THE NORMAL

CHRISTIAN WORKER

Watchman Nee

INTRODUCTION

After “The Normal Christian Worker” was translated from Chinese, it was published by Church Book Room, Hong Kong, in 1965. The following lines introduced it to the reader:

“No book was in view when, in a series of messages, a servant of God (in 1948) gave spontaneous utterance to the burden that was on his heart. He was not addressing absentees; he was making a direct appeal to his close colleagues. Some of these, impressed by the value of the messages, desired to share them with fellow-Christians who had not the privilege of being present when they were spoken. Hence this book.”

“Though the messages are specifically addressed to those engaged in the work of the Lord, little is said about the work; the whole stress is on the character of the worker. A man of God is appealing for men who will be God's true co-workers - not supermen, nor men who have a certain Christian status; but men according to the Christian norm, who through discipline have been brought into harmony with God's own nature and can therefore meet His need in the world today.”

Now, as this Internet version sees the light, we can only pray that the mighty work of the “Divine Potter”, already done in the lives of so many of his workers through these pages, and through all of these forty years, will continue to multiply. This small book has proved to be a very effective tool in the hands of the Potter, i.e. in a number of editions and languages, to mold and shape the lives and the characters of his servants. The reader who is ready to expose himself to God's drastic, yet tender, dealings, through these chapters, will find them to be the means of untold blessing, not only in him, but also through him (or her). Someone has said that God needs “workers”, not “shirkers”. That transformation, into true, reliable, faithful and useful workers, approved by God and needing not to be ashamed before Him, is what these ten chapters are all about.

In this (Internet) edition the NKJ Version of the Bible is used, except when otherwise indicated. (NKJV-copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.)

CHAPTER ONE  -  DILIGENT

 

Reading: Matt. 25:14-30; 2 Tim. 4:2; 2 Pet. 1:5-15; Jn. 5:17; 4:35.

The daily life of a Christian worker is intimately related to his work. For this reason, in considering the qualifications necessary for Christian service, we need to consider questions of disposition and conduct. To qualify for spiritual service a man must not only have a certain amount of spiritual experience, he must have a certain kind of character. A worker's character must be suited to the character of the work, and the development of a man's character does not take place in a day. If a worker is to possess those qualities that are necessary to make him of service to the Lord, then many practical matters relating to his daily life will have to come under review.

Old habits will have to be shed and new habits formed through a process of discipline, and fundamental adjustments will have to take place in the life to bring it into harmony with the work.

There are some young people who from the outset of their Christian life manifest qualities that give you confidence in expecting them to develop into useful servants of Christ; on the other hand there are those who, though not lacking in gift, before long fall by the way and bring dishonor on His name. You ask: How do you account for the widely differing development in the lives of Christian workers? Let me answer frankly that there are certain fundamental features in the constitution of every one of them that determine whether or not they are going to count for the Lord. A young man may display certain traits that seem to promise well for the future, but if certain other basic qualities are lacking he is sure to be a disappointment. He may have a real desire to serve the Lord, but he lacks the disposition of a true servant. We have never yet met a Christian worker who lacked self-control and was, nevertheless, a good worker; and we have never seen a disobedient person prove a useful servant of the Lord.

There are certain characteristics without which no one can be a satisfactory Christian worker, so a breaking-down and building-up process is necessary in order that the Lord may secure workmen who can meet His need.

The trouble with many a would-be worker is not ignorance, nor inability, it is that the man himself is wrong: there is something fundamentally lacking in his make-up. We must therefore humble ourselves before God and submit to the needful discipline if that which is lacking in our characters is to be made good. Let us spend a while before Him seeking to discover some of those qualities that are required in all who are to serve Him acceptably.

One of those qualities is diligence. It seems superfluous to say so, but it is in fact essential to say, and to say with emphasis, that a Christian worker must be a person who has a will to work. In Matthew's gospel we read the story of the servants who were entrusted with five talents, two talents and one talent respectively. When, after a long absence, the lord of those servants returned and required them to render account of the trust, the servant who had received one talent said: "Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours. But his lord answered and said to him, you wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. Therefore take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents... And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness" (25:24-30). This passage of Scripture shows that the Lord requires every servant of His to be diligent in His service.

He clearly indicates the fundamental trouble in the life of the servant who is portrayed for us here. It was twofold: he was both "wicked" and "lazy". His wickedness was manifest in that he dared to call his lord "a hard man." We shall not dwell on this aspect of his character, but shall speak of the other, i.e. his sloth or laziness.

Sloth is not an uncommon failing. Slothful people never seek work, and if work comes their way, they seek to evade it. Sadly many Christians as well as non-Christians suffer from this complaint, and they are a drag on their associates. Have you ever known an effective Christian worker who was indolent? No, they are all diligent and always on the alert lest they squander time or strength. They are not always looking for an opportunity to rest, but rather seek to buy up every opportunity to serve the Lord.

Look at the Apostles. How diligent they were! Think of the colossal amount of work Paul accomplished in a lifetime. See him traveling from place to place, preaching the gospel wherever he goes, or reasoning intently with individuals; even when he is put in prison he is still buying up opportunities - preaching to all who come in contact with him and writing to those from whom he has been cut off. Read what he writes to Timothy from prison: "Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season" (2 Tim. 4:2). Imprisonment might restrict Paul's outward movements, but it could not limit the effectiveness of his ministry. What spiritual wealth he ministered through his prison epistles! There was not a shred of laziness about Paul; he was always taking time by the forelock.

Sadly many professed Christian workers do not trouble to go out in search of opportunities to serve the Lord; and if someone comes to them unsought, they look on this as an interruption instead of an opportunity and only hope the person will soon depart and cease to bother them. What do you call this? This is called sloth.

Have you never come across any "go-slow" workmen? They take in hand to do a piece of work, but they dawdle over it and drag it on and on as long as they can preserve any semblance of industry, for they are not seriously bent on working, but are simply bent on killing time. What is the trouble with them? The trouble is downright laziness.

