| The Christian Life | August 1944 |
Quickened to Serve
Evidences of the Spirit’s Power
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me; because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, and the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.”—Isaiah 61:1-3
THIS is the commission of all who are blessed by the gift of God’s Holy Spirit. It describes the expected result in the lives of all who possess the Lord’s Spirit. And it is also to be expected that one’s devotion of his time, talents, energies, means and moral support to carrying out his commission will be measured by the proportion in which he possesses the Holy Spirit and his obedience to its leadings.
In Jesus, the Christ of God, we see the full, the perfect example of the Spirit’s influence reflected in His obedient response when He surrendered Himself completely to the Father. The Spirit descended upon Him visibly at Jordan in the form of a dove. The heavens were opened unto Him and a voice from heaven was heard for His assurance and for a witness to others within hearing, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”—Matthew 3:16,17
The Lord, in full obedience to this new influence in His life, was led away into the wilderness. Here His consecration was tested fully. His declaration, “I come to do Thy will, O God,” was proved by the occurrences in the wilderness. (Hebrews 10:7) His own conviction that He was begotten by God’s Holy Spirit was questioned—“If Thou be the Son of God.” (Matt. 4:3) He was unwilling to cater to the flesh to the detriment of His new hope. He would not use His new powers—His as a result of spirit anointing—for the gratification of the flesh. Satan’s suggestion, “Command that these stones be made bread,” Jesus turned down.
The attainment of His hope to be King by easier means than those God had designed was suggested. Satan said, “All this power will I give Thee, and the glory of them. … if Thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be Thine.”—Luke 4:6,7
The securing of public recognition by a spectacular demonstration instead of the patient, persistent, determined obedience to His commission as described by the Prophet Isaiah, was also recommended to the Master.—Luke 4:1-13
The Lord successfully met the deceiver’s suggestions. He triumphantly and in the power of the Spirit, turned to Galilee. He came to Nazareth, the home of His childhood, and went “as His custom was,” to the synagogue on the Sabbath Day. (Luke 4:16) He was asked to read out of the Scriptures. Finding the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah, He read the commission of the spirit-begotten of God—“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me.” He was sure of His begettal and anointing. He was untouched by Satan’s sophistries. He would now own His divine Sonship in the hearing of His friends, relatives and acquaintances. He was not ashamed of His work—His God-given work.—Luke 4:16-24
Jesus Was Faithful
We all know the rest. We are all witnesses of His faithfulness. To His faithfulness we owe our own hopes, our own spirit-begettal and Spirit-inspired commission. We have believed the testimony of those who were His contemporaries and co-laborers. The Apostle Peter epitomizes our Lord’s life saying, “That word, I say ye know, which was published throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; who went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed of the devil for God was with Him,” (Acts 10:37,38) He never wavered, never doubted His divine Sonship and commission.
Others did doubt. John the Baptist, His second cousin, the one who baptized Him and witnessed His spirit anointing and heard God’s voice, doubted. John, for his reproof of Herod and Herodias in their illicit course, was imprisoned. No one moved a finger for his release. His relative, Jesus, wasn’t at hand either. He did not come to his succor nor use His God-given power to help the one who had announced His advent in such glowing terms. In distress, John sent two of his disciples to Jesus with the query, “Art Thou He that should come? or look we for another?”—Luke 7:19,20
The narrative, according to Luke, tells us that “in that same hour He (Jesus) cured many of their infirmities and plagues and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind He gave sight.” (Luke 7:21) That was His answer to John. To paraphrase—Jesus replied to John’s question by doing what John knew only one anointed by the Spirit of God would be doing. Jesus was thus saying to John by His acts, “You have read and know what the Prophet Isaiah has said about those upon whom God would pour His Holy Spirit, but you seem to have your doubts about Me. Take note, John, the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, to the poor the Gospel is preached. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me.” (Luke 7:22,23) “This is the evidence of My Sonship. I am doing the work My Father commissioned Me to do.” That work Jesus carried on with no rest, no respite. He never ceased or eased, or let up until the night death closed in on Him on Golgotha’s hill. “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”
The Master Rewarded
Obedience to His Father’s commission brought Jesus a great reward. He was raised from the dead; no longer a man, but exalted to the divine nature; and is now high above all principalities and powers and above every name that is named. (Phil. 2:8-11) With these prerogatives of the divine nature, we know He will resume the work of blessing until all the blind see, all the lepers are cleansed, all the dead are raised and the knowledge of God covers the whole earth as the waters cover the sea. (Isa. 11:9; Heb. 2:14) He will not be satisfied until this shall be accomplished.—Isa. 53:11
Shortly after Jesus’ resurrection He visited the disciples to establish firmly their faith and confidence in His Father’s promises, to attest to the fact of His glorious new life, and to reveal further the divine plan for His followers. They had left all to follow Him and to do His Father’s will. (Matt. 19:27) They had labored with Jesus for three and a half years. Then He was cruelly taken from them, but later restored as a spirit, a divine being.
