View Full Transcript
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Isaiah, chapter 54, verse eleven. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted. Behold, I will set thy stones in fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires, and I will make thy pinnacles of rubies, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy border of precious stones, stones and all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be established, thou shalt be far from oppression, for thou shalt not fear and from terror, for it shall not come near thee. Behold, they may gather together, but not by me. Whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall because of thee. Verse 17 no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.
[00:01:19] Now you will remember that we spoke last Sunday morning of the necessity of travail, that in the work of God and in the ministry of God there must be travail. It is an essential and elementary principle. Without travail there can be no new life. Without travail there can be no full formation of Christ in believers. Without travail there can be nothing of true worth and value for eternity. And without travail there can be nothing in which God himself can take delight and joy over. Travail is a principle, and it is an essential principle in the work of God. And you will note in this remarkable passage in Isaiah 54 that it is to the servants of the Lord that this word is given.
[00:02:19] This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me.
[00:02:27] So here we are looking at the condition of God's servant. He is afflicted, he is tossed with tempest.
[00:02:43] He is afflicted in the sense that somehow or other he is humbled, he is restricted, he is limited, he is lowered, he is brought down, he is made of nothing, he is of no reputation, he is tossed with tempest. The idea is of something enveloping, enwrapping him on all sides, huge waves and dark clouds that blot out the sun and blot out even any vision on the horizontal level. He cannot see up, and he cannot see either way. All he can see is tempest. He is tossed with tempest, up and down and up and down, and this way and that way. What a condition.
[00:03:34] But the most remarkable thing of all about the condition of God's servant here described is not that he is afflicted. We know that through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God.
[00:03:48] And it is not that he is tossed with tempest. We know that in the world we shall have tribulation.
[00:03:57] But the most remarkable thing of all is the last phrase. And not comforted.
[00:04:05] Not comforted. Afflicted. Tossed with tempest and not comforted. And you all remember that last week we spoke about the need of this type of servant that the Lord can put in the front line of the battle and doesn't need naffy canteens and all the entertainments and everything else. But is someone who can be left, and he will never leave his post, even when he gets no word, even when he's not comforted, even when it seems everything that's against him, he will never leave his post. Where are there such men and women today like that? Very few of them. We Christians have taken on the spirit of the age. Oh, we want Molly coddling. We want comforting words. We want all the times to have tangible, visible things that will support our faith, that will encourage us to go on. And if we haven't got them, we can't do anything. And I remember I said how we all have friends and so on, that we have to, as we say, mind our p's and q's with. We've got to be careful. Things have got to be done nicely. They've got to have a little word all the time. Well, well, well. Of course, we've said that there is a nursery stage, and in the nursery there are dummies and. And there are toys and there are beads and there are balls. There are all kinds of things. Big, cuddly teddy bears to be hugged when we feel unhappy in the nursery. And it's not wrong. God has all these things in his spiritual nursery. He has spiritual teddy bears and spiritual balls and beads and spiritual dummies and spiritual rattles, and he hands them all out like a loving father to his children when they're young.
[00:05:57] But some of us, you know, won't get up into the next stage of growing up and becoming children. But when we're children, we cannot be left without comfort. We have to be thought about. We have to be cared for. I remember when I was a child, how little I thought of the work that went into keeping me when we went out into the garden and play and kicked around and kicked dad's wall over that he'd just built. And we wondered, we couldn't understand why he was so angry when he came home and looked at the wall and told us all off the time that we swung the kittens round in a basket, round and round. And mother wept and wept and wept about it. And we couldn't understand. We'd had such a wonderful time giving the kittens a wonderful time. We thought, too, these are things when you're children. You have to be all the time. Someone has to take responsibility for you all the time. Someone's got to be thinking ahead of you. Someone's got to be providing for you. Someone's got to watch you all the time. Even when you're playing. Suddenly, now and again, mother comes to the window and just looks out. You're a child. You have to begin. And a lot of us are spiritual children. God has to be there all the time, watching just to see that everything's all right. Seeing whether we need a bit of comfort, seeing if we've got a little grade. We have a kiss and a cuddle, and then the tears stop and we're okay again for another half hour till someone says an unkind thing. And again we have to have another kiss and a cuddle. And then we grow up into adolescence where we don't think of anyone else but ourselves. Generally, all we think about is ourselves, I want this, I need this. All the others, they're this, they're that, the other. And there's spiritual adolescents, and God understands it.
