I am supposed to apologize if I look overcast. Having come from Singapore, the weather here is just a little unaccustomed to the kind of temperatures that you are accustomed to here.
Thank you, Mac, for the introduction.
Perhaps I should speak louder. Is that a difficulty? Okay. I am a bit shy, so at the moment my volume is just a little low.
As Mac said, it is a little difficult to find Singapore on the map. If you take a world map, I think you would have to go halfway around the world. If you are on the longitude of 75, the same as New York, we are on 105, so it is exactly 180 degrees. You have to come halfway around the world to come to us, and we are almost on the equator.
If you have a map which shows Singapore, you will find where it is. If you have not a map showing Singapore, do not throw it away. Just add Singapore to the bottom of China, Indochina, Thailand, and Malaysia. Right at the tip of Malaysia, add a dot, put “Singapore,” and you will be all right.
For those of you who have been to Singapore, I think it was quite a few years ago. Singapore is an island shaped like a diamond. It is just about twenty-five miles across and fifteen miles north to south. For those accustomed to driving long distances, you may say, “Quite a small place.” For us, it is quite large because we grew up there.
At that time, I think I mentioned that Singapore was about 624 square miles at low tide. They have been adding earth, dredging earth from the sea. The latest I saw a few weeks ago in one of the OMF outlets was that Singapore is now 654 square miles. I think it is still at low tide, so it is not very large. For us, we have quite a lot of room.
We have a population of about 2.75 million. We increase by the day, and I am not sure what the exact count is today. It is two people less because the two of us are here. Occasionally, when you come to Singapore, we have transient increases. They aim at about three or four million by the year 2000.
I think that is enough to give you a little taste of Singapore. May I add to our brother Mac’s invitation: we welcome you all to come to Singapore.
When we first met some of you in 1983 at a conference in Hong Kong, we knew that the Lord had been doing a great work in many parts of the world. It was very encouraging to us at that meeting to sample what the Lord had done in the various countries.
The Lord had been gracious to Molly and me in that we had, in the past, visited fellowships in England. We had met in the assembly at Honor Oak and with others there. We had been with some Christians in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and then we would come to Boston. So we knew something of what the Lord had been doing, but we had also come to hear of you. We give thanks to the Lord at every remembrance of you.
Father, as we continue in Your presence, we want to give You thanks for all that You have done. We want to come under the anointing that You have given to us, both for the speaking and for the hearing, that You may be glorified. We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Last night I was sharing with Mac and Stella and some others about what the Lord had been doing in Singapore. I might touch on some aspects of that. If you would like more details, I think our brother Mac would know quite a bit, and he could serve as the encyclopedia. But if you need a larger reference work, you could perhaps come to Singapore and see something of Singapore. We might say that we will not tell you more about Singapore until you come to Singapore.
It was about the early 1930s, as Mac said, when a few brothers were brought together by the Lord. They had come through different spiritual journeys, and the Lord laid it upon them to meet together as the Bible had shown. They had come from different backgrounds. Some had come from a very formal background—in the case of my father, an Anglican background—with various rituals, liturgies, and so on.
But the Lord led each one of them to come together, and their aim was to worship the Lord as the Bible had shown us we should worship. That was how it all began. In the midst of all that, they felt they should worship the Lord, as you did this morning at the table. I will not repeat the story. I think I have to leave it with our brother Mac to tell you about how we came to learn to make unleavened bread.
This morning, I thought we could look at 1 Kings 19. If you will allow me, I will read the verses from verse 1 onwards.
And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done,
and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.
Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying,
So let the gods do to me, and more also,
if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life,
and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah,
and left his servant there.
But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness,
and came and sat down under a juniper tree:
and he requested for himself that he might die, and said,
It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life;
for I am not better than my fathers.And he lay and slept under a juniper tree;
and, behold, an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat.
And he looked, and, behold, there was at his head a cake baken on the coals,
and a cruse of water.
And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again.
And the angel of the Lord came again the second time,
and touched him, and said, Arise and eat;
because the journey is too great for thee.
And he arose, and did eat and drink,
and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights
unto Horeb the mount of God.And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there;
and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him,
and He said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?