In his letter to the Philippians Paul says: "For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe" (3:1). Though Paul was a prisoner, he did not consider it a trouble to have to repeat the same thing in writing to the Philippians, because it was for their good. How unlike many Christians! If they are asked to do anything, they react as though a tremendous burden had been imposed on them. A person who regards everything as a burden cannot be a faithful servant of the Lord; he cannot even be a faithful servant of men.

Some so-called "full-time Christian workers" are so superspiritual that they see no need to work hard or to account to anyone for their work. If they were employed in an ordinary job no earthly master would let them off with such slackness as characterizes their work; yet they actually delude themselves into thinking they can serve God like that. Oh! our characters need to be disciplined till we cease to find work irksome and can delight in spending time and strength and material resource without stint in order to serve others. Paul not only poured himself out in spiritual ministry, he also knew what arduous manual labor was. Hear his own declaration: "Yes, you yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities, and for those who were with me" (Acts 20:34). Here is a true servant of the Lord.

Some so-called Christian workers actually have an aversion to work and can always produce an excuse for evading it; others lack the urge to look for work and just stand idly around waiting for something to turn up. Every faithful servant of Christ buys up the moments, and when he is not outwardly engaged he is inwardly active, waiting on the Lord in real heart-exercise. On one occasion our Lord said: "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working" (Jn. 5:17); and on another occasion He asked His disciples this pertinent question: "Do you not say, there are still four months and then comes the harvest?" And answering the question Himself, He added, "behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest" (Jn. 4:35). The disciples were prepared to wait four months before tackling the task, but our Lord said in effect that the time to work is now, not some future date. "Lift up your eyes and look," He said, indicating the kind of workman He needed - one who does not stand waiting for the work to come to him, but one who has eyes to see the work that is already waiting to be done. Our Lord was ever on the watch to cooperate with the Father in whatever He was doing; and since the Father was continually active the Son was too. It is not the feverish activity of people whose restless dispositions keep them ever on the go that will meet the need, but the alertness of a diligent servant who has cultivated the upward gaze and can always see the Father's work that is waiting for his cooperation. How tragic that so few people can see what God is doing today! It is tragically possible for us to pass the harvest-fields without so much as seeing the ripened grain. It is possible for the work to lie right at hand without our even being aware of it. Christians who lack an awareness of the urgency of the work and can comfortably wait "four months" before they tackle the task are "unprofitable servants". Christ needs workers who jealously guard the passing moments and never put off till tomorrow what can be done today.

In some places there is no ingathering of the harvest for the simple reason that there are too many Christians who dislike work. Diligence is essential if we are to serve the Lord, but diligence is primarily an inward matter and is not measured by outward busyness. We dare not give way to constitutional indolence, so we must make it our business to cultivate a diligent disposition. However, merely to urge ourselves on to work a bit harder will be of no avail if we are lazy by nature, for after a bout of hard work we are sure to revert to type. It is a constitutional change we need. We are familiar with the words that the Lord came "to seek and to save that which was lost." He did not just come to make contacts with men; He came to seek them out and to save them. With what diligence He sought and saved! It is that disposition we need.

In the first chapter of his second epistle Peter writes: "... giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness love" (vv. 5-7). This adding and adding characterizes every diligent person. We must cultivate a disposition that never ceases to acquire fresh territory in the spiritual realm, for in this way we shall become servants who are profitable to the Lord.

Oh, we need to be intensely positive in His service! Some Christian workers seem almost devoid of any sense of responsibility; they do not realize the vastness of the field; they do not feel the urge to reach the uttermost ends of the earth with the gospel; they just do their little bit and hope for the best. If they have not seen a single soul saved today, they accept that as a matter of course and vaguely hope tomorrow's results will be better; but if not a soul is saved tomorrow, they will just resign themselves again to the inevitable. How can the Lord's purpose be attained through workmen of this sort?

Peter was made of different stuff. In the passage we have just quoted he earnestly seeks to arouse his readers from everything that would savor of passivity. Re-read the passage and note the divine energy that pulsates through his whole being and that he seeks to communicate to others through his epistle. He says in effect that as soon as you have acquired one Christian virtue you must straightway seek to supplement it with another; and having acquired another, you must seek for it a complementary quality. So you must press on, never resting content with what you have already attained, but ever adding and never ceasing to add until the goal is reached. To what purpose all this tireless effort? "If these things are yours and abound", explains Peter, "you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 8).

Note that diligence rules out idleness. The negative state of idleness is answered by the positive state of diligence. Idleness cannot be dealt with negatively; it has its roots in laziness, and the cure for laziness is diligence. If we are always out of employment we shall have to take ourselves firmly in hand; we shall have to supply what we lack constitutionally. Having made good the first deficiency, we shall have to make good the second, and the third, and one by one every other lack until we are no more idle, "barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." If by divine enabling we do this, a transformation will take place in our characters. We shall cease to be loafers and shall become those who welcome hard work and are glad servants of the Lord.

Peter is tirelessly diligent in order to secure diligence in his readers. Note what he says in verse 15: "Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease." What strikes us here is not just an obvious, outward activity. It is an inward urgency, an urgency of spirit, that has begotten this unwearying effort in Peter.

Oh, that we might awaken to the weightiness of our responsibility, the urgency of the need around us, and the fleeting nature of time! If the seriousness of the situation presses upon us, we shall have no option but to work, even if we have to deprive ourselves of food and sleep to achieve the goal. Our time is almost gone; the need is still desperate; our solemn obligation is still undischarged. Let us, as dying men, give ourselves with all our powers to the dying around us. We dare not let natural sloth trick us into procrastination, but this very day we must arise and bid our bodies serve us. What is the use of saying that we are eager to serve the Lord if we do not rouse ourselves from our lethargy? And what will all our knowledge of the truth avail us if it does not save us from our innate indolence?

