Jimmy Drummond
Genesis 40: 9-11
Ephesians 5: 14-21
Revelation 21: 6
I am thinking especially of the second scripture we have read and the matter of redeeming the time. If we look at the footnote to the scripture we read in Ephesians we can see it refers to opportunities; so perhaps it may have been better to have read the scripture in Peter where it speaks of “the rest of his time”, 1 Pet 4: 2. However, I trust the Spirit will give us liberty to apply the scripture in Ephesians to our lives in a general way. We can say simply that our life is one big opportunity to be here for the Lord and for the Lord’s things. What a consideration it is then, the matter of redeeming the time. How precious time is; perhaps especially when we are younger we do not appreciate how precious time is. I suppose when you are young you almost - perhaps not literally - feel as if you are going to live forever: you do not think about what it is like to grow old and to die; but clearly none of us are naturally going to live forever. Well, that is stating the obvious, but none of us will live forever, no matter how advanced man becomes. “The Cherubim, and the flame of the flashing sword” were set “to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen 3: 24), and there is no access to that for man in his lost condition. Think of what God brought into the garden of Eden. He prohibited man from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God in His grace knew that man was not able for it; sin having entered the universe He knew that there was only one Man that would be able to resolve the moral question of good and evil. But sin having entered the race He guarded the tree of life. The only way to the tree of life now is through Christ because He Himself is the Tree of Life. Is that not wonderful!
Dear friend, beloved brother or sister, how brief life is. Have we not been reminded of that in recent times, the brevity of life. It does not matter how long you live for, and none of us knows how long we will live for, but even if you were to live one hundred years, life is brief. I once did a little calculation about the time that has passed from the beginning of creation until now. The Bible gives the history of man as approximately six thousand years, and the duration of most lives there have been would not equate to one percent of that time. How puny it is! We sung of man’s tiny life:
Whose little life is as a span,
Whose glory fades away.
(Hymn 150)
Is it not so brief? Life for anyone is relatively brief. Indeed James speaks of it in chapter 4 of his epistle. You may say he is exhorting us to redeem the time. He says, “Go to now, ye who say, To-day or to-morrow will we go into such a city and spend a year there, and traffic and make gain, ye who do not know what will be on the morrow, (for what is your life? It is even a vapour, appearing for a little while and then disappearing,) instead of your saying, If the Lord should so will and we should live, we will also do this or that”, v 13-15. Think of that, a scripture recording and telling us life is but a vapour. Someone else has said it is like the steam from a kettle; it is there momentarily and then it is gone. This condition in which we are: your life in this condition will be gone forever. How sobering that is; so the urgency then is to redeem the time. I would appeal and encourage each one of us in relation to that.
It is always a concern to bring Christ before the brethren, and in Genesis 40 it speaks typically to us of the Lord Jesus and of His life. What a life it was. I do not suppose we could really speak of redeeming the time in relation to the Lord. Think of that wonderful life, and all that it was from beginning to end for the pleasure of God, and yet it was so brief. In Psalm 90, a prayer of Moses, the man of God, he really touches upon the mortality of man, of you and me in our condition; he speaks about three score years and ten and a little more, and then he says, “it is soon cut off, and we fly away”, referring to the spirit of a person returning to God. It then says “So teach us” (v 12) as if it is not something that comes normally to us, “to number our days”, or to redeem the time. It says, “So teach us to number our days, that we may acquire a wise heart”. The Lord did not need to be taught, we may say reverently, to number His days. Think of how many or how few they were. It speaks prophetically of them, “take me not away in the midst of my days!”, Psalm 102: 24. Think of the allotted time span referred to in Psalm 90; but the life here of our Lord Jesus was barely half of that. And yet, think of it, Peter speaks about one day as a thousand years (2 Pet 3: 8), but when you think of the Lord’s life and what it meant to heaven, one day was as a thousand years, such was the compression that was involved in the Lord’s life here, such was the delight and the pleasure to heaven, to God and to the Father. So it says at the end of verse 9, “In my dream, behold, a vine was before me”. How blessed it is to