And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts;
for the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant,
thrown down Thine altars,
and slain Thy prophets with the sword;
and I, even I only, am left;
and they seek my life, to take it away.And He said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord.
And, behold, the Lord passed by,
and a great and strong wind rent the mountains,
and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord;
but the Lord was not in the wind:
and after the wind an earthquake;
but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
and after the earthquake a fire;
but the Lord was not in the fire:
and after the fire a still small voice.And it was so, when Elijah heard it,
that he wrapped his face in his mantle,
and went out, and stood in the entrance of the cave.
And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said,
What doest thou here, Elijah?
And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts;
because the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant,
thrown down Thine altars,
and slain Thy prophets with the sword;
and I, even I only, am left;
and they seek my life, to take it away.And the Lord said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus:
and when thou comest, thou shalt anoint Hazael to be king over Syria:
and Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel:
and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah
shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room.
And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth from the sword of Hazael
shall Jehu slay:
and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu
shall Elisha slay.
Yet I have left Me seven thousand in Israel,
all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal,
and every mouth which hath not kissed him.
I am sure this passage is very familiar to you all, but I thought I would read it to remind ourselves of some of the events described here.
It always seems puzzling, when one reads this passage, why such a great man of God as Elijah should go through such a period as is described here—why he should be so depressed, especially so soon after the great victory over the 450 prophets whom he had slain after that contest.
To me, it seems to remind us of this fact: the enemy never gives up. There was a great victory. The enemy had been proven false, and the people of Israel helped Elijah to slay those prophets. But nonetheless, the enemy did not give up. Jezebel came at Elijah, and that was how this chapter began.
It has always seemed puzzling that Elijah, who had been through this great triumph, should be so affected by the threat of Jezebel. Excuse me if I introduce a little of my medical background here. Some of you may know that I am a medical person, and I often see this condition that we call depression. I think the events described here can correctly indicate that Elijah was very depressed.
I do not know how many of you have been through this state of depression, but one of the great marks of depression would be something similar to what Elijah said: “Lord, take away my life.” He wanted to die.
Is it not wonderful that the Lord should record such a thing? I think if we were writing the histories of presidents or public figures, the official historians would probably write only that which was good. But the Lord inspired what was written. He records every wart, every pimple, every frailty. The Lord knows us through and through.
I think that this is why it is such an encouragement: what matters in the end is the sum total of what we have been and what we are at the end. You remember the parable of the two sons and how the Lord Jesus said, “Which of the two did the father’s will?” The one who said he would go and did not, or the one who said he would not but did?
Throughout our Christian experience, this is what matters: in the end, it is ultimately what we do. Though this was an incident in Elijah’s life, we know that in the end he continued serving the Lord. It was many years yet before he was taken up.
When we look at this, I wonder what lesson it might teach us. Perhaps it is something that all of us can learn from. By the way, may I say that for us it is a continuing lesson. It is not as though we have completed learning it. Constantly we need to be reminded; constantly we come across something which we thought we had learned well before, and then we find new aspects, new sub-lessons.
This matter of facing the enemy—having the enemy come at us and give us the impression that he is in charge, that he is able to threaten us and cause us harm—I think is one of the causes of our depression, one of the causes of our feeling low.
But if we say, “The enemy never gives up,” we should continue and say, “Neither does the Lord.”
We were reminded about this especially two years ago, when the Gulf War took place. Of course, we were not as involved as you were here. I believe it was the United States Army and all the resources it had that helped in the war against Saddam. As we read of the battles, we thought, “At the end, Saddam has been dealt with. That will be the end. There will be peace, and all will be well.”
Then, of course, we know the rest of the story: Saddam did not stop. Incidentally, for quite a while in the Chinese newspapers in Singapore, the word “Saddam” was translated in Chinese characters into the same words as Satan. To us, it seemed very significant. Later on, they used different characters to spell out Saddam in Chinese, but for a couple of months at least, this is what appeared in the Chinese newspapers: “Satan, Satan.” We were constantly reminded of whom he represented, or whom he should remind us of.
