The Calvary Road Part 4

Further, we shall see more clearly still what our position is to be when we understand that we are to be the bond-servants of One who was Himself willing to be a bond-servant. Nothing shows better the amazing humility of the Lord Jesus, whose servants we are to be, than that "though He was in the form of G.o.d, He counted it not a prize to be on an equality with G.o.d, but emptied Himself and took upon Him the form of a bondservant" (Phil. 2:6,7)--without rights, willing to be treated as the will of the Father and the malice of men might decree, if only He might thereby serve men and bring them back to G.o.d. And you and I are to be the bond-servants of Him who was and always is a bondservant, whose disposition is ever that of humility and whose activity is ever that of humbling Himself to serve His creatures. How utterly low, then, is our true position! How this shows us what it means to be ruled by the Lord Jesus!

That leads us to something further. Our servanthood to the Lord Jesus is to express itself in our servanthood to our fellows. Says Paul, "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord, and ourselves your bond-servants for Jesus' sake." The low position we take toward the Lord Jesus is judged by Him by the low position we take in our relationship with our fellows. An unwillingness to serve others in costly, humbling ways He takes to be an unwillingness to serve Him, and we thus put ourselves out of fellowship with Him.

We are now in a position to apply all this much more personally to our lives. G.o.d spoke to me some time ago through Luke 17:7-1O. "But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterwards thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do."

I see here five marks of the bond-servant. First of all, he must be willing to have one thing on top of another put upon him, without any consideration being given him. On top of a hard day in the field the servant in the parable had immediately to prepare his master's meal, and on top of that he had to wait at table--and all that before he had had any food himself. He just went and did it, expecting nothing else. How unwilling we are for this! How quickly there are murmurings and bitterness in our hearts when that sort of thing is expected of us. But the moment we start murmuring, we are acting as if we had rights, and a bond-servant hasn't any!

Secondly, in doing this he must be willing not to be thanked for it.

How often we serve others, but what selfpity we have in our hearts and how bitterly we complain that they take it as a matter of course and do not thank us for it. But a bond-servant must be willing for that. Hired servants may expect something, but not bond-servants.

And, thirdly, having done all this, he must not charge the other with selfishness. As I read the pa.s.sage, I could not but feel that the master was rather selfish and inconsiderate. But there is no such charge from the bond-servant. He exists to serve the interests of his master and the selfishness or otherwise of his master does not come into it with him. But we? We can perhaps allow ourselves to be "put upon" by others, and are willing perhaps not to be thanked for what we do, but how we charge the other in our minds with selfishness! But that is not the place of a bond-servant. He is to find in the selfishness of others but a further opportunity to identify himself afresh with His Lord as the servant of all.

But there is a fourth step still to which we must go. Having done all that, there is no ground for pride or self-congratulation, but we must confess that we are unprofitable servants, that is, that we are of no real use to G.o.d or man in ourselves. We must confess again and again that "in us, that is in our flesh, there dwelleth no good thing," that, if we have acted thus, it is no thanks to us, whose hearts are naturally proud and stubborn, but only to the Lord Jesus, who dwells in us and who has made us willing.

The bottom of self is quite knocked out by the fifth and last step--the admission that doing and bearing what we have in the way of meekness and humility, we have not done one st.i.tch more than it was our duty to do. G.o.d made man in the first place simply that he might be G.o.d's bond-servant. Man's sin has simply consisted in his refusal to be G.o.d's bond-servant. His restoration can only be, then, a restoration to the position of a bond-servant. A man, then, has not done anything specially meritorious when he has consented to take that position, for he was created and redeemed for that very thing.

This, then, is the Way of the Cross. It is the way that G.o.d's lowly Bond-servant first trod for us, and should not we, the bond-servants of that Bond-servant, tread it still? Does it seem hard and forbidding, this way down? Be a.s.sured, it is the only way up. It was the way by which the Lord Jesus reached the Throne, and it is the way by which we too reach the place of spiritual power, authority and fruitfulness. Those who tread this path are radiant, happy souls, overflowing with the life of their Lord. They have found "he that humbleth himself shall be exalted" to be true for them as for their Lord. Where before humility was an unwelcome intruder to be put up with only on occasions, she has now become the spouse of their souls, to whom they have wedded themselves for ever. If darkness and unrest enter their souls it is only because somewhere on some point they have been unwilling to walk with her in the paths of meekness and brokenness. But she is ever ready to welcome them back into her company, as they seek her face in repentance.

