Reading: Isa. 1:9; Rom.
9:27,29; 11:2-5,26; Isa. 8:17-18.
"To him that
overcometh..." (Rev. 2:7, etc).
"And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and
because of the word of their testimony" (Rev. 12:11).
Our message is concerning
Overcomer Testimony. We first of all passed our eye over the
Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation with a view to taking
account of the fact of Overcomers in Scripture, then we spent
much time on the nature and function of overcomers; we spoke of
it in the first place negatively, what Overcomers are not - they
do not stand related to anything partial; Overcomer Testimony
embraces the whole counsel of God. Coming to this matter
positively, we sought to see that God has vast, immense thoughts
and intentions concerning His creation, far too great for our
comprehension at any given time, far too great for any one or any
small company of the Lord's people to comprehend even in
eternity. It will take a vast multitude which no man can number
to grow into the fulness of God's thoughts and purposes, and it
will take the ages of the ages to express those thoughts in that
great multitude. They are not just abstract ideas, but they have
been embodied in His Son, and to know the thoughts and the
purposes of God is a matter of vital union with the Lord Jesus;
to come under the hand of the Holy Spirit to be dealt with and to
be taken through experience after experience in which it is
absolutely necessary to our very life to make some new discovery
of Christ. It is knowledge of Christ in life, in growth, on the
principle of the Body, the principle of organic life, development
by life. We said finally that fulness - and it is that for which
Overcomers exist - is governed by two things. First, life and
spirituality: Divine life constituting us spiritual people with
spiritual minds, spiritual understanding, spiritual conceptions.
Secondly, relatedness - fulness rests upon relatedness; there is
no such thing as individual fulness in the thought of God,
fulness is corporate, making necessary spiritual, vital, organic
relationship between the Lord's people.
We proceed from that point. We
just say in going on that the nature of Overcomers is that of
those who are firstly in the freedom, power, freshness and
progress of resurrection life. That will interpret the messages
to the seven churches for you at once; that will explain
Overcomers in all ages; those who are in the freedom, the power,
the freshness, the progressiveness of resurrection life; for
resurrection is emancipation, it is liberation. Resurrection is
power, even "the exceeding greatness of his power...
according to that working of the strength of his might which he
wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead" (Eph.
1:19-20). Resurrection is freshness, it is a new beginning, it is
a begetting again unto a living hope (1 Pet. 1:3). And
resurrection is not something once for all; it is the beginning
of an eternal expansion, continuous enlargement. That is the
power of His resurrection, that is the life which is the
inheritance and the birthright of the Lord's people, and
Overcomers are to be the embodiment of that.
Secondly, Overcomers are,
therefore, those who are held together by life. I think it wants
but a very casual glance at spiritual history to see that
Overcomer Testimony has been defeated by the disintegration of
the Lord's people; their separations, their breakings up, their
schisms, their divisions. It is all Satan's way of countering the
testimony of Jesus. Overcomers are not those who go in for
Christian unity and try to find some basis upon which they can be
all agreed and stick to it as long as they can. No, it is
something deeper than that; it is inwrought in the power of an
indestructible life, held together by life, so that the final
emergence of an Overcomer company is one, a Man-child called
'they'. "She was delivered of a son, a man child";
"and they overcame him because of the blood of the
Lamb" - passing almost immediately from the singular to the
plural about the same object; an organic whole.
Features of
the Overcomer
Now let us get nearer to this
thing. Come to the actual word; in the Old Testament you will
have recognized that very largely the Overcomers are called a
Remnant. We have read some passages in which that word appears.
"Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small
remnant" (Isa. 1:9); "Though thy people Israel be as
the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them shall return"
(Isa. 10:22). That is the Old Testament name, especially in the
latter part of the Old Testament, for Overcomers. The New
Testament word is Overcomers. Let us get back to this Old
Testament word, because it is tremendously enlightening. I make
no claims to be a Hebrew scholar, but a lexicon and a concordance
are very useful things, and the Hebrew concordance is very
enlightening on this word. There are at least five words employed
for this general idea, but every word has its own aspect of an
Overcomer. I want to give you just the sense of the five words.
1. Triumph
over Corruption of Death
Firstly, there is the word for
remnant which is in the sense of that which has escaped
corruption, something which lives in spite of death; that which
has escaped the corruption of death, and lives in spite of death.