keep Him before us, the Lord Jesus Christ. Think of His life and all its fulness, in all its perfection. We thought a little in the reading of the One who could say. “I am meek and lowly in heart”, Matt 11: 29. What a Person to be attracted to! He was meek towards men and lowly towards God, bringing out His perfect manhood and dependence. What wonderful features we find in our Lord Jesus. Here the writer says, “behold, a vine was before me; and in the vine were three branches”. In the description it almost sounds like a candlestick. I think it suggests to us that there was what was in the life of Jesus that was so great that it reflected back, and it shines forward as well. How wonderful it is: it is like the candlestick casting its light. It says, “and it was as though it budded”. Think of that; it has been likened to Luke 1: “the holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of God”, v 35. Think of what became manifest when the Lord Jesus was born. There was there that which was unlike you and me, which was essentially and substantially holy. How wonderful to contemplate that “holy thing”; and then it says also, “its blossoms shot forth”. Again that has been likened to Luke’s gospel. The Lord Jesus could say, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?”, chap 2: 49. Think of how even as a boy at the age of twelve He took up responsibility, and in conscious sonship. He took it up, and He was here for the pleasure of God and for the pleasure of His Father. And then it says “its blossoms shot forth”. What was seen there, the delight that heaven could take account of, and so the Spirit descends as a dove upon Him (Luke 3: 22), and it says “its clusters ripened into grapes”. Think of the Lord Jesus seen here in the glory, and, we would say reverently, the substantiality, of His manhood: “ripened into grapes”. And then it says, “And Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup”. Think of what came upon the Lord Jesus at the end of His pathway here. We have spoken of compression in relation to the fullness of the Lord’s life. God has indeed been described as a God of compression; and compression also enters into ministry; not everything is explained. There is what is left for us to follow up and work out. It says here, “and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh’s hand, and gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand”. Think of the Lord Jesus then as the perfect example. We can say that, especially as Luke gives an account of it as He moves forward and receives the cup from the Father. He could say, “not my will, but thine be done”, Luke 22: 42. What a life! How wonderful to think of it, such a life, laid down; He could say, “I have received this commandment of my Father”, John 10: 18. We were reminded recently that perhaps we have the tendency to look around and look at others, and choose someone as an example to suit our own conscience, but Peter says, “leaving you a model that ye should follow in His steps”, 1 Pet 2: 21. Is it not beautiful to know something of that life?
I read in Ephesians, which has been described as our light (JT vol 27 p572), the truth at its height, and yet Paul has to say certain things to them, certain things which would then be necessary to be said to ourselves. He says where we started to read, “Wake up, thou that sleepest”. He was not speaking to unbelievers. Of course, if there is anybody here who does not know Jesus as their Saviour, then how urgent the message is for you to wake up. Another scripture says “now is the well-accepted time”. You say, ’Well, this is an address, it is not the gospel’, but the scripture does not say wait until tomorrow till you hear the preaching; it says, “now is the well-accepted time; behold, now the day of salvation”, 2 Cor 6: 2. You think of how brief your life is in comparison to eternity. You cannot even actually do the comparison. There is no calculation you can do to compare the brevity of your life now to what all of eternity will be. Think of that, and if you do not know Jesus as your Saviour you could be standing on the brink of a lost eternity. How awful that is. For the believer, eternity is a prospect but, for the unbeliever, it is a precipice because you are standing on the edge of a lost eternity. You may be sitting here, and you may belong to believing parents, and you may have come to all the meetings, and you may not yet know Jesus as your Saviour because what you have been doing all the time is you have been hushing your conscience to sleep. If you keep hushing your conscience to sleep, it has been said, there will come a day in a lost eternity when your conscience will keep you awake with thunderous tones regarding the opportunities you had to come to know Jesus as your Saviour. Dear friend, there is no point speaking about redeeming the time if you do not yet know Jesus as your Saviour; may everyone here know Him as such, know Him as your Redeemer, and then you can redeem the time. And so it says here, “wake up”.