Let us return to the passage in Matt. 25 that we considered at the outset of our talk. In that parable we see a servant of the Lord facing two charges at the judgment-seat - the charge of "wickedness" and the charge of "laziness".  The Lord Himself pronounces the judgment: "Cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness" (v.30). The Lord's assessment of a lazy servant is "unprofitable". Only a diligent servant is of use to him. Do not let us regard this matter lightly; let us take solemn warning and from this very day look to the Lord to enable us to reverse our sluggish habits. Since indolence is a confirmed habit that has been developed over the years, we cannot hope to correct it in a day or two, nor can we expect to remedy it by any soft treatment.

We shall have to deal with ourselves unsparingly before the Lord if we are to become workers who are not "unprofitable" in His service.

 

CHAPTER TWO  -  STABLE

 

Reading: Matt. 16:13-23; 1 Pet. 2:5; Matt. 18:18; 26:31-41, 69-75; Mk. 14:54, 66-68.

Stability is another quality that must be found in the life of every Christian worker. Many Christians alas! are very changeable. Their moods change with the weather, so that at times they become the plaything of circumstance; consequently they are unreliable. Their intentions are good, but because they are emotionally unstable, they frequently lose their poise.

The Bible portrays for us a man of irresolute temperament who is known to us as Simon Peter. One day the Lord asked His disciples who people thought He was, to which they replied that some said He was John the Baptist, and some said He was Elijah, while others said He was Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Then He turned the question on them and asked, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter's reply, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" brought forth this immediate response: "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church" (Matt. 16:13-18).

Note the declaration: "On this rock I will build my church." The Lord seems to have in mind here the contrast He drew in the Sermon on the Mount between the wise man who built his house on the rock so that it resisted flood and tempest, and the foolish man who built his house on the sand, and under the same conditions it tottered to the ground. No matter what strain the Church may be subjected to, it can never collapse because it is firmly established on the Rock, Jesus Christ.

At a later date Peter wrote these words: "You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house" (1 Pet. 2:5). The superstructure of the Church is of the same substance as the foundation; and just as stability characterizes the foundation, so stability characterizes the entire superstructure. Stability is a necessary trait in the character of every Christian worker, for every one is a "living stone". Christ said to Peter: "You are Peter (Greek: petro, a stone), and on this rock (Gk. petra) I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." A stone in the building is not an immense mass of rock like the foundation; but though the foundation and superstructure differ in size, in substance they are the same. Each one who forms a part of the Church building may be small in measure, but in nature he does not differ in the slightest from the Church's Head.

Note how the passage from which we have quoted continues: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." This promise made to Peter was later on made to the Church. (See Matt. 18:18.) It is obvious that Peter is addressed here as an individual, but it is in his capacity as a minister of Christ that the keys of the Kingdom are committed to him. He was entrusted with those keys so that he might function as an opener of doors, and he clearly functioned in that capacity at Pentecost and later in the house of Cornelius. In the first instance he opened the door of the Kingdom to the Jews and in the second instance to the Gentiles. But when the Lord Jesus addressed Peter at Caesarea Philippi his character did not correspond to his name, so he was unable at that time to make use of the keys of the Kingdom. However, when in the Lord's grace he had been delivered from the instability that marked him then, and had become a minister of Christ who was firm as a rock, he was able to use the keys committed to him and could wield authority in binding and in loosing.

No one who is of an irresolute temperament can exercise a ministry of this nature. There must be a correspondence between the character of the minister and the character of the ministry. Both must bear the character of the Church against which the gates of Hades cannot prevail. Tragically, the gates of Hades do prevail over many Christian workers because they are always vacillating; for that reason they cannot be relied on in the work. Unless these erratic natures of ours are transformed, we shall be unable to function in the specific ministry committed to us; but, praise the Lord!, He has resource to transform our characters even as He transformed Peter's. He can deal with every type of weakness that mars our lives and can so reconstitute us that we become suited to His purpose.

The Bible tells us it was by revelation that Peter was able to recognize Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God. He could never have made this marvelous discovery by himself, nor could any man have imparted such knowledge to him; it was God Who made this known to him. From the time of Peter's confession Jesus began to tell the disciples something of the sufferings that lay immediately ahead of Him; and He told them plainly of His impending crucifixion and resurrection, whereupon "Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying: 'Far be it from you Lord; this shall not happen to you!' But he turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan!'" (Matt. 16:22-23).

Note the sudden swing of the pendulum. Peter, who has so recently attained sublime heights of spiritual experience, has already dropped to perilous depths. We have barely heard the Lord acknowledge that he has had a wonderful divine revelation then we hear Him say that he is a tool in the hands of Satan. At one moment Peter is declaring to the Lord, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God"; at another moment he is actually rebuking Him. These two moments, so near in time, are poles apart in spiritual experience; and the self-same man who has been a vessel of divine revelation has, within a brief space of time, become an instrument in Satan's hand to try and hinder the Lord from going to the Cross.

The Lord reacts immediately, and directly addressing Peter, to whom he had so recently said, "Blessed are you," He says, "get behind me, Satan!" Only a short time has elapsed since He declared "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." But how could a man, himself overcome by Satan, be used to build up the Church concerning which the Lord had affirmed that the gates of Hades could never prevail against it? If Peter is ever to be so used, then he must undergo a fundamental change. And that is exactly what happened. Let us look at the story as recorded in the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew's Gospel.

When the disciples were gathered around the Lord after the celebration of the passover He said to them: "All of you will be made to stumble because of me this night, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered." Peter, with his characteristic impulsiveness, protested immediately: "Even if all are made to stumble because of you, I will never be made to stumble." Peter was clearly contradicting the Lord, but in so doing he was not just making a bravado: he was convinced that he was uttering the truth. It was because Peter so firmly believed in himself that the Lord reinforced His general statement regarding all the disciples and, addressing Peter directly so that he should be left in no doubt that he, Peter, was included in the number of those who would desert Him, He added details, describing the depths to which he would fall in his desertion of the Lord. But so deep-rooted was Peter's self-confidence, that all the Lord's assertions failed to convince him, and he protested more vehemently than ever: "Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you!" Peter was not trying to deceive anyone: he meant every word he said. He loved the Lord and he wanted to follow Him unreservedly. When he spoke as he did he was expressing his heartfelt desire; but he mistook himself for the man he desired to be. Peter wanted to pay the utmost price to follow the Lord, but he was not the kind of man he thought he was; he had not got it in him to pay such a price.

