“TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?”
“Lord, to whom
shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life..”-John 6:68.
THERE are numerous
voices in the world, call-ing mankind to follow in the pursuit of pleas-ure, of
riches, of wisdom, etc., and various are the in-ducements presented, and to the
young and inexperi-enced the bewilderment of so many attractions is great. But
experience has taught many of us, that these se-ductive Siren voices
would but lead us to shipwreck upon hidden rocks and shoals, and that “all that
glit-ters is not gold.” We have learned that the cravings of our own human
natures are quite unreliable, that we are fallen beings, that our tastes and
appetites are perverse, and so depraved that frequently we crave the things
that tend to do us injury, and are inclined to re-ject the things which are
best for us. Our Lord speaks of these various voices calling mankind and
leading astray, and contrasts them with his own call of his own “sheep” who hear
and obey it, saying, My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me; strangers will
they not follow, because they recognize not the voices of strangers.-See John
10: 3-5.
Not all are able to hear and recognize the Shep-herd’s voice in the present
time; the majority are deaf on this subject, however acute their hearing may be
as respects the inducements held out to them by the world, the flesh and the
devil. Consequently the Scriptures say, “He that hath an ear to hear
[the gospel] let him hear.” But the opening of our ears to hear the good
tidings, of which Christ is the center, does not close them to the various
voices of selfishness, ambition, pride, avarice, and vain-glory, and the other
voices proceeding from the world, the flesh and the devil: it would seem indeed
that, after accepting us to be his sheep, and after giving us some opportunity
to learn the sound of the Shepherd’s voice, the voice of Truth, we are
in-tentionally exposed to the various voices which would call us away from our
Shepherd, and from following in his foot steps. And Oh, how many stray away!
“Walk-ing after their own desires.” How many thus become side-tracked on the
way to the heavenly city! How many are ultimately entirely switched off
into another direction! How many have thus gone “back and walked no more with
him!” How few, what a “little flock,” they are that follow on, day by day, to
know the Shepherd more fully, to walk in his paths, and ultimately with
him to reach the heavenly Kingdom!
It will be remembered that the words of our text were called forth by a
certain sifting of the disciple-ship. Our Lord’s ministry had
progressed consider-ably: at first, the people hung upon his words and said,
“Never man spake like this man,” and “great multi-tudes followed him.” But
towards the close of his ministry, as the jealousy and animosity of the
“Doctors of Divinity” and the Pharisees began to manifest it-self, he became
less popular, and in our context we find that many of his hearers were leaving
him, and he said, “Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me,
except it were given him of my Father. From that time many of his disciples
went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will
ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered and said unto him, Lord, to whom
shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.” Such sift-ings and testings
of the Lord’s disciples have been in progress throughout the Gospel age, and
still continue. Many have directly or indirectly, intentionally or
un-intentionally, repudiated the great Shepherd, his lead-ing and his
instruction. Some, because the chief priests, scribes and Pharisees said, “He
hath a devil and is mad. Why hear ye him?” Some, because they did not
understand his teachings, and they said, “This is a hard saying: who can
believe it?” Others, because his teaching drew the line too sharply between
right-eousness and sin, between God and Mammon; and we may understand as
literal our Lord’s statement that eventually only a “little flock” will be
found worthy of the Kingdom.
