Andrew Martin
John 1: 35-39; 10: 27-30; 12: 26
Joshua 14: 6-15; 15: 16-19
The verses that we have read in John refer to following Jesus, and in Joshua we read of the man who “wholly followed Jehovah”. Now there are different presentations in the gospels. In the synoptic gospels, for example, we read of the Lord’s appeal to follow Him, and that is to follow Him in a path of suffering, taking up the cross; and that is very necessary. There is much blessing in doing it. The cross is what is laid upon us and we accept it from the Lord. There are things hard to bear, but as we accept them from the Lord we receive blessing.
In John’s gospel, He is not speaking on those lines. What we read in chapter 1 is the attractiveness of Jesus, the attractiveness of Christ here. It says of John the baptist in this well known section, “looking at Jesus as he walked, he says, Behold the Lamb of God”. What that walk involved, beloved! There had never before been a walk like that. Men had been going about in their own way, but here was a walk that was entirely different, a pathway that had never been seen on this earth before, a character of walk that had never previously been witnessed; and John the baptist was there, a man who had been given divine light, light beyond his dispensation. “And, looking at Jesus as he walked”. At this point, he is just drawn to the perfection of that One, and he says, “Behold the Lamb of God”. There was no need to say any more; it was not a question of what He was going to do, or what He was going to effect, just a call to look at Him, “Behold the Lamb of God”, that He should be the Object. What a testimony that was, a testimony of one who was absorbed with Christ. Now, what sort of testimony do I give? Do I give a testimony of one who is absorbed with Christ? Think of the effectiveness of John here, “Behold the Lamb of God”. There was a walk here, beloved, a walk that was absolutely perfect. In John’s gospel the Lord Jesus walks in majesty, in the greatness of His own Person; He does things in His own power. You can see Him towards the end of the gospel where it says, “Jesus therefore went forth” (chap 19: 5); even though He was wearing the purple robe and the crown of thorn, everything was in His hands, everything had been committed to Him, and how perfect was that walk. I love to think of the majestic footsteps of Jesus here, fulfilling the will of God in its entirety, in completeness, in regard to man upon the earth. There He was, magnifying the law, setting out everything that was honourable in it. The walk of Jesus in John’s gospel is not given like the other gospels. The walk of Jesus in the synoptic gospels begins at the manger and it goes to the cross. In John’s gospel we have Jesus, knowing that He came out from God and was going to God. It is a walk that came from heaven and was going back to heaven, a walk that was leading to the glory, and there was one who was, “looking at Jesus as he walked”. He could take account of the heavenly walk down here. There has been a heavenly life witnessed in perfection upon this earth. Oh, think of what that meant to God. There was one heavenly Object upon this earth upon whom His pleasure could rest without qualification, no hesitation as to that. The Father’s joy was in Jesus, and John the baptist was one beloved servant who had received light from God. He had received light from heaven as to who Jesus was. He speaks about that in the paragraph before where we read; he says, “And I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God”, and then he looks at Jesus as He walked, and “he says, “Behold the Lamb of God”. He has left us such a testimony, beloved. There were those who had been attached to John. They were attached to him because they knew that there was one who spoke the truth and who had a message from God; but when they heard the testimony, “Behold the Lamb of God”, they left him. I would not say they severed their former attachment, but they followed Jesus. “And the two disciples heard him speaking, and followed Jesus.” Oh, beloved, what a move that was. They were following in His steps. They were going to see where He lived. Where was He going? “But Jesus having turned, and seeing them following, says to them, What seek ye?” He knew what they were seeking and He loves to bring it out. The Lord loves to bring out what is in the hearts of His own. “What seek ye? And they said