Seeking to Comprehend the Love of Christ (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1899-1981)

 

Ephesians 3:18

“May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;”

It remains for us now to consider the very practical and direct question as to how we can attain to this knowledge. I assume that we are now eager and anxious to know it and to experience it. I am sure that when we arrive in heaven and in the glory we shall be amazed; not only at what we shall then see and realize, but still more at our blindness while we were here on earth. Then we shall see clearly what might have been the case with us. We shall see what we might have enjoyed. We shall see how we wasted our time. We shall see how we allowed other things to come between us and the most marvellous and blessed experience that can be the lot of any man or woman in this world. And for this reason I am pressing this matter so urgently upon your consideration.

I have New Testament authority for saying that it is possible for Christian people to know something of a sense of shame when they see Him as He is. The Apostle John in his First Epistle exhorts the early Christians to press forward in these respects so that they may `not be ashamed before him at his coming’. There is clear teaching of a judgment involving rewards among believers, so we must consider this matter in the light of that teaching. The man, who thinks that as long as he is forgiven, as long as he is saved, and as long as he knows that he is going to heaven, all is well, will discover that in adopting such an attitude he has been rejecting his Lord’s teaching. The Lord meant him to enjoy so much more, and to use him to help others, and to use him as a pattern and an example. So, apart from personal considerations, we must look at this question from the standpoint that the extent to which we are failing to conform to this pattern, is the extent to which we are failing our blessed Lord Himself.

The picture often given is that the New Testament is that God is our Father, and that as an earthly father is proud of his children, and likes to look upon them with favour, and to smile at them, and desires everyone to think well of them, so God as our Father in heaven delights in us and desires to show us as `patterns and examples of His handiwork’. He wants to show His grace to others through us, and by means of us, as we saw when we were studying verse 10. For all these reasons it behoves us to discover how we, with all saints, may come to know this love of Christ which passeth knowledge. There is abundant teaching with respect to this in the New Testament. There is a sense in which the remainder of this Ephesian Epistle deals with this very subject. The Apostle proceeds in the following chapters to deal in detail with a number of matters concerned with conduct and behaviour, and that is one of the best ways of teaching how to attain to this knowledge of the love of Christ.

We can summarize this teaching in a number of principles. The first is to issue a negative, but extremely important warning. This matter must never be thought of in mechanical terms. By this I mean that it must never be assumed that, as long as we do certain things, then, inevitably and automatically, we shall enjoy the blessing. That supposition is never true in the spiritual life. To use an obvious illustration: there is nothing of the slot-machine mechanism in connection with the spiritual life. The cults, on the other hand, are all characterized by that very teaching. They all say in effect that you have but, as it were, to put your coin in the slot and pull out the little drawer, and you will have your piece of chocolate or whatever it is. Such a teaching is foreign to the New Testament, and if we begin to think about these things in such a mechanical manner we are doomed to disappointment.

I must elaborate this because, speaking from my own experience, I know this very danger, and know it to be a snare of the devil. It sometimes works in the following manner. You may be reading the biography of some great saint, for example, one of the people from whose works I have been quoting. There you just read about a man who had been a Christian for years but who had never known this love of Christ, and who then tells you how he came to know it. It may have happened in one of many ways. Perhaps he had been seeking for years with nothing happening; then one day, as he was reading a book, almost casually, the whole page seemed to be illumined and he realized that God speaking to him directly, and he came to know this love of Christ which passeth knowledge. The temptation that comes at that point is to try to discover which book he was reading and then to begin to read that same book, persuading yourself as you do so, that what happened to him is bound to happen to you. So you just read the page, but it seems quite dead! The fallacy was to hold a mechanical view. The saint was doing this when he obtained the blessing; so if I do the same I also will obtain the blessing!

Or you read of men who testify that they had read their Bible many times without ever seeing these things, but suddenly and unexpectedly as they were reading a given chapter the illumination came. But it does not come to you as you read the chapter. The fallacy behind that wrong approach is to forget that we are dealing with personal relationships, and that in the realm of personal relationships mechanical methods not only do not count, but they can even be the greatest possible hindrance. We are not dealing with some `it’ or an experience as such; we are talking about knowing `the love of Christ which passeth knowledge’. We realize instinctively concerning the love of a human being that it is intensely personal and direct, so we must realize the same here.

We have to start by realizing that this is something which is entirely in God’s hands, that He dispenses His blessings as He wills, and when and where, and in His own way. You can guarantee nothing in these matters. I mean that you cannot give any kind of guarantee that if you do `this’ then `that’ must follow. We know that in ordinary human relationships such ideas break down completely. The moment we sense that we are being bribed, or that someone is trying to manipulate us, at once every emotion and every real affection is quelled. This is equally true in the spiritual realm with which we are dealing. That is why it can be said that, while books and manuals on the devout and devotional life are of help and value up to a certain point, they can also be extremely dangerous. The devil can use them to introduce the mechanical notion, and we shall end by being further away from the One whom we are seeking.

Turning to the positive, we find that certain things are taught plainly and clearly in the Scriptures. The first is that there is such a thing as putting yourself in the way of a blessing. We cannot command blessings or `claim’ them. God in His own sovereign will and grace dispenses His blessings. But though we cannot command them, we can do what blind Bartimaeus did. We read that Bartimaeus had heard that the Lord Jesus Christ was going to pass along a certain road, and that he was wise enough to take up his pitch by the side of that road. That is what all of us can do. The Lord walks along certain roads; it is His custom and His habit to pass in certain directions. So all I can do is to tell you how to take up your position along the side of these roads. Put yourself in the way of blessings. I cannot guarantee anything; but I do know that the Scripture exhorts us to do certain things. I also know that every saint who has ever come to the knowledge of Christ’s love, in this intimate and personal sense, has generally conformed to these things.