As we look upon this account of Elijah, we realize that this is indeed true. Here was Elijah running away from Jezebel. In the descriptions of Israel, the land is described as from Dan to Beersheba. When Elijah ran down to Beersheba, he was going to the southernmost point, and beyond. He was really in great fear of Jezebel.
But God knew. Even as Elijah sat under the juniper tree and said, “Lord, it is enough. Take away my life. I am no use. Let me die. My book is over,” there is this account of the Lord sending His angel. His angel came and fed him twice.
I would like to refer later on to Jonah and some other accounts of depression in the Bible, in which it seems that the Lord never gives up on that either. Without our knowing, He is there. Even as Elijah asked that he should be allowed to die, there was the Lord coming through the angel to sustain him.
From the medical point of view, it makes a great deal of sense to me, because quite often depression is affected by one’s physical state. To me, this indicates that the Lord knows everything about us—what we need. The angel coming along to sustain Elijah on those two occasions, giving him the cake and water, indicates that even as we encounter depression, spiritual depression, there is also a need for our physical state to be maintained. The Lord knows that, and the Lord looks after that.
On our part, I think it is our responsibility at such times to make sure that we do not allow ourselves to deteriorate. Those of you who have either been in such a state or have seen people in such a state will know that, apart from saying, “It is useless; let me give up,” there is also the thought, “I cannot eat. I cannot sleep.” There is a great disturbance in the pattern of life.
This seems to be a very practical point here: the Lord sent His angel to see Elijah before he went on the journey.
In 1 Kings 19:7, the angel tells him:
Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.
As I came to the next verse and found that he went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God, I wondered why and what the Lord was trying to remind Elijah of, and what He might remind us of at such moments.
On the map, it seems that Mount Sinai—which is more correct—was no more than about 150 miles away, if I have my distance right. To take forty days and forty nights to travel that distance means an average of about four miles a day. I have not walked on foot in the desert, but I wonder whether this indicates how depressed Elijah was. He did not go very far.
For us too, it may be that when we go towards our Mount Horeb in such moments, it may take us a long time. Of course, there is the significance of forty days and forty nights, but at the same time, it may seem that sometimes it takes a long time to get from the time when we say, “All right, the Lord is directing me to get to such-and-such a place,” until we get to that place.
I am sure you all know that Horeb is Mount Sinai. I was wondering why the Lord would bring Elijah back to Mount Sinai. Why did He not talk to him just under the juniper tree, which I think He could well have done? So I looked up what it was that the Lord did at Mount Sinai. I think it is in Exodus 19, not chapter 12.
At the beginning, the Lord tells Moses what He wants to do.
And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying,
Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob,
and tell the children of Israel:
Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians,
and how I bare you on eagles’ wings,
and brought you unto Myself.
Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed,
and keep My covenant,
then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all peoples:
for all the earth is Mine:
and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests,
and a holy nation.
These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.—Exodus 19:3-6
It seemed to me that what the Lord was bringing Elijah to was a remembrance of the instructions He had given on that first occasion described in Exodus 19.
When we are in the midst of fear, when we are terrified by the enemy, and the enemy seems very powerful and threatening, the Lord tells us, “You are My peculiar people, and you are going to be unto Me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”
This morning, as we were at the Lord’s table, I was reminded of how I sometimes have switched the number around in Psalm 23. I am sure that when I see David, King David, he will forgive me. He says:
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of mine enemies.—Psalm 23:5
When we come to the table, we can say, “You have prepared for us a table in the presence of our enemy.” This is a reminder, I think, that we need constantly: the Lord has called us to be His people.
We thank the Lord that you are doing this every week. We try to do this also every week in Singapore because we believe it is a command that we should follow—that we should remember Him. It is only by remembering Him that we will constantly be brought back to this Mount Horeb, where the Lord tells us who we are.
I think you might be using different versions. I believe the American Standard Version is quite common here, and so I trust you will allow me, because this King James Version is sometimes different from yours. You may not have the words “a kingdom of priests”; it might be “a royal priesthood.” I am not sure.