to him, Rabbi … where abidest thou?” If there is such a Man, where is His home? What are His circumstances like? What does He surround Himself with? “Where abidest thou?” What would Jesus say to that? “Come and see”. He would say that to you, “Come and see”. Do you know what they saw? It does not describe here in historical terms what they saw, but we can tell you what they saw: they saw “a glory as of an only-begotten with a father”; they saw the “only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father”. That is where He was dwelling, that is where He dwells now. He is in the bosom of the Father. He continues to dwell there, ever in His Father’s affections. They were admitted into such a wonderful insight of glory and love. We may think of Him, “the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father”, and these disciples who came where He abode were thus admitted into a holy and intimate sphere; they could contemplate Him in His own conditions. Have you seen Him in His own conditions? Lay hold of it! Lay hold of the fact that the Lord Jesus is in heaven, He is in conditions which are suited to Him, He is the centre of the Father’s affections. Lay hold of that! There is a glorious Man who fills the Father’s heart and, as we have been saying, He fills all things. He fills heaven with His glory and with His love, and “They … saw where he abode; and they abode with him that day”. What a day that was, beloved. That is still available today, “they abode with him”. These two disciples had the heart for it; they wanted it; they went in for it. They took this journey. You might say it does not sound as if it was a long journey. It was a journey. They had to give up whatever else they were going to do that day, and we have been hearing about that in the reading. We have been hearing about taking a journey. They had to leave whatever would have occupied them and they found there was something which was so much greater. There was one perfect, heavenly, glorious Man, and they abode with Him in His own surroundings. Well, I feel measured as to how much I can say about that.
I will go on to chapter 10 because here we have the same One and He is the Shepherd, and He speaks about His sheep, and He says, “My sheep hear my voice”. You see, in John 1 they saw; it was a question of what they saw, they saw where He abode and they abode with Him. In John 10, they are hearing His voice. Have you heard the Shepherd’s voice? You say, ’Well, I heard the call in the gospel’. Yes, that is a great thing, you never forget it. You hear that call in the gospel and it affects your heart, and it is an early milestone in your spiritual history. That is where you started, but have you heard the Shepherd’s voice; have you heard His voice? Have you heard His voice today? Did you hear it yesterday? I think the Shepherd’s voice has been heard; He has been speaking again, “My sheep hear my voice”. John’s sheep follow the unmistakable voice of Jesus. You may be sitting in an occasion, any occasion like this, a preaching, ministry meeting, reading, whatever it may be, and something is said; and it does not just go into your ears, it just goes straight to your heart. That is the Shepherd’s voice. You might say, ’Well, He showed me that something was wrong’. Yes, the Shepherd would guard you. You might say, ’There was something that appealed to me that I have never seen before’. Yes, the Shepherd will feed you. The Shepherd’s services are so varied. Let me read a passage in the prophets which gives you, by way of contrast, the great variety of the service of the Shepherd. It speaks about one who is a worthless shepherd, that is a man who is yet to come, who has yet to be manifested in the world, and so it speaks about him in a negative way. It says, he “shall not visit those that are about to perish, neither shall seek that which is strayed away, nor heal that which is wounded, nor feed that which is sound” (Zech 11: 16), four things. But the Good Shepherd, the Lord Jesus, He would seek that which is strayed away. That is the basis on which I am here today, that He sought that that was strayed away. I suppose every one of us can say that we are here because the Shepherd has sought that which is strayed away. He heals that which was wounded. Oh yes, beloved, get to know the Shepherd. We have been reminded recently of a young sister who lived in the 19th century, Lady Powerscourt. She