The first step is the one that Paul himself has already mentioned in verse 16. We must pray for ourselves without ceasing, as the Apostle prayed for the Ephesians, that God might `grant us according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man’. That is an absolute essential. It is essential—I must repeat myself because we are so prone to forget it—because of the greatness of the knowledge of His love. It is so great that it can almost shatter the human frame, so glorious that one can scarcely contain it. We remember the experiences of the young Isaiah, and the Apostle John on the isle of Patmos. But we also need it for this further reason, that as certainly as we set out in this endeavour we shall become the targets of the concentrated and unusual attacks of the devil.

This again is the universal experience of the saints. No one has ever been tempted in this world by the devil as the Son of God was tempted; and the closer we get to Him the more shall we be tried and tempted. The devil at first does his utmost to prevent anyone from becoming a Christian; but if he fails and we become Christian, his whole endeavour then will be to keep us as babes in Christ, to keep us at the stage of the first principles only, to keep us satisfied with the outermost circle of this realm. The moment we begin to grow and to develop, the devil becomes concerned, because we then become better recommendations for Christ. It we become men, and adult, the devil’s kingdom is threatened, so he does his utmost to keep us back, and trains his agents and his powers upon us.

Let me quote the words of one who was a great authority on these matters. In a wonderful phrase he said, `Baptismal moments are always followed by a temptation in the wilderness’. He refers, of course, to what happened to our Lord Himself when He was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan, and was setting out upon His public ministry to do His work as the Messiah. The Holy Ghost descended upon Him in the form of a dove. He is now equipped. He is sealed by the Father, He has been anointed by the Spirit to preach and to carry on the work of redemption. But we read that immediately afterwards He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil for forty days. `Baptismal moments are always followed by a temptation in the wilderness’. Anyone who has ever endeavoured to walk this road will know how true that is. The more we seek the Lord’s face and the knowledge of His love, the more shall we become acquainted with `the wiles of the devil’ and `the fiery darts of the wicked one’. The devil thereby pays us a great compliment; but we must remember that he is powerful and mighty, and if we go in our own strength and power he will certainly defeat us. We must therefore pray that we may be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, and also, as the Apostle expresses it in the last chapter of this Epistle, we must `put on the whole armour of God’. Without it we are doomed to failure. If you seek to be near to Christ the devil will bring out all his reserves against you, and you will become aware of the depths of Satan in a manner you have never even imagined.

Christian people who do not know what it is to be subjected to an onslaught of Satan or to a Satanic attack are but babes in Christ. He has no need to deal in this manner with the babes; but the moment you begin to grow and become a `young man’, the moment you become strong and know Christ and His love increasingly, you can expect temptation. Thus you find in the lives of all the greatest saints, that side by side with their glorious experiences of the love of Christ there is an awareness at times of a conflict, as if hell were let loose round and about them. It should be clear, therefore, that we are in a realm which is altogether different from the mechanical realm to which the teaching of all the cults belongs, as does all superficial evangelical teaching which assures us that `it is quite simple’. As the Apostle says later in chapter 6, `We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies’ (6:12). We are following in His footsteps who was tempted of the devil in a manner so severe that it is impossible for us to conceive it.

The next vital matter which we must emphasize is that we must learn to seek the Lord Himself. I mean that we must not be content with ideas concerning Him, or with propositions about Him. Once more it is essential that we should emphasize that while doctrines and theology and understanding are absolutely vital to the Christian, it is always wrong to stop at these alone. We must go beyond them and realize that the purpose of all knowledge of doctrine is to bring us to a knowledge of the Person of Christ. As we have seen, `That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection’ was the ambition of the greatest doctrinal, theological teacher and preacher the Church has ever known. Without knowledge of doctrine we may become victims of a false mysticism, or simply remain babes in Christ. In order to be strong, and grow, and become virile and powerful, an understanding of truth is essential to us. But that should lead us to seek a knowledge of the Person Himself.

This is a very subtle matter. All who have ever been concerned about these matters know what snares are at hand. Sometimes a man, in correcting a false subjectivism, goes right over to the other extreme and becomes so entirely objective that he finds his soul and spirit have become dry. But extremes are wrong. The glory of the gospel is that it takes up the whole man, his mind, his heart, his will, indeed, the entire personality. If any one aspect is lacking there is a lack of balance. I emphasize this great danger of being content with ideas and truths about the Lord Jesus Christ instead of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. You become enamoured of the thoughts, the principles, and the concepts; and you can become so entranced by them that they may come between you and the Person. The very doctrine concerning Him may hide Him from your eyes. Nothing is more tragic than that! Many of us must confess to having been in that condition for years. It is a terrible snare; beware of it. It is as dangerous as false mysticism; it is as dangerous as remaining a babe in Christ.

Again, let me stress that we are to seek the Lord Himself, and not merely experiences which come to us in a general manner in the Christian life. Thank God for experiences of enjoying the reading or the preaching of the Word, experiences that come in meetings for prayer, experiences that come while singing a hymn, or the experiences we know in Christian fellowship, and in many other respects. Thank God for all such general Christian experiences. But while we thank God for them in this particular realm with which we are dealing, we have to realize that even they can be dangerous. This should not discourage us. It is true to say of every level in the Christian life that it has its own peculiar problems. There are many people who have no spiritual experience whatsoever; they have simply accepted certain things with their minds. Clearly that is totally inadequate, but having said that, we proceed to say that we have to be careful about experience. That there are special problems at each stage is true in our ordinary life in this world. The problems of childhood are not identical with the problems of adolescence, and the problems of adolescence are not identical with the problems of middle age; and the problems of middle age are not the problems of old age. On the surface, the teaching appears to be contradicting itself. But that is not so; as we grow older, we are in a different realm, we have arrived at a different stage, and we may have to do something at one stage which appears to be a blank contradiction of what we had to do at an earlier stage. It is precisely the same in the Christian life.