“Wilt Thou at this time restore again the Kingdom of Israel?” How anxious they were for the Kingdom! And He assured them of their hope—the Kingdom was sure, but the times and seasons for its establishment were in God’s own power. You will know of these when you receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and it will be to you as it has been to Me, a guide, an inspiration, a source of strength. And you will be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem and in Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. My mantle becomes yours—My commission will become your commission after you have received the Holy Spirit.
The Lord’s promise was fulfilled shortly. When obediently they, with one accord, were met in Jerusalem; the Holy Spirit descended upon them visibly, in the form of cloven tongues like as of fire! And what was the result? It was an outstanding witness for the truth. Oh that we might better learn this lesson; that is, to ascribe to the Spirit the Spirit’s influence in our lives and in the lives of our brethren.
The scribes and Pharisees ascribed to the devil the works of our Lord Jesus. The same people attributed to intoxication the effects of the Spirit on the disciples at Pentecost. Some, even in our day, attribute to evil and spiritual drunkenness, the compelling influence of the Spirit on those who devote their lives, their means and their time to the dissemination of the truth. What an unholy company these fault-finders have joined! What withering condemnation from the Lord such bring upon themselves! It is right in line with the sin against the Holy Spirit.—Matt. 12:24-31
Anointed to Preach
The disciples, as a result of the Spirit’s anointing, went out and began to speak. To speak of Jesus Christ! To speak in various tongues hitherto unknown to them! The ignorant became well informed; the timid became bold; the fishermen became orators; the novices, experts! It was the Lord pouring out His Spirit upon His obedient, faithful servants. These disciples were not drunk! This was the evidence of their sonship—the testimony of their faithfulness. This was that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel.—Acts 2:1-18
And so it has been with all the Lord’s spirit-begotten and anointed ones. So it was when persecution overtook the church in Jerusalem. They were scattered, but wherever they went they preached the Gospel. (Acts 8:4) Many there were in the early church who gained the appellation of “itinerant preachers.”
And thus it was with the Apostle Paul. His commission was the same. To Ananias the Lord sent the word, “He is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” (Acts 9:15,16) It has been aptly said, If you are setting up in the business of pointing out the road to others, then you must be willing to walk down that road yourself. Jesus “blazed the trail” and Paul followed closely in the steps of his Master and beckons to all who would share his hope and his joy to come along in the same way. His epistles are replete with urgings to follow in his steps as he followed in the steps of Christ.
Paul knew that not all were as gifted as he was. Not all possessed the power of oratory which was his God-given endowment. But he wrote the sweetest epistles to those ecclesias who in their communications to him, in their prayers and in the material assistance they gave him, displayed a spirit of co-operation in the work that God had entrusted to him, and to all who are anointed by His Spirit. (Eph. 1:13-16; 6:19; 4:10) Contrast these with Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians among whom he labored for a long time.—I Corinthians 4:12-16; II Corinthians 11:8
“Woe is Unto Me”
So thoroughly was Paul consecrated to the Lord; so confident was he of his divine sonship and the God-given commission to all the children of God, that he could say, “Woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel.” (I Cor. 9:16) Weymouth’s Translation of this passage reveals the thrill that Paul felt in his ecstatic enjoyment of the privilege God had given him. We quote:
“If I go on preaching GOOD NEWS, that is nothing for me to boast of, for the necessity is imposed upon me. Alas for me if I fail to preach it! And if I preach willingly, I receive my wages; but if against my will, a stewardship has nevertheless been entrusted to me. What are my wages then? To make the Gospel free of charge when I preach.”