It may sound harsh to some, because of their mis-conception of the subject,
when we say that the Lord’s message and leading were as much intended to shake
off and repel one class, as to attract and to hold another class. That would
be inconceivable, if the ones repelled and shaken off were understood to be
shaken into a hell of eternal torment, and such is the general mis-conception
of the subject. On the contrary the at-traction and the drawing was to the
Kingdom, and the repulsion was from the Kingdom, and the sifting and separating
of our Lord’s day, and since and at the present time, is to the intent that the
Lord may gather out and separate from those who nominally profess to be his
followers, and to be seeking heirship with him in his Kingdom, all who are
unworthy of those bless-ings. As it is written, concerning the end of the
Gos-pel age, and the final glorification of the “little flock,” “He shall
gather out of his Kingdom [class] all things that offend and them that do
iniquity.... Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of
their Father.” We may rest assured that none who are fit for the Kingdom will
be sifted out. Of such it is written, “No man is able to pluck them out of my
Father’s hand;” and again, “If ye do these things [hearken to the voice of the
Lord and cultivate his spirit and walk in his ways], ye shall never fall [for
so doing], and an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the
everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
How all-important then it is, that we have our minds thoroughly made up
respecting the voice that we will obey and the footsteps that we will
follow-for “a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” We “cannot serve
God and Mammon,” however much we try. We cannot hear and obey the voice of
Satan and Sin and the World and Self and the Flesh, and at the same time hear
and obey the voice of the Good Shepherd, the voice of Truth, the voice of
Love. Let this be settled and fixed in our minds, that it may keep us from all
wavering after we have once taken our place amongst the Lord’s sheep.
In order that the decision may be the proper one, and in order that it may be
the final decision, from which we will not think to turn, it is well that we
should note the different voices calling us, and to what they lead. We will
not notice these voices as they appeal to the world in general, but merely as
they appeal to those who have already heard the voice of the Good Shepherd.
They assume that they will not antagonize our faithfulness to the Shepherd, but
that they will heartily cooperate. The Shepherd, however, declares that this
will not be the case; that the selfish voices of the world are calling,
influencing, drawing away from him and the path in which he leads his sheep.
Wealth calls to us, holding out its golden charms, and promising great things;
suggesting meanwhile that our religious zeal is right enough, but overwrought,
fanatical, and that in this measure only it is in opposition to wealth; and
that even if obliged to leave the Lord for the sake of wealth it need only be
temporar-ily, and that soon, having acquired wealth, we could pursue after him
with redoubled energy and thus gain the kingdom. Alas, how delusive! and yet how
many are attracted by this call and presentation! Well does the Apostle say
that “The love of money is a root of all evil, which some coveting after have
erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sor-rows.” Then,
too, how false are these hopes, how few amongst the many who pursue wealth ever
attain it! Indeed, it is not the wealth that is the evil, for God is rich above
all; it is the love of earthly wealth and the manner in which it absorbs the
heart affec-tions, away from the truth and its service and heaven-ly things,
that constitutes the evil and the snare of wealth which remarkably few ever
resist, overcome and bring into subjection to the divine will.
Many hear the voice of Fame, and pursue it, if peradventure they will become famous,
highly esteemed among men. The impelling motive here is, in part at least,
pride and approbativeness-ambition for self not for God, nor for
righteousness. And how few who turn aside from the Lord’s way, in whole or in
part, to gain fame, worldly renown, honor of men, ever attain to fame in any
considerable measure! It is a false voice leading on to false hopes, soon
shattered in death, if not before: it would induce us to turn aside from the
humble path of obedience and self abasement in the divine service whose reward
is “Glory, honor and immortality” at God’s right hand of favor.
Others hear the voice of worldly pleasure, and see the millions of earth
seeking it in the gratification of the flesh: and there is a great drawing to
go with the multitude, seeking pleasure through the gratification of our
perverted natural tastes. How long it takes us to learn assuredly that worldly
pleasures are fleeting, and that they have a bitter which counterbalances every
sweet, and that the tendencies of Vanity Fair are quite contrary to the new
ambitions, new hopes, new desires of our new natures! How many efforts all of
the Lord’s people have made, to blend or mix the pleasures of the world with
the heavenly joys, only to find that they will not blend, and that true
happiness for those who would abide in Christ and follow in his footsteps,
means the rejection of all pleasures which have a sinful combination or
tendency! How long it takes us to learn that the only pleasures which the new
creature can truly enjoy, are those in which our Lord can be our companion,
those which we can discuss with him and in which we can enjoy his fellowship!