When we consider that phrase, “a royal priesthood” or “a kingdom of priests,” it sounds as if the emphasis is on being kings and priests. But “a kingdom of priests,” as we read in Exodus 19, reminds us of what a kingdom is.
We have seen many changes in the last few months with the crumbling of kingdoms and Russia breaking up, and the countries of Eastern Europe breaking up. But as we think of the word kingdom, it seems that a kingdom does not merely have territorial bounds in the geographical sense.
When these kingdoms break up, people say, “We owe allegiance to this government,” or, “We owe allegiance to that government.” So the word kingdom emphasizes that wherever there are people saying, “We owe allegiance to so-and-so,” that becomes part of the kingdom.
As we speak about being a kingdom of priests, and as the Lord has called us to be a kingdom of priests, it would seem that wherever we are, if we say that we serve the King and owe allegiance to the King, immediately that kingdom is established.
When the Lord has His people in different parts of the world, wherever there are people willing to follow the Lord, immediately the kingdom is extended to that part of the world.
I think the Lord was bringing Elijah to see that they began as a people who had been told by the Lord, “You are a kingdom of priests, and you are a peculiar people unto Me.” But along the way they had forgotten. Along the way they had failed.
When Elijah came to this incident in 1 Kings 19, he was probably affected by this. In his prayer he says, “O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.”
This is a problem with depression, is it not? When something makes you even a little depressed, you get depressed over becoming depressed because you say, “I should not be depressed.” You can go on, and it becomes worse and worse. I think the enemy knows that and makes use of it.
So God brought Elijah back to Mount Horeb. I think this was to tell him, “You are thinking back on your fathers. You are thinking back on the past and how well some of the earlier prophets—Samuel and the others—served Me. You compare yourself with them and get depressed, and then you get depressed because you are depressed. So you come to Mount Horeb, and let Me renew this covenant with you.”
This coming to Mount Horeb was also necessary because of what Elijah said: “I am not better than my fathers.” This is where I have to refer to what we have been in Singapore. As we go through the generations, we find that sometimes there is comparison with the past, and we say, “Well, we are not better than our fathers.” There is a great tendency to get depressed over that fact.
Some twenty years ago, perhaps more, I heard last night that Brother Black had come and visited you. He visited us in Singapore. At the time, I was pretty young. I thought I was following the Lord and serving the Lord. We were a set of fairly keen young people.
Some of the experiences with the Lord had been second-hand because of our parents, but we had also had our own experience of the Lord. The Lord had brought us through the war, and there were many instances in which we knew that the Lord looked after us and took care of us.
Brother Black was with us for some time, and one day he said something that made some of us very incensed. I was among those who felt rather insulted. But I think you all know Brother Black now. He was very straight; he shot from the hip.
He spoke to us young ones and said, “You think you are very zealous, but you have to be careful. I think some of you are like the seagulls in the ports back home in England.”
At that time, Singapore was a British colony, and we had read books about sailing ships, seaports, fishing ports, and seagulls. We gathered what he meant. He said the ships go out and come back, and the wind blows, creating something called a slipstream. Then you see the gulls just floating lazily on the slipstream.
They spread their wings out, and the sailing ship creates that slipstream. The gulls just spread their wings and drift along, drift along, drift along. Then they see a fish; perhaps they swoop down and catch it, or perhaps they take fish from the decks of fishing boats. Then they come back up and drift along.
We knew very well what he meant. Some of us were drifters, and it incensed us somewhat. But we thank the Lord that He showed us that, yes indeed, we were in great danger.
I do not know how many of you are second generation. Sometimes we discuss in our Bible study whether it is better to come to the Lord for the first time from a non-Christian background, or whether it is better to come to the Lord from a Christian family. It seems that whichever way the Lord brings us, there are no grandchildren in the Lord. You have to be a child of God yourself.
We thank the Lord for those second-generation, even third-generation Christians among us who have come to know the Lord personally. It always has to be that personal knowledge of the Lord.
Yes, one might compare oneself with one’s fathers. At the same time, it has to be that personal knowledge of the Lord which enables us to have the right relationship. We cannot be drifters, and we cannot just go along on a slipstream.