A short time after Peter had made his repeated declarations that he would follow the Lord at all costs, the Lord said to him and to two other disciples He had taken apart with Him in the garden of Gethsemane: "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with me." But all three fell fast asleep. Again He addressed Peter specifically and said: "What? Could you not watch with me one hour?" But He did not stop for Peter's answer; He supplied it Himself  - "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Yes, that was Peter. He was so willing, but he was so weak.

In a moment the scene has changed again. And Peter has changed with the changing circumstances. A great multitude have come to take Jesus, and Peter's emotions are stirred. He stretches out his hand, draws his sword, and strikes off the ear of the high priest's servant. Is not this proof of his readiness to die with his Lord? But wait a moment. Jesus is taken, and He is being carried off alone. Where is Peter? "Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled." Peter has deserted his Lord.

Mark records: "But Peter followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. And he sat with the servants and warmed himself at the fire" (14:54). Suddenly one of the high priest's maids recognized him and exclaimed: "You also were with Jesus of Nazareth. But he denied it, saying, I neither know nor understand what you are saying" (vv. 67-69). Can this be Peter, who that very day had dared to cut off the ear of the high priest's servant? Yes, this is Peter, now so overcome with fear when the high priest's maid identifies him as one of the disciples, that he actually denies His Lord. A moment ago he wanted at all costs to follow Him, even if it meant giving up his life, but now he wants at all costs to preserve his life.

The great surge of emotion that swept over him then has already passed; and while Jesus is being put to shame in the judgment-hall Peter is seeking to evade any implication in His sufferings. So he moves out into the porch. There he overhears another servant saying to some of the bystanders, "This is one of them," and immediately he is roused to a further denial. Matthew says: "But again he denied with an oath, I do not know the man" (26:72).

Soon afterwards some of those who were standing around came up to him and said: "Surely you also are one of them, for your speech betrays you. Then he began to curse and swear, saying, I do not know the man!" (vv.73-74). Is it possible that this is Peter, this man who has denied the Lord three times, and has denied Him with oaths and curses? Yes, this is Peter.

Peter's trouble was not just superficial. There was a fundamental flaw in his character. He was governed by his emotions, and his conduct was always unpredictable, as the conduct of people is who are controlled by their feelings. The enthusiasm of such people carries them at times to the loftiest heights; at other times depression drives them into the depths. It is possible for such people to receive divine revelation, but it is also possible for them to put hindrances in the way of the divine purpose.

They are apt to speak and to act swiftly under the urge of a sudden impulse, but the impulse may not be a divine impulse. Many problems in the Lord's work arise because of this radical defect in the lives of His servants; and because the trouble is radical, it calls for a radical correction.

Peter was a forthright character. He was not given to diplomacy and double dealings; but he had strong emotions, and he trusted in his emotions till the day of testing proved he was not the man of unswerving devotion to the Lord that his feelings had led him to believe.

Brothers and sisters, it is woefully possible that our fancied love for the Lord is little more than sentimental attachment. Our emotional reactions to His love are not necessarily so deep or so pure as we think. We feel we love Him utterly; but we live so much in the soul-realm that we think we are the kind of people we feel we are. We feel we want to live for Him alone and want to die for Him if He so wills; but if the Lord does not shatter our self-confidence as He shattered Peter's, we shall go on being deceived by our feelings and our life will be one of endless fluctuations.

Peter did not deliberately tell a lie when he affirmed his devotion to the Lord; but his feelings tricked him into believing what was not true. It is a horrible thing to tell a lie; but it is a pitiful thing to believe a lie. If we continue to trust our feelings, the Lord may have to let us discover through serious breakdown the unreliability of our emotional life. The measure of our ability to follow the Lord is not assessed by the measure of our desire to follow Him.

Oh, that we might recognize the fact that the Church is an eternally stable structure! The foundation of the Church is a rock foundation, and every stone throughout the building is quarried from the same rock. If our characters have not been brought into correspondence with the character of the Church, how can we hope to have any part in its construction? If we seek to build with substandard material we shall endanger the whole structure.

Stone of other quality than the foundation will not stand the strain imposed upon it, so our attempts at building will only result in breakdown, and breakdown will mean loss to ourselves and others, and loss of precious time in the completion of the work. We do well to heed this word in 1 Cor. 15:58 - "Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord."

Thank God, Peter was brought through breakdown to discover his own weakness, and his fall was deep enough to shatter his self-confidence. Have not our past failures been serious enough to convince us of our unreliability? We keep praying for light on our condition, but is not the knowledge of our past failures light enough to cause us to fall down before God in deep contrition and let Him remake us as He remade Peter? When Peter's collapse showed him what kind of a person he was, he "went out and wept bitterly." From that hour the Lord began to refashion him till his character corresponded to his new name, and he was able then to use the keys of the Kingdom with mighty effect.

We cannot expect to become outstanding instruments like Peter, but we trust the Lord will have mercy upon us and work a transformation in our lives such as He worked in his. A radical change needs to take place in our characters if we are to be Christian workers worthy of the name.

 

CHAPTER  THREE  -  A LOVER OF MEN

 

Reading: Prov. 17:5; Mk. 10:45; Lk. 19:10; Jn. 10:10; Lk. 15.

Love of the brethren is a basic essential in the life of every Christian worker, but not less essential is love of all mankind. Solomon said: "He who mocks the poor reproaches his maker" (Prov. 17:5). God is the Creator of all men, and no person is fit to be His servant who dislikes or despises any one of them. Man has fallen, it is true, but fallen man has become the object of redeeming love; and the Lord Who redeemed man, Himself became man - a man like other men, gradually growing from infancy to full maturity. And when God had secured the Man of His desire in the person of His Son and had exalted Him to His own right hand, the Church was brought into being, "one new man" in Him.