I just wanted to draw attention to some examples that may help us in relation to this scripture. The first one I wanted to speak about is in Acts 20 where we have Eutychus. That is another thing; you may know the Lord as your Saviour; and I trust you do, but you may be like Eutychus. It says of him in verse 9 “a certain youth, by name Eutychus, sitting at the window-opening, overpowered by deep sleep, while Paul discoursed very much at length, having been overpowered by the sleep, fell from the third story down to the bottom, and was taken up as dead”. You will not redeem the time if you sit at the window opening looking out rather than looking in and taking into account all that is proceeding. Verse 7 says, “And the first day of the week, we being assembled to break bread, Paul discoursed to them, about to depart on the morrow. And he prolonged the discourse till midnight”. The dispensation is now beyond the midnight; the darkest hour comes before the dawn, and that is where we are in the dispensation, and the question then would be for your heart and my heart, ’Where am I?’. Am I able to keep going, or am I sitting on the window opening, starting to lose interest, starting to look out. And what happens is that he falls. What a situation this is; I suppose literally he almost killed himself. You can do that you know; you can trifle with the world: you can live close to the periphery. Some may fall over the edge, and God in His grace may pull us back, but there are those who have been lost. It is not worth trifling on the edge of things, and so it says here, “Paul descending fell upon him, and enfolding him in his arms.” Paul is really an example to us. We have been reminded that it is a love chapter, the embrace is involved, and really Paul acts like the Lord, actually you may say, like Christ. Where we read in Ephesians it says, “Wake up, thou that sleepest, and arise up from among the dead, and the Christ shall shine upon thee”. And that is what Paul did to this youth; he was able to save the youth, and that is a challenge to any of us who are older that we might be able to save the youth. The result is that “Paul descending fell upon him, and enfolding him in his arms, said, Be not troubled, for his life is in him. And having gone up, and having broken the bread, and eaten, and having long spoken until daybreak, so he went away. And they brought away the boy alive, and were no little comforted”, v 10-12. So Eutychus is no longer called a youth, he is called a boy; that is, there is potential. You could become that; is that not wonderful? Perhaps you have not felt that interested in divine things, have not been interested in the meetings, but have been revived in your affections because Christ is shining upon you, and because of the warmth of His love. It is not His rebuking gaze, it is the warmth of His love, and you can be revived, and you become no longer a youth, but a boy. That is, you are a man potentially. It says that they “were no little comforted”. Would you not like to be that; would you not like to be a comfort to your parents, a comfort to your local brethren, by being revived and becoming attached to what is of the Lord? How blessed to be that. Paul makes this exhortation to wake up, and then he says, “See therefore how ye walk carefully, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
Ruth is another example of one who redeems the time. What a situation she found herself in. She must surely have considered this matter of numbering her days, given that her mother-in-law’s husband had died, her sister-in-law’s husband had died, and her own husband had died. Death had rolled in upon her circumstances and you could say that what is suggested in the scripture we referred to in Psalm 90 must have been on her heart. It says, “so teach us to number our days”, and she really begins in chapter 1 of Ruth. She says to Naomi, “Do not intreat me to leave thee, to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried”, v 16-17. Think of that; she came to the end of herself, the end of her own life. What a relief it is to come to the end of yourself and your own life. She was committing herself to the position whole-heartedly. Paul could say, “for me to live is Christ”, Phil 1: 21. That would be someone who completely redeems the time. What a standard, and how measured we are to speak of it, but he says, “for me to live is Christ”. Ruth was exercised and had begun to know certain things. It has been helpfully said that it is by faith that we know things; so faith is involved. You cannot redeem the time without having faith and exercising faith. It is by faith we know things, and it is by love we reckon things, and it is by the Spirit that we yield. These are instructive matters and if you are going to make progress and redeem the time you need to think about certain things. It is a reference to Romans 6; love causes you to reckon certain things, and it is by the Spirit you can now yield your members “in bondage to righteousness unto holiness”, v 19.
