Once I went to London to fellowship about matters concerning the Lord’s work. While I was there I visited the city of Plymouth. During the nineteenth century, Plymouth was the place where John Nelson Darby and Benjamin Wills Newton, along with many other notable brothers, ministered among the so-called Plymouth Brethren. I wanted to see what remained of that blessed time in the history of the Lord’s recovery. Eventually we found a place where the Brethren were still meeting and contacted one of the leading brothers there. When we asked him about his appreciation of John Nelson Darby, he replied he had not even heard of Darby. Instead, his word was that they were a group who “looked forward instead of backward.”
We learned from him that there were other Brethren groups meeting in the city, and that his hall was the one that cared for the young people. We then met with a group of older saints, who were burdened for those confined to nursing homes. One hundred and fifty years earlier, many high and glorious truths had been manifested among the Plymouth Brethren through the ministry of a number of servants who had been raised up by the Lord. Now it appears that little of that deposit remains among them. This helped me to realize that it is the church alone that is eternal, not anything or anyone else.
Adapted from Oneness and the One Accord, page 46.
Tomorrow: “Let Everything Else Go”