When you really come to understand the Word of God, then you realize that the term "children of God" is not so weighty as the term "man", and you realize also that divine choice and divine election had as their objective a glorified corporate man. When you see the place man occupies in the purpose of God; when you see man as the focus of all His thoughts; when you see how the Lord humbled Himself to become man; you then learn to appreciate all mankind.

When our Lord was on earth He said: "For even the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mk. 10:45). He did not say that the Son of God came to serve men; He did say "the Son of man came." Here we see the Lord's attitude to man.

A serious trouble with many who are engaged in Christian work is their lack of love for man, their lack of esteem for man, their failure to realize the value of man in God's sight. Today we feel we have attained great heights if we have begun to love God's children. But is that enough? Oh! we need to be enlarged; we need to see that our love must embrace all men; we need to see that all men are precious to God. No doubt you are interested in a few particularly intelligent people, a few who in one way or another are outstanding; but what I want to know is not if you are interested in men of unusual measure, but if you are interested in MAN.

This question is one of great importance. The phrase "the Son of man came" implies in the first place that the Lord was intensely interested in man; He was so interested that He Himself became man. To what extent are you interested? Perhaps you think, Oh! So-and-So isn't of much account, or, There's nothing much to such-and-such an individual. But how did our Lord look on those people? He came into the midst of men as Son of man.

He so prized man that He became man, that He might to the fullest extent serve men. It is an amazing thing, a grievous thing, that many of God's children have little concern for men. Brothers and sisters, do you know the meaning of this word, "the Son of man came"? It means that Christ cared for all mankind. What an abnormal state of affairs it is if we are only interested in a select few!

Interest in the human race is a basic requirement of every Christian worker, not interest in a certain section of it. "God so loved the world." His love included all men, and so should ours. We must not confine our interest to His children, or to any other particular class of men, but must go out in love to all.

Years of instruction have accustomed us to talk of certain men as our "brethren" and of all men as our "fellow-men", and perhaps we have begun to appreciate the fact that some men are truly our brethren; but do we appreciate this other fact that all men are our fellows?

Sadly, many who profess to be the Lord's servants have never opened their hearts to all their fellows. If only it registered deeply with us that God is our Creator and we are all fellow-creatures, how could we take advantage of others in any way? If in association with our fellow-men we seek our own interests, our work will be of very limited value in the sight of God, however great its outward extent.

"For even the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mk. 10:45). "For the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Lk. 19:10). "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly" (Jn. 10:10). It was for man the Lord Jesus came to the earth, and He came for the specific purpose of serving men. It was His consuming interest in man that brought Him from heaven to earth to minister to men even to the pouring out of His life for their ransom. The motive power was a passionate love for men. His ministry to men was the outcome of His love for men; and because His love was boundless, He could serve even to death on the Cross.

If you try to preach the gospel to the unsaved, but have never been touched by the words "God created man", so that you approach men as your fellows; if you have never had more than a casual interest in men; then you are unfit to preach Christ as "a ransom for many". It needs to dawn on us that God created man in His likeness and set His love on man because man was exceedingly precious to Him. Unless man becomes the object of our affection we cannot possibly become a servant of men.

Many Christian workers have an altogether wrong attitude to their fellows. They consider them a burden, and sometimes they take offense at their doings and cannot even forgive them. How can we, who ourselves are sinners by nature, hesitate to forgive sinners? How can we fail to understand their weaknesses and shortcomings? And how can we but hold them dear when we know their worth to the Lord? He, the Good Shepherd, could forsake all and go out to seek one lost sheep; the Holy Spirit could search for one lost coin; and the Father could go out to welcome back one lost son. In the parable of Luke fifteen we see that the divine love could spend itself freely to redeem even one soul. Can we fail to see the intensity of God's love for man?

Brothers and sisters, in the light of God's passionate concern for man, can you still regard your fellows with indifference? We shall be worthless in His service unless our hearts are enlarged and our horizon is widened. We need to see the value God has set on man; we need to see the place of man in God's eternal purpose; we need to see the meaning of Christ's redemptive work. Without that, it is vain to imagine that puny creatures such as you and I can ever have a share in the great work of God.

How can anyone be used to save souls who does not love souls? If only this fundamental trouble of our lack of love for men can be solved, our many other difficulties in relation to men will vanish. We think some people are too ignorant and we think others are too hard, but these problems will cease to exist when our basic problem of lack of love for men has been dealt with. When we cease to stand on a pedestal and learn to take our place as men among fellow-men, then we shall no longer disdain any.

Some Christian workers who have been brought up in urban areas go out into the country among farming folk and adopt a superior attitude to them. How different from the Son of Man who came to be a servant of all! If you go anywhere to preach the gospel and do not go as a son of man, you will fail in your mission. If you work among others in a condescending attitude, do not deceive yourself into mistaking condescension for Christ-like humility. Conscious condescension is counterfeit humility; genuine humility is unconscious. When Christ came into the midst of men He came as a real man. He lived as man in the midst of fellow-men. Many Christian workers, as they move among their fellows, convey the impression that they are doing others a favor by associating with them.

Our demeanor should never make others feel that we are different from them. Unless we can be as sons of men among men, we shall neither be true servants of men, nor true servants of God. God's workmen must be so emptied of self that they are unconsciously humble. An ignorant, unsaved man differs from you and me in no other respect than this, that we are saved and he is not. He has a place in God's creative purpose just as you and I have; he has a place in God's redemptive purpose just as you and I have; and he has a potentiality for God just as you and I.

Perhaps you say, the ignorance of others presents no problem to me; my difficulty arises when I come in contact with deceitful people and people of loose morals. What should be my attitude to them? You only need to take a retrospective look at your own life. Where were you when the grace of God found you out? And where would you be today but for the grace of God? If in any respect you are other than they, it is wholly a matter of His grace. Think what the grace of God has done for you. As you behold His grace you will have to bow before Him and say: "By nature I am as sinful as they, but I am a sinner saved by grace." A contemplation of what the grace of God has done for us will never exalt us; it will always cause us to bow low before Him. If you are different from others, "who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast, as if you had not received it?" (1 Cor. 4:7). The sight of sin should cause us to recoil, but we should still go out in love to the sinner.