That brings us to the all-important matter of repentance. We shall not enter into more abundant life merely by resolving that we shall be humbler in the future. There are att.i.tudes and actions which have already taken place and are still being persisted in (if only by our unwillingness to apologise for them) that must first be repented of.

The Lord Jesus did not take upon Him the form of a bond-servant merely to give us an example, but that He might die for these very sins upon the cross, and open a fountain in His precious Blood where they can all be washed away. But that Blood cannot be applied to the sins of our proud heart until we have been broken in repentance as to what has already happened and as to what we already are. This will mean allowing the light of G.o.d to go through every part of our hearts and into every one of our relationships. It will mean that we shall have to see that the sins of pride, which G.o.d will show us, made it necessary for Jesus to come from heaven and die on the Cross that they might be forgiven. It will mean not only asking Him to forgive us but asking others too. And that will be humbling indeed. But as we crawl through the door of the broken ones we shall emerge into the light and glory of the highway of holiness and humility.

CHAPTER 9 THE POWER OF THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB

The message and challenge of Revival, which is coming to many of us these days is searching in its utter simplicity. It is simply that there is only one thing in the world that can hinder the Christian's walking in victorious fellowship with G.o.d and his being filled with the Holy Spirit--and that is sin in one form or another. There is only one thing in the world that can cleanse him from sin with all that that means of liberty and victory--and that is the power of the Blood of the Lord Jesus. It is, however, most important for us that we should see what it is that gives the Blood of Christ its mighty power with G.o.d on behalf of men, for then we shall understand the conditions on which its full power may be experienced in our lives.

How many achievements and how many blessings for men the Scripture ascribes to the power of the Blood of the Lord Jesus! By the power of His Blood peace is made between man and G.o.d.[footnote 1: 1 Col. 1:20]

By its power there is forgiveness of sins and eternal life for all who put their faith in the Lord Jesus.[footnote 2:Col.1:14; John 6:54] By the power of His Blood Satan is overcome.[footnote 3: Rev.

12:11] By its power there is continual cleansing from all sin for us.[footnote 4:1 John 1:7] By the power of His Blood we may be set free from the tyranny of an evil conscience to serve the living G.o.d.[footnote 5:Heb. 9:14] By its infinite power with G.o.d the most unworthy have liberty to enter the Holy of Holies of G.o.d's presence and live there all the day.[footnote 6:Heb. 10:19] We may well ask what gives the Blood its power!

To that question we need to link this other question--how may we experience its full power in our lives? Too often that precious Blood does not have its cleansing, peace-giving, life-giving, sin-destroying power in our hearts, and too often we do not find ourselves in G.o.d's presence and fellowship all the day.

Whence its Power?

The answer to the first question is suggested by the phrase in the book of Revelation which describes the Blood of Christ by the tender expression, "the Blood of the Lamb."[footnote 7: Rev.7:14] Not the Blood of the Warrior, but the Blood of the Lamb! In other words that which gives the precious Blood its power with G.o.d for men is the lamb-like disposition of the One who shed it and of which it is the supreme expression. The t.i.tle "the Lamb" so frequently given to the Lord Jesus in Scripture is first of all descriptive of His work--that of being a sacrifice for our sin. When a sinning Israelite wanted to get right with G.o.d, it was the blood of a lamb (sometimes that of goat) which had to be shed and sprinkled on the altar. Jesus is the Divine fulfilment of all those lambs that men offered--the Lamb of G.o.d that taketh away the sin of the world.[Footnoe 8:John 1:29] But the t.i.tle the Lamb has a deeper meaning. It describes His character.