Then it says in chapter 2 of Ruth, “I pray you, let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers. And she came, and has continued from the morning until now: her sitting in the house has been little as yet”, v 7. Energy is also required to redeem the time. That is a challenge. There are greater and greater demands on our time being made by the world or business. It says of Ruth that “her sitting in the house has been little as yet”. She would not neglect what was in the house in relation to the family. A believer would not neglect what was in the house in relation to the family, but another has said simply -
Go on! go on! there’s all eternity to rest in.
W Lawrence
So energy is required, and the blessed Holy Spirit would strengthen and help us in relation to that. And then in verse 8, Boaz speaks to Ruth, “Hearest thou not, my daughter?”. If we begin to redeem the time, think of the rewards that start to come. Boaz said, “my daughter”. Think of being given a conscious sense of a relationship with divine Persons. Is that not a wonderful thing? If you start to redeem the time, if you start to give up some of your time - you might call it your own time - if you start to do that, you will get some sense of divine approval, and not only that, you will get some sense of having a relationship with divine Persons. How wonderful that is! There is nothing to compare with that; and so you find you can redeem the time wherever you are, if you are driving the car or in the train, wherever you are going or whatever you are doing, there is an opportunity in your thoughts, in your prayers, in reading: you can be redeeming the time. You do it, not because of some sort of ritual or some religious exercise, but because you have a relationship with divine Persons. She was going to discover that the person she had a relationship with was “a mighty man of wealth”, v 1. Is that not wonderful? What a recompense there is for any time we give to divine things, and so Boaz says to her, “Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from here, but keep near here with my maidens. Let thine eyes be on the field which is being reaped, and go thou after them”. That is another matter that has been mentioned many times before, having your eyes “on the field that is being reaped”. Think of the ministry of the recovery that has come to us. Think of the ministry of Mr Darby and Mr Stoney and Mr Raven and Mr Coates and Mr James Taylor. How can we have time to read the world’s books if we have not read all the ministry? And if you have read all the ministry you will not want to read anything else. It is as simple as that; how blessed that is. Of course, there are the Scriptures as well, primarily the Scriptures, the word of God, but then too there is the ministry which helps us to keep within the banks of the river, and helps things to open up, and confirms any impressions we may have. We get impressions direct from divine Persons, from the Lord and from the Spirit, but then the Scriptures would confirm our impressions, and then the ministry too would confirm and support and help us. But then there is more than that because it says of Ruth that “she sat beside the reapers; and he reached her parched corn, and she ate and was sufficed, and reserved some”, v 14. Think of that: parched corn; how beautiful it is, is it not? She did not just have what came from the books: she had something else, there was something of “the spirit of wisdom and revelation”, Eph 1: 17. You may say it is as if Jesus the Lord gave her something. Think of what it would be, dear brother or sister, to be conscious of the Lord Jesus Himself giving you something: parched corn, something that He had prepared. There is something gained that is beyond the mere study of Scripture, or ministry; there is what comes from Christ Himself. Is that not wonderful, involving the “the spirit of wisdom and revelation”? It must involve impartation. There is something that the Lord would give you as you redeem the time, if you make time, set aside time for Him. Think of His own personal attention to you. He knows who you are. You are not just one of a crowd; you are not just one of a number. The Lord Jesus knows every person who gives more and more time to His interests. How wonderful He is, what bounty He has to share with you and how blessed the situation becomes.