Let me put it yet more simply and directly. Many Christian’s people live on `meetings’ and not on the Lord Jesus Christ. They may feel disturbed or unhappy in their spiritual experience, and that may well mean that the Holy Spirit is dealing with them. But instead of doing what we are told here, and seeking this knowledge of the Lord, and this love of Him that passeth knowledge, they go to endless rounds of meetings. In the meetings they are made to feel happy, and they go home feeling that all is well. Again they feel miserable; then go to another meeting and the experience is repeated. They may go out every night in the week to some meeting or other, in order to keep themselves in a happy condition. What is happening is that they are living on meetings!

This is not only true in connection with meetings; it can happen also with books. I again plead guilty to this. It is possible to live a kind of second-hand spiritual life on books. It happens in the following manner. Feeling dissatisfied and disturbed, and having a consciousness within that our life is not what it should be, and that there is something much greater possible, we begin to read certain books, for example, the biography of a saint or a book which deals with the higher reaches of the Christian life. We greatly enjoy doing so and we are moved. Though we have not had the experience itself of which we are reading, we feel happier and better. We may do this for years without realizing that we are living on books instead of living on Christ. We can live on other people’s experiences which we may hear in a meeting, or read of in books, but have no experience of our own. Because we have a comfortable feeling, and feel a little happier, we are content, and we do not go on to seek the Lord Himself.

Indeed, it is possible for us so to misuse the means of grace as to live on them instead of going on through them to discover the

Giver of all grace. How subtle all this is! And it is so because we are still not perfect, and because of the wiles of the devil. The great rule which must never be forgotten is: Seek the Lord Himself. Seek the Person. The Christian life is not simply a matter of adopting a number of ideas; Christianity is not a philosophy, not a collection of thoughts and concepts. Its special glory, and what makes it unique, is that it not only teaches us to apply a teaching, but to get to know a Person, and to walk with Him in the light. It is personal, it is individual. The essence of success in this matter is to keep that ever in the forefront. We must not allow anything, however good and beneficial it may be in itself, to satisfy us in our spiritual life until we can really say, I know Christ Himself.

This is particularly true in the matter of prayer. Prayer really means talking to God, listening to God, and having communion with God. That obviously involves personal relationship. What do we really know of true prayer? We can so easily delude ourselves into thinking that if we get on our knees and think certain good thoughts, or certain good thoughts pass through our minds concerning God, that we are praying. I believe that God in His mercy is prepared even to accept that; but it is not true prayer. `Our fellowship’, says John, `is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ’. By `fellowship’ he means knowing and walking with Them.

George Muller of Bristol knew more about prayer than most Christians; and you will find that the first thing he always did when he prayed was to make sure of a realization of the presence of God. He did not present his petitions until he had realized God’s presence. This was the secret of that great man of prayer. We talk about Muller’s great faith, and of course it was great faith; but the real secret of George Muller was not his great faith but the fact that he knew God and spoke to God as one who knew Him. Realization of the presence of God! You cannot know the love of Christ until you know Christ. That is why the Apostle tells the Philippians that his greatest ambition was `that I may know him’ (3:10). The first thing we have to do is to realize the presence of the Person, to seek the Lord Himself—not His blessings, not thoughts or teachings concerning Him. These things are excellent and we must continue to seek them; but we must not stop at them. We must go through them and use them to seek the blessed Person Himself.

The next principle in connection with this teaching, follows from that in an inevitable manner; it is that we must ever remind ourselves that the Lord Jesus Christ is to dwell with us: being `strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith’. What we need to do at this point is to realize that He Himself has said, `Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me’ (Rev 3:20). When that becomes a fact, Christ is within us. I sometimes think that the realization of this is the most transforming event that can happen to anyone. It is the essence and the secret of sanctification. It is not a matter of trying to obtain something, it is not simply striving to live on a certain moral level; the secret of it all is to realize that He dwells within us, that He is in our hearts. The Apostle not only teaches this about our Lord but also about the Holy Spirit.

How slow we are to learn the great lessons of Scripture! In the sixth chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians, the Apostle deals with the very practical problem of sinning in the body. `Flee fornication’, he says (v. 18). But in showing how this is to be done he does not indulge in some vague moral teaching or give a lecture on the medical consequences of sin, or make some general appeal. His method is very different. He says, `What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s’ (vv. 19-20). The way to overcome sin is to realize that the Holy Ghost is dwelling in you, and that your bodies are His temple. The Holy Ghost is involved, as it were, in whatever you do with your body. `What!’ The whole secret of sanctification, in a sense, is to know how to utter that word `What!‘ So when you are next tempted, when the devil comes and tempts you to sin in any shape or form, stop and say, `What?’ It is unthinkable! It is impossible! The Holy Ghost dwells within me; my body is His temple. Christ is in me.

We must talk to ourselves in that manner and apply the truth to ourselves. It is because we fail to do this that we are as we are, and what we are. We are to go on seeking this Person, and we must realize that He is within us. His Word is true and cannot be broken. I therefore am to live as a man who believes that the Lord Christ dwells within, indeed, who is fully persuaded that He dwells within. `I am not my own’; He has come to dwell within me. My whole outlook and attitude will be determined by this realization.

