04 - Chapter 04

Chapter 4 - Tuesday Evening, July 6th

------------------------------
(Although the Special Meetings were put off to July 12th, 13th and 14th, the Preliminary Evening Meetings were still continued.) St. John’s Gospel, Chapter 6.

Mr. Hudson Taylor said, ―“Whence are we to buy bread that these may eat?” The Lord very frequently asks us a question. Not that He needs our help; but He puts us into positions of great difficulty, for the purpose of instructing us, and preparing us for His solution of the problems. (Read to verse 21.)

These two miracles were so arranged as to precede the teaching which occupies the remainder of the chapter. They were appropriate miracles, and very comforting. Before our Lord taught His disciples that He was the true Bread, the Bread that endures, He brought them face to face with this problem of the multitudes who were needing rest and bread, and with the trial of the great storm in the darkness. All this was in preparation for the teaching that was to follow. So with regard to ourselves, it may be that before He pours out on us, and on Shan-si, an immense blessing, He is bringing us face to face with similar problems. The Master is saying to us, “Whence are we to buy bread?” You are saying, “What is to be done for T’ai-yüen, and all the towns around? We are so few and so weak. Here is Dr. Edwards, who has more to do than he has strength for; and what about the children in the schools, and the work outside? Whence shall we buy bread?” And our brethren from P’ing-yang can tell us that if they could multiply themselves a hundredfold, there would still remain need for more. It is a good thing to be brought to this point: We have no money, and there is no bread; but we have JESUS.

You know what follows. These disciples had not a very heavy bag for Judas to carry, I suspect; and while Philip says, “Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them that every one may take a little;” Andrew comes forward and says, “There is a lad here who has five barley-loaves and two small fishes, but what are these among so many?” It was not a heavy meal for them and their Master. For the multitudes it was as nothing; but He is all and in all; it is not a question of it, but of Him.

Now our Lord does not explain His plans to His disciples; but He says, “Make the people sit down.” I believe that before He gives us a full blessing, and takes us up and uses us, He says, “Be at rest in My presence; do not be asking for my plans.” Jesus is the great plan; and in the presence of Jesus Christ, no matter how large the need is, lie down and rest. “He maketh me to lie down.” He does this before “He leadeth me.” Everything in its own order. And He is the Lord Jesus in Shan-si; He is enough for Shan-si, from the Great Wall to Ho-nan. But where is He to be found? “Lo, I am with you always,” whether we realize it or not. But, oh, to realize it, and rest in His presence!

Then He took the little loaves and broke them; He filled their hands, and said, “Now go; you have not a large supply, but give what you have.” When we have gone out with not very much, and have begun to feed others, have not we ourselves had a grand meal? And been led to say, “If those I have spoken to have profited as much as I have, they have done well!”

It was so with the disciples. They received a piece of a loaf, and as they gave it out, they found it growing; and the Lord Jesus Christ was being magnified and growing too! If they did not every one of them feel, “We have a grander Saviour than we had any idea of,” they were very dull scholars indeed! But this was not sufficient. He had to send them out in the dark night, to toil in the rowing. The wind was contrary, and they could make no headway, and Jesus was not there! “If He had only come with us,” perhaps they thought, “we could have awakened Him.” But He was there, though they saw Him not; He was with them in spirit; and he was praying for them. When the time comes He draws near in person, and they are seized with fear. But He says unto them, “It is I, be not afraid.” Our greatest need and difficulties are the very inlets for the Saviour! And when the Master drew near what was the result? He spoke to them, He was recognized, and Peter says, “Lord, if it be Thou, command me to walk on the water too.”

There is something instructive about Peter’s appeal. If the Master can walk on the waters, why cannot those who are His, those who are one with Him, do so too? The Lord says, “Come, you will find sure footing;” and he did, while he looked on Jesus. But when he turned his eyes away, he began to sink at once; and then he uttered that beautiful prayer, “LORD, save me.” This is a favorite text with me in preaching to the Chinese. The “Lord” first, and in large characters; “me” last, and least in size; and the two joined together by the word “save;” as the Lord’s salvation unites me to Himself. If I am not strong or wise; if I am perplexed, or discouraged (though it is a sin to be discouraged—not merely a mistake: He will not fail nor be discouraged, and why should I?), whatever it is that I want saving about, for myself, my work, or the native Christians, I can cry, “LORD, save me.” To revert to our narrative. As soon as the Lord was put first and “me” last, Peter was all right: immediately the Saviour took him by the hand. Then we hear no more about the waves being rough: but that they are soon at their destination. And now our Lord gives us the beautiful teaching that follows, about Himself as the true Bread: He brings also a new, perfect gift to His people. He will be their spiritual Drink. The Blood, which up to this time it had been sin to taste, He gives us. If we put ourselves into the position of that multitude, who had been so strongly taught that the fat and the blood were the two things which they were never to touch, we shall realize how wonderful the words of Christ must have been to them. “My flesh is meat indeed” ―true meat, “and my blood is drink indeed” (John 6:55)—true drink.

“I am the Bread of life; he that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35)—not at any time. Has faith grasped this? Are we fully satisfied that, thought we have hungered a hundred times in the past, we shall never hunger again at any time? Do we know this in our hearts, accepting it by faith, because He has said it? Is this a thing as real and true to our apprehension as the fact that God has saved us with a full salvation? If not, if we ourselves are hungering, how can we feed others? This expression, “He that believeth on Me,” following the “He that cometh to Me,” means surely, he that by faith becomes united to Me, and thus is one with Me. But what is the object of being apprenticed to a builder but to learn to build? What is the outcome of being joined to a Saviour if we do not learn to save? Though we might ourselves be saved, should we be His disciples indeed?