[00:07:47] God makes provisions for provision for spiritual adolescence. But still we mustn't stop with those things. We've said something about that already. The point is, God needs servants.
[00:08:01] Men and women who've grown up through the nursery stage, through the childhood stage, through the adolescent stage, into womanhood and manhood and those who can go out into the front line with steel in their characters.
[00:08:20] And they can know what it is to be afflicted, and they can know what it is to be tossed with tempest. And they can know what it is not to be comforted.
[00:08:30] And still they will stick at their post. And still they will go right through to the finish. This is the kind of thing God wants. He wants people who can travail.
[00:08:46] Who would have ever thought of someone in a nursery travailing? We don't expect it. Who would think of a child travailing? Who would think of an adolescent travailing? We don't expect it.
[00:09:00] To them belongs carefreeness, happiness.
[00:09:07] They haven't yet faced the real responsibilities of life.
[00:09:13] But when a person comes to adulthood, we expect them to travel. We expect them to produce new life. We expect them to be right in at the heart of the thing. We expect them to understand what life is about and take a responsible attitude toward it and be those who are, as it were, promoting new life. Now, this is what I believe the Lord wants of us. Now, last week we spoke quite a bit about the condition of God's servant here described and the need of such travail. Never before, I think, since the early days of the church has there been need for such spiritual character. Never before. Here we are in days of mollycoddling, of every kind of superficiality, of artificiality, of that which is counterfeit. Here we are in days when Christianity itself is so shallow.
[00:10:21] The thing preached, the thing experienced in so many cases is a shallow thing. And like the Jews of all the time, we want signs.
[00:10:33] We want to see miracles. We want to see something that we can handle, something that our eyes can see. And the Lord in his grace would give us many an evidence of his presence, many a sign that he is with us. But, you know, if the Lord cares for us like that and he gives us these things, that's not what he wants. He doesn't just want people he has to give signs to and evidences of his presence. He wants men and women who can endure hardness like good soldiers.
[00:11:10] He wants men and women who can get into the heart of his work and know what it is to go through. My dear friends, we had a terrible enemy, a terrible enemy, and we are locked in mortal combat. Thank God the victory is won at Calvary. Nevertheless, we have a tremendous foe, and the battle is tremendous. Where are there the men and women who are really prepared to take their share in the heart of the thing, what it is called in Leviticus, numbers, the warfare of the service right at the very heart of it all.
[00:12:04] The need of such travail, I think, is very apparent, because the work of God is never cheaply done.
[00:12:14] Yes, God may use all kinds of things, but they may not be his work.
[00:12:19] He may use all kinds of ventures and methods, but they may not be his ventures or his methods. God uses all kinds of things to save people. There's no doubt about it.
[00:12:32] But God's work, what God does, says the preacher in ecclesiastes, what God does is forever.
[00:12:40] And the work of God, that which God does forever and forever, is something that is never cheaply done, never.
[00:12:52] It is always done at tremendous cost.
[00:12:59] If there is to be any eternal value in any life, if there is to be any eternal value in our work, then behind it all, at the heart of all, there must be the cross.
[00:13:12] Sooner or later, you must come face to face with the cross. Travail is an essential principle in the work of God in Isaiah 53, and in verse ten, verse eleven, it says, of our Lord Jesus Christ, he shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. O the fathom of the Lord Jesus soul, before he could produce a redeemed humanity, before he could bring out of a fallen mankind a bride for himself, before ever that woman, that bride of God could be produced, the Lord Jesus had to be put to sleep and his side had to be opened, like Adam of old. And out of it, out of him, something was taken, as woman was taken out of Adam. So the church has been taken out of the travail of suffering and agony, the wounded side of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:14:25] His travail.
[00:14:27] Yes.
[00:14:29] Can anyone say that your salvation is a cheap thing?
[00:14:35] Sometimes it sounds so easy, doesn't it? When we hear a preacher appealing to people to make their decision for Christ, it seems so easy when we hear it. Just put your trust in him. Just come to him. The appeal is so simple. It all seems so simple. Few simple steps, and in fact, it is so simple. But never let us think that the simplicity of the gospel, the simplicity of becoming a child of God means that it was cheaply done or quickly done.
[00:15:07] It meant that the Lord Jesus Christ had to leave the throne of God, his father's glory. It meant that he had to. He had to let go of all that was his. His infinite, almighty mightiness. And was born of a woman and born into poverty and lived 33 years of human life, limited and restricted in a human body. And finally to be nailed by the very men that he had come to save to a cross. This was the price of your salvation and my salvation. This was the price that God paid in Christ to redeem a church for himself.