Finally, having taken these steps, we must positively and actively seek His love. The Apostle is praying that these Christians may come to know it in its breadth and length and depth and height. Having realized the truth concerning glorious possibility, we must now seek the Lord Himself, to know His love, and apply to Him for this knowledge. I say again, that this has been the universal practice of all those have ever been able to testify that they have truly known this love. We find it stressed, not only in the New Testament, but in the Old. For instance, a deep longing and desire for the knowledge of God is expressed in many of the Psalms, for example, Psalms 42, 63 and 84; `As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, 0 God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?(42:1-2); ‘Thy loving kindness is better than life'(63:3). And again, `I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness’ (84:10). This same is expressed well in a hymn in Welsh by William Williams translated thus:

Tell me Thou art mine, 0 Saviour; 

Grant me an assurance clear; 

Banish all my dark misgivings, 

Still my doubting, calm my fear.

    Were we but to apply in the spiritual life what we know so well and do, in the natural life, our spiritual condition would be very different. There is nothing that we desire more than to be told that those whom we love, love us. Actions are not sufficient, we like to be told in words. So let us plead with Him to let us know of a surety that He has loved us individually with an everlasting love.

From the MLJ book “Unsearchable Riches of Christ.”264-264

https://www.monergism.com/

A Joy that is Above Circumstances and Accident (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1899-1981)

 

John 17:13

“And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.”

  We have been considering together the ways in which, as Christians, we manifest our Lord’s glory, and we have reminded ourselves of our tremendous responsibility as we realize that we, and we alone, are the people through whom the Lord Jesus Christ is glorified in this world of time.

     Now that was the second reason for our Lord’s prayer—the first reason, you remember, was because of who and what we are—and here we come to the third reason, which he puts quite plainly in verse 13. He says, in effect, `I am praying all these things audibly in their presence because I am anxious that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.’ He is anxious that this joy that he himself had experienced should also be fully experienced by these his followers. There is, therefore, a very definite logical sequence in the arrangement of these matters. In dealing earlier with the ways in which the Lord Jesus Christ is glorified in us, we spoke of the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, and so on. At that point, in dealing briefly with joy, I said that I would not go into it in detail, because we would be returning to it, and this is where we must do that. And what we see here is that one of the ways in which we, as Christians, can glorify Christ in this life and world, is by being filled with this spirit of joy and of rejoicing. This is a fruit of the Spirit which our Lord singles out in particular in this prayer to the Father on behalf of his followers. And so we glorify him in a very special way by being partakers of this his own joy.

     Obviously, therefore, this is an important subject. Our Lord would not have singled it out like this and given it a special place and emphasis unless it was something of vital concern. So clearly we must start our consideration of it by reminding ourselves again of what a wonderful display this is of our Lord’s care and solicitude for his own people. How anxious he is that their welfare should be catered for! He is going to leave them, he is going back to the Father, but he does not lose interest in them for that reason. In a sense he is still more interested in them, and though he is going to face the shame and the agony of the cross, what is uppermost in his mind is the condition and future of these disciples of his, whom he is leaving behind.

     But there is more than that—indeed it is something which is of even more vital concern. All that we have been saying is something to rejoice in, but there is a bigger, deeper lesson here. This whole subject of joy is one which is prominent in the New Testament, and, therefore, it must be of primary importance to Christian people. We can see in John 16 how our Lord constantly referred to it, and if you go through the four gospels and look for it, you will find that he was always emphasizing it. And if you read the epistles you will find the subject of joy there, in perhaps a still more striking manner, for some of them are almost exclusively devoted to it. It is a great theme, for instance, of the epistle to the Philippians. Paul’s concern there is that Christian people should experience this joy—`Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice’ (4:4). It was his burning desire for all Christian people. And then, what, after all, is the purpose of the book of Revelation except that God’s people should be taught how truly to be filled with joy and to rejoice? John himself in his first epistle very specifically says, `These things write I unto you that your joy might be full’ (1:14). He was an old man realizing that he was at the end of his journey and thinking of the Christian people he was leaving behind in this difficult world. So he wrote his letter to them in order that their joy might be full. It is, I say, one of the outstanding themes of the entire New Testament, and so it behoves us to be very clear in our minds about it.

     There are certain principles that seem to me to stand out very clearly. The first is that we are not only saved for eternity. The gospel of Jesus Christ, of course, is primarily something that does safeguard our eternal destiny. Its fundamental purpose is to reconcile us to God and to see that we are saved in that final and eternal sense. It puts us right once and for all and into a right standing in the presence of God. It reconciles us to God, and establishes definitely in our experience that we are his children. It takes from us the fear of death, of the grave, and of judgement, and it assures us that our eternity and our eternal destiny is safe and secure. But—and this is what is emphasized in this particular verse —we are not only saved for eternity. It is a very false and incomplete view of Christian salvation that postpones its blessings to the realm that lies beyond this present life and beyond the grave.

     This sounds so obvious that it is almost foolish to emphasize it, and yet if you go into the history of the church you will find that very often, and sometimes for a very long period, Christian people, by the subtlety of Satan, have been entirely robbed of this particular aspect. This has very often been a result of our reaction —a healthy and right reaction—against worldliness. Christian people have realized that because they are not of the world they should separate themselves from everything that belongs to it. They interpret that as meaning that while they are in this life they are—to use that line of Milton’s—`To scorn delights, and live laborious days’. So they have thought of the Christian as someone who is melancholic, someone who is never going to experience any happiness or joy in a sinful world like this, but who really does look forward to a great joy of unmixed bliss in the land that lies beyond the present and the seen. Thus they seem to rob themselves entirely of any benefits or blessings from salvation in this present life. Now that is tragically and pathetically wrong. The blessings of Christianity are to be enjoyed in this world as well as in the world to come. There are different aspects, of course, of salvation, but we must never so emphasize the future as to derogate from the present, neither must we in turn emphasize the present and detract from the future. There are blessings to be enjoyed here and now and our Lord emphasized that very clearly in this verse.

