======================================================================== CHRISTIAN FRIEND MAGAZINE (26 VOLUMES) - VOLUME 1 by Various ======================================================================== Volume 1 of the 26-volume Christian Friend magazine, a periodical serving the Plymouth Brethren community with devotional articles, Bible exposition, and pastoral encouragement for Christian fellowship and growth. Chapters: 100 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Vol 01 - "Christ's Coming; Faith's Crowning" 2. Vol 01 - "Faith Furnished for the Evil Day" 3. Vol 01 - "God Is Love" 4. Vol 01 - "I Will Guide Thee with Mine Eye" 5. Vol 01 - "I Will Never Leave Thee" 6. Vol 01 - "No More Conscience of Sin" 7. Vol 01 - "O Wretched Man that I Am!" 8. Vol 01 - "The Last Words of David" 9. Vol 01 - "The Spirit, Not of Fear, But of Power" 10. Vol 01 - "To Him That Overcometh" 11. Vol 01 - A Christian - Who and What Is He, Now and Hereafter? 12. Vol 01 - All In Christ, and Christ All 13. Vol 01 - Carnal Confidence, and the Confidence of Faith 14. Vol 01 - Christ and the Church 15. Vol 01 - Dead and Risen with Christ 16. Vol 01 - Do I Lack Rest? 17. Vol 01 - For Ever With the Lord 18. Vol 01 - God's Comforts: the Stay of the Soul 19. Vol 01 - God's Own Joy In Love, and Man's Murmurings Against It 20. Vol 01 - God's Rest, the Saint's Rest 21. Vol 01 - Growth Through the Truth 22. Vol 01 - Hark To the Trump 23. Vol 01 - Holy and Beloved 24. Vol 01 - Jesus Forgiving Sins 25. Vol 01 - Moses In Egypt, and Moses In Midian 26. Vol 01 - O Lord, Thy Love's Unbounded 27. Vol 01 - Obedience, the Saint's Liberty 28. Vol 01 - Peace - My Peace 29. Vol 01 - Peace With Gibeon 30. Vol 01 - Ruin and Redemption 31. Vol 01 - Sin In the Flesh 32. Vol 01 - The Accepted Man 33. Vol 01 - The Call of the Bride 34. Vol 01 - The Failure of the Sons of Aaron 35. Vol 01 - The Father's Love 36. Vol 01 - The Hebrew Servant 37. Vol 01 - The Parables of the Two Sons, the Vineyard, and the Marriage Supper 38. Vol 01 - The Pleasant Land Despised 39. Vol 01 - The Rejected Man 40. Vol 01 - The Walk with God. 41. Vol 01 - The Waters of Strife 42. Vol 01 - The Whole Armour of God 43. Vol 01 - What Grace, O Lord, and Beauty Shone 44. Vol 01 - WhatWant I with the World? 45. Vol 01 - Wilderness Grace 46. Vol 02 - "A Full Christ for Empty Sinners" 47. Vol 02 - "Hope to the End." 48. Vol 02 - "I, Not I" 49. Vol 02 - "In Everything Give Thanks" 50. Vol 02 - "The Women of the Genealogy." 51. Vol 02 - Abigail, The Wife of Nabal the Carmelite 52. Vol 02 - Cain: His World and His Worship 53. Vol 02 - Caleb 54. Vol 02 - Christ the Bread of Life 55. Vol 02 - Christ the Servant, and the Service of Life 56. Vol 02 - Creation as a Type 57. Vol 02 - Death is Ours 58. Vol 02 - Deliverance under the Law 59. Vol 02 - Esther 60. Vol 02 - Extract from a Letter on Perfection 61. Vol 02 - Faith and Its Footsteps 62. Vol 02 - Faith, Not Discussion 63. Vol 02 - Fathers, Young Men, and Babes, in Christ 64. Vol 02 - Fragment 65. Vol 02 - Fragment 66. Vol 02 - God's Love, Gratuitous and Motive 67. Vol 02 - Hardening the Heart 68. Vol 02 - Jacob A Dying 69. Vol 02 - Jesus, Heir of All Things 70. Vol 02 - Jonathan; or, "The Lord is My Helper" 71. Vol 02 - Josiah and His Days 72. Vol 02 - Lot's Choice; or, Present Advantage 73. Vol 02 - Notes on Joh_17:1-26 74. Vol 02 - O Joyful Day! 75. Vol 02 - Oh grant me by Thy grace 76. Vol 02 - Omniscience 77. Vol 02 - On the Experience of Abraham and of Jacob 78. Vol 02 - Pharisaism and Faith 79. Vol 02 - The Child of Resurrection 80. Vol 02 - The Cross 81. Vol 02 - The Danger of Prosperity 82. Vol 02 - The Fourteenth Chapter of John 83. Vol 02 - The Gentile 84. Vol 02 - The Opened Heavens 85. Vol 02 - The Passage of the Red Sea 86. Vol 02 - The Quiet Mind 87. Vol 02 - The Transforming Power of the Glory 88. Vol 02 - Three Characters of the Lord Jesus 89. Vol 02 - Worship in Spirit and in Truth 90. Vol 03 - "A Light From Heaven Above the Brightness of the Sun" 91. Vol 03 - "The End of the Lord" 92. Vol 03 - "We Have Seen the Lord" 93. Vol 03 - 2 Corinthians 6:14-18. 94. Vol 03 - Anchorage Within The Veil 95. Vol 03 - Balaam Hired of Balak, and Used of God 96. Vol 03 - Christ's Cross, and God's "Due Time" 97. Vol 03 - Dispensational Truth 98. Vol 03 - Faith's Clue in Sin's Confusions 99. Vol 03 - Fragments 100. Vol 03 - Fragments ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1: VOL 01 - "CHRIST'S COMING; FAITH'S CROWNING" ======================================================================== "Christ’s Coming; Faith’s Crowning" Hebrews 9:1-28. The apostle, after speaking of Christ’s first coming, and the work accomplished by Him, as the sacrifice for sin, and of His having entered in once, by His own blood, into the holy place (heaven itself), "having obtained eternal redemption," sums up the whole doctrine in the closing verses of this chapter, and there contrasts in a definite way the portion of the first Adam, and those who belong to the first Adam, with the place and expectations of the believer. "As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after that the judgment" (that is what we have to say as to men - there their history is ended): "so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many" (for the believer, death and judgment have been already met - Christ having died for him, and borne his sins); "and unto them that look for him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." A word in explanation of a portion of this passage. The Lord Jesus, as regards Himself, appeared the first time, as truly "without sin," as He will the second. But then, He appeared the first time, though without sin, about it. (5: 26.) He came to bear it. The second time, He has nothing more to do with sin; it will be "unto salvation;" as He says, "I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." (John 14:1-31) His second coming is to fulfil in the results all the designs of His first coming, for those who believe. This makes it their hope; "that blessed hope." (Titus 2:13.) This event has nothing whatever to do with death (with which it has often been confounded). So far from it, that, when the Lord Jesus Christ appears, if a believer be alive, he will never see death. (1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:15; 1 Thessalonians 4:17.) So little has it to do with death, that the apostle declares expressly, "We shall not all sleep," etc. Here it is contrasted with death. Another thing. It is said, "Unto them that look for him, shall he appear." It is not a question about Christ’s appearing to us at death; we "depart, to be with Christ." So, Colossians 3:4 : "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory;" not only He appears, but we appear with Him. So 1 John 3:2 : "We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him," etc.; at His coming, we are to be conformed to the image of God’s Son in glory. (Romans 8:29.) So Php 3:20-21 : "Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body," etc. Many other Scriptures might be quoted; but these will suffice to show that it has nothing to do with death. It is the power of the living Saviour taking us out of the reach of death. If the Spirit of God works in our hearts with power, this gives us present fellowship with Jesus glorified at the right hand of God. The heart of the saint is fixed on Christ Himself. That is what sanctifies: "We all with open face," etc. What then, is our HOPE connected with this? Our hope is to be conformed to the image of God’s Son in glory. "As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." (1 Corinthians 15:49.) That is the desire, the object of hope, in the soul Now, we are bearing the image of the earthy, but we hope to be made like Christ, etc.; "we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him." It is not that there is not a moral change wrought now, but the effect of this is to produce the desire to be conformed to the image of God’s Son in glory. This being so, God could not have given us a more glorious hope, or one more practically powerful in disentangling from the world. But when is it we are to be conformed to His image? At death? Clearly not; for then the bodies of the saints are in the grave, and our hope is to have them fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body. Scripture speaks of men being glorified, but nowhere of glorified souls. It is "far better to depart, and to be with Christ" (Php 1:23): I would not weaken that. "We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened," says the apostle (2 Corinthians 5:1-21): "not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." (That is what I want, to have this mortal body changed without seeing death.) "Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident," etc. The confidence I have is not interrupted at death; the life in my soul will not be affected if I depart, it will be to be present with the Lord, and I am "willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord;" but I want "mortality to be swallowed up of life;" I want this to be accomplished in myself; I am to be conformed to what I have seen of His image by the power of the Holy Ghost, and I want to be "like Him." There are but four passages in the New Testament which speak of the joy of the disembodied spirit: Luke 23:42-43, where the dying thief says to the Lord, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom," and the Lord replies, "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise;" Acts 7:59, where Stephen says, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit;" and 2 Corinthians 5:8, and Php 1:23 (already referred to). We see in these passages that the soul, on departing from this world, freed from sorrow, placed out of the reach of sin, enjoys the Lord apart from it; but that is not the object of our hope - our hope is to be conformed to the image of God’s Son in glory. We are to be "like Him" - "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure." There is the practical effect of this expectation. It is never said (blessed as that is), ’he that hath the hope of going to heaven, purifieth,’ etc. What am I expecting? To be like Christ. What is the effect of this? I am trying to be as like Him as I can now. This is the present practical effect of the certainty of being like Christ when He appears. But it is a hope which I have in common with all saints, not merely my individual hope. It is the church’s hope. And therefore, as regards the Lord’s Supper, it is said, "As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death (not, till death, but) till He come." (1 Corinthians 11:26.) There is the basis of our common hope - the death of Christ, and we go on showing this, till He comes again to receive us unto Himself. If I think of death, of my departing to be with Christ, it is myself that I am thinking about; I shall be happy, but not the whole church glorified. When Christ comes every saint will be there, and Christ shall then see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied. The Bride shall have the Bridegroom, and the Bridegroom shall have the Bride. It is not merely that I shall be happy. The Spirit of God carries me out of myself, in thinking about it, to the whole body of Christ. Christ shall have that church which He loved, and for which He gave Himself (Ephesians 5:1-33), with Him in the glory. Another thing. It fixes the heart on Christ Himself. I am looking for a person whom I love. He, who has loved me, died for me, is coming again to receive me to Himself, and I am looking for Him. The angels said, "This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." (Acts 1:1-26) The person whom they loved they had lost; they stood looking steadfastly towards heaven, longing after Him, and the first thought God brings upon the heart is, He will come back in like manner. They were to expect His return. It was a grand truth, to be kept as a present thing before the soul. I see it all through the epistles, mixed up with every present feeling, whether of joy or of sorrow. For example, turn to 1 Corinthians 1:7. They were all there together "wailing" (it was not only an individual hope, it was a common hope) "for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:" not all waiting to die, but "waiting for the coming," etc. And mark another thing. Many have supposed that we are to be waiting for another outpouring of the Holy Ghost. A very characteristic and essential feature of the church of God, is the fact that the Holy Ghost dwells in it. This is not our hope, it is that we have already. The Holy Ghost came down on the day of Pentecost, that "other Comforter" to "abide with us for ever." (John 14:1-31) "I thank my God," says the apostle, "always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given unto you," etc. If we turn to the first epistle to the Thessalonians, we find everything there having reference to the coming of Christ. It is mixed up with all the constant daily thoughts, hopes, affections, motives (with every element in the daily life) of the saints. As to their conversion itself (1 Thessalonians 1:1-10), the power of the word had made them so like what Paul preached, that their neighbours could not help seeing it. The very world was speaking about them (perhaps saying, ’How foolish,’ yet still bearing witness). And what did they say? That they had "turned to God from idols," and were "waiting for His Son from heaven." That is, that they had left their idols, the stocks and stones they had formerly worshipped, and were waiting for God’s Son to come down from heaven. And the apostle Paul sanctions it. It was so little their death they were expecting, that he says (1 Thessalonians 4:1-18), "We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord," etc. Let us be only, as an habitual thing, waiting for God’s Son from heaven, it would cut short the links that bind us to the world, and knit us in heart to Him, and to one another, Look at Christian affections in the apostle. (1 Thessalonians 2:1-20) What a picture of careful tending of the flock! And he concludes: "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? for ye are our glory and joy." That is the time, he says, I shall get all the joy of Christian affections. Again (1 Thessalonians 3:1-13), it is associated with holiness in the saints" to the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints." Again (1 Thessalonians 4:1-18), with comfort at the death of brethren, where it is still more remarkable. They were uneasy at seeing Christians die (so present a thing was the hope of the return of Christ), and it was therefore a mutual comfort at the deathbed of a saint, to be enabled to remind one another of a mutual meeting. "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent [go before] them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." The apostolic consolation to saints mourning the death of brethren was not, ’Be content, they are gone to heaven,’ then it would have been, ’You will go to them;’ but so did the coming of the Lord fill the soul, as a present thing, that he gives this comfort, as it were, at the dying-bed of a Christian, ’Be content, God will bring him back when Jesus comes.’ It need not be said that it is not death, for it is comfort against death. In the second epistle, we get it linked with comfort in trial and persecution. They were in terrible trouble (though exceedingly patient under all; their faith growing exceedingly, and their love one towards another abounding). What comfort does Paul give them? ’You will go to heaven soon?’ No, there will be respite when Jesus comes. Again it has no connection with death. These passages have been quoted, and it may be added, that all through the epistles we find the same thing, in order to show that this grand truth (not death) is kept as a present thing before the soul, mixed up with the whole course of feelings amongst them in their every-day condition; that it enters into the whole frame work of Christian service. It is quite evident, if that be left out, there must be a gap - a spiritual gap. And this becomes even still more evident when we consider (as properly characteristic of the saint) such passages as, "Unto them that LOOK for him," - "Unto all them that LOVE his appearing." At the close of Matthew 24:1-51, the Lord mentions the sign and characteristic of the "evil servant," and what I find there is this, the evil servant says in his heart, "My Lord delayeth his coming, and then begins to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken." Were we going to trace to its source the evil, ruined state of the church (considered in its relations and responsibilities here below), we should find that the putting off of the Lord’s coming brought in all kinds of evil. See in connection the beginning of the next chapter: "Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the Bridegroom" (death is not the Bridegroom), etc. "While the Bridegroom tarried," it is said "they all slumbered and slept." The whole were asleep, the wise as well as the foolish, and both awoke together. While the wisdom of the first was in having oil in their lamps (grace in the heart), when the others had not, there was forgetfulness of their hope, and consequent slothfulness. They had gone to sleep. What brought them out of this condition? What roused them? "At midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh," etc. That was what was to rouse the slumbering church. Time sufficient is given to prove if there is oil in the lamp, but not to procure it. Passages might be multiplied from the gospels, as from the epistles: one more, however, will suffice. "And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear. He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come," etc. (Luke 19:12-27.) We cannot mistake, if we really attach importance to the word of God, the vital importance of all this. The resurrection of the saints (the "first resurrection") takes place at Christ’s coming; as it is said, "Every man in his own order; Christ the first-fruits; afterwards they that are Christ’s at his coming." This resurrection is altogether another thing from the resurrection of the wicked. There will be a resurrection both of the just and of the unjust, but on different principles. The former have life in Christ, which life has nothing in common with the world around. Moreover, they have the Spirit of God dwelling in them. "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." (Romans 8:11.) "The body is for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power." (1 Corinthians 6:13-14.) The body is the Lord’s as well as the soul. As to the wicked, Christ raises them up for judgment, but not at the same time. Christ will accomplish, for the bodies of the saints, what He has already accomplished for the soul; the wicked will be called up for judgment, and forced to honour Christ, in spite of themselves. (John 5:1-47) Luke 20:35-36, there is a remarkable distinction. As regards all my sins, He put them away at His first coming. I am going to appear before Him who has already died for me. But then, there is another aspect of the coming of Christ, and a most important one, as regards the present interests and operations of the church; viz., the way in which God is going to accomplish, through it, His purposes towards the world. I quite understand a person saying, ’I do not see this;’ but I do not understand the saint saying, ’I do not see the importance of it.’ Christ is soon coming again, and He is coming to judge the world. Now is not that important? A man may not believe it; but it is folly to say that it is unimportant. The world is going on in a rapid progress of evil, concerning which Scripture gives abundant testimony, and the preaching of the gospel is not that which is to convert the world; it is all ripening for judgment. And here it would be well to guard against a false thought; viz., that to insist upon this would hinder the preaching of the gospel. Quite the contrary. It would urge to it - with more power and energy, with more of the activity of love to go and say to poor sinners, "Save yourselves from this untoward generation." Did the sure knowledge of judgment coming hinder Noah? It is admitted on all hands that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will one day fill the earth, as the waters cover the sea. But the question is, How is this to be brought about? In Scripture this event is attributed to the glory of Christ. Nobody can be saved, unless born again, unless washed in the blood of Jesus; but they may believe through seeing Him, like Thomas. If we turn to Isaiah 26:9-11, we there find it said, "When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Let favour be shown to the wicked (the character of the gospel), yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord. (Grace does not produce that effect.) Lord, when thy hand is lifted up (just ready, as it were, to strike), they will not see: but they shall see," etc. Habakkuk 2:1-20 speaks of the universality of blessing "Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?" Is that the success of the gospel? Yet it makes the prophet say, "For the earth shall be filled," etc. So Isaiah 11:1-16; and here, again, it is connected with His glory. Isaiah 25:6-8, we read, "And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things. . . . And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory," etc. Doubtless, it is the desire of our hearts that this terrible veil might be taken off, and we get (1 Corinthians 15:54) a positive revelation as to the time at which it shall be so taken off. "Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." We must be subject to the word of God, as to when and how. We ought, as regards responsibility, to have filled the earth with the knowledge of the Lord; but we have not. And what have we done? We have let into the church of God the enemy. See the parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13:1-58), "While men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way." Through the carelessness of men, Satan could come and spoil the results of Christ’s sowing. Could that be repaired? Are we to undo it? No, we. cannot undo it! The mischief is done, and there they must stay until the harvest. (vv. 28-30.) It will be rectified by a dispensation of judgment - a harvest, not a re-sowing of the field. We ought to have filled the earth with the knowledge of the Lord, but we have failed; and here we get a truly sorrowful revelation (blessed be God, He can come and set all to rights); the mischief done, where good was done, is irreparable. God, in the accomplishment of His purposes, is gathering out, through the gospel, the co-heirs of Christ; but there is a sorrowful side of the picture. It is blessed to preach the gospel to sinners, but it is profitable for us, as saints, to own where we have failed. "In the last days," says St: Paul to Timothy, "perilous times shall come" and again, "Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." If we take two other passages, we find the same testimony as regards the carelessness of man in responsibility, and the continuance of evil (so introduced), up to the time of Christ’s coming, leaving no room for intervening blessing. First, 2 Thessalonians 2:7-8 : "The mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming." (The principle of evil is already working in the church, it has begun, and it will go on working till Christ comes; there is now a hinderer; but, when that is taken away, the man of sin will be manifested; and then it will be put an end to by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.) The same truth is revealed in the epistle of Jude. When Jude gave all diligence to write about the common salvation, he found it needful to exhort believers earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints; "for," says he, "there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation" (their character is described in detail, vv. 4-13). And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints," etc. He identifies these very men with those whom the Lord is about to destroy. Let us now turn to God’s dealings with the nations. When "Lo-ammi" was written upon Israel, God gave power into the hands of the Gentiles. (Daniel 2:1-49) How is it that the kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ? Is it by the preaching of the gospel - a clear duty, whether the earth be filled by that, or whether judgment is to come first? It says, "Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them in pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them (there was the most complete and utter destruction of the whole system of the image): and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth." (vv. 34, 35.) There again I get a positive revelation that the universal prevalence of Christianity will be preceded by the execution of the judgments of God. The little stone cut out without hands does not become a mountain, etc., until it has executed judgment upon, broken in pieces, and destroyed, the image. And note, the act of smiting the image, and then filling the whole earth, is not the setting up of Christ’s kingdom at the day of Pentecost. It is not an influence that changes the gold, the silver, etc., into the character of the stone; but the sudden execution of judgment upon the statue, a blow which breaks in pieces, and leaves not a trace of the existence of the statue, so that we read, "No place was found for them." If I turn to Revelation 19:11-21, and compare it with Isaiah 63:1-6, I get a striking testimony respecting the judgment of the nations: "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozra? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me (it is not here, ’He that was trodden in the winepress,’ but ’He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God,’ Revelation 19:16); for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment" (not whiten theirs). "For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come." Revelation 14:17, to end: the clusters of the vine of the earth are gathered, and cast into the great wine-press of the wrath of God. One passage more - Zephaniah 3:8 : "Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy." Verse 9 brings out subsequent blessing. This needs no comment. Whatever part of Scripture I turn to, bearing upon these things, I find the same uniform testimony. There is another part of the subject, for which there is not space now, beyond a brief notice; viz., its connection with the destinies of the Jewish people, "as concerning the gospel, enemies for your sakes; but as touching the election, beloved for the fathers’ sakes" (Romans 11:28); "of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came." (Romans 9:5.) We say with the apostle, "Hath God cast away His people? God forbid." Israel, as a nation, will be saved, and planted in the land. "There shall come out of Zion the deliverer," etc. "The gifts and callings of God are without repentance." The promises have never been accomplished. God gave certain promises to Abraham, unconditionally: they got into the land conditionally, under Joshua; - failed, and were turned out of the land. The promises are taken up under the new covenant, and connected with Messiah. Their return from Babylon was nothing, in that sense. (Nehemiah 9:36.) And Messiah was not there. When He came the first time they rejected Him. But even this, while it filled up the measure of their guilt, did not touch the promises given without condition. If this be so, it must be under a new dispensation. It is another state and condition of things altogether. "In the dispensation of the fulness of times," God will "gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him," etc. (Ephesians 1:10; Ephesians 1:12.) When Christ, who is "heir of all things," takes the inheritance, we, as joint-heirs with Him, shall be brought into the same glory. In conclusion, as it regards Christ’s coming to judgment, I find there a very solemn testimony against being identified with the world in its interests, its pursuits, expectations, etc. The world - aye, and the Church (in the general, vague sense of the word) too, is ripening for judgment. "In such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh." How can I be found identifying the interests and objects of the world with my interests and objects as a saint, making myself a nest in the place where Christ has been crucified, and where He is coming to judge? But there is another thing; if I look up, ’Glory is coming! there is the Bridegroom! - I am going to see Him as He is - to be with Him in the glory - to be like Him.’ "Every man that hath this hope," etc. (1 John 3:3.) The Lord gives you to search the word, and see if these things be so. May you receive them, not merely as matters of knowledge, but of faith, and of hope. This plants a thousand joys. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2: VOL 01 - "FAITH FURNISHED FOR THE EVIL DAY" ======================================================================== "Faith Furnished for the Evil Day" Ephesians 6:10-24. The very blessings of the church set us in a sort of conflict, that, without such blessings, we should not have. Thus we are subject to more of failure and evil. A Jew might do many things that would be monstrous in a Christian, and find no defilement of conscience. The veil being rent, the light shines out, and the consequence is, that the light coming from the holiest cannot tolerate evil. Blessed be God, we have power to meet the difficulties of our position; and this epistle brings out the provision which God has made for the saints. The church is seated "in heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 2:6) - blessed with all spiritual, blessings in heavenly places in Christ. (Ephesians 1:3.) So also are we said to contend with spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. (Ver. 12.) We are carried into conflict in the very place of strength; for the nearer we are to God, the more we want strength to walk there. Israel, when they had got into the land, found the consequences of sin desperate. What a terrible slaughter at Ai, for the sin of Achan! (Joshua 7:1-26) And again the consequences of neglecting to ask counsel of the Lord about the men of Gibeon went on for generations, even to Saul’s time. (2 Samuel 6:1-23) In the land where God was, and took His place, the consequences of sin were proportionate. By virtue of our privileges we get this conflict. Moreover, if you and I have more knowledge than many other Christians, there will be more dishonour and failure amongst us than amongst other Christians, unless we are walking according to the light. "Be strong in the Lord." (Ver. 10.) Here is the place of strength - strength found only in Him. Whatever instrumentality He may be pleased to use, there is no object of faith but the Lord Himself. Whilst there is nothing more blessed than the ministry of the word, and also, if I have been instrumental in the conversion of a soul, through God’s blessing, that soul will cleave to me; and rightly so, it is of God, and God owns it (for if He breaks that which is of the flesh, He creates that which is of the Spirit: God gives it - it may be abused, yet God makes the link between the one blessed and the instrument); yet you cannot exercise faith in man, you cannot put your dependence on man. It is true, there is this link; but it is because the soul is brought to Christ. This alone is conversion. And here is the place of strength. There is no strength but in Christ. I have none, at any time, except as my soul is in secret communion with Him, and (through Him) with God the Father. Now the direct power of Satan is towards this point, to keep our souls from living on Christ. What we call duties, but what God calls "cares," often separate from Christ. They fatigue and oppress the soul; and, if the saints do not cast all this on Christ, they unnerve themselves by things which distract the mind. The person says, "I do not enjoy Christ;" he knows not how it is, but thinks it is from the pressure of unavoidable care; whilst, in truth, it is the effect and result of having sought his resource elsewhere than in Christ. The soul has got distressed because it has not found Christ in the suffering, and this has thrown it toward something that is not Christ, something that (to human sight) promised fair. Thus it gets a taste for mere idle things. What we are led to by the Spirit is to be "strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." It is no good talking of cares - Satan is behind them all; it is no good talking of difficulties - Satan is behind the difficulties, thrusting them on to shake the power of the word in us; and we may be quite sure of this that, if not in communion, Satan will have the advantage of us, because these cares, etc. are not about Christ. I have all to do to, and for, Christ. He will make us feel our dependence, but it is never falsified. Whilst thus oppressed with the turmoils of life, it is ever a truth, that we are not in the strength of Christ; for He is stronger than the shop or the family or any other care. It may be I am occupied with something I ought not to be; if I cannot do it "to the Lord," I ought not to do it. It is quite certain that Christ’s strength does carry us through everything, no matter what the difficulties are: we shall feel them, we may groan under them; but when I can say with David, "It is God that girdeth me with strength" (Psalms 18:1-50 ), the enemy may come against me - "a bow of steel is broken by my arms." The Lord made him triumph over all. It is in difficulties that we learn this strength. Hence in little things the believer is apt to forget that our whole dependence is to be "strong in the Lord;" that is, not being taken out of the place of conscious weakness. Paul says, "I was with you in weakness," etc. (1 Corinthians 2:3.) So again "Without were fightings, within were fears." (2 Corinthians 7:5.) It is not that the saint will be able to say, "I am strong," when put into difficulties: these make us lean on Christ, when in them, and strength is always there - "strength made perfect in weakness" (a consciousness of weakness). The whole truth of it is in the spirit of dependence, whether we see bright light or not. Paul said, - "I glory in mine infirmities." Why? Because they made him lean on Christ. Faith in exercise is strengthened, and Christ giveth light to him that wakes up: "Unto the upright there ariseth light in darkness." The reason why a saint who has had a great deal of joy often gets into failure is because it has taken him away from the present consciousness of dependence; the very goodness of the Lord has made him enjoy himself. There is always a tendency for the flesh to slip in. After showing the place of the Christian’s strength, the apostle says, "Put on the whole armour of God." (Ver. 11.) The great thing is, that it is God’s armour. There is no standing against Satan without this. What is not of God fails. If ever so skilful in argument, and able to confute an opposer with the truth, I have nevertheless done him no good, and myself much harm, because I was acting in the flesh: Satan was working on me, and not God. Whenever it is God’s armour, it must be by faith, and it secret communion with God. There is the departure from all strength when we lose this; not anything we know will be of use - the word of God even; for it is the "sword of the Spirit," and it is shut up. Strength is always the effect of having to do with God in the spirit of dependence. In the exercise of this dependence I may have such a blessed sense of His power that I may triumph over all; but, whether in trial or in triumph, I shall be strong in a sense of dependence. If Moses’ hands were not upheld, Amalek prevailed. (Exodus 17:1-16) One who looked on might have been astonished at seeing Amalek prevail at certain times, and would be calculating about the array (the advantages or disadvantages of the array) in which Israel were set; but the secret was, when Amalek prevailed, Moses’ hands were hanging down. It was not because Joshua was not in the blessed place of doing God’s work, but because the act of dependence on God was stayed. If my mind has been exercised about a brother, and in walking along the streets on my way to him; I get apart from God, I shall do him no good, though I say ever so much to him. See the contrast between Jonathan and Saul (1 Samuel 14:1-52), between confidence in God overcoming difficulties and self failing, with all the resources of royalty. Jonathan clambers up upon his hands and feet, confident in God, and the enemy falls before him. Saul, when he sees the Lord’s work going on, not knowing the Lord’s mind, calls for the priest. It may be that he had a right intention, but certainly not simplicity of dependence on God (when inquiring what he should do); and he spoils all by his foolish oath. It was said of Jonathan, "He hath wrought with God this day." God was with him, and he had strength and liberty. When we are walking in dependence upon God there will always be liberty before God. Jonathan knew what he should do, and took some honey, because he went on in liberty; for God was with him; whilst Saul, in legality, put himself and people into bondage. Unless we are dependent on God, the very things that would be our armour will be weapons against us, striking friends instead of enemies, or injuring ourselves. Observe it is said, "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may stand against the wiles of the devil" - "Take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may withstand in the evil day," etc. (Ver. 13.) If I saw a person going into battle without a shield, and without his helmet, etc., I should say he was mad. One living in theory might not have it; but, if we live near enough to God, to be practically in conflict, we shall need "the whole armour." If we pray without searching the word, or read the word without prayer, we may get no guidance. Jesus said, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." (John 15:7.) Without this, I may be asking some foolish thing that will not be given. Conscious weakness causes a saint not to dare to move without God. I cannot go to meet an enemy with the word and without prayer. If I felt as a sheep in the midst of wolves (1 Peter 5:8), I should be aware of my weakness. I may be, like an antiquary, anatomizing the theory of the armour, and not putting it on, not having any real dependence on God. We have to stand against the wiles of the devil (it is not said his power). As soon as I see them I can avoid them. But after all it is not knowing Satan that keeps us intelligent of and able in discovering his "wiles," but keeping in God’s presence. It was always so with Christ. Even Peter’s affection tried to make the cross ugly to Him. (Matthew 16:2-9.) Jesus resisted Satan, and discovered his wiles; He not only always received things from above, but in the spirit of dependence on God. The moment we know the thing to be of Satan, the temptation is over if we are walking with God. When the devil came to our Lord (Luke 4:1-44), Christ did not at once say to him, "Thou art Satan;" that would have been only showing His power. He acted as the obedient Man, and thus foiled the tempter. When the devil claims worship, He then says, "Get thee hence, Satan." To discern his "wiles," we should see whether the thing proposed leads from obedience to Christ; if it does, no matter who proposes, I must reject it. The devil has this character of subtlety (not always of open opposition), as the serpent (see 2 Corinthians 11:3); but the place of obedience to God will always upset him. This is a remarkable expression - "the evil day." (Ver. 13.) It supposes, in a general way, all this present time, for it is the time of Satan’s temptations; but then there are certain circumstances which cause Satan’s power to be more exercised at one season than another. There is a time when the soul will be put to it. It is different to be going on in energy against Satan, and exercising the triumphs of victory, enjoying the triumphs; we may be walking in an energy that overcomes all opposition, or in the conscious weakness of being hardly able to stand. A soul often gets "an evil day" after triumphing through Christ. There may be exaltation in the remembrance of the triumph, and a new source of trial and dependence comes. I may give up the world, and be so very happy in the esteem and love of Christians as may bring out a bit of the flesh lower down. A saint often gets into this state, having gone on for a while in the strength of former conquests. A fresh battle comes; and if he is not prepared for this, he is overcome for a season. The place of strength is always that of being forced to lean on God. As noticed some years ago, respecting David,* what a contrast between his songs of deliverance and thanksgiving to God, and the mournful words, "My house is not so with God." (2 Samuel 22:1-51; 2 Samuel 23:1-39) *See "The last words of David," Words of Truth, vol. 1: page 65. The saint that always fears God is always strong; for God is always with him; the secret of his strength is, he has God on his side. We are apt to look at means, even right means, and forget God. The most important victory has often come when we have been most afraid of being beaten; the brightest songs, when an evil day has forced us to lean on God. The soul fearing and in dependence, difficulties fall before us. We might not be able to explain why success was there; but the secret is, the hands were lifted up. The Lord is always working out His own plans. "Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth." Truth is never really ours but as the affections are kept in order by it. I might preach beautiful truth, and many delight in the truth; but, the soul not having been in communion with God in the truth spoken, the loins would not be girt with it. "And having on the breastplate of righteousness." A person not having a clean conscience, Satan cows in his walk; but if the conscience is good, he has on the "breastplate," and so is not continually thinking of attacks there. If Satan accuse me, I say, "Christ is my righteousness." But here it is Satan troubling me as to conscience. If I am not honest in my confessions before God, I am without the "breastplate." If I have it, there is no need that I should keep looking at my own breast; I can go on in the confidence that I am hiding nothing from God, but am walking in all good conscience before Him. The Lord may shield us in the battle, but we cannot go on in conflict unless we have on this part of the "whole armour." There is a resource, doubtless, in God’s grace, in all our failure; but the right place is to have a good conscience; and it is the place of liberty and strength. "And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." The gospel of peace is ours in Christ; but I must have the spirit of peace in my heart. Peace has been made for us that we may dwell in peace. It is the peace that "passeth all understanding," "the peace of God," that is to keep our hearts and minds. There is no place so full of peace as heaven: no jar there; myriads of worshippers all in concord, while there are a thousand harmonies round the centre of God’s glory. The soul in communion with God will live in the spirit of peace. There is nothing more important, to meet the turmoil of the world, than getting into this spirit of peace. When the spirit of peace does not rule in the heart, how can the saint walk as having always peace? There may be uncompromising faithfulness in such a man, but he cannot walk as Jesus walked. Nothing keeps the soul in such peace as a settled confidence in God. Without this a man will be continually excited, in haste, and full of anxiety. If the peace of God keep your hearts, you will have the triumph of it; nothing can be heard that is distinctive from it, that does not perfectly harmonize with it. Uncompromising firmness becomes us, yet calmness and nothing keeps the soul so calm as a sense of grace. This is a sign of power, and, moreover, connected with humbleness. All grace has come to us. A sense of nothingness, with the spirit of peace, gives a power to surmount all things. "Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one." Every "fiery dart" is quenched by confidence in God. A Christian need not be afraid to hold up his head in the day of battle, because God is with and for him. This is not shaken by whatever abominable thought Satan puts into the mind. All is quenched by this confidence. "And take the helmet of salvation. I hold up my head because I am safe. Salvation is mine. Strength begins from within. We first have the loins girded about with truth, the breast covered with righteousness, the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, etc., and then we can take (our only offensive weapon "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." There is nothing more dangerous than to use the word when it has not touched my conscience. I put myself into Satan’s hands if I go beyond what I have from God, what is in possession of my soul, and use it in ministry or privately. There is nothing more dangerous than the handling of the word apart from the guidance of the Spirit. To talk with saints on the things of God beyond what I hold in communion is most pernicious. There would be a great deal not said that is said were we watchful as to this, and the word not so used in an unclean way. I know of nothing that more separates from God than truth spoken out of communion with God: there is uncommon danger in it. "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints," etc. The word "always" is not used in reference to some other things; prayer is the expression and exercise of dependence. If a person asks me a question, and I answer without speaking to God about it, it will be more likely to lead from God than to God. Just as with Hezekiah (Isaiah 39:1-8) when the ambassadors came, and he turned them to his treasures instead of to the Lord who had healed him. When a question or a difficulty comes, do we turn to God? We may have turned to God before, and the thing is answered; and we ought to have that power of prayer that there would be no difficulty when any circumstance arises - this continual supplication: we ought to be furnished unto every good word and work. Thus it was with Jesus. He had prayed before, so when the cup came He was quite ready to drink it. A wish or a desire expressed to God, in the confidence of a child to its father, is heard; but this is not necessarily prayer "in the Spirit." When living really in the power of communion, we have that energy of supplication that looks for answers (1 John 3:21-22; 1 John 5:14-15), and the apostle here speaks of one who is in communion. Thus should it be with us; we should be so walking in the liberty of Christ as not to be tripped, or thrown out of communion, by the cares, lusts, and anxieties of this life, though it may be an "evil day." Suppose you begin the day with a sweet spirit of prayer and confidence in God; in the course of the day, in this wicked world, you will find a thousand causes of agitation; but if you are spiritually exercised, alive to see the thing’s God is exercised in, everything will become a matter of prayer and intercession according to the mind of God. Thus humbleness and dependence should be marked on all a saint’s actions. Instead of being full of regrets at what we meet with, if walking with Christ, we shall see His interests in a brother or the church. What a blessed thing to carry everything to God! to take all to Him, instead of constantly murmuring over failure! This is our position - to have on the whole armour of God, and not to be tripped of Satan. Unless right ourselves, we cannot make intercession for others. The words in verse 18 refer to a man who is walking in "the whole armour." The apostle could pray for everybody, and yet he the more needed the prayers of all saints, because he had more cares than others. (Verses 19, 20.) He always wanted their prayers, as we see. (Ver. 19.) Walking in full affection himself, he reckoned upon people caring for him; walking as Paul did, this is taken for granted. Here too (ver. 21, 22), and to the saints at Colosse, he speaks of having sent Tychicus to declare his state - "that ye may know my affairs, and how I do." He takes their love for granted. We also, if walking in the love of the Spirit, can always count upon others being interested in our "affairs." In the world it would be pride to suppose others anxious about our concerns; but the saint knows, and counts on, the love of the Spirit in the saints. To come back to the first great principle - "Be strong in the Lord," etc. Spite of Satan, and of all he may do to hinder, we have the privilege of individual dependence upon God. Everything may look dark, but the Lord tells us "to be strong." This is always accompanied with lowliness of heart. Come what will, when the Lord is rested on, we are strong. But our dependence must be simply and singly on God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3: VOL 01 - "GOD IS LOVE" ======================================================================== "God Is Love" 1 John 4:8-16. I have already considered John’s words, "God is light." I have called that a parent truth, and been looking at its fruit or results. "GOD IS LOVE" is, in like manner, a parent truth; and I would now also trace its path through the Scripture, according to my small measure. But who is sufficient for such a theme? I would, however, with desire pursue it a little, though this has been somewhat anticipated in the previous meditations. May the Spirit direct and control! At creation God was shown to be "love" - the garden told that by the testimony of all that was there, so that I speak not particularly of it. But so was it afterwards, when that garden of delights was forfeited. We read in 2 Corinthians 3:1-18 that the law was a dispensation that was to be "done away;" and in Hebrews 8:1-13 that it was not "faultless." These passages strikingly tell us that the law was not altogether according to God’s mind, that He could not rest in it. Not that it was faulty in itself; we know that it was "holy, just, and good" - as fully answerable to its purpose as the gospel; but still found fault with, because not altogether according to God. And this can be at once understood; for "God is love." There the secret appears. The law could not possibly meet Him; for it gave no occasion to His showing Himself, or to His acting agreeably with His nature. It must, therefore, be "done away." It could not abide before God. It was not God’s own thing. The promise was such. As the garden and all the condition of things at creation told what God was, so to tell the same, as soon as sin entered, it was the promise that was revealed, and not the law. (Genesis 3:1-24) The law came in afterwards to serve, it is true, great purposes; but the promise was God’s own thing. And we may just observe, accordingly, that in Deuteronomy 31:1-30 and in Galatians 3:1-29 (not to mention other Scriptures) God keeps Himself in company with the "song," and with "the promise," while "Moses" and "the law" are linked together in both those Scriptures. But this, rather, by the way. The law was clearly not to God’s mind; and the reason of this, we see, derives itself out of His nature - blessed be His name! But having thus set God with the promise, or having thus learnt that "God is love," we can track His wondrous and excellent path onward. Thus: "God so loved the world, that He gave His only.begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "God is love." He looked out upon it according to Himself, and its ruins drew from Him the remedy. He loved a ruined and defiled world, however, in the only way that He could love it, in the only way that He could exercise Himself towards such an object, that is, with the love of pity, and He gave His Son for its relief and rescue. Here, then, was the beginning of His way; for "God is love." The stream must be according to the spring. The parent truth determines the produce. We learn the way from the character. And as we follow the stream, it is still the same water. Let dispensations roll on and disclose themselves to us, God is seen in each according to Himself. Great unfoldings both of persons and ministries there may be, but all are One. It may be the Father, it may be the Son, it may be the Holy Ghost that is manifested, but still it is but the unfoldings of God, and "God is love." Thus the Son, looking back on past dispensations, says, "My Father worketh hitherto;" and then, reflecting on the then present one, He adds, "and I work." Similar works, whether in the ministry of "the Father" or "the Son." And those works are works of grace, works of pity to sinners, Bethesda healings. (John 5:1-47) And so the Son, looking forward to still coming dispensations, says, speaking of the Holy Ghost, "He will abide with us for ever;" "He will take of mine and show it unto you;" "He will guide you into all truth." He will indeed be the servant of your need and joy. Herein is love still. All this is God unfolded (to speak after the manner of man), God seen in the persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but all is "love." We might notice the trial and the proof of this, and we shall see, as to divine love, its unconquerable patience. For the Father, when He worked, had His grace slighted, or misunderstood, by generation after generation, from Adam to Christ, but still He worked "hitherto." The Son, when He worked in like grace, was refused, and had all indignities and evil to endure, but He loved and laboured to the end, till He was cast out and crucified. The "Holy Ghost," now working, is grieved of the saints, and yet, unfailing, unwearied, abides still the "Comforter," the "Spirit of truth," in them. And thus is it love, and love of the same quality. "Love never faileth." The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost minister in equal love, tried variously, but alike unfailing in each, and patient in all. It is not, however, simply thus in pity and in patience - in pity towards the world or sinners, and in patient forbearing towards believers - that divine love shows and exercises itself: God has sought another way in which to be among us - in the love of complacency. He has so set His saints before Him, so put them in Christ, so taken counsels about them, and multiplied thoughts about them, as gives Him to look on them without blame or spot, that He may delight in the eight of them and rest in His love. John teaches us to look at this form of love - "My Father will love him." "I will love him," says Jesus of His saint. "We will come unto him, and make our abode with him." This is all the love of complacency, the love of delight: such love is according to the mind of God. These exercises of God, it is indeed happy to look at, we being the objects of them all. And they still keep in memory the great first truth, "God is love;" they still tell us whence they flow, and are only the narrower or richer current of the one great divine source. It is love in pity, in patience, in complacency; but it is LOVE, and only love, happy and fruitful in its constant though varied exercise. And what other exercise can it have "If it could, it would. But in this complacency, it abides for ever. "God will rest in His love." Glory, by and by, will be the gift of this love of complacency, as salvation is the gift of His pity now, and the upholding of His saint the fruit of His patience. But beyond this complacency love knows and can know no form more excellent. It will be the element of the divine presence through endless ages of glory. In it the saints will live and move and have their being for ever, after the love that once pitied them in their sins, and was patient with them in their shortcomings, and "perfected" itself towards them in giving them boldness in the very day of judgment, has done its wondrous work. Love, in every trial of it, will have exercised and displayed itself, and then will get its eternal refreshment in the delight and complacency with which it will rest in its object forever. Love has thus determined the character of God’s own way. But we may also see that it equally determines the person and actings of His children; that "God is love" is still the great parent truth. For the saints, or children of God, "love" is the divine nature; as it is written, "Every one that loveth is born of God." And again, "He that loveth not knoweth not God." There is no fruit of His energy or spirit, no communion in knowledge with Him, but through love. "If any man love God, the same is known of Him." And this being so, it appears from the further teaching of the Spirit of God that two things are sought for and expected from us as His children. I mean "confidence" and "imitation." "God is love," and therefore, in our actings towards Himself, He cannot possibly accept anything less than confidence. It is the answer love is entitled to, the only answer which, from its nature, it can (shall I say) put up with. Nothing will gratify or satisfy love but love; and in the gospel God is to get it from us. The apostle therefore states this (though we might derive it out of the great parent truth): "We love Him because He first loved us." We do not fear Him, we do not mistrust Him, but we love Him because He has already loved us. "There is no fear in love; perfect love casteth out fear." Love leaves no room for fear. It cannot dwell in the same house with it. The elements are destructive one of another. If we know that love, perfect love, is dealing with us, we cease to fear. Confidence only is the due answer, as it is the necessary demand of love. But so in our actions towards others, God cannot approve anything less than imitation. And this all the apostles tell us. It might, again I would say, be derived out of the great parent truth; but the Spirit is pleased to state it largely to us. "If God have so loved us, we ought also to love one another." "If we shut up our bowels of compassion, how dwelleth the love of God in us?" "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." In its actings thus, whether upward towards God or out towards others, love will be found in us, this principle of confidence and of imitation. And the Spirit teaches us that to judge ourselves to be "lovers of God" without this confidence and this imitation is practising a deceit on ourselves; for I read these two sentences - "We love Him because He first loved us;" "He that loveth God must love his brother also." The first of these holy sentences tells us this, that we can only love God as knowing that He first loved us; that is, we love Him because we have confidence in His love to us. Were it otherwise, it would be an assumption that our love is greater than God’s. If we assert that we have affection towards Him more surely than we are confident He has towards us, it is saying that we are better than God. Therefore, the only true, spiritual, evangelical love of God springs from confidence in His love towards us. So the second of them tells us, that to assume that we can love God without loving one another is a reflection on God. For how can we think that he will accept the affection of one who has it not for his brother? This would be another way of making ourselves better than God. We would reject such affection ourselves. How simple, then, those two holy sentences, or judgments, of the Spirit of God are! How necessarily true, when we consider the great parent truth, so to call it again, that "GOD IS LOVE!" We must, therefore, confide in His love ere we can love Him or have affection towards Him ourselves. We must also love others as well as Him, our brethren as well as God. Thus we get the personal acts of the children, as well as God’s own ways, out of this parent truth. We pass into God’s place in this way of love. "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." "He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." By love we know that we are in God’s place, in fellowship with Him. This assures the heart. "Hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him." The very character of the place, the very element that fills it, the commandment or voice that is heard there, is this - "that we believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another." That is that we assure ourselves of God’s love to us, and exercise love among ourselves from one to the other. This is the commandment, the ordinance, the character, the element of God’s place. And he that keepeth this commandment, the soul that breathes this element, dwelleth in God, and God in him. This is the region we inhabit. These are the present realms of the saints - "translated into the kingdom of the dear Son." It will be a region of glory by and by - "His eternal kingdom and glory." But the elements will dwell together, and fill the whole place. Love is (as I believe another has said) but hidden glory - glory will be manifested love. Love will be for ever quickening the hidden springs and streams of affection that are known and exercised, and glory will gild the whole scene where these affections flow, and have their happy course for ever and for ever. Precious and glorious indeed is thus the constant testimony, that "GOD IS LOVE;" and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4: VOL 01 - "I WILL GUIDE THEE WITH MINE EYE" ======================================================================== "I Will Guide Thee with Mine Eye" Psalms 32:8-9. There are three special characters of blessing mentioned in the Psalms. First, that which we get at the very opening of them: "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of Jehovah, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water," etc. (Psalms 1:1-6) It is here a contrast between the ungodly and Christ, the righteous Man. In Psalms 119:1-176 we go a little farther. This psalm speaks of having wandered, and of being restored. (Ver. 67, 71, 176.) It is here, "Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of Jehovah." It speaks of one who has the word, delights in it, looks to it, and seeks to be guided by it; still it is not so absolute. In the psalm before us (Psalms 32:1-11), we get the blessedness of, and God’s dealings with, the sinner whose transgressions are removed. "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered [not who has not transgressed, who has not sinned]. Blessed is the man unto whom Jehovah imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile"’ (that is, the restored soul). It is important to notice the work of the Spirit of God, in the process through which the soul is going here (as it says, "Thy hand was heavy upon me"), God’s dealings with the soul that does not submit itself entirely in bringing it down into full subjection and confession. "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto Jehovah; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." (Ver. 2-5.) This is always true, if the Lord’s hand is upon a man, until he recognizes the evil before God; and then there is forgiveness of the iniquity. It is very important that we should distinguish the government of God towards our souls in forgiveness. Until there is confession of sin, and not merely of a sin, there is no forgiveness. We find David (Psalms 51:1-19), when he was confessing his sin, saying, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me," etc.; not merely, ’I have done this particular evil;’ that he does (ver. 1-4); but he recognizes the root and principle of sin. When our hearts are brought to recognize God’s hand, it is not merely then a question of what particular sin, or of what particular iniquity, may need forgiveness; God has brought down the soul, through the working of His Spirit on it, to detect the principle of sin, and so there is confession of that, and not merely of a particular sin. There is then positive restoration of soul. Now this is a much deeper thing in its practical consequences, and the Lord’s dealings thereon, than we are apt to suppose. Freed from the bondage of things which hindered its intercourse with God, the soul learns to lean upon God, instead of upon those things which, so to speak, had taken the place of God. "For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance." (Ver. 6, 7.) There is its confidence. And then follows what more especially is the object of this paper - "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye. Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee." (Ver. 8, 9.) Now we are often like the horse, or the mule, every one of us - and this because our souls have not been ploughed up. When there is anything in which the will of man is at work, the Lord deals with us, as with the horse, or the mule, holding us in. When every part of the heart is in contact with Himself, He guides us with His "eye." "The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light." (Luke 11:34-36.) When there is anything wherein the eye is not single, so long as this is the case, there is not free intercourse in heart and affections with God; and the consequence is, our will not being subdued, we are not led simply of God. When the heart is in aright state, the whole body is "full of light," and there is the quick perception of the will of God. He just teaches us by His "eye" all He wishes, and produces in us quickness of understanding in His fear. (Isaiah 11:3.) This is our portion, as having the Holy Ghost dwelling in us, "quickness of understanding in the fear of Jehovah," hearts without any object, save the will and glory of God. And that is just what Christ was: "Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me), I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart." (Psalms 40:7-8; Hebrews 10:7.) Where there is this, it may be bitter and painful as to the circumstances of the path, but there is in it the joy of obedience as obedience. There is always joy, and the consequence - God guiding us by His eye. Before anything can be done, if we have not this certainty, before we enter upon any particular service, we should seek to get it, judging our own hearts as to what may be hindering. Suppose I set about doing a thing, and meet with difficulties, I shall begin to be uncertain as to whether it is God’s mind or not, and hence there will be feebleness and discouragement. But, on the other hand, if acting in the intelligence of God’s mind in communion, I shall be "more than conqueror," whatever may meet me by the way. (Romans 8:37.) And note here, not only does the power of faith, in the path of faith, remove mountains; but the Lord deals morally, and will not let me find out His way, unless there be in me the spirit of obedience. What would it avail? unless indeed God should provide for His own dishonour! "If any man will do [wills to do] his will," says our Lord, "he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." (John 7:17.) This is precisely the obedience of faith. The heart must be in the condition of obedience, as Christ’s was, "Lo, I come," etc. The apostle speaks to the Colossians of being "filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding." (Colossians 1:9.) Here it is quickness of understanding in the fear of the Lord, the condition of a man’s own soul, though his spirit of mind will be necessarily shown in outward acts, when that will is set before him; as Paul goes on to say, "that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God." Here then is the blessed, joyful state of being guided by God’s "eye." "I have meat to eat," says our Lord to the disciples (John 4:1-54), "that ye know not of." And what was that meat? "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." The Lord guides, or rather controls us in another way, by providential circumstances, so that we may not go wrong, even though we are those which have no understanding. And thankful we ought to be that He does so. But it is only as the horse or mule. Your wills being subject to mine, He says, "I will guide you with mine eye;" but if you are not subject, I must keep you in with "bit and bridle." This is, evidently, a very different thing. May our hearts be led to desire, to know, and to do God’s will. It will then be not so much a question of what that will is, but of knowing and doing God’s will. And then we shall have the certain and blessed knowledge of being guided by His "eye." There is all this government of God with those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile - whose whole dependence is upon Him, and who feel they are sure to go wrong if not guided by Himself. There is a guidance with knowledge, and there is also guidance without knowledge. The former is our blessed privilege; but it may be the latter is needed to humble us. In Christ there was everything exactly according to God. In a certain sense He had no character. When I look at Him, what do I see? A constant, never-failing life-manifestation of obedience. He goes up to Bethany just when He is to go up, regardless of the fears of the disciples; He abides two days still in the same place where He is, after he has heard that Lazarus is sick. (John 11:1-57) He is nothing but to do all, to accomplish all, for the glory of God. One man is tender and soft; in another firmness and decision predominate. There is great diversity of character amongst men. You do not see that in Christ at all; there is no unevenness; every faculty in His humanity obeyed, and was the instrument of the impulse the divine will gave to it. Divine life has to be guided in a vessel that has constantly to be kept down. Thus even for the apostles the command not to go into Bithynia (Acts 16:7) was not guidance by the Spirit of the highest sort. It was blessed guidance, yet not the highest character of guidance an apostle knew. It was more like the government of the horse or the mule, not so much the intelligence of God’s mind in communion. A vast quantity of the guidance of the Spirit is just what we get in Colossians 1:9-11 to those in communion with God. There we find the individual to be "filled with the knowledge of his will." The Holy Ghost guides into the knowledge of the divine will, and there is no occasion even to pray about it. If I have spiritual understanding about a given thing, it may be the result of a great deal of previous prayer, and not necessarily of the things having been prayed about at the time. One has often had to pray about a thing, because not in communion. I may have my mind exercised about that today, honestly, truly, graciously exercised, which, five years hence, it might be, I should not have a doubt about. When God is using us, if we have lost ourselves, He may put it into our hearts to go here, or to go there; then God is positively guiding us. But this assumes a person to be walking with God, and that diligently; it assumes death to self. If we are walking humbly, God will guide us. I may be in a certain place, and there have one say to me, "Will you go to?" (naming some other place.) Now, if I have not the mind of God, as to my going or otherwise, I shall have to pray for guidance; but this, of course, assumes that I am not walking in the knowledge of God’s mind. I may have motives pulling me one way or the other, and clouding my spiritual judgment. The Lord says (John 11:1-57), when the disciples speak of the Jews having of late sought to stone Him, and ask, "Goest thou thither again?" "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him." This is just an application of the simple fact, that, if walking in the night, I must be on the look out for stones, lest I stumble over them. So Paul prays for the Philippians, that their love might abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; that they might approve things that are excellent [try things that differ]; that they might be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ, without a single stumble all the way along. Many speak of providence as a guide. Providence does sometimes control, but it never, properly speaking, guides us; it guides things. If I am going to a place to preach, and I find, when I get to the terminus, that the train has started, God has ordered things about me (and I may have to be thankful for the overruling); but it is not God’s guiding me; for I should really have gone, had the train not left my will was to go. All we get of this guidance of providence is very blessed; but it is not guidance by the Spirit of God, not guidance by the "eye," but rather by the "bit" of God. Though providence overrules, it does not, properly speaking, guide. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5: VOL 01 - "I WILL NEVER LEAVE THEE" ======================================================================== "I Will Never Leave Thee" Hebrews 13:5. "Himself hath done it" all - Oh, how those words Should hush to silence every murmuring thought! Himself hath done it - He who loves me best, He who my soul with His own blood hath bought. "Himself hath done it." - Yes, although severe May seem the stroke, and bitter be the cup, ’Tis His own hand that holds it, and I know He’ll give me grace to drink it meekly up. Himself hath done it." - Oh, no arm but His Could e’er sustain beneath earth’s dreary lot; But while I know He’s doing all things well, My heart His loving-kindness questions not. "Himself hath done it." - He who’s searched me through, See how I slave to earth’s insnaring ties; And so He breaks each reed on which my soul Too much for happiness and joy relies. "Himself hath done it." - He would have me see What broken cisterns human friends must prove; That I may turn and quench my burning thirst At His own fount of ever-living love. "Himself hath done." - Then I fain would say, "Thy will in all things forevermore be done;" E’en though that will remove whom best I love, While Jesus lives I cannot be alone. And when, in His eternal presence blest, I at His feet my crown immortal cast, I’ll gladly own, with all His ransomed saints, "Himself hath done it" - all, from first to last. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6: VOL 01 - "NO MORE CONSCIENCE OF SIN" ======================================================================== "No More Conscience of Sin" Hebrews 10:1-39. The object of redemption is to bring us nigh to God. Jesus suffered "the just for the unjust to bring us to God," yet it is impossible that we could be happy even then, were there still a thought of God’s being against us. There can be no happiness unless I have the perfect, settled assurance that I have no sin upon me before Him. God’s presence would be terrible if the conscience were not perfectly good; the sense of responsibility makes us unhappy where any question of sin stands against us. We see this in the case of a servant with his master, or of a child and its father - the conscience is miserable where there is the sense of anything upon it which will be judged; so if there is any happiness in God’s presence, it must be in the sense of His favour, and of the completeness with which we are brought back that He sees us without sin, the perfect assurance of the "worshipper once purged, having no more conscience of sin." The condition of a believer is that his conscience is so purged once for all that he has "no more conscience of sin," and the result of this "boldness to enter into the holiest." God speaks to us according to His estimate of our standing; it may not be our heart’s experience. There is a distinctness of the operation of the Spirit of God in bringing me unto Jesus, bearing witness to me of God’s love, of which Jesus was the manifestation, and of the efficacy of what Christ has done, and of His operation in my soul in producing in me the love of God. That which is the subject of experience is what is produced in my own soul, whereas that which gives me peace is His testimony to the work of Jesus. A Christian who doubts the Father’s love to him, and who looks for peace to that which passes in his own heart is doubting God’s truth. The gospel is the revelation God has given of Himself; it displays the love of God towards us and what is in His heart. I can trust the declaration of what is in God’s heart, and not what I think of myself. The apostle speaks of a due time: "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." It is almost always true that there is in us a terrible process of breaking the heart, in order that we may be brought to the ascertainment that we are lost and ruined sinners; but the gospel begins at the close of God’s experience of man’s heart, and calls us from that in order that we should have the joy and peace of the experience of what is in His heart. "God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Man left alone before the flood, put under the law in Canaan, indeed under all and every trial of his nature and tendency up to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, was just God’s putting to the test man’s power. One would have thought, after Adam had been turned out of paradise for transgression, that would have been a sufficient warning; but his first-born became a murderer. We should have supposed that the flood, which swept off the workers of iniquity, would have repressed for a time at least by the terror of judgment, the outbreak of sins; but we find immediately afterwards Noah getting drunk, and Ham dishonouring his father. The devouring fire of Sinai, which made even Moses fear and quake, seemed sufficient to subdue the rebel heart and make it bow beneath God’s hand. But the golden calf was the awful evidence that the heart of man was "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Again in Canaan a part of the world was tried to the utmost to be cultivated, but it would not do. A bad tree producing bad fruit was the only type by which God could set Israel forth. (See Isaiah 5:1-30) He might dig about it and dung it, but after all these efforts it could only bring forth more bad fruit. At last He said, "I have yet one son, perhaps they will reverence my son;" but man preferred having the world for himself, and crucified Jesus. Looking to His cross, he said, "Now is the judgment of this world." (John 12:1-50) Man may brave the judgment of God, but a day is coming when God will settle that; all one day shall bow to the name of Jesus. At the crucifixion of Jesus, the veil was rent; the holiest opened, and what God was within the veil was then shown out in all its fulness. When grace reveals this to me I get confidence. I see God holy and expecting holiness - true; but the peace of God is in knowing what He is to us, and not what we are to Him. He knows all the evil of our hearts. Nothing can be worse than the rejection of Jesus. Man’s hatred is shown out there, and God’s love, to the full. The wretched soldier who, in the cowardly impotence of the consciousness that he could with impunity insult the meek and lowly Jesus, pierced His side with a spear, let out, in that disgraceful act, the water and the blood, which was able to cleanse even such as he. Here God’s heart was revealed, what He is to the sinner, and this is our salvation. Death and judgment teach me redemption. God judged sin indeed in sacrificing His well-beloved Son to put it away. It must be punished, Jesus bore the blow - this rent the veil, and showed out what God really is. The very blow that let out the holiness of God, put away the sin which His holiness judged. The perfect certainty of God’s love, and the perfect cleansing of the conscience, are what the defiled and trembling sinner needs. "By the grace of God Jesus Christ tasted death." In Jesus, death is the consequence of grace. "Out of the eater cometh forth meat, and out of the strong sweetness." All sin is put out of sight by Jesus. Faith always rests on God’s estimate of the blood of Jesus as He has revealed it in His word - faith rests on no experience. There is frequently the confounding of what faith produces and what it rests upon. Faith rests on God’s estimate of the blood of Jesus as the Paschal Lamb. The Lord said, "When I see the blood, I will pass over." Could there be hesitation if we were in a house marked with the blood on the door-post? Should we not know that He would pass over? In real communion the conscience must be purged: there can be no communion if the soul be not at peace. "By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." Jesus said, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." "By the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." It was the good will of God to do it; and the work is done to bring our souls back to Himself. Jesus said, "It is finished;" but there must be the knowledge of this in order for us to begin to act. You might have a person willing to pay your debts, and you might even have them paid; but if you did not know it, you would be just as miserable as before. We are not called upon to believe in a promise that Jesus should come to die and rise again. The work of Jesus is done - "He sat down on the right hand of God" "when he had purged our sins;" but that is not sufficient, I must know that the work is done, and therefore He sent down the Holy Ghost to be the witness that God was satisfied. He remembers my sins no more. Knowing perfectly their guilt and amount, He has purged them all away; for "by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified, whereof the Holy Ghost is witness." Faith rests on this - "God is true," - "He that hath received His testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." Faith is always divine certainty. On this ground we enter into the holiest. If any one were to demand of me a proof of God’s love, I could not give more than God has - His Son: none other could be so great. But then may not my sin affect it? No; the "blood cleanses from all sin;" God knows all, and He has provided for it. God has found His rest in Jesus; our peace and joy depend upon knowing this. Were anything more necessary, it could not be His rest; God is not seeking for something else when at rest. None else could have afforded this, God looked down from heaven to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God; they were all gone out of the way - there was none righteous; no, not one. But God bore witness unto Jesus, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." God is well pleased in Christ; God rests in His Son, not merely in His life, though that was holy and acceptable unto Him, but in His work on the cross. Jesus said, "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." And that meets our need. When He shows His glory to the angels, He points to what has been done by man. In man was God glorified, as in man, the first Adam, He had been dishonoured. Christ reversed all this. "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him;" which God recognizes in straightway glorifying Him. Righteousness cannot be looked for from the world, but the fruits of righteousness will; the thing itself is only in Christ. God is not a grudging giver. Did Satan, tempting Eve, question this in the forbidden fruit? He has given His Son; He rests in Him. The sinner likewise rests there. What can man do for me? Nothing. If I were to come to him to deliver me from death, could he help me? He might fill my hand with those perishing things which could only swell the triumph of death and decorate the tomb; but there his power ends. In Jesus God has found His rest. This is mine also; I know it from the testimony of God’s truth. Have you found rest in God’s rest? If you say, I have not, will you say that God has not found His rest there? Will you look to your own heart? In that you can never find it; it is only in Jesus. Jesus said, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." Would that all knew the perfect rest to be found there! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7: VOL 01 - "O WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM!" ======================================================================== "O Wretched Man that I Am!" Romans 7:24. "We (which have the firstfruits of the Spirit) do groan within ourselves." Romans 8:23. There is nothing so hard for our hearts as to abide in the sense of grace, to continue practically conscious that "we are not under law, but under grace." It is by grace that the heart is "established;" but then there is nothing more difficult for us really to comprehend than the fulness of grace: that "grace of God wherein we stand," and to walk in the power and consciousness of it. It is only in the presence of God that we can know it, and there it is our privilege to be. The moment we get away from the presence of God there will always be certain workings of our own thoughts within us, and our own thoughts can never reach up to the thoughts of God about us - to the "grace of God." It is quite impossible for us to draw any right conclusion about grace until we are settled on the great foundation of grace - God’s gift of Jesus. No reasoning of our own hearts could ever reach up to the "grace of God," for the very simple reason, that in order to be such it must flow directly and freely from God. What I had any, the smallest possible, right to expect, could not be pure, free grace - could not be this "grace of God." But then, even after we have "tasted that the Lord is gracious," it is quite natural for our own thoughts to work as soon as we leave the presence of God; and the moment they do so, whether it be about our sins, or about our graces, or anything else that we are occupied with, we lose the sense of grace, and can no longer reckon upon it. This getting out of God’s presence is the source of all our weakness as saints; for in God’s strength we can do any thing. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" The consciousness of His realized presence with us makes us "more than conquerors." Whether our thoughts be about ourselves, or about circumstances around us, every thing then becomes easy. But it is alone when in communion with Him, that we are able thus to measure every thing according to grace. Are our thoughts about ourselves? When in the presence of God we rest on His grace, nothing can trouble us. "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect?" "Who is he that condemneth?" "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" But the moment that we get out of God’s presence, we cannot any longer rest on His grace as when in communion with Him. Again: Are they respecting the condition of things around? We may have sorrow of spirit on this account, as conscious of the evil, misery, and ruin in which every thing is (as Jesus - He "groaned in spirit, and was troubled"); but it is impossible, when we are abiding in the sense of God’s presence for any thing, be it what it may, even the state of the Church, to shake us; for we count on God, and then all things become but a sphere and scene for the operation of His grace. Nature never counts upon God’s grace; it may count upon God’s mercy in passing by sin, but only because it imagines either that He is indifferent about it (attributing to Him its own low estimate of sin); or that He has no right to judge it. Grace, when understood by the soul, is seen to be the very opposite of this - to be founded on a just sense of the tremendous evil of sin, on the part of God. And when we have learnt in our measure to take God’s estimate of sin, we are filled with amazement at that grace of God which can blot it all out - who has given His own Son to die because of it. What the natural man understands by mercy is not this - God’s blotting out sin by the blood-shedding of Jesus, but His passing by sin with indifference. This is not grace. When the conscience becomes awakened, and there are thoughts of responsibility, without the apprehension of grace, the first thing it seeks to do is to put itself under the law; it cannot do otherwise - and the natural man even often does this; he knows of no other way of pleasing God than obedience to the law - and this, being ignorant both of God and himself, he thinks he can render. But the having very simple thoughts of what grace is, is the true source of our strength as Christians; and the abiding in the sense of grace in the presence of God, is all the secret of holiness, peace, and quietness of spirit. There are two things which may hinder our peace of spirit, and which being frequently confounded and mixed up together, create a difficulty in the minds of the saints. First, a troubled state of conscience respecting acceptance and salvation. Secondly, a groaning of spirit similar to that mentioned by Paul in Romans 8:23, because of circumstances around which distress and try us. But these are quite distinct. The trouble and exercise of spirit which the saint may, and indeed will have, whilst living; in this world, because of circumstances around, is altogether an opposite thing to that which is trouble of conscience respecting pardon of sin. Where there is that (trouble of conscience), love is not in exercise, but self is the centre. But when the trouble is because of the state of thins around us, the contrary is the case. How deep the trouble of soul of the Lord Jesus! But it flowed from love and from a perfect sense of what the grace of God was. When grace is fully, that is, simply known; when we are resting upon God as being for us, and know that He is love, there can be no mistake between these two causes of disquiet; but if we do not understand what grace is we shall be apt immediately to confound them If there be in us any anxiety of conscience as to our acceptance, we may be quite sure that we are not thoroughly established in grace. It is true there may be the sense of sin in one who is established; but this is a very different thing from distress of conscience as to acceptance. Want of peace may be caused by either of two things - my never having been fully brought to trust in grace, or my having, through carelessness, lost the sense of grace, which is easily done. The "grace of God" is so unlimited, so full, so perfect, that if we get for a moment out of the presence of God - we cannot have the true consciousness of it - we have no strength to apprehend it; and if we attempt to know it out of His presence, we shall only turn it to licentiousness. If we look at the simple fact of what grace is, it has no limit, no bounds. Be we what we may (and we cannot be worse than we are) in spite of all that, what God is towards us is LOVE! Neither our joy nor our peace is dependent on what we are to God, but on what He is to us - and that is grace. Grace supposes all the sin and evil that is in us, and is the blessed revelation that through Jesus all this sin and evil has been put away. A single sin is more horrible to God than a thousand sins, nay, than all the sins in the world are to us; and yet with the fullest consciousness of what we are, all that God is pleased to be towards us is love! It is vain to look to any extent of evil. A person may be (speaking after the manner of men) a, great sinner or a little sinner; but that is not the question at all. Grace has reference to what God is, and not to what we are, except, indeed that the very greatness of our sins does but magnify the extent of the "grace of God." At the same time we must remember that the object and necessary effect of grace is to bring our souls into communion with God, to sanctify us, by bringing the soul to know God and to love Him. Therefore the knowledge of grace is the true source of sanctification. If grace, then, be what God is toward me, and has nothing at all to do with what I am, the moment I begin to think about myself as though God would judge me because of my sins, it is evident that I am not then consciously standing in grace. The heart naturally has these thoughts, and indeed it is also one of the effects of being awakened; for the conscience then begins directly to reason about what God thinks of it: but this is not grace. The soul that turns back upon itself to learn God’s judgment about it, and what His dealings with it are likely to be, is not leaning upon what God is, is not standing in grace. I have said that there are two things, which, though quite distinct, are nevertheless frequently confounded in the minds of the saints - a bad conscience and the "groaning" of the spiritual man because of evil around. The moment we get a little away from the sense of grace we shall be in danger of confusing these together. Suppose, for instance, that I, as a saint, am sensible of the terrible weight of evil which is all around me, and groan about it, soon (unless it be guarded against) this will mix itself up with trouble of conscience; I shall lose the sense of God’s love, and put myself under law. But a saint may "groan" thus without at all losing the consciousness of love, nay, for the very reason that he has it. When the Lord Jesus "groaned in Himself" and wept at the grave of Lazarus, His deep sense of the sorrow which sin had brought into the world did not affect that of His Father’s love. We find Him using at the same time the language of the fullest confidence in that love - "Father, I know that thou hearest me always." And so a Christian may be sorrowful, but should not on that account feel as though God were not Love, or lose the sense of His grace. Love to others, combined with a spiritual perception of evil, will cause us very much sorrow. Jesus felt this infinitely more than we can ever do, because the power of love in His heart made Him so much more deeply sensible of the dreadful weight of evil which was pressing on the hearts of others. He felt the miseries around Him in proportion as He knew the blessedness and love of the Father’s presence. We have "suffering," "groaning," etc. spoken of in Romans 8:1-39. Paul groaned within himself from the consciousness of infirmity, from distress, trials, etc., but this raised no question in his mind about the certainty of God’s grace - quite the contrary. The more conscious we are that "the Spirit dwells in us," the more we shall "roam." The more certain we are of blessing, the more we realise grace; the more we know of God’s love, and the effects of that love, the more shall we "groan" at all that is at present around us; but not as though these things brought the smallest cloud over divine favour. Paul is spoken of as "groaning" in spirit; and why? He realised the result of the "grace in which he stood." Through the power of faith being made conscious of the blessings which are his, he "groans within himself" after them; but never as if there were the slightest doubt respecting his salvation. Delivered he is from all uncertainty as to the fulness, the freeness of divine favour towards him, and in the consciousness of this he "groans within himself, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body." The end of Romans 7:1-25 describes quite another sort of groaning, though, as before remarked, the two are often confounded together! because as sin is still dwelling in us - in our flesh, those who are not really established in grace do not discern the difference between them. The whole chapter is full of what people call experience; not of that which is (properly speaking) Christian experience, but of the thoughts of the mind within and about itself. The state described is that of a person quickened indeed, but whose whole set of reasonings centres in himself: I could not venture to say how many times he says "I" and "me;" the whole chapter is full of it. Observe the difference of expression in verse 14: "We know that the law is spiritual;" all Christians know that. But then does he say, "We know that we are carnal, sold under sin?" No; "I am carnal, sold under sin!" He turns back immediately to self and to the judgment which, being quickened, he had formed of himself by his own experience as under the law, and begins to reason about what he is before God, and not about what God is towards him, and the consequence is that he exclaims, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" So it is with us; directly we begin to reason about ourselves we can only say, "O wretched man that I am! "What shall I do? I hate sin, I wish to please God, I confess that the law is good; but the more that I see it is so the worse it is for me, the more miserable I am. Is there a word of grace in all this? No, not a word. When he brings in Christ at the close, then he is able to thank God: "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." This chapter is full of a great deal of truth, in the experience of the individual mentioned, but it is truth stopping short of grace, of the simple fact that whatever be his state, let him be as bad as he may, "God is Love," and only Love towards him. Instead of looking at God, it is all "I," "I," "I." In verse 15 six times over does he speak of himself, his own thoughts; and though some of these were spiritual, yet it is, "What I hate, that do I;" "When I would do good, evil is present with me." All this may be very profitable experience to bring us to the conviction of our utter hopelessness in ourselves; still, let us put it in its right place, and remember that it is not, properly speaking, Christian experience, but that it only describes the feelings of a soul that has not yet fully and experimentally known the simple fact, that "when we were without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly;" or else that of one who through the workings of the flesh has slipped back to looking at himself and at what he is, instead of looking at God, at grace. Faith produces many effects in our hearts always suitable to the object at which it looks. If, for instance, faith looks at the law, it sees its spirituality far more clearly than nature can; and then seeing the flesh, too, in its real vileness, if it looks no further, but judges of itself according to this spirituality of the law, the effect must be to bring us under condemnation of it (I mean of course as to our feeling), under the consciousness of guilt and weakness. We shall hate and seek to separate from evil; but that will be all; it will leave us crying out, "O wretched man that I am!" With increased light there will only be increased misery. But if faith looks at God as He has revealed Himself in grace, it judges accordingly. It never then reasons upon the fruit produced; it rests in the revelation God has given of Himself - grace. The fruits of grace are to be looked for, of course; for if there be life in us, the "fruit of the Spirit" will be manifested. The saint, for instance, knows that "peace" has been "made through the blood of the cross." The effect is that love flows forth; he feels that he is called unto blessing, and therefore has his feet "shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; drinking into his own soul the love of God, he becomes as a river of love flowing forth to others." (John 8:38.) But though these fruits are produced, faith never reasons on its own fruits; it can alone rest in the revelation God has given of Himself as "the God of grace." Thus is its own and only proper sphere. The natural heart ever reasons about itself, and in a Christian it is always judging by fruits. This must necessarily bring disquiet, instead of peace. In itself it can see nothing but sin; and as to any fruit I have even been enabled to bear, this is so mixed with imperfection that it can only be a subject for judgment (though it be the Father’s judgment). It cannot give his peace; that can only be found in what Jesus has wrought, in "the grace that is in Christ Jesus." What, then, is the position in Romans 7:1-25? First of all the apostle establishes the great principle that the believer is "dead to the law." Then he describes the workings of a quickened soul, which, knowing that the "law is spiritual," still feels "Under the law," and is therefore compelled to exclaim, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Who is he thinking of in all this? Himself. Now, dear friends, let me ask you, "Am I, or is my state, the object of faith?" No, surely not! Faith never makes what is in my heart its object, but God’s revelation of Himself in grace. If we stop half way, and see nothing but the law, it will just discover to us our condemnation, and prove us to be "without strength." If God allows us to know enough of the law and of the experience described in this chapter to show us what is our true state, that is just where grace meets us. It is not that the conflict here spoken of will not continue. Grace could not be known at all where conflict is not known; the unconverted only are without it. But that which will not continue when grace is fully known is that bitterness of spirit in which, while the conflict is going on, the person judges of himself, seeing the law to be "spiritual," but himself "carnal, sold under sin." The love of God is not realised as his own, and therefore this causes him to cry out, "O wretched man that I am!" It is quite clear that while there is this experience felt, there is not simple faith in God’s grace - there is not a clear view of what God is towards me in Christ; for when the soul apprehends that - when the faculties of the new man are exercised on their proper object, there is perfect rest. And though there is still conflict, yet the soul is at peace - "the battle is not ours, but the Lord’s." But how am I to know what is God’s mind towards me? Is it by judging of it from what I find in myself? Surely not! Supposing that I even found good in myself, if I expected God to look at me on that account, would that be grace? There may be a measure of truth in this kind of reasoning, for if there be life in my soul, fruit will be apparent; but that is not to give me peace any more than the evil that is in me is to hinder my having peace. That, too, is true reasoning, where the apostle says "the law is spiritual, but I am carnal: O wretched man that I am!" but there is nothing of grace in it. But does the certainty of grace take us out of all trouble? - No; I am not at all denying the fact that there is, and while we are in a sinful body that there ever must be, conflict going on between the flesh and the spirit. But then it is a very different thing to have this conflict going on in the conscious certainty that God is for me, because I am "under grace," to having it in the fear that He is against me, because I am "under law." If I see evil in myself (and this I always shall whilst here, in the root, even if it be not manifested in its fruit), and if I think that God will be against me because of it, I shall have no strength for conflict, but be utterly cast down - groaning, as to my acceptance. But if certain that God is for me, the consciousness of this will give me courage and victory, nay, even enable me to say, "Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way he me, and lead me in the way everlasting." In the confidence of the love and grace of God, I can ask Him to search out all my evil, what I otherwise dare not do, lest it should overwhelm me with despair. God is my Friend - for me, against my own evil. The apostle speaks (Romans 8:1-39) of the "carnal mind" being "enmity against God;" but then God, in the gift of Jesus, has brought out this blessed truth, that when man was at enmity against God, God was love towards man - our enmity was met by His love. The triumph of grace is seen in this, that when man’s enmity had cast out Jesus from the earth, God’s love brought in salvation by that very act - came in to atone for the sin of those who had rejected Him. In the view of the fullest development of man’s sin, faith sees the fullest manifestation of God’s grace. Where does faith see the greatest depth of man’s sin and hatred of God? IN THE CROSS; and at the same glance it sees the greatest extent of God’s triumphant love and mercy to man. The spear of the centurion, which pierced the side of Jesus, only brought out that which spoke of love and mercy. The apostle then goes on to show that those once at enmity with God are now become His heirs, and that the knowledge of this is founded on the knowledge of grace: "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again," etc. Grace first makes us children of God, and then gives us the knowledge of it, and that we are heirs of God. But what is the extent of this grace towards us? It has given us the same portion that the Lord Jesus has! We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. It is not only certain that grace has visited us, has found us when we were "in our sins," but it is also certain that it has set us where Christ is, that we are identified with the Lord Jesus in all but His essential glory as God! The soul is placed thus in the consciousness of God’s perfect love, and therefore, as it is said in Romans 5:1-21, "we joy in God." I have got away from grace if I have the slightest doubt or hesitation about God’s love. I shall then be saying, "I am unhappy, because I am not what I should like to be." But, dear friends, that is not the question; the real question is, whether God is what we should like Him to be, whether Jesus is all we could wish. If the consciousness of what we are, of what we find in ourselves, has any other effect than, while it humbles us, to increase our adoration of what God is, we are off the ground of pure grace. The immediate effect of such consciousness should be to make our hearts reach out to God and to His grace as abounding over it all. But while grace thus gives us perfect peace in our souls, it does not save us from sorrow. Even as the Lord Jesus so perfectly entered into the sorrow and groaning around Him when here, and was therefore a "man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," so in his measure ought the saint to take up the sense of the weight of evil that is in the world, and thus become a man of sorrows also. Just as we abide in grace shall we have in proportion a sense of the weight of evil that is all around - and groan in sympathy with a groaning and travailing creation - and not only so, but being ourselves in the body, we shall "groan" likewise "within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body." But is there any uncertainty as to our salvation in this. "groaning"? No, quite the contrary - it is the very certainty "all things are ours" which makes us "groan." Having the certainty and foretaste of glory, every thing here is made the more painful by contrast. That which the saint is entitled to, is so very different from all that is actually around him, that the more he knows of the joy of dwelling in the presence of God, the larger understanding he has of God’s love and grace; - the more he realises the blessedness of his portion in that glory to which he is predestinated, the more will he "groan!" How different this from the groaning of an uneasy conscience! Let us not mistake, dear friends; let us not confound the two - this "groaning" of one perfectly free from the sense of condemnation described in Romans 8:1-39, and groaning of conscience, the "O wretched man that I am!" of Romans 7:1-25 Carelessness of walk, and through it our losing the sense of grace, may indeed bring back again him who has once consciously stood in the power of redemption into the latter state of soul; but this is not, as before remarked, true "Christian experience." When the heart is made full with the rich blessings of Christ, it will not turn back to gnaw upon itself. It is our privilege as saints to know that "there is now no condemnation for them who are in Christ Jesus" - that "the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and death." But we must not stop simply here - there must be the going on to know what we are as "sons of God," "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ," the Spirit bearing witness to us of it. God hath "established us in Christ," "hath anointed us, and "given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." Having thus the fullest knowledge that God has thought about us in love, and predestinated us to be conformed to the image of Jesus, and to share His glory, understanding what His love is now about in His dealings with us, and not being yet in the glory but still in the body, and in the midst of evil and "groaning" all around, we shall therefore "groan." "Ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." The very reason of our "groaning" is because of our "having the first-fruits of the Spirit" - not at all because of a bad conscience - it is the Spirit of Christ groaning in us. And then this "groaning is always accompanied by confidence in God. As with Jesus, when "groaning in Spirit and troubled" at the grave of Lazarus, He said, "I know that thou hearest me always." So is it given to the saint to have the like confidence. (See 1 John 5:14-15.) Nor should this confidence even fail when we "know not what to pray for as we ought," for it is added, "but we know that all things work together for our good." I may see evil in myself; in another saint, in the Church, and seek to pray about it, but yet not have sufficient intelligence to know what would remedy it - the Spirit will "help my infirmity," and "groan within me." God does not regard my ignorance, but answers according to "the mind of the Spirit," who always "maketh intercession for the saints according to God." I ought to be so confident of God’s directing "all things" as to be able to say, "I am certain all shall work together for good. Is a soul in this state, come what may, trouble, sorrow, disappointment, grief, whatever it be - all is peace, for it is resting upon God, and not (as in Romans 7:1-25) looking at itself. Our very griefs then flow from the knowledge of God’s immense love, and from the consciousness of all that belongs to us in Christ. Jesus fully knew, as none other, what the presence of God was - what the enjoyment of His favour, and "groaned," because, coming from the presence of God, He found man out of it. The life which I now have identifies me, not with responsibility as "under the law," but with Christ who has borne the judgment of a broken law for me. Instead of being wretched and miserable, because looking at myself as under law, I enjoy the consciousness of redemption, rest in grace, and "rejoice in hope of the glory of God." But the moment we get a glimpse of the glory of Christ as ours, this world becomes to us a scene of misery and bondage. This "groaning" on account of evil always associates itself with love. If, for instance, I see a saint sin, it leads me at once to the love and grace he is sinning against. It is the consciousness of divine favour which I have towards that saint that makes me anxious about him; and while I grieve at his sin, I have joy in God in the midst of my sorrow. Well, beloved friends, if these things be so - if this be the place in which grace sets us, let me ask, "Is it so with you?" If God be pure love - nothing else than love to us - if there be no mixed feeling in Him, then if you have not full joy, if there is any hesitation in your souls as to your standing before Him - you cannot be simply resting in His grace. Is there distrust and distress in your minds? See if it be not because you are still saying, "I," "I," and losing sight of God’s grace. You may indeed have faith, but you want simplicity of heart in looking at God’s grace. It is better to be thinking of what God is than of what we are. This looking at ourselves at the bottom is really pride, a want of the thorough consciousness that we are good for nothing. Till we see this we never look quite away from self to God. Sometimes perhaps the looking at our evil may be a partial instrument in teaching us it, but still even that is not all that is needed. In looking to Christ it is our privilege to forget ourselves. True humility does not so much consist in thinking badly of ourselves, as in not thinking of ourselves at all. I am too bad to be worth thinking about; what I want is to forget myself and to look at God, who is indeed worth all my thoughts. Is there need of being humbled about ourselves? We may be quite sure that will do it. Beloved, if we can say (as in Romans 7:1-25), that "in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing," we have thought quite long enough about ourselves; let us then think about Him who thought about us with "thoughts of good and not of evil" long before we had thought of ourselves at all. Let us see what His thoughts of grace about us are, and take up the words of faith: "If God be for us, who can be against us?" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8: VOL 01 - "THE LAST WORDS OF DAVID" ======================================================================== "The Last Words of David" 2 Sam. 22:1- 23:1-7. There is a remarkable contrast between the two songs in these chapters - the song of David after he had done with all his enemies, that is after his trials by Saul, and the song of David after he had done with himself - here brought together by the Spirit of God. At the end of his trials, when looking back at his enemies, he sings of joy and triumph - all is exultation. After his experience of the blessing, it is, "Although my house be not so with God." The end of all the sorrow and trial with Saul is rejoicing, exultation, and strength. "The waves of death had compassed him, the floods of ungodly men made him afraid, the sorrows of hell compassed him about, and the snares of death prevented him;" yet the result of all he thus went through, in deep and bitter exercise of soul, is triumph, thanksgiving, and praise, in the first instance, when he recounts God’s deliverance; while in the second, the result of the place of honour, blessing and triumph, is deep and bitter sorrow the confession, "My house is not so with God!" Not that he was without something to sustain his heart under it all; for he adds, "Yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure." For this he waited until the "morning without clouds;" but the end of all his blessing here is, "My house is not so with God." This contrast makes trouble precious, and is a check to any desire to get out of it. So practically is it with us. We need to guard against the effects of success. The pressure of circumstances which keep me down, produces nothing but joy and praise, in the experience of God’s goodness; the effect of circumstances which lift me up, is sorrow. How often has a saint, when in trial and conscious weakness, cast therein upon the Lord, cried unto Him, and as a faithful servant been sustained - had blessing and acquired influence, godly influence too; but how often, satisfied with the blessing and the influence thus acquired, and losing the sense of his weakness, has he stopped suddenly short in his course, been arrested in the point of influence obtained, and become comparatively useless in the Church of God. This should lead us to desire conformity in suffering to Jesus. The path of grace is, like Him, to be getting on nearer and nearer to the Father, but to be getting nothing here. There are three things brought before us in these chapters; one of them intended to give us solemn warning First, the result of all David’s trials at the hand of Saul. Then, when set upon the throne, the consequence of his being surrounded with all the earthly blessings. And, thirdly, the joy at the end, of "the sweet Psalmist of Israel," in anticipation of the "morning without clouds." Whilst the heart receives the warning against the effect of success, or any thing in present blessing, are we looking out for, and resting on the full, distinct and perfect blessing, which will be in that day when the Lord Jesus comes? We see here the way in which the Spirit of Christ gathers up the history of Israel into Himself as a centre, and makes the harp of David that on which it should be played. There is perhaps nothing of deeper interest, than to see how God takes up the history of David in the Psalms, writing as it were upon the tablets of David’s heart the history of the Lord Jesus. In the first song, there is a remarkable allusion to the whole history of Israel - to dealings of God with them, of which David felt the moral power in himself. We have a wonderful variety of circumstances backward, forward, and around, gathering up all the history of David, and the triumphs of David; unfolding the sympathies of Christ with the heart of David in sorrow, until he is made the head of the heathen,, his own people being blessed under him. In 2 Samuel 23:1-39, we get "the last words of David." And here we learn where his eye and heart rested, amidst consciousness of his own failure, and the failure of his house. He was looking for the "morning without clouds" - for the one who should rule over men in the fear of the Lord - who should build God’s house, and in whom the glory should be manifested. These men of Belial too, there must come one in the sternness of judgment to set them aside - then "they should all of them be as thorns thrust away." There is the deep consciousness of all the ruin, but the effect of the coming morning shining into it. The effect of the coming of the Son of David on David’s heart, and the failure of everything around, leading him to reach forward in spirit to the full triumph of that day when all should be full of blessing. We thus, in the two chapters, have the unfolding of the sympathies of Christ with the heart of David, gathering up all the sorrows of the history of Israel; and also the heart of David resting in the consciousness of what the "morning without clouds" would be. We should seek so to get the power of the Spirit in the sympathies of Christ, and at the same time to reach out to the hope which the Spirit of God sets before us, as by the way to be thrown upon the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. Let us now trace a little what David was, up to the time of this success. It is ever just the very thing that seen; hopeless in the eyes of man, which is taken up of God. See Sarah - Rebekah - Zacharias and Elisabeth - so too here with David. In him, there was everything contrary to the thoughts of the flesh. Contrast him with Saul. Saul was the comeliest man in Israel, taller than them all by the head, "from the shoulders and upwards he was higher than any of the people," - strength in the flesh. But all this is passed by, and it is the "lad keeping the sheep" that is taken up! Saul is unfaithful - rejected from being king, and then God sets His eye upon David. Samuel, by the Spirit of prophecy (1 Samuel 16:1-23), goes down to Bethlehem, to select from among the sons of Jesse one who should be king in the room of Saul. He causes them to pass before him. Seven come in. Samuel asks, "Is there not another?" Yes, a lad keeping the sheep. "Send and fetch him." David comes, and is designated by the Spirit of prophecy, as the anointed of the Lord. All that is great in Jesse’s eyes is suffered to pass unnoticed; the seven were personable men, but it is the "lad keeping the sheep," the eighth, the weak one, that is preferred and taken up. From that time the Spirit of God departs from Saul, and an evil spirit falls upon him. David is brought into his company as one who could play upon the harp. Here we find him of no importance; so that afterwards, when he had killed the giant Goliath, on Saul’s enquiring of Abner "whose son is this youth?" Abner says, I cannot tell. His brethren too ask him "with whom he has left the few sheep in the wilderness?" But what traits do we find in David? Deep consciousness of having God’s strength, and forgetfulness of self in all the difficulties which come in the way of duty. He keeps his father’s sheep - a lion and a bear come to take a lamb of the flock - it is his business to guard the sheep, and he goes at once against the lion and the bear and slays them. These energetic works are done with simple reference to duty, therefore the difficulties are as nothing. Here we see faith in operation. Faith recognises God and duty to God, and then the thing is a matter of course. Put a child to raise up a stone, and it is all effort; put a strong man, and it is easily accomplished. Faith realizes the strength of God without any reckoning on self, so does that which comes in the way, and thinks nothing about it. David here in the path of duty gathers up the consciousness of having God’s strength with him, to be used in after trial. The secret of strength, thus learnt in retirement, prepares him for that which the Lord has subsequently for him to do. Blessing still followed the career of Saul; we read, "whithersoever he turned himself he vexed his enemies." Though evil, seeking his own, and rejected from being king, there is blessing to Israel through him. But the Lord in secret had set his eye on David. The Philistines are gathered together to battle against Israel (1 Samuel 17:1-58); David goes up to the camp, sent by his father, with provisions for his brethren, where he hears Goliath challenging Israel. Having learnt in the simplicity of the path of duty with the God of Israel, when no eye was upon him, that He was a faithful God, now that he comes to see the people of God, and Goliath against them, he is astonished at finding them all afraid, and asks, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" Why he is an uncircumcised Philistine, and he is defying the armies of the living God! Bad motives are imputed to him by his brother for coming to the camp; but there is in him that simplicity of heart in recognising God, that the path of duty is straight forward, and in power. Whether as a shepherd, whose business it was to guard the sheep - if the lion came, he took him by the beard and slew him, or the bear in like manner, he slew it, without display and without boast - they were simply matters of duty, and are untold until there is a needed occasion for mentioning them; or, if afterwards, it be this uncircumcised Philistine, it is the same thing - "he shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God!" Onwards he moves in the energy of faith - he looks not to Israel for help - he rejects the proffered armour of Saul - he thinks not of the spear like a weaver’s beam - is this uncircumcised Philistine to defy the God of Israel? that is the question; and he says, "This day will the Lord deliver thee into my hands!" His heart is on Israel - he takes up the relationship of God with Israel. Although the exercise of faith depend on a single individual, "the battle is the Lord’s," he identifies the glory of God with Israel, and then the "uncircumcised Philistine" can have no power at all. With a sling and a stone from the brook, he destroys the Philistine, and cuts off his head with his own sword! as it is said of Jesus, that He destroyed through death him that had the power of death, by the very weapon of him who had the power. His heart rested on the faithfulness of the God of saints. This was the secret of his strength, learnt by himself, to be acted upon in any circumstance. And this is always the character of faith. Faith when acting, brings in God - makes God everything, circumstances nothing. Whether it be the lion and the bear, or the uncircumcised Philistine, it is the same thing. The secret of God’s strength learnt when alone, is that by which faith looks upon every circumstance as the same, making God the great circumstance that governs all else. After this they begin to sing, "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands;" and then David becomes the object of Saul’s hatred - "Saul eyed David from that day and forward." Subsequently, we find in the character of David, when in the midst of mighty enemies, the consciousness of weakness and infirmity, and the absence of all thought of avenging himself against Saul. He never takes a single step without consulting God, save in one instance, and then he gets chastened for it. Every thing is against him, he is conscious of being in the midst of subtle enemies, and of conflicting with a power which he cannot set aside, - Saul seeks his life (1 Samuel 18:10-11), but he has no right to set aside the power of Saul.* The enemy cannot be got rid of, and therefore he is forced to go to the Lord for guidance, as to every step he takes. *It was righteous power, for God had set him in it; but not rightly used. So is it with the saints. And this is just what they need now - the consciousness of conflicting with a power which they cannot set aside; and the sense of their own utter weakness, so as to be forced into direct reference to God in every circumstance - to be thrown into dependence upon Him for every step. At last Saul drives him fairly away; full hostility is manifested, and he becomes an outcast. All this is necessary for the exercise of his faith, and he gets practised thereby in waiting on the Lord - "In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried to my God." He escapes to the cave of Adullam (1 Samuel 22:1-23) - is separate from all that God is about to judge, and gathers together his mighty men. The beginning of this chapter opens with a most miserable scene - "Every one in distress, and every one in debt, and every one that is discontented," gathering themselves unto David in the cave of Adullam but it is there with these outcasts that we find God’s prophet,* God’s priest, and God’s king - all that God really owned was there. * Saul had slain the priests; but Abiathar, one of the sons of Ahimelec, escaped, and fled after David; and, in verse 5, we find Gad, the prophet of the Lord, mentioned as also being there. Let us follow David in his course. Through all the scene we find him in constant dependence on God’s strength, not avenging himself, but ever gracious to Saul when in his power. (See 2 Samuel 24:1-25 and 2 Sam. 26) Such is his constant dependence on the strength of God, that, no matter what the consciousness of weakness, however reproach may break his heart, the moment he is in the power of ungodliness, he confesses unworthiness of self, but still can take the place of superiority. Just as Jacob, recounting all the misery of the days of the years of his pilgrimage, and yet blessing Pharaoh there. This poor, weak man, because identified with God, could stand in conscious superiority in the presence of the power and glory of the world, as faith always does; and thus in the very confession of weakness, take the place of the better - "the less is blessed of the better." David had led a miserable, sorrowful life, because of Saul; but when Abishai says, "God hath delivered thine enemy into thine hand, this day," he answers, "The Lord forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against the Lord’s anointed." Again, when pleading with Saul, "The Lord judge between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me of thee, but mine hand shall not be upon thee" - "the Lord deliver me out of thine hand." So was it with the Lord Jesus, "when He was reviled, He reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not, but committed His cause to Him that judgeth righteously." And this is what the Church is called upon to do amidst enemies whom it cannot set aside. If seeking God’s glory, we shall not want to justify ourselves; there may be entreaty - "being defamed, we entreat" - but not haughty self-vindication. Peter says, "If when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God." This is a strange principle for anything but faith. But, as a saint, I cannot, whilst the usurper is in power, take my portion (just as David could not touch the Lord’s anointed). There is "a morning without clouds", coming, when the true King will be set up - then I shall have it; now it is doing well, suffering for it, and taking it patiently, just what the Lord Jesus did, but with this comfort - the consciousness that "this is acceptable with God." At last (1 Samuel 28:1-25) Saul is in the sad, terrible condition that the Lord has departed from him. The day comes when he has to sink down with the consciousness of not having the answer of the Lord, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets. All depart from him, and are with the suffering man who had nothing here. Then Saul falls, Jonathan falls, and David takes the kingdom. And now we come to a sad picture; we see a different line of conduct in David. How fearful! What marks his confidence as king in his own house? He trusts in his own power. "I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains." He is going to build the temple when he had no word from the Lord to do it. The thing itself is not bad which he purposes, but he has not the perception of the mind of the Lord about it, because he has not consulted, he has not waited upon Him. We find in Him now the want of that direct reference to the Lord which had so marked his previous course;* he trusts in his own strength, lives in self-indulgence, and then falls into gross sin. *When about to bring back the ark, in the desire to build the Lord’s house, we see him going to the Philistine - the world - for help. Self-will having come in, self-indulgence follows; then there is the breaking out of positive sin in the murder of Uriah and adultery with Bathsheba, and afterwards distrust of the Lord in the numbering of the people! The end of all this is the word of the Lord by the prophet, that the sword should never depart from his house. David is chastened, repentance given, and the sin put away; but the sword departs not from his house. In this latter part of the history of David we see the consequence of blessing, the result of faith, when used in the flesh and for himself. It is not that he was like Saul, beginning in the flesh, ending in the flesh, and not blest at all. It is a lovely picture of faith and humble, gracious walk, up to the time of his being king in his own house. The Lord had said, "I have found a man after mine own heart" (not that his conduct was so, but "a man after mine own heart "). He was a godly man with grace shining in a lovely way, and in the end there is rich blessing. But we see the godly man blessed, and the results of his fidelity too much for the faith that brought him there! Grace shines through, and there is lovely humbleness afterwards, most precious grace; but at the same time we have in his history solemn warning as to the result in blessing, of faith being too strong for the faith through which it came. The only safety for us is in the word in Philippians: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus;" the going down, down, down, always humbling oneself. David was blessed as much when king, whilst humble, as when an outcast he was hunted by Saul like a partridge in the mountains. In these "last words of David," as we have seen, there is deep consciousness of the failure and ruin - "My house is not so with God." Where did the heart of David find rest amidst it all? In this, "Yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure; for this is all my salvation and all my desire, although He make it not to grow." Where does the Church find its comfort, resource; and joy upon the perception of ruin - when, in looking upon its present state, it has to say, "not so with God"? And is there a single heart, having the Spirit of Christ in it, that does not feel thus, as not satisfied with any honour now, resting upon the house of Christ? Is there one not bowed down at the condition of Christ’s house, looked at in what way you please? Is it such as can give joy and gladness, or has not one to say - "not so with God"? Well, we should have sorrow and humiliation at this, though all turns to practical comfort as to the end; for David’s house shall yet be glorified in the person of Christ, in the midst of the nation now "scattered and peeled;" and we shall be united with Him in His glory, as the head of His body, the Church. There is a "covenant, ordered in all things, and sure," in which we stand - an everlasting covenant - a covenant established before the foundation of the world - and this we need to sustain our souls. But is it the effect of having the assurance of that covenant to make us content with the ruin, satisfied with the want of honour now given to Christ’s house? When David felt all the ruin of his own house, although he could still say, "I have a covenant ordered in all things and sure," could he be content and happy? Impossible! It was David feeling about David’s house. So should it be with us. If we have the Spirit of Christ, there will be grief and sorrow of heart, because the house is not so with God; we shall say, after all the manifestation of Christ’s honour and glory in the day of His appearing is revealed to us as an assured thing, what I have to seek is His glory now; so will there be sorrow of heart at His present dishonour. It is a most terrible thing to say the covenant makes all things secure for me for ever, and therefore I don’t care for Christ’s glory now; it is just saying Christ’s glory may go for nothing. This is practically as much Antinomianism in the Church, as the making the grace of God a cloak for licentiousness is Antinomianism in an individual, though not so tangible. Still, amidst all the ruin around us, it is a comfort to know that that which is before us is blessing. We need for the sustainment of our souls, what is presented to us as our hope, the coming of the Lord. This it is which really brightens up our hearts; it is most important for us practically to have that upon which our hearts can rest as a sphere and scene of blessing amidst our present trial. Where will you find the manifestation of happy affection in an individual? It will be in the one who can turn to a home where those happy affections are in exercise; and so with us, as Christians, it is most important that we should have a full, unhindered sphere where our affections may be called forth, and all our association be pure and happy. Where is there the man who, being always occupied in cleaning that which is dirty, does not get a little dirty himself. I want to have my soul sometimes undividedly occupied with what is good; it must centre in God. But He has not shut Himself up! Being love, He has come as it were out of Himself, and flowed forth in the communication of love. We should seek to have our associations in that sphere where God becomes the centre of communicated blessing. It is when God shall have put all things under the Lord Jesus Christ, as the one that is just, ruling in the fear of the Lord - when the power of evil shall be set aside, the men of Belial be all of them as thorns thrust away at the revelation of Jesus Christ - that the thoughts of the Lord’s mind will be exhibited. Then, too, man is set as the head and centre of all this blessing, man as the executor - the Lord Jesus Christ. Man has failed in every dispensation of blessing from the hand of God - left to himself after he has seen the glory, will fail; but God’s heart rests on the manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ - the unfailing man, as the centre of all the blessing. It is when He - the great Melchisedec Priest - comes down out of heaven from God, that the fulness of the blessing will shine forth. There is that which is from heaven now, but it is the life which makes us cry, as conscious of all the disorder here - not so with God! Then there will be an ordered state of blessing in this world - a time when the order of blessing, and the communicator of blessing, comes down from God. This is the great character of the day - blessing according to God’s mind coming down from heaven in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every thing takes its place then in reference to its relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. If the Church is the bride of Christ, the Church takes its place in its proper relationship to Him as such. Israel the same. "He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God; and he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth, by clear shining after rain." "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is the name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." (Jeremiah 23:5-25.) But if He shall reign, we shall reign with Him, as the wife, associated in His glory. Israel will be blessed under Him as their King; but still He is "the head of His body, the Church," - "the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." So too the Gentiles. Israel will then be the centre of the blessing on earth, yet "in Him shall the Gentiles trust." ’"In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign to the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and His rest shall be glorious." (Isaiah 11:10.) "All nations shall call Him blessed." (Psalms 72:17.) And further: "All things were created by Him and for Him." As a "faithful Creator," this too is a sphere of blessing which He is to reconcile to Himself - in which His power is to be manifested. Dominion is already put into His hands - "all power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth:" but the power is not as yet applied. "We see not yet all things put under Him." It is not for us to be looking for blessing here, apart from the future manifestation of Him in whom the blessing comes in the "morning without clouds." Until the power of evil is set aside, the effect of the energy of the Spirit is to make us groan and suffer in proportion to it. Our groaning, as saints, should ever be that of spirit, because of holiness of mind, as amidst the evil, and not on account of our own evil. So was it with Jesus: He groaned because of holy affections, and not because of unholy. Until the power of evil is set aside, the greater the energy of the Spirit, the more is the individual in whom it is manifested exposed to the fury of Satan. These "men of Belial," too - the saint has to do with them. The soft hand of grace cannot touch them. They "’shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands; but the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a spear; and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place." Tares have sprung up among the wheat. (Matthew 13:1-58) Grace cannot take the tares out of the field; grace cannot turn the tares into wheat! They must be "let alone until the harvest." Then are they to be "gathered together in bundles to be burned." There was no reckoning in David of setting the house in order again when it had failed. He was looking for the "morning without clouds," when there would be full blessing. So should it be with us. Take Israel, the Church, David, whatever it may be, all has failed; the "house is not so with God." Man has failed, must fail. Paul had to say, "No man stood with me; all men forsook me. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me." God must be the centre of our blessing. We feel that we need something; the bright energy of faith realizes God. Not the increased outpouring of the Spirit because of our faithfulness, but God’s faithfulness in spite of our failure. "If we believe not, He remaineth faithful: He cannot deny Himself." But it is a good thing for us not only to be able to say, "God is faithful," but to have our affections unfolded and exercised in a sphere where all is perfect blessing; to have them engaged with those things which satisfy His own heart. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." That which the Holy Ghost reveals unto us is the display and character of the glory in heaven and earth, which the Lord Jesus Christ will be the centre and displayer of by and by, when He comes again. This is a sphere of joy, comfort, and rest for us. Affections raised by the Spirit of God never can get their rest until they find it where His own heart rests. Here is their centre, their sphere, and their rest - the glory of Jesus. The practical effect of all this upon our hearts and conscience is to throw us into the first part of the history of David. Be it in what it may, if we are faithful in singleness of eye in the camp of Saul we shall soon find ourselves in the cave of Adullam, taking as the portion of our souls fellowship in Christ’s sufferings. It is there we shall have all the unfoldings of those internal affections, those secret affections of heart, which were developed in David when humble. It was when David was a partaker beforehand of the sufferings and afflictions of Christ in the cave of Adullam, hunted as a partridge upon the mountains, that he was compassed about with songs of deliverance. The Lord give us singleness of eye, and in the power of his resurrection, to have fellowship with His sufferings. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 9: VOL 01 - "THE SPIRIT, NOT OF FEAR, BUT OF POWER" ======================================================================== "The Spirit, Not of Fear, But of Power" 2 Timothy 1:3-8. Such exhortations are never given unless there are circumstances to require it. They are intended to meet some tendency in the flesh, that we may guard against it in the Spirit. It is well to remember how the Lord deals with us, just as we are; how, in all His ways, He takes into account the circumstances we are in, and does not, like philosophy, take us into other circumstances. With regard to our cares and trials, Christ does not take us out of them: "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world." While He leaves us in the world, He leaves us liable to all that is incident to man; but, in the new nature, teaches us to lean on God. The thought with us often is, that (because we are Christians) we are to get away from trials; or else, if in them, we are not to feel them. This is not God’s thought concerning us. The theoretical Christian may be placid and calm; he has fine books and nice sayings; but, when he has something from God to ruffle his placidity, you will find he is a Christian more conscious of the difficulties there are in the world, and of the difficulty of getting over such. The nearer a man walks with God through grace, the more tender he becomes as to the faults of others; the longer he lives as a saint, the more conscious of the faithfulness and tenderness of God, and of what it has been applied to in himself. See the life of the Lord Jesus; take Gethsemane, what do we find? Never a cloud over His soul, uniform placidity. You never see Him off His centre. He is always Himself. But take the Psalms, and do we find nothing within to break that placidity? The Psalms bring out what was passing within. In the Gospels He is presented to man, as the testimony of the power of God with Him, in those very things that would have vexed man. He walked with God about them; and so we find Him in perfect peace, saying with calmness, "Whom seek ye?" - "I am He." How peaceful! How commanding! (for peace in the midst of difficulties does command.) When by Himself, in an agony, He sweats as it were great drops of blood; it was not a placidity because He had not heart-feeling within. He felt the full trial, in Spirit; but God was always with Him in the circumstances, and, therefore, He was uniformly calm before men. We are not to expect never to be exercised, or troubled, or cast down, as though we were without feeling. "They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." He thoroughly felt it all. The iron entered His soul. "Reproach," He says, "hath broken my heart." But there is this difference between Christ, in suffering and affliction, and ourselves; with Him there was never an instant elapsed between the trial and communion with God. This is not the case with us. We have first to find out that we are weak, and cannot help ourselves; then we turn, and look to God. Where was Paul when he said, "All men forsook me"? His confidence in God was not shaken; but, looking around him, by the time he got to the end of his ministry, his heart was broken because of the unfaithfulness. He saw the flood of evil coming in (2 Timothy 3:4) and the danger of Timothy’s being left alone, looking at the evil, and feeling his own weakness; and so (lest Timothy should get into a spirit of fear), he says, "Stir up the gift that is in thee,* . . . . for God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou, therefore, ashamed of the testimony of the Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God." If we have got the spirit of fear, this is not of God; for God has given us the spirit of power. He has met the whole power of the enemy in the weakness of men, in Christ, and Christ is now set down on the right hand of the majesty on high. *This passage connects the exercise of gift with the spiritual state. "God hath not given us the spirit of fear;" therefore do not be discouraged, though the state of things is so melancholy. Again, in Philippians, they were to be "in nothing terrified by their adversaries." "Be thou a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel, according to the power of God." What! a partaker of afflictions? Yes. Of deliverance from the sense of them? No - a partaker of afflictions that may be felt as a man, but "according to the power of God!" This is not in not feeling the pressure of sorrow and weakness. Paul had a "thorn in the flesh." (2 Corinthians 12:1-21); and did he not feel it, think you? Ay, he felt it daily; and as "a messenger of Satan to buffet him" withal. And what did he say? "Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities [in those things in which I am sensibly weak], that the power of Christ may rest upon me." The power of God coming in on our side does not lessen the feeling to us, but we "cast all our care upon him; for he careth for us." Not that at the very moment we refer it to God we shall get an answer. Daniel had to wait three full weeks for an answer from God; but from the first day that he set his heart to understand and to chasten himself before his God, his words were heard. (Daniel 10:1-21) With us the first thing often is to think about the thing, and begin to work in our own minds, before we go to God. There was none of this in Christ. "At that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father," etc. (Matthew 11:1-30) We weary ourselves in the greatness of our way. "Be careful for nothing." (Php 4:6.) That is easily said. But what? not be careful about the state of the church, or about the pressure of a family? etc. "Be careful for nothing." Whatever produces a care in us, produces God’s care for us; therefore "be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." So, "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds, through Jesus Christ:" not your hearts keep the peace of God; but the peace that God Himself is in, His peace, the unmoved stability of all God’s thoughts, keep your hearts. Further, when not careful, the mind set free, and the peace of God keeping the heart, God sets the soul thinking on happy things. "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest - just - pure - lovely - of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do; and the God of peace shall be with you." God is there the companion of the soul; not merely "the peace of God," but "the God of peace." When the soul is cast upon God, the Lord is with the soul in the trial, and the mind is kept perfectly calm. The Spirit of love, the Spirit of Christ, is there; if thinking of myself, this is the spirit of selfishness. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 10: VOL 01 - "TO HIM THAT OVERCOMETH" ======================================================================== "To Him That Overcometh" Revelation 2:1-29 The failure of man, of the church even, does not touch the source of divine grace - the goodness of God. From Adam downwards every thing placed in the hands of man has failed; but this very failure and evil of man has been made the opportunity by God of showing out more and richer grace. He judges the failure, and then presents an object of hope. When Adam sinned, "the seed of the woman" was promised. When the law was broken, and Israel failed, prophetic testimony came in, and all the promises of the Messiah. Promise is that on which faith can rest when every thing else fails. Times of declension and unfaithfulness in the body give occasion for brighter manifestations of grace in individuals, who, under such circumstances, are brought into the enjoyment of close and blessed communion with God. See Elijah, Moses, etc. Moses had to leave the camp (Exodus 33:1-23) because the golden calf was there, and to go outside; but in so doing he got into a place of greater nearness to God than he had ever known before: "And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." At the beginning of the gospel dispensation, the energy of the Holy Ghost was so plainly manifested in the church that man was nothing, God everything. This is, of course, true to faith all through the dispensation. But then, even before these epistles to the churches were given, things had become sadly changed. The Lord, in this and the following chapter, turns His eye to that which should have been "the place of righteousness," and behold, "iniquity is there;" therefore it is necessary that judgment begin at the house of God, as it is said, "The Lord shall judge his people." At first this is in the way of testimony against the evil; for the Lord ever warns before He executes judgment, and in judgment He remembers mercy. The Lord takes notice of every circumstance, every shade of difference in these churches, as also in individuals in them; thus showing that He is not indifferent as to the state of His people by the way, their daily steps, because He has secured blessing to them at the end. His love is not a careless love. We have all, more or less, lost sight of the judgment exercised by the Lord in "His own house;" and it is too frequently supposed that, because the salvation of the saint is a sure thing, God is indifferent about character here. But this is impossible to love. A child would be sure eventually to inherit his father’s property, but then, what parent would be satisfied (if he loved his child) with knowing that? Would he not anxiously train him up, watching every development of his mind and faculties, and ordering all things in his education so as best to fit him for his future destination? How much more is this the way of the Lord’s love with His children. This is for our comfort and blessing - there is wonderful comfort in seeing it to be the spring of all God’s dealings with us - but, at the same time, it is intended to act strongly on our conscience in the way of warning. We have to remember that the church, and indeed every individual saint, is set in the place of direct conflict with Satan, the more so because of the high standing and privilege given us in Christ. Now it may be in triumphant victory, as it is said, "The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." To effect the purpose of God’s glory coming in, as it will by and by when He shall establish His kingdom, we know that Satan must be really, fully dethroned; but in order, even now (ere that time comes), that we realize our blessings in heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3), it is needful he should be practically dethroned from the heart, through the power of the Holy Ghost. Although it is quite certain that he shall be bruised under our feet "shortly" (there is no doubt, of course, about the power of the Lord Jesus to do it), yet the certainty of Christ’s final victory with the church should not lessen our sense of the power of the enemy in the meantime. This is so great as to make constant watchfulness necessary; for without it we shall be giving him a direct handle against ourselves. The flesh, by which Satan works, is still present, and it needs to be "mortified." Perhaps we have been surprised at grievous falls in ourselves or others, but if we fail to watch against the flesh, it is not really at all surprising such should be the result. Habitual faithfulness in judging the flesh in little things is the secret of not falling. The promise at the close of each of these messages to the churches is addressed to "him that overcometh." As stated above, it has ever been in times of general failure that the promises of God have been most graciously brought out, and that His faithful ones have had increased communion, being thrown thereby more entirely upon Himself. If, through any measure of faithfulness, we find ourselves in trial and exercise of soul because of corporate, general declension, that is just the very time we should look for more intimate revelation of the grace of God and of His love to our hearts. And this, not only in giving us clear and firm apprehension of the promises of God, but also in a fuller knowledge of all that in Christ which is suited to be drawn upon by our need. He that is faithful may ever count on this. The principle is clearly seen in these epistles, both in the promises, and also in the different character in which the Lord Jesus. presents Himself according to the circumstances of each "church." It is very sad to see man (whether it be in Israel, the church, or any other place) failing; but still the faithful ones in the midst of failure find a fuller, deeper revelation of the grace of God, even through it, than when all is going on well. This is most blessed! From the message to "the church of Ephesus" (vv. 1-7) we see that there had already been failure there - failure in its "first love." And therefore, instead of being spoken to (as in Paul’s epistle to the same church) of the high and holy things connected with the church at large, or of being addressed as occupying the place of witness and testimony to others, the eye has to be turned inward to its own state; a clear proof how far it had declined. When a church or an individual Christian is walking in the light, and not grieving the Spirit, there can then be entrance into the privileges belonging to the whole church of God; but when the Spirit is grieved there can no longer be this revelation, each is shut up in its own particular state, and judged. The message is from Him "that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, and that walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks" (5: 1); the Lord taking the place of examination and judgment. The overcoming spoken of (5: 7), and indeed throughout the chapter, is not so much the overcoming of the world and that which was without, as of all the evil discovered to be within. There had been a leaving of the "first love;" and when there is diminution of this, in the smallest degree, the Lord says, "I have somewhat against thee." (5: 4.) He takes notice of the least failure. Whenever it has begun He speaks of excision, and inflicts it, too, unless there be repentance. We always find that, in judging, God goes back to the original sin. When Stephen charges the Jews (Acts 7:1-60), although they had crucified the Lord Jesus, that which he goes back to is their first sin, of making the golden calf And thus with an individual Christian. There is often failure when the first glow of zeal is gone off. At such a time, we have not only to see where the failure is manifested, but when it was we first went away from the Lord, and we, shall very generally find it to have been in getting out of communion, this leaving of the "first love." Well, this should not be - is not necessary; but even when it is the case, the grace of the Lord will still be found greater than all the evil that is discovered to be within. We see peculiarity of blessing. (5: 7.) It is to the eye and ear of faith that the Lord brings out the promise of "the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." He sees the church failing in fellowship with God, and therefore sets before it "the tree of life," and "the paradise of God." It is God’s paradise - blessed security! there can be no declension there. It was man’s paradise first, failure came in, and lest he should take of the fruit of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever, God drove out the man; but now the promise to "him that overcometh" is to eat of the tree of life freely, and in security, in "the paradise of God." Whilst we feed on the fruit of it, "the leaves of the tree" will be "for the healing of the nations." (Revelation 22:2.) When the church is in glory, it will not lose the character of grace. God gives us now to feed on the bread of life; our first delight must be in God; but then, secondarily, we have the joy of love in being made ministers of blessing unto others; well, so also in glory, our portion will be grace, but we shall be able likewise to minister in grace to others. In the case of "the church in Smyrna" (vv. 8-11), they had begun the downward course; but the Lord had come in most graciously, and arrested the decay by tribulation. I say most graciously; for one goes wonderfully quickly down hill unless a strong hand stop us. Well, they were in tribulation, poverty, and persecution, and how does the Lord reveal Himself? - as the One whom nothing can touch, not all the clouds and storms, the difficulties and trials affect (like the sun, bright before the storm and bright after it) - "the FIRST and the LAST." (5: 8.) ’Yes,’ it may be said, ’this is true of Him; but, then, the storm rolls over us, and threatens to overwhelm, we have no power against it.’ But He reveals Himself not only as "the FIRST and the LAST" - the One therefore on whom we may lean for eternal strength - but also as, "He which WAS DEAD, and IS ALIVE." He says, as it were, ’I have gone through it all; I have entered into the weakness of man, and. undergone all the power that could come against it, all the trials, even unto death; I have entered into everything, for I have died, and yet I am alive.’ There is nothing that the Lord has not gone through; death is the last effort of Satan’s power, it ends there, for the sinner as well as for the saint. The unconverted even are out of Satan’s power when they die: if they die in their sins, of course they come under the judgment of God, but Satan has no power in hell. He may have pre-eminence in misery, but no power there (his reigning is some poet’s dream; it is here he reigns, and that by means of the pride and vanity, the evil passions and idleness of men); he is "the ruler of the darkness of this world," not of the next. But, whatever may be the extent of power which he seeks now to exercise against the children of God, the Lord says, ’I have been under it all; I have been dead.’ Therefore it is impossible for us to be in any circumstance of difficulty or of trial through which Jesus has not been. He has met the power of Satan there; and yet He is alive. And now He "is alive for evermore," not only to sustain us while passing through the storm, but to feel for, to sympathize, as having experienced more than all the heaviness of the circumstances in which we are. He can pity with the utmost tenderness, for He came into the very centre of our misery. "I know thy works." (5: 9.) The Lord recognizes all that He can in us. We may say, ’Our works are not what we could desire them to be;’ well, it is very true, they are not, but then the Lord knows them. Though it is a right and useful thing for us to judge ourselves in order to detect the evil and correct it; yet it is very bad and unhealthy to be always occupied in considering whether our works will be approved of by God. The answer to all our thoughts and estimate about ourselves is - ’I know your works, your business is to know me.’ He presents Himself as our object, not our own works. There were all sorts of opposition to the faithful in this church, but what does the Lord say to them? - "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer." (5: 10.) It is the constant effort of Satan to produce in us fear and discouragement, when passing through trial; but the Lord says, "Fear none of those things." In like manner the Philippians are told to be "in nothing terrified by their adversaries;" again in Peter we read, "Be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled." Our wisdom is ever to rest confidently in Him who is "the FIRST and the LAST," who rises up in as great power at the end as at the beginning. The Lord does not say to this church, ’I will save you from suffering,’ for suffering was needful in order to prevent it from tumbling headlong into decay just as Israel was obliged, in consequence of its sin, to go a long way round the desert - and yet the Lord says, as it were, to some among them who were faithful, ’Don’t be the least uneasy;’ so here, His word is, ’Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer.’ In the beginning of the failure in "the churches," the promise to the "overcomer" in the midst of the decay was, that he should eat in security and peace of the "tree of life;" so again here, in a time of especial suffering and trial, there is held out as a stimulus (to the new man of course) a recompence of reward. If they lost every thing, they should gain every thing. The Lord’s own voice encourages "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death." He may be hurt of the first death, but not of the second - the only real exclusion from the presence of God. In the message to "the church in Pergamos." (vv. 12-17), the Lord is seen exercising a special form of judicial power, as "He which hath the sharp sword with two edges." (5: 12.) We read (Hebrews 4:1-16) "the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart;" and the Lord is here presented as having this thoroughly piercing power, which judges and discerns the secret workings of the heart and conscience. "I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is." (5: 13.) That is where the church now found itself, "where Satan’s throne is" (for he is "the prince" of this world). And the faithful may find themselves there too, if the church be there (Caleb and Joshua had to go the whole round of the wilderness with the rest, though not sharers in their unbelief); we have to separate ourselves from the evil around, though we may not be able to separate from the consequences of the evil. We may find ourselves to be in feebleness and weakness, as the faithful in this church did; but our comfort, like theirs, is that the Lord says, "I know thy works, and where thou dwellest." God in His grace takes full knowledge of all that concerns us; not only of our conduct, our ways and condition, but also of the circumstances in which we are, saying, as it were, ’I know that you are where Satan’s seat is,’ and this even when He may still have somewhat against us. There is great comfort in knowing this. We might be placed, by means over which we had no control, in a very trying position, but in one which it might not be at all the mind of the Lord that we should quit, where Christian conduct would be very difficult; as, for instance, a converted child in an ungodly, worldly family, where there is nothing of the Spirit of Christ. The Lord would not merely, in such a case, judge His child’s conduct, as to those things in which she might have failed. He would do that indeed, but He would also take the most thorough knowledge of, and notice the circumstances in which she was, yes, every little circumstance that rendered it trying. He just as well knew the power of Pharaoh, and the detail of his tyranny, as He did the crying and groans of the Israelites. "I know," He says, "that he will not let you go." There is indeed great comfort in thus seeing the Lord’s perfect knowledge as to where we dwell, because it may not be always His will to take us out of the place, nor yet to change the circumstances in which we are - He may choose to have us glorify him there, and learn through them what perhaps we could not learn elsewhere. We are too apt to think we must do great works in the Lord’s name, in order to glorify Him; there may not always be opportunity for this (there does not appear to have been opportunity for great works in service without to this church); He takes notice if we do but hold fast His name amidst circumstances which make even that measure of faithfulness difficult - "Thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith," etc. (5: 13.) The Lord gives His people all this encouragement, and yet says, "I have a few things against thee." (vv. 14, 15.) In the first place, they were slipping back into the world, some of them having already fallen into the habits of it, "eating and drinking with the drunken." And secondarily, they were beginning to allow of evil in the church, through pretence of liberty. He therefore warns: "Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against thee with the sword of my mouth." (5: 16.) Worldliness characterized the danger of this church, and it required "the sword with two edges" to cut between their evil and the circumstances in which they were; if this were not effected, it is "I will fight against thee with the sword of my mouth." But at the same time that He thus warns, there is plenty of encouragement given - promises suited to counteract their temptations. (5: 17.) Were they tempted "to eat of things sacrificed unto idols" with the world, the promise to "him that overcometh" is, "I will give him to eat of the hidden manna." If they had grace to separate themselves from the open evil, the encouragement was that there should be this feeding on "the hidden manna." Again, were they tempted to deny the name and faith of Christ; the promise given is "a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it;" that which would be especially blessed to the heart, whilst incurring, as must needs be, in separation, the disapprobation of so many. The "white stone" seems to mark the individual approbation of Christ; the "new name," peculiar intercourse between Christ and the individual, different from that which all shall share alike, different from the public joy. There is a public joy. All saints will together enjoy the comforts of Christ’s love, will enter into the "joy of their Lord," and with one heart and one voice sound His praise. There will also be joy in seeing the fruit of our labours; as it is said, "What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?" And again, there will be another joy in seeing the company of the redeemed, all according to Christ’s heart, in holiness and glory. But besides this public joy there will be Christ’s peculiar, private, individual recognition and approval - the "white stone," and the "new name, which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it." Our souls must value this personal approval of Christ, as well as think of the public approval. The latter will be great blessedness; but there is no peculiar affection in it, nothing that stamps peculiar love on the individual. Glory will be common to all; but glory is not affection. This "new name" is a different thing; It is the proof of Christ’s value for a person who has been faithful in difficult and trying circumstances; for one who has acted on the knowledge of His mind, and overcome through communion with Him. There is the public joy and approval in various ways, and the manifestation of our being loved by the Father as Jesus is loved. But this is not all that is given for our encouragement in individual conduct through trial, failure, and difficulty; there is also this special, private joy of love. When the common course of the church is not straight, not in the full energy of the Holy Ghost, though there may be a great deal of faithfulness, yet there is danger of disorder. We find that the Lord then applies Himself more to the walk of individual saints, and suits His promises to the peculiar state in which they are. This takes out of all fancied walking (the especial danger which belongs to such a state of things) - each according to his own will, chalking out a path for himself because of the unfaithfulness and disobedient walk of the professing body. What faith has to do in such circumstances, is to lay hold intelligently, soberly, and solemnly on the Lord’s mind, and to walk according to it, strengthened by the promises which He has attached to such a path as He can own. What a comfort it is, beloved friends I how full of encouragement to the feeblest saint, to have thus the guidance of the Lord, and the promise of His peculiar approbation - so peculiar, that it is known only to him who receives it - when the course of the church is such that one is thrown greatly on individual responsibility of conduct. But then, whilst it gives us strength for walk, it puts the soul in direct responsibility to the Lord, and breaks down human will. When the professing church has become mingled with the world, "eating and drinking with the drunken," those who seek to be most faithful must often have to walk alone, incurring the charge of folly and self-will (and that too even from their brethren), because they refuse to follow the beaten path. And indeed it is quite a real danger, a natural consequence, that when the common course is, broken up, individual will should work. The natural tendency, would ever be towards self-will. Our only safety is in having the soul brought under the sense of direct responsibility to God, though at the same time we may be obliged to act independently of all around. It should be joy to any one who loves the Lord Jesus, to think of having His individual, peculiar approbation and love, to find that He has approved of our conduct in such and such circumstances, though none know this but ourselves who receive the approval. But, beloved, are we really content to have an approval which Christ only knows? Let us try ourselves a little. Are we not too desirous of man’s commendation of our conduct? or at least that he should know and give us credit for the motives which actuate it? Are we content, so long as good is done, that nobody should know anything about us - even in the church to be thought nothing of - that Christ alone should give us the "white stone" of His approval, and the "new name which no man knoweth, save only he that receiveth it"? Are we content, I say, to seek anything else? Oh, think what the terrible evil and treachery of that heart must be, that is not satisfied with Christ’s special favour, but seeks honour (as we do) one of another instead! I ask you, beloved, which would be most precious to you, which would you prefer - the Lord’s public owning of you as a good and faithful servant, or the private, individual love of Christ resting upon you, the secret knowledge of His love and approval? He whose heart is specially attached to Christ will respond "the latter." Both will be ours if faithful, but we shall value this most, and there is nothing that will carry us so straight on our course as the anticipation of it. In the address to the following church, "the church in Thyatira" (vv. 18-19), it is more the external glory which is brought before us as the portion of "him that overcometh." (vv. 26-28.) It is a public testimony of His approval, and so far it must be precious to us; but after all, the great blessing and joy of the promise is, that it identifies us with Christ: "even as I have received of my Father." Poor, wretched, and feeble as we are now, the Lord will put us in the very same glory with Himself. We never shall have right thoughts about our privileges and blessings, until we see our union with the Lord Jesus in every thing. The way to judge of ourselves, is to look directly at Him. It is not only seeing that we have been cleansed by His blood from our sins, and thus have peace with God: the thing that gives the true character to our hopes, is living union (not a mystical union, though there is truth in this, for we have been crucified with Christ, etc.) with the Lord Jesus. We thus come in hope and practice into identity of circumstances with Him, Being united to Him, every thing that belongs to Him belongs to us, as it is said, "Heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." All our conduct should flow from this. Whatever glorifies the Lord Jesus, becomes us, we have to do with. This is the proper measure of our conduct, whatever does not savour of it, is wrong conduct in a Christian. We are united to One who is "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens," and we, therefore, are so too. Most sublime truth! Yet how simple and practical! When realized, it must tell in every way and detail of life. How could one made higher than the heavens be seeking earthly things? How could he, for instance, desire riches here? As another has said, "If an angel were to come down here, he would be just as willing to sweep the streets as to be a king; much more then one who has this personal, intimate consciousness of union with Christ." Nay, the more of a servant, the happier he will be. Love necessarily made Jesus a servant when here below. But in acting thus, we must remember there is much of difficulty. We have Satan always to resist us. We have to overcome him in a variety of circumstances and trials; not only to contend with, but to overcome; and this too with a flesh that, if not mortified, will always be ready to lend a hand to him. So that it is not all joy, although we are set in so blessed a place. This keeping the flesh mortified is the great thing, the secret of all strength in practical difficulties; and nothing will do it but living in communion and fellowship with the Lord. We must watch against its first strivings and desires, or before we are aware it will be giving a handle to the temptations of Satan. If we are holding fast (as the faithful ones in Pergamos were commended for doing) the name of Christ, we shall gain the victory over Satan; he will lose his power, and then all is joy, even suffering (for we shall suffer in consequence of our union with Christ, for his name sake); all will be joy. But if there is not the every-day common-place diligence to break the power of the every-day difficulties, and keep down the every-day evil, we shall have to contend with the flesh instead of Satan (with whom our conflict ought to be), while it will give him power to come in when we are not ready to meet him, we shall have to get the armour in order, at the time the fight should begin. I pray you take heed to what I say, beloved friends, for if we fail in this daily judging and keeping down the flesh, we lose the power of victory over Satan; in conflict he will gain the advantage over us, or at least we shall only stand our ground, instead of gaining ground on him, and triumphing in victory over him. If it be so, we are unfaithful to Christ; we owe it to Him to gain ground upon the world where Satan reigns, to stand in such a position as to be able to go forward and deliver individual souls from his power in every shape. There is not the looking to His grace, and the holding fast His name, if it is not so. I ask you, in the name of the Lord’s love to you, and because of the privileges that are yours, to judge yourselves, and see whether you are ready for the battle, or whether Satan would not find that in you, the flesh, so alive, which would serve as a handle he might use. But whilst thus judging yourselves remember that Jesus is ever in the presence of God for us, though to have overcome will add to our joy in the day of His appearing, and bring more glory to Him now. The Lord enable us so to walk in the Spirit, that we may discover and know more and more the grace and suitability which is in Him for our every necessity, and understand in our own souls the fitness and power of His promises. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11: VOL 01 - A CHRISTIAN - WHO AND WHAT IS HE, NOW AND HEREAFTER? ======================================================================== A Christian - Who and What Is He, Now and Hereafter? A question proposed as a subject for consideration at a Christian meeting. It is, rather a solemn thing to say what a Christian is, especially when we think of what it is that made him one. God is acting, so as to glorify Himself. It is a solemn thing to be a revelation of that of which Christ is worthy - of the result of Christ’s work, as it is said, "He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied." (Isaiah 53:11.) It does us good to think of this, because it makes us judge ourselves, to see how far we are really that. Not that we ever shall be the perfect display of it until we are "like Him" (1 John 3:2), until we see Him as He is, and are conformed unto His image in glory. Still, if we bear Christ’s name, we should seek to present a fitting result of His work in the world. That is what a Christian is. Hence it becomes a solemn thing to say what he is. Still, whilst it is a solemn question, it is a matter of grace. There is such a comfort in this thought. Whilst most solemn, it is always happy, because it is of grace - the free, full, and sovereign grace of God. This all helps us a little. With regard to the question itself, there is a great difference between what a Christian is "now," and what he will be "hereafter." Not as regards the spring of life, redemption, etc., but now, a Christian is the expression of the power of God in the midst of evil; hereafter, he will be the expression of the result of that power, which has put away the evil, when all the evil is put away. Take us at our best estate now, a Christian is the expression of the power of God in the midst of the prevalence of evil. A Christian will not be that exactly hereafter; he will then be the expression of the result of God’s power, in the highest sense, when the evil is put away. As to the foundation in Christ’s blood, and the power of His resurrection, and the love of God, this as much belongs to his state hereafter, as it is the basis of what he is now. God’s love in Christ will be the spring of my joy then, as it is now. One thing that gives such settledness of peace (as it regards his own soul’s peace) to the Christian is, that it does not depend upon what he is now, or will be then, but upon that which is common to both states. The ground of it is the same now that it will be in heaven. The thing displayed may differ; but the ground of confidence is the same now as hereafter. As to the source and spring of it, in the love of God, His love is as true, and as perfect, and as complete, and as much manifested towards me now, as it will be when I am in glory; He cannot in His divine love go beyond the gift of His Son. The life also that I have now is not another life to that I shall have then. No doubt the body hinders it. Its manifestation will be different; but the life is the same. And the ground of peace changes not. That upon which I rest for eternity is just as much now as it will be then - the blood of Christ. (Hebrews 9:1-28; Hebrews 10:1-39) Whatever our conflicts, our conflicts (properly speaking) spring from that ground being entirely settled. Whoever is in doubt as to that has not got to God, or, otherwise, has not understood the ground of his standing. Unsettlement of soul may arise from a man’s not having seen the gospel simply; but as to the ground of his standing, it is just as much accepted now as it will be then. There is not another Christ to die - no fresh blood to be shed. Nor is there another revelation to be made. There is not a love to spring up in the heart of God that has not been told out. There may be a fuller apprehension of that which has been accomplished, but there is nothing new, either to be accomplished or revealed. Whoever has not got upon that ground (has not had that question settled in his soul) has not got, as yet, upon simple Christian ground. God may be working in his soul; but I do not call having life the getting upon simple Christian ground. There may be life without the knowledge of what God is as for us (of the perfectness of His love towards us, and of what He has done for us in Christ). Life may make me anxious, and hope, and have desires after God, and long to be assured of His favour, and the like; but, when we speak of a "Christian," we speak of what a Christian is in Scripture, and Scripture always speaks of him - of a believer in any state - as to his standing. It is very necessary to see this. We must not confound the exercises of a Christian with the standing of a Christian. The ground of his standing is God’s work. In his exercises there comes in himself - his flesh, his ignorance, and many other things (alas!) may be working. But it is entirely to God’s thoughts, and not according to my thoughts, that my standing is to be judged of. Moreover, the exercises of my own soul are never the same as God’s judgment about them. When I am thinking of these it is my actual state that occupies me; but, were God to take notice of my actual state, He must condemn me. What He has regard to is the work of Christ for me, and my union with Him, not, in this respect, my actual state at all. It is always important to recollect that, because my own judgment of myself ought to be as to my actual state. Whatever his exercises, however these may vary, the Christian is, in one sense, just the same, because he is in God’s sight as Christ. Christ being the perfectly accepted man at God’s right hand, the Christian is looked at by God in the same position (Ephesians 2:6), sitting in heavenly places "in Christ." In that sense, there cannot be any difference; and the ground of our acceptance cannot ever be imperfect. I repeat, we must not confound the movements of life with the ground of our acceptance. We can never have that too simple and clear. It does not make one despise the first actings of life, its first movings and breathings, however feeble and imperfect. I do not despise my child because he is not a man. In the Ephesians (where what a Christian is is fully brought out) men are viewed as the "children of wrath" in their very nature (necessarily heirs of wrath, because God is what He is, and man is what he is). Every other distinction is lost sight of, because, in his character of a sinner, man is brought fully into the light of God. But having thus told us what man is, the apostle does not stop with man, he turns round and begins at the other end; he now tells us what God is, that He is "rich in mercy," and (as the effect of this) that He has set us in heavenly places ’in Christ.’ But when we come a little more to detail, I would recall the distinction that I made at first, that a Christian is now the expression of the power of divine life and the divine presence (divine life, I mean, aided by the power of God), in the midst of evil that he knows; but, hereafter, he will be the blessed expression of the result of God’s power when evil is put away. So with Christ (there was no evil, of course, in Him; yet, speaking abstractly, it was the same thing; in Him it was perfect) when here, He was what He was in the midst of evil. There cannot be any increase in it, in itself; but the manifestation of divine power in us is capable of an indefinite increase. Redemption, however, precedes everything else. (I do not mean by this that it precedes the counsels of God.) First, "Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." (Ephesians 5:25-27.) Redemption precedes the washing. Washing may go on, but it comes after redemption. He makes her His, before He sets about making her what He would have her to be. There may not be a clear thought as to it; but the thing is done nevertheless. Redemption being accomplished, the Lord sets about producing in us the effects and fruits of His grace in conformity to Himself. The first effect of life in the midst of evil is not merely to see certain things, but to have the conscience exercised about certain things. The moment life begins to work, we get the consciousness of evil inside, as well as of evil outside; that is, it gives the judgment of evil in ourselves. Not that the instant Christ is presented to the soul in grace, the soul sees the evil plainly; it may see the grace and blessing, knowing evil in a general way, without being exercised about it through any definite application of what Christ is to the man within; there may be rather the loveliness of Christ attracting, than any deep work in the conscience. I can quite understand that. But then, before we get into a properly Christian state (the process may he longer or shorter), the necessary effect of life working is to give us the judgment of what man is, in the main bearing of his present condition, as looked at by the Holy Ghost. It brings in the consciousness of what we are in the presence of what Christ is. Then we get the man brought down into the distinct consciousness that it is all over with him. And it is all over with him. I mean by this, not merely that he has sinned and there is condemnation, but that he has no right, or title, or claim, to anything, now that he has, either to the promises of God, or to anything else. Now that is the place the soul has to be brought to (so hard to come to), to find out what it is in God’s presence. He may hope to get out of the scrape, if he thinks he has any right to the promises, because these may help him; but it is no use talking of God’s promises, when God is talking of what I am and of judgment. If I am thinking about what I may be some time or other, promises have their place, they come in most beautifully; but if it is what I am, promises do not touch that. The Syrophenician woman (Matthew 15:1-39) will serve as an illustration. No promise could meet her condition; for, as a Gentile, she had not any claim to the promises. The Lord says, "I am not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." If you come to me as an Israelite, I may do something for you; otherwise, "it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto dogs." But, when she replies, "Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table," she in effect says, God is rich in mercy; and Christ cannot say He is not, that there is nothing in God for a poor sinner. I do not believe that a person gets upon right Christian ground (one has to make allowance for ignorance, but there is no true, no solid ground, as to simple and abiding peace), until the soul has been brought to the consciousness that it has no claim whatever, or title, to promise. Having been brought down to this by what goes on within, there may be attraction, but the first full effect is, that the man is judged, he sees what he is, and becomes entirely hopeless as to what he is, and is turned over entirely to the thought of what God is. We have only to say, "What hath God wrought!" I am now upon new ground, viz., upon that of what God is towards a sinner who is perfectly vile. If the sinner is perfectly vile, God is perfectly good. And I come to see what He has done, because He is so. It isa not that He has taken him out of the world; "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world," etc. He will do that by and by. The first thing in this new life (inasmuch as it is all in Christ) is, that He is raised from the dead. We have to look at what God has done in Christ. I find Christ dead because of sins (our sins), and then I find the quickening, life-giving power of God coming in and raising Him from the dead. I should separate this entirely from the heavenly standing of the saints. We have all been too much accustomed to confound these two things (resurrection life and heavenly standing). What I see as the effect of resurrection-life is this, a man quickened and raised in Christ becomes a pilgrim down here. This is not the whole of a Christian. But it is the power of divine life in the new creature moving in a world that does not belong to him, and to which he does not belong. The Christian begotten by the resurrection of Christ, is a distinct thing to consider, from a Christian sitting in the heavenly places in Christ. Though the same individual is both, they are distinct things to consider. In 1 Peter 1:3-5 we read: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath (not "blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ," as in the Ephesians; but) begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." I find here persons begotten unto a lively hope; and what is their hope? Are they sitting in heaven? No; they are hoping for it. Therefore, the apostle says (1 Peter 2:11), "Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul." It is the Christian on his pilgrimage that is contemplated. He is a stranger here. He has an inheritance in heaven; when he is in his, inheritance, he will be no stranger; but he is not there, he is going towards heaven. He is a resurrection man on earth, walking through the world with new affections and feelings, going on towards his inheritance, but he is not there; an Israelite in the wilderness, redeemed from Egypt, and a stranger; but not in Canaan. And there comes in the trial of faith. The apostle goes on to say, "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." Where do I find the Christian in Ephesians? Not going a journey at all; he is sitting down, and where? "In heavenly places in Christ Jesus." That is what I am doing now; I am sitting in heaven, settled there. And, Christ being Heir of "all things," the inheritance is not heaven. The inheritance of Ephesians is different from that in Peter; it is all that Christ possesses (and, therefore, earth comes in). The inheritance of "all things" is the heavenly man’s hope; but heaven is his home, his position. In Peter, heaven is his hope; he is going towards heaven as his home, and towards his inheritance which is in heaven. There I get a very different condition. Both these things are true of the same person - both are true of the Christian. It is good to have the trial of faith (it supposes faith to be there), it is good to sit down with Christ where no trial is, and it is good to come down into trial. But these are different conditions. The place of Christ on the mount, when with Moses and Elias (Luke 9:1-62), was different, in the midst of the excellent glory, to that in which He stood when He came down from the mount and had to meet the crowd, and then cast out the devil. My true position, as a heavenly man, is to sit in heavenly places in Christ; but, on the other hand, as begotten to a new hope by the resurrection of Christ, it is simply going through the world, but it is through the world that I am going. Here I am, a new creature, quickened and raised up with Christ; and what a world I am in! So with regard to Christ’s coming; if walking on earth, I am waiting for Christ; the hope of the coming of Christ is His appearing to set things right here; but, if sitting in heaven, I am there in Christ, and wait to be there with Christ actually, and there enjoy Christ fully. The Lord’s coming is not spoken of in the Ephesians; the saints are viewed as sitting in heaven. I get these two elements of a Christian’s position; and, in one sense, I do not call one more important than the other. I may look at the Christian at the spring-head of peace, in full enjoyment of heavenly places, and in settled peace with God, and fighting for Him in conflict with Satan. But I cannot have him fighting for God in Canaan, till I get him into Canaan; I may have him in Egypt under the enemy’s power, but that is not conflict with him. It needs redemption by God. But this places him in the wilderness, a second element of his Christian life. A person acting under the consciousness, and in terror, of Satan’s power, fearing he may be lost if left there, is sometimes more in earnest than when he has got peace; but I do not trust this energy. He has not learned what the flesh is, though he may have learned what Satan’s tyranny is. It is when he has to say to God that he will find out what the flesh is. A man will always go fast enough, if he finds Satan behind him. The Israelites travelled faster when Pharaoh was at their back, than they did afterwards in their stages in the wilderness. There was no murmuring because of the way when Pharaoh was behind them; but then it was afterwards, in the wilderness, that they were put to the test. Then came the question, Is Christ sufficient, or is the manna "light food"? If a man is not spiritual, he must get something to satisfy his craving. All this is put to the test; not put to the test when a man is flying from Pharaoh, but when he is walking with God. And there comes in the mediation of Christ. In this wilderness state, I get Christ between me and God - "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;" but this is not union with Christ; I am looked at in myself; we get individualized. A man may be floundering about, through not having his eye simply fixed on Christ, not knowing how to get to the end; but he finds a thread let down from heaven to bring him to the place exactly where he ought to be, while he is only thinking of the mud, or judging himself for not having valued Christ enough. There are a thousand thoughts and feelings and affections brought out, and into play, as the result of our having resurrection-life. We get the constant loving care and tenderness of Christ brought home to the soul; and there is a necessary character of intercourse with Christ which heaven itself will not give. This is one part of a Christian. He is a pilgrim and a stranger in the power of resurrection-life, with the mediation of Christ carried on not to procure for him life, but to maintain his intercourse and communion with God in the light on the footing of what Christ is there. On the footing of that, himself imperfect, he is maintained in intercourse with a perfect God. Everything that the heart of man can be exercised about is met by the fulness of God, through the mediation of Him who is both God and man. The other thing is this (where there is no question or trial at all), the Christian sitting in heavenly places. And there, let me say, it is not yet the Church (though, in touching on it, we touch the Church’s position). As resurrection-life did not take a man into heaven, so taking him into heaven does not in itself put him into the Church. That is, it may be viewed as an individual thing. When I get into heaven, I am getting wonderfully close to the truth of the union of the Church with Christ; still, I may look at myself, a single individual in heaven, without at all taking in the unity of the body which is the Church.* I can speak of the "children of God," and of "joint-heirs," without bringing in the idea of the body. I take the Christian sitting in heavenly places. As an individual Christian, I have done with conflicts when I get there; it is no longer the journey in exercise of heart. I shall still have conflicts with Satan, but these are for God. I may have, too, daily to judge my flesh in these conflicts; but judging the flesh is not conflict for God; it is a different thing to have conflict for God, and to be judging the flesh as hindering. When in heaven, I am in the result of God’s work. *The difficulty of separating these two things in the mind is this: the moment I talk about "sitting in heavenly places," I must bring in Christ, because it is "in Christ" that I am there; and thus also the whole church is sitting in heavenly places in Him. In the book of Joshua, before a single conflict, there was a table spread, and they had done with the manna. God had spread a table for them in the presence of their enemies. (Joshua 5:1-15) When they got across the Jordan, they, sat down, and ate the "old corn of the land." The manna (the provision for the wilderness) had ceased, and they were eating the "old corn of the land" (they had Christ, looked at as the natural growth of heaven). It is not for my wants that I have Christ in heaven, I have no wants there, I have Him there to enjoy Him - to sit down at God’s table and feed with everlasting delight upon what God delights in. It is the "old corn of the land" that I sit down to there. And mark the difference as regards the passover. They did not eat it with the blood upon the door-posts, as in Egypt; they were there enjoying the results of redemption in the consciousness of the quiet security of the land. The aspect of the blood in Egypt was that of keeping God away as a Judge. They were sitting down, too, in the plains of Jericho, in the presence of that great city, the type of all the power of the enemy, and there they ate the "old corn of the land" (Jericho’s land, in a certain sense), before one bit of conflict began. So with the Christian. And here comes in the connection between our sitting in heavenly places and our passage through the world. I should be manifesting distinctly what is heavenly here, and thus be practically a heavenly man in the midst of worldly men. I should be a heavenly man, as one that is there, and at home there, showing out what I have learned and enjoyed there. Christ was, while walking and acting on earth, "the Son of man which is in heaven." He manifested towards the world the blessedness of the spirit, and tone, and character of heaven. He could not be Messiah for the Jews, without being the Son of God for men. If a Christian man is not walking in the Spirit, if the flesh is not subdued, he cannot display to the world the temper, and spirit, and character of heaven; he is manifesting something else. But the conflicts of the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12) are not merely conflicts in the subduing of our flesh; they are conflicts carried on in realizing, and laying hold of, the things in Canaan that belong to ourselves and others. If Joshua and the Israelites took cities in Canaan, it was because they were in Canaan. Our enemies are there, and there it is we should meet them. There are things in which we have to be faithful on earth; but there are also things that belong to us because we are sitting together in heavenly places in Christ. A man may be consistent in the one, without displaying the heavenly man. You may see some tolerably consistent on earth, whose souls are not seeking to realize what is theirs in Christ. Satan’s effort is ever to hinder our doing that. We cannot carry into the heavenly conflict the flesh. If my flesh is not mortified, I cannot wield the weapons of that warfare. The flesh always brings in Satan’s power; he has got a title against it; and God can never act with the flesh, or display His power for us against our enemies, where it is allowed. If we were walking as born of God, and as having on the whole armour of God, the flesh being habitually mortified, he could have no effect; we should be able to go on in the simplicity of our own service, and he could not come in with his wiles, as in the case of Achan (Joshua 7:1-26), and of the Gibeonites. (Joshua 9:1-27) The moment we get upon heavenly ground - as soon as Joshua is in Canaan, I see the Lord’s sword drawn, and the question is, "Are you for us, or for our adversaries" So with us, there is the drawn sword. The moment we get into heavenly places, the Canaanites are against us. The Church of God should be seeking to realize by faith, whilst down here, all that belongs to it as sitting there in Christ. As soon as Joshua crossed the Jordan, it was Canaan, but Canaan and conflict. All this has the character of the power of God brought in where evil is. As Christians we have to be pilgrims, in consistency with our condition in the wilderness. The Lord may give us palm trees and wells of water (Exodus 15:27), the ark may go before us to search out a resting-place (Numbers 10:33); but if we are not prepared to go with the cloud whenever it moves, we are not pilgrims and strangers, and we in heart go back to Egypt. But the heavenly man, besides his being a man with resurrection-life and the pilgrim of faith, is to be the manifestation down here in the world of that which is heavenly. It may be in the power of hope, but the thing which he presents is that which is his now. He shows plainly and distinctly that he is in Canaan, and acts upon the ground of being there. If the land was not as yet cleared of its inhabitants, whose abominations defiled it, still Joshua knew what was suited to it; and therefore, when he had taken the kings and hanged them, he did not leave them there after the sun went down. (Joshua 10:1-43) He could not allow God’s land to be defiled. As to what the Christian is "hereafter." It may be said, he is a risen man still, a heavenly man still. Hereafter, as an individual, he will be the perfect result of the power of God, not in the midst of evil, but of the power of God that has put aside the evil. "There shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads." (Revelation 22:3-4.) It is not another man, but the same man, in the perfect enjoyment of blessedness in the midst of good. There are many points of view in which who and what is a Christian, now and hereafter, might be taken up. The question is far from being exhausted. One branch of the subject, not touched upon as yet, divides itself into two parts - heirship and reigning with Christ. He is an heir, as well as a child, an "heir of God" and a "joint-heir with Christ." (Romans 8:17.) Again, he will reign with Christ; and it may be of use to see what the corresponding part in our life here is, to that of reigning. The inheritance is connected with our being children: "If children, then heirs," etc. (the moment I get a person in the position of a child, I get an heir). The reigning part we find connected with suffering: "If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him." Both these things are, no doubt, spoken of the Christian; still this is the principle, "If we suffer with him," etc. Again, there is another character which this statement suggests to the mind, and that is his priestly character. I but refer to this now. We are kings and priests unto God. In taking up this, it would be interesting for us to see the present intercessional character of priesthood; for, in reigning, by and bye, it will be as a royal priesthood, rather than intercessional. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 12: VOL 01 - ALL IN CHRIST, AND CHRIST ALL ======================================================================== All In Christ, and Christ All - A word on spoilings and beguilings. Colossians 2:1-23. The Lord can bring good to His people out of any evil. These Christians at Colosse were in danger of not "holding the Head;" that is, of slipping away from the consciousness of being in Christ, through getting beguiled into subjection to ordinances. To meet this, the apostle urges them back, showing them how the believer has everything in Christ, and not anything out of Christ. In result, we get much precious teaching as to the fulness of the Head for the body, as well as solemn warning against a practical separation from our standing of union with the Head, through the allowance of religiousness in the flesh. Everything is based on union with Christ risen and glorified. But then, if here, as in the epistle to the Ephesians, we get this great truth as a basis, the Colossians are addressed on somewhat lower ground than the Ephesians, who were standing fast in the faith of it, and could profit by teaching which unfolded to them the whole extent of the Church’s privileges, inasmuch as they have to be got up to the point from which the Christian’s thoughts and feelings should ever flow - his standing and privileges in Christ. The epistle to each is perfect in its place.* The stedfastness of the one and the failure of the other have both been made to subserve the blessing of the church in all ages. *A great part of New Testament Scripture had, as the occasion for its being written, mischief done by Satan in the church. The epistles to the Corinthians and Galatians are examples of this. Man gets humbled in it, but God overrules it for greater blessing. The moment we look to ordinances, as it regards position before God, we are slipping away from Christ; something is brought in between us and the Head. God’s thought of completeness is Christ; if, therefore, I have the thought of not having already all perfection, everything I need, in Him, I am leaving Christ. "Ye are" (it is not said ye shall be) "complete in him." (5: 10.) If there is anything for me to obtain, there comes in at once some means of obtaining it. If the body is united to the Head, or (which, in respect of the individual, is the same thing) if I am one* with Christ, I have in Him all I need. I may have to be taught about it, and to seek grace to manifest it; but the moment I think I have to obtain what is in Christ, a subtle form of self-righteousness is at work - I must do something. No matter what shape this may assume, prayer, or works, or anything else, I am not "holding the Head." One in possession of an estate may have to see about that estate, but were he to say, I must get possession of it, he would be all wrong. *This is not merely true of the church, in an abstract manner (the religion of the flesh can be orthodox), faith is an individual thing, and places him who possesses it in the enjoyment - or personally under the effects - of its object. Christ is revealed to the humble soul. Intellectual attainment is not in question here, it is no matter of great learning or of philosophy. "Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" The "things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." The most transcendent mind could never discover the ways of God; we get effort, but never success in attaining to that which the simplest Christian knows (things "hidden from the wise and prudent," but "revealed unto babes") - the painful efforts of man in arriving at darkness. "What is truth?" asked Pilate, and crucified Christ. Christ is the Truth, and the humble, simple soul of a poor sinner taught of God has it perfectly; he may not have realized it, but he has it all there, "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Righteousness too; He is the righteous One, and we are made "the righteousness of God in him." Life, "in Him is life," and He is "our life." As to all that is divine and eternal, there is not anything out of Christ. At the commencement of the chapter, the apostle speaks of the great conflict he had had on behalf of these saints, that their "hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God,. and of the Father, and of Christ," etc. (5: 2-10.) God is about to gather together all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:8-10), and the church is associated with Him who is this centre "And this I say," he continues, "lest any man should beguile you with enticing words (pretending to bring you a mass of wisdom and knowledge in all manner of things that are not Christ). For though I am absent in the body, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ." (vv. 4, 5.) ’It is all well to have Christ for Christianity,’ he may come and say (alas! how often is this said!), ’but is there to be nothing else besides Christ?’ No, not anything. We cannot deal with the plants of this earth, without dealing with that which belongs to Christ; and if we deal with them without Christ, we sin. We are exiled from paradise, and have forfeited everything. Forgetfulness of all that had taken place, thorough blinding of heart and hardening of conscience marked the way of Cain, till at last, when driven out from the presence of the Lord, he sought to make that world, into which God had sent him forth a fugitive and a vagabond, (the very name of the place in which he dwelt, "the land of Nod," means "the land of a vagabond") as agreeable an abode as practicable apart from God. And all that man is now doing, to inherit the earth without Christ, he is doing according to Cain, settling himself down as a poor sinner, in a world like this. The Christian acknowledges that he has forfeited everything; he cannot talk about "my rights," in using anything for himself, he would be using it as a poor guilty rebel. He trusts in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; he eats his meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God; whatever he does, in word or in deed, he does all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks unto God and the Father by Him. To him there is not anything outside Christ, all belongs to Christ, and it is as a Christian that he enjoys it. Let us not suppose that this "mystery of God" is some great knowledge. Where the heart has so owned itself a sinner and everything to be in Christ, it has owned Christ as centre of all; it has received Him for forgiveness, and it has all in Him. "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord," he continues, "so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." (vv. 6, 7.) Everything I get, I get from God’s love. "Beware lest any man spoil you - despoil or cheat you of your blessing - through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." The tradition of men is never faith - truth or error, it is never faith; it is natural, and belongs to man. Faith is the reception of a divine testimony by the soul, so that God Himself is believed; and further, it is founded on His testimony alone. Man may be the instrument of leading me into truth (a sign-post shows me my way), but I cannot believe man (1:e. I cannot believe because man says it); I believe God. We have believed Satan when we were enjoying God’s blessings; now God calls upon us to believe Himself. Herein is the real return of the soul to God. If I believe because "the Church" has put its authority or its sanction on that which I believe, I am just simply saying that I do not believe God. The Bible is the word of God; God has given a testimony carrying His authority with it, which testimony I am bound to believe, otherwise I despise God’s testimony. To believe because man says it, or because "the Church" says it, is to make God a liar; for when I had only what God said, I did not believe. It is well to look this distinctly and definitely in the face. There are two things: 1st, that which I believe - the fulness, riches, and perfection of Christ; and 2ndly, the ground on which I believe it. Now as to the latter, if a person were to tell me something, in order really to believe that person’s testimony I must receive what he said because he said it. If I cannot believe God, why is it? My eyes are holden; I cannot believe when God speaks; He has not failed in giving the testimony. The only rightness in regard of this is, to believe what God says because He says it; in other words, to believe God. To tell a person, "I will believe what you say when I get it sanctioned by another," is not to trust him. To require "the Church’s" testimony to accredit God’s word is to disbelieve - to dishonour God. In doing this I am, as it respects moral position, infidel in regard of God. But more: Christ is a heavenly Christ - He is not of this world; He was from heaven, and He has gone back to heaven. Hence all that is "after the rudiments of the world," beautifully suited though it be to human nature, and calculated to make man pious,* is not "after Christ." That which has not been in heaven can only tell about heaven at second-hand; all that is not simply Christ’s revelation of Himself does not belong to heaven. He says, "No man has ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." Who else could? And therefore no matter what man tells me, or what man has said about heaven, be it what the ancients have said or what "the Church" has said, I cannot believe it. That which is "after the rudiments of the, world" is exactly opposed to heaven. The moment we get what is suited to the flesh, or makes a fair show in the flesh, it belongs to the world; it is not "after Christ." *The religion of the flesh is altogether as evil as its lusts; for after all it is but one of them, though covered up with the veil of works and of holiness. It can be occupied much in good works, be without reproach as to conduct, have much of self-denial, much of piety, plenty of humility, be much occupied with the love of God but while pretending perhaps to found it upon His love (which is infinite), it will be that love which is in the heart - our love to Him, One may ask, But if all these things can exist in a person and be nothing but the flesh, how can we discern the true circumcision? IT REJOICES IN CHRIST JESUS. Nothing is easier than to judge these things, IF CHRIST IS OUR ALL. The fact that He is so makes us feel without hesitancy that all this is flesh, and yields its help to that which destroys Christianity from its foundations. The flesh is very pious when it acts the pious, for it always rejoices in ITSELF. "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." (5: 9.) There is here something exceedingly blessed, it is not a Pilate’s "What is truth?" nor yet a seeking of the Lord, if haply we might feel after Him and find Him (Paul’s expression in regard of the heathen), but (as John speaks; "that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life" (1 John 1:1), that which is brought home to the senses of men. In place of working up the feelings to seek after something, God has come down to us, poor wretched creatures that we are. But God is there. He has come down to us in our sins and miseries bodily. I do not get a heap of stories, patched up nobody knows how, to act on my senses, and work on my imagination; it is the God who saves me. But He will be always God. There is not a trouble, there is not a distress, there is not a feeling in the heart of man, that is not met in Christ (and, after all, we do want something to fill the heart, we are men, and we want what man wants), not as a doctrine merely, but bodily. We find in Him that which is to be found nowhere else. Let it be the most loving person possible, he has not loved me and died for me. But then I get, not simply the love of a gracious person, there is in Him "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." All flights of the imagination are checked, for I meet it in the Holy One, though I meet it in all my wants. "And ye are complete in Him." (5: 10.) Not only have I all I want, but I am all I need to be, in Him. I must appear before God, I have to say to God, as a responsible being - looked at as to what I am in myself, I am lost; in Christ, I am complete, as complete as Christ is, for I am complete in Him. There are these two sides, if God is manifested to us, we must also be manifested before God. Blessed be God! I have not anything to seek out of Christ, as to completeness. And mark: it is not merely what there is, but what we have in Christ. Our hearts are so deceitful and treacherous, they do like to get in a little bit of their own. But, let it be humility, or what else it may, there is no room found here for anything of self. In us, that is, in our flesh, dwelleth no good thing. There is neither righteousness, nor holiness, nor humility out of Christ. The Jews were looking to a variety of forms; we have all in Christ. A person talks to me about getting absolution from a priest, I do not want it, I had it years ago in Christ. Another says, ’You will receive the Holy Ghost in this or in that particular way,’ I have received the Holy Ghost already. So, in regard of what the apostle speaks of here ("In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision of Christ made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ." 5: 11), we have done with sin, we are dead to it, in Christ.* He goes on to show how: "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him, through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." (5: 12.) We have done with the flesh, in Christ; it is not an effort to have done with it, we are dead. he does not say, ’Die to the flesh’ (neither does Scripture anywhere speak thus), nor yet ’Die to sin.’ Such an expression is in itself a clear proof that he who uses it does not know the gospel simply. But we do find it said, "Mortify your members which are upon the earth," etc. (Colossians 3:5.) This supposes us to be dead, and to have our life hid with Christ in God. Elsewhere the apostle says, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20.) All that Christ is and all that Christ has done* is mine in Him; has He been put to death, so have I; is He risen again, so am I; therefore I am able to "mortify," etc. We cannot mix these two things (in our minds we often do, and hence confusion);** Christ’s having died unto sin for me, is my power for being dead practically to sin. To make this still clearer, if need be, see the argument of Romans 6:1-23 "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?.... in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body," etc. The moment the eye rests on Him, faith says, ’I am dead to sin.’ *It is all ascribed by God to me, as though it had happened to myself. **The true mortification of the flesh is accomplished through grace, in the consciousness of grace. Without this, there is only the effort of a soul under law, and in that case, a bad conscience and no strength. This is what sincere monks attempted, but their efforts were not made in the power of grace, of Christ, and His strength. If there was sincerity, there was also the deepest spiritual misery. And mark how this is brought in. The faith is not in my being risen, but in Christ’s having been raised. This distinction is far from unimportant. Many a sincere soul is continually turning in upon itself to know if it be risen; but this is not "the faith of the operation of God." Peter says, "You, who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith, and hope might be in God." (1 Peter 1:21.) So Paul, "to whom it shall be imputed; if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead." My soul, knowing that all that is flesh is condemned, that there is no good thing in it, has given up seeking good from it; God has found plenty of evil, and I have done so too (He may have allowed me to struggle on in the hopeless endeavour to better it); but I look out of myself, and I see that God has raised Christ from the dead. "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." (Romans 8:3.) My confidence is in this, that God has raised Christ from the dead, when He was there for me. But then, if this sets aside everything that I am in myself before God, it sets it aside for acceptance also. Am I saying, ’There is no good at all in my flesh, it must die, I cannot mend it;’ it is dead, the whole old thing gone, I am in heaven in Him, who has been raised from the dead, and now I have to "mortify," etc. "And you, who were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses." (5: 13.) Here comes in another blessed truth. Instead of its being a question as to the flesh getting better, not only is it condemned already, but we have been quickened together with Christ. This is no mere doctrine; Christ is our life. I am in this new man before God. And what has become of all my sins? They are gone. They were put away on the cross, "He bore our sins in His own body on the tree," when He rose again. they were all gone. What can give me such a sense of the heinousness, the hatefulness of my sins, as seeing Christ bearing them! But they are gone. "Blotting out the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross." (5: 14.) He is not setting men to obtain righteousness through that which quickens sin and works condemnation. Am I saying, ’I have not done this,’ or ’I have not done that,’ where there is the obligation of some act and it is not fulfilled, there is condemnation. In taking up the Lord’s Supper - that sweet, and blessed, and holy memorial* of Christ’s death, the joy of my heart, so as to put it between myself and Christ, I am not "holding the Head." Christ has taken ordinances out of the way; it is the flesh that does them; let it be a penance, it is the flesh that does it; the same thing that put away sin, put away ordinances; the man who had the sin and was to do the ordinances is dead, because Christ has died. I am alive in Christ, who is alive again from the dead; He is my life. I do not need to obtain a standing before God through any ordinance. Had I to perform the smallest act, as that through which I needed to get completeness before God, it would be a denial of the perfectness of the Lord Jesus Christ. *The Passover was the memorial of the deliverance out of Egypt for Israel. The Supper is the memorial not only of our deliverance, but of the love of Him who has delivered us. But more: those "principalities and powers," with whom we have to contend (Ephesians 6:12), have been "spoiled," He has "made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it." (5: 15.) Does Satan come and accuse me; it is all true, but my sins are gone, God has said He will remember them no more. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Why flee? Because of having already met Christ. Is it temptation through the agreeable things of the world, or the sorrows and trials of life, or the power of death? he has been "spoiled," his power is gone for faith. (Hebrews 2:14.) Death, to the believer, is but a departing to be with Christ; all that it could be from Satan, or from the wrath of God, Christ has gone through for him; but He has gone through it, and He is now with God. Dead and risen with Christ, yet here in a dying body, if I put it off, "absent from the body," I shall be "present with the Lord." And now, having shown us how we have everything in Christ, and not anything out of Him - completeness in the presence of God, and perfect deliverance from all that we are in ourselves, as also from all that is, or could be used, against us, as in ourselves, he goes on to say: "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." (vv. 16, 17.) What perfect liberty! we need to see that we use it holily, but it is a perfect liberty. A "holy-day" (it is well to call it so, as indicative of its meaning) was one God had made to be esteemed above another; this and other things, the meats, and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances of Judaism, had their time and use; "the body is of Christ." In Him we have that which they were designed to typify. If I take them up now, I take up the shadow and not the substance; it is a mere shadow, but, in setting it up again, I make it substantive, and deny Christ. This may be done through ignorance, still it ought to be treated as a thorough infirmity, the soul has not the knowledge of what it is in Christ; whilst ignorance has to be borne with, the saint is beguiled of his reward. "Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the Head." (5: 18.) I may talk much about "saints and angels in heaven," their glories, and the like, and call this humility; but it is not so, it is in reality the very opposite, a being puffed up in my fleshly mind. Whilst thus intruding into things I have not seen, I am losing knowledge needed by all saints. The weakest believer is as much one with Christ as an apostle, and as complete in Him. It might seem more humble to say, ’I am this, that, or the other thing;’ but can we do without Christ? Do you reply, ’I have not arrived at such a position’? then you are expecting to attain it - that is presumption. - It is because we are lost, poor, and blind, and miserable, and naked, and have nothing in ourselves, we have this all in Christ. The moment he has brought them there, left nothing between them and Christ, ’Now,’ he says (5: 19), ’there is that which flows down from the Head, that which has to be manifested in the members.’ We have not a single grace, or thought of grace, until we are complete; we must be united to the Head. People are looking to that to make them complete which they cannot have until they are in that position. Whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we have to do it all to the glory of God; let it be but the purchasing of some article of dress, I should do it for Christ, to please Him. This is our one rule, to do all for Christ; and both as to inward graces and outward manners, the more I realize what Christ is for me, the better shall I know what is pleasing to Him; here spirituality comes in. It is not man increasing in order to get to God, it is "increasing with the increase of God" - all flows down from Christ’s fulness. In Christ I am not "living in the world;" I am "dead with Him to the rudiments of the world." (5: 20-23.) If really dead to the flesh, I cannot be looking to ordinances to get the flesh bettered. But the tendency of our hearts is ever to this; and God has met that tendency. If the flesh must be laboured to see if any good could be got out of it, He has taken it up, and proved that after all had been done for it that could be done there was no good in it; God could get no good from it. Still here is our danger; religiousness in the flesh is that against which there is this special warning. And with all its specious appearance, what does the apostle call it? "Will worship." It may have a great character for humility, but it is the most positive and terrible pride before God; it does not look like this; it looks like mortifying the flesh and putting it down. The only thing that will deliver from it is, the knowledge of our completeness, and a walking in the power of a dead and risen Christ. *The tendency of bodily austerities, as shown by the apostle here, instead of being really to subdue and mortify the flesh, is to satisfy and exalt it. We are thus taught a most important truth - the difference between the BODY and the FLESH. The very neglecting and afflicting of the former, and not yielding it any honour or respect, may contribute to the inflation of the latter. The BODY may be sanctified to God, may be nourished and used for God, may glorify God; the FLESH never. The body may be the servant of the spirit; the flesh never, for it is ESSENTIALLY opposed to God. (Romans 8:7-8.) Here there is rest for the heart (there will be conflict still; we have not in that sense rest yet); my eye turned from myself, I rest in Christ; there I can delight, and there God delights; I have a common feeling with God. All that I see in Christ is mine; all that perfection that my soul delights in is my perfection before God. There are these two truths: all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ, and we are complete in Him. My need is met. God has come down to me in Christ. Am I troubled about my sins - where shall I find any so gracious to me as Christ? I can tell to Him what I dare not to another. Brethren may be kind and sympathizing, but I can tell out my heart to Christ as to no one else. Well, it is to God, and He does not reproach me. All the infinitude of love is brought down to display itself in kindness to a poor sinner; I meet it by my wants, my sorrows, my failures, my sins. The poor woman of the city had not a mouth to tell it out; she was weeping at His feet about her sins; but she had found One who could so meet her in them as to give confidence to her heart, whilst conscience was awakened in the very deepest way. I never add to that fulness; all the majesty of God is there. On the other hand conscience is awakened; God is a holy God, and how shall I appear before Him. The same Christ who is God towards man, is man before God for us. He has come down to meet me in my sins, and He has gone up to be my righteousness before God. If we desire to manifest Him - the life of Christ in daily walk and conduct - it must flow out from Him; and for this, the flesh has to be mortified, and Satan resisted. "We are not our own, we are bought with a price; let us therefore glorify God with our bodies, and spirits, which are his." In doing anything for myself, I am a dishonest person; He bought me when I was the slave of Satan. Reader, is your soul honouring God by resting thus in the completeness of Christ? or are you seeking to honour self in ekeing out a righteousness, it matters not how - by doings or by feelings? A child ought to have right feelings for its parent; but if that child is making a merit of its feelings, it is destroying the whole thing. Looking for feelings to make out righteousness through (while feelings are right), is just as bad as looking to works. The Lord give us so to know that we are complete in Christ, that we may have blessed and happy liberty, loving and serving Him in love, because He has given us all we need, has loved us, saved us, and made us complete. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 13: VOL 01 - CARNAL CONFIDENCE, AND THE CONFIDENCE OF FAITH ======================================================================== Carnal Confidence, and the Confidence of Faith Numbers 17:1-13; Numbers 18:1-32 "Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish. Whosoever cometh any thing near unto the tabernacle of the Lord shall die: shall we be consumed with dying?" When the children of Israel cried thus unto Moses, the feeling they expressed was not exactly dread of an unknown God, that which the sinner has naturally on his conscience when first awakened, but a dread resulting from haughtiness of spirit, the flesh having intruded itself into the presence of God. And this is what is constantly found where there has been a high bearing before God. The consequence of God showing Himself to one in this state of soul is to cast him down into despair. The fear of the natural conscience when first awakened, on the other hand, though painful, most painful, is still salutary. Where there has been a going on altogether without God, I do not call that a high bearing before God, though it is so in another sense. We all know how many people go on carelessly day after day, and year after year, without troubling themselves about God; seeking joy and pleasure in the world, sunk in listlessness, oppressed with cares, or engrossed with business a thousand things fill and occupy the natural heart, to the exclusion of God. Sometimes it does cross the conscience that there is a God; but so far from His being the object of their life, He is not their object at all; "God is not in all their thoughts." There may be these secret misgivings (God often works thus in the hearts of those whom He afterwards calls to Himself, although not producing fruit through it at the time), and when the soul is converted the remembrance of such appeals aids in bringing to a consciousness of the total and entire perverseness of the will of man. Where there is open and notorious sin, it is an easier thing to reach the conscience; just as the Lord said to the Pharisees, the religious people of the day, "The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you." Often, in the course of a comparatively blameless life, there have been these calls, and God, in the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, has been despised. When conviction of sin comes, when the Spirit of God sets a man, in conscience, in God’s presence, he finds out both what he has been doing and what he is. He finds out that he has been treasuring up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. And more than this. He finds out also that his natural condition is a condition of sin and rebellion against God, and that he cannot remedy it. Now, whilst this state of soul is ever painful (and it often drives a man nearly to despair), it is salutary, a blessed thing. Wherever there is a clear sense of our position, there is the desire to go to God, though with the consciousness of having no title to be there. Just as with the poor prodigal: "I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." So also with Peter, at the feet of Jesus: "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" There is this consciousness of unworthiness before God because of having recognized His holiness, and that He ought to be holy; but there is also the desire to go to Him, a seeming inconsistency, but that which is really of the Spirit of God. It is very natural, where the Spirit works, to desire to go to God, because we feel He is needed by us, although conscience says we are unfit to be there. The heart is turned to God. It sees His holiness, sees that He ought to be holy, and so takes God’s part against itself. There is no desire that He should be less holy, that it might, so to speak, slip into heaven; and therefore it justifies God, instead of seeking to condemn Him that it may justify itself, that which many a poor sinner does, that which Adam did when he said, "The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." Instead of justifying self, there is the justifying God and condemning self. Thus the heart is set right. It has not yet, it is true, learned redemption - what God has done for it in Christ; it is occupied with its state before God as a present thing. But that is salutary. There is not the peace that God does give, and will give; still the heart is set right. In grace God had raised up priesthood to meet the need of His people. But there was assumption on the part of these Israelites, that because they were His people they could take a place before Him otherwise than on His ground. They had abused the privileges conferred upon them, murmured against God, made the golden calf, said it was better to go back to Egypt, despised the promises; there had been a long course of failure and rebellion, and at last it rises up to what is called the "gainsaying of Core." Whilst in this fleshly state, they assume that they can draw nigh to God. "And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord?" (See Numbers 16:1-50) Here is haughtiness in the presence of God. And this is very apt to creep into our hearts - a taking up in the flesh the privileges of the children of God. It may not be manifested in the gross aspect of this scene; but is there not often the feeling of being able to come near to God because it is our privilege to do so? Now it is clearly our privilege - the privilege of all saints; but it is a sad thing if as a consequence of that nearness, when the soul has got out of His presence, it goes on haughtily and carelessly, still talking about its nearness. We find another instance of haughtiness in the presence of God in the case of Cain. (Genesis 4:1-26) When God said to Cain, "Where is Abel thy brother?" he replied, "I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?" answering God flippantly. But the moment God showed Himself as God, saying, "The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth," in came despair. Wherever there is haughtiness of heart before God, and God shows Himself, there is despair; the language of the heart is, "Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish." We get here a great principle. Even in the man who is a Christian, there is no realized ground of confidence, and the heart sinks down in despair. A Christian has always the ground of being perfectly happy before God, because he is perfectly saved. This is the right state of a Christian - that of confidence, not in the flesh (carnal confidence), but confidence and joy before God. A state of want of confidence and of uncertainty as regards himself, is a state in which the Christian may be found; he may pass through it, and that even because of a certain work produced on the soul by the Holy Ghost, but it is not his proper state. What the Holy Ghost gives is certainty. Wherever there is uncertainty, it results from the working of our own hearts, even though in connection with (and in a sense grounded upon) what is really the work of the Spirit. I may believe that God is holy, and, seeing sin in myself, may begin to reason on my own worthiness, as to whether I can or cannot come to God; whether I can have any thing to say to God. There may be the desire to go to Him, but then I do not know whether He will accept me. This is not faith; and yet it is constantly the state of soul in which Christians are found. It is not properly a Christian state - it is reasoning upon things known by faith, things found out through faith, but it is not faith. We find in the word of God, that the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin - that by the blood of the cross He has made peace - that our sins and iniquities are remembered no more - and, if faith is in exercise, we are happy, we get peace. Faith is the simple-hearted reception of what God has said. Unbelief is not a Christian state. It is, alas! that into which the Christian may fall, but it is not a Christian state. Uncertainty cannot therefore be recognized as a proper position of the soul, admitting that it may pass through it, and, indeed, that it generally does. But then, Christian certainty is certainty in, and not out of, God’s presence. Inasmuch as it is certainty founded on faith in what He has said, it is always certainty in His presence. Faith is at rest there. All else that comforts, strengthens, gives us liberty in what we do in the world, is based on what we are in the presence of God. And because we know this, we can say that we are justified from all things, that it is impossible God can impute sin to us. The blood is before His eye, and not our sins. But there is quite another state of soul to this, a confidence out of God’s presence. The soul may think and reason about the ground of Christian confidence, and Christian privilege, just as did these Israelites that they were owned of God. Theirs was a carnal confidence. It was just the taking up of general principles of truth as to God’s dealings with His people, and then going on in fleshly assumption. This brought them to murmur and rebel. They came up with confidence that the Lord was with them; but the Lord gave directions respecting Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and interfered in judgment upon their ungodliness. And then we read: "But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses, and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the Lord." (5: 41.) Now what is the remedy of the Lord for this? He sets up priesthood as the only ground on which He can go on with them. He says, as it were, ’I must have clear and plain evidence what my power is, in order to make cease from me the murmurings of the children of Israel; but then, if I give this evidence of my power, it must be in grace; to deal with them on any other ground than that of grace, would be for destruction.’ And such must always be the case. If the Lord were simply to come by the power of His actual presence, it would bring confusion into the soul. Sometimes we see this on a death-bed for a little moment. In what the Lord thus does in bringing the soul into His presence, He puts it under a shade of the power of that which Christ went through - just a shade of it. The truth is, that in the way in which many believers are occupied in daily life, they little realize the presence of God. It is not that they have not peace, but that they never fully estimate what the flesh is before God. One learns this from intercourse with Christians, and specially with those who have been long Christians. They know very little what it is to find themselves face to face with God. They may have been awakened under convictions of sin (perhaps terrible convictions), and have got peace to their souls; but since that there may have been the going on comfortably with certain things without a realizing of the presence of God, so that if it were to come on them, they too would be "consumed" with terror. It is well for us to remember that certainty as to salvation is the proper, the normal state of a Christian. I repeat that here just to show that what I am now saying is not meant to deny it at all; but still I say that if God were to meet such persons, real Christians though they were, in the present power of what He is as God, it would produce trouble and distress. This ought not so to be. It is quite clear that, if it is the case, we are not really living in His presence, and that is the place where we are privileged to be. There is a constant tendency in our hearts, when out of it, to be taken up with certain things that are grounded upon what is truly our relationship to God, and to carry on these things without realizing His presence. Now, if confidence goes along with this, it is a most hardening thing. Confidence, I repeat, ought always to be the portion of the believer, the confidence of faith. God does not withdraw that, but we may lose it. Whilst there is a going on with confidence, and we are not walking in the presence of God, the conscience not being sincere, there exists that which is mining the very foundation. We may go on in joy, but if that joy is not joy in the presence of God, there will be a break-down sometime. Now that is what I mean by "carnal confidence" - not the confidence of an unconverted person, there is that, but I do not mean it; I mean the confidence of one whose peace and hopes are rightly based, but maintained without walking in the presence of God. It is a right peace, right hopes, a thing rightly founded, that which is really his own (the proper condition of a Christian is always to have it), but still it assumes a carnal character in the heart when it is carried on without God, that is, when it is not continued in by walking in His presence. The consequence is, that the moment the Lord appears, no matter in what way, let it even be in grace, His presence comes to be terrible. These people had not realized the power of it in God’s presence, and therefore they broke down in despair, and said, "Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish." Now I do not say that it will come to this point in our hearts, but (the same thing in principle) it will be for discouragement, for loss of confidence, and for distrust of God. Suppose you, a real Christian, had been, going on in carelessness, and carrying this carnal confidence along with it, and one were to speak to you even of the intercession of Jesus; if there was a sense of God’s presence, through this, to your soul, it would not he a cheering and strengthening, but rather a discouraging thing, and the soul would break down. Our place with the Lord is to walk with joy, but it is joy in the Lord. Enoch "walked with God." Can you say you are walking with God? I do not ask if you are doing that which is openly wrong, but would the presence of God alarm and distress you? Our confidence, if we have any, is a fleshly thing, when that is the case. Do not rest in such a condition; it is not what God has called us to. He is all grace, grace to us according to our need; but it is with Him, and in His presence, that we find and enjoy His grace. Moses sang (Exodus 15:13), "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation." And that is what He has done for us. He has brought us home to Himself. And what then? He has put His Spirit into our hearts, that it maybe our home. You know what it is to be "at home," we act so differently there - no other place is like it. We are "at home" when the Spirit is working in our hearts, giving the joy of our portion in the presence of God. We may have to go forth into the world to labour, to exercise ourselves, and to be engaged in a thousand different ways; but when we get back again, how great the change! We only go out, to comeback. There we are "at home." How comforting, how establishing the thought! It is a terrible thing to be saying, instead of this, "Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish. Whosoever cometh any thing near unto the tabernacle of the Lord shall die" - when God’s presence, in the place of being the home of our hearts, is terror and distress. I have no doubt that you will find hundreds of Christians who, instead of feeling away from home, when they have got out of God’s presence, are at ease. But it is, I repeat, a terrible thing, not merely because it is a wrong thing, but because of God’s grace. We are called to be "at home" with God. The Lord Jesus Christ, when about to go back to heaven, said to Mary, "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God." We ought to be as much "at home" in spirit there as He. Was it not with joy, with confidence, that Jesus said He was going to the presence of His Father? He came forth from God’s presence, to act in love in the midst of this ruined world, and He went back when He had finished the work that had been given Him to do. And was it not, in a certain sense, with the feeling of going home? But He says, "Unto my Father and your Father; to my God and your God." What a blessed thought! That is the Church’s place; we are called to be "at home" with our God and our Father - to the blessedness of His house. No matter what the world may be, we should be there at home - happy home! - as truly there, in spirit, and as happy there, as Christ. If that is what is given us in Christ (and God gives nothing less), do our souls realize it? We may be measuring fitness, but God cannot measure fitness. If He receive at all, it is for Christ’s sake; our title is based on what Christ has done. We may be going through many an experience; but God does not rest on our experience. Nay, He has not to do, in that sense, with our experience at all. If He receives us, it is for Christ’s sake, it is as Christ, it is all Christ. It can be nothing less, and nothing short of that. Having adverted to this, let us now turn to God’s answer. After all the murmurings of the people, after the rebellion and gainsaying of Korah, this is the manner in which the Lord takes away the murmurings by priesthood in grace. ’I must conduct them (He says) by Aaron’s rod (not by the rod of Moses) to Canaan. This people have not only been found in bondage in Egypt, but in rebellion and sin in the wilderness, and therefore the only way in which I can deal with them is by priesthood.’ There is no possible hope of leading us up into the heavenly Canaan except we are put under the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore it is said that Christ is a "Son over His own house." It is "His house;" that is the first thing. How does He then deal with it? Suppose we find a house that is not ours to be a bad, dirty house, we may bear with it - not so if it is our own house. The way that Christ deals with that which is His house (it is His interest, so to speak, to do so) is to have it clean. We are put under the priesthood of Christ; this is God’s arrangement for the purpose of dealing with us in the "house." "If any man sin" (a Christian man - What then? He is guilty, and gets condemned? No such thing. That would be the reasoning of the heart where there had been "carnal confidence;" it would get alarmed and uneasy, and say, "We die, we perish;" but what is the truth?) "we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." The sin sets Christ to work; that is the effect of it, not to leave it there, of that we are quite sure, but on the same principle, that if we find uncleanness in our house it would not make us reject the house but get rid of the uncleanness, so Christ is occupied in love in removing the sin. It is the priesthood of Christ that leads us up into the heavenly city. But the next thing to be noticed is, we are priests in God’s house; and the thing, therefore, which we have to bear, is the iniquity of the house. "And the Lord said unto Aaron, Thou and thy sons and thy father’s house with thee shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary: and thou and thy sons with thee shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood." This is true of all the church. We are God’s sanctuary - "the house of God." (1 Timothy 3:15.) So of the individual saint, "What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" (1 Corinthians 6:19.) It was not allowed to have anything defiled in the camp, much less in the "sanctuary." We are brought now to dwell in the sanctuary of God - to minister in the priesthood of God. This involves responsibility. Thus have we to judge about sin; and not as though we were under law. This is where God has brought us - the position in which we stand towards God, and what we have to bear. It is no matter of attainment or of maturity in Christ; you may have been converted yesterday, or you may be a "father in Christ," and therefore able to understand it better, but that does not affect the question; there might have been a young priest or an old priest in the sanctuary, but the young priest would have to bear the iniquity of the sanctuary and of the priesthood, as much as the old one, as much as Aaron himself. God, in the riches of His grace, has made us His "sanctuary;" our bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost; we are priests in His house; and iniquity must therefore be judged of accordingly. If the sense of this does not produce joy in our hearts, we cannot be on our right ground. If we do not know what it is to be in the sanctuary of God, we do not know what it is to be a Christian. I do not say we are not Christians, but we do not fully know what Christian privileges are. If we do not know what it is to be priests unto God, we have never yet got into our proper place before God. There is another remark. Suppose we have, through grace, the consciousness of being priests; I ask, is there not, as a necessary consequence of this (not the feeling, "Behold, we die, we perish," but that which takes the place of it), holy confidence - confidence before God! He says, I will not deal with those who come into my house as a judge, as though they were under law - it is "you and your sons," etc. If God has people in His house, He will have them there as priests. If we are saying, "Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish. Whosoever cometh any thing near unto the tabernacle of the Lord shall die," we have got back under law. We are listening to the reasoning of our own hearts, and that is not faith. The moment we begin to reason thus, we are under law; faith is not in exercise, and, therefore, we must be under law. This, "Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish. Whosoever cometh any thing near unto the tabernacle of the Lord shall die" - is all law. Now, what is the Lord’s word, or rather what is the silence of His word about it? It does not know such a man as the one who is saying this; his doing so is just a proof that he is not a "priest" at all; he does not know what righteousness is, in coming into the presence of God; he does not know what grace is; he will neither come into the house, nor perish - he is not in a condition to do either. If the Spirit of God is working in the heart, He produces a sense of dread in bringing out of that condition: but if we then distrust God, we shall never get into His presence on that ground. There is no answer to us, except that we are in a wrong and untrue condition altogether. God may bring us out of it, but He does not own us in it. Let us remember that it was carnal confidence that had produced, as we have seen, the feeling here; and it may be that the same thing is working in our hearts. Where there is "carnal confidence," it takes from under the consciousness of grace, and puts us, for the time, under the power of law. To conclude - We are brought, through wondrous grace, into the sanctuary of God, we are made priests unto God; and that is the way in which we are to judge of good and evil. We always judge of good or evil, according to the condition in which a man is; we do not expect our servants, to be sons; neither our sons, to be servants. And if we are merely judging of good and of evil according to natural conscience, we are not going on Christian ground at all. This is the question we have to ask ourselves - What is it that becomes a man who is God’s temple? - what is it that becomes a man who is God’s priest? Do we shrink from being set in this responsibility? If we cannot say that we like to be there; that we have such an interest in God’s glory, that we desire it; if we are speaking about our weakness, we have not the confidence of grace, we are saying in a little degree, "Behold, we die, we perish." It is the same thing in principle; I speak not of the extent of it. Why is it that we are thus afraid? Just because our hearts are not strong in the full and simple confidence of grace - present grace: as it is said, "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand." Though Christ has died and put away our sin, yet we have not full confidence in God’s grace, we think He is not all grace; that is what is meant by the "present grace." God loves us with the most perfect love; He cannot deal with us on any other ground; He loves us at this moment, just as much as when He gave Christ to die for our sins. He is love, and nothing else, to us. He is not double-hearted. What we are standing in, is grace. When the soul is confident of that, ’Oh, now (it says), let me have this holiness, let me enjoy this holiness of the sanctuary!’ If it is all grace, it does not say "we die, we perish," - how can we die, where all is grace! What we want is the full, blessed, clear apprehension that we stand in grace. Our hearts will then have joy and courage. That which will enable us to act aright is not what we have called "carnal confidence," the going on in the commonplace joy of certain truth, but the certainty and joy of God’s presence. Do we know God’s presence as the practical home of our hearts? Oh what joy is there in this! Of one thing be sure, coming to Him in the name of Jesus, you will find it to be the sure, blessed, secure home of your hearts. For ever blessed be His name. He has said, "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 14: VOL 01 - CHRIST AND THE CHURCH ======================================================================== Christ and the Church There is a depth, a fulness contained in the words "All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s." A depth and fulness into the understanding of which, our souls enter, as yet, at best, but scantily. It is our privilege to be daily learners through the teaching of the Holy Spirit now. It is the word of our God, that yet but "a little while" and we shall know even as we are known. I would desire very briefly to touch upon some of the more prominent personal types presented to us in Old Testament narrative of the church and her glories through union with Jesus. The Lord give us, in thus meditating together, blessedly to have the joy of that word in the secret of our own souls, "I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine." At the very commencement of the book of God we get presented the purpose of His love in the gift of the church to Jesus - "It is not good for man to be alone." Blessed word; blessed because of letting us into the deep secret of the ground, and showing us the eternal security of our own everlasting joy and glory. Our thoughts are raised out of and above ourselves, and we have to confess to the freeness of God’s love, the sovereignty of His grace. "It is not good for the man to be alone." Adam was set as God’s vicegerent, lord over the creation, which, coming forth perfect from His hand, He had pronounced "very good." For a little moment there was that here which could afford a rest for God; He rested in the works of His hands. Sin had not entered, the power of death and of the curse were as yet unknown; all bespoke the excellency of His wisdom; all showed forth His handiwork. "The morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy." All was in subjection, God’s principle of blessing. "The cattle, the fowl of the air, and the beasts of the field," as brought before him by God, received their names from Adam. "Whatsoever he called the living creature, that was the name thereof." Adam as yet in happy intercourse with God, obedient. How fair the picture! One thing was wanting, "No helpmeet was found for Adam;" none with whom to share this place of blessedness. "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an helpmeet for him." He who saw the need Himself supplied it; but how, beloved? "The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." That little moment passed, how sad the contrast! Temptation comes, and sin. The rest of God is broken, and gone the scene of creature blessedness. It has often been remarked that man, placed in responsibility of blessing, has ever failed in his trust; yet that this failure has only served to bring out the reserve of grace - fresh and higher blessing from God, and the glory of the one unfailing man - "the man Christ Jesus." The ruin of the first creation was laid in the "offence," the "disobedience" of the "first man," of him under whom it had been placed. All that was so fair and "very good," now "subjected to vanity," fell in him; creation "groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now;" the power of the curse is there" cursed is the ground for thy sake; and "death hath passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." There is failure, utter ruin, stamped upon all that stands in the headship of the first Adam, "the type of him who was to come;" but all the deep failure of the "earthly" man, and the "abounding" sin of his race, has but given scope for the display of the super-abounding grace of God through that "One" of whom he was the "type," the "second man," "the Lord from heaven." He who "from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was," was daily the delight of the Father, rejoicing always before Him - the eternal Son, "by whom all things were created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible," and "for whom all things were made," as born of a woman, the appointed heir of all things - the "Son of man," "the second man," He too hath had an "helpmeet" provided for Him of God. The one unfailing man who, in the future manifested glory of the new creation (see Psalms 8:1-9 in connection with Hebrews 2:6-9), shall hold "dominion" for God, in blessing, over "all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas," when God shall again take delight in the works of His hands, and the "name of the LORD" be "excellent in all the earth," will not be "alone," but will share His glory and His joy with her who was taken from His side when in the deep sleep which the LORD GOD, in wondrous grace, causes to fall upon Him. For Christ Jesus, by the "grace of God," has "tasted death." It was, "Thou hast brought me into the dust of death." Assuredly our souls here trace the shadowing out of that which the love of the Father, in the gift of the Church, to Jesus, had appointed to be done, and say "salvation is of the LORD!" Paul, when referring to it in writing to the Ephesians, says, "This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church." But, oh, beloved, how blessed is the contrast between the type and the antitype, the unconscious sleep of Adam and the voluntary act of Jesus. Obedience, for He was the obedient One, led Him to say, "I come to do thy will, O God!" but more than this, He "loved the Church, and gave himself for it." Yet a little while, and in the midst of the Paradise of God He shall say, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature old things are passed away; all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us unto himself by Christ Jesus." Whilst still in the midst of the old and groaning creation, they "who have the first-fruits of the Spirit," and therefore "groan within themselves," may take all the joy of that word, "We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones," "they two are one flesh," and by faith forestall the time when they shall be "glorified together with him." How blessed thus to know the power of redemption in the midst of all that is unredeemed; to stand in the conscious result of "the one man’s obedience," righteous, holy, and without blemish; the curse removed by His having been "made a curse for us;" death giving place to the reign of life; confidence and joy in God restored; we not simply brought back into the standing of creature blessedness which Adam lost, but made partakers of the divine nature, one with the sanctifier! What wondrous grace! "By grace ye are saved," "the grace of God, and the gift by grace." In Genesis 24:1-67 we see the servant sent by Abraham to take a wife for Isaac, the Lord "prospering his way," and Rebekah made willing to forsake her country, her kindred, and her father’s house, in order that she may be led to Isaac, and share his place of love and exaltation. Here again I believe we get a little picture of the Church, the bride of the true Isaac, the "son" and "seed" of Abraham; and that much to the comfort of our own souls. It is to her, as the "appointed" one of the Lord, that the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to glorify Jesus, to speak of Him, unfolds His message of love, telling of His exaltation; that "unto him," the Father "hath given all that he hath," taking and revealing of the things of Jesus. Thus is she made willing to leave all dear to her by nature, all to which her heart would fondly cling; and traverse the weary journey as the sharer of the glory of, which, through His testimony, she has heard. Such, beloved, is our portion. May we, as the chosen, the appointed for Isaac, that Isaac who was not merely "received from death in a figure," but the "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore," the risen, the exalted One, through the teaching of the Spirit, know more of "the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in al." May we "set our affections on things above, and not on things on the earth," and thus become practically dead to all which the flesh loves and clings to. Soon will the wilderness be crossed, and we safely brought home to Him "whom having not seen, we love; in whom, though now we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Again: in "the daughter of Pharaoh, whom Solomon took to wife," we have presented to us a type of her who shall share with Jesus the glory of the throne of David, when that glory is taken up in blessing by Him who is at the same time David’s "Son" and David’s "Lord." "Black" she may be in her own eyes, yet oh how "comely" in his! "Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair." "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it." How has love here been tested! how has it stood the test! Surely it has passed through the deep waters of death; the billows and the waves have gone over it; for Christ has "loved the Church, and given himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." And He says, "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee." So too, though I would not attempt the interpretation of the type in detail, yet, in principle at least, we read her history in that of Ruth. The wondering inquiry, "Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?" is met by "The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust," from Him who aptly performed the kinsman’s part. The field where she first became acquainted with and marvelled at His grace, is made her own - "Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife." The world "is yours," "and ye are Christ’s." The "kinsman" has redeemed the one who was a "stranger." And is not the language of our hearts the same - "Why have I found grace in thine eyes?" These are but few of the foreshadowings of the church in personal narrative, and briefly glanced at; many others are left unnoticed:* each presents some peculiar feature, and is, I believe, intended to teach us distinct truth respecting her on whom the heart’s love of Jesus has been set. Many and varied are the glories of Jesus pointed out to us in the prophetic Scriptures, but in the enjoyment and in the display of each and all of them will she participate. Has He yet to be manifested as the Son of man, the second Adam, the head of that new and blessed creation into which the taint of defilement, failure, and the curse, can never come. She, as we have seen, shall be there also, the "helpmeet" prepared for Him of God. *As the wives taken by Joseph and Moses during the period of their rejection by their brethren according to the flesh. Is He, as the Son of Abraham, the true Isaac, to cause gladness, and be the centre of unfailing blessing, according to that word, "In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," when the son of the bond-woman shall have been cast out, and God been owned as the quickener of the dead, she who has had, through grace, the ear to hear the tale of love, as the called and appointed one of God, shall be then brought home. And thus with every other glory. But how, beloved, is it that we can look forward with holy confidence to these things, and, with the fullest consciousness of what our own condition is, joy in them as ours? Because Jesus has "loved the church, and given himself for it;" because He has "sanctified it by his own blood." Whatever the brightness of the glory, whatever the as yet unthought of depth of joy, the one song amidst it all shall be; "Worthy is the Lamb!" "the Lamb that was slain," "Thou hast redeemed us unto God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and nation, and people, and tongue." Yes; whatever be the character of the glory, this gives us, the secret of all her blessedness - she is the "Bride of the Lamb." Such, beloved, is our title, our alone title, and such our hope. The Lord give us to know more of its practical power! May we have our hearts’ affections centred in Him who has thus loved us, and be found more as ’a chaste virgin espoused unto Christ." As we have noticed, the purpose of God: in the election of the church, and her gift unto Jesus, is presented at the commencement of the Book; the concluding page unfolds her glory, with this blessed assurance of her Lord, "Behold, I come quickly." "Yet, but a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. May our hearts be gladdened by the thought, and respond in longing anticipation, "Even so, come; Lord Jesus; come quickly!" Jesus who entered heaven for us, Will soon again descend: Priest, prophet, king, our Lord and God, Our bridegroom and our friend. Then let us rise and trim our lamps, And as they brightly burn Be seen as those who longingly Await their Lord’s return. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 15: VOL 01 - DEAD AND RISEN WITH CHRIST ======================================================================== Dead and Risen with Christ Colossians 3:1-25 If you examine the writings of Paul with a little care, you will find this principle at the root of all his teaching - that we are dead and risen with Christ. It is not only that He has died and risen for us, but that we are dead and risen with Him. He adds another thing, and that is our union with Him, now that He is ascended. "We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." These two principles are found here: our being dead and risen with Him, and our union with Him now that He is on high. When he speaks of union, there is so far a difference that he looks at us as dead to begin with, and the whole power of Christ comes in to raise us. When he looks at people as living in sin, he brings in the doctrine of being dead to sin. On the other hand, if we are looked at as dead in sins, with no spiritual life, then the whole work is of God in raising us out of that state; so in Ephesians he unfolds the privileges of the child of God, from death to union with Christ. Here he lays, as the foundation of his teaching, our being dead and risen with Christ. Thus he associates us with Christ in every respect; first by death, then by resurrection, and lastly, "when Christ, who is our life; shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory." The difference in the two epistles lies specially in this. To the Colossians he speaks of life, or the new nature, we have in Christ; whereas in the Ephesians we have much more of the Holy Ghost, by whom we are made one with Christ, "members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." Here it is death and resurrection and association with Christ. Indeed this is his doctrine. everywhere. "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him." "And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses." His constant theme is that, as believers, our entire association is with Christ. Now I repeat that, blessed as the full privileges are into which we thus come, the great doctrine, which lies at the foundation and root of all this, is the being dead and risen with Him. The true condition of every believer, that which from the very starting-point this doctrine teaches, is the utter judgment of the old man - the sentence of death passed upon it, and condemnation altogether. There is no recognition of the flesh as to allowance or acceptance of it. But when I have found out that the old man is simply this evil thing, then I discover that it is a question of putting it off and of putting on something else. It is not a correction of the old nature, but the having done with it, and having something else instead of it: I put off the one, and I put on the other. It is a figure, of course, but the figure of what is most real to faith. On the one hand, I have done with my Adam-life; and on the other, the nature that I get or put on by grace is the Christ-life. But how can I put off a life? I can put off an opinion or a bad habit; but how can I put off a life? The only way of putting off a life is by dying. But here I am alive. How, then, can it be true of me that I have put off the old man? This is the great truth that the apostle brings before us. After having received Christ for my life (the second man He is called, the last Adam, the life-giving Spirit), after having received life from Christ, He Himself being in me, God has appropriated to me all the value and power of that in which Christ is, and which is in Him. Here it is more particularly as regards life; but He has been crucified for us, not merely as putting away sins, but "in that he died, he died unto sin once. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." There is this great basis of truth upon which all the apostle’s teaching is founded: that Christ comes, presents Himself to man as in the flesh, and man will not have Him. Man could not have to say to God as a living man in the flesh. But Christ dies for him; and those who receive Him into their hearts now live by Him. "As many of us as were baptized unto Christ Jesus, were baptized unto his death." Such is the way he answers in Romans 6:1-23, where the charge is made, "Let us continue in sin that grace may abound." If it be said, "Christ by his death and resurrection has made me righteous before God, and so I may live in sin," there is this doctrine in reply. The obedience of Christ is obedience unto death; and if you are dead with Christ, a dead man does not live. He strikes at the root of the matter, and says, You have got this justification of life by Christ’s death and resurrection, and you are denying the very thing that justifies you. It is death to sin and life to God; and therefore you who plead for sin are upsetting the great truth upon which your salvation is founded. If you have died with Christ to all that is in this world, you cannot be living in it. "How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" It is a sweeping conclusion to every cavil. If I take death, as I do in baptism unto Christ, I take it to all that which I was living in - to sin, flesh, the world, yea, to the law itself. The law has power over a man as long as he lives. Put a man in prison for stealing; and if he dies, it is all over with him. The prisoner is no longer there to be dealt with. The law has not lost its power; but it cannot touch a dead man. And if I say as a believer, I am dead with Christ, my life is over in that sense. It is the same thing as to sin. Obedience becomes obedience to God. Death closes necessarily the connection of the living man with all the things to which the old man had to say. I am crucified with Christ, I am dead with Christ, and I am risen with Him. On the other hand, there is the positive side: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God." I have received Him who has risen as my life. Nothing can be more important in its place than a distinct and definite apprehension of this; not only Christ has died for us, but we can also say that we have died with Him. How it cuts at the root of everything that flesh seeks! What can a dead man seek? We are to reckon ourselves dead - not to reason that we must die, which will not give us power; but we are to reckon ourselves dead. Supposing a person comes to tempt me; how can he tempt a dead man? He tells me to come and amuse myself in something. But I say, I am dead; and the reason I can say so is, that my life is another kind of life altogether. The old stock may spring up and show itself sometimes; but I learn to treat the old life as not the tree at all. We may fail to do this, and then it will produce the old bad fruit; but inasmuch as Christ is my life, I am but a grafted tree; I have a right to take that which I am grafted into as the real tree, and have nothing to do with anything else. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." What are the things that belong to a risen life? The things down here in the world? No. What can a risen man seek in the world? He has nothing to do with the things of this life. That is the position in which He puts us. But, blessed be God, the risen man, supposing we are actually risen, has objects; his life belongs to another world, even to heaven. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above." If I am risen with Christ, and Christ has become my life, where is Christ? Up at the right hand of God. He does not say, You are there; but, speaking of life, he says, "If ye are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." Mark how distinctly he here associates us with Christ. He says, Christ is hid in God; well, He is your life, and your life is hid there too. But Christ is going to appear; and when He appears, ye also shall appear with Him in glory. There is complete association with the Lord Jesus now for life, so that my life is hid with Him in God, because He is my life; and when He appears, I also shall appear with Him in glory. It is not union, but complete association with Christ. It is this which gives its character to the Christian, and show: what his life is: "that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal bodies." It is the reproducing of Christ in this world: and we get, in the verses that I have read, the complete description of what this life is in a practical sense. The life itself is Christ. "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." But what a truth this is, that, if I am a Christian at all, it is Christ that is my life! It is not the old tree dug about and dunged; that was done with. When He cursed the fig tree, it was pronouncing upon the old stock its everlasting fruitlessness. There was no fruit to be found on it; and He said, "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever." The old man, the flesh, is a judged, condemned thing; it is the second Man, the Lord from heaven, Who is the spring of everything which is good or blessed. It is the great principle that is thus laid down: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God." Now mark one thing very distinctly of this life. If Christ is my life, in that sense Christ and heavenly things become the object of my life. Every creature must have an object. It is God’s supreme prerogative not to want an object. He may love an object; but I cannot live without an object any more than without food. This life has an object. The law wanted this; it gave no object. It said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength;" but it told me no more about the matter. It is very blessed, in our life as Christians, that, while Christ is our life, yet I am crucified with Christ; and "the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." That is, I get now an object which acts upon and feeds this life, and makes it grow. "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." There is the life; and this life has got a perfect, blessed object which it delights in and contemplates; and this object the Lord Jesus is, not in His humiliation, but in His glory. Therefore what is looked for is "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." There is nothing accepted short of what is seen in Christ. Where He is the life in me, and the object of this life, the point is purifying myself even as He is pure. Getting more and more of His grace by thus looking at Him, we are to reckon ourselves dead, instead of having to die. You may ask the flesh to die, but it never will. We talk of having to die to the flesh, because we have not got the consciousness of the positive distinctness of the two natures. The old man will take good care not to die. But being alive in Christ, I have the privilege and title to treat the other nature, the old one, as dead, because He died. It is never said that we have to die, but that as Christians we are entitled to, and do, hold ourselves for dead; because we have this new life. The person who talks of dying to sin, actually holds himself to be alive to sin. The moment I say I found myself ruined, but now I have got Christ for my life, I can say I am dead to sin. There is never the slightest varying of Scripture with regard to this. That point being thus settled, with the one blessed object before us, we seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. I have got a life formed and fashioned in His very nature, delighting in these heavenly things, causing us to grow up into Him in all things. But now comes the actual unfolding of this life. He begins with the lowest things and goes on to the highest, and gives the whole principle and development of this life. He says, "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." He will not own the old nature as a life; but he says, "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth." And if I look at these members on earth, what are they? Gross sins. All these members upon the earth are lusts. "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: for which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: in the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them." But that is not all. He adds, "But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth." If I get angry, it is a proof that the will of the old man is not broken. Anger is not a lust; but if you are living in grace, you do not get into a passion. There is the power of a life which does not these things, and which masters that which does them. We find anger and violence in Satan, who is a murderer; corruption and violence in men. We find all the negative parts here. He says, "Lie not one to the other." He is speaking of that which would be produced by the flesh where it is not kept in check. I am to put off the movements of the old nature. "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds." We have "put off the old man with his deeds;" but we have also "put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." Mark here what we are brought into. I have put off the old man with his deeds; and I have put on something. What have I put on? The new man, which is Christ. I have put on an entirely other nature. And what is the measure of this? Christ is the image of the invisible God; and I am renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created me. God has created this new man; and what is the measure of it? Christ is the source of it and the measure of it; Christ in all His perfection above is the image of Him that created it; and what the Christian sees now in heaven is what he is to be practically - it is Christ. "He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk, even as he walked." He is "renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." The measure of it is the revelation of God in Christ. If I am looking at a legal character of right and wrong, I am looking at something in my conduct as a man, and this is not the measure. "Be ye imitators of God, as dear children." But am I to be a sacrifice to God? Certainly. "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." That is just the very fruit of all that we are. Wherever the power of divine life comes down and takes possession of a man, it manifests itself in his giving himself up to God. The love of God came down in Christ; and how did it show itself in practice? By giving Himself up to death. "Ye are bought with a price." Then "present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." Therefore he says, "Be ye imitators of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." So again here, "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of. mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." I must begin, then, by treating the old man as dead. We shall soon feel our shortcomings. But that puts us in the blessed place of being dead with Him, and calls us to show the power of the life in which we are called to walk. "Ye have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all and in all." If I am speaking of myself as an Englishman or a Frenchman, I forget that I am dead and risen again, and that Christ is all. He is the only object, the only thing that the mind is right in resting on and looking at. "Christ is all." Looked at as the object, it is Christ, and nothing else, for one that is dead and risen with Him, be he who he may. What do I want? Christ. What am I to follow? Christ. What is the object that my heart has to think of? Christ. The other truth is this: He is in all Christians; He is their life. "Christ is all and in all." He is in us as our life; and, being in us as our life, Christ lives in me; and "the life which I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." He is all to me. There is the Christian depicted in a few words. Having positively put off the old man with his deeds, and having put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him, Christ is everything to him, and Christ is his life in him. Christ is everything as the fulness of this object, and Christ is in him as his life. Most simple, but wonderfully full! He does not say what - a Christian ought to be; it is what a Christian is that we have here. Christ is his life, and Christ is everything to him as having this life. He knows nothing else. We may find our shortcomings, which is another thing; but this is what we are as Christians: "Christ is all and in all." We see then how blessedly the apostle refers to this for power and practice. He takes now the positive side - the spirit and path in which I walk. "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." That is, walk like Christ. Having now Christ as my life, and Christ as my object, I am given power over the motives that were mine before, and things that are around me have lost their force. I speak of what the life is in its character and principles. The one object that the new life has is Christ; that which alone forms and governs this life is Christ; and, the soul of the believer being filled with Him, the things of the outward world have lost their force: his mind is filled with something else. The life that is in him is occupied with Christ. The consequence of this is that outward things have no longer their influence over him. "The eye is single, and the whole body is full of light." Hence what excites the old man is not working now in that way, and the thing manifested is the effect of Christ as revealed to the new man - the new man living on Him. The apostle puts it thus: "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved," etc. He does not say, You make out that you are "elect of God, holy and beloved." He says, This is your place: I want you to live in the consciousness of this; and you are now as such to do so-and-so. Such is the truth of all blessed affections. If I as a child doubted that my father were my father, how could I have the affections of a child? I should say, I wish I were sure of it; but I could not have the full flow of affection that follows from having no doubt about it. The apostle then says, "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved," etc. Now I am walking in the consciousness of God’s delight in me. Is there not love, joy, peace in the soul? That is the place the heart lives in; and now I have to put on all these things. But the way of putting them on is walking in the blessed consciousness of the truth of my place in Christ. If a man is quickened there will be the desires of that new nature, though he may not be able to enjoy it. There are affections and duties which flow from the place I am in. "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved." Oh, if my heart can live in that - in what I am - as elect of God, holy and beloved, I can put on anything then! It flows from the blessedness of the place I am in. If I live in the consciousness of my relationship, in the consciousness of what God is to me, these are the fruits that will follow. The first-named fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace; then there will be long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. But I must have love, joy, and peace first. If I am perfectly happy in God I do not mind if a person insults me, but take it patiently. I am perfectly happy, and have got my soul in the place of these blessed affections. Hence other things will not have the power to turn me from it. He says therefore, "Put on, as the elect of God, holy and beloved." So with Christ. He is above all; He is the blessed object, elect, precious - the Holy One, the beloved One above all. And He is our life. When I can act as being in this place, my heart is true in its affections. There we are in this blessed relationship; and we must seek to have the abiding consciousness of what we are before God, that we may, in the enjoyment of this, produce the fruits suitable to this state. Put on these various things which are the life of Christ in this world - "Bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another . . . . even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God [or Christ] rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful." But now, having spoken of its practical character, he goes on to another step in this life. He looks for the word of Christ dwelling richly in us in all wisdom; and he calls us to live in the largeness of heart and understanding that belongs to a person that has this place in Christ. He says, I want to have your heart and mind enlarged to live in these things; I want the word of Christ, this full revelation which God has given to us of His thoughts and mind as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ, to be dwelling in you richly. Let us now stop and ask ourselves, What has my mind been occupied with today? What has it been running after? Could you say, The word of Christ has dwelt in me richly? Now, perhaps we have been occupied with politics; perhaps with the town talk, or with something of our own. Has the word of our own heart, the work of our own mind, filled up the greater part of our day? That is not Christ. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom." All knowledge is in Him, and all practical wisdom. They are distinct things; but if they are real, they go wonderfully together. Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. This, then, is what is looked for; that in this condition there be unfolding and development of the blessed knowledge of Christ. The Spirit of God takes of the things of Christ and shows them unto us. We live in that sphere in which God unfolds His own mind. You may mark along with this, that it is not merely knowledge or wisdom of which he speaks, but he adds, "Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." It enters into the affections, because that is the character of hymns and spiritual songs. It is not so much knowledge written down like a sermon, but it is where the heart answers in its affections to the revelation of Christ, perhaps something that I have heard in a meeting when Christ has been unfolded: it is the Holy Ghost raising up the affections in answer to the revelation of Christ that has come down. Then there is the expression of the heart that has received it in the affections of the new man, answering to this in the praise and adoration that it produces. It may not be the reproduction of the same ideas, but it is the adoration of the heart that is drawn out towards the person that has been revealed. "Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him." Here I get the whole course of every-day life. There are constantly difficulties that I find in passing through this world. I say, Ought I to do this thing or that, or not? I am uncertain as to the right course, or I may find great hindrances to doing what I think to be right. Now if ever I find myself in doubt, my eye is not single; my whole body is not full of light, therefore my eye is not single. God brings me into certain circumstances of difficulty until I detect this. It may be something that I never suspected in myself before which hinders me from seeing aright; but it is something between me and Christ; and until that is put away I shall never have certainty as to my path. Therefore he says, "Whatsoever ye do in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." This will settle nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand. If you are questioning whether you shall do a thing or not, just ask yourself, Am I going to do it in the name of the Lord Jesus? It will settle it at once. Thus if a person says, What harm is there in my doing such and such a thing? I ask, Are you going to do it in the name of the Lord Jesus? Perhaps it may be something of which you will answer at once, Of course not. Then it is settled at once. It is the test of the state of the heart. If my eye is single, if the purpose of my heart is all right, I get here what settles every question: it tests my heart. I wanted to know the right path, and it is as simple as A B C. If my heart is not upon Christ, I shall endeavour to do my own will; and this is not God’s will. There is the constant uniform rule which clearly judges every path and circumstance: am I simply doing it in the name of the Lord Jesus? But what do I find with it? "Giving thanks to God and the Father by him." In another place it is said, "In everything give thanks." Where my heart can take Christ with me, my mind is on God, and I can say He is with me, even if it is tribulation. I have got the path of God; I have got Christ with me in my path; and I would rather be there than in what is apparently the fairest and pleasantest thing in the world; as it is said in Psalms 84:1-12, "In whose heart are the ways of them." Thus closes this unfolding of the life of Christ. It begins with the great truth that we are dead and risen with Christ - the judgment of the old man absolutely and completely, and our reckoning it practically to be dead. People have talked about dying to the flesh, and of its being a slow death, etc.; which is all nonsense. It is a simple fact that is true already. And if I died with Him, I shall live with Him. It is the power of this that works in my soul. The root of all Paul’s doctrine is that we have been crucified with Him, and have died with Him; and it is not now we who live, but Christ that lives in us. Then Christ becomes the object of this life. Having laid that ground, that the old man is put off and the new man put on, which is Christ, he draws the consequence of the blessing in which we stand, and the fruits which spring from Him; and then there is this simple but blessed rule for him that is in earnest - I do nothing but what I can do in the name of the Lord Jesus. One great thing here practically put before us is this - Christ is all. He is in all; but this is the great thing we have to look to, Is He practically all? Can you honestly say, Though a poor, weak creature, notwithstanding I am not conscious of having a single other object in the world but Christ? You find many difficulties - you are not watchful enough - your faith is feeble - you know your shortcomings; but can you, notwithstanding all this, honestly say, I have no object in the world but Christ? First, the root of all is Christ as the life. Then we pass over to the outward conduct in the man’s walk. And let me remark that, while a person may be walking outwardly uprightly and blamelessly, it may be very feebly as a Christian and without spirituality. You will find many a true Christian, who has Christ as his life, and nothing to reproach him with as to his walk, and yet has no spirituality whatever. If you talk to him about Christ, there is nothing that answers. There is, between the life that is at the bottom and the blamelessness that is at the top, between him and Christ, a whole host of affections and objects that are not Christ at all. How much of the day, or of the practice of your soul, is filled up with Christ? How far is He the one object of your heart? When you come to pray to God, do you never get to a point where you shut the door against Him? where there is some reserve, some single thing in your heart, that you keep back from Him? If we pray for blessing up to a certain point only, there is reserve; Christ is not all practically to us. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 16: VOL 01 - DO I LACK REST? ======================================================================== Do I Lack Rest? "Come unto me, . . . . and I will give you rest." "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me . . . . . and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Matthew 11:1-30. Faith knows the Lord Jesus, exalted to the right hand of the majesty in the heavens, as the One in whom all fulness dwells, unto whom all power is given in heaven and earth, seated on the throne, the orderer of and ruler over all. There is He blessed, and blessed for ever. But it is altogether another place in which we see Him stand in this chapter - despised and rejected of all those unto whom He had presented Himself in the name of Jehovah. And there, too, is He blessed, and blessed for us. John the Baptist - "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" - even he seems doubting. Israel - "Whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented," - equally displeased with John and with Jesus, content neither with law nor with grace. Men do not like righteousness, that is too strict for them; neither like they grace, that is too free: they would have part one and part the other. Again. If we look at the "cities wherein most of His mighty works were done" - "Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which have been done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you," - we find them worse than any other. So that here we see the Lord Jesus rejected on every hand. It is a solemn thought, that we are "unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that perish," as well as "in them that are saved." His testimony rejected, the soul of Jesus finds its rest in God. He had done God’s will; the name of God had been glorified - there was all the full consciousness of this, and, therefore, what blessed repose of soul! Nowhere do we find the Lord Jesus rising more above the power of circumstances, rejoicing more in spirit than here. His soul, in the midst of this weary world, needed rest, needed repose, and it found that which it needed in submitting to the will of God. "At that time" - after and amidst all the rejection, the Lord Jesus "answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight!" He bowed to the righteous sovereignty of God. Now I believe this would ever be the position of soul in the saint when walking in communion with God. Assuredly it is the right spirit, because the recognition of God’s "ordering all things after the counsel of His own will." But, then, how different from the petulance of many of us! Jesus, when rejected, could still rest in the sovereignty of God. If we witness our testimony rejected; our wishes disappointed; our motives misunderstood; trial coming whence we least expected it, from Christians, perhaps from our own family, from those whom we have sought to serve; then is the time to bow to the righteous sovereignty of God, and to say, "I thank thee, O Father: for so it seems good in thy sight." Oh, dear friends, if our souls knew a little more of the marvellous mercy vouchsafed unto any of us, in God’s having revealed Jesus, quickened us when dead in trespasses and sins, put forth the arm of His power on our behalf, we should not be wasting our time, as is now too frequently the case, in vain murmurings and regrets; but should be enabled to say, "I thank thee, O Father: for so it seems good in thy sight." Beloved, this is most blessed; there is in it the recognition of the "good and acceptable and perfect will of God;" there is no reasoning here. In Jeremiah we find complaint, cursing the day in which he was born; in Habakkuk, argument; in Job, self-vindication; but here there is nothing of the sort, it is simple subjection to the "will of God," as being the best thing possible. "Even so, Father: for so it seems good in thy sight." What "seemed good" in the Father’s sight, was good in the sight of Jesus. It was ever so. "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." Now this is resignation. It is not resignation merely to bow to that which we cannot escape; true resignation recognises a thing to be good and fitting, because the will of God, however trying, however painful to ourselves. "I thank thee." There is another blessed truth. When Jesus felt Himself to be rejected by all about Him, He said, "All things are delivered unto me of my Father." Here the Lord Jesus stands so blessedly - in utter rejection by man; but "all things" given unto Him "of God." Beloved, did you never find, when your own wills have been thwarted, when there has been self-denial, and the bowing of the will to God, something opened to the soul in blessing which it had never known before? It is habitually and practically true, that "he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." As to matter of fact, Jesus is here the rejected One - rejected of the world; but, as the consequence of this, He is the exalted One of the Father. And now He can tell forth, "no man knoweth the Son but the Father." Although the world knew Him not, the Father knew Him; although the world delighted not in Him, the Father delighted in Him; although He was not precious to the world, He was precious to the Father. Again: "Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." I find that the Lord Jesus Christ, by the knowledge of the Father in His own soul, was supported all through His rejection, and now He stands forth as able to "reveal" the Father’s name to others. The Father is only known by the revelation of the Son. "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee; but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent Me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." If you are of the world, you will not want to know that name which Jesus came to manifest. If the world is your portion, you will not want to know that name which was the portion of Jesus when the world had rejected Him. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." But I would now speak a little on the last verses of this chapter, and endeavour to bring out some of the blessed truth contained in them. There is a marked distinction between what is said here of Jesus giving rest and our finding rest, a distinction of much importance. He does not tell me to do any thing in order that He might give me rest, it is simply "come unto me;" but in order to my finding rest, He says, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart." Practical obedience is made necessary. It is of great moment to see the connection these things have one with the other; the saints often lose the present practical enjoyment of the rest which Jesus has given them because of not taking heed to it. In the consciousness of the possession of "all things all things being delivered unto Him of the Father, all power given unto Him in heaven and earth, all judgment committed unto Him, everything (for there is not one single thing which the Father has not given into the hands of Jesus as the rejected One of the world) His - He says, Come unto me." What a most blessed connection is there then between Jesus receiving "all things" and His asking us to come unto Himself. He does not say "come unto me" as the despised and rejected One merely; no, "come unto me" as the One, "despised and rejected" indeed "of men," yet having in Himself all that men eagerly seek after, all that they count estimable, every thing that is an object of human ambition. "He is worthy to receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honour, glory, blessing." There is in Him whom the world has rejected, not only every thing that is suited to our need as sinners, but that also which can satisfy the utmost desire of our hearts, therefore it is, "Come." This is most blessed; it shows forth the grace of the heart of Jesus. When we find Him as the "rejected" One turning round and saying "come unto me!" "come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," we learn grace indeed! Coming unto Him, believing on His name, is all the great secret of the rest He offers. The self-righteous multitude, the scribes, the Pharisees, the lawyers, had rejected Him, but Jesus knew that there were some standing around weary, heavy-laden ones, trying to get rid of their burden of guilt in vain. The law could never give them relief; the law could never take away their sin. To these He turns, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." Again: there were those who had had the experience of trying to find rest in society, in friends, in the world, and to them He says, "Come unto me." Rest, true rest, is received in simply coming to Jesus. What is it that my soul wants? "Come unto me" is the invitation; all that it needs is in the hands of Jesus - pardon of sin, eternal life, rest, whatever it may desire, all is provided for it there. I will here notice the order in which these things are presented. The Lord Jesus does not tell us to find rest until He has first given us rest. I believe many have inverted this order, and have sought to take the yoke before they were bidden. He knows exactly what the sinner needs (as also did the Father who has delivered all things into His hands) - needs simply as a gift, not to be earned, not to be deserved, but to meet him at once - a free gift. I do press this - until there is simple rest to the soul by coming unto Jesus, in any way to act as a Christian, whether it be in worship or in service, will be bondage; for they that are in the flesh cannot please God. We must be set at rest about ourselves before we can think of acting for God. I must have rest in my soul before I can act as a saint, before I can take upon me "the yoke" of Christ. Ere I can bear His "burden" I must have got rid of my own, I must have left it with Him. When not coming to Jesus to receive at His hands rest - a free gift, I come to Him as a task-master, and thus only get a double burden, instead of finding that blessed rest for my soul, wherein I, a pardoned sinner, can rest and delight, and God, a holy God, can delight also. Jesus is the true sabbath wherein God hath infinite delight. And He is the soul’s most blessed sabbath also. He has been the obedient One - "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Man has crucified Jesus, but God has raised Him from the dead, and now God publishes His name as the only name given under heaven whereby men can be saved. He has done God’s will, therefore all things are delivered unto Him of the Father, and He says, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Beloved friends, I again repeat it, Jesus does not ask us to take His "yoke" or His "burden" upon us until we have laid aside our own. Until I am free in spirit through the knowledge of the work of Jesus on the cross, I am not able to serve aright. Whatever we may be in our own estimation or in the estimation of others, though despised and rejected of all around, still, as having come to Jesus, "all things are ours," not one thing withheld from us. For Jesus is the great gift of God, and in Him is treasured up every other gift, righteousness, life, peace, everything. "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Jesus had borne the "burden," Jesus had borne the "yoke" Himself, and therefore He could say, "Learn of me." I am not speaking about the burden of our sins; the Lord Jesus came also to "learn obedience by the things that He suffered." Jesus was the One who had found out all the bitterness of rejection and scorn, and yet could say, "Even so, Father" - therefore it is, "Learn of me." In Isaiah 1:1-31 we read, "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." "He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned;" therefore has He "the tongue of the learned, that He should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary." He can tell us how He has borne the yoke Himself, going lower and lower, and He can say, "My yoke is easy, and my burden light." Beloved, if Christ Jesus found the yoke to be easy, and the burden light; if He could say, I have overcome, how was it? - by bowing to the yoke. And how do we overcome? always by enduring; never by endeavouring to alter circumstances; never by seeking rest here. Every man naturally thinks to overcome circumstances of trial by altering them, but this is not the way with the disciple of Jesus. When the soul of the saint complains of being ill at ease, and he is seeking practical peace and rest by endeavouring to alter the circumstances in which he is placed, he is not having that peace in Jesus which Himself has promised - "In the world ye shall have tribulation, but in me peace." We often speak very foolishly one to another, and seem to think that change of circumstances will afford peace. But change of circumstances merely does not affect the peace of the soul at all. Let us listen to that word - "Learn of me." Jesus did not alter circumstances; the cup did not pass from Him. No! He bowed, and said, "Not my will, but thine be done." There are but two ways in which to act; we must either fight our way through the world, or endure. Now I read, "God will render to every man according to his deeds - unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish;" and, on the contrary, "to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, and honour, and immortality, eternal life." Here I learn that patient continuance in well-doing endurance is the great characteristic of the saint. That is the path of glory and virtue; that is the path that Jesus trod; that is the "yoke" He bore - He endured, and He found it most blessed so to do. Jesus overcame by patient continuance in well-doing, and He says, "Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Not the rest of the fretful, impatient saint, who is always trying to alter the circumstances around, but the rest of Jesus - "Even so, Father; for so it seemeth good in thy sight." I come to Jesus as a heavy-laden sinner, He gives me rest, and He does not take away that which He has given - rest is my everlasting portion. But then I find myself here, still in the midst of a trying world, exposed to the temptations and wiles of the devil, and having an evil heart of unbelief myself. Now we would desire that all in us and about us were already as it will be by and by when Satan is chained, but it is not so. We may fret and be angry and disappointed because it is not; but if God does not choose to alter the character of either the flesh, the devil, or the world, it is no use to fret. "Consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." Faith says, "This is the path God has chosen for me to tread." Rest is found in the denial of my own will, in the taking up of my cross daily, and in following Jesus, not in seeking to alter the circumstances, but in bowing the head and saying, "Even so, Father; for so it seemeth good in thy sight." The Lord Jesus Himself found this second character of rest in becoming obedient unto the "yoke," in bearing the "yoke" put upon Him, and then, as One who had had the experience of it, I hear Him saying, "Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." This "rest" is a complete contrast to the restlessness which characterises the walk of some saints. And wherefore? There is perhaps, from a desire for prominence, the going out into a public path of service, instead of living in that of home duties, where God would have them to adorn the doctrine they profess; hence this constant restlessness. They get uneasy, disappointed, discouraged, not settled here, not settled there, but ever disquiet. A Christian should go on, unaffected by circumstances, in the path of practical obedience to the will of God. There, and therein alone, is practical rest found (for it is practical, experimental rest of which I am now speaking); when I am trying to have my own will and to go my own way, I do not find this rest. The two things act and react one upon the other; very often we find that a saint has lost peace of soul - the blessed joy he had in knowing his sins put away for ever by the blood of Jesus, and the possession of eternal life - and what is the cause? In many cases because he has not been bearing the burden of Christ, but walking in the path of fleshly activity and restlessness. His peace has thus become disturbed, and he is even tempted to doubt whether or not he be a child of God. They do act and react in a manner and to a degree of which we are little aware. It is very wretched for a saint of God to be always questioning whether he indeed be a saint, instead of walking on in the path of healthy service. There is still another thing that I would desire to notice briefly, and that is the great basis of Christian humility. I mean that humility which a saint has because he is a saint, and not because he is a sinner. A sinner saved by grace ought indeed to be humble; but the humility which a saint has because he is a saint and an heir of glory is of a much deeper kind than that which is occasioned by the discovery of sin. There is nothing will bring a soul so low, and make him willing to serve another in the meanest of service, as the consciousness of his standing before God. Mark the Lord Jesus Christ here: He stands forth in conscious possession of all things - "All things are delivered unto me of my Father." And yet He says, "Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart." Can you put these two together? I believe you can; the soul of the really instructed saint discerns their needful connection. The Lord Jesus, in conscious possession of all things, could afford to humble Himself. What was it that enabled Him to do so but His real greatness, because God was caring for Him - "Which thing is true in Him and in you." Nothing enables us to go and wash the saints’ feet, to lay ourselves down to be trampled on, but the knowledge of our real greatness: we can then afford to be humbled; we can then afford to come down and minister unto others, instead of wanting others to minister unto us. A child of God needs not anything to add to his dignity, because of the dignity which is given him of God; he has all dignity, "all things" in Christ. This is the real power of truly humbling ourselves to serve others. That which will enable us to put ourselves lower than anything is the consciousness that "all things are ours; for we are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s." Well, I believe we shall find this real and abiding peace and rest to our souls in taking the "yoke" of Christ, in not "minding high things, but condescending to men of low estate," in willingness to serve all saints - "If any man will be great among you, let him become the servant of all." "Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." It is one of the happiest of things to be thus a learner in the school of Christ. The Holy Ghost, whose office and delight it is to bring before the soul the Lord Jesus as our example, never does so without grounding us first in the faith of the work that He has done for us on the cross. But if there be a place of real blessing for the servant, it is that of being put in the place of his Master. He is what he is in himself; we are what we are in him. Beloved, remember if there is restlessness instead of rest, I would say, "Is not something of your will, your own will, at work, and not the ’Even so, Father; for so it seemeth good in thy sight’?" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 17: VOL 01 - FOR EVER WITH THE LORD ======================================================================== For Ever With the Lord - an extract. I think I have had my mind more occupied of late than ever with the subject which your letter suggests - the being with the Lord. I am sure it is deeper, happier, fuller acquaintance with Himself that our hearts need; and then we should long, and desire, and pant after Him in such ways as nothing but His presence could satisfy. I know souls in this state; and yet it is not knowledge that gives it to them, but personal acquaintance with the blessed Saviour, through the Holy Ghost. I alighted, as by chance, the other day on some fervent thoughts of an old writer, in connection with this dear and precious subject. In substance they were as follows, and almost so in terms, only I have somewhat condensed them. "It is strange that we who have such continual use of God, and His bounties and mercies, and are so perpetually beholden to Him, should, after all, be so little acquainted with Him. And from hence it comes that we are so loath to think of our dissolution, and of our going to God. For, naturally, where we are not acquainted, we like not to hazard our welcome. We would rather spend our money at an inn, than turn in for a free lodging to an unknown host; whereas to an entire friend, with whom we have elsewhere familiarly conversed, we go as boldly and willingly as to our home, knowing that no hour can be unseasonable to such an one. I will not live upon God and His daily bounties without His acquaintance. By His grace I will not let one day pass without renewing my acquaintance with Him, giving Him some testimony of my love to Him, and getting from Him some sweet pledge of His constant favour towards me." Beautiful utterance this is. It expresses a character of mind which in this day of busy inquiry after knowledge we all need - personal longings after Christ. May the blessed Spirit in us give that direction to our hearts! It is a hard lesson for some of us to learn to reach enjoyments which lie beyond and above the provisions of nature. We are still prone to know Christ Himself "after the flesh," and to desire to find Him in the midst of the relations and circumstances of human life, and there only. But this is not our calling - this is not the risen, heavenly life. It is hard to get beyond this, I know, but our calling calls us beyond it. We like the home, and the respect, and the security, and all the delights of our human relationships and circumstances, and would have Christ in the midst of them; but to know Him, and to have Him in such a way as tells us that He is a stranger on earth, and that we are to be strangers with Him, "this is a hard saying" to our poor fond hearts. In John’s gospel, I may say, among other things, the Lord sets Himself to teach us this lesson. The disciples were sorry at the thought of losing Him in the flesh, losing Him as in their daily walk and conversation with Him. But He lets them know that it was expedient for them that they should lose Him in that character, in order that they might know Him through the Holy Ghost, and ere long be with Him in heavenly places. (John 16:1-33) And this is again perceived in John 20:1-31 Mary Magdalene would have known the Lord again, as she had already known Him; but this must not be; this must be denied her. "Touch me not," the Lord says to her. This was painful, but it was expedient - good for her then (just as it had been already good for the disciples in chap. 16) to know that she was to lose Christ in the flesh. For Mary is now taught that she was to have fellowship with Him in the more blessed place of His ascension. So the company at Jerusalem in the same chapter. "They were glad, when they saw the Lord." But this gladness was human. It was the joy of having recovered, as they judged, the One whom they had lost, Christ - in the flesh. But their Lord at once calls them away from that communion and knowledge of Him to the peace which his death had now made for them, and the life which His resurrection had now gained for them. All this it is healthful for our souls to ponder, for we are prone to be satisfied with another order of things. The "sorrow that filled the hearts of the disciples" at the thought of their Lord going away - the "Rabboni" of Mary Magdalene - the disciples being "glad when they saw the Lord," show the disposedness of the heart to remain with Christ in the midst of human relationships and circumstances, and not to go with a risen Christ to heavenly places. How slow some of us are to learn this. And yet our readiness of heart to learn it and to practise it is very much the measure of our readiness and desire to depart and be with Christ. But all this I say to you as one that suggests a thought. Would that it were the experience of the soul! "But I desire to have it so." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 18: VOL 01 - GOD'S COMFORTS: THE STAY OF THE SOUL ======================================================================== God’s Comforts: the Stay of the Soul Psalms 94:1-23. Psalms 90:1-17; Psalms 91:1-16; Psalms 92:1-15; Psalms 93:1-5; Psalms 94:1-23; Psalms 95:1-11; Psalms 96:1-13; Psalms 97:1-12; Psalms 98:1-9; Psalms 99:1-9; Psalms 100:1-5 are connected together, and seem to me to describe the dealings of the Lord with the Jews, etc., in the latter day on the earth. But I am not going to speak of that now. We may often derive comfort from principles which we find in such portions of the Scripture, revealing to us as they do God’s character, etc.; but it is important to know the mind of the Spirit in the primary sense, as we shall then be able to discern what God is teaching us through them with a great deal more clearness and certainty. The two principles which form the basis of what is dwelt on here are, that the workers of iniquity are allowed to lift up their heads and flourish, but that the Lord is, and will be, Most High for evermore. There is the clear perception of this throughout. Under the temporary exaltation and prevalence of wickedness, the godly are in a very tried state, the righteous suffer; but vengeance belongs to God (not to the sufferer), therefore the cry. (vv. 1, 2.) To such a height are the workers of iniquity allowed to go that, in the consciousness that the LORD’S throne could not be cast down, the question comes in, "Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?" (5: 20.) So completely has wickedness got place in the earth that there is a sort of question raised, whether the throne of iniquity could subsist in companionship in judgment with the Divine throne. The answer is, judgment is coming - "The LORD our God shall cut them off." (5: 23.) Judgment shall return to righteousness in the place of trial and suffering. The point on which I would dwell a little at present is the consolation of the saints during this time of trial - God’s "comforts." In the first place, we have the assurance - "The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity." (5: 11.) Then - "Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD," etc. (vv. 12, 13.) As to the pride and purpose of man, it is settled in a word. The "thoughts of man" are not only inferior to God’s wisdom, they are "vanity." That settles the whole question. All that begins and ends in the heart of man is "vanity," and nothing else. Whatever the state of things around, though there may be a "multitude of thoughts within," as ’what will all this come to?’, ’how will that end?’ and the like - every barrier we can raise, all our strength, all our weakness, whatever the wave after wave that may flow over us - the LORD’s thought about it all is, that it is "vanity." All is working together to one object, God’s plan, that upon which his heart is set, the glorification of Jesus, and ours, with him. Every thought and every plan of man must therefore be "vanity," because it has not this, God’s object, for its object; and God’s object always comes to pass. There cannot be two ends to what is going on. Let men break their hearts about it, all simply comes to nothing, the end of it is "vanity." God’s object is, that "all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father." Take a man of the world - the shrewdest calculator, the ablest politician, or the greatest statesman - a poor bedridden saint is wiser than he, and more sure of having his plans brought about; for the heart of the simplest, feeblest saint runs in the same channel with God’s, and, though the saint has no strength, God has. In this psalm we find, first, the tumult of the enemies - then, that God has done it. So with the saint constantly in trial: he sees the work of Satan - then, God’s hand in it, and he, gets blessing. All the present effect of these dealings of "the wicked" is, "Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, and teachest him out of thy law; that thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked." The pit is not yet digged, the throne of iniquity is not yet put down. If, in chastening, the power of the adversary is against us, the Lord’s end in it all is, to give "rest in the day of adversity," etc. I speak not merely of suffering for Christ - if we are reproached for the name of Christ, it is only for joy, and triumph, and glory to us; but of those things in which there may be the "multitude of thoughts within," because we see that we have been walking inconsistently and carelessly in the Lord’s ways. Still it is, "Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord," etc. The Lord does not chasten willingly, without a needs-be for it. And when there has been failure or inconsistency that brings chastisement, He turns the occasion of the chastisement to the working out of the heart’s evil that needed to be chastened, The Lord, in chastening, throws back the heart upon the springs which have been the occasion of the evil. The soul is hereby laid bare for the application of God’s truth unto it, that the word may come home with power. It is taught wherefore it has been chastened; and not only so, but it is brought into the secret of God’s heart - it learns more of His character, who "will not cast off his people, neither forsake his inheritance." (5: 14.) What God desires for us is, not only that we should have privileges conferred upon us, but that we should have fellowship with Himself. Through these chastenings the whole framework of the heart is brought into juxtaposition with God. And this stablishes and settles it on the certainty of the hope that grace affords. Look at Peter after the enemy had sifted him. Though his fall was most humbling and bitter, yet by it he gained a deeper knowledge of God, and a deeper acquaintance with himself, so that he could apply all that he had learned to his brethren. The Lord gives our souls "rest from the day of adversity" by communion with Himself; not only communion in joy, but in holiness. We are thus brought into the secret of God. Circumstances are only used to break down the door, and let in God. God is near to the soul when He in the certainty of love comes within the circumstances, and is known as better than any circumstance. The LORD never chastens without occasion for it, and yet "Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD." There is not a more wonderful word than that! I do not say that a man can say this always while under chastening; for if the soul is judging itself, there will be often anxiety and sorrow; but the effects are blessed. What we want is that all our thoughts, and ways, and actings of will should be displaced, and that God should be everything. All chastening must have in principle the character of law in it; for it is the Lord dealing with His people in righteousness (as it is said, "If ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work," etc.), not in the sovereign riches of divine grace. It is God’s allowing nothing in the heart inconsistent with that holiness of which the believer has been made partaker. It is indeed most blessed grace that takes all the pains with us; but that is not the character it assumes. What we exceedingly need is intimacy of soul with God, resting in quietness in Him, though all be confusion and tumult around us. When the man here had God near his heart, though iniquity abounded, it was only the means of making God’s "comforts" known to his soul; as it is said, "In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul." (5: 19.) Our portion is not only to know the riches of God’s grace, but the secret of the Lord - to have intimacy of communion with Him in His holiness. Then, however adverse the circumstances, the soul rests quietly and steadfastly in Him. If, my friends, you would have full unhindered peace and depth of fellowship with God, and one with another; if you would meet circumstances and temptations without being moved thereby, it must flow from this, not merely the knowledge that all things are yours in Christ, but acquaintance with God Himself; as it is said, "Being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God." May we, through grace enabling, let God have all His way in our hearts. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 19: VOL 01 - GOD'S OWN JOY IN LOVE, AND MAN'S MURMURINGS AGAINST IT ======================================================================== God’s Own Joy In Love, and Man’s Murmurings Against It "Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." Luke 15:1-2. It is a wonderfully blessed thing to have One (the thoughts, and words, and ways of One down here, in His actings amongst men) who could so well manifest God as the Lord Jesus. We may look at the sin of man as a question to be judged of in the light of righteousness before God, and most important it is as such; still, in one sense, God moves above all the evil, and asserts His right to show out what He is. Blessed is it for us that God will be God, in spite of sin! "God is love," and if He will be God, He must be love; and that notwithstanding all the reasonings and murmurings of the heart of man against Him. God acts, so to speak, upon the feelings of His heart, and makes them find their way into the hearts of men. And that is just the reason there is such a freshness in the word - God never fails; the moment He speaks and reveals Himself we have always the full blessedness of what He is. It is Himself who has come forth, and that with power to our hearts, as the blessed God. He will take no character from man. If He has to deal with sin, to show what it is, how He has put it away, and the like, still, above and through all, He manifests Himself. And here it is our hearts get rest. We have the privilege to have done with ourselves in the blessedness of the house and bosom of God. In a certain sense (for man could not have borne the manifestation of God in the brightness of glory) God hid Himself. He clothed Himself in flesh. But what was the effect of the wicked and heartless reasonings of man’s corrupt judgment? - for man was ever rejecting, finding fault, and carping at certain things with which he could not agree in the ways of Christ - to force Christ back, pressing out from Him what He really was as God. The soul becomes arrested in reading chapters which exhibit this, it finds itself with unhesitating certainty in the presence of God, in the presence of Love. And there we get rest and peace. Here (Luke 15:1-32) Jesus is forced to tell out all the truth. God will be God. If there is that which makes God "glad," He will have His own joy, spite of the objections of man. It is God’s own joy to act in love. And this is just what man objects to. Man does not object to God’s being righteous; he does not deny that God is going to judge (I speak not of the professed infidel): no, as a general principle, man does not object to the one or deny the other; but the moment God comes to have His own full joy, and to bring out that which is the joy of heaven, man objects, and says, "It must not be all grace!" "God must not deal with publicans and sinners thus!" And why not? Because, what then becomes of man’s righteousness God dealing in grace makes nothing of man’s righteousness - "there is no difference;" "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:1-31) Christ manifesting light proved this; Pharisee and publican were alike detected; and man hated it. Grace deals with all men upon one common ground, that of being sinners; it levels their moral condition, and comes only to those who have need of it. (Luke 5:31-32.) This man cannot bear; what he is always seeking to do is, to make a difference between righteousness and unrighteousness in man, so that himself may have a certain character before others. Slighting God’s righteousness, and magnifying our own, always go together. In John 8:1-59 we find one brought by the scribes and Pharisees before Jesus, who, judged according to the law, was worthy of death, one undeniably guilty; that Jesus might be obliged to deny either mercy or righteousness. This was their motive. They thought to place Him in an inextricable difficulty. If He let her sin pass unnoticed, He would break the law of Moses; and, again, should He say, "Let her be stoned," it would be no more than Moses had done. How does He act? He lets law and righteousness have all their course, but tells her accusers at the same time, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." Conscience begins to act (not rightly, it is true, for their character was what they cared about), and they get out of the presence of light, because light makes manifest, and proves them sinners. "Beginning at the eldest even to the youngest," all went out (he that had the longest reputation glad to be the first from before that eye which could penetrate and detect what there was within), "and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst." He will not execute the law. No. "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more." That which is produced is only Love. Whenever one stood before Him, or had anything to do with Him as a detected and confessed sinner, it was always grace, and all grace. The more the discovered sin, the more grace was revealed, free and unqualified. In all the parables of this chapter, put forth by Jesus because grace had been objected to, in His dealings with "publicans and sinners," we get this one great and blessed thought - God manifested. "I will suppose," He says, "a man reduced to the worst, the vilest possible condition, as bad as you please; but then there is something still behind all this that I am going to bring out something, too, which even your own natural hearts ought to recognize - the father’s delight in receiving back his child. Would not a father’s heart justify itself in its own feelings of kindness, let the condition of the child be what it may?" After the Lord Jesus Himself had gone through this world, and found no place where a really broken heart could rest, He could find proud morality enough, but no place where a poor, weary, broken heart could find sympathy and rest; He comes to tell us that what was not to be found for man elsewhere, could be found in God. And this is so blessed! So blessed, that, after all, a poor wearied heart, wearied with itself, with its own ways, with the world, with every thing, can find rest in the bosom of the Father. What it could do in no other place, it can do there - tell itself out, and that in truthfulness. "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." (Psalms 32:1-11) So long as I am afraid of being blamed for what may be discovered, there will be guile in the heart; but the moment I know it forgiven, that nothing but love is drawn out by it, I can go and tell all to God. The only thing that produces "truth in the inward parts," is the grace that imputes nothing. That is the secret of God’s power in setting hearts right with Himself - "there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared." There is all the difference possible between a man’s flying from God by reason of his conscience, and his finding in God the One who says, "neither do I condemn thee." The first parable is that of the shepherd who sought the lost sheep. The second, that of the woman who sought the lost piece of money. The third, the father’s reception of the returning prodigal. The last is not a question of seeking at all, but of the manner of the father’s receiving the son when he had come back. And this is of much importance. Our souls need to understand it aright, as well as to know the great cardinal truth, that God seeks the lost. One principle runs through all the parables - God is acting upon His own character. No doubt it is joy to the sinner to be received, but it is the joy of God to receive him. "It is meet that we should make merry, and be glad;" not merely meet that the child should be glad to be back again in the house; the father is the happy one. The return of the prodigal is joy to heaven, whatever men, whatever Pharisees may think about it. It is something wonderfully lovely to be let into heaven in this way, and that, too, by One who knew heaven so well. The chord which God strikes, heaven responds to and reechoes, and so must every heart down here that is tuned by grace. What discord is there in self-righteousness! Jesus tells forth the joy and grace of God, the joy of heaven, but puts all this in contrast with the feelings of the elder brother - those of any self-righteous person. It is this note, sounded from heaven in love, that we read in the heart and ways of Jesus down here. "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." And oh, how sweet a note! On earth, astonishing; in heaven, natural. Here, on earth, amongst us, God has manifested what He is, "which things the angels desire to look into." (1 Peter 1:1-25) 1. The first thing the Lord Jesus does, is to justify God in being good to sinners. He appeals at once to the natural heart of man. "What man of you, having an hundred sheep," etc. (5: 4.) "The shepherd puts his sheep upon his shoulders, and brings it home rejoicing; have I not a right to seek the ’lost’?" is it not right for God to come amongst "publicans and sinners"? This may not suit a moral man, but it suits God; it is His privilege to come amongst sin, near to the sinner, because He can deliver. The shepherd puts his sheep upon his shoulder, he goes out to seek it - charges himself with it - takes the whole toil of it (it is his interest to do so because he values the sheep), and he brings it home again rejoicing. Thus He presents the shepherd here. And thus is it with the "great Shepherd of the sheep." It is His interest to "seek and to save that which was lost" (He ever makes it His interest, in the sense of love), the sheep is His own, and He brings it home rejoicing, bidding others to rejoice with Him - "Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost." "I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance." But how does He set about it? We tell people sometimes to seek Christ, and rightly so in one sense; it is quite true, "he that seeketh findeth;" but Jesus did not say, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," until He had first come Himself to "seek and to save." Because the sinner could not go to heaven to seek Christ, Christ came to earth to seek the sinner. He did not say to the poor leper, "Come up to heaven, and be thou clean;" but came down to the leper in all his need to make him clean. Had any other laid his hand upon the leper, he would have become unclean. Christ alone could touch the power of evil, and have no contamination. "Come unto me; rest is not to be found here, any more than it was by Noah’s dove amidst the deluge; I have tried the world all through, and it is a sea of evil without a shore." 2. We see another thing in this second parable (vv. 8-10) - the painstaking of the love, eager diligence with the determination to succeed in seeking the sinner. Every thing is done to get the money; the woman lights the candle, sweeps the house, nor stops in her task of love - diligent, active love, until the piece is found. It was her interest to do this, because the money was hers. Then again there is the joy in the recovered possession, her own joy and the tone given to others, who are called in to have communion with her. And this, too, is the way of the Lord in His dealings with "that which is lost." There is the patient activity of love, in the use of means, by the Holy Spirit, until the effect is produced. And "likewise," Jesus adds, "I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." In both parables we get the absolute actings of grace, without any reference to the effect in the heart of the sinner; and in both this great principle (common, as noticed before, to the three), God’s own joy in love. Thus the result of man’s pharisaic objection to grace was but the bringing out of the declaration by Jesus of the energetic power and activities of divine love, as well as the good-will. The piece of money, as the sheep, could do nothing: it was their joy, who had lost, to get them back again, because they value them. Worth nothing in a certain sense, but to God’s love the sinner is immensely valuable. At the same time there is a most important work, an effect, produced in the heart of the one who, having gone astray, is brought back. On this account we have a third parable, which shows us the feelings of the wanderer, and, further, the manner of his reception. The father’s heart and the prodigal’s are both laid open. Not only are the inward workings of the former told out, but we have in addition the manifestation of the latter. In a word, it is not the estimate formed by the prodigal about the love of the father’s heart that gives the answer to all his thoughts; but the manifestation of his own heart by the father. This one simple fact, the father is on his neck kissing him, tells the prodigal what that heart is. 3. In this the last of the three parables the Lord pursues the sinner to his utmost degradation - eating husks with the swine, (and we should remember here what swine were in the estimate of those to whom He spoke) - there, too, of his own choice. Why was the picture drawn thus? To show that nothing could put the sinner beyond the reach of grace. Trace it as far as you please, God will act as God at the end of the story. "Where sin abounded, grace has much more abounded." Let us look a little at the case in detail. "A certain man had two sons: and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country." (vv. 11-13.) This is just our history, as men. Whether living in vice or not, we have all turned our back on God. The son here was happier far, as a man, when going from home, than when returning; he was doing his own will. This is the secret of all sin. The prodigal was as completely a sinner when he stepped, rich, across his father’s threshold, as when feeding with swine in the "far country." He had chosen to act independently. The fruits of this, it is true, were reaped afterwards; but that is not the question. Nay, in one sense, the very consequences of his sin were mercies, because through them he was brought to find out his sin. (5: 18). When he first left the house, he showed where his heart was - alienated, revolted, gone; his back was turned upon his father and his father’s house, and his face was towards the "far country." He went forth to do his own will. A parent’s heart will understand that. Our children sin against us, and we feel it; but we sin against God, and feel it not. We are all of us in that sense, children that "have turned every one to his own way." "And there" (having reached the far country), he went on gaily in his own will as long as he could, he "spent his substance in riotous living." (5: 13.) The sinner, if he thinks himself quite happy, does so, because he has got at a distance from God, where he has no restraint upon his will. But then, after all, he is in the devil’s country, and enslaved to him. Liberty of will is just slavery to the devil. "And when he had spent all" (any one who lives beyond his means looks rich for a time), "there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want." (5: 14.) He "began to be in want;" but his will was not touched yet, as we shall see directly. There is many a heart not easy in the world; but it is never the effect of that merely, to bring back to God. Very few have arrived at a certain time of life who have not "begun to be in want;" but then they go and seek in pleasure or in vice, in one thing or another, it matters not what - last of all, in God, something to satisfy them. A man of the world says, you must have every thing that is in the world, in order to know that the world can never satisfy you; but the knowledge that all the world cannot satisfy would never turn a man to God. He must know more, even that he is perishing; not merely not satisfied, but ruined. Being "in want," the prodigal next "joined himself to a citizen of that country," and was sent by him into the fields to "feed swine:" he was reduced to all this degradation - manifestly a servant of the devil; "and he would fain have filled his belly with the husks which the swine did eat: but no man gave unto him." (vv. 15, 16.) There is no giving in the "far country," not even of "husks;" you must buy everything. The world’s principle is, "nothing for nothing;" "everything must bring its price." Your gratifications there must be purchased at the sacrifice of reputation and soul. After a time we find this young man "came to himself." (5: 17.) He awoke to the consciousness, "I perish with hunger;" and then it was he thought of the "father’s house," the very place that he had been so anxious to get away from at first. He did not yet understand how he would be received there; but he did understand there was love in that house, that the very "hired servants" had "enough and to spare;" and he did understand also that he was not only hungry, but "perishing with hunger." He wanted the goodness of that house; his was no mere abstract delighting in it. Wisdom and philosophy never found out God; He makes Himself known to us through our need - necessity finds Him out. Who is it that really discovers the value of bread? - the chemist? No, a hungry man. The sinner’s heart - yes, and the saint’s heart too, is put in its right place in this way. I doubt much if we have ever learnt anything solidly, except we have learnt it thus. "I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." (vv. 18, 19.) He knew that there was goodness there, and that it was all over with him where he was; the need of his condition, everything, told him he must get back; but he did not yet know the extent of that goodness. We see the same thing in Peter (Luke 5:1-39); he goes and falls at the feet of Jesus, and says, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" What an inconsistency! at the knees of Jesus, and yet telling Him to go away! And there is often this apparent inconsistency when there is a work on the conscience and the affections. God becomes necessary to us, and yet conscience says, "you are too sinful." Peter felt his own worthlessness; he thought Jesus was too holy, too righteous, to be with such an one as he, and yet he could not help going to Him. The prodigal did go back, glad to be in the house, but not having a true estimate of the father’s heart. No more worthy to be called a "son," his thought was to get into the place of a "hired servant." (5: 19.) And this is just the state of a multitude of hearts around, they are lowering down the standard of what the Father must do, in the sense of what they have been and are. I am not speaking of positive self-righteousness, but of hearts which have still the remains of legalism, and would take the place of servants in the house. Now God can only receive us in grace, because we have spent all - ruined ourselves, and forfeited every claim upon Him. Look at the history before us. This "make me as one of thy hired servants" would not do for the father, though it might have done for the son. What constant misery and wretchedness to that father’s heart would it have been, as well as degradation to the son, to receive and treat him thus! - his very condition in the house a constant memorial of his sin. And thus is it with us. Our Father cannot have sons in His house as servants: if boundless grace brings them in, He must show the manner of their reception to be worthy of a Father’s love. The prodigal was not yet brought to feel it must be grace or nothing; but the father did not give him time to say, "Make me as one of thy hired servants;" he let him tell out the confession of his sin, but no more;" - "he was on his neck, kissing him!" How could he say, Make me an "hired servant," when his father was on his neck, producing the consciousness that he was still a son? The prodigal’s judgment about the father’s heart was drawn from what the father was actually to him, and not from any abstract seasonings about it. And that is the true way of receiving the "gospel of the grace of God." It is not the working up of my mind to think what I am before God, but the revelation by the Holy Ghost of what the Father is to me. He is a Father, I am a son. Look again at the manner of the reception the prodigal had. He determined in his own mind what he would do, and what he would say, and the conditions of his reception, "I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him," etc. (vv. 18, 19); and before he had time to reach the father’s house, and say all this, "while yet a great way off," the father "saw him," "had compassion on him" (the son was lost in the father), "ran to meet him, fell on his neck, and kissed him." (5: 20.) There was nothing in the son but confession of unworthiness. We are left, as it were, to discover the nature of his thoughts and feelings by the knowledge of the father’s. And so entirely is it in the estimate of our salvation. We are left to discover what we are, in the revelation of the love of the Father. Why did the father fall on his neck, and kiss him? Was it for anything in the son? No; it was because of the love that was in his own heart. The rags of the "far country" were still upon him: the father did not stop to ask him anything, he knew that he had acted wrongly. It would have been of no good or use to say, "He has disgraced you, dishonoured your name:" he could see that very well. It was no question of fitness or worthiness in the son (the father’s heart did not reason in that way), he was acting from himself, and for himself - worthily of a father. He was on his neck, because the father loved to be there. It is the love that is in God, not any loveliness in the sinner, that accounts for the extravagant liberality of his reception, through Christ. If I know that my sins are forgiven, that the father is on my neck kissing me, the more I know of my sins - thus knowing the Father’s love, the happier I am. (Luke 7:47.) Suppose a merchant having liabilities which he is unable to meet, but ignorant of the exact amount; he might be afraid to look fairly through his books. But suppose, on the other hand, that the debt had been discharged, and that he had the certainty of an immense fund of riches, when all was paid (some friend having done it), he would no longer hesitate to look at them; the discovery of his obligation would serve to enhance his friend’s love. Grace has put all away; therefore the whole effect of the discovery of sin, when we know its forgiveness, is to enhance the love. If the father is kissing me, the very consciousness that he is doing it, when I am in my rags, proves what a forgiveness it is. There is not another in the whole world that would not have thought about my rags, before he was on my neck. But look again at the prodigal. The servants are now called out to introduce him into the house fittingly. "The father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found." (vv. 22-24.) God clothes us with Christ, and brings us into the house where the servants are, with nothing less than all the honour He can put upon us - as He would have us be there, and with His mind expressed about the value of a "son." The best robe, the ring, the shoes, the fatted calf, the feast of joy that welcomed the returning prodigal - the father’s mind was, that a son of his was worth it all, and that it was worthy of him to give it. How little worthy would it have been of a father, acting in grace, to keep him as a servant in the house. It may be that some who read these pages are thinking it humility to desire the servant’s place. But it is not humility, it is only ignorance of the Father’s mind. "God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved); and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus." (Ephesians 2:4-7.) If we begin at this end, would it have been worthy of Him to put us in the house with a constant memorial of the sin and shame of our former degradation upon us? No! If there were any sense of shame, the veriest trace of the "far country," would it have been worthy of the Father? The "worshipper once purged" has "no more conscience of sin." All that is in God’s house must be worthy of God. But perhaps our wretched, unbelieving hearts may whisper, "Ah, that will be quite true when there, when really in the Father’s house." Let me ask what faith is. Faith judges as God judges. I see sin in the light of God’s holiness, and learn grace in the heart of my Father. He that believes "sets to his seal that God is true." Faith is the only thing that gives certainty. Reasoning may be all quite well for the things, of this world; but if God speaks, faith believes. Faith "sets to its seal," not that it may be, perhaps; but, that "God is true." "Abraham believed God;" (not in God, though that is also true); he believed that what God said was true. What, then, does God tell me, if I am a believer in his Son? That my sins and iniquities He "remembers no more." I believe it. That I have "eternal life." I believe that, too. It were sin to doubt it; not to believe that of which he assures me, is to wrong God. If a son, I am in His presence without a spot of sin through the blood of the Lamb. Faith believes this: God has said it. Were it my own righteousness in which I stood there, it must be torn to shreds; but it is a question about God’s estimate of the value of the blood. What has it done? cleansed half my sins? No, it "cleanses from all sin." Again, I read, "Who His ownself bare our sins in His own body on the tree "is this some of our sins? It is "our sins." And then if my soul knows, on the one hand, the value to God of the blood of the Lamb, I know, on the other, that it all results from the love of the Father. When I see the character Christ gives here of what God is towards me as a sinner (and he was forced to do this by the self-righteousness of the Pharisees - of man), the doubts of my heart are silenced before such grace. Is there one who, after having read this paper, can say that divine grace sanctions sin? one in the spirit of the elder brother? (5: 28) I would reply, "therefore came his father out, and entreated him." We see the patience of love towards this wretched man - not merely towards the poor prodigal, but towards this one who shared not in the general joy. The servants were glad; they could say, "thy brother is come," etc. All caught the tone of joy save one. And who was he? The man who thought of self and self-righteousness, who said, "Lo these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment." Take care lest your heart be turning to sourness the love and grace that God shows to a fellow-sinner. "He would not go in." The father reasoned with him; said, "It is (not my son, but) thy brother come back," etc. (love is high enough up for anything) - but in vain. He could not enter into the spirit which actuated all in the house, from the father down to the lowest menial: "he remained without," and had none of the happiness and none of the joy. There was in him manifested opposition of heart to the riches of the father’s grace; and this is man. How can I know God’s heart? Is it by looking to my own heart? No; but by learning it in the gift of His Son. The God we have to say to, is the God who has given His Son for sinners; and if we do not know this, we do not know Him at all. "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Do not be saying to God, "make me as one of thy hired servants;" all true service must result from the knowledge of Himself. Do not be putting the estimate of your own hearts on God’s goodness. Our wretched hearts have such a tendency to turn back to legalism, and call it humbleness. The only real humbleness, and strength, and blessing, is to forget self in the presence and blessedness of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 20: VOL 01 - GOD'S REST, THE SAINT'S REST ======================================================================== God’s Rest, the Saint’s Rest Hebrews 4:1-16. It is a blessed thing, though in one sense a terrible one (terrible ever to the flesh), to know that we "have to do" with God. (Ver. 13.) Yet there is nothing that we so easily forget, or so often lose sight of. The natural tendency of our hearts is to get out of, and then (as the disobedient child that of the parent whose eye he fears to meet) to dislike and dread God’s presence. Always, every moment, under every circumstance, it is God with whom we "have to do." People who are ever looking at second causes are led into practical infidelity; and so is it in measure with the saint of God: if he be resting in circumstances, he loses the sense of "having to do" with God. But whether it be for blessing, or for profit to the conscience, we have alike "to do" with God. Are we seeking happiness, where shall we find it? where shall we get blessing that nothing can touch or hinder, that nothing can separate from, except in God? He is not only the source of our blessing, but the blessing itself. There are indeed many outward blessings given to His children by the way, and these even the unconverted may have; but the strength, the comfort, the joy of the Christian is this - he "has to do" with God. God is the source and centre of his blessing. When once we come really to know God, we know Him as love. Then, knowing that everything comes to us from Him, though we be in a desert - no matter where, or what the circumstances - we interpret all by His love. I may be called on to pass through pain, and sorrow, and trial, as part of His discipline; but everything that comes from God, comes from a source and spring in which I have confidence. I look, through the circumstances, to Him; and nothing can separate me from His love. Where God is but little known, and where there is not therefore confidence in His love, there will be repining at circumstances, and murmuring, and rebellion. In such a case, the sense of "having to do" with God will cause more fear than gladness. John says, "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." It is not quite true that we often stop, practically, at the circumstances in which we find ourselves placed, and consider only our own feelings and judgment about them. Now this is a proof that our souls are not living in the fulness of communion with God. That with which we should be occupied is, not the circumstances, but what God intends by them. Conscience must be in exercise as well; for it is equally true, that in our consciences we "have to do" with God. This is very profitable, though not so pleasant. "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." (Ver. 13.) And after all, dear brethren, is it not a blessed thing to know that nothing can escape either the hand or eye of God? What a comfort that He discerns every thought of our hearts that would hinder blessing, or dim communion with Himself! There may be some secret evil (one of the ten thousand things that, if indulged, would hinder the enjoyment of God) working in my heart, and yet I remain unconscious of it. Well, God sends some circumstance that discovers to me the evil, in order that it may be put away. Is not this a blessing? The circumstance does not create the evil which it excites; it only acts upon what it finds to be in my heart, and makes it manifest. Since I "have to do" with God, I am made to understand evil in myself which I had never understood before, or known to be there. God discovers the "thoughts and intents of the heart;" He could not rest whilst leaving anything there that would hinder our love and confidence, our comfort and peace in Himself. The evil being discovered, circumstances are all forgotten - God’s end alone is seen. The heart of man naturally seeks rest, and seeks it here. Now, there is no rest to be found here for the saint; but it is written, "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God." (Ver. 9.) To know this is both full of blessing and full of sorrow: sorrow to the flesh, because, as it is always seeking its rest here, it has always to be disappointed - blessing to the spirit, because the spirit, being born of God, can only rest in God’s own rest, as it is said, "If they shall enter into my rest." (Vers. 3, 5.) God cannot rest in the corruption of sin. He can only rest in that which is perfectly holy. And because He who thus rests is love and loves us, He makes us understand that He will bring us into His own rest, into His own delight. Now let the soul once know what this rest of God is, let the heart once be set upon it, there will be joy unspeakable in understanding that God’s love can rest in nothing short of bringing us into His own delight. There will then also be the full, settled consciousness that we cannot find rest elsewhere. There are indeed joys by the way, but the moment we rest in them, they become, as the quails of Israel (Numbers 11:1-35), poison. Whenever the soul loses practically the knowledge that its rest is in God’s rest, the moment the eye is off that which it remaineth," we begin to seek a rest here, and consequently get uneasy, restless, and dissatisfied. Every time we find something on which we attempt to settle, that very thing proves but a new source of trouble and conflict to us, a new source of exercise and weariness of heart. God loves us too well to let us rest here. Are you content, dear brother, to have or seek your rest nowhere, save in God’s rest? What is the secret of the unhappiness and restlessness of many a saint? A hankering after rest here. God is therefore obliged to discipline and exercise that soul; to allow, it may be, some circumstance to detect the real state of the heart by touching that about which the will is concerned. Circumstances would not trouble, if they did not find something in us contrary to God; they would rustle by as the wind. God deals with that in us which hinders communion, and prevents our seeking rest in Him alone. His discipline is the continual and unwearied exercise of love, which rests not now in order that we may enter into His rest. If He destroys our rest here, if He turns our meat into poison, it is only that He may bring us into His own rest, that we may have that which satisfies His desires, not ours. "He will rest in his love." "For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his works, as God did from his own."* (Ver. 10.) This is not a question about justification or rest of conscience as to judgment: that is all settled. "As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." (Romans 5:19.) There we rest, and there God rests. Again, "By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." (Hebrews 10:14.) The believer has already and altogether come to rest on Christ’s work as to that. He has peace through the blood of Christ. *Such is the true force. Ed. The point is one which concerns those who are justified, whom God has brought into His family: God is training such, and bringing them up into the full enjoyment of His own blessedness and rest. If I, being a parent, enjoy anything, it is impossible (if I really love my child) not to wish him to enjoy it with me. And if we, who are evil, do this, how much more our heavenly Father! What God desires for us, as we have seen (and He delights to do it); is to bring us into the enjoyment of all that which He Himself enjoys. He has made us partakers of the divine nature that we may enjoy it. The Hebrews were continually liable to sink into the seeking a rest here; in short, not to live a life of faith. The great point on which the apostle insists is, that God has not His rest here - that while there was that which hindered the comfort of His love He could not rest. And this is proved by a variety of testimonies. (See ver. 3-8.) As to their own state, though he says, "We which have believed do enter into rest" (ver. 3), it was not needful to prove to them, any more than it would be to ourselves, that they were not in the rest. We read of their enduring a great fight of afflictions, of their being made a gazing-stock both by reproaches and afflictions, and of their becoming companions of them that were so used. They were still in circumstances in which it could be said to them, "Ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise." The exhortations - "Let us therefore fear" (ver. 1); "Let us labour therefore" (ver. 11), are plainly inconsistent with a state of rest. It may seem strange to have pressed upon us at one moment unqualified assurance in the love and faithfulness of God, and at the next to be addressed thus, "Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it." (Ver. 1.) But God never ceases to warn in order that there may be the exercise of responsibility towards Himself, while we are on our way to the rest. Were justification spoken of, had that been the point in question, it would have been said, ’Do not fear, and do not labour; for Christ has done all for you.’ "To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt." This "fear" and this "labour" begin when that question is settled, and settled for ever. The blessed principle brought out is, that they are consequences of our "having to do" with God. Because we have full confidence in the love of God, and because we value the rest of God, we fear everything; not only the temptations and snares that are in the way, but every working of the flesh and the like that would come in between us and God. Blessing is secured at the end, "reserved," as it is said, "in heaven for us;" but conscience reasons thus, "How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" It is "through faith" that we are "kept by the power of God unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time?" Faith realizes the presence of God. Therefore there is this holy fear: we pass the time of our sojourning here in fear. Paul, in writing to the Philippians, says, "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus;" and again, "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." (Php 3:1-21) Was it that he did not see the certainty of the end? No, but because he saw the way as well as the end, and all the difficulties of the way. Paul greatly feared whatever might distract him in his course, or lead him for a moment in the downward path (the flesh, whenever indulged, does this), and then he adds, "Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things." Where there is this holy fear, the promise made being that of God’s rest, we know the end of the path; but we "labour, therefore, to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." (Ver. 11.) Grace will prevent such a result; but it is that to which the flesh - the working of man’s will - must bring the unrenewed professor. There is no such evidence of a true-hearted saint as this holy fear. An unconverted man has, properly speaking, no dread of Satan; but, if not quite hardened, he has great dread of God. The saint of God has no fear (that is, dread) of God, whilst he has great fear of Satan. Jesus, speaking of His sheep (John 10:1-42), says, "A stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers." (Ver. 5.) There is in them the distrust of everything but the known voice of their own shepherd. (Ver. 27.) Above all they fear the wolf, because conscious of their weakness. If any were to say, "The end is sure, never mind the means," the sheep would know that that was no true shepherd’s voice. Everything that would dim our eye as to the glory, or prevent its being single unto God, however precious or valuable it may seem, has to be watched against, for its tendency is to hurry us on in the downward road. Where the eye is single, the whole body is full of light; and therefore every evil is detected, every hindrance to the affections being fixed simply and undividedly on God. It is not then from any uncertainty about God’s love; but from the certainty of being in the desert, that we are to "fear" and to "labour." The saint knows that this is a "dry and thirsty land, where no water is:" bring him into God’s presence, and his soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, it is made to drink of the river of His pleasures. Redemption from Egypt brings into the desert. If we have not God there, we have nothing. There is nothing in this wide world, or of it, which can refresh the new man, any more than there is in heaven to satisfy the old. Should we lose sight of God’s eye and hand, we have nothing but our own folly and the desert sands around us. One may say to a saint, "The rest is pleasant at the end." "Ah!" he replies, "it is not enough for me to know that; by and by I shall be with God; I have rest in God now, I know God now, I enjoy God’s presence now, I cannot be satisfied without having God as a present portion, and I exceedingly dread anything that would come in between me and God." While the eye is fixed on God, and the soul is resting on Him, the ways, and not the end only, are in our hearts, and become to us channels of communion with Him. Everything, dear friends, proves to us that our rest is not here. Fearing, because I am in the desert with a heart prone to depart from God, is not rest. Having to conflict with Satan is not rest. Labour is not rest. "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God." Then there is also the diligence and activity of the new man in its own portion. It is of real importance for our joy, that we should be diligent in our own portion. The church needs to know that it has its own proper portion, its own peculiar sphere of labour. "Much food is in the tillage of the poor; but there is that is destroyed for want of judgment." When we are poor in spirit, and are labouring to enter into God’s rest, there is a reality found to be in the riches which are in Christ Jesus that many a saint has no conception of. Have we not a sphere in which our life has its portion? The men of this world have their own pursuits, they have that which occupies and engages them; and has the life of God in us no resources to strengthen it, no riches in Christ to feed on? Yes, "We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle." We have a sphere in which the divine life communicated to us can exercise its own faculties, and find its own resources. The church has its own joys, its own interests, its own treasures, its own sphere of life, its own field for the affections, its own topics - its own world, in short, in which there is fruit unto God. Have you, dear reader, consciously this portion, and is it the delight of your soul to search out therein the riches of Christ? the goodness that is in God? All that I have yet got of Christ’s riches, is only in order that I may become the more, enriched, a means by which to attain those riches which are unsearchable. This holy labour, in searching out the riches that are in Christ, keeps us in the lively sense of what is ours in Him, and therefore makes all else worthless: Having the soul fixed on Christ will enable us to resist temptation and sin. It is not so much by thinking of the object that may be a temptation to us, that we shall get strength; it is not in letting our minds dwell on it, even though it be with the effort to resist it. Our privilege is to be occupied with Christ, and thus obtain the victory. Our liberty is to be no longer, and never, subject to sin - a liberty to serve God without hindrance of the flesh. I do not want liberty to the flesh, but liberty to the new man; and that is to do my Father’s will. If anything could have taken away the liberty of the Lord Jesus, when on earth (which of course was impossible), it would have been this, His being prevented doing the will of His Father. It may not perhaps sound like privilege to talk of "fear" and "labour;" but it really is so. And because we fail so much in these things, it is also a blessed privilege to know that God searches the heart and deals with the conscience, that "all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." If we do not judge ourselves, God will judge us. But "when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world." Is it not a comfort to the soul that really loves holiness, to know that God will come and sweep the house, lest there should be a single thing left there to offend His eye, or hinder us from walking in the light in which He dwells? Grace emboldens the saint to say, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." What amazing confidence! And God does search us, and that by the light of the word. He shows us the evil by the word. This is the use the Spirit makes of the word: "For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow; and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Ver. 12.) We are brought into God’s presence; we have, as it were, God speaking to us. He searches my heart even in the sweetest testimonies of His grace: and then, having discovered to me the evil, does He speak about it in judgment, as that which is imputed tome as sin? No! He says, "Here is something not in accordance with my love, something that does not satisfy my love." If we have neglected to judge ourselves by God’s word, there may be something more needful in the way of discipline; but still it is our comfort and consolation that we "have to do" with God. Perhaps, for instance, we have been seeking rest here, and have at last well-nigh settled down, and found a home in the wilderness. Then God begins to work in uprooting us again; unless indeed He sees it needful to leave us to ourselves for awhile, in order that, by stumbling, our consciences may be awakened. If there are circumstances that try and perplex our hearts, let us just say, It is God with whom I "have to do;" and what is He about with me? The moment the heart is brought into the recognition of God’s presence, all is done - it submits. The soul finds itself in communion with Him about the circumstances. All is peace. It is not rest to be searched and tried. Rest, blessed be God, is not to be our portion here. His holiness will not let us rest where there is sin; His love will not let us rest where there is sorrow. There "remaineth a rest" for us, His own rest - God’s rest. There will be neither sin, nor trouble, nor sorrow, in God’s rest. There will be Himself there. And we shall rest in Him. If we did but know a little more of the comfort and joy of drinking into the fulness of God’s love, we should feel present circumstances to be as nothing. Nay, if we entered a little more into His purpose towards us, we should say, "Let Him deal with us, let Him chasten us, let Him uproot us as He will, so that we have but full fellowship with His love." Oh, let us not be satisfied with small portions of blessing - low measures, low enjoyments; let us press forward, let our eyes look right onward, let us seek, through the power of the Spirit, after the realization of all that is ours in Jesus. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 21: VOL 01 - GROWTH THROUGH THE TRUTH ======================================================================== Growth Through the Truth 1 Peter 2:1-6. In one sense, as here taught us by the Spirit of God through the apostle, the healthful position of the saint is ever that of the" new-born babe;" whilst in another sense we are, of course, to be making progress so as to become young men and fathers in Christ. As to practical position of soul in receiving truth from God, it is that of the new-born babe - "as new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." This is the place in which, as believers, we are set by the Spirit, in order that we may grow up into Christ. But if we are "to grow by the sincere milk of the word," it is not by the exercise of our minds upon the word, nor yet even by great study of it merely. We need the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and in order to that there must be the exercising of ourselves unto godliness, "thus laying aside all malice, and all guile, and all hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings," so that the Holy Spirit be not grieved. Has the Christian envy, guile, hypocrisies, allowed to work in his heart, there can be no growth in the true knowledge of the things of God; therefore he is called upon to be ever a "new-born babe," coming to receive, in the consciousness of his own weakness, littleness, and ignorance, and in simplicity of heart, food from the word of God. The Lord always keeps His simple, dependent ones thus "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord." But then the knowledge of God always humbles; the more we know of Him, the more shall we know of our own emptiness. "If any man think he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." Just as the babe is constantly receiving nourishment from the mother, so need we to be constantly receiving spiritual nourishment from the word of God. When the word is received by us in faith, we become strengthened, we grow thereby in the knowledge of God, and of His grace. The apostle Paul having heard of the faith of the Ephesians in the Lord Jesus, prays "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory," would "give unto them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: that the eyes of their understanding being enlightened, they might know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints," etc. Having "tasted that the Lord is gracious," we come to His word, and receive from Him that which we need to comfort, nourish, and refresh our souls. The word always comes with savour from Himself. It is known as "the word of his grace." I may study the word again and again, but unless I get into communion with Him by it, it will profit me nothing, at least at the time. God reveals not His things "to the wise and prudent;" but unto "babes." It is not the strength of man’s mind judging about the things of God" that gets the blessing from Him; it is the spirit of the "babe desiring the sincere milk of the word." He says, "Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." The strongest mind must come to the word of God as "the new-born babe." And so too in speaking of God’s truth; whenever we cannot "speak as the oracles of God," through the power of communion, it is our business to be silent. We should be cautious not to trifle with unascertained truth; nothing hinders growth more than this - trifling with unascertained truth; we then act as masters and not as learners. Our position as regards the truth of God must be ever that of "new-born babes desiring the sincere milk of the word, that we may grow thereby." But there is nothing so hard for our hearts as to be humble, nothing so easy for them as to get out of this place of lowliness. It is not by precepts merely that we are either brought into this state, or preserved there, it is by "tasting that the Lord is gracious." It is quite true that God is a God of judgment - that He will exercise vengeance on His enemies; but that is not the way in which He stands towards the Christian - He is made known unto us as "the God of all grace," and the position in which we are set is that of "tasting that He is gracious." How hard is it for us to believe this - that the Lord is gracious! The natural feeling of our hearts is, "I know that thou art an austere man." Are our wills thwarted, we quarrel with God’s ways, and are angry because we cannot have our own. It may be perhaps that this feeling is not manifested, but still at any rate there is the want in all of us naturally of the understanding of the grace of God - the inability to apprehend it. See the case of the poor prodigal in the gospel - the thought of the fulness of his father’s grace never entered into his mind when he set out on his return, and therefore he only reckoned on being received as a "hired servant." But what does the father say? What are the feelings of his heart? "Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found." This is grace - free grace. So too, in the case of the woman of Samaria (the poor adulteress, ignorant of the character of Him who spake with her - "the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth," and therefore the suited One to meet her need), the Lord says to her, "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water." Hadst thou only understood what grace is, thou wouldest have asked, and I would have given. It is not only when there is open rebellion against God, and utter carelessness and unconcern about salvation, that there is this darkness of understanding as to grace. Our natural heart has got so far away from God, that it will look to any thing in the world - to the devil even, to get happiness - any where but to the grace of God. Our consciences, when at all awakened to a sense of sin, and of its hatefulness in the sight of God, think that He cannot be gracious. Adam, had he known the grace of God, when he found Himself naked, would at once have gone to God to cover him. But no, he was ignorant of it; he saw his state, and he sought to hide himself from God amongst the trees of the garden. And so is it with us. The consciousness of being naked before God, apart from the understanding of His grace, makes us flee from Him. Nay, further, as believers in Jesus, when our consciences come to be exercised, and we feel that we must have to do with God in every thing, we may not have the distinct sense of the Lord’s being gracious; and there will then be not only a deep sense of our responsibility, but at the same time the thought that we have to answer to God’s requirements, and shall be judged of Him according to the way in which we do so. There is a measure of truth in this, the requirements of God must be met; but then the wrongness is in thinking that if we do not find in ourselves what will please God, He will condemn us because of it. On the other hand there is sometimes, the thought that grace implies God’s passing by sin. But no, quite the contrary; grace supposes sin to be so horridly bad a thing, that God cannot tolerate it. Were it in the power of man, after being unrighteous and evil, to patch up his ways, and mend himself so as to stand before God, there would then be no need of grace. The very fact of the Lord’s being gracious, shows sin to be so evil a thing, that man being a sinner, his state is utterly ruined and hopeless, and nothing but free grace will do for him - can meet his need. A man may see sin to be a deadly thing, and he may see that nothing that defileth can enter into the presence of God his conscience may be brought to a true conviction of sin; yet this is not "tasting that the Lord is gracious." It is a very good thing to be brought even to that, for I am then tasting that the Lord is righteous, and it is needful for me to know it; but then I must not stop there, sin without grace would put me in a hopeless state. Peter had not "tasted that the Lord was gracious," when he said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" and therefore he thought that his sin unfitted him for the presence of the Lord. Such too was the thought of Simon the leper, respecting the poor woman who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Ah, if this man had been a prophet (if he had known the mind of God), he would have sent away this woman out of his presence, "for she is a sinner." And why? Because he did not know that the Lord was gracious. He had a certain sense of the righteousness of God, but not the knowledge of His grace. I cannot say that God ought to be gracious, but I can (if ignorant of His grace) that He ought to cast me, as a sinner, away from His presence, because He is righteous. Thus we see that we must learn what God is to us, not by our own thoughts, but by what He has revealed Himself to be, and that is "the God of all grace." The moment I understand (as Peter did) that I am a sinful man, and yet that it was because the Lord knew the full extent of my sin, and what its hatefulness was, that He came to me, I understand what grace is. Faith makes me see that God is greater than my sin, and not that my sin is greater than God. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." As soon as I believe Jesus to be the Son of God, I see that God has come to me because I was a sinner and could not go to Him. Man’s ability to meet the requirements of the holiness of God has been fully tried: but the plainer the light came, the more did it show to man his darkness; and the stricter the rule, the more did it bring out his self-will. And then it was, "when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly" - "when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." This is grace. God seeing the blood of His Son, is satisfied with it; and if I am satisfied with it, this is what glorifies God. But the Lord that I have known as laying down His life for me, is the same Lord that I have to do with every day of my life; and all His dealings with me are on this same principle of grace. Do I want to learn what His love is, it is taught in the cross; but He gave Himself for me in order that all the fulness and joy that is in Him might be mine; I must be a learner of it still - a new-born babe "desiring the sincere milk of the word that I may grow thereby." The great secret of growth, is the looking up to the Lord as gracious. How precious, how strengthening it is, to know that Jesus is at this moment feeling and exercising the same love towards me, as when He died upon the cross for me. This is a truth that should be used by us in most the common every-day circumstances of life. Suppose, for instance, I find an evil temper in myself, which I feel it difficult to overcome, let me bring it to Jesus as my friend, virtue goes out of Him for my need. Faith should be ever thus in exercise against temptation, and not simply my own effort; my own effort against it will never be sufficient; the source of real strength is in the sense of the Lord’s being gracious. But the natural man in us always disallows Christ as the only source of strength and of every blessing. Suppose my soul is out of communion, the natural heart says, I must correct the cause of this before I can come to Christ; but He is gracious, and knowing this, the way is to return to Him at once, just as we are, and then humble ourselves deeply before Him. It is only in Him and from Him that we shall find that which will restore our souls. Humbleness in His presence is the only real humbleness. If we own ourselves in His presence to be just what we are, we shall find that He will show us nothing but grace. But though "disallowed indeed of men," of the natural heart in every one of us, Who is this that says, "Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious; and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded"? It is God; He laid this corner stone, not man, and He says, this is what I think of Christ. By learning of God, through His teaching me by the Holy Spirit, I come to have the same thoughts about Jesus that He has. Here I find my strength, my comfort, my joy. That in which God delights and will delight for ever, is now my joy also. God says, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;" "mine elect in whom my soul delighteth;" and working these (His) thoughts into my soul, I too see Jesus to be precious, and find my delight in Him. Thus He who was crucified for me; who "bare my sins in his own body on the tree," is precious to God and precious to me. God could find no rest save in Jesus. We may look throughout the world, we shall find nothing which can satisfy our hearts but Jesus. If God looked for truth, for righteousness, all He could desire He found in Jesus, and He found it in Him for us. Here is that which gives comfort to the soul. I see Jesus "now in the presence of God for us," and God is satisfied; God delights in Him. It is Christ Himself in whom God rests, and will rest for ever; but then Jesus, having borne and blotted out my sins by His own blood, has united me to Himself in heaven. He descended from above, bringing God down to us here; He has ascended, taking up the Church in union with Himself there. If God finds Jesus precious, He finds me (in Him) precious also. Jesus, as man, has glorified God on the earth. God rests in that. As man, and "the head of his body the Church," He "has passed into the heavens, now to appear in the presence of God for us;" it is this which gives abiding rest to our souls, and not what our thoughts about ourselves may be. Faith never thinks about that which is in ourselves as its ground of rest; it receives, loves, and apprehends what God has revealed, and what are God’s thoughts about Jesus, in whom is His rest. It is not by human knowledge or intellect that we attain to this. The poor ignorant sinner, when enlightened by the Spirit, can understand how precious Jesus is to the heart of God as well as the most intellectual. The poor dying thief could give a better account of the whole life of Jesus than all around him, saying, "This man has done nothing amiss;" he was taught by the Spirit. Are we much in communion with God? Our faces will shine, and others will discover it though we may not be conscious of it ourselves. Moses, when he had been talking with God, wist not that the skin of his face shone; he forgot himself; he was absorbed in God. As knowing Jesus to be precious to our souls, our eyes and our hearts being occupied with Him, they will be effectually prevented from being taken up with the vanity and sin around; and this too will be our strength against the sin and corruption of our own hearts. Whatever I see in myself that is not in Him is sin; but then it is not thinking upon my own sins - upon my own vileness - and being occupied with them, that will humble me; but thinking of the Lord Jesus, dwelling upon the excellencies in Him. It is well to have done with ourselves, and to be taken up with Jesus. We are entitled to forget ourselves, we are entitled to forget our sins; we are entitled to forget all but Jesus. It is by looking unto Jesus that we can give up any thing, that we can walk as obedient children; His love constrains us. Were it simply a command, we should have no power to obey. The Lord give us thus to be learners of the fulness of grace which is in Jesus, the beloved and elect One of God, so that "we may be changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." May we, beloved, in searching into the truth of God, "having tasted that the Lord is gracious," ever be found "as new-born babes... desiring the sincere milk of the word, that we may grow thereby." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 22: VOL 01 - HARK TO THE TRUMP ======================================================================== Hark To the Trump Hark to the trump! behold it breaks The sleep of ages now And lo! the light of glory shines On many an aching brow. Changed in a moment - raised to life, The quick, the dead arise, Responsive to the angel’s voice, That calls us to the skies. Ascending through the crowded air, On eagles’ wings we soar, To dwell in the full joy of love, And sorrow there no more. Undazzled by the glorious light Of that beloved brow, We see, without a single cloud, We see the Saviour now! O Lord, the bright and blessed hope That cheered us through the past, Of full eternal rest in Thee, Is all fulfilled at last. The cry of sorrow here is hushed, The voice of prayer is o’er; ’Tis needless now - for, Lord, we crave Thy gracious help no more. Praise, endless praise, alone becomes This bright and blessed place, Where every eye beholds unveiled The mysteries of Thy grace. Past conflict here, O Lord, ’tis ours, Through everlasting days, To sing our song of victory now, And only live to praise. E. D. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 23: VOL 01 - HOLY AND BELOVED ======================================================================== Holy and Beloved Ephesians 1:4-14. God hath purposed in Himself to have before Himself that which shall reflect His own blessedness - He taking pleasure in us, and we taking pleasure in Him; as it is said here: "That we should be holy, and without blame before him in love." He will have His people of the same nature as Himself, gathered around Himself, happy there, and for Himself. His thought is not merely that we should have an inheritance; we read of "the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints." He "hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." And this is just the character of this epistle; the apostle in speaking of redemption does so, not so much as of something needed by us in order to appear before God, as of these purposes of God concerning us. We may look at God as a Judge; but, more than this, God is working for the display of the riches of the glory of His grace. This lifts up the soul. God has thoughts and intentions about us. As in the case of a young man whom a person has (in ordinary language) "taken up" and is about to provide for, it is not a question of what the one was, but of the thoughts and intentions of the other, of what, in a word, he is, and will do for the young man; so, though in a much more blessed sense, has God "taken up" poor sinners that He might act towards them worthily of Himself, to the praise of the glory of His grace. The other thing remains true, God is a Judge, and "we have forgiveness of sins, through the blood of Christ; and we must understand this before we can enjoy our privileges in Christ. God has "taken us up." Our very existence in the new creation is the fruit of His purpose and thoughts about us. This has a double bearing. It shows how we are to measure what God is doing for us; as a question of God’s purpose; and besides being this measure, it makes us understand the source of it all. And this has a most happy effect; instead of looking at ourselves, and judging from ourselves, we look at God. Nothing but life-giving, power could ever have wrought this. Our thoughts about God are that He is the source of all our blessing. As the young man, before alluded to, would have pleasure in thinking about the friend who had "taken him up," so this thought about God is a happy thought, and, moreover, one of great sanctifying power. God has "predestinated us unto the adoption of children." It is not here simply a question of purpose (of God’s counsel, and therefore sure), that to which He has predestinated us is the present adoption of children. I, a poor sinner, a sinner of the Gentiles, had no title whatever to blessing; I trace all my title to God’s purpose, which He hath purposed in Himself. This is true also of the Jews, though, in a certain sense, they stood on different ground. Christ was "a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers;" but of the Gentiles it is said, "And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy." It is of grace, of God’s free thought about us. He has taken pleasure in us, as Joshua said to Israel: "If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it unto us, a land which floweth with milk and honey." We cannot boast in anything; for we have not anything whatever wherein to boast, except in this, that God has taken delight in us to give us the adoption. The effect is most blessed; we know Himself - "after ye have known God, or rather are known of God." That He has predestinated us unto, is not a distant thing, nor yet merely salvation (in the sense of escape from the wrath of God), it is the nearest place He could have put us into, not as with the Jews: "I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born," we are adopted with the "adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." Here we get, not only the source, but the manner - the source, God’s love; the manner, in Christ. "The word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" - the word that was in the beginning with God, and was God. But the light shone in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. It is not said that there was want of power, but that men’s deeds were evil, and that, therefore, they would not come unto the light. A Christian who is walking carelessly does not like a godly Christian to come into contact with him, he feels condemned; whenever the heart is not right with God, light makes uneasy. But besides being light, "In Him was life," and that is what we needed; while He shows us our evil, He is the good we need. Predestinated unto the adoption of children, it is in Him. Called according to God’s purpose, we are to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. We are brought into the presence of God in Jesus Christ. Therefore, when Jesus goes away, He says, "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, unto my God and your God." He has Himself met all our responsibility, otherwise the light would have been terrible. There are two things, substitution and communication of life. In substitution, He stood alone. But, our guilt being taken away, we are quickened together with Him, and He presents us in the Father’s presence, as He is. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." But not merely has the Son of God visited us when we were in our sins, not merely, either, been delivered for our offences. "Herein is our love (love with us) made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world." We have no life apart from Christ; we have no acceptance apart from Christ. He has made us accepted in the Beloved - the measure is just that. It is God’s delight to bring us, in Christ, and by Christ, into His own presence. We can go no further. "Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ," writes John. We may enjoy it more and more, we may delight in it in deepened measure, but we cannot have anything beyond. When God speaks of glorifying Himself, or of our glorifying Him, it means through the display of what He is; it is God’s glory to display Himself; therefore in this, which is to the glory of His grace, we have the display of Himself. And do not let us suppose that this goes beyond that we may think about (a very natural thought;) the apostle says further on: "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled into all the fulness of God." (Ephesians 3:14-19.) It is not a matter of human wisdom, learning, or attainment; in proportion as we become simple as little children, we shall understand these things, through the Holy Ghost. "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise." It has nothing to do with human learning; lowliness of mind is what is needed. "The good pleasure of His will" is not simply sovereignty, it is the good pleasure of His will God is acting in His love, displaying the will of His grace, "taking up" poor, wretched, vile sinners, and unfolding, on these objects of His mercy, all the riches of His own goodness. "The good pleasure of His will," that which God takes delight in, is the ministering of the fulness of His blessing to us. Here the soul gets established: It is quite evident that the measure of His goodness cannot be, in any sense, the measure of what we are, as deserving at His hands; while it is His good pleasure, it is the good pleasure of His grace. And further, whilst I have need, for the establishment of my soul, to learn what He is, to be delighting in the goodness of God, it is this too which sanctifies. If I could be always thinking of what He is, I should be perfectly happy, and there would be the reflection in me of that with which my soul was occupied. We begin often at the wrong end. On what are we resting our acceptance? It is not anything in ourselves that will do. Or is it a question of sanctification? - "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, from glory to, glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord" (1:e. I look at the Lord, and, as a consequence of my looking at the Lord, I reveal to men what He is). Moses, on coming down from the mount, was not enquiring whether his face shone, in order to know if he had been with God; others saw this. It is such a comfort to get to God, and feel that it is in Him, and from Him. Where, naturally, would our souls rest? It is quite a natural feeling, if we have been convinced of sin, that we should want to get at ease, at peace, to know there is nothing against us, it is a natural feeling, a feeling that must be; but the apostle here is looking at those whom God has "taken up," and He has "made us accepted in the beloved." That is God’s thought about us; He has shown us this grace in a particular way, and in a particular person - Christ. It is not merely a negative thing; He takes as positive delight in us as He does in Jesus. He is no double-measure God. "Put on as the elect of God," Paul writes to the Colossians, "holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness," etc. Saints and beloved ones of God, objects of God’s love, God’s delight (the measure of which is Christ), thus he addresses them. If I am beloved of a person, this draws out love. So the consciousness of God’s love, God’s delight produces links in affection, that exists not without it. My thought of being accepted is not merely that my sins are put away, so that I could stand before Him, I am the object of His delight; holy affections are drawn out, and I pass through the world as a beloved one of God. We cannot suppose, in Christ’s going through this world (and this shows us our deficiency as Christians), one single thing of it, that acts on our hearts, acting on His; He was the beloved one of God - "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," and He was going through the world as such. Thus, too, should the Christian walk through the world, with the consciousness of being beloved of God. With this we do not want the world; without it, we are obliged to turn to something that makes self the centre. Young or old, that is what we are - beloved of God. Perhaps, you will say: ’Ah, but I am very proud, very worldly; I do not give up the things of the world.’ Very likely not, and that is a reason for your being reminded of this, that you may. "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." This is the leading thought in the apostle’s mind. And remark, he speaks of that which is positively possessed, not of something we are hoping for, or expecting; He "hath made us accepted in the beloved," we "have redemption through his blood," etc. This grace of God, this "good pleasure of his will," has planted and set us in it all. We may be practically destitute of the joy of these things, but that is where we are. And He has given to those whom He has set in this place the knowledge of His purpose as to the glory of Christ, as it goes on to say: "Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence (the apostle explains it); having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself;" here again it comes from the good pleasure of His will, "That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth." Having placed the saints in all this fellowship and blessing, He imparts (as with Abraham - "Shall I hide from Abraham the thing that I am about to do?") unto them His thoughts. Not only has He accepted us in Christ, but He will have every thing brought under Christ’s dominion and power - He is to gather together in one all things in Christ - "even in him: in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory." We are joint-heirs with Christ. Hence the prayer at the end of the chapter. We cannot deny, we do not deny (whatever man’s efforts to make the best of the world), that sin is in the world; there is not a single thing, take dress for instance, that does not tell us that. There is not a single thing we are buying or selling, a single thing we are looking upon, that is not in some sort a proof of sin. All that man does for pleasure is necessitated by sin; Adam in Paradise had no need of it. What makes the world get on without God? the principle of sin; this is running through everything - it has got, so to speak, into the vital blood, and (though it be God’s creation through which it runs) it runs through everything. Man builds his city, invents his instruments of music (Genesis 4:1-26), and strives to make the world happy without God. Introduce God and His amazing work where men are occupied with gain or with pleasure, it is all wrong and out of place. Whether for pleasure or for gain, God must be excluded. That is the character of the whole world, and to tack on the name of Christ does not mend it; an avaricious Christian (nominally such) is in nothing better than an avaricious heathen. God is lingering over it, but the existence of the gospel in the world is proof that the world is lost. "We know," says John, "that the whole world lieth in the wicked one;" and again, "All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. As it is, as a plain matter of fact, it is not God’s inheritance. Who is called its god? Satan. God’s title cast away through the lust of men, and the pride and power of Satan, whom they follow, God has designated Satan "the god of this world," and made known to us (those who are of faith) the mystery of His will. The apostle speaks here of hope (5: 18) - We have obtained an inheritance in Christ, and all things are going to be put under Christ; meanwhile (like Abraham, who had not so much as whereon to set his foot) "having nothing, and yet possessing all things," the Christian walks through the world, as one beloved of God, in the consciousness that he is the object of God’s purposes, and of God’s delight. But what do we see in the Lord Jesus? Not merely that He has been designated the heir of all things; "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand." So too, our proper delight is in knowing that we are beloved of God, and that God will have us before Himself, and for Himself - His delight in us, and our delight in Him. It is as a consequence of this love, that we shall have the glory of the inheritance. Where are our hearts? what is our joy? Are we journeying, aye, journeying through the world in the blessed, joyful confidence of this secret of God? - then will the world be to us a "dry and thirsty land;" instead of finding delight in things around, we shall have to guard against them, as against that which would bring us down to Satan’s ground. Are we taking the world, with its pleasures and its gain? If so, we are entering into Cain’s portion, and not into that of Abraham, and we are "enemies of the cross of Christ." Through these things Satan is deceiving the world. Are we taking the position (not of Adam before he sinned, not of Christ when He was in the world, neither of Christ in the glory, but) of the "men of the earth"? The Lord give us to see, and so to estimate, so to value, that which is God’s object, that we may have done with this present evil world. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 24: VOL 01 - JESUS FORGIVING SINS ======================================================================== Jesus Forgiving Sins Matthew 9:6; Mark 2:9; Luke 5:24. God was showing His rich and various mercy in the old time; but this was done after a peculiar manner. He forgave sin, He healed disease, He fed His people. But all this was done in a peculiar manner. There was a certain distance and reserve, as it were, a remaining still in His own sanctuary, still in the heavens, though He was thus gracious. He met the need of a sinner; but He was in the temple withdrawn to the holiest place, and the sinner had to come through a consecrated path to get the virtue of the mercy-seat. He met the need of His camp in the desert; but it was by remaining still in heaven, and sending from thence the angels’ food, the mighty’s meat, and giving them water, after His mystic rod had opened the rock. He met the disease of a poor leper; but it was after such leper had been separated to Him outside the camp, every eye and hand, all interference and inspection of man, withdrawn and removed. Thus He was God acting in His own due love and power; but there was a style in the action that bespoke distance from the objects of His care and goodness. Whether He pardoned, fed, or healed, this manner was preserved. The Lord Jesus, "God manifest in the flesh," is seen doing the same works of divine love and power. He pardons, feeds, and heals. And He does so in full assertion of His divine right or glory, thinking it no robbery to be equal with God. But there is altogether another style in those same actions when in His hand. The reserve, the distance is gone. It is God we see, not withdrawn into the holiest, but abroad in the prisons, the hospitals, and poor-houses of this ruined world. He pardons, but He stands beside the sinner to do this, saying, "Thy sins be forgiven thee;" or, "Neither do I condemn thee." He feeds, but He is at the very table with the fed. He heals, but He puts forth His hand, in the crowd, on as many as were diseased, or stands at their sick-beds. He thus comes down to the needy ones. With pardon, food, and healing, He goes among them, letting them know and see that He is supplied with various virtues to be used by them without reserve. And there is in this a glory that excelleth, so that the former has no glory by reason of it. How should we bless Him for this display of Himself! It is the same God of love and power in both - but He has increased in the brightness of His manifestations. The religious rulers found this way of Jesus interfere with them. Their interest was to keep God and the people separate; for then they had hopes of being used themselves. Thus they were angry when the Lord said to the man, "Thy sins are forgiven thee." It was a great interference with them. It trespassed on their place. "Who can forgive sins but God only?" - and God was in heaven. The Son of man forgiving sins on earth was a sad disturbance of that order by which they lived in credit and plenty in the world. But whether they received it or not, this was the way of the Son of God on the earth. He dealt with our necessities in such wise as encouraged the happy, near, and confident approach of all needy ones to Him. He did all to show that He was a cheerful giver; nay, more - that He gave Himself with His gifts. For with His own hand, as we have seen, He brought the blessing home to every man’s door. It was, therefore, only the happy confidence of faith that fully met and refreshed His spirit - that faith which knew the title of a needy one to come right up to him - the faith of a Bartimeus, which was not to be silenced by the mistaken scrupulousness of even disciples. And little children are to be in His arms, though the same mistake would forbid them. This was His mind. He came into the world to be used by sick and needy sinners, and the faith that understood and used Him accordingly was its due answer. Such answer we see recorded by the evangelists here, in the action of the faithful little band, who, breaking up the roof, let down the bed whereon the sick of the palsy lay, "into the midst before Jesus." There was no ceremoniousness in this; nothing of the ancient reserve of the temple; no waiting for introduction. This little company felt their necessity, knew the virtues of the Son of God, and believed that these suited each other; nay, that the Lord carried the one because necessitous sinners were bearing the other. It was a very strong expression of this, and I believe the strength of it was according to the mind of Jesus; so that on seeing their faith, as we read, without further to do, or more words, His heart, and the grace that it carried, uttered itself in an expression as full and strong: "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." Here was sympathy. Jesus was rending all veils between God and sinners, and so was the faith of this happy little company. His blood was soon to rend the veil of the temple, which kept God from poor sinners, from top to bottom, and now their faith was rending that which kept them from Jesus. This surely was meeting and entertaining the Son of God in character; and His Spirit deeply owns it: "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." Happy faith that can thus break down all partition-walls! Oh, this faith, that takes knowledge of Jesus the Saviour of the world as the mighty render of all veils! which knows that nothing stands before Him! Join thou, my soul, for thou canst tell His sovereign grace broke up thy cell, And burst thy native chains; And from that dear and blessed day, How oft art thou constrained to say That grace triumphant reigns!" In the lively, happy impression of this truth, through the Spirit, the soul tastes something of heaven. What blessedness to know that this is the way of God our Saviour! Grace and glory are both brought to us. We have not to ascend to heaven to seek, them there, nor to descend to the depths to search after them there. "Behold, I come, and my reward is with me," will Jesus say, when He brings the glory, as we have already seen Him with His grace standing at the door, or by the bedside, or in the crowd of needy sinners. This is of God indeed. It is only divine love that can account for it. But the rulers did not like it. Their interest and credit in the world was to keep the forgiveness of sins still in the hand of Him who was in heaven; for then, as the consecrated path, they hoped and judged that they themselves would still be used. And so it is to this day. Forgiveness is brought near and sure to the soul; the word of faith to the heart and to the mouth. This shortens the path; but it does not suit those who transact (as themselves and others judge) the interests of the soul. Nothing appears more simple than all this on the principles of nature. The Pharisees in the Lord’s time represented it. They were the religious rulers; and the more God was kept in the distance, the more reserve was preserved between Him and the people, the more they were likely to be venerated, used, and enriched. Jesus, the Son of man, forgiving sins on the earth, was a sad trespasser on their place and plan of action. How, alas! is this principle still alive, still dominant! And the "people love to have it so;" it suits the religiousness of man’s nature too well to be lightly refused. The simplicity that is in Christ is sadly thus "corrupted," and our souls, beloved, should be grieved, deeply grieved, because of it. But we may also say that much occasion in our day has been given to this principle - to live and act as vigorously as it seems to be doing. For there has not been the meeting of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, this pardoning, feeding, healing love and power of Him who has come down to walk amid our ruins, in the spirit which alone was due to it. There has been the assertion of grace, and the denial that God in this dispensation is to be sought for as at a distance, under the hiding of ceremonies, or within the cloisters of temples. There has been the producing of the blessed Saviour, and giving Him to walk abroad among our necessities according to the place He has Himself taken in the gospel. There has been the presenting of the marvellous condescending grace of the dispensation; but those who have asserted it have not carried themselves towards it, and in the presence of it, with that reverence, that holiness of confidence, which alone became them. And this has given man’s religiousness (which would keep God still in heaven) occasion to revive, and be listened to and learnt again. But is this religiousness the due corrective of abused grace? Is this the divine remedy? Is this God’s way of rectifying evil? or is it not simple human reaction? Many are doing what they can to withdraw the Lord to that place which He has most advisedly and for ever abandoned. They are making Him appear to build again the things which He had destroyed. They are putting Him back into the holiest place, there to be sought unto by the old aisles and vistas of the "worldly sanctuary" - to cover Him with veils, and cast up the long consecrated path by which of old the sinner came to Him. It were well to be righteously angry at Jesus and His grace being treated with so indelicate and untender a hand; but these correct the error by a worse. While they would protect the holiness of Christ, they obscure His grace. They are seeking to do a service for Him that grieves Him the most deeply. They are teaching man that He is an austere Master; they withdraw Him to the place where it is felt to be a fearful thing to plant one’s foot. Indeed, this is a service He did not ask for. "Who has required this at your hands?" is, I am assured in my soul, the voice of the Son of God to those who thus withdraw Him from the nearest and most assured approach of the poor sinner. They have been doing what they could to change His place and attitude, instead of MAN’S. Correction was needed surely. It is ever needed. Man will be spoiling or abusing every thing. There has been an intellectual arrogance, and carnal freedom with Christ and His truth, which may well have grieved the righteous. But it was man that ought to be corrected, and not Christ. It was man that ought to have been challenged to change his place and bearing, and not the Lord. He has not repented of having come on earth to forgive sins, of having visited the poor Samaritan at the well, or Levi or Zaccheus in their houses, or Peter’s wife’s mother on her bed of sickness. He is still the same Lord, and purposes to be so. He has not retired within the veil again, nor bound up that which was rent from top to bottom. He has not built again that which He had destroyed. It is not a worldly sanctuary that He fills, and furnishes again, nor ceremonies and observances, and rites and practices, under which He is again concealing Himself. He has descended from heaven to earth; He is abroad among men, in the ministry of His precious gospel and by His Spirit, beseeching sinners to be reconciled. What then, alas! is the character of that effort that would force him back to the "thick darkness"? (2 Chronicles 6:1-2.) It is an attempt made in the strength and with the subtlety of the devil, upon the Son of God, as of old. It is a taking Him, as it were, to the pinnacle of the temple, to some withdrawn and proud elevation, where the multitude may gaze at Him. But His purpose is, blessed be His name, to stand in the midst of them, that they may use Him. We should change our place; that is equally true. We should learn to pass and repass before this gracious, blessed Son of man with the unshod foot. It is for us to change our attitude, and not to seek to make Him change His. We have still to see Him in all the grace of this happy dispensation; we have to read "the gospel of the blessed God" (1 Timothy 1:1-20) as they read it of old, who knew and felt that the Son of man had power on earth to forgive sins; but we have to read all this more in their spirit also. We are to wonder at the strange sight as they did - to tell Jesus with the centurion, that we are not worthy that He should come under our roof, while we still use His immediate presence and grace, to stand before Him like Zaccheus, and call Him "Lord," though, like him, receiving Him to our house, and to follow Him in the way with adoring, thankful praise, though having refused, as Bartimeus, to be put at a distance by the vain, religious scruples of even His own disciples. Ah! this is what should have been done. This would have been the divine corrective of the mischief that has come in. But this was not so easy. For this would have been spiritual; the thing that has been done is carnal. Elements of the world are revived and multiplied. Jesus has been forced back at a distance from the sinner. He has been put into "the thick darkness," under cover of fleshly observances and rites, and at the end of a long path through the aisles of a sanctuary, where He waits to receive the homage of a fearing and bondaged people. This is the place and attitude which many teachers (who are daily rising in the esteem of the people) make the blessed Saviour to fill and to take. The Lord Jesus is kept at a distance; religious observances are brought near, and the people (for they have ever been so minded) like the feelings that come from all that which is acted before them. Their eye and ear are engaged, a certain sacred sense of God is awakened, but the precious immediate confidence of the heart and conscience is refused. Ah, shall any who love the Lord thus sink down again into man, when the Spirit would have them up into Christ! "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" "Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." Thus speaks the aggrieved Spirit in the apostle over those who once had been eminently his joy, but were now his sorrow, because they were turning again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto they were desiring again to be in bondage, because they were deserting faith for religiousness, "the simplicity that is in Christ," and in which the "virgin" or "uncorrupted" mind ever walks, for the ceremonies and observances of "a worldly sanctuary." But religiousness is neither faith nor righteousness. With the Pharisees it was adopted as a relief for a bad conscience, or a cover for evil - in them it was therefore opposed to righteousness. With the Galatians, because there had been a departure from the truth - the simplicity that is in Christ - in them, therefore, it was opposed to faith. The Galatian cannot properly be said to have been a Pharisee, it is true; but the Spirit of God had a serious question with both. And I may just further observe, that in our passage (Matthew 9:6, Mark 2:9, Luke 5:24) the Lord seeks to lead man away from his own reasonings and calculations to Himself and His works. He perceived that the scribes were "reasoning among themselves," and then proposed to them what He was doing - "that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins (he said unto the sick of the palsy), I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go unto thine house." How simple, how precious! And on this hangs the grand distinction between faith and religiousness, of which I have just been speaking. Religiousness, or man’s religion, gives the soul many a serious thought about itself, and many a devout thought about God. But faith, or God’s religion, gives the soul Jesus, and the works and words of Jesus. And yet it is faith and faith only that secures any end that is valued of God. Faith "works by love," faith "overcomes the world," faith "purifies the heart," by faith "the elders obtained a good report." Religiousness does not this. It ever works by fear, not by love. It does not "overcome the world," but ofttimes takes it away within to some recess or hiding place. It does not "purify the heart" by giving it an object, a divine object, to detach it from self, but keeps self in a religious attire ever before it, and leaves the conscience unpurged. And in God’s record it gets no "good report." From the beginning to the end of that record it is the people of religion, the devout observers of carnal ceremonies, those who would not "defile themselves" with a judgment-hall, that have stood most cruel in the resistance of the truth. But it is the men of faith, the lovers of the truth, the poor, broken-hearted sinners who have found their relief in Jesus "forgiving sins," who have stood, and laboured, and conquered, and have their happy memorial with Him and in the records of Him whom they trusted, and in whom by faith they found their eternal life, and sure and full salvation. "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 25: VOL 01 - MOSES IN EGYPT, AND MOSES IN MIDIAN ======================================================================== Moses In Egypt, and Moses In Midian Acts 7:20-36. One great principle in all true service is the consciousness of being upheld therein by God. It was, thus with the perfect Servant, the Lord Jesus Christ. "Behold, my servant, whom, I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth." The grand feature in His service was, that He never acted of Himself: "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." "When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. And he that hath sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him." The moment a servant acts independently, he acts from himself, and out of character. There is great danger of mistaking the busy activity around us at the present day for true service to God. I believe that God intends to mark very distinctly what man’s natural understanding and power can effect, and what the power and wisdom of the Holy Ghost can effect. Our endowment as Christians is "the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord, to make of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord." Whenever we are living before men, instead of before God, there will be restlessness and disquiet. There may be the desire to do many things that are written in the word, but they will not be done in quiet and peaceful joy. We are never really preserved from hypocrisy unless we are living before God. It is the very best possible cure for the overweening conceit we have, all of us, naturally of ourselves. But let us seek to gather a little instruction from the history of "Moses the servant of God." Moses was an eminent type of the Lord Jesus. And I would just notice, in passing, that they are the only two persons mentioned in Scripture whose course we are able to trace from their birth on to the glory. It is worthy of remark that the life of Moses is divided into three distinct periods of forty years. The first forty he spent in Egypt as the "son of Pharaoh’s daughter."’ The next forty in the wilderness tending the flock of his father-in-law. There, at the mount of God, he had a vision of glory, such as could never have been revealed to him in Egypt. In the last forty we have the account of the sorrowful and trying course he had to run, as the servant of God and of His people Israel, in bearing the burden of that people. The first portion of his life was spent in Egypt. And Stephen speaks of him as being "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and mighty in words and in deeds." (5: 22.) But this wisdom of Egypt was not any thing that God could own. Doubtless, Moses knew that God was about to use him as the "deliverer" of His people; but that which had been acquired in Egypt could not deliver the Lord’s people from Egypt. Moses’ parents could but recognise the remarkableness of their child. (See Hebrews 11:23.) And Moses himself, "by faith, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward." (Hebrews 11:24-26.) "When he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel." (5: 23.) Whatever ease and comfort Moses might have enjoyed in Pharaoh’s house - its luxury and its refinements, "the treasures in Egypt," were all his - his heart yearned over his brethren. He went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens. "And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian." (5: 24.) "Mighty in deeds," on behalf, too, of the people of God, but acting in the energy of the flesh, not as sent of God (hence what followed), Moses was thinking how Moses was to deliver the people. "He supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them." (5: 25.) But no, "they understood not." Moses had another lesson to learn. God had to teach him that He would only be served by the power and strength that come from Himself, not by the strength or wisdom of Egypt. There cannot be two things more different than a person acting in the energy of the flesh, and one acting in the power of the Spirit. In the first case, there is always disappointment and surprise at the failure of our efforts. When Moses had spent forty years in the wilderness, doing, as it were, nothing, we find him (Exodus 3:1-22) answering God’s message, "Come now, therefore, and I will send thee," etc., thus, "Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?" When he comes to be sent of God, there is the deep sense of the responsibility of it laid upon him, and he shrinks from it. Before, when going forth in the energy of the flesh, he was bitterly disappointed at the failure he met with; now, he has learned his own insignificance, and he says, "Who am I?"" And it is ever thus. When a saint feels that he is sent of God on any mission, there is always the deepest prostration of spirit. This may be brought about by painful discipline of soul, but the end of God’s training is to break down self-confidence, so that, when at last the person goes forth in service, it is with the feeling, "Who am I?" One great characteristic of the flesh we have acquired by being so long in "Egypt" is, the dislike to say, "Who am I?" But God must produce this frame of mind before He uses us. The most cultivated understanding, human wisdom, and research will not stand in any stead in the service of God. "And the next day he showed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another? But he that did his neighbour wrong, thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me, as thou diddest the Egyptian yesterday?" He only gets misunderstood by those whom he seeks to serve. When he would be the man of peace, his reward is the taunt, "Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?" Mark this, beloved. I am speaking of Moses as one quickened, one knowing, in a sense, what communion with God was, but who had not learned as yet to throw off Egypt’s strength and wisdom. We must fail when we go to warfare at our own charges. Many a saint runs on for a while (just after his conversion, perhaps), in the eagerness and zeal of the flesh, doing right things, but not in the spirit of dependence on God; by and bye his energy flags, and he feels as though he were entirely useless, as though God could never again employ him in His service. Now this is a profitable lesson, though a deeply humbling one. The Lord often trains an individual thus, for much after usefulness in the Church. Just so was it with Moses. "Then fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Midian." (5: 29.) These first forty years of Moses’ life are passed over very slightly by God. No doubt, had man written the history of them, we should have had given to us a wonderful account of all that Moses did and said in this land of wisdom. The Spirit of God is silent. And why, beloved? Because the wisdom of "Egypt" is foolishness with God, and the strength of "Egypt" weakness with God. During the next forty years Moses is lost to Egypt and to Israel. But then he is alone with God. In solitude (Exodus 3:1-22) the Lord meets him at Horeb - "the mount of God." And I doubt not that Horeb is thus named because it was a place where Moses had enjoyed communion with God, and where he had learned a lesson which he never could have learned when in Egypt - dependence on God. In secret, he is being prepared for all those mighty achievements he was soon to be called on to perform before Pharaoh, and Egypt, and Israel. It is in solitude that God chiefly teaches His people. The blessed Jesus sought for refreshment on this earth in being alone with God. And this is the place where the saint learns his own weakness and God’s strength. He enters into the depths of his own evil, but also into the depths of God’s grace. He learns to deny self, to subdue imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God. He proves the necessity of the cross. "And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them." (Exodus 2:1-25) "The time of the promise" (5: 17) had at length come, and now we find Moses about to be prepared and sent forth as the "ruler and deliverer" of Israel One preparation had been forty years passed in solitude, in secret training with God, in the wilderness, but there was another thing needful - the manifestation of God’s glory. "And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai, an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush." (5: 30.) There had never been aught like this seen in Egypt. Egypt was not the place for God to show His "great sight." The wonders of nature were exhibited there, in the periodical inundation of the river, and the like. The wonders of art were also there. But here was something that Moses’ Egyptian wisdom failed in unravelling. "When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight" (5: 31): "the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed." But unless we have wisdom to understand why the bush was not consumed, we have not the real wisdom of God. It is impossible in Egypt to see the glory of the living God. It is above all human thought or conception. It is something which man has no power of explaining. We may tell people of the sight, but they will not credit us; man’s wisdom is at fault. Where did Moses see the same glory? In the pillar of fire which accompanied Israel through their wanderings in the wilderness. When shall it be seen again? When the Lord shall be revealed in flaming fire which will burn up His adversaries. "And as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold." (vv. 31, 32.) This "great sight" cannot be spoken of by Egyptian lips, it cannot be understood by Egyptian ears, and we must have the anointing of the eye-salve to see it. In the poor, feeble, worthless bush, in the midst of which the fire burned without consuming it, we have a blessed emblem of that which, though weak and uncomely in itself, is encircled with the glory of God - the Church. What Moses learned was this: that it was God’s purpose to encircle Israel with His own glory. And how could this be (either with regard to Israel or the church) without its being consumed by that glory? It was to be encircled with God’s salvation. Until a person knows the security of the Church - how precious it is to God, and that nothing shall prevail against it - he is not qualified to be the servant of God unto it. Salvation has God appointed for walls and bulwarks. One feels increasingly the importance of a deep sense of our own insignificance. All that is merely natural must wither before the glory of God. What a marvellous thing that there should be a little weak bush, as it were, on this earth, with everything against it, and yet nothing able to prevail. Has God associated the Church with His own holiness? And this is a deeply important truth. "Our God is a consuming fire." Well, we would not have it otherwise, for the bush in the fire is not consumed. He will not allow any sin connected with that church to come before Him. He has judged it in the cross; sentence has not only been passed upon it, but executed. When once the cross is really understood, the very holiness of God is seen to be the guarantee of the security of the church. "Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet: for the place where thou standest is holy ground." (5: 33.) We are brought by grace into the place of holiness, and to rejoice in God’s holiness. There the soul learns its deepest lessons of what sin is; it sees not only its own nothingness, but its oppositeness to God. There it learns that salvation must be of grace from first to last. These things are only fully learnt in the sanctuary. The moment we are rescued from the world we are brought to stand in the place of holiness, and God deals with us accordingly. The reason for His chastening and admonition is that we may be thereby partakers of "His holiness." He desires that we should be as near Him in spirit as we are in our head. What must Moses’ thoughts have been respecting all the glory of Egypt when he turned aside to see "this great sight"? And what would ours be, beloved, with regard to the world, were the eye always and steadily fixed on the glory? When Moses was engaged in solitarily feeding the flock in the wilderness there might have been some longings after the glory of Egypt; but these must have ceased when he had this manifestation made to him of the glory of God, "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. So with ourselves. When we think of the true glory of the Church, we are able to look at the glory of "Egypt" and feel ourselves weaned from it, as well as weaned from the wisdom and power of "Egypt." But if our souls are only looking at their own weakness, we shall very likely, be tempted to long after "Egypt" and the things of "Egypt." Paul was qualified to serve the Church by his apprehension of its being one with Jesus in the glory. In Moses needing a spokesman (Exodus 4:10-16), we are taught that neither the wisdom nor the eloquence of "Egypt" will be of any avail in God’s service. Very often there may be busy activity in service, but not the quiet sitting at the feet of Jesus, drinking in from His lips our knowledge of truth and grace. We need much to realise that we have to do with God, even when we are serving others. Mark what follows. "I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt. This same Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush." (vv. 34, 35.) But God must bring Moses out of Egypt first. He could not make such a communication to him there. It was the bane of Abram to get into Egypt. Abram had no altar there. And so it is with us. When we get into the world it is the same thing. We cannot have our altar. Communion is interrupted. In the first place, God reveals His name: "I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham," etc. (5: 32.) Secondly, His grace: "I have seen, I have seen the afflictions of my people," etc. (5: 34.) (How blessed to be assured that there is not one sorrow of His people, not one groan, but that He knows it altogether.) Then we get the formal commission "And now come, I WILL SEND THEE into Egypt." "And Moses said unto God, Who am I?" etc. (Exodus 2:1-25) After he had worshipped God as an unshod worshipper, there was a shrinking from that which God had laid on him, though, forty years before, he had been most eager to enter upon the same sort of service. It is a most solemn thing to have to do with the people of God. The responsibility involved is that under which we must sink, if left to ourselves. Moses now knew that he that would serve Israel must have a great deal of shame and obloquy to encounter. Hence the need of the training through which he had been put. So with regard to service in the Church. If Paul is a "chosen vessel" "to bear His name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel," the Lord, in making this known to Ananias, says, "I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake." And what was Paul’s after experience’s "I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches," etc.; again, "I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved." Paul had the flesh crushed at the outset, crushed again after he had been taken up into the third heavens, crushed all the way through. He never went on, in service, in the energy of the flesh, but as one who knew that it must be endurance to the very end. How often does a young Christian think, ’I will tell others of the Lord’s love, and they must believe me;’ or, ’I will tell Christians of the security of the Church, of the coming of the Lord, of the heavenly calling of the saints, and the like; and they must receive it.’ But no! we need to learn that we cannot carry every thing before us. Where there is the most ascertained mission from God, there is always the deepest humility. Paul, in speaking of his arduous service, says, "I laboured more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." The preparation for active service is in secret with God, in learning ourselves in communion with Him. There the battle is really fought. Power for active service is acquired not in active service, but in intercourse with God in secret. Whatever we do in service we ought to do as worshippers. Our service would then be carried on in felt responsibility to God, and it would bring blessing to others and to our own souls. I believe the saints often think that it is an easy thing to serve God. But no; it is a hard thing to serve Him in spirit and in truth. To serve God in the sense of our being nothing, and His being every thing, is a hard thing. The place of the servant of God is to hide himself, and let God appear. Thus it was with THE perfect servant. The most splendid achievement, without this, is not service. There would be much more profitable, happy, useful service if we only saw more of God’s order. One delights to see activity in service; but, then, it should be connected with the being in secret with God, and the seeing His purpose with regard to the Church. Thus we should serve happily and holily, not as though God needed our service, but as desiring to glorify Him in our bodies and spirits, which are His. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 26: VOL 01 - O LORD, THY LOVE'S UNBOUNDED ======================================================================== O Lord, Thy Love’s Unbounded O Lord, Thy love’s unbounded, So sweet, so full, so free; My soul is all transported, Whene’er I think on Thee; Yet, Lord, alas! what weakness Within myself I find; No infant’s changing pleasure Is like my wand’ring mind. And yet Thy love’s unchanging, And doth recall my heart To joy in all its brightness, The peace its beams impart. Yet sure, if in thy presence, My soul still constant were, Mine eye would more familiar Its brighter glories bear. And thus Thy deep perfections Much better should I know, And with adoring fervour In this Thy nature grow. Still sweet ’tis to discover, If clouds have dimm’d my sight, When passed, Eternal Lover, Towards me, as e’er, Thou’rt bright. Oh guard my soul then, Jesus, Abiding still with Thee; And if I wander, teach me, Soon back to Thee to flee, That all Thy gracious favour May to my soul be known; And versed in this Thy goodness, My hopes Thyself shall crown.J.N.D. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 27: VOL 01 - OBEDIENCE, THE SAINT'S LIBERTY ======================================================================== Obedience, the Saint’s Liberty Hebrews 13:17-25. The spirit of obedience is the great secret of all godliness. The spring of all evil from the beginning has been independence of will. Obedience is the only rightful state of the creature, or God would cease to be supreme - would cease to be God. Wherever there is independence, there there is always sin. This rule, if remembered, would wonderfully help us in guiding our conduct. There is no case whatever in which we ought to do our own will; for then we have not the capacity, either of judging rightly about our conduct or of bringing it before God. I may be called upon to act independently of the highest authority in the world, but it ought never to be on the principle that I am doing my own will. The liberty of the saint is not licence to do his own will.* If anything could have taken away the liberty of the Lord Jesus, it would have been the hindering Him in being always obedient to the will of God. All that moves in the sphere of man’s will is sin. Christianity pronounces the assertion of its exercise to be the principle of sin. We are sanctified unto obedience. (1 Peter 1:2.) The essence of sanctification is the having no will of our own. If I were as wise (so to speak) as Lucifer, and it ministered to my own will, all my wisdom would come to be folly. True slavery is the being enslaved by our own will; and true liberty consists in our having our own wills entirely set aside. When we are doing our own wills, self is our centre. The Lord Jesus "took upon Himself the form of a servant," and, "being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." (Php 2:6-8.) When man became a sinner, he ceased to be a servant, though he is, in sin and rebellion, the slave of a mightier rebel than himself. When we are sanctified, we are brought into the place of servants, as well as that of sons. The spirit of Sonship just manifested itself in Jesus, in coming to do the Father’s will. Satan sought to make His Sonship at variance with unqualified obedience to God; but the Lord Jesus would never do any thing, from the beginning to the end of His life, but the Father’s will. *An entire self-renunciation (and that goes very far when we know the subtlety of the heart) is the only means of walking with the full blessing that belongs to our happy position of service to God, our brethren, and mankind. In this chapter, the spirit of obedience is enforced towards those who rule in the church - "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves." (5: 17.) It is for our profit, in everything, to seek after this spirit. "They watch for your souls," says the Apostle, "as they that must give account." Those whom the Lord puts into service, He makes responsible to Himself. That is the real secret of all true service. It should not be right* that guides, either those who rule, or those who obey. They are servants, and that is their responsibility. Woe unto them if they do not guide, direct, rebuke, etc.; if they do not do it, "the Lord" will require it of them. On the other hand, those counseled become directly responsible to "the Lord" for obedience. *"Right," in the human sense of it, is some title to exercise his own will in man, unimpeded by the interference of another. Now Christianity entirely sets this aside. It may be very speciously maintained, by dwelling only on the latter half of the definition, because grace does give a title against the interference of another; but that title is in, and by virtue of, responsibility to God. But the light which Christianity sheds on this, is not my meddling with the will of that other, but my obligation to do the will of God at all cost. The great guardian principle of all conduct in the Church of God is personal responsibility to "the Lord." No guidance of another can ever come in between an individual’s conscience and God. In popery, this individual responsibility to God is taken away.** Those who are spoken of in this chapter, as having the rule in the Church, had to "give account" of their own conduct, and not of souls which were committed to them. There is no such thing as giving an account of other peoples’ souls; "every one of us shall give account of himself to God." (Romans 14:12.) Individual responsibility always secures the maintenance of God’s authority. If those who watched for their souls had been faithful in their service, they would not have to give account "with grief," so far as they were concerned; but still, it might be very "unprofitable" for the others, if they acted disobediently. **The authority of the Church is confessedly antecedent to the authority of the word in Romanism, and the saints are not, all of them, allowed to be the immediate objects of God’s own word, nor act upon it, that is, be subject to it. They are to be subject to the Church. Let the Church allow it or not, that makes no difference. Man who allows, can hinder; that is, hinder God’s addressing the saints. For this is the true question of Protestantism, not man’s title to the Bible merely, but God’s title to address man directly by His word; more particularly, to address each of His own servants, or those professedly such. Wherever the principle of obedience is not in our hearts, all is wrong, there is nothing but sin. The principle which actuates us in our conduct should never be, "I must do what I think right;" but, "I ought to obey God." (Acts 5:29.)* *Peter’s answer seems to meet both of two great classes by whom the true principle of obedience is lost sight of and abused - those who plead obedience, and those who plead liberty. The one plead liberty - rights - the title to do, as regards men, what they please. The other claim obedience, and plead frequently the principle; but it is still to men, and not to God. "We ought to obey God," is the Christian’s answer to both. "We ought to obey," I say to the man who claims rights; "We ought to obey God," to the man who pleads the principle of obedience in defence of that which rests merely on the authority of man and his ways - "We ought to obey God, rather than man." How perfect is Scripture in setting in order the ways of men, the narrow path which no other power detects, as revealing the principles of the human mind, and judging them. Self-will is never right. Obedience to man is often wrong - disobedience to God. The Apostle then says, "Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly." (5: 18.) It is always the snare of those who are occupied with the things of God continually, not to have a "good conscience." No person is so liable to a fall, as one who is continually ministering the truth of God, if he be not careful to maintain a "good conscience." The continually talking about truth, and the being occupied about other people, has a tendency to harden the conscience. The Apostle does not say, ’Pray for us, for we are labouring hard and the like;’ but that which gives him confidence in asking their prayers is, that he has a "good conscience." We see the same principle spoken of in 1 Timothy 1:19 "Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck." Where there is not diligence in seeking to maintain a "good conscience," Satan comes in and destroys confidence between the soul and God, or we get into false confidence. Where there is the sense of the presence of God, there is the spirit of lowly obedience. The moment that a person is very active in service, or has much knowledge and is put forward in any way in the Church, there is the danger of not having a good conscience.* *The sense of the presence of God will keep every thing in its place. The same Lord has said, "All ye are brethren;" and, "strengthen thy brethren." In order truly to strengthen them, some painful experience of self will always be necessary, as in the case of Peter. It is not thus that man would have appointed; but God has so ordered. It is blessed to see the way in which, in verses 20, 21, the Apostle returns, after all his exercise and trial of spirit, to the thought of God’s being "the God of peace." He was taken from them, and was in bondage and trial himself; he enters, moreover, into all the troubles of these saints, and is extremely anxious, evidently, about them; and yet he is able to turn quietly to God, as "the God of peace." We are called unto peace. Paul closes his second epistle to the Thessalonians with, "Now the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always by all means." There is nothing that the soul of the believer is more brought to feel than that he has "need of patience" (Hebrews 10:36); but if he is hindered by any thing from finding God to be "the God of peace," if sorrow and trial hinder this, there is the will of the flesh at work. There cannot be the quiet doing of God’s will, if the mind be troubled and fluttered. It is completely our privilege, to walk and to be settled in peace; to have no uneasiness with God, but to be quietly seeking His will. It is impossible to have holy clearness of mind, unless God be known as "the God of peace." When every thing was removed out of God’s sight but Christ, God was "the God of peace." Suppose then that I find out that I am an utterly worthless sinner, but see the Lord Jesus standing in the presence of God, I have perfect peace. This sense of peace becomes distracted when we are looking at the difficulties by the way; for, when the charge and care of any thing rests on our minds, God ceases, practically, to be "the God of peace." There are three steps. 1 The knowledge that God has "made peace through the blood of the cross." (Colossians 1:20.) This gives us "peace with God." (Romans 5:1.) 2 As it regards all our cares and troubles, the promise is, that, if we cast them on God, "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." (See Php 4:6-7.) God burdens Himself about everything for us, yet He is never disturbed or troubled, and, it is said, that His peace shall "keep our hearts and minds." If Jesus walked on the troubled sea, He was just as much at peace, as ever; He was far above the waves and billows. 3 There is a further step, viz., He, who is "the God of peace," being with us, and working in us to will and to do of His own good pleasure. (See vv. 20, 21.) The holy power of God is here described as keeping the soul in those things which are well pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ. There was war - war with Satan, and in our own consciences. That met its crisis on the cross of the Lord Jesus. The moment that He was raised from the dead, God was made known, fully, as "the God of peace." He could not leave His Son in the grave; the whole power of, the enemy was exercised to its fullest extent; and God brought the Lord Jesus into the place of peace, and us, also, who believe on Him, and became nothing less than "the God of peace." He is "the God of peace," both as regards our sins, and as regards our circumstances. But it is only in His presence that there is settled peace. The moment we get into human thoughts and reasonings about circumstances, we get troubled. Not only has peace been made for us by the atonement, but it rests upon the power of Him who raised up Jesus again from the dead; and therefore we know Him as "the God of peace." The blessing of the saint does not depend upon the old covenant, to which man was a party, and which might, therefore, fail; but upon that God, who, through all the trouble and the power of Satan, "brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus," and thus secured "eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:12.) All that God Himself had pronounced as to judgment against sin, and all the wicked power of Satan, rested on Jesus, on the cross; and God Himself has raised Him from the dead. Here, then, we have full comfort and confidence of soul. "Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord," argues faith (see Romans 8:31-39), "for, when all our sins had been laid upon Jesus, God in mighty power, brought again from the dead that Great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant." The blood was as much the proof and witness of the love of God to the sinner, as it was, of the justice and majesty of God against sin. This covenant is founded on the truth and holiness of the eternal God having been fully met, and answered, in the cross of the Lord Jesus. His precious blood has met every claim of God. If God be not "the God of peace," He must be asserting the insufficiency of the blood of His dear Son. And this, we know, is impossible. God rests in it as a sweet savour. Then, as to the effect of all this on the life of the saint, the knowledge of it produces fellowship with God, and delight in doing His will. He "works in us," as it is said here, "that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ." The only thing that ought to make any hesitation in the saint’s mind about departing to be with Christ, is the doing God’s will here. We may suppose such an one thinking of the joy of being with Christ, and then being arrested by the desire of doing God’s will here. (See Php 1:20-25.) That assumes confidence in God, as "the God of peace," and confidence in His sustaining power whilst here. If the soul is labouring in the turmoil of its own mind, it cannot have the blessing of knowing God as "the God of peace." The flesh is so easily aroused, that there is often the need of the word of exhortation - "I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation," (5: 22.) The spirit of obedience is the only spirit of holiness. The Lord give us grace to walk in His ways. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 28: VOL 01 - PEACE - MY PEACE ======================================================================== Peace - My Peace John 14:27. Two things are brought before us here. The first is the fact of peace, though there may not be earthly blessing and prosperity, like the Jews, but trouble outwardly; the second is that which characterizes the peace. "My peace" is what He has Himself, and the extent of it. Being thus characterized, it implies that they had not it while He was with them. They lacked nothing; they had purse and scrip, etc. He could speak peace in the forgiveness of sins; but this peace, His peace, was not before given to the disciples. Peace shuts out trouble, as to the realization of it. It is not peace of conscience with God here, but that which could not be disturbed by the knowledge of God. It is not peace without God, and it is independent of all circumstances. So much trouble as there is in circumstances, the peace could not be secure if it could be altered by them. This peace is the possession of such quiet as to be undisturbed about other things. It is peace with God in the sight of His righteousness and His holiness; and it is an absorbing thing. Suppose I am at peace with some one I do not care much about, I may be troubled enough about other things. The peace does not absorb my affections. When we have the peace itself, we may acquaint ourselves with God. The soul, so satisfied with its own peace, desires nothing else. It knows God, and finds nothing to disturb it in God or out of God. This peace will keep God between the trouble and us, instead of the trouble coming between us and God. Such is our danger, and such the remedy. Mark the extent of the peace - "My peace;" and how thoroughly well He knew what He had, that He could give it them! He had been tried, rejected, had suffered; "He had not where to lay his head," "hunted like a partridge on the mountains," the "man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;" and yet He knew so well the blessedness He had that He could speak of it, to leave it to them. There was an unclouded rest in God, and God an unclouded source of blessing to Him, in all His path of sorrow and trouble, so unlike that which any one else ever had. But "thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee," etc., was known experimentally by Him; and was there ever uncertainty as to whether His Father heard Him? No; there was an unclouded certainty. Nothing could bring it into question. He need not put it to the test by throwing Himself down from the temple; this were tempting God. The two expressions in the verse explain each other; "peace," "my peace," etc. "Let not your heart be troubled." I am giving you my own "peace." What we have we know to be His; not the knowledge of what we are with God, but what He is to God. We cannot have peace if we have the thought, When I come to know God, what will He think of me? I must know God in order to have peace. If the Lord came this moment, would you have peace, and be able to say, "This is our God, we have waited for Him"? If you have the consciousness of liking anything that God does not like, you cannot be at peace. Even if you have found peace of conscience about your sins, through the blood of the cross, it will destroy your communion and peace of heart if you like anything that God does not like. If there is anything not given up in the will, there cannot be peace; if you have peace, then, if God came in, your peace would stay. Peace is never imperfect; there can be no flaw in it. If anything comes in and produces an uncertainty, it cannot be peace. Water in a dirty pool may look clear at the surface, but if it is stirred up, the dirt comes to the surface; and so with the heart. Christ gives us His peace; and can wrath disturb it? Did He not know the wrath due to our sin? He bore the wrath. Did He not know the sin? "He was made sin," etc. Did He not know God? He came forth from Him. How can we have peace? Because He has made it "by the blood of His cross." He has expiated sin. The question that agitates your heart He settled between Himself and God, not on His own account, but for us. He was the Son of God. In the presence of wrath He settled it; in the presence of holiness, too, He made His soul an offering for sin. God spent His Son for us; and can He fail to claim us as the objects of His love? He has bought us at an unspeakable price. He has seen the sin, judged the sin, put the sin away in Christ. Peace is made, peace is given, peace is known by the "blood of the cross." Is it a thought of mine about my getting this peace? No. He says, "My peace I leave with you." He knows what God’s wrath is; what God’s righteousness is; what God’s holiness is; what all His requirements are; and we have the assurance of His peace from His own mouth. Have I earned it? No; He has earned it. Can He deceive me? What is my warrant for expecting the favour of God? If you have believed what wrath is, you will value the favour of Christ. Christ would rather give up His life than God’s favour for us. If Christ is your peace, He is as sinless for you as He was in Himself. He is "made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 29: VOL 01 - PEACE WITH GIBEON ======================================================================== Peace With Gibeon Joshua 9:1-27. * * * If acting faithfully, to every step of faithfulness the Lord will surely add more light; only it behoves us to take counsel of the Lord at every step. Peace with Gibeon only deprives us of victory, and brings upon us other wars and troubles; for the presence of what is not of God always opens the door to Satan. This, perhaps, is not so much felt when all is in vigour in the soul; but when there is decline, then the evil and consequence is felt. In the days of David there was a famine three years; it was for Saul and for his bloody house, because he had slain the Gibeonites. All this arose from the little act of not taking counsel with God. When all was war, it appeared a convenient thing, a blessing, to find some peace and recognition from those who said, ’The Lord your God.’ It sounded like Rahab’s believing voice; and in appearance, with these far distant travellers, there was nothing wrong in peace - they were not of the forbidden and accursed race. But they asked not counsel of the Lord; and it turned out they were of the accursed race, and it went nigh to separate between Joshua and the people. So cunning is the enemy, it is almost as bad, or worse, to lean for one’s wisdom on the ways of God, as on one’s own strength for the battles of God: peace with Gibeon and war with Ai end in defeat, or in confusion and shame." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 30: VOL 01 - RUIN AND REDEMPTION ======================================================================== Ruin and Redemption 1 Peter 1:17-25. What is man’s real condition before God? He knows it not; but this is the great preliminary question ere he can be brought under the ministry of the grace of God. The very ground necessarily assumed before preaching the gospel of God’s grace is that every man is a lost and ruined sinner. God has asserted it. (Romans 3:10-23.) And if we come to practical Christianity, it is equally an axiom that the great ground of Christian action is redemption security. The point at issue between God and every soul is whether man is as bad as God’s testimony says he is; for the starting-post in preaching the gospel is God’s declaration: "All flesh is grass." Take man in every state of moral and intellectual improvement, and he is grass. "All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass" (the flower, is a much more fleeting thing than the grass itself). "The grass withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth away." Job was a man remarkable for integrity and uprightness, according to God’s own declaration: "Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?" But when he comes to stand before God it is, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Here Job learnt that as flesh he was grass. Whenever a plea is made for the flesh, for anything merely human, whether righteousness, wisdom, or strength, the plea cannot be established except by condemning God. The Lord had said, when speaking to Job out of the whirlwind, "Wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?" In seeking to bring the testimony concerning truth and grace before the conscience, I would not take the dregs of humanity to prove that all flesh is grass; here, in the first instance, you have righteous Job. Again, Solomon was a remarkable specimen of a person blessed of God in various ways, but principally in having wisdom given to him - the gift of wisdom directly from God. (See 1 Kings 3:4) "God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore. And Solomon’s wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men. And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom." All his experience ended in this: "I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked cannot, be made straight and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. . . . . For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." All vanity and vexation of spirit "All flesh is grass!" Again, as to the religious man. If any really think that religion consists in doing this, or doing that, the Pharisee was more religious than any of us. The era of our Lord’s ministry on earth was a most religious era; and yet, when our Lord Jesus Christ came seeking fruit, He could not find any. He was cast out and murdered because they maintained their religion. Here we see that human righteousness, human wisdom, and human religion are all hindrances in the way of knowing God really as He is and ourselves as we are. One of the most genuine marks of real conversion to God is the utter and entire denial of any goodness in ourselves, or expectation from ourselves. Man, as an intellectual and moral creature, is now putting forth all his powers to establish that concerning which God says it is grass. Modern philanthropists are seeking to raise and cultivate man’s intellect. They may succeed above all their expectations, but no philanthropic society or effort for the amelioration of man, however honest the intention, can meet the ruin of. the condition in which man is before God, because it falls short of the cross. It can do nothing but leave man as it found him, a ruined sinner, dead in trespasses and sins, unaltered before God, knowing nothing of Him, or what it is to have thoughts and desires in communion with Him, and in a world as ruined as himself. Every man by nature is a lost and ruined sinner, and he is in a lost and ruined world. It is quite necessary to state these things together in order to know what salvation is. What was salvation before the flood? It was to get into the ark, because the world was going to be judged. What was salvation in the days of Lot? To get out of Sodom, because Sodom was going to be burned. And what is salvation now? Not merely to be saved from hell, that it is; but it is also "deliverance from this present evil world." Persons may be reformed, and yet not be converted. I do not like the expression, "a converted character;" conversion is the being turned from everything, whatever it may be, and brought to God. What is God’s testimony now to man, thus ruined himself and in a ruined world, but testimony unto His own grace, and His own power, to His own ability to meet him in these circumstances, in a way that nothing but His own grace could provide. The apostle says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." It is impossible to be the subject of God’s power without effects following. Christ is "the power of God, and the wisdom of God." "We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto us which are saved, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." This may be a puerility to the present age, as it was to the Greeks, to men who are seeking wisdom, a stumbling-block to those who are requiring a sign as the Jews; but unto those who believe, Christ is "the power of God, and the wisdom of God." The same God that hath told us that "all flesh is grass," the same God who, after long experience of man, has said "flesh profiteth nothing," is now sending forth the testimony unto salvation through "the precious blood of Christ." He is not any longer testing man, beloved, and in that sense, it is not now a state of probation to ruined sinners. They have been tried under the best and most favourable circumstances in Israel, under the law, and found wanting. The Son of the living God has come, and found man to be "dead in trespasses and sins." Man, therefore, is pronounced as bad as he can be - utterly ruined. But grace would never be known as it is, if it could not meet a sinner "dead in trespasses and sins." This was exhibited in the personal ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ He was the expression of grace and truth when here, and it was thrown in His teeth by the self-righteous Pharisee, that He was receiving publicans and sinners! Man is more angry with God for meeting ruined sinners in grace, than for dealing with them in righteousness. Grace is the one thing he cannot understand. Human wisdom cannot grasp that word, it can understand law, but that God should be dealing in grace with poor lost sinners - the human understanding cannot grasp that. You will find, if you test your hearts, that you naturally hate grace a great deal more than you hate holiness. Well, grace meets the sinner just where he is, in all his misery and ruin: the love of God meets him there. Each one of us, who have received Christ into our own souls, can give our Amen to that. We were loved by God, not when we had improved ourselves, but when we were dead in trespasses and sins. "God commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." What is it which enables God thus to have to do in grace with poor lost sinners? "The blood of the Lamb." "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, who by him do believe in God, that raised him from the dead, and gave him glory: that your faith and hope might be in God." It is the blood of the Lamb which enables the holy God to meet unholy sinners, it fills up the amazing gap between the throne of God and them, as lost and ruined sinners. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And this after man had proved that there was no response in his heart to the love of God. Had there been a spark of good in him, it would have been called out by the Lord Jesus Christ. But no, the answer to all His love and grace was, "Away with Him! away with Him! crucify Him! crucify Him!" Man has preferred a murderer to Jesus - "Not this man, but Barabbas!" Nay, God’s Son has been murdered! And now the ministry of reconciliation is granted to that world where He was murdered. God’s answer to all the hard thoughts of man’s heart is, "I have given you my Son." His answer to all man’s pretensions, "You have crucified my Son." It is always of strengthening power to my own soul, to see that when God begins, He begins with those who crucified His own Son! What a blessed thing to find, that from among the very murderers of Jesus a number were brought to know God’s love through the blood of His Son. The gospel to us is the proclamation of the value, not only of the person of Jesus, but of the blood which has been shed. God’s controversy with man therefore is, What estimate have you of His Son, and of the blood that He has shed? You cannot be neutral: "he that is not with me is against me." But it matters not what your thoughts are; God’s thoughts and the thoughts of all redeemed sinners is, that there is nothing so "precious" as the blood of God’s own Son. The blood of Christ not only brings God down in grace to us, it brings us up to God. "Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." A ruined sinner washed in the blood of Jesus, is immediately brought into the presence of God. All the great things of God are very simple. By one and the same blood a sinner who believes in Jesus is washed from his sins, justified and brought nigh to God! And in the glory the theme of the redeemed will be, "the blood of the Lamb." "Thou hast redeemed us unto God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." What becomes of a person so "washed from his sins," "redeemed," and "brought unto God"? Here we find the importance of his seeing his position in the Head. He is redeemed as he fell: he fell in one, he is redeemed in one, in a Head: "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." We are in Him as the Risen One, and derive from Him new life, a new nature conversant with a new sphere of things - new affections - a new world. The redeemed man is brought into a new creation with Jesus, and all those who are redeemed by Him unto God. This is a remedy worthy of God. It is that which the apostles preached, "Jesus and the resurrection." Deny grace, and you deny the wisdom of God. Were man redeemed merely to be brought into a moral system, then remedial associations might effect the object; but he is dead and wants life, and men are seeking the improvement of that world which is stained with the blood of Jesus, for which He will make inquisition by and bye. If I am giving myself to philanthropy, a thing which would be very well if man were to be improved for a social system here, I am denying his ruin and that of the world. In this we see the deceiving power of Satan. The Church should not be deceived by him, he is the accuser of the brethren; but the deceiver of the whole world. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 31: VOL 01 - SIN IN THE FLESH ======================================================================== Sin In the Flesh - a word on perfection. Colossians 3:1;Colossians 3:5;1 John 3:2-3. "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." In saying that sin will remain in us until we either put off the body, or are changed (for we "wait for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body," Romans 8:23), it is not at all meant that we should walk according to that evil principle; on the contrary, we ought to walk in the Spirit, (so as not to "fulfil the lusts of the flesh," Galatians 5:16), although ’the flesh’ still exists. Nor is this a mere question about words. So soon as we assume that we can be perfect, and there be no longer sin in us, a multitude of things, which the word of God calls sin, cease to be so in our estimation; the contrast between our own condition and that of Jesus Christ becomes less evident; we attenuate sin; true sanctification suffers in proportion; and the distinction between sin and sins is wholly lost sight of. It is not difference on a point of knowledge or speculation; the question involved is, ’What is sin?’ a question evidently fundamental, as also practically of the last importance. But it may be well to anticipate here a possible difficulty. ’What is the flesh?’ asks the reader, ’What is there more in man than body, soul, and spirit?’ And the apostle tells Christians, to whom he is writing: "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thessalonians 5:23.) And we reply that Adam before the fall had body, soul, and spirit; but that after the fall there was in him in addition a will in rebellion against God - sin (that which the word of God calls ’the flesh’), a something which "lusteth (or struggleth) against the Spirit," in the man in whom the Spirit of God dwells, and which "cannot be subject to the law of God." (Romans 8:7.) It is certain that there are few words more frequently employed in the word of God than ’the flesh,’ and no subject more often and carefully treated, bound up as it is with the whole doctrine of the ’new man.’ The introduction of sin has completely altered the nature of our relationship with God. I could never more return to the condition of Adam before the fall; I now partake of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4) by promises infinitely superior to anything enjoyed by Adam. God has not restored the first Adam, He has united us to the Second. Our glory consists not in ignorance of evil,* but in the enjoyment of the results of a complete victory over it. The law (though in its essence the rule of every pure being before God) could no longer characterize our condition, for we are very far from being pure, according to its requirements. Grace does not exhibit the creature in its perfection; it is the introduction of the nature, goodness, and power of the Creator into the midst of the evil, over which His perfections are victorious. Grace therefore recognises the evil over which it triumphs. *"What Satan gave as a promise to man, God pronounced to be true, but man had it by disobedience. He knew evil in guilt, he knew it in disobedience, he knew it in the admitted power of sin over his soul, he knew it as a creature over whom it had power, he knew it by and with a bad conscience. God knows good and evil, but He knows it by the infinite and intrinsic possession of good, and Himself being good, and therefore knows evil as that which is infinitely repudiated by Him; and in this therefore His holiness is infinitely seen. This knowledge of good and evil may be darkened in its judgment, because a false rule or guide may be introduced. God may give up to a reprobate mind, or Satan introduce a law of darkness, having power to deceive or blend, which is not God’s, and which may be made its estimate of right; but the knowledge of good and evil is inherent in fallen human nature. Man unfallen was innocent, he knew not evil, but only beneficent good. Fallen man knows evil, with a conscience subject to judgment and hating God." Sanctification’* is based upon our union with Christ, risen and glorified. A new life has been communicated, which through the Holy Ghost sees and occupies itself with Him (Php 3:1-21), and which knows that, "when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2.) This life estimates everything according to the perfection of our state hereafter; it recognises that we have not as yet obtained the redemption of our body, and judges the ’old man,’ root, trunk, and branches. Meanwhile, in walking according to this new life, the Christian "purifies himself as he is pure."** *It may be needful to observe here that the word sanctification is rarely used in Scripture in the sense in which we commonly use it, that is to say its progressive sense. It more particularly designates an act of separation, a setting apart for God. **Observe, it is not said here that he aims at growth in Christ, but that he "purifies himself" (not that he is pure) after the resemblance of Christ glorified. Assured of the love of God, actuated by the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord, with joy and gladness of heart, he follows after the apprehension of that, for which also he is apprehended of Him.* By the power of the Holy Ghost he is changed into the same image, from glory to glory. (2 Corinthians 3:18.) By faith he is already partaker of a perfection which in its fulness will be his when Jesus returns. "Our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." *The progress of practical sanctification must not be confounded with justification, because practical sanctification is wrought in a saved soul that has eternal life. It is an entirely new thing, of which there is no trace before we have found Christ. Have you peace with God? the pardon of your sins? if not, the question is of the justification of a sinner. If then God gives us strength to walk in His ways, that strength is given through a knowledge which at the same time makes us understand that we cannot here below attain to that even which we know. Thus (instead of an end which we can attain), to encourage us, He sets before us that which hereafter shall assuredly be accomplished in us, but which preserves us ever in humility, ever in the sense that we are not all that we would be. But this very thing keeps us ever advancing towards our great end. The opposite principle, with a show of requiring only that which is right and suitable, is entirely at variance with the mind of God, and akin to self-righteousness; instead of holding fast, and being strong in His grace, it says, ’I have attained.’ A full pardon, through grace, is ours at the very outset of our course, and, as its termination, a glory is set before us, the power of which is in us by the communication of the life of Christ; but the very nature and excellence of this glory make it evident to us that it is not a thing attainable here below. We "rejoice in hope of the glory of God." (Romans 5:2.) We are "saved by hope." (Romans 8:24.) In the confidence of the certainty of God’s grace, we press toward the mark for the prize of our high calling of God in Christ Jesus. There shall we find ourselves in the presence of Him we have known, as the friend of our weakness, and the glory of our strength. A word in passing on the separate state. There is an immense difference between my condition whilst in this body, and that of the soul, after this life, when the body has been put off; as there is, likewise, between the latter state and that in which the redemption of our body shall be completed in resurrection. After death, the believer is "unclothed," but not "clothed upon." (2 Corinthians 5:1-21) "Absent from the body," he is "present with the Lord." Though not perfected in the glory, he is, nevertheless, delivered from a body which had not as yet its portion in the resurrection (enjoyed, through the Holy Ghost, in the soul). This body, which caused him to groan whilst on earth (not, it is true, without consolation), and which makes all groan who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, has ceased to be a cause of groaning; that which held him bound (in fact, not in heart) to a creation still subject to the bondage of corruption, no longer binds; the link is severed. If the goal of his hope is not reached, in dying he has at least laid aside a burden, a soiled garment, that he may, at once and unhinderedly, enjoy the presence of the Lord, its pure air and genial warmth penetrating his soul now freed from all obstruction. But death is not our Saviour. Death finds the believer already saved by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is risen with Him: this is already accomplished as to the soul, which, through the Holy Ghost, experiences the blessed result, and triumphs in a hope that maketh not ashamed. The putting off of the body adds nothing to our title in the presence of God, for we are there, by faith, what Jesus is there. We are merely stripped of a body which had not partaken of redemption, in order to be ushered into the presence of Jesus, awaiting that which remains, to wit, our being clothed with a body fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body. We wait for perfection (there only to be found), when, mortality being swallowed up of life, we shall be made like unto the Second Adam - the accepted and glorified man, according to the purpose of God. The Holy Ghost, which is given unto us, is "the seal" (not of fruits which He Himself produces, but) of our redemption in Christ Jesus, the "earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of His (God’s) glory." Man’s Christianity works in order to obtain eternal life, not on the ground of eternal life being already ours, the free gift of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Again; to deny the existence of evil, in the sense in which we have been speaking, is to denaturalize grace in its essence, riches, counsels, and all its fulness. When the heart has got before it low views, in the belief that we have attained, our Christianity becomes debased and proud. It is the truth which sanctifies. All other sanctification, notwithstanding appearances, is not according to God. If nothing is properly sin, except a voluntary violation of the law of God,* it follows that the lusts, through which Paul was convinced of sin,** (Romans 7:1-25) were not such, and so with faults and sins of negligence. So that, when Paul says, "The good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do," he was quite wrong in looking upon such things as sin, and still more so in being thus distressed about them. (What can be less voluntary than doing that which we ’would not’?) This definition absolutely denies the existence of sin in the flesh - sin which dwells in us, even when it is subdued by the Spirit.*** It is a definition which attenuates the idea of sin, to make us satisfied with ourselves, instead of adoring the grace and goodness of our God. Assuredly lust is sin; my failures in the discharge of the duties of love proceed from the sin which is in me. These things were not in Christ. He was without sin; He ever and perfectly waited on and did the will of God. He never acted, as I at times do, with precipitation. This zeal after the flesh (even when I am doing good with all my heart) will not be imputed to me (not because it is not sinful, but) by reason of Christ’s expiation of sin. These things result from a nature which is in me, and which was not in Christ. There is a principle at work in me, to bring forth evil fruit, which principle there was not in Him. I shall not be judged according to it; for Jesus has borne its guilt, and put it away; but it is precisely on that very account that I have to judge it. *This very commonly received definition derives apparent authority from a false translation of 1 John 3:5. Upon it, to a very great extent, the formal judgment of the church, as to what sin is, has been founded. That which the apostle states is, not (as our translation has it) "sin is the transgression of the law," but ’sin is lawlessness;’ or, the proposition being reciprocal, ’lawlessness (or insubordination) is sin.’ Disobedience is sin. This may be proved in breaking the law, in a given instance; but there is a much higher characteristic of sin than the breaking of a commandment; viz., the spirit of disobedience. **The law was given to man in the flesh (already a sinner); and the New Testament teaches us very clearly that God did not give it in the thought that man could keep it. The carnal mind pretends to do so; but the word tells us, that the law of God was given to convince man of sin by the discovery that he did not keep it; so that sin might become by the commandment exceeding sinful. The law entered, says the apostle, that the offence might abound. Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence; for without the law sin was dead. (Romans 7:8.) Remark here, that sin produces concupiscence or lust. When the law had said, Thou shalt not covet, then Paul knew sin. ’The strength of sin is the law,’ says the same apostle elsewhere. (1 Corinthians 15:56.) God’s purpose then, in giving the law, was to convince man of the sin which was in him. There was no thought that man could or would keep it. ***If it be urged that we are under ’the law of love,’ and it is thereby meant that we are not now bound to fulfil the law given to Adam, or by Moses, but are under one which tolerates certain errors and deviations (things that would have been condemned as sins), the gospel becomes, not salvation by grace, but only a less rigorous law. The veil is rent; what is now our standard of sanctification? The light of God’s holiness makes us judge as sin everything which was not in Christ while on earth, and which Christ risen cannot sanction. At the same time we see the complete sanctification of our persons by the blood of the Lamb. Ignorance, error, and the like, are sometimes spoken of by us as distinct from sin.* It is written: "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light" (Matthew 6:23); if, then, I am in error or darkness, the eye has been, in some respect, not single. There is but the alternative: "Thine eye is evil" A false judgment proceeds from wandering affections. *"And the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his ignorance wherein he erred and wilt it not, and it shall be forgiven him." (Leviticus 5:18-19.) There is no folly like that of making the blindness of our hearts to be God’s estimate of sin; but let the evil and defilement be what it may, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. There is the confounding of sin, with sins, that is to say, the confounding that which we do in following our evil nature with that nature itself,* and thus the denial of the very existence of sin in one who has ’put on Christ.’ We ought to walk ’after the Spirit,’ and not ’after the flesh;’ but, on the other hand, sin is in our nature. The injunctions not to ’walk after the flesh,’ not to ’make provision for the flesh,’ show that it is a thing in itself evil;** still the flesh is neither temptation nor Satan, but something in man which is not at all a sin actually committed. *In order to elude the force of the declaration, "If we say, that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1:8), it is sometimes commented on thus: ’If we say that we have not sinned,’ etc. But this conveys quite a different idea, and exposes the fundamental error of a doctrine which confounds sins committed with the sin which dwelleth in us, in order to deny the latter. **When I abhor the evil, and the ’new man’ rejects with indignation that which Satan presents, it is a temptation, not a sin. But lust in me is always sin. It will not be imputed to me; but that is solely and absolutely because of the blood of Christ. The new man judges it as sin. Do we find anything about ’the flesh’ ceasing to exist? "The flesh lusteth," we are told, "against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." Paul had need of a "thorn in the flesh" (something sent by God to arrest the workings of sin, and to prevent its hindering the apostle’s labours), lest he should be puffed up through the abundance of revelations. (2 Corinthians 12:1-21) So that it is plain a man’s being caught up to the third heaven had in no wise changed the nature and tendency of the flesh in its opposition and unthankfulness to God. The flesh is ever the same, and might have grown proud even of this exalted knowledge of God. The divine remedy did not consist in a change of the nature, but in some means of keeping under that nature, still evil. Again, Peter’s was a humbling experience. Though "filled with the Spirit" (Acts 4:8), he ceased to eat with the Gentiles (Galatians 2:1-21), and walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel. And Paul, far from not regarding these things as sins, withstood him to the face, and reproved him before them all. The question opened in the book of Job is this: Is a man full of grace? is a "perfect" man wholly without sin? Might such an one present himself before God as having it not? or, on the contrary, is sin in him? And if through grace his walk has indeed been after a manner worthy of this vocation, should he not still, nay, only the rather, have the sense of, and search thoroughly into his state before God? Instead of becoming self-satisfied by reason of the grace accorded, ought he not to judge himself? Forgetting the things which are behind (his own past spiritual progress, save as in reference ever and alone to God), and reaching forth unto those things which are before, in a humility which, with the fulness of confidence in God, mistrusts itself, he should not merely watch, but judge himself, having before God the recognition on his soul of the nature that is there, although it may not act, which is in no wise necessary to our recognition of its existence. Job is a man full of grace. "There is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil." (Job 1:8.) He recounts his experience; and we at once perceive that his mind is taken up (not with the grace of God, or with the grace which is in God, but) with that which has been wrought in himself. He looks upon the manna placed in his hand; he keeps of it until the morning, and it breeds worms, and stinks. (Exodus 16:19-20.) The flesh lays claim to the effects of grace, and Job’s conscience and heart become in consequence less impressed with the abounding goodness and perfect holiness of God. Occupied with his own goodness, that of God is necessarily lost sight of in proportion. Contemplating his own holiness, that of God has by so much less hold on his conscience. But God in love sends him successive trials, in order to show him what is in his heart, to bring out thence the workings of sin, and lay them on his conscience. And thus he is called back to the contemplation of the goodness and perfection of God alone. We learn, from Job 29:1-25, Job’s feelings as to his own holiness and grace. "When the ear heard me," he says, "then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was a robe and a diadem," etc. In truth, Job was a man full of grace; but, alas! he perceived it, and his heart needed to be better instructed as to what he was before God. Trials come. Job remains as exemplary in adversity as he had before been in prosperity. (The root of sin was not yet touched.) He becomes even more remarkable for his patience than for his goodness; for Scripture bears this testimony of him: "Ye have heard of the patience of Job." (James 5:11.), But at length God permits his friends to visit him, and proffer consolation; and Job, so noted for his patience, curses the day of his birth. What afflictions we can endure in secret! but no sooner do our friends become witnesses of them than our pride is stirred. Man’s compassion excites impatience. What is the after result of these trials, and of the lessons reaped by Job through them? Instead of repeating that the eye that saw him gave witness to him, no sooner does he discern the Lord than he exclaims, "Now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Such is the history of the ’perfect man’ according to the Bible. Is this a rejoicing in iniquity? the endeavour to draw a dark and unfavourable picture of some of the most eminent saints? With all these saints we rejoice in God, rather than in man, having learnt with them that were we to justify ourselves, our own mouths would condemn us. In dwelling on the effect produced in ourselves, and not on the source in God, we manifest unconsciously the spirit of the Pharisee. The Pharisee (Luke 17:1-37) began by giving thanks - "I thank thee, O God;" that which characterises a pharisaic spirit is not the omitting to thank God for our blessings: its essence is this - in place of saying, ’I thank thee for what thou art,’ it says, ’I thank thee for what I am.’ The Pharisee thinks of the grace given, and is lifted up, in place of thinking of the grace which gives, and which forgives. It is worthy of notice here, that after Pentecost we do not find a single instance of a man’s being spoken of as ’perfect.’ There is an important reason for this. The gift of the Holy Spirit has rendered us capable of discerning and judging the ’old man,’ through the full knowledge we have of the relation of the ’new man’ to Jesus Christ. Under the former economy, one who, touching the commandments and ordinances of the law, walked blamelessly, might be said to be perfect. The distinction between the ’old man’ and the ’new’ was not then taught, as we know and are able to discern it.* *With Paul, we now can say by the Spirit, "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Galatians 2:20); and in another place, "It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." (Romans 7:20.) The being made free, spoken of in Romans 8:1-39, has rendered us capable of judging the old man, as a nature condemned by God, because we assuredly know that there is another nature, in which we live, and by which we can thus judge it. The word ’perfect’ is used with reference to each of the three great revelations of God - the Almighty (to Abraham), Jehovah (to Israel), and Father (to the Christian). 1st. God said to Abraham, "I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect" (Genesis 17:1); which means that Abraham was to walk before God, ever confiding in His Almighty power. Abraham did not; he failed in respect of this; and lied (Genesis 20:2) precisely on that account. It was no question of sin in the fallen nature of Abraham; it had to do with his acting in confidence in the almighty power of God. As to fact, he still had sin, and fell. 2nd. The Israelites were instructed: "Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord (Jehovah) thy God." (Deuteronomy 18:13.) This was in respect of their not imitating the abominations of the Canaanites in their idolatries, and not at all a question of sin, or the absence of it, in the heart of this or that Israelite. In the same book (Deuteronomy 29:4), Moses tells them, "Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day." It referred solely to faithfulness to God in the rejection of every species of idolatry. 3rd. In the sermon on the mount we read, "Be ye perfect, even* as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:48.) The Lord Jesus Himself explains it by what goes before. This perfection consists in acting in love, and not according to the law of retaliation ("an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth"); it is to act toward men on the principle of the divine conduct towards us, according to the grace of our heavenly Father. It does not say, ’Present to God such a character of perfection, that you may be accepted of, or be made well-pleasing to Him;’ but, ’Ye are the children of your heavenly Father;’ show forth, therefore, His character toward, the world; for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. He acts in grace, and not according to law; you saved sinners, you are the proof; be the witnesses of it; the publicans love those who love them - your heavenly Father loves His enemies, acts by this rule; ’be ye perfect,’ etc. There is no allusion to the root of sin in our nature; it is no question whether or not sin is in the flesh, but of the principle which ought to regulate the conduct of ’children of God,’ in contrast with law, or with natural justice. *Observe the difference of expression. It is not said, "Be ye perfect before me," or "with thy God" (as to Abraham and the Israelites), but "as your Father." There are, however, several passages which, from being looked at apart from their context, or misunderstood as to their true sense or bearing, have, as experience proves, been the occasion of difficulty to sincere Christians. A few of them are here referred to, in the endeavour to establish their true meaning. 1. "I am crucified with Christ." (Galatians 2:20.) It is so far from true that the apostle (who without question was eminently faithful) is speaking only of himself, or of his own state of sanctification here, that he elsewhere affirms that all Christians are crucified with him. In this same epistle he asserts, that "they who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." (Galatians 5:24.) It is no question of ’the reception of Christ by certain souls for their sanctification,’* but that which is true of all Christians. This is plainly taught in the sixth chapter of the epistle to the Romans (from the first to the 11th verse), where he says "So many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death," etc. Again, "Our old man has been crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin;" and again, "He that is dead is free from sin." The apostle deduces hence this clear and simple conclusion (not, ’you have therefore no more evil concupiscence;’ not, ’you are therefore dead to all sinful inclination,’ but) "let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies; that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof" - a poor, miserable, and unintelligible conclusion to those who assert that sin no longer exists in one who is crucified with Christ. If sin no longer exist, weak is the inference, ’Let it not, therefore, reign;’ and to say, ’Let it not reign,’ is incompatible with the thought that it no longer exists. The conclusion drawn by the Holy Ghost here is continually that of the word of God in similar passages elsewhere: Paul, for instance, writes to the Colossians: "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God;" and tells them: "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth," etc.; Colossians 3:1-25) And would we know how the Christian is dead we have only to read, the 11th, 12th, and 20th verses of the preceding chapter. To be dead is really true of all Christians; according to the mind of God. The same remarks apply to Romans 8:10-12. *A specious form assumed by error, is this; ’we ought not to seek sanctification by human effort, but, by receiving Christ as our sanctification, the germ of sin is destroyed, and we are perfectly holy, and without sin or evil concupiscence.’ We shall never indeed, by any strength of man, attain to sanctification, but, in looking to Christ, we find an abundant spring of life and holiness. 2. "Being now made free from sin." (Romans 6:18; Romans 6:22.) The apostle tells those to whom he writes, that he speaks to them "after the manner of men, because of the infirmity of their flesh." The term "made free" is used by him in contradistinction to a state of slavery, and he adds, by way of marking the contrast, that they have become servants to God. It is a simple illustration of slaves and freedmen; introduced by the apostle to make himself better understood. Moreover, the condition spoken of is that of all Christians, without exception. 3. "As he (Christ) is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4:17.) We are told in the preceding chapter - "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself; even as he is pure." What hope? That of being "like him; for," it is added, "we shall see him as he is." So that to be whilst "in this world" (and not merely when He comes) "as he is," is to be as Jesus is now in glory, and not as He was (that which is nowhere said in the Word). But it is certain that in our present state we are not in ourselves as He is. An attentive examination of the whole passage will show what it is the Holy Ghost designs to teach. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us," we are told (5: 9), "because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him;" and further (5: 17), "Herein is love with us perfected, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." Love perfected with us does not make us say, ’so’ that we may be this in ourselves, but ’that we may have boldness in the day of judgment.’ And what gives this boldness? God has manifested His love in sending His Son into the world, etc. He has completed (or perfected) this love in setting us before Himself in Christ. We are not (He is) personally in the glory: but we are perfectly as He is before God. Accepted in the Beloved; loved as He is loved; righteous, as He is righteous; in principle and in hope we are made partakers of His glory. Our union with Him is a real thing; whoso touches us touches Him. He can say (speaking of us) as He did to Saul of Tarsus, "Why persecutest thou me?" God in Christ manifested His love to man. Man in Christ is presented to God in the perfectness of Christ’s acceptance, and has the enjoyment of this through the Holy Ghost in the new nature communicated, and by which we participate in it. This nature manifests itself in a walk according to its own principles. But the old man is not changed, though judged in thought and way 4 "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." (1 John 4:18) This refers to that thorough confidence in the love of God that sets the heart at liberty in His presence, and gives peace and joy in communion with Him. It has not anything to do with the absence of sin in the flesh. His love is shed abroad in our hearts - "not that we loved him, but that he loved us." God dwells in us, and His love is perfected in us. Made partakers of the divine nature; and filled with the Holy Ghost, we are filled with love (the consciousness of His love), and consequently we love after a divine manner. But it does not follow that the flesh is changed. The soul, filled with the Holy Ghost, thinks of the love which is in God, and not of the love we have for God. 5. "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." (1 John 3:9.) The apostle, here and in similar passages of his epistle, predicates that which is true of all Christians (not of certain Christians who have attained ’perfection,’ so that they no longer sin, while other Christians have not). It is those who are ’born of God.’ As a distinctive mark between them and the children of the devil, he brings forward the character of that nature which they have received from Christ, and consequently that of their life and conduct. "He that committeth sin is of the devil." (5: 8.) So that according to the idea refuted, every one who is not ’perfect’ is of the devil. It may be replied that there are many scholars in one and the same class, who individually have made very different progress. But this is said of the entire class, and does not refer to the greater or less progress of particular scholars. 6 "Let us go on unto perfection." (Hebrews 6:1.) We find, on examining the passage, that this has no reference to the ’state of sanctification,’ but to advancing in knowledge. The apostle is contrasting "the principles of the doctrine of Christ" (as a believing Jew might have understood them before Pentecost), and the knowledge, which the "Holy Ghost sent down from heaven" gives of the fulness of the glory of the Son of man, exalted above all. The signification of the word ’perfect’ in several other passages is similar, and has no reference whatever to the presence or absence of sin. 7 "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded." (Php 3:15) Paul adds (vv. 12, 13), "not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect. I count not myself to have apprehended." Jesus Christ had apprehended him for the resurrection from the dead. Having learned the purpose of Jesus, he pressed towards the mark, and in so doing acknowledged the imperfection of his actual condition. 8 "Every one that is perfect shall be as his Master." (Luke 6:40.) This refers to the principles of the believer’s conduct, the complete reception of the principles of his Master. See the whole passage. There is here no allusion to the nature of the disciple, but to the light and principles which ought to guide him. We can admit of no example but the perfect walk of Jesus Christ Himself, But Christ in His nature was without sin, and we were shapen in iniquity; and, although I put off the old man, and put on the new, the work of God does not consist in restoring the first Adam here below, but in communicating the life of the Second, to whom I shall be made conformable when I see Him as He is; and never till then. 9 "There is no concord between Christ and Belial." (2 Corinthians 6:15.) This is referred to here on the ground of its being sometimes made to affirm that Christ and Belial cannot dwell in the same temple. The saint’s body is not the temple of Belial, it is the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:19), although the root of sin still remain in us. Christ and Belial do subsist together. They were together in the world, of which Belial himself was ’the prince,’ when Jesus was on the earth. To say that there is ’no concord’ between them is a totally different thing. Not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth. Do we find Paul turning back to rest upon his own feelings? His conscience bears him good witness - "I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified," he says: "but he that judgeth me is the Lord." (1 Corinthians 4:4.) In vain we search the whole Bible for a witness given by the Holy Ghost to our souls of our complete ’sanctification.’ We clearly see in Scripture that we are "children of God," "heirs of God," objects of His perfect love; that, in communion with Him, we have the enjoyment of His love, that we glory in Him. But as to entire ’sanctification,’ we find it not at all; it is a notion which can in no way be made to accord with the true ’perfection’ - that ’perfection’ which is ours, already enjoyed by us in hope, but which will be completed only in the resurrection. It is an error connected with a host of other errors, and destructive of some of the most precious truths and consolations of the gospel. A knowledge of God’s perfect love through the Holy Ghost produces necessarily in us a reciprocity of love (feeble, doubtless, but real and pure). We manifest the divine nature. God dwells in us, and we in Him. The love with which He loves us is shed abroad in our hearts, and the consciousness we have of this shows itself in love towards Him; the brightness of His countenance beams on ours, and we reflect the mild and powerful rays. But as it is through the gift of the Holy Ghost that we know the love of God, so, by the same Spirit, the love of our hearts responds without effort to His love so known. If I am told that God demands this love, that He requires it as indispensable, you place me under law, and do away with the very principle of justification; grace is set aside, the grand gospel principle that God justifies the ungodly. (Romans 4:5.) In confounding this love, where it exists, with perfect holiness and the extinction of sin, I evidence a deep ignorance of my own heart. The soul set at liberty, and having tasted of this love, filled, absorbed with it, may suppose (the capacity of the heart being limited) that nothing else does or ought to exist in it. But sin exists ever in our nature, and more, it germinates at times, precisely because we stop at the effect of love instead of being occupied with the source. No sooner do we turn in upon self, and the effect grace has produced in us, than communion with the spring is interrupted, and the effects of grace become, through the deceitfulness of the heart, the incentive to sin, especially to falling into pride. Vain are our efforts to derive fresh strength from the effects of grace; the conscience is never thus brought into exercise (not even in the most elevated spiritual state), which it always is where the soul has God before it; and, as liveliness of conscience in His presence is practically our safeguard, the moment I turn in upon self, to contemplate the grace that is in me, I am on the highroad to a fall. I am away from the source of my spiritual strength. We must not confound conduct void of offence with the absence of all sin, that is to say with the extirpation of ’the germ of sin’ in our nature. Doubtless the Christian ought to maintain a thoroughly blameless conduct; he cannot justify his having, even for a moment, walked ’after the flesh.’ As to fact, "in many things we offend all" (James 3:2); but "God is faithful, who will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able." (1 Corinthians 10:13) I can never excuse myself by saying, ’It is the flesh which is still in me that caused me to fall,’ that flesh ought to have been mortified. I must confess to my own want of watchfulness and prayer. Possibly I had not sufficiently got to the bottom of my heart, and this has been permitted, as with Job, for my instruction, to work in me a deepened apprehension of the exceeding riches of God’s grace, who loves me, and can bring good out of evil, though he never justifies it. I am without excuse. The blood of Jesus Christ expiates the sin; but I have failed. If I go on to plead; ’I am but a child, I am yet so weak in the faith;’ this alters not the case; for, had there been in me the fear and distrust of self which befit weakness, I should not have fallen. Sin (the principle of self-will) was at work, Alas! how much of levity of heart there is in us all; the, unholy levity of the world is not that of which we speak. What lightness, even in our best intercourse one with another! lightness of thought and lightness of speech, even about good things! We must remember that, if the flesh is in us, the Holy Ghost is in us too. It is our privilege, and might be our experience, to know the flesh only in the presence of God, only to know it as we learn it in communion with Him; and what it really is, is never so well known or so hated as when so learnt. We shall be conscious of the workings of the flesh; but ought it ever to be allowed so to work in a saint as to get into his conscience, or to show itself before others? The way it should be detected is by abiding in the presence of God, and them we should not have the pain of learning its nature by its own workings, but through the Holy Ghost in judging it. When we detect the flesh because we are in communion with God, it never either troubles our conscience before God, or dishonours our Master before men. And God is able to keep us from falling, both inwardly and outwardly. One who loves holiness knows if he gets into unholy thoughts even for a minute - a saint must feel that an unholy thought is a fall, as truly a fall as an open transgression, though not so manifest to others. We should bear in mind, that even these inward falls are not necessary; if the flesh were always by us judged, and thoroughly judged, in the presence of God, we should find that He would thus keep us. When we are in communion with Him, when living as in His presence, are not sin and temptation powerless? Nor need these happy seasons be short; the more simplicity of heart and faith, the longer they will last. This is not said to discourage. Let us not mistrust God, or feel less certainty that we can go to Him (as though He did not love us), because our attainments are low. It is not the Holy Ghost who would lead us away from God, even though we may be conscious of much failure and sin; it is Satan. It is always the work of the enemy, when distrust of God’s love is the result of a sense of failure; though the consciousness of sin may be of the Holy Ghost. God shows us our failure to lead us on; but Satan seeks to spoil His work, by throwing in distrust. "If any man sin, we have am advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous," (1 John 2:1), and thus that communion should not be interrupted. Heaven in prospect, our being made like Jesus in glory, our being with Him, the joy of His presence, the absence of all evil, no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither any more pain; in a word, the presence, glory, and heavenly rest of our God, what incentives these to advance indefinitely in the career of holiness and piety! whilst we are made to feel by that which imparts to us fresh vigour, that we are still far from the goal which, through grace, we shall assuredly attain. How different this from the endeavour to make the whole revelation of the grace of God serve to set up afresh a species of Judaism! Paul, who, perhaps, stood foremost in the ranks of the soldiers of faith, has said: "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." (1 Corinthians 15:19.) It was because he had received the first-fruits of the Spirit, that he groaned within himself (Romans 8:23); that he ran not as uncertainly, that he fought not as one that beateth the air, that he kept under his body and brought it into subjection. (1 Corinthians 9:26-27.) This is not the rest that remaineth to the people of God. (Hebrews 4:9.) Are there no internal conflicts? or admitting that we have not any longer to struggle with an enemy indomitable and harassing us with all his might, is not continued watchfulness needed, for holding in one who, with malice and enmity unchanged, is ready at any moment to break out and do us hurt? To love God, because He ought to be loved, and so to reflect His image in purity, is that which the law demanded. Grace presents the love of God towards us, when we were undeserving of that love. It places us, in Christ, upon a new and unchangeable ground of eternal joy. It presents God Himself under an aspect unknown to Adam, and impossible under the law; for the law of necessity requires perfect love in us; it cannot, it should not, spare the sinner. By the regenerating power of the life of Christ we are renewed after the image of God; but we are renewed on the principle of an eternal gratitude, which alone puts God in His right place with regard to the creature; and which puts the creature, fallen and made alive anew, in its place in relation to God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 32: VOL 01 - THE ACCEPTED MAN ======================================================================== The Accepted Man 2 Corinthians 3:1-18 There are two ways in which we may approach the judgment of man. We may judge of where man is (of the condition in which he is looked at by God), by taking the word of God and applying it to the condition of man in himself, to his state as an actual sinner. Thus, for instance, in Genesis 3:1-24, in the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden, we see the character of evil against God Himself; in Genesis 4:1-26, in Cain’s sin the character of evil against man’s neighbour. Here, then, is direct opposition to the requirement of God, in both its parts. (Luke 10:27.) But there is another thing of which Scripture is full - THE ACCEPTED MAN, the Lord Jesus. We get in Him a precious, living, divine picture of what that Man is whom God does accept, of the Man after God’s own heart. If we find in Christ the accepted Man, whatever any other man’s thoughts may be about himself, it is evident he is not this, because he is not like Christ (I speak not now as to divine power.) In the glory, Christ is the accepted and the acceptable Man before God. As the pattern for the saint, He is the exhibitor not of divine power in grace toward man, but of manhood such as God can accept. Now no man can, at any rate lay claim to being this. The unconverted man, though he cannot comprehend the Man after God’s own heart, can plainly see he is not this. A blind man may not be able to tell what I mean, when I speak to him about light and colour, because he has no perception of these things, he is blind; but he knows that the things I am talking about, he lacks the knowledge of; so, when Christ is spoken of, the natural man is in a state of forgetfulness, or rather ignorance, as to who and what Christ is (whether looked at in relation, to God, or to the sinner) and, therefore, as to the real dissimilarity between himself and Christ; but he is perfectly aware that there are things which others know about Christ that he does not know. He may say he knows them, but he does not; and, moreover, he must be conscious that he does not know that which he professes to know. The blind man may hear me speak, or be listening to sweet music, and, in a certain sense, lose nothing through his blindness (in the present enjoyment of what he hears, he may forget his inability to see); but let him attempt to walk across the room towards me, and he will be reminded of it, for, unless one lead him, he will run up against that which stands in his way. The blind man may get used to his blindness. So with the sinner. When the natural man hears the word of God read, or when Christ is spoken of, he is blind, ignorant (as was said before) of who and what Christ is; but he is ignorant of the depth of his ignorance; his mind is so occupied with other things, that he does not think about it, and he gets used to his ignorance. When the truth is put before him, he cannot see it; yet he must know that he knows nothing about it. If he looks into the Scriptures, he does not apprehend Him, of whom they speak. He is entirely ignorant of the motives that actuated Christ in His path through this world; yet, if his attention be at all called to what Christ was, he must have the consciousness that he is not like that, that he is not and has not the thing spoken of. If it be true that this is the acceptable Man, the Man in whom God delights, acceptable in His spirit, and ways, and character, it must be evident to the natural man that he cannot be. He may have many amiable qualities (in nature there is much that is engaging and beautiful, we see it even in the animals) but nothing that is acceptable to God. Morally, we do not find one single motive that governed Christ, governing man, as man. It is evident, therefore, that, if Christ’s were acceptable motives, his are not. Now, being accepted is a great thing. It is impossible to think of a day of blessing, or of a day of judgment, without immediately having thoughts arise in the soul, as to how it will be with us, whether we shall stand accepted in that day, whether we shall escape that judgment. A man of the world must own that he has nothing in common with Christ, except, indeed, that he is a man and Christ was a man; he eats, drinks, sleeps; and Christ, ate, drank, slept; but there is sin in every man, and Christ was "without sin" - sin in the place of godliness, malice in the place of love. As regards the moral motives of the soul, he has not any of Christ’s, and Christ had not one of his. The world would cease, if its conduct were regulated by the motives which actuated Christ; it could not go on an hour. There may be the outward imitation of that which was found in Christ, but God is not mocked. "But," it may be said, and many do say it, "God does not expect us to be like Christ in everything. Now the fact is God does expect us to be like Christ. It is impossible for God to accept one thing as that which is agreeable to Himself and then accept or be satisfied with the directly opposite. If the man of the world is the very opposite of what Christ was, God cannot accept him. He cannot deny Himself. We shall see how God does bring into the very same place as Christ those who are accepted in Him. You cannot have a third man; you must either have the place of the first man, rejected, turned out into the world, in the place of ruin, or that of the second Man, accepted, brought out of the world as God. There is no third man offering an indefinite acceptance, in some unknown condition. What, then, is the Christian? We read here of two things as characterising him: - he is an "epistle of Christ," - he has "liberty." What is the "liberty?" You will find this a characteristic of man, as man, be has not liberty with God, and (though he has not liberty from Satan) he has liberty with Satan. He is afraid of God; but he is not afraid of Satan. He would not like to be with Satan in hell, it is true, he is horrified at the thought of that; but he is not horrified as walking with him every day. He is at liberty with Satan; walking at his ease with him in the earth; but of walking with God he has a perfect terror. Now do you, dear friends find yourselves at liberty with God? - I know, that, in heaven by and bye, you would like to be with God; but do you covet this nearness now? that is the question, do you feel at home with God? would you like Him to take you, just such as you are? Taking you just such as you are, could you trust yourselves with God? You hope, perhaps, that when the day of judgment comes, all will be well with you, you have no thought but that you will be able to stand in the judgment then; but if God were about to take you, just such as you are at this moment, is there not something you would be afraid of? What is there so terrible in thinking about God, that you should be afraid of God, that you would not like to trust God with your present condition? - you are not afraid to trust Satan. Satan is "the god" (2 Corinthians 4:4) and "the prince" (John 12:31, John 14:30) "of this world," yet men are not afraid of making their way through a world, where the Lord tells His disciples to have their loins girded about, and their lamps burning, to watch and pray lest they enter into temptation, to be armed at all points. Men are not afraid there. Is not this strange? In Satan’s world they are at ease; but with God they are not at ease. They go readily into places of temptation, where Christ is sure not to be; and into the place where Christ could honour God, they are ill at ease. They go to seek their pleasures where Christ could not have found His; and they are not afraid of Satan, though they know he is there. They are afraid were the light is; but they are not afraid of the darkness. Darkness is their element, light their fear. Now that is a terrible thing? "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all;" Satan is the prince of "the rulers of the darkness of this world" (Ephesians 6:12), "the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience," etc. (Ephesians 2:2-3.) Man can compare himself with the reprobate sinner, and take credit in his own eyes for the difference between himself and the sinner, when God is not in the conscience; but he puts away the judgment of God concerning himself, he never compares himself with Christ, "neither cometh he to the light, lest his deeds be reproved." (John 3:20-21.) Now let us look at Christ, gas to this judgment of man about himself. We find Christ scorning what man delights in, passing by those who could thus compare themselves amongst themselves, and becoming the friend of the profligate and the abandoned. When he met with a publican, or a person of bad character, making no pretence to be anything but a sinner, He was at home with the sinner. Of such were His companions. He came in grace to sinners, as sinners. He saw into the heart, and therefore detected the hollowness of all man’s pretended righteousness. He did not come from heaven to this earth to look for righteousness; that is the last thing He would have taken the journey for; He came to seek sinners. Again: you read a person’s character in his letter. Now the Christian is Christ’s letter to the world. In 5: 3, the Apostle speaks of him as "the epistle of Christ," written by the Spirit of the living God in the fleshy tables of the heart, and contrasts him with the law written on tables of stone. A Christian is, therefore, a person upon whose heart the Spirit of God has engraved Christ, just as truly as God wrote and engraved the law upon the tables of stone, so that the world may read Christ in the man, as an Israelite might read the law on the stones. Now, how far can we, according to this definition, call ourselves Christians? We come short, I doubt not, we have blotted the letter; but I speak of the thing in principle. Oh the folly of man! he has taken for granted, from the Scriptures, that there is a heaven, and then set out about getting to that heaven his own way. How does he know that there is a heaven at all to go to - it is impossible that he should know it except upon the authority of God. ’I learn it from the Scriptures,’ he says; ’It is in the Scriptures and therefore it must be true’ - yes, doubtless, it is in the Scriptures; but, having taken for granted just that, he does not go to God to know who are to be there, or how he is to get there. The very idea, floating as it is, he possesses of heaven, renders the assumption of his being there less pardonable than would have been his utter ignorance about it. A man would be less wrong, supposing he did not know anything about a regal palace, a savage fit only for the woods, than a person who knew what the palace was, and had some idea of the requirements of the place, and yet thought to go and live there. The unconverted man acts and thinks more apart from God in thinking he ought to go to heaven, than if he thought there was no such place at all; he is expecting to get into the presence of a Holy God, in a state of sin. One thing impressed my own mind most peculiarly, when the Lord was first opening my eyes, - I never found Christ doing a single thing for Himself. Here is an immense principle. There was not one act in all Christ’s life, done to serve or to please Himself An unbroken stream of blessed, perfect, unfailing love flowed from Him, no matter what the contradiction of sinners, one amazing and unwavering testimony of love, and sympathy, and help, but it was ever others, and not Himself; that were comforted, and nothing could weary it, nothing turn it aside. Now the world’s whole principle is self - doing well for itself. (Psalms 49:18.) Men know that it is upon the energy of selfishness they have to depend. Every one knows this that knows anything at all of the world. Without it, the world could not go on. What is the world’s honour? self. What is wealth? self. What is advancement in the world? self. They are but so many forms of the same thing; the principle that animates the individual man in each, is the spirit of self-seeking. The business of the world is the seeking of self, and the pleasures of the world are selfish pleasures. They are troublesome pleasures, too; for we cannot escape from a world where God has said, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground," etc. Toil for self is irksome; but suppose a man finds out at length, that the busy seeking of self is trouble and weariness, and, having procured the means of living without it, gives it up, what then? He just adopts another form of the same spirit of self, and turns to selfish ease. I am not now speaking of vice and gross sin (of course, everyone will allow that to be Apposite to the Spirit of Christ); but of the whole course of the world. Take the world’s decent, moral man, and is he an "epistle of Christ?" Is there in him a single motive like Christ’s? He may do the same things; he may be a carpenter, as Christ was (Mark 6:3); but he has not one thought in common with Christ. As to the outside, the world goes on with its religion and its philanthropy; it does good, builds its hospitals, feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, and the like, but its inward springs of action are not Christ’s. Every motive that governed Christ all the way along is not that which governs men; and the motives which keep the world agoing are not those which were found in Christ at all. The infidel owns Christ’s moral beauty, and selfishness can take pleasure in unselfishness; but the Christian is to "put on Christ." He went about doing good all the day long; there was not a moment but He was ready as the servant in grace of the need of others. And do not let us suppose that this cost Him nothing. He had not where to lay His head. He hungered, and was wearied; and when He sat down, where was it? under the scorching sun, at the well’s mouth, whilst His disciples went into the city to buy bread. And what then? He was as ready for the poor vile sinner who came to Him, as if He had not hungered, neither was faint and weary, (John 4:1-54), He was never at ease. He was in all the trials and troubles that man is in, as the consequences of sin, and see how He walked. He made bread for others; but He would not touch a stone to turn it into bread for Himself. As to the moral motives of the soul, the man of the world has no one principle in common with Christ. If, then, the world is to read the character of Christ, it is evident that cannot be read in him; he is not a Christian; he is not in the road to heaven at all, and every step he takes, only conducts him further and further from the object in view. When, a man is in a wrong road, the further he goes in it, the more he is astray. There is another terrible thing: we find men agreeing to take the commandments of God as their rule and guide, as Christ took them. "We take His directions," they say, "all that God says about what we ought to be, and what we ought to do, we are not going our own way." Well, granted; but you must take the law, such as it is, and with its consequences. If man says, ’I accept the law to be judged by, I take this as my guide,’ he makes himself the responsible party, 1:e. he has to answer for himself. And mark how God began with the law. What does the law say about him? It says, he is "cursed" already. This law that he is taking to get to heaven by, is the very thing that pronounces judgment against him - "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." (Galatians 3:10.) Suppose I bring a right and true measure to a man who is in the habit of using a wrong measure, what do I do it for? Not to make him honest, but to prove his dishonesty. It is in vain for him to say, ’I will change my character,’ the thing is already done. The question is, has he a character? and he is proved to be a dishonest man. Now the law was given "that the offence might abound." (Romans 5:20.) The right, perfect, holy law of God, was given as a rule; but if that rule be given to a sinner who cannot keep it, and if it be applied with all the searching power of the holiness of God, he is a judged person, and brought in under its curse. He hopes, perhaps, to be better; he has some vague thoughts about the mercy of God; but it is no use to talk about what he will be, judgment is already pronounced against him. But more than this, as a matter of fact, the law tells man, not so much what he is to do, as what he is not to do. If we look at the ten commandments, we shall find, that they do not tell him to do anything, except to honour his father and his mother. That is the only positive precept. All the rest are, ’Thou shalt not do this, and thou shalt not do that.’ How comes it, then, that such a form is employed? This of itself is a sufficient proof of evil tendencies in those addressed. Men care not to make laws for a country to prohibit that which nobody thinks of doing; and so God’s law forbids people to do certain things because they have a tendency to do those very things; it touches the motives and dispositions of men’s hearts as they are known by God. The law is given, most surely, as a rule; but it is given to a sinner who already needs amendment. The first thing it does, therefore, is to prove sin, condemning the inward disposition, as well as the outward evil. Paul’s experience of it (Romans 7:1-25) is proof enough of this. He could say he was pure, so far as concerned outward compliance with its requirements, "touching the righteousness, which is in the law blameless." (Php 3:6.) "Alive, without the law once," "when the commandment came, sin revived," and he "died." "I had not known sin," he says, "but by the law, for I had not known lust, except the law had, said, Thou shalt not covet; but sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence; for without the law sin was dead." "When the commandment came," he found he was a condemned sinner. The law being the righteous demand of God from man, and applying itself to those who are already sinners, must, necessarily, work condemnation and death. It is "the ministration of death" (5: 7), and of "condemnation" (5: 9). But, again, there are not only wrong motives in man, but a very strong, independent will. Man likes to have his own way. Now, what is the effect of putting anything in the way of a person, who wants to go his own road? That he will push it out of the way, if he can. Thus, the will of man, if the man be resting on the law, as such, and yet liking to have his own way in a single thing, proves him to be a breaker of all the commandments. The will of the man being contrary to God, if opposed, would push aside the whole law. This is what is meant by "whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all," etc. (James 2:10-11.) The authority of God is attached to His law; and therefore, if, when the authority of God, meets the lust of men, he is guilty of the breach of that law in one thing, he has overthrown the claim of the authority of God, and, thus, broken the whole law. If he commit not adultery, yet if he kill, he sets aside the authority of Him who made the law that says "Thou shalt not commit adultery," for He that said, "Do not commit adultery," said also, "Do not kill." Suppose you had forbidden your child to do three things, and he was not disposed to do two of the three, or lacked the opportunity, would his not having done two of these three things make you hold him guiltless? No; you would say that he was not disposed to do them, or he would have done them, had he found the occasion. Having set aside your authority in the one instance, your authority was not his restraint. ’How hard it is,’ you may be ready to say, ’that men, when a sinner, should have a law given him to keep which he cannot keep, and which, therefore, after all, instead of helping him, only works death and condemnation.’ These are men’s thoughts and not God’s. God never intended to save men by the law, that was not His purpose in giving it; He never meant to save any other way then by Christ. Bounds were set about the mount (Exodus 19:12-13) - it is a barrier from God; and Moses required to have a veil put on his face when he spoke to the people. (Exodus 34:33-35.) People have taken heaven out of the Scriptures, and then they have taken their own way to it. But they ere trying to go to heaven by the very thing God has given as the ministration of death and condemnation; and they expect to get there by the very thing God says pronounces them "cursed." The first principle of Christianity, whilst recognising in the most solemn manner men’s responsibility to answer for himself, puts the Christian on other, and entirely different, ground. This is the first principle and basis of all Christian truth, that there is a Mediator, a third person, between men and God. Another has implicated himself, and, because men could not come to God, has taken up the cause of men, and suffered to bring him to God. (1 Peter 3:18.) Two things (already noticed) are brought out here, as the result of this. "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," the liberty of grace. And we become the "epistles of Christ" (blotted ones, no doubt, in ourselves, but we are not epistles of ourselves), transcripts of Christ "written with the Spirit of the living God." (2 Corinthians 3:1-3.) This we are, not merely we ought to be. Though in ourselves most imperfect end failing; the definition given by the Spirit of God of a Christian is, that he is a transcript of Christ. Now the natural thought of many a soul is this, ’Well, if that be true, I do not know what to think of myself; I do not see this transcript in myself!’ No, and you ought not to see it. Moses did not see his own face shine, Moses saw God’s face shine, and others saw Moses’ face shine. The glory of the Lord, as seen in Moses’ face, alarmed the people. They could not bear that glory. But we see it now with "open," unveiled "face," in Christ (5: 18), and yet are not in the least afraid; we find liberty, comfort, and joy in looking at it; we gaze on it, and, instead of fearing, rejoice. How comes this immense difference? It is "the ministration of the Spirit" (5: 8), and "of righteousness" (5: 9). It is Christ alive in the glory that I see, not Christ down here (sweet as that was); Christ at the right hand of God. Yet though that glory is in the heavens, I can steadfastly behold it. All that glory, and He is in the midst of the glory and majesty of the throne of God itself, does not affright me, because this wonderful truth comes in, that that glory of God is in the face of a man who has put away my sins, and who is there in proof of it. (Hebrews 1:3.) I should have been afraid to hear His voice, and have said, with the children of Israel (Exodus 20:19), ’Let not God speak with me,’ or, like Adam, with a guilty conscience, have sought to hide myself away (Genesis 2:8); but I do not say so now; no, let me hear His voice. I cannot see the glory of Christ now, without knowing that I am saved. How comes He there? He is a man who has been down here mixing with publicans and sinners, the friend of such, choosing such as His companions. He is a men who has borne the wrath of God on account of sin; He is a men who has borne my sins in His own body on the tree (I speak the language of faith); He is there, as having been down here amidst the circumstances, end under the imputation of sin; end yet it is in His face I see the glory of God. I see Him there, consequent upon the putting away of my sin, because He has accomplished my redemption. I could not see Christ in the glory, if there was one spot or stain of sin not put away. The more I see of the glory, the more I see the perfectness of the, work that Christ has wrought, and of the righteousness wherein I am accepted; every ray of that glory is seen, in the face of One who has confessed my sins as His own, and died for them on the cross; of One who has glorified God in the earth, and finished the work that the Father had given Him to do. The glory that I see is the glory of redemption, Having glorified Gad about the sin - "I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do" - God has glorified Him with Himself there. (John 17:1-26) When I see Him in that glory, instead of seeing my sins, I see that they are gone. I have seen my sins laid on the Mediator. I have seen my sins confessed on the head of the scape-goat, and they have been borne away. (Leviticus 16:1-34) So much has God been glorified about my sins (that is, in respect of what Christ has done on account of my sins), that this is the title of Christ to be there at the right hand of God. I am not afraid to look at Christ there. Where are my sins now? where are they to be found, in heaven or on earth? I see Christ in the glory - once they were found upon the head of that blessed One; but they are gone, never more to be found. Were it a dead Christ, so to speak, that I saw, I might fear that my sins would be found again; but with Christ alive in the glory, the search is in vain. He who bore them all has been received up to the throne of God, and no sin can be there. As a practical consequence of this, I am changed into His likeness - "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even, as by the Spirit of the Lord." It is the Holy Ghost taking of the things of Christ and revealing them to the soul, that is the power of present practical conformity to Christ. I delight in Christ, I feast upon Christ, I love Christ. It is the very model and forming of my soul according to Christ, by the Holy Ghost, this His revelation of Christ. I not only get to love the glory; it is Christ Himself that I love, Christ that I admire, Christ that I care for, Christ whose flesh I eat, and whose blood I drink - what wonder if I am like Christ. The Christian thus becomes the epistle of Christ; he speaks for Christ, owns Christ, acts for Christ. He does not want to be rich, he has riches in Christ, unsearchable riches. He does not want the pleasures of the world, he has pleasures at God’s right hand for evermore. Does the heart still say, ’Oh, but I do not, and cannot, see this transcript in myself?’ No, but you see Christ; and is not that better? It is not my looking at myself; but it is my looking at Christ, that is God’s appointed means for my growing in the likeness of Christ. If I would copy the work of some great artist, is it by fixing my eyes on the imitation, and being taken up with regrets about my failing attempt, that I shall be likely to succeed? No, but by looking at my model, by fixing my eyes there, tracing the various points and getting into the spirit of the thing. Mark the comfort of this! The Holy Ghost having revealed to my soul Christ in the glory, as the assurance of my acceptance, I can look without fear, and therefore, steadfastly, full at that glory, and rejoice at the measure of its brightness. Stephen (Acts 7:1-60), full of the Holy Ghost, could look up steadfastly into heaven (doubtless in his case it was with more than ordinary power), and see the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and his face shone as the face of an angel. And look at his death. Just like his Master, he prays for his very murderers. Stephen died saying, ’Lord, lay not this sin to their charge;’ Christ had died saying, ’Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’ In him there was the expression of Christ’s love for his enemies. By the Holy Ghost he was changed, and that in a very blessed way too, into the same image. The soul, at perfect liberty with God, looks peacefully and happily at the glory of God as seen in the face of Jesus Christ; and because it sees that glory and knows its expression, it walks before God in holy confidence. Instead of being happy and at liberty with Satan, in Satan’s world, the Christian dreads Satan because he knows himself. At ease in the presence of God, he there drinks into the spirit of that which befits the presence of God, and becomes the "epistle of Christ" to the world, showing out to all that he has been there. Well, what a difference! May we more and more make our boast in Him, in whose face all this glory is displayed - the Lamb, who has died for us, and cleansed away our sins by His own most precious blood. The Lord give us hearts freed by Himself, whilst still in the midst of this poor world that is walking in a vain show. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 33: VOL 01 - THE CALL OF THE BRIDE ======================================================================== The Call of the Bride Genesis 24:1-67. In Abraham, as being the depository of the promises of God to the patriarchs, we find the fundamental principles of the believer. Abraham having offered up his son Isaac, and having received him back, this act gives us the type of the resurrection of Jesus, who becomes, like Isaac, heir of all the goods of His Father. Rebekah, type of the church, is called to be the bride of Isaac risen. Afterwards in Jacob we have the typical history of the Jewish people. In Abraham we have the principle of man’s relationship with God, pure grace without law. Hagar is introduced as a figure of the law coming in. Isaac, raised from the dead in figure, shows us Christ, the Head, having accomplished His work, and being in the position to maintain all the results of the divine counsels. In this chapter Abraham sends Eliezer to seek a wife for Isaac. This represents the Holy Spirit sent by the Father to seek the church, "the bride, the Lamb’s wife." It is not Isaac who goes to look for a bride. No more does Christ return to this earth to choose a church for Himself. Rebekah must leave her country and come to the land of promise. In this chapter we see the features of the Holy Spirit’s work, how a soul is conducted under His guidance. That is what we are about to see in Eliezer and Rebekah. Abraham, having become old, says to the eldest servant of house, that ruled over all that he had, "Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell." (Verse 1-3.) The first thing which is presented to us here is Eliezer, who has the superintendence of all the goods of his master. He is not the heir - the son is the heir. Thus the Holy Spirit has the disposal of all things. He takes of the things of Christ, and shows them unto us; that is, to the church. "But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac. And the servant said unto him, Peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land: must I needs bring thy son again unto the land from whence thou comest? And Abraham said unto him, Beware thou that thou bring not my son thither again." (Verse 4.) It is impossible that there should be any relation between Christ risen again and this world. Isaac does not go for Rebekah, but she must come to him. Abraham gives directions to his servant. Thus the first thing is to be directed by the word of God. Instead of making further inquiries, Abraham’s servant makes ready and goes off to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor, with no other information. (Verse 9-11.) It is important that we should act in the same manner. Natural wisdom can form a judgment up to a certain point, but it takes the soul away from the presence of God, even when we are doing things according to God. If we begin to deliberate, there is hesitation: we take counsel of flesh and blood. The first thing is to put ourselves in the presence of God: without that there is neither wisdom nor power; whereas, placed in the path of blessing, we get from Him all the intelligence which we shall need. We observe this in the journey of Abraham’s servant. Eliezer says, "O Lord God of my master Abraham." He does not say "my God." The promises had been made to Abraham, and God had revealed Himself as the God of Abraham. Here the servant shows himself in entire dependence; and we find him in the path of promise, not exalting himself, but acting according to the counsels of God in entire dependence, and not pretending to have anything, except where God had placed the blessing; for the promises had been made to Abraham. For us this blessing is in Christ, and there is the answer to our requests; nor do we desire to obtain anything save where God has put His blessing; namely, in the path of obedience to the faith. Eliezer addresses the God of his master Abraham, praying him to favour his master: "O Lord, let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast showed kindness unto my master." (O Lord, thou must act, and I must know by that the one whom thou hast designed to be the wife of thy servant Isaac; the one who will do these things will be the one whom thou hast chosen.) "And it came to pass, before he had done speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder. And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up. And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher. And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking. And she hasted, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels. And the man wondering at her held his peace." Why any doubt? Why does the servant hesitate, since his request has obtained such an answer? Here is the reason. Whatever may be the apparent manifestation of the hand of God, there is a positive rule in the word to which the Christian must pay attention, and which he must not neglect, because of his weakness in discerning what is of God. Faith looks to the power of God, but judges all by the word; for God must act according to His word; and the servant, being in communion with God, ought to act in this thought; and even when there may be signs, he should decide nothing until the will of God be clear according to His word. He must be able to say, "This is indeed according to God." "And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold; and said, Whose daughter art thou? tell me, I pray thee: is there room in thy father’s house for us to lodge in? And she said unto him, I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, whom she bare unto Nahor. She said moreover unto him, We have both straw and provender enough, and room to lodge in." God had perfectly answered the desire of Abraham. Eliezer, for his part, sees that he has been heard. Before going farther, before even entering the house, inasmuch as he had recognized the intervention of God in the whole of this business, he bowed himself and worshipped the Lord, and said, "Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth: I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master’s brethren." We see the same thing in Daniel; he betakes himself to prayer with his companions; and when Daniel has received the revelation of the dream, before presenting himself before the king who had commanded that he should come, he blesses God for having revealed to him that which the king wanted to know. It is always thus when God is in our hearts; we feel that it is He who is acting, and we thank Him. "And the damsel ran, and told them of her mother’s house these things. And Rebekah had a brother, and his name was Laban: and Laban ran out unto the man, unto the well. And it came to pass, when he saw the earring and bracelets upon his sister’s hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, Thus spake the man unto me; that he came unto the man; and, behold, he stood by the camels at the well. And he said, Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; wherefore standest thou without? for I have prepared the house, and room for the camels." Laban and Bethuel, after having heard Abraham’s servant narrate the circumstances, acknowledge that the thing proceeds from the Lord, and say, "We cannot speak unto thee bad or good." (Ver. 50.) Thus, if in the circumstances of our Christian life we act in entire dependence on God, He will make our way plain, and will even soften our enemies, on account of the dependence on Him in which we live. Because we have set the Lord before us, He will be always at our right hand. If I have asked anything of God, and have received His answer, I then act with assurance, with the conviction that I am in the path of God’s will; I am happy and contented. If I meet with some difficulty, this does not stop me; it is only an obstacle which faith has to surmount. But if I have not this certainty before I begin, I am in indecision, I know not what to do. There may be a trial of my faith, or it may be that I ought not to do what I am doing. I am in suspense, and I hesitate; even if I am doing the will of God, I am not sure about it, and I am not happy. I ought therefore to be assured that I am doing His will before I begin to act. Observe, in passing, that God disposes all things according to the desire of Eliezer. This is what necessarily happens to all those who have their delight in the Lord. All the wheels of God’s providence go in the way of His will which I am carrying out. The Holy Spirit, by the word, gives me the knowledge of His will. This is all that I want. God causes that all things should contribute to the accomplishment of His will. If, by spiritual intelligence, we are walking according to God, He assists us in the carrying out of His will, of His objects. There is need of this spiritual discernment, that it may abound in us in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." I know not whither He will lead me, but this is the step I must take to proceed in the path in which I have to walk. Abraham’s servant enters into the house. "And there was set meat before him to eat: but he said, I will not eat, until I have told my errand." Laban said, "Speak on." What firmness of character in the servant! Look at a man who is not decided: he consults this one and that one, when it is a question of how he is to act; and even, having some desire to do his own will, he will rather seek counsel of those who have not as much faith as himself. Paul took counsel of neither flesh nor blood. He saw that it was Christ who called him, and he went forward. Eliezer, taken up with this errand, does not accept the offer of food which is made him. He does what he has to do. One secret of the Christian’s life, as soon as he knows God’s will, is to do his work, to occupy himself with it, to let no delay interfere with it; even to satisfy the wants of his body. This is the effect and the sign of the Holy Spirit’s work. Eliezer wishes to deliver his errand. And what was it that was in questions? The interests and the honour of Abraham his master. He had entrusted to him the interests of Isaac his son. And God has committed to us down here the glory of Jesus His Son; and this glory occupies us by the Holy Ghost who is given to us; that is, where there is a single eye in spiritual discernment, according to the position in which, God hath placed us. If we are there, there is no hesitation; being in our place, we act with liberty and joy. If I think about my convenience, my interests, about what concerns myself or my family (there are a thousand reasons which are contrary to a prompt obedience), this is to consult flesh and blood. But if I inquire what is the interest of Christ, the thing will be instantly decided. If I think of anything else I have not at heart the glory which is entrusted to me, nor confidence in Him who has placed me there. Eliezer thinks always about Abraham, who had entrusted everything to him; his thoughts are upon this as he sets forth before Rebekah the privileges and the good tidings of his master’s house. If our hearts are filled with the Holy Spirit, it will be the same with us. It is very important for us to bear in mind that God has confided to us the glory of Jesus. He had no need of us; besides, what can we do? It is He who works in us, and we have but to let Him act. It is His will to be glorified in us by the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is the same thing we see in those to whom the five and the ten talents were committed. Confidence in the master displays itself in the decision of the servant; as here Eliezer says, "I will not eat until I have told my errand." This pre-occupation with his master’s glory makes him refuse to take any food until his errand was performed. This is to do God’s will. He tells Laban about the matter, and how he had been guided, and that without using any argument, without saying it would be wise to act in such and such a way, but with simplicity committing to God the issue of the affair. "Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, The thing proceedeth from the Lord." If, instead of spending our time in reasoning, we were more simple and obedient, and presented things as the Holy Ghost tells them to us, the result would be better. But we often substitute our human wisdom for the commands of God. Often the things which are the most simply said produce the greatest effect. Peter said to the Jews, "You killed the Prince of life." This is what you did, and what I have to tell you on the part of God. (Acts 3:1-26) If we apprehend things, and present them to men such as they are in the sight of God, the Holy Ghost accompanies the testimony, and the conscience is reached. Thus men think neither of Peter nor of John (except so far as they recognize them to be men of intelligence according to God, according as God had manifested them to themselves); it was God whom they had found, or rather who had found them. When God gives us this simplicity, which makes us occupy ourselves with things in the manner in which God sees them, we ought to speak to any one, according to the state he is in before God. If I feel that he is lost, I tell him so simply; and the most simple addresses are the best and the most blessed. "And he did eat and drink, he and the men that were with him, and tarried all night; and they rose up in the morning, and he said, Send me away unto my master. And her brother and mother said, Let the damsel abide with us a few days, at the least ten; after that she shall go. And he said unto them, Hinder me not, seeing the Lord hath prospered my way; send me away that I may go to my master." We see Eliezer asking that he may hasten his departure; he must use despatch in this business, so as to conduct Rebekah to his master’s son; and, having accomplished his mission, he says, "Delay me not." He does not trouble himself about Laban’s house, and he gives no consideration to his request; he does not stop on account of it. His love for his master makes him consider his orders before everything else. It is in this generally that weakness is shown. We spare the flesh, and neglect what we owe to God: in reality, we are sparing ourselves through fear of not being agreeable to others. I have seen men, who are faithful in what they have to say to others, blessed of God, when they speak with simplicity and without hesitation. "And they said, We will call the damsel, and enquire at her mouth And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go." There is no hesitation here. So likewise, through the influence of the Holy Spirit, the bride says, "I will go." She makes up her mind, instantly, in the most decided manner, and leaves all: "I will go," she says. Now let us examine Rebekah’s position: she had neither the house of Laban nor that of Isaac. It is the same with us. We have neither the earth, on which we are, nor heaven, to which we are going. Rebekah has left everything, and said, "I will go." Eliezer, type of the Holy Ghost, talks to Rebekah during the journey of that which is in the house of her bridegroom’s father: precious conversation for the soul which needs to be encouraged by the view of these things, so as to be able to endure the fatigues and difficulties of the journey, and not to think of the house and the country from whence they came out! For Rebekah was going, like us, across the desert; and Eliezer, the faithful servant, who was leading her, took care to comfort her, and to speak to her of the precious things which are in the father’s house; to repeat to her the greatness and power of the father, and that "he has given all that he hath to his son." For us the servant sets forth the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, who likewise communicates to us all that there is in the Father’s house for those who are the bride of Christ. It is He who takes of the things of Christ and shows them unto us. It is He who leads us into all truth, while we are crossing the wilderness of this world, and who teaches us all things. If Rebekah had hesitated, and had thought about the country which she had left, she would have been unhappy; she would have had neither Isaac’s house nor her father Bethuel’s. To have left all, and to have neither one thing nor the other, her heart, isolated in the wilderness, would have felt itself in an untenable position. But she has left all; and, conversing with Eliezer, she occupies herself with what interests her heart, and raises it above the things which she has now left for ever. And she journeys in peace towards the abode of her bridegroom. So it is with us now. The Christian who is not spiritual, but rather worldly, has a sorrowful lot; he cannot be happy if seeking after the world. The worldly man has at least something; he makes trial of these passing pleasures, and finds in them his joy, worthless as it may be; for in truth this joy does not satisfy. But the Christian finds in these things only uneasiness, because he bears about a conscience affected by the Holy Spirit. If he wishes to take his pleasure in the things of earth, and his heart hangs back from following the Lord, he is unhappy; he cannot chide a conscience which torments him; and as he has not listened to the Holy Spirit’s invitation, and has not obeyed it, there is no joy for him. The spiritual things, which ought to have constituted his joy, produce reproaches in his heart when he turns towards them. But we have the grace of Him who calls us, and who leads us, if we are faithful, in an uniform path, for the sake of His name. If we sin, this does not put us under the law; but we have an advocate with the Father, who intercedes for us; and God, who is faithful, cannot fail when He is appealed to. "What wilt thou do with thy great name?" Besides, His glory is involved in lifting us up again; and this is grace. Yes, we have a Saviour who intercedes with the Father for us, and who works to bring us back to the gracious God - who has begun this work in us and will perfect it till the day of Christ, accomplishing all that concerns us. In the scene before us Eliezer conducts Rebekah to her bridegroom. So also the Holy Ghost conducts us to the end and goal. What Rebekah first perceives is Isaac; and Isaac takes his bride into his mother’s tent. Possessing the bridegroom, she no longer takes thought for anything; she thinks no longer of the possessions, but of the bridegroom himself. The important business was to bring the bride to the bridegroom. And, as to what regards us in the type which is here presented to us, God seeks us in this world of sin; He finds us; He wills that we should not delay to follow Him when we have said, "I will go;" and He leads us into the presence of Jesus. The Holy Spirit accompanies us in the journey to help us, to comfort us, to tell us of the blessings and glory which await us, and to introduce us into the presence of Jesus, our heavenly Bridegroom. This may be modified, as regards the manner, by various circumstances; but such is the effect of the power of the Holy Ghost. The efficacious principle of our calling is that we should freely decide to allow ourselves to be led by Him, to walk with goodwill; knowing that, being in this manner led, we shall arrive at the wished-for end: "So shall we ever be with the Lord." May God grant us all this mercy. Amen. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 34: VOL 01 - THE FAILURE OF THE SONS OF AARON ======================================================================== The Failure of the Sons of Aaron Leviticus 10:1-20 One of the blessed places in which we are set, as children of God, is that of being made "priests" unto Him. But whilst we are apt, and justly so, to consider this a position of highest privilege, we too often forget practically that it is one of constant service. Set in blessed nearness unto God, yet (and by that very nearness) the priests in Israel became mere servants of all the people. Jesus, though "made an High Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec" (a priest and king), is now a "minister of the sanctuary," after the pattern of the priestly service of Aaron; and we, "priests and kings unto God," etc., are set in the place of service, as the "sons of Aaron."* *We find in this part of Scripture the high priest and his sons, or "Aaron and his sons," continually presented to us as a type of the church. Sometimes, however, they are very distinctly separated, as, for instance, in their consecration. (Leviticus 8:1-36) Aaron is anointed without blood having been sprinkled upon him - they with blood. This shows very definitely the perfectness of Christ in His own person to receive the fulness of the Holy Ghost: we can only have it by virtue of His perfectness and blood-shedding for us. I look at Aaron as a type of Christ - "Aaron and his sons," of the whole church. We trace all through the Scriptures the record of the failure of man. In every circumstance wherein he has been set, man has failed. And yet (as we have often heard) all this failure is seen but in the end to redound to the glory of God - to the praise of His grace. How full of blessing and goodness is this! It meets the pride of our hearts, and their natural tendency (that which is in every one of us) to self-dependence. Adam - Noah - Israel in every form, teaches this lesson: the giving of the law - priesthood - prophets - kings - the whole history of the wilderness and of the land, the same. Failure is ever the character of the ways of man; and the chapter before us presents it in most striking as well as touching circumstances. The "sons of Aaron" were set in the place of grace, and there in the place of grace they failed. The law had in itself no aspect of grace; this of course. Let me take law in its highest sense, as that which even concerns angels - unfallen, perfect beings, what does it teach? What God requires - what ought to be. "They do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word." And thus also the ten words were the distinct demand, on the part of God, of righteousness from man, of what man ought to be towards Him and before Him - "Thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself." Nay, more; the law supposed sin - was adapted to those who had a tendency to sin; but the foundation and centre of all our blessings - what God is towards man in love and grace - was never brought out at all. Thus law (properly so) utterly fails in bringing us to God. But there were accompaniments to the law - sacrifices, which had the character of grace, because they were on behalf of transgressors. And here, properly speaking, priesthood found its place. (See Hebrews 5:1-14) The priest was "ordained for men to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin." That is grace - God not requiring goodness, but providing for sinners. Here then we find the failure of the "sons of Aaron" in this practical development of grace, and man’s services in grace. But first let us look a little at another part of priestly service - I mean worship. All worship, properly such, is while there is sacrifice for sin, yet, strictly speaking, not founded upon the presentation of the "sin-offering." As redeemed, we cannot draw nigh to worship without it; it is the door of entrance indeed, but not the proper character of our worship. This assumes the "sweet savour" of the "burnt-offering" - the coming up to God not only in the value of the blood, but in our acceptance in Jesus, as having all the positive savour of what He was and did unto God. Blessed thought! There is this great principle in all worship - death must come in between us and God. See the case of Cain and Abel. Cain brought of the fruit of the ground upon which the curse rested - that which every natural man brings to God. His worship cost more of the "sweat of his brow," the judicial toil of the curse consequent on sin, than that of Abel; but there was no faith in it, no recognition of the ground of his own standing before God, or of God’s judgment, mercy, and patience. The offering of Cain (as of every natural man) is the witness of the most perfect insensibility of heart as to what he was before God. All that we can offer of our natural hearts is "the sacrifice of fools." The contrary was the case with Abel: his "more excellent sacrifice" consisted in this - it confessed that death must come in between the soul and God. And so it ever must - there can be no worship without it: in all circumstances death must come in between us and God. Still there are two very distinct characters in death, as the wages of sin, and for God. While it is the witness of man’s sin, yet because of the death of the Lord Jesus, death is now one of our servants. All things are ours, whether life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are ours. Death is for us now as it was against us before because Christ has tasted death. "Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." (Hebrews 2:14-15.) It was "by the grace of God" Christ tasted death. In His death we see the grace of God, though it was on account of sin. All that was against us is gone. The Lord Jesus Christ turns everything He touches into blessing. "Out of the eater cometh forth meat, and out of the strong sweetness." If I am able to contemplate death in its mightiest power - the death of Jesus, I see in it the power of grace. And here it is that I find the proper character of the savour of worship, in the "burnt-offering." The blessedness of the offering of Jesus was in the perfectness of His will, and the entireness of self-sacrifice to God - "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." (John 10:17-18.) He was not only the spotless victim, but one able to give Himself to God. "Being in the form of God, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." (Php 2:6-8.) Again, "Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) I delight to do thy will, O God; yea, thy law is within my heart." (Psalms 40:7-8; Hebrews 10:7.) So we get not only the grace of God in the gift of Jesus, but that Jesus, "through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God." (Hebrews 9:14.) Will, which in us is sin, becomes in the offering up of Himself, obedience. In every shape was perfectness. Perfect in all His ways - in all His life - in self-consecration to God; but this perfect thing itself He offered up to God in perfect obedience - "not my will, but thine, be done." There was the perfection of glorifying God in it. Just as the purpose of self-will in the first Adam, who sought himself, brought in death, so that of the will to glorify God in the second, the Lord Jesus Christ, through death brought in life to us. The divine glory was gone, so far as man was concerned. He had insulted the character and majesty of God, had listened to the lie of Satan against God (for he denied that truth and goodness was in God), he had taken Satan for his friend; but the Lord Jesus Christ, in thus offering up Himself, glorified God in all. And so when Judas had gone out, He says, "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him." (John 13:31.) God found rest there. God was glorified. Was He true in saying that the "wages of sin is death"? Satan had said, "Ye shall not surely die:" see Jesus. Was He true in His love for man? This Satan had questioned: Jesus died for him. Did Satan tempt man, and say, "Then shall ye be as gods"? God gave His Son, and conformity to His image. God was vindicated thus against man, though for man. When the Lord Jesus Christ "through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God," God found his rest there. It is no matter where I find my rest, if I am not seeking rest where God has found His. God has found it in Jesus (He can look for or to nothing else, in one sense); and we can rest there also. Here we have the ground of worship, and worship itself: it assumes the proper savour of all that Christ was and did for us, and thus has the character of the burnt-offering." In another character - as the "sin-offering" - sin was laid upon Him, "He was made sin for us." (2 Corinthians 5:21.) This was not "an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto Jehovah," but was burnt without the camp as an unclean thing. (Leviticus 4:1-35) When the offerings themselves are brought out in Leviticus, the "burnt-offering," "meat-offering, and "peace-offering" are mentioned first, and then the "sin-offering;" but in application, when the individual worshipper is treated of, he presented his "sin-offering" first, then his "burnt-offering," etc., because he could not worship whilst sin was against him, but had to approach by the efficacy of that which took it away. Though God meets us in our sins by the blood of Christ, yet when we speak of worship we speak of Him in His own savour before God. We come in all the savour of Christ’s sacrifice. Sin is gone out of the place, and we stand in the value, the intrinsic value, of Christ. The burnt-offering was a "sacrifice made by fire, of a sweet savour unto Jehovah." (Leviticus 1:9.) The more it was searched by the fire, the more its sweetness came out before God. So was it in Christ. The coming down of the fire of the holiness of God, trying and searching all the inwards of everything in Him, only brought out a "sweet savour" unto God. This too is our acceptance; it is in this value that we ascend up to God, and being there, we have communion of worship and fellowship before Him. In the sacrifices God had His food, the priest his share, and the rest ate of them also. All our feasting upon Christ is in this value. It was from the "altar of burnt-offering" that coals were taken to kindle the incense that went up before God. "Strange fire" not arising from this source was inadmissible. All our worship, our singing a hymn together, for instance, must have this character, the savour of Christ; God accepts it as such, though full of failure. Everything must be "salted with fire;" if it does not go up through fire it cannot stand; apart from it there is only condemnation and judgment - the character of the sin of Nadab and Abihu. The fire tries every man’s work; and if judgment has already done its work on Jesus, we have nothing but the savour of Jesus to be in before God. This is the real value of our place before the Lord. In this is our joy. It is the place of grace. But then it was here that the "sons of Aaron" failed. "And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire thereon, and put incense therein, and offered strange fire before Jehovah, which he commanded them not." (Ver. 1.) There was the separation of service from the power of its acceptance, and thus failure in the place of grace; failure, not on God’s part, but on man’s. Man has failed under law, that might be expected; but when brought near to God in grace, there also has he failed. The sin of Nadab and Abihu (in this the awful type of the professing church) was sin against the very grace of God, want of respect in the sense of their position, of reverence of God. Our place, though that of perfectness of joy, is ever that of reverence. (Hebrews 12:28-29.) But how is the sin met? As must needs be, in judgment - judgment coming forth from the very place of grace: "There went out fire from before Jehovah, and they died before Jehovah." (Ver, 2.) It is a terrible character the Lord puts on here! The "strange fire" met in result by holiness, the true fire of God’s judgment - "they died before Jehovah." Awful thought! He was found to be a God of judgment, in the very place of blessing and of grace. And thus must it ever be with that which takes falsely a place "before Jehovah;" for after all, though it is the place of grace, it is still one of judgment: "I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me." We have ever to judge ourselves, that we be not judged of God. (1 Corinthians 11:31.) We read, "But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear." (1 Peter 1:15-17.) The Lord always judges according to the place into which we are brought, according to the position in which we stand. And so do we of others, in some sort. For instance, I judge of those who are within my house, differently from what I do of those without; I say, not to a stranger, but to one brought into my house, "you must have clean habits to live here." God is dealing with us on the ground of grace, yet of holiness; for holiness is with us as much a part of grace as any other blessing. "Be ye holy; for I am holy" is the expression of intimacy, and comes not merely in the way of command. Grace must make us holy, "partakers of his holiness." (See Hebrews 12:1-29) It is not God requiring man’s holiness, but making us partakers of His. What could we wish more? Love does it, and we are made partakers of that which separates God from all that is inconsistent with Himself - holiness, not mere innocence. Innocence is the ignorance of good and evil: you would not say that God was innocent, but holy. He makes us "partakers of His holiness." It is, "his holiness" - the knowledge of evil as He knows it, and ability to rise above it. The holiness is as much a part of the grace as the love that does it. They died. "And Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that Jehovah spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace." (Verse 3.) There was silence as to the place of intercession. "There is a sin unto death:" the church has to be silent (1 John 5:16.) God has taken the cause into His own hands, He has acted in His holy place, and all that man can do is to hold his peace. But this is not all. The Lord takes occasion by this failure to bring out what is our position "before Him" day by day, and to show forth yet other failure. "And Jehovah spake unto Aaron" - to Aaron, because about that which became the priests, those who go in "before Jehovah."* We have instructions from Christ, as the Priest, as well as the Lawgiver. There are things which refer to the comeliness of the saint, and not to mere righteousness - things which are known by the Spirit to be comely to us as priests. We read in Hebrews 4:1-16 that those are priests who are "called of God, as was Aaron," and that "Christ glorified not himself to be made an High Priest, but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." So, though in an altogether inferior sense, we are priests as born of God; we become priests. That which is here brought before us is not merely precept; it is priestly instruction as to the manner of our approach to God; and that which understands and estimates it is the new nature in which we are born of God. *This is of common concern to all saints, for as "sons of Aaron" all have an equality; though in another sense, when looked at as Levites, there may be distinction, and whilst all are equally servants - all near, one has to the ark, another the boards, etc. And it is in this our highest proper character we are here spoken of. The Lord gives the instructions to Aaron the high priest as to how the "sons of Aaron" should draw nigh. "And Jehovah spake unto Aaron, saying, Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations: and that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean; and that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which Jehovah has spoken unto them by the hand of Moses." (Ver. 8-11.) "Wine" and "strong drink" - all that excites the flesh, that does not belong to the cleanness of spiritual apprehension and judgment becoming those who go into the sanctuary, must be put away. I believe we are often hindered going into God’s presence by this "drinking of wine." The moment there is that which acts on the flesh and excites nature, the going to find pleasure and joy in things harmless even in themselves, no matter what (nature may take up anything), there is "wine" and "strong drink," that which would put us out of the place of spiritual discernment; and it is inadmissible. There are ten thousand things which may thus excite, eloquence for instance. If excited by eloquence, this would hinder the enjoyment of truth: the same truth, were it presented without it, and thus that which is of Christ, would pall on the taste. Eloquence is not in itself a wrong thing, and yet Paul says, "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech, or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God." There is a vast deal connected with the things of God that is not like this; a vast deal which after all is "wine" - and "strong drink," and it unfits for the sanctuary. Whatever has not the real, calm, spiritual joy fit for the presence of God is so. Look at it - we see it connected with all the forms of false worship. Again, thought as to the beauty and elegance of the edifice where we meet for worship, etc., has the same character; it acts on nature, and whatever does this cannot be fit for the presence of God - cannot be carried into His sanctuary. So of all things around which hinder the power of spiritual discernment, though not in themselves wrong. We might be in a lovely place and not think of it, then it is not "strong drink." The object of this instruction is not merely as to our acting rightly. The condition of mind which gives the capacity of judging "between unclean and clean," depends on the absence of these things - the capacity of learning, through fellowship with God in the sanctuary, to "put difference between holy and unholy." So the apostle prays for the saints at Colosse, that they might be "filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that they might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing," etc. So, too, for the Philippians that they might have such a knowledge of the will of God, "that ye may approve things that are excellent [try the things that differ]; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ" - without a single stumble all the way along until the coming of the Lord. He supposes there might be such intimacy of acquaintance with the mind of God that there should not. We can never give the least justification to sin and say, "the flesh is in us, and we could not help it;" for "there hath no temptation taken us but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able, but will with the temptation also make a way of escape that we may be able to bear it." The theory of the Christian is this - the flesh should never be discovered but in the presence of God, where it is always in the presence of grace and of holiness too. This is the true power of our walk. It is not any particular measure of attainment; it is simply a man walking according to his communion, who never gets into the weakness of the flesh; for the flesh is known only before God, and not before Satan. When I learn the flesh thus, I drink into the opposite of it, the grace of God, and so go forth in the strength of what is in God, and not in the shame and weakness of what is in myself. Thus it is that, in estrangement from all that acts upon the flesh, and near God, I learn His mind in the sanctuary, and am able to "put difference between holy and unholy, unclean and clean." Then also I can teach others, and say, That is the mind of the Lord about such and such a thing; as it is said here, "Teach the children of Israel all the statutes which Jehovah hath spoken unto them by the hands of Moses." But have we not often found an incapacity to judge according to the mind of God, where there was no failure in precept - a spiritual incompetency? Alas, my friends! we have been content to "drink wine, and strong drink," and thus our spiritual faculties have become darkened. There is another thing to notice. The "sons of Aaron" were to eat of the "meat-offering" and the "peace-offering." (Ver. 12-15.) See the fellowship here. The inward parts were fed upon by God (of the "peace-offering," it was "the food of the offering made by fire unto Jehovah"). Aaron and his sons had their part, and so also the particular worshipper. I cannot then separate myself from God herein, because I cannot separate myself from God’s delight in Christ, nor from "the whole family of God who have all their portion." There is no proper worship that does not take in God, Christ, and the whole family of Aaron - the church: it is a common feast, if true. So in Ephesians 3:1-21, "that ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." How can I "comprehend with all saints" if I leave out any? I cannot separate from them without diminishing my own sense of the fulness of the love of Christ and of God. If I leave out one, he is Christ’s joy. And here we fail. Again. There is, in a certain sense, a priestly way in which we have to bear the sins and sorrows of our brethren; not, of course as to atonement (that was Christ’s alone; the blood carried inside was, Christ’s alone), but still there is a true sense in which we have to bear them. And in this, I believe above everything else, we fail. It is not only that Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire: Eleazar and Ithamar were not like them, and yet their failure is recorded. "And Moses diligently sought the goat of the sin-offering, and, behold, it was burnt: and he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron, which were left alive, saying, Wherefore have ye not eaten the sin-offering in the holy place, seeing it is most holy, and God hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before Jehovah? Behold, the blood of it was not brought in within the holy place: ye should indeed have eaten it in the holy place, as I commanded." (Ver. 16-18.) The rule as to the "sin-offering" was this: if the blood was carried inside, to be sprinkled before Jehovah, the body was carried without the camp to be burnt; but in the "sin-offering" for offences, the priest was to eat it; and in this the "sons of Aaron" had a share. We get the pattern for the exercise of grace in the saints; as to the failure and sins of their brethren, in John 13:1-38 : "If I, your Lord and Master, wash your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet." Where there is defilement seen in a brother, there should ever be this washing by us; but it is impossible that there can, unless in spirit we bear before the Lord all the burden of the fault and sin we desire to confess (washing the feet is not atonement); and here we all fail in the use of this priestly service. Suppose I were really walking in the power of the place in which I am set, if I see sin in my brother, and go to pray for him, I find him identified with Christ as represented to the world: the garment of Christ is soiled, the honour of Christ is affected, the joy of Christ is hindered, all is spoiled in that sense, communion with Christ is lost. It is a terrible thing to see the saints of God dishonour Christ thus! Well, now, it is to bear the misery and the sorrow of all this, as though I had been in the sin myself. Love gets into the place of the sinner, and his sin becomes the occasion of the outgoings of the heart in intercession to God, of the working of love. Suppose a child in agony - the mother sees it thus distressed, convulsed by pain; and, though she herself has no pain of body, she suffers far more than it in pain of mind, in agony of heart. Thus should it be with us, in sympathy with the saints, when writhing under false doctrine or unworthiness of walk. All is borne by Jesus, but then we should identify ourselves with Jesus in dealing about the sin - in feeding on the "sin-offering." See Daniel, in his confession. Did he say Israel has sinned? No, but we have sinned; to us belongeth confusion of faces; we have rebelled. And this is our place. When Moses charges Eleazar and Ithamar with the sin, Aaron comes in (ver. 19) and answers for them; he lays it all upon himself. And so Christ for us: He makes Himself responsible for it all. It was, however, their privilege to have eaten of the "sin-offering," as it is ours: we are given this portion. God, in the riches of His grace, not only blesses us, but uses us: we are fellow-workers under Him. Paul plants, Apollos waters, God gives the increase; whilst it is God who has done it all. If a man was converted, whose joy was it? "Ye are our joy." It was Paul’s joy. Paul had not redeemed them, but he had the joy of love. In giving us this service of love we have His Spirit in us, and so the joy of love is ours. But it is not merely that we should go out and preach the gospel to sinners (preaching the gospel answers to the ministry of apostleship, whilst teaching and admonishing the saints answers to that of priesthood); prayer for a brother is ministry of love in priesthood. If it be a matter of intercession, we ought to bear all the iniquity of it on our own hearts before the Lord. Thus the very sin itself becomes the occasion of the outflowing of love, and not of judgment. But is it not true that we have failed? Whilst the outward professing church has offered strange fire "before the Lord," have we known how to "eat the sin-offering" for our brethren? Have we not been charging them with the offence in righteousness, laying them down as under law, instead of "eating the sin-offering in the holy place"? Grief should not hinder our acting thus in priestly service before the Lord; but let us take care also that the joy of nature does not - the "wine" and "strong drink." Again, I say, have we not shrunk from bearing the iniquity of our brethren in intercession before the Lord, from "eating the sin-offering in the holy place"? How little do the faults of a dear brother pain us as our own! Have we really pleaded, as feeling the evil, in the intercession of grace? How seldom do we thus deal with it, standing as it were in the gap! There is a vast deal of failure in all of us as to this - abundant failure! There is not that sense among us of the identity of Christ with His saints, which would put us thus in the place of intercession. But the voice of Aaron is lifted up (ver. 19) and it prevails; Moses, the commander and requirer, is "content." (Ver. 20.) So, in hearing the voice of our Aaron, when lifted up on our behalf; God is "content." And here is our comfort under the sense of it all. Peace is heard again. But if it be so, the sense of that should not make us think lightly about the sins of our brethren. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 35: VOL 01 - THE FATHER'S LOVE ======================================================================== The Father’s Love What I want to press on you, my brethren, is the distinct present blessing, which it is our privilege to enjoy, resulting from the knowledge of the love wherewith the Father loves the Son. Well might it make the soul stagger, to hear that the love wherewith the saints are loved of God is according to that with which He loves Jesus - "as thou hast loved me." Our companionship with the Lord in glory will be the manifestation of this - then, even the world shall know it; but, without waiting for that day of manifestation, Jesus speaks here of ministering to us, by the Spirit, the present joy and comfort of it. How is the love of the Father towards us shown, my brethren? In giving His Son to be "the propitiation for our sins." Who amongst us does not know this? But it is quite true that we can go on further, and speak of the Spirit’s enabling us to believe on and prize the Son. Who is there would set so little value on the power of believing in the Son, as to say that it could arise from the human heart? It is not in the capacity that at all belongs to "the spirit of a man" to appreciate that best and blessed gift of God - "the Son." We little prize as we ought the grace which has led us to believe. But let us go on further still. All of us know that this was not of human origin, that it came from whence Jesus came - it followed the gift; but are we not accustomed to stop there? I would speak to you of that love of the Father to the Son, in which we partake through union with the Son. My brethren, let us recollect that the grace which led us to receive the Son has only put us on ground where we have to learn more of the fulness and depth of love. The special love of the Father is ours. I am not speaking now of Christ being ours, but of that which is Christ’s being ours. Observe John 17:25-26. Is there not here a love spoken of as resting upon us because we have believed on, and love Jesus? We all acknowledge, of course, that we could not love the Lord Jesus but by the Spirit; but when we have met Him as our Saviour, when we see that beauty in Him in which the Father can rest with delight and favour - the heart that rests thus on Jesus meets the full love of the Father. My brethren, have you thought of this - that resting on the Lord Jesus you are to expect a fuller manifestation of the Father’s love? We read (John 16:1-33) "I say not that I will pray the FATHER for you: for the FATHER himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God." What is the meaning of this? Is it to take from us the comfort of the intercession of Jesus on our behalf? No; but it is intended to remove from the heart the feeling that the Lord Jesus is the originating cause of the Father’s love. He has only given liberty to that love - made the way for it to flow out. It is a most mistaken, a most mischievous notion, that the standing of the Lord Jesus towards us, is that of averting the judgment of an angry God. The love of God could not, it is true, flow out fully till the work of the Son was perfected; but the gift of the Son originated in the love of God. Again - "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my FATHER will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." Here we see communion with the Father and the Son connected with obedience; a further joy of the Father’s love consequent upon obedience. Obedience itself must be the result of love, but, then, it introduces us into a fuller sense of the Father’s love. Now was not this the particular kind of love in which Jesus Himself dwelt when here? - as He says, "I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love." What is this but the plainest announcement that we likewise, by virtue of union with Him, may so walk, as to enjoy this full manifestation of the Father’s love? But then the question might naturally arise in the mind, what amount of disobedience will hinder? and I would say, that I believe this manifestation of the Father and the Son unto our souls will be just in proportion to our obedience. The realisation of our union with Jesus at the right hand of God will work obedience in us. Then every step that we take, every act of love, every expression of love in intercession for others, makes way for this further manifestation of the Father’s love. The soul urged forward by love to Him who has loved it with such a love, is introduced into a further enjoyment of love. It is one act of God’s grace to urge forward the soul to obedience, another act of the same grace to meet and bless it in obedience. We see that the burden of the commandments of Jesus Christ is, that we should love one another. What then is the character of that love which we are now to manifest towards one another? - that of the love of Jesus - self-denial, self-sacrifice - becoming poor to enrich others - forsaking things not merely that are criminal, but, it may be, even, those that are in themselves most innocent. The happy, holy course of a Christian, is to forsake anything and everything, if, by the denial of it to himself, he can minister life, or strength, or obedience, or blessing to another; - this is the course in which alone he can expect that which met Jesus (the manifested love of the Father) to meet him. You will not mistake me when I say, that it was here that the blessed Son of God learned what He never could have learned so fully elsewhere - the love of the Father. It was here, in circumstances of weakness, and trial, and suffering, He learned it so, as He never could have done at the right hand of the throne of God. And it is here, too, in the midst of the storm and trial, that we are called upon to learn the peculiar character of the Father’s love. Do you think that a man that is standing alone, who judges the course of the saint to be one merely of uprightness and blamelessness, and not of self-sacrifice, do you think he will be learning the love of the Father? No! it was in the death, the sorrow of heart, the self-sacrifice of the Lord Jesus that He learned this peculiar love of the Father; and it is only as we, through grace, are led along in His path that the soul can understand and know experimentally the peculiarity of the love which rested upon Him. It is just so long as we forget ourselves, speak not of ourselves, are willing to be weak that others may be strong, to die for others, to be despised for others, that the way to the deeper understanding of the Father’s love opens to us. But how is it possible that our souls can be happy in trial, if not along with Christ in the trial? And do not our trials, beloved, often arise from the lack of that which should result from communion with Christ? If so, they are not those in which we shall be enabled to look up and expect the Father’s approval of love. My brethren, the amount of the joy which our souls should crave, is nothing short of the full shining of the Father’s love which rested upon Christ. (See John 17:23.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 36: VOL 01 - THE HEBREW SERVANT ======================================================================== The Hebrew Servant Exodus 21:1-7. I desire to consider a little the service of the saints of God. It is a blessed thing to serve God at all, for we are unable to do so naturally; if a thought of service ever enters our hearts, it is one of bondage - the service of a hard and austere master. This is one of the things which show how entirely man has departed from God. If we look at angels, those "angels who excel in strength," they "do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word;" "are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" The highest angel is but in the place of a servant; yet it is a blessed thing to serve, and they bless God for it. Every one has known how painful the thought of service is to the natural heart; and unless we see that service is connected with liberty, such will always be the thought. That which redemption shows us is that we are free, yet free to serve. This is the fruit of redemption, that we are free to be the servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the saints, for His sake. If we did not know that we were free, we should only be seeking to serve ourselves. This will ever be the case until we know redemption, how God has saved us, and how Jesus is serving in heaven for us. The great thing for us to do is, to look how the Lord Jesus served. These verses (Exodus 21:1-7) are not properly a part of the covenant, "Now these are the judgments that thou shalt set before them." In Psalms 19:7-11, we get several distinct things mentioned - testimony, statutes, commandments, judgments; these last I apprehend to be God’s decision on certain points. "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." The very first thing God has decided here, is a particular about service: "If thou buy an Hebrew servant." If he were a captive, he would be in the power of his master; but this judgment is concerning one under the law, an Hebrew servant. The Gentiles were never under the law, and I do not find this judgment brought into the New Testament. The apostle Paul only gives directions of unqualified submission to the master, whether a believing or an unbelieving one; this judgment applies to those who are under the law, and not to those who are not under the law. The Lord Jesus Christ is presented to us as "made of a woman," and "made under the law." As "made under the law" He "magnified it, and made it honourable." The law, that was "the letter which killeth" to all else, was not the letter that killeth to Him, it drew out the response from His heart, "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart." The application of the law to the heart of man only works out the enmity that is there; but there was no enmity in the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus having thus been made under the law, and fulfilled it entirely, shows that it was a most suitable thing for God to give; if there had been failure it was only in those to whom it was given, and not in the law itself; it was "weak through the flesh;" before God could put it aside, He must show that He had not dispensed a bad thing. The law has been removed by Christ, and thus He has made a free passage for God’s love to come forth to us. In another way I find the Lord Jesus presented as a faithful servant: "Behold my servant whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my Spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles." (Isaiah 42:1.) And again, "Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me; and said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." (Isaiah 49:1-3.) He is here brought before us as the servant of Jehovah, and so He constantly speaks of Himself: "I can of mine own self do nothing as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me;" and that is just the servant’s place - the Lord Jesus Christ spoke as it were His Master’s word. "Being in the form of God, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." He humbled Himself to become a servant, and blessed was it that He did so; for if He had come in His native dignity, He never could have said, "I am among you as one that serveth." He never could have washed our feet. His native dignity, it is true, broke forth every now and then; but the mystery of redemption is, that the eternal Son of the Father has become the servant of Jehovah, and the servant of our necessities. These are the things that angels desire to look into, that the prophets have enquired and searched diligently concerning "the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow." He was the "Hebrew servant," and the faithful servant who had served His time unto Him, whose servant He came to be; and He might have said, now I can "go out free;" I have served my time, and I can "go out free" (5: 2); and indeed He did say, "Father, I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." But He might have acted on this judgment and gone out Himself. All His service seemed in vain, as to any present result - "I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain; yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God." (Isaiah 49:4.) But what is the answer? "And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength. And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth." (vv. 5, 6.) All His service seemed to be thrown away. "Though he did so many miracles among them, yet they believed not." They said He was Beelzebub - the friend of publicans and sinners - and at last crucified Him. He "came in by himself," and he might have "gone out by himself" (5: 3.) He was the only one who could ever have "entered into life" by keeping the commandments (I am speaking of Him now in His mediatorial character - "there, is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus"); He had a right to enter into life. Law knew nothing about saving a person, it promised life through obedience to it; "the man that doeth these things shall live in them." The Lord Jesus Christ alone had earned life by obedience in every jot and tittle of the law, and He might have "gone out free;" but He would not go out free for the reason here assigned. "If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for ever." (vv. 4-6.) When Jesus, on His rejection by the chief priests and pharisees (John 10:1-42; John 11:1-57; John 12:1-50; John 13:1-38; John 14:1-31; John 15:1-27; John 16:1-33; John 17:1-26; John 18:1-40; John 19:1-42), heard of the desire of the Greeks to see Him, He said, "The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." He was the only grain of principal wheat. Had He not died He would have remained alone, precious in Himself, but He would have borne no fruit. He might have "gone out free," but it would have been by Himself. He might have "entered into life," but it would have been alone. He would not therefore, but He became obedient unto death, that He might "see of the travail of his soul;" that He might "bring many sons unto glory" that He might have His wife and children. This was a voluntary act - though free, He was free to serve; He is the One who has come and had His ear bored that He might serve for ever. I desire to look at this a little more. The Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Majesty on high, is there still as the servant; and when coming out in glory by and bye, He will be still as the servant. I need not tell you how that the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of Himself in a subject character, and that this is voluntary. He came not in His own name, but in the name of Him who sent Him. They would have taken Him by force, and made Him a king (John 6:1-71), but He would not be a king in their name or in His own. As Jehovah’s servant, He was His king also; and as they would not own Him as coming from God, He would not be owned at all. We receive Him not, unless we receive Him as the Christ of God. In verse 5 we read, "If the servant shall plainly say, I love my master." Oh, how plainly did He say it when He cried, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt!" The servant is one who does not his own will. It was the love that Jesus had to Him that sent Him, that brought Him down into death, as He says, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." Beloved, we are sanctified by His having done the will of Him that sent Him: "By the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." He said, "Lo, I come to do thy will." I’ll do His will, cost me what it may. He was free to go to "the glory which he had with the Father before the world was;" but He would not go out free. "I love my master, my wife, and my children," I will not go out free. It was love that actuated Jesus in His work on the cross. I find in that aspect Jesus doing the will of Jehovah; in another place Jehovah’s sword awaking "against the man his fellow." in one sense the death of Jesus on the cross is the "burnt-offering," a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour; in another the "sin-offering" which was to be burnt outside the camp. The heart of Jesus could not be satisfied unless He had His Bride and children with Him where He was, and therefore He must carry His service down into the depths of death "If his master have given him a wife." The bride is given to Jesus, just as God gave Adam a wife. I can never separate the love of the Father in this, the gift of the Church by Him to Jesus, and the love of Jesus for the Church in giving Himself for it. So it is with the sheep (John 10:1-42), they are the gift of the Father to Jesus; and Jesus, as the good Shepherd, has laid down His life for them. If He love His wife, He must serve for her. Well, Jacob served for a wife a long service; but the Lord Jesus serves for ever; He is the constant minister unto the Church, as He has won her, as He has died for her, so He serves her now. And so with the children - "I love my children" - "Behold I and the children whom God hath given me." Because He loved the Bride, because He loved the children, He serves for ever. In His personal service when here, He was the servant of every body; He was always going about doing good, but ever so in the Father’s name. Shortly before going out of the world, we see (John 13:1-38) that "having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And supper being ended, the devil having now put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him; Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; he riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet." We find Him doing the most servile act. It was the service of love, and how did His love make Him stoop! If I were asked, Is Jesus serving now? Yes, washing His disciples’ feet. "If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye ought also to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you." The example of His own willing service to the Church; a pattern indeed to us, but a specimen of what His service is now we are walking through this weary sinful world. We need to have our feet washed, and Christ does this by His priestly ministry for us. He still retains the place of ministry and service, to which He has bound Himself from love to His Master, love to His Bride, love to His children. But surely He is still our Lord and Master; we can call Him Lord, own Him as Lord, pray to Him as Lord, and thus see that the One who "upholdeth all things by the word of his power" is the very One who daily ministers to our necessities. He has had His ear bored to the door-post; He is a servant for ever. I find the Lord of glory is able to serve. He does not need to be served Himself; people always think that God needs to be served, instead of seeing the wondrous thing that He wishes to serve us. In Luke 12:1-59 we find that still this service is carried on when the Lord Jesus Christ comes forth in glory. "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them." No one will be able to deny His Sonship then, His Godhead then; but even there He is still the servant; I do not mean to explain how; I only carry forward the thought of service. It will be our blessed place to serve Him; yet still it is our security to know that He will serve us. He still delights to sustain that character into which He voluntarily came. We get from this decision of the LORD the principle of service. In this day, when many saints are awaking to a desire of service, there is a danger of getting off the ground of grace. We are all apt to make the connection between service and glory, instead of seeing that the connection is between grace and glory. The blood is our title to glory, even as it has saved us, even as it has redeemed us. I see in the countless multitude who surround the throne, that they are there because of "the blood of the Lamb." The servant always hides himself, puts himself aside, that the master may appear; the great danger in any service we are able to render is, lest the servant should appear. Simon Magus gave himself out as some great one; but if we serve according to God’s judgment, it will be very unobtrusive service. Joshua was servant to Moses; he abode in the tabernacle outside the camp (Exodus 33:11); but how little prominently does he appear. Joshua is hid, and Moses is the actor. Our place of service will ever be, in God’s wisdom, the place of trial, though the place of comfort too. So was it with the Lord. He did always the things that pleased the Father, and thus proved His love; but He had to set His face like a flint. Our service is not occasional, but continuous. If we are in the place of servants, it is because we are sons. The ear is to be "opened morning by morning." Domestic duties are to be taken up as service to the Lord; He is to be glorified in them: the service we mostly fail in is domestic piety. Many would desire more time for serving the Lord. But why not make all we do service to Him. "Ye serve the Lord Christ." The principle of our service is love to the Master. Paul says, "For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all;" I may "go out free," but "I love my master," and therefore I’ll serve them. It is the service of love, and not obligation. "We are," it is true, "not our own; we are bought with a price; therefore let us glorify God with our bodies and spirits, which are his." But the Lord does not address us with that claim; He says, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." God loveth a cheerful giver, because He is a cheerful giver. Some persons say, Oh, I wish I could serve the Lord more! Well, let your soul enter more deeply into His love, and then you will serve Him. It is impossible to love Him and not to serve Him; but it may be a service of a kind which we do not like, because we too often serve to exalt ourselves. The Lord said, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one toward another." "Brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not that liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another." The moment I come with a claim, I damp the main-spring of service; it is by love we are to serve one another. I do believe that this ought to be my feeling; I am a debtor to every saint, because the Lord by His grace has made me free - free indeed. When the saints are in glory by and bye, it will be still to serve, to minister to the world as well as to the Lord. "His servants shall serve Him." Just as angels serve now, so by and bye there will be the visible ministry of saints. How blessedly has love been the servant to our necessities; how has God in His love given His Son for us; how has Jesus served us; how does He still serve us; how will He serve us by and bye! The active spring of service in the Church ought to be love. May we trace in Jesus the exhibition of it! What a blessed thing it is to serve; may we serve not in self-will, but doing His will! Service in the Church will never make us of any esteem among men; it did not make the perfect servant so; but still the word was, "He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high." (Isaiah 3:13.) And what a blessed thought, what a thought of grace, to hear one mourning over his unprofitableness and wretched service addressed in these words in the day of the glory, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy lord." May the Lord grant us, beloved, deliverance from law service, and lead us to happy blessed service, according to this judgment of the Hebrew servant. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 37: VOL 01 - THE PARABLES OF THE TWO SONS, THE VINEYARD, AND THE MARRIAGE SUPPER ======================================================================== The Parables of the Two Sons, the Vineyard, and the Marriage Supper Matthew 21:23-46, Matthew 22:1-14. If all things were not entirely out of course, if every principle of human nature were not astray from God, there would be no need on His part for all the painstaking of which we read in these chapters - no need for these varied and assiduous efforts to recall people to Himself, which result, after all, in a manner so strange, so sorrowful. We might have supposed, as we sometimes see in the self-willed child on hearing the father’s voice of love and entreaty, that instant obedience would be the result of God’s bringing to mind the relationship that exists. But no: these constant efforts, this "changing of the voice" (as Paul has it), serve but to show that all sense of relationship between man and God is gone. That voice touches no spring, there is not a chord upon which it can act - the echo of the heart is gone. In these three parables the Lord recounts, in a very full and distinct manner, God’s successive dealings with man, and their result. He brings before us what God has done in: righteousness - thereby placing man under responsibility, as well as what He has done in grace. The instruction is of the simplest and clearest kind, being addressed to the conscience of man just as he is. We read "When He was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto Him as He was teaching, and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?" (21:23.) God comes into the world to do good, and man demands. His authority! Jesus had previously been showing power in healing the blind and lame, and in cleansing the temple, but now He is quietly teaching there; and this entangling question is put by those who find their veil of hypocrisy drawn aside, their authority endangered, their unrighteous gains disturbed by that act wherewith Jesus sought to remove from God’s house, the reproach of merchandise, and to restore its character as "the house of prayer. The Lord might have replied by appealing to His many miracles; but He has another object in view - "Jesus answered and said unto them, I also will ask you one thing, which if ye tell me, I in like wise will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men? And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; He will say unto us, Why did ye not then believe him? (for John bore testimony to Jesus). But if we shall say, Of men; we fear the people; for all hold John as a prophet." That is, He at once, by means of the question which in divine wisdom He puts to them, brings out the real state of their conscience. The embarrassment into which they thought to throw Him falls on themselves. "They answered Jesus, and said, We cannot tell. And He said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things." Thus, at the very outset, the Lord puts this great truth before all: the conscience of man is bad in not submitting to, the righteousness of God. And such is the case always. Man cannot deny that things come from heaven; but he will not believe. He may bring forth his hard questions, like those of old, but with no real desire after the truth. That which his conscience cannot deny, he will neither allow nor act upon. If pressed to the utmost (look at the extreme case of infidelity), men love darkness rather than light, just as it is said: "Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind." (Romans 1:1-32) Having thus put to silence these men, the Lord now proceeds to depict their ways and thoughts in parables, which their conscience, already stirred, could not fail to interpret, even when an application was not directly made to them. "But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Whether of these twain did the will of his father! They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and, ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him." In this first parable the Lord makes most apparent the difference between formal righteousness and self-will followed by repentance; between the person who goes through the world decently, desiring to make a fair show, and the one who, acting against all the dictates of natural conscience, sins deliberately, but afterward repents. We see described in the second son the general character of "decent" people. They go on quietly and in outward order, professing to own the will of God, and to serve God they say, "I go, sir;" but after all, from morning to night, and from night to morning, they do their own will, and nothing else, In the other son there is avowed determination to disobey; just, alas! the description of the thorough wilfulness of the human heart. With "I will not," he delights in breaking through all the righteousness of filial relationship; but withal he is conscious of the violation, and afterwards owns it with repentance. There was no regard in the self-righteous Jew, notwithstanding all his profession, for the righteousness of God, of which John bare witness, and therefore he believed him not. But the publicans and harlots, who had no regard for the ordinances of God, or for the commonest morality, on hearing the testimony of John, believed and repented. The Pharisee made clean the outside; owned God in ordinances, but not in heart and conscience. These openly and outrageously sinned against God, but "repented and went." And their repentance was such as God owns: it consisted not merely in acknowledging acts of sin, but in recognising Him as the One sinned against; thus it touched the root of all sin. Their condition necessitated this conclusion, that if God spoke, there was nothing they could say, nothing they could do, except, indeed, adopt Job’s confession, "I am vile," and then lay their hand upon their mouth. Such was their course, while the scribes and Pharisees, seeing it all, remained alike insensible to God’s word and to God’s grace in its full operation. Insensibility to truth when heard is a most hardening thing, and the Lord’s caution, "Take heed HOW ye hear," needs to be insisted upon again and again. For have we not now in abundance, lip profession and routine observance - the "I go, sir," and a certain amount of eye-service - while the heart is cold, the conscience is stifled, and the desires of the flesh or of the mind have their sway! There was no greater enemy to the truth - and therefore to Christ - than the Pharisee; and though the name is lost, the type remains in endless variety. Having concluded this first aspect of God’s dealings with man, the Lord passes on to another phase, characterised specially by responsibility. His language is as strikingly simple and as calm, though, under the guise of a parable, He is foretelling His own rejection and cruel death! "Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: and when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it." We have here, not merely the obligations flowing from relationship; that is, men are not left to the light of natural conscience, as we saw in the former case, but God has done something more, through which additional responsibility is incurred. It is HE who planted the vineyard - hedged it round about - digged the winepress and built the towers - and then entrusted it to husbandmen. Thus are represented His care and labour, in return for which He looks for fruit. As to general principles, the parable may be applied to all who have heard of Christ, and have refused to believe in Him; but, undoubtedly, its primary application is to the Jews, as they must well have understood. In Isaiah 5:1-30 the same figure and very similar language are used regarding them; and, as showing that He had taken the greatest possible pains, God there makes this appeal: "What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" They utterly failed then to meet His just demands; and, in addition, maltreated or killed the prophets, who were commissioned to make them. "And the husbandmen took His servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise." After such forbearance, they certainly could expect nothing more. They still were the same in heart, as shown by the emphatic words, "Ye are the children of them which killed the prophets." (23:31.) Yet we know that God had still one resource, of which He availed Himself "Last of all, He sent them His Son, saying, They will reverence my Son." (Our Lord is represented here as sent for fruit, like the prophets; this was one, though not the, ultimate purpose of His coming to the vineyard.) We all know, also, how the just expectation of God regarding His Son was met. "When the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him." The end of responsibility, and of all this patient dealing of God with the Jewish people on that ground, was that they were glad of the occasion to kill the Heir, in order that they might seize upon the inheritance! "When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto these husbandmen?" Righteous judgment is so loudly called for, that those who hear the parable, can at once pronounce it! They say unto Him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men." Here then, again, we mark this great principle, that in whatever way God looks for response from man, He finds none. There is such a thing as God’s looking for fruit from that which He has planted and nurtured in the world; but there is no fruit to be found from man towards God. The husbandmen’s will was entirely and absolutely wrong. They did not recognise the authority of God in His vineyard. They liked to have it for themselves; and to gratify their desires, they would go to any lengths in unrighteousness. The parable in its most important feature, alas had its accomplishment; and its perfect truthfulness was but too manifest at the time in the spirit of those who ultimately brought it to pass: "When the chief priests and Pharisees had heard His parables, they perceived that He spake of them. But when they sought to lay hands on Him, they feared the multitude, because they took Him for a prophet." Thus the effect of the ordinances God had given was only to bring out the enmity and hatred of those to whom He had entrusted His vineyard. Man placed in a certain religious position, patiently instructed, and blessed with external advantages, instead of rendering fruit to God, consummates the crowning act of iniquity. Religious man kills the Prince of Life! How solemn a warning to those who would be zealous for God, but who know Him not, because they know not and love not His Son. That religion which has not Christ as foundation and top-stone is worse than none at all. But there are not a few persons of a different spirit, who, failing to see the result of this trial of man, are still dealing with God as though He were looking for fruit. They feel that God has given them certain spiritual advantages, opportunities of hearing, and the like, and that therefore they ought to return fruit to Him. And so they ought. But then, although such are not in a condition of soul answerable to that of the husbandmen who killed the heir, they have mistaken, and that altogether, the ground on which God is now dealing. And further, Christ Himself may be only thought of as seeking fruit - only looked at in the same light as the prophets! Where there is honesty and sincerity of heart, and the conscience is touched, deep impressions may result from considering the magnitude of God’s love in the gift of His Son, and of that Son’s love in coming from heaven to suffer on the cross; but yet these vast manifestations of love may be regarded solely as the strongest possible claims for fruit. Such assuredly: they are; but, as the parable shows, and above all its fulfilment proves, claim produces no fruit. Individual experience confirms this too. For one who sees in the love of God only a claim, in the perfectness of Christ only a claim, is soon convinced that no adequate return is rendered, and may conclude that there is no hope! Great exercise of soul may thus and in nothing but the sense of deserved condemnation. If God be still dealing with us on the ground of requirement, we must be brought in guilty, and judgment must follow the unsatisfied claim. Thus the love of God in Christ is made a severer and more terrible law than that given by Moses. When this love is put in the place of the law, the more the love is magnified, the greater the guilt in not fulfilling its demands. The more we elevate the claim of God, the more we aggravate our own condemnation. In such cases, the word of God has at least not been read or, heard unheeded (as, alas! it so often is), though discrimination may have been wanting. The difficulty lies in not seeing that God has abandoned, as useless, the efforts to seek fruit from man. He has tried everything - "Last of all, He sent His Son;" and His Cross is conclusive. Man is ungodly; but further, he is "without strength." The next parable (following so significantly that of "the vineyard") tells how fully God has provided for our actual need. "Jesus spake unto them again by parables, and said, The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, and sent, forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding." Observe, at the outset, how different is the character of the parable, It is not God’s dealing with natural conscience, nor His looking for fruit as the owner of the vineyard; but it is the king purposing to honour his son out of the riches of his own house. Clearly the king is not presenting claims; he is giving - he is inviting. His desire is to glorify his well-beloved son, to have everything worthy of so joyful an occasion as the marriage of his son. He who gives a feast - especially if he be the king - provides everything. The guests are not expected to bring anything; nor is any return looked for. On the contrary, to think of such a thing, would be to insult the king - to despise his preparation or his intention. Moreover the king presents the wedding garments by which the guests are distinguished. If any rich man sought to come in raiment as costly as he could provide, he would only offend the king, just as would a poor man who wished to sit down in rags. There must be nothing which the king does not give - his bounty will richly, supply everything. The king is not merely making a feast for the pleasure of those invited; but the object of their being invited is, that his son may be honoured. Still, while his chief thought is to show his regard for his son, he would have the guests to enter heartily into his joy. He desires that there may be full blessing at his table - happy faces around it - hearts without a care or shade of anxiety, free from every suspicion of his love. Such must be the accompaniments of the marriage supper of the King’s son. How simple and evident is the application of all this, in the light of what has gone before. Man has altogether failed. He does not own God’s claim, or if he does, he cannot meet it; and must fall into despair. But God has it in purpose, through man, to glorify His Son, and His resources will avail to effect this, notwithstanding man’s ruin. It is not within the scope of the parable to show how this apparently insuperable difficulty is overcome, consistently with God’s holiness; but the fact of His offering such an invitation proves alike His benevolence, and the removal of the difficulty. We have to consider the treatment of the invitation by those to whom it was first sent, and then God’s further counsels. One design of the parable is to bring fully out the implacable enmity of the carnal mind against God, in the face of the utmost advances of His love; but this, happily, is not the main design. God’s invitation to the marriage-supper of His Son is first given to, those who had "the promises" - to those who had received so many proofs of His forgiving love - to those who were called, and professed to be "His own" - to the Jews. "And they would not come!" Under such circumstances, we should not be inclined to repeat the offer; but God does repeat it. As before, fresh messengers are sent again to bid them; and to remove all doubts, the preparations are detailed "Tell them, Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage. But they made light of it, and went their ways." They deliberately despised the invitation of God - they had other and more important things of their own to - attend to. They went, "one to his farm, another to his merchandise." Yet more strange, but awfully conclusive as to man’s hatred of the grace of God, when his conscience has not submitted to His righteousness - "The remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them!" How far soever the goodness and patience of God extend, the same evil results are met with continually from man. The counterpart of all this is to be found in the "Acts of the Apostles." - The message of the apostles after the crucifixion was - "All things are ready;" nothing remains to be done. Abounding grace offered pardon to those even who had killed the Prince of Life. What estimate was formed of such glad tidings is to be found in the language of one who, through the grace of God, afterwards so fully and so widely proclaimed those very tidings: "Many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities." As a nation, the Jews heard the gospel only, to reject it, as they had rejected Him who was the living expression of it. The conduct of individuals may have varied, but in principle it was the same. The evil heart was seen in disowning the claim of God, but more especially in despising His marvellous grace. The carelessness that would make a sinner slight the King’s invitation to the feast is precisely the same in kind that would lead him to kill his messengers, or even his son. Man’s "own way" may produce any of these results. Whether opposition to God’s authority is evinced by the neglect, contempt, or rebellion of a nation or of an individual, His righteous judgments must surely follow, though for a season they may be delayed. So, in this instance, "When the king heard thereof, he was wroth; and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city." But now we come to a most blessed truth. God has not given up aught of the fulness of His love, or of His purpose regarding His Son. He must have people around Him, and happy in being so. His house must be filled to honour His Son’s marriage. Fresh guests must be found. "Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests." Here we evidently see the sending out of the invitation to those who were without the privileges and promises of the Jews - to those who had no hope, and who were without God in the world - to the Gentiles. The special characteristic of God’s present action is seen in the command, "Go ye forth into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." The distinguishing principle is the full outflow of grace - the activity of God’s love going out into the world and bringing in to partake of the blessings which Himself has provided. His, love goes out in simple grace to find "good or bad" to partake of the goodness of His house. Such is the principle God is acting on in the gospel. It is quite clear that He provides everything. He is not claiming fruit, but ministering blessing. The effect of rightly understanding that God is glorifying His Son Jesus, is to make us put aside every thought but that. Let us be the most vile and wretched sinners in ourselves (as Paul says, "of whom I am chief"), all anxiety will be taken from our hearts, everything of uneasiness and uncertainty, because of the invitation. It is God’s invitation, and for those to whom it is offered He provides everything that is needed. A poor man, thinking of himself, might say, "Oh, that cannot be for me, a poor man!" or if this doubt were dispelled, "I cannot enter the King’s presence - my garments are not fit." In other words, "Can the invitation be for a sinner such as I know myself to be - besides, how can I appear before a holy God?" Thoughts like these may arise in the mind, and may continue until confidence is placed in the terms of the invitation, or rather in Him who gives it. The moment this is simply done, all fear and hesitation will be removed. The King’s word will be counted on for everything. But ought not the conscience to be thoroughly set at rest by that which God has done for us? Assuredly; He knows full well our unworthiness, our need, our guilt, and He has fully met them. He has given up His Son, He has sent Him into the place of our sin and misery to bear upon the cross that wrath which was our due; and if, taking the estimate of ourselves which all this implies, we receive, as lost, helpless sinners, God’s testimony to the work of Christ for sinners, what room is there for doubt or dread? Christ has tasted death, has gone down under the power of Satan under the wrath of God, has taken our place; but God has raised Him from the dead, and has seated Him in power and glory at His own right hand, thus showing the perfect sufficiency of His sacrifice for sin. God has been perfectly glorified in the earth by His own Son, the man Christ Jesus, and sin has been expiated by the death of the sinless One. These have been done altogether apart from us; therefore God can say, "All things are ready; come to the feast." If we speak one word or have a thought about right to stand in the presence of God, it destroys the whole ground upon which God is acting in fulness of grace. It is quite clear that any one who allows for a moment the idea that he has to provide his share in the feast, or to compensate for it, can have no sense of the king’s honour, or of his own deal - inability. God does not offer salvation at a price, or for a return. There is no stipulation, no covenant, no vow; but a GIFT is offered which cannot be accepted otherwise than as a gift. When it is deceived as such (and not before), fruit is produced - the fruit of gratitude, issuing in thanksgiving (Hebrews 13:15) and life-service. (Romans 12:1.) Any hesitation to accept God’s invitation is to cast dishonour, to that extent, on His power or on His love. The invitation is our sole title, and, coming from One who knows us so well, it merits our entire confidence. It is for all in "the highways," whether it meets us as beggars or princes, so to speak. "The servants gathered together all, as many as they found." No exception was made; none were to be passed by uninvited. The king’s command is clear - "As many as ye shall find bid to the marriage." The only deal question for those who head the gospel invitation is, "Has the conscience submitted to the righteousness of God? Is the invitation accepted as one of the purest grace?" If so, it is theirs to cast aside all the anxieties that sin occasions, and to enter into the joy of the king, in the happy assurance that their place is to sit at his table. Blessing is secure through his sufficiency and his grace. There is a sad incident, which must not be overlooked. "When the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not a wedding garment: and he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless." Grace had been mocked at by this man; for he had not obtained the indispensable wedding robe, doubtless thinking, by foolish comparison, his own good enough. The instruction from this is evident. God has, at infinite cost, provided for us whose robes are all sin stained a spotless garment, such as is alone suited to His holy presence; and great indeed is the presumption that, with the pretence of accepting, virtually despises this gracious provision. "And he was speechless." With memory quickened, conscience fully awake, sin seen in its true colours, and the majesty of God apprehended, who shall dare utter a word! Judgment proportionate to guilt shall follow, and heavy surely it will be in the cases of which this is an example. "Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." On the other hand, if, acknowledging our guilt and incapacity, we accept that which God vouchsafes to give, our fears will vanish, and our lips will be opened to render to Him the glory, and to rejoice in honouring His Son. Are our hearts thus in the spirit of the wedding? Are our thoughts in unison with those of God regarding Christ? If not, however near to Him we may think ourselves, we have nothing to do with the wedding. The principle of the whole matted is in question - "How camest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment?" God’s heart is set upon the glory of Christ, and that glory is connected with the joy and blessing of those who have submitted to His righteousness and welcomed the riches of His grace. If our hearts are occupied with the glory of Christ, we shall not be thinking, in one sense, of what we are, or of what we were; our thoughts will dwell upon the Blessed, and upon the blessedness into which we have been brought. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 38: VOL 01 - THE PLEASANT LAND DESPISED ======================================================================== The Pleasant Land Despised Numbers 13:1-33;Numbers 14:1-45. Beloved, do our hearts indeed say, "We are on our way to God,"? Do we believe, that with the innumerable throng of the redeemed we shall soon sing the everlasting anthem of praise to the Lamb? It is astonishing the simplicity of heart there is, when we believe that "we are on our way to God." Whenever the soul has really got hold of this, believing in God, knowing His love, that He has brought us out of Egypt, and that we are on our way to Canaan, there is a spring of heart that surmounts every thing. There may be a great many things by the way to exercise our hearts and thoughts; but if this feeling predominates, they only come in by the way. If my mind be fixed on present circumstances, and present difficulties, and on God’s helping rue in them, there will not at all be the same spring of joy; for then I make God to be simply the servant of my necessities. The heart rests and centres there; and God sinks down into a mere help in time of trouble. It is quite: true that "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble." (Psalms 46:1); but to bring Him down to be only this, changes the whole aspect of things. Himself, as our portion, is infallibly ours. If our hearts are fixed on being with Jesus in His rest and glory, on being in the "Father’s house," our own present difficulties have the character of difficulties by the way; we can then rise over trouble, however felt, and our thoughts about God are not merely that He will help us in the circumstances in which we are: our hearts being fixed on Him, we live in the freedom that arises from the constant certainty, that all that is Christ’s is ours. It is important for us to have our minds fixed on the hope of glory which is set before us. One form which unbelief takes, is the not having this hope fresh on the mind. Supposing I had to live twenty years, the next thing to my heart ought to be the glory. In the children of Israel, unbelief took many forms; one character of it was, that "they despised the pleasant land." (Numbers 14:31; Psalms 106:24.) Now, very often, there is in our hearts, practically, though not wilfully, the despising of the pleasant land. I am not speaking of any doubtfulness as to the land being ours. If there were something that a friend had given me as a great treasure, and I was sure of its being mine, and yet I looked at it but seldom, and cared to think of it but seldom, this would be a proof (not of uncertainty respecting its being mine, but) that I despised the thing, that I had no real value for it. This is very often the way we treat the heavenly glory that belongs to us. We do not question the truth of the promises; but, when our souls are not dwelling upon, and delighting in the glory that is set before us, there is a "despising of the pleasant land." It is too much the case with the saints. And no occupation with present things - with present duties even, can make up for the loss of peace and comfort there is to the soul in not dwelling upon the things which God has laid up in store for them that love Him (1 Corinthians 2:9) as its own things. Instead of God’s being the strength and fulness of our present joy, in the midst of present tribulation, as it is said, "We joy in God" (Romans 5:11), we only make Him a help in time of trouble. There is weakness and infirmity, instead of rejoicing in God. The heart being brought down here, and kept down, it brings down God after it (so gracious is He, that He will even come down), instead of rising above present circumstances up to God. Of course, this character of unbelief will not be manifested in the hearts, of the saints, as. it was in the children of Israel; but, in measure, it is the same thing. The "spies" (Numbers 13:1-33; Numbers 14:1-45) had been sent by Moses, at the command of the Lord, to search out the land of Canaan, "which," the Lord said, "I give unto the children of Israel," and to bring of the fruit thereof. The Spirit of God, personally dwelling in present witness in us, takes of the glory of the Lord Jesus, of the things of the land of promise (that true Canaan, of which faith says, my land), and thus shows us of our portion. "So they went up, and searched the land from the wilderness of Zin unto Rehob. . . . And they came unto the brook of Eschol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates, and of the figs. The place was called the brook Eschol, because of the cluster of grapes which the children of Israel cut down from thence. And they returned from searching of the land after forty days. And they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word unto them, and unto all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it." (vv. 21, 23-27.) There was no gainsaying the report of the spies; these grapes told of the goodness of the land. It was a land that produced such fruit. So when the Holy Ghost brings the earnest to us of our joy and glory, who would gainsay? Who does not feel that it is worth anything by the way to get there? The earnest is so sweet! "When our prospect is dimmed, we become careless about it and profane; when bright, we need nought but manna, and the water, and patience, for the wilderness, longing for rest, submitting to the will of God concerning it. And when our souls are really dwelling as in the glory, when the grapes of Eschol really fill our souls, there is deadness to all save the savour and brightness of the hope. What is heavenly is heavenly to us, for we are heavenly-minded. We see the glory of the Lord; and it is a place where His eyes are continually - a land not watered by foot, but by rivers that run among hills and valleys, the very dwelling-place of the Father’s kingdom. The Spirit in the revelation of God (for it is God) causes us thus to dwell in the fulness of God, and from hence we estimate the inheritance, the fellowship with Christ in it, and the glory. We dwell in it, in the sweet savour of divine delight in Jesus, who fills all things, and will in very deed do so, and is now revealed to us by the Spirit." "NEVERTHELESS," said the spies, "the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in. the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains," etc. When the people heard that there were difficulties, there began to be restlessness and uneasiness amongst them. "And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it." (5: 30.) "But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched. unto the children of Israel, saying, The land through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own eight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." (vv. 30-33.) That is, they get hold of the thought of the people in unbelief, and venture to deny all that they had previously said when they see that their report was not received. The first thing they told Moses was the simple truth - that it was a very good land; but when they see this unbelief at work in the minds of the people their judgment respecting it is quite different, and they say it is a very bad land. The whole sense of the goodness of the Lord in giving them the land is gone, and consequently they breakdown in despair when looking at the difficulties by the way. There is not merely distrust about their overcoming these enemies; they lose the sense of the goodness of the land, and then they have no encouragement in their difficulties their faith becomes weakness. Just so with the Christian. If I lose the joy of the glory, the difficulties I meet with by the way are insurmountable, for my heart does not know what it has to contend for. "And all the congregation lifted up their voices, and cried; and the people wept that night," etc. When in the first freshness of their setting out their sin had manifested itself (bad as it was), they did not lay the blame upon God, they said, "This Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt." (Exodus 33:1-23) But the moment this unbelief gets hold of their hearts, the desert becomes thoroughly and insupportably painful to them, and they say, "Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in the wilderness! And wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey l were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another; Let us make us a captain, and let us return into Egypt." See what a miserably wicked state of unbelief they had got into, so as to attribute to the Lord Himself their trials and difficulties. This is a snare to which even Christians are exposed. We are conscious that it is the Lord that has brought us up out of Egypt; and hence, when trials come upon us, our hearts are apt to say, "This comes of my being a Christian;" the Lord, has brought me into these difficulties. Now, had Canaan been on the hearts of the children of Israel, they would have said, "Thank God that we are thus far on our way to Canaan." Let the difficulties be what they might if they had felt, "By the word of the Lord we have been brought here," there would have been thanksgiving and not murmuring. But they stopped at the point where they were, instead of looking at it as but a step on the way to the glorious land before them. There was the pretence of thoughtfulness for others - their wives and children, though in reality it was only selfishness. Verses 6-9. Joshua and Caleb speak of the exceeding goodness of the land, and add, "If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not." "But all the congregation bade stone them with stones." The moment that was spoken which should have cheered the people it brought out positive hostility. Verses 13-19. The intercession of Moses, comes in based on the testimony the Lord had given of Himself. (Compare Exodus 34:6-7.) The principle of it is this, the perfect identification of the Lord with His people. He presses on the Lord that His, own glory is bound up with the preservation and blessing of His people inseparable from them. Two things result. The Lord acts according to the faith of Moses, as He ever does according to the faith that is in us (5: 20); but He sends the children of Israel into the desert, to remain there until all the men that came up out of Egypt fell There is another thing also to notice; when the children of Israel will not go up in faiths, into the promised land, the Lord sends them a long way round the desert. Two things accompany this, one as the re It of it, the other pure grace. It they have to march round "the desert, the Lord cannot leave them alone; He must go round with them, guiding them by His pillar of fire and of cloud, all the way. His grace abounds over sin. Secondly, Caleb and Joshua must go the long way round, too. They had not gone with the people in the evil; but as to the pain and trial of the march, which the unbelief of the others had caused, they are obliged to go along with the people, and to bear a part of it. This is what we must make up our minds to. If the Church has failed, we must make up our minds to accompany it in its course of sorrow, though not in its course of sin. As far as Caleb and Joshua were concerned, there was the exercise of grace, and patience, and love. It was blessing to them, for God was faithful in keeping them, whilst the rest fell in the wilderness. Caleb is able to say, at the end of the forty years, that he is as strong for war as at the beginning, "both to go out, and to come in." (Joshua 14:1-15) But the faithful, though they had the consciousness that God was with them, were obliged to accompany the unfaithful in their course of sorrow, arising from the position into which they had brought themselves. This is our place. In the spirit of love, of patience, and of humiliation, we have always to take the place of those who have sinned. See Daniel. Though himself personally righteous, Daniel confesses the people’s sin as his own, saying, "O Lord, we have sinned, and have committed iniquity, etc.... to us belongeth confusion of face," etc. (Daniel 9:1-27) The sin and evil of those who have sinned should be confessed by the remnant; who, though not partakers of the sin, must yet be partakers of the consequences of it, suffering in all the affliction with true sympathy and fellowship. In applying this practically to ourselves, what was it that led to the very need of their having the Lord with them on the march? The soul not being set on (their not having their affections occupied with) the blessings of the promised land. And that which we have to seek is, that our souls may "abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost." The Holy Ghost, dwelling in us, becomes the earnest of those better things in our hearts; and reveals to us that it is the Lord’s land, the land which ’He has given us, that He is bringing us into. If we are able to say, ’This is the fruit of the land which the Lord has given us,’ if our hearts’ affections are dwelling on the land, all the strength of the Anakims is as nothing. No matter, then, as to preventing us from getting there, what may be the trial and difficulty by the way. But the moment we lose the consciousness of what is ours, the moment we forget that the Lord has given us the land, difficulties and trials occupy our mind, and become too great for us; we fall under the power of them. This results from our losing sight of what belongs to us in hope. We cannot have our hearts fixed on Canaan without being conscious that the Lord’s strength is with us. If I rest in circumstances, I am apt to blame the Lord for bringing me there. Nobody ever thought of the blessedness of being with Jesus in the glory, and of being like Him there; no one ever entered in spirit really there, without being conscious that it was the Lord’s strength that would bring him there. Then all in the way is a mere circumstance. What I desire for you and for myself, beloved, is, that we may avoid "despising the pleasant land." And do not let us say that we are not "despising" it, if we are not thinking often about it. If we are not thinking of Jesus where He is, and of being with Him there, we are "despising the pleasant land." May we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. We must not suppose that the Scriptures do not supply to the new man the details of the glory that belongs to us. But they are details known only to faith. It is only just so far as we are in present communion with the Lord, that we shall understand and enjoy them. Memory will not do. There is no possibility of exercising memory about the objects of hope. We must be filled with the Spirit. That which will fill up our joy is Christ Himself. We find a fund of detail about the glory, when we know, by the power of the Holy Ghost, what Christ is for us - Christ glorified. Just as the poor thief (taught of the Holy Ghost) could state the whole life of Christ, though he had never known Him before, as if he had been His intimate friend, saying to his companion, "This man has done nothing amiss;" so the soul, when taught by the Holy Ghost, has as the object of its affections, and knows and realizes it, Jesus. The mind then becomes occupied with the object of its hope in glory, and the individual is able to say, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." All the circumstances which happen to us only come in by the way. Instead of having the thoughts down here in the trouble, bringing God down into it, we are lifted clean out of it into glory. This sets us on our "high places," when otherwise there would be the feeling in the heart - "Why hath the Lord brought us into this land to fall by the sword?" etc. The Holy Ghost delights to take of the things of Christ and show them unto us. (John 16:13-15.) The Lord give us, in realizing the fulness of Jesus, to have our souls in the sweet savour of divine delight in Him, dwelling by faith in the promised land, that we may know what our hope is, as well as what is the ground of our hope. And ever let us remember that it is not by any effort of memory, but by the power of communion in the Holy Ghost, that we can have the present consciousness and enjoyment of those things "which God hath prepared for them that love Him." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 39: VOL 01 - THE REJECTED MAN ======================================================================== The Rejected Man Genesis 3:1-24. It is a good thing, seeing the great levity of our hearts, that we should, all of us, sometimes look at our origin, at what we were, and at the actual corruption of the stock whence we are derived. Thus shall we see what God has done, and the revelation He has made of Himself, in what we are. The Israelite was instructed to remember the day that he came out of Egypt all the days of his life (Deuteronomy 16:2); and the confession made by him, when presenting his basket of the first-fruits of the land, was this, "A Syrian ready to perish was [not I, but] my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous: and the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage and when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression: and the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders: and He hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey." (Deuteronomy 26:5-10.) Our first father has sinned. Thus the fountain was defiled. Evil has abounded, and sin has taken its free, full course. We learn, in all this scene in the garden, what has distorted the natural conscience, in circumstances so plain, that we can say what they are. Now, it is hard to learn what we are, because that which has made us sinners in heart, has made us sinners in understanding also. As the conscience is affected and renewed by the Holy Spirit, so is it perverted by sin. There may be a false standard of good and evil, and thus blindness through that (as a law of darkness), as well as corruption of heart. Paul says, "I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which thing I also did," etc. (Acts 26:9-11.) And the time was to come, the Lord forewarns, when those that killed the disciples would "think they did God service." (John 16:2.) The book of Genesis gives us, in the first dealings of God with man, the first grand elements of truth with exceeding freshness and energy. All that was said by Satan to Eve, except, "Ye shall not surely die," (5: 4,) was, in a certain sense true. That was not true. And this is the way he deceives. He does not present evil in its own hideous garb; but in a plausible insinuating manner. He can tell truth, if it subserve sin - much attractive truth, so that he win attention by it; but he never uses it to lead to obedience. Both that which was spoken by Adam and Eve, and that which was spoken by Satan, shows the exceeding deceitfulness of sin. Where God has not His place in the soul, in the assertion of our independence, our weakness and inconsistency open the way to the guile of the enemy, and the mind does not see its departure from truth. "I said in my haste, all men are liars." (Psalms 116:11.) So again, Micah 7:1-20 (where there is every kind of corruption), "The best of them is as a briar: the most upright is as a thorn hedge. Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom," etc. They had departed from God. To learn what sin is to any purpose, is to learn the source: from which we have departed. We have departed from God. Notice, the first thing introduced here, is the subtlety of Satan. It was not flagrant, open sin and wickedness, when Eve replied to it; it is not, ’I am the devil come to deceive you;’ he puts the present pleasantness of the thing, and with subtlety enquires, "Yea hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" The Holy Ghost does not say, The devil was wicked, but He says, "Now the serpent was more subtle than, any beast of the field which the Lord God had made: And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" The woman entered into conversation with him, and she was clean: gone. This questioning what God had done, was a calling in question of His goodness and love, just the temptation to mistrust God. ’Hath God: said so and so?" is, in effect, ’Well do not believe Him, He has kept back something worth the having.’ The moment Eve entered into the, discussion, and parleyed with the, serpent, God was altogether gone from her; and all was gone. She ought to have said; ’Why ask me? Surely He hath done whatsoever it hath pleased Him to do.’ A right mind would have rejected the temptation at once; a true heart would have fallen back upon God. "He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not." (1 John 5:18.) Satan "touched" Eve. He had got his question into her mind and she had departed from her strength, for God had lost His place in, her soul. When Eve began questioning God’s, goodness and answering Satan’s question, she was putting herself above God, and judging God, and thus putting herself into the hands of Satan. Had Eve been worshipping God, Satan could not have "touched" her; but, judging God, she took the place of independence, and thus Satan had power over her and, being wiser than she, he deceived her. We cannot fudge God’s ways without judging God; we may adore Him in His ways, but the moment we judge or question that which He has revealed, we make ourselves gods, and put God in the place of the creature, as subject to us. This brings our souls under the power of every one that is more clever than ourselves; we are in their hands, and they can do what they please with us. Now the devil is more clever than we are (the woman was no match for him), therefore we ought to keep God ever in His place of God in our souls, lest Satan should set us judging God Himself If God be displaced, we get into the place of those who are irresponsible, and, as creatures, become the prey of any more cunning than ourselves. The soul, when first awakened, finds its place before God. It may not, all at once, have peace or joy; but this, at any rate, it learns; to submit to God, and to be willing to be taken up anyhow, so that God will but have it at all. Now, does God keep this, His place, in our souls? because it is the constant aim of Satan, to slip in between God and our souls. In order to meet Satan, we must get into the place of entire responsibility to God. God did not hold His place in Eve’s mind or she would not have been questioning His love, and judging Him: there was the want of submission. And may it not be that there is the want of submission in us, that our minds are questioning and judging and not submitting to God’s righteousness? Notice, also, that Eve was in full recognition of God’s command. "And the woman said unto the serpent, ’We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.’ (vv. 2, 3.) There was the clear and definite knowledge of what God had said to her. So with ourselves. We have all heard about God and about his way of salvation; yes, many of us have before our minds much of scriptural knowledge. But this did not put Eve beyond the power of Satan. Neither will it us - it may, only the more immediately, put us into the hands of Satan, We all know what God has said about our sins (we may not believe it, perhaps, that is another thing), that" there is none righteous, no not one;" we all know that Christ came to save the lost; but then, if we do not know that we are lost, this knowledge, remaining without faith, does not take us out of the hands of Satan, but really gives Satan power over us. We must, have delivering power from God, before we can be out of Satan’s power. We must have conviction of sin, before we are ’off the ground’ of sin. The very moment that Satan got Eve to listen to one breath of his suggestions, that moment he took God’s place in her soul. You cannot suppose she would have parleyed with the devil, and listened to him, as to somebody speaking to her as her friend, if she had not had confidence in him. So that she did trust in Satan. The truth is, she held not with God, but with Satan. She looked upon Satan as a better friend than God. Eve was not content. Now the enemy of our souls may not be met by the simplicity of truth, because of the want of simplicity of our minds.* Her reply was truth, but it was truth not held in communion with God. She thought God had kept back something that was competent to make her happy. It was not a settled thing with her, that God knew, and had provided all that was needed for her happiness. And have we no desires for anything not actually given to us? There was distrust that God had power in Himself to make her happy, and, therefore, she was desiring, and seeking, it somewhere else. This was the beginning of it all. This led to man’s willingly subjecting himself to the dominion of Satan. And now we see the world bent on providing itself with pleasures apart from God. *According as our minds are not spiritual, and in any sort affect anything not the object of, to which they are not led by, the Spirit; therein the simplicity of truth fails to keep them, and the power of the enemy can avail itself of its subtlety against them. If there be any measure of positive, though mixed, spirituality, apparent rejection of the word would not be received. But Satan does not so proceed; he does not, therefore, propose disobedience, but modifies obedience, proposes preliminaries to it, or substitutes something instead. And how is it with you, dear friends? let me ask, is this your case? Are you wanting something that God will not allow you to have? Man naturally does not believe that God is competent to make him happy, and, therefore, he desires the things of the world, supposing that they can make him happy. This, to the end, is the subtle state of the flesh, even in God’s children, not trusting God to make it happy. It is a mercy, in a certain sense, that man must earn his bread with the sweat of his brow (for God is not mocked; and when he said, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, etc.," what a store of accompanying sorrow and toil came in, as the result of man’s disobedience), since that prevents the giving up of our poor race to the unbounded gratification of their desires away from God. When the soul is distressed or cast down, that is not in itself sin. But sin comes in when there is distrust of God. Satan gets entrance for his full power in the soul, the moment there is a shade of distrust of God. God will be trusted in the confidence of His love. Eve had the highest place in the world; she was surrounded by blessing, and possessed of actual happiness (man’s state in Eden was one of actual happiness, though not of spiritual power such as the saints now have); but the very moment she felt distrust in God’s competency to make her happy, it was all gone. Distrust in God is the positive condition of every natural man; all are seeking their happiness in something or other, if they are not trusting in God to make them happy. It is a solemn thought that one half of the world is employed in providing means of pleasure for the other half. Satan was trusted by Eve. If God is not trusted, Satan most certainly will be. Man, standing alone in his independence, is not independent, but the slave of every man,* the slave of sin and Satan. Like Eve, he trusts Satan rather than God. She hoped, on his authority, that there was a doubt about the fulfilment of God’s threatenings. God had said, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17) - he said, "Ye shall not surely die," impugning the truth of God’s word. And so he says now. Men say in their hearts that sin will not bear the consequences God has said it will - "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23.) No man could go on if he believed what God said, instead of believing Satan. The happiness of man is faith in Satan’s lie in this respect. They are proceeding in the same course, listening to that old detected lie of Satan. But God has said, "You shall surely die," and there is an end of all pleasure. So that all the devil can do is to hide the consequences of sin. He could not keep men going on, if he did not keep out of their sight that truth, "Ye shall surely, die." It is not, that the terror of it would change their hearts; but, if they did really believe it, they would not have one happy day here. Where is the earthly happiness these words will not blast - "Ye shall surely die!" But men believe what Satan says, and disbelieve what God says. "The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life," have present enjoyment connected with them - man rushes to take the bait, willingly selling himself to Satan, though, in so doing, he is morally conscious that he is not acting according to the commandments of God. Observe, I am not here speaking of gross sin, but of disbelief in God Himself. *Look at the state man is really in as regards the trust he puts in man rather than God. If his neighbour should ask him to do anything, though his conscience may tell him God hates what his neighbour wants him to do, still, rather than disoblige his neighbour, he will sin against God. He finds it harder to refuse his neighbour, than not to walk with God; it would distress him more to refuse him either in going to ungodly places of amusement, or gratification, or indulging in known sin, I say, it would distress him more to refuse his neighbour to join in such scenes and diversions, than to break the holy commandments of God, and to despise the sacrifice of God’s Son. Let us see the next step. God has lost His character in the heart of man; all man’s confidence in God is gone; and Satan the liar and arch-deceiver is believed. Now, the devil can say whatever he likes, he having the confidence of the heart, instead of God. God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened; and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" (5: 5). He began by insinuating that God knew the fruit would make her happy, but grudged to give it; then, he questioned the truthfulness of God; now, he adds, "ye shall be as gods," tempting man to assume the privileges of God Himself. *Thus there were three things in which the devil desired that man should dishonour God. First, as to His grace. Secondly, His truth. Thirdly, the majesty of His Godhead. How entirely had Eve forgotten every thought of God! Her soul should have recoiled with horror from the proposition. "What, I account myself as God! I take this glory to myself, and cast off God! Am I to set about being a thief - to take from God His glory, and become like Him - I, a creature, and indebted to Him for everything?" How different the way of Him, who, "being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant!" etc. (Php 2:6.) But, when we are once away from God, we have no spiritual sense of sin at all. Eve had no sense of the sin of leaving God out, and making herself the centre. And this is ever the result of exalting man, of looking at God’s ways through man’s telescope. Dependence is true exaltation in a creature, when the object of it is right. It looks up, and is exalted above itself. See David (Psalms 8:1-9), the greatest philosopher. But Eve was so willing to get rid of God, she sought by robbery to make herself equal with God. She may not have known the extent of the presumption of her confidence in Satan’s lie: but the secret of it all was this, that she had forgotten God, and thought only of herself - she had got self as a centre, and God was not in all her thoughts. When God is not our centre, all that by which we can exalt ourselves becomes the motive and principle of our hearts. "The man is become as one of us, knowing good and evil." This is God’s account of fallen man; Satan never deceives by a mere abstract lie. But, supposing Eve could have known that it was the truth, it would have been only an added deception, because it would not have been the truth in power in the conscience. Her heart having departed from God, her then seeing it to be truth would only have added to her darkness. I am doubly blind if the truth does not lead my heart towards God, and put me under God. Eve goes on in the way of sin. "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat" - in positive and known disobedience to God’s command, acting on the present enjoyment, without any regard to consequences. And now she becomes the active instrument of sin - "and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." (5: 6.) The man was not deceived (1 Timothy 2:14), but more shame to him in following the woman (who was deceived) contrary to the truth of God. Natural affection often becomes the means of drawing the heart away from God. "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked: and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. (5: 7.) Here we find conscience at work; not conscience towards God, but that of shame, the conscience that drove out the accusers of the adulterous woman (John 8:1-59). The guilty pair have the sense of the shame of their nakedness, and they seek to hide it the one from the other. The divine work in enlightening the conscience gives a man to see the guilt of sin, the exceeding sinfulness of sin; but sin has its shame, as well as its guilt, and the natural conscience always seeks to hide the shame of its sin with some fig-leaf covering. This is no proof of conversion. It is only the main proof that man has got into a bad conscience and cannot get out of it. Adam and Eve dare not look at each other, nor yet to God. They cannot bear the condition they have got into, and they cannot change it, therefore they hide it. But do not mistake this for repentance. Shame merely drives them to hide from, and excuse themselves to, God. And so with ourselves. As long as the shame of sin continues, we try to hide it, to get away from it, but it only drives us further and further from God. It is not a divinely-taught conscience, because we are more concerned about the shame before men, than the sinfulness before God. Until God has the place which man now occupies in our hearts, there is no conversion, the soul is not looking to God. We may be able to reason about the tender love and grace of God, but our sense of the guilt of sin should ever be deeper than that of its shame. When the conscience is before God, guilt brings sorrow, and yet we can, as sinners, reckon upon the love and kindness of God. And now the dreadful moment arrives when they hear the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. "And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden." (5: 8.) The Lord comes not with a fiery sword, in judgment, as yet;* but still He comes as an "adversary," in some wise. *Man is the only intelligent being who is still alive in successful apostacy. What do we find in the case of the fallen angels? Their sin brought its immediate and irremediable punishment. Man, man alone is abiding in unbelief; condemned indeed, but still the execution of the sentence is suspended. Thus Jesus came seeking an account of the fruit produced. "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him." Christ was saying, "I am yet in the way with you, this is the accepted time, this is the day of salvation." The axe was laid to the root of the tree (Luke 3:9), therefore the only thing to be done, was to agree with Him who had the right against them, "lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." "And the Lord called unto Adam, and said unto him, ’Where art thou?’ (5: 9.) ’How came you not to be with me?’" "Enoch walked with God." (Genesis 5:22.) God had no occasion to say to him, ’Where art thou?’ "And he (Adam) said, ’I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." (5: 10.) If the Lord were here, those who are ignorant of His grace would go out one by one, like the accusers of the poor adulterous woman. When Christ spoke to their conscience in those words, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," they walked out from His presence one by one (not all together, lest it should be noticed that they were sinners). They were careful of their character before men, but not before God. Had they been willing to confess their sin and to submit themselves to God’s righteousness, they would have staid. The Lord used no reproach to those Pharisees, but fixed the sin on their consciences. So God merely says here to Adam, ’How comes it that you are not with me?’ And how comes it, dear friends, that you have found bitterness and sorrow in the world? You will say, perhaps, it is because sin is in the world, but it is sin you have got into. You talk of a good conscience - the best conscience of a sinner only leads him to get as far away as he can from the presence of God. Do you call it a good conscience here in Adam, getting away from God, and then judging, for himself, about his state? "I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself." And it is thus even with the saint, if he gets into sin; there is darkness in the sin, and fear in the conscience after the sin; and when he is convinced he must get back again into the presence of God and there is not unreserved confession, he seeks to excuse himself. You will always find conscience, where the heart is wrong, tends to the invention of deceit. What did Adam say? ’I am guilty, pardon me, O Lord!’ No, he practices deceit. "And He (the Lord) said, ’Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?’ And the man said, ’The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, [not ’my wife’ in seeking to excuse himself, he casts the blame in reality upon God - It was Thou who gavest me this woman, and] she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."’ (vv. 11, 12.) God takes no notice of this. He turns to the woman. "And the Lord said, ’What is this that thou hast done?’" Eve now learns her lesson from Adam, as Adam had learned his of her before - "And the woman said, ’The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."’ (5: 13.) And this is the truth, but conscience is not before God. God, when he comes to deal with them about their sin, at once takes them up on the ground of their own excuses. "And unto Adam He said, ’Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee,"’ etc. (5: 17-19.) The very excuse he gave was the very height of sin, and the very thing by which God condemned him. So also with the woman. Out of their own mouths were they judged. The plea of temptation was only, in fact, saying that they preferred their own lusts to God, that they listened to the devil’s word more than to God’s commandments. *In this the world most accurately follows the example of our first parents. They sin, and then plead as an excuse, or extenuation of their guilt - temptation - natural desire - expediency, etc. But we rest on God’s truth when we declare there is no excuse that man makes, that is not in fact the very ground of his condemnation, yea, the very reason for it. In the parable of the marriage supper, for instance, the excuse those who were invited gave for not attending: - "I have bought a piece of ground, and must needs go and see it, I pray thee have me excused." Where was the "needs be?" Only just this - they preferred their own gratification to the reception of the Lord’s invitation. Still God says nothing about this, at first. But what does He? He brings in grace. When He does take up the question, the man had already departed from Him. As a sinner, he had departed from Him, before God came to judge him for the sin - and the effect of conscience is to drive away from God. Why does the infidel delight in infidelity? Because he dislikes God. God therefore takes up man in grace, and brings in promise. But He pronounces judgment upon what they have done. He does not take up grace, and pass lightly over sin. Man always begins with what he will do, but God begins with what he has done. The truth always looks at what I am in the sight of God. Having traced up the evil to its source, God goes at once to the serpent, as the author of it, but, in pronouncing sentence, He deals with Adam as lost (already the condition of man was that he was lost: God comes to no question about goodness, and there is no promise made to Adam, as in the flesh), and sets up the Second Adam. "And the Lord said unto the serpent, ’Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; IT shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."’ (vv. 14, 15.) There is where grace comes in. There is the root of the evil, and there is the sole remedy to set aside what man and the devil had done. He sets up the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, "the seed of the woman," as the bruiser of the serpent’s head. What is the meaning of the term "probation," as applied to our present state? "To save the lost," settles that. Grace brings out man’s misery and sin in the presence of God, and brings Christ in. Man is under the power of Satan decent or indecent. The decent, moral, unconverted man is only the more deceived, but the decent slave of Satan, God takes up the full power of the evil, and sets up His power for remedy in the Lord Jesus Christ. Man is not mended in his condition. God deals with him as already set aside and lost, and, without any proposition of mending the evil, brings in and sets up the Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, as the Destroyer of the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8.) And where was He to be found? Where does God bring in His glory? The grand fact is that it is "the seed of the woman." The spring of the evil was in the woman, and out of her was to come the deliverer; there is the glory of divine grace. Out of the eater cometh forth meat, and out of the strong, sweetness. (Judges 14:14.) The poor wretched woman was to give birth to the Saviour of the world. God does not slur over sin, but brings out all its vileness, and sets up Christ as the Second Adam in the very place of sin: His birth-place was in the death that sin had brought into the world. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin had reigned unto death, even so might grace reign, through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:20-21.) And mark the perfect contrast of the obedience of Christ Not as the first Adam (from the place of the creature exalting Himself to be as God), He, from a high place, takes a low. "Being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." (Php 2:6-8.) He lays not the burden on the weak one, but bears her sin. Instead of saying, "The woman that thou gavest me," etc. (5: 12.) He loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, took her sins upon Himself, and came into the depths of her sins. "He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all things," etc. (Ephesians 4:10), that in His blessed grace the greatest, the chief of sinners, might be able to find a resting-place, not in their own wretched excuses, but in His divine love. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 40: VOL 01 - THE WALK WITH GOD. ======================================================================== The Walk with God. We find in the beginning of Genesis 5:1-32 a marked distinction between the likeness in which Adam was originally created, and that of his offspring as they came from him: - "In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him;" as Genesis 1:26, "Let us make man in our image." We know that Adam abode not in this estate, and in the third verse of this chapter we find, "he begat a son in his own likeness - after his image." In the 2nd and 3rd verses we have the account of the blessedness in which Adam originally stood - "in the image of God" - in the garden which the Lord God planted, surrounded with the tokens of His love and wisdom, lord of all; and that nothing should be lacking, "I will make him an help-meet for him;" but there was a blessedness beyond all this, his first and highest, he walked with God in holy, happy intimacy. This we learn from the whole narrative. (Genesis 2:15-19; Genesis 2:22.) They stood in the presence of God. God spake to them, and they were not ashamed nor afraid; for sin had not yet entered. We observe that God, with whom they were here visibly conversant, was the Son, the Word, or, as we usually speak, the second person. God in essence, no man hath seen at any time; the Son reveals Him; and all the manifestations of God in the old time, whether in creation or otherwise, were in the person of the Son, the Word. (John 1:1; John 1:3; John 1:18.) Even Him whom we know as Jesus, the Christ, our Lord and our God. But to return to Adam. We see the blessedness in which God placed him; he abode not in it, he lost this blessedness: and how did he lose it? by want of subjection to God - by wilfulness - he would follow his own will, rather than God’s will, and he reaped the bitter fruit of it. It was God’s will that put Adam in the garden, in the midst of all the blessing; it was his own will that put him out of the garden, in the midst of all the curse; and so it ever has been, and ever will be. Look at the apostasies of which we read in the Scriptures, and you will find self-will in one shape or other the bitter root of each and all of them. After his apostasy, we find Adam not walking with God. The Lord God, as He was wont, comes down into the garden and calls unto Adam; but that voice and presence, once his chiefest joy and highest honour, has no joy for him now; he hides himself from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden; he has no communion with God now - he cannot walk with Him. God is here as He was before, but Adam’s confidence to approach Him is gone, it is broken down by his self-will; wilfulness has come in, and confidence is gone out, and so it ever must be; and now we see Adam - still indeed in the garden of God, in the midst of all its beauty, but what a poor conscience-stricken, wretched sinner! - striving to hide his guilty head from Him whom he has only known in love. How has the fine gold become dim! What a contrast does he herein afford to the faithful servant of God, who could say, "What wilt Thou have me to do?" the one in the midst of circumstances of blessing, but wretched, because wilful; the other in the midst of circumstances of trial and sorrow, but blessed, because obedient, - tribulation abounding, but consolation also abounding by Christ, such is the portion of the subject dependent spirit, to rise above the power of circumstances. In Genesis 5:22, we see that restored that Adam had lost. "Enoch walked with God." Again we find the communion issuing in the walk, and to him is the distinct testimony given that "he pleased God," and further "he was not, for God took him:" here he seems to be the type of the living saints who shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air when He cometh. *I omit the mention of those between Adam and Enoch, not as judging of them, but as merely noticing the walk of those so mentioned in Scripture. We thus find in Enoch what Adam lost, and possibly we learn (but on this I insist not) what Adam’s portion would have been had he not fallen - assuredly he would not have died; death is not God’s work, it is the wages of sin, it is the power of the devil - the power which man’s self-will has given him, and death we should never have known from God. In connection with the testimony to Enoch, we are reminded of Paul’s word to the Colossians - "We do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing." And again to the Thessalonians, "Ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God." Enoch walked with God - he had this testimony, that he pleased God. In the next chapter we have the testimony to Noah. "Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God." In the preceding verse we have, I believe, the secret of this blessed testimony, "he found grace in the eyes of the Lord." In Hebrews 11:1-40 we find the principle of his walk; it was faith, not sight, as we see in the apostasy, Genesis 6:2, and also Genesis 3:6; it was faith working holy obedience - "Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he." How simple, how blessed, and how opposite to the walk by sense and sight, leading us in wilfulness to do the very thing that God commanded not to be done. There is one very blessed and beautiful principle of the walk with God mentioned of Noah in the epistle to the Hebrews - he moved with fear: it is indeed an essential ingredient of the walk with God, and the very opposite to the rashness of self-will; it is what the saints at this present day may more especially stand in need of. The very obedience, if the term may be allowed, of a saint may be more allied with self-will than holy fear, and therefore lose its savour before God. This can never be said of that which is obedience in spirit and truth; but is, I think, the character of a great part of the obedience of the day. And it is important that the saints should well consider this. At the present time we see on the one hand ordinances and blind subjection, but, what I believe is worse, upon the other hand - self-will and man’s right; and on the border of this latter do those stand who, through God’s grace, have been led to see the opposite evil and would escape it. It is humiliating to think how near to error we may stand in truth, when we lapse from the spirit into the flesh; and, alas! how easy is the transition, then are we in it, when we stand in the pride of our knowledge or acquirement, or in the assertion of our right. It is plain that self and not God is exalted; and then are we falling into the greater error of the two - let us be watchful herein. Obedience may be the bowing of the intellect honest, intelligent to abstract truth; it may be the proud assertion of right in one who sees error and truth, to forsake the one and to bow to the other. True obedience is the result of subjection to God - it is meek and holy, and therefore free from that offensive independent bearing which is so frequently met with, and which is so sad and grievous to the Spirit. Holy fear will ever be allied with holy love; as one should be the constraining motive to service, so the other should be the jealous guardian of our whole conversation, that we grieve not the heart of God, nor hinder His Holy Spirit. Adam failed in the fear of the Lord, and therefore he failed to walk with God. Noah was moved with fear, and therefore he failed not to walk with God. We proceed a few chapters, and in Genesis 17:1-27 we find God saying to Abraham, "I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect;" and I observe that when God thus calls upon Abraham, it is just before the fullest opening of the covenant which God makes with him; this covenant we find in the 12th, 13th, 15th, and 22nd chapters, but here we have it more enlarged, and sealed by the token of circumcision; here Isaac was promised and named, and here we find Abraham in the confidence of friendship, pleading for Ishmael, as in the next chapter for Sodom, and in Genesis 20:1-18 for Abimelech; but previous to all this, and, as it were, the preparation fitting for it, "Walk before me, and be thou perfect." Abraham might have replied, But, Lord, how can I - who is sufficient for these things? The answer is, "I am the Almighty God," even as it is afterwards the strength for difficult requirement. (2 Corinthians 6:14-18.) This is God’s first revelation of Himself under this name. Abraham’s obedience we find in Genesis 22:1-24; and again in his direction to his servant in getting a wife for Isaac, Genesis 29:40, "The Lord, before whom I walk, will send His angel with thee, and prosper thy way." Thus do we see how Abraham, the friend of God, walked; not after his own will, he believed in the Lord, and He "counted it to him for righteousness:" he obeyed the voice of the Lord, and "by myself have I sworn; saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven." Whenever he followed his own will it was only to go astray. Thus do we see God’s will with His people; it is that they walk with Him. It was His oft-repeated word to Israel, that they walked contrary to Him, and hence their misery. God knoweth that it is here that the happiness and holiness of His people are secured, and that a way of their own will ever be a way of misery in the end; and God says, even now, after all the blessed revelations that He has made of Himself in Jesus, even now He says unto faith, "Walk before me." With man there has been the measure of obedience or rebellion, according to the spirit that was in him; but in Jesus we find the full and blessed response to this call of our God. He could say of the days of His flesh, "I have set the Lord always before me:" here was his moving principle, doing every thing in reference to the will of Him that sent Him; and this is just what the gospel history exhibits (specially John’s), the SENT ONE doing the will of Him that sent him - the contrast in this to the first Adam. His life is the history of full, perfect, willing subjection to God; even in prospect of the cross, and all its shame and suffering, His word is still, "I delight to do thy will, O my God." We get a measure of this in the saints; but the one who is brought into the nearest and dearest communion with God will probably be the one most conscious of failure; for he is the one brought to measure himself by the stature of the Lord, and to see himself in the full shining of His light here he will learn the true measure of human attainment, and yet without one despairing thought; for he learns it in the blessed consciousness of his acceptance in the beloved, in the consciousness that his title to the glory is in the perfect work of Him by whose side he feels the short-coming and failure of his holiest things. Doubtless Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and a countless multitude beside, have set the Lord before them; but one only could say, "I have set the Lord always before me;" in Him was the perfect, continual, unfailing obedience, that nothing could turn from its object. Enoch walked with God, and pleased Him: in Jesus this was perfect. "I do always the things that please Him." "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Noah walked with God, and moved with fear: this we see perfect in Jesus, "He was heard in that He feared" (the very same word as of Noah), "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered; and being perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him." Abraham walked before the Lord: again we see the pattern of what was perfect in the beloved, "I have set the Lord always before me;" and indeed the little features of grace and beauty which we see scattered through the family of God, are but the faint traces of what we see in their fulness and perfection in God’s beloved Son, who is the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person; and just in the proportion that we are in communion with the Father and the Son, not only will our joy be full, but it will be manifested that we walk with God, and please Him, that we move in fear, setting the Lord before us. This is testimony; this is what God requireth at our hands; not as the demand of a task-master, but as an offering of love; this is what really tells on the conscience for God: it is of practical value, and nice words without it are but as counterfeit coin, which looks well, but is worth nothing. It is comparatively easy to get knowledge, and to increase it; but, ah, it is hard to walk with God - it is one coming out of self and walking in the power of communion with another. The natural way is to follow our own will; it is the natural way since Adam fell: he begat a son in his own likeness. The bent of the will may often to man’s eye be innocent or rational - "The tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise." Our first parents would be wise, but it was wisdom by their own will; they turned from the tree of life, and this was God’s wisdom. (Proverbs 3:13-17.) Their will was to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and this was Satan’s suggestion, and whenever there is not subjection to God there is the old apostasy that turned Adam out of paradise, and gave Satan his power in the world. Beloved, the object of our life should be testimony for God; with the apostle this seemed the object in life and death (Php 1:20); but we cannot truly testify save as we walk with God - but as we are in communion. How important then to keep this communion uninterrupted. The provision for this we find in 1 John 2:12; it is the advocacy in the power which the blood gives, which the blood alone gives, for this alone can answer Satan; he could find failure enough in the most perfect holiness of the saint whereof to accuse him; there is none in the blood of the Lamb, and this it is that opens and keeps open communion to us. Here let us take our stand, and in the spirit of adoption, crying Abba, Father, see that we witness for Jesus from the power of communion. One thing I would observe, there is much, very much, called testimony that after all is not testimony - it is a word now much used. In true testimony our object should be, "by manifestation of the truth" both in word and life, "to commend ourselves to men’s consciences in the sight of God." If this be so, whatever our lot be with men we shall please God, and that is enough. Let us keep this in view; there may be great intellectual power at work on the things of God, and yet no testimony. God may use the intellect which originally is of Him, and then have we cause to bless Him for it; but let us see that it is so used; let us see that it is brought down in humbleness and teachableness under the power of God’s Spirit - without this the greater the intellect the greater the power of evil. It is perfectly fearful to see man’s mere mind at work on God’s word, in proud independence - venturing on the depths which no human line can fathom - driving along in the assertion of a power in himself, without reference to that power without which no man knoweth the things of God; and hence the flippancy we see in some in speaking of the things of God, that manifests but the mere intimacy of the flesh. Where the Spirit is present there will be the holy fear, the meekness and lowliness which mark the unction of the Holy One, and come indeed with power to our souls this will be the fruit of communion, and will manifest the walk with God. One case to which testimony very specially belongs, and where we often see the power of communion, is in evangelizing. We may see one go out to preach the gospel, and make his statements with much truth and clearness, and yet there may be little or no testimony to the conscience, or acknowledgment of God in it. How is this? It is from the want of the manifestation of God. God is love; and if in communion with God you can show God’s love to the soul of the poor sinner, there is testimony: that is what he wants. Man’s mind may be amused with abstract truth, but the poor miserable sinner wants rest for his soul, and where can he get this but in the knowledge that "God is love," and the provision which that love hath made for him? and therefore the true power of an evangelist, his special qualification, should be a heart overflowing with the love of God, and telling out of its fulness of that love which is all to him; and therefore again you will find many and many a one, not with any high power of mind, or capability of great clearness of statement, acknowledged of God abundantly in His simple message of love, while others possessing these things are without testimony herein. Love is God’s great instrument in effecting His work. "God is love" and if we walk in love we walk in God; our joy is in love. Love is a holy, happy thing; we know it now in communion, we shall know it in perfection in the glory. Oh, how happy is the communion and confidence of love. This would be true testimony, the manifestation of love; this is what God would acknowledge, for it is of Himself; and this is the testimony that we should give in the world in all our conversation. There will be but little in bare abstract truth, except it be for our own opinions. This is not the way that God gives us truth; He clothes it in love, He manifests it in the gift of His only-begotten Son. "Herein is the love." Another point in which we fail in testimony, is the making it to consist in things in which it properly does not consist, which are but circumstantials, with or without which the testimony may be. Thus in the little peculiarities, personal and domestic, for which many are jealous, and on which they lay great stress as testimony for God, their very eccentricities, and the exact order or disorder of their service, are matters of testimony with them, and consequently it is in general but a waste of strength. What is worse? There is often a proneness to judge others who cannot see with them in these things; but where there is walking with God, there will be but little of judgment, save on ourselves; in truth the judgment of open sin in the believer will be sorrowful work to us, as we are walking with God. As to these matters of private observance, let every one be satisfied before God, and cease to judge his brother; let each one see that in what he does, as well as what he does not, it is unto the Lord; but let us carefully watch herein against wilfulness in our doings, that it is not our will or pleasure, but the good-will of our God that is set up. When we differ as to this, we have indeed cause to be humbled; but let us bear with one another, even as God with us, and be very watchful, as every difference opens a door to the enemy. I notice these things to warn the saints against them, as not in the Spirit or after the example of our Lord and Master. What freedom from every thing eccentric in Him! His peculiarity was that alone of entire subjection to His Father’s will. The saint is called into liberty and not into bondage; the religion of the flesh gendereth to bondage. Let us stand in our blessed liberty, but watch that it is not made a cover for any evil or desire of the flesh in ourselves, or a stumbling-block to others. I can quite recognize the liberty which allows of a saint doing many things which I cannot do; we should in love watch that we offend not one another; but our liberty is not to be judged or regulated by each other’s conscience, but by God’s word. Again: I can value any little sacrifice that is made to the Lord, and not to the poor consistency of our own notions. I believe indeed that there is nothing, however little it be, which is done unto our God that will be lost; the cup of cold water shall have its reward. Man may forget, but "God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love," etc. How gracious, how wonderfully gracious! "that God, so to speak, should tax his own righteousness for the remembrance of our little doings, mixed up as they are with so much of self and unworthiness, but "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob." He accepts us in the beloved. The remedy when we fail is in communion, for the remedy for every evil is with God; and in communion we abide with Him. Thence is the walk, and herein is our testimony; there will be power in our words and life - not a power of man, but the power of the unction of the Holy One. We are instructed as to our inquiries into the will of the Lord, by the question of the apostles Peter and Paul. Peter, in the mere inquisitiveness of his heart, and it may be in the anxiety for his friend, but without any respect for God’s glory, asks, "Lord, and what shall this man do?" and he is met by the reproof, "What is that to thee? follow thou me." Here is what is of practical moment to the disciple, "follow thou me;" and on this should all his knowledge and attainment bear. When Paul, on the contrary, is struck to the ground on his journey to Damascus, what is his first word? "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Here is no inquisitiveness, and hence no reproof; here is the true and earnest desire to know the Lord’s will, and consequently it is met with the gracious reply, "It shall be told thee what thou shalt do." And so it is virtually at this present day with ourselves. Though there be no manifestation, or audible voice as of old, yet is the same principle true to us. If our search after truth be merely to gratify the inquisitiveness of our mind; if it be in the wrong spirit that would lay every thing under contribution to minister to our knowledge, not that we may follow the Lord more truly, but to feed the pride or inquisitiveness of our hearts, then shall we know the reproof of the Lord, in our souls we shall feel it, "What is that to thee?" There will be amid all the leanness within. But if we ask in trueness of heart, if our object be not in any way to minister to the flesh, but to know our Lord’s will, that we may do it, assuredly "it shall be told us." Dispensations may change, but God does not change; and we shall ever find Him true to them that are true to Him. If in our walk we acknowledge Him, then He will acknowledge us; but if while His name be on our lips, some form of evil be in our hearts, what have we to expect but the rebuke of the Lord? To man we may seem to gather, and we may gather something whereof to talk or make a fair show in the flesh, but we do not gather blessing to our own souls. If we would walk with God amid the abounding evil, then must we be on our watch-tower against the deceitfulness of our hearts and the devices of the enemy; we must see that God be our object, that we set the Lord before us in all we put our hand to. Specially must we watch against the self-will that is native to our hearts, that leads us away from God, that would fight against Him; but a single act of self-will, if it was not for God’s mercy, would for ever exclude us from His presence, would lead us into the depths of misery and darkness. The subjection of a poor blind papist, evil as it is, is not so evil a thing as the assertion of right and self-will in those possessing knowledge, or making high pretensions to it. The one is superstitious, and this is bad enough; the other is rebellion, and this is worse. Who is it that has the knowledge of Satan? But it is knowledge in the rebellion of self-will against God. In fine, let us walk with God; and that we do so, let, us watch that our communion be not hindered; if it be, we have seen the remedy - the blood, the advocate - and let us renew it again in this provision which His love has made. This is in fact the very sum and substance of our religion, that we walk with God; this is the manifestation of our secret communion. Every thing will be right with us in spirit while we do so; but unto this we need to walk circumspectly. How many things daily arise to hinder our walk? We must be sober, watchful, circumspect. This is hard work, and it is bitter to the flesh; yes, but the fruit will be sweet. When we mortify the flesh as we discover it, then is the mind subject to God, and then we make way for the Holy Spirit; but it is hard - true, every thing good is hard - self-will has made it so; but our God has laid nothing upon us for which He does not supply the help. The cross is hard, but Jesus bore it before us; and as we now know the power of the cross, it is that we get above the self-will, that we get into the subjection which is the door of blessing. Self-will is the unholy root of all the evil, and there is no remedy for it but the cross. If we feel these things, if we are made to groan under them, let us look to Jesus: see Him in full sympathy with human sorrow at the grave of Lazarus - "Jesus wept." Here is the opening of His heart to us, here He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but follow Him a little further, and mark His first words in resurrection, "Woman, why weepest thou?" It is now no longer weeping over human misery, but the drying up of those tears which human misery had caused to flow; self-will had brought forth its plentiful harvest of sin and sorrow; unto the woman He saith (Genesis 3:1-24), "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow," but now unto the woman, "Why weepest thou?" Sorrow hath taken the place of joy in this world, for self-will has come in, and death has followed it: but now the old things have passed away, it is no longer self-will, and sin, and death. One has been found to pass through this world always doing God’s will, and this was the One to bear our sin, and sorrow, and death; and now it is the new thing, death hath given place to resurrection. "I am He that liveth, and was dead, and am alive for evermore." Here is the drying of the woman’s tears, "Why weepest thou?" Oh, what a word of blessedness! oh, what a return of love, after all our self-will and rebellion! Why weepest thou?" The old things have passed away, death has given place unto life, and sorrow to joy, and the joy of the Lord is our strength. Here is our provision, our strength to walk with the Lord in holy communion - it is in the power of a new, a risen life - what do we want more, but more truth of heart, more faith to prove these things? Oh, may we know them, not only by the hearing of the ear, not as having thoughts about them, but in deep and happy exercise of soul as taught by God’s Spirit! The dearest saint when out of communion may be doing Satan’s work; aye, more than an unconverted man. I have even felt more of difficulty in dealing with saints in the flesh than with the unconverted, in those points where they will have their way, or where one consideration or another will hinder their subjection to God. Let us see, dear brethren, that there be no reserve, that in everything self-will be brought down, whatever it may cost us. Could we but see what blessing it hinders, and what power it gives the enemy, it would, I believe, terrify us to think that it has any place, however little, in our hearts. If we walk out of communion, whatever show of service there may be (and in such cases there is often doing, doing to try and satisfy the conscience), there is no true testimony for Him. It is in communion there is testimony - it is in communion that we can say in blessed consciousness of its truth, "We have the mind of Christ;" it is when in communion with God we can look down upon the world, and can afford to lose it, or be nothing in it; for in communion we know Jesus in the power of His resurrection. God give us more to prove these things, and day by day, as we pass along and work out His holy will, to rise in the power of the Spirit of Him "who was dead, but is alive again;" to be obedient to what He has taught us, to be doers of His will and not of our own. May we learn more earnestly to please God, more simply to walk with Him, and thus give testimony to the truth in our day and generation. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 41: VOL 01 - THE WATERS OF STRIFE ======================================================================== The Waters of Strife - a word on unadvised speaking. Numbers 20:1-29. "They angered him also at the waters of strife, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes: because they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips." Psalms 106:32-33. It is an exceedingly establishing thing for our souls, fully to perceive that God is dealing with us on the ground of His own relationship towards us, and that He never deals with us on any other. This is as true in discipline and present correction as in anything else - correction from our Heavenly Father because He is our Father. "I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes," is among the covenant dealings of Psalms 89:32. God cannot pass over the sins of His saints as over those of the world. He brings them under present discipline. Sin in a saint of God is much more fearful than in an unbeliever, since the glory of God suffers so much more at our hands. That which might appear a trifling thing in another, is not so in us. We need to apply the balance of the sanctuary, so as to discern what is according to God and what is not. Further, it is most full of comfort to see that God is able to record in His word the failures of His saints, and that He does not hesitate to record them. He is showing us in them, and through them, as things written for our admonition, that, notwithstanding this failure, His faithfulness never fails. But it requires a deepened tone of spirituality to perceive that God thus visits the sins of His people, and yet that their blessing, through His grace, shall not fail as to the end - "Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." He cannot suffer His truth to fail; He cannot deny Himself. (2 Timothy 2:13.) Another very remarkable thing is, that the sins recorded of the saints are not infrequently those which we should have supposed them least likely to fail into. For instance, Peter’s fall, most largely recorded. Again, David’s foul sin. And when we come to Moses, there is failure too in him. We find that that which is recorded here is mentioned in many other parts of the Word. "He spake unadvisedly with his lips." Moses himself records it over and over again, to show that even an unadvised word (that which might be regarded as a light thing) is not passed over unnoticed. Now, I believe that where we sin much is in this very respect, in speaking unadvisedly with our lips. As James says, "In many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body." (James 3:2.) When I find an unadvised speech of Moses in a chafed moment thus recorded, I see the deep necessity there is for having a bridled tongue. It is here that Satan gets such advantage over us - yes, where God’s saints have constant need of correction is for unadvised talk. The amount of sorrow thus brought upon souls is hardly to be estimated; perhaps it is not too much to say, that almost all the mischief that arises amongst saints is from speaking unadvisedly with the lips. God is able to record those things in which His saints have grieved Him; but this does not hinder His truth, this does not hinder the one being in the glory with the Lord, concerning whom such failure is recorded. Then he will be able to look back and trace all the way in which God has led him, and see how all has been overruled for good. I would just notice by the way, that which is remarkably testified of the Lord Jesus as standing where Moses failed. When He was here, all the sitting down in the seat of the scornful of those who sought to entangle Him in His talk, all the contradiction of sinners against Himself, all their cavils, never drew out an unadvised word from His lips. On the contrary, when He was attacked on every hand - by Pharisees, by Sadducees, by Herodians - after He had met them all, His wisdom shone conspicuously forth in silencing them with the simple question: "What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?" (Matthew 22:41-45.) And Jesus is our example; as Peter tells us, "If, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us; leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously." (1 Peter 2:20-23.) But let us turn to the narrative before us: "Then came the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, into the desert of Zin, in the first month: and the people abode in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people chode with Moses, and spake, saying, Would God that we had died when our brethren died before the Lord! And why have ye brought up the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there? And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us into this evil place? it is no place of seed, or of figs, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink." (5: 1-5.) It is no uncommon thing for those who have known redemption through the blood of the Lamb, and the passage of the Red Sea - perfect deliverance from Egypt - to murmur thus, because of not having the vines and figs and pomegranates. But what can Moses and Aaron do? They have not any resources in themselves, they can only cast it before the Lord. "And Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they fell upon their faces." (5: 6.) But what I desire to press upon our consideration here is this, that it is frequently, when we have been near the Lord, when we have in humility laid the matter before Him, just on returning back amidst the circumstances, something unforeseen occurring, that failure is at once manifested. "And the glory of the Lord appeared unto them." How blessed this for Moses! And our portion is peculiarly that now; whatever the perplexity, whatever the trial, whatever the circumstances may be, the moment we get before the Lord, the glory of the Lord appears. It is this God places before us, for the comfort and stay of our souls. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink." (vv. 7, 8.) At the bidding of the Lord, the rod had been cast down, and it had become a serpent. At the bidding of the Lord, Moses’ rod stretched out over the Red Sea, the Red Sea had been made dry land, and Israel had passed over on dry ground, and the waters had been divided; the rod stretched out again, and the Lord had overthrown the Egyptians in the midst of the Sea. The moment he is told to take "the rod," Moses ought to rest simply in the Lord. But, beloved, have we not found it very hard, when we have had a difficulty, and taken it before the Lord, to leave it entirely with Him, to wait for His comment? We are instructed, through that which we are considering, that the Lord expects we should attend most minutely to His word. "Speak ye unto the rock before their eyes," is the direction. We find that when they have gathered the congregation together before the rock, Moses speaks unto the people, and he speaks unadvisedly with his lips - here is failure. It is a little thing, but the Lord must notice it. And so with things in us which are as blemishes, as spots and wrinkles; if the Lord Jesus has "loved the Church, and given Himself for it" in order that He might "present it to Himself a glorious Church, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish," when there are these spots and wrinkles, they displease the Lord. In Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22, the Lord Jesus Christ is seen walking in the midst of the churches with the eyes of fire (not in the world), to the end that "all the churches may know that I am He who searcheth the reins and hearts." In His discipline He may be dealing with that in us which we know nothing about, but which He sees. Just as in His intercession for Peter - "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not" (Luke 22:31-34), was before Peter ever thought at all of denying Him. "He searches the reins and the hearts;" and we need to give heed to Him. It is a very solemn thing for us to despise the chastening of the Lord. He chastens us because we are beloved, because we are His. It was this sin caused Moses to lose Canaan, and the high honour of leading Israel over Jordan into the land. We too are losers by sin, though it may be that, through the grace of Him with whom we have to do, His restoring grace, the soul is brought upon higher and firmer ground. "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." Could Peter ever forget the lesson of restoring grace? He was placed on higher ground - higher, stronger ground, as to the establishment of his soul, than that on which he stood before his fall. Our very sins and failures are overruled for our good. There is one very remarkable feature of God’s dealings presented to us in this picture. He ever delights to honour His saints in the eyes of others; but then they must not seek their own honour. He will honour His servants; but the moment we step out of the servant’s place, to take, as we judge it, a higher one, He humbles us. The Lord Jesus Christ, the One faithful servant of Jehovah, was always hiding Himself, that God might appear; and God was always honouring Him in the eyes of others, "approving Him by wonders, miracles, and signs." When we honour God, He honours us. "Them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed." (1 Samuel 2:30.) God says to Moses, "Take the rod, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink." Thou shalt do it. This was a high honouring of Moses in the sight of all Israel. But when Moses takes the rod, and he says, "Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?" That is, he does not sanctify the Lord in the eyes of the congregation; it is "we," not "the Lord." No sooner do we assume to be anything, than we get out of the servant’s place. But further, we have some little insight given us herein to the deceitfulness of sin. "Moses took," we are told, "the rod from before the Lord, as he commanded him" (5: 2); he obeys up to a certain point, but there he stops; it is an act of partial obedience, and partial obedience must always be allied to self-will "Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees," etc.; their obedience was exceedingly partial; they took those parts of the law which gave them honour in the sight of others; doing it to be seen of men; but passed by that which would have involved self-denial. And it is too frequently so with us in our service, we are found self-seekers, pleasers of men. He takes the rod as the Lord has commanded him. "And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them" - there is disobedience! God has never commanded him to do that: He has commanded him to speak unto the rock - "Hear now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock?" (5: 10.) What words! O Moses, Moses! Oh sad picture of the flesh! Moses the man of God speaks unadvisedly with his lips! "The man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth" (Numbers 12:3); but the meekest man on the earth is here the one to say, "Hear now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock?" putting himself in the place of God; the one of whom it is testified, "It went ill with Moses for their sakes, because they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips." They chafe his spirit, they grieve him, the meekest of men, by their murmurings, and he says, "Hear now, ye rebels, must we?" That odious word "we!" most odious word in the mouth of a saint! Everything that we have, and all that we are, we have and are by the Lord’s grace, and all must be used to His glory. Moses has forgotten the rod. What is Moses? Nothing; he has no power to fetch water from the rock, and he has forgotten the present power of God, that which alone can enable him to do it; he has forgotten God, he is thinking about himself Here we see again the sin of our hearts, in the using of the very grace which God has given us, for the purpose of self-exaltation, to say "we." But this is a sin which would not be noticed by the world; because the world only talks of "I" and "me." Not so faith. Paul says, "By the grace of God, I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me" (1 Corinthians 15:10), ashamed to be forced, as it were, into this mention of himself. The flesh would seek to use the very grace of God, the light of God, the truth of God, the power of God, to exalt ourselves. That, may seem a little thing which is recorded of Moses here; but when we come to take it to pieces, to analyse it, we feel it to be most odious before God. So it is with us, if the light which God has given us, the truth and knowledge we have, are made stepping-stones to self-exaltation. "And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice." He has been told to speak to the rock; but he smites it twice, as though divine power has need of being seconded by human energy. But still "the water came out." God’s faithfulness is not touched by the failure of His servant. So is it with us; one may preach the gospel of strife and contention - Paul could rejoice even in this, since Christ was preached (Php 1:18) - and yet not hinder God’s sovereignty in owning His own ordinance. Moses fails; but God does not deny Moses to be His servant, neither does He deny the power of the rod. "Moses took the rod, and smote the rock twice, and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also." (5: 11.) God may be using an individual’s ministry for blessing to the souls of others, when He is about to discipline that very person, so used of Him. He abideth faithful; He will not (blessed be His name!) deny His own truth, though mixed up with much of weakness, of foolishness, and even of self, in those who preach it. "And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them. This is the water of Meribah, because the children of Israel strove with the Lord, and He was sanctified in them." We have the failure of Moses mentioned in several other parts of the Word, some of which we will now consider. Genesis 27:12-14. "And the Lord said unto Moses, Get thee up into this mount Abarim, and see the land which I have given unto the children of Israel. And when thou hast seen it, thou also shalt be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother was gathered. For ye rebelled against my commandment in the desert of Zin, in the strife of the congregation, to sanctify me at the water before their eyes: that is the water of Meribah in Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin." Moses loses Canaan, through speaking unadvisedly with his lips; but, beloved, does that alter God’s intention of blessing him everlastingly? or is it not rather the occasion of proving that "his mercy is from everlasting to everlasting toward them that fear him." However necessary it maybe to chasten Moses, and to hold him up as an instance of a rebellious saint, this cannot cause God to "alter the thing that has gone out of his lips." We afterwards see Moses on the mount of glory, with the Lord, in the transfiguration. (Matthew 17:3; Mark 9:4; Luke 9:30.) When there he could, doubtless, look back and see the path by which the goodness of the Lord had led him, and the links of the chain which we cannot see, and how that God had made all things "work together for good." It is an exceedingly establishing thing for us to see, that "whom he loveth (he loves unto the end) he chasteneth." It is His saints whom He chastens; He hates sin, and He will show, in His dealings with His children about it, what a fearful thing it is. We must not expect, because we are made the righteousness of God in Christ, and because we are heirs of glory, that He does not mark our sins; this, on the contrary, is the very reason that He does, in order that we may be made to, see that "it is an evil and a bitter thing to sin against God the Lord." Deuteronomy 3:23-28. "I besought the Lord at that time, saying, O Lord God, thou hast begun to show thy servant thy greatness and thy mighty hand: for what God is there in heaven or in earth, that can do according to thy works, and according to thy might? I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon. But the Lord was wroth with me for your sakes, and would not hear me: and the Lord said unto me, Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter. Get thee up into the top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and behold it with thine eyes: for thou shalt not go over this Jordan. But charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him: for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which thou shalt see." The Lord denies the prayer of His saint. The Lord may deny the prayers of His saints, or He may answer them in a way we little expect. It was thus in respect of Paul’s thorn in the flesh: "For this cause," he tells us, "I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me." (The prayer was not answered in the manner the apostle looked for it to be.) "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:8-9.) The thorn was needed! God may let, and sometimes does let, the consequences of the sin of a saint hang over him all the time he is here. The saint Moses prays, but the Lord denies the prayer of His saint. They have just come to the very border of the land, and Moses says, "Let me go over, and see the good land." But the Lord tells him, "Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter." What graciousness there is in this "Let it suffice thee;" we see here all God’s restoring mercy; it seems, so to speak, as if He hardly could deny Moses, as if, were he to be importunate, He could not refuse him. It was wiser, it was better, it was more for the glory of God, that Moses’ prayer should not be answered; but there is something exquisitely tender in the reply of the Lord - "Let it suffice thee;" just as in that to Paul - "My grace is sufficient for thee." Deuteronomy 32:48-52. "And the Lord spake unto Moses that selfsame day, saying, Get thee up into this mountain Abiram, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession: and die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother did in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people: because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel. Yet thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel." We see here the way in which the Lord is able to tell of the sins of the saints - to record the failures of the saints. Let man narrate the life of his fellow man, he seeks to hide his failures, and why? Because he wishes to exalt the man. Let the Holy Ghost write the life of a saint, He records the sins and failures of that saint, and why? Because he exalts the grace of God. It is a blessed thing too, beloved, when we can use even our failures to exalt the grace of God. The Lord says of Moses, "Ye rebelled," "Ye transgressed;" and yet, we find, after all this, Moses speaking face to face with God in confidence, and in intimate intercourse. He tells Moses the reason why he cannot go over the Jordan; the desire to see the good land that is beyond is pleasing in His eyes, and He gives him a Pisgah view of it. God is able to tell us how wisely He disciplines us. Nothing shall hinder the purpose of His grace concerning us. He is determined that nothing shall alter the thing that has gone out of His lips - "Whom he justified, them he also glorified;" but then, it is between justification and glorification that there comes in all this discipline. Deuteronomy 34:1-7. "And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees unto Zoar. And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go thither. So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab over against Beth-peor but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." It is the Lord who buries Moses, and after a time He brings him out (as we have seen) in the glory of the Lord Jesus on the mount of transfiguration. We find there, not Joshua, the one who led Israel into the land, but Moses, the one to whom this was denied. Beloved, let us remember that it was a little thing, an unadvised word that occasioned to Moses the loss of Canaan. And let us remember, moreover, that the governance of the tongue is more pressed upon us in the New Testament than almost anything else. "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." (Matthew 12:37.) Seeking to exalt ourselves is rebellion against God. The Lord grant that we may see that we are exposed to a searching judgment to which the world is not exposed, because we are His saints; and that He may have to shut His ear to our prayer. He is "the only wise God," and He may be more wise in denying than in granting. May we be found walking before Him unto all well-pleasing. __________ When a man steps out of his own nothingness, he steps into it. Zeal against the errors of others is no security against the wiles of the devil. Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe. He that rides on a stumbler had need have his eye on the road before, and his bridle well in hand. And such is even the believer’s heart. Wherever you go, endeavour to carry with you a sense of God’s presence, His holiness, and His love; it will preserve you from a thousand snares. Have a word with God before you enter into conversation with any man. (James 1:5.) Satan tempts saints to unholy wrath (Luke 9:55), and they do not know, and little think, where they had their coal to so heat them from, until Christ tells them, "Ye know not what spirit ye are of." It is as great a presumption to send our passions upon God’s errands, as it is to palliate them with God’s name. Zeal, dropt in charity, is good; without it, good for nothing; for it devours all it comes near. They must first judge themselves, that presume to censure others; and such will not be apt to overshoot the mark. Use a little of the bridle in the quantity of speech; incline a little rather to sparing than to using them lavishly; for "in many words there wants not sin." That flux of the tongue, that prattling and babbling disease, is very common; and hence so many impertinences, yea, so many of those worse ills, in their discourses, whispering about, and inquiring, and censuring this and that. An unwholesome stomach turns the best meat it receives into that bad humour that abounds in it. Do not they thus, who observe what the word says, that they may be the better enabled to discover the failings of others, and speak maliciously and uncharitably of them, and vent themselves as is too common? "This word met well with such a one’s fault, and this with another’s." Is not this to feed these diseases of malice, "envy," and "evil speaking," with this "pure milk," and make them grow, instead of growing by it ourselves in grace and in holiness? Divine truths are like a well-drawn picture, which looks particularly upon every one amongst the great multitude that look upon it. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 42: VOL 01 - THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD ======================================================================== The Whole Armour of God Ephesians 6:10-18. The Lord never loses sight of His thoughts as to the place of the church, of what it is in Christ. In all the minute detail as to the conduct of the saint (1 Corinthians 1:2) contained in the word, the highest principles are ever advanced. What the Lord looks for from the believer is, consistency with the place wherein he is set, the "adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." How different this from the thought of the natural man, that is ever - do such and such a thing, and you shall be put in this place. We know that He "hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6), and having the knowledge of it, are addressed accordingly. This gives a very holy character to each direction; for inconsistency in the smallest circumstance is as unsuitable to the place in which the Christian is set as it would be in the greatest. So far as regards our present position, there is, and must be, continual conflict; and it is only according to the measure of victory, we attain that the character. which the Lord Jesus Himself exhibited when here will be seen in us. "Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." There is not a single grace in the Lord Jesus but what is suitable for its exhibition in us as united to Him. Union with Christ sets the believer where Christ is; and through union we have the fulness of all that is in Him as our "Head." The growing up" into this is a matter of attainment. The putting on the "WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD" supposes the person to be saved, to be united to Christ, to have the Spirit dwelling in him. The very effect of all this blessedness is to place him in conflict with the powers of darkness, the "rulers of the darkness of this world;" but then it is with "God for him," against them all. God is pleased through him to display His victory over the snares and devices of Satan, and to bear witness that He has a heavenly, and a heavenly-minded people, who have no portion here on earth. The character of "the men of the world" is, that they "have their portion in this life." But not so the child of God. He says, "As for me, I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness." Nothing short of that will answer the desire of his heart: he "presses toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." There are two things that the saint has to be watchful about; the one that, as tempted on earth, he should not be led away after the flesh; the other, his portion being in "heavenly places," that he should set his affections there. (Colossians 3:2.) Israel were redeemed out of Egypt; so are we from this present evil world. They had seen their enemies lying dead on the sea-shore. If we look at the value of our redemption, we can say our enemies whom we saw are gone, we "shall see them no more for ever." We are brought into the wilderness, and that which we see the Israelites called to in their journey through the wilderness is patient faith, to walk as trusting in God when there were no supplies of food in the way. But it is in their after history in connection with Joshua that we get blessed and minute instruction as to what is our conflict with the enemies of the Church of God. The apostle in this exhortation speaks of being on our guard against the "wiles of the devil," not of deliverance from his power. Whilst persons are unconverted, that is, altogether in the flesh (Romans 8:8-9), Satan governs them by their pride, their ambition, their skill, etc., although even then the Lord oftentimes exercises a providential care over them, as we see in the case of the poor man possessed of "Legion." The Lord never let Satan carry him beyond the region of his power; yet the moment the devils departed from him, and entered into the swine, "the swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished." Naturally we are in the world of which Satan is the prince. He guides and rules it, exercising an influence and power over the heart of the unbeliever; as it is said, "The spirit which now worketh in the children of disobedience." (2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2.) Moreover, outward quietness and order make not the least difference as to this. Whether it be by the quiet regular order of the world, or by that which is more outrageous and openly evil in its character, if Christ be shut out from the heart, it matters not, it is all the same. The quiet Gadarenes besought Christ "to depart from their coasts" as much as did the poor demoniac, as we should call him. Satan would "keep his goods in peace" if he could. It is still his world; they are still under his power. Such is our state naturally. As quickened of the Spirit, drawn unto Christ by the gracious things which He presents; we are "delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son." Our experience ought to be of that which we are already in Christ. Our place, in point of fact, is at present in the wilderness; but faith would ever realize union with Jesus in resurrection - "our sitting together in heavenly places in Him." And hence comes the conflict. There are two things very distinct, yet constantly confounded together by the saints - bondage to Satan, and conflict with him. Israel were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, but conquerors of the Canaanites. The question of the soul’s redemption is a settled one. The work is "finished," all done for us in Christ. The Egyptians whom Israel had "seen, they were to see no more for ever." But then, after the knowledge of the fulness and finishedness of our redemption, there comes in another class of experience as to the power of Satan, and that consequent upon redemption. The moment we see death, and judgment met for us on the cross, there is deliverance from bondage to Satan. Resurrection takes us clean out of it; it is no longer a question as to Egypt and bondage at all. Faith knows death and judgment passed on Jesus, and our portion in the "heavenlies." There is our conflict. "The Canaanite is still in the land." God "has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus;" but Satan would seek to hinder our enjoyment of these blessings." We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places." The first thing we are taught here is, that "flesh and blood," that is, all the skill, wisdom, and strength of man, cannot resist or avail in this conflict with "principalities and powers, and wicked spirits in heavenly places," one bit. Flesh and blood may be the scene where Satan tempts; but the moment it begins to exercise its energy, the conflict is an unequal one, and Satan gains the victory. The enemies with whom Israel had to contend were enemies of flesh and blood, men like themselves; but we wrestle not with such, our enemies are brought before us here in fearful array, and we have no power in ourselves to stand against them; hence the word, "Wherefore take unto you the WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." We have to "stand against the wiles of the devil," the deceit of his subtleties. He is our tempter as regards the old nature, and works by presenting something that is pleasing to the flesh. Religion in many ways may be in the flesh (2 Timothy 3:5), as it is said, "Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect in the flesh?" Satan can "transform himself into an angel of light," can put on holiness, if that holiness be disconnected from redemption, or speak of redemption apart from holiness. The Spirit of God giving a new nature, and revealing to us all Christ is, as the object of our desire, practically sanctifies us. The moment that we know our title to be in "heavenly places," and our hearts and our treasure are there, the Lord alone can be exalted; the flesh is made nothing of. On the contrary, the very minute we begin to linger in the wilderness, our hearts go after Egypt. It is our privilege not merely that Satan should not lead us into sin here, but that we should not be earthly but spiritually-minded. (Romans 8:6.) The "Church of God" is just the witness of deliverance from the power of him who rules the world, the "prince of this world." "The carnal mind" is one thing that is "enmity against God;" but James tells us that "the friendship of the world" is also "enmity with God," and that "whosoever will be a friend of, the world, is the enemy of God." Whenever a man seeks enjoyment in and from the world, that man is the "enemy of God." He may be ensnared by it, but whenever he has enjoyment and pleasure in it, he is the "enemy of God!" Again, those "who mind earthly things" are said to be "the enemies of the cross of Christ!" The apostle tells us that this is an "evil world," and this an "evil day;" that what we have to do is to "stand." He supposes us to be in the place where, having our portion in Christ, we must necessarily be in conflict with Satan. The season of conflict is not the time for putting on the armour. If I am trying merely to grasp and get at Christ when in conflict, I cannot have blessed peace of soul; and then there will be no power "to withstand in the evil day." It is a great thing to enter into the battle as a soldier on the right side, to know God "for us," to be "taking unto us the WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD," and thus to be ready when the "evil day" comes to resist - to "stand." You never will hold conflict with Satan in energy so long as you are feeling, "Am I on the Lord’s side or not?" "Is God for or against me?" "Oh, if I could but be sure that I had an interest in Christ!" The word is, "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might;" "Take unto you the WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD." And that which is first spoken of in the description of this armour is "Stand therefore, HAVING YOUR LOINS GIRT ABOUT WITH TRUTH." What is here assumed at once is the knowledge that as saints of God we are redeemed. We can never have our "loins" really "girt" until we know that we are redeemed. What is meant by "having the loins girt"? It supposes a person not to be at ease, but prepared for actual exertion. The children of Israel were to eat the passover with their "loins girded," their "staves in their hands," and their "shoes on their feet." Why? The Lord had redeemed them out of Egypt; they were strangers and travellers; and so the exhortation here supposes those addressed to be strangers, and passing as strangers through the wilderness on to the rest. Now, until a believer knows that he is redeemed, it is as though he had lost one place, and has nowhere else to go. We cannot give up this world really until we have the simple and blessed assurance that we have another; until we understand what our hope is - glory, and the ground of our hope - redemption through the blood of Jesus. "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable;" for we are called to hate our lives in this world, to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Christ. "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself." "Himself," that is a big word. It is not said that he is to deny himself in one thing or another, in this or in that; but wherever "himself" comes in he is to deny it. Again, he is to "take up his cross," not once or twice, it is "daily." ’But Canaan belongs to him, and he is on his journey to it. The root of the thing - that which enables us to conflict with Satan - is that blessed truth, that we are redeemed and called to eternal glory, to an incorruptible, and undefiled, and enduring inheritance. Redemption is Christ’s having given Himself for our sins, that He might "deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father." The apostle tells us not merely to hold the truth, but to have our loins "girt about" with it. Whenever the full meaning of "redemption" is understood, it makes us know that heaven is ours, and that earth is not ours. Nothing but this truth can "deliver us out of this present evil world." (Galatians 1:4.) Consequently we resist Satan; we "stand against the wiles of the devil," by having the affections of our heart so knit to Jesus, and to heavenly things, as to make us strangers here, because heaven is ours. I could not be praising God (my proper engagement as a believer) unless the song of praise were put into my mouth on the ground of redemption. In Psalms 40:1-17 we read, "He brought me up out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God." Christ begins this song after redemption has been wrought. There was a time when "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." When the world was created all was very good, but sin has come in and spoiled that; and now Christ takes up the song of redemption, and thus the saints can sing it too, as it is said, "A song of praise unto our God;" but they cannot sing it until they know redemption. Satan is met by our having our "LOINS GIRT ABOUT WITH TRUTH." The secret of a holy and unworldly walk is the being filled with the "truth," the inward man feeding upon Christ, and the better and enduring substance laid up for us in Him. If Satan comes and says to us, "You had better enjoy the world," the man who has his "LOINS GIRT ABOUT WITH TRUTH" can answer him, "No, I have got another world." If he says, "But how do you know this?" "It is very presumptuous of you to think so." He can answer: "No; for the Son of God hath died, and God hath given to us eternal life, and an inheritance in another world to all those who believe on Him." He may then say, "Then why not enjoy yourself in this world if you are assured of your safety?" "No," the soul can reply, "He died to redeem me out of this present evil world." Thus Satan is foiled in all his attacks. But though the knowledge of redemption be thus blessed, the blaze of divine love, as it were to my soul, it is all truth with which the loins should be "girt." We can never say that any one truth may not be the very one by which we may resist Satan the next time he comes to tempt us. In order to this "girding of the loins" truth must be got from the Lord, we must be taught it by the Holy Ghost, then there is power in it; otherwise, resting in the understanding, it serves only to puff up. For instance, that which relates to the second appearing and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, most blessed as it is, if our "loins" be not "girt" with it, is but speculative truth. If it does not draw me out of the world, make me dead to it, and like unto a "servant waiting for his lord," the study of it will be only the gratification of the "desires of the mind." In like manner, if I know the blessed truth of union with the Lord Jesus risen, why is it but that I should bring forth much fruit, that my affections should be heavenly, and that I should have communion with Christ by abiding in Him, and He in me? If I know that I am safe in Christ, what should I seek for but the power of living communion with Him, the joy that I have will then be in heavenly things. If the truth that we have is not held practically it is of no avail; it is just as much of the flesh as active sin. The flesh can be shown about truth, as much as about anything else; indeed it is by partial statements of truth, not by a direct lie, that Satan generally tries to deceive men. This is most strikingly shown in his mode of tempting both the first and the second Adam. We read that he whispered in the garden, "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Adam listened to him. What did God say? "The man is become as one of us, knowing good and evil." But then Satan told him the truth in order to lead him to disobedience, not to obedience. Thus it was also that He tried to tempt our blessed Lord; it was a real promise he presented, but by it he sought to lead Jesus into disobedience to the Father. He is willing to use the most blessed truths if he can but, by doing so, lead the heart away from God. It is against the "wiles of the devil" that we are called to stand; he does not show himself in his true character. The hook is hidden by the bait. We should seek to know the truth in holiness, in fellowship with God. The object of our search after truth should ever be, that we might know God. Those who minister the truth to others have especially to watch lest they should only have an intellectual acquaintance with truth, not experiencing it to be spirit and life in their own souls; otherwise they are but as the pipe that carries the water to others, themselves not drinking in, themselves remaining unrefreshed. It is never safe for us to think that we have enough truth, if we know that we are the Lord’s; we have to resist the "wiles of the devil." He will not always use one way of tempting us. He will employ every artifice, and by his craft and subtlety seek to entrap us. He may try to deceive me by bringing a promise before me, and if I do not know the meaning of that promise, I may easily be deceived by it. We need "all truth." Our Lord prayed, "Sanctify them through thy truth." Satan knows that it is by truth that we shall be sanctified and separated from the world. Though he cannot pluck us out of the Father’s hand, yet he can scatter all the blessing, and comfort and strength of the saints, and make them trip in the way; let us "stand therefore, having Our LOINS GIRT ABOUT WITH TRUTH." The next thing that we find mentioned is, "THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS" - "having on the breastplate of righteousness" Christ is "our righteousness," and, until this is known simply, Satan constantly uses the conscience of a believer to distract him. Where there is not simple rest in Christ, there will be perpetual distraction and distress of soul. But then, again, as to practical righteousness, a saint should be watchful in not allowing himself in those things which he feels to be wrong. If not so, he gives Satan a handle whereby to distress him. Although he knows that he has no righteousness but in Christ, yet as regards his walk, and in conflict with Satan, he feels that "if his heart condemn him, God is greater than his heart, and knoweth all things." If we are in conflict with Satan, and the flesh gets the better of us, Satan comes in, and we are laid low; and then, although safe as to our souls, all our comfort is lost, and the Lord is dishonoured by us. The apostle "exercised" himself to "maintain a conscience void of offence towards God and man," although we know that he counted all his righteousness to be as "dross and dung," as regarded his acceptance with God. Before God I forget myself, and Christ is everything; but in conflict with Satan, I have to stand for Christ against him who is His enemy. Whenever we are not walking in holiness we have not confidence in conflict; we are not "quick of understanding in the fear of the Lord;" we slip, and get into the power of Satan. If you would have strength against the world, you must have on the "BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS," otherwise Satan will try to make you forget that God is on your side. This is the greatest and most fearful exercise of his power. We read in Peter of those who, through their carelessness, could not "see afar off," and had "forgotten that they had been purged from their old sins." This is the only case in which the Scriptures recognize the Christian as not having peace. The saint, through lacking diligence in adding to his faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity, getting "blind," and "forgetting that he was purged from his old sins," he is then in a more miserable state than the ungodly, the unconverted man. If we are walking as those who have on "the breastplate of righteousness," it will make a great difference in the power and. energy of our prayers (1 John 3:12; 1 John 3:22); we shall be asking heavenly things for ourselves and for the Church; but if we are not walking thus, it will be confession and mourning. Again, truth ever gets lowered when the conscience is lowered. Men are ashamed generally to profess principles which they do not practise, and therefore they try to lower them. But we have need of watchfulness even here against the "wiles of the devil." Satan would seek to turn all this into self-righteousness. Am I trying to do it before men, it would become such; before God it cannot. The closer our souls get to God, the more do they grow in the detection of the subtle forms of evil that arise in our own hearts, and we are kept in the dust. It is "approving ourselves to every man’s conscience, as in the sight of God." Though we are called on to "please every man his neighbour, for his good to edification;" it is not that they may please us again (the world’s motive for pleasing each other).; the example presented to us is "Christ, who pleased not Himself," who set God ever before Him. More saints have fallen into error, into sin, from want of watchfulness in keeping "a good conscience," than in any other way. From self-seeking, or pride, or vanity, the Spirit of God has been grieved, and no matter what it is that grieves the Holy Ghost, it weakens us in our conflict with Satan. We see a memorable instance of this in the taking of Ai by the Israelites. Achan had taken of "the accursed thing." They were called to conflict. It was a very little city, and they thought that a few men could take it. They went up, but they were smitten. Why? Because of the "accursed thing." The same Lord that was at Jericho was at Ai; but He had been dishonoured, and they fought not with His strength. We have no strength in ourselves at all. It is, "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might." It is God’s "ARMOUR" we have to put on. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" Again: "And your FEET SHOD with the PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE." The effect of the gospel is to carry the soul into the presence of God, not in disturbance or doubt, but in perfect and settled peace, to carry up our hearts into the thoughts and mind of "the God of peace." We have this peace as our portion through Christ having died and risen again, carrying us up in spirit where nothing can disturb our peace. Here, if the least thing is out of order, or where our wills would not have it, that is sufficient to disturb our peace. The place of peace is the presence of God. There we have the unclouded, settled light of God’s peace in our souls. Our past sins and present failures humble us, but they do not break in on this peace, yet our joy may be interrupted for a time; their end is seen in the cross, and we have passed into that place where they come not. If we see them at all, we see them in God’s presence, where they come to be the measure of the extent of God’s love to us; we see them in the perfect peace in which God has set us free from them all. "The gospel of peace" carries us into rest with God, as it is said, "We which have believed, do enter into rest," we are "brought to God." Sin cannot enter there. When there we are undisturbed by the conscience of sin; there is "no more conscience of sin." Neither do troubles reach that place, that world to come whereof we speak, a bit more than sin. All is calmness around the throne of God. When we get to God there is an end of troubles. It was in this calmness and peace that Jesus always walked when on earth. Though He had the fullest consciousness of the suffering and shame that awaited Him there, He "set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem." His "feet were "shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." When His disciples asked Him, "Master, wilt thou that we call down fire from heaven, as Elias did?" His answer was, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them And He went into another city." All the day long was He tried by the wickedness of men, who sought to entangle Him in His talk; but this only brought out more of the perfectness and grace of that place from whence He spoke. He was emphatically "the Son of man who is in heaven." This is the way in which we are called to walk; but until we have rest of soul we cannot draw from God the grace we need for this end. If our souls are at rest in their heavenly inheritance, the insults and scorn of men will not disturb our peace in God. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee." "Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of men: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." How far, beloved, in intercourse with others, do you pass through circumstances in peace, not letting their power come in between you and peace? When Jesus came into the midst of trouble, it was as oil on the troubled sea - all was calmed. The God of peace is our God; our portion, as believers, is to dwell in God’s presence in sure and unclouded peace. It is true that, through the weakness of the flesh, this peace may be disturbed; but I am showing what God’s "ARMOUR," not what our FLESH IS. It is abiding thus in the happy realized consciousness, that "being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;" that peace has been spoken to us who were afar off - eternal, accomplished peace, "through the blood of the cross." It is this that makes the spirit of peace overflow and flow forth from our hearts, quelling the spirit that naturally dwelleth in us, of which the "scripture saith not in vain" that it "lusteth to envy," and making of us messengers, and ministers, and men of peace. Knowing that we are predestinated to dwell together in the ceaseless harmony of heaven, we now, in spite of the world, the flesh, and the devil, in the power of Him who worketh in us, "endeavour to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace." Such is part of the "ARMOUR" provided for us of our God, that "strong" in Him and. "in the power of His might," we may in this "evil day" "stand against the wiles of the devil" - "resist," and we know him to flee from us. It is only in communion that we shall be able to do this. Fleshly weapons will not avail, and this is of vast importance. I may gain the advantage over another in confuting error by truth, but suppose I lose my temper in doing this, though I may have gained the victory over the man, Satan through his "wiles" has gained the victory over me. Our strength must ever be "in the Lord." It is of great importance to remember, that that of which the apostle here speaks has nothing to do with the ground of our acceptance with God, but is connected with that prayer of Jesus for His disciples, "I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me," etc. We are still "in the world," the flesh is unaltered, and the devil, though triumphed over by Jesus, not removed, but going about as a "roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour;" nay, what is worse, as the wily and seducing serpent. We, exposed to his devices and his wiles, have no strength in ourselves to stand against them. Jesus has prayed, "Keep them from the evil;" and the word to us is, "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might; take unto you ’THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD."’ Satan aims his temptations at different parts in different saints. While the natural constitution of a person is of little matter as far as the Spirit of God is concerned, it is of much as to Satan. The Spirit of God strengthens that which is weak, and brings down that which is high in a man; but Satan suits his temptations to the natural character, so far as close observation and the subtlety of the creature (for after all he is but a creature) can enable him to. It needs the "WHOLE ARMOUR" to meet him, and that is ever ours. "Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." "The fiery darts of the wicked one" are suggestions of unbelief whispered by Satan, and can alone be met and quenched by faith in the Son of God. (Galatians 2:20.) It is necessary for us to learn the good-for-nothingness of the flesh; but when, through our folly, we do so in failure, in the presence of Satan, he immediately says to us, "This is not walking in the Spirit;" "You are not a spiritual person, not a saint at all;" "You have sinned beyond remedy," and the like. He would seek by every artifice (through our sins or otherwise) to persuade that God is not for us. If he succeed, our confidence is gone; in conflict we have no longer any energy, and as regards service, our hands hang down, and our knees become feeble. See the case of Jeremiah. He said, "O Lord, thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed. I will not make mention of the Lord, nor speak any more in His name. . . For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it." The spring of service was gone. Not so afterwards, then could he go on amidst all opposition, because consciously "strong in the Lord." "The Lord is with me as a mighty terrible One: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail; they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper!" etc. It may be through our own folly (as we have just seen) that Satan is permitted to assail us, but again we are sometimes brought into trial for the sake of others. (2 Corinthians 1:3-11.) Paul speaks of having been "pressed out of measure, above strength, inasmuch that he despaired even of life." He might have reasoned, "God cannot be for me;" but was it so? No; he took the "SHIELD OF FAITH," and said, "Suppose that Satan were even to kill, it would not prove that God was against me; for He can raise me from the dead. God had an object in it all." "We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raised the dead," and he was enabled to comfort others with the comfort wherewith he himself had been comforted of God. Paul was delivered from so great a death. God was for His dear Son, yet He suffered Him to be taken "with wicked: hands" to be crucified and slain. Again, Satan was permitted to buffet Paul in a peculiar manner, through "the thorn in the flesh." Whatever that "thorn" might be, it was evidently something, the effect of which was to make him despised of man; for in writing to the Galatians, he says, "My temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God." Such a "temptation," was most disheartening to one sent of Christ "to minister, and bear His name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel." But then what was God’s object in it? That their "faith might not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God." And what the effect of it on his own soul? He thereby learned that his Lord’s grace was sufficient for him; that his strength must be in God. "When I am weak, then am I strong." Thus we see that the "SHIELD OF FAITH" turns all Satan’s weapons for instead of against us. This "taking THE SHIELD OF FAITH" denotes constant affiance of heart to God, and is a fruit of the Spirit. An unconverted person cannot take the "SHIELD OF FAITH" against Satan; the shield which he uses is that of unbelief against the darts of God. Satan put it into the heart of Cain to limit the pardoning mercy of God, saying, "My sin is greater than it can be forgiven!" So he himself goes out from the presence of God, the place of peace, and plunges as a hopeless, desperate one, into the vortex of the world. If we have not up our "SHIELD OF FAITH," the smallest sin is able to cast us down as to our portion. But the Lord, we know, will not let the faith of any of His children fail utterly; this we learn in the case of Peter. Jesus had prayed for him that his faith might not fail. How has he prayed for us? (John 17:1-26) Whatever abomination a saint may through unwatchfulness be suffered to fall into, let us beware of adding to it the wickedness of saying they have sinned "beyond remedy." This would be asserting that the blood of Jesus Christ does not cleanse from all sin. There is no sin, however great, which is not met by that word all, that is not by that precious blood put entirely away from before God’s eyes. The way Satan tempted man at first was by occasioning distrust of the goodness of God respecting the forbidden fruit, and thus he still seeks to "devour" those that have. believed, darting into our hearts the thought that God’s mercy was never for such a wretch as I, that God is not still for me. The word is, "Whom resist steadfast in the faith." If Satan know so much of my evil, and I know myself to be "the chief of sinners," what must God’s knowledge and thoughts about my wickedness be? Why so bad that nothing short of the cursed and ignominious death on the tree of His own blessed Son could adequately express or measure the sense of it. And yet knowing it all, He has not spared His Son, but given Him up for me, "the just for the unjust." The case of fallen man was truly a desperate one. The law, in itself "holy, just, and good," only’ served to bring out more clearly his ruin. The question was, Could God deal with it, and how? "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Here then is the conclusion in which faith can peaceably rest for ever - that God has condemned sin in the flesh in the cross of Christ. Jesus has had laid on Him our iniquities. Is that the truth? Nay, not that only, far more than that! My very nature has been judged, condemned, and executed by God in the person of Jesus, my representative on the cross, and I am now a "new creature!" "born of God!" brought into a new kingdom, the kingdom of God’s dear Son, where sin can never find a place! where the cursed can never come! "God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace are ye saved), and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." There are two ways in which Satan works: the one, by seeking to make us have some fancied sense of uprightness in ourselves; the other, by leading us away from the path of uprightness, and, through that, terrifying us and disturbing our peace. What we need in each case is simple trust and confidence in Christ - the "SHIELD OF FAITH." In the presence of God all thoughts of any righteousness of our own are laid low, and we feel that God is entirely, infinitely for us in all His love and righteousness. The "fiery darts" of Satan will then be spent, as it were, on God; will fall harmless and be "quenched." When we know that the "Lord is our righteousness," what do we want with any other? But there may be many an idol in the heart of the saint which prevents his thus practically gaining the victory over Satan. Where is his strength but in God? Still he knows, that were God to come in He would detect his double-mindedness, would show out the hidden chambers of imagery that are in his heart, and this he dreads. Thus Satan gains advantages. "If our eye be single, our whole body will be full of light." All the fulness of unhindered blessing is in God, and He is for us. "Let us then hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of hope firm unto the end." Let us take "the SHIELD OF FAITH, whereby we shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." "And take the HELMET OF SALVATION." We get a similar exhortation to this in 1 Thessalonians 5:8 : "Let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on . . . for an helmet, the hope of salvation." The two take in the whole standing and expectation of the believer; "the hope" denoting confidence of the glory in which the fulness of salvation will be exhibited, that spoken of here, the settled knowledge and intelligence of the character of God in Christ as ’our SAVIOUR GOD.’ The apostle speaks to those who are saved, and know it; who have this "HELMET" and can put it on, to shelter and shield them from the strokes of Satan, who would ever lead us to be occupied with what we are, to be looking into our own hearts, and thus to become bowed down with despair. The thought of the unconverted man is this: he looks at himself as responsible to God, and then tries to meet that responsibility in himself. It is quite true that we are responsible to God, that God shall judge the secrets of men’s hearts, etc.; but our knowledge of God does not stop here, otherwise it would bring in utter ruin. God is revealed to us in the gospel as a "SAVIOUR GOD." This title supposes us to need salvation, and salvation to be of God. "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men," etc. As looked at on the ground of responsibility, we are lost; but God has met responsibility by His grace. (Titus 2:11-14.) Looking at God as a JUDGE, we know that "the righteous Lord loveth righteousness; His countenance doth behold the upright." The only way in which the unbeliever looks at God is as a JUDGE; and looking at Him thus, he must ever be afraid of Him The natural conscience tells the man all is not right; but so far from this "bringing salvation," it is just the proof of his being a sinner; for he got into this conscience of evil by disobedience in the, garden. Adam, when he had eaten of the fruit, and had the "knowledge of good and evil," went and hid himself away from God amidst the trees of the garden; and this is what the natural man would always seek to do - hide himself from God because conscious that all is not right. Here was just where Job’s friends were they saw that God loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and that Job was in affliction. What was the conclusion they drew from the whole matter? - that if Job had been a righteous person, God would have accepted him, they were altogether on the wrong ground. It is quite true, blessedly true, that God loves righteousness, etc., but then the fallacy is in the notion that a man can be righteous with God. The effect of such a thought must ever produce either self-righteousness or despair and misery. Where there is alarm of conscience after a person has been quickened, the distress and anxiety of soul may be very deep, but there will be a clinging and flying to God after all. God does not deal with us, as regards the acceptance of our persons, in the character of a JUDGE at all. He may do so, looking at us as children, already accepted ones, as it is said, "If we call on the Father, who, without respect of person, judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear," but not as to acceptance. So long as we have the thought of God as a JUDGE before us, our souls can never have rest; we shall be always feeling our unanswered responsibility. The very way that God deals with us is, as knowing and estimating fully our responsibility to Him, judging us as lost, and then assuming altogether a new character towards us - "the SAVIOUR of those who are lost!" We have God especially thus brought before us as "OUR SAVIOUR GOD," in the epistles to Timothy and Titus. In 2 Timothy 1:9, we read, "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began," etc. And Titus 3:4-5 "After that the kindness and love of GOD OUR SAVIOUR toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which ice have done, but according to His mercy He saved us," etc. There is no mingling up here of the question of responsibility, and then seeking to meet that responsibility by what is in us. "Salvation is of the Lord" - all of grace. Suppose I present to God the fruits which even His Spirit has wrought in me as the ground of acceptance; this would be coming to Him as a JUDGE, and not as a "SAVIOUR." Of course, one man judges of another by the fruits of the Spirit which he sees manifest in him, but the craft of Satan is shown by his taking the thing which is true in itself, and putting it in the wrong place. The Spirit is, in truth, the witness to us of Christ. He glorifies Christ, not Himself, giving strength to our hearts by showing us Jesus "in the presence of God for us." We are taken off the ground of standing in our own righteousness, and made to rest simply on that which Christ has done, for acceptance with God, "accepted in the beloved." Satan would lead the soul to look at the fruit of the Spirit in itself for the assurance of acceptance, instead of the offering of Christ. (Hebrews 10:14.) It is the work of the Spirit of God to make us see the evil of our hearts, to detect our inconsistencies. Whenever He reveals to us the holiness of God, He thereby reveals to us our want of holiness, and consequently makes us know our shortcomings. ’Where there is real conviction of sin, we can never have assurance from thus looking into ourselves; we shall be saying, "Oh, I do not see the fruit I ought to see! I have not that ’joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,’ etc., which are spoken of in God’s word. If I could see more fruit in myself, then I might have this assurance!" All this is not looking at God as a "SAVIOUR," but as a JUDGE. The feeling, that if we had more of that which could meet His judgment we should get peace, shows that we do not know God as a "SAVIOUR GOD," and that we have not peace because the practical work which God sees needful is not carried far enough in us. Much of the flesh has perhaps been undetected, which Satan might use to hinder the depth of our communion with God. We may frequently see a humble, distressed believer, who, the more he loves holiness, the more he feels his own want of holiness, and is thus kept in bondage: he has not as yet seen the fulness of Christ’s work; he knows not God as a "SAVIOUR GOD." The soul is often ready to say, "I have turned away from God; I have done so and so; these are not the works of the Spirit" (nor are they). But there is not here the simple recognition of God as a "SAVIOUR." The evil of the flesh has not been thoroughly searched out; and it may be through great trial, perhaps, that this comes to be done. If the "works of the flesh" have been produced in the least conceivable degree, and God is looked at as a JUDGE, conscience will accuse the person of having apostatized from God, though the very anxiety of his mind is a proof that he has not done so. He owns God to be righteous, and justifies Him in all His dealings; that which he needs is to apprehend Him as a "SAVIOUR." The flesh never looks at God as a "SAVIOUR." The only way in which the natural man thinks that he can meet God is by making out a sufficient righteousness in which to stand before Him as a JUDGE; and if God is not satisfied with that, he will not bow to God. Salvation is suited to us in our weakness. Suppose a person were to say, "I see the Christian’s high calling, but I cannot walk according to it; I am Ungodly, and I have no strength to get out of my present state." You can answer, "This was just the way God commended His love toward us; ’when we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly.’" The more we feel that in ourselves we have no strength, in ourselves we are ungodly, the more shall we look in simplicity to God as a "SAVIOUR." If we were not sinners, or if God could allow of sin, we should have no need of a SAVIOUR; but as God could not allow of sin, and yet loved us as sinners, He must needs assume towards us the character of a SAVIOUR, "a just God and a SAVIOUR." Thus in conflict with Satan we are called upon to "take for an HELMET THE HOPE OF SALVATION." We are led on by the energy of God’s Spirit in confident hope - hope of entering into rest. Our "hearts are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know them?" We are not capable of reaching the bottom of our hearts; and Satan is so subtle that he will often suggest a thought of sin, and then put us under the guilt of it, even because we hated it; or again, with Job we may have complacency in our very guilelessness. When we look at God as a JUDGE, we cannot tell whether we have peace or not; but the moment we look at Him as a "SAVIOUR," we can say, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Our sins are the very things we need God for. Oh, wondrous grace! Instead of entering into judgment with us as sinners, He says, "I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgression for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins" He could not bear to have the sins of His people in His sight, and therefore what has He done? "Put them all away," "cast them behind His back," "drowned them in the depth of the sea." A man can never hate sin till he is cleansed from it. The believer hates sin because God hates it, not because he has been ruined by it; it is hateful to God, and therefore to him. All this springs from one simple, blessed truth - our God is a "SAVIOUR GOD." The soul can say, "If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, etc., shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!" The knowledge of this love is our "HELMET" in the day of battle. We are now in trouble: and conflict. True, but "if we are reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." We know that though "we which are in this body do groan, being burdened," the price of its redemption has been paid; Christ has power over the body as well as over the soul, and because Christ lives we shall live also. In this is the hope of the church. In John 3:1-36 we read, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The Son of man was "lifted up" to meet the judgment of God. Again, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Here it is the love of God in the gift of His Son. In both cases does the Holy Ghost repeat the words "should not perish." Nay, more; when the Lord Jesus Christ comes again in glory, it will be for salvation to us, though for judgment to the world. (Hebrews 9:27-28.) God never varies the thing, the Church is dealt with in this present life, and then, on this one and the same ground of salvation, "Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." All believers have received the salvation of their souls, and are waiting for the salvation (or redemption) of their bodies. (1 Peter 1:9; Romans 8:23.) "Take for an HELMET the HOPE OF SALVATION." The Lord charges and presses on us the assurance that we are saved; simple faith cannot but believe it. The Holy Ghost reveals ’to us the holiness of God, and that in ourselves we are lost, and then He testifies of Christ as God’s salvation, and the moment we believe on Him we are saved. The two great points for us to see are, that Christ has finished the work for us, and that the Church has this "hope" set before her, that "when He shall appear, we shall be like Him." What a spring, dear friends, should this blessed "hope" be to us; we have nothing short of the glory of Jesus to look forward to, no hesitation in assuming it as ours. Have you this confidence in God as a "SAVIOUR GOD"? Has He not given, beloved, a sure ground whereon to rest? Do you live in the power of it? It should not be, "I trust I shall be saved by and by," but living with God now, sitting now in heavenly places. "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." "Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world." "He that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself so to walk, even as He walked." If I can claim this blessed privilege, if I have this righteousness which can sit on the throne, because one with Jesus, then I ought "to walk even as He walked." Nothing can meet the subtlety of Satan, but the revelation of the glory of Jesus as ours. The saint knows that his inheritance is not here, but that God is his portion, and therefore he is dead to this world. Were any to present to us as the object of our "hope" that which is short of being in the glory with Christ, it would be too low a hope. This "HELMET" empowers me to lift up my head confident in the grace wherein I stand, and rejoicing in hope of His return, who shall, at His coming, change our vile bodies into the likeness of His own glorious body! Thus the spirit of fear and doubt is cast out, and we have the spirit of a sound mind to withstand the "wiles of the devil." Our God is a "SAVIOUR GOD." "And the SWORD OF THE SPIRIT, which is the WORD OF GOD." The Lord uses this word, which "is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sward." in searching our hearts, discerning their thoughts and intents, convincing us of sin, and laying low our pride; but here we find he says to the saint, "Do you take this ’SWORD’ as part of the ’ARMOUR’ to be used by you in conflict with Satan." This can only be done efficiently in the Spirit; if the flesh uses it, there may be rebuke taken where there ought to be comfort, or encouragement where reproof is needed. This "weapon of our warfare" is "mighty," not through man’s intellectual use of it, but through an honest, humble dependence on God the Holy Ghost, the Spirit that abideth in us, who is "greater than he that is in the world" (Satan). But it is only as being on the opposite side to Satan that we can use it aright. It is not with, "Such a thing is expedient," etc., that we have to meet Satan, but with, "God says so;" "It is written." Would Satan present us something better than that which God has given (the way in which he tempted Adam), we are "sanctified unto obedience," and have this assurance, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." Our Lord might have prayed the Father, and He would have given Him twelve legions of angels. He need not have suffered; but He came "to do the will of Him that sent Him." By doing that will He has saved us. What is the place wherein we are set? That of Christ when in the world - obedience. The great thing to be sought after is practical conformity unto Christ. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." The place of sanctification is ours, and that "unto obedience." It is in this way that the "word of God" has its power over us. If we are not walking in the Spirit, we shall not have the fitting Scripture to meet any difficulty in which we may be placed, or those who may oppose themselves. Hence the value of diligence in communion. Whilst it is true that at any time (as far as concerns God’s ear being open to us) we may lift up our hearts, it is also true that if not spiritually-minded we shall not be inclined to do so in the time of need. There must be practical diligence in seeking God’s face in order to meet Satan in recollectedness of Spirit. "The diligent soul shall be made fat." If we would baffle the craft of Satan, the WORD must be taken as God uses it, and this we can only do by the Holy Ghost. Suppose I know many things of God, true to faith, I may apply a quantity of Scripture to that to which it does not at all refer, and when placed in the circumstances in which it does apply, in which God would profit me by it, I have it not. Thus we often see people meagre and contracted in their views, because shut up in one truth. If you are unable to see the meaning of a text, wait: do not be giving your sense to Scripture, but get God’s sense of it. God has a sense is every Scripture. The word is the only weapon that we have to use offensively against Satan. Take it as GOD’S WORD, in holy acknowledgment of God as its author. We are told to "receive with meekness the engrafted WORD." I would earnestly press on you thorough dependence on the "WORD," and, at the same time, that it cannot be used efficiently except as by the Spirit. It was by this that the Lord baffled all the subtleties of Satan, meeting him at every turn with "It is written." When speaking, He ever showed the consequence He would have attached to the written word. "If ye believe not Moses’ writings, neither will ye believe my words." We are told to "have these things always in remembrance;" that "they are written for our instruction." If we know anything of the state of the church, we know what great power Satan has had in scattering and worrying the sheep of Christ, by drawing them away from the "WORD OF GOD," and turning them, instead thereof, unto the "traditions of men." With the "SWORD OF THE SPIRIT," then, may we cut through every specious entanglement whereby Satan would still detain our feet in "this present evil world" - his own kingdom. Pull down the strongholds of lust and self-will, "cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." In this last direction given us by the apostle - "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak" - we are cast back again simply on God, in entire abiding dependence. That which is ever the result of conflict and exercise of soul before the Lord in standing against Satan, whether, learnt through the display of his power or the grace of Jesus, is the knowledge of our own emptiness and the Lord’s fulness. It is not merely that we gain the victory over Satan, but that in all our conflicts we are continually learners of what the fulness of the grace of God is, through finding out our own emptiness and weakness. The more thoroughly we know this, the more we feel our own nothingness, that we have no strength at all in ourselves, the more simply and entirely we lean for all our strength on God. "My grace is sufficient for thee." There is nothing so weak that His strength cannot give it might; nothing so empty that His fulness cannot fill. And yet how slow we are to reckon thus, upon His grace; how prune to trust to something of our own. Is it not so? Notwithstanding oft-repeated proofs of mercy and loving-kindness, are not our souls still apt, even in the very least thing, to doubt His love? In conflict we find out practically what is our own nothingness, nay, our worse than nothingness; but, whilst learning this, are brought also to see what is the patience of God’s love toward us, what the riches and fulness of His grace. It is of vast importance that we should thus know God. The character in which; during this present dispensation, we have especially to learn and to do with Him, is that of "the God of all grace." Redemption teaches this; for there He deals with us, not as an angry God (though having many things to be angry about), not in exercising judgment against us as sinners, but as "the God of all grace." The cross, whilst it meets and shows out the righteousness of God, is at the same time the testimony unto His unbounded grace. How infinite the love of God seen there in coming down to meet us in all our wretchedness and sin! "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." But when there was not one thing in us pleasing unto God; when we were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and insulting God, despising His mercy, loving any thing in the world rather than Him; then, even then, His love reached us! and how? not only in pitying us, but in giving His Son unto condemnation and wrath for our sakes. "God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners CHRIST DIED FOR US!" Here we learn grace - grace which distances all our thoughts, grace before which we can alone be silent. Here we learn love. "God is love." "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." We might as well, and much better too, talk of darkness at noonday, as of God’s wrath being toward us, when Jesus died for us as sinners. But there can never be any self-exaltation in the reception of infinite grace. We are debtors to mercy alone. The blessed place in which we are set, when we know God as love, is that of "vessels of mercy." The manifest wisdom of God is displayed and made known unto principalities and powers in heavenly places by His grace toward us. We have the reception and enjoyment of that grace in ourselves. Thus we come to have fellowship and communion with God. The special mark of the saint is, that he has "known and believed" the love that God has to Him. (1 John 4:16.) God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love [love with us, margin] made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world." Jesus has stood in our place, has, borne all that we should have had of judgment, and we have all the acceptance He has in the presence of the Father, even whilst here "in this world." Jesus said to His disciples, "In the world ye shall have tribulation" (and is it not true, that in our measure we have this now?): "but," He added, "be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." This dispensation teaches us grace, the next glory. Present grace is that which we need, all that is in Christ for us. We read, "The grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world;" and that, "looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." We are brought into fellowship and communion with this grace; we have not merely to know of its existence, but to learn its breadth, and length, and depth, and height. It is as full as the glory, though not the same thing. Through grace the believer sees all his sins removed away; Christ standing between himself and them; therefore as regards them he has rest; but then, whilst here waiting for the Lord, he finds continual conflict and difficulty in his way, and he has to learn all the fulness of the grace that is in God, applying itself to the circumstances in which he is, and about which he is exercised. We have before spoken of the "ARMOUR" which is provided of God for our use, and of "the weapons of our warfare," now we come to notice that which will alone give us power to use them aright. "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." This kind of prayer denotes confidence in God. It is not the cry which, as to a judge, the poor sinner would make under conviction of sin, but the appeal of a child in trial and difficulty unto the known love of its father; the prayer of those who are spiritual, and who find themselves to be in a condition wherein they are thrown simply on God. Again, it is not the seeking to gain strength, in order merely to know that our strength is there, but that we may practically learn what God is, by the power which He exercises toward us and for us. This "praying always" supposes the person not to be fainting, but to be using the "ARMOUR" in connection with it; "having the loins girt about with truth;" for instance, the soul not resting vaguely on God, but whilst casting itself on Him, reckoning on an answer according to the mind of God as revealed in His word. The saint may not always get a direct answer to his petition. Paul, we know, prayed that the "thorn in the flesh" might depart from him. What was the Lord’s answer? Was it removed? No! "My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness;" that is to say, "It is better for thee to know the sufficiency of my grace, than to have the thorn taken away." He got the victory over it, but he did not lose it. He was able to say, "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." It was not sin in which he gloried. People often call their sins, the spirit of unbelief, and the like, infirmities. The things wherein he gloried were - affliction, persecutions, distresses for Christ’s sake, etc.; for through them he learnt the sufficiency of the Lord’s grace. John says, "This is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, He heareth us; and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." Now how are we to know the Lord’s will from our own fancies and imaginations? By His word. If I go and pray for a thing not founded on the knowledge of the Lord’s will as revealed in His word, I cannot have confidence about it. Were He to grant me what I desire, He might very likely only be answering my own foolish, corrupt will. If my flesh is at work, and my soul is not brought into obedience and subjection to the word, I cannot be "praying in the Spirit." The first thing the Spirit would do would be to humble me by the word into a sense of the condition in which my soul is. Supposing, for instance, I am walking carelessly and inconsistently, and yet am beginning to ask, as a very great Christian, for things only suited to the state of such an one; if the Lord were to answer my petition, it would only tend to make me a hypocrite. The first thing the Spirit would do in such a case would be to make, me humble under a sense of my real heed. Prayer in the Spirit is always from a humble sense of need; then be it but a sigh or a groan, it is prayer in the Spirit. If we know our spiritual need, and cry to the Lord under the sense of it, we may always reckon on an answer. If our desires are according to God, they cannot be according to the flesh: The very thing the Lord would ever have us to learn is our real need; and He would have us do this in order that we might draw out of His fulness for its supply. In Jude 1:20-21, we read, "But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." We do this, "pray in the Holy Ghost," when in putting up our petitions we are conscious of His presence, and conscious too that we are acting according to His will, even though our understanding may nut be able fully to unfold to us what we need. When Jesus came to the grave of Lazarus He wept and groaned within Himself. This was not merely because Lazarus was dead, but because of the power of Satan which was there displayed. Then lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when He had thus spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth." Here was the full answer - power and victory exhibited over death. If we at all rightly estimate the condition of misery in which man is, the way sin is abounding, and Satan triumphing, the dishonour done to the name of God; if our eye is fixed on the glory into which ourselves and creation around us will shortly be brought, and we then look at the groaning and travailing in which it all is now, we too must "groan within ourselves." But then we shall often" know not what to pray for as we ought;" there will be that felt by us which we have not the capacity to express; this is taken up and expressed by that blessed Spirit which dwelleth in us (Romans 8:26-27); He "helpeth our infirmities; . . . He maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He that searcheth the hearts, knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to God." This groaning is not the cry of the wounded spirit (though God’s ear is ever most open to that), but groanings against the evil within and around us, yearnings for the day of the glory of Jesus, and of the manifestation of the sons of God, which is the only possible remedy for all that evil through which the name of God is now dishonoured. If I am standing myself in truth, without guile of heart, having no hidden sin, I can look to God in intercession for others. Just accordingly as the word of God is used by us in self judgment, can we pray with the confidence of being heard and answered. (1 John 3:21-22.) In Hebrews 4:1-16 we read, "The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart," etc. Here we first see the Word searching the heart, then, in the discernment of what we are, we are brought in truthfulness before God, and then, Jesus being our High Priest, touched with the feeling of our infirmities, "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." Just so far as we rightly understand what is our own place and the place of the church by the Word can we "pray with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." Nothing short of this is "prayer in the Holy Ghost." But let not this weaken our sense of the liberty we have to bring all our desires, our every request, to God in prayer. Whilst we can look for a definite answer to our prayers, if acquainted with the mind and will of God, yet we know that it is according to His will that we should "cast all our care upon Him." Have we a care or an anxiety about any thing, remember that He bids us "be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." However foolish our "requests" may seem, let us not demur on that account to draw nigh, but in childlike confidence bring them unto Him. He will grant them if it would be good for us, and if not, if they be foolish or wrong, He will teach us better. He says, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God." Your very difficulty may be darkness and uncertainty of mind. Go and tell God that you do not know what to ask for; this is your need, and your need is the very thing to be carried to God. He will meet you there; "it shall be given him." God loves the confidence and seeking to Him of His children. We should ourselves like our children to tell us all their wishes, all their wants, leaving it to us to act as we saw right about them. Ho has all the feelings of the father’s heart towards His little ones. But "praying in the Spirit" is our privilege, and the more blessed when in full understanding also. This "praying always" is that which meets the tendency there is ever in us to faint. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall, run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." How can I wield effectually the "SWORD OF THE SPIRIT" unless my arm is strong, or hold up the "SHIELD OF FAITH" if I am weary? We are cast in the use of these things entirely upon God. As the poor widow mentioned in Luke 18:1-5, our refuge is "always to pray, and not to faint." There must be the sense of continual, abiding dependence upon God. This is the place which our blessed Lord took, and it is ours. Where Satan seeks to come in is just here, as to communion between us and God. His effort is to weaken our actual power of communion. He does not try all at once to destroy a person’s faith, but he saps the source of it as well as he can. Thus was it with the Church of Ephesus, "Thou hast left thy first love." There was still found in it the work, the labour, the patience; but the power of communion there had once been was gone, and therefore the message, "Remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent." The way by which Satan ever gets in is by giving some little satisfaction in self, thus weakening the "praying always," the very thing which sustains practical righteousness; then he draws on the soul further and further, till at last he makes it doubt whether it has ever prayed at all. The sense of God’s love gets weakened, and then the world becomes more attractive. Communion with God maintains two things - the sense of blessedness in His presence, and separation from the world. "And watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." Watching unto prayer is the continual, the habitual exercise of the priestly function; the taking up every matter that falls within our cognizance in, the power of fellowship with God - so using persons and circumstances as to make them matter of intercourse with God. We do not sufficiently seek to have the Lord with us in the prospect of suffering. How was it with Jesus, Our blessed Lord, when the hour of His conflict was coming on, when, in the garden of Gethsemane, He was entering by anticipation into the bitterness of death, spent the whole night in watchings and prayer. "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. And He went a little farther, and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." Coming to His disciples, He finds them "sleeping for sorrow:" they sank under it. He says to Peter, "What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Jesus prays yet more earnestly, and is strengthened for "this hour" - so that when the "great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people," come to take Him, He steps calmly, firmly forward, saying, "Whom seek ye?" - "I am He." Then "they (the disciples) all forsook Him, and fled." Christian, when you feel or fear any trial approaching, go at once with it to the Lord; pass through the trial in spirit with your God; and then, when you have actually to pass through it, He will give you strength to bear it, He will be with you in it; and, like the children passing through the fire, you will lose nothing but your bands, or you may even find that the Lord has put the trial away. This watchfulness of the Spirit is ever contrary to the flesh; but remember the words, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." When in this state of watching unto prayer I see Satan’s hook under the bait, I detect him who laid the snare, and then "in vain is the snare spread in the sight of any bird." "He that is spiritual judgeth all things." When I am watchful, every thing turns to prayer. I can "put on the WHOLE ARMOUR of God," and am "able to stand against the wiles of the devil;" but, on the contrary, when walking in the flesh, my prayers are turned into confession and self-reproach, and my life will be a life of sorrow. Watchfulness sees the host, but looks to the Lord against the host; it sees the evil before it is brought out, but remembers the word, "Greater is He that is for us, than all that can be against us." The real anxiety, the watchfulness and caring for the Church, of Paul, brought him into very much difficulty and conflict. (See 2 Corinthians 6:1-18; 2 Corinthians 11:1-33) He passed many a sleepless night because he so cared for it, and where this is found in its measure in us there will also be "in watchings often" for "all saints." There can be no true energy of love in the Spirit in us towards one saint apart from the rest; we shall find ourselves to be connected with all saints. Christ loves all saints: when we shut up our love to one or even to so many saints, it matters not what the number, we shut up ourselves in narrowness of spirit, we lose part of the comprehensiveness of Christian love; Christ intercedes for all saints. The blessed place in which we are set (as brought before us here), is that of intercession with Christ for all saints - "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for ALL SAINTS." When the deacons were chosen (Acts 6:1-15), why was it? That the apostles might give themselves "to prayer, and to the ministry of the word." The very first thing they thought of was recognized dependence upon Him from whom all the ability to minister in the Word came. And this was not merely a casual circumstance. The way in which Christ has knit the members of His church together is, in making, them dependent one on another; the greatest minister that ever lived was dependent on the weakest saint for power in his ministry: "And FOR ME, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak." When Paul was sent forth of God anywhere, he went dependent on the prayers of the saints - "Brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified." Whilst he had a great gift of ministry for the comfort and edification of the saints, he felt his dependence on their prayers for the profitable exercise of it. Whether he was "afflicted," or whether he was "comforted," it was for their sakes, for their "consolation and salvation," and they in turn were "helping together by prayer" for him. (See 2 Corinthians 1:1-24) Just as the eye, the ear, the foot, the band, are all necessary (1 Corinthians 3:14-23) in the natural body, so we read of the church, the body of Christ, that "fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, it maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." (Ephesians 4:1-32) Thus the very feeblest saint has his place in the church as well as the most highly gifted; but the blessing that each is practically to it depends on personal communion, not on gift. We cannot have light without oil. It is quite true that God gives as He sees fit, "dividing to every man severally as He will;" but it is only as we are kept in humble dependence on Him that there is real profit in any thing. "Praying always," etc. If we are not walking in the Spirit, Satan will turn even our very cares and duties into occasions of sin, by making us do them in the wrong time or in the wrong way. He will seek to make our duties and our prayers conflict, because he knows that it is only as they are done in a prayerful spirit that we shall have blessing in them. If otherwise there may be much busy activity, it will but deaden the soul. If you say, "I cannot pray, I cannot find God’s presence now," it is just the very time you need to pray. Where will you find strength? In staying away? No. When people say they cannot find God’s presence, the truth is very generally that they have found it, and that it has discovered to them the evil, careless, unprofitable state in which they were before, though they did not know it then because they were not in His presence. There may be distraction of thought, but let not that hinder your "praying;" it is the very thing which shows you have a need to be supplied. Why is there this distraction? Because your mind has become occupied with other things beside the Lord. Go to Him. You may, whilst in this state, have less freedom in your prayers. The joy you would otherwise have had may be denied, yet you will return with profit, and more power of communion. You will be humbled, and is there no profit in being humbled? Yes, very great; for grace, whilst it humbles, always encourages. The Lord is ever "a sanctuary," a "hiding-place for His children;" but in order habitually to realize this there must be the "praying always," the "watching thereunto." We hear people say continually, "I am able to look up to God in the midst of my work." This may be very true, but can you say that you are thus able to look up to God at any time in the midst of distraction of mind? No; it is only by carrying the presence of God with you into your work that you can do so. It is true that the grace of God often abounds over our carelessness, but it is by the habitual power of communion that we can fly to God at any time. We never can tell in the beginning of the day when and how a difficulty may arise during the course of it. It is only by having the presence of God with us to suggest right thoughts and words, by living in the power of communion, that we shall be able to meet it when it occurs. Then in every place, in every company, we may "hide" in the secret of His presence from the strife of tongues" around. Better never enter into company, at all, even with Christians, if we do not take our hiding-place with us. Accordingly as we are filled with the Holy Ghost shall we be able to look up steadfastly into heaven. We may go on carelessly, return back to God, and find grace. He may quicken, refresh, and stir up our souls; but it will not be with us as if we had walked in the strength and power of communion. The presence of the Holy Ghost ever makes us find out fresh short-comings, some dark shade unknown before; but then Jesus is now in the presence of God for us, and thus, whilst we learn our own emptiness, we practically learn what is the fulness, the riches of the grace of God. Is there no joy in having fellowship with the Spirit of Christ in the things His heart is occupied about here? Yes, great joy! Then "pray always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints," etc.; but let us remember that it is only by being rooted and grounded, and made to stand in grace, that we can do this. Heaven is to us the place of grace. I could never have looked to God at all but for grace; and it is only as our hearts are "established with grace" that they are set at liberty in the wide field of love, to embrace and supplicate for "all saints." May we learn more of the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of that grace, knowing that "nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord;" "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature." May we practically be "more than conquerors through Him that loved us." It is very hard for us to see ourselves and Satan to be as nothing, and God to be everything. The moment we get out of dependence on God we find out our own weakness. We may perhaps think that one good battle with Satan, and all will be over; but no such thing; we have the security of victory, but no cessation from conflict till the Lord comes. Then Satan will be bound, and then we shall have the full result of victory; but now we are called to unceasing dependence, moment by moment to be reckoning on the grace and strength of God. Where there is not this dependence there is not blessing, joy, and comfort. The tendency of the flesh is ever to get out of it, and then we have not strength with us in the battle, but have to learn our need of grace through weakness and failure, instead of in joy and confidence in God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 43: VOL 01 - WHAT GRACE, O LORD, AND BEAUTY SHONE ======================================================================== What Grace, O Lord, and Beauty Shone What grace, O Lord, and beauty shone Around Thy steps below! What patient love was seen in all Thy life and death of woe! For ever on Thy burdened heart A weight of sorrow hung, Yet no ungentle murmuring word Escaped Thy silent tongue. Thy foes might hate, despise, revile, Thy friends unfaithful prove Unwearied in forgiveness still, Thy heart could only love. Oh, give us hearts to love like Thee! Like Thee, O Lord, to grieve Far more for others’ sins than all The wrongs that we receive. One with Thyself, may every eye In us, Thy brethren, see That gentleness and grace that springs From union, Lord, with Thee. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 44: VOL 01 - WHATWANT I WITH THE WORLD? ======================================================================== WhatWant I with the World? What want I with the world And all its treasures? In Thee alone, Lord Jesus, Are my true pleasures. Thou art my soul’s delight; My joy I find in Thee! My rest and peace art Thou! My heart’s tranquility! What want I with the world? The world is as a smoke Which vanishes in air; And, like a shadow fleet, That stays not any where My Jesus, though, remains, When all things else decline; My heart’s true confidence, Jesus alone is mine! What want I with the world? The world seeks its renown Among the grand and great; Thinks not how quickly glides Its phantasy and state But sweeter far to me Is Jesu’s love alone; And this my heart’s desire, To see Him on His throne. What want I with the world? The world seeks worldly wealth; Its hope on mammon rests; Its comforts rise and fall, With money in its chests There is a nobler prize, On which my heart reclines; The joys of Jesu’s love, Which in my spirit shines. What want I with the world? The world is sorely tried, If scorn its portion be; And most, when over-reached By deeper subtlety I bear the cross of Christ, His pleasure to fulfil; His favour my delight; My peace to do His will! What want I with the world? The world so high esteems Its fleeting fancies gay; Its follies to retain Would barter heaven away; She hangs her hope on that Which care can only yield: I love my Lord and God, My fortress and my shield. What want I with the world? What want I with the world? As grass it fades away; The stamp of death is there; It hasteth to decay; Health doth itself depart; All earthly creatures fade Jesus sustains; my heart Is by His love repaid. What want I with the world? What want I with the world? My Jesus is my life, My substance, and my joy, In this poor scene of strife To Him I gladly bow; I worship at His feet; He is my heaven, my all; Therefore do I repeat, What want I with the world? From the German. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 45: VOL 01 - WILDERNESS GRACE ======================================================================== Wilderness Grace Exodus 17:1-16. Those who are familiar with the study of this part of Scripture will remember that the history of Israel, from the Red Sea to Sinai (1:e. from the time of their deliverance out of Egypt until they placed themselves under law), contains an exceedingly remarkable testimony to the grace of God. At Sinai, Israel took up the promises of God on the condition of their own obedience, and then their entire failure was manifested. But, up to that moment, all God’s dealings with them had been in grace. Though there was continual murmuring, and unbelief, and disobedience, He did not chasten for these things, as afterwards, when they had taken a stand before Him on the ground of obedience. It was an immense transition in their history. The law "came in," as it were (though of course it was perfect in, itself), "by-the-by," between the promises and the accomplishment of the promises, to show what the condition of man would be if he stood on his own ground before God. The law was not before the promises, the apostle argues (Galatians 3:1-29), "that it should make the promises of none effect." Promise was given first. And "he to whom the promises were made" came after the law. Meanwhile the law entered in order to manifest what man was, and the effect that would be produced on man, when placed on the ground of obedience to the known will of God.* *"All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient." These words (the response of the people with one voice, when Moses had taken the book of the covenant and read in their audience, Exodus 24:1-18) were the complete confounding of two very distinct principles, which man has been continually mistaking and confounding since the fall of Adam - responsibility and power. Man is responsible to keep the law perfectly, but by the fall he has lost the power. This the natural heart cannot understand. One man denies his responsibility, and another assumes his power. Grace, and that only, puts a man right on both points. It was needful to do this, because of the constant tendency of the heart to put itself under law, in spite of repeated failures; not that God’s promises of grace were not simple and clear, but because of this natural tendency of the heart of man. Supposing my conscience to be awakened, I must know that it is my duty (that I ought) to please and obey God. The effect of this naturally is, that I expect God would accept me on this condition. Till a man is brought to feel his really lost state, this is very natural. It is quite too late to talk of pleasing and. obeying God when we know ourselves to be lost sinners. Now God, who is wonderfully painstaking with us for our blessing, sent the law, in order that this tendency of man’s heart, and his utter worthlessness, might be shown out and proved to man.* But before He did this, He had made known abounding grace, pure grace, flowing from His own thoughts and purposes, without any reference to the feelings of man about Him, or any condition of man’s obedience. *See Romans 3:19. So that those whose hearts were opened to believe the promises could rest in peace upon them, all the while they were learning more of their own sinfulness, through the law. The very starting-point of all God’s dealings with us is pure grace, suitable to sinners, whose state He knows, and therefore knows how to meet. There was no promise given to Adam before he fell. He needed none; he was happy in his innocence and then present condition. And, after he had sinned, the promise given was not made to rest on any thing in him. The Lord came down to the garden, saying, "Adam, where art thou?" that he might be made to feel what the condition was into which sin had plunged him; and he answered, "I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." The Lord did not give a promise to Adam (for he could not, in the state of sin in which he was, without dealing lightly with sin; neither could He leave Adam without promise, unless He cast him into remediless despair). What God does is to bring in "the seed of the woman" - the Second Adam. There was not a word of promise to Adam personally, the promise was made to "the seed of the woman" in pronouncing the curse on the serpent - "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." This was a promise for Adam, one on which his soul might rest, one that faith could lay hold of - no promise to Adam in his sin, but a promise of blessing in and to Christ. And it appears that through grace Adam did rest on this interference of God, for he afterwards speaks of Eve as "the mother of all living." This was developed onwards and onwards, till we come to the history of Abraham; where it is revealed still more definitely; "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Isaac was only the type of Christ. "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." Thus Christ, was the seed to whom the promise was made. (Galatians 3:1-29) "All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen;" and we, through grace, can now add, "unto the glory of God by us." The promises were not only made to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-20) and to his seed, but confirmed to the seed through resurrection. (Genesis 22:1-24) This was shown in Abraham’s being commanded to offer up Isaac, and his receiving of him again from the dead "in a figure" (as the apostle speaks, Hebrews 11:1-40). Christ takes the promises, not as on earth incarnate, but as risen from the dead. Without His death and resurrection we could have had no part in them, for God cannot bless people in sin. "What concord hath Christ with Belial?" It is impossible that there could be communion between God and the sinner in his sins. If the Lord Jesus had not died, and become the source of a new life to the sinner, we could have had no portion with Him in these promises. After the resurrection of Isaac there was a confirmation to the seed of the promises made to Abraham. "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." This is referred to by the Spirit in Galatians. As to blessing, unless we speak on the presumption of our own thoughts about sin, we must look to Christ in reference to it. All the blessing is Christ’s; it belongs to Him, and to us only, as having our portion in and with Him: It all rests on promise, without any reference to the state of man. Our strength and comfort is, in seeing this, that it flows down from God as the expression of His thoughts towards us. Just as water reaching a thirsty man, the water has only to do with the thirsty man as it regards quenching his thirst; it does not come from, but merely to him. There was, then, the sentence of punishment pronounced on the serpent, and the promise given to the seed. All is of grace, and in Christ. The Lord having settled this great basis of truth, that all is of grace, in Christ, and established in resurrection, He began to manifest His ways more in detail, and that, first, amongst His own people Israel, the seed of Abraham after the flesh. He began to show, not merely His grace in giving the promises to the seed, on which faith might lay hold, but His own considerate love in caring for the need and sorrows of His people. When once it was completely settled, that the promises came simply from God and from His love, then He shows that He can consider all the need of His people, and take every possible thought about them and their sorrows, saying to Moses (Exodus 3:1-22), "I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them," etc. He took notice of every circumstance of their trouble and sorrow. Having sent this message to them by the hand of Moses, that He knew their sorrows, and having touched their heart in this way, giving them confidence in His love, in spite of their sinfulness, so that "the people believed and bowed their head and worshipped," He does not pass over their sin. He cannot help seeing their evil; and, if He is to have them in communion with Himself, He must take notice of their condition towards Himself, as well as towards Pharaoh, that is to say, that of being sinners. God and sin must be always at variance; we ourselves feel it to be so. When quickened and convinced of sin, the first expression of our hearts, like that of Peter’s,* is, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" We see at once, as he did, that God’s holiness cannot, and ought not, to allow of sin. There is always great ignorance in us when we say this, though it is a very true feeling; for it is as though we thought that the Lord did not know a great deal more of what is in our hearts than we do ourselves. A moment’s consideration, in the case of Peter, would have made him feel, The Lord knew that I was a sinful man before He came into my ship; and yet He came; surely then I need not shrink from Him. *See Luke 5:1-39 The Lord gives us confidence in Himself by taking the start of us about the knowledge of our sinfulness. Jesus said to Peter, "Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men" - planting him at once in confidence in Himself, because showing him that though He knew quite well he was a sinner, yet His purpose was to make him the means of saving sinners. It was as much as to say, ’You need not shrink from me; for if I could not meet you in grace, and put away your sin, I could not, of course; make use of you to save others.’ In bringing Israel into direct fellowship with Himself, God showed, by putting the blood on their door-posts (Exodus 12:1-51), that when He executed judgment on Egypt, He secured deliverance from it to His people. And just so in God’s dealings with us; the judgment that has passed on Christ because of sin is the security of the Church (of every believer) against judgment. When the soul apprehends the Lord Jesus as the one offering for sin, it has confidence in God, and that on the very ground of His knowing thoroughly our sinfulness. It is impossible that God should pass over the blood of the Lord Jesus, and impute to sinners those sins which He has washed away. He cannot impute sin to a believer without condemning the value of His blood-shedding, and virtually denying the efficacy of it. And if that be true when He judges men by and by, it must be true now. Faith knows that death is God’s own sentence against sin, and that it has been executed on Christ in the sinner’s stead. Faith "sets to its seal that God is true," and receives His thoughts, who has said, "When I see the blood I will pass over." But there is another thing; it is not merely that God says, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people, I know their sorrows," etc.; there must be also His power put forth in delivering. This is shown in the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea (Exodus 14:1-31), and to us in the Lord Jesus having, "through death, destroyed him that had the power of death." (Hebrews 2:14.) In the cross Satan put forth all his power and energy against the Prince of life; and he did it successfully, arraying both Jew and Gentile against Him - (it was "your hour, and the power of darkness," Luke 22:53); but in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus the mightiest power of Satan was destroyed for ever. And so with Israel. God had taken up the cause of His people. It was not merely that He had given them peace through the blood sprinkled on their door-posts, but He Himself had entered into conflict with their enemies, and Satan’s power in enslaving them was completely gone. We may have been brought to see the sinfulness and evil of our condition before God, and the power of the blood of Jesus in satisfying the holiness of God; but we do not know liberty till we see God for us in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. What was the effect of deliverance to Israel? and what is the effect of our deliverance from the bondage of Pharaoh? (Satan, looked at as such.) To bring into the wilderness, and not at once into Canaan. Being in the wilderness implies all sorts of trials. It may seem strange to sight, that they who had just been singing the song of triumph and deliverance (Exodus 15:1-27) should be allowed to be three days in the wilderness without water; and then when they came to water, should find it so bitter that they could not drink of it. But God permits of these trials, in order that we may see our own need, and prove His faithfulness. From the Red Sea to Sinai Israel proved the grace which belongs to us now. Let us ever remember, when speaking of the wilderness, that though there is trial in it, and plenty of trial, it is the place of the ministration of grace. The Lord’s previous dealings were, as I may say, preliminary; He brought Israel into the wilderness in order to have them quite alone with himself, that He might teach them what He was; as He said afterward, "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself." (Exodus 19:4.) He lets us pass through these trials, that we may thoroughly understand that all is from God there. The eagle’s wing never tires or fails. It is either the most blessed triumph, security, and victory, that we enjoy, or it is nothing. It is wonderful how our hearts cling, not only to the thought of our own righteousness, but to the practical denial of our not having any strength in ourselves. Many have peace in Jesus who do not see so entirely that they have no strength, either for service or conflict. Well, they learn it in the wilderness. Our journey through the wilderness is the weaning us from trusting in ourselves, in order that we may trust only in God. The first thing God taught Israel in the wilderness was that they could not get a drop of water except He gave it to them. They were kept without it three days; and when they came to water at last (when there was something within reach that man seemed able to grasp), they could not drink of it, it was so bitter, until the Lord showed Moses a tree to cast into the waters, which made them sweet - the Lord causing that which was death to become the means of life, as Hezekiah says: "O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit." (Isaiah 38:1-22) In death to the flesh there is life to the Spirit. Exodus 16:1-36 The Israelites want bread, and begin to murmur again. The Lord deals with them in grace, and gives them bread. But it was such bread as showed them, morning by morning, that they must depend on Him. Had He withheld the manna one day, they would have had nothing to eat; for they could not keep it till the morrow - "it bred worms, and stank." The Lord will not allow us to lay up any thing (no, not even grace) in store that would tend to lead us into independence of Himself; it will turn to evil if we do. He showed His people perpetual grace in His dealings towards them; but He never took them, nor can He ever take us, out of the condition of dependence on Himself. The manna was the type of Christ, as the water of the Spirit. Soon after (Exodus 17:1-16) in journeying from the wilderness of Sin, we find the Israelites murmuring again because they had no water. "Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water, that we may drink." But new murmurings only bring out fresh grace (for they had not yet come to Sinai). God gave them water. His grace abounded where their sin abounded. The more they murmured, the more, in one sense, they got. I would just remark in passing that it is sin not to have confidence in the Lord - not to be quite sure that He will help us, whatever the need may be, when we are walking in His ways. It is recorded of the children of Israel as sin that they tempted the Lord in that which they said here "Is the Lord among us, or not?" (5: 7.) When we are going on wickedly and wilfully, and say, "Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us," that is quite a different thing. The Lord (if His children) will indeed be with us even then, but to chasten us. Whenever there is real need in the wilderness, it is sin to doubt whether God will help us or not. If we are not as sure of water in the midst of the sandy desert as though we saw rivers of water running through the country, we are tempting God. This is the force of that expression of our Lord to Satan "It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." Satan wanted Jesus to try by an experiment whether God would be as good as His word. Had He done so, it would have implied a doubt. His answer was, "It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." Tempting the Lord is doubting the supply of His goodness in giving us all that we need. The supply of water and of manna to the Israelites did not take them out of trouble. They drank, and were refreshed; there was the gathering up a little strength, and then Amalek comes and fights against them. It was but the preparation for conflict. So those who feed on Christ as the manna, and have in their souls the well of water springing up into everlasting life, have still the wilderness and conflict with Amalek. In that sense we have to do with Satan, though we are entirely delivered from his bondage. We are never under the power of Satan, as Israel was under the power of Pharaoh. (If Israel binds itself to Amalek, it is its own fault.) It is said to us, "Sin shall not have the dominion over you for ye are not under law, but under grace." But we have to fight with AMALEK, though delivered from PHARAOH. When we have been brought into the wilderness, and fed and refreshed through this grace, conflict begins. Yet we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me; for He has said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. (Hebrews 13:1-25) The being delivered from the bondage of Satan, and the being ranged on the Lord’s side, is that which brings us into conflict; and in this the Lord never lets us be taken out of dependence on Himself. The moment we forget this we shall be overcome. Satan can never make us his slaves again, but we may be beaten and wounded by him. In every detail of our lives there is no blessing but in dependence on God. Whenever self-dependence comes in, whenever our own wills are working, there is failure. If in speaking to you now I were to cease from depending on the Lord in doing it, all blessing to my own soul would cease. "Without me ye can do nothing." (John 15:5.) Neither can I speak, nor you hear, to profit, without dependence on Him. If a Christian gets out of dependence on the Lord, he will be beaten by Satan in conflict. But we ought not merely not to be beaten by Satan, we ought to be gaining ground upon him. Whether it be in winning souls to Christ, or whether it be in making progress truly ourselves in knowledge, in holiness, or in love, we are gaining ground on Satan’s possessions. We have been delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. As Satan takes possession of my heart by ignorance, then every step I make in the knowledge of God is gain on the possession of Satan. He uses our flesh too, so that to mortify and keep the flesh in death is gaining ground upon him. But every inch must be won, every bit of knowledge gained, by conflict. In this conflict we are directly and hourly cast in dependence upon God. God did not put Amalek out of the way of Israel, they must fight with him; and it is just so with us. "And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek; tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill, with the rod of God in mine hand." (Exodus 17:9.) This is very different from what we get, Exodus 14:14 - "The Lord shall fight for you; and ye shall hold your peace." See what the Lord had said to Moses concerning Israel (Exodus 3:8), that He would "bring them up out of the land of Egypt unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey." Now, where are they brought? Into the wilderness, to thirst for water, and to fight with Amalek! They had not reckoned on this. (5: 3.) And thus is it often with the saints of God, when they have had joy, and have sung the song of triumph: in being delivered from the power of Satan, they are afterwards astonished at finding themselves, not in Canaan, but in the wilderness. Jeremiah found the Lord’s word the joy and rejoicing of his heart (Jeremiah 15:16), yet afterwards he was so discouraged that he says, "O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived." Of course, this is only a strong expression of sorrow, "thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name," etc. (Jeremiah 20:1-18) When the saint finds what the road is, he is apt to forget the end, where there will be fulness of joy and blessing. The Lord desires to purge out that which would hinder our blessing, and keep us from having our hearts and hopes set upon the end, and to humble us. Moses,* Aaron, and Hur go up to the top of the hill, and Israel under Joshua fights in the plain below with Amalek. (5: 10.) They fought the Lord’s battle; but it is not sufficient even to be fighting the Lord’s battle, unless the Lord stretched forth His hand to help them. Otherwise "Amalek prevailed." Israel might have reasoned on the manner of their fighting, on the strength of the enemy, and on ten thousand things; but, after all, their success depended on Moses’ hands being stretched out. It is very hard for us to see ourselves and Satan to be as nothing, and God to be every thing. The moment we get out of dependence on God, we find out our own weakness, though we have this comfort, that, under whatever circumstances, through the priesthood and the advocacy of the Lord Jesus, our blessing is substantially maintained for us, and that until the going down of the sun. "And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun." *Moses held in his hand "the rod of God," the symbol of the power of God - that which had worked the defeat and destruction of Pharaoh. Enemies were as nothing, when Israel had the power of God with them. The day is won - "Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword." (5: 13.) "And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-nissi (1:e. the Lord my banner): for he said, Because the Lord hath sworn that the LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." (vv. 14-16.) I dare say many of us have thought, when we have seen the necessity of dependence on the Lord, that, one good battle with Satan, and all will be over; but no such thing, we have security and the certainty of victory, but no promise of cessation from conflict whilst in the wilderness. God has promised that He "will bruise Satan under our feet shortly," as He did to Israel that He would "utterly put out the name of Amalek from under heaven;" but, still, "the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." Till Christ comes, when Satan will be bound, and we shall have the full result of victory, we must reckon on conflict (not on slavery to Pharaoh, but on war with Amalek), but with the comfort of knowing that it is THE LORD who makes war, though it is through Israel, and Israel, therefore, has to fight. It is the Lord’s battle against Satan - there is our comfort, but still a battle which we have to carry on; hence we are kept in an unceasing state of dependence. The moment it was not so, Israel were put to the worst. As it regards the accusations of Satan, the blood on the door-posts is the eternal answer to that. As to slavery to Satan, the Lord Jesus has delivered us from that; we have stood, the living ones on the other side of the Red Sea; and we "shall see" Pharaoh and his host "no more again for ever." What we find in the desert is grace, conflict, and the LORD having war with Amalek from generation to generation. We are to be kept moment by moment in a state of dependence, yet reckoning on the constant grace and help of God. There is not blessing, and joy, and comfort, where there is not dependence on the Lord exercised. It is not enough for victory, that in the battle we have ranged ourselves on the Lord’s side. You will find the tendency of the flesh, whether in praying, or preaching, or anything else, is to get out of dependence on God. We may be saying true things in prayer or in testimony, but if we are not realizing our dependence on the Lord, we shall not have His strength in the battle; and the Lord must make us learn our dependence on Him, through weakness, and failure, and defeat, because we have refused to learn it in the joy and confidence of communion with Himself. Victory is turned to worship, in the scene before us. ("And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-nissi - the Lord is my banner.") When victory does not tend to worship, we and God part company as soon as the victory is achieved. How sad to see victory often leading to mere joy, instead of still greater dependence on and delight in God. May we trace out, in all these paths of His wondrous ways, still more and more of the depths of His divine love. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 46: VOL 02 - "A FULL CHRIST FOR EMPTY SINNERS" ======================================================================== "A Full Christ for Empty Sinners" Thoughts on John 6:1-71. Well does the writer remember the effect on his own mind of the perusal, upwards of twenty years ago, of a paper in the first volume of the Christian Witness, on "The Distinct Characters of the several Writings of the New Testament." If not the first, it was among the first means of leading him to read Scripture in the light of the characteristic subject and aim of each distinct portion of it. But, while leaning on God’s grace as the only efficient cause of true instruction, every attempt to impart to others what has been so precious to his own soul has served more deeply to convince him of the truth. of one remark in the paper above referred to; viz.; that "the expression of one’s own thoughts, and the acting so as to awaken similar thoughts in others, are two very different things; and the latter is a rarer and more self-denying attainment than the other." It is not as attempting much more than the former that the following thoughts are submitted to such as bring all. they read and hear to the test of the word of God itself. Much that twenty or thirty years ago had to some of us all the vividness and freshness of truth newly discovered to the soul has long, as to the letter of it at least, been familiar to all who are likely to read these remarks. The way in which the same blessed person is presented in Matthew as the Messiah of Israel; by Mark, in active service as the Minister of the Word; by Luke, in the fulness, of that grace in which He, the Son. of man, came to men as such, to seek and to save that which was lost; and by John as the Word which was in the beginning, which was with God, and was God, but which was made flesh, and, dwelt among us; all this the reader, has. doubtless read and heard again and again, until the words remain in the memory, whether they be understood and enjoyed through divine teaching or not. The peculiar character of Johns Gospel has been dwelt upon by many. Many have pointed. out how the glory which passes before us in that gospel is the glory of Christ in His highest divine titles and relations; "the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Sweetly has it been shown, moreover, that while no other gospel so freely unfolds this highest Godhead-glory of Christ, no other shows the sinner in such immediate contact with Him, receiving of His fulness. These and other leading features of the book, though never losing their interest, have yet to numbers become familiar truth. What the writer would now suggest "may bear no comparison in importance with these chief characteristics of this gospel; but nothing is lost which contributes in ever so small a degree to acquaintance with the precious record of the glory of Him of whom it is said, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." In perusing any book, inspired or uninspired, if we find certain words occurring often enough to awaken attention to the fact, and then, on examination, discover that they are thus used throughout the book, we. immediately conclude that they either express its great theme and object, or at least that which is very closely related thereto. Reading thus the Gospel of John, certain words can scarcely fail to impress the mind with the frequency of their use; while a comparison with the other evangelists confirms the conviction that the words, in question do really bring out what is in closest connection with the great leading subject. For instance, the word life meets. the eye almost at the beginning of the book, reappears most prominently in chap. 3: and afterwards, indeed with such frequency as to awaken the enquiry, Can this be one of the leading words in this gospel? Can it have any characteristic force? Let us see. But, before comparing this gospel with the others in this respect, we do well to remember that there are more words than one in the New Testament rendered life. One, zoe, means life, in the strict, absolute sense. I speak only of the use of this, and other words in the New Testament.