Reading: Rev. 1:12-20.
In our previous
meditation, we said that there are three things about the
candlestick. One is its function, another its character
and a third its form. We have already considered its
function. Let us proceed to say a little about the
others.
Its
Character, All of God
The character of the
candlestick - the statement is, "all of gold".
Whenever this means of testimony is brought into view,
whether in Exodus 25 or in Zechariah 4 or in Rev. 1, it
is always stated to be of gold. We all understand that in
the Word of God gold is the symbol for what is of God.
This candlestick is of God; man has no place in it. As to
its character, it is of God.
The
Outcome of Suffering
But it is gold refined
in the fire. Yes, it is all of God in itself, but when it
comes into relation to us, when it becomes associated
with the Church, with the people of God here, we find
this extra factor comes in, that it is the outcome of
fiery ordeal, it is that which is born of suffering and
of travail.
We must always
discriminate in the sufferings of Christ. There are two
sides to them. There are His atoning sufferings, which
are uniquely His, and no one has any part in them; but
there are those others which relate to His representative
work as perfecting unto glory, the destroying of the
ground of Satan's power. Now in Himself, of course, there
was no ground of Satan's power; He was without sin; but
at the same time He did take the place of man to be
tested along one line, that is, as to whether he would
exercise that Divinely-given responsibility of freewill
in His own interests as apart from and independently of
God. It was not that there was a wrong will in Him; but
to what would He hand His sinless will? He was tested as
to the use of that sacred gift and responsibility of
choice, tested in the fires of terrible adversity, in
sufferings of all kinds; and the one issue in every
suffering was - would He choose other than God's will, in
order that by so choosing He could be free from His
suffering, He could escape and have an easier time? That
was representative suffering. It is the suffering that we
are in, and He was tested in all points like as we; in
His case without sin inwardly, but on the same ground as
we in this sense - there were intense fires of suffering,
and He had only to hand His will over to Satan and take
it out of the hands of His Father, and He could be free
from it all. Would He do it on any consideration?
Having said that, we
find that this is the point where testimony comes in. It
is here the testimony becomes something more than words,
truths and doctrines; it becomes something very real, it
becomes power, effectiveness, impact, when it is
established through suffering. I do want that we should
be helped to see this thing. I believe it would help us a
great deal if we could grasp it. While the Lord has
called us to serve Him, and the majority of Christians
interpret the Lord's service in terms of many outward
activities - such as preaching the Gospel to the unsaved,
or fulfilling a teaching ministry, or doing many things
in different ways and of different categories, all of
which are included in His calling and we must not in any
way fail to recognise our responsibilities in those
matters - we must, at the same time, see very clearly
that it does not matter how much, how earnestly, how
continuously we serve the Lord in those outward ways, we
yet do not escape intense suffering. It might be thought
that if only you are doing the Lord's work, going where
He has sent you, doing the thing He has called you to do,
knowing of absolutely nothing that is contrary to His
mind, and being very open to Him and constantly having
dealings with Him that there shall be nothing that
offends Him, then the Lord ought to facilitate the doing
of this work by every means in His power, acting
sovereignly and allowing no hindrances, no adversities,
never allowing you to be laid up or put out of the work
to which He has called you. But it never was like that
and it never will be.
Suffering
Inevitable for Vital Testimony
Look at your New
Testament; you can look at it from three standpoints.
Firstly from the standpoint of the great servants of the
Lord upon whom rested tremendous responsibility as the
pioneers and the foundation layers of the gospel for this
whole dispensation; consider the work that they did.
Surely the Lord wanted the gospel preached in Asia and in
Europe and everywhere? Surely He wanted those churches
established? Yes, there is no question about it. Look how
utterly abandoned to the Lord these men were, and see
what close accounts they kept with the Lord as to their
lives, that there should be nothing offending to Him -
men simply poured out for God, and yet they talk about
Satan hindering (1 Thess. 2:18), and of being desperately
ill. "Epaphroditus... was sick nigh unto death: but
God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me
also, that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow"
(Phil. 2:26-27). The Lord's servants were thrown into
prison, on to beds of sickness, meeting every kind of
adversity, all seeming to say that there is every
imaginable hindrance and limitation and frustration of
this very thing that God wants done. What a
contradiction! There is something wrong somewhere! No! In
the case of these very men it was like that. They did not
escape suffering, suffering of every kind.
Then there is the
second standpoint, that of the individual churches, or
the churches in the different areas. There are not many
churches written to and represented in the New Testament
without some reference being made to their sufferings.
What those churches had to suffer! It was all in line
with the Lord's purpose. They were there in the will of
God, they were standing for God, they had come right out
for God, but He did not shield them. He did not say to
Satan, 'That is sacred to Me; touch not Mine anointed.'
They suffered, and they were told that they would suffer;
it was inevitable.