     But then I draw a second deduction, which is that one of the particular blessings which the Christian is meant to enjoy in the present life is this experience of joy. Our Lord says that he prays in order that his joy might be `fulfilled in themselves’. We see that in John 16 when he exhorts us to pray: `Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full’ (v. 24). The Christian is meant to be a joyful person, one who is meant to experience the joy of salvation. There is no question about that; it is something which is taught everywhere in the New Testament, and so it is our duty as Christians to have this joy, and to be filled with it. And we must give ourselves neither rest nor peace until we have it.

     But there are many obstacles to that, and many things which hinder the Christian from having it. There are certain people, I know, who so react against the false and carnal sort of joy, that they rob themselves of the true joy. But the opposite of carnal and fleshly joy is not to be miserable. It is to have the true joy, the joy of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And in the light of all these exhortations from him and from the apostles we must start by realizing that it is our duty to possess and to experience this joy of which our Lord speaks. We have no right not to have it. Indeed, I put it as my third principle that it is clearly dishonouring to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the work he has done, not to have this joy. The teaching seems to be that he came into this world in order that we might have it. Take, for instance, the words at the end of chapter 16: `These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace’ (v.33). That verse couples peace and joy together: `In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.’ And because he has overcome the world, we are meant to have this joy and to experience it; we are meant to be Christian people who rejoice.

     This links very naturally with the previous subject of glorifying him—a miserable Christian does not and obviously cannot glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. Everybody else is miserable, the world makes people so. But if the Lord Jesus Christ has done what he claims to have done, and has come to suffer all that he suffered in this world, to the end that his people might be made different, they are obviously to be a joyful people. He has done all that in order to make it possible for us, and so our failure to be joyful in our lives is to detract from his glory and to cast queries upon his wonderful work. It thus behoves us as Christian people to realize that it is our duty to be joyful. This is often put to us in the New Testament as an injunction. We are commanded to rejoice and if you are commanded to do something, it means that you must do it. Now that, obviously, is going to raise a question in our minds as to the nature of this joy. People say that it is no use going to a miserable man and telling him to cheer up. But there is a sense in which you can do that—not directly, but indirectly—and it will result in joy. This is what we must consider together. `Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice’—that is what we are meant to do, and we are meant to be joyful, not only for our own sakes, but still more for his.

     So that leads us to the vital question—what is this joy, and what do we know about it? We will content ourselves, for the moment, with just looking at what our Lord himself tells us in this particular verse. The first thing is that it is hisjoy. `These things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.’ Now this is most important because it means that it is not the kind of joy that some people sometimes seem to think it is. It is the kind of joy that he himself possessed and therefore we can say of necessity that it was not carnal or fleshly, it was never boisterous.

     I emphasize those negatives because it is always essential to point out that in a matter like this there are two extremes that must always be avoided. I have already mentioned one of them, that of being so anxious to avoid the carnal as to become almost melancholic, but we must also avoid this other extreme. There are certain people—and they have been very much in evidence I should think for the last fifty years or so—who, having realized quite rightly that a Christian is meant to have joy, have been so anxious to manifest the fact that though they are Christian they are still joyful, that they assume a liveliness which is certainly not the joy of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are a kind of boisterous Christian, but our Lord was never boisterous. Our Lord’s joy was a holy joy. Yes—let us not hesitate to say it—it was a serious joy. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and yet joyful.

     The same thing is obviously true of the apostle Paul. He says of himself that he knows this joy and rejoices, and yet he also says that `in this tabernacle do we groan, being burdened’ (2 Corinthians 5:4). You just cannot think of Paul as a kind of `hail fellow well met’ man, it is inconceivable. Yet no man had a greater joy. He talked in the terms of our Lord himself, and that is the joy that you and I should have. It is not a kind of joy that you put on as a cloak, nor is it a kind of mask that you put on to impress people with how happy and joyful you are. To start with, that does not mislead anybody except the truly superficial, but in any case it is false. True joy is not something that is assumed, it is, rather, an experience down in the depths of one’s being. It is not, therefore, something you try to produce, but something that you are, which manifests itself in your life because you are what you are. There is nothing, it seems to me, that is so irritating as the kind of person who is obviously trying to give the impression that he is happy and joyful because he is a Christian, there is nothing that tends to make some of us more miserable; but that is a wrong sort of joy. The first principle, then, is that it is a particular type of joy. It is his joy, and it is the very antithesis of the carnal and fleshly, which is assumed and affected and acted.

     Secondly, it is exactly the joy that our Lord himself knew. You cannot go through the gospels and look at the portrayal of our Lord which is contained therein, without seeing this remarkable theme running right through. In spite of all he had to endure and suffer, he spoke constantly of this joy. There is no more striking illustration of this than that which we find at the end of chapter 16. The disciples, at long last, thought that they had seen and understood, but he turned to them and said—and if I could paint I should like to paint the expression of his face when he said it—`Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone’—then—`and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me’ (John 16:31-32). That is joy, that is the joy which he possessed, it was always a part of his life and experience. And that is the joy which we are meant to have, a joy that can face the cross, yes, and the weakness and the apparent desertion, of those whom we trusted, and on whom we relied—`Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame…’ (Hebrew 12:2).

     Or, again, you can look at it as the joy that comes entirely and exclusively from him. He is its source, so it is a joy that is impossible apart from him, because it derives and emanates from him. It is a joy that he gives to his own people. Put in another way, it is a part of this wonderful fruit that the Holy Spirit produces in us, so in no sense is it self-generated. We do not produce it, it is his joy which is thus realized by us and manifested through us—that is our firstprinciple.