You hardly need go further to get your idea of Overcomer. Is not
that the very thing with which the book of the Revelation is
introduced, and is not that introduction to the book of the
Revelation the basis of the Divine appeal and challenge? "I
am he that liveth; I became dead, but behold, I am alive unto the
ages of the ages and have the keys of death and of Hades"
(Rev. 1:18). And at the beginning of the Church's history when it
as a whole was in the Overcomer position, the great proclamation
by the witness concerning the Lord Jesus and His crucifixion,
death and burial, was this - a quotation from the Old Testament -
"It was not possible that he should be holden of death. For
David said concerning him... Thou wilt not leave my soul in
Hades, neither wilt thou give thy Holy One to see
corruption" (Acts 2:24-27). Therefore God raised Him from
the dead. "Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades";
"and have the keys of death and Hades", complete
mastery of death. "Thou will not suffer thy Holy One to see
corruption", "He whom God raised up saw no
corruption" (Acts 13:37) is the Apostle's testimony. And
here is this Old Testament word used by the Holy Spirit for a
Remnant which just simply means that escape from corruption,
living in spite of death. The Adversary's great effort all the
way through is to corrupt the people of God, and in bringing them
into spiritual death to bring them to corruption spiritually, to
disintegrate them by spiritual death, somehow; to reverse the
testimony of Jesus in His Body, the Church, to contradict the
great primal fact that death and corruption have been vanquished
by Him fully and finally; first, spiritually in its principle,
and finally physically in its outworking. The story of the book
of the Revelation in its beginnings is of death and corruption in
the churches. You have no need that I even mention those words,
those statements, indicating death and corruption in the
churches; and right into the midst of that the Lord says -
"He that overcometh..." An Overcomer is one who escapes
corruption and lives even though death is all around. It is a
living people in the presence of spiritual death which is working
amongst the Lord's people - I am not talking about the world -
spiritual death, decline, break up, disintegration; yes, and
corruption, mixture, false elements are abroad amongst
Christians, and in the midst of it all the Lord is seeking that
body, that company, which has escaped the corruption and lives
triumphant over death. So much for the first of these five words.
2.
Freedom from Slavery
There is another word which
just means that which has escaped from slavery and is breathing
free air. That is a fine picture, a fine portrait for Overcomers
- that which has escaped from slavery and is breathing free air.
I dare not stay to interpret that. Some of us, even in our
Christian lives and histories, know what it is to escape from
slavery. Oh, the old bondage of the Christian system and order,
expectation and demand, all the old rota and legality! - to be
free of it all! Not only to be raised with Christ, but to have
the grave-clothes taken off and to be breathing the free air of
the spiritually emancipated! That is what this word calls a
remnant, and that is not something extra to Christianity. It is
exactly what you find at the beginning with the Church. The Lord
had cried in the midst of a burdened, tyrannised, religious
nation - "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn
of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest
unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is
light" (Matt. 11:28-30). What is the old yoke, the old
burden, which has harassed and worn these people so that they are
weary to death, drawing out His compassionate appeal - "Come
unto me, and I will give you rest"? It is the old yoke and
burden of legalistic religion, 'thou shalt' and 'thou shalt not':
'you must' and 'you must not' - the whole system built up like
that, a great burden. "They bind heavy burdens." He
said "and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's
shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with their
finger" (Matt. 23:4). And this word for remnant means such
as have escaped slavery and are breathing the free air. You find
them in the beginning of the book of the Acts. Overcomers are
those who go back to the beginning in experience. They do not
take up something further which is deeper teaching, fuller light.
It is the primal freshness and fulness of Christ that Overcomers
represent - unfortunately, in contrast to the general situation.
3. The
Retaining of Excellence
And the next word for remnant
is that which is sometimes translated 'residue', in the sense of
those who retain excellence in spite of deterioration. It very
aptly describes Overcomers. Deterioration is almost universal;
that does not need arguing, everyone will agree, it is not
necessary to make out a case. There are very few people who, in
their most honest hearts, are not very much concerned about the
spiritual state of things. Overcomers are those who retain
excellence over against deterioration. That is what the Lord
wants and, because the Lord wants it, it is possible, and because
He both wants it and makes it possible, if we will come the
Lord's way, we can know it. This excellence, again, is not
something added to Christianity. It was said of Israel that they
were a chosen race - "Ye are an elect race, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession,
that ye may shew forth the excellencies of him who called
you out of darkness into his marvellous light" (1 Pet. 2:9),
and the Overcomers are those who are fulfilling the original
purpose of their calling - to show forth the excellence,
retaining excellence today, when the general impression is
anything but that of His excellencies.