Then there is the third
standpoint, that of the Church universal. What a history!
This sacred thing, this precious thing, this pearl of
great price, this wife of the Lamb, what a history of
suffering, of suffering unto death! Those early
martyrdoms under Nero when thousands were just torn to
pieces by wild beasts - what a story! The Lord did not
intervene with an angel to save them; they went through
it.
The
Lord More Concerned for a Testimony Than For A Work
What does this mean? It
means that the Lord is more concerned for a testimony
than for a work. We need to get clear on that. A good
deal of confusion comes in when you begin to think of
things in the light of a work. When you get a lot of
people leaving their employment to go into 'the work,'
all kinds of complications arise; and really the Lord is
not, in the first place, after the work. I am not saying
you are not to work for the Lord, but in the first place
it is not the work the Lord is after, it is a testimony,
it is a fight, a living flame. As I was saying, it is
here that testimony becomes something more than a system
of truth and teaching. Do not be too concerned to pass
off on to other people certain terms, certain ideas,
certain truths. 'Have you seen the truth of this? Have
you seen the truth of that?' What you mean by such
language is truth as a teaching, as a concept. Be
infinitely more concerned that there shall be a living
impact of life, before you say anything. People will see
you have something before you speak. 'You have something
I need.' That is the testimony. That is only born of
suffering.
"To you it hath
been granted in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe
on him, but also to suffer in his behalf" (Phil.
1:29). It is granted to you! You will not reach
out your hands eagerly to receive that! It is given, a
gift - to suffer for Him. The testimony comes that way.
If you ever should think that in getting into the work of
God you are going to find a good deal of gratification
and satisfaction and pleasure, that it is going to answer
to something in you that you long for - to be 'in the
Lord's work'! - you are destined to disillusionment, for
you will find that it might have been easier for you to
have stayed where you were than to get into what you call
the Lord's work.
Let me say further that
it is just here that real effectiveness is secured - at
the point where suffering begins. It is a law established
now in this very universe since Adam failed, that every
bit of fruitfulness of the earth, of human lives in every
realm, is the outcome of travail, the result of some
fiery ordeal. Fruit for God in the spiritual realm, the
real effectiveness of testimony, is born of suffering and
travail. It is here again that the Lord gets something
more than our activities. He gets something which cannot
be expressed in mere language, that is, in terms of
truth; something which cannot be found in mere external
activities. It is something wrung out of the soul, it is
the travail of the soul, that satisfies God. It is there
that He gets something.
That
To Which the Holy Spirit Commits Himself
Now, this is the
character of that which has the testimony; and being
like that - something dealt with in the fire, and which
is not the fruit of only one fiery ordeal but of many -
that is the thing to which the Holy Spirit commits
Himself. You notice in Zech. 4, where the prophet
describes what he saw - the candlestick all of gold, the
olive trees, and the oil flowing from the olive trees to
the candlestick, maintaining the living flame - the next
declaration that is made is, "This is the word of
the Lord... Not by might, nor by power, but by my
Spirit". To what does the Holy Spirit commit
Himself? We pause here to ask ourselves, What can we do
without the Holy Spirit, after all? What is the use of
anything without Him? There is not a Christian who will
not readily assent to this, that if the Holy Spirit is
not with us, we had better give up. We are absolutely
dependent on Him, there can be nothing without Him. What,
then, is it to which He will commit Himself? It is to a
candlestick like this - something born of the fire, the
furnace, something wrought and beaten out with hammer
blows. Yes, hammer blows - but not of God's hand. Oh, do
not be mistaken about this! It is not God's hand that is
striking you. Satan says that it is God Who is striking
you, and all the time it is Satan himself.
There is only one
passage where God is revealed as the striker of one of
His own, and that is Isaiah 53, and the Stricken One is
His own Son. We read, "we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted". But that refers to
the work of atonement. God is not striking you and me in
that way. Dr. Pierson illustrated it in this way. He had
been down to the smithy and seen the smith and his helper
at work. They had the iron upon the anvil, taken out of
the fire, glowing, flaming. The smith himself had a
little hammer, just a little one, but his helper had a
big one. The smith just touched the iron and then the
other man came down with a terrific blow at the place
touched. The smith rapped again, at another spot, with
the little hammer and down came the heavy hammer at that
spot. A little boy looking on, said, 'What a silly thing!
Why does the smith have such a little hammer?' Dr.