     The second thing he tells us about it is that it is a joy that is entirely above and independent of the world and of circumstances and it is in no way produced by them. That, as we have just seen, is the thing that stands out so marvellously in the life of the Lord himself and that is what strikes you as you read through the gospels. He was in the world yet he was not of it, he was independent of it. He walked through the middle of the storm quite unaffected by it, for he had peace within. It is said that in the middle of a hurricane, or a tornado, there is always a central spot which is quite peaceful, and our Lord was always there. Whatever might be happening around and about him, he had this central point of peace and joy. Again, we see this clearly in the great verse in Hebrews 12: `Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.’ He went through it all, for there was that about him which made him quite impervious to these things and they could not get at him. It was a kind of garrison, or, as Paul puts it in connection with peace, `The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep [garrison] your hearts and minds’ (Phil 4:7), shall surround them, or shall so protect them that nothing can penetrate.

     Our Lord was like that; he was kept by this marvellous joy so that nothing could touch or affect him. After all, there is very little value in a joy which does not make us capable of that. If our joy is dependent upon what is happening to us and the world around us, or on what is happening to us physically, then we are not different from the world. The world knows what it is to have a kind of joy when everything goes well, but the tragedy about worldly joy is that it is entirely dependent upon circumstances. We all know that perfectly well in our own experience, and we see it so constantly in others. I know of nothing which is quite so sad in this world as to see a life that has seemed so happy suddenly shattered because of something that happens, such as the death of a loved one, or some disappointment or accident. The joy which is thus dependent upon circumstances outside ourselves or our own condition is not his joy. The glory of this Joy of which he speaks is that it is absolutely independent of circumstances. He could face the cross and rejoice, and his prayer to the Father is that this joy might be fulfilled in us.

     We must remember, too, the context of this verse. He goes on to say in verses 14-16, `I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.’ That is the promise. He was going to leave them all. They had been dependent on him—for three years they had been hanging on his every word, and the result was that when he began to tell them he was going away, sorrow filled their hearts. And so he started off—we read at the beginning of the fourteenth chapter—by saying, `Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me …’ He tried to comfort them. He said, in effect, `You are depending too much on my physical presence. I am going to leave you.’ But not only that, he was going to leave them in a world full of hate, in a world that hated them, in a world that would be antagonistic to them, in a world that would try to kill them and exterminate them, as a body. He was going to leave them in such a world, and yet his prayer was, `That they might have my joy fulfilled in them.’ In other words, his prayer was that though the world, the flesh, the devil and all hell would be let loose against them and would be violently opposed to them, yet they—like himself, for the joy that was set before them, the joy that they had already experienced—might be more than conquerors. That is the great New Testament theme. Read Romans 8, verses 35-37, where Paul, after he had given his tremendous list of all the things that were happening to them, could write, `Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.’ That is the true joy. It is a joy, therefore, that is entirely above circumstances and accident and chance; it is independent of them all even as his was.

     And the next principle is the discovery of what it is that makes this joy possible. I can imagine someone saying, `I would give the whole world if I could have this joy. I recognize that you are right when you say it is the New Testament teaching, and that it is my duty to be like that, but how does one get it?‘

     Fortunately our Lord answers the question here. He says, `These things I speak in the world; [in order] that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves’, and that leads us to see exactly how we can obtain this joy. One part of this joy is our certain knowledge that he is praying for us. He not only prayed for the disciples, he prayed audibly, in order that they might hear and know, and what he did there he will do for us now. Therefore the great thing is to know that the Lord Jesus Christ is interceding on our behalf, he is still praying.

     And that, in turn, leads us to realize his love towards us. I suppose there is nothing that so tends to rob us of our joy as our realization that we do not love him as we ought, because when we realize this, we become unhappy and miserable. I will tell you the best antidote to that: when you realize your love is weak and faint and poor and unworthy, stop thinking about your love, and realize that in spite of its poverty, he loves you. He has said, `As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you’ (John 15:9). If I did not believe that, then I would be of all men most wretched and miserable, for the whole essence of the Christian salvation is to know that in spite of what I have been and what I am, he loves me. Start with that, and I think he will begin to make you love him, but if you are always looking at your own love and trying to increase that, you will be miserable. Think of his love to you; he has given evidence of it, so accept the evidence and act upon it.

     But it also makes us know the Father’s love. Our Lord has said it here, in verse 6: ‘thine they were’—he reminds us that we belong to God, that we are God’s people, the special object of his concern. Or let me put it still more specifically in this way. What are `these things’ to which our Lord refers? They are this great doctrine that he has been enunciating, which is that God has his people, that before the foundation of the world God had his people, his marked people, and that he gave them to Christ—we have already dealt with this in detail: `I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me’ (v.6). To know the Lord’s joy is to realize that, and to realize, furthermore, that the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world for us, that he came in order to prepare us for God, and to deliver us from the guilt of our sin. He has done it all. He has borne the guilt and the punishment and the law is satisfied. It has nothing against us any more, for, `There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8.1). As the hymn puts it, `The terrors of law and of God, With me can have nothing to do’ (Augustus Montague Toplady). I know that, and he has reminded me of it, so how can I fail to be joyful if I believe what he says?

     Then what more can we say about these things? Well, he has given me his own nature. He has made me a child of God. He gives me the blessed assurance that, `If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life’ (Romans 5:10). He has shown us so plainly and clearly that our salvation depends entirely upon him, and not upon ourselves at all. He has told us that no man shall be able to pluck us out of his hands, that we are indeed safe and secure, and that nothing and no one shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is people who believe things like that, who know what this joy is. Go back and read the history of the church, read the lives of the saints, and you will find that the people who have been the most joyful have always been the people who have been most assured and certain of their salvation.