* Another, psyche, soul, is frequently represented by the word life; but it is not the natural, ordinary use of the word; and if it were, it is as often so given in John as in any other of the gospels. The word bios, used for life, in the secondary sense of living, or way of living, does not occur in our gospel at all. It is to the first word, zoe, life in its absolute sense, that our inquiry relates. It occurs in Matthew’ seven times; in Mark, four times; in Luke, six times; and in John, thirty-six times. Its force and bearing, as thus characterizing John, may be estimated by such passages as, "In Him was life;" "Not perish, but have everlasting life;" "Passed from death unto life;" "The resurrection of life;" "I am the bread of life;" "I am come that they might have life;" "That he should give eternal life;" "That, believing, ye might have life through His name." Is it nothing that in the midst of this world of death, the One who has life in Himself has been here to manifest it in His own person, and to impart it to us who were dead in sins? Nor has His rejection by the world, and His ascension on high, interrupted for a moment this outflow of life from Him to dead sinners. He is glorified of the Father, who has given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as the Father "has given" Him. *The word pneuma, spirit, is once rendered life, in Revelation 13:15, which has no bearing on our present inquiry. But let us turn to another word: love. Here, also, we have two words, agapao and phileo, each with its shade of meaning, rendered to love in the English New Testament. Taking both these words, with those immediately related to them, such as the noun love, we find one or other of them in Matthew twelve times; in Mark, five times; in Luke, fifteen times; and in John, fifty-six times. Nor can we doubt the force of such words as characterizing this gospel, in view of such passages as the following: "God so loved the world;" "Now, Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus;" "Having loved His own which were in the world;" "One of His disciples, whom Jesus loved;" "As I have loved you, that ye also love one another;" - "If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him;" "That the world may know that I love the Father;" "Thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me." Life and love! Precious words! Life the gift of love. Divine love, in the person of the Son, bestowing a life, not only eternal in its duration, but of such a nature that the love wherewith the Father loved the Son can now rest on those of whom He said, addressing the Father, "And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." But in what sphere does the revelation of this love take place? True it is that none profit by it vitally and everlastingly, but they in whom the native opposition of the heart is overcome by almighty grace, in the positive communication of life. But is it only among God’s ancient people Israel that such persons are found? Are they the only inheritors of this blessedness, so immeasurably surpassing their fruitful land, the covenanted portion of their tribes? Let us see. The word world is quite as characteristic of our gospel as either of those which have been under consideration. We stop not to notice the word aion, sometimes translated world, but intrinsically referring more to duration than to the world itself, absolutely considered. "The times which pass over it," the world morally viewed, is what it signifies. The word kosmos - the world literally, including both the earth - and its human inhabitants, occurs in Matthew nine times, in Mark three times, in Luke three times, and in John seventy-nine times. How it is used, the reader may judge from such instances as - "God so loved the world;" "The Saviour of the world;" "I am the light of the world;" "Now is the judgment of this world;" "I came not to judge the world, but to save the world;" "The world seeth me no more;" "The prince of this world." "I have overcome the world;" "I pray not for the world;" "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world;" "The world hath not known thee." Could it be more evident than it is, that when the Eternal Word, the only-begotten Son, was made flesh and dwelt among men, the question was one which concerned not Israel alone, or Israel more than others, but the whole world. It was towards the world the love of God was shown in the gift of His only-begotten Son. It was as the Saviour of the world that the blessed Lord Jesus appeared, and as the light of the world He shone; and now that He has left the world, and returned to the Father who sent Him, He has left the world under the solemn responsibility of rejecting Him, and of not knowing the Father, of whose love He was both the messenger, the gift, and the expression. If He had tears for Jerusalem, and said, "How often would I have gathered thy children together, but ye would not," with what feelings did He bid farewell to the world, towards which such love had been shown, and by which such love had been repulsed and trodden under foot? But there is one other word in its comparative use illustrative of the difference between this gospel and the others. It is the word pisteuo, to believe. We have it in Matthew eleven times, in Mark fifteen times, in Luke eight times, and in John ninety-nine times. Nor does this amazing disparity exhibit the whole amount of the difference. Six out of the eleven occurrences of the word in Matthew give it in connection with miracles, or in reference to false prophets, or in the lips of ungodly scoffers; so of eight passages in Mark, out of the fifteen that it contains; but in John the vast majority of cases in which the word is employed are those in which it expresses the believing in Christ Himself unto life eternal "That all through Him might believe;" "To them that believe on His name;" "That whosoever believeth on Him should not perish;" "He that believeth on me hath everlasting life;" "If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins;" "Dost thou believe on the Son of God? Lord, I believe." It is added by the Holy Ghost to the last quotation, concerning the man that had. been blind, "And he worshipped Him." May we all have his simplicity of faith, and more of the deep joy which filled and overcame his heart in gazing with his new-found sight on the One whom he now beholds by faith as the "Son of God." It is to faith alone that the discovery is made of His glory and His grace; and faith counts the one whom it receives as unspeakably more precious than all attendant blessings, privileges, and favours, vast and unutterable as these may be. "As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name." Thus have we seen the life revealed in Christ, and bestowed by Him as the gift of the Father’s love in Him, not to any class or nation privileged by descent, but to all to whom it is given to believe on Him throughout the wide world. To that world itself, indeed, was the coming down to it of God’s well-beloved Son, the expression of a love on God’s part, which has no measure but the gift that it bestowed. "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Never, till at the moment of now perusing it, had it been noticed by the writer, that in this one verse all our four words are found - life, love, world, believing! Thus does it gather, as into one focus, the light shed throughout the book from the person, mission, and work, the life, death, and resurrection-victory of the Son of God. In turning to John 6:1-71, one point it is important to consider; that is, the contrast between the way in which Christ is presented here, and in the previous chapter. Life, in its communication by Him, and its reception by us, is the theme of both chapters; but in the fifth He is seen in full Godhead-title and glory, as the Source and Dispenser of the life sovereignly imparted by Him to us. The recipient of the life is regarded as entirely passive, and called into life by the Almighty, new-creating voice of the Son of God. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." Here there is nothing in the case of the sinner but the powerlessness of death itself, till the deep silence is broken by the voice of the Son of God, who never thus speaks in vain. His voice makes itself heard in the soul, till then dead, but no longer dead as it hears the voice of the Son of God. It lives. "They that hear shall live." But we read here of no exercises or feelings, no desires or sense of need, of which Christ is the object. It is Christ in divine title and competency, as the Son of God, who speaks, and the soul, till then dead, hears and lives. But in chap. 6 our Lord is seen in the place of humiliation He had assumed as man, "come down from heaven," and the object thus of those desires, and of that sense of need, of which the quickened soul is conscious, but conscious, mark, because of the sin and ruin which it knew not till the voice of the Son of God broke in on its deep sleep of death. It is not always, perhaps not often, that these things can be distinguished in fact. The discovery of Christ in the soul awakens perhaps the first sense of desire after Him, producing thus the hunger and thirst which He only, in further discoveries of Himself and of His work, can appease. But though this may be true in principle, as it surely is, the soul, while going through this passage in its history, is too much occupied with itself to distinguish very accurately the order of its experiences. What is of infinitely greater moment is the truth by which, instrumentally, they are produced; and this, blessed be God! we have in all its fulness and variety in the Scriptures under review, and other portions of God’s Holy Word. In the early part of our chapter, we find our Lord fulfilling, in the midst of Israel, the predictions of Psalms 132:1-18, where, in connection with Jehovah’s choice of Zion, and placing David’s son upon the throne, we read, "I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread." But though Jesus be thus manifested as the heir of all the glories prophetically unfolded in the psalm, He is not here taking that place. Israel and the earth were as, yet unfit for this; and God’s time for it had not arrived. Hence Jesus retires before the urgency awakened by His own act in this feeding of the multitude. When they would have taken Him by force to make Him a king "He departed again into a mountain Himself alone." Indicating thus that He would be on high during the postponement of His kingdom, His absence was continued until His disciples were in great trouble through a storm by which they were overtaken in crossing the lake. Jesus rejoins them with words of comfort, "and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went." This episode does not so much refer to the Church, or to the saints composing it, as to the Jewish remnant in days to come. The return to them of the now absent but exalted Messiah will both hush the storm which will be threatening their total overthrow, and conduct them at once into the haven of rest. The heavenly saints will be taken from amid the whole scene of trial and of conflict, to be with their Lord whom they meet in the air. All this, however, is but introductory to the great subject of the chapter, which is linked with these details by the enquiry of those who next day followed our Lord to the other side of the lake. They seem to have been swayed by the most sordid motives, with which they are pointedly charged by the Lord. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you; for Him hath God the Father sealed." If they would come after Him, and this was all the "labour" they had performed, He would have them come for that which would endure. Not the perishing sustenance of a life which shortens each moment of its existence, but the imperishable food of an imperishable life, which it was the great errand and business of the Son of man to give. Son of man He is, blessed be His name, and not simply Son of God; but in this place of humiliation to which He had stooped, how had the Father singled Him out from the whole race of mankind, setting upon Him alone the seal which marked Him out as the object of the Father’s perfect approval and infinite delight. Believers are now, since the resurrection and ascension of the Lord, sealed; but it is in Christ that they are thus distinguished. "In whom, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." Christ was sealed because of His intrinsic perfections; we, through our identification with Him in the place He has taken as having accomplished redemption. But the verse under consideration brings us to the Son of man as giving "meat which endureth unto everlasting life." They who could follow Christ for loaves only, seek to excuse themselves for the neglect of this better gift. "What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? is their next question. In what lovely, patient grace, does the Lord reply, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent." Is He the One who, of all that ever trod this earth, was counted worthy to be sealed of God the Father? How evident, then, that to believe on Him is that which God must approve, and without which nothing else can be accepted in His sight. The only answer of the people is an enquiry after signs, with a reference to the manna in their fathers’ days, which seems intended to depreciate, by comparison, the miracle of the day before. It is as though they would say, "If you would have us believe in you as the sent One of God, you must show us greater works than these. You have fed five thousand once; our fathers, in Moses’ day, ate manna for forty years: as it is written, "He gave them bread from heaven to eat." Then did our Lord begin to unfold the great subject of the chapter. The reasonings of Jewish pride and unbelief gave Him the occasion; but, dealing with these in the most unsparing way, how does He, at the same time, present Himself as the Object on which any hungry, thirsty, fainting, perishing one might feed and live for ever. "A full Christ for empty sinners" indeed. These Jews were not such, and so went empty away. But how many fainting ones, perishing with hunger, have here been regaled, and found in Jesus the bread of life. The remainder of our chapter affords us a threefold view of this blessed one. Christ incarnate - Christ slain - Christ ascended. May we have grace to listen, to receive, and to worship. "Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world." How simple, and yet how weighty and conclusive His answer to their unexpressed thoughts about Moses, as though Moses were shown, by the miracle of the manna, to be greater than our Lord. "Moses gave you not that bread from heaven." He was but a receiver of it, like the people themselves, who subsisted on it for forty years. It was God’s gift, and despised, alas! by those who lived on it, just as "the true bread." was now being despised by their descendants. Our Lord does not pursue the subject of the manna. He does not say, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father did. No; He would not speak of the manna in connection with the Father’s name, as though the import of that name were disclosed by the gift from heaven of bread for six hundred thousand men and their families for forty years. Was this more, in reality, than His feeding all His creatures every day and every hour? "Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing." So vast are the Creator’s stores, and so easy their application in Providence to the creature’s need. But the Father’s name is linked with deeper wonders far. All the riches of grace are told out in the revelation of that name. "My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven." What was that? The answer is at hand. "For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world." The Father’s provision for a dying world was to send from heaven His only begotten Son. His appearing here was as the lowly Son of man. The fact was of world-wide interest. All alike needed this bread from heaven, and all alike were welcome. Not to Jew or Gentile, as distinct and privileged, but to the whole race as perishing, was this bounty sent. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him" (1 John 4:9); "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." (2 Corinthians 5:19.) But the world would not be reconciled. It had no taste, no appetite for this "bread from heaven." There might be the momentary movement of the affections by His gracious words, leading some present to cry, "Lord, evermore give us this bread;" but it was only to make their rejection of Him more manifest and decisive when they came to understand His meaning. But let us listen to His words. "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst." Dear reader, do you understand these words? Has your soul-hunger been appeased by this "bread from heaven," this "bread of life"? Has your soul-thirst been quenched by receiving in Him and of Him the water of life? Or is it possible that one who reads these lines should fall under the condemnation of the words next uttered by Christ? "But I said unto you, that ye also have seen Me, and believed not." No language so cutting as that of rejected mercy, repulsed and slighted love. Here was this blessed One; His errand to this world nothing less than to be the expression of His Father’s love, and the Saviour of lost men. He bore His credentials in every gracious word that fell from His lips, and every action of His perfect spotless life. One of these, the miracle of the loaves, had attracted after Him the multitude, who from selfish motives had followed Him across the lake. They confessed thus that they had "seen" Him; but, alas! they "believed not." When they understood that He was the bread of life, they show plainly it was not for such food that they had come. They would have had another meal such as on the day before; but for the One who gave it they had no heart. He had come to save them, if they would, from a worse death than that by hunger, but they had no sense of their danger and need in this respect, and therefore had no heart for Jesus as their Saviour; and they would not receive Him. Nor would any, with Christ shown to them thus and nothing more. These men were not worse than others. Their unbelief was manifest and declared, and He treats them, therefore, as unbelievers, as rejecters; but this is what would be the result in every case, were we left to our own thoughts of Christ, when thus seen as "come down from heaven." Thank God, there is something more. Christ had not only come, as bringing life and love so near to the world, to men as such, that only by refusing the life and repelling the love could they hold on in their sins; He had come to fulfil the counsels of His Father’s love in the sovereign gift of life, as shown in John 5:1-47; and of this He now proceeds to speak, though still as "come down" and here in humiliation, the object for faith to receive and appropriate. Such faith, it was evident, had no place in man’s heart; but God could give it, and would sovereignly in His grace. "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me, I will in nowise cast out." How humiliating and heart-breaking for us, that in the presence of incarnate life and love in the Person of the incarnate Son of God, no one would have come to Him, no one have been benefited by His mission, had there not been those who were given Him of the Father, and on whose coming therefore He could securely reckon. Man’s will would, in each individual, have held out against Christ, had not the Father resolved that He should have some as the trophies of His victory and the reward of His coming down from heaven. Alas that our deadness to such love should have called forth such sighs as seem to breathe in these words of Jesus! Is it not as though He were accounting to Himself for the marvels of human unbelief? As though saying, After all, it is but what I might have counted on. Nothing will affect man’s stony heart, save where My Father’s grace effectually intervenes, and on that I may securely calculate. All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me. And then to see how perfectly He fills the servant-place He had taken. For any now to come to Him is the proof of their being among those given to Him of the Father; so He may well declare of such that He will cast none out. The heart to come to Jesus is the sure sign to Him, had that been needed, of His Father’s gracious working; and therefore He is but obedient to His Father’s will in receiving, without question as to the past, all who come to Him. "Him that cometh to Me, I will in nowise cast out." Precious words! Rich has been the comfort they have yielded to many an otherwise desponding one; but how greatly is their value enhanced when the coming to Christ is seen, not as an act of man’s fickle will, but as the effect of the Father’s drawing to Jesus of one given to Him in the counsels of that Father’s love before the foundation of the world. Then, too, as we have just seen, the reception of such a one by the Saviour, irrespective of every consideration beside, is not merely the fruit of His compassion for the sinner, but of His grateful obedient acceptance, as the servant of His Father’s will, of the one sent to Him, brought to Him, by the unseen drawings of that Father’s love. All thus rests, not upon any fancied good in the sinner, but upon the Father’s choice and the Son’s obedient love. "For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will; but the will of Him that sent Me. And this is the Father’s will which hath sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day." How He thus discloses that a far deeper and more important work had been entrusted to Him than that of satisfying Israel’s poor with bread: no less a charge than that of raising up at the last day all given to Him of the Father, without losing one. Blessed Lord! to whom besides could this charge have been entrusted? But, while disclosing, as above, that His real errand was one not depending for its issues on man’s will, known already to be so perverse as in every case to reject the Saviour, an errand, too, embracing the safe production by Christ in resurrection-blessedness of all given to Him by the Father, it is touching to find how solicitously He leaves wide open the door to any one anywhere who is disposed to enter. He may not, as yet, be able to account for the change in his own condition, as we have seen it accounted for by the Saviour; he is not the less welcome, or his final safety the less certain and unfailing. "And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day." The great stumbling-block to the Jews at that time was His professing to have come down from heaven, just as afterwards, in Paul’s day, the doctrine of "Christ crucified" was "to the Jews a stumbling-block;" and for precisely the same reason. Their pride disdained the being indebted to one so lowly; and they were so self-satisfied as to see no need for one to come from heaven, and much less for one to die upon the cross, to meet their case, and be their Deliverer and Redeemer. Their case, as they thought, was by no means so desperate as this. They could not have denied their national subjection to the stranger’s yoke, and a "great prophet" to have stirred up the people to crowd around the standard of some great commander who would have led them on to victory over their Roman oppressors; this would have been a Messiah to their mind. But for a plain homely man, reputed to be son of a carpenter of Nazareth, to profess to have come down from heaven, and to speak of Himself as the bread of life, engaging to raise up his followers at the last day; in other words, for the lowly Jesus to present Himself as the Saviour of their souls, and the Giver of everlasting life, this was a deliverance and a Deliverer of which they felt no need, and for whom they had no relish. They did not hunger for such bread; they did not thirst for such life-giving draughts. "The Jews then murmured at Him, because He said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that He saith, I came down from heaven?" They could understand that a heavenly existence prior to His being a man on earth was implied in this language; in other words, that it was divine glory, veiled in His lowly place and condition as Son of man, which was in these words declared by Him as His. With this implied claim, they contrast what they suppose to be His origin, and enquire, "How is it then that He saith, I came down from heaven?" In answer to all such cavillings, the Lord only again retires into His own consciousness of how the case really stood "Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." No one hungers for the bread of life so as to come to the Saviour except as drawn by a sense of urgent need, which exists in none but those whom the Father draws. The prophets had declared of all who should inherit Israel’s promised blessings in the latter day - "And they shall be all taught of God." This Scripture our Lord quotes, and again consoles Himself with the assurance "Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me." All in Israel who had inwardly heard God’s voice not only came to Jesus, but were overjoyed to do so. Take Nathanael for an instance, in John 1:49. It was these dealings of God with the soul under the fig-tree, these humbling discoveries of self and sin leading to guileless confession of total ruin, that accounted for any coming to Christ. But, as recollecting the sense which might have been put on His words, the Lord adds, "Not that any man hath seen the Father, save He which is of God, He hath seen the Father." What treasures do these few words unfold. However souls may be taught of God, drawn of the Father, and consequently come to Christ, it is not that the Father is immediately revealed, so as to be seen. There was no incarnation of the Father, as of the Son. He abides in unmanifested Godhead. And only in the Son, who stooped to "come down from heaven," and be here a man upon earth, is the Father to be seen. "Not that any man hath seen the Father, save He which is of God, He hath seen the Father." Infinite distinction between this blessed Son of man and all men on the earth, whither in grace He had humbled Himself to come. He had seen the Father. In the depths of that eternity in which the Word had been "with God," in which the "eternal life" was "with the Father," had He who now humbly speaks of Himself as "He which is of God," "seen" what no creature can - "seen the Father." What unfathomable secrets of love, and blessedness, and glory are wrapped up in these short, simple words! Tread softly, O my soul, for surely this is holy ground! And here He was - He who had seen the Father - He was here to make Him known; He had become incarnate for this very end. He had taken flesh, come down from heaven, or He would still, equally with the Father, have been beyond the ken of mortals, beyond the creature’s sight. "No man hath seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." Who else could? And how else could we ever have known Him? How else could the light of the Father’s love and grace have beamed into our dark hearts, and shed its lustre on our whole upward path to the abodes of which the Saviour afterward said, "In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." When there with our adorable Jesus, and privileged to behold His glory, how will there be connected therewith the witness of what He had known and enjoyed there from all eternity "For thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." From these depths He returns, and with what perfect ease and grace, to the simplest presentation of Himself as the bread of life. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life." How simple the way in which the Saviour is received. Just as a hungry man with bread before him asks no questions, makes no demur, but eats and lives, so the Saviour, with a hungry soul before Him, needs nothing to commend Him to such a soul’s grateful, adoring reception. But where are such? Alas! it was the lack of all taste for Christ, the self-complacency which felt no need of Him, that prevented these blinded Jews from receiving Him. And where is there an appetite for Him now? Precious bread of life He doubtless is, perfectly adapted to nourish and sustain divine life in man, even if that life be in its most infantile stage, the very earliest moments of its communication by grace to the soul. But without this, what is there? Death! A corpse has no appetite; it neither hungers nor thirsts. No more does the soul that is still dead in sins, dead to God. It is of the woman who seeks her happiness on earth that the word is spoken, "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth" (1 Timothy 5:6); but it would surely be as true to say that he who thus lives is also dead. Dear reader, if fashion or pleasure, the world in any of its forms, be all we wish, all we seek, what can the bread of life be to us in that state? Insipid and distasteful indeed in our esteem. Christ will not help us to win the prize in any race of ambition or pursuit of pleasure. He who passed by the nature of angels, and all the gradations of human rank, to be a working man, a carpenter, and to be known on earth as these Jews tauntingly designated Him, "The son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know," He is not one in whom pride can find its food. And as to pleasure, what can they who seek it find in the One who "pleased not Himself," who tells us in this very chapter, "For I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me"? And yet, solemnly as the fact begins to declare itself, that between this incarnate One and those who surrounded Him there was not one thought, feeling, or motive in common, how graciously He continues to urge every consideration which might be adapted to produce in them an appetite, to awaken desires after Himself, the living Bread. They had referred to the manna, and covertly to Moses as the giver of it, in order to depreciate Christ. He returns to that subject now, to press on their attention the contrast for themselves. "Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever." Wondrous words! The manna, testimony as it was of God’s power and grace, and type indeed of Christ Himself, in its actual use did but nourish for a few years that poor, fleeting, feverish, forfeited life, which begins at our birth and ends at our death. A taper wasting from the moment it begins to shine; "a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away;" is it for this, or the support of it, or for the brief pleasure that it affords, that men toil, fret, weary themselves, despise heaven with all its glories, refuse or neglect Christ and His great salvation? Yes. It was so in our Lord’s day on earth. It is so still. Oh that His words (thank God! "they are spirit and they are life") may reach the heart of some one who cons these pages; the words in which He contrasts with everything in this poor, perishable life, that interminable existence in unutterable peace and joy, that "everlasting life," which all receive who receive Him. Hungry soul! can you not feed on Jesus? As you would appease your natural hunger on the suited food, can you not find in Jesus what meets your entire case? what satisfies your every wish? Here is an undying life, an unwasting one; to "live for ever" is the effect of feeding on this bread from heaven. "That a man may eat thereof, and not die;" "if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever." Has the worldling anything to compare with this? Do his most feverish dreams of happiness on earth embrace the element of unending continuance? It is just for him the one element wanting, the lack of which spoils all the rest. How passing wonderful, that the One who stood before these Jews as the lowliest and poorest of men had the full consciousness then of having a life to bestow, to communicate, which death cannot touch, and which is, in its own proper nature, everlasting life. He is no longer here in humiliation, speaking such words of grace and truth as these; but He has not ceased to be the Giver of this life, Himself the fulness of the life He gives. "As thou hast given Him power overall flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him." To gather up a little what has been under review. We have here the "Son of man," one who is really partaker of flesh and blood, a man, conversing with the men who had followed Him across the lake. We have this Son of Man - the sealed One of God the Father. He is the sent One, too; and the first thing for any one who would please God, is to "believe on Him whom He hath sent." He has meat, or food, to give, moreover, which endures to everlasting life. In the conversation with the parties just adverted to, the mystery of His presence here is declared, and many of the moral traits of that life of which He is the full expression, and which He was here to communicate, are either stated in words, or come out in practical display. He was from heaven - the Incarnate One. He was the Father’s gift, a character in which He delights in this gospel to speak of Himself. He was the true bread, the real and only nourishment for divine life in man, had it only been there. What perfect adaptation to man’s need in this bread from heaven! He who is that bread gives life, moreover, as well as sustains it where it is. But where is it, alas! save as sovereignly bestowed, when all would equally have treated it with disdain? They had seen Him and had not believed. There is the heartiest welcome, an open door - none refused; he who comes is no more to hunger; he who believes is no more to thirst; but the Saviour has to take refuge from universal rejection by mankind, in the certainty that all would come to Him who were given to Him of the Father. The outflow of His own love in receiving all such, and casting none out who came, is thus seen as the perfection of obedience to His Father, whose will, not His own, He had come from heaven to do. How the heart bows in contemplation of such obedience. He who could speak of raising up His people at the last day, as though it were as easy and simple an act of obedience as any that He performed while here, speaks of Himself as having it in charge not to stop short of this. "This is the Father’s will . . . that of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing, but raise it up at the last day." Blessed Jesus! how safe to be confided thus to thee! But more than this, this safety appertains to all who see Him and believe on Him. "The last Adam is a quickening Spirit." Though it may be of His resurrection-place that this is spoken, such is the fulness of life in His person, that the eye that rests on Him receives, with the beams of His countenance, that life which these beams impart. To believe on Him is to have everlasting life. The drawings of the Father, His secret teachings, secure that they shall come to Him who are the gift to Him of the Father’s love. The Father Himself, undisclosed save to the Son (He who is of God), draws to the Son by that sense of need which is met by Him alone. He is the bread of life, not a perishable life like that of which even the manna in the desert was the food, but everlasting life. What unfathomable wonders these few verses disclose. The infinite grace displayed in the fact of the incarnation, how little is it pondered by our careless, frivolous hearts. And then, the perfectness of this blessed One in the place of humiliation to which He had stooped - the absoluteness of His obedience, and the delicacy of His self-hiding, self-consuming service! To these Jews He had to speak of Himself, for they challenged His claims, and invidiously compared Him with Moses, and His miracle with that of the manna. He answers as feeling the reflection on His Father, not on Himself. "Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven." Blessed Saviour! grant us daily and hourly to feed by faith on Thyself, in all the perfectness in which Thou wast displayed to the eye of God while sojourning in this vale of tears. But our attention is claimed by deeper wonders still. The incarnation is one marvel and mystery and glory of the gospel; the cross is the other. Any third miracle to compare with these, the records of eternity afford not. There has been none such in eternity past; there can be none such in eternity to come. The Word made flesh! The Holy One made sin! But why was this? Was it not enough that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him? Had this been all, not one sinner of Adam’s race would have been found on high to sing the praises of His Saviour-God. Christ incarnate, had there been no deeper mystery of love, would have shown more than anything beside man’s hatred to God, and the utter hopelessness of his case. The blessed One well knew this when He came into the world, but now the proof was before His eyes. The more His intrinsic excellence, His moral perfectness was displayed, the more manifest it became that between Him and fallen man there was not one moral quality in common. It is not, as others have observed, a question of degree, a race in which one immeasurably out-distances another. No; it is contrariety - contrast - of the most absolute kind. All that men value and seek, He declined and shunned. For all on which His heart was set, they had no relish whatever. Men seek their own glory - He sought His Father’s alone. Men do their own will - His Father’s was His only business. Men love those who resemble themselves, and such as love them - He loved where there were no qualities He could approve, and where there was hatred to Himself which thirsted for His blood. To think of One, who for the three-and-thirty years of His sojourn on earth never did one thing to serve Himself, spare Himself, exalt Himself; but for every moment of His life was and did, spake, and thought, and felt, exactly as God would have Him! Let a man’s eyes be opened, as they are, when his ears are unstopped by the voice of God’s Son; let his opened eyes rest on this blessed person, as the divine records set Him forth, and what is the result? "Woe is me," he exclaims, "I am utterly hopeless now! Hard and vain have been my struggles to win life by keeping the law; but now, as I look on this moral picture, every trait, every line, convicts me of being exactly the opposite. I admire His ways; I could sit and gaze on Him, and wonder; and if I could be like Him! but, alas! every attempt deepens my conviction that it is all in vain. If Christ be what God delights in - and He is - He never can delight in me, for His ways and mine are further than east and west asunder. What is to become of me, wretched man that I am!" What indeed must have become of any of us, had Christ only glorified His Father in coming down to sojourn here as a living man? But this was not the whole: He Himself assures us it was not. "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." As come down, as incarnate, He was the bread of God, His Father’s gift, but there was bread which He Himself would give, even His flesh, which He would give for the life of the world. Now this giving of His flesh was the laying down of His life, the yielding Himself up to death, that He might become to sinners - to fallen, perishing men - what bread would be to a crowd of persons perishing with hunger. It is in a slain Christ alone that sinners can find what meets their deep and solemn need. Well may our need be met where God has been perfectly glorified about our sin. Convicted by His life of total contrariety to Him in every moral trait, whither shall we turn but to the cross, where this same blessed One gives His flesh that we may live! Did His love go even to such lengths as these? It did. When nothing less than the death under wrath of a sin-atoning victim of infinite value could meet our need as guilty ones, or justify God in justifying us, His love was found equal to the emergency, and He gave His flesh for the life of the world. That such is His meaning comes out more emphatically in His reply to the next cavil of those who stood round about Him. "How can this man give us His flesh to eats" was their carnal, foolish enquiry. He stops not to explain, but repeats and amplifies His previous declaration, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." (John 6:53.) Evidently, for the blood to be apart from the flesh, so as to speak of eating the one and drinking the other, the blood must have been shed in death. So that we have here, in the fullest way, the death of Christ, the shedding of His blood, set forth; and, at the same time, the most solemn testimony of its absolute necessity for each individual, and of the equally absolute necessity for its individual reception. "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." Who besides could have provided for our perishing souls? What other life would have had in it the atoning value, the saving efficacy, at once to meet the highest claim of God’s moral glory, the glory of all His perfections, and reach down to the lowest depths of our need as guilty, ruined, hopelessly undone sinners? And yet it is as Son of man that He here speaks of Himself. How could He have suffered death, had He not become the Son of man? How this links together the mysteries of Bethlehem and Calvary; the incarnation and the cross. The one was in order to the other. He came to die. "Once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." It was "for the suffering of death" that He was "made a little lower than the angels." And it is by His death we live. Though He had life in Himself, and though, anticipatively of His atoning work, He gave life at any time to any poor sinner, it was only on the ground of that work that life could flow from His person to any who heard His voice and believed His words while here; and the actual shedding of His blood as that of the great and all-atoning victim for our sins was the only way in which the flood-gates of mercy could be thrown open to guilty, justly-condemned sinners. How widely they are flung open now! How completely has Christ’s precious sacrifice removed all the obstacles to our salvation presented by the character of God, His holy nature, the majesty of His throne, and the faithfulness of His word. "The righteous Lord loveth righteousness;" and while this perfection might surely have been displayed in the endless punishment of the whole guilty race, how then would the love of God have been exercised or shown? Where is that love so manifested as at the cross? And where besides is God seen as so inexorably just? The flames of hell are not so glorious a vindication of His righteous claims, as the agonies of His spotless, immaculate Son. God’s holy hatred of sin could not go further than the averting His countenance from the Son of His love, while drinking the cup for us. Who will not tremble before this holy Lord God, who, sooner than tarnish His throne, or break the word which had gone out of His mouth, that sin should have death for its righteous punishment, gave up to death - the death of the cross - the One who had been in His bosom from all eternity? And then to think of that One voluntarily yielding up His life! In obedience to His Father, and in love to us, He drinks the cup of wrath, that in Him, the slain One, we perishing sinners may find all we need. Life flows to us through His death; and the soul that finds its hunger appeased and its thirst quenched by what Scripture tells of Christ on the cross, has not only life in Him, eternal life, issuing in the resurrection of life at the last day, but a present fulness of nutriment and refreshing, of which the Saviour witnesses in these words, "For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." Continuing to feed on Him as the slain as well as the incarnate Christ, we abide in Him, and He in us. "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in Him." This language assumes, though it does not mention, the fact that He who used it would rise again.. And with Christ as risen, they who feed on Him as slain, are so identified, that He here, for the first time in Scripture, speaks of our dwelling in Him, and He in us. Dwelling in Him, we participate in all that is His; and by His dwelling in us, we become vessels for the manifestation of what He is. Nor is this the whole. Christ’s own life as the Son of man was a life of entire dependence on the Father; and ours is one of dependence on Christ Himself. But the one is presented as the model for the other. "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." Blessed Jesus! teach us thus to live in hourly dependence on thyself! It is at this point that the Saviour sums up the whole subject of which He had been treating, "This is that bread which came down from heaven; not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead; he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever." The native sphere and home of this undying life is not earth, but heaven. To all intents it is an exotic here. Perfectly was it manifested in the three-and-thirty years’ sojourn on earth of the Son of man; and, as we have seen, this display of divine life in man in the person of Christ is one great leading subject of this gospel. But the One in whom this display took place was a stranger here. The book witnesses this fact throughout. We have not far to read before we find the words - "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." And then more plainly still - "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not." Even His own people, the Israel of Jehovah’s choice, had, as we have also so largely seen in this very chapter, no heart for Jesus: "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." Thus rejected by those among whom He came, He makes no secret of whence He had come. To Nicodemus He says - "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?" Who so competent to tell as He to whom these things were familiar, and the mystery of whose person still made heaven His home, though as man He had come to sojourn below? "And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." Such were His own words to the Jewish rabbi; while in the same chapter (John 3:1-36) the Holy Ghost, by the evangelist’s pen, delightedly bears witness to Him as the heavenly Stranger here: "He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: He that cometh from heaven is above all. And what He hath seen and heard, that He testifieth." Alas, that He has to add: "And no man receiveth His testimony!" Our own chapter bears abundant witness to His having come down from heaven. This was what so provoked the opposition of the Jews - an opposition which became so open and so fully declared as to force from the Saviour’s lips the most solemn statements as to the contrast between their origin and the sphere whence He had come: "And He said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world." (John 8:1-59) No; He was from heaven. A true, real man; veritably partaker with the children, blessed be God! of flesh and blood-partaker, as He has been telling us, of a life which He would give in the shedding of His blood, that there might be the link between Him and all who receive Him of an undying life. But all this could not constitute Him a native of this world, a denizen of the earth; He was a stranger here. And when many of His disciples began to say inwardly to themselves, "This is a hard saying, who can hear it?" He, knowing their thoughts, replied, "Doth this offend you? What, and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?" Thus does He give, somewhat obscurely indeed, as suggesting much more than was spoken, the first intimation of the third great fact of which our chapter is the witness. Christ incarnate, and thus come down from heaven; Christ slain, His blood shed for sinful men, becoming the suited food of a life, the first movement of which in us is in the sense of our need as sinners which can only thus be appeased; and now Christ ascended, involving of necessity His resurrection, but including much more than this. The eternal life which was with the Father before all worlds - the eternal, untreated, all-creating Word, which "in the beginning" was "with God" and "was God," had come down and become, in that act of deep humiliation, "the Son of man." He was now returning to that sphere of unmingled blessedness, of highest glory, whence He had come forth to Bethlehem’s manger and Calvary’s cross; but He was returning thither as Son of man. Thenceforth He should be seated as man on the throne of His Father. Heaven, not earth, becomes thus from the moment of His session there the home of all who by eating His flesh and drinking His blood become partakers of His life. Earth becomes a wilderness, a place of exile, to all such, just as it was to Him while here. He is our life; and this associates us necessarily with heaven and all that is native to that abode of purity and joy. As another once remarked: "If sin has opened to man the place of woe never designed for him, but for the devil and his angels, grace has opened to him that heaven which is peculiarly and distinctively the dwelling-place of God." "The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s; but the earth hath He given to the children of men." So the psalmist wrote; and such indeed was the only inheritance which could have descended to us, even from unfallen Adam. The earth was given to him (Genesis 1:1-31); but when his sin had opened hell to the finally impenitent and unbelieving, grace opened heaven to all who become willing to enter there in the value of Christ’s blessed person and atoning work. What He but obscurely hints to His disciples in our chapter has since become accomplished fact, and one of the great foundation-facts of Christianity. Christ has gone up on high. The Son of man has ascended up where He was before. His request to His Father (John 17:1-26) has been fulfilled: "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Nor would He be there alone: "Father, I will (or desire) that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." Heaven is now the revealed home and sphere of that eternal life which, if absolutely and perfectly displayed on earth in the One of whom we read, "In Him was life," is also derivatively enjoyed by all who believe. "What, and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?" It was for other lips and another pen than the beloved disciple’s to unfold this subject in detail. The place in heaven, in and with Christ, bestowed on believers by the grace which reigns through righteousness by our Lord Jesus Christ, is Paul’s distinctive theme. The manifestation of divine life on earth, perfectly in Christ, and really though derivatively in us, is the theme of John’s gospel and epistle. It is, of all themes, the most vital, essential, fundamental But deeply interesting it is to find such links as our Lord’s words last quoted, and those from John 17:24, evincing that whether Paul, or Peter, or John, be the instrument of communication, it is one vast circle of truth which is revealed, of which the centre and fulness are found in the person and sacrifice and exaltation of the Son of God and Son of Man - Christ incarnate, Christ slain, Christ ascended, a full Christ for empty sinners. Many who had for a season followed Christ drew back from the time when this discourse was delivered. This did not surprise Him; but it afforded Him the occasion of challenging the hearts of those who still surrounded Him. To them Jesus said, "Will ye also go away?" No one wonders that Peter was spokesman for them all; and he might not yet have measured himself, as afterwards, through grace, he did, when he went out and wept bitterly. Nevertheless there is a warmth, an energy, a decision, about his words, that we may well covet, and as to which we may challenge our hearts, dear Christian reader, whether we could reply thus. Go away! "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." May our hearts repel thus, and disown every thought of any other than this blessed Christ of God. "To whom shall we go?" To whom indeed? Oh to abide in Him! May we have grace to cleave to Him with purpose of heart, and may He be glorified in each of us for His Name’s sake. Jesus Trusting Psalms 16:1-11. The moment, beloved friends, that we have believed in the Lord Jesus, everything that would comfort, that would tend to give us joy and confidence, finds its only source to be in Him; and also everything that would try us, everything that would condemn and search the conscience, all these things end in simple and entire blessing because of Him. So that even that truth from which we naturally shrink, as showing what should be the moral perfectness of the saint, when we see it according to the place in which we are in Christ, is sure to lead to blessing and to joy. Now it is thus that we have to read such a psalm as this. There are few parts of the holy Scriptures that show us more entirely what our own failure and weakness is, and how we have stumbled, than the Psalms, because they describe the perfectness of One who was unblemished before God, who never stumbled. Therefore all those things which show His perfectness, both outwardly and inwardly, must be full of discomfort and discouragement to us, if looked at apart from their real object. If we seek to establish our security before God, by getting the experience which the Psalms give, we must say, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." No soul could get solid peace. Yet many are endeavouring to do so; many are seeking the same lineaments in themselves, the same features of experience which are depicted in the Psalms, and then judging of themselves by this as a standard. For instance, that in the next psalm "Let my sentence come forth from thy presence; let thine eyes behold the things that are equal. Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress." (vv. 2, 3.) Now, inasmuch as imperfection is sure to be found in our ways and inward feelings, these feelings can never form the stable ground of peace in the presence of God. Therefore it is not until we see that every claim of God’s holiness has been met, and perfectly answered by Jesus; that when God tried (as He did) His reins and His heart, He found nothing that did not perfectly suit His holiness in Jesus: it is not, I say, until we see this, and know that Jesus had entered into the pleasures that are at God’s right hand for evermore, in consequence of this, that our joy is full. Then there is joy, because it is said "for us." (Hebrews 9:24.) And this is true of the one who has but touched the hem of the garment of Jesus. There never was an ailing or sorrowing heart that looked at Jesus that did not find God’s salvation in Him - in Him who is now made higher than the heavens. All these psalms thus become the portion of the soul that has faith in Jesus. It is not by going on, treading step after step in experience, the path that Jesus trod, that we enter life. No; we reach it at once through Him who has trodden all these steps, and who is now with the Father. We are placed immediately in the glory which Christ has attained. We should read the Psalms as those who have reached acceptance, and blessing, and glory too (in one sense) in Him; and then we shall find ourselves placed in circumstances here in which we have to say, as He said, "Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust." These are words for saved ones to use. Jesus did not use these words, as needing to be saved from wrath. He came from the Father into this world, He stood here as the heavenly One - "the Son of man who is in heaven;" He was never less than that, and yet He was in altogether different circumstances, and could say, "Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust." And thus we, who are placed in the midst of evil and of danger from enemies who seek to tempt and to hinder us, can use this prayer. There are many circumstances, in the midst of which we stand from day to day, beneath which Satan lurks, and through which we are brought into conflict with him. Now we may either yield to Satan in these things, or honour God in overcoming him. Our feet will slide, and Satan will vanquish us, else we shall bring the power of God into them by faith, and thus triumph. The Lord Jesus always applied the mind of God to present circumstances, and looked to Him to supply the needed strength from hour to hour. He did not stand alone, for as man it was not suited that He should stand independently and alone. He was the One who had His ear opened morning by morning to hear as the learned, the obedient servant, doing not His own will, but the will of another, and standing in dependence upon Him. And see what blessed communion with the Lord Jesus must be felt by the soul that is ready to follow Him in this path. He who knows in any little measure what this path is has to say constantly, "Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust;" he has to find his place now where that of the Lord Jesus was. I have said we reach not salvation, peace, or glory by obedience; but there is much joy in thus doing the will of another. There was joy to Jesus in taking the place of obedience; it was the only place in which the great enemy could be triumphed over. Therefore He took it, and He found blessing to be in it. Now, dear friends, that heart cannot be in communion with Jesus that loves and chooses any other place. A saint even may stand in independence of God, and seek to manage circumstances himself; and such a one is blessed; for those whom God has blessed are blessed. He never ceases to bless those who believe in Jesus. But still, these accepted ones may be walking so carelessly, may be standing so in the place of independence, as not to be in communion with Him who chose the place of dependence on God. If so, they will be unconscious of the difficulty of acting rightly in the circumstances around them, because it is generally, when there is the attempt to depend upon and trust in God, that the pressure around is felt; and then the blessed cry ascends from the heart - "Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust." There is no cry more honourable to the saint. It was a cry that it suited Jesus to utter. Because He took the place of obedience, and because He therefore felt the pressure of circumstances, He said, "Preserve me, O God," etc. So when the soul is brought into temptation and conflict, it may be, in the midst of Satan’s cruel arrows - for they fall very terribly on those who are seeking to walk on in obedience this cry ascends from the saint to God. And no cry is more acceptable to God. It comes from the Spirit of Christ within those who are in conflict with the evil There is in it the recognition of God and of need - of need because we are in tried humanity; and this is contrasted with God. Though Jesus was truly God, yet "being found in fashion as a man" - a perfect and unspotted man - He "suffered being tempted." "O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord." So difficult a lesson is it to learn to say this that the soul of Jesus alone could say it and abide in it. He said it in stedfastness of soul, and He did not decline from it. He acknowledged Jehovah, and said unto Him, "Thou art my Lord." This is contrary to all idolatry; contrasting the Lord with everything that claims dominion over our will, our affections, our desires, our feelings; the putting down all these idols, and placing Jehovah supreme over all. Now this is a thing never found perfectly in any, save in Jesus - giving God the supremacy in all we do, and putting down our own will, both in the choice of the means, and as to the end, in everything giving up our own wills to God’s. But just in proportion as it is found in the saints, happy are they; they will escape ten thousand cares, ten thousand trials, which come upon them when they are setting up any other master. Where this is done there is likeness to Jesus, and the partaking of His joy. On the contrary, whenever anything gets into the place of pre-eminence which the Lord alone should occupy, there is sure to be disorder in the soul’s affections. This thought ought to humble and search the saint, because he was not only weak, and miserable, and worthless in the flesh, but God has given him the Holy Spirit that he may be strong, and able as to all things, through Christ strengthening him. And if our hearts, dear friends, tell us that it is not so with us, let us try ourselves by this. I believe it must humble, bring very low, test obedience, break down many a self-complacent thought. Yes, I am persuaded that if applied in faithfulness to our souls it would produce that chastened, soft, humble feeling that is often wanting amongst the saints. In this subjection we find the "goodness" - the moral perfectness of understanding, of will, and of action, in Jesus. Everything that flowed from the understanding, the affections, and the will in Jesus had perfection in it, and this constituted His "goodness." But what did He say of His goodness? Did it give Him joy? Yes; but (He says) this goodness existing in me is not to produce any change in thy condition, O God! "my goodness extendeth not to thee; but" - Whose condition then is changed by it? - "to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight." Now, this is always a part of the faith of the servants of God, to see that there are those here below, "in the earth," who are a royal priesthood, in whom, when the earthen pitcher is broken, instantly will shine forth the brightness of the light which is in them. Sense only sees the earthen pitcher; but faith is quick in discerning the pulse that beats feebly even towards Jesus, and that loves to think of His ways. It may be difficult sometimes to discern who these "holy ones" are, but wherever there is any confession of the lip to the name of Jesus and the evidence of faith in the heart towards Him, we see one in whom is Christ’s "delight," one whom He loves as Himself. The grudging, evil, jealous feeling of the world, and of the flesh in the believer (for they are all the same), loves to detect evil - cruelly to analyse and describe (and Satan is ever ready to help in doing this) the follies and the weakness of the saints. It loves to dissect their actions, and then to boast itself, because it thinks it is not quite so weak and evil as another. How different to the Spirit of Christ! Nothing so marks the possession of the Spirit of Christ as that love which is not jealous, which vaunteth not itself, but which delights to find out even the weakest and feeblest of those whom it sees to be the "holy ones." Do you then count it your joy (I would have you try yourselves by this, beloved friends); see whether you find it blessed to be bound up with the church of God, closely, in thought, in feeling, and affection, as well as in outward manifestation, owning them to be of God, excellent and glorious, those of whom. Christ says, "In whom is all my delight." On them His "goodness" rests, it was for them; well may they be considered "excellent!" You know the Lord Jesus says, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me." Nothing has a more practical effect on the Christian than day by day to be thinking of Christ, not only as He is in heaven, but also as being in His saints here below, so that we may care for them, and say, "In whom is all my delight." When we thus link God and the saints, when, in looking up to God, we can say, ’Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust;’ and, down here on the saints, in whom is my delight, the soul finds itself in the place of practical blessing. Then the disappointments, even which we meet with will only be as the seed falling into the ground and dying, that it may bring forth much fruit. No seed falling thus into the ground will perish: though there be long patience needed in waiting for it, the fruit will come and yield a plentiful harvest. Now, contrasted with this is the condition of those of whom it is said, "Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips." It is the contrast of those who are of the world with those who are of God. The Lord would have no fellowship with these. He says, I will have no communion with the things with which they have communion. "Drink-offerings of blood" is the character of their holy things. They "hasten after another god;" no matter what the measure of their departure, their faces are set another way. And then, verse 5, we find his own happy relation to God - "The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance." But this was not more true of Him than it is of us. I would, dear friends, that we should meditate much on the precious thought. Our joy is in God; there are many joys and sympathies, but there is no real happiness except in God. If all the affections and joys of heaven were the portion of the soul, it would be still unhappy without God. There would be misery in heaven except God were the portion of each there. I do not attempt to explain how this will be realized; but still, if the soul be occupied with coming glory, it needs to connect this thought of God being its portion and its joy with it, otherwise the very glory itself would burthen it too much, for glory is a strange thing to us. "And of my cup." The cup is a present thing, a present blessing. Jesus proved this because He walked in practical, present fellowship with God; and we shall prove it too in proportion as we seek to walk thus. We shall not lose blessing ultimately, but we shall lose present blessing; all will fail if we seek happiness in any other way than in knowing the LORD to be the "portion of our cup." We may mingle many a cup for ourselves, we may seek for blessing in this thing or in that, but all will fail to promote our comfort and joy; we shall never find a full portion of blessing unless the LORD Himself be the "portion of our cup." Nothing but God can satisfy the soul. "Thou maintainest (1:e. sustainest) my lot." Preserving, sustaining care, is that which the soul feels it chiefly needs when looking at the danger that surrounds it. The exercised soul almost trembles at receiving any joy or blessing if it does not know that it comes from God, and is sustained for it by Him, because as the grass of the field, so it withereth. But if any soul is able to say, "This is not a cup without God, but from Him," then there is strength and joy, and it can add, "Thou sustainest my lot." So that whatever blessing we may receive from God - is it salvation, or the power of service, or any earthly good or blessing coming through Jesus - it is our privilege to be able to say, "Thou maintainest my lot." And then, just in proportion as we see the LORD to be the portion of our inheritance and of our cup, our preserver and sustainer, shall we be able to say, "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. The saints seldom say this now. Pleasantness is little known now, and why? because the LORD is not thus realised. But just in proportion as we know, as we cleave to God, do we find our true joy, and the "lines to have fallen" to us in "pleasant places." Blessed are those who seek to realise this experience; but it is here, I repeat, the saints so frequently fail, even in the practical acknowledgment of God in their ways. And when the soul is able to say, "I have waited on the Lord, and sought counsel," it will also be able to "bless" Him, as here, "I will bless the LORD who hath given me counsel." Now this is a happy thing. But it is only when the soul waits on God that we can expect to trace happy results in what we undertake. If we have chosen our own path, we shall find estrangement and sorrow, and we shall not be able to "bless the Lord" in the sense of this verse; for it describes the harvest springing up joyfully, in consequence of our having walked in the counsels of the LORD. We are often so wayward, so hasty, and so careless, that we do the thing for which we need direction first, and ask counsel afterwards; then we cannot "bless the Lord," who has given us counsel, though we may have to bless Him perhaps for delivering us from the folly of our own ways. Having the LORD to counsel - not only the word of God, but also the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, to counsel and direct, to give us His own feelings and desires - we can go forward. The saint has a secret power of judgment within himself, and often "in the night seasons," when circumstances of excitement are still, we are instructed and admonished by the Holy Spirit. "My reins (1:e. my secret thoughts) instruct me in the night seasons." This is really a present positive blessing. The Holy Ghost dwelleth in us, the Spirit of Christ is in us, and if there were more attention to these secret admonitions, to this secret power of judgment (of course guided by the Word) we should find that we have a power of action that the world can never know. We have seen our blessed Lord as knowing, the path of sorrow, but here we see the end of it - "Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." Now, in order to understand this, we must mark the contrast between death and life, as it is said, "For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt show me," etc. It was after knowing separation from God that he was to be shown "the path of life" and the "fulness of joy" at God’s right hand. Now we cannot follow Jesus in His path of suffering, dear brethren, here; we can never know what He knew; for He knew wrath, and wrath is that which we have never known, can never know. We may know affliction, we may know suffering and sorrow, yet the end is sure and certain. Or we may know something of what the "path of life" is, by contrasting it with our knowledge of the path of death. None but the saints can do this. If the Spirit dwelling in us has led us to know what the path of death is, because He is the "living Spirit," we are able to distinguish how everything fair and lovely goes to corruption, and is marked with death. Well, all the sorrows and hindrances which we now so often know shall be done away, and we shall know what it is to see and to enter upon the "path of life" with the same feelings of joy which our blessed Lord describes in John 17:1-26 Jesus knew it, even when here, and He has left this chapter (John 17:1-26) to us, that we might be comforted by knowing the blessedness of His service and His ways, to share with Him in their circumstances, as well as in the glory hereafter. And as we shall surely know this end of blessing, we should desire not to shrink from, but to be placed in those circumstances now in which we may know something of the blessedness of walking in the ways of Jesus. The soul that is not careless, but, on the contrary, is an exercised soul, knows that the place in which Jesus walked here is the place on which the blessing of God can rest, therefore it will desire it. It is thy hand, my God! My sorrow comes from thee; I bow beneath thy chastening rod, ’Tis love that bruises me. I would not murmur, Lord; Before thee I am dumb; Lest I should breathe one murmuring thought, To thee for help I come. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 47: VOL 02 - "HOPE TO THE END." ======================================================================== "Hope to the End." 1 Peter 1:1-25. How blessed is it, beloved, to dwell on that "abundant mercy," that eternal love of our God, which has "called us unto His kingdom and glory," giving us a "lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ""to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away - reserved in heaven for us! How blessed, too, to consider our security, our eternal security - "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time!" The word "kept" is in the original a very strong word, and implies most clearly the situation of the church as engarrisoned, enclosed, guarded, protected by the power of God against all the powers of darkness. "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18.) But while many would take advantage of this precious truth - while many say they will be "kept" any how, we would reply, "Nay, we are kept through faith." It is only as we are living by faith, realizing the power of faith - faith which "overcometh the world" - that we realize what is that power of God by which we are "kept." (1 Peter 1:5; 1 John 5:4-5.) Beloved, we would that the world should see what we are, as well as that we should know what we shall be! "Now are we the sons of God!" Oh, let us consider what the relationship is, and what we ought to be as "sons of God," as "obedient children!" (1 Peter 1:14.) Where ought we to be living? With God! in God! not "in the world." What ought we to be doing? Loving and keeping the words of Jesus; not "fashioning ourselves according to the former lusts in our ignorance;" then would He come, and the Father would come, and make their abode with us. (John 14:23.) "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." But, beloved, what is the Church doing? Is it living in heaven as it ought to be? Is it dazzling the world with the glorious manifestation of the holiness and power of God? Is it reflecting the brightness of His image, and thus being "the light of the world"? No! believers are grovelling as in the mud, disgusting the world itself with their religion. Oh, believe me, it is better not to be professors at all! Such religion makes infidels. Alas, alas! how has the Church lost her strength, her power, her comfort! how has she lost the mind of God! thrown herself out of her right position! Instead of bearing testimony against evil; instead of believers being as Christ upon earth, what have they done? Why, joined with the evil, joined with the world, encumbered themselves with worldly trammels, bound their feet with manacles! Instead of waiting for that which is here spoken of as "ready to be revealed in the last time," in eager expectation for the coming of their Lord (as they ought to be, and would have been, if faithful), what are they doing? Most of them wishing to delay His coming, willing, yea, gladly willing, to put it off, if they could, another eighteen hundred years. Does not this show, beloved, that we are living upon something here? that we have, or are desiring to have, a portion here? I believe there is nothing so calculated to unearth us as the realization of the coming of Christ. We see the effect of it in the Church eighteen centuries ago. They did not calculate the probable number of years that might elapse ere their Lord’s return; they were expecting, they were desiring that it might be in their time. That will be the day of "salvation" to the Church; that will be the time of the Church’s glory. We shall see our Lord "face to face;" "we shall be like Him. Those who have gone before are happy, unspeakably happy - "with Christ;" but they are not yet as happy as they will be, not yet "like" Jesus, not yet "conformed unto His image." They are still waiting the coming of the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:18.) And this, beloved, is what we should all be looking for; for this should we be found ready, as those who have their loins girt about and their lamps burning. Oh, let us then imitate the example of those who ran in an earthly race, and for an earthly prize! they looked well to their feet that nothing might impede their course; they kept their eye fixed on the laurel; and shall we, we who are running for an incorruptible crown, for an unfading inheritance, shall we, ought we to loiter by the way, turning aside for very the veriest bauble that we meet with on the road? When we have such glory before us, shall we be attracted by the tinsel of Satan’s glory, setting our affections on dust and ashes, that which will be food for the flames at the coming of Christ? Sad truth for the worldling, that all he has gloried in, all he has been heaping together for himself, he is only laying up in store against the day of the wrath of God. Beloved, it is impossible for us to grasp at things "before" and "behind" too. Were we "pressing forward towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus;" were we "reaching forth unto those things which are before," we must be forgetting those behind. Were we looking up, gazing. with the eye of faith on our portion above, could we be groping in the dirt of this world for what we might find there? Faith is an anticipating grace; faith is a substantial reliance on the verities of God. We cannot now comprehend what it is to be "heirs of God." "Heirs of God!" Oh, what a thought! The utmost expansion of faith cannot attain unto it. Like the queen of Sheba, who, much as she had heard of the glory of Solomon, when she came, declared that the half had not been told her, so dazzled was she with all that she beheld; so will it be with us when we shall "see the King in His beauty," when we shall "behold the land which is very far off." Oh, gladly would my soul now bask in the beams, in the full effulgence of eternal glory - that glory which shall as far exceed all other glories as the brightness of the meridian sun surpasses every lesser light! Oh, beloved, how shall we be then amazed at the recollection of things which now have power to draw off our attention and distract our thoughts! Beloved, let us give heed to this word: "Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." When the Edomite asked reproachfully, "Watchman, what of the night? watchman, what of the night?" the watchman said, "The morning cometh." So, beloved, when in these "last days" we find "scoffers walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming?" we may joyfully reply, "The morning cometh." "The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light." Let us not be satisfied with, putting off a little evil here, and a little evil there; but let us obey the command of God the Lord, when He says, "Come out, come out, and be separate from it all." Let us not suffer a hair’s breadth of evil to stand in our way! let us deliver ourselves from that worldly burden that weighs down the heads of believers, and prevents them from looking up and seeing that their redemption draweth nigh! "Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless." Let us show to the world that "our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile bodies, and fashion them like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself" - let "us stand fast in the Lord!" Language fails us, it is utter beggary when we attempt to describe the future glory of the saints, or what it will be to be "like Jesus;" we cannot get further than the apostle did, when he said, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see him as He is." Yet all the revelation of that future glory is intended by our God to have its present practical influence on our souls, just as John adds, "and every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure." Oh that the power of God may be more manifest in us! Oh that we may rise out of the dust, rise in all our proper glory, and show the world what are our hopes and expectations, show that eternity is written upon them, show that eternity is written too upon our actions, beloved, as well as upon our hopes! When every thing that the world is now rejoicing and glorying in shall become the object of God’s wrath and fiery judgment, when they shall call on the rocks and hills to fall on them and hide them in vain, the saints shall prove that their crowns are incorruptible, and their inheritance that which fadeth not away. "Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy." O Saviour! Whom absent we love; Whom not having seen we adore, Whose name is exalted above All glory, dominion, and power Oh come and display us as Thine, And leave us no longer to roam, Let the light of Thy presence, Lord, shine, Let the trumpet soon summon us home. When that happy morning begins, When we in Thy glories shall shine, Nor grieve any more by our sins The bosom on which we recline; Oh then shall the mists be removed, And round us Thy brightness be pour’d! We shall meet Him, Whom absent we loved, We shall see, Whom unseen we adored. And then never more shall the fears, The trials, temptations, and woes, Which darken this valley of tears, Intrude on our blissful repose. Or, if yet remember’d above, Remembrance no sadness shall raise, They will bring but new thoughts of Thy love, New themes for our wonder and praise. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 48: VOL 02 - "I, NOT I" ======================================================================== "I, Not I" The apostles are the doctrinal foundation of the Church. We are "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone." Whilst, in the mercy of God, the apostles were inspired to teach with authority the doctrines connected with and flowing from the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, they present themselves to us as disciples in the school of Christ, learning under Him, as their Master, the value and preciousness of those doctrines, to the instruction of their own souls. This gives a peculiar character to apostolic teaching. It is, not like a master occupied in the laborious task of teaching, a pupil certain rudiments in which he takes no interest himself, but as one finding an increasingly absorbing, interest in that which he teaches others. Thus the apostle Paul, in writing to the Philippians, says, "Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe." It, was safe for them that the apostle should teach them "line upon line, line upon line;" but this was not irksome to him; his one subject was the Lord, and joy and confidence in Him. He was, therefore, writing from a heart filled with that in which he desired others to participate. There are occasions in which the apostle Paul turns from a general statement to his own individual apprehension or experience of the doctrine he is propounding. Of this we have one very notable instance in the seventh chapter of his epistle to the Romans. In that chapter he is discussing the question of law - taking up under one view the previous passing notices of "law," and proving that which he had asserted. In Romans 3:1-31 he had asserted, "By the law is the knowledge of sin." How amply is this proved in Romans 7:1-25, "I had not known sin but by the law." Again, in chap. 3, "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law." But how it is established we learn not till chap. 7, when the weighty conclusion, "The law is holy," is brought out against all man’s reasonings to shift responsibility from himself, and to cast blame on the law. In Romans 6:14 we have the statement, "Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace." How fully is it demonstrated in chap. 7, that one quickened by the Spirit, if he knew not redemption, and were set under law, would yet be under the dominion of sin. But how does the apostle conduct these demonstrations? This is the interesting point. He is not only the demonstrator, but the subject of the demonstration; not only the teacher, but the scholar; not only the asserter of a broad, general principle, but, in his own person, the exhibition of the power of that principle. The change from "we" to "I," in this part of his writing - from truth generally recognized, to that very truth known in power in the individual conscience - is very noticeable. It is a great thing to bow the mind to the authoritative declarations of the word of God; but when that same word, as "living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword," enters into the conscience, and demonstrates itself as the word of God by laying us naked and bare before Him with whom we have to do; then do we justify God in His sayings, and clear Him when He is judged. God has been pleased to teach us what law necessarily is when applied to man in his actual condition (either as "in the flesh" or as quickened by the Spirit), by allowing one under the most favourable circumstances so to experimentalize on himself as to be able to hold up himself as an illustrious proof of the doctrine he teaches others. Saul, the persecuting Pharisee, by the aboundings of the grace of God over his sin, becomes Paul, the minister of the gospel of the grace of God, and the expounder of law as the strength of sin. Under the law himself, and knowing redemption through the CROSS of Christ as his deliverance from under the power of a most grievous and galling yoke, he could sympathize with those who were still groaning under the same yoke. Them that were under the law he approached, as full well knowing what it was to be under the law; and that too in a much deeper sort, by his deliverance from it, than when he was actually under it. There is a brief but interesting period noticed in the Acts, in which, it can hardly be doubted, Saul the Pharisee went through a deep and searching process. "He was three days without sight; and neither did eat nor drink." A brief period; but if the Lord be the teacher; if He is taking in hand a man, even as a wild ass’s colt to tame and break in; if He is showing that there must be an entire surrender unto Himself, and that every effort at self-justification is a fresh kick against the pricks, and only adds to our own misery, what depth of truth may not be learned in so brief a period! Saul was arrested by the glory of Jesus and by the voice which said to him, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou ME?" He "asked, "Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Saul was then in a singular state for three days - blind to all external objects, and secluded from society. He knew that the despised Jesus was the Lord of glory, and that he had persecuted Him; but as yet he knew not fully the grace of the Lord Jesus, and his own need of that perfect grace. The thought still pressed on him, "What wilt thou have me to do?" How innate is this thought in man, the moment he begins to have to do with God. But this innate thought had, in Saul, been strengthened by his previous training under the law. Like those who were attracted to Jesus by His satisfying their hunger in the wilderness, he could understand labour on his part, but not GIVING on the part of the Lord. (John 6:27-28.) But now, Saul had to see light in the light of the Lord. The law itself would appear in a very different aspect, since the Lawgiver was revealed, from what it did before. Tenacious of the law, persecuting Jesus (in His disciples) in his zeal to maintain it, he had never really known what the law was. At the very time he was most self-satisfied as to his righteousness in the law, he really was "without the law." But now, having seen the Lord, the law too comes in its proper light. "The commandment came;" it flashed upon him in all its length and breadth: instead of having kept it, he now finds by it the knowledge of sin; and he "establishes" the law, in his own righteous condemnation. "I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." . . . "Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good." "What wilt thou have me to do?" must be given up; no one can attain to the knowledge of righteousness in that way. By the law can only be the knowledge of sin. At the end of the three days, through the ministry of His servant Ananias, the Lord, even Jesus, removed the scales from his eyes, and filled him with the Holy Ghost, and gave him another sight, even to see that same Jesus whose glory had overwhelmed him, in all the fulness of His grace, and as being Himself to him the righteousness of God - a righteousness far higher than that he had hoped to attain by the law. (See Php 3:9.) But did this knowledge of righteousness put the law in a more favourable light? or did it only tend to make it known in a deeper power of condemnation, so that death to the law and deliverance from it, by the body of Christ, became an equally apparent necessity, as death to sin, by Christ’s having borne his sins in His own body on the tree? What says Paul, with his eyes open, and filled with the Holy Ghost? "We" (viz., all quickened by the Spirit) "know that the law is spiritual;" it is intended to reach the thoughts and intents of the heart, and the spiritual acquiesce in, the exposition of the Lawgiver Himself as to its exceeding breadth. (See Matthew 5:1-48.) The apostle, however, passes from "We" to "I." His new perception of the law gives him, at the same time, a new perception of himself. "The spiritual man judgeth all things," and to judge himself is one of the main offices of this power. And now, what is Saul the Pharisee as seen in this new light? "I am carnal, sold under sin." The application of the spiritual law to such a subject only tends to bring out his misery in the strongest relief. It is now something more than, "the commandment came." It is "the holy, just, and good commandment," making manifest "that sin dwelleth in me;" so that with my knowledge that the law is spiritual, if even now put under it, "sin would have dominion over me." See my honest struggle. It shows how I consent to the goodness of the law, how entirely I acquiesce in its demands. It is no less my happiness than my duty, to love God with all my heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, and my neighbour as myself. But the moment that I, in earnestness of purpose, make the effort to fulfil this, I am made conscious of a counteracting force in me, too strong for me to contend with, and I am aroused to the consciousness that "sin dwelleth in me." It is no accident, no habit, but an innate principle. I am forced therefore to separate myself from myself. "It is no more I, but sin that dwelleth in me." Such a discovery, made under honest struggle, is very different from the reception of the doctrine that sin dwelleth in us, and the use of this as an apology for sin. There is the difference, between "we know" and "I know." The one is the knowledge of that which is true, the other the truth applied to the individual conscience by the Holy Ghost; and where He teaches, the truth is never handled lightly. "For I know," says the apostle, "that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." The Lord Himself had ruled that "the flesh profiteth nothing." Brought into closest contact with the Spirit, instead of being profited thereby, it only shows its contrariety and resistance. If, says the apostle, I not only consent unto the law in my judgment, but even delight in it after the inner man, it makes me acquainted with the depth of my misery, and forces me to cry out for deliverance. With the judgment convinced of the excellence of the law, and the affections engaged unto its goodness, and with an honest desire of getting the better of sin by the means of it, I find myself inexpressibly miserable, a slave to a tyrant that will not let me go, and from whom I cannot emancipate myself. It is true, I can say, "It is not I, but sin that dwelleth in me." But this does not satisfy. I want deliverance from myself, and am forced out of myself to find it in another, even in Christ Jesus. Redemption through His finished work alone meets my deeply-discovered necessity as a sinner; and I am forced out of the place of a doer, into the humble, yet happy, place of a receiver. "Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." If the question be raised, Must every one quickened by the Spirit go through this painful process? the answer is, that this is the necessary experience of honest legalism - even miserable bondage. But where deliverance is known, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the recognition of the doctrine, and experience of the fact, that "in my flesh good does not dwell," is even more deeply learned than in the honest struggle against "sin that dwelleth in me." The disciple of Christ learns to justify God, in His wisdom in the CROSS of Christ. He is made increasingly conscious, that nothing short of a complete redemption, in and by Jesus Christ, meets his case. Self, in his thought, becomes identified with sin; and he loathes self, rejoices in Christ Jesus, and has no confidence in the flesh. Let the eye be turned from Christ to self, darkness and misery are the necessary results. We have no power against self, but by looking to Jesus. It is a deep, solemn, humbling truth, that the natural constitution of man is, that he is under "the law of sin and death," and that no effort of his can alter his constitution or extricate him from its misery; and more than this, that the good law of God, when honestly appealed to for help, only makes him sensible of the real misery of his condition. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" alone makes "free from the law of sin and death." I may analyze this constitution of man, and be thereby enabled to say, "Not I, but sin that dwelleth in me;" yet this is not deliverance, but misery. If I want deliverance, I must look to another source, even the grace of God in Christ Jesus. "I thank God through Jesus Christ." But the apostle, the great teacher of the CROSS of Christ, he who determined to know nothing among the Corinthians but Jesus Christ and HIM CRUCIFIED, presents himself also as a disciple, deeply learned in that wondrous doctrine which he is so delighted to preach. It is no uncommon thing for even believers in the Lord Jesus Christ to get under the law. The earliest inroad on the grace of the gospel, was the attempt of certain men from Judea to teach the brethren: "Except ye be circumcised, and keep the law of Moses, ye cannot be saved." (See Acts 15:1-41) The Galatian converts had been fascinated by this doctrine, so taking and specious that, under some form or other, it has been found in all ages corrupting, as leaven, the pure doctrine of grace. With the law, the apostle had done; every expectation from it had been cut off; he knew it as the ministration of death and condemnation, and the power of sin. He dared not build again the things he had destroyed, and constitute himself a transgressor, by asserting the law as in force over believers, when he had shown their deliverance from it, through faith in Christ Jesus. "For I," says the apostle, "through the law, am DEAD to the law, that I might live unto God;" an impossibility, if the law yet stood between him and God; but not only a possibility, but, as it were, a happy necessity, if, instead of the law, he saw Jesus to be the way to God, even Him who had "suffered the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." He then proceeds, as a scholar who had made great proficiency in the doctrine of the CROSS, and as a saved person who had learnt it as "the power and wisdom of God:" "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet NOT I, but Christ liveth in me." Saul, the Pharisee and legalist, had come to his end, judicially, in the CROSS of Christ. All that Pharisaism and legalism had done, or could do for him, was to lead to condemnation. That condemnation had passed on Him on the CROSS. When Jehovah made His sword to awaken against "the Man my (His) fellow," it pierced Jesus, but it pierced Him as the sinner’s Substitute. It was the act of God Himself, to "make Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." The anticipation of the CROSS cast a deep shade on the whole ministry of Jesus. He knew wherefore He had come. He knew what awaited Him, even that baptism which so straitened Him till it was accomplished. He knew the holiness of God, for He was Himself God. He knew the hatefulness of sin, as that which was most opposite to God. He knew the wrath of God, as it must needs meet sin. And with such perfect knowledge He recoiled, as it were, from the CROSS. A martyr does not recoil from the stake; but in the stake there is no wrath of God, no hour of darkness, such as passed over Jesus when He lost the sunshine of God’s presence; no desertion, such as Jesus felt when He cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" It was a divine impossibility that the cup He so dreaded should pass from Him. He bowed His head submissively, and drank it up. Now when the apostle says, "I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST," he "arms himself with the same mind;" and not only acquiesces in what God had done in the CROSS, but acknowledges the divine impossibility of any other way of justification before God. God Himself must be the justifier; righteousness in any other way is an impossibility. Saul must be set aside. Christ must appear. It is a divine impossibility that flesh should glory in His presence. Paul, then, justifies God in the CROSS; he acquiesces in the divine necessity of setting him aside. Saul, the Pharisee and legalist, is dead and buried out of sight; bring in the law, and you revive him in all his sin and shame. We shrink from the CROSS, in this aspect; it bears hard upon us! But when we bow and take it up, what peace and calmness possess the soul! It is written, "Knowing this, that our old man is CRUCIFIED WITH HIM." We receive the doctrine, and bow to its authority. But are we disciples? Can we take the place with Paul, and say, "I AM CRUCIFIED with Christ"? Has the necessity which drove us to the cross, because of there being no other way of escape, changed into admiration of the doctrine, so that we pursue it with intense interest, so that the more we learn, the deeper the doctrine appears? The CROSS of Christ is a wonderful school; the deepest intelligence of the renewed mind cannot sound its depths. But as we go on in this school, it is the truth which, at one and the same time, exercises our conscience and engages our affections. Well may another apostle call upon us to "gird up the loins of our mind," and intently and reverently study the sufferings of Christ, and the glories to follow - things which angels desire to look into. Is then man, as he is in Adam, to be set aside? Are all his aspirations after greatness and wisdom, not only to be disappointed, but to end in his judgment? Such is the truth proclaimed by the CROSS; such is the lesson learned in the school of the CROSS. "I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST." But is this bitter disappointment? Is there nothing to be expected from the flesh? Nothing. "The flesh profiteth nothing." "Forasmuch as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God." But it is not bitter disappointment, though it cost many a struggle to acquiesce in the wisdom of God in passing sentence on the flesh in the CROSS of Christ, and many a hard struggle too, for ourselves practically to authenticate this sentence. To learn, under the teaching of the Spirit, to say, "I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST," is the repose of the soul, and the spring of all true Christian energy. No one can say, "I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST," without also saying, "Nevertheless I live." But is "the old man" again alive? Is Saul the Pharisee risen up from under the judgment of the CROSS, again to justify himself, again to seek righteousness by deeds of law, again to be in bondage to ordinances, or to live upon that which he himself can do? Not so; the old man is condemned and executed. It is not "I," the old man, "I," the Pharisee, "I," the legalist, "I," the moralist, "I," the religionist. It is "I, NOT I." "CHRIST liveth in me." It is strictly a new life, not drawn from Adam or any earthly source, but from Christ risen; a life heavenly in its source and in its aspirations - such a life as the highest human aspirations cannot even "conceive." The higher those aspirations rise, they only the more distinctly show the immense gap, impossible for man to traverse, between man of the highest order in Adam, and "Christ liveth in me." Is Jesus risen and at the right hand of God, and equally above man in whatever rank, condition, or, pretensions, on earth? So is this wonderful being, who thus describes his being, "I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, nevertheless I LIVE; Yet NOT I, but CHRIST LIVETH IN ME," equally above every other being; and by reason of this, his essential dignity, he can afford to take the lowest place here. This "honour cometh from God only." "I, NOT I." If "Christ liveth in me," then this life has its object, its food, its pursuits; it cannot be satisfied with that with which the old man sought to be satisfied; it can neither be nourished by its own works, nor by ordinances. It must have an object, and food, and pursuits congenial to it. All these are found in Christ. "The life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." The life now lived is not in its native climate; nothing around it really ministers unto it. It is a life pre-eminently "of faith." That same Jesus, the Son of the living God, who in heaven will be the one absorbing object, is the one absorbing object to faith now. Would any be kept from the bondage of legalism, it must be by looking unto Jesus. It is not a speculative life; on the contrary, it is a life full of affection; for its object is Jesus, as the disciple (rather than the apostle) adds, "who loved me, and gave Himself, for me." The affection of Jesus to us draws forth ours to Him. The love of Jesus, when He was here, found its activities amidst all the miseries of this world; and if His love produces the like in us, he who is most living by the faith of the Son of God, will be most active in the midst of the misery of this world, because, as the disciple of the CROSS of Christ, he has learnt that nothing short of divine love can meet its miseries. If the apostle, enabled deeply to analyse the workings of law on one quickened by the Spirit - to know it as the strength of sin, could account for the deep, inward struggle by this principle, "I, NOT I" - "It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me;" as a disciple deeply instructed in the doctrines of the CROSS, he instinctively repudiates the thought of attributing life to Adam (the head of the family of death), and corrects himself, as it were, when he Says, "Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." "I, NOT I!" what deep doctrine is contained in the expression. Have we, as disciples, made such proficiency in the school of the CROSS as to ascribe all evil to ourselves, all good to Christ - sin and death in us, life, and righteousness in Him? "Every good and perfect gift cometh down from above." Nothing perfect ascends up from man to God. "I, NOT I!" It is a great practical principle. If the apostle says, "I speak as a man," or "Ye walk as men," he uses the expression disparagingly; it is not the high ground of one who has been CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, but, nevertheless, IS ALIVE - in whom CHRIST LIVES. He has come down from divine to human motives. If he speaks about himself, he says, "I speak foolishly." Surely it were folly to speak of self, instead of Christ, unless compelled to do so, as the apostle was. But in his labours he still remembered, "I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST," and where "I" would, almost necessarily and innocently, appear, the corrective comes in, "I, NOT I." Had he even to vindicate his apostleship, in writing to the Corinthians; as, likewise, to set before them that the gospel which he preached hinged on the resurrection of Christ, and that, touch that fact, the gospel was gone; he brings forward the witnesses to the resurrection (living witnesses), and then adds, "Last of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet NOT I, but the grace of God which was with me." Deep scholar, indeed, in the grace of God; well instructed disciple in the doctrine of the CROSS! The doctrine of the CROSS was not used by this disciple to set self aside as to judgment only, but to set self aside where it would fain show itself as though the Lord needed our help, our zeal, our energies. It is a hard lesson to learn, not to look with complacency on our labours for Christ, and for the blessing of others, instead of looking to "the travail of His soul." "I, NOT I!" What mixed motives do we discover in ourselves! Where love should constrain, how often is there vanity and self-seeking! There is a vast amount of activity at work in the things of God; may it be increased; but it is only as the grace of God is with us, that any effectual work is really done. "Not I, but the grace of God which was with me." Labour in the Lord is not, cannot be, in vain. It will stand, and be made manifest in that day. Let there be all activity, and diligence, and patient painstaking; but when "I" would be prominent, then the CROSS is our refuge against self. "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Let there be the wholesome correction drawn from this doctrine. "I" must meet its end in the CROSS, that Christ may live in me. "I" must be set aside, too, by the CROSS, even in my labours, that the grace of God may appear. Thus "shall no flesh glory in His presence; but," as it is written, "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 49: VOL 02 - "IN EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS" ======================================================================== "In Everything Give Thanks" "In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." 1 Thessalonians 5:18. "In everything give thanks," My God, is this Thy will? Give thanks for disappointments given, For prayers unanswer’d still! Give thanks! in vain I’ve pray’d That I might useful be, And by Thy Spirit’s helpful aid, Bring many souls to Thee. Give thanks! when in the place Of health and usefulness, Through sickness Thou hast paled my face With pain and weariness. Give thanks! if ’twere Thy will Submission to demand, I then might bid myself be still, And bow to Thy command. But hush, beneath my eye I see, in words of blood, "Will He who gave His Son to die Refuse thee any good?" Give thanks! Yea, Lord, I do, And by Thy help I will, Give thanks! for blessings not received, Although expected still. Give thanks! for mercies given, Unnoticed oft by me; Give thanks! for sins forgiven, Known only, Lord, to Thee. Give thanks! in word and deed, For Thy surpassing love, That sent Thy Son on earth to save, And now to plead above. Give thanks! for tender love, That our Redeemer show’d, Who, in the absence of Himself, A Comforter bestow’d. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 50: VOL 02 - "THE WOMEN OF THE GENEALOGY." ======================================================================== "The Women of the Genealogy." Matthew 1:1-6. The introduction of four women’s names, and of four only, into the genealogy of our Lord as given by Matthew, has furnished material for enquiry to many students of the inspired word. That there was a special purpose in it no one who had any right claim to be such could ever doubt. Moreover, a slight glance only at the names so chosen to a place in connection with the human descent of the Lord of Glory would show something of the significance of their being found there. They are precisely such names as a chronicler left to mere human wisdom in the matter, and especially a Jew, however right-thinking, would have kept out of sight; and especially so as there was no apparent necessity for bringing them forward. They were not needed at all as establishing the connection of our Lord with David or with Abraham. No other names of women are thus introduced - neither Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, nor any other; while yet there was perhaps not another who might not seem to have better title to be remembered. These women were of all others, though in different ways, just the blots apparently upon the genealogy. And then, so far from any attempt at concealment of what was discreditable in connection with them, circumstances which needed not (one might have thought) to be referred to are brought in, as if to draw our attention to what otherwise might have been less noticed. Thus Zara’s twin birth with Pharez, though himself not in the line of the genealogy, is mentioned as if to recall the circumstances, of that sin which brought them into being; while Bathsheba, instead of being mentioned by name, is associated as it were with all the horror of the crimes which her name alone one would think sufficient to bring to mind - "her that had been the wife of. Urias." But there is something very beautiful as well as characteristic in this fearlessness of one who, here as in other places in a mere record of names, as it might seem, as well as on the most solemn passages of our Lord’s life - spake as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. If there be a blot upon the life of one of His people, the God of truth will never hesitate to bring it out, though it might seem to be the furnishing an occasion to those who seek occasion against the truth; and if there be a dark spot that presumptuous man would dare to lay a finger on, on but one of the links (each divinely constituted) of the chain of ancestry of the man, Christ Jesus, the Spirit of God puts His finger upon it first, to invite our attention to it as something worthy of being noted, and calculated only in the mind of faith to beget reverential thoughts and lowly admiration of a wisdom that never fails, and that is most itself when it confounds all other. Now to a faith that (as is characteristic of it) "believes on him that justifieth the ungodly," the introduction of the names of Tamar and of Bathsheba into the inspired record of the Lord’s human ancestry, is pregnant with suggestions fitted to awaken the liveliest emotion. Each of these women of dishonoured names and shameful memories had title then in a peculiar way to appropriate those words which recorded Israel’s most real boast: "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." The human feeling - for there is that in it whatever there may be more - which has given an "immaculate conception" to the mother of our Lord, would have at least provided for the unblemished character of the line of His natural descent; and that feeling would have said, Let Him have connection with the purest and noblest only that can be found; and thus it is that human thought has been shown folly in the wisdom of One who from the beginning took the "seed of the woman" - first as she had been in the transgression - to bruise the serpent’s head, and heal those that are oppressed of the devil. Fixed, in divine wisdom, in that part of our Saviour’s genealogy which no Jew could dispute - for none could dispute that the Christ was to come of David - these names (all perhaps Gentile, and some undoubtedly so) stood there to vindicate the Gentiles’ part in the "child born." And just so on the face of pretension to human righteousness they stood to vindicate the claim of sinners to Him, whose "body was prepared Him," that He might die for sinners. Thus far, then, the meaning of these names in the connection in which we find them is plain enough, and their place in the genealogy not only needs no vindication, but is another note of harmony in that song of praise, which His word, as well as all other of His works, is perpetually singing - seed to sow music in the hearts of the sorrowful, in the assurance of how the sighing of the prisoners has come up before the Lord. But what if we are able to go further, and to show that not only is this so, but that each of the four names here given furnishes its own peculiar feature to what taken as a whole is really a full and blessed declaration of the story of grace and of salvation - each in its order adding what the former had left out, till the whole is told? Would it not be worthy of God to speak so; to make not only types and parables, but the very names of a genealogy repeat a story He is never weary of telling, however slow man may be to hear? Let us take up, then, the history of these four names so far as it connects them with this inspired genealogy, and try to read the lesson which is given us by their connection with it. The history of Tamar you will find in Genesis 38:1-30. It is one of those dark chapters of human depravity which the word lays open with its accustomed plainness and outspokenness. Infidels would speak of it as a blot upon the book that contains it; and few perhaps care to read it, least of all aloud. And yet it is a story that will one day again find utterance before the most magnificent assembly that the earth or the heavens ever saw or shall see. And how many such-like stories shall come out then - mine, reader, and yours, not perhaps after all so far removed from Tamar’s and the pure eternal day will not withdraw its beams, and the night not cover it up with its darkness. What must be told then, may well bear to be told now. The light that shines upon evil deeds is all undefiled by them. If Tamar’s history were a mere thing of the past, and had no voice for succeeding generations, no doubt it had been vain to bring it up; but now let us rather thank Him for doing it, who has given us, a page of human history so dark that we have to shudder, so filthy that we have to blush at it. Reader, I ask again, is there no page of your life, that, if it were written by the faithful hand of God, you would have to blush at in like manner? Now, in all this history of Tamar’s, the thing that strikes me in this connection is, that there is no redeeming feature about it. If I take the record attached to the other names which have place with hers in this genealogy, I may find perhaps in each case something that a little breaks the darkness. But I find nothing similar recorded about Tamar. She comes before me in this picture as a sinner and nothing else. The wife successively of two men, each cut off for his wickedness by divine judgment, she dares yet in her own person - by crime equal to theirs - provoke divine judgment. But the wonder above all this is, that it is this very sin that brings her name into the Lord’s genealogy; for this sin it was that made her the mother of Pharez, one of the direct line of Christ’s ancestry! Is there no voice in this? And is it the voice of the God of judgment, or is it the voice of the God of grace, the God and Father indeed of our Lord Jesus Christ? True, if I look alone at the Old Testament record, it may call up before me as it has called up the time of account and manifestation; but the moment I turn to the New Testament and find Tamar first of women’s names in the genealogy of the Lord - Tamar, brought in by her sin into that connection - I find what fixes my mind upon a scene of judgment indeed, and that of the most solemn sort, but where the Holy One of God stands for the unholy, where Barabbas’ cross - place of the chief of sinners - bears the burden of One, who alone bare all our burdens, and "with whose stripes we are healed." Oh blessed lesson, and worthy of God to give! Tamar’s sin her connection with the Lord of life and glory? and Oh look, beloved, was not our sin our connection? Did not He die for sinners? Was it not when we confessed our sins, and with our mouths stopped took our places before God, ungodly and without strength, that we found out the wondrous fact that for the ungodly and without strength Christ had died! and that because we were sinners, and Christ had died for such, He was "faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Thus Tamar’s name, first in this genealogy, is first too in the simple gospel truth that it reveals; and the fact that Tamar is a sinner, of whom I can read nothing but her sin, and whose sin gives her connection in a peculiar way with the Christ who came for sinners, is light and joy a and gladness in my soul. But we must turn to Rahab. And here again we are not in very creditable company. Rahab is a Canaanite, one of a cursed race, and Rahab is a harlot, sinner among sinners. We seem destined to move in this track. The one thing recorded to her advantage is her faith. That it had fruit too, none can question. She is one whom the apostle James takes up, to ask us, "Was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers and sent them out another way?" But even here you will observe the thing he appeals to is not what would in men’s eyes make a saint of her. There was no brilliance of devotedness, no wonderful self-sacrifice, no great goodness as one might say. Even in the very thing in which she shows her faith she tells a lie, as if to divorce faith and sincerity, and to give us expressly the picture of a faith that so "worketh not" as to leave the soul still without hope but as a sinner, unable to be justified save before a God who justifieth the ungodly." And who can doubt that it was Rahab’s faith brought her into the genealogy, as sin had brought Tamar? Without faith she had died with those shut up in Jericho, a cursed woman of a cursed race. Faith removed that curse from her; faith brought her in among the people of God, if it did not attract to her the heart of Salmon, so as in the most direct way to account for those words being in the genealogy, “Salmon begat Boaz of Rachab." Thus the second of these women’s names teaches us a lesson as sweet and as needful as the former. "To him that worketh not but believeth" is what we instinctively think of when we think of Rahab. Faith that, while it has that which demonstrates its reality, leaves one still to be justified as ungodly, nay, believes on One who only does so justify. Faith which looks not at itself, therefore, and pleads not its own performances, but brings the soul to accept the place of ungodliness only, because for the ungodly only there is justification. This is very sweet and very wonderful. It is wonderful to find how in the mere introduction of a name into a catalogue, the God of grace can speak out the thoughts of His own heart. And it is very sweet to see how constantly before Him is the thought of our need and of His mercy, and how He would by the very wonder, as it were, surprise men’s slow, cold hearts into the belief of it. And now we have got to Ruth: "Boaz begat Obed of Ruth." But what shall we say of Ruth? Here at first sight our text might seem to fail us, and we might seem to have parted company with sinners. Why, you might say, the Spirit of God Himself takes a book by itself to tell us about Ruth. And true indeed, though it be that she was a Gentile, as Rahab and as Tamar, you might repeat of her what the Lord Himself says of another Gentile: "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel" With no sword of judgment hanging over her head as over Rahab’s, with no tie too connect her with Israel but the memory of a dead husband who had himself abandoned it, with the memory of famine in that land which had forced her husband out, and with the company only of an aged woman, with whom bitter providences, as she deems them, have changed the name of Naomi into Mara, Ruth comes into the land and to the God of Israel, in whose fields she is content to be a gleaner. No, do not think, reader, that I would disparage the worth or blot the fair fame of Ruth the Moabitess. That she was a Gentile only adds to it the more honour, in that among the godless grew her godliness, and that she was faithful where Israel’s own children had set her the example of unfaithfulness. But is there nothing in this very fact, that in company with the names of sinners among sinners we find one who shines, as it were, saint among saints? What does it mean, this putting down of Ruth in company with such names as Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba? Is it not a truth of the same kind as when the word tells us of one who "gave much alms," and "prayed to God alway," that he was to send to Joppa for a man who should tell him words whereby he should be saved? Or as when Zaccheus, standing forth and saying to the Lord, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor," meets the significant and gentle word - you can scarcely call it reproof This day is SALVATION come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was LOST" So that, without the smallest word of detraction from Ruth’s goodness, but rather allowing in its very fullest all that can be claimed for it, we may fairly draw a lesson from the company in which we find her name, which is of itself fall of instruction and of beauty; and Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, side by side in the genealogy, give us but the announcement of Isaiah’s vision, which the Baptist’s mission went to fulfil "Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." Yes, God’s salvation, as much needed, and in the same way, by one as another; as much of grace to one as to another - to Ruth the Moabitess, as to Rahab, or to Tamar. But we have not yet got at that which gives fullest significance to this name in the genealogy. Against this Ruth, with all her loveliness and with all her goodness, there was lying a ban which did not lie in the same way against the others. She was a Moabitess, and against these there had been levelled an express statute of the law. "An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever." (Deuteronomy 23:3.) Thus Ruth lay under the interdict of the law. It is striking that it was to this devoted, to this lovely woman that the law applied - not to Rahab, nor even to Tamar - God having thus proclaimed in an unmistakable way the law’s character not bringing it in to condemn, where men’s minds would have gone with it, the sinner and the harlot, but introducing it as that which would have excluded the piety of a Ruth. Emphatically was it thus taught, that it was man as man that was shut out from God, not in his sins merely, but in his righteousness, and that if we stand on that ground all "our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." But the law does not keep Ruth out. Moabitess as she is, she does enter into the congregation of the Lord. The law is set aside in her behalf, and instead of her descendants being excluded to the tenth generation, her child of the third generation sits upon Israel’s throne, and hears the promise which confirms that throne to his heirs for succeeding generations. Thus another principle comes out in bright relief. If God takes up the sinner and the harlot on the principle of faith, law is set aside by the very fact. "The law is not of faith." "The righteousness of God without the law is manifested," "even the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe." This is what Ruth is witness to. The Moabitess comes into the congregation of the Lord, spite of the law expressly levelled against her to keep her out; and in all this we find but another utterance of this self-same story of grace which in so many ways our God tells us. One name alone remains - one truth has yet to be uttered. God takes up sinners then by faith. "Faith is reckoned for righteousness." Not as if faith were righteousness, or its equivalent - that would be quite another thing; but God, who had been looking (to speak humanly) for righteousness by law, had ceased to do so. The law had returned Him answer, "There is none righteous; no, not one." Thenceforth the principle was changed. "Faith" was "reckoned for righteousness:" faith that did not pretend to righteousness at all, for it was in one who "justified the ungodly." But if God receives sinners, to what does He receive them? Is it a complete salvation they obtain, or are there conditions still to be met before the final goal is reached and there is complete security? On what, in short, does the ultimate salvation of the believer rest? This is a question which evidently needs answering before the soul can be completely satisfied and at peace. It is one thing to be now in the favour of God, and it is another thing to know that I can never lose it. And the more I look at myself, if it depend upon myself, the more I must be in dread of losing it. Moreover, there are those who will allow of a free present salvation, who will not allow of one that gives security absolutely for the future. With them the sinner, may be saved without works; but the saint may not. The legalism shut out at one entrance gains admittance at another, and the result in either case is the same. Self-sufficiency is built up; self-distrust taught to despair; the work of Christ is practically displaced from its office of satisfying the soul, and the grace of God effectually denied. The Scripture speaks as decisively on this point as on any other. On justification by the blood of Christ it builds the most confident assurance as to the future. It tells us that inasmuch as "when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. MUCH MORE then, being now justified by His blood, we SHALL BE SAVED from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." (Romans 5:8-10.) And when I turn to this last name of the four, and find "her that had been the wife of Urias" taking her place with Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth in the genealogy of the Lord, it seems as if the text just quoted were repeated in my ears. For the moment I think of Bathsheba, a greater name than hers, linked strangely with hers in the crime which it recalls, comes in to efface her almost from my mind, David it is I think of - David, child of God, Israel’s sweet psalmist! in whose breathings the souls of saints in every age have poured out their aspirations after "the living God;" - David fallen, and fallen so low that we cannot marvel if his name be side by side with Tamar’s. David, man after God’s heart! Oh, how many of the Lord’s enemies hast thou made to blaspheme! how many of the Lord’s people hast thou made to mourn for thee! Was that thy witness to what God’s heart approved? Was that thy soul’s panting after Him? What! murder a man in the midst of faithful service to thee zealously rendered, that thou mightest hide thine own adultery? Was that the man who, when flying from the face of his enemy, and when Providence had put that enemy within his power, cut off but his skirt, and his heart smote him for it? Ah, sadder than thy heart could be for Saul, we take up thine own lament over thee: "How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished." And surely, O Lord our God, in Thy presence shall no flesh glory! If David could not, could we? Alas, if I know myself, what can I do but put my mouth in the dust, and be dumb for ever before the Lord! "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass." And "let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." The voice that comes to me from David’s sin is infinitely more than David’s condemnation. It is my own. Can I pretend to be better? Can I take my hand from his blood-stained one? Ah, no! I accept with him my own condemnation; and not as a sinner merely, but as a saint. From first to last, from beginning to end, the voice of David’s fall brings to me the assurance that the justification of the ungodly must be my justification still. It is like that voice of God, strange - men may call it, and contradictory in its utterance - which, having pronounced man’s sentence before the flood, and destroyed every thing living, because "every imagination of the thought of man’s heart was only evil continually," after the flood declares: "I will not again curse the ground for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more everything living as I have done." Blessed be His name, who will not trust His salvation to my hand. My "life" depends but upon the life of Him who has taken His place in heaven, after He had by Himself purged my sins; as much "for me" there in the glory as "for me" upon the cross. He is the accepted One; I but "in Him." "Because He lives, I shall live, also." If David could have taken his salvation out of God’s hand, he surely would have done it in the case before us. That he could not I read in this woman’s name, partner in his sin, recorded in the genealogy. Once again, as in Tamar’s case before, I find sin connecting with the Saviour of sinners. It was not that God did not mark, and in a special way, His abhorrence of the evil. It was only grace, really, to do that. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also, reap;" and no wonder, therefore, if adultery and murder spring up again and again in David’s path. No marvel that the sword never departs from his house, and that his wives are dishonoured in the face of the sun. But in the midst of all this growth of thorn and thistle - sure fruit and consequence of sin - one floweret springs up from this cursed ground, type and witness of the grace that, where sin has abounded, over-abounds. From this David, and this Bathsheba, whom sin has united together, a child springs whose name stands next in the line of the ancestry of the Lord; and who receives, as if to confirm this, a special name, "Jedidiah," "beloved of the Lord." And is it an imagination, or is it more, that there is something in the name - the other name of this child born which harmonises with all this? I will not say, but if Solomon, "peaceful," be a strange name in so near connection with so sad a history, it is not an unsuited one to follow in this genealogical list; not an unsuited one to be in company with Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, or Bathsheba. And it is a blessed one to end with the history of four names, which, when God utters them, can be made to speak of what He must love well to utter, or He would scarcely take such strange occasion to remind us of it. And if to any there seem after all in this something that seems too much like a mere wonder to be God’s utterance, I would beseech such an one to remember how once a burning bush was made just such a wonder to attract a passer-by, and how, when he turned aside to see, a voice out of that bush proclaimed that God was really there. Even so may it not be strange that He should attract now by a kind of wonder, to listen to a story which He loves to tell, and for those who turn aside to see, may the same voice, now as then, be heard. F. W. Grant. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 51: VOL 02 - ABIGAIL, THE WIFE OF NABAL THE CARMELITE ======================================================================== Abigail, The Wife of Nabal the Carmelite 1 Samuel 25:1-44. In order to have practical communion with the mind of God, through the Scriptures, whilst the conflict still remains between the flesh and the Spirit, it is needful that the soul be established in grace. Now Satan seeks to hide the simplicity of this grace; but it is simple grace towards those who were dead in trespasses and sins that has met us. As the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so was Jesus on the cross, and He is presented to us by God as the object of our faith. When we look to Him, God says, "Live." The next thing that Satan seeks to hide from us, is God’s preserving grace; and this he does by bringing in many inventions of His own. God preserves us by something hidden in heaven. We may be looking at our experience, to outward observances, to an outward priesthood, and the like; but if it is not that which is hidden in heaven, connected with the precious blood of Jesus and His priesthood, to which we are looking, it must come from him who is the "father of lies." All those things which tend at all to promise the soul preservation, apart from this, lead astray. There is, then, to all believers, sure and everlasting acceptance, because of the precious blood of Jesus which has been shed for them. "Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves; but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption." (Hebrews 9:11-12.) This secures their blessing and peace for ever. Nothing can shake or alter the peace that subsists between the Father and the Son, nothing that crosses our path here, none of the circumstances of earth, can alter the peace of the sanctuary. It is established for ever between the Father and Jesus. So that whenever a believer seeks it, whatever the condition of soul in which he may turn towards God, the peace of the sanctuary is there - unchanged. How precious the assurance of this! The soul that has learned any thing of God, and of His holiness, knows how every hour many a thing crosses the path likely to affect this peace - that soul must prize the unchanged peace of the sanctuary. But we know other blessings also. God would have the saints understand and love Him and His ways here - His actings in the midst of an unholy earth, where Satan’s seat is. He (God) desires that we should have communion with Himself in His thoughts about all around. By-and-by the Church will participate with the Lord in the exercise of power towards the earth - we shall share His glory, for we are "joint-heirs with Christ." But besides this there is the place of present association in service. And this must be in humiliation. Jesus served God, in the midst of circumstances of evil, and the "contradiction of sinners." We read of the apostle Paul saying, "By the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but, the grace of God which was with me." Now very often (our thoughts are apt to dwell so much and so exclusively on acceptance) this passage, "By the grace of God I am what I am," is looked at as only having to do with acceptance; but the Lord desires that we should abundantly serve Him in the midst of Satan’s world - having, it may be, to conflict not only with evil in ourselves, but with evil in others; and nothing but His grace can enable us to do this. It is as much the "grace of God" that has given us to serve, and the "grace of God" that strengthens for service, as it was the "grace of God" that saved us at the beginning. When "Christ ascended up on high," He "gave gifts unto men. Some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for (or in order to) the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." (Ephesians 4:1-32) You will perceive how the grace of God leads that way; viz., to strengthen and qualify for service. Thus, if any teach you, they do it, not merely that you may be blessed, but so blessed as to become servants to others - life in you ministering to life in them, and strengthening that which needs to be strengthened. Now, suppose this be not understood, that I do not see it to, be my privilege, I may be very thankful to have one to teach me, but my faith will be weak, and my prayers hindered, I shall not have the right object before me. Teaching amongst the saints is not intended simply to open up truth unto them, to tell them what salvation is, or to give them comfort; but also to open out and direct the soul to those things which God desires should be the objects of service in faith, as it is said, "Your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father." I need not say, beloved friends, how often we stop short of this, and rest in our own personal blessing. When the soul once recognizes it to be the intention God has in view, in strengthening us, that we should serve Him in serving others, it gets quite a new motive for which to live - something worth living for. Now, I know nothing more important or more blessed than the being able to discern the true service of Christ in the world. Nothing more marks the difference between a soul taught of the Spirit, and one untaught of Him, than this. It was a blessed thing - the great test of faith, when the Lord Jesus was here, to be able to discern and confess Him, as what He really was - the Son, and sent One of God. And so, at the present moment, the leading of the Holy Ghost is always towards the distinct recognition of that which is of God in the world. Till Jesus comes again, this will be found in the lowly place, that which the flesh likes not to own, but which the Holy Spirit loves to recognize. He leads the enlightened soul to say, "There will I cast in my lot; for there blessing is." Such parts of Scripture as that on which we are now meditating bring us into communion with the servants of God - the family of faith in past ages. They show us that in principle their trials were like our trials, their conflicts like our conflicts, and thus knit our hearts to them in a way which nothing else can. David had gained the place in which we find him here because he was of faith, and because Saul was one who was not of faith. He represents the person with whom the truth and the calling of God is. As a simple stripling, David had been taught to trust in God - the God of Israel. When the lion and the bear came, he had faith to meet the lion and the bear, and to overcome them. This was a matter between David and God in secret. But very soon after, David’s faith enabled him to come forward, not for his own deliverance, but for that of God’s Israel. Faith led him to take up the current of the counsels of God. As a Christian goes onward in his career, though the trials he has to encounter may be greater, he goes on in the current of the counsels of God; and thus, as Paul says, he is led about in triumph in Christ. Greater things may be done, yet in one sense they are felt to be easier, because he becomes more acquainted with the strength of God. But this path must begin in secret, and then shall we be led onward of God. To return to the scene before us. God had anointed David king. Saul was still in power, having offices, etc., which none but one who was of faith could sustain. David did not lift his hand in vengeance against Saul - he left all that was connected with the place of the flesh, and took his place as an outcast, simply and singly in the wilderness. There he was glad of any countenance, of any support. Just so is it at the present hour with the servants of Christ, who seek to walk in the truth - those, in a spiritual sense, of the lineage of David. The more they walk in it, the more sensitive will they become to any thing of kindness and love which comes in their way; for their hearts will be often worn and weary. I suppose there is nothing more gladdening to the soul that desires the good of others and the glory of God, than to see any uniting with itself for the truth’s sake. The "cup of cold water," any little act of kindness, connects such with the truth of God. In this there is distinct and precious service - "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto ME." God only sees the heart; but where there is one who says, "I receive, and countenance, and desire to cast in my lot with persons who are walking in the truth, suffering for righteousness’ sake" - there blessing will be. David was in need - here was another not in need. Rich in the earth, surrounded by this world’s goods, living in abundance - such was the character of Nabal. (5: 2.) David grudged him not his prosperity (nay, doubtless, he felt that he would not have exchanged his place for Nabal’s); it was no hard message that he sent: "I do not ask thee," he says, "to leave thy riches and follow me; I say, Peace both to thee, and peace to thy house, and peace unto all that thou hast; only wilt thou show kindness unto me; wilt thou give me that which I need?" (vv. 6-8.) The heart of David was large enough to have rejoiced in any thing that would have identified Nabal’s place with his. And so ever, when the heart of a saint is in a gracious state, there will not be the grudging of those around, nor yet the disposition to say, "See what I am, and what you are not." No, that heart will rather seek to bind the connecting link between another and itself. God deals in grace. He knew what the end of Nabal would be, yet this was the gracious test which He put to him. And if there had been a spark of grace in Nabal’s heart, of any thing according to God, it must have answered to the test. But there was not. His eye was fixed upon outward circumstances; his rough, outward thought about David’s position was this: "Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants that break away nowadays, every one from his master." (5: 10.) Now we must remember, dear friends, that we have all of us, naturally, this Nabal feeling (there is no heart without it) as well as other evil; and about this, even as believers, we have to watch and judge ourselves. I ask you, whether, because you desire to serve God, there is ready willingness, in full freedom of heart, to give all that countenance and fellowship which you are able to others who may stand in need of it? This may be done in the way of support, or comfort, or sympathy, either in temporal or spiritual things. Love will find out many a way. In the present day there are not a few who, it may be, seem to some of us to shrink from and shun the circumstances in which they find themselves placed. But about this we may misjudge them, and be saying, in principle, the same thing that Nabal said, little aware of the deep inward struggle and anxiety there has been. David had given up much; many a tie had been broken, many a struggle gone through, ere he took this position. So that, though it was true, in one sense, that he had "run away from his master," how different was the act in the eyes of God and of man. That which is outward soon attracts the eye, when perhaps it requires patient, diligent investigation to find out the truth. If the soul desire fellowship with God in His thoughts and ways, there must be this diligence, otherwise we shall never know what to encourage and what not. Depend upon it, all truth, the more it is known and acted on, the more will it lead into the isolated place. But we may learn a deep and practical lesson from what is shown out here of David’s heart - David was like many of us are often found, when any thing comes upon us unexpectedly, he was unprepared to meet, in steadfastness of grace, that which God allowed to be in his path. No doubt he considered the slight and dishonour put upon him by Natal "most uncalled for," "most unjust," "rather too much to bear." But he was wrongly roused. And how often is this the case with the saints of God. They dwell on circumstances, instead of turning from circumstances to God, and then acting amidst them according to Him. They say, perhaps, ’How unkind! How unjust! Do I deserve this treatment? Is it not quite right to be angry?’ Thus the place of grace is lost. Day by day a thousand things act on our spirits in one way or another, which are calculated to produce trying and painful effects. Now, if these be met in fellowship with God, they afford an occasion for bringing forth blessed fruit; but if not, we ourselves become contaminated, and have to confess sin. So that instead of (as the hymn says) Satan trembling and fleeing from us in every conflict, he often thus gains advantage over us. It is a blessed thing to be able to praise God for having enabled us practically to triumph and overcome. And this we should seek to attain. The apostle Paul could say, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith," and "none of these things move me," etc. We can always praise God for what He is in Himself, and for what He has made us in Christ; but we might also praise Him for our own practical victory over Satan and over the world. "’Mid mightiest foes most feeble are we, Yet trembling in ev’ry conflict they flee; The Lord is our banner, the battle is His, The weakest of saints more than conqueror is." Very often, beloved friends, the state in which we are would forbid our thus praising God. I mention this, not at all to discourage, but rather that we may be able to separate between what we are in Christ, and our own practical condition as overcomers. Look again at David: he was in danger, not only of not overcoming, but of being overcome and falling into deep sin. How did he act, as the servant of God, bearing meekly Nabal’s taunts and cutting reproach? Did he take it up in the name of God? No; it was in the spirit of his own wounded pride. There was one, however, in the house of Nabal, and bound to him too by a tie which none but God could break, of altogether a different character to Nabal; one who belonged to the Lord - a woman of faith. Abigail was able to discern in David (outcast and needy wanderer though he was) the anointed one of the God of Israel, him whom God was surely about to bring to greatness, as the chosen head of His people: "The Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house; because my lord fighteth the battles of the Lord." Abigail was able to follow the path of David with the eye of faith, and to put herself on to the hour of his glory. Now this shows that her soul was deeply taught of God. But then the very circumstance of her being thus taught of God must have made her situation in Nabal’s house most painful, and her connection with him a yoke. Harassed every day - finding hindrances from, but having no communion with him to whom she was bound - able to see the folly of Nabal’s position, and to contrast it with that of the man of faith, she might have felt this to be a strange dealing of the Lord towards her. But her heart was being prepared for a service which before she knew not. She might have said, ’Why is it thus with me? were I in other and different circumstances, what blessing, what happiness should I feel in serving the servants of God; but here I am hindered.’ Many a soul is thus brought (not by self-chosen paths) into a very trying and painful position, distinctly from the desire to serve God. Now no real desire to serve God will ever be in vain. God may make some way for its being answered, even now, and the time will come when this will be fully the case. Meanwhile there is great profit and discipline of heart in having our neck bowed to the yoke, in being brought to submit to God. Moses was not bound to Pharaoh’s house, and therefore in faithfulness he quitted it for the Lord’s sake. So with Abraham and his father’s house. But there may be circumstances, as those of Abigail, which must be endured, where the soul is called to bear the yoke and to wait upon God. Yet these will be full of abundant blessing. There is in them a secret breaking of the will, and bruising of the flesh, which will be found most profitable in after service to God. Abigail, in her place of quiet retirement, stood much more in the place of communion with the truth than David. She was able to check the wrong feeling of even the man of faith. Whilst David was lost, as it were, in the mist of his own thoughts, Abigail brought in the clear light of the truth to bear on his actions. And David owned, and thanked God for her counsel. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me: and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand." (vv. 32, 33.) These were the words of David, when alive to the sin in which his pride had set him. Now, beloved friends, who would have thought that Abigail would ever have been the counselor of David - one, suffering so much for, so beloved of God, so distinctly his servant, high in grace and in faith - one far beyond Abigail, as she would have thought. And yet she was tried, and kept where she was alone, until the time came for her to be the effectual monitor of David, and intercessor for Nabal. Observe the teaching of God. She took the blessed place of intercession. David, in his wrath, was just about to give the blow, to avenge himself with his own hand, instead of leaving the case in the hand of God. Now this would have taken away one of the most blessed features in the character of David - the leaving all things to God. In Abigail’s words we see the strong power of faith. She said, "The soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as out of the middle of a sling. And it shall come to pass, when the Lord shall have done to my lord according to all the good that He hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel, that this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood causeless, or that my lord hath avenged himself: but when the Lord shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember thine handmaid." (vv. 29-31.) If David had placed himself forward thus to the time of his glory, he would never have thought of raising his hand to give the blow, or of shedding causeless blood; whereas, we know that his hands were nearly imbrued in that of the very young men who spoke so kindly of him to Abigail. (vv. 14-17.) Had he thought, ’How, in the hour of my glory, will this action appear to me?’ he would have been checked. The place of faith is always to look beyond present circumstances, on to the time of the end; then we begin to see and judge of things according to God. Thus it was with Abigail. And when we realise our association with God, and the appointed end of glory, we shall act as she did. In the most trying things which happen to us, if we can by faith associate ourselves with God, if we can see Him with us as our friend, the One who hath said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord:" we shall never feel disposed to avenge ourselves, or think of anything, save intercession, as it regards those who may have grieved and wronged us. The present actings of God are in grace and mercy. We should rather seek to bring down, and subdue, and melt. "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." There is nothing so suitable, now, as taking the place of grace, and desiring to bring under its power whatever meets us individually. How highly honoured was this poor tried and solitary witness for God in Nabal’s house. The honour will come when the hand of God will give the final blow. Nabal was spared by David, but God was about to deal with him in his own way. He cared for none of these things that were transpiring around him. He understood them not. Intercession had been made for him, he was careless about it; the recipient of mercy, he passed that by. "He held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken. (5: 36.) But when that was over, his wife simply told him what had happened - a tale of mercy and of grace. Yet though told in the simplicity of truth, it was as words of death to Nabal, it withered his heart, and "he became as a stone." (vv. 37, 38.) The hand of God was against him. Now this is intended to throw a very solemn shade over the chapter. Such is the end of all that is not of faith. The very things that are truly blessed turned into the power of withering. This will be felt to the full by-and-by, when persons are able to look back at mercies received, but see themselves entirely separated from all blessings, and from the God that gave them. This is remorse. There is nothing so painful as remorse, the sense of circumstances of mercy which have eternally passed away, and the person who has received them for ever separated from God. Nabal’s way was "folly," and his end was that of "the fool" But thus will it be with every thing around that disowns communion with the ways and with the lowly place of David. He said, "Shall I take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give them unto men whom I know not whence they be?" (5: 2.) Abigail knew whence they were, and she thought lightly of all these things compared to the service of God. Now, although we may not be like Nabal, yet still we have each of us this Nabal propensity to watch against the habit of soul which would incline us to say, ’my bread,’ ’my goods,’ ’my reputation,’ ’my standing,’ etc., wherever the word "MY" comes across the blessed privilege of being identified with Christ in the lowly place. No heart can be more miserable than one having the Spirit condemning its ways, and if there be this seeking of our own things and not of the things which be Christ’s, the Spirit of God must condemn and be against it. Very often you will find in saints who have sought to serve God that when they come to die they have not the same joy as those who have been just converted. Look at the thief who believed in Christ after he hung upon the cross, and at one who has served God, it may be, for twenty years. Though both are equally accepted and made complete in Christ, yet the latter ought to be able to say, in addition to that which the poor thief said, "I have kept the faith." It is a thing of deep importance even to the practical peace and joy of the saints to be in circumstances where the desires of the Spirit are met. This is not said to hinder or take away the joy of the feeblest saint. If there be need for humiliation, let it be. But whether we be led to prayer, or praise, or humiliation, let it have the character of truthfulness before God. We see then the end of Nabal. Nevertheless, awful as that end was, it freed Abigail from her painful situation, and she became associated with him, upon whom she knew the blessing of God to rest. (vv. 39-42.) She gave up her house, her riches, all, it would seem, to cast in her lot with him who was as yet a wanderer, hunted for his life "as a partridge in the mountains." But soon the scene is changed. Abigail is taken captive, and apparently about to be separated for ever from David. (1 Samuel 30:1-31) How strange, after a little moment of blessing, to be placed in circumstances more terrible than before! But this only opened a further occasion for faith. Supposing there had been any undue feeling of elation, any unsubdued thought in Abigail’s mind, how must this trial have been felt by her as chastening from the hand of God. Otherwise she may have acted in very distinct and holy faith, receiving the blessing as directly from God. Blessings must be received in one or other of these ways. If exalted, and walking in the flesh, she must have felt the blow as chastisement, and been taught by it to humble herself, to judge her ways, and consider the difference between resting in the creature and in God. But suppose she had received and sustained her situation, in the power of faith, this trial would only strengthen her faith, and thus God would be glorified, whilst she was taught a lesson of the weakness of nature, and of the danger of resting in the creature instead of in God. Sooner or later the time must come, when we are brought to feel the nakedness of the creature. When flesh and heart fail, none but God can be our strength. It is for us to consider, which of the places brought before us in this chapter is ours. We may not be able to take the forward place of David, but then there is that place of Abigail - at least, we can look at that which is suffering for the sake of Jesus, and give it all, or a portion of that we have. It is not the measure or amount, the question is, whether there be the link between us and them? I trust, through the Lord’s mercy, all are able to see distinctly what was the place of Nabal, and to turn from it, as Abigail did. We should be conscious of the trials and difficulties of others, and never think lightly of them, or of any evil in Satan’s world. I know of nothing that will so open the Scriptures, and guide our thoughts as to passing events, and as to those with whom we should seek to become identified, as acquaintance with these things. Seek then to have your souls deepened in the knowledge of them, to judge of present circumstances as placing yourselves on, by faith, to the time of the end. David will then have to see standing before him, Uriah; and Paul, Stephen; to whose death he was accessory. It is a marvellous thought; but will Paul’s or David’s joy be less on this account? No; there will be a power of blessing, such as none but God can give, that will take away every such bitter sting. I say this, believe me, not to make light of sin, but to associate your minds with that hour. Past sins cannot be undone; seek not to have those things or persons about you now, that you might not be able to think of with joy. If you bring in the thought of that day on your ways, you will soon be able to discern the nature of all around. There never is a soul that seeks to bring in God’s judgments on its ways, that does not glorify God. Faith, though feeble, must lead to the glory of God. There may be faith about trivial things, about things that we could not speak of to another; and here we find the nearness of God to us. So, whether you are threatened by coming danger, or tried by past or present circumstances, seek to bring in the power of faith, let God be your counselor. The character of the enemies of God, is that of "children in whom is no faith." May your refuge and strength be distinctly in God. This alone can sustain the soul. "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have received the reconciliation." It is our privilege to know, not only that we have peace with God, but that He also watches over us, and leads us in the paths of service. May we be able to learn this as being under His hand. Would we desire to be brought into practical fellowship with Him in His ways, let us seek it by prayer and supplication. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 52: VOL 02 - CAIN: HIS WORLD AND HIS WORSHIP ======================================================================== Cain: His World and His Worship Genesis 4:1-26. It is a terrible history of man’s hopelessness, the history God has given us in His word (I say history, because we have a setting forth of his sins and failures from the beginning); but then the blessed grace of God is shown forth in it, because it tells of Christ. It is not simply that man’s heart is evil, that is true; but it has been proved evil in the presence of every thing that ought to have restrained its evil. God has given us the history of man’s ways and of His dealings with man; and in whatever way He has dealt with man, we find the evil of man’s heart breaking out, and following its course, spite of all. Man, having sinned against God, is turned out of Paradise. (Genesis 3:1-24) The next thing we read of is the outrageous wickedness of man against his brother - Cain, Adam’s firstborn, slaying Abel. (Genesis 4:1-26) Then comes the flood, sweeping away a whole generation of evil-doers (Genesis 7:1-24); mercy shown to Noah (he and his house saved through the judgment). Immediately afterwards we find him drunk in his tent, and Ham, his son, mocking and dishonouring him. (Genesis 9:1-29) God speaks to Israel at Sinai, thundering with His voice His righteous demands from man; yet, awful as the presence of God is (and even Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake), before Moses comes down from the mount, the people have made the golden calf, and broken the first link that binds them to the service of Jehovah. (Exodus 32:1-35) In the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ we see God visiting man in grace, dealing with sinners in grace, in the person of His Son - Him they slay and hang on a tree. (Acts 5:30; Acts 10:39.) Israel’s history (man’s under the most favourable circumstances) is one scene of violence and evil all the way through, so that Stephen, in testifying to them after their rejection of Christ, and the descent of the Holy Ghost in witness of Christ’s glory, says they were but doing as their fathers had ever done - "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye." (Acts 7:51.) Notwithstanding all the dealings of God with man - the voice of God and the judgments of God - man is so hopelessly bad, that the nearer he is brought to God the more culture there is bestowed upon him by God, only the more is manifested, and that in darker characters, the sin and desperate wickedness of his heart working spite of all in sight even of God’s judgments. In the sin in the garden we get the character of man’s evil as against God. Cain’s sin is sin against a neighbour.* Of course, both are sins against God (all sin is against God); but whilst in the sin of Adam and Eve we see lust and disobedience, in Cain’s there is something more, it is sin as exhibited against a neighbour. Man, as to his actual condition, is a sinner cast out of Paradise [Eden], already out of the presence of God; and he ought to have the consciousness of being out, and that the only way of getting back to God is through His Son. We are not in Paradise. We have got out of it some way or other; and we are in a world which is under judgment, and where death is staring us in the face. Adam had just been driven out of Paradise, and Cain must have had, through Adam, the remembrance that there was a time when man was not out of Paradise, when he heard God’s voice in the garden without fear, when he had not a bad conscience, and when he was without toil. Saints or sinners, in our own eyes, we have been driven out of Eden, and we are in the wilderness, utterly excluded from God’s presence. We ought to have the consciousness of being out, and of the misery of our condition; but, alas! we have lost all remembrance of the place in which we once were, and have become familiarised to the ruin and desolation consequent upon sin. Still it is true, and we cannot deny it, that we have got out of Paradise, and are in a world constantly under judgment. We may try to make the best of the world, but we must all feel that something has come in, something that has brought in death and judgment. Happiness cannot be associated with sin any more than sin can be associated with God. As for man, though he seeks to buoy himself up with his sins, and to delude himself with the lie of Satan, sink he must, sooner or later, under the power of the sin and death that has come in. He is just spending his energies to make the world pleasant without God, and himself comfortable and rich in it; to die out of it. *"What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself." (Luke 10:26-27.) The world he cannot keep. He may build a city for himself, as Cain did (5: 17), and call it after his own name (Cain called his city after the name of his son), but it will be with him, as David speaks, "Their inward thought is, that their houses shall. continue for ever, and their dwelling-places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish. This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings. Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them." (Psalms 49:1-20 ) Cain did not like the sense of the wrath of God lying upon him* Gone out from the presence of the Lord (5: 16), he had become so great in the earth that he could build a city. Man never likes to be in the truth of his condition. Cain likes not to be "a fugitive and a vagabond," and he tries to build a city, and he does build a city, in the endeavour to make the world as pleasant as he can without God. It might be said, What harm was there in building a city? In the first place there would never have been the necessity for this in Paradise. Moreover, it was a proof of insensibility as to his sin against God; it showed quiet contentment under the effect of that punishment which at first he had felt was greater than he could bear; it was the last expression of total alienation of heart and affection from God. *"And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? And He said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cured from the earth" [not merely, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake, etc., as to Adam], "which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth," etc. (5: 9-14.) Driven out from the presence of God, he sets about to establish himself. He seeks for himself a home, not with God in heaven, but on the earth, from which God had pronounced him "cursed!" He makes himself master of a city where God had made him "a vagabond." And mark, further, the faculty man has of making himself happy in his estrangement from God. We find amongst the family of Cain, not only "the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle" (5: 20), but "the father of such as handle the harp and the organ" (5: 21), and the "instructor of every artificer in brass and iron" (5: 22). Now, there is nothing wrong in working brass and iron, neither is there any harm in sweet sounds (we read in the Book of Revelation of harpers in heaven); but what Cain was doing was this, he was making the world pleasant without God.* These are the efforts of man, who has settled himself down in a world where judgment has placed him, and who is trying to make himself as happy and the world as pleasant as he can, without God, till death and judgment overtake him. If I saw a man who had committed some wicked crime against his father, the next hour playing on musical instruments, should I say there was no harm in that? *"It is a marvel, when we know by the light of revelation the true character of all that is invested with the deceitful colouring of Satan, to see that all man glories in as his own, as the proof of his own wisdom and excellence, all that he does and rejoices in, is but remedy - remedy against himself. The proudest results of science and art are but devices, imperfect devices, necessitated by the devastating effects of his own sin, without which they had never been, and simple proofs of his being reduced to do without God, and to act for himself. Thus does he endeavour to hide the witnesses of evil which rise up against him wheresoever he moves; and for death too, if it might be, he would find a remedy, but there is none. He would put it out of sight if it were possible; but still it remains, the last humbling evidence of his actual condition, the true value of himself, and of all his works." - Extract from Resurrection, not Death, the Hope of the Believer. Such was Cain’s world. And is it not like your* world? Is there any difference between your world and Cain’s world? Is it a better world because God’s Son has been crucified in it? Has that act on the part of man made it more acceptable to God, because that has happened since the days of Cain? Where is the difference? They had their "harps and organs," and so have you. They had their artificers in brass and in iron," and so have you. It was Cain’s world then, away from God; and it is Cain’s world still The like tree produces like fruit. Man is carrying on the world by himself, and for himself, endeavouring to keep God out of sight, as much as possible to do without God, lest God should get at his conscience, and make him miserable. *The believer is "not of the world;" his home and citizenship are in heaven, and his walk down here on the earth should be in the distinct consciousness and in the distinct confession that he "seeks a country." (Hebrews 11:14.) This is of the last importance; anything of the earth is of that which rejected Christ. Can you find any difference between Cain’s world without God, and your world without God? You may object that you are not without God, that you are called by the name of Christ, are Christians, and have a "religion" also. Cain had a "religion." He was a religious man; as religious as Abel. But he had no love to God; he had no faith. He was a religious man, but not a godly man. It is a strange introduction to this picture, the setting forth of Cain as a worshipper, and a worshipper moreover of the true God. We read: "And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord." (vv. 2, 3.) There is no mention made of false gods before the flood. Cain was a worshipper of the one living and true God. Soon after the flood there were idolaters, and then God called out a separate people as witnesses of His character, to make good His name and grace. But there is not any mention made of false gods before Joshua 24:6-8, "Your fathers worshipped other gods," a fresh crime, a fresh snare of the enemy, which called for new measures on the part of God. Satan had come and slipped himself in between man and God, and was the one that was really worshipped, though under the name of gods; and the call of Abram was the call and witness of "the Most High God." Your "artificers in brass and iron" are worshippers of the true God. So was Cain. And he took some pains too. He offered that which he had been toiling for in "the sweat of his brow." He was a "tiller of the ground," and he "brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord." He did not bring that which cost him nothing. (2 Samuel 24:24.) Nay, his worship cost more of toil than that of Abel. He came in the way of nature, offering the fruit of his toil and labour. And you have done the same. This is ever the character of false worship. Religiousness does not take a man out of the character of Cain; it the rather brings him into it; so that you have not got one step in that way out of the character God has marked as that of CAIN. Observe, I do not charge you with being hypocrites, for I do not say that Cain was not sincere. There is no doubt indeed of his sincerity; but then his sincerity only evidenced the blind-hardness of his heart. Human sincerity means nothing, it is often but the greatest proof of the desperate darkness in which a man is. Those were sincere of whom Christ said, "He that killeth you will think he doeth God service." Saul of Tarsus was thoroughly sincere when he "thought" he "ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." He consulted moreover the chief priests and elders, the religious authorities of the day. He was zealous for his religion, and thoroughly sincere as a man, but totally blind as to God and the things of Christ, thinking to do God service by fighting against and slaying His saints. Cain, in his sincerity, brought to the Lord that which cost him something, that which was the fruit of his toil. He came to God as a worshipper, and in so doing offered to God that which he had brought honestly as a man, but which proved him to be ignorant of his state as a sinner. What, then, is man to hope for? you will say. He is to hope for nothing. Did he not get out of Paradise because of sin? What possible ground can he have as a sinner for hoping to get into heaven? What ground had Cain for hoping that God would accept either himself or his offering? God had driven man out of Paradise because of sin, what ground had he to expect by the works of his hands to get back into the presence of God? You may say, It was not the works of his hands, but the fruits of God’s creation. But what would you think of the man who was hoping to get into heaven by offering his corn and his wine to God, supposing, like Simon Magus (Acts 8:1-40), that the gift of God may be bought? Why, it would show that his conscience was as hard as the nether millstone, utterly insensible to the condition he was in, as well as to the character of God. The very worship of Cain proved the desperate, utter insensibility of his heart to the judgment of God against sin, and to those mighty things which had just happened, the effects and consequences of which he was now experiencing. How came man to be toiling there in the sweat of his brow? Their very toil told the tale of the curse. They had been driven out of Eden for sin. But in Cain we see utter recklessness to the judgment of God. He had forgotten the very nature and being of that God who had set man perfectly happy in the garden, at the first, to keep it, and to enjoy its fruits (fruits yielded to his hand without toil or labour); and supposed that, by toil and labour (the judicial consequences of sin), he could produce something that God would accept. There was utter, desperate recklessness as to the judgment of God. Cain’s worship was the worst thing he did. It was, in fact, the denying that he had sinned. Such blindness to what he had been, such hardness of conscience, in supposing that he could get into the presence of God in his sins as if nothing at all had happened! Such wretched assumption, that because he was a "tiller of the ground," tilling of the ground was all right! But how came it to be all right? Because God had cursed the ground. He, a defiled sinner, driven out of Paradise, brings "of the fruit of the ground," which the Lord had cursed, "an offering to the Lord;" that is, he brings into the presence of God the sign and seal of the sin that had driven him out from God! And how comes a man to be going Sunday after Sunday, as he says, to "worship God"? What is all this toil? to "make peace with God"? God is "the God of peace;" He "preaches peace," a made peace, through "the blood of the cross;" yet man goes on, seeking to carry something into God’s presence as "a duty," "to make peace," without once asking about God’s way of peace. Cain was a worshipper of God; but there was no faith in Cain. There was no faith to recognise his own ruin and sin, no faith to apprehend the judgment of God against sin, he had no business in the presence of God as he was, no title to be a worshipper of God. He had not a bit of faith to recognise his own condition as driven out of Paradise, his sin and estrangement from God, or that blood, death, was necessary in order for him to approach God. That is just the world’s worship, and are you any the better for it? are you any the nearer to God? Tell me, dear friends, what if God does not receive your worship I suppose that, after all your well-doing and toil for God, God rejects it - for that is what Cain’s toiling met with from God: "Unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect" (5: 5) - would you be content? How was it with Cain? "Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell." And it is ever thus. The moment God puts man on the true ground of his condition before Him, the enmity of the natural heart breaks out against God. Cain was "very wroth," exceeding angry. And why? Because his heart was opposed to grace. He had not owned the first principle of sin in the presence of God. And you, when the sovereign grace of the gospel comes to you, are "very wroth." What, a man do his best, you exclaim, and not be accepted! So thought Cain. And so thinks every man naturally; that is, he thinks that God must accept him just as well as he accept God, bringing down God to his own measure of holiness. And then the wrath of man breaks out, and he rejects the righteousness that God holds out to him; he will not have His Son. There is not a principle in Cain that is not found in you. There is no evil in brass and iron, nor is there any harm in sweet sounds. The evil and the sin is in this, that men are using these things to hide God from them. If you are worshippers of the true God, so was Cain. We may put a terrible name on that which we see in Cain, and yet approve of the same thing in ourselves. The light tells us that was sin in Cain, which the spirit of self-love tells us is not sin in our own case. What difference is there between you and Cain? Take the Bible, and see if you can make out any difference. The only real difference is this, that you have a farther and more developed knowledge of "the seed of the woman" (Christ), and therefore, that of the two, you are the more guilty. Having sinned against God, abused His goodness, and refused His Son, man turns to please himself as if nothing had happened. It is more terrible to a spiritual eye to see insensibility after sin has been committed; it is a far deeper shade of sin than even the commission of the crime. The returning of a soul to God is. just in the being awakened to a sense of the awfulness of this state. There is yet another feature in the Cain character - open hostility to those who know God’s principle of grace, to those whom God does accept. See what follows: "And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him." (5: 8.) Abel, as a poor helpless man, should have demanded Cain’s sympathy; but Cain, hates the one whom God delights in. And so it is now. Why is it that you are so angry at a fault in a Christian, which you readily excuse in a man of the world, if it be not hatred to the name he bears? If it ought to produce better fruits in him, why not adopt it yourselves? If you are expecting better from him than from the world, why not follow that which you profess to believe will produce the better fruit. But you have not merely hated the name of Christ, you have been guilty of hating that which God has stablished in Christ. And here is the same principle that crucified Christ, the desperate recklessness of sin. You cannot deny that the world has crucified Christ. God’s Son is not now in the world. He has been in the world. He became a man amongst men: "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." (John 1:14.) Man saw and hated Him, and summed up his evil in killing Him. I ask you, therefore, Has God no such question with you as He had with Cain, "Where is thy brother?" (5: 9.) And is not God demanding of the world, Where is Christ? Cain replied, "I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?" Here is a much worse character of sin than Adam’s. It is the haughtiness and recklessness of sin. "Am I my brother’s keeper?" Not only has there been sin against God - sin that has exiled man from Eden, and separated him from the presence of God - but there has been sin also, that has led to the hatred and destruction of a brother (blessed and perfect in His ways), whom man has seen. Your disclaiming this displays and is the proof of the recklessness of your hearts. "If I had not come and spoken unto them," said Jesus, "they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause." (John 15:22-25.) The coming of the Son of God into the world has shown the real state it is in. Why was Christ rejected by man, except that man hated God? That was the only reason that Christ was slain in this world. They hated God, and therefore they hated Him. They hated the Light. "Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds, should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God." (John 3:20-21.) "They loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." And this is their sin, that they have put the Light out of the world. Like Cain, they were "of that wicked one, and slew" their "brother." (1 John 3:12, see John 8:40-47.) Like him, too, in the motive. "And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous." "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" (John 8:46.), Even Pilate said, "I find no fault in Him." (John 18:38; John 19:4; John 19:6.) The world* has sinned against God in crucifying and slaying Jesus. They hated God, and therefore turned God’s Son out of the world when sent to it in love. *Not merely Jews are in question here; the world has done it, man has done it. "He was despised and rejected of men." But there is another thing. It is not simply a question of man’s having killed the Lord Jesus Christ; the world has now to answer for its resistance of the Holy Ghost. "Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost," etc. The testimony of the Holy Ghost, present in the world as witness of the glory of Christ, is a conviction of the world of sin. (John 16:7-15.) He has been sent down since Christ has been glorified. The necessary testimony of His very presence in the world is this, He would not have been here on earth if Christ had not been killed. He is come in condemnation of the whole world before God. I am here, He says, as it were, because you have killed your Abel. It is not a question about particular sins. You have killed God’s Son; you are a sinner, because you have not believed on Him. Well then, dear friends, are you the daily companions of those who have rejected Christ, who have killed Christ? Are you of that world, and found with that world in its pleasures and profits, its religion and its lusts, that has done this, and that is still against God and against His Christ, vainly trying to make yourselves pleasant without God? or have you taken your stand with those who are "of God," who have God with them and God for them, though the whole world that lieth in the wicked one be against them. The efforts that are being made merely to improve the world are but the sign of the insensibility of Cain. The Spirit of God is come into the world to awaken us to a sense of what has happened in the world, and of the truth of our condition as men. How came poor Abel to be an accepted worshipper? "And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain," etc. (5: 4.) He was accepted by blood. There was this testimony in his offering, I cannot go to God as I am; I am driven out of Paradise; sin has come in between me and God, and death, "the wages of sin," must come in between me and God or I cannot go to God - I cannot go as I am. He took the place of a sinner, and put in faith between himself and God, the blood of a victim that had been slain. Unless in his going to God he had owned his necessity that he could not get into the presence of God at all but by blood he would, not have been accepted any more than Cain. But he knew and owned that he could not get to God without blood; he was of faith, and faith ever sees that "without shedding of blood there is no remission." (Hebrews 9:22.) He put death, judicially inflicted death, by slaying the victim, between himself and God, and then he comes into the presence of God as an accepted worshipper. "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh." (Hebrews 11:4.) But further, Abel suffered with Christ. Having owned that he could not come into the presence of God without the blood of the Lamb slain, he takes his place and portion with Christ in rejection. He is a sufferer from the wicked of the world. That is how it must end. That is all that the Christian is to expect at the hands of a world departed from God. "Marvel not if the world hate you." (1 John 3:13.) "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest," says the apostle, "by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and having an high priest over the house of God; let us draw near," etc. (Hebrews 10:19-22.) All who come not through Him are rejected, because they do not know that they are so utterly sinful that they cannot come into God’s presence except through the blood of His Son. And, on the other hand, all who say I cannot go up except through blood, see that it is the perfectness of love - God’s own perfect blessed love, that to meet man’s need spared nothing, not even his only-begotten Son; "for He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Corinthians 5:21.) This is the language of faith. He is the only God who, when I was a lost sinner, gave His Son to die for me. I know of no God but a God of perfect love bringing me out of all my vileness, as did the father to the returning prodigal (Luke 15:1-32), and bringing me into His house to rejoice with Him in the exceeding riches of His grace. We get perfect blessed peace through the blood of Christ, without one pang of conscience left. The worshipper once purged, has no more conscience of sin." (Hebrews 10:1-39.) The apostle does not say that he is not a sinner, that he is not vile: but that God has so loved the vile and sinful as to give His Son unto death to wash away their vileness and their sins. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 53: VOL 02 - CALEB ======================================================================== Caleb Joshua 14:6-12. "We are saved by hope;" but hope is divine certainty, because it is connected with the purpose of God. All His own counsel is before God, and it shall stand. He has measured the difficulties in the way of its accomplishment by the resources of His own grace, His own wisdom, and His own strength. Neither the frailty of the creature, nor the power of the adversary, shall prevent the blessing of those who are "the called according to the purpose of God. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son." It is this result of the purpose of God which is the object of the hope of the Christian. It is not the hope of forgiveness of sins, neither the hope of righteousness, nor the hope of eternal life, properly; for the hope of which the apostle speaks is based on these wondrous blessings, which are already secured by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing short of these blessings can result from the work of the Holy Ghost, at one and the same time communicating life to the soul, and presenting Jesus to it as the object of faith. If there be uncertainty of hope, it is because the soul is not really reposing on Christ Himself and His perfect work. Whenever this is the case (and how common it is, alas! we too well know), the thing hoped for is the ascertainment of forgiveness of sins and righteousness, instead of pardon and righteousness being the groundwork of hope. But real, scriptural hope - being the expectation of that, in manifestation, which is already known in the consciousness of the soul by faith, yea, and enjoyed, too, by the Spirit - is necessarily connected with patience. "Hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." When Christ shall appear, not only will the saints appear with Him in glory, but their longings for the full enjoyment, without any hindrance, of that which is theirs already shall be fully realised. But notwithstanding the certainty and blessedness of our hope, it has pleased our God, who knows the cravings of that life which is communicated by the Holy Ghost, and flows from union with our risen and glorified Head, to make provision for the sustainment and encouragement of our souls by giving to us the Holy Ghost as the earnest of the inheritance. He is not the earnest so much in the way of leading our souls from what we do taste now to what we may expect to taste when we are in glory; but it is rather in the way of the divine certainty of those things which God has prepared for them that love Him that He now gives the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. The light in which we regard the truth of the earnest of the Spirit will make a great difference as to the stability of our souls. This relation of the Holy Ghost to us is distinct from those spiritual instincts which He Himself has communicated. Being given as the earnest, in consequence of the certainty of the determinate counsel of God in bringing those whom He has called to glory, He is at once the Spirit of revelation to show to us the things which are freely given to us of God, and the Spirit of communion, so as to enjoy all that which He thus shows us; but at the same time He is Himself the earnest, which never could have been given, save as the witness of accomplished redemption, and because of the certainty of future glory. It is thus that so many blessings, which, as to actual manifestation and real unhindered enjoyment, are yet future, are spoken of most truly as present. This blessed truth might be largely illustrated. In one sense, we wait for our blessings; in another, we have them already. The manifestation of our sonship is yet future; but we wait not to be sons. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be [rather, what we shall be hath not yet been manifested]: but we know that, when He shall appear [be manifested], we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is." But Christ has already manifested Himself to us, "although He be not manifested to the world. So again, He is gone to prepare mansions for us in the Father’s house, and we expect that He will come again, and receive us unto Himself; that where He is, there we may be also." This is the characteristic hope of the Church; but mark "the earnest" resulting from this certain hope: "If a man love Me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode [mansion] with him." Most blessed earnest: the Father and the Son, now in the unity of the Spirit, making their mansion with us! We are sons, waiting for the adoption. Strange language! yet how real. We wait for the adoption - to wit the redemption of the body - because to be in a glorified body, like Christ Himself, with Christ in heaven, is the proper suited place for the sons of God. But because of this, being born of God now, we are sons, and God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Observe, the Spirit is not given to make us sons, but because we are sons; and although not actually in our native home, yet God enables us to speak, and think, and act as His sons, although we are as unknown to the world as Jesus Christ Himself was while He was in the world. We need faith, for "we walk by faith;" we need hope, "for we are saved by hope;" but we need also the Holy Ghost Himself as the present earnest of our inheritance, lest we faint and grow weary by the way. Grace and glory are two consecutive links in the golden chain of God; but, for the most part to us, there is practically an interval filled up by painful experience on our part, and yet such experience as causes us to learn grace now, "manifold grace," in a manner we could hardly learn it in glory, just as assuredly we shall learn it in glory, even "the riches of grace," after a manner inconceivable by us at present. The joyous triumphant song of Israel on the banks of the Red Sea, witnessing the grace and power of God in their deliverance from Egypt, stopt not short of their immediate introduction into Canaan. The Holy Ghost who indited that song could not celebrate the unbelief of Israel, but the grace, power, and faithfulness of God. "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation. The people shall hear and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina. Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed: the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away." There was no reason why deliverance out of Egypt should not have been introduction into Canaan; the grace and power which had effected the one was pledged for the accomplishment of the other, and could alone effect it. But how different is the actual experience of God’s people, whether typically redeemed as Israel, or really as the Church, from the truth of God, which either may celebrate. Israel trembled before those whom they mentioned in their song as melting away before them. And the whole wilderness history intervenes between deliverance from Egypt and introduction into Canaan. And we ourselves also often tremble before already conquered enemies, triumphing by faith the moment we bring in God as manifested in Christ, but often dropping the notes of triumph for murmurs or fears, because the heart is not really occupied with the things freely given to us of God. It is truly refreshing, in the sorrowful history of Israel in the wilderness, to find such a one as Caleb. He is not one of the great public actors as Moses, Aaron, or Joshua. One of the "heads of the children of Israel," of the honoured tribe of Judah, he was going the weary round of the wilderness with his brethren, but assuredly with lighter heart and firmer step than they; and in this respect he so blessedly illustrates what the earnest of the Spirit is, and at the same time is a type of that class of "unknown," "yet well known," Christians who, apart from murmuring and strife, are steadily wending their way to that rest, of which the Lord Himself has spoken to them. Historically, Caleb presents to us a feature which we find not in Moses himself. He had known Egypt for the first forty years of his life, he had trodden Canaan forty days, he had gone through the wilderness, and had passed over Jordan into the possession of Canaan, and was still full of manly vigour and courage. He was one of those who, through faith, had obtained promises, and was not satisfied till he was in actual possession. "On the first day of the second month, in the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt," Moses and Aaron number Israel in the wilderness of Sinai, "every male by their polls, from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel." (Numbers 1:1-4.) Again, "after the plague," in which twenty-four thousand perished in the matter of Baal-peor, Moses and Eleazer the priest number Israel in the plains of Moab, by Jordan, near Jericho; "but among these there was not a man of them whom Moses and Aaron the priest numbered, when they numbered the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai For the Lord had said of them, They shall surely die in the wilderness. And there was not left a man of them, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun." (Numbers 26:1; Numbers 26:4; Numbers 26:64-65.) While this verified the word of God, we may still ask, What hindered Caleb and Joshua from being worn out by the trial of the wilderness, which had worn out all their generation? Let Caleb himself answer. "Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadesh-barnea. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the Lord my God. And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as He said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said." (Joshua 14:6-12.) "I brought him word again as it was in mine heart." Caleb owned that it was a pleasant land which the Lord gave to the children of Israel, and his heart was set upon it. He could discern the difference between that land and Egypt; between the land which was cultivated with all the appliance of human skill, "watered with the foot," and "a land of hills and valleys, which drinketh water of the rain of heaven: a land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year." His treasure was in the land, and there his heart was. Others esteemed Egypt preferable to the wilderness, when their hearts were discouraged from going up to possess Canaan, on account of the difficulties in the way; but Caleb esteemed Canaan, with all the difficulty of entering into it, as far more precious than Egypt with present ease, but with present bondage also. Canaan was in his heart all the time he traversed the wilderness. He had tasted the fruit of Canaan; his eyes had beholden it; and he had not the report of others as to the land, but his own "feet had trodden it." It was this which made him tread the wilderness with such elastic steps. Besides this, he had the sure word of the Lord’s promise to support him. He knew the certain end unto which his wanderings, in company with others, must lead. As they encamped or broke up, at the commandment of the Lord, he could either "rest in his tent," or traverse the wilderness with the land in his heart, and say, after every weary march or lengthened encampment, The wilderness time is far spent; the day of again seeing the land is at hand. As his contemporaries wasted away, how solemn must have been the admonition to his soul against the sin of unbelief; how forcibly must the rapid passing away of that evil generation have brought these words to his remembrance - "Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted Me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice; surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked Me see it: but my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it." "God hath given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." This was the comfort, strength, and establishment of apostles, as well as of common Christians. Christ Himself, to whom the Spirit ever bears witness, is thus not only the object of faith, but the object of desire also. It is as the object of desire that He is known now in earnest by the Spirit. Experimentally, He is never known by the soul in all His own attractive loveliness until He be received as "all our salvation." The selfish heart of man cannot bear to contemplate such perfection, condemnatory of itself, until that lawful, selfish craving is answered, "What must I do to be saved" by, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved." We can only study Him by knowing Him as the Saviour. But when He is so known, what graciousness do we find in His own word - "I will not leave you comfortless I will come to you." He comes now into the heart by the Spirit: blessed earnest indeed of His coming for us, to be with Him where He is. It is thus, too, that the apostle speaks to us: "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ be in you," etc. Well indeed says another: "Whom not having seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." If the Spirit of God shows to us the things which are freely given to us of God, He shows them not as in the distant future, but being Himself the earnest of the inheritance, He now glorifies Jesus, taking of His things and showing them unto us, and showing them as ours now in Him, so that we can taste and handle our own blessings. We too are solemnly warned as to the evil of unbelief in finding many an object to which we have fondly clung passing away, so that bitter disappointment would ensue were it not that by the Spirit we more fully realised, and were led more deeply to taste, the unfailing blessings which are ours in Christ. "Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the Lord my God." It is no presumption in any of us to answer to the testimony of God to our own souls. So did Caleb; for the Lord said, "But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed Me fully." Caleb had searched the land, following the Lord his God there, when the Lord Himself was his guide and defence, and no enemy could set upon him. He had seen that the land "was exceeding good;" but he reckoned on the good pleasure of the Lord in His people. "If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it us." The soul of Caleb rested entirely on the grace and power of God, which had caused them to triumph at the Red Sea, and had kept the spies in searching the land. The same grace and power could alone lead them into possession of the land. On this, and this alone, he reckoned. Only let his soul recognise where the Lord was, and he could see victory. But the very same principle of fully following the Lord, which made him encourage the people to go up, would hinder him from the attempt, after that the Lord had said, "Tomorrow turn again the way of the Red Sea;" for the Lord had no delight in the people. Where the Lord was there was both grace and power; and Caleb had to learn that grace and power for forty years in the wilderness on which he had so early reckoned, and which eventually put him in actual possession of the very part of the land which he had trodden with his feet. He fully followed the Lord through the wilderness, and knew Him there as his guardian and guide whom he had known as a mighty deliverer out of Egypt, and who had introduced him into Canaan, and enabled him to see and search the land and know its fruits. The Spirit of God is presented to us in direct contrast with the spirit of the world. "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." The spirit of the world is one of restless activity and enquiry, either to find out something new, or to invent some remedy against the multiform misery of man. It may take either a speculative or a practical turn, but it never discovers the satisfactory remedy. "Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?" The spirit of the world is ever advancing, but never reaching its end; leading ever to that which is corning, but never yet has come. The Spirit which is of God is the very opposite. The Holy Ghost produces in the saint "the spirit of a sound mind." He leads the soul backward to the past, and forward to the future. He steadies the soul by leading it to repose on the already accomplished work of Christ on the cross; and from thence He animates the soul, by leading it into the glorious prospect set before it - a prospect not of some yet undiscovered panacea for man’s misery that is found in the past in the cross of Christ, neither of a vague and ignorant futurity, but that "hidden wisdom of God, concerning things which God’ has prepared before the foundation of the world to our glory, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, but which God hath revealed to us by His Spirit." The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of truth, and can never have a higher subject of testimony than He has at present - the sufferings of Christ and the glory which is to follow. He cannot reveal to us higher blessings than He reveals at present; and He Himself is the present earnest in the heart of the believer, because those blessings are so certain, and already secured in Christ. If Caleb needed to have his heart occupied with Canaan to cheer his spirit in the wilderness, we not only need the earnest of the Spirit for the same purpose, but also to keep us from the seductive power of the spirit of the world. And this He does by showing to us the things freely given to us of God as so high and blessed that they have not even been conceived by the daring boldness of man’s heart. As the earnest, He leads the soul to long to see Christ as He is, and to be like Him, and thus, too, leads in, the path of fully following the Lord. To be ever with the Lord is the blessing in prospect; but to have Him ever with us now is the consequent earnest. "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." How is this made good by the abiding presence of the Holy Ghost, the other Comforter. Oh that with purpose of heart we might cleave unto the Lord, and say in the midst of sorrowful experience, "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage." "And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as He said." The Holy Spirit, as the earnest, is the Spirit "of promise;" not only as being Himself the "promise of the Father," but substantiating promises to the soul. As Caleb saw his contemporaries die off day by day, how much he needed the encouragement of the specific promise of the Lord - "The Lord hath kept me alive, as He said." The Holy Ghost is the quickener, He is the earnest, and He is also the Holy Spirit of promise, thus giving special value to the Word, to the Scriptures, bringing it to remembrance, and applying a familiar text with unknown power, because such a promise or such a scripture exactly suits the circumstances of our need. "As He said." How important is this. Subjection of mind to the authority of Scripture no less distinguishes the guidance of the Holy Spirit from the spirit of the world than it distinguishes real spirituality from cloudy mysticism. The Scripture becomes of increasing value in proportion as the spirit of the age advances. As applied by the Spirit of truth, it gives the consciousness of certainty when the spirit of the world, in the freedom of enquiry, is leading into general scepticism. The result of these two conflicting spirits - the spirit of the world and the Spirit which is of God - is, that the one will lead to set the stability of created things against the promise of Christ coming; the other, to throw the soul more entirely on His promise. (2 Peter 3:1-18) But the soul needs now establishment and encouragement, and the Holy Ghost, as the earnest, gives such a reality to the promises of God in Scripture, that the soul is enabled to set, "As He says," against all appearances of things or opinions of men. "As my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in." All the weary round of forty years of toil in the wilderness had not impaired the strength of Caleb. He had sung that wondrous note - "The Lord is my strength." He had acted on that strength when He searched the land, and was ready, at the prime of manhood, to go up and possess the land; and now, at fourscore and five years, he finds his strength the same. "The Lord was his strength. And what is the Holy Ghost to us in one aspect as the earnest but "the Spirit of power?" In the strictest sense, the power which acts towards us and in us is always the same. But it is only known by faith; even "the exceeding greatness of the power of God answering to that which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead." If we attempt the smallest difficulty without regard to this power, we are foiled; but if the greatest obstacle presents itself, through faith in the Lord our strength we prevail. Hence the word, "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might." The Spirit witnesses to us of the triumph of Christ; but His indwelling in us is a fruit of that triumph. The Lord has triumphed for us, and He also triumphs in us. We celebrate already our victory. Through Him who loved us as more than conquerors God "is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." But that power is now actually manifested in strengthening the saints with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness. The characteristic form of power now is endurance. It is by patient continuance in well-doing that we seek for glory, honour, and immortality. The spirit of the world is that of impatience with delay, and desire of grasping some supposed present blessing; but the Spirit which is of God, being Himself the earnest of a certain inheritance, becomes especially the Spirit of power in enabling us patiently to wait for what is ours already. It is thus that, although "the outer man may decay, the inner is renewed day by day." The Holy Ghost keeps the eye looking on invisible realities, making them, as it were, more palpable day by day. Each day brought Caleb nearer to Canaan, which was "in his heart," Blessed indeed to see an aged disciple in whom the cravings of the mind for novelty have passed away, who has gone through, it may be, also the ordeal of worldly fascination, who has found his progress very chequered indeed, disappointment succeeding disappointment, desire dropping off after desire, yet all tending to one thing, to make him know the value of one blessed object, even Jesus. "I have written unto you, fathers," says the apostle, "because ye have known Him that was from the beginning." What conscious strength there is in thus having a single object, hardly ever practically attained, but through a process of unlearning. But that single object is the one object whom the Spirit of truth has been continually, witnessing to in our souls as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end, the great end and centre of the eternal counsels of the Godhead. This is the strength of old age. In the never-ceasing conflict, when the buoyancy of natural powers ceases, the warfare is carried on by a deeper sense of the power that worketh in us. Faith lives when the natural faculties are impaired. The soul of the aged disciple is true to Jesus where the powers of memory and recognition fail. He that "has borne from the belly, and carried from the womb," says, "And even to your old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you." By the presence of the Holy Ghost the Father and Son abide now in the soul of the believer; by the presence of the Holy Ghost believers can say, "Our conversation is in heaven." And thus "those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing; to show that the Lord is upright." It is when the flesh is thoroughly crushed that we have strength with God and prevail. And thus, even as Caleb, the believer goes from strength to strength, mortifying the deeds of the body through the Spirit, at the same time that the abiding presence of the Spirit is the sure witness of the righteous judgment of God passed on the flesh in the cross of Christ, and the Spirit of revelation of heavenly and eternal realities, and of present communion with Him. "If so be the Lord be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said." There is no doubt or uncertainty in this "if so be." It was only reckoning on the Lord’s faithfulness to His promise, and on His ability to perform it, at the same time implying that this was his only ground of confidence. But with what confirmed confidence could he reckon on the Lord being with him, whose presence had been with him when he searched the land, and whose presence had been with him while traversing the wilderness. And is it not so with the believer now? Quickened by the Spirit when dead in trespasses and sins, he has known the same Spirit as revealing Jesus to his soul as the salvation of God. He knows the same Spirit as the abiding Comforter, glorifying Jesus, taking of His things and showing them unto the soul. He knows, by the presence of the same Comforter, that God hath called him unto His own kingdom and glory; and that same Spirit now shows to the soul what is the hope of God’s calling, and what the riches of the, glory of His inheritance in the saints. Well may we use the words of one of old, and say, If there were any darkness or uncertainty as to the future, surely the Holy Ghost would not now "have showed us all these things, nor would He as at this time have told us such things as these." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 54: VOL 02 - CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE ======================================================================== Christ the Bread of Life Joshua 5:1-15. I would say a word as to the way in which Christ may be considered as our food. He may be looked at as the food of the Christian in three ways. First, as a redeemed sinner; secondly, in connection with sitting in heavenly places in Christ; and thirdly, as a pilgrim and stranger down here. But this last is merely accessory, and not the proper portion of the Christian. The Lord said to Israel that He had come down to deliver them from Egypt, and bring them into the land of Canaan. He did not say a word about the wilderness when He came to deliver them from Egypt, because His interference for them there was in the power of redemption and for the accomplishment of His promises. However, there was the wilderness, as well as redemption from Egypt and the entrance into Canaan; and Christ answers as our food to these three things. Two of them are permanent; for we are nourished by Christ in two ways permanently; that is, in redemption and glory. The third way is as the manna which we have all along the road. It is in these three ways that Christ meets His people, and nourishes them all the way. Two of them remain, as we have seen; but the third ceases when the circumstances it was to meet have passed away. They did eat the passover and the manna until they got into the land, then the manna ceased; but they continued to eat of the passover. Now, there are two ways in which it is proper for us ever to be feeding on Christ. First, as the passover; for they ate the paschal lamb when the wilderness had ceased and Egypt had been long left behind. When in Egypt, the blood was on the lintel and the door-posts, and the Israelite ate of the lamb inside the house. The thought they had while they were eating it was, that God was going through the land as an avenging judge; and the effect of the blood on the doorposts was to keep God out, which was a great thing to do; for if brought into God’s presence as a judge, woe be to him in whom sin is found. The state of the one that now eats of Christ is just according as he estimates the value of the cross, through fear of what sin actually merits. When we have got into the effect of the blood of the paschal lamb, we have got into Canaan, and enjoy the peace of the land as a delivered people, having crossed the Jordan - not only the Red Sea; that is, we have passed through death and resurrection - not as knowing Christ dead and risen for us merely, as presented in the Red Sea, but as being dead with Him and entered into heavenly places with Him, as in Jordan. Then the character of God is known as their God; that is, the accomplisher of all that which He purposed towards them. It is not keeping God out now, but it is enjoying His love, not looking at God as in the cross pouring out wrath in judgment against sin. In Jesus, on the cross, there was perfect justice and perfect love. What devotedness to the Father, and what tender love to us! And this is the way the saint who is in peace feeds on the cross. It is not feeding on it as knowing that he is safe; for Israel’s keeping the passover after they got into Canaan was very different from their keeping it when judgment was passing over. In Canaan they were in peace, and they were able to glorify God in this way, in the remembrance of their redemption from Egypt. In this type we see presented, not the sinner that feels he is safe, but the saint that can glorify God in his affections, his heart confidently flowing out to him, and feeding on Christ as the old corn of the land - the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. We see Christ now by faith at the right hand of God as the glorified man, not merely as Son of God, but as Son of man; as Stephen, when the heavens were opened to him, beheld Jesus at the right hand of God. We also see Him up there. We do not see Him as he is represented in the Revelation, seated on a white horse, coming forth out of heaven. He will indeed come forth, and receive us up where He is, and we shall be like Him, and be for ever with Him; but we shall feed on Him as the old corn of the land when we are there, and this is our proper portion now; manna is not our portion, though it is our provision by the way. Joshua sees Jehovah as the Captain of Jehovah’s host, and Israel feeds in the land before they fight. And our portion is to sit down in it before we fight, because God has given it to us. They do not eat the manna in Canaan, because it is for the wilderness. The manna is not Christ in the heavens; it is Christ down here. It is not our portion; our portion is the old corn of the land; that is, the whole thing, according to God’s counsels, is redemption and glory. But all our life is exercise down here, or sin (excepting that God does give us moments of joy), because while here there is nothing but what acts on the flesh, or gives occasion for service to God. We may fail, and then Christ comes and feeds us with manna; that is, His sympathy with us down here, and shows how His grace is applied to all the circumstances of our daily life - and that is a happy thing. For most of our time, the far greater part of our life, we are occupied in these things, necessary and lawful things no doubt, but not occupied with heavenly joy in Christ; and these things are apt to turn away the heart from the Lord, and hinder our joy. But if we would have our appetites feed on Him as the old corn of the land, we must have the habit of feeding on Him as the manna. For instance, something may make me impatient during the day. Well, then, Christ is my patience; and thus He is the manna to sustain me in patience. He is the source of grace, not merely the example which I am to copy. He is more than this; for I am to draw strength from Him, to feed upon Him daily; for we need Him, and it is impossible to enjoy Him as the paschal lamb, unless we are also feeding on Him as the manna. We know that God delights in Christ, and He gives us a capacity to enjoy Him too. To have such affections is the highest possible privilege; but to enjoy Him, we must feed on Him every day. It is to know Christ come down to bring the needed grace, and turn the dangerous circumstances with which we are surrounded to the occasion of our feeding on Himself as the manna to sustain us and strengthen us in our trial. The "Holy Place" had holy food, Each Sabbath newly spread: ’Tis Jesus that I here behold, The true and living bread. The "Holy Place" is full of light, A light that goes out never! ’Tis Jesus who has changed my night To day that lasts for ever. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 55: VOL 02 - CHRIST THE SERVANT, AND THE SERVICE OF LIFE ======================================================================== Christ the Servant, and the Service of Life John 1:1-18; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:1-6. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." This manifestation of the Son - the coming of "the eternal life, which was with the Father," into the world, was in order to make known the Father, and to take us along with Himself into fellowship with the Father. The One who "was with God, and was God," "humbled Himself," "took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." (Php 2:7.) As to the manner of His coming into this world, that was altogether unexpected. John had testified of His greatness;* but that He who was the brightness of His Father’s glory, "the express image of His person," should come in all the lowliness in which He did, taking into connection with His own person our nature, that was altogether unexpected. *John 1:15. There are many reasons why He thus took flesh, besides the great one of shedding His own blood for the putting away of sin. As a great Prophet, He came to speak in a language familiar to us all the great secrets of the Father God raised up a Prophet like unto us, that human lips might declare the great secrets of the Father’s bosom. Again, He came that He might work the works of the Father, walking about among the children of men only that He might "declare" God. He was "the living bread that came down from heaven" "made flesh," not only that He might shed His blood to put away sin, but also communicate His life. "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. .... Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life.... He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him." This wondrous person, the Son of God, coming from "the Father" - from heaven, thus declared to our faith, ever spake of Himself as having no connection with the earth, except, as such, in blessing a revolted world. How invariably He speaks as having no purpose here save as the "sacrifice for sin" to redeem that which belonged to Him, and as the "sent" One to reveal that which had been kept secret till then, giving a capacity to know and understand the Father. He came from heaven to speak of heaven. Over and over again these are His mysterious words, "Ye are from beneath ("he that is of the earth speaketh of the earth," John 3:31-32); I am from above." He was ever the "Son of man which is in heaven," and as such "declared" the Father who was in heaven. He spake not of Himself save as the "sent" One of God - the servant of the Father. The value was not only in the message, but in the messenger; all His thoughts were upon the One He came to "declare." "I seek not mine own glory; there is One that seeketh and judgeth:" He never sought Himself. As one with the Father ere the world was - His "delight" from everlasting, He came into the world to speak of that which was from the beginning, from all eternity - to "declare" the secrets of the bosom of the Father, that which He alone knew. Yet He was not so much the messenger of grace, as the very grace of the message. As the mysterious stranger, passing thus along the earth, He was unknown by the natural man. His countrymen asked, "Is not this the carpenter’s son?" Others said, "We know not whence He is." But there were some who, by the Spirit of God, were able to discern Him as "the sent" of God - "the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth:" "to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." The eye that saw Him looked on glory, the ear that listened to Him heard of heaven, the hand that touched Him laid hold on "eternal life." The Son was manifested to communicate that which He revealed; He presented Himself to the eye, the ear, the touch; there was "eternal life" in seeing, hearing, handling this "Word of life." When the eye of a poor sinner rested on Him in spiritual discernment, it let in the light of heaven - the "life of Him whom it discerned; when, the ear heard, it communicated to the heart that which it heard; when the hand touched, virtue went out of Him; every sense that became sensitive to Jesus - had to do with "life" - the very "eternal life which was in God. In speaking of these things, we must of course not forget that they are made known to us as pardoned sinners; "eternal life" could not have been communicated ere the removal of guilt and the possession of positive righteousness. Until after the blood had been shed, they knew but little of the meaning of those words - "Blessed are your eyes, for they see," etc. But what did they see? "the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth;" and what they saw, and heard, and touched, they received - "the eternal life which was in the bosom of the Father." Coming from "the Father" the mysterious one, what had He to do with the world - with its associations? nothing! He walked in it, but He was not of it. Here for a little while on the errand of love He was separate from all its maxims, all its habits. It is not that He did not mingle in its busy scenes; but when there, His thoughts, His feelings, were ever with the Father; He was "from above," His place, the presence of the Father. Beloved, I pray you notice these words of our Lord, when speaking of His people - "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world!" It is not as though He gave a commandment unto them that they should strive to be heavenly, but He says, "they are not of the world!" By birth, by being, they are heavenly - "born from above!" "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." The man that hath this breath of heaven communicated to him, is constituted a heavenly person. Jesus often said to the Jews, "I am from above" - "I am not of this world" - "ye know not whence I am." He knew whence He was and whither He was going - others did not. So with the saints - "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." We have really life from God - are born from above, and go thither; though undiscerned by others, is not this the meaning of those words - "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit"? We are "from above" - no more "of this world" than Christ is "of this world." Ask a Christian man whence he has come - his answer ought to be in the language of Christ - "I am from above!" that which is true of Christ, is true of those who are His, though it is undiscerned by others whence they come, and whither they go. Dear brethren, this is not a mere title, but a reality; not a shadow, but a substance. We are not only reformed men - men changed, so as to have better thoughts and better feelings; but those who are "born of God" - "sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty!" substantially in possession of that life which was from the beginning in the bosom of the Father. It is a birth from heaven. Thus should we feel with regard to the world in which we are - "I am from above!" Again: What is the language of Jesus in John 17:1-26? "As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world." Whence came He into the world? From Nazareth? No; but "from above," "from heaven," "from the Father." We are "sent" whence He came, "not of the world," even as He was not of it, "given" to Him out of it, "begotten of God." The service to which we are sent, that of Christ, to serve for a little while here, in all love and self-denial, waiting, beloved, as having come from God, waiting till the Lord comes to take us to himself, to be for ever with Him. In the epistle to the Hebrews, the apostle speaks of Melchisedec: he comes abruptly no one knows whence: he returns no one knows whither. The mysterious stranger: he comes to the exhausted Abraham, giving him bread and wine to refresh his fainting soul; and having executed his mission of blessing, he is again lost sight of: so Christ came, "without beginning of days," "without descent," "made flesh:" but then the eternal Word, the eternal Son of God, undiscerned except by the faithful, of whom Abraham was the type; receiving the rent flesh and shed blood of God’s lamb, and paying the homage to priesthood and royalty combined, which the tithes implied. What we need in mediation is one thoroughly acquainted with the Father, with all His thoughts and feelings, and yet able to sympathise with us. Connect one coming out from God, from the holy secret of His presence, one with God, the other, from among the sorrows and infirmity of the people, as Aaron, one with man, and you get the priesthood of the Lord Jesus; "made a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." Taken into union with such an one, with this stranger, this blessed Son of God, what are we? What He was - "not of this world." It is true that all the restlessness and the questionings of the heart must be settled before we can search into this glory; but, dear brethren, though feeling our own wretchedness, had we the distinct apprehension that we are "born of God," thus taken up into union with the heavenly stranger, when getting the comfort of this in our own souls, - the question would be, What am I to do? What am I to think about, as regards occupation in this world? The moral man takes his own course in a respectable way - Is the Christian, as the reformed man, merely to become more moral than he was before, to conduct himself with more propriety? No! directly he knows that he is "born from above," "born of God," he feels that by nature, by birth, he is higher than angels! higher than Gabriel! (Gabriel is but a servant, though an exalted and glorious one, we children, sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty.) The question must then be, "How shall I walk worthy of being a son of God?" "Wherefore am I left here in the world as not of it?" well might he ask. "As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world." What are the thoughts and feelings, what the impulses and necessities of this heaven-born man, what his objects? My brethren, would that I could impress upon your souls, as on my own, these words, "sent into the world;" they do so plainly declare to us a previous taking out of it. We are heavenly men in heaven, though left here, not as to our affections merely, but as to our nature; it is "from above:" we are "born again," made partakers of the life of Him who dwells in the bosom of the Father, who was "the Son of man" which is in heaven, "though made flesh" here. Just then in the same proportion as that life is developed in us shall we have thoughts and feelings and motives like His; His desires, His delights, and affections will become the necessities of the new nature. It is "Christ in us." And what did He when here but take the shepherd’s staff, feed, guide, and keep His "sheep" together? Where did His thoughts ever rest? On those whom the Father had given Him - His "sheep" and "lambs;" they were the objects of His constant solicitude, His tender care. At the close of His ministry He prays, "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept," etc. Whether in life or death, He came to "gather together in one the children of God scattered abroad." Gathering them out of the world, bringing them out of evil, watching and praying for them, waiting upon them, explaining to them about the Father, this was His object while here; and it was not His way then only - it is His way still! When leaving the world He said to Peter, "Lovest thou me?" What was this for? something for Himself? No! When the heart answers, "Thou knowest that I love thee," His claim is, "Feed my sheep! feed my lambs!" Such is His charge to Peter; such to each of us. He has not only given Himself, but He would claim all the grace He has communicated on behalf of His "sheep" and "lambs" - "feed my sheep." It was this for which He came: knowing and acting according to His mind we must look around us - seek out in this wide world, and see who are the "sheep" and "lambs" of Christ. Whatever form or amount of evil they may be in, they are those upon whom the eye and affections of the "great Shepherd" rest, and they are to be the objects of our care. His claim upon us is, "feed my sheep!" His desire, their blessing - their being gathered out into what many of us have proved, though amidst much trial, the comfort of brotherly love. It is no question as to what is the character of the children of God; they are loved by Him. Ignorant they may be; foolish, obstinate, perverse; but on that account only the more needing our ministry of care and grace and love. It is impossible that the impulses of eternal life can work in us, save after the pattern of our Masher, of Him who is all to us. Look at Jesus. I see Him girding Himself, bearing patiently with the ignorant, going on in His labour of love, washing the feet of His disciples, until it brought out "not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!" This is the place in which we are called to stand. "It is more blessed to give than to receive." We are to be debtors to Him - debtors to the service of Christ; but what then? Grace from Him leads into service. His love becomes so shed abroad in our hearts, that the Spirit of Service towards those who are around us flows forth, and constrains us to "wash their feet." We may have it said to us, "Thou shalt not wash my feet!" but then Christ ceased not for this. If we let Christ into our hearts as a servant - our servant, we must go out in service. It is impossible to discern this grace in Him, girding Himself to wash our feet, and yet not gird our hearts for service. How can we stand before this stooping, humbled Son of God, and not humble ourselves? How can we see this and rest? Oh let us be debtors to Him for all - love Him, fulfil His desires, covet to embrace this privilege of doing as He has done! If He wash our feet, virtue goes forth from His touch, and our hearts are moulded into His image in this aspect of grace - this exercise of love. The grace communicated takes its original form, makes the heart the heart of a servant, and directs it to the same objects as His. The life of God in the soul is love. When love is shed abroad in the heart, it suppresses all its horrid selfishness - the hateful passions that are there, and the special objects of it will be, those who are given to Jesus of the Father - His "sheep" and "lambs." We have been made partakers of the divine nature, not only that we might be happy in being blessed ourselves, but also to have the happiness of seeing others made happy, and this is the happiness of love - pure love, which loves where there is nothing loveable in the thing loved. Well, when they will let us, we should serve them; when they will not, still follow them with love. What are we doing? I see the Church of God mixed up with darkness; the saints, amidst every kind of corruption, glittering like pieces of silver in the midst of dust. I read - "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." What must I do? Gather them out. In the parable in Luke 15:1-32 we see Christ gathering the sheep and giving rest to their souls; in Matthew 18:12-13, seeking to restore. Our services may differ, but the impulses of love cannot stop. Is there a child of God backsliding? The impulse of eternal life is to wash his feet. Supposing he reject my love, let me persevere till the answer is, "Not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!" Are saints in evil? Wait on them, if near enough; if out of reach, write to them; if at the end of the world, still send after them, in order to keep up the healthful circulation of life and love. It is true that the character of our service would differ; but our desire ought to be the same, "to gather together in one the children of God scattered abroad." Wherever a child of God is, however blinded by prejudice, the impulse of eternal life must reach. But love cannot stop even here. What will it be by and by? On what does the heart of Christ rest? All "the children of God scattered" abroad - "all saints." His heart, His care, embraces all. While we rest in spirit upon His bosom, we are compassed about with infirmities. He bears "all saints" upon His heart, glistening as bright stones on the breast-plate before the Father, exhibiting the end to which they are predestined as "heirs of glory." A sister in the Lord was led to read Romans 16:1-27. She pored over it for some time without making anything of it, till at last the record of Phebe, and the many other saints of God who had passed away from this world, awakened the thought of her own association with them, and pressed on her soul the blessedness of identification with living saints, and the privilege of ministering to them. What have we to do with circumstances? Is Satan stronger than Christ? Is the eternal life to be checked? Let our hearts go forth, not in sectarianism, but in service to all saints. Wherever there is a child of God, whatever his circumstance or condition, it is still - "feed my sheep - feed my lambs!" The impulse of eternal life extends to all that are Christ’s, whether near where my personal acts can reach them, or distant where letters of kindness are the only means it may be of ministering to them - it is still "feed my sheep!" This service of love is not only for those who have any special gift, there is not one who knows the love wherewith he has been loved that has not received the commission - "feed my sheep!" Oh if you can discern the love of Christ in stooping at your feet, there is not a morsel, a particle of that love in your soul which does not respond to that word - "feed my sheep!" This meets the selfishness and coldness of our hearts; does the thought of His love press on your soul, it must be accompanied with that word - "feed my sheep!" It may be we shall have to do so amid scorn, amid harsh response, but what then? All His love was spent on the unworthy, the undeserving. How did "the eternal life" manifested among men act? how were its energies spent? what path did it tread? Was it that of taking ease, forgetful of the "sheep"? was it repulsed by indifference? No! in seeking out, waiting upon, washing the. feet of the unworthy, undeserving children of God. Oh let us take no ease! Remember He is girded; and His claim upon us, upon each of us is, "If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye ought also to wash one another’s feet." I say not what may be attained; we wait for the coming of the Lord. Should we not desire to be found of Him, with our loins girded about, washing the feet of His disciples? Love, like the stone cast into the water, forms one circle, and then another, and then another round it. The principle that locks two souls together cannot be satisfied until it embraces all. Wherever there is but one stray or diseased sheep of the flock of Christ, let us remember that word - "feed my sheep!" The Lord give us to see our place, it will be to say, "Death works in us, but life in you." But would you not desire to have His love so shed abroad in your hearts that not one selfish thought should remain? Oh for grace to deny self in all things! (Php 4:5-7.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 56: VOL 02 - CREATION AS A TYPE ======================================================================== Creation as a Type The book of Genesis naturally divides into eight parts - seven biographies, and an introductory account of creation. The biographies are those of Adam, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. Each has a spiritual import of its own, and though I forbear to enter on it here, I may say briefly, that I believe the whole to be typical of God’s work in a ruined world - His various steps of progress up to the "restitution of all things," whether in man individually, or generally in the world at large. Of these applications, the fuller (so far as I see at present) is the first; but the second very constantly underlies it, perhaps everywhere to more discerning eyes. In the history of creation itself it is not hard to trace each of them throughout, though as the picture grows brighter and more blessed, it necessarily becomes fainter, alas! to eyes so little able to bear brightness. It is to this part of Genesis - the introduction to the whole book - that I would turn for a little, looking at it briefly in both ways. First, as having application to the inner work of God in man individually; and second, as telling of the same work in the more extended field of the world at large. And first, the individual application. It was a fallen world - how fallen we know not - that needed to be renewed. The first verse of Genesis I take assuredly to be the statement of original creation; the second to speak of a state into which it had now lapsed: "And the earth was" (or, perhaps, had become) "without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." Who can doubt how striking a figure of man’s natural state? fallen, too, shapeless and orderless, "subject to vanity," his heart, like the restless waves of the sea, tossing under darkness. "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast forth mire and dirt." It is not from himself that a change comes. We are not born of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Here is the only help. Without our own will we are born into the world of nature, and without our own we are new-born. Our parentage (blessed be His name!) is of God, and thus we can call Him Father. So I find in this inspired record God Himself at work. Not laws, but a person. "God created," "God formed," "God made." Nay, the agent and the instrument are both particularly pointed out. "The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said - "That is, we have the Spirit and the word of God. And so are we said to be born of each: "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit;" "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." The Spirit is mentioned first, then God speaks, and "the entrance of His word giveth light." Not that the darkness is at once removed. It is bounded, yet returns again, but not in its first density. And the order is, I doubt not, significant of progress: first evening, and then morning. And after the seventh day evening no more mentioned; as in the full day of eternity, when the sun goes no more down, and the night is fled for ever. Meanwhile, though the sun be not yet, the light is good. God calls it so, while as yet it shines on nothing but a waste of waters. Only evil seems brought out by it. There is no change, or so it might seem, in the creature. It might seem that darkness were a fitter covering for the hopeless ruin in which it lies. So, too, with the first light upon the soul. When the living Word has penetrated the heart, even to the dividing asunder of joints and marrow, of soul and spirit, and we find ourselves detected and exposed in the presence of One before whom all things are naked and opened, yet the light is good even then. "Grace and truth" come hand in hand together. The utter evil is only the dark background for the display of the infinite good; and where sin hath abounded, grace does much more abound. The second day sees heaven formed. In the wisdom and through the operation of God - at His word still, not otherwise - out of all the barrenness and confusion below, the felt evil and ruin of the creature, thoughts and aspirations rise, drawn up as vapours from the sea; to one that can understand, foretokening fertility, though now for a time we lie under their shadows. So out of a world ruined by sins and darkened with misery, the mercy and love of God have drawn up our hearts heavenward. Hopes and desires, called forth by His word, reach up without presumption thither; and the soul finds its government,* as we may say, in the power of heavenly things. This is a step onwards still, yet leaving room surely for much more. I do not find God saying here of the waters, as He had done of the light, that "they are good." He says no such thing of this day’s work at all. And the silence is surely expressive. Right it is, in a sense, of course, when the soul, before resurrection known, looks up to heaven. Yet is it self or God that is uppermost in the heart? When the cry is pressed out of the soul, "What shall I do to be saved?" it were worse than folly to say that He who has wrought this in us does not rejoice in it. Yet of necessity what occupies us then, rightly enough, is self. It is my need, my salvation. All well as a transition to better things. Yet He who seeks us as children, not as servants, cannot be contented with this, which yet bears witness of His own work wrought within. *Shamaim, heavens, signifies "placers or arrangers." The third day is resurrection-day, and the earth rises out of the waters; for the power of resurrection known, gives to the soul stability and fruitfulness. As with the darkness before, so the waters now get their bound from God - a bound which they cannot pass, nor "turn again to cover the earth." So with all that causes the disquiet and barrenness of the soul. The flesh is not removed, but bounded. It gets its limit and its name. And out of the firm ground of the risen man, fruit is produced, though still, and ever, at God’s bidding only; for the new nature is not independent, but rather most truly dependent upon Him in all things. God speaks twice this day. It is a great day for making His power known. And the fruit comes forth at His bidding - from the grass to the fruit-tree, from the more perishable to the more profitable and enduring and withal, bearing within itself the seed of more. Real fruit is thus reproducing. Glorify God in your life, and you shall not glorify Him alone. Sing joyfully unto Him, and the most desert place shall find an echo. Blessed be His grace who worketh it all Himself, whatever it be - all and in all. Notice how upon this resurrection-day earth and waters, the spirit and the flesh,* get their distinctive names. Not merely as quickened, but as risen men, we understand both the thorough hopelessness of the evil, and recognize distinctively that which is of God. So the New Testament writers - resurrection men - speak plainly of death and life, the old nature and the new - things dimly seen before. *The earth is what is taken up and cultivated of God; hence, in the individual application, the new nature, outwardly Israel. The waters, the unrestrained, unquiet will of man; hence the flesh, or, outwardly, the Gentiles. Above all, there is freedom. It is not "captivity to the law of sin" any more. Conflict there may be, but the sea within has got its bound from God, and though the waves thereof roar and swell, the earth has risen up above the water-floods: they cannot return to cover it any more. By-and-by a time shall come, when, with the darkness, the sea, too, shall be gone for ever. "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea." And now, resurrection known, not only quickened but risen men, there yet waits us another and a higher experience. The fourth day presents us, not with an earthly but a heavenly scene. Sun, and moon, and stars shine on us. Earth is blessed indeed, lit up with this brightness, but it is beneath our feet - far away. It is not very hard to read these symbols. Christ rose from the dead, not to tarry here, but ascended up to the right hand of the Father. And we, too, who believe in Him, are not merely risen, but heavenly men. "As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." Scripture itself leads us fully and distinctly to the interpretation of these two great lights, when it speaks of "the Sun of Righteousness" which "shines upon the world," and where our Lord speaks of His disciples as "the light of the world," in the meantime, during "the night" of His absence. Very different, though both light-bearers," is the light of each. His, ever full-orbed, self-derived, unchanging. The Church, clothed but with His glory - comeliness put upon her - glory which she reflects, too, but partially; always changing, often eclipsed. In a time coming, there shall be (what has not yet been) sun and moon in the firmament together; and the "sun shall no more go down, neither shall the moon withdraw herself." There shall be no more change, no failure in manifestation of Him, when He, who is our life, shall appear, and "we shall appear with Him in glory." Then let us note how, and special emphasis is laid upon it, "God set them in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon the earth." A risen and ascended Christ it is, who shall as the "Sun of Righteousness arise upon the earth with healing in His wings." And as for the Church, is it not invariably true, that the higher her course in heaven the more her light shines? She is heavenly indeed, perforce; for God has set her there; but, alas! near enough, often, down, to be sadly dimmed with the shadows and mists of earth. And "He made the stars also." These are not forgotten, though they do not make the principal figure here. So shine far out of the depths of heaven into which they are gone, the lights of other days. From Abel to him whose voice in the wilderness in vain called Israel to repentance, God made them all, and forgets them not. "He telleth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names." Nor in vain does their light shine on us, witnesses to the glory of their Maker. Thus on this fourth day we are made familiar with heaven. We cross with Israel over Jordan, and our Canaan, our land of rest, lies before us. Happiest he who most heeds here the assurance which God gives to us as once to them: "Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given you, from the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun." For us the shadows of a more blessed reality, a fairer prospect, and brighter shores. Strange it may seem, that after all this blessedness we get back, not even to earth, but to "the waters." We come down from the mount of glory to find still what nature shrinks from, and how evil nature is. But we come down to find God at work amid it all, and by the power of His hand a higher form of life than ever yet born out of the midst of that which hitherto was never aught but barren. So in the fifth day stage, after glory is known, or begins to be, and the hope of our calling, we come to find the tossing sea again, the world in its true character of unquiet evil - waters, waters everywhere. Seen after the brightness of sun and moon, painful it is and wearisome indeed, but profitable too. Our souls need the contrast, need the discipline of it; for all is discipline, and it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. With what loathing we learn to turn from self, with what yearning to God, as we pass through this scene of sin and sorrow, and feel the buffeting of its waves. How tribulation, temptation, persecution, which are but waves in the sea of universal evil, yet work appointed ends of separation; that is, sanctification, - holiness. And how thus forms of higher life spring out of them, while "tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope." Nor is it without use to notice the difference between the resurrection fruits of the third day, and what we may rather call the ascension fruits of the fifth and sixth. For the fruits here are ascension fruits. The waters produced none such till the fourth day glories had come. And all disquiet, evil, sorrow known, can never work in us fruitfulness such as this, until we have learnt something of what this fourth day gives. Then, indeed, there is fruitfulness; not merely righteousness, joy, or peace, but the development of living affections in intercourse with the unseen and eternal. But to this the waters too contribute. God knows how little of heaven might be known by us, were it not for the shaking of things of time and sense. Thus while our outward man perishes, "our inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." On the sixth day the earth produces. A blessed time of which we know but little, when the new life develops itself without hindrance, and without need of discipline; when we are beyond the troubled waters, in the quiet haven where we would be; when man is found fully in "the image of God" that created him, "in righteousness and holiness of truth." Then the kingdom is His indeed, and over everything that His hands have made God can rejoice; for, behold, it is very good. Then in a sweet and blessed sense He can have rest, of whom He that declared Him said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." He has brought that work marvellously to completion, and by grace, for us even as for Him, there is only now a never-ending rest - Himself the First and the Last, seen, enjoyed, and glorified in it - the Sabbath of eternity. Of all this latter part, a few brief words sums up my present knowledge. But we have yet to trace the application of these wonders in the field of the world at large. And I am sure it will confirm the accuracy of the separate interpretations to observe how closely and intimately they are connected together, how truly the one underlies the other. Here again the fact of the fall is what we necessarily start with, and it needs no argument to show that the world in its general features corresponds with those of the individual. "As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." The agents in recovery also are the same. There is no power for it in the creature; God Himself must act. And here too, I doubt not, that each day marks some special stage in the development of His plans and process of restoration. Upon the face of revelation it is not very hard to discover at least so many epochs of special interpositions of the Divine Worker as answer to these creative days. Thus we have (1) The antediluvian period, opened with the promise of the woman’s seed; (2) Human government set up in Noah; (3) The call of Abraham, and in him of an elect family, out of all the families of the earth; (4) The church period; (5) The time of trouble after the church is taken up; (6) The millennial kingdom; (7) The eternal rest. These are all not only strictly defined periods, with each a special character of its own, but they are really stages of progress, the effects of which remain. Some that we might think at first sight strangely omitted in this enumeration have not in reality this character of permanent steps of progress at all. Thus the law, needful as it undoubtedly was, was in some important respects rather retrogression than progress. The apostle’s own account of it is, that "it came in by the way" (parioeelthe); that "it was added because of transgression, till the seed should come." So it is not represented here. The transfer of dominion to the Gentiles could still less, though for a like reason, come in. We have then just these seven periods left - six formative, and the seventh the final rest, the "sabbatism" that remains to the people of God. When we come to the application, we find it in the main as simple as possible. That the first day answers to the antediluvian period is plain. Its light before the sun is the promise before Christ. Yet the world lay unchanged - a sea of disordered lusts and passions; and God, while acting in grace on individuals, did not publicly interfere with it. This lasted till the flood. The second day may seem less easy to identify with the establishment of human government in Noah. Yet if the waters symbolize, as I doubt not, man in his instability of changing evil, then the separation of the waters from the waters does surely point to that establishment of human power, which in Noah himself might only make its weakness more discernible, and in Nimrod become, on the other hand, tyranny; but which yet Paul could speak of as the ordinance of God and ministering good. It is confirmation of this, that the word "heavens" contains in the original, as I have before noticed, the thought of "arrangement" - government. These heavens are not the sphere in which the sun and moon move on the fourth day. Yet, I doubt not, all that is blessed herein will be more than reproduced; yea, gloriously perfected and established when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ. The third day comes, and again there is separation; but of a different kind. The earth is divided from the waters. Now here again, if the waters signify the restless passions of man’s self-will left to their natural course, it is plain we have the figure in them of Gentile nations. Scripture moreover abundantly establishes this view, as in Revelation 17:15 - "The waters which thou sawest are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues;" and again, where our Lord, typifying the temporary giving up of Israel, goes out of the house, and sits by the sea-side. This period begins, then, with the call of Abraham, and Himself. In the earth, separated from the waters, I see the Lord’s taking out of the nations a special people for Israel taken up of God to be cultivated (if I may so say) for Himself. It may, alas! be ground which produces thorns and thistles; but that is not in the line of thought here, nor failure at all (save so far as day and night succeed each other in constant cycles till the seventh day). But in this ground grow, too, the goodly trees of the Lord’s planting; not barren nor unfruitful under His abiding care. But all, so far, is earth. The next day carries us up to heaven. The symbols here have been already before us, and I need not dwell on them again. I surely believe we have here the present period - earth not taken up at all, though the scene of testimony, and God thereby taking out of it a people for His name; but a people who are thus "taken out," heavenly, the body of Him who, Himself in heaven, is made there "Head over all things to the Church," "seated together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus." The fifth day, in contrast to all this, brings us back, as one might think, to confusion such as is the beginning. We find nothing but "waters" - a mass of Gentile evil; Israel for the time given up and mingled in the mass in what might seem hopeless confusion. It is the "time of Jacob’s trouble," the time of the "lawless one," who shall "do after his own will;" when the nations "shall be gathered together unto the great day of God Almighty," and shall end their career of folly and impiety in open war against the Lamb." Yet amid all this we know, just as in the type we see the waters made productive, God shall have a people for Himself. Revelation 7:1-17 witnesses to this, both as regards Israel and the Gentiles also; as Matthew 25:1-46 shows us, as to the latter, their separation from the mass of the ungodly when the Lord is come. Then on the sixth day we have the figure of the kingdom. Earth produces, as it is written of restored Israel, that they "shall bud and blossom, and fill the face of the earth with fruit." Man, in the image of God - and Christ is "the image of the invisible God" - reigns with his bride over a ransomed earth. The figures are so plain as to preclude all doubt as to interpretation. Finally a "sabbath" comes - a full and final rest. This cannot be till all things are subdued unto Christ; nor can He rest until He hath "delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power." Short of this He could not rest, even on earth directing His disciples’ thoughts and desires to that: "Our Father, . . . Thy kingdom come." And so when the time shall be fully arrived for the accomplishment, "when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also," as man, "be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all." So it is emphatically in the type here. It is God’s work finished, God’s rest come; true blessing for the creature when God occupies the scene altogether; evil shut out for ever; the whole state "sanctified and blessed." Thus this precious word unfolds itself, and the Maker of the world is seen indeed as the Redeemer too. There are yet a few thoughts more which I offer more as suggestions than as fully matured. The days of creation in their typical import evidently show a close connection with the seven lives which follow, and divide among themselves the remainder of the book. If you take the first and the last of these only, it is impossible not to be struck with the contrast. In Adam, fallen human nature; in Joseph, the Christ-like life, so perfect a type of the Second Man, the Lord from heaven. And if we take the intervening lives we shall be no less clear that in their spiritual meaning they are in perfect and orderly progress between the former and the latter. The seven lives are, in short, the perfect picture of the believer from the time the light first breaks in upon the darkness of nature till he attains the image of the heavenly in the kingdom that cannot be moved. Now this, it is plain, answers to what we find in the six creative days. Moreover the third day is, as it were, divided into two by the twice-spoken fiat of creation. Now, if we apply these to the seven lives we shall find that they correspond in a wonderful way with one another. Thus we have in Adam the first day light bringing out the ruin, and speaking dimly of the remedy; in Abel, and those that follow in his line (for Seth is in the room of Abel, whom Cain slew), the strife between the old nature and the new, linking, more dimly it may be, with the second day; in Noah, the third of these lives, the third day resurrection, where we pass through the judgment of the flesh into a new world of peace and blessing; in Abraham, resurrection fruit, the pilgrim’s life on earth; in Isaac, the peaceful consciousness of sonship, as Galatians 4:1-31, where "the child of the freewoman" becomes our type; in Jacob’s life of discipline, that which answers so remarkably to the lesson of the fifth day; finally, in Joseph, the highest stage is reached in one who stands before us as pre-eminently a type of Christ Himself, where the path of suffering leads up to the kingdom. I have done. May the God of all grace only be pleased to bless us with a spirit of more humble, holy reverence for His blessed Word, that truth, even in fragments, may be gathered up as too precious to be lost. And may we be sanctified by it. F. W. G. *** The above is the development of thoughts which appeared in a paper in the thirteenth volume of the Present Testimony, entitled "The Typical Character of Genesis 1:1-31; Genesis 2:3." - F. W. Grant. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 57: VOL 02 - DEATH IS OURS ======================================================================== Death is Ours "All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s." 1 Corinthians 3:21-23. A friend lately used to me this expression: "Death is a terrible monster; I hate it." My soul replied: "What and where should I be, but for that terrible monster of your hate." Death is mine in the highest sense; not merely in the lower sense, that, as it is appointed unto men once to die, I may have to die; but, in the highest sense, Death is mine; for death itself, in the divine use of it - in the way God has used it, has been, and is marvellously mine, my own: my boast and my song. And to what can I turn first, when speaking on this subject, so well as to the blessed Lord’s death? - "The Lord’s death" (1 Corinthians 11:26); "the death of God’s Son" (Romans 5:10); the death of "the Prince of Life" (Acts 3:15); are expressions that may well usher in the wondrous roll. "I am the resurrection and the life," said the Lord. But He could not in His own person be the resurrection without death first; nor, according to divine counsels, was He to take openly the place of being the life, the last Adam, the life-giving Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:1-58), without first dying. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." (John 12:24.) "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me; but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." (John 10:17-18.) And all through His course He could say, "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" (Luke 12:50.) For the goal of His course who had come as Son of God down from the divine glory as displayed in heaven above, to become the Son of man here on earth, was "death, even the death of the cross." (Php 2:8-9.) Marvel of marvels, and wonder inexplicable to human reason! The Son of God - He who created all things, and upheld all things, the appointed Judge of quick and dead - was, as Son of man, crucified through weakness! (2 Corinthians 13:4.) And never did His divine glory shine out more brightly than then. A creature, however high, has no right to leave the sphere assigned to it - its own proper sphere. The Son of God had no such restraint upon Him. He had the right to be worshipped in the heavens, and the right, if He would, to be hanged as the Son of man on the cross. Creature-glory consists in honour put upon it. Divine glory showed itself here in His divesting Himself of all external glory as attached to sphere or place, emptying Himself that He might show the perfect expression of sympathy with His Father’s mind. He was one counsel with Him. He would show it in death, the death of the cross. And death, the wages of sin to Adam the first, was, in the case of the last Adam, the Son’s payment (in love, how free!) of tribute to divine counsels, the expression of the perfect sympathy of the Son of God as Son of man with the Father’s vindication of His own character against the world and Satan, and the whole fallen human race. That cross on Calvary issuing hereafter in the all-pervading glory of the Lamb that was slain, alive and at God’s right hand - shows (blessed Lord!) death, death in its most awfully-magnified expression, even Thy death, to be mine, my very own, my boast, my glory. If none other claim it, yet do I: monstrous, but not terrible; nor to be hated, for it was Thy death. 2ndly. But I must remark, further, that it was thus that the glory of God, as the God of resurrection, was brought out to light. Eden, with man in innocency, proclaimed the eternal power and godhead; and after the deluge, in the rainbow covenant, the sign of the long-suffering patience of God to a world in wickedness, came out to light. But Eden and innocency I have lost; and mercies to me as a sinner in time will not answer the question of sin, nor save me from the wrath to come. But the death of the Lord Jesus was the lowly portal through which flowed forth the light of the glory of God as the God of resurrection, and of a resurrection from among the dead. 1st. He that died became Lord of all, in the wide universe; and should sit upon the throne judging, in God’s own proper eternity, all men, raised again at the general resurrection. That glory is certainly His as Son of man. "For the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment." (John 5:28-29.) Awful thought, to be brought up by the irresistible power of the Lord to answer for all deeds and thoughts done in the body, in this life. But, 2ndly, blessed be God, if the light of the great white throne is seen, we know also that there is in Him, who will sit thereon and judge, also a first resurrection. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." "The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead [morally dead in trespasses and sins] shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself." (Ver. 24-26.) Save as a result of His death, it never could have been written: "As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." (Hebrews 9:27-28.) And the unfolded results, in circumstances, of that lowly death, are the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness - for which we, according to His promise, wait. (2 Peter 3:13.) God raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. (Romans 4:24.) "By Him we believe in God, that raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory that our faith and hope might be in God." (1 Peter 1:21.) Oh what should I be, or where should I be, as to salvation, as to trust for present deliverance, as to hope, if the glory of God, as the God of resurrection, had not been brought out to light! and how has it been brought forth to light, but by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from among the dead? the fruits of His death, how precious! 3rdly. But not only is there light, the light of life, found in His death; but, more than that, this light, so found, is a light in which all the dark things get exposed, their true character discovered, their power neutralized; Satan, the world, man, all are made manifest by the death of the Lord Jesus.; and their power set aside, too, to faith. It was thus Satan was met, nullified, and his power set aside "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." (Hebrews 2:14-15.) It was His death to which the Lord referred when He said, "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out." (John 12:31.) And this world has its judgment in that same death "Now is the judgment of this world," judgment made good in the blessing, too, of the believer, as Paul said, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world." (Galatians 6:14.) It is there, too, that flesh with the life that is in the blood, gets its measure and true stamp. When He gave up His life a ransom for us, He showed the perfection of flesh and the vileness of flesh in one and the same act. In Himself, He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sin. Justice could find nothing in Him to find fault with; He was the only one that could not justly be forsaken, on account of what He Himself was. In Him all was perfect. He could bear our sins in His own body on the tree. But in that which He underwent on the cross, in death, there was the expression, from men who did it, of their being at enmity with God and under the power of Satan, and also, in the forsaking of Him by God at the same time, there was God’s measured estimate of our sin. The just One - substitute for the many unjust - took the cup of wrath at the Father’s hands; and, in crying out, "My God, my God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?" gave the true measure, divinely full and perfect, of what fallen man is in the estimate of God. With mine eye on Him I cannot say, "Death is a terrible monster. I hate it." His death - death in the fullest expression of it - death as He only could present it, is most precious and marvellous. God is a God of wonders. And to wonder at Him, well becomes a creature in His presence. I wonder at Him; yea, am lost in wonder when I think of death, the Lord’s death; open cleft through which all the glory of the God of resurrection has poured; has streamed down upon flesh, the world, and Satan, and made me, even me, to be able to say, "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." 4thly. But if the spring-tide of death - death in itself - there, where it is worst, and has told forth its awful power, between God and the Son of man as the substitute, told its tale in a way that leaves the believer blessed in the hearing of it, yet conscious that there is an eternal, a divine height and depth in the subject which passeth all understanding; what shall we say as to the waves or the ripples of death? Surely faith says, "In all things more than conquerors through Him that loved us." (Romans 8:37.) I am Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. Sheltered in the rock that was smitten, the dark shadow of death is not to rest upon me, upon my conscience, upon my thoughts - Christ died! then I am clean: "Not a spot within." God’s mercy and love! "Not a cloud above." ’Tis the spirit, through faith, thus triumphs o’er sin: "Not a cloud above. Not a spot within." The Son, now upon the Father’s throne in the glory which He had with Him before the world was - eternal, without beginning - has made me, through His death, as free from all the guilt that did rest upon me as He Himself was always personally free from guilt. God had never anything against Him; He has now, through that death, nothing against me. He always found His good pleasure in the Son of His love. Wondrous, but true, He even now finds His good pleasure in me in that Christ. I count myself His purchase, put apart by Him for His own glory. He took occasion of the circumstances of the fall to bring out the compassion and mercy and grace of God, and showed, amid the ruins of the first creation, His own competency to deal with God about the question of sin and Satan, of the fallen world, and of man. His work of humiliation is ended; but how does it all tell of His personal competency to meet every question! Gone on high now, He uses our position in the wilderness that lies between an Egyptian world of bondage and the glory as the occasion to teach us Himself and to teach us our own selves too. And shortly, when it is glory come, He will Himself put the finishing touch to the work, and show out the faithfulness of His love to the people of His choice; and this He will do at least a thousand years before the new creation shall be put forth as the expression of His competency to finish that which He takes in hand. And to what am I set aside individually but to be an occasion in which, according to divine wisdom, the personal glories of the Son as being the Resurrection and the Life are to find their expression? He has given me life, eternal life, a life which He Himself is, as He is in resurrection and ascension glory. (Colossians 3:4.) If, ere He rises up from the Father’s right hand, He call me, I die - but I know that the "I die" means only "to all that is mortal," to all that is corruptible down here - cease for ever, and according to God, to have connection with any such things as mortality or corruptibility; and, absent from the body, am present with the Lord - there to await with Himself that time when He shall put forth His glory as the resurrection, - openly put it forth; and my body shall then rise a glorified body to meet Him in the air. (1 Thessalonians 4:17.) If He calls me not until He has risen up, then I shall never see separation of body and soul at all; but His life-giving power, which has already given to my soul a life in the power of which I could cast off a body of death, shall fill all up with life, and push mortality and corruptibility out of my body, without its ever being separated from the already life-possessed soul. But is absence from pilgrim scenes and from a body of sin - if changed for presence with the Lord, and being "at home" - is this death? Unbelief speaks oft as if it were so; just as if the new place Christ has opened, in which it is far better to be, so far as we are concerned, were little - as though the curtained character of the intermediate state of which Hezekiah spake (Isaiah 38:1-22) still continued, now that light and immortality have been brought to light through the gospel With a conscience set free by faith in a risen and ascended Lord, and with the flow of joy which the ungrieved Spirit of God gives to a heavenly man who is a son of God, what is the fever of disease? what the clammy feel of the body when its life is flickering in the socket? - the eternal life within centering the heart and mind the meanwhile upon the person of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself on high. Yes; but there is a coffin before us, and there rests the body of an aged and devoted saint, happy in the Lord among us and full of love to His saints, and now gone! Ay, but gone whither? To the Lord Jesus. Is He not worthy to have His saints with Him? Has He, think you, forestalled God’s counsel in calling this one "home," home to Himself - Himself the "Home"? Not so. The words, "If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I," may be quoted here as true in this case also. Or have we no love for those that go? no love save for our own selves? no willingness to see them blessed, if their blessing cost us any privation? It is vile, wretched selfishness, which forgets God’s joy and Christ’s joy in welcoming to His presence a soul that leaves us; which hinders, too, our thinking of its great gain, and keeps us absorbed with our own selves and our loss. Well may you who, thus full of your own selves, forget God and Christ and the friends you profess to have loved - well may you be indignant against your own selfishness and your own narrow-hearted love of self. But there is a jealousy of love in God. He wills that your hearts should know the sufficiency of Christ to satisfy you amid all the writhings experienced in the wilderness. He wills, in that jealousy of love, that you should think of Him to whom He has espoused you, and of His joy over those that sleep in Him, and that you should learn how to think and feel according to that sphere in which Christ is now as its very centre. What can I tell you about the blessedness of the departed? I can only answer this by another question.: What do you know of the attractiveness of Christ; of the blessedness of being with the Lord? For if self and selfishness fill you, why then they find their aliment in this world; and if you are full of yourself, of your likes and dislikes, your gains and your losses, you will not profit much from the doctrine of the blessedness of those absent from the body and present with the Lord. It does not suit. you in your selfishness, and you may not like to be challenged as to whether you find more attractiveness in Christ than in all else. "This day shalt thou be with me in paradise," was the Lord’s blessed word to the converted thief. What did the poor thief know of paradise or its blessedness? Probably nothing at all. But he had just made a new friend in One whose fellow there was not to be found. Faith had revealed to him the open and attracting heart of the blessed Lord. Faith had opened his heart to holiness and to confession, and to trust in his Judge, and had drawn into it the sweetness of the promises of inseparableness from that Saviour: "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. (Luke 23:43.) "With Him:" that was enough. "Absent from the body, and present (at home) with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8), was the far better which Paul knew as to the state of a departed saint. Man’s Responsibility, and God’s Promises Galatians 3:1-29. There are two great points in this chapter 1st. The effect of the law, when any one is under it; 2ndly. The contrast between law and promise, and whether it be by law or by promise that the blessing of the inheritance is ours. In the early part of the chapter (I do not speak now of the first two or three verses) we are told that the effect of being under the law is to be "under the curse;" in the latter part we find the blessings of the inheritance ours, not by law, but by promise. "If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise." Thus are the counsels of God brought out, and that in a manner that applies itself to the constant tendency of the human heart and its actings, which ever go to exalt man, and to debase God. It is singular the way in which the human heart is continually reasoning within itself, as if there were no distinct revelation from God of His mind-searching and enquiring in order that it may conclude something about itself and God. Now it is quite true that the power of grace must work, in order that this revelation should be understood, but it is not merely in the unconverted man there is this reasoning. Alas! he often reasons not at all about it, but goes on in his own way, careless, reckless, and unconcerned. In the heart of the saints there is constant reasoning with regard to their standing before God, and in all such cases it is quite plain that faith is not in exercise. Whenever I begin to reason on the state of my own soul, faith is not in exercise. I do not say that the person is not a believer, but I say, faith is not in exercise. That is quite evident. Faith receives the testimony of God, and does not reason about it. There the difficulty lies. It is not that revelation is not plain, but that the heart of man is not subdued. It is not a proof that faith is in exercise when I do not judge myself, because, when I judge myself, I judge myself before the Lord, in order to have removed whatever may be found within me that is wrong in His sight. Grace enables me to do this. But whenever there is any reasoning from myself as to my condition, faith is not in exercise. It is true this reasoning may follow upon belief in testimony (be, in that sense, a consequence of faith), but it is not faith. That is, I may believe there is a judgment to come, and that Christ can be my only Saviour (seeing there is not salvation in another, for "there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved"), and I may set about reasoning as to what will be my portion, whether I can say that Christ is my Saviour; but that is not in itself any right exercise of faith. We shall find the testimony of the word of God to be most simple. Yet wherever the natural conscience is awakened, there is a certain sense of responsibility to God (indeed that is, in a sense, the awakening of it), the knowledge that God takes notice of all that is going on, of what we do, and the like, and that there is a judgment to come. Therefore, the moment a man’s conscience is so awakened (the grace of God not being known), he begins to enquire whether his conduct is such as God can approve and accept; and thence he draws some inference as to his own future happiness or misery. This is the natural state of man, of every man that thinks about the matter. But it is, alas! the real condition too of multitudes of believers in Christ, and of those even who have once known redemption largely. There is a constant tendency in the heart to turn again to self, to a condition in which man stands responsible to God. It is always the case when the soul has got out of the power of the testimony of the Spirit of God as to the completeness of redemption; as also when we have not come to a distinct knowledge of the hopelessness of our condition before God as man. I say to a distinct knowledge; that is, when the soul has not estimated truthfully the hopelessness of its case, that in the flesh good does not dwell, and become fully satisfied that every thing - all the practical righteousness, holiness, or graciousness of the saint - is consequent upon the introduction of that new thing created in us by the power of God, because of union with Jesus risen. We get in these Galatians an example of this, where the soul, after having had the knowledge of grace - Jesus Christ "evidently set forth crucified amongst them" - went back. They had "begun in the Spirit," and they now thought "in the flesh" to add to what Christ had done. That is, that they could, by that which is in man, and of man - the old man, too, add to that which is of the new man, Christ. And that, I repeat, beloved, is the constant tendency of the heart. Wherever there is not the distinct knowledge of the hopelessness of man’s condition before God, we go back to get from man something which may be added to what God has given us in the Lord Jesus Christ. St. John says, "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." Now if we do not know that the flesh cannot come in in any way and take a share or part in it, we are constantly adding and connecting something of the flesh. God began by giving "promise." And here there was nothing at all of man. But, because (as we shall see more especially in the latter part of the chapter where the apostle speaks about promise from God - promise coming from Him when there was nothing in man to call it out, except indeed the ruin and need of man) when He had given the promise, before He had completed that which He had promised - redemption - before the relation of Christ, He knew the constant tendency of the human heart to seek to satisfy its own feeling of responsibility, God gave the full extent of His demand upon it, with the consequence of failure. Because, I say, He knew what was in the heart of man, its tendency from the first - natural tendency (that is, until redemption and grace are fully known) to judge about itself by itself, as to its future state, and also the pride of man which supposes something in man which can be brought to God, or something from man which can be done for God, before He did any thing for the accomplishment of His promise, He brought in the law, thus trying man, in responsibility, to the utmost. It is quite right, most assuredly, to be what God has required in His revealed will. God has required and demanded a certain amount of good in me, and I have the plain revelation of God about it. Therefore, I cannot act as if there were no revelation. It is one of the sins of the heart of man, that of "intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind," thinking he can approach God by some means of his own devising. God requires something that is not merely the work of man’s hands, something real in the soul, something which has to do with man’s relationship to Himself, and to his fellow-creature. There is this in the law, the direct requirement of God from man of what man ought to be towards God and before Him. That is one way to take up the law. And further, there is the prohibition of what sin had brought in. There are these two things; first, what God requires positively of man, expressed in the summary given by our Lord "Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;" and then, as the other part, the prohibition of what man was indulging in. The law presented the requirements of God, that is supposing man was right practically before God, and took cognizance of what man was not, and prohibited it. And that is all the law did; except indeed to pronounce the curse, if there were failure in the things required. Now, as soon as this is tried - the moment we get here, and see the law in this light - we find man at once brought in, completely hopeless and helpless. And for this very reason, that he has done the things God forbids. He is "ungodly." But not only so - he is, moreover, "without strength" This is his condition naturally, and the moment there is real desire, and the endeavour to serve God according to the law, it is found out. Supposing he desires (which I assume, and grace produces it) to serve God, and not do any thing forbidden in the law, he discovers the very principle of his nature to be all wrong. There is "a law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin, which is in his members;" which has selfishness for its basis, and corruption for its object. It is in himself. Hence the reason that we so often find persons crying out, "Oh, wretched man that I am!" Moreover, when he comes to see what is in himself, it is that which brings him down into despair. It is not his past sins, he could easily suppose God might forgive them; nay, perhaps, that they are forgiven, put away when he was first converted. The trial is not there. But when he feels the principle of those sins to be in himself - the principle that produced them there still, and working in him, now that he lives and "delights in the law of God after the inner man" - it is this which casts him down. And cast down he remains until he apprehends the ministry of grace. Now, beloved friends, you see God has given law for the prohibition of evil And, taking it in that point of view, He gave it to man already in sin. It came in after two things, evil and the promise. It was a thing "added because of transgressions until the seed should come to whom the promise was made" (5: 19); neither the original condition of man, nor the purpose of God about man. It "came in," it is said (though its elements, no doubt, are everlasting and eternal truth), "by the bye," added because of transgression. "The law entered, that the offence might abound." (Romans 5:20.) Hence we are taught that its object was to make plain and evident - to discover that perverseness of the will of man, which would never otherwise have been discovered - the inclination where there is the knowledge of good, and the desire after good, to do evil; and, therefore, the hopelessness of man’s case before God. Man is concluded under sin. (5: 22.) That is the effect of the law. It was quite clear that man delighted in sin. Natural conscience sufficed to show there was sin and guilt. But then the law came in and was added to that, "that every mouth might be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God." (Romans 3:19.) What is said here? "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse." (5: 10.) Mark the force of that expression. It is not as many as are living in sin, neither yet merely as many as have broken the law (though that is the reason of it); but, "as many as are of the works of the law." How universal the statement! It is quite true that man is under "the curse of the law," because he has been the breaker of the law; but it is all who are of the works of the law who are under that curse. The law was not given to prohibit lust, until man was a wilful creature, a being in whom lust was found, until after sin had entered. I am not now speaking of the law respecting Adam’s not eating the fruit, but of the law given by Moses. (5: 19.) Coming in at that time, it pronounced the curse upon every one "not continuing in all things that were written in the book of the law to do them." It took this ground. And even the very notice in the Scripture before us is remarkable. The apostle says, "for it is written" (5: 19), that is quoting Deuteronomy, where we find (Deuteronomy 27:1-26) that six tribes were to stand upon mount Gerizim to bless the people, and six upon mount Ebal to curse. But where the details are entered into, there are no tribes mentioned for blessing - the blessing is not heard at all, it is only the curse. Again: "the law entered that the offence might abound" (not that sin might abound: God could not do any thing that sin might abound), that is, that the sin already in man’s nature might become positively and definitely "transgression." The law did not produce sin, it only manifested it. Let us look at what the apostle says in Romans 7:1-25 : "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained unto life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good." Again, we read in another place (I merely quote it now as regards its application to this part of the subject), "The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law." (1 Corinthians 15:56.) Directly the law bent down on the conscience, it proved man to be altogether wrong. Every thought that man had was detected, and the will refusing to submit, its acts became transgression, so that sin by the commandment became "exceeding sinful." It produced, moreover, a great deal more lust in the heart than there was before. We all know this to be the case. There is a familiar illustration of it constantly seen in our own houses. Request your children not to do a certain thing - let it be only not to look into a box (no matter what), and you find that they all long to look into it. So is it with grown-up persons, they will perversely wish for the forbidden thing, and, what is more, though they may be ashamed of it - ashamed of the expression of it before men, the inclination is so great, that, if they could but do it and not be seen, they would not be satisfied until they had. Just so with the law. And now, beloved friends, if that is what the law is, if all who are "of the works of the law are under the curse" - is that the law for me, to have a righteousness through, in the sight of God? Never; because the law acts on a nature which is already evil, and, therefore, it can do nothing but lead to the righteous judgment of God against all that is brought out in and from that nature. What more could God do? (it is not the subject of this chapter, but I would just advert to it) what more than give right directions, a revelation of what He required from man? There is another thing that He has done. He sent light into the world. This is something added, as it were, to the requirements of the law. The law cursed, but here (in Christ) was life showing light to all around, and that man hated, because it proved his deeds to be evil. It was the adaptation of light to every possible state in which man’s nature could move. I am not speaking of communicating life, but take man in any condition, and he is without excuse. Well, beloved, this is the effect of the law as revealed from God. It took up fallen man, with the knowledge of. good and evil, and did not touch the power he had to meet its requirements, and therefore, necessarily, it brought the curse. The apostle reasons,: "If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin." (vv. 21, 22.) Mark that word "all;" it leaves out none. It might be said, "If you go and take a man without the ordinances of God, and put him under the law, the effect is known; but there are helps and ordinances; put a man, with them, under the law, and he can get life." That was precisely Israel’s case. It pleased God to test, in Israel, whether man could get the promises, if under the law, with ordinances. It has been proved to the contrary. God says (Exodus 19:1-25), "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself." It was not until He had ransomed them out of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness as His "people," that he gave them the law - not until He had brought them unto Himself. Then He says by Moses the mediator, "Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed," etc. (5: 5.) And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord, "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do." The law was given on this ground. Then commenced the trial. And what was the consequence? Failure. "The Scripture has concluded all under sin." And that is what the gospel more fully brought out, The gospel supposes it. Man, no matter what you call him - a heathen, a Jew, or a Christian, with every ordinance you please - is man, and the law deals to man the "curse." Man should be what man is not, and therefore that is what the law of God must do, did. If God gives a law, can He give that law to suit sinners or Himself? Is God to come down to give the requirements such as would suit the sinner as a sinner? and, if so, what sinner? where would you draw the line? to a heathen, who is corrupt in all his thoughts? to a Jew, who looks merely to outward things? where can I find a man to whom I might adapt the law, if it is not to be what God requires? If God gives a law to sinners, He must give the full demand of His holiness. That is what the conscience of man recognizes as fitting. There can be no intercourse between God and the sinner, on the ground of what God requires, without His either sanctioning or condemning sin. Sanction it He cannot; therefore and necessarily all He has to do is to condemn. Law can never go beyond that. No matter what man is called, God deals with man as he really is. And now, what does the apostle put in the stead of law here? "Promise." There he rests the hope of the soul. "Promise" was long before the law. All hangs upon the faithfulness of God. This is the reasoning. A mediator supposed two parties, God and man, and therefore failure, as it depended on the stability of both. Not so promise, as it depends on the stability of God only. "God is one." If I make you an unconditional promise, a simple promise today, I have no right to say to you on the morrow, ’Oh, you did not so and so, and therefore the promise is nullified.’ Certainly not. No! (you would reply) you promised me the thing unconditionally, not if I behaved well or ill, and therefore it is mine. These "promises" were made after sin came in, yet before the giving of the law. Sin came in before ever "promise" was heard of. When Adam had failed in the garden, before any thing was said to Adam of the foulest sin in his mind, after he had said, "the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat" (he had not only committed sin in disobeying God’s command, but he had dared to reproach God); before anything was said of that, as soon as the evil was traced up to its source, God in pronouncing sentence on the serpent, as the author of it, gave "promise." But He did not give "promise" to Adam in sin, to man in that condition (now the law was given to man in that condition), but in the SECOND Adam. Before there was the slightest dealing on the ground of responsibility, "promise" was made in Christ, as the NEW Man, the "Seed of the woman." Not a word of it was spoken to Adam personally, yet it was that on which his soul might rest, on which faith could lay hold. . Well, before the New Man came, before He was revealed, the law was given to show the effect and consequence of man’s being under responsibility. "The law was added (came in by the bye) because of transgressions, until the seed shall come to whom the promise was made." "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman (the seed came), made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." But there was another step then, which was this, the promises made to Abraham and his seed (5: 16) were confirmed of God in Christ. When Isaac had been offered up (in figure), and raised (in figure), God spake and said, "By myself have I sworn, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, . . . . and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." (Genesis 22:1-24) Now Isaac was not the true "seed." Christ, the true "seed," was typified by Isaac, in whose offering the promise was confirmed. "He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." (5: 16.) The promises settled on Isaac, after (in figure) he had died and risen again from the dead; and that is what the grace of God has done for us, in Christ. Christ came here and lived, accomplishing in the face of Satan all that the spiritual Man could offer to God in his life. But, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die; it abideth alone:, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. Though Christ Himself, as Man, might have had the promises, yet he could not have taken any thing with us, except through death, in resurrection. He could not have had connection with man in the Old Adam. Well, He dies, and having accomplished the work of redemption, done every thing, set aside the consequences of responsibility for man, as risen from the dead, in the power of a new and endless life - "THE Seed" to whom the promises were made - He takes up these promises. As man, we were under responsibility, and therefore under the curse, for we had sinned. Yes, though through grace, able to say that we are "heirs according to the promises," we had sinned. There was no difference in this respect between ourselves and any poor Jew or Gentile, we were all "by nature children of wrath, even as others;" "fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind." (Ephesians 2:3.) The state of soul was the same. Perverseness of will was there, the determination to do our own will, and the pleasure of doing it, instead of the will of God. Christ took all this upon Himself. He charged Himself with responsibility, instead of putting man under it. He underwent to the full the last effect of sin, as the result of the wrath of God, and of the power of Satan, as well as of the weakness of man. He bore the curse. He went down into the grave. But He was still the "Holy One," and (though He might imputatively take sin), it was not possible that He could be holden of the cords of death. Therefore He rose again - HEAD of a new family of men, a new world, a new creation - HEIR according to the purposes of God, of all the promises, and Heir for ever. He has accomplished everything, all that was needed for the remission of our sins, and besides that broken the power of Satan, under which man lay in the very seat of that power. "Through death He has destroyed him that had the power of death." (Hebrews 2:1-18) Most blessed truth! Christ has put Himself into the condition of man in death, the last stronghold in which Satan held man captive by the judgment, and under the sentence of God Himself. He rose out of it, and became the source of life, and heir for us of all the promises. Grace has found its way into death, and "out of the eater" has brought forth sweetness. If we look at death - the Prince of Life has tasted death. If at the power of Satan - Christ has broken and destroyed his power. If at the wrath of God - He has borne it all, drunk the cup to the very dregs. "All Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me." "Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and Thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves." But further, He is the righteous Inheritor of all the promises; as it is said, "All the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen," and we through grace can add, "to the glory of God by us." How then did we come in? As heirs together with Him in life, united to Him, one with Him. Our standing before God is in Christ, the New Man, as having no more part in the flesh, though we have as yet to struggle against it. Death is abolished. Life and incorruptibility are brought to light by the gospel; and that because the responsibility question has been settled in the death of Christ. But it is "by faith." How blessed this! How true of God! How blessed for us? By faith we receive all the promises in Christ. By faith we find every thing done. It is only to believe. Faith produces all manner of fruit in us, there is wondrous power in it, but still it is only to believe, that is all. Just as though you had been deeply in debt, and some kind friend had paid the amount, and when that was done had sent you word. The person comes and tells you that your debts are paid, and you believe it. Now your believing produces joy and gladness doubtless in your heart, but of course it does not in any measure go to liquidate the debt. So as to salvation. The debt has been paid, Christ has finished the work, and the believing soul enters into all the blessed results. (5: 22.) Faith is exercised upon that which has been already accomplished. "It is of faith, that it might be by grace, that the promise might be true to all the seed." Nothing redounds to the glory of the creature. It is a person simply depending upon the truth of God. When the soul is made hopeless in itself (and this must always be the case when the conscience is really honest under the sense of responsibility), it turns to see what God is. The more the truth of God’s requirements is known, the more wretched that soul becomes. The end of all is seen in that exclamation of the apostle, "Oh, wretched man," etc. I am a man, and therefore a wretched being, one having the curse resting upon me. God in the gospel sees man wicked, miserable, rebellious, lost; but He sees him according to His infinite compassions. The Lord Jesus has begun altogether a new thing, not demanding what man is required to be before God, but accomplishing what God is towards man - grace. We find in Christ, it is true, and to perfection, what man is required to be before God; but more than that, what God is towards man. Grace came by Jesus Christ. So that the moment any person, let it be a convicted sinner, stood before Christ as what he was, he found Christ to be grace. If he came as what he was not, Christ laid him bare; but if he came as what he was, then, no matter what he was, a poor helpless sinner, a wretched adulteress, or the thief upon the cross (that was not the question - the question was, what was Christ, Christ came not to judge, but to save), all was grace. Having found Christ, we have found one who has all the promises of God. And since He took those promises as a consequence of what He had done in putting away sin, there can be no further question about sin before God. Our sins are necessarily left outside, because Christ Himself has borne them all, as it is said, "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." He stood in our place, and took upon Himself our iniquity, and bore the judgment due to us; went down into the grave, but rose again from the dead in the power of a new and endless life; ascended up on high, even unto the Father’s presence, as our representative. There He stands; we stand there in Him. As He is before God, so are we, holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in His sight, partakers of His life, joint-heirs with Him of all the promises. This, beloved friends, is our position before God, this our standing in Christ. There is an entirely new Headship in the Second Adam. We are presented in a new character to God, such as man never had before - man without sin in the very presence of God, the very pattern of God’s mind and delight. We find difficulty, it may be, in apprehending it, because of the weakness of the flesh. The moment I look at myself I have another man full of failure. But I stand there as having had sin for ever put away. The knowledge of this gives peace, and we worship. Make sin what you please, let it take what form it may, you cannot mingle the state of man under law with the condition of the new, the heavenly man in heaven. The Lord grant us to know what we are in His love. (1 Corinthians 1:30; Hebrews 10:14.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 58: VOL 02 - DELIVERANCE UNDER THE LAW ======================================================================== Deliverance under the Law Romans 5:1-21; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 7:1-25; Romans 8:1-39 In our relationship to God, there are two points of primary importance for us to remark: our responsibility as men, and the power of that life in which we live before Him. Both these were set forth to us by God in the garden of Eden, in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and in the tree of life. First, as to our responsibility. Man has become a sinner; consequently he has in him no spiritual life at all. (John 6:53.) Sin brought in death and condemnation. After the fall, God gave the law by Moses, in order to prove the state of man. The law of God must exact righteousness, according to the nature of him to whom it is given; but the law does not give life. (Galatians 3:21.) It is the very nature of the law to exact and not to give. Since it is the question of righteousness in man, God cannot lower the requirements of the law, and if we have the divine nature, we shall not desire its requirements to be lowered. The law is the measure of responsibility of the natural man, but it does not give life, and (because man is a sinner) the law, instead of being a resource, becomes the cause of death and condemnation. A mixture of law and grace, in so far as this last is found working in us, does not change this state. Grace does not destroy our responsibility, and that which the law requires is not fulfilled. Christ came to be our Saviour and our Deliverer; He is the source of life to those who believe; He bare, upon the cross, their sins and the wrath of God which they deserved. But this is not all; in the person of this Saviour, Man enters into a new position; He is the Man who is risen and glorified before God. The righteousness of God is accomplished in Him, and He has received that glory as a reward. Let us now see how we are made partakers of this amazing position before God. God cannot endure sin. The responsibility of the creature cannot be destroyed. At the beginning of the epistle to the Romans, the apostle exposes the condition of sin under which both Jews and Gentiles are. Without law, man is without restraint (ungodly), debased by sin; has lost every right thought about God, being given up to things not even suitable to man in nature. Under the law, he not only has corrupted himself, through his lusts, but he is disobedient by reason of his own will, a transgressor. The law condemns not only sin, but also the sinner. The Saviour appears, born of a woman, and under the law; He shed His blood in order to purify us before God - to justify the sinner before God - the just Judge. Grace, rich and deep, is also presented to us in this work. It is the instruction of the epistle (to the Romans) down to the end of the third chapter. In Romans 4:1-25 he begins to examine another truth, the effect and the result of the resurrection of Christ. In Romans 5:1-21, Romans 6:1-23, and Romans 7:1-25 we have the effects of this truth; and in Romans 8:1-39 the result in full. The history of Abraham is introduced in the fourth chapter. If the Jew found himself condemned by the law, he could fall back upon the relationship God had established between Himself and Abraham. It was to this end that the apostle set forth what were the foundations of this relationship, and showed it was built upon faith and the promise, Righteousness was by faith, and it was given to Abraham before he was circumcised - "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness." There is yet another principle taught us in this chapter. Abraham was as dead, as also was Sarah his wife. But God had promised to him a seed. Abraham did not doubt His word because of the impossibility to man of the thing, but he believed in the power of God, whose part it was to fulfil His own promise, and that was counted to him for righteousness. And so it is with us; only with this most remarkable difference, we do not believe that God is able to fulfil His promises, but that He has fulfilled them. "We believe in God, who has raised up from the dead our Lord Jesus." Observe, the apostle does not say here: We believe in Him who is raised, but in Him who has raised. It is thus that he teaches us the meaning of this doctrine. In the resurrection, God does not present Himself as the just Judge, satisfied as such by the work of Christ; but He acts according to His own power in the sphere of death’s power, in bringing forth His beloved Son from under it, and bringing us now, in Christ, into a new position where death and sin are not. It is God who works for us, to save us perfectly, and to set us before Him in truth and in righteousness (man being dead as to that which concerns spiritual life, and living in sin as to natural life); but in Christ he has died and risen again, and finds his place before God in grace, where sin is taken away and righteousness is accomplished: "He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." From the 5th to the 8th chapter is the application of this truth to our own condition. In Romans 5:1-21, to our justification; in Romans 6:1-23, to the new life of the believer in Jesus; in Romans 7:1-25, to the law; and Romans 8:1-39 describes a soul in perfect liberty. In the 5th chapter, he shows that the believer enjoys peace with God; that he lives in the sense of God’s favour, being heir of His glory, and rejoicing even in tribulations which work for his spiritual good. Much more, he rejoices in God Himself, who is his source of endless joy. The apostle is not here speaking of the all-important motive which the believer finds in the blood of Christ to cause him to cease from sin, nor of the power which he finds in the love of God; but he shows that he cannot live in sin to which he is dead. The Christian becomes partaker of the fruits of the work of Christ, because He is dead and risen. How can he live in sin, being already dead to sin? A dead man does not live. He is not a partaker of the blessing which is in Christ, if he has not the life of Christ. Though, as to the natural life, he is still living in the world, he ought nevertheless to reckon himself as dead to sin, since he lives by the life of Christ who is dead and risen. In the 7th chapter, he considers the consequences of the same truth as to the law. The law, he says, has dominion over a man so long as he liveth; he then gives the tie of marriage as an explanation of it. As long as the first husband lives, the wife cannot be to another man, without guilt. The first husband then represents the law; the second is Christ raised from the dead (Christ when living on this earth was Himself under the law); and thus we cannot be at the same time under the law and united to Christ raised from the dead. However, it is not the law which dies, but Christ died under the law; for as many as have sinned under the law shall be condemned by the law; and the law is good, if a man use it lawfully. (Romans 2:12; 1 Timothy 1:8-9.) If it was ourselves who where dead under the law, we should be lost; but Christ died for us, and because He is risen from the dead our souls are united to Him, the law having no longer a hold over a dead man. Therefore, now, Christ, He who is raised from the dead, is our only husband. Thus the resurrection of Christ has delivered us from the law, as well as from sin and condemnation. Romans 5:1-21, then, shows us our position in Christ, the second Adam who is risen. Romans 6:1-23, our new life in Him, a life of which the strength lies in reckoning ourselves dead to sin; Romans 7:1-25 is our complete deliverance from the law, which hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth. As to us, we are dead and risen in Him. It is the new man in Christ which bears fruit unto God, and not the old man under the law. Yet the fault is not in the law; but, because sin is in the flesh, the effect of the law is to bring home guilt upon the conscience, and to become an occasion for exciting the desire to sin. But to return to the leading subject of the chapter, we see that we cannot be at the same time under the law and with Christ risen. This would be to have two husbands at once. In the second half of the chapter we are given the experience of one who wants to fulfil the righteousness of the law, and to bring forth fruit to God as standing under the law - the first husband. Awakened by God, and under the influence of the new life, he understands the spirituality of the law; he understands its requirements; he desires to keep the law, and his conscience cannot be satisfied unless he does so. The new nature loves the righteousness of the law; but by reason of the opposition of the flesh, it does not fulfil it. (Romans 7:14; Romans 7:16; Romans 7:22.) Sad state of a soul, which, by reason of grace working in it, desires to do good; but because it is under the law, knows not how to do it. Now, let it be observed, that while in this state the soul is in its relationship with the first husband, and, consequently, has nothing to do with the second. We have seen that no one can have two husbands at once, therefore in this passage there is no mention made either of Christ or of the Holy Spirit. It is the ordinary Christian experience of the spirituality of the law which we meet with. The conscience of the individual being renewed, knows that it cannot fulfil the requirements of that spiritual law. The renewed will makes every possible effort to do so, but it cannot succeed. All the while it loves the spiritual nature of the law; it does not desire that it should be less perfect. It knows that God cannot give up His authority nor lower His holiness. It tries with all its might to attain the end; but it has no power. The law demands perfect obedience; the conscience and the will assent; but the law gives no power: the end will never be attained. The awakening of the conscience in one who is sincere never produces in him the accomplishment of righteousness, but, on the contrary, despair. It is much more difficult to know and acknowledge that we cannot do a single good thing, than to know and acknowledge that we have sinned. The experience which the soul passes through under the law is a means of convincing it of its powerlessness; but holiness cannot be a subject of indifference, either to God or to the new-born soul; and as we find that we cannot work out righteousness, we are obliged to seek deliverance elsewhere.* Yet, though God will convince a soul that is sincere of its powerlessness, He takes no pleasure in leaving it in this wretched state; but as soon as it acknowledges its state, and that it is and knows itself to be without any hope in itself, so that it can never attain to the righteousness of the law, then God reveals to it its perfect deliverance in Christ. Then at once the soul gives thanks to God for what He has done for it; it sees where its new place is in Christ risen - its true husband, that it may bring forth fruit unto God. (vv. 24, 25.) Henceforth, it is not only a new position (in Christ risen) which is its position, but also strength and liberty. The flesh is there still, its nature is not changed; but our position before God is in the Spirit, and not in the flesh. The power of the Spirit is present, livingly in us, so that we walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Christ in heaven is the expression of our true position before God, Christ living upon the earth is the representation and example of the heavenly man upon earth. Walking after the Spirit, we fulfil the law (by loving God and our neighbour), because we are not under the law. *The translator would record, from memory, an idea of the author’s upon Romans 7:24-25 : - "The soul enlightened and convinced of its incapacity, by means of the law of God, no longer seeks to do this or that. Thirsting for deliverance, it finds it in the grace of the Deliverer." The close of the 25th verse is brought in by the Holy Spirit, in order to show us that, though we are seen in perfect liberty, the nature of the flesh is not changed; but the law (which means here a principle acting always in the same way) - the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus - has completely set us free from the law of sin and death, which reigns in the old man. In Christ we live in the new man: there the old man has no right; but the Holy Spirit is the power which works in it. As to the question of righteousness, the Christian is in perfect peace, because he knows that God, instead of condemning him, has done what the law could not do; that is, "condemned sin in the flesh," by means of Christ come in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as the atoning sacrifice for sin. A soul who is earnest will always mourn more over the sin which he finds working in him, than on account of the sins already committed; but he knows that Christ has died in his stead, not only for sins but for sin itself. So, then, in Romans 8:1-39 we see Christ as the sacrifice upon the cross, then alive in resurrection, and then the blessed testimony, as the living power of the Holy Spirit is fully unfolded to us. From the 5th to the 11th verse of this chapter, the Holy Spirit is declared to be the character and the power of the life. From the 12th to the 27th, He is in us, the personal witness of our adoption and of our right of inheritance, and the helper of our infirmity. From the 28th verse to the end of the chapter, the Holy Spirit is proving that God is not only working in us, but much more He is for us, in His own power and faithfulness, so that the happy believer is assured that nothing can separate him from the love of God - a love which he knows by the Holy Spirit which dwells in him. The height of the glory, the depth of humiliation in death, are in Christ the proof and the means of our being everlastingly blessed in the presence of God Himself; in the blessedness which grace has given us. But there is still more instruction to be drawn out of the third verse of the eighth chapter. The three first verses are a summing up of the three preceding chapters, and three things are taught us in them. 1st. The position of the guilt of man when considered in the light of responsibility. The answer to this is his being justified by God. This is the subject of Romans 5:2 nd. The nature of the old man and that of the new is the subject of Romans 6:3 rd. God, in order to put to the proof the ability of man to work out righteousness for Himself, brought in the law, and man, through the fall, being a sinner, could not fulfill righteousness even before he was a sinner, when his obedience was put to the proof by a law, it became the occasion of his fall. But when, by means of the new birth, he understands the spirituality of the law, then he knows, not only that he has committed sins, but that the law of sin is in his members. This is the subject examined by the Holy Spirit in the seventh chapter, The power and the nature of the new life in Christ, who has died and is risen from the dead, is the answer of God’s grace to the wickedness of the flesh. This is taught us in Romans 6:1-23. The soul set free, through fully knowing the work of God in Christ, is the answer of grace to the experiences of Romans 7:1-25. By considering attentively Romans 8:1-3, it will be easily seen that the first verse corresponds to Romans 5:1-21, the second to Romans 6:1-23, and the third to Romans 7:1-25. The sixth and seventh chapters are closely connected, because the soul that is born again finds out the true character of the old man by means of the law. We have, then, the summing up of these two chapters in the second and third verses of the eighth chapter. All hope of deliverance is shown in the fifth chapter to flow out of justification. But this is not man’s thought. He would wish to deliver himself actually from the law of sin by his own effort, and thus be without fault before God; but God will not have it so, and it never could be according to His truth, because that, on one hand, the work of Christ would have been in vain, and, on the other, man would not have known what is the true nature and sinfulness of sin. If, by efforts in the conscience, we could find deliverance before God, the work of justification, though it might not be by strength of man, would, at least, be by the work of the Holy Spirit, and not by the work of Christ. But God will not, and for man it is impossible to have it so, because the work of the Spirit of God is to show him how intolerable sin is to God, and that the nature of man is not changed. Now his very nature is sin. Man must submit himself to the righteousness of God. Convinced of sin, condemned by the law, he must find his righteousness in another - in Christ, who died for him, and is now risen and in the presence of God. This is the reason why the third and the fifth chapters of the epistle come before the sixth and seventh, and the first verse of the eighth chapter before the second and third verses. After the Holy Spirit has described the conflicts of the soul that is born again, and shown its helplessness, then the "there is no condemnation" (Romans 8:1) is the first want of the soul and the beginning of God’s answer to it, in His Grace. But because we have this privilege - "no condemnation" - in a risen Christ, this does not separate from life, and cannot be separated from it; so it is not simply a doctrine, upon a particular subject, expressing the thoughts of God; but it is a change in what passes in the soul within, a change wrought through the knowledge of this subject, by means of faith. The soul has learned its own helplessness by means of the law; the law of God has discovered to it the law of sin that is in the members; the man sees the sin that dwells in him; he hates it, but he cannot deliver himself from it. Whilst we are upon this subject of the law, it ought to be remarked before going further, that there are some who make a law of Christ Himself. They acknowledge His love; they see in His work on the cross how great is His love. They find in it a reason why they should love Christ perfectly with their whole hearts, but they cannot find this love in themselves. They ought to love Christ with their whole heart, but they do not love Him thus. Now it is precisely the law which commands that we should love God with all our heart. We have found in Christ a new motive; we have, perhaps, given a new form to the law, but we find ourselves still under the law, though we have clothed it with the name of Christ. The power of sin is still there; it prevents us from fulfilling the law, which requires that we should love with the whole heart. Sin is in the flesh - it harasses me, and gets the better of me. Where can I look for deliverance from this terrible and skilful adversary? Our very helplessness is our resource. We find that God Himself must come in, because we can do nothing. No sooner have I understood the work of God (not the promises), than I find that God Himself has done the whole work. This is what is meant by the third verse; God Himself has met and conquered the evil which was always too much for me; Christ, who know no sin, having been made sin for us, has taken away not only the sins which we have actually committed, but also sin in the flesh, in the presence of God, because He died not only for sins, but also for sin. In this the love of God has been revealed to us, that Christ came into the world when we were nothing but sinners; but this revelation of His love does not purify the conscience. Moreover, so long as the conscience is not purified, the heart cannot rejoice in His love, because doubt in the conscience causes fear, and this prevents the heart from resting with confidence on His love. It is most true that love is in God, but the heart cannot make this love its own, because conscience tells us that God cannot bear sin. The Holy Spirit who speaks of love in the gospel, speaking by the same word is also light to convince of sin, and this convincing brings home to the heart not only sin committed but sin as in itself. A child may be convinced of his father’s love, but he fears to meet him if his conscience tells him he has done anything wrong - "Fear hath torment." But if we are risen with Christ, not only is it true that God has loved us in our state of sin, but he has also raised us up into quite a now position - into the same position as Christ is in Himself before God, where we ourselves are the result of the mighty power of God, according to the power by which He raised up Christ from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 1:9-23; 2 Corinthians 5:5.) The manifestation of the love of God in Christ whilst we were yet sinners, is recalled to our attention in 1 John 4:9, but our perfect position in Christ, by being made partakers of His life, is set forth in the seventeenth verse of the same chapter. Now Christ came into this position after having entirely finished His work, a work by which the conscience is purified, and thus love is shed abroad without hindrance in the heart. Because I am united to Christ who has died and is risen again for me, sin can no more be imputed to me than it can be imputed to Christ; His position before God is quite the same as mine, and, let us remember, it is a solemn thought; to have any other position would be nothing short of damnation. There is no middle place between the first and second Adam; and we well know that Christ’s position now before God is without sin - not only as to the perfection of His person (which was always perfect), but besides as it regards the imputation of sin. What then? Has God become indifferent to sin? Did Christ do nothing as to it? Did He shrink back on account of the difficulty of the work? Did He claim at His Father’s hand twelve legions of angels to deliver Him, or did He follow the counsel of the chief priests by saving Himself as He had so often saved others? No! we know it well; He is the Head, without sin, of those who believe on Him, because as the One who has stood in their stead He has made an end with sin upon the cross, and having finished this work, He has united them to Himself by a new life which flows from Him, and by the power of the Holy Spirit which has made them one with Him. And now what does this truth say as to believers? Not only did Christ bear our sins upon the cross, but He was there personally our substitute before God. For all that which the Holy Ghost now shows us as sin before God in the light of His countenance, for all that Christ died upon the cross, and He has borne it for us. He is Himself in the presence of God, judged of according to the light of His glory; He is there who knew no sin, yet who was made sin for us. Now, thanks be to God, all is over - the work is accomplished. The cloud whence the lightning of God’s judgment came forth, the tempest of His wrath, has passed away, taking out of the way our sin, and now the sunshine of God’s love rests on us without a cloud - that perfect love which gave Jesus to finish the work. The conscience is purified according to the holiness of God, who has Himself judged the sin. Before this, though God sent the law among men, yet He Himself was hidden from them; but the same stroke which tore the veil, so that God was revealed in His holiness, has at the same moment taken away the sin which forbids our standing before His unveiled face. The full light (for the true light has now shined) which shines around us, and in which we are, shows that we are without sin before the face of God; and that our garments are washed in the blood of the Lamb. The nearer we are to the light, the more clearly will our perfect purity before God be seen. It is thus, then, that what the law could not do, because it condemned the sinner without being able to change the flesh, God has done, because Christ has not only borne our sins, but has come in the likeness of sinful flesh, and become the sacrifice for sin. Thus God has condemned sin in the flesh. Let this be particularly noticed; it is not said: Sin shall be condemned as a thing that is yet to be done, neither is it by the power of the Holy Spirit, but it is by the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Christ has given Himself up as the atoning sacrifice for the sin of which the Holy Spirit has convinced thee, O believer. God has condemned the sin which has been thy constant sorrow; but He has condemned it on the cross of Christ; He has taken it away, and thou art free. Thou hatest it - it cannot be otherwise, if the Holy Spirit is at work in thee. Now it is no more imputed to thee than are the other sad fruits borne by this corrupt tree. Thou art before God, in Christ, in whom sin has been condemned on the cross. Now, as regards holiness, what is the effect of this truth? What have we to say of the position of the believer? He is set in the light, even before the face of God. He has a life which rejoices in this light; he has the Holy Spirit to enjoy it. Holiness is measured by this light. Since we are in the presence of God, all things shall be judged according to the perfection of His presence. "We have communion with the Father and with the Son." Therefore, when the apostle speaks of sin (in Romans 3:23), he does not say, "We have sinned, and we have come short of what men ought to do," but "we have come short of the glory of God." And because we are set on the ground of grace, it is not merely that holiness is expected from us, but we are made partakers of His holiness; and not only so, but because God is for us, we find power to realise in our life this setting apart to Him; and because we know He is for us, we have the assurance that He will give us this power when we draw near to Him. Holiness is realised by communion with God; but with the conscience of sin, communion is impossible. Where shall we find strength for practical separation to God, unless in God Himself? How can we ourselves walk in this practical holiness if we have not His strength? How can I seek this strength from God if I have not the assurance that He is for me, and if my conscience prevents me from approaching Him? Efforts made after holiness may be sincere before the soul is set at liberty, because the tendencies of the new life are there; but such efforts are always mixed up with the felt need of justification, and thus the true nature of holiness is overthrown and lost, or, rather, it has never been known. As to our rule of life, in accordance with our position of being in Christ, it is His life on earth which is our model. "He that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself also so to walk even as He walked." These two things were seen in Him. He was the righteous man before God, and before man He was the revelation of God’s character. Such ought also to be our life upon earth; walking in the presence of God, we ought to manifest His character before men. And the reason for this is, because Christ Himself is already our life; as the apostle says, "That the life of Jesus might be manifest in our mortal flesh." And herein is the important difference between the law and the commands of Christ. The law promises life if we fulfill its commands. The commands of Christ, as with all His words and works, are the expression of the course, of that life which we possess already in Him. And what were the principles of this life in Christ Himself? 1st. He could say, "The Son of man which is in heaven." It was love from which all His service flowed. Even as man, He was born of God; and He could say of Himself, that for the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross, and despised the shame. The same thing is true of us, with this necessary difference, which there must be, because of His glorious person, for He is God Himself. United to Him, our life is hid with Him in God. Then as to our life on earth as believers, it begins with our being born of God. The love of God in our hearts is the spring of our walk; and the glory in Christ, which is set before us, strengthens us in all the sufferings of our pilgrimage on earth; and, moreover, there is the power of the Holy Spirit, by whose fulness He lived and acted whilst on earth, and which is our strength to follow Him. Thus we have two rules by which to measure good and evil: on one hand, the Holy Spirit dwelling in us; and, on the other, the life and fulness of Christ Himself glorified. Concerning the Holy Spirit, by which we are sealed unto the day of redemption, we ought not to grieve it; rather ought we to be filled with it, that we may realise our communion with God with perfect joy. From our connection with Christ, we ought to put off the old man and put on the new, created in righteousness and true holiness; and in addition to all this, in sight of the fulness of His glory, we ought to grow up unto Him, in all things which is the Head, even Christ, unto a perfect man - unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 59: VOL 02 - ESTHER ======================================================================== Esther "The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility."Proverbs 15:33. "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."Proverbs 16:18. Suffering first, and then glory, mark the due path or history of the saint. This has been illustrated from old time. Joseph, Moses, and David may be remembered in connection with this truth. But it is the common history, in a great moral sense the necessary history, of those who adhere to God, in a system or world that has departed from Him, and set up its own thoughts. For such must ever be stemming a contrary current. But there is more than this. The moment of deepest depression has commonly been the eve of deliverance. In Egypt, the burthens of the Israelites had grown to their highest, just when the Lord was preparing Moses’s deliverance for them. In the ministry of the Lord, just as He was bringing redemption, the devil would commonly throw his poor captive in the midst, or cause him to cry out under a still sorer affliction. Our own souls are led to Jesus and salvation by a light, which has discovered to us our full moral ruin and degradation; and in the latter day, when Israel’s "strength is gone," and "there is none shut up or left," and the enemy is coming in like a flood, then the Spirit of the Lord will lift up His standard. "For the hour of preparation, for a better order of things," as has been said, "is not a time of favourable appearances, but the reverse." All this, however, is happy and encouraging. The bud is bitter, the very moment before it opens to the scented flower. So that it is not only sufferings first, and then glory, but sufferings, commonly, in their sorest form, just before the glory and salvation break forth. But there is a truth standing in company with this, yet, as I may say, over against it. I mean the pride first, and then the overthrow or judgment of the man of the world, and that too in the hour of his highest, loftiest arrogancy. The builders of Babel were in one great confederacy, and the proud design which filled their heart, and which their hand was stretched out to accomplish, was nothing less than to raise a tower that was to reach to heaven. But in that hour of proudest daring the Lord comes down in judgment. (Genesis 11:1-32) Pharaoh had been raised to be the first man in the world, and in the thought of his greatness, and in the pride of his independency, had forgotten Joseph, and declared that he knew not the God of Israel But it was then that the vials of wrath from the Lord’s hand began to be poured out upon him. (Exodus 5:1-23) Nebuchadnezzar walked in his palace, and admired his magnificence, and said, "Is not this great Babylon that I have built?" But the Lord was watching upon that evil, and while the word of pride and importance was in his mouth, he that exalted himself was abased. (Daniel 4:1-37) And Herod, after all this, was lauded as a god, and in a moment the judgment of God made a spectacle of him. (Acts 12:1-25 ) These were awful visitations in the hour of such prosperity and mighty pride of heart. And such things are foretold in prophecies, as well as illustrated in histories. The "Lucifer" of Isaiah, the "Prince of Tyrus" of Ezekiel, the "Man of sin" of St. Paul, and the "Beast" of the Apocalypse, are all prophetic of the doom of a proud one in the moment of loftiest presumption. These serious and interesting truths - the exaltation of the righteous in the moment of deepest depression, and the abasement of the proud in the hour of their stoutest self-sufficiency - may easily connect themselves with our recollections of the book of Esther. It closes the volume of the historical books of the Old Testament, and it is of all parts of Scripture the most full and vivid expression of these two great principles; and thus, at the close of the histories, we get, in fit and beautiful season, the most complete illustration of the sweet springs of the whole movement. In the catalogue of those proud ones, who meet their doom in their height of pride, I might have mentioned Haman, the Agagite. He was of the genuine seed of Amalek, with whom the Lord had a controversy for ever, and who of old defied the glory as it began to unfold its brightness in the gloomy desert, in the freshest moments of Israel’s history. (Exodus 17:1-16) Prosperity had attended him in a remarkable manner. He had the ear, the hand, and the ring of his master, the Persian (the chiefest monarch upon earth) at his command. And his pride, because of all this, could brook no refusal - and if the servant of God will not worship, the whole nation of God’s people must pay the penalty. In the day of this Amalekite, Esther appears in the scene. She had been a poor captive from the land of Israel, and was now in the land of the Persian; not only, however, in the common sorrow and degradation of her people, but with a grief and affliction that were peculiarly her own. She was an orphan, and in every sense a destitute one, save in the kindness and care of her godly kinsman, Mordecai. In process of time, without any effort or desire on her part, she becomes the favourite wife of the Persian king. Nay, not only without effort or desire, but after she had, like another Daniel, purposed, though in the court of the Gentile, to preserve her Nazaritism, or separation to God from the customs of the people. (Esther 2:15.) She will be no debtor to man. She will not, as it were, take from the king of Sodom (Genesis 14:1-24) beyond the necessary things. It is the Lord, and not ornaments, which gives her favour in the eyes of all who behold her; the king himself is won, and the crown royal is put upon her head. And yet she is simply the Jewish maiden still, and obedient to Mordecai, as in the day when she was brought up by him in his own house. This was a happy beginning. She began with herself, with a full purpose to keep herself pure. And such will be found fit for the Master’s use. (2 Timothy 2:1-26) Jerusalem might have boasted of such a daughter, though in the palace at Shushan. She might have stood a witness of the prophet’s truth - "Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire." And when in further process of time she heard of the sorrows of her people, like another Moses, or Nehemiah, she forgets all that was her own - the ease and security and honours of the palace - and went forth to look only on their burthens. This was going on happily. She who had kept herself from defilement was the one to throw herself amid the afflictions of others. She had watched against personal entanglements, and was thus free to serve. She was already girded, and waited only for a call. Right condition of every follower of Jesus. The only due and suited attitude of one called to the holy honour of serving in God’s house. Esther, the queen, now carefully acquaints herself with the state of her people throughout the realm of the king’s dominion, and casts herself at once under their burthens. I have before hinted at the occasion of these burthens of Israel, and it is well known. The haughtiness of the great Agagite, who at this time had the Persian monarch at command, had not brooked the holy refusal of Mordecai, the Jew, to bow down to him; and he had prevailed so far as to get the whole nation of Israel (then scattered captives through the Persian provinces) under sentence of death, which was to be executed upon them on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month of that current year. Every Jew therefore, it may be said, carried the sentence of death in himself - a sentence, too, pronounced by a power which thought it scorn ever to change its decrees. (Chap. 1:19.)* *Persian power affected two divine prerogatives - never to change its decrees - never to allow mourning in the royal presence. We might say that this same nation has been, after this manner, wonderful from the beginning and hitherto. The burning unconsumed bush was their symbol of old, and is their symbol still. They were a people under sentence of death in Egypt, as much as afterwards in Persia; and have been of late centuries in Christendom, or all the world over. Did not Pharaoh utter another edict for their destruction? and was not God, who raiseth the dead, or who can dwell unharmed in a burning bush, or walk in a fiery furnace, their only helper? And have they not in the times of modern Europe been alike wonderful? This decree of the Persian was but the expression of the common history of this people, scattered and peeled, and meted out and trodden down, whose land all the rivers in their turn, in the pride of their overflowings, have spoiled. And as to Mordecai, the distinguished and godly Israelite of his day, the present faithful and lovely branch of the tree of God’s planting, he seems to have been a genuine son of Abraham. He believed in Him who could raise the dead. "Abide ye here with the ass," said the patriarch (Genesis 22:1-24) to his servants; "and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you" - though that lad was at that moment under sentence of death. And so Mordecai can surely count on deliverance coming, though the decree for destruction was speeding its way. (4:14.) The present therefore was a moment of Israel’s deepest depression. But the Lord, as we have been seeing, had an arrow hidden in His quiver, or the appointed, though as yet unnoticed, stone of help, amid the smoothing, polishing waters of the brook, soon to be ready for the sling. (1 Samuel 17:40.) We have seen Esther beginning well, and going on well. She was in "the school of God." Communion was light and strength from the Lord Himself to her. She had strange and very blessed intimacy with Him. Not that I speak of visions, or audiences, or trances, or any thing of that nature; no, nothing of the kind. "In these days," I may say, "there was no open vision." But there was within her reach, what is within the reach of faith in every age, communion with God. She could trust God, like another Shadrach. (Daniel 3:1-30.) If He pleased, she doubted not that He could deliver her; but whether He pleased it or not, she had but to do her duty. She could, and would, venture all in the cause of service to Christ. Her soul, like Shadrach and his dear companions, was prepared for any consequences. "If I perish, I perish," says she. Precious, beauteous workmanship of the hand of God! fashioned and graven indeed as both a lovely and serviceable vessel of His house. But more than this. Esther may be observed to stand in very near fellowship with the mind of God. She seems as though she had observed the divine method with these proud adversaries; for she takes God’s own way exactly with wicked Haman. She is not in haste. She lays her plans to let the heart of that Amalekite fill itself to the brim with pride, that he might fall, according to the divine way, in the moment of its most. towering presumption. She has "the golden sceptre" on her side, and with it the king’s promise to give her whatever she might ask, even to the half of his kingdom. But she is patient. She bids the king and Haman to her banquet of wine. They come; and again the half of the kingdom is put within her grasp. But she is still patient, and bids them a second time. Is this, I ask, mere patience? Is this mere calmness and self-possession, or nothing more (however excellent that would be) than the contradiction of the heat and impatience of the wicked? Is this merely virtue and a well-regulated heart, as opposed to the passionate way of an Herodias when in possession of the same offer? (Mark 6:23.) It may have been all this; but it was more. It was the way of one who knew and imitated God’s way in like cases. The Lord in possession as He is of all power, is patient, and even for 400 years can bear with an Amorite, till the measure of his sin be filled up. (Genesis 15:13-16.) So here, the one who had learnt from Him, the one who had been in the school of communion, can, though in the possession of the resources of a kingdom, be patient also, and let the "man of the earth" go on to the full measure of his sin. She bids Haman and the king a second time to her banquet. And Haman that day went forth joyful, and with a glad heart. He called his wife and his friends, and rehearsed all his greatness and prosperity to them, telling them moreover, as the very climax of his haughty thoughts and self-complacency, how queen Esther had again invited him and the king alone to her banquet of wine on the morrow. This is much to be observed. I need not say how all this loftiness of man was brought down in a moment. The story is known well among us. The day of the Lord was signally upon it all History has been said to be "the narrative of the prevalence, by turns, of the several counteractive powers that sway the world; and ordinarily it happens that at the very moment when a certain power, as with a flourish of trumpets, is proclaiming its triumph, it does in that blast of pride announce the appearance of its rival. Despotisms have on many signal occasions thus boasted, and thus fallen, in one and the same day." How true is this in God’s histories, which a thoughtful, reflective mind thus discovers in the general course of the world’s affairs! And how have we found it so in this history of Haman! Nor need I say how Esther and Esther’s people were delivered in the moment of deepest depression, and how the controversy between hope and fear ended in the most glorious and wonderful triumph of hope. The Jews had the sentence of death in themselves; but there is One who raiseth the dead, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning. "The Jews had light, and gladness, and joy, and honour. And in every province, and in every city, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a good day." (Esther 8:16-17.) The month was turned to them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day. Esther was queen; and as for Mordecai, he was "next unto king Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren, seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed." (Esther 10:3.) This I need not more exactly notice. But how profitable is it to watch the spirit and the path of this dear and honoured woman! Her care to preserve herself pure, her deep sympathies with her brethren, her trust in the Lord, with decision of soul to do His will at all hazard! How full and instructive an example does all this set before us. And yet circumstances, as we speak, were much opposed to her. She was, I may say, "of Caesar’s household" - a condition in life which must have cost a true Israelite, a real decided Nazarite, much watchfulness of spirit and self-mortifying. But her walk with the Lord was so close and so genuine, that she appears to have reached some of the deepest secrets of His mind, acting on the great adversary, as I was noticing, precisely in God’s own way, nay, in very near fellowship with Him; for we see that as soon as her plan had ripened the pride of the heart of Haman, that moment the Lord began to act upon him, and prepare the instruments of his destruction. For it was the very night which intervened between the two days of queen Esther’s feasts that the Lord sent that dream into the heart of Ahasuerus, which leads to the humbling of the haughty Amalekite. (Esther 6:1-14) Let none say, then, that their circumstances are against them. Hers were eminently so. But decision of heart and singleness of eye brought her that strength which is a match for all circumstances. This was a time of crisis. There have been others like it in the progress of the government of the world - a time when the master of the house rose up to shut to the door, or to discern between the righteous and the wicked. And in this crisis, in the days of Haman and Esther, as I observed, the great principles of God were expressed with peculiar decision - the exaltation of the righteous in the moment of deepest depression, and the humbling of the mighty in the hour of their proudest thoughts - characteristics, as I have also said, which are given with striking and seasonable fitness to this little book, which closes the historical volume in the Old Testament. But the subject addresses itself to us. There is to be another crisis in the earth’s history, fearful and far extended beyond all. Every previous crisis will have been but a rehearsal and a shadow of it. Deep and deadly security; like that in which the generation of Noah was folded, who "knew not" in the midst of their marriage feasts, and buying and selling speculations, till the flood came, will be one feature of that day. Prosperity, and its companion pride, will give form to that day also. And, I ask, is not the mystery of such a day now working? Are not things taking a strong direction that way? If one may speak for another, the heart is conscious that the world is prospering. Are not the accommodations and embellishments of human life increasing to a wonder? Is not this generation very loudly congratulating itself on what it has attained, silently pitying those who spent their days before present advantages were known, and boasting in expectation of refining and multiplying the resources of every future hour? I believe these things are so, and that the heart is conscious of it. The world is prospering; and we know not how soon it may be that if any one refuse to help forward the common self-satisfaction, he must be treated as a common enemy. And what a mistake we may judge it to be (as another has expressed it), to think "that the suavity, the tolerance, the blind indifference, and the enlightened liberality which now are the garb of the infidel spirit belong to it by nature, or would be retained a day after it had nothing to fear." This is all solemn. The sentence of death has not gone out yet from the wounded pride of the Amalekite against the whole nation of the godly. No; it has not worked to that. The day will not come yet, but the mystery of it is abroad. The pride itself has begun to labour in the heart; the throes and energies of that passion, which is to be the parent of such a decree, may, even now, be moving secretly, and be felt, and welcomed, and nourished. Where is strength to be gathered? If pride and intolerance be nourished in some hearts, is faith in ours? Esther may read us a lesson upon victory in an evil day. She stood in such a day, and stood more than conqueror. Before it came she had kept herself, and refused to defile her garments. She had been in "the school of God," and learnt the way of strength and victory there, in communion with Himself, when circumstances were all against her. And let me add, that this communion is to be simple and affectionate, not such as will feed itself with high thoughts and strange thoughts, but such as will find Christ in the sureness and perfectness of His work for sinners the great thought, the precious thought, animating, the invigorating, though simple truth, that tells upon the heart with divine and wondrous virtue. There is danger (as another has warned us) of this ceasing to give character to an age like the present, where there is a vast and varied quantity of qualifications and arguments, rather then fervour and simplicity of spirit, where, as the natural result of intellectual and religious progress, "the glory of Christ, as Saviour of man, which should be always as the sun in the heavens, shines only with an astral lustre." But times of difficulty demand simple, nutritious, strengthening truth; "a different order of things around us would presently bring into play the more powerful elements of the moral life. Events may be imagined which would mar our levity, and break up the polished surface that reflects our case, and lead us home to the first principles of the gospel, and quite sicken our taste for everything but those principles; and it is under such an impression that the gospel (simple, plain truth of God’s grace and salvation,) will assume its just dimensions in our sight, and the glad tidings of mercy be listened to with a new and genuine joy." True, and also seasonable in this day of many a busy speculation, are these meditations. And most seasonable are the words of the blessed Lord Himself to His disciples, in the day that He began to talk to them of their coming troubles. "What is a man profited (said He to them) if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange, for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26.) Here is truth for the strengthening of the heart against the day of evil. For these words speak the excellency and the value of the glories which are to follow the day of evil. Our Lord uses the language of the merchant. He speaks of profit, and loss, and exchange. He contemplates a bargain, and for the comfort of the believer He decides that a bad bargain that man would make, who would take the whole world (supposing that he could get it) in exchange for a share in the glory that is to be revealed. He is not (though this is the general apprehension) in this passage so much settling the question of personal safety, as of profit and loss. And we all know the power of bright and sure expectation, though they may be still distant. Man will toil through dangers, weariness, and mortification, to reach such. And the Lord here witnesses to us the sureness and the brightness of our expectations, affirming His word, shortly after, by unveiling for a moment, on the holy hill, the very region of these promised glories. And if we believe His competency to handle these weights and measures, and to try comparative value, and then if we believe His truth in giving in the result of such trial or the judgment, our hearts will be further fortified for "every trying hour." Peter, as it were, unconsciously vindicated the Lord’s verdict on the value of the glory when he said, "Lord, it is good for us to be here." Oh, can we look to Him, and say, "Thou shalt choose our inheritance for us." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 60: VOL 02 - EXTRACT FROM A LETTER ON PERFECTION ======================================================================== Extract from a Letter on Perfection You must take your place right before the Lord Jesus Christ - the Saviour. The epistle to the Hebrews, I may say, puts you there. In early days, God Almighty set Himself before Abraham, when Abraham had taken up confidence in Hagar, confidence in the flesh, confidence in something other than the all-sufficiency of God. "I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect." (Genesis 17:1.) This was a rebuke. Abraham was not then perfect in his generation. He had lost the power of the name or revelation of God. The state of his soul did not answer to that in God which was dispensed or made known to him. That is, Abraham was not perfect, failing in confidence when God was with him as the Almighty. In the days of the ministry of the Son (revealing Him who makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good) perfection of another order was looked for, as we read in Matthew 5:44-48. There the Father, in all the full, free bountifulness of paternal goodness, is set before us by the Lord, and perfection is imitation of Him. Confidence was perfection, when the Almighty was revealed, or stood before the soul; generosity, that counts only on the need, and not on the worthiness of its object, is perfection when the Father stands before us. So, in the day of the same ministry, perfection again takes another form, as we may see in Matthew 19:21. The Lord Jesus had been on the heavenly hill, in the glory that belonged to that place, with Moses and Elias. (Matthew 17:1-27) He was, in an eminent sense, the Stranger - the self-emptied heavenly Stranger here; and standing before the rich young man, He speaks to him of a perfection suited to such an one "If thou wilt be perfect, sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me." This is a high order of perfection indeed - imitation of the fully-emptied heavenly Jesus. And nothing less than this is the living, practical perfection that suits the heavenly calling. "I have overcome the world," says Jesus. Perfection is the taking of that place with Him, which this dispensation opens and shows to us. Paul had much of it realised in his soul when he uttered Php 4:1-23, and the Hebrew saints knew a good deal of it, as we see them in Hebrews 10:32-34, in the day of their illumination. But, beloved, we must not stop here. Good it is to look at all this, and discern these forms and characters (different as they are) of perfection in the people of God. But God looks to be glorified in us in a still different form of perfection, and we find this precious secret in the epistle to the Hebrews. There, the Holy Ghost summons our conscience into the presence of Christ as a Saviour. His perfection for us sinners is there made known to us. The law never provided in Moses, or in Aaron, or in Joshua, or in the victim on the Jewish altar, or in all these put together, a perfect Captain of salvation, or Author of eternal salvation; but God has given us such an one in His suffering Son; and the conscience of the sinner is called into His presence, summoned to stand before Him, and to take of the perfection which is there revealed to it, by enjoying peace and cleansing, and consequent boldness of access into the divine presence. Here is your perfection; beloved, obtained by the gaze of faith at the Lamb of God. It is not the perfection of confidence which knows God’s all-sufficiency for the circumstances of life, nor the perfection of generosity which acts after the pattern of paternal goodness, nor the perfection of imitation of a heavenly Jesus; but it is that form of perfection that glorifies God more than all, because it glorifies Him in that grace that has dispensed a remedy to our deepest necessity, and healed a breach in the tenderest place - the conscience of a wretched, ruined, good-for-nothing sinner. And God would have this perfection, the principle and power of all others. If we trust in God, if we imitate the bountifulness of the Father, if we walk in the steps of a heavenly, self-renouncing Master, it must be because we have been "illuminated" by the sight, or rather by the clear, full, and gladdening light of Him who has perfected Himself for our salvation. "He is perfect for you, though you may be weak in looking at Him."* J. G. Bellett. *From the Christian’s Scrap Book. - W. H. Broom. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 61: VOL 02 - FAITH AND ITS FOOTSTEPS ======================================================================== Faith and Its Footsteps Hebrews 11:1-40. The apostle sums up in this chapter, and shows that all through man’s history, no matter who had obtained a "good report," it was by faith. This was specially a trial for the Hebrews. Their very religion was one of sight. They had a system to walk by - a visible temple, sacrifices, priesthood, and the like, Messiah, they expected to see. (When they did see Him, they hated and put Him to death, and this Messiah is gone to heaven.) In becoming Christians, they lost all they had possessed, and gained nothing that was tangible to the flesh. There was, therefore, the constant temptation to deny an unseen Messiah, and to turn back to things seen. The saint’s warrant is the word of God. The moment he acts upon any object seen, he ceases to act as a Christian. Christ lived, in that sense, the life of faith. (Hebrews 12:2.) It is the life of faith we get here, not salvation, or the finding peace in the way of faith. Faith is looked at as the power by which they walked. There are these two things in faith: as it regards, 1st. - PEACE OF SOUL. 2nd. - POWER FOR WALK. If I talk of faith, I may mean belief of a testimony - a person tells me a thing, and I believe him. But there is another sense in which I may have faith in that man; that is, I may put my trust in him We often confound these things. There is the testimony of God which I have to believe, and a trusting in God which is the power of my walk. That which gives me peace, is receiving the testimony of God: I do want confidence in God for power of walk; but I must not confound this confidence in God with His testimony. We shall find the two things in Abraham. God called Abraham and showed him the stars of heaven, and said, "So shall thy seed be;" and Abraham "believed God." In the offering up of Isaac (5: 9), there was not the receiving of a testimony, but "believing in God." Here I am, a sinner with the consciousness of sin; how can I trust in God? I know Him to be a holy God, a hater of sin; how can I trust in Him? I dare not be in His presence with sin upon me, - what can meet that? it is not denying the holiness of God; it is not my putting away my sin; but God tells me my sin is put away. I believe Him. This is not trusting in His power. The thing that gives me peace, is my receiving a testimony. My spirit cannot rest, when I am conscious of sin, unless I know that it is not imputed to me; it is God who has seen it just as it is; my being content with myself, will not do; I must have God content about me. There is a wrestling going on in the soul that wants to be content with itself. Believing God’s testimony, it would be at peace. It has never yet been brought to feel itself a thoroughly worthless sinner. The question is not as to my not having sin; but do I believe what, God says, when He says it is put away? There is really a work of the Spirit of God in this; not in producing what will satisfy me, but in bringing my soul to say, ’It is all over with me.’ God often allows it to struggle on; it will try to get better; He lets it, and, like a man in the mire who pulls one foot out to get the other in, its case is only the worse. The answer to this comes in in the blessed truth of the Gospel of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, that "whosoever believeth in Him is justified from all things." (Acts 13:38-39.) I find God perfectly at rest; He is resting in Jesus perfectly satisfied. Christ says, "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do;" and God says, "Sit thou on my right hand." I get rest to my soul because I find that God has not one single thing against me. There is often this struggling under the sense of conviction, before the soul gets peace. Another thing is the walk of faith. Come sifting, come trial, come what may, the ground of my peace is never touched. If it were not completely settled, done, it never could be, and why? because it says, that, "without (not "sprinkling," but) shedding of blood there is no remission." (Hebrews 9:22.) Therefore, if not perfectly done, Christ must die again, shed His blood again. But it is finished. The Spirit of God will make me see it; but it is done. I take this word of Jesus, "I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do;" and I say, ’It is finished.’ Now I get the path of faith opened before me; I am sure God loves me, and is nothing but love; I can, therefore, trust in Him: I know His love; He has saved me as a sinner, I can trust in His love as a saint. Mark the order in which things are presented here. To faith, that which is unseen becomes as present, as real, as though present to sight. (5: 1.) Yea, much more so; because there is deception in seen things; but there is no deception in things communicated by the Spirit to the heart. Through faith we know that creation was by the word of God. (5: 3.) Then (5: 4) we come to the great basis on which a fallen creature can have to say to God. Let us look a little at the distinctive character of Abel’s sacrifice. Cain offered to God what cost him more. His was not the case of a thoroughly irreligious man; he offered to God, worshipped God, and was utterly rejected. He was not an infidel or an irreligious man; but a worshipper, and a rejected worshipper. His worship was founded on unbelief. A sinner, turned out of paradise, he could go to God as though nothing had happened. So with many; they think they can go and worship God, pay a compliment to Him. And what did he bring? The very thing that had the stamp of the curse upon it. God had said, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; thou shalt eat of the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." That is what comes of a person thinking he can worship God ("do his duty," as he terms it); it is the denial of the whole truth of his condition. What does Abel? Quite another thing; he brings a slain lamb, comes through death (in principle, through the atonement of Christ). He sets between himself and God the testimony of a provided sacrifice. By faith he offered. Before the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the revelation had been that such a thing would be done, as though I were to say to a debtor in prison, "I will pay your debts." All that we enjoy as a finished work was a subject of hope. "Whom God," it is said, "hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare at this time, His righteousness; that He might be just, and the justifier of Him which believeth in Jesus." (Romans 3:25-26.) We are not looking onward to a future sacrifice; I have not a promise of getting out of the prison - I am out. We have a testimony that the thing is done, and the Holy Ghost is the seal of the testimony. The Holy Ghost cannot testify anything to my soul, otherwise than that it is all done, the debt paid, the door opened, all finished. Two things are spoken of in 1 Peter 1:10; 1 Peter 1:12, "the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow:" we are between these two things. The Old Testament both; we come after the sufferings, and look for the glory. The Holy Ghost has been sent down, meanwhile, to testify of accomplished redemption. That is not my hope. I am not waiting for my sins to be put away, they are put away. This is the basis on, which we rest. God rests in His Son, and there I rest. Next (5: 5) we come to the walk of Enoch. Here I find another thing. (Of course everybody is not translated as Enoch and Elijah were.) Not only can I approach God (faith does not merely tell me this), but that has come in which has set death altogether aside. Death belongs to me now; it is not, as it is called, a "king of terrors." All things are ours - life is ours, death is ours - for we are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:22-23.) In Enoch we find a walk with God, a power of life with God, and such a power that death is not seen. We have the life of the Son of God, and not only His death; the blessed truth, not simply of a made sacrifice, so as to give my soul peace, but that all the power of Satan in death has been destroyed. God allowed Satan to do his worst; all that "the prince of the world" could do was brought to bear upon His Son. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." "We are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord . . . . confident, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." (2 Corinthians 5:1-21.) What I am looking for, is not to be "unclothed," but "clothed upon;" but if I die, the life that I have is untouched, and I shall be "present with the Lord." Here I find two things which faith recognises; first, the blood of atonement, by which sin was put away; and secondly, a power of life by which we walk (not merely as His people, but) with God.. The result will be that the power of death is entirely gone. We are identified with a living Christ, as we are saved by the death of Christ. We do not hear anything about "condemning the world" in the case of Abel or in that of Enoch. God "bears testimony to the gifts" of the one, and the other "walks with God." But I find another thing. (5: 7.) We are going through the world, and God has given us a testimony about the world, and what is going to happen to the world. He has "appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead." (Acts 17:31.) "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." Warned of what is coming on the world, he owns and recognises the judgment, and falls in with God’s revealed way of salvation; and he condemns the world. Mark this, faith "condemns the world;" not merely is it belief in a sacrifice that saves, and power for walk with God; but it says of the world that it is altogether departed from God, and is going to be judged. We have the testimony of the word of God, that the thing that is coming upon this world is judgment. There is many a person who, as a saint, would rest in a saint’s walk with God; but who shrinks from breaking with the world. The saint is so to act upon this testimony as to the judgment of the world, as practically to condemn it. Had we Noah’s faith, as well as Abel’s and Enoch’s, we could not go with the world. If His people are saved by Him, He is coming to judge the world; and therefore they have their portion with Christ, and in Christ, so that when He comes. they will be with Him. As sure as Christ rose from the dead, He is "the Man" God has ordained to judge the world, "this present evil world;" and so sure is there no condemnation for you and for me, if we believe in Him. That by which I know there will be a judgment is that by which I know there will be none for me. How do I know there will be a judgment? Because God has raised Him from the dead. What more has God told me of His resurrection? That my sins are all put away. There is another thing which we cannot enlarge upon now. (5: 8.) The apostle turns to another point, active manifestation of the power of faith. It was this strengthened Abraham. He trusted in God. God called him by His grace, and he went out, not knowing whither he went. There comes in confidence in God; not simply the receiving a testimony; implicit confidence in God. A person might say, "If I only knew what would be the consequences of my doing so, I could trust God." Then you will never go. Look at Adam; how did Adam act? He had present external things; but he took the devil’s word. God says, "You have believed the devil, when you had all my good things, now you must trust me." You go out not knowing whither you go, because of trusting in the person that is leading you. God will give light enough to say, ’God wills this, and I do not see another step.’ When you have turned the corner, you will see what is round the corner. Further, when we have taken a step, we shall find that the Lord never satisfies us; He blesses, but he does not satisfy. When Abraham comes into the place, which he should afterwards receive for an inheritance, what has he got? Nothing. He is still a stranger. This the heart dislikes. Hence the disappointments often experienced. As regards our prospects, we have our own thoughts about them; we are thinking, perhaps, of what we are going to make them twenty years hence; God is going to bring us into His rest. He brings Abraham into the land, and then He begins to lead his thoughts to another country. He gets near God, and is placed upon a high enough platform of faith to see it is all before him yet. The Lord reveals Himself to him in communion; speaks with him, unfolds to him His purposes; and Abraham worships. He has his tent and his altar. And that is what God does with us; He makes Christians of us, brings us into the land of promise, and makes us see it is all before us yet. This is not the time for rest. The eye becomes clear in the ways of God; and we have the privilege of being strangers and sojourners with God, and we shall be strangers and sojourners, until we get home in the home of God. Beloved friends, how is it with you as regards this? can you really say, ’My home is in God’s home; I have no home till then, and I do not want one’? There is not any thing between us and God - no sin between us and God, or Christ is not there (He is there because He has put it all away); both cannot be there. Are your souls, then, resting on the Lord Jesus Christ? or are you working to settle something that has been settled already? The Lord give us to believe His testimony, and to trust in His power. It is characteristic of faith to reckon on God, not simply spite of difficulty, but spite of impossibility. Faith concerns not itself about means; it counts upon the promise of God. To the natural man, the believer may seem to lack prudence; nevertheless, from the moment it becomes a question of means which renders the things easy to man, it is is no longer God acting; it is no longer His work, where means are looked to. When with man there is impossibility, God must come in; and it is so much the more evidenced to be the right way, since God only does that which He wills. Faith has reference to His will, and to that only; thus it consults not either about means or circumstances; in other words, it consults not with flesh and blood. Where faith is weak, external means are, beforehand, reckoned on in the work of God. Let us remember that when things are feasible to man, there is no longer need of faith, because there is no longer need of the energy of the Spirit. Christians do much, and effect little - why? Verses 13, 17. Not only were those spoken of here "strangers and pilgrims," but they "confessed" it. People sometimes wish to be religious in the heart, and not to speak of it; there is no energy of faith there. To see the world to be lost and condemned, to have our hopes in heaven, such facts must of necessity produce a proportionate result - that of making us think and act as "strangers and pilgrims" here. And it will be manifested in the whole life. The heart already gone, it remains but to set out. This evidently involves open and public profession of it, and herein is a testimony for Christ. Who would be satisfied with the friend that owned us not when circumstances were difficult? The concealed Christian is a very bad Christian. Faith fixed on Jesus, we embrace the things we have seen afar off; we are not mindful of the country from whence we have come out, we have at heart that which is before us. Where difficulties are in the path and the affections not set on Jesus, the world rises again in the heart. (Php 3:7-14.) Paul had not acted in a moment of excitement, to repent forthwith; his heart filled with Christ, he counts all but "dross and dung." Perseverance of heart marks the Christian’s affections to be onward, his desires heavenly. And God is not ashamed to be called his God. The aim of the Christian must be heavenly things. The appetites, the necessities of the new man are heavenly. Christianity may be used for bettering the world, but this is not God’s design. The seeking to link ourselves with the world, and the using Christianity for world-mending, are earthly things. God’s design is to link us with heaven. You must have heaven without the world, or the world without heaven. He, who prepares the city, cannot wish for us anything between the two. The "desire" of a "better country" is the desire of a nature entirely from above. Verse 17-19. - Abraham held to the promises more than to natural affection. The strength of the trial to him was in this, that God had pointed out Isaac as the accepted seed - the one connected with the promises. Faith counts on God. God stops Abraham, and confirms His promise to the seed. In obeying, we get an acquaintance with the ways of God, of which, otherwise, we should have had no conception. Unbelief causes us to lose joy, strength, spiritual life; we know not where we are. Verses 24-26. - The carnal heart uses the providence of God against the life of faith. Providence brings down Pharaoh’s daughter to the child Moses. In the midst of the world’s wisdom, at the court of Pharaoh, providence has placed him (as it might seem), to use his influence in Israel’s favour. The first thing faith makes him do, is to leave it all. He might have been able to succour Israel through his influence, but Israel must have remained in bondage to Egypt. Faith is "imprudent;" yet it has that eternal prudence which counts on God, and nothing but Him. It discerns that which is of the Spirit, and what is not of the Spirit is not of faith, and not of God. To hold to providence thus, is, at bottom, the desire to "enjoy the pleasures of sin;" the world is loved, and there is the wish to lean on circumstances, instead of God; it is not a "good providence" when a man is ruined. Moses appeared to be weakening himself in preferring the reproach of the people of God, and of the people of God in a bad state. He might see them in a sad condition; but faith identifies the people of God with the promises of God, and judges of them, not according to their state, but according to His thoughts. Energetic against evil, he counts upon God as to the people. Verse 27. - The world would persuade us to be "good Christians," whilst acting and walking as others. Called to glory, faith of necessity quits Egypt; God has not placed the glory there. To be well off in the world is not to be well off in heaven. "All that is in the world is not of the Father." To leave the world when the world has driven us out, is not faith, it is to show that the will was to remain there as long as we could. Faith, acts on the promises of God, and not because it is driven out by the world. Moses "sees Him that is invisible." This makes him decided. When we realize the presence of God, Pharaoh is nothing. It is not that circumstances are the less dangerous; but God is there. In communion they become the occasion of a tranquil obedience. Jesus drinks the cup; Peter, draws the sword; that which brings out obedience in Jesus, is a stumbling-block to Peter. Where there is lack of communion, there is weakness and indecision. Verse 30. At the blast of rams-horns, after they have been compassed about seven days, the walls of Jericho fall down. Things which appear base and contemptible are not so when done before the Lord. (2 Samuel 6:1-23) To faith Jericho’s walls are not, any more than the Red Sea, or the Jordan. Verse 31. Who would have thought of Rahab? yet, by faith she acknowledges God. Faith makes nothing of distinctions amongst men; it says that God is rich in mercy towards all that call upon Him; there is no difference, for that all have sinned. In the midst of difficulties she sides with the people of God. The confidence of faith is manifested in the Christian life, as a whole. Christians are often brought to a stand through measuring their own strength with temptation, instead of exclusive reference to God. They go on well up to a certain point. One man talks of his family, another of the future; (if any have not faith, all we can do is to pray for him;) in the various concerns of life, our reasonings mean but this, ’I have not the faith that counts on God.’ Faith has reference entirely and exclusively to God. Duty ever leads into difficulty; but I have the consolation of saying, "God is there, and victory is certain." Otherwise, in my apprehension, there is something stronger than God. This demands a perfect, practical submission of the will. When the children of God are faithful, God may leave them in trial and difficulty, to bring out that is them which is not of the Spirit. He may also allow evil to have its course and test us, in order that we may understand, that the aim of faith is not here at all, and see that in circumstances the most difficult God can intervene, as in the sacrifice of Abraham and the raising of Lazarus. Man looks not beyond the circumstances which surround him. To tarry in circumstances is unbelief - affliction springs not out of the dust. Satan is behind the circumstances to set us on; but behind all that, God is there to break our wills. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 62: VOL 02 - FAITH, NOT DISCUSSION ======================================================================== Faith, Not Discussion A word on knowing. John 7:1-53 Of the three great feasts of the Jews (Deuteronomy 16:16), in which year by year all the males had to go up to Jerusalem, two* have had their antitypes; the third has not. *"Christ our passover is sacrificed for us." (1 Corinthians 5:7.) "When the day of Pentecost was fully come." (Acts 2:1.) The feast of tabernacles was celebrated after the harvest and the vintage.* In it the children of Israel dwelt in booths, in witness that, once strangers, they were strangers no longer.** But then there was in connection with this feast an eighth day, showing that along with the accomplishment of God’s purposes in respect to the earth, there would be the introduction of a new period, the commencement of a new week.*** *"The harvest and the vintage refer respectively to the Lord’s gathering in His own, and to the treading of His enemies in the winepress of the wrath of God." (Revelation 14:1-20) **For this the Jews must be in their own land. ***This marks the connection of those who are raised with the Lord Jesus in the joy of the feast. Jesus was in Galilee. (5: 1.) "Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles was at hand. His brethren therefore said unto Him, Depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. For there is no man that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, show thyself to the world." They wanted Him to give a manifestation of Himself adequate to His claims. This was not the time for Christ to show Himself to the world. He will do so; "every eye shall see Him;" His glory shall be exhibited to the terror of the ungodly. But He is not showing Himself now to the world; and this, to a world lying in wickedness, is mercy - real longsuffering. (2 Peter 3:9.) His brethren had no understanding of this; "for neither did his brethren believe on Him." Mark His answer: "My time is not yet come; but your time is alway ready. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil., Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come." When He is manifested in power, it will not be a question of testimony merely against evil, He will say, "Those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay before me." (Luke 19:27.) He takes no such place of vindicating Himself now. Cost what it will, we are to accomplish the will of God while evil is in power; there is no bringing in of power to hinder the evil. (Mark 9:13; Revelation 3:10. ) Having said this, "He abode still in Galilee," He had gone there on His first rejection; and, though we find Him going up to Jerusalem to keep the feasts, etc., He abode there. "The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; the people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up." (Matthew 4:15-16.) For judgment was He come into the world, that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind. "Ye say ye see," He told the Pharisees, "therefore your sin remaineth." He was "Jesus of Galilee." The poor despised Galileans had the light when the Jews had not. His brethren having gone up, He also goes up (5: 10), "not openly, but as it were in secret." And now we find what is going on in hearts. There is much murmuring among the people concerning Him: some say, ’He is a good man:’ others, ’Nay; but He deceiveth the people.’ The Lord might bring blessing out of it, but they are reasoning and discussing, and this is just the proof that they have nothing to say to it as yet. In another place He asks His disciples; "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?" They tell Him, "Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, one of the prophets." It was all discussion. But when Peter replies (to the question, "But whom say ye that I am?"), "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," He tells him, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." There was personal recognition of Himself, and where there is that, there is no discussion. Discussing Him as subject-matter in their own minds, they had not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. Where people’s minds are at work discussing the right and the wrong, there is not the mind of the newborn babe; they are not receiving, but judging. "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" asked Nathanael (Nazareth was a despised city, and he thought no good thing could come out of it); but when that which was blessed was presented to Him, the Israelite without guile received it. Further, we get instruction here (vv. 14-17) as to receiving the doctrine of God. About the middle of the feast Jesus goes up into the temple and teaches. The Jews marvel, saying, "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?" He tells them, "My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me." They thought He had received it from man, therefore He says, it is not mine. No matter what we have learned, if we have not learned it from God, it is nothing; there is no faith; if learned from man, it is mine. Then He adds, "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." Where there is faith, there is the unfeigned desire to do the will of God. Observe, He says, ’If any man will (1:e. wills to) do,’ not, ’If he have done.’ If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light; God will show what His will is. If it be not, what is the good (speaking with reverence) of knowing His will? there is not the intention of doing it. Where the heart is right in the sight of God, He gives the capacity for knowing His will. The heart ought to be, in a certain sense, wary; there is a Christian simplicity, and there is a simplicity not Christian; but there may be this wariness, and yet sincerity of desire to do God’s will when known. This is ever the practical test of Christian truthfulness. There may be great ignorance and infirmity, but if the eye be single, if there be the real intention in the heart of doing God’s will, he shall know, etc. Very often we do not get light, because we are not prepared to walk in the light when known. He next refers to proofs; for there are certain moral proofs quite evident to hearts opened by grace. Never in a single thing sought He His own glory. Then He turns to them about what they have known. "Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law?" The desire to do the will of God, if known, is not merely in question, there is not the doing His will in things known. He turns, so to speak, the tables upon themselves. You are speaking of my being unlettered, and you are walking in sin; "Why go ye about to kill me?" There will always be hatred in the heart to the truth, where there is not the will to go along with it. As bad a thing as can happen to a man, is for him to be contented without it; when we find him saying, ’I am happy now, I was exercised about it once, but I am happy now.’ Verses 25-27, there is again discussion. "Is not this He, whom they seek to kill? But, lo, He speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto Him.. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ?" [What is the meaning of this? He is teaching publicly, and no man owns Him; have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him?] Here is their great motive, not God’s truth - "Howbeit we know this man. whence He is: but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence He is." Nor did they. The Lord turns now. "Ye both know me," He cries, "and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, but He that sent me is true, whom ye know not. But I know Him: for I am from Him, and he hath sent me." (vv. 28, 29.) This disturbs conscience. They seek to take Him. Their only thought is to get rid of the testimony that is troubling them. But no man lays hands on Him, because His hour is not yet come. Meanwhile many of the people believe on Him, and say, "When Christ cometh, will He do more miracles than those which this man doeth?" Then there comes out a further great truth. The Pharisees and chief priests, enraged at hearing of the effect produced on the people, having sent officers to take Him, He tells the people, It is no good getting into a carnal discussion; while you have the light, walk in the light, lest darkness come upon you; you are seeking me now in ill-will, in enmity, in malice. "Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto Him that sent me." I am going to my Father, and ye shall see me no more, ye shall seek me, and shall not find me; you may seek me now, and find me; but the day will soon be when I go unto Him that sent me; I came from God, and I am going to God; where I am, thither ye cannot come. There could not be a more terrible judgment, spoken in all calmness as it was. Then said the Jews among themselves, "Whither will He go, that we shall not find Him? will He go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles? What manner of saying is this that He said, Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am, thither ye cannot come?" Not a thought of God! they can think about the, Gentiles, but not about God or His Christ. But as the converse of this result of unbelief, we get Jesus in "the last day, that great day of the feast," standing and crying, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said (what ? not as in chap. 4, "whoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst." He speaks of another consequence of His going away, of what should take place while He was away, of the power of identification with the eighth day; it is not that the thirsty one shall be satisfied, that, if he comes to Him and drinks, his thirst shall be quenched, but) out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified." (vv. 37-39.) The Holy Ghost should be received in such sort by the believer as to dwell in and flow from him. Israel drank in the wilderness of that spiritual rock that followed them. There was a river to drink from, at which their thirst was quenched. In anticipation of the feast of tabernacles we have the Holy Ghost to give us the joy, the power, the glory and fulness of this communion with God. (Ephesians 1:14.) Now the Holy Ghost never flowed in this way in an Old Testament prophet, nor yet even in John the Baptist. He worked on a person’s mind and gave prophecies; but when the prophets searched, what did they discern? "that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." (1 Peter 1:10-12.) If Paul speaks, he speaks of that which he has; he speaks of future things indeed, but he speaks of things that belong to himself. See what is said Romans 8:26-27. The Holy Ghost come down from Christ the head of the body, takes His place in the body, and brings down the love of God into the detail and circumstances of the Christian life, into the sorrows of the way, whilst, as come down from Christ glorified, He identifies the members with Him in all the coming blessing and glory. And mark another thing. The Lord is not here speaking of the quickening power of the Spirit (a most blessed truth in its place), but of that which they that believe on Him should receive, as it is expressed in Ephesians, "After that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory." That is our position. But whilst it is so blessed, where does it cast all the people who have not believed? Back again into discussion. Many of the people, when they hear this, say, "Of a truth, this is the Prophet." Others say, "This is the Christ." But some, "Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the Scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David dwelt?" "There was a division among the people because of Him." (5: 43.) Whilst Christ is to the believer the source of luring waters, unbelief is discussing about Him. "Every man went unto His own home; Jesus went unto the mount of Olives." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 63: VOL 02 - FATHERS, YOUNG MEN, AND BABES, IN CHRIST ======================================================================== Fathers, Young Men, and Babes, in Christ A word on "abiding in Him." 1 John 2:1-29. There is especial power in this epistle for the strengthening and establishment of our souls, as also for security against haughty assumption. The word has provided for all our need. The mere doctrine of salvation will not do. "Already," says the apostle, "are there many antichrists." "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) . . . . This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him," etc. (1 John 1:1-7.) God reveals Himself. Man is apt to fancy he gets up to God, and finding such knowledge too high for him, he loses himself in the light, he knows not where. The Holy Ghost brings us here to that which might be "heard" and "seen" "and looked upon," and "handled" of the Word of life. When saying, "Hereby perceive we the love of God," it is added, "because He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." (1 John 3:6.) Again: "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the, love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." (1 John 4:9-16.) The soul is brought from the mysterious apprehension of man’s thoughts about "the Deity" and "dwelling in God" to the propitiation; thus connecting the highest flights (so that no seducer could pretend to lead higher), all this elevation of doctrine about our dwelling in God and God in us, with the simple, precious truth, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life," and with the plainest and most simple walk of the saint in brotherly love and practical godliness. The word speaks of his dwelling in God and God in him, and then comes back to the plainest doctrine for simple Christians, "He is the propitiation for our sins." Here the most advanced and the most simple meet together; nay, the most advanced will be the most simple, and will constantly turn back to the blood. He who is taught of God is taught to humble himself; his soul never loses the sense of his nothingness. The mystic may exalt himself; but the man brought by Christ to God is necessarily humble. It is "God manifest in the flesh," not God mystical. Thus the soul is guarded from error and seduction. We are told not merely of life, but of life manifested. We get fellowship with the Father; but it is through Christ. There is the plainest moral evidence, such as cannot be escaped from by any, when life is; if it is not Christ, it is darkness; if it is Christ, it must be judged by Christ as He was down here. These things are written that our joy may be full. I cannot have more; I have eternal life, I have joy, I have light, and all this in Christ; I may know more about it (that is another thing), but if my knowledge brings me anything more than the Father and the Son, it is error. But then the life of Christ shines out. "He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself so to walk, even as He walked. . . . Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in Him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth (the veil is rent, and we are to abide in the light). He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now," etc. Talk not of attainments, brethren, and not of love; it is a mistake, where love is not, Christ is not; all His walk was love. In verse 12 the apostle gets into detail. "I write unto you," he says, "children" (little children, as it is in our translation. I omit the word because we have to distinguish between this and the "little children" addressed, verses 13, 18, in contrast with fathers and young men. This is addressed to the whole of those to whom the apostle is writing, as also are verses 1, 28; he includes all), "because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake." The "fathers" (the name designates the greatest maturity in grace) are addressed specifically (5: 13); but he has not anything more to say to them than, "Ye have known Him that is from the beginning." And this is no passing thought; for, when he repeats his address (5: 14), he can say nothing higher. Let who will come and tell you wonderful things, you cannot get beyond or higher than this, you know Him that is from the beginning. It is instructive to mark the silence of the Holy Spirit as to adjectives. When speaking of Jesus, He does not add an epithet. That name is enough; it carries with it a power which keeps the mind in reverence in the presence of God. We cannot get out an expression of our feelings there, though we may and do among brethren; we can add nothing to that name; God knows all it conveys; His eye surveys all its loveliness, and alone can span its vastness. And mark, it is not said, ’You know all doctrine,’ (important as it is, that we should be clear as to doctrine); but ’You have known Him.’ We cannot have a truth really in faith, except as it is connected with Christ. He is the one object of the saint’s faith. The "young men" have "overcome the wicked one." Here there is energy of faith. It is impossible to be in any energy, that is of the Spirit, and not be brought into conflict with Satan; and, if there is this energy, there will also be the overcoming. But this supposes the death of the flesh. There is a vast deal of energy without the subduing of self, and all that is not energy with Satan. It is there we fail, and let Satan in. There is a certain turning-point with the soul, when it has come to a knowledge of itself - that there is not anything good in the flesh, that not anything of self can overcome evil, that by strength shall no man prevail, we learn to say, "When I am weak, then I am strong." When the soul has learned to distrust self, there is no haste in what it does; it has to do with God. One true-hearted Christian will see evil, and seek to remedy or overcome it with all vigour and energy, while another, more deeply taught of God, takes the trouble to humble himself, and goes to God about it, before he begins to work against it. God will accomplish all His will, and the true-hearted saint, going to work in a good deal of his own energy, is sometimes blessed in his work, and afterwards gets humbled, it may be with chastening, and blessed in separating between the flesh and the Spirit. The "little children" have their sins forgiven them, and they "have known the father." The babes in Christ are looked at with the fathers and young men as sharing in this. It is wonderful to see how grace knits together the old and the young Christian; the old takes to the young, his heart yearns over the little one with the utmost parental anxiety. "Ye need not that any man teach you," the apostle says (5: 27), yet is he teaching them the while as though all depended on it. And so will it always be. Where there is much grace, it is shown in the strong honouring the weak. The most instructed saint, instead of despising the weak, will cherish and teach them, and own their blessed portion. Look at Paul’s anxiety about the saints in Thessalonica. "Wherefore," he tells them, "when we could no longer forbear, (having been hindered himself going,) we thought it good to be left at Athens alone; and sent Timotheus," etc. In addressing the different states a second time, the "fathers" and "young men" are written to (vv. 14-17), and the "little children" (5: 18); and then (5: 28) resuming the general thread of the subject, he takes up the whole, and says to them, "Abide in Him." John’s heart rested in this - I know Christ. He knew the ways of Jesus, he had seen Him with his eyes. We, dear brethren, have not thus seen Christ; but we shall be able to say, "I know Him," when walking with Him. If Christ were here, what would be His thoughts? Would not His heart be yearning over those who are living in the visible world, instead of the invisible? In a little while not a trace will be left of that which now occupies their time and thoughts. Is not half the time even of Christians occupied with things of no value? What will be the effect of abiding in Him? We shall be living as He lived, walking as He walked, manifesting the life of Christ amidst earthly things. But I must have the vessel broken down, for Christ to come out - self set aside; or I may be killing the high priest’s servant in my zeal. It is by bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus is made manifest in our mortal body. If "young men," 1:e. if there is energy in the Spirit, beware of the opposite energy. The address to young men in the second place (5: 15), is not about knowing the Father, nor yet simply about overcoming; if there is the overcoming of Satan, and the denying of the flesh, there must be also the resisting the things which Satan presents to set the flesh agoing; "Love not the world," he writes, "neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world," etc. The Lord Jesus says to the Father (John 17:1-26), "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee," etc. So here the apostle sets in contrast before them the world and all that is in it, and the Father. The love of the world is kept out of the heart by the love of the Father; the love of the world is a large word. But it is not merely that the thing is condemned; as Christians our life is not from that source, nor can it have fellowship with its spirit. In our every day circumstances, are not the affections distracted from things not seen by the things that are seen? That which is in question here, is not the working with our hands the things which are good, God can bless and preserve the soul in that; but the eye affects the heart, and what mean the varied forms of attraction for the senses on every hand? are they not just so many things to draw away the heart from the Father? "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." "It is the last time" (5: 18) - solemn, precious word! And yet it seems strange comfort, when the world is bad, to be told "that it will be worse." Paul writes: "The mystery of iniquity doth already work," etc. (2 Thessalonians 2:9.) Good and evil are going on together; God carrying on His own work, spite of all opposition. Is it not wonderful to see evil apparently getting the upper hand, and God not interfering to prevent it? only interfering in grace to draw men out of the world; and even they keep not their first love. What a picture do those constantly present who were gathered in true love to Jesus, in the course of five or six years! It is rare to find the same love. And thus it was even in Paul’s time; he clings to Timothy as to a plank in a wreck. (Php 2:19; Php 2:22.) How it makes the heart sink to see all seeking their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ’s. But John says, "It is the last time; for now is the time of antichrists." This word comes in like dew from heaven. It is the last time! Jesus is soon coming! The heart pants for the morning without clouds! One looks with astonishment at the patience of God’s grace! This sustains in conflict; and the heart pants, not to cease from service, but after God; not to rest from conflict, but for the resurrection morn. Thus God has turned the difficulties of the time into blessing. Satan may seek to hurt us, to mar the work of God; but he cannot master Him who has met all evil, and overcome it in the head of evil, who hath gotten Himself the victory. "Ye have an unction from the Holy One" (not from the wise One or from the God of knowledge) to keep you. The enemies may be subtle, but the Spirit who dwells in you draws you to "continue in the Son and in the Father." Of course, it is assumed that we have Christ. (5: 28.) "Now, that ye may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming, abide in Him." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 64: VOL 02 - FRAGMENT ======================================================================== Fragment Saul lost the kingdom of Israel through independence - through want of waiting upon God. He saw his people scattered from him, and his enemies pressing hard upon him; and these proofs of his weakness were too much for his heart unsustained by trust in God. He could not in such a trial wait for God. David gained the kingdom by taking the place of independence, and by taking as his motto: "My soul, wait thou only upon God." - "My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 65: VOL 02 - FRAGMENT ======================================================================== Fragment "Those who fight the Lord’s battles must be contented to be in no respect accounted of; they must expect to be in no respect encouraged by the prospect of human praise. And if you make an exception, that the children of God will praise you, whatever the world may say, beware of this, for you may turn them into a world, and find in them a world, and may sow to the flesh in sowing to their approbation; and you neither will be benefited by them nor they by you, so long as respect for them is your motive. All such motives are a poison and a taking away from you the strength in which you are to give glory to God. It is not the fact, that all that see the face of the Lord do see each other. It is not the fact, that the misapprehension of the world is the only misapprehension the Christian must be contented to labour under. He must expect even his brethren to see him through a mist, and to be disappointed of their sympathy and their cheers of approbation the man of God must walk alone with God, he must be contented that the Lord knoweth. And it is such a relief, yea, it is such a relief to the natural man with us, to fall back upon human countenances; and human thoughts and sympathy, that we often deceive ourselves, and think it ’brotherly love,’ when we are just resting in the early sympathy of some fellow worm. You are to be followers of Him who was left alone, and you are, like Him, to rejoice you are not alone, because the Father is with you, that you may give glory to God. Oh! I cannot but speak of it. It is such a glory to God to see a soul that has been accessible to the praise of men, surrounded by hundreds and thousands of his fellow-creatures, every one of whom He knows how to please, and yet that he should be contented, yea, pleased and happy, in doing, with a single reference to God, that which he knows they will all misunderstand. Here was the victory of Jesus - there was not a single heart that beat in sympathy with his heart, or entered into his bitter sorrow, or bore His grief in the hour of his bitter grief; but His way was with the Lord - His judgment was with His God - His Father - who said, "There is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." This was the perfect glory given to the Father by the Son, that in flesh and blood such a trust in God was manifested; and that is what you are called to, and you are not called to it as He was, but you are called to see God in Him. God has come near to you in Christ, and here you have a human heart - a perfect sympathy - the heart of God is your nature, and to this you are ever carried. And if there be any other sympathy with you in the wide universe, whether on the sea of glass, or still on this earth, it is only as the pulsation of the blood that flows from Christ - to His members - that it is to you of any account. Feed upon it, and remember you are thus to walk in the world not hanging one upon another." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 66: VOL 02 - GOD'S LOVE, GRATUITOUS AND MOTIVE ======================================================================== God’s Love, Gratuitous and Motive A word on ’why I do this?’ "If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned." Song of Solomon 8:7. The pride of man’s foolish heart is ever carrying him away from the grace sent to him in Jesus, which must meet him as a beggar, helpless, and undone, to some requirement that he may satisfy, which will, as he thinks, enable him to meet God on better terms; or he does away with the richness of the grace, and makes it inefficient to meet his real necessities, and then strives to make up the inefficiency by his own change of conduct. On the other hand, the soul taught of God is taught its entire helplessness (not merely to avow it with the lips, but to know it in the experienced weakness and wickedness of the heart); but it is taught also to turn away from this to the brightness of grace, that has reached it in its wickedness, and met it in the truth of its condition, evil as it was, with the full consolation, the desperate necessity of that condition sought - Jesus made unto it, of God, "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." That man is ever attempting to make God as ungenerous as himself, to limit the greatness of His gifts by his own unbelief, and thus to dim the glory of His abounding grace, is not only the necessary result, but the proof, of the unchangeable evil of his heart. It is this, simply this, which has driven the church into the world, lowering the standard of obedience to the habits of its new associates. Vain would be the search of that man who might try in the pride of his heart to bring evidence from the word of truth that any one other motive but love was reckoned on, there to bring back to God, and guide in His ways, the heart of a self-willed and wayward sinner. There can be no union with God in thought or act, save in love: "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." (1 John 4:7-8.) A service of constraint is no service to God. Anything that would impede the flow of the living waters, the fresh streams of love, peace, and joy, into the weary heart of a God-fearing sinner, is just that which would hinder fruitfulness, and leave it a sterile and thorn-bearing thing still. Now the scriptural word "sanctification" is a fair title assumed by error, and one se apparently authoritative in its claim, that many are led captive by it who, while they feel and knew their slavery, are unable to account for it. "If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed," is the happy assurance of our Lord; and anything that would limit the love He came to prove, is but keeping fast the fetters that bind to earth, and holding us back from the happy, and therefore free, obedience of children. What is "sanctification," as new used, but uniting that which God has so graciously, so carefully separated - salvation and its holy consequences? If there is one statement of truth more clear than another in Scripture, and more uncompromising in the language in which it is put, it is this, that redemption is exclusively the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, not that of the Holy Ghost. That faith is the work of the Holy Spirit, is another question. As a Saviour, and a perfect Saviour, putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, Jesus says, "Look unto ME, and be ye saved." "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:14-15.) If what is so extensively termed sanctification (1:e. progressive advancement in holiness), is necessary to salvation, it might well be asked, How much would do? He who knows God will know also that he must be as perfect as He is perfect, or neither God or himself could be satisfied. But not only is this robbing the cross of Jesus of its power, and making His blood inefficient, but, as its result (how completely in this, as in everything, is wisdom justified of her children), we have nothing but an unhappy and unfruitful church, hardly knowing whether it is saved or not, knowing enough of itself to understand that it comes short of God’s glory; and therefore, to get itself into peace (as looking to "sanctification," and not to Christ), it must reduce the standard of obedience, bringing down God’s character that it may somehow come up to it, and so be satisfied with itself. Thus the ingenuity of unbelief will torture the simplicity of God’s word into something that will impose a burden, when God’s love has sought to remove it; and those who are thus self-tasked, or taught by another gospel than that of full and unconditional love, have to run in fetters, with the brightness of the prize for which they contend obscured by intervening clouds of fear and doubt as to God’s willingness to bestow it on them. But thus saith the Lord: "Whosoever believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." (John 3:36.*) The whole Word, in its testimony to the Lord Jesus, speaks of Him as manifesting God as a Saviour; and it is in the faith of this that the troubled spirit gets peace, not to be found elsewhere. It sees the God it feared becoming, in His love to the sinner, the sinner’s Saviour, and therefore it has confidence towards God; for who can doubt, if God becomes a Saviour, the perfectness of the salvation? Its completeness is the soul’s security; and faith in it, as perfect and complete, gives peace, and instant peace too. It was thus the gospel (which is "glad tidings," the expression of God’s love to sinners as sinners) was received when it was first believed on in the world. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," was the Spirit’s reply to the trembling jailer, and he rejoiced in God. (Acts 16:1-40) "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest," was the prompt answer to the Ethiopian: "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God," was the happy expression of his saving faith; "and he went on his way rejoicing." (Acts 8:37; Acts 8:39.) *See also 1 John 5:11-12; John 5:24; John 20:31; Mark 16:15-16; Acts 16:31; Acts 13:38-39; Romans 3:20; Romans 3:28; Romans 4:3-8; Romans 4:21-25; Romans 5:8-11; Romans 5:18-20; Romans 10:4-13; 2 Corinthians 5:19-21; Hebrews 10:5-18. That salvation, then, is utterly irrespective of what we have been, or of what we are, or of the measure of sanctity we may attain, is and must be the conclusion of the heart that trembles at God’s word. The simple fact that "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," is the proof that nothing but unbelief can hinder any sinner’s participation in all the rich blessings God has to bestow. What is sin but estrangement of heart from and disobedience to the authority of Him who proved, by the gift of His Son to these who were so estranged and in open rebellion against Him, that, though sin was reigning unto death, His grace could reign triumphantly above all sin? In the death of the Lord Jesus Christ we learn what God is to sinners as sinners. "Without shedding of blood there is no remission" of sin. (Hebrews 9:22.) Death is the wages of sin: death was the portion of Jesus, therefore, as made sin for us. It is the blood of Jesus alone that cleanseth from all sin. (1 John 1:7.) It is by the blood of Jesus alone we have boldness of access into the holiest. (Hebrews 10:19.) It is by the blood of Jesus alone, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot unto God, that our consciences are purged from dead works to serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:1-28) Here then is our secure, our only resting-place - the blood of the Holy Lamb. If the Spirit beareth witness to the sinner, it is to show the cross as his salvation; to the saved sinner, indeed, He reveals glory, far deeper glory, in the face of the Crucified One, as well as the glory of the inheritance (John 16:1-33); but, in imparting peace to the conscience, in delivering from the dread of death and of God’s anger, the testimony is one and unvaried - Jesus delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification. He who believes this is saved. Let him become ever so exalted in the evident favour of God, to that must he recur for his peace and salvation - "Other foundation can no man lay, than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Nor is this merely a pardon given in dependence on future obedience. Alas! to those who know how their service is hindered by the heavy bondage of a sinful body, how the flesh ever "lusteth against the Spirit," who know that all their obedience, while so hindered, is in God’s estimate "unprofitableness" (surely unprofitableness can be no claim to heaven), where would be the joy? Oh, how would man pervert God’s liberal and most wondrous grace! how does he ever try to escape from the full blessing of being saved altogether by grace, in his ignorance of that God who, having not spared His Son, but delivered Him up for us all, will with Him freely give us all things! (Romans 8:32.) What saith the Lord? "There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus," etc. (Romans 8:1.) One with Him who hath died unto sin once, and over whom death hath no more dominion; the believer is called on to reckon himself dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God; as knowing that his old man is crucified with Him; baptized into His death, and raised with Him again into newness of life; dead, and therefore freed from sin. (Romans 6:1-7.) It is in the knowledge of the true position of freedom into which he is put before God, as one with Jesus, where He is at the right hand of God, that he is enabled to overcome sin in his daily and hourly conflict. Faith in the perfect victory of Jesus over all that was man’s enemy, is the alone power by which we can become victors too. It is the freedom of the happy spirit, abiding in a Father’s love, which alone can give power to serve Him who is love; and upon this rests all the instruction of our Lord, delivering, by the power of that name "Father," from every bondage, freeing from every other master - man, the world, the flesh, the devil, and all the anxious cares of our fearful and doubting hearts - into the buoyancy, and therefore energy, of spirit by which alone we can serve in newness of life, being careful for nothing, taking no thought for the morrow, with the eye single in its object, the heart single in its subjection and service, having no master but Christ, no object but His glory; having present fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, led by the Spirit of God ("where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty"), abiding in Christ, and having, as so abiding, His peace and His joy. (John 16:27.) Jesus came to declare the Father; He spake not of Himself, He was the Father’s servant. The Holy Ghost is the servant of the risen Jesus, and speaks only of Him, not of Himself. Whether it be the first entering into the sheepfold by that Spirit’s quickening, or subsequent increasing power over the world, the flesh, and the devil, the witness is the same, "the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:4.) "Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory." (2 Corinthians 3:18.) However mighty the work, the object of faith is the same as to the weakest believer - Jesus, and not what He (the Spirit) is doing, in the believer’s heart. Oh yes! the heart must love ere it will serve Him readily; it must know His mind and will ere it can serve Him faithfully; but it can only love Him, as knowing where His love is seen - in Jesus; it can only serve Him truly, as knowing Him who did serve Him faultlessly and faithfully in this same world. All is the witness of the Spirit; but Jesus, the exhibitor of the love which wins the heart - Jesus, the faithful servant - is that to which He testifies. It is a wonderful thing that God should bring the heart of a poor, proud, self-seeking man into delight with that which is utterly opposed to every feeling of flesh. And how tenderly and graciously He does it! He does not say, ’Give up the world, deny thyself, crucify the flesh, become abased’ (that would be hard indeed, though it would be righteous; and we all know those who have fancied He has so said, and they have tried every self-inflicted penance and monkish austerity, but the world was loved still, self was the only object of exaltation through it all). He speaks in gentleness, and tells us of the greatness of His love in the midst of our alienation and rebellion; tells us He loves us, though our hearts are worldly and proud, and our practices selfish and base, and wins us by this love. The testimony of Jesus is the story of this love, the proof of God’s love to the sinning man, the ungodly, the proud, the worldly man; the proof that sin was not a sufficient barrier to shut out love, that it has broken that down, and can now flow unchecked into the sinful heart. The heart where this is credited, and therefore received, must return an answer of love, and will know, surely know, that God asks nothing from us to prove our love but what will secure to us increased and increasing peace and joy. It is grace the sinner wants; for that alone can be the connecting-link between him and God; and where is the grace, but in Jesus humbled, broken-hearted, and crucified? This is where God has come down to the sinner, and the sinner’s stepping-place to get back to God; the hand of God stretched out to us in our wretchedness, lifting us up again to Himself, and clasping us to His heart. In truth, there can be no service to God except by the sweet constraint of love. The obedience of heaven is the obedience of love; for there can be nothing but love there. There is only one will there; obedience to that will is the unity and harmony of heaven. The results of self-will are clear enough around us in the full tide of misery which is flowing over this rebellious world. It is the same power which rules in heaven, reaching, by the Spirit’s presence, the heart of a self-willed sinner, that brings it to subjection, and gives (when it has the mastery there) the joy of heaven, freeing it from its many turbulent and unrighteous masters and giving it but one, and that one love; for God is love. The more then this love is known, and shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto us, the more constrained will the heart be to this happy service, because it will thus judge, that "if one died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them, and rose again." And oh! where is it that we get daily strength, but in tracing the love and the glory that can be only seen in the Father’s righteous servant, whose service was both to the Father and to us? Every step so traced will unravel the depths of that grace which has given the heart its peace, and assured it of everlasting glory. And it is this that the Holy Ghost does engrave day by day, deeper and deeper, on the willing heart of the believer, showing him his Lord - Him who was in the beginning with God, and was God, but who was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us - marking the circumstances of evil which surrounded Him from His birth onwards, and so the untiring love which could not be overcome by those circumstances, but which shone the brighter and showed its depths the more as it was scorned and trampled on while pressing on in its might through them all to finish that work which alone could meet the necessities of the sinner. It is not the cross only, but the character of the evil, which in its power overwhelmed the Lamb of God, and the unconquered compassion which ever shone forth from Him on the darkness which surrounded and would have quenched it - the every day’s pitying endurance of the "contradiction of sinners against Himself," even to the moment when the readiness of His heart to bless was seen in the prompt reply of forgiveness to him who had reviled Him during His bitterest agony on the cross. (Compare Matthew 27:24 with Luke 23:43.) It is this that shows the depth of the love, a love that existed ever, a love that ordained the victim, that gave the victim (and that victim His only Son) to and for those who hated and disregarded both the giver and gift.