Notes of an Address from Mark 8:10-28.
WHAT I find in every one’s history is this: that first he has to learn that Christ gave Himself for him, and next he has to learn that he must give up everything for Christ. Our history is that double thing; but in one sense we may say the first is readily acquired, though it be a long time before you find that, as a thoroughly ruined one, Christ is absolutely for you. The day will come when we shall have nothing but Christ. In that moment of terror, when you find out the emptiness of everything, He is the one who in the darkness that surrounds you alone is for you.
In type you see it in Jonah. It was not that Jonah was not converted before, but he had to be brought into the depths, where no one but God could save him. First of all I have Him as the Saviour. To be devoted I must find that He is absolutely for me. Now when He taught Peter that in the 5th of Luke, how did he teach him―at what point? It was when the boat was full of fish―that most exciting moment to a fisherman―that Peter found himself in the presence of God good for nothing. “I am a sinful man, O Lord!” Look at that man, fallen down there at Jesus’ knees, he who had given his time and his boat to the Lord, like a religious man now who gives his time and his money for the spread of the Gospel. One knows what it is to have gone on in that floating way for years.
There is a moment in your history when you must be sensible of the thorough insufficiency of everything, and of the thorough sufficiency of Christ. These disciples, at the most trying moment for fishermen, brought their ships to land, and forsook all and followed Him.
What is a death-bed? How beautiful it is at times. It is simply that there you have a person saying, “I have tasted the insufficiency of everything, but I have found the all-sufficiency of Christ.” Does not your heart respond? The day is come, in that person’s history, when Christ is found sufficient. But He must first be known by the soul, and this Peter’s history declares.
There is a darker lesson we have to learn. We have to learn that there is death upon everything. If you consider the Scriptures, you will find it brought out in every history. The Gospels are the school; the Epistles set forth our standing. Christ is now teaching His disciples death and glory. The point is this, Is He sufficient for everything? He sighed deeply in His Spirit―He sighed deeply at the nation’s unbelief.
“Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf.” You cannot imagine anything more resourceless than their condition, without bread and in a ship upon the sea. What the Lord brings out is this―His own sufficiency. He does not make the bread a bit more, but He tests their faith. Am I sufficient for you when there is a dearth of everything? “I have made myself known to you in power, how is it that ye do not understand?” Do not be pained: mercies are very often given you that you may learn to do without them―that you may learn the Person who gave them, and then find Him sufficient. It is not the gifts that give a color to Him, but it is He that gives a color to the gifts. What has Jonah to learn? Not only that there is death in himself, but that there is death in everything here.
I have the two things to learn―life in the Son of God and death down here. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.” Do not shrink from it―do not be afraid: faith never looks at difficulty, but at the One who is sufficient for the difficulty. Men of faith do no end of rash things. Look at Moses. When he came down from the Mount he confronts 600,000 men as if they were nothing. He stands for God. He never thought of them; he never took into account the odds against him. He calculated on God only! The disciples have not rested upon Him. They ought to have shown skill about Him. What I mean by” skill” is this: it is not a question of mere power. “Skill” is power properly applied―faith’s use of power. This is the difference between David and Jonathan: Jonathan might be the stronger man; David, the man of skill, is not afraid of Goliath. You will find in your own private history that you have to learn His sufficiency, and not to be a bit disheartened by what you see around―not a bit disheartened because there is no bread in the ship.
The turning point of my history here is, that as I am traveling through this scene I have to do with the risen Christ, no matter what the circumstances that may arise. Practically this is what comes out: I have no resources; I am not a bit disheartened; I have Christ. Like Paul, who could say before the greatest tribunal in the world “all men forsook me” ―there was no bread in the ship: “notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear, and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.” (2 Timothy 4:16, 17.)
Do not be disheartened. Do not do what people are always trying to do; they tire always trying to relieve themselves by change of circumstances. You will never reach a brighter point of strength than saying, “Blessed God, make me equal to it, make me rise above it;” instead of saying, “alter it, do remove this thing or that thing.” The old era was that everything was weaker than man; the new era is that man in Christ is greater than everything. If your child is ill, and you pray for its recovery, and it is given back to you, you have not the same knowledge of God as if you had risen superior to the trial. While I am resting in the Lord, let Him do what He will, Christ is sufficient― “there is no bread” is sufficient―nothing else is sufficient. It is not “resignation.” That is a poor thing-only putting up with a thing because I cannot help it. “The man that walks by faith must be faithful”―nothing truer has been said. I believe if we are walking by faith, in simple dependence on Christ, nothing could be brighter than our path. There is only one path of life, and if you are walking by faith you are in it. If we have “skill,” we shall not be like the sons of the prophets, bringing the wild gourds into the pot; then death is brought into it.
God cannot demonstrate His love by giving you this thing or that thing. He demonstrates His love in glory, where your destitution is fully met. But, I say, practically do not shrink from it. Do not be afraid. We all have a pressure. It is not that I want you to be unfeeling about it. But there is all the difference between the ring of the soul that is dependent on mercies, and the soul that is learning to walk according to God without mercies. Do you say, Oh, He would put me to too much trial! I reply, He loves me ten thousand times more than I love myself, and if you say otherwise you have not learned salvation and the love of His heart.
I know what pressure is. What is it for? It is to bring me to Him, so that the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, may keep my heart and mind through Christ Jesus. Relief from the thing pressing may not be known, but you have the blessedness of Himself between your soul and the pressure, and the peace of God, that passeth all understanding, keeping your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
The Lord lead us to understand this side of our history as walking through the world. One’s heart sometimes trembles seeing people making themselves so happy here. I say, “Ah, the gourd will die someday, and you will learn the lesson―death is upon everything, and Christ is all-sufficient.” It is no sorrow at all if you find that you have a better one in place of it all. I deny that Mary was not satisfied with the presence of Christ, when walking to the grave of Lazarus. You have to learn the sufficiency of Himself in the wretchedness of a scene like this, and then you will move on cheerfully and faithfully, to the praise of His name.