Pierson said, 'My boy, he is only pointing out the place
where the blow needs to be struck, and he is leaving the
other one to do the striking'. Dr. Pierson says it is
very often like that. The Lord sees something that needs
dealing with, straightening out; He just indicates, and
the devil does the rest. So the Lord is making the devil
do His work to perfect His saints. It does seem to be
true in principle. Do not let the enemy tell you that it
is the Lord Who is doing all this hitting and knocking
about. It is the devil who is doing it, and the Lord is
letting him and using him. The fact is that what God is
after is a wrought work, a beaten work. It is the result
of first, the fire, and then many a blow. It is after
many a blow that God gets something more in our lives, or
something in our lives is taken out of the way. Any
vessel that has not gone this way is only a candlestick
without a flame - an ornament There are plenty of
beautiful ornaments in the way of candlesticks, but that
will not do. The Holy Spirit commits Himself to the thing
that has gone through the fire.
The
Form of the Candlestick - Plurality in Oneness
Now a word or two about
the third thing in connexion with the candlestick - the
form of it. We have the full description in Ex. 25.
Summing it all up, it amounts to this - it is something
corporate. It is a plurality in oneness. There are six
branches to the central stem. In the Revelation, the
figure somewhat changes but the principle does not. There
we read of seven golden lamp-stands, but there is One
like unto the Son of man in the midst, and He holds them
all in His hand. He makes them one by His own person. It
is the oneness of one Divine Man, and yet multiple; many,
but One. My thought here is this - that God gets His
testimony in fulness, not in detached and unrelated
individuals or parties but in something that has been
wrought into a oneness by His fires. Oh, when God really
does weld children of His together through suffering, you
have something very precious to the Lord. When we have
gone through the fires together, have met the sufferings
and the sorrows through the years together, and by reason
of them God has done something in making us one - not the
oneness of an outward arrangement, an outward agreement -
and in the sufferings Satan has not been able to disrupt
and divide; then there is something which is very
precious. You notice Satan always tries to use suffering
to divide. When you suffer, your first inclination is to
separate yourself, to get away, or to blame somebody
else. That is the work of Satan. When God brings two or
more, a company, into His fires, He is seeking to remove
all that personal element that detaches and divides and
separates and sets against, and to bring together. If you
have never suffered together, you do not know what true
unity is. Those who have gone through life together in
trial and adversity attain to a maturity which is very
precious; it is thicker than blood.
Oneness
Through Suffering
It is something like
that between the Lamb and the bride, and it is to be like
that between the members of His Body. It will only be
brought about by suffering. Therefore God allows
companies to suffer. A church goes through trial
together; it comes out with something of an inwrought
oneness which represents something very much of God. You
cannot explain this except from God's standpoint. It is
something very precious to God. It is therefore
significant that when this presentation of the Son of man
in the midst of the golden candlesticks is given, the
very first thing that is said about Him is that He is
clothed with a garment down to the foot. Before you begin
to touch on details, aspects, you get the whole - that
seamless robe, that garment which envelopes all, that
which brings every member into oneness, that which makes
Him complete, one Person, the Son of man; one garment
from head to foot. You see the point.
He is coming to the
churches, and the first church is Ephesus; and He will
speak there about first love. Oh, the fires of Ephesus!
What fires that church went through! Evidently, there was
some very wonderful love wrought into that church. Now
He, clothed in His all-embracing, all-encompassing robe,
comes to Ephesus and says, 'Something has happened here,
something has gone wrong, first love has been left'.
Oneness has come out of His death, His Cross. In the
power of His resurrection He has overcome all that is
against oneness - all division, all schism; He has
destroyed it in His death. He comes forth as the One in
the encompassing of one robe from head to foot. Now He
finds what is so contrary to the work of His Cross -
division, loss of the first love. The thought is this -
that we have to go into the Cross in this sense, that we
have to know the suffering which gets rid of the self,
which deals with all that divides, we have to come up out
of a travail into a fire-produced oneness, and the Lord
gets His satisfaction.
This is not meant to be
oppressive, but it is something we have to look at. We
are concerned about effectiveness, what we have called
impact, spiritual influence; not words, not teaching, not
a framework of things, not a form, but the flame which is
something so much more than words, the registration of
that power of living light. That is what the Lord is
after, and that is why He deals with us as He does. We
have to commit ourselves to this. It will help us to
understand the meaning of our sufferings. May the Lord
give us grace to do the hardest thing for anyone to do
naturally, that is, to give a new interpretation to
suffering - that it is a deposit, a trust. It is
something which has bound up with it the real thing that
we are after. If I understand the Christian life and the
ways of God at all, I have found it always to be like
this, and I have seen it so often, that when people have
asked the Lord for more power, more life, more blessing,
more spiritual wealth, for some gain - when they have
really meant it, it has not been long before they have
gone into something exceedingly testing, and the Lord has
answered their prayer in that way. They did not ask for
that; probably they would not have asked for anything if
they had known what would result; but that is how the
Lord does it in the mystery of His ways. Let us see that
it is real value He is after. He does not protect from
adversity anything that is most precious to Him. It is
that which is precious to Him which He seems to feel is
most worthy of His refining fire.