He is the Lamb in that He is meek and lowly in heart,[footnote 9:Matt. 11:29] gentle and unresisting, and all the time surrendering His own will to the Father's[footnote 10:John 6:38] for the blessing and saving of men. Any one but the Lamb would have resented and resisted the treatment men gave Him. But He, in obedience to the Father[footnote 11:Phil. 2:8] and out of love for us, did neither.

Men did what they liked to Him and for our sakes He yielded all the time. When He was reviled, He reviled not again. When He suffered, He threatened not. No standing up for His rights, no hitting back, no resentment, no complaining! How different from us! When the Father's will and the malice of men pointed to dark Calvary, the Lamb meekly bowed His head in willingness for that too. It was as the Lamb that Isaiah saw Him, when he prophesied, "He is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth."[footnote 12:Is. 53:7] The scourging, the scoffing, the spitting, the hair plucked off from His cheeks, the weary last march up the Hill, the nailing and the lifting up, the piercing of His side and the flowing of His Blood--none of these things would ever have been, had He not been the Lamb. And all that to pay the price of my sin! So we see He is not merely the Lamb because He died on the Cross, but He died upon the Cross because He is the Lamb.

Let us ever see this disposition in the Blood. Let every mention of the Blood call to mind the deep humility and self-surrender of the Lamb, for it is this disposition that gives the Blood its wonderful power with G.o.d. Hebrews 9:14 for ever links the Blood of Christ with His self-offering to G.o.d, "how much more shall the Blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to G.o.d ..."

And it is this fact that bestows upon it its power with G.o.d for men. For this disposition has ever been of supreme value to G.o.d.

Humility, lamb likeness, the surrender of our wills to G.o.d are what He looks for supremely from man. It was to manifest all this that G.o.d ever created the first man. It was his refusal to walk this path that const.i.tuted his first sin (and it has been the heart of sin ever since). It was to bring this disposition back to earth that Jesus came. It was simply because the Father saw this in Him that He could say, "My Son, in Whom I am well pleased." It was because the shedding of His Blood so supremely expressed this disposition that it is so utterly precious to G.o.d and so all-availing for man and his sin.

The Second Question.

We come now to the second question--how can we experience its full power in our lives? Our hearts surely tell us the answer, as we look on the Lamb, bowing His Head for us on Calvary--only by being willing to have the same disposition that ruled Him and by bending our necks in brokenness as He bowed His. Just as it is the disposition of the Lamb that bestows upon the Blood its power, so it is only as we are willing to be partakers of the same disposition of the Lamb, that we shall know its full power in our lives. And we may be partakers of His disposition,[footnote13: Phil.2:5; 1 Cor.2:16] for it has been made transferable to us by His death. All the fruits of the Holy Spirit, mentioned in Galatians 5--love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control--what are they but the expressions of the lamb-like nature of the Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit wants to fill us with them. Let us never forget that the Lord Jesus, though exalted to the throne of G.o.d, is still the Lamb (the book of Revelation tells us that) and He wants to reproduce Himself in us.

Are We Willing?

But are we willing for this? There is a hard unyielding self, which stands up for itself and resists others, that will have to be broken, if we are to be willing for the disposition of the Lamb, and if the precious Blood is to reach us in cleansing power. We may pray long to be cleansed from some sin and for peace to be restored to our hearts, but unless we are willing to be broken on the point in question and be made a partaker of the Lamb's humility there, nothing will happen.

Every sin we ever commit is the result of the hard unbroken self taking up some att.i.tude of pride, and we shall not find peace through the Blood until we are willing to see the source of each sin and reverse the wrong att.i.tude that caused it by a specific repentance, which will always be humbling. This means that we have not merely to try and make ourselves feel the humility of Jesus. We have only to walk in the light and be willing for G.o.d to reveal any sin that may be in our lives, and we shall find ourselves asked by the Lord to perform all sorts of costly acts of repentance and surrender, often over what we term small and trivial matters. But their importance can be gauged by what it costs our pride to put them right. He may show us a confession or apology that has to be made to someone or an act of rest.i.tution that has to be done.[footnote14:Matt. 5:23-24] He may show us that we must climb down over something and yield up our fancied rights in it (Jesus had no rights--have we then?). He may show us that we must go to the one who has done us a wrong and confess to him the far greater wrong of resenting it (Jesus never resented anything or anyone--have we any right to?). He may call us to be open with our friends that they know us as we really are, and thus be able to have true fellowship with us. These acts may well be humiliating and a complete reversal of our usual att.i.tudes of pride and selfishness, but by such acts we shall know true brokenness and become partakers of the humility of the Lamb. As we are willing for this in each issue, the Blood of the Lamb will be able to cleanse us from all sin and we shall walk with G.o.d in white, with His peace in our hearts.