[00:15:54] And you know, if you and I are going to enter into the work of God, the work of God, then you and I will know something about this as well. In Galatians 419, Paul cries out, my little children, of whom I am again in Travail until Christ be formed, fully formed in you. Here is the cry of one of the greatest of the apostles. He knew something of travail. It wasn't just that he could easily and cheaply preach the gospel. Behind it lay a lifetime, a life experience of travail.
[00:16:43] He could say, my little children, I am again in Travail. When a woman is in Travail, she is in agony. Her whole being is consumed. Every part of her body is in pain.
[00:16:57] She's consumed by the travail. What a strong word to use of God's service. My little children. Of whom? Of whom what? I have a headache.
[00:17:13] I have some arthritic pain in my arm.
[00:17:21] I've got a little bit of sickness.
[00:17:24] No. My little children, of whom I am in travail. Paul uses the strongest and most vivid word for this spiritual experience, travail consumed in pain.
[00:17:47] And then again, if you turn to Colossians, to Philippians three and verse ten, we read that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. Then Colossians one and verse 24. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church. Here Paul says, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. His sufferings were for their sake.
[00:18:29] And he rejoices in his sufferings for their sake because he says, it is filling up the afflictions of Christ for the body's sake. Here is the principle of travel.
[00:18:42] This is the thing that must lie at the heart of God's work. Why is there so much superficiality amongst us who are gods today?
[00:18:53] Why is there so much shallowness in the work of God all over the world? I will tell you why. Very simply. It's because there is no principle of travail in it. There is no travail.
[00:19:05] People think that they can use just worldly ways and worldly methods, and they'll get results. They do get results, but often the results don't last.
[00:19:21] Is the same with us.
[00:19:23] We have to question everything, because behind everything which is truly done and eternally done, lies this tremendous and stark principle of travail to fill up the afflictions of Christ. What an amazing statement.
[00:19:48] What a mysterious statement.
[00:19:53] How can we fill up these afflictions of Christ?
[00:20:01] What is the fellowship of his suffering?
[00:20:06] I want to suggest that it is that we enter into the power of suffering, the power of travail.
[00:20:21] It is the spirit of God who travailed.
[00:20:26] And as he travailed in Christ, so he looks for men and women in whom he can come to rest and travail. But where are they? Where are they?
[00:20:39] They all want little teddy bears and rattles and dummies. They all want the things that bring them immediate comfort. Where can the spirit of God find a vessel in which he can come to rest? And that vessel will go through thick and thin, through darkness or light, through suffering or joy, but that vessel will go through with the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit can travel in them. Where? Where are such people?
[00:21:10] If the Holy Spirit looks over this little congregation this morning, can he find any heart that opens up and says, oh, God, I would let you work in me in this way.
[00:21:26] There are few who are prepared to really go that way.
[00:21:33] Yet at the heart of everything, there must be such a suffering ministry. I don't want to make this time heavy. Why? Don't want to make you heavy if you're still a babe in Christ.
[00:21:52] Well, the Lord bless you and may you grow, and he'll look after you and so will all of us.
[00:22:00] And if you are a child in Christ, praise the Lord, we're all going to try and help and so will the Lord. And if you're an adolescent. But, oh, that there were a few more men and women. Where are they? Those who can really come into the heart of what God wants. Oh, yes. Precious stone. Treasure of precious stone is produced in no other way. It's produced in the darkness of the earth, in the bowels of the earth, is produced in fire. It is produced by all kinds of pressures. That's the only way precious stone can come into being. It's a long, long, costly process. I understand in some cases it takes thousands and thousands and thousands and more of years before a precious stone is formed. So long, so tremendous is the process before precious stone can be produced. Here, you've got it. Listen. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted. I will set thy stones in fair colors. I will make all thy paths sapphire, thy pinnacles carbuncles, thy gates agates, thy windows achates.
[00:23:24] What a wonderful promise the producing of precious stone. Now, if you look very briefly, let me just mention a few examples.
[00:23:36] In God's word, you look at Joseph. Joseph is a wonderful picture of this kind of ministry, this kind of work. If you look at psalm 105.
[00:23:50] Psalm 105, you remember what the Lord did with Joseph. He took him from his happy home and his loving father.
