“BE at peace among yourselves.” How often the opposite of this is seen in assemblies. Too frequently there is a state of envy and strife. “If ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.” Consumed! — reduced to ashes. Are there not some meetings where this residue is about all that is left? It has not been the enemy from without; we have perished in mutual slaughter. More than one saint bears the marks of this deadly conflict, and more than one has died of a broken heart. “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” We have a right to expect better things in the assembly.
“Be at peace among yourselves.” The word Jerusalem means “a dwelling in peace.” Each meeting should be a kind of miniature Jerusalem. One is met with, “Wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable.” But the one who allows the flesh in correcting evil is allowing the very thing he is contending against, and he seeks the cleansing of another with soiled hands, as it were. To use the “water of separation” you must be “a clean person” (Num. 19). Moreover, it does not say, “Wisdom that is from above is only pure,” but “first pure,” clearly implying it has other qualities. It is “peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy,” etc. One mourns that the traits of gentleness and mercy are far too often wanting in those who contend for purity. And yet, God has joined these together, and shall we divorce them? Truth has its companion virtue: “By mercy and truth iniquity is purged.”
Do not miss, “full of mercy.” One would not contend for the toleration of evil, for holiness becomes the house of the Lord forever. His glory must be maintained. But is holiness secured, and His glory maintained at the sacrifice of the graces He enjoins — meekness, gentleness, and mercy? It does not cover the case to say, “If a brother lose his temper in trying to prove that two and two make four, it is too bad he lost his temper, but two and two make four just the same.” The thing we are considering is not a cold, abstract proposition; it involves consciences and hearts, and our behavior before God, and cannot be thus curtly dismissed. Nor is it a mere question of proving; it is a dealing with souls and with what is due to His glory, and this will involve the consideration of the ways of the cleanser, as well as the ways of the one to be cleansed. Is not His honor as much connected with my conduct in setting things right as with the conduct of the one who is already gone wrong? Beloved brethren, in many who are most zealous for the truth in this connection, there is room for self judgment; indeed the dust becomes us every one. Ignorance of the devil’s devices has contributed to the present confusion. If he can spoil an action by carrying us beyond the truth in dealing with sin (and it is difficult not to do this), he has triumphed.
You cannot wash a brother’s feet with a club. You can make him black and blue, but this does not accomplish his cleansing. Nor is this a long distance action, as by a mop. You must be at his feet to really cleanse them. And do not forget the action of the towel. The thing should be done so thoroughly that nothing is left to even suggest to you that the brother ever needed cleansing, otherwise you are indulging lack of confidence, and the breach remains. Upon hearing another say, “I have no confidence in that brother,” the one spoken to replied, “Have you any in yourself?” The truth has a reflex action, so when you direct it at another you may feel the edge of it yourself, and should.
“If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”
If there is one place more than another where we betray our unspirituality, it is in our inability to restore the overtaken. I solemnly believe the Lord has a controversy with us, not only for what we allow in others, but for what we allow in ourselves in our manner of handling the issues in the assemblies, and for the spirit and temper of our action towards those failing. We might ponder with profit Psalm 103:8-148The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. 9He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever. 10He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. 11For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. 12As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. 13Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. 14For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. (Psalm 103:8‑14). Do not yield an atom of truth. “Stand fast” and “hold fast,” but stand where His searching light shines on you as on your brother, and hold the truth, “as the truth is in Jesus” who was “meek and lowly in heart.” He was the great Peacemaker, and it cost Him most dearly. To us He says, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” It may cost us something to make peace, but in it we are blessed.
How much we have missed, just here. But “the peace of Christ” must preside in our own hearts (Col. 3:1515And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. (Colossians 3:15) JND) if it is to spread to others. “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.” Are you a peacemaker, or are you sowing discord? With Christ before our hearts, we shall feel that there is the same mercy for others that there is for ourselves. It should be written before our souls in letters bold and bright, “GOD IS RICH IN MERCY.” Had it not been shown us in lingering patience, as sinners or as saints, what would be our state? It should never degenerate so as to tolerate evil in ourselves or in others. For those who have been dealt with in faithful discipline, may we cultivate the spirit of “For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still.”
One would speak frankly, and fearlessly, since before Him we should be transparent and unafraid. Has not one felt a jar in his spirit upon entering a meeting, and found later that this meeting is broken up into little parties and factions, on purely natural grounds? or maybe fleshly? Social and other distinctions have formed a breach wholly unbecoming those gathered around the Lord of glory. What a leveller this title carries! I have no doubt the Spirit of God adopts this as suited to the line of things before Him in James 2. Whatever my rank, what am I in such a presence? While the servant is not to show undue familiarity with his master because on common ground as brethren, yet in the assembly they are sinners saved by grace and heirs together of the same glory, although one may live in a mansion, and the other in a cottage. We are saved alike through the merit of Another; our standing in Christ is the same — “neither bond nor free.” How sweetly it is added, “But Christ is all, and in all.” Those beneath us in earthly station may outshine us there. Joab’s name is not mentioned among David’s mighty men, but the name of his armorbearer is. He may be just one of low degree, but blessed, as filling the place assigned him by God in the body. That man is most cultured who is most with God. This shatters our rude human standards, but what is so refining as the holiest of all?
And then, is it not to be deplored that personal feeling is sometimes covered with the screen of concern for His glory? “Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for My name’s sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified.” To which is added, “But He shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.”
I am aware that we have made a dismal descent to strike this point, but when you find the failures of some minified, while those of others are magnified, and this in the same assembly, you begin to wonder if this mode of acting has not behind it mixed motives, wholly unbecoming those that have at heart the honor of His name. In this, I would not furnish relief for those reaping the fruit of their sin, but I would lay bare that subtle evil that too often passes undetected, and that has not only failed to secure His name from reproach, but has plunged the assembly into confusion, breaking the free flow of love and fellowship until it is anything but a dwelling in peace.
The Lord pity us in our feebleness and failure. May we walk with bowed head and chastened spirit, alive to His interests, while cultivating that love which covers a multitude of sins, instead of exposing them to others. To indulge in ourselves what we decry in others spells disaster.
True love, and not mere sentiment will take shape according to the state of the object of it. It will not always be an affable thing. It will seek the blessing, and not merely the gratification, of its object. But laxity is not to be met with legality. When Timothy has lost his courage, and Demas has gone to the world, and all have turned away, Paul writes, “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” He who loved them to the end could say, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me.” He “loved the church, and gave Himself for it.” But, in the midst of its failure, He is “girt about the paps with a golden girdle;” His love is restrained, righteously held in. As one recently wrote me, commenting on the expression, “righteously restrained,” “I should be sure that is what I mean when I say it. One needs to guard against a phrase as being used from habit. I have seen it used, unconsciously no doubt, as a cloak for impatience and personal feeling.”
A good test might be, does it gratify or grieve me? Do I feel it in love? Do I carry it as a sorrow? Do I tell it to others or to Him?