While we bear in mind that every servant of God has his own special function, we should not forget that, however different their functions may be, all true servants of God are alike in this respect that they are interested, intensely interested, in men. If you are not attracted to sinners, but even want to shun them, what do you hope to accomplish by preaching the gospel to them? Does a doctor shrink back from sick patients? If we seek the lost because we have come to see the preciousness to God of every single soul, then we shall move out to them, not under the compulsion of duty, but under the constraint of an irresistible attraction. When we approach them in the spontaneity of love, we shall find that a limitless field of service will open up to us, and in the mercy of God we shall become servants who are of some account to Him.

Oh, that we might see every human being as a living soul with an immense potentiality! How differently we have felt toward the saved since we realized we are "fellow-citizens with the saints"! And we shall feel a similar difference toward the unsaved when the divine light breaks upon us and we truly see each one as a fellow-man. We shall value them then and love them, and we shall come into harmony with the Lord in His desire to win them to Himself that they may be material in His hand for the building of His Church. If you or I despise any soul of man, we are unworthy to be in the service of the Son of Man, for His workmen are servants of men who count it their joy to minister to their fellows.

 

CHAPTER FOUR  -  A GOOD LISTENER

 

Another of those qualities we expect to find in the life of every Christian worker is that of being able to listen. No doubt many people regard this as a matter of comparatively little consequence; but experience and observation have shown us that it is by no means so.

Anyone who wishes to serve the Lord must acquire the habit of listening to what people say, and not just listening in a perfunctory manner, but listening attentively with the object of hearing and understanding what is said. If a Christian in conscious need turns to a servant of the Lord for help, as that one listens to his brother's story he should be able to discern three different kinds of speech - the words he is uttering; the words he is holding back; the words he cannot utter that lie in the depths of his spirit.

In the first place, you must make a point of listening to what the person is actually saying, and listening until you know what he is after, which means that you will need to be quietly before God so that your mind is clear and your spirit calm, for listening is not such an easy matter. Let me ask: Are you able intelligently to follow a person right through when he is laboriously seeking to explain his difficulty? I fear that if a score of you were all listening to the same person at the same time, there might be as many impressions of that person's problem as there were listeners.

We shall have to take ourselves rigorously in hand if we are to acquire hearing ears! Our ears must be trained to hear. Unless we are well disciplined we grow weary of the tales people in need pour into our ears, and long before they cease speaking we cease listening and then draw our premature conclusions regarding their trouble. Or from the very outset we pay scant attention to what they say to us, because we are so impressed with the importance of what we have to communicate to them, that we are just waiting for an opportunity to break in and take up the role of speaker again, hoping, of course, that they will prove good listeners.

It frequently happens that a worker, having meditated for a time on a certain spiritual theme, is so full of his thoughts on the subject that when a brother in distress comes to seek his help, he immediately brings forth the matter on which he has been meditating. Presently, when a hale and hearty brother comes along, he receives similar treatment; and the same is doled out to all who seek that worker, irrespective of their state.

In Christian work the matter of helping people is more difficult than that of a doctor seeking to relieve the ailments of those who attend his clinic, for he has a laboratory where he can make tests to aid him in his diagnosis of the various cases, whereas a Christian worker has to make his diagnosis without any such aid. If someone comes to you and sits for half an hour supplying you with data on his condition, and you cannot give him a careful hearing, how will you be able to locate his trouble? It is imperative that all who serve the Lord cultivate the art of listening to what people say till they become expert listeners and develop the ability to understand the specific problem of each individual.

In the second place, when anyone in need talks to us, while they are talking we must discern what they refrain from uttering. Naturally it is more difficult to get a clear registration of unspoken words than of spoken ones, but we must learn to listen so attentively that we discern the inaudible as well as the audible. When people consult with us about their affairs, it is not unusual for them to tell half the story and refrain from divulging the other half. It is here that the worker's competence is tested. If you are an incompetent worker you will only discern what is audibly expressed; or possibly you will try to read between the lines of the story, inserting your own thoughts, thoughts that were never in the heart of the speaker. The result will be a misunderstanding of the one who sought your help. If you are to read accurately between the lines, then your relation with the Lord will need to be a close one. When a person in need speaks only of the superficial trouble and is silent on the important issue, how can you know his condition? You can know it if your own issues are clear before God.

In the third place, we must be able to detect what their spirits are saying. Beyond all the words a person may utter, and the words he may deliberately refrain from uttering, are what we have referred to as the words his spirit is saying. When any Christian who is in need opens his mouth and speaks, his spirit also speaks. The fact that he is willing to talk about himself gives you the opportunity to touch his spirit. If his lips are sealed it is difficult to know what is going on in his spirit, but with the opening of his mouth his spirit will find some measure of release, however much he may seek to control himself.

Your ability to discern what his spirit is saying will depend on the measure of your own spiritual experience. If you have acquired understanding through your own heart-exercise in the presence of God, then you will be able to discern the words that brother has uttered; the words he has refrained from uttering; and the words he is saying deep down in his being. You will be able to discern the intellectual difficulty he has defined and also the undefined spiritual difficulty; and you will be able to offer the specific remedy that his case calls for.

Sadly, very few Christians are good listeners. You could spend a full hour trying to explain your difficulty and at the end they would be quite hazy about it. Our hearing is not sufficiently acute. If we cannot hear what people have to say to us, how can we hear what God has to say? Oh! let us not consider this a trifling matter. If we do not learn to listen, and listen understandingly, even if we become great Bible readers and great Bible teachers, and become efficient in various kinds of work, we shall still be unable to deal with a brother in need. We ought not only to be able to talk to people, we ought to be able to deal with their difficulties. But how can that ever come about if we have only learned to use our mouths and not our ears? Oh! we must realize the seriousness of this lack.

The story is told of an elderly doctor whose entire stock of medicines consisted of two kinds - castor oil and quinine. No matter what complaint his patients suffered from, he invariably doled out either the one medicine or the other. Many Christian workers treat those who come to them just like that. They have one or two pet subjects, and however varied the ailments of those who seek them out, they talk to them along their one or two special lines. Such workers cannot be of any real help to others because they can only talk; they cannot listen. How then shall we acquire the ability to listen to people and to understand what they are saying?