One of our younger brothers came up and said, “You know, it seems to me that every time I try to follow the Lord, Satan comes along and attacks me. It would seem that if you do not do anything, Satan leaves you alone. So I would rather be having a quiet, uneventful life, undisturbed by the enemy.”
He said, “I know the Lord will protect me, but it is a very harrowing experience being attacked and then protected. It is wonderful to know the marvelous ability of the Lord to protect, but you go through all these trials and tribulations before you experience that. Therefore, I think I should not do anything. I should not be too active.”
He said that about ten years ago. He had just married, and there were problems in his work and so on. We understood the sentiment behind it.
A few months ago, his ten-year-old son said that he wanted to be baptized. The parents were careful. Could he really know the Lord? They questioned him, asked him, and prayed about it. They wondered whether, if one other member of their family declared his allegiance to the Lord, it would bring back this whole question: you stand for the Lord, and then the enemy comes along.
But we praise the Lord that in the end they said, “Yes, we believe our son knows the Lord, and he wants to be baptized no matter what the consequences.” I asked him, “Anthony, what about what you said?” He said, “Oh, I think that is history. That is past. The Lord has seen us through so many things.”
There were certain things we did not know about in which the Lord had caused him to realize that it was more important to follow the Lord no matter what.
What Elijah went through here—comparing himself to his fathers and being afraid of Jezebel—is something which the enemy will constantly try to do. We thank the Lord that the Lord nonetheless sees us through. He is always at hand. It is not as if He is absent. He sends His angel to give us sustenance, brings us back to Mount Horeb, and reminds us of the covenant.
It is our personal covenant with the Lord. It is not the covenant of our fathers.
When the Lord spoke to Elijah, perhaps Elijah was expecting the Lord to do something great. After all, He had done a great thing with the 450 prophets. Elijah was waiting for an earthquake and for these great things, and he was surprised that the Lord came with that still small voice.
But I think we all know that it has to be the word of the Lord which enables us. Yes, the Lord will do great things, but it is always His speaking, His voice. He says, “Let there be light,” and there was light. It always has to begin with His word, to begin with His voice. Then there may be earthquakes and fires and all these other things.
The passage tells us that the Lord asked Elijah twice, “What doest thou here, Elijah?”
In our moments of depression, when we are depressed and disillusioned, when we are at that point in our lives where we are disillusioned with ourselves and feel that certain things are not real, the Lord comes to us.
There is a phrase in Malay: buat bodoh. It means to behave like an ignoramus. It is as if God is saying, “What are you doing?” You know, as if the Lord did not know. The Lord had to say to Elijah, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
I wonder whether Elijah might have said—and it is not recorded; I apologize to Elijah for putting words in his mouth—“Lord, You know. You should know. You know everything.”
Sometimes we are in a situation where the Lord comes, perhaps through a brother or sister, or the Lord speaks to us directly. His voice comes and says, “What are you doing here? Why are you depressed? Why are you at this point? Do you not know?”
We say, “Lord, You know. You brought me through all these things, and it was You who allowed Jezebel to say this to me. And You wonder that I am depressed!” What a state.
This recurs again. Before there is the still small voice, and then the still small voice comes, it is still the same thing. I think when the Lord asks that, it is really to make us think.
When there are situations in which it is as if the Lord does not know about our plight, the Lord does know. But He wants us to be very clear ourselves—clear about our position before the Lord, what we are about, and what the purpose in our lives is.
The answer Elijah gave is rather revealing. He says, “I, even I only, am left.” In these two places, his words are identical: 1 Kings 19:10 and 1 Kings 19:14. “I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts,” and so on. The exact words are repeated. He is saying, “I, only I, am the only one left.”
It seems to be a cry of loneliness. Sometimes you feel all alone, or you feel that you alone understand what the Lord wants, but you find yourself alone. You say, “Lord, I feel lonely, and that is why I think I am depressed. I feel deprived of fellowship. I feel far away. I feel useless.”
All this makes up that composite picture. Of course, we know the Lord’s wonderful answer.