[00:24:00] They sold him into slavery, put him in Egypt, and then he was in a very nice household. Seemed as if at least he'd got some comfort there when the wife, his mistress, turned against him. And he ended up in prison for all those years. In prison. What do you think Joseph thought as he went through all that? Don't you think he could have questioned the God of his father, Jacob? Don't you think he might have wondered that the God of his father, Jacob, was called a God of love, a God of grace, a God of faithfulness? Why? Why? Why but God was working his purpose out.
[00:24:41] God was sending a man into Egypt and putting him through such deep experiences and through such darkness. And in the crucible, the fiery crucible of experience. He was producing a fine instrument, more delicate and sensitive than a surgeon's knife that in the end was going to be raised up to power in Egypt and was going to be the salvation of the whole people of God.
[00:25:09] Now listen. Psalm 100 517. He sent a man before them. Joseph was sold for a servant. His feet, they hurt with fetters. He was laid in chains of iron until the time that his word came to pass. The word on the Lord tried him.
[00:25:33] His soul entered into iron. That's the margin of the revised version and the authorized version. His soul entered into iron.
[00:25:45] My, look what the Lord has done with this man, Joseph. This spoilt young lad of Jacob, this boy who had been so mollycoddled and so looked after and so made a favorite. Look what the Lord did with him. He tore him away from his father. He put him through experience after experience, each more dark than the one before. Until finally the iron entered into his soul and he became a soldier.
[00:26:17] I don't think Joseph complained anymore. There came a point when he stopped complaining. And he started accepting. And in the prison of Pharaoh, there came a day when that man came with the dream. You remember all things. They talked. And Joseph. Joseph, there was no complaint.
[00:26:37] He had a ministry in the place of his affliction.
[00:26:41] This is what God can do. Let me take another example. I take. You turn to the book of Ruth, and you take Naomi and Ruth. Look what the Lord did with Naomi and Ruth. Why did he do it with Naomi and Ruth?
[00:26:54] They went off into a far country, into Moab. Well, at least Naomi did with her husband. She lost her husband. She lost her two sons. But she gained two daughters, one of whom was no good. And the other was a gem.
[00:27:07] And Ruth stayed with her. Here were these two lonely women. They'd lost everything. They'd lost their husbands. They'd lost their father and husband, both of them. They'd lost everything.
[00:27:19] They went back to the promised land, afflicted in a deep, deep, mysterious experience of darkness and forsaken.
[00:27:33] But do you know what God was doing? God was working his purpose out.
[00:27:39] And God had in mind a king. And that king was called David.
[00:27:47] And Naomi was to be the great grandmother of David. And Ruth was to be his grandmother.
[00:27:56] This is what God was doing. Because David was such a instrument of God. He was putting this one through all this suffering. These two through all this suffering. And through all this difficulty, well, we could go on. And we could go on. Take the apostle Paul. If you turn to two corinthians and chapter eight, you will see straight away the kind of experience that the apostle Paul had.
[00:28:27] No, not. I'm sorry. Two corinthians eleven.
[00:28:32] When from verse 23 onwards to the end, you will find this catalogue of Paul's experiences. Listen to him. In labours more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure. In death of the Jews. Five times received I 40 stripes, save one. Twice was I beaten with rods. Once was I stoned. Thrice I suffered shipwreck. A night and a day have I been in the deep, in journeyings often in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils for my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils of the city. And so he goes on, and he goes on, and he goes on.
[00:29:15] All this and in. Then, in two corinthians, chapter twelve, we find that there is given to him above and beyond all this catalog of sufferings, a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan, so that there is at the heart of his experience a cross that makes it impossible for him to move. Well, my dear friends, we could go on. And we could go on. And we could go on.
[00:29:56] This is a principle that is at the heart of everything God really does for eternity. You take some of the great people. Have you thought of Francis Ridley Havigel? Let me just read to you her little hymn that summed up her experience. Listen. Light after darkness, gain after loss, strength after weakness, crown after cross, sweet after bitter, hope after fears, home after wandering, praise after tears, sheaves after sowing, sun after rain, sight after mystery, peace after pain, joy after sorrow, calm after blast, rest after weariness, sweet rest as blast, near after distance, gleam after gloom, love after loneliness, life after tomb after long agony. Rapturably right was the pathway leading to death. Francis Ridley Havigel had consumption.
[00:31:07] She besought the lord to heal her. She took him at his word, but he never healed her. He left her. And for ten long years her life gradually faded away. And out of it came some of the greatest hymns that we see.
[00:31:30] And then again Henry Francis light.
[00:31:34] Of course, his was a sharp and sudden suffering. He was told he would die within a month.