experienced much sorrow in her life. She wrote a letter in which she appealed to somebody, ‘Let us get to know our Physician; let us take lodgings near His dispensary’. How appealing that is! He will “heal that which is wounded”. Oh yes, how many opportunities exist for the healing grace of Jesus. He will “feed that which is sound”. Think of all the supply that comes from the Shepherd. If the sheep wishes to wander, he may experience Him bringing him back. He may lead you a way you would rather not go, but His love is behind it all and it is all for our own good. He cares, and His tenderness goes with it, and at the end when you look back you say, ’Is He not wonderful?’. He says, “My sheep hear my voice”: they hear that voice; they gather to Him. They know the sound of the Shepherd. Earlier in the chapter it says, “But they will not follow a stranger” (v 5), but they hear His voice, “and they follow me”. Where He goes, they go, “and they shall never perish, and no one shall seize them out of my hand”. Oh, beloved, the enemy would come in and he would seek to instil fears. ”No one shall seize them out of my hand”. That is the Lord. In a sense that is a committal, the Lord making that committal, “no one shall seize them out of my hand”. He has the power and the greatness to ensure it anyway but He gives that assurance; and then He gives us further assurance, He says, “My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one can seize out of the hand of my Father”. Who could seize out of the hand of One that is greater than all? But these sheep are retained because they know the voice of the Shepherd, they know that voice and they follow Him. I would say, dear friend, young or old, if ever you hear the voice of the Shepherd and it goes against what you want to do, do not ignore the voice. Keep near the Shepherd, follow Him because, where is He leading you? He is leading you above. He is leading you to enter into your heavenly portion. That is where He is. We gather to Him, we gather to One who is a heavenly Man, above this scene altogether. He has been here but He is above this scene altogether and He is drawing us with his wonderful Shepherd’s voice. He would draw us to Him where He is. Let us go, let us be prepared for that.
I do not want to say too much about John 12 because our brother spoke about it yesterday, “If any one serve me”. If you have come to the Lord, if you have heard the Shepherd’s voice, if you are conscious of the fact that you are in His care, you will want to serve Him. You will. That is the normal reaction of a heart that has been touched by the Lord, that they will serve Him, and it is not ’What do I think I should do?’ but ’What will He have me to do?’. “If any one serve me, let him follow me”. He says, “let him follow me”. How are you going to follow? You say, if the Lord Jesus is in heaven and I am down here, ’How will I follow?’. The one who may have been the greatest servant there has ever been since the time of the Lord Jesus, said, “What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, Rise up, and go to Damascus, and it shall be told thee of all things which it is appointed thee to do”, Acts 22: 10. You will get directions. If you want to know how to hear the Shepherd’s voice, how will you hear it? You find where the flock is; you follow the footsteps of the flock. That is what it says in the Song of Songs -
Tell me, thou whom my soul loveth,
Where thou feedest thy flock,
Where thou makest it to rest at noon;
For why should I be as one veiled
Beside the flocks of thy companions?
chap 1: 7.
And the answer comes, that you follow the footsteps of the flock. Maybe you see that there are brethren, some of whom you know are enjoying something. I have been in a situation where those I knew were enjoying something and I felt out of it. Maybe there is someone who wants to enter into divine things and you maybe feel a little bit out of it, as if you cannot understand everything. Follow the footsteps of the flock; do not go off on your own. Follow the footsteps of the flock. You will find the Shepherd there, you will hear His voice. If you want to serve Him, beloved, you will find His words, you will find His directions in the same circle, you will find that you get all you need to satisfy your desire to serve Him. “If any one serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there also shall be my servant”.