(1) We must not be subjective. Subjectivity is one of the main reasons why people are bad listeners. If you have your own conceptions about people you will find it difficult to take in what they say because your mind is already full of your own conclusions. You are so set in your notions that other people's opinions cannot penetrate into your mind. You are so firmly persuaded that you have discovered the panacea for all ills that, no matter how varied the needs of those who approach you, you offer the same remedy to them all. How can a worker possibly pay attention to what others are telling him of their need if, before ever they open their mouths, he is convinced that he knows their trouble and has the remedy on hand? We must ask the Lord to save us from this subjectivity. Let us come to Him and pray that He will enable us in all our contacts with others to set aside our own prejudices and our own conclusions and Himself instruct us so that we can come to a true diagnosis of each case.

(2) We must not woolgather. Many believers know nothing of mental discipline. Day and night their thoughts flow on uninterruptedly. They never concentrate, but just let their imaginations roam hither and thither till their minds accumulate such a mass of matter that they can take in nothing more. When people talk to them they cannot follow what is being said, but can only follow the train of their own thoughts and talk of the things that are preoccupying them. It is essential that we learn to quieten our minds so that we can hear and take in what is being said to us.

(3) We must learn to enter into the feelings of others. Even if you listen to what a person is saying, you will still be unable to understand his need unless you can enter sympathetically into his circumstances. If someone comes to you in deep distress and you maintain a bright and breezy manner and are untouched by his grief, you will never arrive at a true diagnosis of his case. If your emotional life has not been dealt with by God, when others express their joy you will be unable to break through with a glad response, and when they express their sorrow you will be unable to share their grief; consequently, when they talk you will be able to hear the words they utter, but you will not be able to interpret their import aright.

We must remember that for Christ's sake we are the servants of others, and we should not only devote our time and strength to them, we should let our affections go out to them. Of the Lord Jesus it was said that He "sympathized with our weaknesses" (Hb. 4:15). God's demands of those who serve Him are very exacting. They allow us no leisure for self-occupation. If we must indulge in our own laughter and our own tears, in our own likes and our own dislikes, we shall be too preoccupied to give ourselves freely to others. If we cling to our own pleasures and griefs, and grudge to let our interests go, we shall be like a room that is too full of furniture to accommodate anything more. Or, to put it differently, we shall have expended all our emotions on ourselves and shall have none to spare for others. We need to realize that there is a limit to our soul-strength just as there is to the strength of our bodies. Our emotional powers are not boundless.

If we exhaust our sympathies in one direction, we shall have none to give in another direction. For that reason, anyone who has an inordinate affection for another person cannot be the Lord's servant. He Himself said: "If any man comes to me, and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters... he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26).

The fundamental need of everyone who is engaged in the Lord's work is to know the Cross experimentally; otherwise we shall be wrapped up in ourselves and governed by our own thoughts and our own feelings.

There is no cheap and easy way for anyone to be of use to God and to his fellow-men. Let us remember that bad listeners will never be good workers; and to become good listeners the Cross will need to operate deeply in our lives to deliver us from the self-absorption that makes us deaf to the concerns of others. A deep work of the Cross in our lives will produce an inner quiet that will make us patient listeners. That does not mean to say that we shall let people talk for hours on end while we sit in silence and listen; but it does mean that we shall give them a reasonable opportunity to explain what is on their hearts.

There is a prevalent misconception among Christian workers. They think that the primary essential is to be able to speak. Far from it! To be effective workers we need spiritual clarity; we need discernment concerning the condition of all who seek us out; we need quietness of mind to hear them state their case; and we need quietness of spirit so that we can sense their true condition beyond their own definitions of it. We ourselves must abide in a clear relation with the Lord, so that having inward clarity we can clearly discern the needs of others and on the basis of a clear diagnosis be able to bring the specific remedy called for in each case.

CHAPTER FIVE  -  RESTRAINED IN SPEECH

 

Reading: Jas. 3:11; Eccl. 5:3; 1 Tim. 3:8; Matt. 5:37; Eph. 5:4; Is. 50:4.

Because of unrestrained speech the usefulness of many Christian workers is seriously curtailed. Instead of being powerful instruments in the Lord's service, their ministry makes little impact on account of the constant leakage of power through their careless talk.

In the third chapter of his epistle James asks the question: "Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening?" (v. 11). If a Christian worker talks inadvisedly about all sorts of things, how can he expect to be used of the Lord in the utterance of His Word? If God has ever put His Word on our lips, then a solemn obligation is upon us to guard these lips for His service alone. We cannot offer a member of our bodies for His use one day and the next day take it back for use at our own discretion. Whatever is once presented to Him is eternally His.

In Numbers 16 we are told how Korah and his associates banded together to oppose Moses and Aaron, and each man of the two hundred and fifty took his censer filled with fire and presented it to the Lord. They all perished for their presumption, but God instructed Moses to rescue the censers. Note the reason given for their preservation: "Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Tell Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, to pick up the censers out of the blaze, for they are holy, and scatter the fire some distance away. The censers of these men who sinned against their own souls, let them be made into hammered plates as a covering for the altar. Because they presented them before the Lord, therefore they are holy" (vv. 36-38). Whatever has been offered to God is set apart for Him and cannot afterwards be put to common use.

Eccl. 5:3 says that in a multitude of words we can detect the voice of a fool. We betray our folly by our talkativeness. We feel we must tell such-and-such to So-and-So, and of course we cannot but tell lots of other things to lots of other people. There seems always to be a good reason for telling something to somebody. Oh, how some of us love to talk, and love above all to relay what others have said! And all the while much spiritual energy is being dissipated.

There are several points connected with this matter of speech that we should note. In the first place, let us note the kind of talk we enjoy listening to. In this way we can get to know ourselves, for the kind of talk we relish indicates the kind of people we are. Some people never confide in you because they know you are not the sort of person who would respond to what they have to say; whereas other people come straight to you and pour into your ears all the latest information they have, because they have sized you up as being the type of person who wants to hear that type of thing. You can judge yourself by stopping to note the things people come and talk to you about.