All of these besetments, be it noticed, have their roots in selfishness-they
are all in some form inclina-tions to self gratification: on the other hand the
voice of the good Shepherd is calling us away from our de-based selfish
conditions, moods and desires, to a higher plane of sentiment, a plane of
benevolence, love of God and righteousness and fellow men, which seeks to “do
good and to communicate.” We see, too, that hav-ing set before us the new
conditions, our Lord, our Teacher, is permitting the selfish tendencies of our
natural hearts and of the world in general to call us in other directions; so
that by learning to resist these, we may more and more establish for ourselves
strong characters, rooted, grounded, fixed, in righteousness and love, strong
and able to resist the weaknesses of our own flesh as well as the influence of
friends and of the world in general.
Only such as thus develop character can possibly be “overcomers” of the world,
and only such will be accepted of the Lord as his joint heirs in the Kingdom.
It will thus be seen that the Lord is not merely seeking for those who will
make a covenant with him, but by lessons of trial and discipline and testings
by the way he is seeking to prove his people-to test them, to find and to
separate to his own service not those who are strong in self will, strong
according to the flesh, but those who, abandoning the will of the flesh, give
themselves so completely to the Lord that they become transformed by the
renewing of their minds,-“strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.”
In harmony with this thought are the words of the Lord to fleshly Israel, the
typical people,-“The Lord your God proveth you to know whether ye love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deut. 13:3.)
This explains the object and intent of the divine course with us, the true
Israel, throughout the Gospel age: he has been proving his people, testing
them, to ascertain the degree and the strength of their love for him. He tells
us that “Not everyone that saith, Lord, Lord, shall enter the King-dom:” that
many who make the covenant of full con-secration will fail to keep it, fail to
obey its require-ments, and that their failure will indicate a deficiency of
love for him, and that self-will still reigns in their hearts, giving God only
the secondary place. And the Kingdom is only intended
for those who by God’s grace shall at heart become like to the Lord Jesus, in
that they will love the Lord with all their hearts, with all their souls, and
be able to say, “Not my will, but thy will, Oh, Lord, be done.” No other
condition than this condition of full submission to the Lord can make us
acceptable for the Kingdom; for no other condition represents full
self-submission and full love to God. And let us not forget that all the
heavenly things which “eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered
into the heart of man,” God hath reserved for them that love him supremely.
Hence, however desirable it may be that our friends and neighbors should
surrender themselves to the Lord on their death-beds, if they will not sooner
surrender, it is nevertheless very evident that those who so repent in their
dying hours, are not to be re-garded as in any sense of the word, “heirs of the
King-dom;” for it is not supposable that in the few short hours or days after
their repentance they could develop the requisite staunch characters: they have
not passed through such testings of faith and love and zeal for the Lord as
would develop in them the characteristics of “overcomers”-the Kingdom class.
Those who surrender to the Lord on their death-bed may, how-ever, be encouraged
to hope for his blessing in the Mil-lennial age, and for an opportunity to come
to a fuller knowledge of the Lord and to have an opportunity to cultivate
character in that Paradisaic condition-as the Lord promised to the dying thief.
If we could but keep in memory the fact that every
trial, every persecution, every difficulty of life, permitted to
come upon those who have made the cove-nant of sacrifice with the Lord, is
intended to prove them, to test their love, to see whether or not
their char-acters are fixed, rooted and grounded in righteousness and
being built up in love, it would put all these trials, difficulties and
temptations in a new light before us, and greatly assist us in fighting a good
fight and over-coming. We would say, If by these little trials the Lord is proving
my love and devotion to him, then, however trifling they may be or however
important, I will diligently use them as favorable opportunities to demonstrate
to my Lord the fullness of my love and devotion to him and his cause. Thus
viewed and thus met, every trial and every difficulty would prove to be a blessing:
as the Apostle puts it, “Beloved, count it all joy when ye fall into
divers temptations;” “great-ly rejoice, though now for a season ye are
in manifold temptation, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious
than that of gold that perisheth, though it be tried by fire, might be found
unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” “Blessed is
the man that endureth [faithfully under] tempta-tion; for after his trials he
will receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love
him.” “These light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory”-if rightly
utilized.-I Pet. 1:7; Jas. 1:2, 12.