Then, of course, there is also the exercise of the threshing floor. The word was that Boaz was there, “Behold, he is winnowing barley in the threshing floor to-night”, chap 3: 2. It was barley; it is all linked with a Man, the Lord Jesus Christ who is risen from the dead. It is a risen and living Lord, One on the other side of death. You can see how worthwhile this is, because you are investing your time in something that cannot fail, something that is beyond decay, beyond failure. How blessed that is, and so Ruth is told that Boaz is in the threshing floor winnowing barley, and Ruth goes there at night. Have you done that? Later on it says that she was there at midnight, v 9. I think the apostle Paul must have known what it was to be in the threshing floor at midnight. How much he must have redeemed the time. You say, ’Well, it is midnight, that is the time you should be sleeping’, a time perhaps when everyone else is sleeping, but Paul must have worked things out in relation to all that he had. Initially you get everything to meet your need; then exercise is required to acquire certain matters, and that must have marked Paul. The result of Paul spending hours on the threshing floor at midnight is seen in Philippians 3: “But surely I count also all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all, and count them to be filth, that I may gain Christ”, v 8. Have you done that? I would say that, have you, dear brother or sister, ever gone to the threshing floor at midnight? Have you ever been on your knees crying to the Lord for help in your moral exercises, help in relation to the spiritual blessings that are available, help in relation to the purpose of God? Because what happens here is Ruth goes to the threshing floor, and then she lies down at the feet of Boaz, and there is a heap of corn. Think of that! As working out these exercises and redeeming the time, what happens typically is she starts to get an apprehension of divine things in all their greatness and scope and glory. It is really like Ephesians where it says “that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height”, chap 3: 18. There it is, the heap of corn; she was at Boaz’s feet and she becomes privy to that, and then as a result you may say there is growth and so, later on in chapter 3 she is asked to bring her cloak. Now that would be a challenge for each one of us if we are asked to bring our cloak. It says, “and he said, Bring the cloak that thou hast upon thee, and hold it”, v 15. She had to hold it up. It may be quite humbling to hold up your cloak and see how much evidence there has been of redeeming the time, how much growth there has been, and what measure we may have. It says, “And she held it, and he measured six measures of barley, and laid it on her”, v 15. How beautiful that is. In Ephesians chapter 4 it says, “until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ”, v 13. What wonderful matters! She had six measures and what a measure it was, six measures; that is significant; how we would desire to have six measures. You may say she did not quite have seven, it was not perhaps the complete matter, but she was typical of a believer arriving “at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ”. How wonderful these matters are! You know someone else had a cloak; Paul had a cloak and he asked Timothy to bring it from Troas. You wonder at that. Timothy must have looked at that cloak and he must have marvelled at it, if we think of it as speaking to us of the spiritual stature of Paul. I do not know if he would try it on; it would not be right to wear another man’s mantle, but he would have looked at it anyway; and I am sure Timothy must have thought of Paul’s desire that we should understand his intelligence in the mystery of the Christ. It is a wonderful matter that as we redeem the time we find help comes in from the Lord Himself and from the Holy Spirit and from the brethren. Naomi helped Ruth a lot; she knew what was going on. Another way to redeem the time is to try and keep company with those who are more spiritual than we are. You get help from the older brethren, those who not only have a knowledge of divine things but have experience of divine Persons. How wonderful that is; so Ruth perhaps would be an example to us.
Where we read in Ephesians 5 it goes on to say, “but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”. Something is being formed in the believer. Psalms would simply speak of experience. It has been said we should all have a psalm: you have got some experience with God. How blessed that is, how precious it is! We spoke of that in the previous occasion, this matter of coming to know the Father’s will. Think of what it is to also know something of the Father’s love. The hymn says that the Father’s love is
Sweeter than all it gives
(Hymn 26)
How blessed that is. That enters into our exercises, and psalms would speak of experience, and hymns perhaps would speak about some appreciation of divine purpose. In Matthew’s gospel when they sang a hymn and went out to the mount of Olives (Matt 26: 30), it has been suggested that it was probably a hymn to the Father. It involves an appreciation of divine purpose, and then spiritual songs would link with the matter of joy. You redeem the time and you find what starts to accumulate is experience and what starts to accumulate is some appreciation of divine purpose, what starts to accumulate is this joy: spiritual joy, and spiritual songs “singing and chanting with your heart to the Lord”. Again that is something that you can do at any time, singing and chanting with your heart to the Lord; nobody else might hear it. “Giving thanks at all times”: we need the Holy Spirit’s help for that. It goes on to say “giving thanks at all times for all things to Him who is God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”. That is not always easy in relation to our exercises in the wilderness path, but the Holy Spirit would help us. There is a sad example of someone in scripture who started to sing, and then stopped, and that is Miriam. She sang that wonderful song in Exodus 15, Moses’ song, as having crossed the Red Sea. It says, “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song” (v 1), and after that it says, “And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took the tambour in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambours and with dances” (v 21), and they started to sing. But in Numbers 20, in the wilderness at Kadesh, it says, “and Miriam died there”, v 1. It is the chapter just before the children of Israel sing to the well, typifying the Holy Spirit, and then progress is made. How that would cast us upon the Spirit that we may be maintained in this matter of singing, “singing and chanting with your heart to the Lord; giving thanks at all times for all things to Him who is God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Miriam was perhaps happy to only sing the chorus of the song. We may enjoy something of divine things, but we might only be singing the chorus but we need to appreciate the whole song. In Exodus 15 the song says, “Thou hast guided them by thy strength unto the abode of thy holiness”, (v 13), which we know has been linked with the truth of Corinthians , CAC vol 22 p393. And later on it says,
“Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them
in the mountain of thine inheritance
The place that thou, Jehovah,
hast made thy dwelling,
The Sanctuary, Lord,
that thy hands have prepared.”