As I look at these two instances of Elijah explaining why he was there, I cannot help looking at what he had said earlier. In 1 Kings 18:22, Elijah said:
I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord;
but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men.
I am not quite sure how to interpret this, and whether I might be doing Elijah an injustice. But at that point it seemed as if there was a little hint of pride: “Four hundred and fifty prophets; I, even I only, serve the Lord.”
I think these are the things which sometimes lead later on to vulnerability. When he felt that he was doing a great work for the Lord and that only he was serving the Lord, later on, when Jezebel came, it changed from realizing that he was alone to realizing that he was horrible—useless.
They are the same words, but in the context of what he said, it seems possible. When he spoke to the people, he had a little sense of, “I am the representative of the Lord. I, even I, am the prophet—the only prophet.” Then that backfired on him. It became a terrible sense of, “I am useless. I, even I…”
But the Lord knew. The Lord’s reply is wonderful, because the emphasis for Elijah was that he was the only prophet.
Sometimes as we serve the Lord, we have a sense of encouragement from the Lord, but human feelings come in. We might feel a little gratified that we are serving the Lord—not proud, perhaps, but still there is something there: “Well, I am serving the Lord.”
Then the Lord’s answer in 1 Kings 19:18 is:
Yet I have left Me seven thousand in Israel,
all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal,
and every mouth which hath not kissed him.
The Lord is talking of 7,000—not prophets, but people who had not bowed their knees to Baal. It seems to me that there is a contrast: Elijah thinks of himself as the only prophet, lonely because there are no other prophets or servants of God. The Lord says, in effect, “There are 7,000 servants of Mine who are servants of Mine because they have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
Serving the Lord has so many facets. God’s arithmetic is such that Elijah sees one prophet, but the Lord sees 7,000 others. You may call them prophets, you may call them servants, but they were serving the Lord by not bowing to Baal.
Sometimes we feel isolated out there in Asia, at the tip of the continent. Then we find that there are things in Richmond, things in Copenhagen, and things everywhere that have fellowship with us in the Lord. It is very encouraging to us.
As you may have heard from other lands, you have been especially remembering us because we are in the centre of a sea of Islam. Malaysia, Indonesia, and some parts of the Philippines have a very strong Islamic presence. We thought that this would be one of the points of attack, and I am sure there will be many events and many things happening before the Lord returns. We would value your prayers very much.
I seem to have exceeded the time I should be spending on this. Let me quickly take you through two other instances of depression, because I think they complement what happened to Elijah.
One is in Jonah. We all know the story of Jonah, and I do not want to dwell on the details except here and there. We know how Jonah was a reluctant missionary who went eventually to Nineveh.
The same thing happened to Jonah. He sat down and said, “I want to die.” In Jonah 4:3, he said:
Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me;
for it is better for me to die than to live.
Here again, it is surprising, but not surprising. Casual reading might make one say, “Surprising.” But you know how these things come about. Here was this great evangelistic campaign in Nineveh, and the whole city had turned back to the Lord. The Lord had said, “All right, I will not carry out those dreadful things.”
Jonah was not exactly left without a mission, but he had gone there and proclaimed that the Lord would destroy the city. None of those things happened.
We understand this very well from the Chinese viewpoint. I do not know whether you might see it in the same way with a different cultural background, but among the Chinese, face is very important.
It seems to me that the cause of Jonah’s depression was a great loss of face. He had gone there and declared that dreadful things would happen, and none of them happened. His complaint to the Lord was, “I knew before You sent me that You would not carry out any of those things You said You would carry out.”
It is as though he was saying, “You sent me to tell them, then You caused them to repent, and now I have no face. It is a loss of face.”
Let me paraphrase again. When I see Jonah, if I have said it wrongly, I am sure he will forgive me. But it seems as if he was saying to the Lord, “How much better if You allowed at least a part of the city to have that plague or punishment. Then at least they would say, ‘What a great evangelist and prophet Jonah is! He said it, and it happened.’”
Nothing of the sort happened. It seems that sometimes in our service for the Lord, that may be one of our hazards. We are looking at ourselves and our own reputation. We are looking at what we think the Lord should do. When the Lord works differently, we get depressed.