CHAPTER 10 PROTESTING OUR INNOCENCE?

We have all become so used to condemning the proud self-righteous att.i.tude of the Pharisee in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican,[footnote1:Luke 18:9-14] that we can hardly believe that the picture of him there is meant to apply to us--which only shows how much like him we really are. The Sunday School teacher was never so much a Pharisee, as when she finished her lesson on this parable with the words, "And now, children, we can thank G.o.d that we are not as this Pharisee!" In particular are we in danger of adopting the Pharisee's att.i.tude, when G.o.d is wanting to humble us at the Cross of Jesus, and show us the sins in our hearts that are hindering personal revival.

G.o.d's Picture of the Human Heart.

We shall not understand the real wrong of the Pharisee's att.i.tude, nor of our own, unless we view it against the background of what G.o.d says about the human heart. Said Jesus Christ, "From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness."[footnote 2: Mark 7:20-23] The same dark picture of the human heart is given us in Paul's letter to the Galatians, "The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, divisions, parties, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings and such like."[footnote 3: Gal.5:19-21]

What a picture! Jeremiah adds the same witness, "The heart is deceitful above all things (that is, it deceives the man himself, so that he does not know himself) and desperately wicked, who can know it?"[footnote4:Jer.17:9] Here then is G.o.d's picture of the human heart, the fallen self, "the old man,"[footnote5:Eph.4:22] as the Scripture calls it, whether it be in the unconverted or in the keenest Christian.

It is hard to believe that these things can proceed from the heart of ministers, evangelists and Christian workers, but it is true. The simple truth is that the only beautiful thing about the Christian is Jesus Christ. G.o.d wants us to recognise that fact as true in our experience, so that in true brokenness and self-despair we shall allow Jesus Christ to be our righteousness and holiness and all in all--and that is victory.

Making G.o.d a Liar!

Now in face of G.o.d's description of the human heart, we can see what it was that the Pharisee did. In saying, "I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers," he was protesting his innocence of the very things that G.o.d says are in every heart. He said in effect, "These things are doubtless true of other men--this Publican is even now confessing them--but, Lord, not of me!" And in so saying, he was making G.o.d a liar, for "if we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar,"[footnote6:1 John 5:10] because He says we have! Yet I feel sure that he was perfectly sincere in what he said. He really did believe that he was innocent of these things. Indeed, he is ascribing his imagined innocence to G.o.d, saying, "I thank thee ..." G.o.d's word, however, still stood against him. But he just had not seen it. The "penny had not dropped!" If the Publican is beating upon his breast and confessing his sins, it is not because he has sinned worse than the Pharisee. It is simply that the Publican has seen that what G.o.d says is woefully true of him, and the Pharisee has not. The Pharisee still thinks that outward abstinence from certain sins is all that G.o.d requires. He has not yet understood that G.o.d looks, not on the outward appearance, but on the heart,[footnote7:1 Sam.16:7] and accounts the look of l.u.s.t the equivalent of adultery,[footnote8:Matt.5:27-28] the att.i.tude of resentment and hate the same as murder,[footnote9:1 John 3:15.] envy as actual theft, and the petty tyrannies in the home as wicked as the most extortionate dealings in the market.

How often have not we, too, protested our innocence on the many occasions when G.o.d has been convicting others, and when He has wanted to convict us too. We have said in effect, "These things may be true of others, but not of me!" and we may have said so quite sincerely.