Now I just wanted to speak about Caleb, because he was one who had gone through the wilderness journey, but one thing that distinguished Caleb was that he had been into another land. He had seen something that was not the wilderness and he valued it, and he had confidence in God, that if God had shown him something He would bring him to it. You remember the ten spies went to the land and they came back and they said it was a very, very good land but we cannot go in there. They preferred the wilderness to the land. Never settle down, beloved, in the wilderness. Sometimes, circumstances around may become comfortable. Do not settle down in them. I think that is one of the greatest things the enemy has used, to get us to settle down in comfort. I know of somebody who went astray and one of his relations said to him, ’The problem is, you have never needed God’. If you feel your need of God you will not go astray. In effect, these children of Israel said, ’We have travelled through this wilderness for so long, we are not going into the land, we will just stay here’. No! Lay hold of God’s purpose. Lay hold of what He has for you. Lay hold of the inheritance because it is yours, and it is yours to enjoy. There is no good having an inheritance if you do not enjoy it. It is like owning property in another country but we do not go to see it, we do not know what it is like, and we do not take any interest in it. It is inconceivable, is it not? But that is how many of us are. Oh beloved, lay hold of God’s thoughts and His eternal purpose and enter into them. Caleb said, “I wholly followed Jehovah”. He would say, ’I have not diverted. I have not looked back to Egypt’. No, “I wholly followed Jehovah”. I think that Caleb had the land in his heart. You remember when those ten spies came out from the land they brought a bunch of grapes with them. It was huge, so huge that two of them carried it on a pole. I think those two were Caleb and Joshua. They would say, ’Whatever the others are saying, we are going to bring back some evidence of the fruit of that land, something that God has prepared for those that love Him. We are going to enjoy it’. I am sure that they enjoyed those grapes. They have come from another world, another scene altogether, and, beloved, there is another scene where Jesus is, and He is the Centre of it and He gives character to it, and it is yours and it is mine and we can go in for it. We can go in by the Spirit. We can get some impression of it as we follow the history of the children of Israel. They went round in the wilderness, as Moses said in Deuteronomy, they had gone round and round this mountain, and then God said, “Ye have gone round this mountain long enough” (chap 2: 3), and they moved forward, and there was a well. They did not just find it, they had to dig, there was exercise involved. If they were to make progress it involved exercise, and they dug that springing well (Num 21 18); and there was no stopping from that point on. They went from one place to another to another right through to the land. Think of the resource they had in the Holy Spirit typically to enter into the whole region of God’s purpose. So Caleb knew that the promise was, “The land whereon thy feet have trodden shall assuredly be thine inheritance”, and he says, “And now give me this mountain”. Caleb was not saying, ’I am eight-five years old, give me a little retirement home’. No, Caleb was saying, ’I want a mountain. I want to enjoy the blessings. I want the elevation. I do not want to sit in the valley; I want the elevation’. There are blessings in the valley, of course, in the land, but Caleb is saying, ’I want the highest ground and I am going to make it my own’. Oh, let us make the truth our own, not just simply in a form of words and teaching, though that is precious as well, but let us make it our own so it becomes substantial in us. That is the kind of man that Caleb was. So Caleb received a blessing, the blessing of a man who followed Jehovah. That is who the blessing was for; so he received the inheritance and he received the blessing, and then Caleb said, ’Who is going to follow my lead?’. And there was another man, Othniel; he also received a blessing, he received a wife, and what a woman she was! She had a desire for the inheritance, a desire to acquire what God has prepared for those that love Him. So Caleb said, “What wouldest thou? And she said, Give me a blessing; for thou hast given me a southern land”. Some might say, ’Was not that blessing enough? She had been given a southern land’. No, she says, ’I need to be maintained in it, and “he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs”. How precious that is. Think of the lower springs, “the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ”, Phil 1: 19. Think of what is available to us down here, “the love of God … shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit”, Rom 5: 5. He maintains the saints down here. But then think of the upper springs, “that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height”, Eph 3: 18. These are the upper springs, and Caleb says, ’Well, they are available’. These things are available, beloved, to us all, for young and old alike; I am not omitting anyone from the section here, but let us have the heart for it, let us go in for it. We have been exhorted as to what is complete, full growth, the full grown man, and so on. Let us have the heart to go in for these things and lay claim to them for ourselves that what God has so richly and bountifully provided for us may be enjoyed by us. If the Lord leaves us here for another day, we may enter into something of this tomorrow morning. Is the Supper, the service of God, an occasion which we experience for one hour, and then immediately continue as if nothing had happened? Will these three days, when they are over be just a pleasant memory? No, beloved, they must not be! We have received a supply from above. God has poured out a blessing on us in these last couple of days, and if we are left here for another day we will touch something in our spirits of the heavenly realm. God has made that provision for us. Are we going to just let it pass? No, let us go on. Let us have the heart for it, the appetite for it. Let us go in for these things, for His Name’s sake.
Wheaton
26th November 2011