Thus we are again assured that those who love the Lord, and who in consequence
will receive the King-dom, will be those whose love will have been tested by
trials and temptations on the way to it. Those who do not love the Lord with all
their hearts, in whom self or some other idol has first place, will
be seduced by the world, the flesh or the devil into some form of re-bellion
against the divine Word or divine providence: they will have schemes and
theories which they will prefer to the Lord’s plan, and their own theories and
plans when analyzed will usually be found to be based either upon selfishness
or ambition or upon an evil spirit of envy, hatred, jealousy, etc.
The Lord’s leading and the Lord’s words lose their attraction to such, and they
lose their interest corres-pondingly, and like those who turned away from the
Lord at the first advent, saying, “This is a hard say-ing”-they walk no more
with him. But some will continue to walk with the Lord; some will not be
driven from him by any of the arts and wiles of the evil one. They are such as
are at heart fully the Lord’s, not their own; they will follow wherever the
Lord may lead, because they have no will except his will. These will follow
the Lord in the narrow way of trial, disci-pline and testings during the
present life, and by and by, as he has declared, “They shall walk with me in
white: for they are worthy.” (Rev. 3:4.) Nor will this company lack in
numbers by reason of the falling away of some. No, it will be full, complete,
the pre-destinated number which God foreordained he would select to be joint
heirs with his Son, our Lord Jesus. His foreknowledge permitted him to make
full allow-ance for all who would turn back, as well as to fore-know that the
requisite number would go on.
Those who go on will all have the general charac-ter of Christ-faithfulness to
the Lord and to his word of promise: and when various voices call in various
di-rections, away from the narrow way of consecration and sacrifice,
humiliation and self-denial, they, in an-swer to the Lord’s query, “Will ye
also go away?” will answer as did the apostles of old, “Lord, to whom shall we
go? thou hast the words of eternal life.” They know nowhere else to go; they
cannot turn back, for they can see clearly that to turn back on their part
would be as the Scriptures express it, to “turn back unto perdition,” to the
second death. Having heard the calls of the world, the flesh and the Devil,
they have seen also the emptiness of all their false promises, and how none of
them can give a satisfying portion. But in our Lord’s call they have
recognized not only righteousness, justice, but have recognized, also, the
promised reward of righteousness through Christ, which he has promised to them
that love him-name-ly, eternal life.
Nowhere else is there such a promise; from no other quarter comes such a hope;
by no other service, therefore, could they think of engaging but in this
service. With the hope of obtaining this prize of eter-nal life, they could
rejoice even in laying down this present life. Truly, this is that “blessed
hope.” With such hopes before them, clearly understood, and with the narrow way
distinctly marked out, and with an understanding of why it is so narrow and why
so few find it (because it leads to the great exaltation of the Kingdom and its
joint-heirship with Christ), who could think for a moment of turning aside, or
even listen-ing, to the voices calling to wealth, honor, fame, pleas-ures of
this life, etc., seeing that even hearkening to them would interrupt our
progress in the way to the Kingdom, and thus frustrate our hopes and make the
exceeding great and precious promises of none effect to us. The rather,
therefore, will we lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset
us, and run with patience the race set before us in the gospel.
As the faithful disciples realized a meaning in the Master’s teachings
at the first harvest which the ma-jority could not realize, so now at the
second advent his words have a preciousness and a meaning and a force to those
who are in heart-harmony with him, which they do not have to others; hence now,
as at the first advent, some are stumbling and going back, and others are being
drawn to the Lord more closely than ever, by the “present truth” which he is
supplying as “meat in due season.” As we progress in the way, toward the close
of this harvest, we shall not be sur-prised if the way should grow still
narrower, more dif-ficult, and if the tendencies to “stumble” should be-come
more frequent. Let us each, therefore, more and more be on our guard against
the wiles of the Adversary; and let the perfect love of God rule in our hearts,
driving out self-love and world-love, and their pride and ambition and folly;
and let this devotion to God bring into our hearts the promised fullness of joy
and rest and peace; and let us abide in him, the Vine, and be fruitful
branches, responding to all the prun-ings of the great husbandman with more
abundant fruitage; and if beguilements come to us, let us view the matter as
did the apostles and say, “Lord, to whom should we go? thou hast the words of
eternal life.”