Perhaps we have heard of others who have humbled themselves and have rather despised them for the confessions they have had to make and the things they had to put right in their lives. Or perhaps we have been genuinely glad that they have been blessed. But, whichever it is, we don't feel that we have anything to be broken about ourselves.

Beloved, if we feel we are innocent and have nothing to be broken about, it is not that these things are not there, but that we have not seen them. We have been living in a realm of illusion about ourselves. G.o.d must be true in all that He says about us. In one form or another, He sees these things expressing themselves in us (unless we have recognised them and allowed G.o.d to deal with them)--unconscious selfishness, pride and self-congratulation; jealousy, resentment and impatience; reserve, fears and shyness; dishonesty and deception; impurity and l.u.s.t; if not one thing, then another. But we are blind to it. We are perhaps so occupied with the wrong the other man has done us, that we do not see that we are sinning against Christ in not being willing to take it with His meekness and lowliness. Seeing so clearly how the other man wants his own way and rights, we are blind to the fact that we want ours just as much; and yet we know there is something missing in our lives. Somehow we are not in vital fellowship with G.o.d.

We are not spiritually crisp. Our service does not "crackle with the supernatural." Unconscious sin is none the less sin with G.o.d and separates us from Him. The sin in question may be quite a small thing, which G.o.d will so readily show us, if we are only willing to ask Him.

There is yet another error we fall into, when we are not willing to recognise the truth of what G.o.d says of the human heart. Not only do we protest our own innocence, but we often protest the innocence of our loved ones. We hate to see them being convicted and humbled and we hasten to defend them. We do not want them to confess anything. We are not only living in a realm of illusion about ourselves, but about them too, and we fear to have it shattered. But we are only defending them against G.o.d--making G.o.d a liar on their behalf, as we do on our own, and keeping them from entering into blessing, as we do ourselves.

Only a deep hunger for real fellowship with G.o.d will make us willing to cry to G.o.d for His all-revealing Light and to obey it when it is given.

Justifying G.o.d.

That brings us to the Publican. With all that G.o.d says about the human heart in our minds, we can see that his confession of sin was simply a justifying of G.o.d, an admission that what G.o.d said of him was true. Perhaps like the Pharisee, he used not to believe that what G.o.d said about man was really true of him. But the Holy Spirit has shown him things in his life which prove G.o.d right, and he is broken.

Not only does he justify G.o.d in all that he has said, but he doubtless justifies G.o.d in all the chastening judgments G.o.d has brought upon him. Nehemiah's prayer might well have been his, "Howbeit Thou art just in all that is brought upon us; for Thou hast done right and we have done wickedly."[footnote10:Neh.9:33]

This is ever the nature of true confession of sin, true brokenness.

It is the confession that my sin is not just a mistake, a slip, a something which is really foreign to my heart ("Not really like me to have such thoughts or do such things!"), but that it is something which reveals the real 'I'; that shows me to be the proud, rotten, unclean thing G.o.d says I am; that it really is like me to have such thoughts and do such things. It was in these terms that David confessed his sin, when he prayed, "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight, that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest and be clear when Thou judgest."[footnote11:Psalm 51:4] Let us not fear then, to make such a confession where G.o.d convicts us that we must, thinking that it will "let Jesus down." Rather the reverse is true, for out of such confession G.o.d gets glory, for we declare Him to be right. This brings us to a new experience of victory in Christ, for it declares afresh, that "in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing,"[footnote12:Rom.7:18] and brings us to a place where we give up trying to make our incorrigible selves holy and where we take Jesus to be our holiness and His life to be our life.

Peace and Cleansing.

But the Publican did something more than justify G.o.d. He pointed to the sacrifice on the altar, and found peace with G.o.d and cleansing from sin, as he did so. That comes out in the literal meaning of the words which he uttered, "G.o.d be merciful to me, a sinner." In the Greek, the words mean literally, "G.o.d be propitiated to me, the sinner." The only way by which a Jew knew that G.o.d could be propitiated was by a sacrifice, and, in all probability, at that very hour the lamb for the daily burnt offering was being offered up on the altar in the temple.