4. The
Finding of Refuge
The next word is that which is
best translated, I think, into our English word with which we
have become sadly familiar in recent days - a refugee; the
essence of this word is that. It means one who has left a region
of desolation and found refuge from desolation - a fine thought
for Overcomers. It is possible to know spiritual desolation even
amongst the people of God, to know desolation of heart even in
the Christian Church. So many write to us and speak to us - 'The
place where I attend is a desolation, there is no food, there is
no life, it is all barren and dead; what are we to do?' And that
is a Christian church, so called; a Christian circle. Yes, we say
it quietly because we do not gloat over that; it is the opposite
of that that is in our thought. We have to take note of facts,
and these are facts, that there is spiritual desolation today in
Christendom and often even in evangelical circles; starvation and
death, and the Overcomer, the remnant, are those who have left
that region of desolation spiritually and have found food, come
into life, into wealth, into spiritual affluence, who have found
the realm of heart satisfaction. That is how it was at the
beginning.
5. Survival
Then, finally, there is the
word for remnant which just means survivor and survival. The
picture is that of one who has squeezed through a narrow opening
into liberty, and who is alone left, but being alone left, is
living and free, a survivor. We know all too much of the tragedy
of that word in these days. The ships that have gone down, the
lifeboats packed, one after another dying from exposure and
starvation, and one left at last and rescued, a survivor perhaps
of a whole ship or at least of a boat-load, having, so to speak,
squeezed through the narrow opening between life and death, alone
but living and free. It may take a little while to recover from
the suffering; but the realization, - I am alive, they are all
dead and I am alive and I am out, I have escaped, they have all
perished! is a tremendous thing to such an individual; to be one
who has squeezed through that narrow gate and is alive; of course
it is a great responsibility, but all that is crowded into a
single Hebrew word for remnant. I am not saying that any one of
these words fully describes the Overcomer, but put them all
together and you get the Overcomer. The final thing is - Out,
survived, living and free! It is unto that that the Lord has
called us, to realize something of the narrow escape we have had,
what a thing it is to be alive in the Lord. How many there are
who do not know the life that we are enjoying. In this world we
are survivors, living and free, and that, tragically enough,
amongst many Christians who have been engulfed. We are defining
the nature of Overcomers, and that is what it is.
Overcomers
for Signs and for Wonders
Now let us pass on quite
quickly for a few minutes. There came a point at which God broke
with the nation, Israel, as a whole, and gave Himself up to the
Remnant. We have read those words in Isa. 8 - "Behold, I and
the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and
for wonders in Israel". "I and the children
whom God hath given me". First of all, see what that meant
in the case of Israel and Isaiah the prophet. It meant that God
had brought into being that little family, that little domestic
circle, in such a way, and had preserved and maintained and
succoured in such a way as to serve Him in this capacity of
putting them right in the midst of Israel, to be firstly, for
signs; that is, to signify something, to imply and indicate
something about God and God's thought and mind concerning His
people. There is a very great mistake being made just now of
taking the Hebrew prophets and using them to the nation, the
British nation and the nations. It is a mistake. You cannot put
the British nation or any other nation in the place of Israel.
The nation is the Lord's people, the holy nation, and it is to
the holy nation that the prophets have their message and
ministry, and it is through the holy nation that the nations are
to be fed. Here the Lord broke with the whole nation, Israel, and
gave Himself up to the Remnant, and that Remnant was to be like
Isaiah and the children whom God had given him for signs, to
signify in their own being, in their own constitution, in the way
in which the Lord had brought them into being and had dealt with
them, how the Lord was related to them, to signify what His
thought was to all His people. That is the function of a remnant.
"And for wonders in Israel", and, dear friends, you
cannot have the background of wonders without being put into the
position where it wants a wonder to bring you out on top so that
you say, It is a wonder I am alive, it is a wonder that I
survived that I got through, that I am where I am today; only God
could have done it! And that is what the Remnant is for - to show
what a wonderful God He is in our experience. That is not
something extra, that is basic. "The exceeding greatness of
his power to us-ward who believe according to that working of the
strength of his might which he wrought in Christ, when he raised
him from the dead". The greatest wonder of all is the
resurrection of Christ; and the maintaining of a people in
resurrection life in a world like this and in the midst of the
awful forces of evil which are set for their undoing and setting
aside. In life - yes, in life, not in existence but in life, and
the maintaining of life in any measure of fulness and victory is
a wonder. The Lord wants to get hold of a people who will serve
Him in this capacity as signs, signifying His mind in their own
being, their own history, an example of what the Lord wants for
all His people.
