4. The New Order of Ministry

I ask you to look at a verse or two more. Verse 12. I do not say much on that; but it seems beautiful to see the Lord going out and spending all night in prayer to God while moving about in service down here as the full channel of God’s grace. He has communion with God about the whole scene He was in. I hesitate to say much, for it is treading on holy ground—how His heart breathed out all that it knew into the ear of God, what it felt as the channel of the want and woe around. Then, coming back into service, He brought from God, because He was the dependent Man (I say it with reverence), the divine communications, according to which He acted. We know that He had His ear opened morning by morning. Thus all He did as the dependent Man was done perfectly, according to His Father’s Mind, according to the will of God. Everything was told to God in prayer, and the actings of grace were from the very heart of God. This marked the path of the Lord Jesus. Having spent the night in prayer, when it was day He called unto Him His disciples. (vv. 13, 16) We now get the new order of ministry, Judaism being set aside as a vessel unfit to hold the new wine. The Lord ordains new ministers. The temple and the synagogue services, the scribes and Pharisees, could not be ministers of this grace which was now flowing; therefore, the Lord sets it aside, and chooses new instruments. He chose twelve, the perfection of administration in man, because this grace of God was to flow through a full channel—those that had tasted the grace themselves. He calls them apostles. They are commissioned that they might go out and minister this grace. Thus, we get the vessels of the new wine; the Lord chooses them, “that they might be with Him” (Mark 3:14), and carry out the grace to others. Verse 17. He stood in the plain, more properly a plateau. He takes His place with His chosen ones, and stands there now with them, and a company of people from all parts around Him; and then we get the beautiful character of the new thing—the new wine is flowing out. “The whole multitude sought to touch Him; for there went virtue out of Him, and healed them all.” What a sight to see in this world! Here was the One that the synagogue rejects, the One they are filled with madness about, the One who has been all night in communion with God, the perfect Man. Then “He lifted up His eyes upon His disciples.” (v. 20) Not only does the new wine flow out and gladden weary hearts, while words of love and mercy fall upon their ears, or virtue went out and healed them; but we have now what it was to be brought into companionship and association with Him. His eyes are bent upon His disciples, and what does He say to His companions? “Blessed, blessed!” I may know what poverty is, or hunger, but if in His company, He says “blessed.” The synagogue, the established religion does not know it. Laodicea may be increased with goods, and have need of nothing; but to choose the company of Christ is to give up in this world. But what is it to find? What can we say we have found in His company? Have we heard Him, as it were, say, with His eyes bent upon us, “Well, if you are in my company, you are poor perhaps, and hungry, and weeping now, but you are blessed.” Laodicea rejoices now, laughs now. The great effort of the present day is to set up the first man again, to reinstate and improve him. Thus, Christ is not expected; for if you can set up the first man, you don’t want Christ to come. But if you feel the whole scene is a wilderness, you say, “Never till I am with Him shall I know fullness of joy.” In spirit we enter into it now. When our hearts get into His presence we do know. something of what fullness of joy means, that in His presence there is something that satisfies; and the more we find it, the more our hearts go after it. There is plenty to dishearten we think of what we find in ourselves and around us; but this is a comfort, that every little taste the Spirit of God gives us of Christ leads us to want more. It will be at an expense to ourselves. Perhaps I shall have to give up this or that—not in a legal sense—but I shall find that this or that hinders my having something more of Christ. It may be a struggle; but when we have found it—we shall say, “There is something in Christ so precious, it is worth giving up something that I may get it.” Blessed poor! Whose lips are saying it? They are in company with Jesus. So on the mount of transfiguration. They are down with their faces to the earth, and when they look up they see Jesus only. God fixes our eyes and hearts upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Here the Lord bends His eyes upon them. It is wonderful to think of the Lord’s eyes bent upon us, and His lips uttering such words. Does it come home to our hearts, “Blessed are ye?”
We have thus really the principles of Philadelphia and Laodicea. Philadelphia is association with the Lord Jesus Christ, and a heart that won’t be satisfied till He comes. And what then? The Lord says, “I have set before thee an open door.” If that is what we have chosen, we shall find hearts somewhere or other to minister to. It may be necessary at times to stand for the truth; but we don’t want to have our hearts down under the evil we may have to resist, but to have them in living association with Christ, so that the Lord may set before us an open door. We shall find it, saints poor and weary, if the Lord gives us to think of saints, or to carry the new wine to sinners, that their hearts may be filled with joy and gladness.
T. H. R.