(v 17)
- which has been linked to Ephesians. We need to sing the whole song; that is, you work out the truth so you are not just singing the chorus, but you are being formed by these matters “speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”. And then it says, “submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ”. That is a remarkable thing; the fear of Christ is really Christ in the brethren, and we will not redeem the time much if we do not respect the brethren. The mind of the Lord is often conveyed through the brethren and what comes into our meetings. In Acts 9 the word to Saul is “enter into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do” (v 6), and the Lord’s mind functions through the local company.
Lastly we read in Revelation 21, which is a wonderful chapter. The section that we read from forms part of a few verses which speak of eternity, and what is eternal. What a wonderful matter that the assembly will enter the millennium, not exactly from eternity, because time will still exist on the earth during the millennium, but the assembly will enter the millennium from eternal conditions: how wonderful that is! Where we have read really anticipates a time coming when time shall cease to be. Think of that, when the world and its sad tragic history will be closed; it will be finished, and we will have entered into eternity. What a matter that is; it says here, “I will give to him that thirsts of the fountain of the water of life freely”. We have spoken about redeeming the time but how wonderful it is that even here in time we can be given a taste of what is eternal. This is not the thirst of the sinner needing the gospel; this is the thirst of a soul who wants to drink in God’s purposes of love. It is a fountain, it is the source of the thing. It says, “I will give to him that thirsts of the fountain of the water of life freely”. Think of that; what a fountain to drink into. How wonderful it is. It would be something that sustains the believer. It says elsewhere, “Wherefore we faint not; but if indeed our outward man is consumed, yet the inward is renewed day by day”, 2 Cor 4: 16. Well, what renewal would come from drinking into such a fountain!
I just commend those scattered thoughts to the beloved brethren. I would just say humbly there can be nothing to compare to redeeming your time in relation to the Lord’s things and His interests here. The Lord speaks about the parable of the sower in the gospels and as having “an honest and good heart” and redeeming the time we will “bring forth fruit with patience”, Luke 8: 15. Luke speaks about a hundredfold; what a return that is. If you were to consider a hundredfold as an interest rate, as a simple interest rate, it would be a ten thousand percent return. Does that not interest you, the return that belongs to divine things? Although it may sound a little like Jacob’s reasoning, if a hundredfold was viewed not only as simple interest but compound interest then the return is infinite. The reward for going in for divine things is infinite. How wonderful it is: it cannot be compared. Later on in chapter 22 the Lord Himself says, “Behold, I come quickly, and my reward with me, to render to every one as his work shall be”, v 12. That will be the day I suppose when how we have spent our time will be reckoned to us. There is going to come a time when how we have spent our time will become fully manifest. Faithfulness has been linked with the millennium, and formation has been linked to eternity. Faithfulness and formation: two substantial results from redeeming the time. So the Lord says “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end”, v 13. As if God is saying, He is the beginning and He is the end, and anything that is outside of Christ is going to pass away. What will abide will be what is formed substantially of Him in our hearts. May it be so for His Name’s sake.
Bexley
12th November 2011