     And then another source of joy is that we can realize, as he did, the joy that is set before us. Whatever this world may be doing to us, if we know of this inheritance that is prepared for us we cannot but be happy. `Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also’ (John 14:1-3). If you believe that, your heart cannot but rejoice. So he speaks `these things’ in the world that we may hear them, and this is the source of joy.

     And all that leads in turn to fellowship with the Father, to a life lived with God. John has put that perfectly, once and for ever, in 1 John 1:3-4, `That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.’ That is the ultimate source of joy, that, realizing the truth as it is in Christ, we are brought into fellowship with the Father. And so, as we walk with him in fellowship we must be joyful. Anything less is impossible, and as our Lord experienced it, so shall we experience it.

     So let me end this study with a few practical suggestions.

How, then, in practice do we have this joy? The first thing is to avoid concentrating on our own feelings. There are many Christian people who spend the whole of their lives looking at their own feelings and always taking their own spiritual pulse, their own spiritual temperature. Of course, they never find it satisfactory, and because of that they are miserable and unhappy, moaning and groaning. Now that is wrong. First and foremost we must avoid concentrating on our own feelings. We must learn to concentrate positively on `these things’. In other words, the secret of joy is the practice of meditation—that is the way to have this joy of the Lord. We must meditate upon him, upon what he is, what he has done, his love to us and upon God’s care for us who are his people.

     This is what I meant earlier when I said we could only produce this joy indirectly. It is not something I assume in order to give the impression that I am a wonderfully happy man, and then go back to being bored and miserable in my own home. No, it is not that, it is something that results from meditation and contemplation upon `these things’, these precious, wonderful things. And I have no hesitation in saying that there is such a marked absence of true Christian joy in the church today because there is so little meditation. Do not misunderstand me. We all constantly exhort one another to have our `quiet time’, which generally means reading Scripture and prayer. It is perfectly right, but if you stop at that, you will probably not have this joy—having read and having prayed, then meditate. Think on these things, set your affection on them, hold yourself before them and bring them to your mind many times during the day. The sum of joy is simple meditation, contemplation, on these things, making time to dwell upon them, putting other things out of the way and spending your time with them. For the more we know `these things’ and dwell with them and live with them, and seek the face of God, the greater will be our joy.

     And obviously—this almost goes without saying—we must avoid everything that tends to break our fellowship with God. The moment that is broken we become miserable. We cannot help it; whether we want to or not, our conscience will see to that.It will accuse us, and condemn anything that breaks our fellowship with God and his Son. The joy of the world always drives out the other joy, as does any dependence on the world, so we must avoid sin in every shape and form. Let us stop looking to the world, even at its best, for true joy, and for true happiness. But above all, we must look at `these things’ that he speaks of, these truths that he unfolded. Let us meditate upon them, contemplate them, dwell upon them, revel in them and I will guarantee that as we do so, either in our own personal meditation or in reading books about them, we will find ourselves experiencing a joy such as we have never known before. It is inevitable, it follows as the night the day.

     `These things speak I in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.’ What a wonderful thing that it is possible for us to live in this world, in a measure, even as the blessed Son of God lived, and that as we do so he is glorified in us.

Taken from Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ book “The Assurance of our Salvation.”295-307

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Waiting for God's Answer (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1899-1981)

 Habakkuk 2:1-3

2 I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.

2 And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

I. THE ATTITUDE OF FAITH

AFTER telling God about his perplexity in Habakkuk 1 the prophet goes on to say, in chapter 2, `I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved’ (2:1). The last phrase may mean, `what I shall answer when I am reproved by those who will not like my message,’ or ‘when I am reproved by God for what I have said,’ or ‘what He will say unto me when He answers my complaint.’ But the important consideration is that Habakkuk now realizes that the one thing to do is to wait upon God. It is not enough just to pray, to tell God about our perplexities, and just to cast our burden on the Lord. We must go further and wait upon God.

(a) Commit your problem to God

What does this mean in practice? First, we must detach ourselves from the problem. The prophet’s words suggest that interpretation by picturing a tower set upon a high elevation which commands a wide view and a grand prospect, such as is used by military observers in order to anticipate the arrival of an enemy. The watchman is far above the plains and the crowds of people, occupying a point of vantage where he can see everything that is happening. `I will watch to see what he will say unto me.’ Now here is one of the most important principles in the psychology of the Christian life, or the understanding of how to fight in the spiritual conflict. Once we have taken a problem to God, we should cease to concern ourselves with it. We should turn our backs upon it and centre our gaze upon God.

Is not this precisely where we go astray? We have a perplexity, and we have applied the prophetic method of laying down postulates and putting the problem in the context of those propositions which we have laid down. But still we do not find satisfaction, and we do not quite know what to do. It may be the problem of what we are to do with our lives; or it may be some situation that is confronting us which involves a difficult decision. Having failed to reach a solution, despite seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, there is nothing more to do but to take it to God in prayer. But what so frequently happens is this. We go on our knees and tell God about the thing that is worrying us; we tell Him that we cannot solve the difficulty ourselves, that we cannot understand; and we ask Him to deal with it and to show us His way. Then the moment we get up from our knees we begin to worry about the problem again.

