn act! For they practically made the Lord responsible for that act! Without consulting Him they put His Name to the very thing which He had expressly forbidden!
In David's days there was a famine in the whole land, three years—"year after year." Not until the third year did he inquire the cause. Then he was told: "It is for Saul, and for his house of blood, because he slew the Gibeonites" (2 Sam. 21: 1 Darby Trans.). Solemn lesson, truly, whichever way we look at it! Well may those who take the place of acting in the Lord's name be profoundly exercised as to what they attach His name to; and well may we respect that to which His name has already been attached, even when we individually fear a mistake has been made.
Joshua and the princes of Israel received the plausible story of the Gibeonites, and gave them a divine guarantee that they should have the privilege of dwelling with them in God's inheritance.
It really answers to what is done to-day when, in the name of the Lord, those are carelessly admitted to assembly privileges whom the Lord would not have admitted.
But when it is done, until those received commit acts calling for exclusion, no individual and no assembly can interfere.
Many an assembly has been made to feel for years the scourge of such unbroken spirits. But let us remember God's displeasure and the years of famine, if, instead of bowing before Him and counting on His grace to undertake for us, we are tempted to the presumption of trying to reverse the mistaken act, as Saul did with the Gibeonites.
What a contrast was David's behavior to Saul, bad as Saul proved himself. David recognized that he was the Lord's anointed, and he would not cut him off even when he had ample opportunity and great provocation.
What a unique position is that of a few of the Lord's followers seeking to answer to the true thought of an assembly on earth when compared with the great system of profession all around!
They cannot take their stand on the sanction of political, worldly power, as in the Established Church: they know the world has refused His very presence here; nor on the sanction of any voluntary, self-elected religious organization, as in the dissenting bodies, and unknown in Scripture, for that ignores the Lord's direct administration by the Spirit in all matters relating to God's assembly; not are they bound together by the sanction of those who are nominally outside sectarian confusion; for that might soon become nothing more than the unity of those that agree with us!
But if not on these, on what does faith rest? On the sanction and direction of One Living Head in the glory of God, who delights to respond to the faith of the feeblest and to make His presence an inexpressible reality even to two or three who put themselves entirely at His disposal for direction by His Spirit. "I will not leave you orphans (margin): I will come to you" (John 14:18). "They saw no man, save Jesus only" (Matt. 17:.8).
It is only in relation to Him, amid outward wreck and confusion, that our true position can be really tested. Our right relationship with others will entirely depend on this.
The writer once saw an extensive landslip on a mountain side. Trees great and small, and even part of the white road fence, had descended in one huge mass, leaving several trees and bushes still standing. As to their relative position to other trees, they were pretty much as they had stood nearly two hundred feet higher up. But the real test as to whether or not they had fallen from their original position was not where the trees then stood in relation to each other, or whether they were still on the right side of the white fence, but how they stood in relation to the top.
And by this only can a believer rightly test his position to-day. When a circumference is out of true, you can only put it right from the center. You cannot trust the very best 'freehand.' The Center is Christ Himself the Holy and the True. The only safe compass is the Holy Scriptures. The only Hand that can truly apply it to the circumference from the Center is the Holy Spirit of God. Hence, whatever the various states of the seven Churches in Asia might be, Christ presents Himself to each in gracious suitability to their then condition. To each He says: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.'
He is seen as the holy, jealous Scrutinizer in the midst of all. "His eyes"— all-penetrating—are "as a flame of fire:' Nothing escapes His notice. "His voice as the sound of many waters." He is well able to make Himself heard. "His countenance...as the sun shineth in his strength" (Rev. 1:14-16). He can make His influence felt everywhere.
The great danger to-day is the creeping in of decline as to faith in the reality of His presence and His present interest in His assemblies. But what confidence this should inspire in us, that in the affairs of God's assembly we have to do directly with such a blessed One as He, though in the midst of perilous times, spiritual indifference and insensibility, and hardened apostasy.
The Last Revival
Blessed be God that, side by side with the melancholy picture of general profession, the last page of Holy Scripture gives clear evidence of a "revival". Bright answer, in bridal affections, to His own heavenly love. How refreshing the relief!
Perhaps there is nothing which the Lord more warmly appreciates than the affection of His own. How He puts His gracious seal of approval upon it! Hence He chooses to leave earth for heaven at Bethany. From the place of united appreciation (although the circle may only have consisted of three) He went to the place of universal appreciation.
But from that day to the lines contemplated in Rev. 22 how much of saddening failure had come in. The Church had been set up and, as a united witness, had completely broken down. The world was still opposing, for Satan was still its god; and hence a banished Master is pleased to make use of a servant banished to Patmos to tell us of this restored brightness at the close. "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh" (Psa. 2:4), and to the very end, faith shall laugh with Him.
In Matt. 25 what awakens the sleeping virgins is the cry, "Behold the bridegroom" (Darby Trans.). It was to HIMSELF their eyes were directed. He was the Object they started with; but in sleep they had lost sight of Him. Now the "cry" announcing Him wakes them up, and puts them into active preparation. The wise could not share their oil, though they had got it. They could point to the way by which the foolish might have had it. "Buy for yourselves." It is now too late. The wise go in. The foolish are excluded. The door is shut.