[00:31:43] And so he went away to Brixton in Devon, and he sat on the quayside. And one night he watched the sun, a glorious sunset.
[00:31:54] He knew he was dying, and he knew his lore. And into his heart came the words about one of our most famous hymns abide with me. Fast walks. The even time, you see it came out of suffering, it came out of triumph. Something came out. Why do you think some of these hymns we sing and we sing and we sing? It's as if there is some quality in the very hymn that you and I, we may not even know the story, but it's there. Oh, we could go on. As I say, I think of Edith May Grimes, that invalid on her back. Have you ever read that wonderful hymn that we sing within the veil?
[00:32:39] Or speak, lord, in the stillness while we wait on the. Or many of those other great hymns that you and I, we love? We don't know much about E. M. Grimes, but Edith May Grimes spent her life on her back.
[00:32:58] It came out of that a ministry of travail across part of her life.
[00:33:05] What about Fanny Crosby? When she was a little girl of three, she had some. Some trouble with her eyes. They said that it was conjunctivitis. They bought the physician. He was a rather stupid physician. He took out a bottle out of his case. He made some drops. He dropped it in her eyes. And then suddenly he realized he put acid in her eyes.
[00:33:27] Four years of age, Fanny Crosby lost her sight, whom she never saw again. Have you ever noticed in Fanny Crosby's hymn again and again how she speaks of seeing the Lord? You mark it next time, every time you sing one of Fanny Crosby's hymns. Praise him. Praise him. Jesus, our blessed Redeemer, also many others. To God be the glory. Great things he's done. Our joy and our transport. When Jesus we see.
[00:33:57] I heard it meant something she couldn't see.
[00:34:01] Yet Moody said that Fanny Crosby had the greatest ministry of them all, said it publicly and so we could go on. And we could go on. William Cooper, who suffered from mental trouble so much and wrote that hymn, God moves in the mysterious way his wonders to perform.
[00:34:26] And Amy Carmichael, who, when it was thought that she would walk, when it was thought that she'd had a serious ill accident, as you know, and it seems she was finished. She was on her back. She wrote these words. When she heard the singing from across the compound, across the garden, she heard the singing and these were the words she wrote. She had no idea she was dost thin, over 20 years, a cripple on her back, never to move again.
[00:34:58] Thou hast not that, my child, but thou hast me. And am not I alone enough for thee? I know it all. Know how thy heart was set upon this joy which is not given yet. And well, I know how through the wistful days thou walkest all the dear familiar ways, as unregarded as a breath of air. But there in love and longing, always there, I know it all.
[00:35:29] But from thy briar shall blow arose for others.
[00:35:34] If it were not so, I would have told thee. Come then, say to me, my lord, my love, I am content with thee.
[00:35:46] 20 years Amy Carmichael was on her back and a rose blew around.
[00:35:58] It may not be her work at Doonavour that, in the end, was the most valuable thing of all.
[00:36:05] It was the ministry that flowed to the ends of the earth and has touched untold thousands in mysterious suffering.
[00:36:18] She was prepared to go away. She knew not how. She knew not where it would take her. But she was prepared to go away. Until finally the Lord produced a ministry.
[00:36:33] That city of God is made. Its foundations are made out of precious stone. Then, my dear friends, listen to God's word. We may even have another morning on this sometime. I don't know. There's a lot more I could say. All thou afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted, behold, I will set thy stones in fair colours. I would like to read, in closing, one last little poem written also by Amy Carmichael. Listen to it. Hast thou no scar, no hidden scar on foot or side or hand?
[00:37:20] I hear thee sung as mighty in the land. I hear them. Hail thy bright ascendant star.
[00:37:27] Hast thou no scar?
[00:37:30] Hast thou no wound? Yet I was wounded by the archers bent leaned me against a tree to die and rent by ravening beasts that compassed me I swoon. Hast thou no wound?
[00:37:46] No wound, no scar?
[00:37:50] Yet as the master shall the servant be and pierced o the feet that follow me but thine our home?
[00:38:00] Can he have followed far who has no wound nor scar?
[00:38:07] Shall we pray now, Lord Jesus? It may be that what has been said this morning will not apply to all. And we do pray that those to whom it does not apply may not be bothered by it, but may be comfortable.
[00:38:24] But we do pray, Lord, that for those to whom thou hast spoken, thou keep thy word alive in all our hearts that we may be a people who can shoulder something of the burden of these days. Make us good soldiers of Jesus Christ.
[00:38:42] We pray for thy namesake.