In the second place, let us observe what tales we most readily credit, for what we are prone to credit reveals our own dispositions. We are more gullible in one direction than in another, and the direction of our gullibility betrays our constitutional weakness. People naturally bring supply to demand, and our temperamental tendencies sometimes trick us into crediting the incredible, especially when statements made to us are backed by the assertion that the speaker has them on good authority.

In the third place, let us note if, when we have listened to people's stories and accepted them at their face value, we are in the habit of passing them on to our neighbors. Have you noted the process? A certain person with a certain disposition utters certain words that are colored by his personality; and because there is an affinity between him and me, I lend my ears to him and something of his personality enters into mine; then I add the coloring of my temperament and relay the matter to a third party.

In the next place, let us observe the propensity in some speakers to make inaccurate statements. They tell the same tale on different occasions, but the records do not tally. In his first letter to Timothy Paul refers to this type of person as "double-tongued" (1 Tim. 3:8). Some people are ignorantly and weakly double-tongued, but in the case of others there is not only temperamental fickleness, there is moral corruption. Matt. 21:23-27 records that the chief priests and the elders of the people came to the Lord as He was teaching in the temple and asked on whose authority He was acting. He replied with this question; "The baptism of John - where was it from? From heaven or from men?" That put them in a dilemma, so they reasoned among themselves: "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will say to us, 'Why then did you not believe him?' But if we say, 'From men,' we fear the multitude, for all count John as a prophet." The result of their reasoning was that they evaded the truth and said, "We know not."

Their answer was a deliberate falsehood. In Matt. 5:37 we read that the Lord said:  "Let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and you 'No,' 'No.' For whatever is more than these is from the evil one." It is not for any Christian worker to be governed by diplomacy and stop to reason about the possible effect of his words on his hearers before deciding what to say. When people sought to lay a snare for the Lord by their questions He sometimes resorted to silence, but never to diplomacy. Let us follow His example, and let us take counsel from Paul who wrote to the Corinthians: "If any one among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise" (1 Cor. 3:18). And writing to the Romans he said: "I want you to be... simple concerning evil" (16:19).

In the spiritual realm worldly wisdom, is of no avail. The trouble with many people is that they have never learned in simplicity to say "Yes" when the facts of the case demand a Yes, and to say "No" when they know that the truth is No. Their speech is never simple and straightforward, but is carefully studied, and their statements are always suited to their own interests.

As the Lord's servants we come into constant contact with people and have therefore many opportunities of talking and of hearing others talk, so it is essential that we exercise strict control over ourselves lest we become in turn preachers of the Word and relayers of gossip. This tragic state of affairs is more than a possibility. If we are to avoid this snare into which not a few have already fallen, we must not only take heed to our mouths, but also to our ears. In our work we cannot avoid listening to what many people have to tell us about their own affairs, and to be efficient workers we have to cultivate the art of listening that we may be able to help them; but we must discourage them from going into further details once we have inward clarity regarding their need. We have to be watchful lest our natural curiosity betray us into hearing more than is good for us to know. There is such a thing as lust for knowledge, lust for information about other people's business, and we must beware of it. We need to be restrained in speech; but if we are to exercise restraint in what we say, then we must first exercise restraint in what we hear.

At this point the question arises of gaining and retaining people's confidence. If anyone shares his spiritual problems with us, that is a trust we must respect. We must not speak of these confidences unless the interests of the work make it necessary. How can you serve the Lord if you betray confidence that has been placed in you? But how can you do other than betray confidence if you have not learned to bridle your tongue?

We need to treat such confidences as a sacred trust and guard them faithfully. Those who in their need have shared their secret history with us have not done so to add to our personal store of knowledge. They have approached us, not by virtue of what we are in our person, but by virtue of the ministry we exercise, so we cannot regard this as personal knowledge to be shared with all and sundry. We must learn to safeguard every confidence placed in us by others. People who cannot bridle their tongues cannot be entrusted with the Lord's work.

In considering the matter of speech we cannot but touch on the evil habit of telling lies. The double-tongued character to whom we have referred is a close kinsman of the liar. All utterances that are made with intent to deceive come into the category of lying, and the intent to deceive is a heart matter. If you are asked a question you do not wish to answer, or are unable to answer, you can politely refuse to reply, but you dare not deceive the questioner. We want people to believe the truth, not the lie; we dare not therefore use what are in themselves true words in order to convey a false impression.

If the fact is Yes then we must learn to say, Yes; if it is No we must learn to say, No. What is more than that is of the evil one. The Lord once spoke very strongly to some of those who followed Him: "You are of your father the devil... When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar, and the father of it" (Jn. 8:44). The devil is the author of lies, and since all lies originate with him, how can anyone who is professedly devoted to the Lord lend his lips to utter words that are instigated by His enemy? Wherever this state of affairs exists it indicates fundamental trouble in the life of the individual. This trouble is of the gravest possible nature. None of us dare lay claim to utter accuracy of speech (in fact, the more careful we seek to be the more we realize the difficulty of being exact in all we say), but we must cultivate the habit of being true and avoiding all careless utterance.

Let us also avoid everything that savors of wrangling. It was prophesied of the Lord: "He will not quarrel, nor cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets" (Matt. 12:19). And Paul wrote to Timothy "A servant of the Lord must not quarrel" (2 Tim. 2:24). The Lord's servant should have himself under such control that he does not give way to noisy conversation or anything that borders on quarreling. Loud talking usually indicates lack of power, and it always indicates lack of self-discipline. We may be perfectly right in what we say, but there is no need for loud affirmations of the truth; we can get the truth across without any noisy insistence on our convictions about it. Let us walk before the Lord in the quiet dignity that befits His servants. Of course we do not want to assume a sobriety or a refinement that is artificial, for the Christian life is spontaneous and unaffected; but self-control has to be practiced until it becomes second nature.