But do not forget, the writer
of the letter to the Hebrews lays hold of that fragment in Isa. 8
and he brings it in in the second chapter. "Since then the
children are sharers in flesh and blood, he also himself in like
manner partook of the same". The quotation comes right in in
that connection. "Behold, I and the children which God hath
given me". "Both he that sanctifieth and they that are
sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to
call them brethren, saying... Behold, I and the children which
God hath given me". That is a basic and original idea, that
union with Christ basically and subsequently, not at an advanced
point, but union with Christ is supposed to have this very
element and nature. "I and the children whom God hath given
me are for signs and for wonders". Our very union with
Christ is supposed to be a wonder and a signification right at
its beginning. To recover that is the work of Overcomers. We are
on the function now. You see, the Remnant and Overcomers have as
their function to be God's vantage ground in a day of widespread
spiritual declension and failure, to be vantage points, that upon
which God can act and say, not, This is my idea for you,
but, Here is my thought positively expressed, here is the
thing that I am after! That is the function of Overcomers, to be
to God like that. "I and the children whom God hath given me
are for signs and for wonders". Here is the thing, God is
saying. Look at this, look at Isaiah and his children, look at
Christ and His own as God wills them to be and you have what I am
after, what my mind is! The remnant is for that, God's vantage
ground in a day of declension to show the thing to others.
The Overcomer
Remnant in Relation to the Whole
That is not all, by a long way.
May I just say this one more word before I conclude this part.
There is an allusion in the original statement and in its
citation in Romans. "Except the Lord of hosts had left unto
us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, we should
have been like unto Gomorrah". There is an allusion there.
The allusion is to Abraham, and it brings right into view that
scene, that marvellous scene, of Abraham challenging and arguing
with and persuading God, and God lending Himself to the challenge
and listening to the argument and yielding to the persuasion. If
there are fifty righteous, will you not destroy? And the Lord
says, If I can find fifty righteous, I will spare the place for
their sakes. He cannot find fifty righteous, and Abraham
gradually reduces it and God yields to him every time. If I can
find ten righteous, will you spare the cities? Yes, if you find
ten. And he went and you may be sure he scoured the cities
thoroughly to find ten righteous people. He had to come back and
say, I cannot find any. God says, If only you could have found a
remnant, I would have saved the whole. That is the argument of
Isaiah and of Paul, and that is why I brought together those two
passages: "Even now there is a remnant." 'Therefore
shall all Israel be saved': the vocational aspect of being an
Overcomer. It is not just for ourselves to get the extra glory
and blessing. It is related to the service of God, serving God
and serving Him in respect of all His people. Now, that is
something that wants enlarging upon. I can see now something in
those words "And his servants shall serve him and they shall
see his face" (Rev. 22:3-4). Is that everybody? No.
God's
thought concerning His Church is that it should be gathered out
of the nations, slowly but surely formed into a bride worthy of
giving to His Son as a gift, without spot or blemish or any such
thing; given to Christ as His bride to be for Him the instrument,
the agency of filling and fulfilling the coming Kingdom
throughout the ages. That is God's thought about the Church. Can
we say that that is being realised in any commensurate way? No,
but God holds to His thought and He seeks an inner company whom
we are calling a remnant or an Overcomer company to stand for Him
in this service, to be a link between Him and His full thought in
His people, and to be that instrument for the realisation of His
full thought, to serve Him, to see His face. What is that? - to
be to His Son the agency of filling the Kingdom and fulfilling
the Kingdom in the days to come. That is tremendous service. It
is unto that that the Overcomers are called. If you want to be in
the work of the Lord, if you want to be the Lord's servants, it
is not given to a special class called ministers and
missionaries. It is to a whole company, to every one who
overcomes. "He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit
down with me in my throne" (Rev. 3:21); "will I give to
eat of the tree of life" (Rev. 2:7). These are all things
symbolic of that full thought of God concerning His Church,
gathered up and expressed firstly in Overcomers.