He also gives us a precious word about abiding in Him. How is it to be brought about? “He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth (is abiding) in Me and I in him.” What an illustration food gives of abiding! What is food? It is something that is calculated to build up our bodies. We see a baby, it has become heavy ―where did the additional weight come from? It is caused by the food that abides in it; and our food not only abides in us, but we abide in it. So also with Christ: we feed on Christ, and think about Christ, and Christ builds us up. Thus abiding in Him, how truly we become one with Him, and grow up into Him. We cannot pick a man to pieces and take food out of him. We cannot reduce him to a baby again. And what shall separate us from the love of Christ? “Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (Romans 8:35) There shall be no picking us to pieces again, and reducing us to our baby state as Christians. But you say, “I have been feeding for years: yet the abiding is broken; how is this?” It may be that the eyes of your understanding need enlightening: you are not apprehending, and consequently not appropriating by faith, the fruits of abiding. For myself, I can say that for sixteen or seventeen years after my conversion I had no idea of what abiding in Christ was. I thought of it as attaining, as a hand over hand climbing, only possible to a spiritual athlete. That abiding is resting, as I am abiding in this chair, I had no idea. I thought it was a tremendous climb, needing the strength of a spiritual giant, but a hopeless task for a weak man like me. Then came home to me, “He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood is abiding in Me and I in him.” (John 6:56) I considered my body in relation to food: my hair, my nails, my skin as but transformed food, in which I was abiding, while the food was abiding in me. And so I learned what abiding in Christ is, and the importance of feeding on Him.

Now feeding is voluntary and active: abiding is passive; and it is not a thing of consciousness. I am as much abiding when asleep, as when preaching. Feeding is not a constant act: what should we say of any one who was always at the table? So we need not always be reading our Bibles, or be in the attitude of prayer all day long in order to abide in Christ. Let us feed on Him, and then go about our duty, knowing that so doing we are abiding in Him and He in us.

We cannot bear fruit if we are not abiding: fruit is the evidence of abiding. Now the fruits of abiding must be claimed by faith. What are they? Answers to prayer, abundant fruitfulness, and a Christ-like walk. “He that abideth in Me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit;” (John 15:5) and fruit that shall remain or abide.

Let me refer, in conclusion, to two points which are essential to our success—

1. All the loaves and fishes must be given to the Lord Jesus. Unless there is absolute consecration of all we have, and all we are, the multitude will not be fed. If the Lord is to create and multiply, it might seem to make no difference whether there is one loaf or a dozen; nevertheless, if the disciples had said, “we must keep half of them for ourselves,” what a blessing they would have lost! In my own early life, as many of you know, I nearly lost a great blessing by wanting to keep back a paltry half-a-crown. The last penny we have must be put into the Lord’s hands. If we keep back one penny what does it show? An independent proprietorship. Unless the Lord Jesus is Lord of all He is not Lord at all. If I can keep back a single thing from Him, I make myself an independent proprietor. If there is anything I hold back, I dethrone Him; and hence I lose the blessing.

2. Then we need to come into close contact with the Lord. A very little thing coming between objects or surfaces will prevent union. If you cut yourself, the thinnest film placed between the raw surfaces will preclude union. We must come to Him and into Him if we are to obtain blessing. I believe, too, that there must be heart contact, and personal contact, with the Chinese, if we are to become a blessing to them. There is wonderful instruction in the way in which the Lord Jesus wrought His works of mercy. He touched the leper and the blind when He healed them.

There is a mighty power in contact. The woman felt that if she only touched the hem of His garment she would be healed; and the Saviour felt that virtue went out of Him. If we keep so far away from the people that they cannot touch even the hem of our garment, how will virtue go out? They are not clean, and sometimes we are tempted to draw our skirts together; but I believe there is no blessing when that is the case. The Lord Jesus became a curse for us, and in that way delivered us from the curse. There is power in drawing near to this people. A poor woman in Ch’entu, when she heard of Mrs. Riley’s death said, “What a loss to us! She used to take hold of my hand, and comfort me so.” If you put your hand on the shoulder of a man there is power in it. Any Christian, full of the Holy Ghost, may often impart blessing thus. Contact is a real power that we may use for God. THE TRUE VINE.

“The living Vine, Christ chose it for Himself:―

“God gave to man for use and sustenance “Corn, wine, and oil, and each of these is good:

“And Christ is Bread of Life and Light of Life.

“But yet, He did not choose the summer corn, “That shoots up straight and free in one quick growth, “and has its day, and is done, and springs no more;

“Nor yet the olive, all whose boughs are spread “In the soft air, and never lose a leaf, “Flowering and fruitful in perpetual peace;

“But only this for Him and His in one,―

“The everlasting, ever-quickening Vine, “That gives the heat and passion of the world, “Through its own life-blood, still renewed and shed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * “The Vine from every living limb bleeds wine;

“Is it the poorer for that spirit shed?

“The drunkard and the wanton drink thereof;

“are they the richer for that gift’s excess?

“Measure thy life by loss instead of gain;

“Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth;

:For love’s strength standeth in love’s sacrifice;

“and whoso suffers most hath most to give.”

H.E.H. King.