Now if you do that, you might just as well not have prayed. If you take your problem to God, leave it with God. You have no right to brood over it any longer. In his perplexity, Habakkuk says, `I am going to get out of this vale of depression; I am going to the watch-tower; I am going up to the heights; I am going to look to God and to God alone’—one of the most important secrets of the Christian life! If you have committed your problem to God and go on thinking about it, it means that your prayers were not genuine. If you told God on your knees that you had reached an impasse, and that you could not solve your problem, and that you were handing it over to Him, then leave it with Him. Resolutely refuse to think about it or talk about it. Do not go to the first Christian you meet and say, ‘You know, I have an awful problem; I don’t know what to do.’ Don’t discuss it. Leave it with God, and go on to the watch-tower. This may not be easy for us. We may have to be almost violent in forcing ourselves to do this. It is none the less essential. We must never allow ourselves to become submerged by a difficulty, to be shut in by the problem. We must come right out of it—‘I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower.’ We have to extricate ourselves deliberately, to haul ourselves out of it, as it were, to detach ourselves from it altogether, and then take our stand looking to God—not at the problem.

There are endless illustrations of this important principle in the life of faith in the Scriptures themselves, and in Christian biography. Looking to God means not dealing with a problem yourself, not consulting other people, but depending entirely upon God, and `waiting’ only upon Him.

Habakkuk looked at this problem but he could see no light. He was confronted by the fact that God was going to take up those appalling Chaldeans, people altogether worse than his own nation, and was going to use them for His own purpose. He could not understand it, nor reconcile it with the holiness of God. But he could and did take it to God. Having done so, he looked to God and ceased to look at his difficulty. That is the true basis of spiritual peace. That is exactly what Paul meant in Philippians, ‘in nothing be anxious’ (see Phil. 4:6, 7). It does not matter what the cause is; never let yourself be anxious, and never let yourself be burdened or worn down by care. You have no right to be perturbed; you must never have that anxious care that is not only spiritually crippling but also physically debilitating. Never be anxious but ‘in every thing’—it is all-inclusive—‘by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.’ And then, ‘the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’ Get up into your watch-tower and just keep looking up to God. Look at nothing else, least of all your problem.

(b) Expect an answer from God

But we must go further and we must look for the answer. `I will watch to see,’ says this man. The military watchman’s task is to keep his eye on that landscape in front for the slightest indication of movement on the part of the enemy. Habakkuk is looking for the answer. We so often fail because we just pray to God and then forget about it. If we pray to God we must expect answers to our prayers. Do we in fact, after we have prayed, continue to look to God and eagerly await the answer? Are we like this man on his watch-tower, expecting it to come at any moment?

God, of course, may answer in a number of different ways. For instance, you can expect God to answer you as you read His Word, for it is the commonest way of all in which He does this. As you are reading Scripture, suddenly a strange and wonderful light is cast upon your problem. If you say to yourself, `This is the Word of God through which He speaks to men and I wonder what He has to say to me,’ then you are likely to obtain your answer. Watch and wait for it.

Then God sometimes answers directly in our spirits. The prophet said: `I will watch to see what He will say in me’ (cf. AV margin). God speaks to me by speaking in me. He can so lay something upon the mind that we are certain of the answer. He can impress something upon our spirits in an unmistakable manner. We find ourselves unable to get away from an impression that is on our mind or heart; we try to rid ourselves of it, but back it comes. So does God answer at times.

Then again He sometimes answers our prayers by so providentially ordering our circumstances, and the day-to-day happenings of our lives, that it becomes quite plain what God is saying. God never calls us to do any work without opening the door. He may take a long time, but if God wants us to do some special task He will shut other doors and open that particular one. Our whole life will be directed to that end. This is a common experience of the Christian life. God often allows obstacles to arise, but the way ahead remains clear. God’s will is certain. The point is that we must be looking for these answers, and ready to recognize them when they come. Having committed my problem to God I must expect God to answer. I should also compare one indication of guidance with another, because if God is always consistent with Himself in His dealings with me, I can expect them all to converge.

(c) Watch and wait for the answer

The third and last principle illustrated for us is that we must watch eagerly and persistently, like this watchman upon his tower. We must believe that God is always true to His word, and that His promises never fail. So, having committed myself and my problem to God, I must persist in looking with an eagerness which knows that God is certain to answer. It is dishonouring to God not to do so. If I believe God is my Father, and that the very hairs of my head are all numbered, and that God is much more concerned about my welfare and my well-being than I am myself; if I believe that God is much more concerned about the honour of His great and holy name than I am, then it is surely dishonouring to God not to look for an answer after I have prayed to Him. It is indicative of a serious lack of faith. Nothing so shows the character of our faith as our conduct and attitude after we have prayed. The men of faith not only prayed, but they expected answers. Sometimes, in a panic, we pray to God; then, after the panic is over, we forget all about it. The test of our faith is whether we expect an answer. The prophet stood upon his watch, and set him upon the tower. Though he could not understand God’s actions, he took the problem to God and then looked for an answer.

II. FAITH REWARDED

Verses 2 and 3 of chapter 2 contain the answer Habakkuk was given. ‘Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.’ This lesson is invaluable. It is an absolute law in the spiritual realm that if we adopt Habakkuk’s method, and behave as he behaved, God will always honour His promises. In effect, God said, ‘It is all right, Habakkuk, I have heard your prayer, I understand your perplexity. Here is My answer. The Chaldeans whom I am going to raise up to punish Israel will themselves in turn be completely routed and destroyed.’ The greatness of the Chaldeans was going to be short-lived. It was God who for a special purpose raised them up; but they took the glory to themselves and became inflated with a sense of their own power. Then God struck, and raised up the Medes and Persians who utterly destroyed the Chaldeans. God told the prophet to write the prophecy very clearly, so that any one reading it could at once understand and run to obey and warn others. [34-40]

Taken from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ book “From Fear to Faith,”

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