How well Paul had learned the joy of giving! He gave, and he gave, all over Asia Minor. When he finally came to Troas, the extreme west end of Asia, and thought he had done all, and planned to return home, a door was opened to him in Macedonia and Europe.—II Cor. 2:12
We know about Paul: We can turn to the back of our Bibles, and trace on the maps his three missionary tours and his voyages to Rome—not by airplane, not by train or bus, not even on a bicycle, horse or donkey, but on foot and by sailing vessel. Just for your inspiration glance at those maps again. Little wonder then that a man like that, having carried out his own commission faithfully and at great cost to himself, could say, “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing.”—II Tim. 4:6-8
Paul preached in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, in Asia Minor, in Macedonia, in Greece, and in the islands of the Aegean. Finally he was in Rome, imprisoned because of his preaching, awaiting his execution. For him there was no other place to go. Even while a prisoner in Rome not only did he preach to his jailers, but also to the chieftains and others there. (Acts 5:28) He had traveled down his road to the end.
The Message Continues
But what of other places? What of other generations? How often we put out some tracts in our neighborhood and then relax! We feel we have done our duty. How often we have a public meeting in our city, or go to a convention and take part in the arrangements for a public witness of this Gospel, and feel elated, and then go home and settle down to inactivity.
Not so with Paul! He continued to serve during his own life, and wanted the message to spread after he died. Though he was now about to be offered he knew the work was not completed. The ending of his life was no reason that the preaching of the Gospel should end. Though he was in chains the Gospel was not bound! So from Rome he writes to his beloved co-laborer, young Timothy, saying; “Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.”—II Tim. 2:1,2
How thoughtful was Paul! He had preached to all he could reach, but the preaching of the Gospel did not end there. There were other places. There would be other generations, so he enjoined Timothy, his son in the faith, to pass it on to other faithful men that it might continue to be preached and not be silenced until the end of the age.
The Truth Now Ours
We are grateful to the Lord, and to Paul, and to the faithful men who, through the dark period of the age, carried on until that “wise and faithful servant” of God in our day took up the torch and passed it on to us. Shall we extinguish it, or confine it merely to ourselves alone? Are there no others to be found who might profit by the words of life and truth? God forbid!
Paul’s commitment of this commission to Timothy presupposes no such disposal of responsibility. He uses three widely varied and yet related symbolisms in describing it. Rigor and hardship? Yes, and true faithfulness. An army is used as one of these illustrations; an athletic contest as another; and finally, farming. And no one by any stretch of imagination can conclude that hardship, labor and privation are not involved in all three of these examples. In fact, Paul uses certain Greek words in this commitment to Timothy which unmistakably indicate the risks we must take in order to walk the narrow way of sacrifice, led by the Holy Spirit.
“Thou therefore, my son, be strong.” Your faith will be challenged and ridiculed. Your spirit-begettal and anointing will be questioned. Your youth will be held against you. The work that lies ahead of you will require all your strength. You will have to lean heavily on the grace which is yours in Christ Jesus. Be strong, therefore, “and the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to [other] faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” The truth is yours, not to keep, not to put under a bushel; not merely to revel in its joys and beauty and then take it with you to your grave. It is yours to cherish, to guard and to commit to other faithful men.
A Good Soldier
“Thou therefore endure hardness.” Learn my son, as a Christian, to suffer wrong instead of inflicting wrong upon others. Learn that if you are to be faithful to God and the trust that He has placed in you in giving you the truth, you will be abused, your acts misjudged, your motives ascribed as evil. You will be misquoted, accused of thinking things you never thought, but learn not to retaliate. Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Soldiers, my son, are not called to go to picnics. Soldiers do not prove their qualities on the parade grounds. Nor can Christians fully display their Christianity on a platform, it does not end there; nor yet in the cozy confines of a well furnished living room. Soldiers are not pensioners, but fighters for a cause, the interests of which they should love to serve. Usually the best soldiers are volunteers. They enlist to defend high ideals or to destroy the tyranny and evils of their times. They are aflame with the rightness of the cause they enlisted to further.
Soldiers are hard, my son; hardened by constant drilling and privation to stand the rigors of a campaign; hardened in order not to shrink from labor, from hunger, from thirst, from nakedness, from wounds, from pain, from loss, or to tremble when confronted with death. Christianity involves all these, my son! It has brought me to the execution chamber, Timothy. It might bring you there too. Are you a good soldier? Are you ashamed of me? Others who thought they were good soldiers, are ashamed. They abandoned me! But don’t wait for the chains, Timothy, to be a Christian. Do the things committed to you. Let them be the cause of your bonds!
