The Four Comes - Part Two

 

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter,“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.”He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him,“Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time,“Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

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There's another point I want to make here. "Come and see," is the come of invitation and salvation. "Come and rest," is the come of security. The third point is in Mark 6:31, where the Lord invited the disciples to come apart and rest. "And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat." And this is talking to Christians and telling them that they had better take it easy from time to time. Every once in a while you come to somebody in Christian life and work that thinks he has to do the whole thing-he works himself into a nervous breakdown, saying, "There's so much to be done. I've got this and this and this to do." No, you don't!

 

Someone says, "Dr. Barnhouse, you work awfully hard." Yes, I do. But you know, I'm much more tired before I begin a sermon than when I finish one. You have no idea how preaching the gospel rests me. I am delivered. That word delivery is a very beautiful word. Deliver comes from delier in French, which means to untie. And it came into English with William the Conqueror, and was first used in reference to obstetrics-the "delivery" room, where a woman was delivered of her child. The cord is severed and she is set free from that which she had carried.

 

When I get to heaven I hope God's going to let me meet the preacher who first applied this idea to preaching. He probably said something like, "O God, I've got to preach to these people. They are coming and woe is me if I preach not the gospel." And when he had finished, perhaps he came home and said, "I am delivered!" After preaching a sermon he felt like the woman who has carried a ten pound child for nine months and knows how every step is uncomfortable until, all of a sudden, she's free from that sweet burden. How different everything is in a day or two.

 

How wonderful this great fact is that we are not to do it all! The Lord says, "Come and rest." I've had people so foolish as to think that if they didn't work hard someone else might be lost. "Oh, yes," someone says, "I do that all the time." Well, it's just not true. Someone says, "If I don't go out to that island in the mission field-you mean that I don't have the power of taking someone to heaven and hell?" Of course you don't. "Well, if I'm just a little more faithful, won't one more be saved." You can't find that in the Bible. Salvation depends upon His faithfulness, not yours. "Well, now, Doctor, aren't you going to make it easy for people to be lazy?" God's plan is to work through people. But if you decide to be lazy, He'll send someone else-and you will be the loser. I've found that people who believe what I believe are the most active. They are the ones who "preach the word; ... instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine" (2 Tim. 4:2). When our part is finished, we say, "Lord, from now on it's up to You."

 

One night I was preaching in a seminary in Chicago, and when I finished, the president said, "Now we are going to cancel the next hour's classes and Dr. Barnhouse is going to answer questions. He has raised so many that it will keep the faculty busy for two or three months, so let's get the worst of them out of the way." I love to do that! That's my particular forte-dropping buttonhooks in your mind so you'll want to see. If I can get you to looking for the answer to one question, you may find the answer to some other question that God wants you to know.

 

Well, the first question they asked me at the seminary was: "If you say that God is everything in salvation when you preach, what do you preach to?" I had just said that the carnal mind is enmity against God (see Rom. 8:7), and that the heart is deceitful above all things and incurably wicked (see Jer. 17:9), and that salvation "is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy" (Rom. 9:16). So they said, "What do you preach to?"

 

I said, "I preach to a cubic foot of air in front of my mouth and from then on it's up to the Holy Spirit." This question of preaching the gospel is exactly the same thing as radio and electronics. If someone turned the current off on the microphone when I was doing a broadcast, I might with my best voice say "K-a-a-nsas C-i-i-i-ty," but nobody would listen to it. It wouldn't get to Kansas City. I can't yell loud enough for someone in Kansas City to hear me. But as long as the electricity is on, I can say, "Kansas City," and they hear me. Now in the same way I can preach to you and I can say, "O-oo-oh, Soul!" The words just go ringing around in the porches of your ears. If it's going to go the long distance to the heart, God has to take it there."

 

Now it's a tremendous thing to come into a recognition of this fact. Then you can do your work and when you've finished you say, "Lord, it's up to You." When you know that, you see, you don't have to go fussing and say, "Well, now could I have done it better? Where could I improve?" The real question is: Were you yielded to the Lord? Did you ask the Holy Spirit to use you? Was there any part of your being that was not surrendered? If there wasn't, then you simply say, "Lord, I am a pipe. I can carry the water. You're responsible for the pressure. You're responsible for the flow."

 

And so the Lord said to His disciples, "Come apart and rest." They were so nervous. They had just come back from preaching and healing. "Lord," they said, "the demons are subject to us!" He said, "You need a vacation." And that's why a lot of Christians need a lot of time. It's a wonderful thing, I know sometimes, when I have been hours and hours at my desk, and I just want to get up and walk out into the garden. Then when I get back inside, I discover that not only has the wind blown through my mind, but the Holy Spirit has blown through my heart, and I'm ready to sit down and go to work again.

 

The Reader's Digest, a few years ago, told about the bishop who said, "I have the burdens of the world upon me!" And one night at midnight, the Lord said to him, "Bishop, you go to bed, I'll carry it till morning." He says to you, "Come ye yourselves apart ... and rest a while."

 

And then, lastly, I turn with you to John 21:12. The Lord had been raised from the dead. When He met the disciples by the Sea of Galilee after the Resurrection, He said to them, "Come and dine." Now this is satisfaction. Oh, the joy of dining with the Lord! You know, whenever the Bible speaks of eating, you'll discover that it means fellowship. That's why we talk about the fellowship of this table. Did you know that the Greek word koinonia is translated by two English words? One is communion and the other is fellowship. Communion and fellowship are exactly the same thing, as when we say, "I'm going to take communion." I wish we didn't use that Latin-French word. I wish we used the old Anglo-Saxon word, "We're going to take fellowship." We're going to come together and be with the Lord, and we're going to be good fellows together. Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and our fellowship is with one another.

 

You know as well as I do that there are Christians who are going to heaven miserably. And there are other Christians who are going to heaven with all the joy of God. Jesus says, "Come and dine." You see in the Song of Solomon the kind of fellowship He seeks. Don't be afraid of the Song of Solomon! Yes, it talks about the sex act. The union of the bride and the bridegroom, so beautifully portrayed in the poetry of the Song of Solomon, is a God-given picture of the union of Christ with the Church. It says, "He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love" (Song of Sol. 2:4).

 

Surely this is what the Lord wants us to have. He wants us to have fellowship with Him. He wants us to know that oneness that will help us understand how God feels inside of the Trinity. You know, it is possible. How does He feel? The Father and the Holy Spirit are all together with Himself. They are one in perfect love. God says, "I want you inside of this. Come and dine. Sit down at My table with Me." Learn what it is to fellowship.

 

Oh, to know the Lord! "I am His and His forever; He has won me by His grace." How true these hymns are.

 

"Heaven above is softer blue, 

Earth around is sweeter green! 

Something lives in every hue 

Christless eyes have never seen: 

Birds with gladder song o'erflow, 

Flow'rs with sweeter beauty shine, 

Since I know, as now I know, 

I am His, and He is mine."

 

"Yes," says someone, "how do you get that way?"

 

"Come and dine." It's the Lord who says it to you. "Come and dine." Take time. Turn off the television. Turn off your radio. Sit down with the Word. Some evening, instead of watching a worthless show, spend time with Jesus, the priceless treasure. "Come and dine." Just turn and say, "Lord, to Thine honor and glory, I'm turning that thing off tonight, and I want You to speak to me. Show me, Lord." Brother, He'll come through. He'll do it. You'll learn answers you never knew were there. He's able.

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