In Rev. 22:16, 17 it is the Lord's own word that is heard. There is only one voice for all the assemblies. One voice to correct and direct all through. This excludes every thought of independency. It is not one assembly speaking for all the rest! "I JESUS have sent mine angel to testify these things to you in the assemblies" but now He is speaking HIMSELF "I am the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that hears say, Come. And let him that is athirst come; he that will, let him take the water of life freely" (Darby Trans.).
In Rev. 22:20 we have His final assurance. What a comfort to hearts ready for His coming and longing to see Him! "He that testifies these things says, Yea, I come quickly." And the final answer, before the inspired record closes, "Amen; come, Lord Jesus." Blessed evidence, in four words, of a real welcome of affection awaiting His coming.
In these closing verses of Scripture three things come before us His mind. He has declared His word of testimony to the assemblies (Rev. 22:16).
His authority, with which every hope and blessing for the earth is bound up. "I am the root and offspring of David." He is Israel's promised Ruler, "King of kings and Lord of lords." As the Man after God's own heart, He has supreme authority to fulfill all God's will.
His love, well known to the bride, is responded to. He Himself, as the Morning Star, is her hope, and she, the bride, says: "Come." and the cry is so real that the Spirit associates Himself with it. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come."
Israel's hope is in connection with the rising of the "Sun of righteousness." As the Sun of righteousness He will waken up the whole world to see His glory and feel His power.
The Church's hope is expressed by the figure of the Morning Star, and the Morning Star does not wake the world up. Only those previously awakened will see it.
As soon, therefore, as Jesus says, "I am the bright and morning star," the response leaps forth from devoted bridal affections, "COME."
Charles Wesley about the year 1770 wrote the following—
`The Church in her militant state
Is weary and cannot forbear,
The saints in expectancy wait
To see Him again in the air.
The Spirit invites in the bride,
Her heavenly Lord to descend,
And place her enthroned at His side,
In glory that never shall end:
Let us not think so much of our own blessing, but of what the moment will be to Him, who will see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. Do you not think that He is truly refreshed by such fervor of desire as is expressed in the hymn quoted above? And in how many hearts like fervent longings are found to-day, He only knows.
A Christian woman in South Wales had recently heard of the Lord's coming. Filled to running over with the prospect of seeing Him, she made known the joyful news to some of her friends.
One of them, a deacon, took great exception to these aboundings in her. She ought not to say such things unless she was fully certain of her salvation. He has not lived amiss, yet he could not say he was sure! And could any one be glad of His coming without that? Besides, it may be thousands of years yet before He comes!
She did know Him as the One who had saved her, and with tears she quietly responded to what the deacon had said: "You may put Him off as far as you can, and as long as you like; but whenever He comes it will not be as soon as I want Him!" (She wanted him yesterday, and he had not come.)
Think you, my reader, that this was no refreshment to the Lord Himself?
But mark this. There is not in this stirring up of responsive affection one vestige of cold indifference as to the spiritual needs of others. The one who can rest satisfied with what he regards as his own blessing, and has little or no concern for the need of others, has not got the blessing he thinks he has, no matter how much of the Bible he knows. The living water springs up to everlasting life. It connects the heart with Christ Himself, and reaching Him, you "never thirst" (John 4). But He who turned the hearts of "His own" to heaven turned their eyes upon the need of others. "Lift up your eyes," He said, "and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest." She who went away from Sychar's well, filled with one theme, and that theme Christ, brought more back, to see and hear Him for themselves, than all the disciples put together, at least that day.
'Oh, Christ, He is the Fountain
The deep sweet well of love:
Simeon had longings to go: Anna had yearnings that others might share her joy. And if we really turn to heaven, and say, "Come" (and He knows all hearts), this scripture supposes that we shall be ready with a word of encouragement for the thirsty: "Let him that is athirst come?' Then follows the gracious assurance that the gospel is as wide in its all-embracing scope as ever. "He that will, let him take the water of life freely." This is wellnigh the last thing He has to say to us before His coming again.
How blessed, dear reader, at the very close of the Church's history, and of the gospel testimony, to be found seeking to answer to His own thoughts about both!
What a privilege if we are able, by His grace, to show to men and angels that we are separated in heart from the world that rejected Him, and separated not by the fear of coming judgment, but by the love that saved us from it!
If, in view of His speedy return, we would be found in joyful expectation, we shall, at all cost, accept the responsibility of maintained separation, embrace the privilege of holy association, and remember that the assembly has been left during His absence in the place of righteous administration.
These four characteristics are only the revival of that which marked the first assembling together of "His own," when Jesus came and "stood in the midst" after the resurrection.
They had good ground for the expectation of His return (John 21:22); and true affection was ready to give Him a joyful welcome. "Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord" (John 20:20).
There was jealous separation from the whole religious and political system which had rejected their Lord. "The doors were shut" (John 20:19). Note, not one door only; every approach was closed, and the Lord did not interfere with one of them.
There was holy association. Only His true followers were there those of whom the Lord speaks as "My brethren" (John 20:17).
There was authorized administration under Him. "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you" (the apostles) (John 20:21, 23).
Deep searchings of heart become us. For what is the value of mere nominal agreement, or ecclesiastical rigor to enforce it, if Christ sees that affection for Himself and His saints is lacking? He looks for brokenness of spirit, humility of mind, genuine piety, and holy affection.
The secret of true unity is found within, not without. May we so habitually learn to judge in ourselves every heart-dividing hindrance, that always and in all circumstances we may in response to His word, "Yea, I come quickly," be able to say, "AMEN; COME, LORD JESUS."
George Cutting