We say, “Lord, You should not have worked this way. If You had worked in such a way, my reputation would have been spared.” I think that is another cause of depression that we sometimes go through.
But the Lord made it clear. We know how God prepared the great fish, how God prepared the plant, and how God prepared the worm. I looked this up once in another version, and instead of the word prepared, there was the word appointed.
God appointed the great fish. It seemed strange that God had made an appointment for the great fish to be at that spot in the sea where Jonah, fleeing from the Lord, would be thrown overboard. There was a fish waiting there. It was an appointment: “Meet Me at the intersection of Fourth Street and Broad Street.”
I rather like that word appointed. God appointed the great fish: “This is your job. Now you go there.” But that is by the way.
We see the hand of God constantly in the background. God prepared this; God prepared that. Jonah was going through an experience, and he came to the point where he was depressed. But God knew, God prepared, and God provided the explanation.
At the end, God said, in effect, “Do you not think I love this city of so many people more than you loved this plant which grew up for just one day?”
Finally, if I could bring you to a portion which has special significance for Molly and me. Some of you may know that Molly can also be called Sue. If you would like to know why, ask her later.
We were married thirty-five years ago, on December 13. In 1983, it was our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, I believe, at the time of the conference in Hong Kong. So it had special significance to us. That is why some of you asked me how I remember 1983. Well, 1983 was our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and it was during that conference week.
At our wedding, such a long time ago, a brother whom we appreciated, who performed the wedding, gave us Luke 24:15. He gave us the last part of the verse:
Jesus Himself drew near, and went with them.
His word to us was, “May the Lord go with you as you journey together.”
As we were looking at these instances of depression, we thought that this was another instance of the Lord drawing near, even as these two disciples were in the midst of depression.
Jesus came near and went with them. Then He asked them why their faces were sad. One of the outward manifestations of depression can be that you get downcast—really downcast. You look down, and you no longer look up.
In Luke 24:17, He said to them:
What communications are these that ye have one with another, as ye walk, and are sad?
That is indication enough that these two people, as they explained later to Jesus, were depressed. They expected Him to do this and that. It has to do with expectations again—expecting the Lord to do certain things according to our way of thinking, and the Lord not doing them in the way we expected, but in a different way that we learn to appreciate later.
They were no doubt downcast. As they went, they looked downcast. Of course, we know the significance of their going away from Jerusalem toward Emmaus. It was only a few miles away, but nonetheless they were going away from Jerusalem, away from the centre and focus of the disciples.
Often, as we turn away and go away from what we ought to be doing, we discuss the events. I wonder whether you have sometimes discovered, as we have, that in our discussions we may transmit a very infectious condition called depression. You are depressed, and you make your listener depressed.
As these two went along, it may have started with one of them. We know the name of only one; the other is not named. We do not know who might have started, or whether they both started depressed. There is always the possibility that, in fellowship with one another, we may transmit our depression.
But even as they went, they were nonetheless talking about Jesus. They were not talking about other things. They were discussing what should have been, what they thought should have happened, and how disappointed they were.
They said, “Do You not know? Did You not hear? There was this and that, and we expected Him to do this and that.” But they were discussing the Lord.
Even if we are depressing one another, I believe that if we are centering our thoughts, our lives, and our discussions around the Lord, the Lord knows. He knows that we are frail. He knows what we are made of. So He comes and draws near to us, even as we walk.
No doubt they might have been depressing one another, but He comes. Then He takes us in hand and begins to explain to us.
This is what I find relevant to this condition of depression. Sometimes we get depressed even with what the Lord is doing, or what the Lord may not be doing. But if we continue properly before Him and discuss these matters in fellowship with one another, the Lord Himself draws near and goes with us.
Of course, we know that at the very end it was at the table. The Lord took bread and broke it, and after that He vanished.
We find these disciples saying something very important in Luke 24:35. They returned to Jerusalem. They returned to where they ought to be.
They told what things were done in the way, and how He was known of them in the breaking of bread.
I think it is when we focus on the Lord, as we break bread together, that we are satisfied.