“No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please Him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” It is a new thing for the soldier to vote. In olden days soldiers divorced themselves from civil pursuits. Men of means and ideals recruited companies of men from among friends and partisans of their cause. These men joined because of the issues involved and their faith in the man who invited them to join him. But in so doing they left all else behind. The word in Greek translated entangle means to braid as a woman’s hair. A soldier’s life and a Christian’s life cannot be braided with other aspects of life. They won’t mix. You cannot serve two masters. Henceforth you do all to please Him who enlisted you, leaving behind all else, even your own will and preferences.
Running a Race
“And if a man strive for masteries yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully.” Here the apostle changes his metaphor from that of a soldier to that of an athlete. An athlete is one who contends in public games. The apostle likens the life of the Lord’s anointed, those blessed with His Holy Spirit, to the life of an athlete. Especially does he liken our lives to that of a runner. A runner expects to take part in the games and hopes to win the reward. That hope controls his whole life. He will not eat or drink what others do. He will not abuse himself as others might. Everything he does is done with the race and reward in mind.
The context shows the apostle’s preoccupation with a certain kind of race—a relay race—a race in which a number of runners form a team, and each athlete runs his prescribed distance, and then another takes up the race. In this kind of race it was not only essential that the runners finish their course first, but additionally, they must complete their course with the torch which they were carrying still aflame.
Note again, II Timothy 2:2 with this in mind: “The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also,” until the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall call the race finished. Those who have been faithful, who have run well with zeal and vigor, and have not allowed their torch to become extinguished—the same torch, (not new or strange light) received from God by the hand of the preceding runner—they shall have the reward. How careful we should be with the light that has been given to us! How careful we should be in all our relations with those who faithfully are carrying this torch of life and liberty for all. Let us not impugn evil motives to their endeavors.
In the end, the relay runners received a twig of olive, or a crown, or perhaps a wreath, or garland of pine, laurel or parsley. It was worn but a short time, possibly a day or two. They could look at it and admire it and then it was fit for the fire. But our reward is “incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us.”—I Cor. 9:24-27; I Pet. 1:4
Let Us Strive Lawfully
In order to win any race, but especially the race for “the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,” we must “strive lawfully.” We must observe the rules; rules made by our God; rules that govern His people in their endeavor to carry on His work. The rules are not difficult or too exacting. It is only when we break the rules that we suffer.
Suppose a runner trips a fellow-runner in a race causing him to stumble and fall, how do the other runners feel toward him? Who is at fault? Rules are for our protection, and we can be happy in them. Let us keep the rules; for when we break them, we will be conscious of their violation, and we will suffer for it. We will feel the estrangement of our fellow-runners because we broke the rules that should govern us in our race-course.
Paul had run the race, and therefore could say, “I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith.” Now he was placing an increased responsibility upon Timothy—“I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, … preach the Word.”—II Tim. 4:1,2
Others have failed. They do not appreciate their anointing. They have permitted their light to go out. They have become weary. “Demas hath forsaken me.” “Alexander the copper-smith did me much evil.” “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.”—II Tim. 4:10,14,16
Yes, some wished “to add affliction to my bonds” by preaching Christ because of “envy and strife,” out of contention and not sincerely. They do not believe in it. They only do it to discredit me.—Phil. 1:15,16
How are we using the Holy Spirit? How, are we using the powers that are ours because of spirit-begettal and anointing? Is the Gospel being preached to the poor because of our efforts and our co-operation with others who are doing it? Are we laboring in order that some of the blind may see? some of the deaf may hear? some of the lame may walk? some of the lepers may be cleansed? If so, it is God’s sign to us and all like-minded that we are truly His children. We are His begotten ones. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon us because He hath anointed us to preach.
We may be reviled. We may be accused of many things. Our good may be evilly spoken of. We may be ostracized and ex-communicated. Our motives may be questioned, our work discredited. Let us bear it patiently. Let us not return evil for evil. Let us preach the Word.
“The husbandman that laboreth must first be partaker of the fruits. Consider what I say.”—II Timothy 2:6,7