* *It is not, as some suppose, that the necessity of the sacrifice of Jesus is lessened by the assertion here made, that God loved us as sinners, and the sacrifice was but the proof of that love. No; but while nothing but the complete erasure of every charge, the cleansing from all sin, could bring the sinner back to God, with boldness into the holiest of all, yet it was a previous, exhaustless, and self-existing love, which expressed itself to the sinner it loved in the very way the sinner needed it, by giving him that which would answer his necessities to the full. God loved the sinner, and therefore found him the sacrifice he needed. And oh! God so loved the sinner, that He spared not His well-beloved Son to be the sacrifice. He who delights to trace the steps of Jesus in this grief-stricken world, will see in every step the holiness, the moral glory, and the love of the unseen God, made manifest to him in a form that he can apprehend. Oh yes, it is knowing God in Jesus, in all the exquisite detail of His most dignified yet condescending love - a love that could, and that did, descend to the depths of degradation and shame, to minister "its sweet consolation to the wretchedness of its object; that came into a world of sin and sorrow, not to be ministered unto, but to minister; to be the lowest and the poorest; to be associated with the most needy and despised of men - the leper, the publican, and the Samaritan - giving His back to the smiters, His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; ’learning obedience by the things that He suffered;’ taking part in our sufferings, that, when perfected in His lesson of love, He might be a sympathising Intercessor for those whose companion in sorrow lie had become. It is this, the weakness of Jesus, the poverty of Jesus, the depths of poverty both of spirit and of circumstance, that shows us how far His love can reach, and what that love would do to bless its object that shows us God." Upon the ground of the soul’s present and perfected salvation by the blood of Jesus, the believer stands to meet the practical question of following Him, as made even now by His gratuitous grace, free and ready to serve Him in love, as having but one object, that of showing forth His praises in the world that rejected and still rejects Him. There will be no singularity in the confession of the name of Jesus in heaven; none will be ashamed of Him or of His words there; He will be fully glorified and admired there. But it is here in "this present evil world," in the midst of a crooked and perverse people, that the sinner, separated by the blood of the Lamb to all blessing, is called on to stand forth and declare how Jesus "gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 67: VOL 02 - HARDENING THE HEART ======================================================================== Hardening the Heart There are Scriptures which contemplate a succession of eras or times all along the course of the earth’s history, from the time of the flood, I may say, to the days of Antichrist, when there has been, or is to be, a judicial visitation, under the hand of God, upon the hearts, understandings, and consciences of men. I might present the following instances: (There are other instances of this judicial hardening; but they are of a private and not of a dispensational nature, and, therefore, I do not put them among these cases.) The old Gentile world . . Romans 1:28. Pharaoh or Egypt . . . . . Exodus 9:21. The kings of Canaan . . . Joshua 11:20. Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Isaiah 6:1-13. Christendom . . . . . . . . .2 Thessalonians 2:1-17. These scriptures show us this judicial dementation of which I am speaking; and they further show us, that the fruit or character of this dementation may be very startling, such as we could not easily have believed or feared. Under it, men of refinement and intelligence may adopt all kinds of religious vanity; rulers and statesmen may be blinded to the plainest maxims of government. Did not Pharaoh persist in a course which, in the mouth of witness after witness, was sure to be the ruin of his kingdom? Did not the nations of Canaan tremble at the report of the conquests of Israel, and of what God had done for Israel; and yet, in spite of all that, did they not madly resist Israel? (See Joshua) And will not whole communities of intelligent, refined, advanced people, by-and-by, bow to the claims of one who shows himself to be God, setting himself up above all that is worshipped? This has been thus, and will be thus still, under this judicial dementation; worldly men violate the clearest and most sensible means of their own interests, and religious men depart from the simplest instructions of the truth. We are not to wonder at anything. The very idols which men have taken as spoils of war, they have afterwards bowed down to as their gods. (2 Chronicles 25:14.) For what folly, what incredible blindness of understanding, will not the infatuated heart of man betray. But this dementation is never sent forth to visit man until he has righteously exposed himself to judgment. All the cases show this. Pharaoh, for instance, had, in deepest ingratitude, forgotten Joseph. The Amorites of Canaan had filled up the measure of their sins. The old Gentiles had brought this reprobate mind on themselves. (Romans 1:28.) Israel "had not," Jerusalem "would not." (Matthew 13:12; Matthew 23:37.) And the strong delusion is to be sent, by-and-by, abroad upon Christendom, only because "they loved not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." This hardening precedes destruction; but it comes after man has ripened his iniquity. God endures with all longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, as He fashions by His Spirit His own elect vessels of mercy ere He glorifies them. "Whom He will He hardens," is surely true; but He wills to show His wrath in this way, of hardening, or of prejudicial dementation, only in the case of those whom He has in much longsuffering endured. (Romans 9:11-22.) Thus, then, we see there is such a process in the judgment of God as the hardening of the heart - that this is never executed till man has ripened himself in evil - and that the fruit of this may appear in such human folly and blindness as we should never have apprehended, or perhaps conceived. Let this prepare us for things which not only may shortly come to pass, but which have already appeared. Men of learning and of taste, men of morals and religion, men of skill in the science of government, and whole nations famed for dignity and greatness, each in their generation may be turned to fables and to follies enough to shake the commonest understandings in ordinary times. I do not say the "strong delusion" has gone forth; but there are symptoms and admonitions of its not being far off. What a voice has this for us, to keep near to the Lord in the assurance of His love, to love His truth, to walk immediately with Himself, and to promise ourselves that His tarrying is not long. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 68: VOL 02 - JACOB A DYING ======================================================================== Jacob A Dying Genesis 48:1-22. It is interesting to mark the comment of the Holy Ghost himself on the history which He Himself has penned: "Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope." As the Holy Ghost knew what particulars were to be recorded in the lives of those of old, so He can best fix our souls on the special points, of instruction which their histories are designed to afford. In the enumeration of the saints of old, borne witness to for their faith, we find our attention called to circumstances which we might hardly have noticed. The notice in Hebrews 11:1-40 of the eventful life of Jacob, refers to this chapter of Genesis. "By faith Jacob, when He was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff." We see here that the Holy Ghost fastens on those instances in the lives of the saints of old which especially evinced faith. He characterizes faith as being precious. "By faith Jacob," etc. There is great force in that word, "rich in faith." (James 2:5.) The soul which knows the God with whom it has to do is very "rich." It has pleased God to reveal Himself in all the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus, and these riches can alone be appreciated and possessed by faith. The Holy Ghost reveals them to those whom He has quickened to believe in Jesus. These are the riches which faith can call its own; they are inalienable. On this ground we find the apostle Paul taking the standing of one who was able to confer more than he had received, at the very moment he is thanking the Philippians for their liberality towards him. "My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." (Php 4:19.) The apostle had been well trained in that school which makes its scholars "rich in faith." He had, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, stripped himself of everything which might have been reckoned either a natural or an acquired advantage. (Php 3:7-8.) But he had learned the difficult lesson, "in whatsoever state I am to be content." The Philippians had lovingly supplied his want; but he, in his eager pursuit of winning Christ, was "rich in faith." He knew what riches he had in Christ, and what riches were still to be had in Him; and, therefore, could confidently return the Philippians a far greater blessing than that which he had received from them. "My God," says he (that is, he reckons upon having God for his God, for his portion, and, therefore, he can say, my God), "shall supply all your need." Surely this same ground is open to ourselves to take; but we have made little progress in that school wherein the apostle was so great a proficient. In order to become "rich in faith," many of us have to be beaten out of confidence in our own advantages, as Jacob was, rather than to learn their worthlessness by faith, as Paul did. It was when Jacob fled from his brother Esau (Genesis 28:1-22), when his "staff" was his only portion - his all (as he says to the Lord, Genesis 33:10, "With my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands"); it was when "the stones of the place" were his pillow that Jacob had his most wondrous vision - "the ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it." Then it was that the Lord stood above it, and revealed Himself to Jacob as the God of his fathers Abraham and Isaac - and He engaged also to be his God. Jacob had his "staff" as a pilgrim wanderer, but Jacob had the God of Abraham and Isaac for his God. And how rich he was, had he only known it. He was never richer all his life through than at this moment. He started then, not to seek his fortune, but with his fortune already made. He had God for his portion. And if Jacob is to take the higher place of the blesser, ("without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better,") it must be by learning the riches he was in possession of when he had only his "staff" in his hand, and the stones of Luz for pillows: he must learn to be "rich in faith," in having the Lord for his God. Is it not hard, beloved, for us to realize, that, as poor ruined sinners in ourselves, the moment we are, by the grace of God, brought to receive Christ, we are rich indeed; and not only rich, but, like Jacob with his "staff," poor, yet making many rich? It is hard to realize that our fortune is already made. We start on our Christian career, as blessed of God, and as having Him for our exceeding great reward, as well as for our shield. And we become "rich in faith" when we experimentally know this, and can attach more value to the blessing of a poor saint than the gift of a great man. Here, in this chapter of Genesis, we have Jacob presented to us, after all his many wanderings from place to place. He had proved the God with whom he had to do. How manifestly had God shown His faithfulness to Jacob, in all the engagements He had made to him, when, on leaving his father’s house, he was a houseless, homeless pilgrim at Luz. God had graciously provided for him, in giving him "meat to eat, and raiment to put on." We find him here (not in Canaan, but in Egypt) on his death-bed, and, as we are told in the epistle to the Hebrews, "leaning on the top of his staff" Behold every thing in keeping with the dying pilgrim. He. is a stranger in a strange place. He has his staff to lean on, but he has God for his portion. Surely Jacob now realized that he had been substantially blessed at Luz, that he was really enriched then; and never, at any period of his life, was he so fully enriched as when he had only his "staff" in his hand, and heaven opened over him to bless him. He had been well stripped of all his confidence by the way, and now is about to close his career with no more than that with which he had set out - "his staff" in his hand.* Doubtless, his "staff" had been with him in all his wanderings; it now brought the early scene of Luz vividly to his recollection. And, when weighed down with weakness in the full confession of his pilgrim character, he takes the high place of the blesser. He can now, with far greater confidence, bless both the sons of Joseph, than he could have done when possessed of temporal riches. "By faith he blessed both the sons of Joseph." He had an insight into the divine counsels, and learnt the divine order. Without any thing but his "staff," in the attitude of a worshipper, he could say, with an intensity of meaning, "I know in whom I have believed;" He had learnt the God with whom he had to do. "God, before whom my fathers Abraham. and, Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." (vv. 15, 16.) It was by faith that Jacob blessed both the sons of Joseph. The retrospect of faith leads the soul to rest on the proved faithfulness of God, and to reckon on all the fulness of God. And "God is faithful;" that is enough. "He is faithful that promised." Such is the portion of faith. "Leaning on the top of the staff;" destitute of outward means; but able to speak very confidently, because faith leads to God, and brings in God. "My God shall supply all your need," says the apostle; "The God who fed me all my life," says the patriarch, "bless the lads." *The only mention made in the chapter of any temporal thing, is that of the portion he had taken out of the hand of the Amorite, with his sword and his bow (5: 22); but Jacob is not now in the land of the Amorite, he is not in actual possession. And if we, beloved in the Lord, were on our death-bed, what should we find? We, in God’s mercy, may have proved, as Jacob did, our own riches; but we shall not find ourselves a bit richer than when first we started on our pilgrim course. We were then only sinners saved by grace; but what riches are ours as such! The highest riches, even "riches of glory;" as it is written, "that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory." (Romans 9:23.) We have much, very much, to learn by the way, deeply humbling to ourselves, yet redounding to the praise of the glory of His grace. But that which a Christian dies with is not the experience gathered by the way, but the faith which led him at the first, as a ruined sinner, to the cross of Christ. The first truth is the last truth. The grace of God, as revealed in the cross of His Son, is the truth to live by, and to die with. Jacob was a dying. He says boldly, "Behold, I die: but God shall be with you." He speaks of death, "leaning on the top of his staff," as if still pursuing his pilgrim career, and about to remove from one place to another. He desired only to take possession of the land of Canaan, by death, as Abraham and Isaac had done. (Genesis 47:29-31.), This is all. God is the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac. He is still in covenant with them. He has never dissolved His relationship with them, but is unchangeable towards them in it. Jacob had faith in God. Death would not dissolve his relationship to God, even "the God of Bethel." He, as his fathers, "died in faith, not having received the promises" (Hebrews 11:13), but having so "embraced them," that he could reckon on God making all good in resurrection. Yes, "He is not a God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto Him." Here was the confidence of Jacob. Here were the riches of Jacob. Here the expectation of Jacob. It was what God was to him, even the living God - "Behold, I die but God shall be with you." Happy pilgrim! the "staff," on which he leaned, led his soul back to Luz. And what was Jacob at Luz? nothing but a houseless, homeless, destitute wanderer; but to him, in these circumstances, Luz is changed into Bethel - the house of God. There God found Jacob, and God blessed him as a pilgrim, having nothing but his "staff." And, as Jacob received the blessing, so now he gives it to both the sons of Joseph. Jacob had no claim on God for a blessing. He was a fugitive from his elder brother Esau, to whom by natural right the blessing belonged. But God allows of no rights. He acts according to the counsels of His own will. He can challenge the assertion of man’s rights. "Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob." (Malachi 1:2) And now Jacob, blessing in the name of God by faith, has such intelligence in the mind and ways of God as to bless both the sons of Joseph; and in doing so, again to traverse the order of nature. He could look at his grand-children, and see the blessing of God coming on them, as freely, from the grace of God, as it had come on himself. Surely the thoughts of Jacob were fully occupied with God. His own life would have afforded him but a sorry retrospect. He had tried to get the blessing in his own way, but it had only led him into trouble; and he had learned, by bitter experience, that the ways of God were both higher and better than his own. How faithful had God been to His "worm Jacob." And what must be the thoughts of every dying saint? Surely not of themselves, but thoughts of God; of original grace taking them up when dead in trespasses and sins, and making them sons and heirs of God. Such are the thoughts of the soul, if it be in a healthy tone, at such a season. It will pass in solemn review all its failures. This will indeed humble; but it will, at the same time, lead the soul to see all these blotted out by the God with whom we have to do. "Now the eyes of Israel were dim for age, so that he could not see." (5: 10.) Never, it maybe, since he had received the name, by having the hollow of his thigh put out of joint (Genesis 32:1-32), did he so fully realize that he had power with God an man as on his dying bed. He had now "no confidence in the flesh." Dim, as to His natural eye, but clear-sighted by faith, he guided his hands "wittingly." Jacob had exercised his own natural shrewdness in many ways in his past life; but now, in the fading away of his natural powers, faith is very keen in the discernment of the ways of God. "And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand upon Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands wittingly; for Manasseh was the firstborn. And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life-long, unto this day, the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." (vv. 14-16.) Joseph, the interpreter of God’s ways to Pharaoh, could not in this instance see as clearly as Jacob. (vv. 17. 18.) It needs an exercised soul, as well as a spiritual gift, to see clearly the way of grace. Pre-eminent indeed does Joseph stand, both as to gift and moral worth, above his father Jacob. But Jacob had been well sifted, and had learnt experimentally his need of grace. Parental fondness, the right of primogeniture, etc., may occupy the mind, where there is distinct gift, and that from God; but the soul well exercised in grace knows that one great truth, "No flesh shall glory in His presence." Faith in Jacob could see clearly into God’s ways. Jacob had learnt that it must be all of grace. "I know it, my son, I know it." (5: 19.) He knew it was not the elder, and he did it "wittingly." And where have we often found the wisest counsel? In the gifted teacher, or in the ungifted, yet experienced saint? Where have we found real spiritual discernment? Has it not been among the simple-minded believers who have been learning their need of Christ in their own souls? How "wittingly" have we found the hands guided, where there has been faith in God, in the very case where even the possessor of a real gift might mislead us. Joseph thought his father was making a great mistake; and we often, when walking by sight, and not by faith, do the same, calculating upon some human claim or other, whereas God has ever shown that "His ways are not our ways." "The elder shall serve the younger." Jacob was sent forth in life to learn, this lesson, and having learnt it experimentally, at the close he is able to guide his hands "wittingly." Have we yet learnt this lesson, the entire setting, aside of the flesh and; the all-sufficiency of God? Were we to live and learn for a hundred years, it could only be to get this lesson by heart. Jacob’s history is written for our admonition; but we ought to learn the lesson more quickly, and more deeply too, because we know the risen One, and, our union with Him. Our very axiom is, "The flesh profiteth nothing." What a blessed testimony does Jacob bear to the faithfulness of God - "The God which fed me all my lifelong, unto this day." When Jacob walked by sight, he did not so clearly see God feeding him, and caring for him; but, "leaning on the top of his staff," he retraces all God’s ways by faith. If any one character could have set aside the faithfulness of God, it is that of Jacob. It was marked by low cunning, and crookedness of policy, from the outset, with regard to his brother Esau. But this did not at all interfere with God’s fidelity to him. Looking back, he sees, and I doubt not sees with joy, the failure of all his scheming and policy. Jacob is absorbed in one single thought - the grace and faithfulness of the God with whom he has to do. He was never saved from a single danger by his own policy; but Jacob can pass over all his own failures, in the overwhelming thought of God’s grace towards him. And, beloved, will not our souls be able to rejoice in seeing the failure of every work of our own, in which we might have confidence at the time we did it? Shall we not be glad to see all that we have done in the flesh burnt up? that that alone which was of the Spirit, and done to the glory of the Lord, might remain. And if we are "wise after the flesh," the penalty is sure; God will take us in our craftiness; for neither by strength nor by wisdom shall man prevail. And what a blessing the lads got from the dying pilgrim. There was great faith in Jacob, to be able, in holy confidence of soul, to transfer the blessing from himself to them. He was "rich in faith" himself and bequeathed his riches to Joseph and his sons. Behold, I die: but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers." Even as another pilgrim "rich in faith" said to the elders of Ephesus, "Ye shall see my face no more;" but, "I commend you to God," etc. (Acts 20:1-38) Jacob did not say, ’Because I have not dwelt in the land, I have not got the blessing.’ No! he had it by faith. "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." God is always the same to faith. Faith raises us above all human thoughts, and gives us to rest in God. Surely, surely it is blessed, when stripped of every confidence here, we are able to look above circumstances, and trust in God Himself. And is not this the way in which God is now leading our souls? He is not only showing us the emptiness of every thing here, in order to prove His all-sufficiency, by leading us to the fulness which is in Christ Jesus; but He is also showing us how prone we are to misuse the very blessings which He has given to us, by resting in them, instead of living by faith in God. The process of stripping is indeed painful, under all circumstances, but it is peculiarly so when even what we have is taken away from us because of our misuse of the blessing. Surely the experience of many of our souls is that we have been entrusted with blessing and did not know how to use it aright. It has pleased God to strip us of all our ornaments, that He may know what to do with us. And having thus made room for Himself to come in, His grace has abounded again over our sins, in leading us more practically to "live the life we now live in the flesh, by the faith, of the Son of God," bringing us to know the immense blessing of His presence by the way, in reviving our faith in the abiding presence of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, when every thing entrusted to man’s responsibility has failed. "Blessed is He that hath the God of Jacob for his help; whose hope is in the Lord his God . . . which keepeth truth for ever . . . which giveth food to the hungry.. The Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: the Lord loveth the righteous: the Lord preserveth the strangers; the Lord shall reign for ever and ever." (Psalms 146:1-10) May we know more and more of "the God of Jacob." And then, if the Lord delay his coming, and we have to gather up ourselves on our beds, "we shall be able to say with Jacob, "Behold, I die;" "but God liveth." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 69: VOL 02 - JESUS, HEIR OF ALL THINGS ======================================================================== Jesus, Heir of All Things Hebrews 1:1-14. There is great contrast between the things spoken of in the epistle to the Hebrews; on the one hand, evil and apostacy; and on the other, peculiarly precious truth. Indeed, there is perhaps no epistle in which we find more precious truth; just as though God meant to set in contrast the greatness of the evil and the preciousness of His truth. And thus He deals with souls now. A characteristic of the present hour is good and evil in marked contrast. Evil and the power of Satan are fast spreading; also, the work of God is going on, and the great and deep truths of God are being made known to many souls. Thus the greatest light and the deepest darkness are seen side by side. These things cannot mingle, and therefore the contrast becomes more and more evident. The very light of heaven, in love and grace, is brought so near to the exercised soul, that in the darkest days of declension from the truth it may be said to get the most blessed knowledge of God; just as in Egypt darkness was spread over the whole land, but the Israelites had light in their dwellings. This epistle sets forth the "heavenly calling" of the Church. It shows us the heavenly glory of Christ, IN WHOM we are; and though that glory will be hereafter manifested on the earth, our "calling" is a calling up into the place where He now is, above (not merely the earth, but) the heavens. But it speaks also of earth and of the things of the earth. We find ourselves placed in the midst of this dark world, needing the present ministry of the priesthood of Christ, the cleansing power of His blood, and His sympathy. There is the going forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach; we have to be as those witnesses of whom it is said "the world was not worthy." All this is found in the epistle to the Hebrews. It places us in the midst of sin; or why the need of the blood? It places us in the midst of sorrow; or why the need of the sympathy? It says, "Here have we no continuing city;" but before it enters at all upon these earthly things, it opens to us heaven’s glory and blessedness, our portion in Christ, and tells us that all is of God. We are set again on earth, as cognizant of this. Whatever is revealed to us of blessing comes from God. (James 1:17.) Therefore the epistle begins with God. It is God "who hath spoken to us." (5: 1.) Christ spoke, but it was God that spoke by Him. This is the thought throughout. Christ is the "Apostle and High Priest of our profession." (Hebrews 3:1-2.) Doubtless the High Priest is merciful and faithful in things pertaining to God; but it was God that "appointed Him." Christ is "that great Shepherd of the sheep" (Hebrews 13:20); but it was God who "brought again from the dead," and gave Him as the Shepherd over us. All blessing is through Christ, but it is from GOD. This first verse refers to instruction given in "divers parts," and in "divers ways." The saints in the Old Testament dispensation - Moses, Samuel, and others - were only instructed partially (1:e. "in parts"), and often years intervened before more instruction was given. None of them could say at any time, "I have all that needs to be known of the mind of God." Now, in this their position was vastly inferior to ours. We can say that we have all the fulness of this knowledge. It is true, "we know" as yet "but in part," and that hereafter we shall "know. even as also we are known" (1 Corinthians 13:12); still we have all that we need in the Word, whether it be "for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness," all is provided, so that no soul can now say that something more has to be revealed, in order to complete the man of God, throughly to furnish him unto all good works. (2 Timothy 3:16-17.) And I desire you should think how great a blessing this is. Suppose a soul desires to know the right path, what a blessing for that soul to be able to say, "God has revealed all that I need." This gives firmness and fixedness of faith; it enables the soul to say, "I know." To us there is revealed that which we have to hold fast till Jesus comes. These Hebrews well knew the peculiar blessings of Israel, God had spoken unto the fathers by Moses and by the prophets; there were sacrifices for sins, appointed of God; and there was a priesthood instituted of God to offer those sacrifices - the value and dignity of the priesthood they knew. But what a truth is taught in these verses! God has now spoken by His "SON." Having been Himself the sacrifice for sin, the "SON" has come to take the priesthood. It is not any longer office dignifying the person of him who holds it, but the person of the Son of God giving dignity and glory to every office that He holds. There is joy, doubtless, to Christ in holding these offices (for there is joy in holding offices for blessing, and it will be our joy by and by to hold offices for blessing together with Him); but what is His chief glory? Is it not His own excellency - that which He is in Himself? And that will be the saints’ chief blessing? It will not consist in any mere dignity of office (though we shall have that, and count it blessed), but in union with Christ the Son of God. Angels might stand in any office, but the chief excellency and the chiefest glory of the saints will be in their connection with the glorious person of the SON of God. Now, it is the blessedness and the glory of the SON, and the connection of the saints with Him in all His blessedness and in all His glory, which the opening of this epistle unfolds. Nothing so facilitates our knowledge of the proper glory of the Church as acquaintance with the person of the SON of God. When we see sorrow and tears, and connect them with the person of one whom we love, we have a much more vivid sense of what human nature is, than when we consider it abstractedly. We sorrow too; our nature sympathises with his. So likewise is it with regard to joy. All human similitudes must needs be imperfect here. In this second verse are words, given to us of God, by which we may understand a little about the person of the SON of God, and yet they fall short of describing that which fully. expresses what pertains to Christ. He is called "the brightness (the irradiation) of His glory" - the glory of God. The idea presented by the figure is something like that of the rays of the, sun. If there were no rays we should not see the light of the sun, although the sun might be in the firmament of the heaven. The sun would shine in vain were it not for the beams which reach us. And so the Son of God is like the rays - the shining forth of the glory of God. The same in essence, the "Son" is the irradiation of that essence, in order that it might reach us, that there might be something to teach us the glory of God. Probably, even to the angels the glory of God would have been a hidden glory; they never could have known anything of the glory of God but through the SON; and thus before all worlds they beheld the glory of the SON. He is also called "the express image of His person" (1:e. substance). This is the nearest approach to declaring God’s essence, or essential existence. The word "substance" means essential being, or existence. How little we know about this! God, self-existent-One who never had a beginning, yet full of all that we know of blessed attributes. This we cannot understand, but must believe. And He has said that the SON is the "express image," the "impress," as it were, "of His substance." The illustration is that of the impress of a seal. Though you had never seen the seal, I might show you the impress of it, that which was exactly like it, and from that impress you could form a true idea of the seal. So Christ is the "Impress" of the substance of God, One in whom are essentially all the thoughts and feelings of God; and this, too, the SON was before all worlds. Though essentially Light, He was also the "Irradiation" of that Light. Though essentially God, He represented God - He was the "Impress" of the substance of God. Being with God, and being God, He became the Manifester of God, so that through Him others learned God. "And upholding all things by the word of His power." This, too, the SON always was, the Upholder and Sustainer of "all things" (Colossians 1:16-17), not by His power only, but by "the word of His power." (Genesis 1:3; Psalms 33:9.) Yet He laid aside the exercise of that power for a time. Whilst here in humiliation, "in the days of his flesh," He trembled and feared. (Hebrews 5:7.) It was still His own essential power, but it was kept in abeyance, not exercised, unless called forth in obedient service to God. (John 5:30.) There was this difference between the miracles of Jesus and those of others.. He was always obedient; but there were occasions when He used and declared His own essential power, as when He said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." (John 2:19.) This showed His power as God; but He never used it except in subjection and in obedience to the Father. And here is the mystery of the Incarnation. It is that which we cannot understand - what we have to do is to believe. He had human thoughts, and feelings, and sympathies - was truly "man," yet was He "God manifest in the flesh." (1 Timothy 3:16.) He "feared" and "trembled," "He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death," yet was He the irradiation of the glory of God. The "wisdom" of God (Proverbs 8:1-36), He took the place of a learner, of one who comes morning by morning to receive instruction. (Isaiah 1:4; Luke 2:52.) That the eternal "Word" should have taken into connection with Himself (John 1:1; John 1:14) a nature like ours, and which felt sensible of distance from God, (although His was ever holy human nature) is the great mystery of the Incarnation, so that not one sorrow which He felt was alleviated by His power as God. He might have poured a flood of light into His human understanding, and not have cried, "I longed for thy commandments" (Psalms 119:13), yet He did not. He might have turned (for He had power to do it) the stone into bread, when He hungered (Matthew 4:1-25; Luke 4:1-44) yet He did not. It would not have been the path of obedience; He had no command to do so from God. This was one part of the trial of the SON of God, this continual subjection of will, although it was a holy will. And what an unwavering principle of obedience did it prove! (for who but knows how readily we turn to the resource near at hand!) what constancy of soul! even when He might so easily (and it would not have been sin to do so) have brought to Himself the needed relief, still to go on, from year to year, in dependence upon God, still to say, ’No! if I want light, I will wait for it!’ On the one hand, there was all the power of God; and on the other, the weakness of man. There are two periods mentioned in this chapter, in which God is shown to do something for Christ. 1st. Appointing Him "Heir of all things." 2nd. Bringing again the. first-begotten into the world. It is said (5: 2) that He hath "set" or "made" Him Heir of all things. God has been pleased to constitute Christ "Heir" in resurrection, to make Him "so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they." (5: 4.) The declared intention of God before the foundation of the world was, that the Son should be "Heir of all things." Angels might have known, but they could not understand this. He was to receive "all things" (as a son receives an inheritance) as the free gift of the Father’s love. It is not the glory which He had with God, and as God, before the world was, that is spoken of here. And there is joy in this to the heart of Christ, as well as love and grace to us, for we are "joint-heirs" together with Him. I can only see what a Christian is, and what his portion is, by seeing what Christ is. Angels are not this; angels understand the excellency of the person of Christ, but they are not "joint-heirs," they have not union with Christ. But God has given us joint-heirship, and union with Christ! There are three things which belong to the Church - sonship, heirship, and union with Christ. We learn what we are by seeing what Christ is. And shall I say, He gave all this to man universally? Scripture does not say so. Had it been said, ’He taketh hold of the seed of Adam,’ then every one that has human nature must not only have been saved, but have been brought into co-heirship of this glory. But it is said, "Of the seed of Abraham He taketh hold." (Hebrews 2:16.) And who are they? Those who are of faith. (Galatians 3:7; Galatians 3:29.) In following on through these things, we must remember that we are one with Him. We can be addressed as "holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling" (Hebrews 3:1), and why? Because, being united to Him, what He has, we shall have; where He is, we must be - and He is "made higher than the heavens." The first thing spoken of here as having been done by Christ is, that He has by Himself purged our sins. "Who (it is said), when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." This is a very important text. It refers both to what He was as a sacrifice, and also to what He has done as a priest. Two things were necessary to the purging of our sins in the order of God. (Compare Leviticus 16:1-34 : with chapters 9 and 10 of this epistle.) 1st. The shedding of blood. 2nd. The presenting of that blood to God. Both these things Christ accomplished "by Himself." This settled the question of sin for ever. And then He took His seat, "sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high," as a person who has done a thing which he had to do takes his seat. The expression "sat down" is an official expression. (See Hebrews 10:11-14.) So that we can never rightly think of Christ as where He now is, without seeing that the very circumstance of His being there, in itself shows that our sins are put away for ever. The present possession of glory by Christ is an evidence to me that my sins are put away. What a Wondrous connection there is here between happiness and peace of soul, and His glory! It is not said, that after He had purged our sins He was made the "brightness of God’s glory," and the "express image of His person;" this He was essentially before all worlds. But it is said, that after He had purged our sins, He took His seat on high, "being made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels aid He at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee?"* Scripture is very particular. *These words (quoted from the second Psalm) refer to His being begotten from the dead, not to His eternal Sonship. (See Revelation 1:5.) Consider what the angels must have thought at the entrance of Christ into glory. They had known Him before the world was as God; but they had never known Him there before as man. Never until that moment could they understand what glorified humanity was. It must doubtless have been a great mystery to them to consider "the man Christ Jesus," whilst He was on earth; but the moment He entered heaven as man, He was there before God and angels, the Head of a new race, having all the essential characteristics of God, and yet the nature of man, the sympathies, desires, and feelings of man; at home on the throne of the government of the universe, yet having our nature - truly man. This is the place in which to read the real history of man according to God. Angels see in Jesus what our nature is to be, and by placing ourselves there, we may know the purpose of God about us. He has predestinated us, it is said, "to be conformed to the image of His Son. (Romans 8:29.) Man was not made in order that he might experience only vanity, and sorrow, and trouble, though it is true now, that "man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward." (Job 5:7.) The Scriptures introduce us to the birthday of new humanity; they lead us on to the new heavens and the new earth, and there they leave us. (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1-5.) When we look back to what the Son essentially was before all worlds, and then to what He now is, and onward to what He will be (together with the Church) in the ages to come, this gives us some idea of new humanity and of its glory. There will be nothing terrible to us in glory. John felt himself (Revelation 1:1-20) brought into strange and hitherto unknown circumstances, a creature before God, and he fell at the feet of Jesus as dead. But we shall then be suited to it, and happy in it. In the succeeding verses, we find scriptures quoted which reveal to us various dignities and glories of the Lord Jesus. Some of them speak of that which is permanent and eternal, others of that which is transitory. "I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to me a Son," appears to be quoted from the typical prophecy about Solomon (2 Samuel 7:1-29), and to be connected with the earth, the glory of government. Thus we have in this chapter the glory which Christ had as the Son before the world was, the glory which He now has, and the glory which will be displayed when He is ushered again into this world, as it is written: "When He bringeth again [margin] the First-begotten into the world, He saith, And let all the angels of God worship Him."* *This is evidently a quotation from the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy 32:1-52. The following is the translation of verse 43: "Rejoice, ye heavens, with Him, and let all the angels of God worship Him; rejoice, ye Gentiles, with His people, and let all the sons of God strengthen themselves in Him; for He will avenge the blood of His sons, and He will render vengeance, and recompense justice to His enemies, and will reward them that hate Him; and the Lord shall purge the land of His people." From the dignity of His Person, and from the glory which He now has, we may learn a little of what that coming glory will be. But the first moment that we shall really know that glory is when God thus commands the angels to worship Him. It will be the time of the "manifestation" of our own glory as "sons of God." (Romans 8:15-19; 1 John 3:1-2.) And this is what the apostle means when he says, "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." (1 Thessalonians 4:14.) When He comes in His glory, we shall be in the train of that glory. The moment after He had purged our sins He could take His place on the throne of God, the pledge of the Church’s final glory (chap. 6:20); the moment He comes again, we shall be made practically to know the result of His work, in the glory. Intermingled with our experience of glory, now there must be a trembling, for glory is always terrible to nature, the judgments of God terrible to human feelings. But we are told, that when He comes again, when we are brought into the glory, we shall be made like unto Himself; and this by God’s transforming power: He is able to make us like unto Christ, and that in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. (1 Corinthians 15:49-53.) We shall have none of the feelings of our present nature, of old humanity then. All that is of mere nature will be broken off and laid aside, and we shall be like Christ. "Of the angels He saith, Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire. (Psalms 104:4) But unto the SON He saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. (Psalms 102:25-26) And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands they shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail," (Psalms 45:6-7) etc. (Hebrews 1:7-14.) Who is this displayed as King on his throne - worshipped by angels - around whom all things are gathered? The living and eternal God. Christ Jesus may have been under the power of Satan and of death for a season - wondrous thought! - yet is He unchangeably God. Nothing can alter or affect His essential and eternal Godhead and glory. And we are spoken of as "His fellows." We cannot understand the nature of our union with Christ. Godhead is not ours, nor ever can be; and yet we shall have capacities and powers resulting from union with Him in all that He is, even as God. It is said that He is anointed with the oil of gladness "above" His fellows, and when that is said, all is said. It is true we are but the receivers, while He is the Source; in Him that is essential which in us is derived; yet in every felt blessing we are to be one with Him. And we shall not desire that it should be otherwise; we shall rejoice to say, ’Let all things be of God.’ (2 Corinthians 5:18.) We shall see the fitness of our being but receivers, and of His being the Source, as it is said, "His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." The being anointed with the "oil of gladness" is spoken of in connection with what He was here, as loving righteousness and hating iniquity. We can easily understand that joy - it is a peculiar spring of joy to the heart of Jesus. But we may enter a little into the same character of gladness; and this we shall in proportion as, while here, we also love righteousness and hate iniquity. The thought conveyed by the word, "a sceptre of righteousness," is that of the shepherd’s rod. A king should be to his people what a shepherd is to his flock. Now Christ will hold the "rod" in that day as a Shepherd King, and it will be a "sceptre of righteousness. And we shall share in His rule. But then he holds it now (though not for the world, yet) for His Church. Do we recognize this rod? Truth becomes practically blessed to us when looked at, not abstractedly, but as connected with ourselves. When we read this chapter, we can say, ’This is what our inheritance is.’ If it sets us above angels, how much more so above the flesh, whether in ourselves or in others! How lovely soever the flesh may appear, we are far above it. With such a portion and such a glory, can we desire station or dignity here? It gives contentment to those who are low in the world, and abasement to those who are great. These are the inward feelings produced in saints by the knowledge of the glory. In outward things there are two lines of difference between those who are one in Christ, and with Christ: First, as regards gifts in the Church; these the Holy Ghost divides to each severally as He wills. Secondly, as to natural arrangements and relationships appointed of God; these things are right and good, and we find them so, when received in the Spirit. If they act on the flesh, they bring sorrow. Paul and Onesimus as to inward feelings were on a level, but in the Church they had different places and gifts; so also as men. These are great things respecting the glory of Jesus, and our union with Him, but it is God’s word, and not man’s. The same word which tells us of Adam and his sin, tells us of this. We did not see Adam sin, yet we believe that he sinned, and we feel the consequences of his sin. Why should we not as fully receive the testimony of God, when He speaks of our union with His SON, and of the glory into which we shall be brought, as heirs together with Him? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 70: VOL 02 - JONATHAN; OR, "THE LORD IS MY HELPER" ======================================================================== Jonathan; or, "The Lord is My Helper" 1 Samuel 14:1-52. In the doings of Jonathan, we get energy of faith in the midst of sad confusion in Israel. The people of God had sought in a carnal way to establish themselves against their enemies. A people of no faith to lean immediately upon God, they had asked for themselves a king; and, whilst testifying to His own rejection by them, God had instructed Samuel to hearken unto their voice in all that they said, and make them a king. "Give us a king to judge us like all the nations," was their cry, as again (even after the prophet had warned them as to consequences in accordance with the divine testimony), "Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles." (1 Samuel 8:1-22) The carnal desire is met, and Saul set up to war against Israel’s enemies. Such is the state of things in the midst of which we find Jonathan; and, though he enters not into the full mind of God, he is able to act in the energy of faith. It is hard for faith to endure the afflictions of God’s people, and the dishonour done in it to God Himself. Jonathan endures it not - he has faith in the God of Israel, and he makes up his mind to attack the Philistines. He calls to his armour-bearer, and says, "Come, and let us go over unto the Philistines’ garrison, that is on the other side." (5: 1.) The sin of the people of God may have subjected them to the power of the "uncircumcised," but that cannot subject the rights of God. Such is faith’s reasoning. And nothing is more simple. The moment there is separation unto God, a standing with Him, there is zeal for God and strength in His service. But he confers not with flesh and blood, "he told not his father." There was no faith in Saul; and had he consulted him, Saul would most probably only have discouraged - with faith, he would have gone himself - he would either have stopped or hampered him; when he does act, it is only to trouble. Faith has to act on its own responsibility. One way in which we very constantly fail, is in asking counsel of those who have not the faith or the light we ourselves have, we thus sink down to their level. All that could give authority, or accredit it, in the eyes of the people, religious too, was with Saul. The king, the priest, the ark, were all there. But Jonathan waits not for the people. He has none but his armour-bearer with him; and so much the better for him, for he is not troubled with the unbelief of others. Where there is a single eye, there is ever confidence in acting, and not hesitation. The flesh may be confident, but its confidence is in self, and therefore only folly. Faith makes nothing of circumstances, because it makes God all. It is not that difficulties in themselves are lessened, but that God fills the eye. The Philistines’ position is a strong one; amidst precipitous rocks, what could human energy avail? Jonathan has to climb up upon his hands and feet. (5: 13.) The oppressors are there too in great numbers, and well armed. But faith, with a single sword, counts God sufficient. "Come," is the unhesitating word, "let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised: it may be that the Lord will work for us." (5: 6.) The "uncircumcised" have no strength when looked at thus; they have not the God of Jacob for their help, their hope is not in the Lord. "There is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few." The enemy may be as the sand on the sea-shore for multitude, that is nothing, and faith knows it. He can give strength to one sword to subdue a host. Jonathan seeks not other help. Happy in his companion, a man of a kindred spirit (his answer bearing him the witness, "Do all that is in thine heart: turn thee; behold, I am with thee according to thy heart" 5: 7), he at once shows himself to the Philistines. (5: 8.) We have already remarked on the strong, simple confidence of Jonathan in the Lord’s power; another thing that characterises his faith is the consciousness of the impossibility of the link between God and His people being broken. Sad as the condition of that people is - the Philistines in power in their midst, pillaging a defenceless land; no means of resistance left to them, not a sword or a spear (except with Saul end with Jonathan) found in Israel (1 Samuel 13:19; 1 Samuel 13:22); the very king they have in their midst, one they have sinned in setting up - this touches not His faithfulness. The Philistines are delivered into the hand of Israel* (not into his own), in the judgment of the man of faith. (5: 12). In isolating itself with God, faith identifies itself with His people. It loses sight of self, passes over their desolations and recognises all that is theirs in God. Jonathan is as the Lord’s hand. And see what boldness. Though Israel be not able to sharpen a mattock, in the name of the God of hosts, the Lord, God of Israel, he goes straight on his way. *Saul’s summons of the people (1 Samuel 13:3) is by their national name of Hebrews, the name a Philistine would have called them by. But, then, whilst he goes forward thus, conferring not with flesh and blood, there is nothing of boastfulness, no acting in fleshly haste and excitement. His expectation is from God. He can discover himself plainly to the garrison of the Philistines, telling them, as it were, "Here am I, an Israelite;" but he will wait and see. If they say, "Tarry until we come to you," he will stand in his place, and will not go up to them. But if they say, "Come up unto us," he will go up; the Lord hath delivered them into their hands. There is to be the sign. (vv. 9, 10.) In other words, he will wait for them to come to him, or he will go throw, himself into the midst of their camp, just as the Lord may bid. He will not make difficulties for himself; but he will not turn away from difficulties which meet him in the path. His is the real dependence of faith. Having done this, the very haughtiness and acorn of the hostile power instruct him as to what to do. "Behold," say the men of the garrison one to another, "the Hebrews come forth out of the holes where they had hid themselves;" and then, indolently and with fleshly confidence, taunt these true Israelites, "Come up, and we will show you a thing!" (5: 12.) It is the sign for Jonathan; "the Lord hath delivered them into the hand of Israel." In the energy of faith he goes forward and climbs the rock, his armour-bearer following. The Philistines fell before him; it is comparatively easy work for the armour-bearer to slay after him. The power that inspires Jonathan acts for him. The Lord is really there; He uses Jonathan as an instrument, He puts honour upon the arm faith has strengthened, but He manifests Himself. The terror of God fells upon the enemies of Israel. (vv. 13, 15.) But what of Saul? He has been left tarrying under a pomegranate-tree in Migron, whilst God is triumphing over the Philistines through Jonathan. (5: 2.) "And the watchmen of Saul in Gibeah of Benjamin looked; and, behold, the multitude melted away, and they went on beating down one another. Then said Saul unto the people that were with him, Number now, and see who is gone from us." (vv. 16, 17:) All that is regular as to form is with Israel, but not faith. "And when they had numbered, behold, Jonathan and his armour-bearer were not there." That is all they know about it. "And Saul said unto Ahiah, Bring hither the ark of God." (5: 18.) Here, again, there is form - the form of honouring the Lord, in seeking His guidance. It seems all right, yet it is but the form. Saul will have the ark brought; but while he talks with the priest, the tumult of defeat in the host of the Philistines still going on and increasing, he bids him stop: "Withdraw," he says, "thine hand." (5: 19.) There is no simplicity of dependence upon God; but the uncertainty and bewilderment of unbelief He joins the battle. (5: 20.) But it is not as entering into the spirit of the thing - he has no sense of that on which Jonathan had counted, the secret of Jonathan’s strength, "there is no restraint with the Lord to work by many or by few." He calls the people around himself, and adjures them, saying, "Cursed be the man that eateth any food until evening, that I may be avenged on mine enemies." (5: 24.) "So none of the people tasted any food." There is great apparent energy, it is true; but it is not of the Spirit of God, so that when he gets into the tide of victory he is in reality only a troubler, distressing Israel and hindering the pursuit. It is a carnal and selfish zeal We may get into the path of faith, but we shall find there that nothing but faith can walk in it: let the flesh mix itself up in the work of faith, it is only for weakness. The people come to a wood, there is honey upon the ground, yet no man puts his hand to his mouth, for they fear the oath. (vv. 25, 26.) Jonathan has not heard that oath, wherefore he puts the end of the rod that was in his hand, and dips it in an honey-comb, and puts his hand to his mouth, and his eyes are enlightened. (5: 27.) And when made acquainted with the curse, and seeing the people faint around him, he at once exclaims, "My father hath troubled the land; see, I pray you, how mine eyes have been enlightened, because I tasted a little of this honey. How much more, if haply the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of their enemies which they had found; for had there not been now a much greater slaughter amongst the Philistines?" Happy Jonathan! Faith is so occupied with its work, and has so the sense of God’s love and grace, that it has full liberty, and whatsoever God presents in the way, it can thankfully avail itself of, taking it and going on; whilst the carnal zeal of that which is but an imitation of faith, and which never works with God, makes a duty of refusing it. Had Jonathan not been occupied heart and soul in the Lord’s work, he might have stopped to think about the honey; as it is he merely takes it for refreshment, and passes on. Through the energy of faith, he is carried clean out of the knowledge of the oath (5: 27), out of the reach of this unbelief. He can avail himself of the kindness of his God with joy and thanksgiving, and pursue his course refreshed and encouraged, whilst the people (who had not the faith to go with him) are under the curse, and cannot. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Saul has put both himself and the people under this miserable restraint (if the flesh puts itself under bondage, it must keep its oath), and, in result, they are led into sin; for they are so hungry, that when the time of the oath is expired, they fly upon the cattle taken as spoil, and slay them, and eat the flesh with the blood thereof, thus violating a direct command of God. (Deuteronomy 12:22-23.) The effect of all this is that of making faith guilty for acting in liberty. Such is ever the way of the flesh in its mixing itself up with faith. At a moment of manifest outward blessing Saul must build an altar, and make much of the Lord’s name, just as previously he had professed to seek counsel at the ark. He builds his altar. (5: 36.) But let us mark the emphatic comment of the Holy Ghost, "This was the first altar that he built unto the Lord." Then, through the priest, he consults God as to pursuing the Philistines; "but He answered him not that day." (5: 37.) On this he seeks, by an appeal to the "God of Israel," to discover the hidden and hindering sin. (vv. 36-41.) The Lord indeed acts, yet it is only to manifest the folly of the king; the "perfect lot" is given and Jonathan is taken. (5: 41.) "Then Saul said to Jonathan, Tell me what thou hast done. And Jonathan told him, and said, I did but taste a little honey with the end of the rod that was in mine hand, and, lo, I must die. And Saul answered, God do so and more also thou shalt surely die, Jonathan." (vv. 43, 44.) The people do not allow this. They interfere, and say; "Shall Jonathan die, who hath wrought this great salvation in Israel? God forbid: as the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground: for he hath wrought with God this day." That is self-evident. "So the people rescued Jonathan, that he died not." (5: 45.) He had "wrought with God." His was the simple, happy path of unhesitating faith which counts on God, on His faithful connection with His people, and walks in the blessed liberty of taking the refreshment He may give by the way - liberty for refreshment, not for licentiousness, while the flesh is making its solemn resolutions not to touch, nor to taste, nor to handle, and then, the occasion serving, setting aside the authority of God. Faith of this sort confers not with flesh and blood; it acts from God, and it acts for God. All the religious actings, all the forms of piety, are with Saul. He has the ark and the priest. He makes the vow to abstain from food; manifests zeal for ordinances; prevents the people eating flesh with the blood; builds his altar, when others have got the blessing, and takes the credit to himself. He can be religious, when he has comfort and blessing; but there is no reference to God in faith, so as to go through difficulties with God. There is energy, but it is energy in the flesh; deliberation, when God is acting; and action, when he does act in haste and bewilderment, The Lord preserve His people from the guidance and help of unbelief in the work of faith, blessed in the simplicity which acts with Him. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 71: VOL 02 - JOSIAH AND HIS DAYS ======================================================================== Josiah and His Days or, "after all this." "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is." Jeremiah 17:7. Faith alone can so go on with God as to prove His sufficiency, an absolute sufficiency for the need of His people. Hence is it that the Christian, with the record of Israel’s sin spread open before him, is emphatically admonished in the words "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." (Hebrews 3:12.) And again, "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." (1 Corinthians 10:12.) As we are by nature, God is not in all our thoughts; and though we turned to God, on belief of the gospel, yet are there a thousand ways in which "the sin that doth so easily beset" waits but the occasion to evidence itself afresh. There is, however, one form of this so subtle as to be all the more dangerous, to which I desire to direct attention; I mean the tendency, under the profession of acknowledging God in His gifts, to allow instruments and means to get between the soul and Himself. When God has separated a people unto Himself, not only will He have that people to be for Himself - His people; but He is their God, and He will be reckoned on by them in all circumstances and for all exigencies; in other words, the God of Israel will be God to Israel. "Blessed is the people that is in such a case; yea, blessed is the people whose God is the Lord." As an illustration of this relationship, see Caleb, that man of faith in the midst of a nation of no faith. (Joshua 14:1-15) He is just about to enter on the long-waited-for inheritance, with strength unabated by the tear and wear of the way. "Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee." Forty-five years ago he came up with eleven others of the rulers of Israel; to search out the land of promise; he then took back a good report, and made his boast in the God of Israel, as able to give it to His people, all adversaries and evil occurrent hitherto or to come, notwithstanding. Listen now to his big-hearted profession, as he turns to Joshua and says: "Behold the Lord hath kept me alive, as He said, these forty and five years, ever since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. And yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me; as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in." What a fine testimony to the all-sufficiency and the faithfulness of the Holy One whom Israel have limited. The carcasses of a whole unbelieving generation strew the way that Caleb has trodden and attest the severity of Jehovah’s "breach of promise;" yet just and upright is He, and wilderness tribulations have but wrought patience; and patience, experience; and experience, a hope that hath not made ashamed, in the case of the man in whom there was "another spirit," who, counting on the Promiser, embraced the promise. It has been happily observed that Canaan in the heart carries through the wilderness; and to this we may add, that, when God fills the eye, though nought but an untried and trackless waste, a place of no resources, with its terribleness be around us, it is God and not the desert we prove. "He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." Though thy way be long and dreary, Eagle strength He’ll still renew: Garments fresh and foot unweary Tell how God hath brought thee through. When to Canaan’s long-loved dwelling Love divine thy foot shall bring, There, with shouts of triumph swelling, Zion’s songs in rest to sing; There no stranger God shall meet thee (Stranger thou in courts above); He who to His rest shall greet thee, Greets thee with a well-known love. But let us examine somewhat more closely into the special form of the evil heart of unbelief I have indicated. To this end we will look at Israel, first in the wilderness, then under one of the judges, and again as reigned over by one of the best of the kings. For a brief moment, at the first, we see them standing in the attitude of faith. They are on the wilderness side of the Red Sea. Its waters, opened just now for their salvation, but closed again for the destruction of the Egyptian taskmaster, roll between a delivered people and the house of their hard bondage. They are celebrating in that song the triumphs of the right-hand of the Lord. Not only has His hand already done valiantly for them, but it shall yet deliver. They measure every thing by it: Pharaoh and his host are cast into the sea; sorrow takes hold on the inhabitants of Palestina; the dukes of Edom are amazed; the mighty men of Moab tremble; the inhabitants of Canaan melt away. Led forth of Him and guided in His strength, the redeemed of Jehovah are brought in and planted in the mountain of His inheritance, in the place which He has made for Him to dwell in. Not one thing remains to be done. All is accomplished. A faith that is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, bridges over all between and fills already its basket of the first-fruits of the land, to set it down before the Lord. And now Moses and the children of Israel are silent, and Miriam and the women are taking up the strain, with timbrels and dances; but still their burden is the same, "Sing ye to the LORD, for HE hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath HE thrown into the sea." Alas! this goodness is but as the morning cloud and the early dew. The Psalmist tells us: "They sang His praise - They soon forgat His works; they waited not for His counsel!" (Psalms 106:1-48) Quickly does the song of boastfulness in the God of Israel become changed into loud, long murmurings! Is then the Lord’s arm shortened, that it can no longer save? Is the ear, that bent down to their wail in Egypt, grown heavy, that it cannot hear? No; but the instrument of deliverance has been leaned on by them, instead of the Deliverer; and this so really, that so soon as Moses is out of sight (gone up for them into the mount to the Lord, before whose terrible glory they were trembling but just now) they run in wild haste to Aaron, with the cry, ’Up, make us gods which shall go before us, for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land, of Egypt, we wot not what has become of him!’ "They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the golden image. Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass. They forgot God their Saviour." Such is the way of man. He must have a something visible and tangible to look to, if faith in an unseen God be either wanting or on the wane. But the scene shifts. It is the days of the judges. Israel have gone into open idolatry, and are bowing down to the gods of the uncircumcised. And the Lord whom they have provoked has sold them into the hands of the uncircumcised. Repenting Himself because of their groanings, by reason of the oppressor, He has once and again raised up for them "saviours." Yet "it came to pass, when the Judge was dead, that they returned and corrupted themselves worse than their fathers." Just now they are greatly impoverished, the hand of Midian prevails against Israel, and the Midianites, as grasshoppers for multitude, spread themselves over the land, and eat it up. Israel have betaken themselves to mountains, and to dens, and to eaves. The highways are unoccupied; travellers walk through bye-ways. The harvest is reaped by others. The increase of the earth is destroyed, and there is no sustenance left to Israel; neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. Mark that man of Manasseh threshing wheat under an oak in secret, to hide it from the Midianites. An angel approaches him, and salutes him thus: ’The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour, . . go deliver Israel, thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.’ And now, through faith, the trembler is made strong, and after having first purged out idolatry from his home, is led forth to put to flight the armies of the aliens. It is the arm of the Lord’s strength that has awaked for His people; and again, as in ancient days, when it broke Rahab (Egypt), it triumphs gloriously. Israel is delivered with a great deliverance. Yet they discern not aright the lighting down of that arm; but as their fathers did, so do they; the instrument fills their eye, and they importune him - ’Rule thou over us, thou and thy son, and thy son’s son also; for thou hast delivered us from the hands of Midian!’ But Gideon cannot allow this; he sets them in their proper relation to the Lord: neither will he rule over them, nor his son, that belongs to the Lord. But then, alas! we have to take the eye off the exploits and the self-denial of faith, to see him immediately afterwards preparing a stumbling-block for this very people. He may have reasoned with himself that there could be nothing wrong in commemorating the victory just gained; this were not to usurp the Lord’s place, but, on the contrary, a fitting acknowledgment that His servant has been valiant in fight for Israel. He asks for the golden earrings of the prey, makes of them an ephod, and puts it in his city; "which thing became a snare to Gideon and to his house;" moreover "all Israel went thither a whoring after it." And now we turn from times of the wilderness and of the judges to "the days of Josiah the king," and it is still to find the same adulterous generation. They have backslidden with a continual backsliding. The kingly history is a dreary recital of provokings of the Holy One to anger, so that the reigns of a Jehoshaphat, a Jotham, and a Hezekiah stand out brightly as lights in the midst of a dark waste. The spirit of idolatry, dispossessed for a while by repentant Manasseh, has returned in sevenfold power; for "Amon sacrificed unto all the carved images which Manasseh his father had made," and "did worse and worse;" so that now, according to the number of the cities of Judah, are her gods, and according to the number of the streets in Jerusalem, they have set up altars to burn incense unto Baal. The horses which the kings of Judah have given to the sun are stabled at the entering in of the house of the Lord (2 Kings 13:11), whilst the ark of the Lord has been cast out of the sanctuary. (2 Chronicles 35:3.) It is at this juncture, an hour of all but total apostacy, that the son of Amon, a child eight years old, comes to the throne. But how wondrous are the ways of God! He has reserved unto Himself, in the midst of these abominations, a remnant who, like Simeon and Anna of after days, sigh and cry before Him; and the boy king, suckled at the breasts of idolatry, finds grace in His eyes. The history of His work in and through Josiah is given with much minuteness in 2 Chronicles 34:1-33; 2 Chronicles 35:1-27. In the eighth year of his reign, "while he was yet young," Josiah begins to seek after the God of David his father. Four years after, at the age of twenty, he sets about purging Judah and Jerusalem of high places, groves, and carved images; breaks down the altars of Baal; makes dust of the idols, strews it upon the graves of their worshippers, and burns the bones of their priests on the altars. Nor does he stop here. As a consequence of the idolatry of the latter years of the reign of Solomon, ten tribes have been rent from the throne of David; but the faith in the energy of which Josiah acts has respect to the claims of Jehovah in regard of the land, and he will not cleanse Judah and Jerusalem only, but "so he did in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali" And here we must not fail to notice an incident which, though unmentioned in these chapters, is given at some length in 2 Kings 23:1-37. Standing by the altar at Bethel (the seat of the false worship devised by Jeroboam, the first king of the separate kingdom of Israel), whilst engaged in the act of breaking it down and defiling it with the bones of its idolatrous priests, Josiah turns and notices an inscription at a short distance from him. He enquires what it is, and is told by the men of the city, "It is the sepulchre of the man of God which came from Judah and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel." More than three hundred years have elapsed since the man of God cried in the word of the Lord against the altar, and declared that a child should be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name, who should do such and such things; and though signal indeed was the failure of the instrument, directly after speaking in the word of the Lord, that word has been brought to pass; so that as Josiah stands between the altar and the sepulchre, and listens to the prophecy, he has both a wondrous confirmation of his being the special servant of the Lord for the work he is engaged in, and a solemn admonition to hearken attentively to the Lord. Again: six years after, he sends to the temple to repair and amend that which former kings of Judah have destroyed, and proceeds to restore, according to its prescribed form, the worship of the true God. In the midst of these labours a book is discovered by the high priest, a long neglected and forgotten book - what is it? "A book of the law of the Lord by Moses." It is taken and read before the king. "And it came to pass when the king heard the word of the law, that he rent his clothes." "Go," he says, "enquire of the Lord for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found: for great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this book." Scripture may be neglected, but it cannot be broken; the Lord answers Josiah that, whilst he personally, on account of his tender-heartedness in trembling at the word, shall be gathered to his fathers in peace, so as not to see the evil, the curses read out of the book shall assuredly take hold. Having gathered together all the people, both great and small, into the house of the Lord, he reads before them all the words of the book of the covenant that has been found there; makes a covenant,, "with all his heart and all his soul," to perform that which is written in the book; causes all present to stand to it;. takes away all the abominations out of all the, countries that, pertain to Israel, and brings back the people to the service of Jehovah. "And all his days they departed not from following the Lord, the God of their fathers." And now comes the crowning, as it were, of this zeal for the Lord. The passover is kept after a most godly sort. The Levites prepare themselves by the houses of their fathers, after their courses, "according to the writing of David king of Israel, and according to the writing of Solomon his son. They kill the passover, sanctify themselves, prepare their brethren, and the priests sprinkle the blood from their hand, remove the burnt-offering, that they may give according to the division of the families of the people, to offer unto the Lord, "as it is written in the book of Moses." The passover is roasted, "according to the ordinance." The singers, the sons of Asaph stand in their places, "according to the commandment of David." Josiah has a "Thus saith the Lord" for all he does. What a wondrously lovely picture! "There was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did, all the kings of Israel keep such a passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel that were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem" It was reserved for a backslidden people, on their return to God and His word, to keep such a commemoration of the night much to be remembered, when the blood of the "lamb" was under His holy eye for His Israel, as even Solomon in all his glory never kept. The hour is one of light and gladness in Zion. As they speak together we can hear them exclaim, ’Behold, what, hath the Lord wrought, it is marvellous in our eyes!’ Yet there is rottenness at the core: "Judah hath not turned unto ME with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord."’ (Jeremiah 3:6; Jeremiah 3:10.) And thick darkness is gathering ahead, and he that letteth the bursting of the storm shall soon be taken out of the way. Nor does the sun of Josiah go down in an altogether cloudless horizon. The emphatic words which stand at the head of this paper are found here, and form a hinge, on which the Bible narrative of Josiah and his times turns to a shaded side. "AFTER ALL THIS" (we read), "when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho king of Egypt came up to fight against Carchemish by Euphrates; and Josiah went out against him." (5: 20.) The potsherds of the earth are at strife amongst themselves; wherefore is it that the Lord’s anointed is found mixing himself up with their strife, unless indeed he have a word from the Lord bidding him to do so? Has he such a word? No; but the very opposite. Listen to Necho’s remonstrance: "What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war: for God commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that he destroy thee not." And mark what the Scripture says, "Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself, that he might fight with him, and hearkened not unto the words of Necho from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo." (5: 22.) How solemnly instructive is this. Whence comes it, that the ear but just now so attentive is deaf to the voice of God? We are told concerning another godly king, Uzziah, that "he was marvellously helped till he was strong; but when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction," and we may regard the case of Josiah as somewhat parallel. The flesh in a saint, through unwatchfulness, will fatten on the very prosperings of God; and a lifted-up heart both deafens and blinds. But though we may refuse to listen to the voice of God, there is no disguise by which we can get from under His eye, and no shelter that will avail us. Feigning himself, like ungodly Ahab, to be another than himself, like Ahab he is struck down by an arrow commissioned of Him who sees through all disguises. So fell Josiah - taken away in loving-kindness from the evil to come; yet sad and humbling is it to see a saint of God falling by the hand of the uncircumcised in an hour of self-will. Great lamentation is made over him: "All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah; and Jeremiah lamented for Josiah; and all the singing-men and the singing-women spake of Josiah in their lamentations unto this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and behold they are written in the Lamentations." (5: 25.) Let us draw near to the mourners, and see if they have not some word of admonition for ourselves. In the book of "The Lamentations of Jeremiah" (Lamentations 4:20), there are these significant words: "The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen." It was with his whole heart and soul that Josiah set himself to work to bring back worshippers of graven images to the living and true God. He was a bright and a shining light, and the people were willing for a season to walk in his light. "All his days" (as we have seen) "they departed not from following the Lord." Yet were they, at heart, according to the Lord’s declaration, idolaters still. In the light of Josiah they walked, not in the light of the Lord. Upon the breath of Josiah they lived, not upon the words that proceeded out of the mouth of God. Under the shadow of Josiah they thought to dwell, not under the shadow of the Almighty. These things happened of old. They "are written for our admonition." Like the bell swinging to and fro above the sunken rock, giving warning to the mariner that hard by where he is passing others have made wreck, they sound in our ears, even whilst we are being borne along by wind and tide, ’Take heed, Take heed, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God!’ No man is really a Christian but he who has so received the Gospel in power, that he has turned to God, and is entitled to know, that through the blood of the cross (which has purged his every sin), and in Him who is now at the right hand of God, he has been brought nigh, and that he may be in the presence of a God of absolute righteousness, not only without fear, but with exceeding joy. And then the Christian life, in its development down here, is not merely a fresh direction given to the religious instincts and activities of man, or the holding of certain dogmas and the shaping the conduct after a certain course; it is an habitual, continuous having to do with God through Christ - a believing God, an obeying God, a trusting in God, a fearing God, a joying in God, a walking with God, a worshipping God, a serving God - in short, a setting of Him ever before us, and of ourselves in heart and conscience ever before Him, according to that which He is and has revealed Himself to be. All true ministry is subservient to this, and ministry is healthful only as it does subserve it. In a certain sense, the thankful recognition of those through whom He works, is a recognizing of Himself, a holy and a happy thing - "We beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake." "As my beloved sons I warn you . . . for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel." "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you." Most assuredly it is not a high degree of spirituality (whatever the pretension with which it clothe itself), but real dissonance with the mind of Him, who has given to the Church the evangelist, the pastor, and the teacher - at bottom the wretched pride and self-will of the flesh - that would ignore these and similar Scriptures. But then the special danger of the hour would not seem to lie so much in this as in an opposite direction - a thinking of man above that which is written. No age of the Church has been wanting in noticeable instances of this way of departure from the living God, at once both the evidence and the means of spiritual decline. Nor are the days in which we live less markedly characterised by that which (however offensively, yet with truth) has been termed minister-worship, than by the hero-worship and idolatry of intellect for which they are proverbial. The divine purport of the ministry of the Word is - to set and keep the conscience and the heart in immediate connection with God. Where this is effected in grace and holy power, the instrument will be comparatively out of sight. When man intervenes between God and the soul, God is displaced. What godly jealousy was manifested by that good servant of Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul, when already, in the very infancy of the Church, a carnal glorying in teachers was at work jealousy for his Master, jealousy over his brethren, jealousy against self. He would no more allow the Christians at Corinth to be putting man (even though it were himself and Apollos) in a wrong place, than he would accept for himself and Barnabas, at Lystra, garlands and sacrifices from the priest of Jupiter. To these he said, "Sirs, why do ye these things? we also are men of like passions with you." To those he wrote, "Let no man glory in men." "These things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of man above that which is written." "Who then is Paul, and who Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase; so then neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase." Moreover, not only is it of the very essence of idolatry so to lean upon the instrument as to relieve ourselves of that which is ever irksome to the flesh, the sense of the most direct, continuous, and absolute dependence upon God; but however devoted, however much and long-used and honoured of the Lord the instrument may have been, yet is he, after all, but a man of like passions with ourselves, and a carnal glorying in him may prove a dreadful snare to his own soul. Many an one of whom it might be said, "His praise was in all the churches," has here made shipwreck; and where a like catastrophe has been graciously averted, in how very many cases more it has been at the cost of much painful discipline of soul! When the stripling David returned from the unequal fight he had waged on behalf of Israel, in the name of the God of Israel, the giant’s head and sword in his hands, the women sang his praises. They were no daughters of Miriam; their song was not, "THE LORD hath triumphed gloriously;" but, "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." "And Saul," we read, "eyed David from that day and forward." Can we not trace in Saul’s bitter and unrelenting persecution of David, consequent on this ill-judged comparison, something far deeper than the envy and wounded pride of man, even a divine antidote, a "messenger of Satan, sent to buffet him," by the same prescient love that dispensed to Paul his "thorn in the flesh"? There is but ONE - "a nail in a sure place" - on whom we may safely depend; there is but ONE under whose shadow we may dare to dwell. Of that ONE the voice from the excellent glory has testified, as the cloud hid a Moses and an Elias out of sight, "Hear HIM." In the Song of Songs we find the Beloved saying of the Spouse, "As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters;" and the Spouse responding, "As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my Beloved among the sons. I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me into the banqueting-house, and His banner over me was love." What do you know, dear reader, of a like reciprocity of love between Christ and the soul? of a present, living fellowship in the power of the Holy Ghost with Himself? In the measure that we are dwelling under His shadow, we shall be occupied with Him; not with instruments, and organization, and doctrines, and things about Christ, but with CHRIST HIMSELF. And what a banqueting-house is that into which He bringeth, and where, with the banner of His love spread over us, a deep adoring delight is found in looking from the cross to the glory, and from the glory to the cross, and in proving in that love stronger than death a living love ever occupied with and about ourselves! Oh, let us jealously see to it, lest, through a trusting in man, and making flesh our arm, it be with us as with the dry and stunted heath in the desert! (Jeremiah 17:6.) Let us ponder these histories of Moses and the golden calf, Gideon and the golden ephod, Josiah and the sin of Judah, graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of their altars. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 72: VOL 02 - LOT'S CHOICE; OR, PRESENT ADVANTAGE ======================================================================== Lot’s Choice; or, Present Advantage Genesis 19:1-38. There is much profitable instruction in tracing, in contrast, the characters of Lot and Abraham. Both were saints of God, yet how different as to their walk! how different also as to their personal experiences in regard of peace, joy, and nearness to God! And there is ever this difference between a worldly-minded believer and one, through the grace of God, true-hearted. In the Scriptural sense of the term (2 Peter 2:8), a "righteous man," Lot was "vexing his righteous soul from day to day." Abraham walked before God. The Lord cannot but be faithful to His people, still He does mark in their path that which is of faith and that which is not of faith, and Lot’s trials are the consequences of his unbelief. There is one thing very marked in his course throughout - great uncertainty and obscurity as to his path and as to the judgment of God, because of not realising that security in God which would have enabled him to walk straight forward, whilst there is no hesitation in things connected with this world. And it is thus with ourselves if we have not taken Christ for our portion heartily. Abraham’s was a thoroughly happy life - he had God for his portion. Lot is seen rather as the companion in the walk of faith of those who have faith, than as one having and acting in the energy of faith himself. This characterises his path from the beginning. Therefore, when put to the test, there is only weakness. In how many things do we act with those who have faith before having it for ourselves. It was thus with the disciples of the Lord, and the moment they were put to the test, there was weakness and failure. The soul will not stand, when sifted through temptation, if walking in the light of another. God’s personal call of Abraham at the first is mixed with a sort of unbelief in Abraham, much like the reply in the gospel, "Lord, suffer me first to go home and bury my father." He sets out, but he takes Terah his father with him, and goes and lodges in Haran (he could not carry Terah with him into the land of Canaan). Now God had called Abraham, but not Terah. He left everything except Terah, and entered into possession of nothing. But he tried to carry something with him which was not of God, and he could not. It is not until after Terah’s death that he removes into Canaan where God had called him. (Compare Genesis 22:1, and Acts 7:4.) "So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him . . . . they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came." Lot (though having faith) goes in the path he treads as the companion of Abraham. As to actual position he stands with Abraham. He is truly a saint of God, though afterward we find him treading the crooked path of the world’s policy. God blesses them. The land is not able to bear them so that they may dwell together. (Genesis 13:1-18) They have flocks, and herds, and much cattle, and there is not room for them both - they must separate. Circumstances, no matter what (here it is God’s blessings), reveal this. They are in the place of strangers, that is clear ("the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land"). They have nothing in possession, "not so much as to put a foot upon;" all rests on their valuing the promises. (Hebrews 11:9.) They have just two things, the altar and the tent. Journeying about and worshipping God, they are strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Abraham confesses that he is such; he declares plainly that he seeks a country;* "wherefore," we are told, God is not ashamed to be called his God. (He is never called "the God of Lot.") This acts upon the whole spirit and character of Abraham. *In Genesis 12:1-20 Abraham goes down into Egypt. This is evidently a mistake; for he comes back again to the place of the altar which he built at the first. He had no altar in Egypt. The land is not able to bear them that they may dwell together, there is a strife between their herdmen, they must separate. Abraham says, "Is not the whole land before thee? take what thou wilt, do not let us quarrel: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left; the promise is my portion; I am a thorough stranger, the city of God is "open in glory before me." His heart is upon the promises of God, and everything else is as nothing in comparison. It might seem a foolish thing to let Lot choose - to give up to Lot, the right to do so is certainly his own; but his heart is elsewhere, his faith goes entirely free from. earthly advantage. Not so Lot - he lifts up his eyes* - the plain of Jordan is well watered - everywhere, even as the garden of the Lord, and he chooses it. There is nothing gross or wrong in itself, in his choosing a well-watered plain; but it just distinctly proves that his whole heart is not set upon the promises of God. Thus is he put to the test. And thus, in the way of the accomplishment of God’s purposes, character is displayed. Abraham’s conduct has for its spring a simplicity of faith which embraces God’s promises (Hebrews 11:13), and wants nothing besides. Faith can give up. The spirit of a carnal mind takes all it can get. Lot acts upon the present sense of what is pleasant and desirable; why should he not? what harm is there in the plains of Jordan?** His heart is not on the promises. *"And the Lord said unto Abraham, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee I give it, and to thy seed after thee," etc. **"A man says, What harm is there in the well-watered plains of Jordan? are they not the gift of Providence? I answer: The devil has planted Sodom in the midst of them." - Precious Truth. The companion of Abraham, he is brought to the level of his own faith. But he will dwell in the cities of the plain, if he chooses the rivers of the plain. It is not his intention to go into the city; but he will get there step by step. (He must find trouble in the place he has taken pleasure in.) There is not the power of faith to keep him from temptation. Where there is not the faith that keeps the soul on the promises, there is not the faith to keep it out of sin. It is not insincerity, but peoples’ souls are in that condition, and God proves them. Abraham’s path, all the way through, is characterised by personal intimacy with God, constant intercourse with God, visits from God; the Lord comes to him and explains His purposes, so that he is called the "friend of God" (2 Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8; James 2:23); and this not only as to his own portion, but as to what He is going to do with Sodom - the judgment He is about to bring on Sodom, though personally he has nothing to do with it, and the promise is his hope. (Genesis 18:1-33) So now He tells His people what He is going to do about the world. Though their hope is connected with their own views, with the promises and the heavenly Canaan, He takes them into His confidence as to what is to happen where they are not to be. Lot, the while, is vexing his righteous soul. Does he know anything about the purposes of God? Not a word. He is saved, yet so as by fire; though a "righteous soul," his is a vexed soul, instead of a soul in communion with God, vexed "from day to day" (there is so far right-mindedness that it is a vexed soul). He is there before the. judgment comes with his soul vexed, whilst happy Abraham is on the mount holding conversation with God; and when it does come, how does it find him? With his soul vexed, and totally unprepared for it, instead of in communion with God about it. "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation," and He delivers "just Lot." But. whilst thus vexing his righteous soul with their unlawful deeds, the men of the city have a right to say to him, "What business have you here? ’this one came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge.’ (5: 9.) You are quarrelling with sin in the place of sin." They have a perfect right to judge thus. All power of testimony is lost, by reason of association with the world, when he ought to be witnessing to his total separation from it: there is vexation of spirit, but not power. When Abraham got down into Egypt, he had nothing to do but to go right back to the place of the altar he had built at the first. Lot testifies, but he cannot get out of the place he is in: the energy that ought to have thrown him out is neutralised and lost by his getting into it; his daughters have married there; he has ties where his unbelief has led him. It is far more difficult to tread the up-hill road than the down-hill road. Whenever the counsels of God are revealed to faith, it brings out the spirit of intercession. The word to the prophet, "Make the heart of this people fat" (Isaiah 6:1-13), at once brings out, "O Lord, how long!" So here, Abraham pleads with the Lord to spare the city. (But there are not ten - there is not one righteous man in Sodom with the exception of Lot.) As regards his own position, he is looking down upon the place of judgment. And in the morning, when the cities are in flames, he finds himself in quietness and peace on the spot where he "stood before the Lord" (5: 27), not at all in the place where the judgment had come, solemnized indeed by the scene before him, but calm and happy with the Lord. The Lord sends Lot out of the midst of the overthrow. Angels warn him, and faith makes him listen. But his heart is there still. There are connections that bind him to Sodom, and he would fain take them with him. But you cannot take anything with you, for God out of Sodom, you must leave it all behind. The Lord must put the pain where you find the pleasure. "While he yet lingered" (there is hesitation and lingering in the place of judgment, when the judgment has been pronounced; he ought to have left it at once; but the place, and path, and spirit of unbelief enervate the heart), "the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters" (the Lord being merciful unto him); "and they brought him forth, and set him without the city." And now it is: "Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed." (5: 17.) As for the goods, the sheep, and the much cattle, he must leave them all behind. If the Lord’s faithfulness is shown in saving Lot, it is shown also in breaking the links that bind him to the place. His mind is all distraction. He says, "Oh, not so, my Lord. I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die."’ He has lost the sense of security in the path of faith. Such is ever the consequence of the path of unbelief in a saint of God - he thinks the path of faith the most dangerous path in the world. Lot has become used to the plain, and the place where Abraham is enjoying perfect security and peace is a mountain. The Lord spares Zoar at his request, and lets him flee thither; but, on seeing the judgment, he flees to the mountain, forced to take refuge there in the end. This is an extreme case; we shall find the same thing true in various degrees. Abraham could give up (that sacrifice always belongs to faith); but there are trials to the believer, because of unbelief - because he is a believer, but in a wrong place. Lot was a "righteous man;" but, when he did not walk in the path of faith, he had vexation of soul and trouble - a righteous soul, but where a righteous soul ought not to be. Observe his incapacity simply to follow the Lord. Observe all his uncertainty. So will it be with us; - if we are walking in the path of unbelief, there will be trouble which is not our proper portion. but which comes upon us because we are in a wrong, worldly place, the trial that belongs to unbelief. We may be seeking the compassion of the Church of God when we are only suffering, like Lot, the fruit of our own unbelief - the simple path of faith having been departed from, because we had not learned to count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. Giving up is our proper position, simple sacrifice in the knowledge and present consciousness that "all things are ours." But the promise is "a hundred-fold more in this present world," and that is not vexation of spirit. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 73: VOL 02 - NOTES ON JOH_17:1-26 ======================================================================== Notes onJohn 17:1-26 This chapter has a very peculiar character, in that it is not the address of the Lord Jesus to His disciples even, much less to the world. It is their admission to hear Him address His Father about them. And we can easily understand that, where such a privilege is given them, we should be let into the fullest possible apprehension of the place in which He has set us. When He spoke to the world, Christ suited Himself to their capacity; and we, in our measure, ought to seek to do the same. But when He was addressing His Father, we can naturally understand that He would speak freely of what He had on His heart about His disciples. But still, as it concerned them (now, through grace, we have received the Spirit who communicates these things to our souls), He spoke it in the audience of the disciples, so that they should hear and know what His heart felt about them. Let me ask you this: If we find that Christ has an interest in us, and that He is speaking to His Father, and speaking of us - of what He has on His heart for our blessing - do our hearts turn with interest to listen and to know what He feels about us? We have wretched cold hearts, it is true - nothing is worse than their deadness and indifference to God. An openly bad, vile man of the world is bad enough; but if I saw a son do what was wrong, and if his father went out and entreated him with all the tender affection of a father, and he did not trouble his heart about what he said, I should say there is no hope now. Therefore, when I find this first truth, that Christ has us on His heart, and can speak to His Father about us - that we are become the object of their common interest; surely our hearts should turn to it. "These things," He said, "I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves." The character of Christ’s love being perfect, was to bring us into the same blessing with Himself. It is very true, but it is not all the truth, that we are blessed through Christ: we are blessed through Him, and that was the perfection of His love. He loves us enough to have us near Him, and have us all in the perfectness of His own heart; and having opened our understandings to see what He is, and to delight in what He is, He gives us the consciousness of His own perfect love. "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." If I always saw perfect blessedness before me, with the consciousness at the same time that I never should have it, that would not give comfort to my heart; but if I have a perfect object before me, with a certainty that I shall possess it, I shall be occupied with that object. Whilst here below we have the consciousness, in looking at our blessing in Christ, that we are not perfectly like what He is; we desire it, we long to be conformed to the image of Christ. But still, if we have in any measure tasted the loveliness of Christ, what distresses the heart is that we are not like Him. But here Christ engages the affections, and brings the heart to this point - the consciousness that this is our place in Him before God, and that all the blessedness that He has is ours. Does it become us to say no? Is it humbleness to be short of that, to say we are unworthy? Is God right? But it is no humbleness to refuse grace. And then, when it is seen to be such grace - unmingled grace - it is no humbleness to speak of not being fit to have such things. If I talk about not, being quite worthy, there is the thought that if I were worthier I should be fit to have these blessings. Here is just where the want of humbleness is. "You ought to be on the right ground with the Lord. That which enables us to have this thought and desire of being brought into the presence and blessing of God, and to be like Christ, is, that all is grace. We are nothing. If we, look at the glory that is before us, it at once puts out the thought of all worthiness in ourselves. Here, then, the Lord is just setting us in His own place upon earth. Poor feeble creatures we are for it; but He is setting us in His place on earth. "Father," he says, "I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me." This chapter is often spoken of as being a prayer. The half is a prayer; but, all the other part is a plain and full exposition, of the ground on which He places us, beginning with His going up to heaven; and then going on to the glory which He will give us: There is the prayer, too - a prayer for us while we are passing through the trials and difficulties of this world. Christ, gives us this place with Himself above, but He speaks while still in the world, that we might have it from His own lips in the world. It is not as taking us out of the world; but He begins it all from that starting-point, that we shall be in the glory. When He was here He did not want any witness; He was Himself the heavenly witness; but now He is gone He sets His saints as His living active epistle in a world that they do not belong to any more than He did. First, then, look at the way in which He introduces us into this place; You will see in the first few verses that it is a question of Himself being glorified "These words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, glorify thy Son . . . as thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him. . . I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glory thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Now there are two thoughts which the Lord brings out there. He says, "Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee," - that is the title which His person gives Him to this glory. And the other is, "I have glorified thee on the earth," etc.; "And now, O Father, glorify thou me," etc.; that is, the Lord presents these two grounds on which He is asking for His glory as man. He is glorified in virtue of His person, and then glorified in virtue of His work. It is in connection with both these titles that we have to see our place on earth. He takes His place with the Father in virtue of His own personal title, and in virtue of His accomplished work. There is the basis which He lays for our admission into this place of blessing; and at the close He says, "I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." The love wherewith the Father had loved Christ should be in the disciples. They should enjoy it; they should have His joy fulfilled in themselves. It is this that. we are called to: the enjoyment in this world of the love that Christ knew here below - of His Father’s love. He was there the Son of God, as man in this world; and what was His delight? Was it from the world? Surely not. Was He of the world? He was not. He was walking in the world; but His character and place while there was as the Son of the Father. There was His joy; not from the world, no more than He was of it, but from the Father. There was His constant blessedness. The wellspring of His delight in a world that hated Him was the constant inflowing of the Father’s love to Him. He was His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased. Now the first point is, how such as we are can get into such a place. The Lord always retained the perfect consciousness of His Father’s love. How can a sinner get there? Though He had declared His Father’s name to the disciples (take, for an example, the sermon on the mount), did they understand it? No; they had not the Spirit of adoption. He revealed the name and character of the Father, but their hearts did not enter into this relationship. Christ, as man walking down here, was the Son of man which is in heaven. His person gives Him this title. He walks through this world in suffering and trial. He suffers from man for righteousness’ sake, and for love’s sake. But whatever the suffering through which He was passing, He always addressed God as His Father during all the time of His life in this world; every expression of His heart was of His conscious relationship to God as Father. But when He comes to the cross, it is, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Upon the cross, all that God was in His holy hatred of sin fell on Christ for our sakes; and hence it was not then a question of love and fellowship, but all else that God was was against Him, as bearing our sins. Was God true? That righteousness was against Him, because of sin. All that God was - His holiness, truth, majesty, righteousness - all, was against, Him, because in the cross He was as the One made sin for us. The one other thing in God’s nature was His love, and that Christ necessarily could not then taste; therefore, on the cross He does not say Father, but it is, "My God, my God!" Afterwards, when just expiring, He does say, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Never was He more perfect, never more acceptable to God, than on the cross. God was a debtor in that sense to Christ; for His character was brought out as it never had been before. If God had merely swept away all men in anger, there would have been no love; if He had spared all in mercy, there would have been no righteousness. But Christ giving Himself up to death, and to the bearing of God’s wrath on the cross, there is perfect righteousness against sin, and perfect love to the sinner. God was there fully glorified in all that He was; And now, having done that - the whole question of sin being settled, and all Christ was being proved in the resurrection - He says, "I will declare thy name unto my brethren." The Lord Jesus then comes, having been heard and answered in resurrection; and now he says, "Go, and tell my brethren, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God;" that is, He brings out both these names now; the relationship in which He had been as a Son with the Father all His life long, and the full effect of all that God was as such, which He had borne as wrath against sin, He now brings, out as entirely for us. If it is a question of God’s righteousness, we are made the righteousness of God in Christ. If it is His love, we are loved with the same love with which Christ was loved. Grace is reigning through righteousness by Jesus Christ. Everything that the Father can be towards sons, that He delights in - as He was to Christ, so He reveals Himself to us. Sin is put entirely away, and by the very word of Christ Himself the disciples are even brought, by the efficacy of His work of redemption, into a place along with Himself. He declares His name unto His brethren "I ascend unto my Father and your Father," etc.; and He puts them in this place after death and judgment has been gone through, and He is risen out of it, so that His righteousness becomes that in which we stand before God. While Christ was upon earth He remained entirely alone, because the atonement was not made. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." But He has died, and now He can bring them into the place belonging to Himself; and that is what He is doing now. Did sin hinder it? Yes; but it is put away. Did righteousness? Yes; but it is for them and for us. If we speak of the sufferings of Christ, there were two kinds of suffering, quite distinct one from the other. In one sense He went through every possible kind of suffering. He suffered from man for righteousness’ sake, and He suffered from God for sin’s sake. The suffering from God for sin He took for us entirely alone; He suffered it that we might not suffer it. He took it fully - drank the cup to the very dregs, and it is done with. In His sufferings for righteousness’ sake, He gives us the privilege of suffering with Him. "To you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake." If we suffer from man for righteousness’ sake, there we are with Him; but with suffering for sin we have nothing to do. He has taken it entirely alone: not one drop is left; no particle or trace of it remains for us. He took it that we might never have it. And now, having done that, He takes another place, in which man, as man, must necessarily remain a stranger to Him. But the fact that Christ is gone up on high is the reason why I can be with Him. When He was upon earth, I could not be in any full sense with Him. Why? Because He was holy, and I was not. But when sin has been put away, and He is gone into heaven, and has taken a place there in the presence of God, He has done that by which I can draw near. He has gone into the presence of God, with a righteousness which gives me a title to be there. Thus, the glory in which Christ is, which He has entered as having accomplished redemption, enables me to be with Him, instead of being a hindrance. I never could be with Him, if He had not been in this glory. He might visit us in mercy, but it is as risen from the dead and gone up on high that He gives us the place of union with Himself before God. What He is doing now, is to reveal this name of the Father to us. When He spoke to Abraham He said, "I am the Almighty God, walk before me." God revealed Himself in a character on which Abraham’s faith was to act: it is the revelation of Himself as the One who was all-powerful, whatever might be the difficulties of the path; and Abraham was to live by faith in that name. He says to Moses, "I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them." Now He takes this name with Israel: He puts Himself in relation with Israel by the name of Jehovah. He was the unchanging One, who would be faithful to His word and oath, however many the changes that Israel might have to pass through. He was thus a perfect Protector; He was the Almighty One; He was Jehovah; but that is not what I want, blessed as it is in its place. I want eternal life. But He comes now with another name. The Son reveals the Father’s name. If I have found this, that the Father has sent the Son to be a Saviour, and that this work is accomplished, I say this is not now merely a Faithful and Almighty Protector, or the One true God that governs the world righteously: He is interested in my salvation. He takes the place of a Father to me, if I receive His Son. I get in Christ the revelation of my place with God, and that, consequent upon the blessed truth that He has taken away the sin that shut me out from the presence of God, and has gone up before the Father, that I may have the very same place that belongs to Him as the Son of the Father. Can I possibly have more than that? Yes, there is even more than that. In virtue of it, there is the Comforter sent down. "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you." The Holy Ghost comes down because of Christ’s being exalted at the right hand of God. He becomes the Spirit of adoption. "Now He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us, and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." So that the place in which we find Christ thus glorified, we find the believer set in, as this righteousness presented to God. The Holy Ghost is given as that which seals me, and gives me the power and blessing of the place into which Christ has brought me. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." There is the relationship. Then there is the work, "I have glorified thee on the earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." He asks then that the Father should glorify Him, and adds, "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. . . Now they have known that all things, whatsoever thou hast given me, are of thee." It was not merely what Messiah received from God, but what the Son had from the Father, that was made known to them. And He adds, "I have given unto them the words which thou gavest met and they have received them," etc. Two things you will find connected with the position in which the disciples’ are thus set: first, that which ministers to their joy, and then the place which they have as witnesses for Him in the world. He has communicated to them all the means of this joy: "I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me." "Henceforth," as He said before, "I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what His Lord doeth; but I have called you friends: for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." Now He puts us in the place of sons, and as sons the words that the Father gives Him He makes known unto us. What Christ does is bringing us into the enjoyment of His own relationship and place with God. The first thing He does is, to secure our being in it by this work of atonement. Then, having wrought this, the next thing is to give us the name by which we are called to know God as the Father; and accordingly He gives us all the words of the Father, that we may have the joy of this place in which He has set us. "I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. . . Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are." He puts them under the shelter of the name "Holy Father." He looked for them to be kept with all the a Father’s tenderness; that is, they are in this world under this name of Holy Father. And then He presents these two motives to His Father for keeping them: first, "for they are thine;" and the other is, "I am glorified in them." Do you believe that the Lord was speaking the truth? When He says He tells us these things, that we might have His joy fulfilled in ourselves, did He really mean so? I believe it. I believe that the Lord meant us to have His joy fulfilled in ourselves. If you tell me that we are poor feeble vessels to have it, that is most true; but He did not speak thus. The possession of life is not power. Power is in Christ, and in Christ alone; for the character of the new man is dependent and obedient. If you say, I have life from God, and therefore I have got power, it is not true; but if you say, I have got life from God, but I have got the temptations of Satan and the world, and all that can seduce me away from the range and exercise of this life, and you say, Father, keep me, I want to be kept, then there will be power. When Paul gets into the third heaven, what is the effect? When there the flesh is not puffed up; for he is there to hear things which he cannot even utter down here. But when he comes down the flesh would use it to say that no one had ever been in the third heaven but himself. He must get that broken down; therefore the thorn is sent, which brings the consciousness of weakness where boasting had been before. We are never in danger in the presence of God; but when we are thinking of having been there, danger is there - the thorn gives conscious weakness to the man himself. In Paul’s case we know it was something that made his preaching contemptible. The Lord has to put us down in every way. The danger of the Christian is, that he is not consciously weak, that the flesh is not put in its place, that he thinks he can do something; but when the flesh is put down, where it had pretended to be something, then the believer can say, "When I am weak, then am I strong," and Christ is exalted. For when Paul, with all this incompetency, was the means of such blessing to others, it is quite clear that it was Christ, and not Paul, that was the strength. This is the truth that is brought out before us in 2 Corinthians 12:1-21 - Christ’s perfect righteousness and glory, which is ours, or the man in Christ; and then the man made nothing of, and Christ in him everything. There is where we get the Christian complete. In both cases it is Paul; but in the one it is the man in Christ, and in the other it is Christ in the man, and the man thus made nothing of. That which the believer has on earth is not only this place in Christ in heaven, but the power of Christ in this world. While we certainly shall have the experience of what we are, at the same time the Scripture shows us always, as such, no necessity in this world for being anything else but Christ. "To me to live is Christ." The fact that the flesh is in me is no reason that I am to walk after it. The power is not in the fact that we have the life, but in exercised dependence upon the life that we have got in Christ. We have seen the full blessedness of this place, that we may have His joy fulfilled in ourselves. And now He goes on to their testimony before the world. "I have given them thy Word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." Here I find the Christian’s place in the world: he is no more of it than Christ. He does not say, They ought not to be; but, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." As Christians deriving your life from Christ, and having your place with Christ, you are not of the world. The life, the place you have got in Christ, all flows from the fact that He has given you a relationship with the Father, in virtue of which you are no more of the world than He Himself was. There is the manifesting of Christ to the world - but these duties and affections flow from a relationship that is established already. It is not as the way of getting into the relationship; but when Christ has become my life, then I must walk as He walked. To the world this becomes a testimony. Of what? What became of Christ Himself? The world would not have Him. "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee." It was as good as saying, There is a complete breach between the world and me. Christ comes into the world in grace, revealing the Father, and the world hated Him; and therefore He goes out of the world, and brings us into His place as gone on high. Will the world bear us any more love than it bore Him? It will not. He is there because the world would not have Him; and it is only as having entered that place by blood and death that He can say, "My Father and your Father, my, God and your God." Now, He says, I will make you a witness of that. You are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world," etc. How are we to get the character and spirit proper to us as such? It is not that we can always be in the third heaven, but that if living the life of Christ, in the power of the Spirit, we shall be manifesting it before the world, as it was with Christ Himself. He could say even as to His path down here, "The Son of man which is in heaven." Was there ever anything in Christ inconsistent with the third heaven? Therefore my life being there, and my heart and affections, I shall walk according to that place. Where is the pathway for such a life through this world? "I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them," etc. "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." That is not quite all. Christ is the truth: the word of God is truth about everything. Do I want to know what my heart is? The Word tells me. Do I want to know what God is? The Word tells me. What Christ as a Saviour is? What Satan and his wiles are? The Word will tell me. And therefore I have the Word to make all plain, when I want to go through the world, which is a labyrinth for any one else; for a labyrinth it naturally must be to all, and to the infidel specially. God is love, and yet there I see such misery of every kind around me; the child of three days old agonizing perhaps, through the fault of its parents; nothing but suffering and sorrow everywhere. Nobody, I say, can understand this: it is unaccountable, except as the Word of God, which is truth, explains it all. Take Christ Himself: He can appeal to them and say, "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" Yet how does it end? He is obliged to confess before men that God has forsaken Him. Their hard hearts take advantage of this, and say, If God delight in Him, let Him deliver Him All is inexplicable; and those who would make this world, as it is, a proof of the righteous government of God, are just doing what the friends of Job did. They were saying that this world could be explained as to the present expression of God’s moral government. But no: there is Job, and he is in the depths of suffering. He was very naughty, but he spoke more rightly than they. He says, I have seen the righteous man suffering, He wants to find God; he says, Oh, if I could see him! but I cannot find Him. All this, I again say, is in itself inexplicable. But the moment I search into the word of God, I have got the key to it all. Take the infidel upon his own ground, and he has not a word to say he is the least capable of any of explaining the facts that are going on every day; for they are inexplicable, except as sin has come in. "Sanctify them through thy truth." It is the word of God applied to judge every thought and feeling that is in me. He does not say, "Sanctify them by the law," but by the word. Persons take the law as a rule, but you want power; you want an object that seizes your affections. What object does the law give you? Where is the thing - the One - you are to love? Where is He? Who is He? The law cannot and does not tell me, save of a judge: I have no object before my soul to give me blessed and holy affections; but the Father’s word does give me this. That is what He goes on to immediately. "As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." "And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth." Now I get something more than the word; it is Christ Himself who is the substance of all that the word speaks about. And therefore Christ says, as regards His place, "For their sakes I sanctify myself" He has gone up to glory, and there, sets Himself apart as the object for our hearts. The Holy Ghost reveals Him to me, and the word, is the revelation of all that is in Christ; it brings to me all that Christ is - "Sanctify them through thy truth." How?, "For their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth." I have now got an object: it is the truth, which will judge everything that is in my heart. This it is that sanctifies me, by showing me the One that I love, and who has said that I am going to be like Him. I have a Christ who has got hold of my heart, who has given me a place with Himself, and has fitted me for it by the revelation of Himself to my heart. And that is what I find here. And besides this place I get the Comforter sent down taking of the things of Christ and showing them to me, revealing to me that He has given me what He has, that I may have it with Him, that I may be like Him, when I see Him as He is. And now the sanctifying power is that the Spirit takes of these things and shows them unto me. More than all, Christ Himself is mine. He is the perfect and blessed Man set apart in the presence of God; and that, transported into my heart in the living power that it has in me through the Spirit, sets me apart to God. It is the truth that sanctifies me; but if I look at what the truth is perfectly, it is Christ. We, "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." "For their sakes," as our Lord says here, "I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth." "Neither pray I for these alone" (He brings in other Christians there), "but for them also which believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." He imparts to us all that He has taken as man in blessing and glory. He will have us enter into His joy while upon earth; and then I find, "And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one." When the Lord comes, and when the saints are displayed in the glory of Christ, and with Him, that will be the revelation to the world that we have been loved as Christ has been loved. "I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one: and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me." But even this is not the best thing He has to give us. He goes on to say, "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world" While He has given us the glory of the inheritance, He puts us before the world as those who have been brought into the same glory with Himself "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." And then the world will say, These poor people that we have despised are loved with the same love Christ was loved with. But while all that is true and most blessed, we shall, besides, have the enjoyment of Himself. We ought to have it now. "I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." We get the present knowledge that we are loved as Jesus is loved; for He has declared the Father’s name to us, and will declare it, that the love wherewith He is loved may be in us, and He in us. There is the place in which He puts the Christian now. Christ will bring us into the glory; but even that, in a sense, is an inferior thing, compared to the enjoyment of Christ Himself. I do not wait till then to know that I am loved as Christ is loved; I know it now the world will know it then. All being founded upon this work that He has done, and upon His being thus in the presence of God, which put us in this Himself, we can say, I know that I am loved as the Father loves Jesus, if Christ says it, "that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." Is it in you? Have you believed Jesus’ word, that the Father has loved you as He loved His own Son? It was not enough for Him to give His Son for you, but He puts you in the same place, and loves you with the same love. If we grieve the Spirit, we may not enjoy the power of it; but there is the place in which Christ has set us to stand with His Father and our Father, His God and our God, and to enjoy Him who is the truth, and who gives us the consciousness of being loved as He Himself is loved. It may be manifested before the world when He comes, but it is ours now; the Lord only give us to believe it. If we are seeking the world, that is not the Father’s love, but enmity to it. "All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away," etc. You will find these three always opposed the one to the other - the flesh and the Spirit, the devil and the Son, the world and the Father. "All that is in the world," if our hearts seek after it, damps the enjoyment of the Father’s love; for we are not of the world, even as Christ was not. The Lord give you to know it, as it is testified of Jesus Himself, and then, as walking in His steps, and sanctified by the revelation of Himself in your heart, to enjoy the real consciousness of the blessedness of the love wherewith the Father loves you. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 74: VOL 02 - O JOYFUL DAY! ======================================================================== O Joyful Day! Oh joyful day! Oh glorious hour!. When Jesus by Almighty power Revived and left the grave; In all His work behold Him great, Before, Almighty to create, Almighty now to save. The first-begotten from the dead, He’s risen now, His people’s Head, And thus their life’s secure; And if, like Him, they yield their breath, Like Him they’ll burst the bonds of death, Their resurrection sure. Why should His people then be sad? None have such reason to be glad As those redeem’d to God; Jesus, the mighty Saviour, lives; To them eternal life He gives, The purchase of His blood. Then let our gladsome praise resound, And let us in His work abound, Whose blessed name is Love; We’re sure our labour’s not in vain, For we with Him ere long shall reign; With Jesus dwell above. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 75: VOL 02 - OH GRANT ME BY THY GRACE ======================================================================== Oh grant me by Thy grace To walk by faith alone, Until before my Father’s face I know as I am known! J. G. Bellett. London: W. H. Broom, 25, Paternoster Square. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 76: VOL 02 - OMNISCIENCE ======================================================================== Omniscience A word on God’s searchings. Psalms 139:1-24. It is a solemn thought for the soul to be under the searching of Omniscience itself. Yet this is the foundation of solid peace to him who believes the gospel of the grace of God. The searching of Omniscience, moreover, gives real value to the present priestly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ; and it will be found also the only ground of practical holiness. In this respect there is an essential difference between him that is spiritual, and a man even of deep thought and high intellect. He that is quickened by the Spirit, is frequently able to interpret things strange and paradoxical to others. "The spiritual man judgeth all things," and he knows "the end of the Lord." Every human being has been searched by Omniscience, whether he is conscious of it or not. This will be made clear "in the day when God will judge the secrets of men." The searching of "the thoughts and intents of the heart" by the word of God now, is the means of bringing God’s knowledge into application to our conscience before "that day." And when this is the case, then are we conscious that our thoughts are understood afar off, and that there is not a word in the tongue, but the Lord knoweth it altogether. He has "beset us behind and before." He can look backward, and He can look forward also. All our history is before Him, as if it had been written after we had run our course. "O Lord, thou hast searched me," is the language of the Psalmist; not "thou art doing it now, or wilt do it hereafter, but thou hast done it already." "O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou winnowest (marg.) my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways." (vv. 1-3.) We do not like to have our paths winnowed. We like to be accredited by men for our zeal and devotedness. But when our paths are winnowed, all our thoughts are discovered and opened to us. If God acted toward us according to our experience of ourselves, what believer would not have his peace disturbed? The practical experience of "the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of our hearts" is from bad to worse. Herein is the great error of that which is termed progressive sanctification. God is not forming a people for their own, but "for His praise." He is showing them what they are in themselves, in order to show them by His Spirit the blessed suitability of Christ to all their need. If God be winnowing our path, it is on the ground that He has searched us already, known us altogether, and provided for what He knows we need. "The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow." This is a painful process, either "pricking the heart," and leading to godly sorrow (Acts 2:1-47 :); or "cutting the heart" (Acts 7:54), stinging the conscience. And the word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight; but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. And when the Word thus performs its office, it leads us to value the priesthood of Christ. "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest," etc. We can never get from under this searching process - "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee." (vv. 7-12.) The Lord Jesus says to the church of Thyatira "All the churches shall know that I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts." When God quickens a sinner, dead in trespasses and sins, He makes him to know what it is to be, not only a sinner by acts of disobedience, but a sinner by nature, that sin "dwelleth" in him. And this He does by searching him, and winnowing his paths, and making him, in measure, see himself even as God sees him. The Lord Jesus did not commit Himself to those who believed in His name, when they saw His miracles, "because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for He knew what was in man." (John 2:23-25.) With the fairest outside, both as to candour and religion, He knew what was in man. Others might have judged that conviction was the groundwork of their faith; but such is man’s heart, that miracles do not produce solid conviction. Jesus knew this, for He knew all men. Israel of old saw "the great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians." "Then believed they His words, they sang His praise. They soon forgat His works." And when the Lord again visited Israel, this was the testimony, "Ye also have seen me, and believe not." "Though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him." His own select disciples, the eye witnesses of His miracles, forsook Him and fled, when He was betrayed into the hands of men. When the searching of Omniscience discovers to one what it really is to be a sinner, and that good does not dwell in him, that is in his flesh, it discovers also that the ground on which God is acting towards him is that of the fullest grace. The God who knows all our hearts, knows that these hearts are beyond measure worse than all the sins we have committed. His verdict against man is still the same that it was before the flood, "The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth;" "Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually." All the progress of man has not set aside this verdict of God. We must recognize then that God knows us, knows us just as we are, knew us from the very outset, as He says to Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations" (Jeremiah 1:5); or as later with the apostle: "When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace," etc. (Galatians 1:15.) God knows us from the beginning to the end of our course; His estimate of us is, "The flesh profiteth nothing;" and it is well if we lay down this estimate as our first axiom. But then the same God has spoken to us in the gospel of the remission of sin. But it is remission of sin according to His omniscience, therefore, of all sin; and if God speaks to us of the righteousness of faith, it is, according to His omniscience, "everlasting righteousness." "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and for ever," has thrown the efficacy of what He Himself is into all that He has done. He has offered one sacrifice for sins of abiding efficacy. He has "obtained eternal redemption," and "brought in everlasting righteousness." He has "perfected for ever them that are sanctified." He is "consecrated a priest for evermore." All the value of the work and offices of Christ flows from the glory of His person. The whole question between God and the awakened sinner is settled upon the ground of the unalterable value of what Christ has done. In this sense, the word "progressive" is human, not divine. "It is finished" excludes the idea of progression. "I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever nothing can be put to it, or anything taken from it: and God doeth it that men may fear before Him." "Progress" is, necessarily associated with change, but truth is immutable. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and for ever." We have all truth in the Word and the Spirit to guide into all truth. The work of the Lord Jesus Christ is commensurate with, yea, rises infinitely above, all our need as sinners. There are things reported unto us by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, to tell out heaven’s estimate of Christ’s sufferings, and the glory to follow, which angels desire to look into. (1 Peter 1:12.) The great hindrance to solid peace is a reasoning still in our own minds, as to whether we are really as bad as God knows us to be. It is expecting to find ourselves better and better in ourselves, instead of seeing that God acts upon His own omniscience as to what we are, and not upon what we are thinking of ourselves, and presents to us His own estimate of Christ’s work and priesthood. The gospel is "the gospel of God." (Romans 1:1.) It is God who bears witness to the total ruin of man, and it is the same God who bears testimony to the complete efficacy of Christ’s work. This is of all importance; for no one perfectly knows the badness of his own heart, and no one perfectly knows the perfections of Christ. We shall be learners throughout eternity of Christ’s perfections. "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well." (5: 14.) Most marvellous! Look at man; is he not most skilfully and wonderfully contrived? Physically and morally, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. If we regard the second Man, the Lord from heaven, Immanuel, God with us, the One testified unto by Jehovah of hosts as "the Man my fellow," Him who fills the highest heavens, and yet was down here a babe in a manger, who could command the waves and still the storm, but was buffeted by His creatures - how fearfully and wonderfully made! But we are looking at the psalm in another aspect, and who so fearfully and wonderfully made as one quickened by the Spirit, the believer in God’s testimony to His Son? The believer holds to two heads. As naturally constituted, we are under "the law of sin and death." Men may deny that man is so constituted; but the fact is before our eyes, that no progress man has made, no advancement, no cultivation, no invention, has liberated him from "the law of sin and death." This is what human philanthropy cannot achieve. But it is here divine philanthropy begins. "God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ." (Ephesians 2:4-5.) "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:2.) How fearfully and wonderfully are believers made, holding both to the first and to the second Adam! And when we look within, how fearfully and wonderfully made! Our souls know what it is to leave things here behind, and to find Christ excellently precious; and then some vain trifle comes in and pulls us down, and makes us more intensely interested about the passing trifle than all the solid realities which are in Christ Jesus. Those who have learned something of themselves, know how often their songs of gratitude and praise are succeeded by murmurings, as with Israel of old; yea, they know how the atheistic thought that would dethrone God has battled with the spirit which would fain praise God for redeeming grace and delivering mercy. Those who are taught by the Spirit of truth are learning the unmitigated evil of the flesh. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." In practice we often contradict this truth, probing into that which is below, and only learning disappointment. But God is never disappointed when we are disappointed. He leads us to be disappointed with ourselves, in order that we may better learn our need of and be satisfied with Christ. It is hard and painful to us to be stripped of self, to be searched and winnowed. We become disappointed with the world, disappointed with other Christians (and this may be needful); but when God winnows our path, we learn to be thoroughly disappointed with ourselves. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork. But "we are His workmanship." We are not workers, for "by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship." And this we are "to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God," as well as that "in the ages to come He may show forth the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus." The Church of the living God is God’s, peculiar workmanship. There is a false church, the workmanship of man under the guidance of Satan, a foil to the true church. If Christ has a Bride, there is a harlot audaciously claiming this honoured place. If God has His city, the heavenly Jerusalem, man is rearing Babylon (let us beware of her delicacies). If there are those who are sealed with the seal of the living God in their foreheads, there are those who have the mark of the beast. But the church of the living God is so peculiarly the workmanship of God, that whenever man has attempted to uphold, strengthen, or form it, he has undermined, weakened, and marred it. God is a jealous God, and He is very jealous of man’s presumption in interfering with His Church. "My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." (vv. 15, 16.) We may remark in passing, that "substance yet being unperfect" is one word in the original. Our translators have made use of a strange word, ’unperfect,’ in order to show that the sense is not that of imperfect. The new-born babe is a perfect human being, as truly as a man. The rudiments of man are all wrapped up in the babe. The eye of God sees all these rudiments before they are unfolded. When a sign was given from heaven to the shepherds, it was, "Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger;" a strange sign, yet the testimony of heaven, and faith’s acknowledgment, was to that babe, as Christ Jehovah. Disappointed as we must needs be with ourselves, let us well mark this, that with respect to the members of Christ’s mystical body, God sees in every one of them the rudiments of that which shall shine forth in the day of Christ, to the praise of His glory. We might avail ourselves of many things in nature in illustration, as for instance the fragile egg of a bird. That egg is perfect, but we do not see in it the bill, the foot, or the wing on which the future lark shall rise toward heaven, trilling its sweet song. But God sees all these there. He did not tell Abraham, A father of many nations will I make thee, but "I have made thee." It is written, "Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified." God must speak His own language. There are links in the divine chain, and our experience may come in as though to separate them; but God sees in each "vessel of mercy" one "afore prepared unto glory." The members of Christ’s mystical body are being here formed out of strange materials, and in a strange place, for that hour when they shall be glorified saints. Angels see God’s works in creation, in providence, and in those things in which they are the executors of His will, but they see nothing to compare with the wonderful workmanship of God in quickening into life those who were dead in trespasses and sins. But how unlike are such to glory! groaning in bodies of sin and death; groaning in the midst of and with a groaning creation - how unlike glory! But God sees us "yet being unperfect." He sees us through and through, and He sees us as His grace has made us to be in Christ. He too has made provision for us in Christ, for all that He knows we need. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." There is a blessed turn in the psalm at verses 17, 18, "How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand," etc. This is a blessed theme, the theme of God’s thoughts - higher, as the heavens are higher than the earth, than our thoughts, the theme of God’s fathomless and illimitable grace. Here there is real liberty. Do we know what it is to have our own thoughts, so narrow, so beggared, so mean, beaten down by God’s high, generous, liberal thoughts - His thoughts of us as to what we are in Christ? "It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore" (says Jesus), "that hath heard, and learned of the Father, cometh unto ME." Jesus is the great thought of God - God’s thoughts are expressed to us in Him. It is not an unfallen angel, but a sinner quickened by the Spirit of God, who can thus get into the deep thoughts of God. When He is winnowing our ways, how precious are His thoughts to us! We sometimes try to put one another to shame, to degrade one another; but God works for an expected end. He only humbles us in order to exalt us; He suffers us to hunger in order to "prove us, and do us good at our latter end." The time is come when judgment must begin at the house of God. He will search each individual Christian, and make him consciously know the ground on which he can stand before God. "If it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? and if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" We can understand the meaning of the word "scarcely," when our path is winnowed. It does not imply either uncertainty or imperfection in the salvation which is of God, but we learn that salvation must be of God, and our constant need of it. Finished and complete in itself, faith apprehends it as continually needed, as though our whole life was one of escapes, and "He that is our God is the God of salvation." "He hath delivered, He doth deliver, in whom we trust that He will yet deliver." Those who, in exercise of soul, find out what is in their own hearts, well know that all that is going on in the world around them is but the manifestation of the very evil, the principles of which God has been discovering, and they have been judging, in their own hearts. There is a present restraint, under God’s hand, on man’s evil. Once for a moment God removed it: "This is your hour, and the power of darkness." Again He will remove it, and men will be given over to "strong delusion, to believe a lie: that they all may be damned who believe not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness." The present moment is a solemn one - popery and semi-popery spreading on the one hand, rationalism and infidelity on the other. Of our own selves we must judge righteous judgment. "Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God." (vv. 19, 20.) If He is sifting His own people, He will judge all this proud Christianity, whether sacerdotal or sacramental efficacy, or despising lordship and government. But is the knowledge of being delivered from the wrath to come to settle us in self-complacency? By no means; but under the sheltering certainty that God has searched and known us (as expressed in the first verse of this psalm), we can turn this truth into a prayer, and say, in the words of the concluding verses, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." (vv. 23; 24.) None but he who knows the shelter of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the mercy seat of God, and is conscious that God has already searched him, and known him, could put up such a prayer. God must be acknowledged as Omniscient. We need Him to help us in searching ourselves, because we are partial in self-judgment. The beam is in our own eye, the mote in our brother’s eye, and nothing but the Spirit of God can enable us to get the beam out. It is He who searches the reins and hearts who has said, "Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more;" and it is because He remembers them no more, that we can ask Him to show us what debtors we are to His grace. There was once a man of like passions with ourselves, one who had cursed, and sworn, and denied his Lord, but for whom that Lord had prayed, "Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." And after this terrible sifting, when the Lord searched him, twice he answered readily to the challenge, as oft repeated - "Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee." But the question was repeated a third time: "And Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto Him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." The Lord, in order to get at the bottom of our hearts, may have to remove a great heap of rubbish, such as self-confidence, pride and vanity; but He knows what His own grace has done for us, and He will find His love at the bottom of our hearts. He had to remove a great deal from Peter, a mass of fleshly confidence and forward zeal; He may have to take away from us much of that in which we have gloried; but after all He will bring out, "Thou knowest that I love thee," personal affection for Himself. In the winnowing of our paths, much may have to be winnowed out that has been cherished more than Christ Himself, but there is at the bottom faith in Christ, and love to Christ. What a mixture of double-mindedness, of pride, of vanity, there is in the best thing we do. Our prayers, our praises, and our service are so poor and worthless, and yet we are proud of them. We seek praise from our fellow-men for the very things we have to confess, as tainted with sin, before God. What need therefore to bare our hearts, and say, "See if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting"? We, perhaps, are not able to detect some particular evil in our own souls, and others may not suspect it. There are instances in which we may thankfully say, "I know nothing by myself;" yet how needful to add, "yet am I not hereby justified; but He that judgeth me is the Lord." But when the Lord applies Himself to His priestly discerning judgment, as the One who searcheth the reins and trieth the heart, we may be led to one discovery after another of some crookedness of motive, sufficient of itself to disturb our peace, but used by the Lord to lead us into "the way everlasting." And is not this way Christ Himself, the only way, the true way, the living way, the way everlasting? How prone are we to depart from this way, therefore is He pleased to search out our own ways, that He may lead us therein, to show us that Christ must be practically to us that which He declares Himself to be in His word - "The first and the last," our "Alpha and our Omega." Happy is it if we are under that process which, however humbling to ourselves and humiliating in the eyes of others, leads us still to justify God in using it, and to say, "Search me, O God." All is well that leads us "in the way everlasting," that beats us out of our own ways and brings us there, that makes us in result value Christ for the way as well as at the outset, and the end - Christ learnt as our portion to live upon, as well as known for the pardon of our sins. The Lord grant to all His people the blessed secret of self-judgment. "If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged." But if we do not, and are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, "that we may not be condemned with the world." _______ When the flesh is not put down as nothing, the Holy Ghost acts in controversy, not in energy. Faith, though it has a large stock to draw from in God, has no purse or scrip in man wherein to carry about the expenses of the journey. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." The Lord will neither hasten, nor delay, nor change His movements because of our thoughts; neither will He teach concerning His movements those who will argue and think out truth, instead of praying it out. In the Bible, in the church, in the dispensations of the whole of God’s providence there are things to be joined, but God must join them; there are difficulties to be reconciled, but we cannot solve the problem. See that the wound which sin hath made in thy soul be perfectly cured by the blood of Christ, not skinned over with duties, tears, enlargements, etc. Apply what thou wilt besides the blood of Christ, it will poison the sore. If any one, instead of looking for the Holy Ghost’s guidance, dabbles with his own mind in Scripture, he will see either something in the book which is not there, or the contents of the book out of their proper order and relative importance. It is safer to be humble with one talent, then proud with ten. Depend upon it, if there is not the slaying of the lion and the bear in secret, there will be no killing of Goliath in public. (1 Samuel 17:36.) A man is really what he is before God, and no more. When Christ was praying, Peter was sleeping; when Christ was submitting, Peter was fighting; when Christ was suffering like a lamb, Peter was cursing and swearing. This is just the flesh - in energy when we ought to be still; sleeping when we ought to be working. It is better to trust God in doing His will, than the consequences which doing His will may produce, however blessed. It is a very sad thing to say, but we like our own flesh, generally, a great deal better than we do the flesh in others. Growth in grace manifests itself by a simplicity - that is, a greater naturalness of character. There will be more usefulness, and less noise; more tenderness of conscience, and less scrupulosity. Self-will is so ardent and active, that it will break a world in pieces, to make a stool to sit upon. He that never changed any of his opinions, never corrected any of his mistakes; and he who was never wise enough to find out any mistakes in himself, will not be charitable enough to excuse what he reckons mistakes in others. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 77: VOL 02 - ON THE EXPERIENCE OF ABRAHAM AND OF JACOB ======================================================================== On the Experience of Abraham and of Jacob The experiences of the heart occupy a large place in the thoughts of Christians. It is, nevertheless, important always to judge them by the word of God. These experiences are the expression of the inward state of the heart, and of our relations with others, as well as of the sentiments which our conduct, in these same relations, produces in our hearts and in our consciences. It is not necessary here to speak of the experience of an unconverted person, although such a one is, nevertheless, not without experiences. It is true, that he does not know God; but, in a certain sense, he enjoys His goodness in nature - his conscience can blame him - he can be weary of sin, and alarmed at the thought of judgment. He can even forget the latter in the enjoyment of his family and society in a life naturally amiable; but he can do no more. Nevertheless, there is a great variety in the experiences of men in whom the Spirit of God is working. This difference arises, on the one hand, from the relations in which we stand to God, and, on the other, from our conduct in the same relations. It is true that God has not put us under the law; yet, nevertheless, an awakened conscience is, as regards its relationship to God, either under the law or under grace. The Spirit of God, who has awakened it, has caused its light to enter, and produces there the feeling of its responsibility. I put myself under the law as long as I make my acceptance with God to depend on my faithfulness to God; that is, on the fulfilment of my duties. If, on the other hand, the love of God and His work in Christ are, for my conscience, the only and perfect ground of my adoption, then am I under grace. The Holy Spirit cannot weaken the responsibility; but He can reveal to me that God has saved my soul, which was lost because my life did not answer this responsibility. As long as the awakened soul remains under the law, it has sad experiences; it feels that it is guilty according to the law, and that it has no power to keep it. It is well aware that the law is good; but, in spite of all its efforts, it does not attain its object, which is obedience. The experiences of souls in such a state are the experiences of their sin, of their weakness, and of the power of sin. Even supposing such a soul should not be as yet altogether brought to despair by the expectation of the just judgment of God, because it experiences in a slight degree the love of God, and because it hopes in the work of Christ, there will not be less uncertainty as to its relations with God, and this gives place to alternations of peace and trouble. In the latter case, the soul has indeed been drawn by grace; but the conscience has not been purified, and the heart not set at liberty. These experiences are useful, in order to convince us of sin and weakness, and to destroy all confidence in ourselves. It is necessary that we should feel ourselves condemned before God, and that we should know, that henceforth all depends on His unmerited grace. It is otherwise when our conscience is purged, and we have understood our position before God in Christ. Condemned in the presence of God, we understand that God has loved us, and that He justifies us by the work of His Son; we understand that sin is taken away, and our conscience is made perfect. We have no longer conscience of sins before God, because He Himself has taken them away for ever by the blood of Christ, and that blood is always before His eyes; we know, that being united with Christ, who has fully glorified God in that which concerns our sins, we have been made the righteousness of God in Him. So the heart is free to enjoy His love in the presence of God. Thenceforth we are under grace; our relations with God depend, thenceforth, on God’s nature, and the righteousness which Christ is become for us. Our relations with God do not depend on what we are before Him as responsible beings. Our experiences thenceforth ever return to this: that God is love, that Christ is our righteousness, and God our Father. We have communion with God and with His Son Jesus Christ. We enjoy all the privileges of that relation. Nevertheless, the use which we make of our privileges affects that enjoyment. These relations remain constantly the same, as well as the perception which we have of them; but the enjoyment of what God is in that relation, depends on our conduct in such a position. The experiences are always founded on my relations with God. Am I sad? It is because the communion with God - communion which answers to my relations to Him - is interrupted. I feel that I do not enjoy the blessed communion to which I have attained, and it is this that causes my sadness; but this does not arise from uncertainty as to the communion itself. The flesh has no relations with God; and the flesh is ever in us. And "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." (Romans 5:5.) By this Spirit we have communion with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:7); and we are called on to walk in the light, as God Himself is in the light. (1 John 1:7.) Our communion with God depends on our walking in the light, although, when we have lost it, God can visit us by His grace, and restore communion. But God is faithful, and does not permit sin in His children. If they do not walk with Him in the light, He will cause them to pass through all the trials and all the conflicts necessary to bring them to the knowledge of themselves, that they may remain in the light, and that their communion may be true and pure. It is true that these trials and conflicts do not affect our relations with God, because they depend on what God is in Christ, according to His grace and righteousness; but the suspension of communion with God, a suspension which puts us outside of the enjoyment of the light, brings us into all kinds of conflicts, and painful and humbling experiences of what our own heart really is. God Himself also employs correction to humble us and break our will. Not only is the actual fall into sin an opportunity for the dealing of God with our souls, but all that is hard and rebellious in our souls also affords an opportunity for it. The consequence of these truths is, that the experiences of a soul that walks with God are far more simple than the experiences of an unfaithful soul; and, nevertheless, the knowledge of God and of the heart of man will be far deeper in the former case. As long as we walk in communion with Him, we walk in the light; and we have, in His presence, the continual sense of His fatherly love. Nevertheless, this presence acts upon our soul, to manifest all that is not in harmony with the light. The judgment of ourselves takes place in the presence of God, in the sense of His love, and in connection with that love. Sin has the character of everything which is not light; and is judged, not only because sin cannot agree with holiness, but also because it does not agree with the love of God. With hearts purified by the love of God, and strengthened by communion with Him, the grace which acts thus in us, takes the place of sin which has been judged, and thenceforth our walk in the world is the effect of the communion of God in our hearts. We carry God, so to speak, through the world in our hearts. Filled with His love, and living in the power of the life of Christ, that which Satan offers does not tempt us. Our worldly trials become a motive to obedience and not to sin. The presence of God in our hearts preserves us in our relations with men. Thenceforth we experience proofs of our corruption in the presence of God, and in communion with Him. It is thus we judge sin in ourselves, and sin thus judged does not appear in our walk. But if we do not walk in fellowship with God, if sin is not thus judged, we walk more or less in the world with a rebellious will and lusts unjudged. The action of our self-will makes us uneasy, because we are not satisfied. Are we satisfied? Then God is forgotten. Satan presents temptations which answer to unjudged lusts; then the corruption of the heart manifests itself by a fall, and by our relations with Satan, which take the place of our relations with God. Such a knowledge of the corruption of the heart will be never so deep, never so clear, never so true, as that which we shall have obtained in the presence of God by the light itself. We shall know sin by sin, by a bad conscience, instead of knowing it by the light of God Himself. We shall be humbled, instead of being humble. The faithfulness of God will restore the soul; but the continued power and growing light of His communion will not be the same. It is true we shall experience His patience and His goodness; but we shall not know God in the same way as when walking faithfully in communion with Him. It is true, God glorifies Himself by His ways with such a soul, because all things concur to His eternal glory; but the knowledge of God grows by our communion with Him. The life of Abraham and that of Jacob come in the way of interesting examples in support of what we have been saying. It is true that neither the law, nor the fulness of grace, had been as yet revealed. Nevertheless, as we see in Hebrews 11:1-40, the principles of the life of faith on the promises of God were in general the same. "In many things we offend all." Abraham himself failed in faith on some occasions; but in general his life was a walk of faith with God. This is the reason why his experiences are of another nature, far more intimate with God, and more simple, than those of Jacob. His history is short, and not rich in incidents; while the communications of God to this patriarch are numerous and frequent. In his history there is much about God, and little about man. With one single exception, Abraham always remained in the land of promise. He was indeed a stranger and pilgrim, because the Canaanites dwelt there (Genesis 12:6), but he was in relation with God, and walked before Him. At first when God had called him, he had not fully answered this call. It is true be left indeed his country and kindred, but not his father’s house, and so he did not arrive in Canaan. It is true he had given up a great deal; he had gone from Ur in Chaldea, but he came no farther than Charran, and rested there. (Genesis 11:31-32.) So it is with the heart that has not learned that it belongs entirely to God. It is only in conformity with the call of God that we can enter into the position of the promise. After the death of his father Terah, Abraham started at the command of God; and they set out to come into the land of Canaan, and they entered into it. (Genesis 12:5.) Here we have the position of the heavenly people. Placed by the grace and power of God in a heavenly position, of which Canaan is a figure, they dwell there; they have everything in promise, but nothing as yet in possession. The Lord revealed Himself to Abraham in calling him; He reveals Himself anew to him in the place which he now knew, and which he was going to possess: "I will give this land to thy posterity." (5: 7.) Such is in general our confidence in God, that we shall possess really in future that which we know now as strangers. "And Abraham built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him." (5: 7.) He serves God and enjoys communion with Him. Thence he goes into another place, and there pitches his tent; he builds anew an altar to the Lord, and calls on the name of Jehovah. (5: 8.) He is a pilgrim in the land of promise, and that is his entire history. We dwell in the heavenly places, we enjoy them by faith, and we have communion with God, who brought us thither. Abraham’s tent and altar in this place give a character to his whole history, and all the experiences of faith consist in that. His unbelief brings him into Egypt. (vv. 10-21.) There he had no altar. An Egyptian servant-maid becomes afterwards the occasion of his fall, and a source of trouble to him. She is, as we learn in Galatians 4:24-25, a type of the law; for the law and the flesh are always in relationship with each other. The grace of God brings Abraham back; but he does not regain an altar till he has returned to the place where he first pitched his tent, and to the altar which he had built before: there he has communion afresh with God. (Genesis 13:3-4.) The promises of God are the portion of Abraham. He lets Lot take what he pleases: "Is not the whole land before thee? Depart from me, I pray thee. If thou choosest the left, I will take the right; and if thou take the right, I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw the whole plain of Jordan, which, before the Lord had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, was watered throughout until one comes to Zoar, like the garden of the Lord, and like the land of Egypt. And Lot chose for himself the whole plain of Jordan." (vv. 9-11.) Lot is the type of a worldly believer. He takes that which for the moment appears the better part, and chooses the place over which the judgment of God is suspended. Abraham had given up everything according to the flesh, and God shows him the whole extent of the promise. He gives him a visible proof of that which He has given him, and confirms it to him for ever. (vv. 14-18.) Lot, the worldly believer, is overcome by the princes of the world. Abraham delivers him. With the servants of his house he overcomes the power of the enemy. (14:1-21.) He will receive nothing of the world. He says to the king of Sodom, "I have lifted up my hand to the Lord, the mighty God, the Sovereign, the possessor of heaven and earth, saying, Surely I will take nothing of all that belongeth to thee, from a thread to a shoe-latchet, lost thou shouldest say, I have made Abraham rich." (Genesis 14:22-23.) Afterwards God reveals Himself to Abraham as his buckler and great reward. He promises him a posterity at a time when his body was now dead; justified by faith, he receives the confirmation of the promises of God, who binds Himself by a sacrifice, type of the sacrifice of Christ. Then the inheritance is shown him in its details. (Genesis 15:1-21) Following the counsels of the flesh, Abraham desires for a moment the fulfilment of the promise by the law; that is to say, by Hagar. But thus he only learns that it is impossible that the child of the law should inherit with the child of promise. (Genesis 16:1-16) Then God reveals Himself anew as God Almighty. He tells him that he shall be the father of many nations, and that God will be his God for ever. (Genesis 17:1-14.) The posterity according to the promise is promised again. (Genesis 17:15-19.) After that, God once more visits Abraham, and gives him positive promises respecting the approaching birth of his son. (Genesis 18:9-15.) He looks upon him as his friend, saying, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am going to do?" (Genesis 18:17.) He communicates to him His thoughts concerning the world, and Abraham converses with Him freely and in perfect peace. He prays for those who had forgotten the Lord. (Genesis 18:23-33.) It was necessary that Abraham should again experience, in the case of Ishmael, that the law produces sadness and anguish; and at the court of Abimelech he learned to know, that when unbelief is in action, it only produces troubles and sorrow. But God, in His faithfulness, watches over him, as well as over the mother of the posterity. Afterwards, Abraham was tried in the highest degree, till he had to give up everything according to the flesh, and even the promises. But the promises in a Christ raised in figure are confirmed to Christ Himself, and in Him to all the spiritual posterity of Abraham. (Genesis 22:15-19; compare Galatians 3:16-18.) Abraham then has learned by a fall that neither the law nor the promise are of any avail for the flesh; nevertheless, in general, his peculiar experiences consisted in pilgrimage and adoration, all the time he continued in the promised land. We have now remarked that his life is characterised by a tent and an altar. The whole experience, the whole life of the faithful Abraham, consists almost entirely of worship, intercession, and revelations from God; so that he learned to comprehend these latter with increasing clearness and accuracy. He passed his time in the place to which God had called him. The revelations of God were for him rich, sweet, and admirable. His knowledge of God intimate and deep, his personal experiences happy and simple; for he walked with God, who had revealed Himself to him, in grace. Now let us also examine a little more closely the life and history of Jacob. Jacob was the inheritor of the same promise, and, as a believer, he valued it; but he did not trust in God alone. He did not walk, like Abraham, in daily fellowship with the Lord, and waiting upon the Lord. It is true he received the promise, but his experiences were very different from those of Abraham. Although at the end of his life he could say, "The angel that delivered me from all evil," (Genesis 48:16) he, nevertheless, was constrained to add, "The days of the years of my pilgrimage have been few and evil, and have not arrived at the days of the years of the life of my fathers, of the time of their pilgrimages." (Genesis 47:9.) The variety of his experience is a proof of unfaithfulness. In compliance with his mother’s advice, he employed profane means to obtain his father’s blessing; and was obliged, through fear of his deceived but profane brother, to leave the land of promise. (Genesis 27:28.) Now his position is altogether changed; his unbelief has driven him out of the land of promise. His pilgrimage is not, like that of Abraham, in the land, but outside of it. It is true, God watches over him, waits on him, and preserves him; but he does not walk with God. He has no altar till his return, after a course of painful experiences. (Genesis 33:20.) He had no full communion with God till he returned to the place where he had last enjoyed the revelation of God, and where he had been strengthened by His promises. For one-and-twenty years he had to do with men who cheated and oppressed him, while God preserved him in secret; but he could not possibly have an altar outside the land of promise. We also worship God, and we have communion with God, while we dwell in spirit in heavenly places, there, where God Himself has given us our proper place. But if we get outside of it, we can have no fellowship with Him, although He knows how to keep us by His grace and faithfulness. At the end of twenty-one years, God orders Jacob to return. He must flee far from his father-in-law like a guilty fugitive. It is impossible to be pure from the world if we have lost heavenly communion with God; and it is difficult not to carry away something that belongs to the world, if we abandon that communion. But God is faithful. From that moment a course of experiences begins for Jacob (as they are generally called), but which, nevertheless, are nothing more than the effects of his getting away from God. Delivered from Laban, Jacob pursues his journey towards Canaan; and God, to comfort and fortify him, sends an army of His angels to meet him. (Genesis 32:1.) Nevertheless, notwithstanding this encouragement from God, unbelief, which deliverance from danger does not destroy, renews Jacob’s fear in the presence of his brother Esau. One does not get rid of the difficulties of the path of faith by trying to avoid them; one must surmount them by the power of God. Jacob had brought these difficulties upon himself, because he had not trusted in God. The host of God was forgotten, and the army of Esau, who no longer cherished in heart hatred against his brother, frightened the feeble Jacob. (Genesis 32:7.) He could then employ all kinds of means to appease the presumed and dreaded anger of his brother. He causes flock after flock to pass, and that does more to show the state of the heart of Jacob, than to change that of Esau. Nevertheless, Jacob thinks of God; he reminds Him that He told him lie ought to return; he implores Him to save him from the hands of his brother; he thinks of the state in which he left the country, and acknowledges that God has given him all his possessions. (Genesis 32:9-11.) But his prayer discovers an ungrounded fear. He reminds God of His promises, as if it were possible that He had forgotten them. It is true there is faith there, but the effect of unbelief produces a wild and confused picture. The timid Jacob has not only sent forward his flocks to appease Esau (Genesis 32:13-20), but he sends his whole family across the brook, and remains behind alone. (5: 22, 24.) His heart is filled with anxieties. But God, who guides all, awaits him precisely there. Although He had not permitted Esau to touch so much as a hair of Jacob’s head, He nevertheless had Himself to judge him, and bring him into the light of His presence; for Jacob could in no other way enjoy the land of promise with God. God wrestles with him in the darkness till daybreak. (5: 24.) It is not here Jacob wrestling with God of his own accord; but it is God wrestling against him. He could not bless him simply, like Abraham; he must first correct the unbelief of his heart. Jacob must experience the effects of his conduct - he must even suffer, because God will bless him. Nevertheless, the love of God is acting in all this. He gives strength to Jacob during the conflict in which he must engage to obtain the blessings, to persevere in waiting for them. He will nevertheless have to retain a lasting proof of his weakness and previous unfaithfulness. His hip-joint had been put out while God wrestled with him. (5: 25.) And not only that, but God also refuses to reveal His name to him unreservedly. He blesses Jacob. He gives him a name in memorial of his fight of faith, but He does not reveal Himself. How great is the difference here between Jacob and Abraham! God reveals His name to the latter without being asked to do so, that Abraham may know Him fully; for Abraham generally walked with Him in the power of this revelation. He had no conflict with God; and, far from having to fear his kinsfolk, he overcame the power of the kings of this world. He is there as a prince among the inhabitants of the land. God frequently converses with him; and instead of wrestling with Him to obtain a blessing for himself, Abraham intercedes for others. He sees the judgment of the world from the height where he was in communion with God. Let us return to the history of Jacob. Notwithstanding all, his fear never leaves him. Blessed by God by means of his conflict, he still trembles before his brother Esau. He divides his children and wives according to the measuring of his affections, so that those whom he most loved where at the greatest distance from Esau. Only then does he undertake to go to meet his brother. But nevertheless he deceives him again. He evades the offer of an escort which Esau makes him, and promises to follow him a little more gently to his residence near Seir. (Genesis 33:14.) But Jacob went to Succoth. (5: 17.) Now Israel (Jacob) is in the country, nevertheless his heart having been long accustomed to the condition of a traveller without God, he knows not how to become a pilgrim with God. He buys a field near Sichem, and settles himself in a place where Abraham was only a stranger, and where, knowing the will of God, he had not possessed a spot of ground whereon to set his foot. (5: 19.) It is at Sichem for the first time, and after having returned into the land, that he builds an altar; the name of the altar recalls the blessing of Israel, but not the name of the God of the promises. He calls the altar "God, the God of Israel" (Genesis 33:20.) Thankfulness, it is true, recognises the blessing which Jacob has received; but the God who blessed him is not yet revealed. We now find corruption and violence in his family (Genesis 34:1-31) The wrath of his sons, cruel, and void of the fear of God, brings him out of his false rest, which was not founded on God; but again the faithfulness of God preserves him. Hitherto Jacob had not thought of the place where God Himself had made him the promise, from the time of his departure, and where Jacob had promised to worship when he should have returned by the help of God. God Himself sends him there now, and says to him, "Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and there set up an altar to the strong God who appeared to thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother." (Genesis 35:1.) God, who had guarded, guided, chastened him, had prepared him to come into communion with Him. But first it was necessary that he should leave his false home, where God was not. He must lodge at Bethel (the house of God), and in that very place build an altar to God who had first revealed Himself to him. We here see the instantaneous effect of the presence of God with Jacob, a presence which he had not yet learned to know, in spite of all his experiences up to that moment. The thought of that presence immediately recalls to his mind the false gods which were still among his furniture. These false gods were the effect of his connection with the world; and Rachel, from fear of Laban, had hid them under the camels’ furniture. Jacob knew well that they were there; nevertheless he said to his family and to all those who were with him, "Put away the false gods that are in the midst of you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments, and arise and let us go to Bethel, and I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and who has been with me in the way that I came. Then they gave Jacob all the false gods that they had in their hands, and the rings that were in their ears, and he hid them under the oak that was by Sichem." (Genesis 35:2; Genesis 35:4.) The thought of the presence of God made him remember the false gods; it awakens in his soul the conviction that the gods, the objects of the adoration of this world, can never be kept together with a faithful God. Nothing else can awaken this conviction. No possible experiences can ever have the effect which the presence of plod produces on a soul. Such experiences are useful to humble us, they are a means of stripping us of. ourselves. Nevertheless it is only the presence of God as light which can cause us to condemn ourselves, and give us power to purify ourselves from our deepest and well-known though hidden idols. Abraham had nothing to do either with Jacob’s idols or Jacob’s experiences. The fear of God reigned over the enemies of Jacob, so that they did not follow him, notwithstanding the murderous violence of his sons. (Genesis 35:5.) Now God could reveal Himself to Jacob; and although he remained lame, all went on as if he had not before passed through any experience. Jacob had come to Bethel, from whence he had started. There he built an altar to the God who had made him the promises, and who had always been faithful to him. The name of his altar no longer reminds us of Jacob blessed, but of Him who blesses, and of His house. It is not called the altar of God, the God of Israel, but the altar of the God of Bethel; that is to say, of the house of God. (Genesis 35:7.) God at this hour speaks with Jacob, without saying anything at all of his experiences. These had been necessary to chasten Jacob, and empty him of himself, because he had been unfaithful. God Himself appeared to him now without being entreated. We read in Genesis 35:9, God appeared again to Jacob when he came from Padan-Aram, and blessed him. He gave him the name of Israel, as if He had not given it him before, and reveals to him His name without Jacob having asked it of Him. He converses with him as formerly with Abraham. He renews the promises, and confirms them to him - at least, those which have reference to Israel; and after having ended his communication with him, God went up from him, for He had visited him. (Genesis 35:13.) Jacob was then returned, after a course of experiences, to the place where he could have communion with God, to a position in which, by the grace of God, Abraham had almost always kept himself. Jacob is a warning to us, but Abraham is an example. The first has, it is true, found the Lord again by His grace; but he has not had the many and blessed experiences of the other, he does not pray for others. The highest point of attainment with him is Abraham’s starting-point, even the home of his soul. With the exception of a few falls, this was the habitual state of Abraham, the state in which he lived. "Abraham died in a good old age, old and full of days, and he was gathered to his people." But Jacob said, "The days of the years of my life have been few and evil, and have not amounted to the days of the years of the life of my fathers, even the time of, their pilgrimages." (Genesis 25:8, and Genesis 47:9.) He ended his life in Egypt. The experiences of Jacob are the experiences of what the hearts of men are. The experiences of Abraham are the experiences of the heart of God. We have described three kinds of experiences: 1st. Those which take place under the law, the position of a believer not known, or when, without being ignorant of it, he is there, having his heart all the time under the law. 2nd. The experiences which one has of his own heart, from the time that one walks far from that position where God reveals Himself to cherish and keep up this communion. 3rd. The simple and blessed experiences which one has in walking with God, in the place where God has set us, to enjoy communion with Him in lowliness and thankfulness. These last are experiences of the heart of God, which bring us into the knowledge of His counsels, and of the faithful love which is contained in them. They consist in a close communion with God Himself; the others are, as it has been said, the painful experiences of the heart of man, among which the highest degree - and also precious for us - is, that God remains faithful in the midst of our unfaithfulness, and that He is patient towards our folly, by the which we put ourselves at a distance from His presence. Our privilege is to walk like Abraham; our refuge when we are unfaithful (for God is faithful who does not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able to bear) is that God remains faithful, and draws us out of all danger to the end. May God give us grace to dwell near to Him, to walk with Him, that our experiences may have for their end the growing knowledge of His love and of His nature. (Colossians 1:9-12.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 78: VOL 02 - PHARISAISM AND FAITH ======================================================================== Pharisaism and Faith Matthew 15:1-28. It is a very sad thing, but that which ever has to be done, that God and man must be put in opposition one to the other. This refers to the natural state of man, of course. The constant labour of the Spirit, the whole business, so to speak, of the Bible, is to bring out distinctly the true relationships to each other of God and man, and to contrast the state of man with what we find in God. And this after all is blessed, because on one side it is a testimony to God’s grace and goodness, as well as to His holiness. Now this is the reason that "religion" and "religiousness" are the constant and greatest hindrance to truth in the soul. As all truth goes upon the supposition that man and God are as far as they possibly can be one from another, anything that supposes them to have dealings one with another, is therefore that which denies the first principles of truth. The Lord said plainly to the chief religionists of the day, setting all their religion aside, "The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you." (Matthew 21:1-46) And we get the same testimony throughout the whole tenor of His life. The setting up of religion and religiousness assumes that man, such as he is by nature, can have to do with God; but "grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Consequently the thing set up against the Lord was not sin and sinners, but "religion." That which hindered Him, crossed His path, took Him to prison, put Him to death, cast Him out of the world, was "religion" - man’s religion! Sad is it, most sad, to see the sinner neglecting the great salvation, denying his lost condition, and concealing from himself his awful doom; but it is still worse to see forms of religion (in those who call themselves by the name of Christ) shutting out God. The power of Satan is shown more perhaps in religion than in any one thing else. And it has been so from the beginning to the end in man’s history. The very first thing that takes place in the heart, the very first effect, when we come to the knowledge of self and of God (as the result of the Spirit’s setting the conscience in the presence of God) is, that all our religion disappears. We cannot keep it up, when it is simply a question between the conscience and God. Let the conscience but be brought into the presence of God, and man’s religion fails; we discover it to be something that may indeed hide God from us, but not ourselves from God; it all tumbles down when we find ourselves with our sins in presence of the holiness of God, and are really conscious that we have to do with our sins in the sight of God, and not with our religion. We cannot call our sins religion. This is every day history. We get it brought out in a very strong light in this chapter; but it is not that which was true of the scribes and Pharisees merely. Anything will suit man, provided it is not his conscience in the presence of God. When God’s light shines in, it detects what is in the heart. Man always seeks to conceal the heart, just because it is that which cannot bear examination; God opens up the heart, and brings into the conscience the evil of it, because, till that is right, all is wrong. In order that there should be peace in the soul, we must know both ourselves and God; that there is nothing but evil in us; that there is nothing but goodness in God. But then the thought of having our hearts known is terrible, anything rather than that; and we are so habituated to hiding them from ourselves, and from one another, that we seek to hide them from God, and fancy we can do so. We first set about to be righteous by commands which we cannot fulfil, and then, our conscience nothing satisfied, we add ceremony to ceremony, and tradition to tradition, to eke out a righteousness of our own. There may be a great deal of truth held along with this. Much that the Pharisees held was truth, though there was a great deal of error and superstition mixed up with it. Well, the moment the conscience is really awakened, there is no question of this kind at all; God so exposes the evil of the heart, that we are obliged to say, ’God knows me.’ We find ourselves individual sinners in the presence of God, and we have to begin afresh - we have to learn what God’s grace is. This is very evident, and it is a most material point. "Religion" is just the thing that specially comes in between the conscience and God. Now what God is working at is to bring the conscience to Himself, without religion, or any thing else between. Until that is done, nothing is done. God is dealing with realities. He detects that which is in the heart, in order that He may make known complete forgiveness, that there may be entire and eternal removal of everything that would mar our fellowship. (See Hebrews 9:1-28; Hebrews 10:1-39.) This is grace. Nothing is more simple, though the heart of man is insensible to it. God may use man as an instrument in effecting this; but the object of the preacher of the gospel is, to bring the conscience of the sinner and God immediately into contact if his notion stop short of that, it is only setting them in opposition. We may merely like the truth, but that is all nothing; if a man is not brought to God, if he be not, in conscience, standing in the presence of God, he is brought no nearer than he was before; he has only got, so to speak, further from God, for he has more between his conscience and God. Now it is this that is shown out in the chapter before us; we have the whole history of the feelings of the heart of man, until the Lord brings it down to the place of faith - I say down, because it is brought to the confession of its own nothingness, to say, ’I am a dog.’ And then the Lord says, "Great is thy faith." And that is always the case. We shall never find ’great faith’ in a man’s soul, if he does not confess that he is a sinner, having no title to any thing at all - a mere dog. "Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees which were of Jerusalem." (5: 1.) The scribes were persons learned in the law, and the Pharisees were religionists of the sect most esteemed in religion; as Paul says, "After the most straitest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee" (Acts 26:5); and they were "of Jerusalem," the very centre of God’s polity, so that everything that could give the weight of authority to "religion" was there. And they do come with authority; they say to Jesus, "Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread." (5: 2.) But Jesus at once puts both scribes and Pharisees, and their tradition, in direct contact with God. He says to them, "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?" (5: 3.) He does not go round about and battle the question of this tradition; it might be right enough in some sense; at all events it was reputable in the eyes of man, sanctioned by the learning of the scribes as well as by the religiousness of the Pharisees, and comely in Jerusalem; but He says, ’You are flying in the face of God by your tradition!’ He at once closes the point, dropping elders and all besides. Man may plead tradition, the authority of antiquity and the like, but the fact is, he does so but to clothe himself with it. To the Pharisees, this tradition was the tradition of the elders; but to Christ, it was "ye" and "your tradition." He takes hold of them. They were using it to accredit themselves unto men, not to lay the conscience bare before God: Religiousness and ceremonial holiness accredit us with men; but faith lays us bare before God. Then He goes on: "For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, He that curseth father and mother, let him die the death. But ye say" (it was their tradition that said it, but He substitutes ’ye’), "Whosoever" (no matter who, or how he says it) "shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; and honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition." (vv. 4-6.) It was for their profit; it matters not whether it was money or something else; religion is always turned to a selfish end in man’s use of it. He clothes himself with it in order that he may give himself weight before men. And now the Lord thus sets the condition of the whole people before them: "Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth" (they were not sinners, in the common sense of the word, 1:e. irreligious, without any profession of thought about God; quite the contrary, the thing stated of them here is, ’This people draweth nigh unto me’), "and honoureth me with their lips; BUT their heart is far from me." It was not the sincerity of conscience, and yet the Lord could use the expression, "draweth nigh." "BUT" (He adds) "in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." (vv. 8, 9.) All this religion and religiousness is at once disposed of. There might be the semblance of what was according to God in the "washing of hands;" for the Lord Himself uses water as the emblem of purity; but it was to answer their own ends, and the Lord says, that, whatever it was, it was a commandment of men - that was all. And it was in vain. There is a worship which is worshipping of God in vain. It is thus that Christ disposed entirely of what may be called "religion;" God’s order, God’s commandments, God’s will, have been set aside by man in his drawing nigh in his own way to God. If he thinks to draw nigh with his heart, such as it is, what would be the consequence? This the Lord goes on to show. And here we see the awful character of religion without the conscience before God. "Out of the heart," He says, "proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." These are what come out of the heart. Man may talk of drawing nigh to God with the heart; but with what kind of heart? How can he draw nigh, when "out of the heart" proceed all these things? There is the difficulty. If man will speak of drawing nigh to God, if he will have his forms of religion, his scribes and Pharisees, his Jerusalem, what is it all? Just what the Lord said; the drawing nigh with the mouth, the honouring with the lip; but with heart far from God. Religious forms, the intricacies of ceremony and tradition, even though in the abstract according to the truth of God, are to our hearts now what Jerusalem was to these Pharisees. All that was known of God, all that God had revealed, and He had revealed much in the figures of the law, foreshadowing better things, was there; but the flesh cannot be bettered by ordinances; and if it was a question of drawing nigh to God, while the heart was what it was, and while the whole character of their religion was that of self, Jerusalem was nothing whatever but a blind to the consciences of men. And have not hundreds of us been going on in the same way, with additional truth, no doubt? We may have liked the truth Christianity has introduced, because it had no power in the conscience and on the heart; yet in principle it was the same thing. The craft and lie of Satan is to take all these things, and to say that a man can draw nigh to God through them, while with his heart he does not. This has been ordinarily Satan’s way; he acts more by subtlety, and upon the ground of the truth of God, than by an open and simple lie; aye, more than by infidelity and the denying of the truth of God. Religion is the thing he uses, and what meets it in the heart of man is the supposition (after all clearly hypocrisy) that man can approach God, put off God with these things, when in truth he is merely seeking to satisfy his own conscience. Satan’s lulling conscience asleep through forms of religion, is a very different thing from God’s awakening the conscience by the power of truth. There may be the form of truth, and that much insisted on; but where God has not awakened the conscience, religiousness and religion are only put between the conscience and God to hide from God. Having spoken of religion in the flesh - the heart’s religion, as well as of its sin - the Lord now takes up what the heart itself is. "And He called the multitude, and said unto them, Hear, and understand: Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." (vv. 10, 11.) There is deep instruction here. One might have begun and have argued with a man about Jerusalem until the end of time, he using the most specious arguments, such as that it was God that had established Jerusalem, it was God that had set up the sacrifices (for the sacrifices were in themselves, as to form, true), and the like; and. there we might have stood. The Lord sets all this aside. He calls up the "multitude" - no matter who or what they might be (we find it stated, Matthew 9:36, that they were "as sheep having no shepherd"); and He addresses Himself directly and completely to what is within. He passes by all that which Satan had known how to use to the blinding of the conscience, and He goes at once to the root of the matter, to this fact - ’You know that what comes out of the heart is not of God, and that is you.’ This exposes the whole question. ’Talk not of washing the hands; it may have been the tradition of the elders, but it is your religion; that which comes out of the heart is evil, and what a man’s nature is he is.’ The Lord addresses Himself to the conscience: if the conscience had been before God, they could not have concealed this truth from themselves. They did not want Pharisees for that; they did not want scribes for that; their own hearts could answer it. The conscience of the simplest man, though hitherto led by ten thousand evil Pharisees, when it is before God, can understand that it is that which cometh out of a man, that which is himself, that defileth a man. "Then came His disciples, and said unto Him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?" (5: 12.) No wonder! all man’s system of Pharisaism is good for nothing, when it comes to be a simple question about why all this evil goes out of the heart of man. No wonder, therefore, they were offended. Man has persuaded himself into the belief that he is not so really lost to what is good as God says he is, and that all this attention to ceremonial observances and the externals of religion is very holy and excellent. But, as it is explained here by our blessed Lord, both leaders and led are "blind" a simple thing; as the prophet expresses it. "The leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed." (Isaiah 9:16.) "But He answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." (5: 13.) There may be the "form of godliness," but if it is not of the Father, if not planted of God, it will be rooted up. God must have realities for eternity; and therefore nothing is eternal that God has not planted. "Let them alone" - a terrible saying, a terrible thing to hear the Lord of love uttering such a word as that, and I do not know that it is ever said about any but religious people. We never hear that lip of love saying, "Let them alone," or words of the kind, to any but hypocrites; He does not say so to the poor Gentile woman mentioned in the after part of the chapter, though her circumstances were those of the greatest evil. If He must put the heart of such an one to trial, He will do it, but He does not so speak. "Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." (5: 14.) Jesus must be occupied with "the poor of the flock," so He turns and feeds the multitude. "Then answered Peter and said unto Him, Declare unto us this parable. And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding?" (vv. 15, 16.) We see here a hankering after hearing something new, instead of the conscience before God - a step lower down, so to speak, of Pharisaism. He is their "Rabbi." They are looking at Him in this character, and therefore, their conscience not being in the presence of God, they cannot understand such a simple thing - the simplest thing that can be - that it is not that which goeth into the mouth, but that which cometh out of the mouth that defileth a man. They have something between the conscience and God. And mark where the "understanding," in God’s estimate, is - always in the conscience. He is not making learned men (though He does speak wisdom to them that are perfect), but He is bringing sinners to heaven. His dealings are with the heart and conscience; and no matter what it be, a parable or whatever else, I have no "understanding" of it until my conscience is at work, and before God by faith; because, until then, God has not His place, and I have not mine. There is no understanding a single thing between me and God, if He has not His place. I might suppose that I knew a good deal about God, and might reason wonderfully, and explain Him as a lecturer would his subject; but would that be God? Where would be the respect due to Him as God? Would He be acting as Light to me, making manifest my darkness? Not at all. If He had His real place, as God to my soul, I should not be lecturing about Him, I should feel what I am in His presence. No man ever lectured about God in the presence of God. He might seek to explain fully what God is when He was not there; but let His presence be felt, and it would stop the lecture at the moment. That is wherein these disciples failed; they were quick to learn "parables," as no question of conscience. Therefore Christ puts it in the simplest manner; He says, "Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? But these things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man." (They are part of himself.) "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts: . . . these are the things that defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man." (vv. 17-20.) And what else proceeds out of the heart? Why really, when we come to the heart of man, it is like what we have in Deuteronomy (chapter 27) about the law of God. When the details are entered into there, where are the tribes for blessing? We read only of the curse. ’No doubt’ (people say) ’bad things came out of the heart of man; but are there not good things also?’ There is not a word about them here. "Out of the heart proceed" the evil things mentioned, and these are what God sees. It is not that we are denying that there are amiabilities of nature and the like; there are, but then we see them in irrational animals, as well as in man, with this difference - that there is no pride in the heart of the former about them, while there is in the heart of man. What man is morally in the sight of God is the question. Here the Lord closes with man. We have his history traced down from the scribes and Pharisees to what he is in himself. He is seen, in all the comeliness of "religion," to be completely setting aside the commandments of God, and it ends in the sad catalogue of what comes "out of the heart." Now we get, in what immediately follows, the other side of the picture, the opposite of all this - the heart of God in its own eternal fulness of grace, brought out in the Lord’s dealings with (not scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem, but) a woman of Canaan. "Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto Him." (vv. 21, 22.) Tyre and Sidon were anything but Jerusalem; they were places proverbial for their wickedness. The Lord selects them as such when He says (Matthew 11:1-30), "Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." He holds them up as two of the vilest cities He could have named. Again: this woman, as a woman of Canaan, not only was a Gentile, a "dog" (5: 26) - that was her character in the eye of man, yes, and according to the truth of God also, so far as regarded the outward condition of things at that time - but a woman of that people concerning which God had said, "Cursed be Canaan." (Genesis 9:25.) So that here we get evidently the very opposite to, and that which stands in greatest contrast with, the scribes and Pharisees (the religious persons) of Jerusalem, and indeed with everything that could claim authority in religion, or even the appearance of a fair show in the flesh, a woman of Canaan, out of the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. But after all, how does this poor woman come? Her need brought her to Christ; so far all was right. But to have our need supplied, we must take the place that befits us. God cannot, so to speak, deny supplying our need; but He will deny till we take our true position. This is the great principle we have to learn here. "She cried unto Him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But He answered her not a word." (vv. 22, 23.) It was a case apparently greatly calling for the Lord’s intervention, and she was entreating Him to interfere. Her daughter was grievously vexed of a devil, and He had come to destroy the works of the devil. She knew what His compassion was; but does she come simply on that ground? No; had she done so, she would have had the closest sympathies of the Lord. But she says, ’Have mercy on me, Jesus, thou Son of David!’ Here was faith. She knew what mercies He had brought amongst the Jews; but had she anything to do with Him as the "Son of David"? No; none but a Jew had any claim on Christ, in that character. The poor woman doubtless thought that, recognizing and confessing Him to be what He was, she might count on the blessing. She came in the way of promise. She owned the very truth of God contained in the promises, and she recognized Jesus as being the One who had come according to those promises. That was the case, and that was the simple reason why the Lord had nothing for her at all. We may talk about the promises of God, and go away empty. When we talk about promises, they must be promises made to us; promises respecting which we can lay hold upon the truth of God, as the ground of His dealing with us. Now, suppose we come to God as though we were called by the most gracious promises, the moment we confess ourselves sinners, we say that we have title to nothing. A sinner has title to nothing; and therefore we are on wrong ground, just as was this poor woman. There are promises made for sinners, but there are no promises made to sinners as sinners. Like this Syrophenician woman, we may linger about the promises, and have not a word. We must come as simple sinners, without any title at all but our need; that is the only title He admits. He will assuredly bless; for He has said, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." But He will do it by making us know that the depth of our need is just the reason why He does so. When she cries, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David," her own language binds Him to exclude her; she has not, and cannot have, any claim or title to Him on that ground; He does not know such a person. Here is the point. And therefore, when the disciples come and beseech Him, saying, "Send her away; for she crieth after us" (only wanting to get rid of her as a troublesome beggar, as if they had said ’Give her what she wants, and have done with her’), He answered, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." He holds to God’s order. (See also Matthew 10:5.) It is a most important thing to remember, that promises are not found out of Christ. There are most precious promises to the Christian, without which he could not get on for a day; but then "all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us." (2 Corinthians 1:20.) You may see a person going on lingering about promises, and, until the soul is humbled to the place of faith, until it submits to the truth and righteousness of God, the end of the story will be as the beginning, ’I cannot realise them.’ Then came she and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, help me." (5: 25.) Now this is a good deal more truthful, and it brings out an answer. Her first appeal had truth in it, but then it was (as we have seen) on a ground to which she had no title; it was just as much as to say, ’Do not answer me.’ Now she gets an answer. But then the answer shows that Christ cannot go out of the way of the promises, out of the way in which God has sent Him. He says, "It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs." Here is a terrible thing - a terrible thing to be told this by a person in whom she had confided - to be turned away as a dog. And are not hearts now to be found in this condition? They have been sent to Christ for help; they feel their sorrow, and they go to Him looking for promises, and what do they say, ’I have got peace, I have got joy in God?’ No, they come back, saying, ’I have got nothing!’ They have not come down to the place where God gives help. They are, like this poor Syrophenician woman, Canaanites of Tyre and Sidon, and they have been talking to the Son of David, as though they had something to do with Him, and something to expect from Him. "And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table." (5: 27.) Here is her place; she abandons all title and claim in herself; but her need casts itself on pure bounty. The Lord’s eye has all the while been watching the process of humbling that was going on in the heart, and now that He has brought her down to her real condition, He can accede to her every desire. It is not now, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David;" neither yet, "Lord, help me!" Until she gave up that ground (for He could not give it up) He tries her, saying, "It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs." But when she says, ’I am a dog, yet?’ - going upon what God Himself is in Christ, she gets upon the simple ground of the infinite fulness of God’s love, and all is clear. Her faith has pierced through dispensations; it has arrived at what God is. She can say, "Truth, Lord, it is to the Jews that the children’s bread belongs; I make no pretence to the children’s place, I am a poor, wretched sinner of the Gentiles, I know all this; I know that I have title to nothing, as regards promises; but there is plenty of help in God to meet my case; these dogs that are without eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table." What can the Lord say more? ’There is no help in God for thee?’ Impossible! "Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith." There is no need of being a Jew to have faith; the Gentile that believes in Jesus has reached up to the place whence even the children are fed. No matter what a man is, when it is a question of what there is in God for his need the case is simple. When there is the truthful admission that we have no ground of title whatever, when we meet God in the way of goodness, on the ground of what there is in Himself, all is well; for that goodness is in. God. The Lord is not now looked at in the way of promise (be that never so true), and He cannot deny what God is, and what He is in Himself. He says, "O woman, great is thy faith," and then, what more? "Be it unto thee even as thou wilt." Whatever request she may have, based on the simple fact of the goodness that God had even for a dog, He cannot help answering. "And her daughter was made whole from that very hour." Such is the difference between Pharisaism and faith. The poor, wretched sinner who comes simply on the ground of being nothing - a sinner without any title at all - to God, as He is, gets plenty of blessing. Then rest and peace are found. We prove Him to be love and nothing else. The soul turns away from self altogether, and feasts on the eternal fulness of grace that is in Christ. It draws on all that is in Him; its need is just its title to all that is in Him We never see the question rightly, till we see that it is only infinite need that can at all give title to the infinite fulness of God. The converted and unconverted both need to see this. Sinners do not receive Christ because they do not know themselves to be no better than dogs. Saints are often without peace, because they never really have taken the place of dogs. Many would gladly sail over the whole question, and just take the grace without the knowledge of their own vileness; but God will teach us all that is in ourselves, that we may really value all that is in Him. It was on this ground the poor woman could speak to Jesus, and the word is ever to such, "Even as thou wilt." Divine fulness is to be fathomed alone by conscious need and wretchedness. This is where faith will bring us. We may admit the truth of all that has been said, but if it has not brought us there, down to nothingness in the presence of the infinite fulness of God, it is not truth to our souls; we have not really learned anything. We may have learned the story of the Canaanitish woman, but if we have not learned the story of our own heart in it, we have learned nothing about it. We may be able to explain the doctrines of salvation very clearly; we may be glorying in much that we have received from God; but if we desire blessing and riches (spiritual riches), it must be with us as with the church of Smyrna, of which Jesus could say (Revelation 2:1-29), "I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty - but thou art rich." Is it so truly with us, or is it still the lingering about promises? Again, even if we are not Pharisees, is it with us as with the disciples, a question of "parables?" There are no parables in the conscience. When a man meets God in his conscience, that man knows himself; he cannot help it. It is not a parable when the conscience is touched, it is what we ourselves are in the sight of God. Let our state be what it may (perhaps an evil one into which we have got by sin, no matter what it is), if we have been broken down, in the humbling consciousness of what we are, to the place of our own nothingness, the only question that remains is, What is God towards us? And He is grace, and to be proved to be such exactly in proportion to our need. Need but becomes then the occasion of displaying the suitability of His grace. All comes to one single point: if we are before God as what we really are, God is always what He really is - grace. This is, in a certain sense, hard work - to live in the continual sense of our need, and of God’s delight in supplying it. What constant watchfulness does it argue! what walking in the Spirit! what abnegation of self! The Lord grant us the continual sense of our emptiness, and also the continual sense of His fulness, that we may take our true place as dependent on His grace and bounty. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 79: VOL 02 - THE CHILD OF RESURRECTION ======================================================================== The Child of Resurrection 2 Kings 4:8-37. Every child of faith in past dispensations, as well as in the present, may be truly termed a child of resurrection. God, whose voice faith hears, and who is Himself its object, is the One "who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were." (Romans 4:17.) Of this our father Abraham is the great example. But examples of this abound in the Old Testament - examples, too, similar in circumstances, as well, as in principle, to that of Abraham. Manoah and his wife, Hannah the wife of Elkanah, and, not to mention others, this godly woman in the history before us, were each of them examples in their day of the allquickening power of that God in whom they believed. Their faith might not be strong, like that of Abraham; but it had (like his) for its object the power, and for its warrant the word, of "God, who quickeneth the dead." And so now, every poor sinner who through grace receives God’s testimony to His Son believes in Him "who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." (Romans 4:25.) Yea, and "by Him" (Jesus) all such "do believe in God, that raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God." (1 Peter 1:21.) Christ risen and glorified, and God who raised and glorified Him, are thus the objects of our faith; yea, and more than that, the very faith which does thus rest on Christ and believe in God, who raised Him from the dead, is itself the result of the quickening power of the Holy Ghost. It is "the faith of the operation of God." (Colossians 2:12.) Us "hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1); so that, in every sense, and that from the very outset, the child of faith is the child of resurrection. But the God of resurrection, thus known to faith from the first, has to be known as such all through. Blessings which, when we receive them, are felt to come not from any resources of our own - nay, nor through any natural power we possess - but direct from Him "who quickeneth the dead," when we have enjoyed them for a season, come to be regarded by us as things of course; we fail to realise that the tenure on which we hold them, as well as the ground on which we received them, is the resurrection power of God. Hence many of those dealings of God with us, by which wee are brought to sympathise with Paul when he said, "For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which. came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life but we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that He will yet deliver us." (2 Corinthians 1:8-10.) Is not this the lesson, brethren beloved, which our God designs that we should learn from all that has occurred? When our souls first drank of the deep joy of fellowship in the Spirit, was it not in direct and conscious dependence on the resurrection power of God? Was not the flesh, the old man, accounted by us, even as it is accounted of God, crucified with Christ? Was there not, as the fruit of this, the practical denial of all the resources of nature, of self in its fairest forms, as competent in any way to worship or serve God acceptably? And was there not a simplicity of dependence on Him who, having given His Son for us, and given us to His Son, had given us besides, as the seal of His. love, that Holy Spirit the Comforter, by whom we were conscious of being vitally united to Christ, and made members one of another? Was there not, I ask, a simplicity of reliance on His presence, on His teaching, on His power, as that by which alone there could be wrought in us or amongst us what would glorify our God, or refresh and edify one another? But when he had thus wrought, and we had tasted a joy which many of us had never expected on this side the glory, was there not a transfer - gradual, and so almost imperceptible, but not less certain - of our confidence from Him whose presence gave this joy, to the joy which His presence gave, and to all its varied fruits in the happy worship and living service of those amongst whom He had thus manifested Himself? Did there not creep in a looking upon these things as a matter of course, without the continued and deepening recognition of the source from whence they flowed to us poor saved sinners, and of the power by which alone they could be maintained and increased amongst us? And why the blighting which has followed? Is it that our God would resume what His royal bounty had freely bestowed? No; "His gifts and calling are without repentance." But He would have us learn that we can no more retain than obtain blessings of ourselves; that we can no more keep out death than we could at first rescue ourselves from its dominion; that it is with God, who quickeneth the dead, that we have to do; that it is Him, and Him alone, we have to trust. Happy for our souls, beloved, if we should be taught this lesson. Bitter and humbling as may be the process through which our God conducts us, the lesson of resurrection twice learned will more than repay all the sorrow of learning it; and what is of infinitely greater consequence, our God will have all the glory, all the praise. But let us turn to the narrative. There are sweet truths unfolded in it besides this great one; for which doubtless it is specially recorded. To trace the family likeness among God’s people is a refreshing and heart-cheering exercise. Nor does it in the least derogate from His glory, whose "workmanship" the saint is, to observe in Scripture the marks by which His "workmanship" is distinguished. Works, except they be the result of faith, the fruit of the Spirit, are worthless, and worse than worthless; but the work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope, are precious in God’s eyes; and it is for our profit to meditate on the records of such in God’s holy word. A lovely specimen of the workmanship of the Spirit is presented to us in the Shunammite, whose faith, with its fruits, trials, and triumphs, forms the subject of the narrative before us. One fruit of faith much commended in Scripture is that enjoined upon us in such passages as the following: "Given to hospitality." (Romans 12:13.) "Use hospitality one to another without grudging." (1 Peter 4:9.) "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." (Hebrews 13:2.) "I was a stranger, and ye took me in." (Matthew 25:35.) What a beautiful instance of such hospitality is presented to us here. "And it fell on a day, that Elisha passed to Shunem, where was a great woman; and she constrained him to eat bread. And so it was, that as oft as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread." The lowly husbandman of Abel-Meholah, a welcome guest with the "great woman" of Shunem, is a lovely illustration of what grace can do. Nor did she know, as it would appear, anything of him when she first "constrained him to eat read," save the homely garb, the unpretending exterior of the man. Another fruit of faith, much noted in Scripture, is the capacity of discerning and owning "like precious faith" in others. Its very first exercise is discernment - discernment of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. When He was here upon the earth, while He was faith’s object, so was He God’s great test of where there was faith and where there was not. Where there was not faith, His person and his glory were unknown and unconfessed; where there was faith it perceived, through the veil of His humiliation, the glory that it enshrined, and confessed Him as the Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. To as many as thus received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God. So now, whosoever is quickened by the Holy Ghost to behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, in beholding that, receives the assurance of salvation and everlasting life. But the same faith that beholds the glory of God in its fulness there can discern its transmitted and reflected rays in those of whom it is said, "Ye are the epistle of Christ;" of whom Christ Himself says, "Ye are the light of the world." This capacity of discernment exists, of course, in very various measures, as faith is strong or weak. But more or less of it there must be in order to "love as brethren." Plainly, I must discern who are my brethren, or I cannot love them as such. Who could give a cup of cold water to a disciple in the name of a disciple, if he had not the capacity of discerning the badge of discipleship? Beautiful is the display of this spiritually intuitive discernment of where God had set His mark and put His honour, in the case of this godly Shunammite. She had shown him hospitality as a stranger, "as oft as he passed by afterwards, he turned in to eat bread;" but in these repeated interviews she saw enough of him to make her long on other and higher grounds to provide for him more permanent accommodation. "She said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God which passeth by us continually. Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick; and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither." The Lord grant us, beloved, to be so in communion with Himself, that wherever His name is truly confessed, and His Spirit dwells, we may be quick to discern and joyful to own His handiwork. The Shunammite’s appreciation of the tastes and habits of her guests, is another lovely trait which the Spirit has been pleased to note in this delineation of her ways. It was Martha’s failure, that while she really and devotedly loved the Lord, she so little appreciated what His glory really was, and the errand on which He had come from heaven to earth, that she thought to please Him by providing for Him a sumptuous feast. To think of entertaining God manifest in the flesh with a feast! Not so Mary. She knew that He had come, not to be ministered unto, but to minister; and to give His life a ransom for many. She spread the table, and provided the feast that He had really come for the purpose of enjoying, by sitting at His feet, and opening her heart to drink in the words of eternal life from His lips. Likeminded with her was this godly Shunammite. She had Martha’s hospitality with Mary’s appreciation of her guest; and her guest was but a mortal, a child of God indeed, but still a mortal man. Martha’s and Mary’s guest was the Lord from heaven. Elisha has a hearty welcome to the hospitalities of the Shunammite; there is even an apartment set aside for his use, where he may turn in and tarry as long as he will. But what a tale does its furniture tell! No provision for the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, or the pride of life. A. bed, a table, a stool, and a candlestick, are what it contains. A pilgrim’s accommodation shows how entirely the Shunammite had appreciated the pilgrim character of her guest. Would that there were more of this heavenly simplicity amongst us, beloved. Would that our hearts were so in heaven, that we might feel, as to one another, that even our hospitality must be after a godly sort; cordial, lame hearted, without grudging, as the apostle says; but yet, not as though we looked upon each other as in the flesh, or thought we could gratify one another by making provision for its lusts. "Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have," is the exhortation of the apostle. How the spirit of it was exemplified by the Shunammite. Elisha instructs Gehazi to say to her, "Behold, thou hast been careful for us with all this care, what is to be done for thee? Wouldst thou be spoken for to the king, or to the captain of the host?" God had wrought a great deliverance by Elisha for the king and his allies but a short time before; and thus, for the season, he could doubtless have had of the king whatever he had asked. But the Shunammite wishes for nothing that the king or the captain of the host can give. "I dwell among mine own people," was the reply of her contented spirit. Can we, in any way, so powerfully testify to the world of its vanity, and the emptiness of all its offers? If anything can tell on the conscience of a worldling, it is to see a child of God so conscious of his portion in his Father’s love, that he declines, when it is in his power, to accept of a portion here. But if the prophet of Abel-Meholah, like an apostle of later days, be destitute of silver and gold; and if the Shunammite cares not for what Elisha’s temporary favour with the king might have procured her, he has interest at another court, and she refuses not what the prophet promises on behalf of that "God who quickeneth the dead, and calleth things which be not as though they were." She is childless, and her husband is old; but the prophet assures her that at the set time she shall embrace a son. The promise thus given, God fulfils; and a child, direct from His hand, crowns the faith which had already produced such lovely fruits. What that child must have been to the Shunammite. With what inexpressible tenderness must she have nursed him in infancy, and watched the unfolding of his faculties, as from infancy he passed to boyhood, and from that to youth. The mother only that loves the Lord, and nurses and brings up her offspring for Him, can form the least idea, and even hers must be but faint, of what that mother’s feelings were; the deep throbbings of her heart, as she looks onward to the future in connection with the prospects of her child; and the calm but deeper joy which must have often pervaded and filled her heart, while encouraged by the occasion and circumstances of his birth, she trusted in God that that future was charged with blessing. But she had to learn the lesson already referred to, as the great moral of the history; and well will it be for us, if God’s record of His dealings with her should be used of Him to aid us in learning that lesson too. "And when the child was grown, it fell on a day, that he went out to his father to the reapers. And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died." What a stroke was this! The child with the birth - of which her faith had been crowned, and which she had received, as it were, direct from God’s hand, snatched from her embraces, and cold in death. And was this God’s reward of the care which He had put into her heart to have for His servant, the prophet? Was it for this that God made Himself known as the quickener of the dead, causing the barren to bear, only that when the child was born, he might be suddenly torn away? No, she has better thoughts of God than this. It is not that she questions His right to resume what His mercy had bestowed. But her faith gathers from the past what God’s meaning and purpose were in dealing with her as He had done, and she is not without hope even now. "But her son is dead." What then? It was from God, who quickeneth the dead, she had received her son. "But what can she do?" Nay, that is not the question. What can, or rather, what can not God do? That is faith’s question; and thus there is no case too extreme for faith, because there is none too extreme for God. Faith knows and trusts. "With God all things are possible." A brother once wrote me - "Faith rejoices in a dead life." And so it is. Circumstances which produce utter despondency where there is not faith, are but to faith the occasion for more singly and entirely trusting God. "And she went up, and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door upon him, and went out. And she called unto her husband, and said, Send me, I pray thee, one of the young men, and one of the asses, that I may run to the man of God, and come again." The husband remonstrates. It is neither the new moon, nor the Sabbath-day; and his faith goes not beyond the ordinary exercises of devotion, if indeed he be a man of faith at all. Faith like his wife’s, who does not give up her son though dead, because she knows Him who quickeneth the dead, he seems to have no thought of. But his wife can neither be detained nor turned aside. "It shall be well," is all the reply she makes, and hastens to the man of God to Carmel. But here she is to meet with other trials of her faith. If there was any one or any thing in danger of being between her soul and God, it was the prophet, the man of God. To own him as the prophet of God was indeed at that time the test of faith in Israel. Singularly had God honoured him in fulfilling his promise, in God’s behalf, that this woman should have a son. But it was possible then - as, alas! we find it now - for the channel, more or less, to have the place with the soul, which only belongs to the source from whence it is supplied. At all events, the Shunammite is to learn that even the man of God of himself can do nothing for her. To all the enquiries of Gehazi she has but one answer "Well;" she is not to be detained by him. "And when she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught him by the feet: but Gehazi came near to thrust her away. And the man of God said, Let her alone; for her soul is vexed within her: and the Lord hath hid it from me, and hath not told me." One word from her reveals the whole, and the prophet at once despatches Gehazi with his master’s staff to lay upon the face of the child. Whether the prophet did this under divine guidance for a lesson to Gehazi, as well as to try the Shunammite’s faith, or whether, as the case had been hid from him by the Lord, so now he was left to act in his own wisdom and strength without any direct guidance from God, I would not say. It is suggested as an inquiry for the prayerful consideration of brethren in the Lord. In either case the result is plain. The Shunammite can no more be put off with Gehazi and his master’s staff than before she could be detained by her husband’s expostulations or Gehazi’s enquiries. "And the mother of the child said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And he arose, and followed her." They meet Gehazi returning from his fruitless journey - one of a cloud of witnesses that the forms and circumstances by which the actings of faith may be attended are all nothing apart from faith itself and the power of the living God, on which faith rests. Elisha’s staff in Gehazi’s hands is as powerless as any other piece of wood. The prophet’s staff without the prophet’s faith accomplishes nothing. "There was neither voice nor hearing. Wherefore he went again to meet him, and told him, saying, The child is not awaked." The Lord grant us to lay to heart the serious lesson which these words convey. What a scene ensues! There had been enough already to make even Elisha feel. that it was no ordinary case, and that through it God was dealing with him as well as with the Shunammite. That it should have been hid entirely from him, that Gehazi’s journey with the staff (undertaken at, the prophet’s instance), should have proved entirely unavailing, was enough to awaken the enquiry in the soul of the prophet whether God would teach him, too, that the power was not in Him, but in God Himself. But even if Elisha had to learn this lesson more deeply than he had as yet learned, it was not that his faith in God might be shaken or weakened, but tried and strengthened. Tried it was, but not shaken. "When Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and laid upon his bed." The mother’s faith had placed the dead body there. "He went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord." The prophet, a dead corpse, and the living God, the Quickener of the dead! "And he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands: and he stretched himself upon the child." So completely does he identify himself with the one for whom he intercedes; it is as though he would tell God that if the child were not restored to life he could only lie there with him in death. What faith! what holy boldness! Nor is it left without encouragement. "The flesh of the child waxed warm." There were some signs of returning vitality to strengthen the prophet’s faith and encourage him to persevere. "Then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro; and went up, and stretched himself upon him." What is all this the witness of, but of that agony of prayer, that energy of faith, of which - alas! in our day and in our poor souls - we know so little? But "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." "The child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes." Prayer was heard; faith was crowned. God showed Himself once more to be in very truth the God of resurrection. And when the mother came in to the prophet into the chamber he said, "Take up thy son. Then she went in, and fell at his feet. [her heart too full to utter a single word], and bowed herself to the ground, and took up her son, and went out." The Lord grant us, like her, to know nothing, to regard nothing, but Himself, privileged as we are to know Him, the Resurrection and the Life, unknown to saints in any former dispensation, in an intimacy of communion. May we acknowledge indeed and mourn the sins which have turned our joy into lamentation; but may neither these nor anything be allowed to hide from the view of faith "God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth things which be not as though they were." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 80: VOL 02 - THE CROSS ======================================================================== The Cross "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Galatians 6:14. I would say a few words on the entire end of self in the cross - the nothingness to which it reduces us. How little do we know practically of this. Let us look at Jesus, and then learn how very little our souls have realized its power in thus setting ourselves aside. We see in Him one who had all human righteousness, and one too in whom "dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;" yet what path did He take? What was THE CROSS to Him? To what did it reduce Him? The entire setting aside of all this human righteousness, of all this divine power. The perfect strength of His love was proved, not only in that He "did not please Himself" - though "in the form of God," and thinking it "not robbery to be equal with God," that He emptied Himself, and "being found in fashion as a man," humbled Himself to take the place of our disobedience - but that in this place of love He was content to be utterly rejected! to be reduced to nothing, that love might shine out! The flesh in us is subtle, very subtle: if we show love, we expect that it will be felt; but if otherwise - if, when we have rendered a kindness, we get no return, not even a kind word - our hearts grow faint and cold in the exercise of love. Do we know what it is when our hearts have gone forth in love to meet with that which we read of in Corinthians, "Though the more I love you, the less I be loved;" to find that the only consequence of humiliation is to become thereby less respected, more humbled still. Thus it was with Jesus; full of patience and tenderness, He exposed Himself to the power and malice of Satan. But what did He find in us when doing this work of love? Man took occasion, by His very lowliness, to treat Him with the utmost scorn. He was "the reproach of men, the despised of the people." They kept Him in on every side: "Dogs have compassed me about: the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet." "Many bulls have compassed me about: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion." He looked for comforters, but found none. One of those with whom He had "taken sweet counsel" lifted up his heel against Him; and even that disciple who had been most forward to declare his adhesion, "Though all men should forsake thee, yet will not I," denied Him with oaths and curses. There was no outlet to His grief, no comfort from man; and here we see the meaning of that, "Be not thou far from me, O my God!" Cast out by the scorn of those whom He came to in love, pressed upon, closed in by those whom He came to save, His soul turned to God: "My God, be thou not far from me!" But God had hid His face from Him: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" He now found the darkness and wrath that came upon Him to the uttermost; there was no response on any side: the deep hatred of man around, and from above darkness also; everything was set aside but the power of love. "I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me." The waves and the billows went over Him; all was lost in the waves but love: it was that which sustained Him; love was greater than all; and it was set on us. When we see what He, as emptied, was, we come to the depth of love. If He emptied Himself of every thing else, there was still the fulness of love, for He is God, and "God is love." We, dear brethren, have found the fulness of love in Jesus, and that shall be our everlasting portion - we shall know, shall taste this love for ever. When Jesus was "going about" here, it was as "doing good;" He could not restrain His power, though ever so lowly and humbled, when good was to be done; He was obliged to show it. Thus in the life of Jesus, in His actings here, there was something which the natural heart must own, must approve: we like to have our diseases cured; and when they saw the dead raised, they could rejoice in having their deceased friends brought to life again: but in THE CROSS there was no putting forth of this power, there was no miracle - nothing but weakness and degradation - He was "crucified through weakness." Trial from man, temptation from Satan, desertion from God - there was nothing to be seen but love - the depth, the fulness, the riches of that love which will be our happy, blessed portion for ever. The natural heart in every one of us hates the power of THE CROSS. We want something for the eye to rest upon, we seek a little honour here; THE CROSS stains all the pride of human glory, and therefore we like it not. Let us test ourselves, beloved. Are we really content to take THE CROSS in this its power, and to say, "I want nothing else"! "God forbid that I should glory, save in THE CROSS of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world!" May our souls rest in this blessed confidence - Jesus is our everlasting portion; to dwell in Him is to dwell in God, and "God is love." Many Christians are cherishing those things which keep them from knowing the full power of this love in their hearts. We cannot enjoy love and pride together. Whatever nourishes self, no matter what - honour, talents, learning, wealth, friends, respectability - any thing, every thing which the natural man delights in, nourishes pride in us, renders Christ less precious, and the enjoyment of His love less full. The Lord give us to know what it is to be "crucified to the world." Let us, beloved brethren, bless God for everything that puts down self. FATHER! we, Thy children, bless Thee, For Thy love on us bestowed; As our Father we address Thee, Called to be the sons of God. Wondrous was Thy love in giving Jesus for our sins to die! Wondrous was His grace in leaving, For our sakes, the heavens on high! Now the sprinkled blood has freed us, On we go toward our rest, Through the desert Thou dost lead us, With thy constant favour blest: By Thy truth and Spirit guiding, Earnest He of what’s to come, And with daily food providing, Thou dost lead Thy children home. Though our pilgrimage be dreary, This is not our resting-place; Shall we of the way be weary, When we see our Master’s face No; e’en now anticipating, In this hope our souls rejoice, And His promised advent waiting, Soon shall hear His welcome voice. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 81: VOL 02 - THE DANGER OF PROSPERITY ======================================================================== The Danger of Prosperity Isaiah 38:1-22; Isaiah 39:1-8. It may be, nay, it very often is so, that God’s prosperings are attended with greater danger to our souls than are the devil’s harassings. We have an illustration of this in the concluding portion of this parenthetical history. In chapters 36, 37, the uncircumcised thunders at the gates of Jerusalem, Hezekiah is not dismayed. He sanctifies the Lord God of Israel in his heart, and in place of crying for being overcome is compassed about with songs of deliverance. With crippled Jacob "by his strength he has power with God." The letter of the invader, with all its boastings, all its threats, all its scoffs, all its revilings, is laid down quietly before the Lord; it has reached the right address, for the Lord declares concerning its writer, "I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against Me. Because thy rage against Me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore [undertaking the answer] I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest." As David, a "dead dog" in his own eyes; as Paul, in that time of trouble which came upon him in Asia, having the sentence of death in himself, in company with all those obtainers of a divine good report, of whom the world was not worthy, "Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." This Israelite, indeed, takes hold of the strength of the mighty God of Jacob, "believes that He is," and so believing is upheld by the right hand of His righteousness. "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God." The incensed waves of the strong and many waters of the Assyrian river have overflowed, and go over the land, whence is faith’s expectation. "Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I;" they toss themselves and foam, but they are broken, and come to nought. The stretching forth of the wings fill the breadth of the land, but the name of Immanuel is written upon that land. In the time of the flood, there is a standard; in the day of battle, a strong tower. "God is with us." But the divine verdict is not merely that "flesh is grass;" it reads thus, "All flesh is grass." Are we prepared to acknowledge the truth of such a verdict? to believe that "there is no difference," that the God-fearing Hezekiah and the godless Assyrian differ nothing in nature the one from the other? "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," this He has declared it to be, whose is the sole prerogative and the ability to search it. The heart of a Sennacherib, coming out in undisguised blasphemy, without contradiction, is bad, unmixedly bad, desperately wicked; such flesh cannot glory in God’s presence. But there is a companion picture. The Holy Ghost would instruct us that the flesh in a Hezekiah is no better than the flesh in a Sennacherib. "No flesh shall glory." "As in water, face answereth to face, so does the heart of man to man" - not more like is the face that looks out of the water to the face that looks in, than is heart to heart. Bright, and only bright, would have been the portrait of this saint, had the record closed here. Bright indeed it is; "He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did. He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. For he clave to the Lord, and departed not from following Him, but kept His commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses. And the Lord was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth: and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not. He smote the Philistines, even unto Gaza, and the borders thereof, from the tower of the watchman to the fenced city." (2 Kings 18:3-8.) But then the Spirit of God is a faithful biographer; and the memoir He has furnished has its double instruction, its answer to both petitions, "Teach me what Thou art," "Teach me what I am." Hezekiah has been proving the Lord. We have now to look at him in other circumstances proving himself. It is the hour of prosperity. The Lord by His favour has made his mountain to stand strong; the good hand of his God has wrought deliverance; riches flow in from every side; and the renown of his name is spread abroad. "Many brought gifts unto the Lord to Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah king of Judah: so that he was magnified in the sight of all nations from thenceforth." (2 Chronicles 32:23.) Popularity, a great name like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth, is the result of the faith that, in the sense of his own nothingness, had to do with God. Hezekiah’s history is in this respect no uncommon history. How many a saint has been lifted into a position of prominence before the eyes of his fellow saints, and before the world, through a course of unaffected simplicity of dependence, and of purpose of heart for God. Hezekiah "was magnified in the sight of all nations from thenceforth;" yes; but, alas! he was magnified also in his own sight. In all times of our prosperity let us say, "O Lord, hold thou me up!" "In my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled." There is one who understands our case; and in the lights and shades of the life of faith the Physician is at work. What emptyings from vessel to vessel go on there to prevent a settling on our lees. We are "exceeding glad of the gourd." But such gladness is ephemeral. The leaves curl, the haulm shrivels; for the Lord God, who had prepared the gourd, has prepared a worm at the root of the gourd. Our gourd is withered. Is there nothing answering to this in the history before us? "In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live." Yes, the worm is there. We get a similar word addressed to one of whom there is mention in the gospel. The ground of a rich man had brought forth plentifully. According to human computation, he had much goods laid up for many years, and he thought within himself, I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there will I store my goods. I will say to my soul, Soul, take thine ease; eat, drink, and be merry. But he was reminded that he was living, and reckoning, and boasting himself of the morrow apart from that God in whose hand his breath was. "Thou fool," sounded in his ears, "this night thy soul shall be required of thee." These fingers of a man’s hand writing upon the plaister of the wall have their solemn instruction. How does Hezekiah receive the message? What is its effect on this saint of God? "Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the Lord." (5: 2.) Could he have done better? The man who in the strait of the siege betook himself to the temple in this time of his sickness, now that his feet can no longer tread the courts of the house of his God, bethinks himself, and turns, and makes supplication from his bed thitherward. "I have set the Lord always before me," is the language of faith. So far all is right. But we need look a little closer, and consider not simply the fact of his praying, but the character of his prayer. If the Lord is set before Hezekiah, Hezekiah is set before the Lord. What is his cry? "Remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore." (5: 3.) He is calling on God to witness to his faithfulness, to the perfectness of his heart, to the goodness of his ways, to his jealousy against idolatry, to his diligence in restoring the feasts, and worship, and order of Israel In the temple he had spread the letter with its blasphemies, now he spreads his graces before the Lord, and appeals to Him on the credit of them. Will the Lord admit the plea? He is not unrighteous to forget; He does not deny the truth of what Hezekiah says. He takes it at its worth, and tells him He will yet add fifteen years to his life. "Then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying, Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years." (vv. 4, 5.) To a casual observer there might be nothing wonderful in this recovery of one who had been sick unto death. Such things are of daily occurrence. The proverb has it, "While there is life there is hope," and our infidel hearts deify means. But the sentence of death has gone forth from the mouth of the Lord, and it has taken hold; the faith of a Hezekiah can be only and nakedly in God. To Him to whom belongeth the issues of death, who turneth man to destruction, and saith, Return ye children of men, he looks in the hour of his sore sickness. The Lord that hath recovered him, and made him to live, he celebrates in the writing which he wrote when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness. The lump of figs laid as a plaister on the boil is but a lump of figs. If healing and health have flowed into his veins mediately through them, the breaker of the brazen serpent acknowledges that it is the God of the brazen serpent that has been at work. A wonder has been wrought in the land. There is an accompanying wonder, the tidings whereof reach even to Babylon, "So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down." (5: 8.) The princes of Babylon may send to enquire about this wonder, and congratulate the king on whose behalf it has been wrought; but He whose hand is in both, who suspends not, nor reverses the action of the laws of nature, save in the accomplishment of His own counsels, has another field of enquiry for His saints. On the sick-bed of Hezekiah, no less than on the dial of Ahaz, God has put forth His power. "I will bring again the shadow of the degrees," "I will add unto thy days fifteen years." Faith owns this; but the secret of His ways has to be arrived at by the man of faith, not through enquiries in the world without, but through the discovery to himself of the world within. "The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness: I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years. I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world. Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd’s tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: He will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will He break all my bones: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me." (vv. 9-14.) These bemoanings of a Hezekiah and other godly souls of old are so many preachings of much practical value to ourselves, as illustrating the deliverance wrought for us in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Death and life stand side by side in the "all things" that are ours. The keys of hell and death are in the hands of a risen Lord. The grace of God, by which the Lord Jesus Christ tasted death, has triumphed in the stronghold of him who had the power of death, award of the judgment of God. But there is nothing of this in the scene before us. Darkness and dread, and the breaking up of earthly occupations, and ties, and hopes, press on the soul. There is no "Thanks be to God, which giveth, us the victory," for there is no such victory known. God is looked to, but it is for a present deliverance from death, and for prolonged life in the land. On what wondrous vantage-ground is the simple believer in Jesus now set. For him, death is a thing behind, he has a life hidden with Christ in God. Christ is his life, and whilst he knows that when Christ shall appear, he shall appear with Him in glory, he is waiting for God’s Son from heaven, as his immediate and blessed hope. He may put off this mortal body if Jesus tarry, that is but a filling asleep, a being put to sleep by Jesus; he departs to be with Christ, which is far better, instead of being at home in the body, and absent from the Lord: absent from the body, he is present with the Lord. My reader, can you say, as in such a position, "I am always confident"? or are you, with many a bearer of the name of the risen One, still seeking the living among the dead? To return to the writing - "What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and Himself hath done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live. Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth. The Lord was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the Lord." (vv. 15-20.) The Lord has undertaken for him. He killeth and maketh alive; He bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up. Such is the acknowledgment of Hezekiah. "Salvation is of the Lord." And mark, with the sense of this deliverance fresh upon his soul, the purpose of Hezekiah’s heart is not merely that of paying that which he has vowed in the presence of the Lord’s people, of sacrificing unto Him with the voice of thanksgiving: his thought is, that he shall bear along with him the remembrance of these days through all after life, that what man is and what death is, as he saw and felt about them then, will never be forgotten. But it is one thing to recognise the truth of these things with the face to the wall, one thing to have the strength and godliness of nature withered there and thus; and it is altogether another and a different thing, so to live in the continual sense of God’s presence, as to disallow every pretension of the flesh. What resolutions, not insincere but formed in ignorance of self; are recorded in this memorandum of a convalescent Hezekiah. He who had thought to behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world is about to enter afresh. for a definite added term upon the scenes and activities of life, how will he carry himself in them? The dead and risen one will be altogether unlike his former self. His sins of the past forgiven, he starts afresh with settled purpose of heart that he will no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. Bearing about with him in all its wholesome bitterness the lesson of death, a living one, he will be on the principle of a continuous gratitude, the worshipper and extoller of the Lord. Such is his settled purpose. Alas! it is built upon the "I shall" and "we will" of a sincere but self-ignorant heart. Ere the cock crow, this Old Testament Peter must be made to prove that his own "I will," like the "will not I" of the son of Jonas, is but big words. There is no "hold thou me up" about it, and hence there is no stability. The very next chapter brings before us a state of things entirely dissimilar from that of these good resolutions, It is again a time of prosperity; the sackcloth is put off, and the wearer of it is girded with gladness. Is the house in order? has God His own right place? The ambassadors of the king of Babylon have come, and Hezekiah’s heart is "lifted up;" the man who was to go softly is a self-exalter. "Howbeit in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart." (2 Chronicles 32:31.) He has put God in remembrance of the perfectness of his heart, and God leaves him that he may know what that heart is. The ambassadors come: an opportunity is presented for magnifying the Lord, for making known the truth. What does he do? Then "Hezekiah was glad of them, and showed them the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armour, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them not." He was glad of them: this explains it all. He calls them to examine his treasures; but God is calling him to the examination of his own heart. "I am king in Jerusalem," says that heart in its pride; just as another, "Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power and for the honour of my majesty?" There is nothing of the dead man in all this, nothing of a going softly. It needs but that we be left a little moment, so that we should be tried, in order to our knowing all that is in our hearts, and that which is in the heart comes out to our self-loathing. "He that trusteth his own heart is a fool." That man may carry himself well and go through with the cheat until he makes his bow at the end who is the more actor of a part, walking before his fellow men instead of before God. It may be a fair show that is made, though a fair show in the flesh. But the true-hearted saint, who knows what it is to wrestle and writhe through the onslaught of indwelling corruption, to detect the breaking out afresh of some old sore, the stealthy reviving of the viper long thought dead, finds his safety in a holding fast grace and keeping himself in the love of God. To return to Hezekiah. We read in Chronicles that he "rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him; for his heart was lifted up: therefore there was wrath upon him, and upon Judah and Jerusalem. Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah." He humbles himself under the hand and word of the Lord. It is ever thus with one through grace true at bottom. The look that, while it brings sin to mind, assures us that He is unchanged in His love against whom that sin is, and that He has provided for it all, works brokenness of spirit. "Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon. Then said he, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All that is in mine house have they seen; there is nothing among my treasures that I have not showed them. Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord of hosts Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." (vv. 3-7.) "Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days." (5: 8.) What a justifying of God in His ways have we here! However humbling the needed process through which His saints are put, the grace is pure that does it. Our profit is attained when, exercised through the discipline, we turn from self and from eyeing our graces to find in God our help. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 82: VOL 02 - THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER OF JOHN ======================================================================== The Fourteenth Chapter of John Truly wonderful and infinite is the blessing which is opened out for us in the fourteenth and following chapters of John. I desire to trace it a little. We will notice first, the commencement of all, the way to the Father, "I am," says Jesus, "the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." No way but through Him - through His blood - the new and living way now made open for us into the holiest of all, even the presence of God. The point of connection between this and verses 1 to 3 being, that they who have access or entrance to the Father by Him have of course entrance also to the Father’s house. We next learn the blessed truth, that by coming through Jesus we not only come to the Father, but we get the Father. "If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him." The poor weak heart, ignorant of its full blessedness in Jesus, would embody its soul in that language, "Show me the Father, and it sufficeth me." Only let me know that the Father too is mine, and it is enough - it is all. And that satisfaction is nigh at hand: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." We cannot separate between the two; we cannot get Jesus without getting the Father, because the Father was - is in Jesus. If by faith we have looked upon Jesus crucified and risen for the forgiveness of our sins; if we have thus seen Jesus, we have seen the Father; if we have thus got Jesus, we have got the Father. Too much have these things been separated between, Jesus looked at as an averter between us and an offended God: so that the love of Jesus has been honoured, to the disparagement of the love of the Father that gave Him (John 3:16), that raised. Him up from the dead when His work was completed, that our faith and our hope might be in God. (1 Peter 1:21.) It was the Father’s love that provided the Son’s satisfaction; the sheet is let down from Him and takes us back to Him. Surely therefore here we find full satisfaction. Blessed truth! to know that God, even our Father’s countenance, ever rests upon us now in love. (2 Corinthians 4:6.) It can never in reality change. As Christ is, so are we; and His position now is so blessedly opened to us in spirit. (Psalms 21:6.) And the Lord says, "Ye know Him." What a nobility there is in the saint. It is not only that our sins are forgiven, and we are in an acceptable relation to Him. The poorest saint can say what the proudest, most lofty amongst men cannot say with truth by nature, "I know God." And surely this is eternal life in its truest sense, to know Him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. "I know Him," I suppose, constitutes the full blessing of our portion. This thought of the union of the Father and the Son brings in another thought, I think; viz., of our union in them. But I will pass on now to preserve more order. The next truth I notice is union with Christ. This is our full joy. "In that day [the Spirit being come] ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." Blessed truth! We may say it is the centre truth of God. Union for the Church; union for the individual. The Church His body; the individual bone of His bone, etc. I would notice here that I believe the Spirit is here spoken of as the witness and agent of this our union with the Head, taking verses 17, 18, 20 in connection. I would notice now what two important truths we have here together - opposite, yet connected. As to our union with Christ, we know, blessed be God! that it does not depend upon our walk and doings; it is settled and secured for us by Him in Christ Jesus. It does not depend upon our frames and feelings. It ever exists. But the realization of that union is closely connected with our walk. "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them," says the Lord, "he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." (5: 21.) Yea, He has something more than manifesting to speak of. He does not come alone in verse 23, but another with Him; and they come to abide. "We will come unto him, and make our abode with him." How important to see these two. That our union is established irrevocably in Him, thus giving full rest to our souls, independent of our works, and yet called so to walk as to have its full joy in us. This union with Christ brings in another thing which I passed over before, our position here of power as in union with Christ, having the Spirit, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall He do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." (5: 12.) Our place now in the world, if we use it aright, is one of power. I do not mean necessarily external power at all; because we are united with Him who is in the place of power, "gone to His Father" (5: 12), "exalted by the right hand of God," says Peter (Acts 2:33), "glorified." (Acts 3:13.) This was, I judge, a great power of their testimony just then. I suppose this was quite verified at Pentecost, when the Spirit was given, when three thousand souls were added to them in that day. "The time of power, the demonstration of power, was come, because Jesus was glorified." Perhaps this thought is a little conveyed to us in the words, "the day of Pentecost was fully come." The fruits of the seed which He had sown were quickened. Remark in the beautiful connection between Jesus glorified and the Spirit present, the power of our union with Him, "He that believeth on me . . . out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." (John 7:38.) And let us remark, this is equally our portion now, though it may be modified in application by apostasy; "we are in union with Jesus, we have the indwelling Spirit." We ought therefore to show forth the power of Him with whom we are in union, that good vine into which we have been grafted. Our power to do this is shown in Jesus. (John 15:4; John 15:8.) A further way of our power is shown in John 14:13; how regulated,John 15:7. When I add to this the teaching of chap. 15, our power of service as in the living vine, our relation to Him as friends, having the full knowledge and communion of His mind" the mind of Christ," the Spirit’s agency, as "the Revealer" (John 16:7; John 16:12-13) - the boundless store that, in consequence of our position, belongs to us (John 16:14-15), the simple, naked position of love in which we stand before the Father, so as, in one sense, to need nothing to support us (John 16:26-27)though we know in His wisdom and grace there is something more to support us, quite indispensable, even the priesthood of Christ - and finally, presentation unto Him in glory according to His own will (John 17:24), we may truly say, "Who hath heard such a thing? who hath known such a thing?" "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit." (1 Corinthians 2:9-10.), ======================================================================== CHAPTER 83: VOL 02 - THE GENTILE ======================================================================== The Gentile Daniel 1:1-21. There is something much to be observed in the opening of the book of Daniel. It was the moment when the Gentile was receiving the sword of government from the hand of the Lord; and this Scripture lets us know with what mind the Gentile did receive it; and we see that it was a very bad mind indeed. The Gentile would never have had the sword in this way, if Israel had been true to Jehovah, and the house of David continued in their integrity. But at this moment, when the Chaldean is thus endowed, Jerusalem is a wilderness, and the glory is departed from the earth. The Gentile, therefore, in taking the sword, should have taken it as with a burthened heart. He should, in spirit, have sorrowfully tracked the way by which power had now come into his hand, and have accepted it as with grief and trembling. This would have been the right mind in the Gentile when accepting power from God on the fall of Jerusalem and the departure of the glory. In such a spirit David accepted power. It was Saul’s apostasy that opened the passage to the throne for David. But Saul was God’s anointed; and the fall of the anointed of the Lord was before David at that moment, rather than his own exultation. He lamented with a sore lamentation over the mountains of Gilboa, where Saul and Jonathan had been slain. (2 Samuel 1:1-27.) This was beautiful, and the very opposite or contradiction of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 1:1-21. Instead of mourning, the king of Babylon triumphs; and the very first thing he does is to adorn his palace, the seat and witness of his power, with the best-favoured children he could get from among the captives of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar should not have looked on Jerusalem in the day of her calamity. He may have been the rod of the Lord’s indignation against her, but he should have used his commission with a grieved heart. The glory itself, though it had to leave Zion (Ezekiel 7:1-27; Ezekiel 8:1-18; Ezekiel 9:1-11; Ezekiel 10:1-22; Ezekiel 11:1-25) left it reluctantly and with reserve, and, as I may say, sorrowfully. And this Gentile should have known, also, the holiness of Judah, and how near the Lord had been to Israel. If he never thought of this, it was because of the hardness of his heart, and he is answerable for such hardness that blinded him, as the world is answerable for not knowing Him who made it when He was in it. The Gentile should have known that God’s house was at Jerusalem; a house, too, made to be a house of prayer for all nations. All this was the witness of God’s presence in that city; and the Gentile’s exultation in the day of her calamity is the Gentile’s wickedness. All this condemns the Gentile from the very beginning. And when we look around and abroad, we see him in the same spirit to this day. Nay, the Gentile has this further sin attaching to him. He is now in Christendom, exalting himself, advancing, enriching, and adorning himself in the world, though Christ, the King of glory, like the glory of old in Jerusalem, has been grieved and sent away. The present Gentile is careless about the sorrows and the blood of Jesus, just as Nebuchadnezzar, in his day, was careless and thoughtless about the fall and the griefs of Jerusalem. The Gentile is the Gentile still; and God’s indignation against Jerusalem shall end in his destruction. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 84: VOL 02 - THE OPENED HEAVENS ======================================================================== The Opened Heavens Hebrews 1:1-14; Hebrews 2:1-18. The Epistle to the Hebrews strikingly illustrates one quality of the Book of God. It may be read in various lights; yet no one ray interferes with another. In six or seven ways this epistle could be read with the greatest ease. I will specially look now at the first two chapters. It opens the heavens to you as they now are. How blessed is the introduction of such a thing to the heart! You look up, and see the physical heavens above you; but it is only the superficial heavens you see. This epistle introduces the inner heavens to you, and not in a physical, but in a moral, character. It introduces us to the glories surrounding and attaching to the Lord Jesus, now accepted in the heavens. We are thus enabled to see the heavens in which He has sat down; what He is about there, and what will succeed those heavens. When the Lord Jesus was here, as we learn in Matthew 3:1-17, the heavens opened to get a sight of Him. There was an object here, then, worthy the attention of the heavens. He returned - and the heavens had an object they had never known before - a glorified man. And now it is the office of our epistle to show us the heavens as the place of this glorified man. And as in Matthew 3:1-17 we get the heavens opened to look down at Christ here, so in the Hebrews you get the heavens opened, that you may look up at Christ there. But supposing you ask, Is that all the history of the heavens? Have you gone to the end? Indeed, I have not. In the fourth and fifth chapters of the Apocalypse, we get the heavens preparing for the judgment of the earth. Then, at the close of the volume, I find the heavens not only the residence of the glorified man, but of the glorified Church. What a book it is that can present to us such secrets as these! It is a divine library. You take down one volume from your shelf, and read about the heavens; in another volume you read of man in ruins. Take down a third, and you read of God in grace; and so on in precious, wondrous variety. Now we will set ourselves down before chapters 1 and 2 "When He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." That is just taking up the pledge I gave, that the epistle is going to open to us the heavens. The Lord has been here purging our sins, and He has gone up to occupy the heavens as the purger of our sins. Supposing I had been to a distant country, I might describe it to you so as to fill you with delight, and with desire to visit it. But when the Holy Ghost comes, and shows you the distant heavens, He does more than this. He shows you that your interests are consulted there. Our representative is seated in the highest place - and seated there in that very character. Is it possible to have a more intimate link with the place? It is a wonder we are not all on the wing, to get there as soon as we can! To think that because He came to die a wretched death for us, He is seated there! I defy you to have a richer interest in the heavens than God has given you. Now, in verse 4, we see that not only as the purger of our sins, but in the verity of His manhood, He is there, seated above the angelic hosts. We have seen already what an interest we have in Him as the purger of our sins. Now, the chapter introduces Him to us as the Son of man above angels. Man has been preferred to angels. Human nature, in the person of Christ, has been seated above angelic nature, though it be in Michael or in Gabriel. The whole of Hebrews 1:1-14 is thus occupied in giving you two sights of Christ in heaven. What two secrets they are! The purger of our sins, and very man, like ourselves, seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high. I read the first four verses of Hebrews 2:1-18 as a parenthesis. Do not you like these parentheses? The Holy Ghost speaks the language of nature. We see friends, when conversing together, turning a little aside, to converse about one another. So the apostle speaks here: "I am teaching you wonderful things. Do take heed that you let not such things fall on a careless ear." We must not be mere scholars. If we be disciples of a living master in the school of God, we shall have our consciences exercised while we are pursuing our lesson. That is what the apostle is doing here. That parenthesis falls on the ear most sweetly and acceptably. But though a parenthesis, it opens a new glory to us. How the field of Scripture teems with fruit! It is not a thing you have to till diligently and get but little fruit. That parenthesis contains another glory of Christ. (Surely we ought not to need exhortation!) He is seated there as an apostle - My apostle. What does that mean? He is a preacher to me. God spake in times past by the prophets. He is speaking to us now by the Son; and Christ in the heavens is the apostle of Christianity. And what is His subject? Salvation. That salvation which, as the purger of our sins, He wrought out for us, and which, as the apostle, of our profession, He makes known to us. There is more furnishing of the heavens for you. Then, verse 5 returns to the theme of Hebrews 1:1-14. It goes on with the distinctive glories of Christ, as super-eminent, above angels. "For unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world to come." What is "the world to come"? It is the millennial age which we read of in Psalms 8:1-9. We have three conditions of the Son of man here. "A little lower than the angels;" "crowned with glory and honour;" and "set over the works of God’s hands." So that the world to come is not put in subjection to angels, but to the Son of man. Now you find that you have an interest in this glorified man. I was saying that if I went to a distant land, and described to you its scenic wonders, you would desire a sight of them. But this epistle shows you that you have a personal interest in these glories. Is there a single point that the Son of man has travelled, in which you have not an interest? The apostle traces it here for you. So that, again I say, this epistle is opening the distant heavens to your view, and showing you the glories that attach to Christ, and that you have an immediate, personal interest in those glories. In verse 10 a new thought comes in. "To make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Only pause here for a moment. It became the glory of God to give you a perfect Saviour. Do you believe it? What thoughts rise on the soul when we come to that! Are you in possession of Him, so that you never in a single thought are tempted to look beyond Him? We have got an unquestionable, infallible salvation, one that will stand the shock of every coming day. From ver. 11 we further see our interest in the glorified man. "Both He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one; for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." Not ashamed! Tell it out that earth and heaven may hear! This glorified man is a brother of the elect of God. He is "not ashamed," because of their dignity. Not merely because of His grace, but because of their personal dignity. He has appointed me a share of His own throne. Is He ashamed of His own doings - of His own adoptings? Do not get creeping, cold thoughts, as you read Scripture. Our thoughts of Christ should be such as to take captive our whole man - to bear us on eagle’s wings. "In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee." Christ raising and leading the song of the ransomed ones, and not ashamed to be found in their company! "And again, I will put my trust in Him." He did that when He was here, and we do it now. "And again, behold I and the children which God hath given me." There is our interest in the glorified man. Then we return to see what He was in humiliation. "He took not on angels; but He took on the seed of Abraham." He left the angels where He found them. The angels excelled in strength. They kept their first estate; and He left them there. Man excelled in wickedness; and He came and linked Himself with man. Then verse 17 introduces us to another glory that attaches to Christ in the heavens. We see Him there as our High Priest, ever waiting with reconciliation for sins and succour for sorrows. The epistle teems with divine glories. It is massive in glory and ponderous in the divine thoughts that press into its short space. Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-16. - We were observing, that one leading characteristic of this epistle is, that it gives us a look into heaven as it now is - not as it was in Genesis 1:1-31 and not as it will be in Revelation 4:1-11 or 21. The heaven of Genesis 1:1-31 had no glorified man in it - no apostle - no high priest. The heaven of Hebrews has all these. That being the general character of the epistle, we looked at the Lord Jesus as in that heaven. Then, we were observing, how the Lord is there as a glorified man - as the purger of our sins - as our apostle preaching salvation, and as the high priest making reconciliation for sins. Every page is fruitful in casting up the glories of the Lord Jesus now in heaven. Now we will take up chaps. 3 and 4. Having been introduced to the heavens where Christ is, and to the Christ that is in those heavens, chaps. 3 and 4 turn a little round on ourselves, and look a little sharply at us, and tell us to take care now that we are travelling along the road in company with Him. The first thought is, that we are to consider Him in His faithfulness. The exhortation here is commonly misunderstood. For what are we to consider the apostle and high priest of our profession? Is it to imitate him? The religious mind says so. But that is not the point of the passage at all. I am to consider Him as faithful, for my sake, to God; faithful so that I might be saved eternally. If I do not consider Him so, I have more than blunted the point of the passage, and lost the sense of grace. The word should be, not "was faithful," but, "is faithful," or "being faithful." Not in walking down here, but now in heaven. I look up and see Him discharging these offices, faithful to Him that appointed Him. What business have I to imitate Him in His high priesthood? I am to consider Him for mycomfort. What a constellation of grace there is in all that! The grace of God that appointed Him, the grace of the Son that discharges the work, and the grace that opens chap. 3 is infinite in magnificence. Could there be a more sublime exhortation or diviner doctrine? We get the Son in the highest heavens, there seated as the purger of our sins - the apostle and high priest of our profession - and could any exhortation be more divine than that which tells me to sit still and look at Him in His faithfulness up there? Then, in verses 3 and 4 and onward, we get further glories unfolded, in contrast with Moses. The first dispensation is here called a house. It was a servant to serve a coming Christ - Moses and the house are identical. All the activities of that dispensation were worth nothing, if they did not bear testimony to a coming Christ. Therefore, it was a servant. When the Lord comes, on the other hand, He comes as a Son, to claim that which is His own, as His own; and the whole thing now depends on this: Will the house over which He is set be faithful to Him? What is your faithfulness? To continue in confidence, and hold the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. "Christ for me - Christ for me!" I’ll take nothing but this all-sufficient Christ. Cling to Him day by day till the wilderness journey is over. Then you are part and parcel of that house over which He presides as a Son. He not only presides over it, but He claims it as His own - a dearer thought. It is quite right to be subject to Him; but He tells you to lie near His heart. Faithfulness is not merely being subject to the headship of Christ. If I am lying on His bosom, then I am faithful. So that when the Spirit comes to exhort, in chaps. 3 and 4, He has not left the high and wondrous ground of chaps. 1 and 2. Then, having come to that point, He turns aside to Psalms 95:1-11. If you begin to read at Psalms 92:1-15, and read to the close of Psalms 101:1-8, you will find it a beautiful little millennial volume. It is exhortings and awakenings of the Spirit of faith in Israel; summoning them to look forward to the rest of God. How is that brought in here? The wilderness journey of Israel is a beautiful lively picture of the journey the believer is now taking from the blood to the glory. People, sometimes, at the opening of chap. 4, turn in on themselves. But rest to the conscience is not the thing that is thought of at all. It assures us that we are. out of Egypt, and looking towards Canaan. The danger is, not lest the blood should not be on the lintel; but lest we should break down by the way, as thousands did in the wilderness. It never calls you to reinvestigate the question of having found rest in the blood - but, take care how you travel along the road. When He speaks of rest, it is the rest of the kingdom He talks of - not the rest of the conscience. Then He calls the whole age, through which we are passing, one day. - "Today." It was a short day to the dying thief - a short day to the martyred Stephen. A longer day to Paul, and a longer day still to John; but, let the wilderness journey be short or long, it is one day, and you are to hold by Christ to the very end. If you are to be partakers of Christ, you must hold fast to the end. Now, what is the Christ of verse 14? A Christ crucified? No; Christ glorified. You are made partakers of Christ in the kingdom, if you hold fast by Christ crucified. Let this "today" ring in the heart and conscience every hour. Holding to a crucified Christ is my title to the rest of a glorified Christ. Two things contest this with you - sin and unbelief. Do not you recognize these two enemies as you pass along? Shall I continue in sin? Am I to give place to one wrong thought? I may be overtaken - but am I to treat them other than as enemies? Then unbelief is an action of the soul towards God. You and I do not know what saintly character is - what it is to be between Egypt and Canaan - if we are not aware that those two things stand out to withstand our passage every day. Hebrews 4:1-16 still pursues the subject. ’The Christ of Hebrews 3:14 is the rest of chap. 4; Christ, glorified - rest, glorious. He has us out of Egypt. The exhortation attaches to a people out of Egypt. We have left the blood-sprinkled lintel behind. The glorious Canaan is before us. Take heed lest you come short of it. "Unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them." The gospel, not of the blood of Christ, but of the glory of Christ. It took one form in the ear of the Israelites, and it takes another form to us; but to them, as to us, rest was preached. Then he beautifully falls back on the Sabbath rest of the Creator. The blessed Creator provided Himself a rest after creation. He promised Himself a rest in Canaan after bringing them through the wilderness. Adam disturbed His creation-rest. Israel disturbed His Canaan-rest. Is He therefore disappointed in His rest? No; He has found it in Christ. The secret of the whole book of God is, God retreating into Christ, when man in every way had disappointed Him. Christ is the one who has worked out that rest, and who holds it now, and it remains with Him both for God and for His saints. "Therefore it remains that some must enter therein." It is no longer a fallible thing depending on Adam or on Israel; therefore, let us take care that we do not come short of it. Now we get two ways in which to use Christ. We had two enemies in the end of chapter 3; now we have two uses of Christ in the end of chapter 4. We are to use Him as the Word of God, and as the High Priest of our profession. Is that the way I am using Him? These two uses stand opposed to sin and unbelief. Let the word of God discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. Instead of giving place to your lusts and vanities, invite the entrance of the two-edged sword, that makes no allowance for a single bit of sin. And when you have dragged out the enemy - found some favourite lust lying in this corner, and some unsuspected vanity in that - what are you to do with them? Take them to Christ, and let His High Priesthood dispose of them in the mercy and grace that are in it. There we pause for the present. We have seen the heavens opened, and looked in and found there a man arrayed in glories, every one of which I have an interest in. Then comes the exhortation. Two enemies beset you. Take care. Instead of yielding to them, make use of the two-edged sword; and when you have found them out, take them to Jesus. There is a beautiful suitability between the Christ that is exhibited up above in chapters 1 and 2, and you and I, as we are exhibited here below in all the characteristics of chapters 3 and 4. Hebrews 5:1-14; Hebrews 6:1-20 - We will read now to the 10th verse of the 5th chapter; and from there until the close of the 6th, we may observe that the apostle turns aside to a parenthetic warning. He is full of that style; and our style with one another is full of it. Such little breaks and interruptions in a discourse are always grateful to us. In the first ten verses of the 5th a most weighty matter is introduced to our thoughts. In the first verse we get a general abstract thought of priesthood. It is that thing which serves men in their relationships to God. Then the character of service is presented to us. "That He may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins;" that is, that He may conduct both eucharistic services and penitential or expiatory services before God. He stands to conduct our interests with God, in whatever form. He is "taken from among men," that He may have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way. He is not, taken from among angels. Therefore we read in Timothy, "the man Christ Jesus." God, in ordaining a priest for us, has chosen one who can have compassion. We find, at the close of the 7th chapter, that the Lord Jesus was separate from infirmity. But the priest here was one who by reason of infirmity could sympathize. The Lord Jesus had to learn how to sympathize, as well as to learn obedience, by the things which He suffered. Under the Old Testament Scriptures, two persons are distinctly set in the office of the priesthood. Aaron, in Leviticus 8:1-36; Leviticus 9:1-24, and Phinehas in Numbers 25:1-18. The difference between them was this. Aaron was simply called into the priesthood? Phineas acquired a title to it. When we come to the Lord Jesus, we find that both these, Aaron and Phinehas, are seen in Him. He was "called of God, as was Aaron." Aaron was a mere called priest. The priesthood of Numbers 25:1-18 stands in contrast with Aaron’s. Phinehas was not called, as was Aaron, but he acquired his title. How did he do this? He made an atonement for Israel, in the day of their great breach, touching the daughters of Baal-peor, and enabled the Lord to look with satisfaction again at His erring camp. Phinehas stood forward to avenge the quarrel of righteousness, and to make atonement for the sin of the people. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Phinehas hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel; wherefore say, Behold I give unto him my covenant of peace, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood." Nothing can be finer than this. You could not have a more magnificent light in which to read the Christ of God than in that act of Phinehas. Aaron was never in this way entitled to a covenant of peace. So you have these two Old Testament lights, in which to read the priesthood of the Lord Jesus.* He was the true Aaron, and the true Phinehas. Both these are brought out here. The blessed Lord Jesus was called into office, as was Aaron; but He was in office because He made an atonement. This, earth was like the outside place of the temple, where the brazen altar was. The Lord Jesus is now seated in the sanctuary of the heavens, which God has pitched, and not man, because He has passed by the brazen altar on earth. He has passed it by and has satisfied it. Nothing can be simpler, and yet nothing can be more mysteriously grand. How did God bear witness to the satisfaction of the brazen altar? By rending the veil. Then it is an easy thing to pass in. If God has rent the veil, am I to let it be rent for nothing? If it be now rent, I have as much right to go inside as the Israelites of old were bound to keep outside. By satisfying the altar, He has passed by the rent veil, into the sanctuary in the heavens. All that is brought out here. He glorified not Himself to be made a High Priest. Why is it a matter of honour to be made a High Priest? You’ll tell me, that nothing can dignify the Son of God; and I grant it. But let me ask you, Do not men know what it is to have acquired honours, as well as hereditary honours? The son of a nobleman goes to battle; and may he not acquire honours as well as his hereditary family dignities? And tell me, which will he value the most? Those which he has acquired. He himself is more honoured by them. His hereditary dignities are his, and no thanks to him; but his acquired honours are more especially his own. Divine things are illustrated by human things. Who can add anything to Him who is God over all, blessed for ever? But the Son has been in the battle, and acquired honours that would never have been His, if He had not taken up the cause of sinners; and dear and precious honours they are to Him! That word "called" is very sweet in the original. God "saluted," "greeted," Him, when He seated Him in the sanctuary, as He greeted Him when He seated Him on the throne: "Sit thou at my right hand." The epistle to the Hebrews shows, in the opened heavens, a throne as well as a sanctuary. *Melchisedec was a third. - Hebrews 7:1-28. In the 7th, 8th, and 9th verses, we find some very weighty truths, connected with ourselves. "Who, in the days of His flesh" (let us mark that with holy reverence), "when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save him from death." The scene of that conflict was eminently marked in Gethsemane. What was the transaction there? He properly shrank from undergoing the judgment of God against sin. "And was heard for His piety." He was heard, because death, the wages of sin, had no claim on Him. His claim to deliverance was allowed. Instead of the judgment of God being sent to wither His flesh, an angel was sent to strengthen Him. Yet He suffered death. He might have claimed His own personal exemption from it, yet He went through it. He learned obedience to His commission by travelling from Gethsemane to Cavalry, and He now presents Himself to the eye of every sinner on earth as the Author of eternal salvation. We see the Lord in Gethsemane pleading, as I may express it, His title against death. His title is owned; yet, though death has no claim on Him personally, He says, "Thy will be done!" He might have gone from Gethsemane to Heaven; but He went the rather from Gethsemane to Calvary; and so, being made perfect there, He became the Author of eternal salvation to all who receive Him. Then, when the altar was satisfied, the sanctuary received Him, and there He is. In Creation, God planted a man in the garden in innocence; in redemption, God has planted a man in heaven, in glory. There is a glory that excelleth. The glory in redemption leaves the glory that was once in Creation as a nothing. Now we have got down to verse 10. Observe, that the language of verse 10 is taken up in Hebrews 6:20, and the argument there has not advanced beyond this verse 10. Supposing, then, I were to take you to 1 Corinthians 2:1-16; 1 Corinthians 3:1-23, you would find the apostle there hindered in his teaching. "You are carnal; I cannot teach you with the rich treasures I have, stored up for the Church." It is so here; only there the evil that hindered was moral: here it is doctrinal. It was very difficult for the Hebrew to detach himself from the things in which he had been educated. He was "unskillful in the word of righteousness." The legal mind is apt to take up righteousness as Moses did, as a thing demanded from us. God takes it up as a thing that He will give us. And, in the next chapter. finding this hindrance among them, He sounds an alarm, as in the opening of Hebrews 2:1-18, He sounded an exhortation. A carnal mind and a legal mind are two great villains. They are both little foxes that spoil the vintage of God. "Now," says the apostle, "you must leave these things. I must put you down to another volume, and that volume is perfection." "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened," etc. That is, "It is not within my reach to do it." We must leave it to God, whether they be brought back or not. It is just between themselves and God. It is a terrible thing, having known Christ, to go back to ordinances; but I have no warrant to say that it will not be forgiven in the person of many who have thus been ensnared, but have come back. Hebrews 7:1-28 - To look carefully at the Melchisedec priesthood of Christ is important to our souls. Therefore, for the present, we will lay aside the parenthesis at the close of Hebrews 6:1-20, and read part of Hebrews 5:1-14 and the whole of the Hebrews 7:1-28 We were looking at the priesthood of the Lord Jesus as reflected in Aaron and Phinehas. Aaron, we saw, was simply called into his office - Phinehas earned his office. We will now look at the Melchisedec phase of the same priesthood. Supposing I said to you, that this world is a scene of forfeited life - you would understand me; Life is but suspended death. To return to life is to return to God. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Sin worked the forfeiture of life; consequently, if I can make a return to life, I make a return to God. In two characters God visits this world - as a Quickener, and as a Judge; and John 5:1-47 tells us that we are all interested in one or other of these visits. Now, it is the office of this epistle to let every poor believer in Jesus know that he has returned to life, and that his business now is with the living God, and with God the quickener. "The living God" is an expression that occurs often in this epistle. "Departing from the living God"-"To serve the living God" - "The city of the living God." The living God thus occupies the field of my vision both now and in glory. I am now not to depart from Him, which intimates that I have got back to Him. I have escaped from the region of death, and got back to the region of life; and by and by in glory I shall find "the city of the living God." The question is, How have I got back to Him? The epistle beautifully unfolds that. It is a magnificent moral subject to trace the Lord Jesus in His ministry through the four gospels, and see Him from the beginning to the close of His history displaying Himself as the living God in this world. To mark Him at Gethsemane - to mark Him giving up the ghost - then as the living God rising from the tomb, and bestowing the Holy Ghost. We see the living God in a scene pregnant with death. It is the office of this Epistle to the Hebrews very specially to present Christ as the living God. The apostle is full of the death and the cross of Christ. It would not be the Epistle to the Hebrews if it did not take up Christ in His vicarious character. But though we see the Lamb on the altar, we see the vacant sepulchre too. We have remarked before, that the Lord Himself always attaches to the story of His death the story of His resurrection. The Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and the. scribes, and they shall condemn Him to death . . . and the third day He shall rise, again." We have the same thing here, only in a doctrinal, and not an historic way. The cross is often named, but always in company with the ascension. Take the opening of the epistle. "When He had by Himself purged our sins." How did He purge them? By death. Death looks at you at the very opening of this epistle; but at once you read, "Sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Again we read, "That He, by the grace of God should taste death for every man." Does the story end there? No. He, is "crowned with glory and honour." What is done historically in the gospels, is taken up doctrinally in the Hebrews. The Holy Ghost is considering the living God in the person of Jesus, as Jesus was exhibiting the living God in His own person. So again in chap. 2, "That through death" - death looks again at you; but what follows? "He might destroy him that had the power of death." Have I not again the empty sepulchre, as well as the altar and the Lamb? I go, in this epistle, to find an empty grave; but, not as "Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary." I expect to find it empty. Their mistake, dear women, was, that they expected to find it full. I go expecting to find it empty, and I do find it so. When I see the Lamb on the altar, and the empty sepulchre, I have got hold of victorious, infallible life, That is the rock-life of which the Lord spoke to Peter. In chap. 5 we find, that in Gethsemane He transacted the question of His title, and was heard for His piety. He had a moral title to life. Then He surrendered that moral title and took His vicarious place. From Gethsemane He walked on to Calvary. Gethsemane was a wonderful moment, There the great question of life and death was settled between God and Christ; and; instead of taking the journey He was entitled to up there, He went along the dreary road our sins put Him on down here. There is exceeding blessed interest about all that. At Calvary, again, we find Him in death; but the moment He gave up the ghost, everything felt the power of the conqueror. He had gone down into the darkest regions of death, but the moment He touched them, every one of them felt the power of the conqueror. The earth quaked, the rocks were rent, the graves were opened, and the bodies of the saints arose. If we look in John 20:1-31, we see, not merely the vacant tomb, but the tomb strewed with the tokens of victory - the linen clothes lying, and the napkin, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapt together in a place by itself. We shall never be able to read the mystery of the Christ of God, if we do not remember Him as the living God in the midst of death, getting victories worthy of Himself. We see Him in death rending the veil. In the grave we see the napkin lying wrapped together by itself, to tell the story of conquest. We see Him then with His disciples, and He is exactly the living God of Genesis 1:1-31. We find God there breathing life into the nostrils of man - the head and fountain of life. In John 20:1-31 the Lord shines under our eye as the head and fountain of infallible, unforfeitable life, breathing on the disciples and saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." In this epistle we find Him in that character - as entitled to life, and as holding it for us. That is His Melchisedec priesthood. He is not merely the living God. He might have been that if He had gone to heaven from Gethsemane; but He went to heaven from Calvary, and is now there as the living God for us; and God is satisfied - to be sure He is satisfied. How could He be otherwise? Sin has been put away, and the blessed God breathes the element of life. It is, so to speak (with worshipping hearts may it be spoken), His native element; and He, is satisfied. And God has expressed His satisfaction. But how? When Christ rose, in the face of the world that said, "We will not have Him to reign over us;" God said, "Sit thou at my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool" That was His satisfaction in a rejected Christ. When Christ ascended the heavens in another character, as having made atonement, He put Him in the highest heavens with an oath, and built a sanctuary for Him - "The true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man." Is it possible for Him to show us in more interesting form, that He is satisfied with what Christ has done for us? Are the services of such a High Priest enough for me? They must be so. I am in connection with life, and every question is settled between me and God. He is King of Righteousness and King of Peace, and He dispenses all you want in the royal authoritative virtue of His own name. The moment you get the living God expanded in this epistle, you find that everything He touches He communicates life for eternity to it. His Throne is for ever and ever - Hebrews 1:1-14 tells you that. His House is for ever and ever - Hebrews 3:1-19 tells you that. His Salvation is eternal - Hebrews 5:1-14 tells you that. His Priesthood is unchangeable - Hebrews 7:1-28 tells you that. His Covenant is everlasting - Hebrews 9:1-28 tells you that. His Kingdom cannot be moved - Hebrews 12:1-29 tells you that. There is nothing He touches that He does not impart eternity to. To entitle the Epistle to the Hebrews, in a word, we might say, it is the Loaded Altar and the Empty Sepulchre. Christ has not put Himself in possession of life to keep it to Himself. The living Jesus in the highest heavens says, "Now that I have got life, I will share it with you. "Oh the depth of the riches! Hebrews 8:1-13 - We meditated as far as Hebrews 6:7, and there we left it, taking up Hebrews 7:1-28. Now we will read the close of chapters 6 and 8 But before we pursue the doctrine of the epistle, we will look a little at what we called the hortatory parenthesis in chap. 6. At Hebrews 5:10 we left the doctrine, and from that to the close of chap. 6 is a parenthesis. The apostle, having turned aside to exhort them, we were observing that the thing he feared in the Hebrews was not moral, as in the Corinthians, but doctrinal pravity. And do not we see such moral varieties around us now? One has a Corinthian bias; another has a Galatian bias. The thing be feared in the Hebrews was giving up Christ as the object of their confidence. What is the dressing that God is giving your heart now? (Ver. 7.) It is not law, but grace. Moses was on the principle of law - the Lord Jesus was on the principle of grace; and free, happy, grateful hearts are the herbs meet for such tillage. - How is your soul before God? Do you apprehend Him in judgment or in grace? Is the communion of your soul with God in the liberty of grace, or in the fear of a coming day of judgment? If the last, it is not yielding herbs meet for Him by whom it is dressed. Thorns and briers are the product of nature. They are the natural product of a corrupt scene, whether it be the earth I tread, or the heart I carry within me.. Supposing I am acting in a legal, self-righteous mind, dealing with God as a Judge, is not that natural? But these are all thorns and briers. But if I walk in the filial confidence of one who has trusted in the salvation of God, that is the earth yielding fruits meet for Him by whom it is dressed. Now what is the ground of the apostle’s persuasion of "better things" touching them in verse 10? Not confidence in the simplicity of their apprehension of grace, but that the fruits of righteousness were seen among them - beautiful things that accompany but never constitute salvation. Therefore the apostle, seeing this beautiful fruitfulness, says, "Though I am sounding an alarm, I do not attach it to you." Having got on that ground, he pursues it to the close of the chapter, and does not return to what is doctrinal till he reaches chapter 7. He prays them to continue to minister to the saints. Does your knowledge of Christ lead you to two things - secret communion of soul with Him, and practical energy of Christian walk and fruitfulness? "Now," says he, "do you go on with the beautiful practical work you have begun. Do not be slothful, but followers of them who, by faith and patience, inherit the promises." Then he brings out Abraham as one who did not slack his hand to the end. Abraham not only got the promise in Genesis 15:1-21, but went on in patience till it was confirmed by an oath in Genesis 22:1-24. We are called not only to faith, but to the patience of faith. May you not have a consolation, and yet not a strong consolation? We see it in Abraham. He had a consolation in Genesis 15:1-21, and a strong consolation in Genesis 22:1-24. A saint once said to me, "In that last sickness the Lord brought me so near Himself, that I felt as if I had never believed before." The apostle would have us like Abraham (in Genesis 22:1-24), that "we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to take hold upon the hope set before us." This passage is commonly misquoted. It is not a sinner running to the blood for refuge, but a saint running to the hope of glory from the wreck of every prospect here. This is enough to try us. Do you and I sit on the wreck of everything here? Are we promising ourselves hopes for tomorrow? Abraham was a man who fled from every prospect here to lay hold on the hope of glory. The apostle says, "Lay hold on the hope, not on the cross. The word of God has an intensity that commonly escapes us. Now he returns to the Levitical figures. Does your hope enter within the veil? Have not you a hope about tomorrow? What is the thing the expectation of your heart hangs about? Is it the hope of the return of Christ, or the promise of tomorrow? "Whither the Forerunner is for us entered. The Lord Jesus is here brought out in a new character. We see Him in heaven, not only for us as our High Priest, but to secure a place for us with Himself. Oh, if we could unfold the glories of the present dispensation! It is full of glories. Jesus is now in heaven in the glory of a Forerunner - a High Priest - the Purger of our sins. There He sits arrayed in glories. He will put on other glories in the millennial heavens. He will also be King of kings, and Lord of lords on the millennial earth. He is not that now; but there are glories in which He is displayed to the eye of faith. Do you go and meditate, broken-heartedly, on the glories of "these last days," as they are called in this epistle. But we pass on to Hebrews 8:1-13. "We have such an High Priest who is set on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the true sanctuary, which the Lord pitched and not man." What exquisite words! What glories filled the heavens in the days of creation! The sun and moon and stars were set there. His fingers garnished them. And pray have not they garnished the present heavens? If there were glories set in the superficial heavens by the fingers of God, there are glories set in the interior heavens by the grace of God. One of these glories is a tabernacle which the Lord has pitched there. Christ came down from the eternal bosom to glorify God on the earth. Was there anything too brilliant in the way of glory, in which to array such an one? What intercourse we get here between God and His Christ - between the Father and the Son! And among the glories that awaited Him there, was a temple pitched by the Lord Himself. The sun comes out of his chamber to run his course. The Creator built a habitation for the sun in the heavens. (Psalms 19:1-14) God in redemption has built a habitation for the High Priest; and He is seated there in the highest place of honour. Christ could not be a Priest here. The place was divinely occupied. It has been foolishly said He could not go into the holiest. Surely He could not, for He came of the tribe of Judah. Did He come to break God’s ordinances or to fulfil all righteousness? What business had He in the holiest? A priest of the tribe of Levi, if he found Him there, would have been entitled to cast Him out. He was entitled to everything; but He came as a subject, self-emptied servant. Did He intrude on the two poor disciples at Emmaus? Much less would He, a Son of Judah as He was, intrude in God’s house. Here we pause a little. In this epistle we find one thing from the beginning to the end, the Spirit is taking up one thing after another, and laying it aside to make room for Christ; and when He has made room for Christ, and brought Christ in, He fixes Him before us for ever. And we must all submit to it. Has not God laid you aside, and brought in Christ in your stead? Faith bows to this. It is what He has done in every believing soul. So in Hebrews 1:1-14. He lays aside angels. "To which of the angels said He at any time, Sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool?" Oh how faith consents to it! Oh how angels consent to it! Next we see Moses laid aside. "Moses verily was faithful as a servant; but Christ as a Son over His own house." We can part with Moses because we have got Christ - as the poor eunuch could part with Philip because he had got Jesus. Then in Hebrews 4:1-16 comes out Joshua. But he is laid aside also. "If Joshua had given them rest, then would He not afterwards have spoken of another day." Christ is set before me as the true Joshua who really gives me rest. Then Aaron is set aside, to let in the priesthood of Christ; but when I have it before me, I have it for ever. He is the administrator of a better covenant. The old covenant is done away, because the Lord has nothing to say to it. And, at the close, we read the beautiful utterance, which might be the text of the epistle, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever." He, being brought in, is "the same for ever." What a magnificent thought it is, to think of God bringing in the blessed Jesus to the displacing of everything! That is perfection, because God rests in Him.. This is exactly the sabbath of old, when God rested in creation. Now God rests in Christ, and that is perfection; and if you and I understand where we are, we are breathing the atmosphere of perfection - an accomplished work - a sabbath. There is nothing more fruitful in glorious luminaries, than the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is an epistle of untold glories, and of inestimable value to the conscience of the awakened sinner. It is the title of my soul to breathe the atmosphere of heaven itself; and if I do not do so, shall I put a cloud on my title because my experience is so poor? Now, at the close of chap. 8, we see another thing set aside - the first covenant. The covenant that Christ ministers never waxes old. "Your sins I’ll forgive, your iniquities I’ll pardon." There is no wrinkle on its face. No grey hairs upon its brow. The Lord touches everything, and fixes it before God for ever; and God rests in it. He perfects everything He touches. While everything gives place to Him, He gives place to nothing. And would not you have it so? Would not John the Baptist have it so? When they came to him and said, "Rabbi, He that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, behold, the same baptiseth, and all men come to Him." He answered, "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled." This ought to be the instinctive utterance of your heart and mine. If the Spirit has dealt with you in your soul, you ought to say, "Blessed be God for it! He has set me aside to bring Jesus in." There is wonderful unity between the discovery we get here, and the experience of our own souls. We shall never get to an end of these glories, till we are lost in an ocean of them by and by - a sea without a shore! Hebrews 9:1-28 and Hebrews 10:1-18 - We closed at chapter 8; and, pursuing the structure of the epistle, we will now read chap. 9 and down to verse 18 of chap. 10. This is the last section of the doctrinal part; and then, to the close, we get moral exhortations. From the opening of chap. 9 to verse 18 of chap. 10 is one argument. Suppose we linger a little over the structure of the epistle. Did you ever present a little distinctly to your mind the glories that belong to the Lord Jesus? There are three forms of glory that attach to Him - moral glory, personal glory, and official glory. From the manger to the cross was the exhibition of His moral glories. In "these last days" the Lord is exhibiting some of His official glories, and by and by He will exhibit more of them, as in millennial times. The prophets of old spake of His sufferings, and the glories which should follow - not glory. But His personal glory is the foundation of every one of these. This is a grand subject for our constant meditation - the glories of the Lord Jesus, from the womb of the virgin to the throne of His millennial power. All through life He was exhibiting His moral glories. The scene for these is past now, and He has taken His seat in heaven; but that has only given Him an opportunity, to display others. The four gospels give me a view of His moral glories here. In the Epistle to the Hebrews I see Him seated in heaven now, in a constellation of official glories. In other writings we get His coming glories. Whenever you see Him, you cannot but see Him in the midst of a system of them. In these chapters, 9 and 10, you get what He is doing on the cross, the foundation of every one of His present glories. In the first eight chapters we get a varied display of the conditions of the Lord Jesus now in heaven; and now, as the sustainment of all these, in, chapters 9 and 10 we have an account of the perfection of the Lamb on the altar. Do you ever make "these last days" a subject of thought? Why is the Spirit entitled to call the age through which we are passing the "last days"? We shall have other days after these. Why, then, does He call them the last days? Beautifully so - because God rests in what the Lord Jesus has accomplished, as thoroughly as He rested at the close of creation, in the perfection of His own Work. It is not that, in the unfolding of the economy of God, we shall not have other ages; yet, in the face of that, the Spirit does not hesitate to call these the "last days." In all the Lord has done He has satisfied God. He perfects everything He touches, and makes it eternal, and God does not look beyond it. Everything is set aside till Christ is brought in; but, there is no looking beyond Him. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and for ever." Now, the moment I get God resting in anything, I get perfection; and the moment I get perfection, I am in the last days. God has reached satisfaction, and so have I. Christ may be unfolded in millennial days; but it is the very same Christ that we have now. Shall I get Moses then, or Joshua? They are all (treated in the light of Christ) "beggarly elements." All give place, one after another; but Christ being introduced to the thoughts of God, God rests in Him; and when "you come to see where you are, you are in God’s second sabbath - and see how one thing exceeds the other! The rest of the Redeemer is a much more blessed thing than the rest of the Creator. In Christ you have got perfection - the rest of God - and you are in the "last days." Now, when we come to chapters 9 and 10 we see Christ, not properly or characteristically in heaven, but on the altar. The glories that surround Him now have been given to us one after another - the glory of the priesthood, the glory of the Purger of our sins, the predestinated Heir of the world to come, the Apostle of Salvation, the Dispenser of the Covenant that never gathers age to itself, the Giver of the eternal inheritance - these are the glories of "these last days." In Hebrews 9:10 we see the cross that sustains them all. How blessed it is to track, from Matthew to John, a path of moral beauty! Was the Lord Jesus in office here? No; He was here in subjection. When I have looked at Him thus, I am invited to look upwards. Is it One travelling in moral beauty I see there? No; not that specially; but it is One who has been seated at the right hand of the Majesty with an oath, in the very midst of glorious beauties - One whom the satisfied, unrepenting heart of God has seated there. It was the testing purpose of God that seated Adam in Eden. It is the unrepenting heart of God that has seated Christ in heaven. And now we come to read the perfection of His work as Lamb of God, as the grand foundation of all these glories. He would not have perfected His moral glories here if He had not gone on to the cross and died there. He would not have had His official glories in heaven if He had not gone on to the cross and died there. When the Lord Jesus was’ hanging as the Lamb of God on the accursed tree, and over His bleeding brows was written the inscription in every language, "This is the King of the Jews," they sought to blot it out; but God would not have it blotted out. He would have the whole creation know that the cross was the title to the kingdom. The inscription that Pilate wrote on the cross, and God kept there, is very fine. Supposing the cross sustains the glory, according to the inscription, now tell me what sustains the cross itself. Is the cross without a foundation? The secret comes out in these chapters. As the cross sustains your hopes, it is the person that sustains the cross. His personal glory is the sustainment of the cross. If He was less than God manifest in the flesh, all He did was no more worth than water spilt upon the ground. Of all the mighty mystery of official, millennial, eternal glories, the cross is the support, and the person is the support of the cross. He must sustain His own work, and His work must sustain everything. This is just the argument of these chapters. There was a veil hanging between the place where the priests ministered, and the mystic dwelling-place of God. The veil was the expression, that that age gave a sinner no access to God. Were there not sacrifices? Yes, there were; and God’s altar was accepting them. But they were "gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience." Beautifully, then, at this point He comes to your heart, and demands a note of admiration. "For if the blood of bulls . . . . sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Supposing we inspect the Old Tabernacle, and see the beggarliness of all its elements, that the blood of bulls could not bring you into the presence of God; and from the beggarliness of all that, look at the satisfyingness of the blood of Jesus, will you not exclaim, "How much more shall it purge our consciences?" That is the way you are to come to the cross, laying doubtings and questionings aside, and losing yourself in admiration. The thing the Spirit does is to take you gently by the hand, and lead you up to the altar at Calvary, and tell you who is the victim that is bleeding there. None but one who was personally free could say, "I come to do thy will" Have you any right to a will? Has Gabriel or Michael? To do God’s pleasure is their business; but here was One who could offer Himself without spot to God. "How much more," then, shall such a sacrifice purge our consciences, and introduce us at once to the living God? That entitled me to say, that while we look at His glories, His official glories, we see that the cross is the sustainment of them all But if the soul does not know the personal glory of the Lord, it positively knows nothing. That is the secret you get here. He for whom God prepared a body, satisfied the brazen altar, before He went into the holy sanctuary to do the business of God’s Priest. And atonement flows from satisfaction. If I find out that Christ’s sacrifice has answered the demands of the brazen altar, I see that my reconciliation is sealed and settled for eternity. The Epistle to the Ephesians tells you to stand upon this, and look round about you at the glories of your condition. The Epistle to the Hebrews shows you the glories of Christ’s condition in the compass of about 300 verses. What a world of wonders is opened! You sustained by what He has done; and what He has done sustained by what He is. Hebrews 10:19-39 - We are coming now to another beautiful part of the epistle, and, as we hinted, to a new division of it. We will read from verse 19 to the close of chap. 10. You may have observed the general structure of the epistles. Take the Ephesians for instance. In the first three chapters we get doctrinal truth, and in the last three the moral application of it. So, in Colossians, Galatians, Romans, etc. Now, in Hebrews it is the same, and we are just entering now on the practical application of what has gone before. "Now the full glories of the Lamb adorn the heavenly throne," as a beautiful hymn of Dr. Watts says. Constantly through this epistle we have been looking up and seeing this. But, let me ask, do you see glories anywhere in "these last days" that are not attaching to the Lord in heaven? You will tell me that all glory belongs to Him, and I grant it; but I tell you you ought to see glories attaching to yourselves. Such is the wondrous working of God, that He has made the poor sinner a glorious creature. These same last days that have set Christ on high, in the midst of glories, have set the poor believing sinner down here in the midst of glories. I want that you and I be girt up to an apprehension of them. We do not wait for the kingdom to see glories. Is it no glory for you to have a purged conscience? Is it no glory to be fully entitled to be in the presence of God, without a blush? No glory to call God father? to have Christ as your forerunner in heavenly places? to enter into the holiest without a quiver of conscience? no glory to be introduced into the secrets of God? If we can lift up our heart and say, "Abba, Father," if we can lift up our heart, and say, "Who shall condemn?" or "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" if we can believe that we are bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh; that we are part of Christ’s fulness, will any one say there is no glory in all that? So that this epistle introduces us to most precious thoughts. It tells me to look up and see Christ adorning the throne, and to look down and see the poor sinner shining on the foot-stool. The world sees nothing of these glories. We only apprehend them in the glass of the Word by faith; but I do say boldly, that I do not wait for the kingdom to know what glory is. I look up and see the Lamb in acquired glories. I look down and see the saint in gifted glories. Now the moral application begins. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." There I look at myself; and will any one say there is not glory in such a condition? That is my title, Now the exhortation is, that you are to enjoy your title. To enjoy is to obey. The first duty you owe to God is to enjoy what He has made you, and what He has given you. "Let us draw near." Use your privilege, as we say. It is the first grand duty of faith, and I am bold to say it is the most acceptable duty of faith. How narrow we are to enjoy these glories. Do you ever look at yourself in the glass of the word? We are very much accustomed to look at ourselves in the glass of circumstances - in the glass of relationships. If we say, in the secret of our hearts, with exultation of spirit, "I am a child of God;" if with exultation of spirit we say, "I am a co-heir with Christ," that is the way to begin obedience. Here it is exactly that. "Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith." We should look on ourselves as the priesthood of God. The priests of old were washed when they were put into office. Then every day their feet were washed, before they entered the tabernacle to serve the Lord. The pavement of God’s own presence was not stained by the foot of the priest. He went in, in a character worthy of the place. Are you occupying the presence of God all the day long, in the consciousness that you are worthy of the place? How will you be presented before Him by and by? Jude tells you - "Faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy." You ought to know that you are in His presence now, faultless or without spot. We cannot put ourselves in the flesh too low; and we cannot put ourselves in Christ too high. If one may speak for another, we find it much easier to degrade ourselves in the flesh, than to magnify ourselves in Christ. That last is what the Spirit is doing here. Now He tells me, having got into the Holiest, what to do there. If I know my title to be in the presence of God, let me know also that I am there as the heir of a promised glory; I am there to be kept there till the glory shines out. We are the witnesses of a class of glories, just as the Lord Jesus is the witness of a class of glories. We are in a wealthy place; and, having got in there, we are to hold our hope without a quiver. "Let us hold fast the profession of our hope without wavering" (as the word should be). If we got in without a quiver, we are to hold our hope without a quiver. That is what God has called us to. We are there with boldness; and being there, we are to talk of our hope. And we are to talk of charity also, "to provoke unto love and to good works." What exquisite service! Who can utter the beauties of these things? "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together; but exhorting one another." When you get into the house, what are you doing together? Are you to be down in the depths of conscious ruin? No; but exhorting one another to love and to good works. These are the activities of the house. We dwell together in one happy house, exhorting one another, and so much the more as we point to the sky and say, "Look! the dawning of morning is near; the sky is breaking." We want a great deal more to exhort one another to know our dignity in Christ than to know our degradation in ourselves. It is very right to know ourselves poor worthless creatures. Confession is very right; but to gird up the mind to the apprehension of our dignity is much more acceptable and priestly work than to be ever in the depths. "Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee." Here we see ourselves accepted; holding our hope without wavering; exhorting one another; and saying, as we point to the eastern sky, "The dawn is coming." Then, having thus conducted us to ver. 25, he brings in a solemn passage about wilful sin. We read the counterpart of this in Numbers 15:1-41, where presumptuous sin is looked at. Under the law there were two characters of offence. A man might find a thing that was his neighbour’s, and deal falsely about it; or he might lie to his neighbour, and there was a trespass-offering provided. But when a man picked sticks on the sabbath-day, he was to be stoned at once. There remained nothing for him but "a certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation." It was presumptuous sin, flying in the face of the legislator. This is the presumptuous sin of the New Testament. It is running in the face of the God of this dispensation, as the gatherer of sticks ran in the face of the God of the law. We are not to be careless about sin. If we do the least sin, we ought to be broken-hearted about it. But that is not the thing contemplated here. It is a defection from Christianity. Then, having come to ver. 31, he exhorts them to "call to remembrance the former days." Let me ask your souls, "Do you all remember the day when you were illuminated?" One might say, "The light shone brighter and brighter upon some." I believe Timothy may have been such an one. Timothy, I have often thought, under the education of his godly mother, may have passed gently into the flock of God. But most people know the moment of their illumination; and if there is a moment of moral energy in the history of the soul, it is the day of its quickening. Why do not you and I carry the strength of that moment with us? Is He a different Jesus that we have now? When I know that the day was when all was over between God and me, and that now the day has come when all is over between the world and me, that is practical Christianity. What was that day that He called on them to remember? The day when, being illuminated, they "took joyfully the spoiling of their goods." Why was this? How does He account for it? Their eye was on a better inheritance. Let me grasp the richer thing, and the poorer thing may pass away for aught I care. We can account for victory over the world just as easily as we can account for access to God. That, let me say, is just the knot that this epistle ties. It puts you inside the veil, outside the camp. In the wondrous divine moral character of Christianity, the grace and the blood of Christ work exactly contrary to the lie of the serpent. The lie of the serpent made. Adam a stranger to God, and at home in this polluted world - inside the camp and outside the veil. Christianity just alters that. It restores us to citizenship in the presence of God, and strangership in the world; and ver. 35 of this chapter is the one verse in this epistle that knits these things together. Hold fast your confidence, and it will be the secret of strength to you. Where do we see victory over the world? In those who are happiest in Christ. Why are you and I so miserably down in the traffic of the world? Because we are not as happy in Christ as we ought to be. Give me a soul that has boldness and joy in God’s presence, and I will show you one that has victory over the world. Now, the apostle tells us, that a life of patience intervenes between the day of illumination and the day of glorification. I am not to count on a path of pleasure - a path of ease - a path of prosperity - on being richer or more distinguished tomorrow than today; but I am to count on a path of patience. And is not there glory in that? Yes; there’s companionship with Christ. No greater glory is or can be yours than to be the companion of your rejected Master. That is your path. "If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." He was not ashamed to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were strangers here; but if we become citizens here, instead of strangers - strike alliance with the world - He who could say, "I’m the God of my strangers," can say of the citizen of the world, "I have no pleasure in him." May you and I exhort one another to love and to good works, and, pointing to the eastern sky, say, the day is dawning. Amen. Hebrews 11:1-40 - We have reached chapter 11. I think we observed that Hebrews 10:35 was a connecting-link between the two great thoughts of the epistle - that Christianity puts you inside the veil and outside the camp - that is, it undoes the work of Satan, which estranged you from God, and made you at home in a corrupted world. The religion of the Lord Jesus just comes to upset his (Satan’s) work. Nothing can be more beautiful than the antithesis which thus shows itself between the serpent and the serpent’s bruiser, The "great recompence of reward" shows itself in the life of faith that we are now going to reed about. We are called, as John Bunyan says, "to play the man." If happy within, we are to be fighting without. This chap. 11 shows us the elect of all ages "playing the men" in the power of this principle of confidence. "Cast not away your confidence," for it thus shows that it "has great recompence of. reward." Faith is a principle that apprehends two different things of God. It views Him as a justifier of the ungodly, as in Romans 4:1-25; but here it apprehends God as "the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." The moment you apprehend God by a faith that does not work, you enter on a faith that does work. And while we rightly cherish a faith that saves our souls, let us not be indifferent to a faith that serves our Saviour. How boldly we sometimes assert our title, but do we value our inheritance? It is a poor wretched thing to boast in our title, and yet show that the heart is but little moved by the hope of the inheritance. Just so, if I boast of a justifying faith, it is a poor thing to be indifferent to the faith that we have here in chap. 11. "Now faith is the confidence of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Then you are told, that it was the strength of all the worthies in old times, who through it "obtained a good report." It is another proof that, as we have said, everything in this epistle is set aside to let in Christ. Here faith comes in to set aside law. If I take up the law as the secret power of my soul to do anything for God, I am not doing it for God, but for myself. The law might chasten and scourge me, and call on me to work out a title to life. But that would be serving myself. Faith sets law aside. Then, having established faith as a working principle, he begins to unfold the different phases of it from the beginning. I believe ver. 3 may have a reference to Adam. If Adam was a worshipper in the garden, it was by faith. He may have looked behind all the wonders that surrounded him, and apprehended the Great Artificer. Now, some say, they can still worship God in nature; but when we left innocency we left creation as a Temple, and we cannot go back there. Nature was a Temple to Adam; but if I go back to it, I go back to Cain. Here we come to Abel and to revelation. We are sinners; and revelation, which unfolds redemption, must build us a temple. You must take your place as a worshipper in the temple that God in Christ has built for you. Then we come to Enoch. Enoch’s was an ordinary kind of life; but he spent it with God. We are told in Genesis that he walked with God, and here we are told that he pleased God. As the apostle says, in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-18, "Ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God." To walk with God is to please Him. Can anything be more welcome to us, than the thought that we can give complacency to God? There was nothing in Enoch’s life to make history; but whatever condition of life may be ours, our business is to walk with God in it. It is beautiful thus to see an undistinguished life going before a life of great events. You may hear some say, "A poor unnoticed thing am I, compared with some who have been distinguished in service for the Lord." "Well," let me reply, "you are an Enoch." Now, Noah’s was a very distinguished life. Faith laid hold on the warning. Faith does not wait for the day of glory, or the day of judgment, to see glory or judgment. Faith in the prophet did not ask for his eyes to be opened. Faith here for one hundred and twenty years seemed to be a fool. Noah was building a ship for dry ground; and he may well have been the mockery of his neighbours; but he saw the thing that was invisible. How rebuking to us! Supposing you and I lived under the authority of coming glory - what fools we should be! But I should not have passed over the word I took for my text. "He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." Again, I boldly say, you would not have had that definition of faith in Romans 4:1-25, "A rewarder of them that diligently seek Him!" "Why what legal language! some would say, if they read it in a book. Ah, but it is beautiful in its place. The faith of a saint is an intensely working thing. Will God be a debtor to any man? No. He will pay to those who sow bountifully. Abraham’s life is the next; and a picture of the varied exercises of faith. There was a magnificence in his faith - a victorious quality - a fine apprehension - all these qualities of faith come out in the life of Abraham. He went out blindfold; but the God of glory led him by the hand. So he came to the land; but to him not a foot of it was given. He must have the patience of faith; but whatever fell from the lips of God was welcome to Abraham. Abraham walked all his life in the power of the recollection of what he had seen under the hand of the God of glory. Now, supposing I tell you that the vision of Stephen has gone before every one of you. You need not be expecting the same vision that Stephen saw, but you have seen it in him. They may carry you to the stake, but you may say, "I have seen heaven opened over me, and Jesus standing at the right band of God." If you and I are simple, true-hearted people, we shall just go forth as Abraham did when he had seen the God of glory. Then Sarah’s was another kind of faith. We must see God as a quickener of the dead. Noah understood God so. The Israelites, under the blood-stained lintel, received Him in the same character. Death was there, and attached to every house in the land; but the. Israelites knew God as a quickener of the dead. That is what Noah, Abraham, Sarah, apprehended of God. If I make God less than a. quickener of the dead, I make myself more than a dead sinner. It is as a quickener of the dead I must meet with Him. The 13th is a beautiful verse. The first thing to do to a promise is to apprehend it - then to exercise faith about it - and then to receive it by the heart. They "embraced" them. Their hearts hugged them. How far has my heart hugged the promises? One knows his own "leanness." But surely the closer we hug them, the more blessedly we shall consent to be strangers and pilgrims in this world. This is a wonderful picture of a heart put into faith. Did they speak of strangership because of leaving Mesopotamia? No; but because they had not reached heaven. They might have found their way back. Abraham could tell it to Eliezer; but that would not have cured their strangership. Supposing there were a change in your circumstances, would that cure your strangership? Not if you are among God’s people. Mesopotamia was no cure. Nothing could cure, end, or close their strangership but the inheritance. On they went to heaven; and God was not ashamed to be called their God. In Hebrews 2:1-18 we read that Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren. Now, we read that God was not ashamed to call these strangers His people. Why is Christ "not ashamed to call them brethren"? Because they stand in one divine eternal purpose with Him. One family embraces the elect and Christ. How could He be ashamed of such people? And if you have fallen out with the world, God is not ashamed of you. For God Himself has fallen out with it, and He could not be ashamed of you, because you are one mind with Him. Therefore, when they said they were strangers, God called Himself their God. Our hearts are terribly rebuked here. How much lingers in them of striking alliance, and making friendships with the world! Then we see Abraham in another light. Every hope of Abraham depended on Isaac. To give up Isaac seemed not only to become a bankrupt in the world, but to become a bankrupt in God. He might have said, "Am I to become a bankrupt in God and in Mesopotamia." There could not have been a higher stretch in the believing principle. Have you ever feared God making you a bankrupt in Himself? Has He turned away never to return? Well, he got him back in a figure, sealed as a fresh witness of resurrection. Do we ever lose anything by trusting God in the dark? If ever any one trusted Him in the dark, it was Abraham. After passing him we come to Isaac. Isaac showed his faith by blessing Esau and Jacob concerning things to come. This is the little single bit of his life that the Spirit looks at. If we inspect his life, we shall find that that is the eminent work of faith in it. That act shines out under the eye of God. Jacob is more remarkable, as Noah had been more remarkable than Enoch. His was a very eventful life; but the only thing we get here is, "By faith he blessed both the sons of Joseph." This is exquisitely beautiful. It shows how much in Christian life may be rubbish. I do not believe Jacob’s life was an exhibition of a servant of God. It was an exhibition of a saint who went astray, and whose whole life was occupied in getting back; and we do not get this act of faith till we come to the close, when he "blessed both the sons of Joseph." There he came in contact with things unseen, and things that came across the current of nature. His life was the life of a man recovering himself; and, just at the close, he did this beautiful service of faith to God in the face of the resentments of his own heart, and the appeal of his son Joseph. But Joseph’s is a lovely life - a life of faith from the beginning. Joseph was a holy man throughout; but there was magnificent outshining of faith just at the close. He had his hand on the treasures of Egypt, and his foot on the throne of Egypt; yet, in the midst of all that, he spoke of the departing of his brethren. That was seeing things invisible. That was the one thing the Spirit has signalised as an act of faith. Why did he talk in this way? He might have said, "Ah, I do not walk by sight! I know what is coming, and I tell you you will go out of this land, and when you go, take me with you." The general course of his life was unblameable, yet we do find in his words as he was departing the finest utterance of faith. And now, that is what you and I want. Do you want to be righteous only? You must be so; but will that constitute a life of faith? You must seek to get under the power of things hoped for - things unseen - the expectation of the Lord’s return; and till you do so in some energy, you may be blameless, but you are not walking that life of faith by which "the elders obtained a good report." Thus, so far we see faith as a working principle. Not the faith of the sinner, which is a no-working faith. The moment the no working faith has made me a saint, I must take up the working faith, and live in the power of it. But we must go on. We will not forget what we hinted - that the whole of this chap. 11 depends on, and is the illustration of Hebrews 10:35. The stronger our faith is, the more our soul is in the possession of mighty moral energy. This chapter shows how this principle of faith gained the day. Do not read it as if it were the praises of Noah, Abraham, Moses, and others. It is the praises of faith as illustrated in Noah, Abraham, Moses, and others. What a simple, blessed thing Christianity is! I stand in admiration of it, when I see how the devil has wrought a twofold mischief in putting us outside the veil - inside the camp; and how Christ has wrought a corresponding twofold remedy. Do I rejoice in the thought, that I have gained God, though at the loss of the world? That is Christianity. "By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child." What is the meaning of that? It means, that when he was born, there was an expression in his countenance that faith read. "Beautiful to God," is the word. There was a certain beauty in him that awakened the faith of Amram and Jochebed; and they were obedient to it. Was there not a beauty in the face of the dying Stephen? Ought not his murderers to have been obedient to it? They stand in moral contrast to Moses’ parents. Under the finger of God they saw the purpose of God, and hid the child. Now, in Moses we see a beautiful power of faith. It got a threefold victory - three splendid victories, and the very victories you are called to. First, his faith got the victory over the world. He was a foundling, picked up from the Nile, and adopted as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. This was personal degradation translated into adopted magnificence. What did he do with it? He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. What victory over the world that was! We like those things that put worldly honour on us. Moses would not have it; and, sure I am, faith is set to the same battle-field, and challenged to get the like victory to this day. Next we see Moses getting victory amid the trials and alarms of life. "By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king." What a terrible thing the life of faith is to nature! You have got a victory today - you must stand again tomorrow. "That we may be able to withstand, and having done all, to stand." Here the pressure of life was coming on Moses, after the attractions of life had got their answer. Then, in the third instance, Moses had an answer for the claims of God. It is magnificent to see a soul braced in the power of a faith like this. "Through faith he kept the passover." The destroying angel was going through the land, but the blood was on the lintel. From the very beginning grace has provided the sinner with an answer to the claims of God; and it is the simple office of faith to plead the answer. God provided the blood, and faith used it. Christ is God’s provision. He is God’s great ordinance for salvation; and faith travels along with Him from the cross to the realms of glory. Then "by faith they passed through the Red Sea" - by faith the walls of Jericho fell down - "by faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not." And what more shall we say? Time fails - we cannot go through the story. It is the story that animates the whole of Scripture. The story of grace and faith - grace on God’s part and faith on ours - gives animation to the whole book of God. We are never called outside the camp till we are inside the veil. The early chapters of this epistle show the sinner his title to a home in God’s presence; and then you are to come forth from that home, and let the world know that you are a stranger in it. That is the structure of this beautiful epistle. It tells us our title to be in God’s presence, before it opens the calling that attaches to us. Before Abraham was called out to a land that he knew not, the "God of glory" appeared to him. Does he ever send a man a warfare at his own charges? Does He ever send you to fight with the world before you are at peace with Himself Everything is for me from the moment I turn to God. I am called in God, to everything that is for me. I am come "to mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem," etc. This is Hebrews 12:1-29. Before ever David was hunted as a partridge, he had the anointing oil of God upon him. We must linger a little on the two closing verses. They are very weighty, precious, pregnant verses. These elders obtained a good report, but with the good report they did not obtain the promise. It reminds me of the prophet Malachi. "A book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels." They are not His made-up jewels yet, but He has their names in His book, and He will make them up and display them as His jewels by and by. So with these elders. Why have they not yet obtained the promise? Because we must first come in, in the rich furniture of this evangelic dispensation, or all they had in their beggarly dispensation would never have done for them. We find the word "better" constantly occurring in this epistle. "A better testament" - "a better covenant" - "some better thing for us" - "which speaketh better things than that of Abel." And we find the word "perfect" in constant use also; because now everything is perfected. Everything is perfected that gives God rest, as we have already said, and God is not looking for any satisfaction beyond what Christ gives Him. He has His demand answered, His glory vindicated, His character displayed, and all in Christ. Now, what is this "better thing" in the last verse? If we has not brought in our Christ, so to speak, nothing would have been done. God having introduced Christ in this dispensation, all the old saints that hung on it are perfected. For, in one light of it, we look at this epistle (as we will now so briefly and rapidly) as a treatise on perfection. Thus, in Hebrews 2:1-18 we read, that it became the glory of God to give us a perfect Saviour; not merely my necessity, but God’s glory requires it. "It became Him" - consulting for His own glory. It became Him to give the sinner an author to begin salvation, and a captain to close it. The difference between an author and a captain is just the difference between Moses and Joshua. Moses was the author of salvation, when he picked up the poor captives in Egypt; Joshua was the captain of salvation, when he carries them across the Jordan, right into the promises land. Christ is the One who carries us both through the Red Sea and the Jordan, the One who did the initiative work of Moses, and the consummating work of Joshua. Then, in Hebrews 5:1-14 we read, "Being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation." Not moral perfection - we all know He was morally stainless - but perfection as "the author of salvation." He would never have been perfect thus if He has not gone on to death; but as it behoves God to give us a perfect Saviour, so it behoves Christ to make Himself a perfect Saviour. Then, in Hebrews 6:1-20, "Let us go on unto perfection," the apostle says; that is, let us "read our lesson on this subject." Some read this, as if they were to go on till they got no more sin in themselves. That has nothing to say to it. It is as if the apostle said, "I am going to read you a treatise on perfection, and you must come and learn it with me." Then he goes on with the subject in Hebrews 7:1-28 He says, you cannot find this perfection in the law. "The law made nothing perfect." You must look elsewhere. By the law here is not meant the ten commandments, but the Levitical ordinances. In the midst of these beggarly elements you must look elsewhere for perfection. Hebrews 9:1-28 thus shows you that it is in Christ, and tells you that the moment faith has touches the blood, the conscience is purges; and Hebrews 10:1-39 tells you that the moment Christ touches you, you are perfected for ever. Not in moral stainlessness in the flesh, there is no such thing here. The moment Christ touches the apostleship, He perfects it. The moment He touches the priesthood, He perfects it. The moment He touches the altar, He perfects it. The moment He touches the throne, He perfects it. And if He perfects these things, He will, as to your conscience, perfect you a poor sinner. So this epistle is, in one great light, a treatise on perfection. God gave you a perfect Saviour; Christ made Himself a perfect Saviour. Let me go on to perfection. If I seek it in the law, I am in a world of shadows. When I come to Christ, I am in the midst of perfection. "And there I stand, poor worm," as Gambold says. Therefore, these saints could not get the inheritance till we came in, laden with all the glories of this dispensation. But now they can share the inheritance with us, when the full time comes. What glories shine in this epistle! What glories fill the heavens, because Christ is there! What glories attach to us because Christ has touches us! Is it no glory to have a purged conscience - to enter into the holiest with boldness - to say to Satan, Who are you, that you should finger God’s treasure? We creep and crawl when we should be getting into the midst of these glories and encouraging our hearts. Hebrews 12:1-29 - We will now read chap. 12. We have looked at the doctrine of the epistle. We are now eminently in the practical part of it; yet the blessedness of the doctrine shines out too. I would just say this first - We have been looking at the various characters in which the Lord has entered heaven. Now here, in ver. 1, we get Him in heaven in another character. Do not many crowns belong to Him? Won’t you put a royal crown - a priestly crown - on His head? Can you put too many crowns there? What a cluster of glories fill the eye, as we look at Christ in heaven by the light of this magnificent epistle! Now, among other characters, we see Him there as the One who perfected a life of faith on earth, "the Author and Finisher of faith." The counsel of God is busy in crowning Jesus. It is the delight of the counsel of God to crown Him, it is the delight of the Spirit of God to exhibit Him as crowned, and it is the delight of faith to see Him crowned. God, the Spirit, and the faith of the poor believing sinner, all gather round Him, either to crown Him, or to delight in seeing Him crowned. Now, we see Him owned in heaven as the One who perfected the life of faith. He passed through it to perfection from the manger to the cross, and is so accepted in the highest heavens. That of course put Him in collision with man. "Him that endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself." This is beautifully pregnant with the thought that He was "separate from sinners." You would not dare to take that language to yourself. It is too lofty a style for any but the Son of God to take. Was anything like that said of Abraham or Moses? No; the Spirit would not have talked so of one of them. So, when you put the Lord Jesus in the wear and tear of life, in company with martyrs, you see Him, as in all other things, taking the pre-eminence. It is so natural for the Spirit to glorify Christ! If He is looking at Him officially, as in the first part of this epistle, it is easy to look at Him with many, many crowns upon Him. Or looking at Him here, it is easy for the Spirit to put this crown of peculiar beauty on His head. He "endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself." It is a description which your heart would condemn you for taking to yourself, though you might be called to the stake. The cross, in one aspect, was martyrdom. Jesus was as much a martyr at the hand of man, as He was a victim at the hand of God. It is as a martyr we see Him here, and as such we are put in company with Him. "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." You have no deeper enemy than your own heart to strive against. It was sin in the Pharisees, sin in the multitude, sin in the chief priests, that carried the Lord Jesus to the cross. But He never had a bit of sin in Himself to strive against. It was sin in others. The apostle then goes on to put you, as a chastened sufferer, in company with the Father. Here we drop company with Christ. For He never was under the chastening of the Father. The moment I get under the scourging and education of the Father, I have dropped out of company with Christ. I am deeply in His company when travelling the path of the martyr. I am not a step in His company when I am under the chastenings of the Father. So from ver. 5 onward you are in company with your heavenly Father. Oh, these sacred, divine touches! - that know when to introduce Christ, and when to let Him disappear! How, or in what form of excellency to display Him, and how to let Him out of sight! There is a glory, a completeness, in the very way in which the task of the Spirit is executed. He walks through life, enduring the contradiction of sinners. I walk through it, striving against sin. Then I am in company with the chastening of the Father - all resulting in a blessed participation in His holiness, but Christ is not there with me. If you put all the wit of aggregated intellects together, could it give you these divine touches that glitter in the Book of God? In ver. 12 we are exhorted not to let our hands hang down. There is no reason why it should be so. Though you are under the scourge, there is not one single reason why your hands should hang down, or your knees be feeble; for the Spirit has shown you yourself first in company with Christ, and then with your Father who loves you. Is there any reason why you should travel as if you did not know the road? This is a beautiful conclusion. We all know how the hands will hang down; but I set my seal to every word of this, and say, "Truth, Lord." There is no reason that we should be faint-hearted. Then having come to that, he looks round. Do not let your own hands hang down; and, in connection with others, follow peace; - in connection with God, follow holiness. "What communion hath light with darkness "what concord hath Christ with Belial?" "Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you." If you consult at your leisure Deuteronomy 29:1-29, you will find a root of bitterness there spoken of; but it is a different kind from this. There, it arose from some man taking up false gods - here, it is from failing of the grace of God. The whole epistle has it as its bearing and purpose, to nail your ear (in Scripture language) to the door-post of Him that is speaking of grace. It is not a lawgiver that is heard, but one who is publishing salvation from the highest heavens. Angels and principalities and powers are made subject to the Purger of our sins; and the Purger of our sins has taken our conscience up to the highest heavens, and every tongue that could lay a charge against us is silenced, as we read in Romans 8:1-39 (See also 1 Peter 3:21-22.) Now, take care lest you fail of the grace thus published. It may end in the profaneness of Esau. It has been said by another, that this reference to Esau must have been very striking to the mind of a Jew. "If you fail of the grace of God, you will be left in the position of one whom your nation repudiates."’ I do not care what you take up in His stead, if you slip away from Christ, you may be tomorrow in the position of the reprobate Esau. How does Esau stand before you? As the type of that generation who by and by will say, "Lord, Lord, open to us." But their tears will be as ineffectual as Esau’s by the bedside of his dying father. He came too late. So, when once God has risen up and shut to the door, they will find no place of repentance. This ver. 17 is very solemn. It tells me that that action of Esau’s is the presentation to our thoughts of that which is still to be realised in an Esau generation, and only in such. "Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish." Esau despised his birthright, and this generation have refused the grace of God, and despised the Christ that has passed through the world, and died for sinners. After this, in the 18th verse, we get a magnificent sight of the two dispensations. It is as if the apostle had said: I have been showing you a martyr path, but now I tell you, that the moment you look to God, everything is for you. The martyr path and the chastening of the Father are only further proofs of love. Now, leaving Christ and the Father, we come to God; and you see that all the eternal counsels of God have clustered to make you a blest one, as they have clustered to make Christ a glorious One. Do not be afraid. You are not come to the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire. Turn your back on it. The more advisedly I have turned my back on it, the more advisedly I have met and answered the grace and wisdom of God, and rendered the obedience of faith. Am I to be turning round my head - to be looking over my shoulder - to be giving it some glances? Is that the obedience of faith? Then as, to my face. Where is that turned to? To a cluster of blessedness. I was introduced by my own self-confidence to law, and found not a thing for me. Now I have turned my face right round, and I see every thing for me. "Ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God - the heavenly Jerusalem - to an innumerable company of angels - the general assembly and Church of the first-born - to God the Judge of all." The Lord, even in judgment, is for us; for it is one office of a judge to vindicate the oppressed. Then, the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling." Every thing is for you. And that is where your face is undivertedly to direct itself. Let your face be right fully turned to the one hill, and your back be right fully turned to the other hill. But here, at this place, in chap. 12, you are at the very beginning of the epistle again. In Hebrews 2:1-18 we read "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord?" Now we read "See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh." From the beginning to the end the Spirit is nailing your ear to the door of the house of the master of grace. Then it very solemnly closes - "Our God is a consuming fire;" that is, the God of this dispensation. From the fires of Sinai there was a relief, by turning and taking refuge in Christ; but there is no relief if God’s relief is despised. If you turn away from the relief this dispensation brings in, there is no more relief "Our God is a consuming fire." What, I ask you, puts you in company with God like simplicity of faith? As we said before, the purpose of the eternal counsels, and the joy of the Spirit, is this - to put crowns on the head of Christ; and when I am simple in faith, I am delighting to fill the field of my vision with these glories. Thus I am put in the most dignified company I could be in - God and the Holy Ghost. The Lord grant that you and I may be there! If we know these things, happy, thrice happy are we if we rest in them! Hebrews 13:1-25 - We are closing the epistle, and we get what is common in all the epistles - some little details. It is eminently the structure of Paul’s epistles, to begin with doctrine, and close with exhortation. So it is here. "Let brotherly love continue." Then, a brother may be a stranger: "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers." And to encourage them to that duty they are reminded that some in their own history entertained angels unawares. Then, another duty - "Remember them that are in bonds," and the encouragement follows - "as bound with them." Take your place in the body of Christ as His prisoners, not prisoners corporeally, but mystically. When he speaks of suffering for Christ’s sake, he appeals to you in your mystic place; but when he speaks of suffering adversity (5: 3) in a common, ordinary way, he appeals to natural life, "as being yourselves also in the body." Then we get the divine duties of purity and unworldliness. Unworldliness is expressed in the words: "Content with such things as ye have," not seeking to be richer tomorrow than today. Then the Lord speaks in verse 5, and you answer Him in verse 6. It is the response of faith to grace - the reply of the heart of the believer to the heart of the Lord God. Then comes the duty of subjection - "Remember them which have* the rule over you." Not a blind following of them, as when they were heathen (1 Corinthians 12:2) following dumb idols. Are you to be led blindfold? No; you are to be led intelligently. "No one calls Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." We are living people of a living temple. So it is, "considering the end of their conversation." They died in faith, as they preached faith.** * Rather, "which have had." **As one said, shortly before he died: "I have preached Jesus, I have lived Jesus, and I long to be with Jesus." Now he leaves all that, and starts in verse 8 from another point; and this verse 8 may be called the motto of the epistle. Only in one light, I grant. What I mean is, that, as we have seen before, the Spirit of God in this epistle is looking at one thing after another - taking a passing glance at angels, at Moses, at Joshua, at Aaron, at the old covenant, at the altars with their victims, and setting every one of them aside to let in Christ. And you would not have it otherwise. With your whole heart and your whole soul you set your seal to that. Let all go to make room for Christ; and when Christ is brought in, do not let Him go for anything. This is what you get in verse 8. He is gazing for a moment at the object of the epistle. "I have displaced everything to let Him in, and now keep Him before you." It is a most blessed peroration of the whole teaching of the epistle. Then there comes a corollary - a conclusion to that: "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines," doctrines foreign to Christ. You have got everything in Christ; take care to hold fast by Him. Then, if I get Christ as my religion, I get grace. "It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace." The Lord is set before you and me as the sum of our religion, and that religion is a religion that breathes grace to the poor sinner. Now do not read ver. 9 as if you could, to some extent, establish your heart with meats. Observe the punctuation; a semicolon after "grace" cuts it off from the close of the verse. Meats do nothing for you; as he tells you in another place: "Touch not, taste not, handle not." They bring neither profit nor honour to you. Suppose you accumulate carnal religious observances. If the 2nd of Colossians tells me there is no honour in them, this tells me there is no profit in them. When probed and searched out, they are all to the satisfaction of the flesh. The moment I get the Lord brought in, I get the heart established with grace. Did you ever hear it remarked, that not a single religion on earth takes grace as its secret, but the divine religion? It is keeping God quiet if you can with them all. God’s religion is the only religion ever thought of, that takes grace for its basis. This is exactly contemplated here. Do not be carried about by doctrines foreign to Christ. "We have an altar." What is the altar of this dispensation? It is an altar exclusively for burnt-offerings - eucharistic services. The Jews had an altar for expiatory sacrifice. We have no such altar. Christ has been on the altar of expiation, and now we, as priests, minister at an altar of eucharistic services. We remember that the Son of God has bled, and we serve at an altar where we know sin as cancelled, blotted out, thrown behind the back; and there, at your altar, you are rendering a constant service of thanksgiving. But they that go back to the services of the tabernacle have no right, no competency to stand as priests at the altar of this dispensation. Many a loved and loving soul is struggling with a legal mind; but that is a very different thing from displacing Christ for anything, as the Galatians were doing, putting a crutch under Him. The Spirit in this epistle does not quarrel with the poor struggling soul; but if you are seeking to offer expiatory sacrifices, and not holding your altar jealously for eucharistic services, you are blaspheming the sacrifice of the Son of God. Now, having put you at your altar, and also within the holiest, He shows you your place outside the camp. Jesus was accepted in the holiest by God, and He was put outside the camp by men. You are exactly to be with Christ in both these places. That is where this dispensation puts you; and if ever moral glory attached to a creature of God, it is that which attaches to you at this moment. Called outside the camp with Him, to bear His reproach! Are angels in such conditions? Did He ever say to them, "Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations"? Angels are never invited to be the companions of His sorrow. He has never put such honour on angels as on you. Therefore, by and by, the Church will be nearer the throne than angels. "Here we have no continuing city." Christ had none. But further - We see in verse 16 another beautiful thing - another character of service for your altar, "To do good and to communicate forget not." In various Scriptures we find, that the more joy we have in God, the more large-hearted we shall be to one another. It is the very character of joy to enlarge the heart. As in Nehemiah, chap. 8, where the prophet tells the people, "Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength. And the people went their way to send portions and to make great mirth." A man that is happy himself can afford to look round and make others happy with him. After this, the apostle comes to those who have present rule. Those in verse 7 are those who had died. Is this a blind subjection, I ask again? No; you are to take knowledge of them. "They watch for your souls." Office without power, without the unction of the Holy Ghost, is a thing this dispensation does not know; and if we know it, we have got into the corrupt element of it, and out of God’s element. It is a part of your fidelity to God, to keep the dispensation in purity; and mere official authority is an idol. This vessel of the Holy Ghost, this mightiest servant that ever served in God’s name, comes down to the feeblest saint; "pray for us," and he asks it on the authority of a good conscience. Could you ask another to pray for you if you were purposing to err? I will answer for it you could not. And here it is on the ground of a good conscience that the apostle asks prayer. Then he gives them a subject of prayer. Oh the familiarity of Scripture! You are not taken out of your own world of affections and sympathies. Then he breaks out into his doxology. Now, if we remember what we were saying to one another, we shall find here something new and strange. We get the Lord in this ver. 20 in resurrection, not ascension. The great theme of the epistle is, as we have seen from the beginning hitherto, Christ displayed in heaven, but here the apostle does not go beyond resurrection. Why in closing does he bring down Christ from heaven? He has been keeping our eyes straining after Him into heaven, and just at the close, he brings Him down to earth. Yes; for it is very sweet to know that we need not travel beyond death and resurrection, to come in contact with the God of peace. You have reached the God of peace when you have reached the God of resurrection. Resurrection shows that death is abolished. Death is the wages of sin; and if death is abolished, sin is abolished, because death hangs on sin as the shadow on the substance. The covenant is called "everlasting," because it is never to be displaced. The old covenant was put away. The new covenant is ever new, never abrogated. The blood is as fresh this moment to speak peace to the conscience, as when it rent the veil. So, when we come to daily life, we are brought down to be in all simplicity in company with the God of peace that has raised the Great Shepherd from the dead by the blood that has sealed remission of sins for ever. So you may forget sin. In one great sense we shall remember it for ever, but as far as that which constitutes your condition before God, you may forget it for ever. Then he prays that God may adjust and mould us to do His will. What poor adjustment there is in you and me, compared with that. verse! We are awkward in our business, as if we were not at home in it. And then, at the last, he just closes by a few common words to the brethren, "Grace be with you all. Amen." CONCLUSION - We may remember that I have observed several distinct lines of thought running through this epistle. In taking leave of it, we may consider it, and see how these various lines all meet in harmony, and give us, in result, a conclusion infinitely divine. The lines of thought are these 1st. The Spirit is displacing one thing after another to let in Christ. 2nd. Having brought in Christ, the Spirit holds Him up in the varied glories in which He is now filling the heavens. 3rd. The Spirit shows how, Christ being brought in, He acts on everything to perfect it; that whatever a glorified Christ touches He perfects; and among other things, He perfects our consciences. 4th. This being so, on the ground of my reconciliation as a sinner, I am introduced to a temple of praise. These four things may be looked at independently, yet it is very blessed to see that they acquire fresh glory when seen in connection one with another. Now, I do say, there is a magnificence in such a divine writing that needs nothing but itself to tell its glory. I am in contact with something that is infinitely the mind of God, with some of the most wondrous discoveries that God can make of Himself to me. But ere we quit our sweet and happy task, we will look a little particularly at these four things. In Hebrews 1:1-14; Hebrews 2:1-18. the Spirit displaces angels to let in Christ. In Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-16 He displaces Moses and Joshua. In Hebrews 5:1-14; Hebrews 6:1-20; Hebrews 7:1-28 He displaces Aaron. In Hebrews 8:1-13 He displaces the old covenant with which Christ has nothing to do. In Hebrews 9:1-28 He displaces the ordinances of the old sanctuary, with its altars and services, to let in the altar where Jesus as the Lamb of God lay. One thing after another He takes up and sets aside to make room for Jesus. This is a delightful task to the Spirit. God knows His own delights. If the Spirit can be grieved He can be delighted too. Then, having brought Christ in, what does He do with Him! He keeps Him in for ever. Christ has no successor. When the Spirit has got Him in He gazes at Him. And what is it to be spiritual! It is to have the mind of the Holy Ghost. Have you ever delighted to get out of the house, to make room for Jesus? Indignantly the Spirit talks of the things we have been looking at, as "beggarly elements." Have you ever treated them so? The Spirit sees no successor to Christ. In the counsels of God, there is none after Him. Is it so in the counsels and thoughts of our souls? So, having kept Him in, He gazes at Him. And what does He see in Him? He sees glory upon glory. In Hebrews 1:1-14 He sees Him seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, as the Purger of our sins, and hears a voice, saying, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." He looks in Hebrews 2:1-18 and sees Him as our Apostle talking to us of salvation. Then He finds Him as the Owner of an abiding house, as the Giver of eternal rest, and sees Him in the sanctuary above seated there with an oath, and hears God uttering the salutation, "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." In these various ways the Spirit delights in Christ. Then, in Hebrews 9:1-28, we see Him looked at in the heavens as the Bestower of the eternal inheritance, having first obtained eternal redemption. In Hebrews 10:1-39 we see Him seated there in another character, with this voice saluting Him, "Sit thou on my right hand, till I make Thy foes Thy footstool" Have you ever in spirit followed Christ up to heaven, and heard these voices addressing Him? We want to give personality to the truth. We are terribly apt to deal with it as mere dogma. I dread having it before me as a thing I could intellectually learn. In this epistle, it is the person that is kept before you; it is a living one you have to do with. These are heavenly realities. Moses pitched a temple in the wilderness. Solomon pitched a temple in the land; God has pitched a temple in heaven. And oh, how it shows what an interest God has in the sinner, when for our priest He has built a sanctuary, and that because He is our priest, and about to transact our interests. Then, in Hebrews 12:1-29, when He had ascended, He was received and seated in heaven as the Author and Finisher of faith. That is the second line, and we see how it hangs on the first. The Spirit, having fixed Christ before us, displays Him to us. The third thing we get in this epistle is perfection. If I get Christ perfect as Saviour, I get myself perfect as saved. If I am not saved, Christ is not a Saviour. I am not speaking now of a feeble mind struggling with legality, but of my title; and I have no more doubt that I have a right to look on myself as a saved sinner, than that Christ has a right to look on Himself as a perfect Saviour. Salvation is a relative thing. If I take myself as a sinner to Christ, and doubt that I am saved, I must have some doubt of the perfection of His Saviour-character. But we have already looked at the epistle as a treatise on perfection. It became God to give me none less than a perfect Saviour. Wondrous! He has linked His glory with the perfection of my conscience before Him! He has condescended to let me know that it became Him! Does it become you to come and serve me in some capacity? You might do it through kindness, but I should not think of saying so. Yet that is the language God uses. So then, in the third place, we find the epistle a treatise on perfection. Not, however, the perfection of millennial days. Christ will be the repairer of every breach. But, the greatest breach of all was in the conscience of the sinner. There is mischief and confusion abroad in creation still. There is mischief abroad in the house of Israel. Christ has not yet set to His hand to repair that. There is a breach in the throne of David - Christ has not yet applied Himself to heal that. But the mightiest breach of all was between you and God. By and by He will turn the groans of creation into the praises of creation; but He has begun His character as a repairer, by applying Himself to repair the breach that separated you from God; and now we have boldness to enter into the holiest. And then, in the fourth place, we find in this epistle the Spirit doing nothing less now than building a temple for praise. Is He about to tack up the veil again, which the blood of the Lamb of God has torn in two? Is He going to revive the things that He has indignantly talked of as "beggarly elements"? Unspeakably glorious is this fourth and last thing. The Spirit of God has built a temple for you to praise Him; the fruit of your lips giving thanks to His name. What have we not in this epistle? Though we may look on each line of thought independently, yet they do lend to each other exquisite and increased glory. The Spirit is, as it were, making a whip of small cords, and telling all to be gone, to make room for Jesus. Of course I know they were willing to go. John the Baptist uttered the voices of them all, when he said, "He that hath the bride is the Bridegroom: but the friend of the Bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the Bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled." Moses, Aaron, angels, all were delighted to be put out of the house for Christ. These things are combinedly serving your soul by introducing you to deeper apprehensions of the Christ of God. What a servant to our souls the Holy Ghost is in this dispensation! - as the Lord Jesus was a servant from the manger to Calvary. I believe we each need individually to be fortified with truth. We do not know how far Romanizing and infidel errors may be getting ahead. If we have not the truth, we may be the sport of Satan tomorrow. I will give you an instance of it. The Galatians were an earnest, excited people (and I do not quarrel with revival excitement); they would have plucked out their eyes for the apostle; but the day came when he had to begin afresh with them from the very beginning. "My little children, of whom I travail in birth till Christ be formed in you!" There was excitement without a foundation of truth; and, when mischief came in, the poor Galatians were next door to shipwreck - and this epistle is a witness to the same thing. The Hebrew saints were unskilful in the word. But we must be fortified by truth. A state of quickening wants the strengthening of the truth of God. And now what shall we say? Oh the depth of the riches! Oh the height of the glory! the profoundness of the grace! the wonder of the wonders! God unfolding Himself in such a way that we may well cover our faces, while we trust Him in silence, and love Him with the deepest emotions of our souls! But some of us can surely say, "My leanness, my leanness!" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 85: VOL 02 - THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA ======================================================================== The Passage of the Red Sea Hebrews 11:23-29. We have in these verses a little picture, drawn by the Spirit of God, of the ways of God in bringing up His people out of Egypt by the hand of Moses. And, we may say, it is just a picture of the deliverance of the Church from the power of Satan, of the salvation of God, and the means by which it is brought about. Verse 23. God had taken the tenderest care of Moses in his infancy. So in the days of our unregeneracy, God’s care has been over us in a thousand ways. Verse 24-26. A word here as to guidance through the providences of God. Many cling to providences as though they were to be the guide for faith. Nothing could be a more remarkable providence than that which placed Moses in the court of Pharaoh, but it was not the guide for the faith of Moses. Brought up as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, mighty in words and in deeds, there "Providence" had placed him. If ever there was a remarkable providence, it was in the case of Moses. After having been hid three months of his parents, till they could hide him no longer, he is put in an ark of bulrushes, among the flags by the river’s brink. Thus exposed, and crying, the babe attracts the attention of Pharaoh’s daughter, who, with her maidens, is brought down to the place just at the moment. She has compassion on him; listens to the suggestion of the young woman, his sister, gives him in charge to his own mother, to be nursed for her, and he becomes her son. The first thing he does, when come to years, is to give it all up. Had Moses reasoned, his reasoning might have had great scope of argument, he might have said, "God’s providence has placed me here," "I can use all this influence for God’s people," and the like. But he never thought of such a thing. His place was with God’s people. He did not act for God’s people merely; he did not patronize God’s people; his place was with and amongst God’s people. God’s "Providence" had given him a position, which he might relinquish, but it was no guide for conscience. There may be the most plausible reasoning about a thing, but when the "eye is single," the "whole body will be full of light." Moses saw in his brethren (though a feeble people) "the people of God," and he identified them, as such, with the glory of God. That is what faith always does. They may be in a feeble and failing position, or they may be in a blessed position, that is not the question, faith identifies the people of God with the glory of God, and acts accordingly. The children of Israel were in a very bad condition, still, they were "the people of God;" and the first thing recorded of the faith of Moses is, that he took his place amongst the afflicted people of God. If reproach was on them, it was "the reproach of Christ," and he "esteemed it greater riches than the treasures in Egypt." He reckoned with God, and this kept his soul clear of every other influence, he looked right on - "Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee," etc. The light cannot shine down along another path. Verse 27. Faith had brought Moses into a straight line with "’the recompence of the reward," and, when in that path, faith enabled him to identify himself with God, to look up to God as his power. At once came the "wrath of the king." But the same faith that saw glory for him at the end of the path, saw God for him all through the path. That is the secret of real strength. What unbelief does, is to compare ourselves and our own strength with circumstances. What faith does, is to compare God with circumstances. Take the case of the spies. (Numbers 13:1-33; Numbers 14:1-45) They said, "All the people of the land are of a great stature; and we saw the giants there, the sons of Anak, that come of the giants, and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so were we in their sight." If the Israelites compared their stature with that of the Anakims, they had no business there. What said Caleb and Joshua? They stilled the people, saying, "They are as bread to us; their defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us, fear them not." That is, they compared these sons of Anak with God - what matter, then, whether they were giants or grasshoppers. They spoke the language of faith. It was no reasoning about circumstances; it was just simply saying, "Greater is He that is for us, than all that can be against us." God was there. That is what makes the path of faith so simple. How did David reason? He did not go and reason about the height of Goliath and about his own smallness of stature; he brought God in. ’There is an uncircumcised man,’ he said, ’defying the armies of the living God’ - right, and very good reasoning! When the glory set before us leads in the way of the promises, and we take our place with the despised and afflicted people of God, the world will not like it, and the "wrath of the king" will be the consequence. Now this is always a thing feared and trembled before, until God becomes clearly known by the soul, as a God for it. When Pharaoh pursued after the children of Israel (Exodus 14:1-31) with all his chariots, and his horsemen, and his army (he had let them go from serving him, but there was no change of heart towards them), the Lord allowed the people to be shut in between the pursuit of Pharaoh (the power of evil) and the Red Sea. They were quite shut in; and then He says, "Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord," etc. But if God is coming to deal with sinners, He must deal with them as what He is - a holy God. Let them be Israelites, or let them be Egyptians, He must deal with them as what He is. The judgment of God against sin must be met. God’s purpose was to save Israel, and in doing that He was about to judge Egypt. ’But then,’ He says, ’if I come to deal in judgment with the Egyptians; if I come to deliver my people; I must come, such as I am; and I must, therefore, raise the question of sin.’ And it is always so. When God deals with the heart, if there is a question between it and Satan’s power (and, when the soul is freshly awakened, the miserable consciousness of Satan’s power, the slavery of Satan’s service, will often have more real power in producing exercise of heart, than all the fear of the consequences of sin) that is not the first question. God never begins there. He does deliver from it; but He never begins there. He begins by raising a question between Himself and the sinner. The children of Israel had fallen into idolatry. They were worse than the Egyptians; they had the promises of God (Genesis 15:1-21), and were worshipping the idols of Egypt. But they felt not their sin against God. They groaned under their task-masters, and sighed by reason of their bondage. Well, in all the tender commiseration of His love, God came down and spoke to Moses, as to His having seen the affliction of His people and being about to deliver them. But, if judgment against sin was coming in, Israel must be secured from that judgment, or it would fall on them as surely as it did on the Egyptians. The question was not whether Israel could stand in the presence of Pharaoh, but whether Israel could stand in the presence of God. Verse 28. God told them (see Exodus 12:1-51) to take of the blood of the paschal lamb, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door-post of the houses wherein they dwell. "For," said He, "I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast .... and the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt," The destroying angel [Jehovah] passed through the land. In the darkness and dead of night he did his work. He knew no difference between the houses of the Israelites and those of the Egyptians, unless marked with the blood. Over such a house he passed. He saw the blood on the lintel and on the door-posts; he looked no further; he entered not into the house. All God’s dealings with sinners must be upon the ground of His holy judgment of sin. But then, in the case of salvation, He awakens the soul to the sense of this. He says, Judgment is coming in, and there is the consequence of it; and then He puts upon the lintel and the door-posts the blood. Before God sets us out on the journey, He makes it evident that He has settled the question of sin; that the demands of His justice have been perfectly met. God will not go on with us until the question between Himself and us is settled. He may deal with us in grace, but He does not set out with us on the journey until He has done that. Before Israel began their journey God had passed through the land and over them in judgment. They had feasted in the happiest confidence under the protection of the blood of the lamb. Before we go to take the walk of faith, the question of God’s judgment of sin must be a settled question. All that which is, properly speaking, Christian life, the path of experience, the life of faith, is based on God’s having passed over us. He cannot pass over sin. What He does - working faith in us by His Spirit - is, He shows us the blood. Having awakened us to the consciousness of sin, before we are even beginning the journey of faith, He teaches us that He has settled the question about it once and for ever. "Your sins and iniquities I will remember no more." Then He becomes a God for us by the way. Faith sees and apprehends - not that there is no sin, no judgment, but - that, by God’s own work and word, the question between itself and God is a settled question. Blood has been put between the soul and God - the blood of God’s own Son. Never was there such a judgment of sin. I may see myself to be the vilest of sinners, but I see that which has perfectly met the demands of God’s justice. "The blood shall be to you for a token," etc. But then the soul has been accustomed to be a slave. After the children of Israel had seen the blood upon the door-posts we find them trembling before the power of Pharaoh They were on the road, but they were not out of Egypt; they were still in Pharaoh’s territory. They had the knowledge of deliverance from the judgment of God that had fallen upon the first-born; of the blood of the lamb as having met and sheltered them from that; yet they were still in conflict with Pharaoh. At the appointed time they set out on their journey. Leaving the world, they forsake Egypt, the place where they had been slaves, and Pharaoh, the prince of the world, pursues after them. Then comes dread and dismay. Till we know that the death of Christ has emancipated us from the country of Satan, we never know full rest of soul. Satan can make some claim on us, till we can tell him that we are dead and risen with Christ. Because they had been slaves to the power of Pharaoh, and because they dreaded Pharaoh (and there is no wonder), they had not the faith that says, "if God be for us," etc. Pharaoh was stronger than Israel, but God was stronger than Pharaoh; when they lifted up their eyes and beheld the Egyptians marching after them, they were sore afraid. And they said unto Moses, "Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt "Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness." They were here in a worse condition, as to their feelings, than ever before. And it is so often with saints. We have need of the power of God with us and for us, and to know it too (as well as that, when the judgment of God was against us, the blood satisfied His judgment), in order for fulness of peace. I may have seen the virtue of Christ’s blood to save from judgment; but it is quite a different thing to have a constant, settled certainty that God is FOR me. The first thing, when God has awakened the soul to a sense of sin in His sight, is the question of how it may be secured against His righteous judgment. Then it sees the blood on the door-posts, and gets peace. Therefore, if I lose sight of the blood, God is still, to my soul’s apprehension, a Judge. Now that is not at all the proper place for a believer to be in. There is the justice of God, and "without shedding of blood is no remission." If I can say that the blood that has been shed has satisfied that justice, I can see that God is no longer a Judge - His justice has been satisfied. But if, on the other hand, His justice has to be satisfied, God is still a Judge. The Israelites got so terrified, distressed, and dismayed, so under the power of evil which was against them, that they got into the practical question, in conflict, whether God was to have them or Satan. And so constantly with saints. We have been such slaves to the power of Satan, that we have not a consciousness of redemption to God. There was Pharaoh (Satan to us), the power of evil, pursuing them, and driving them up to this point, till death and judgment (of which the Red Sea is the symbol), stared them in the face. The question must be settled, if they could get through death and judgment. They could not get out of the difficulty by their own strength. The Red Sea was before them; they could not get through it; Pharaoh and all his host behind them; and there was no escaping by another road. They were quite shut in, and brought to the sense that there must be a deliverer, or it was all over with them. All this was exceedingly alarming in itself; but it was God’s way of delivering. "And Moses said, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show to you today: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more for ever;" you can neither go backward nor forward; you must stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord - "The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." The Lord steps in, and puts Himself between Satan and His people. "The angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them: and it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night. Before He gives the comfort of deliverance, He always takes care that Satan shall not touch us. What comes to Israel then? Verse 29. The very thing that seemed to be their destruction becomes their salvation. "And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left." It was no battle for Israel against Pharaoh. "And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, and took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians. And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen. And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them. But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore." Death is the wages of sin, there is no escape; the Red Sea must be passed. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after that the judgment." There is not one into whose hands this may fall, looking at it as our natural portion (I am not now speaking of Christ taking it for us, as He has for all those who believe, as it goes on to say, "So Christ was once offered," etc.), but must come there. It is the natural consequence of sin. No matter whether Egyptians, or Israelites, death and judgment overtake all. The Red Sea must be passed. But, if met in grace, as it was by Israel, we shall see that this very thing is our full and unmingled deliverance. There poor Israel stood and looked at the eternal overthrow of their enemies. When the Egyptians were lying dead on the sea-shore, they were safe, singing the song of redemption. True, the wilderness had to be passed, Amalek conflicted with, and the like; but they were out of Egypt. They were singing the song of deliverance in simple-hearted confidence, Egypt left, and left for ever; the power of Pharaoh broken; not an Egyptian to be seen. And now the "assaying" to pass the Red Sea, is that, alas! which many are doing at the present hour (in a better spirit, indeed, than these Egyptians, yet with, to themselves, an equally terrible result). I am not now speaking of the avowed enemies of God, though we are all by nature enemies of God; neither of those who are pursuing after the people of God; but of those who are "assaying" to pass through death and judgment in their own way. Just because they are in a Christian country, and amongst Christians, they hope, with the name of Christ, to get to heaven in company with the people of God. But all must pass through that which is in God’s road there. If we have got up to the Red Sea, death and judgment must be passed, and where shall we be with all our Egyptian wisdom and learning, with all our chariots and horsemen, before death and judgment? Death and judgment must be passed through. If we are "assaying to do this without God for us, if the question of death and judgment be not already - and altogether settled (as it was for Israel, when by faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land), it must be our destruction." People confess they have to die, and that after death there is a judgment, and that they must stand in that judgment; but, if they are "assaying" to do this in their own strength, it must be then infallible, positive destruction. We must all, converted or unconverted, give up the world. The veriest votary of the world must sooner or later give up its vanities and its pleasures, its hopes and its interests; he must give them up. The only difference is this, that the Christian gives them up for God; the worldling gives them up because he cannot keep them. The king of Egypt gave up Egypt and Egypt’s court, as well as Moses; but there was, this difference, the king of Egypt gave it up for judgment, Moses gave it up for Christ. The very hopes people have will be their ruin. They see God’s Israel going to Canaan, and they hope to get there too.. But they are going to heaven in their own way, and they are going to heaven in their own strength. What does the psalmist say? give thy servant a favourable judgment? No! "Enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified." They are hoping that it will be all well with them in the judgment; they take the name of Christ upon their lips, and think to get as safely to heaven as real believers. But they must pass through that which brings out into full light, clearly and evidently, what they really are; they must pass the barrier God has set in the way; they must go through death and judgment; and there will be "no man living justified." God’s rod of power was stretched out when Israel were passing through, and there was no sea, except as a wall on their right hand and on their left, shutting out Pharaoh. Where do we find the ground of the confidence of faith? It is altogether of a different sort to that of the mere professor. "That sea," says the believer, "I dare not go through it; I dare not put a foot in it, except at the bidding of God, and then there is no sea." Because people call themselves Christians, the mischief is, they expect to get through as well as the real people of God. Because the way has been opened to faith, so that faith can tread it, and walk through as on dry ground, they think they can go too. The path is opened to faith, and there is not a drop of water there - death is gone, and judgment is gone, all is over - it is dry ground, and God has made it so; but it is the people of faith alone who can tread it. That which is dry ground to Israel is sea to all besides. Let the Egyptians attempt to follow, and things take their natural course, death and judgment are there, and there shall be no man living justified. The believer has no such thought as that of going to stand in the judgment. When God steps in between him and Pharaoh, what does he see? The "salvation of the Lord." The very thing he dreaded becomes his security. Christ is there in the deep; he sees the judgment of God in all its weight and in all its power borne by Christ. "Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows have gone over me." The waves and billows of the Red Sea have gone over Christ. There I have seen death and judgment. I have seen the Son of God, crying, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" I have seen Him made sin, bearing the judgment due to sinners. Yes, I have seen all the weight and terror of those waves, but they have passed over Christ. It is the thing that saves me, is death. It is the thing that saves me, is judgment. Grace has found its way into death, and it is all "dry land." God takes me there, and says, "Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord." I see this great and full salvation in a risen Christ; and what I get is, that death is mine; "all things," says the apostle, "are ours;" yes, death is "ours." Satan has meddled with death and judgment, and his power in death is completely broken. Like Pharaoh, he has been overcome in the last stronghold in which he held us captive. "Through death," Christ "has destroyed him that had the power of death," etc. Have the waves of the Red Sea, the billows of the wrath of God, gone over Christ? He has abolished all that was against us. Satan has come, and meddled; and what has he done? He has, put Christ to death; but the triumph of the prince of darkness was but the display of his defeat. He has come and grappled with Christ, put forth all his strength against Him, struck Him with the whole sting and power he had in death; but Christ has risen out of it on - the other side, beyond his reach; and now, morally, death has no power for the believer. As the captain of salvation, Christ had come down, and put Himself in the place of those over whom Satan had the power of death, by the judgment of God. If He had taken their cause in hand, He must be treated according to their circumstances. He stood there, and felt all the weight and horror of the place. Knowing the terrors of the wrath of God, the bitterness of the cup He had to drink, He prayed that, if it were possible, the cup might pass from Him. But love had brought Him there; "by the grace of God" He tasted death. God has settled the question. All the account against me, the ground of Satan’s accusations, appealing to the righteous judgment of God, is gone. God’s wrath has all passed over. The moment we come up on the other side of the Red Sea, it is all done; we have only our song to sing - "The Lord has triumphed gloriously," etc. The Egyptians whom we have seen today, we shall see them again no more for ever. Israel could sing this song before they took one step in the wilderness; they could say, "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation. The people shall hear and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina. Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away. Fear and dread shall fall upon them; by the greatness of thine arm they shall be as still as a stone; till thy people pass over, O Lord, till the people pass over, which thou hast purchased. Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, thy hands have established. The Lord shall reign for ever and ever." There was all possible difference marked now between poor Israel, who had God for them, and the Egyptians, who (with a great deal more human possibility of getting through) were driving on in the carelessness and folly of their own power, to be met, and brought to a stand-still, by the power of death and judgment just like poor unconverted people, who, because they see Christians going to heaven, are "assaying" to go also, but without the knowledge of the blood (that which can alone settle the question of death and judgment, so that they should have God for them, to step in between themselves and Pharaoh), as having been sprinkled on the houses in Egypt. To all such the very place of salvation will be the place of ruin. Israel never sang this song when it was merely a question of blood on the door-posts. They did not sing it till they had taken some days’ journey from the place of their bondage, and had been shut up between the Red Sea and Pharaoh. They were on the road; they had journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, and from Succoth to Etham, and they were encamped before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the Red Sea. They had left Egypt and had brought over all the malice of Satan against them. But the power of God was WITH them, and for them, and it was simply, "Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord." The controversy was between God and Pharaoh (not between Israel and Pharaoh), and it was soon settled. God would have us broken down to this. They had seen the blood upon the door-posts - there was not any question of sin between themselves and God; weak, feeble, and failing, they might be, but God saw the blood - they had set out in good earnest from Egypt, with their kneading-troughs bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders. Now they sing of accomplished redemption. They had the desert to tread where there was no way, nor food, nor water; the manna had to be gathered day by day, and if the sun was up it was all gone (spiritual diligence is needed, "the diligent soul shall be made fat"); but they were redeemed, and they had God WITH them, and God FOR them, to lead and to guide them in the way. Well, beloved, have our souls seen this redemption? Have we been brought yet to the Red Sea, and to feel that we could not tread the path opened to faith, in our own strength; that if we attempted to do it we should be drowned? And have we found that it is no sea, but dry ground, that there is not a drop of water left there? If we have known the blood of Christ as our only hope before God, looking at Him as a Judge; if we have known that we must leave Egypt and tread the wilderness on our way to the promised rest, we may still be in measure unable to say, ’Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed,’ etc. That does not mean that we are not on the road, but that we do not know, properly speaking, God to be for us. We may, as sinners, have looked simply to the blood; but if we have not fully understood the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ as emancipating us from the country and power of Satan, we have not stood still to see the salvation of the Lord. The waves and the billows of God’s wrath have gone over the head of Christ, and He has made it to be no sea. He has come down into the very place of wrath on account of sin; and He has risen out of it, and all is over. The thunderbolt has lit on the head of Christ, and the storm is over for faith. Nothing gives such a sense of the horribleness of sin, nothing is such a testimony to the judgment of God against sin, as seeing Christ under it; and yet nothing is such a testimony to the love of God towards the poor sinner. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 86: VOL 02 - THE QUIET MIND ======================================================================== The Quiet Mind I have a treasure which I prize, Its like I cannot find; There’s nothing like it on the earth - ’Tis this, a Quiet Mind. But ’tis not that I’m stupefied, Or senseless, dull, or blind; ’Tis God’s own peace within my heart, Which forms my Quiet Mind. I found this treasure at the cross, ’Tis there, to every kind Of heavy laden, weary souls, Christ gives a Quiet Mind. My Saviour’s death and risen life, To give this were design’d; And that’s the root, and that’s the branch, Of this my Quiet Mind. The love of God within my breast, My heart to His doth bind; This is the mind of heaven on earth - This is my Quiet Mind. I’ve many a cross to take up now, And many left behind; But present troubles move me not, Nor shake my Quiet Mind. I’m waiting now to see the Lord, Who’s been to me so kind; I want to thank Him face to face, For this my Quiet Mind. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 87: VOL 02 - THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF THE GLORY ======================================================================== The Transforming Power of the Glory What is the practical effect of "looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face"? (2 Corinthians 3:18.) Paul is here contrasting the ministration of death with the ministration of righteousness. Though the glory in the former consumed, because it only appeared with a claim on man who was unable to meet it (for righteousness was not fully established), yet Moses bore in his face marks of its transforming power. Because of man’s condition, it was fearful in its bearing on him; yet, as we see in Moses, no one could be in it without partaking of its excellency. Moses’ face therefore bore distinct traces of it. Israel refused even to gaze on the effects of it on Moses’ face. Man, when seeking to maintain his own righteousness before God, shrinks from admiration of the transforming power of God; Israel therefore, in asking Moses to place a veil on his face, only declared the moral distance of their own hearts from God. Hence the veil is transferred to their hearts. But now, says Paul, there is a wonderful contrast. It is now the ministration of righteousness, and that from the same glory. So was it announced (in Luke 2:1-52.) when the glory of the Lord shone round about the shepherds. The Son of God was come to establish righteousness from the same glory from which had come the claim of righteousness. And therefore, if the glory had the power to produce such effects on the face of Moses, when man in his then condition could not look at it, how much more now, when it is a ministration of righteousness! Hence the "apostle declares that we use much boldness, and, looking on the Lord with unveiled face," are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory. It effects a moral transformation into its own likeness. Humbling though it be to admit it, any association with that which is morally superior to us must have this effect on us. If we decline to inferior associations, we deprave our better tendencies; but if we are occupied with moral superiority, we always adopt rather than improve. We adopt a new habit of action instead of only improving any existing one, and as the glory of God is unique and morally supreme, if we are conversant with it, we naturally, and almost unconsciously, adopt its characteristics and qualities, so that we are really in the process of transformation, and not merely of improvement. I turn now to the traces of these effects, and how we may notice them. It is remarkable how differently we view the same things at different times. This may be even when we feel them most, but then we are in the spirit of our mind most above them. The same painful question occupied the mind of the Psalmist when outside the sanctuary and when inside; but it is evident that he was a totally different man as to feeling, when in one and when in the other. The light of the glory had so transformed Stephen, that he was practically superior to the violence levelled against him; but he was all the more affected for those who perpetrated it; so that I should say that the chief traces of the moral effect of the glory are a greater sensitiveness to the evil afflicting me, but a marked and sensible elevation above it. Again, how can I distinguish "looking on the glory of the Lord" from any other spiritual exercise? If this be difficult, it is so simply because the soul is so slow to enter into the counsel of God in His grace to us, or to realise that counsel as a manifestation of His own heart, in the person of His only begotten Son, from the very centre of the glory. The grace which has reached us has its origin in the glory; it belongs to it, so to speak; and it is not answered, according to its native interest, until it connects us with the glory. If I understand the origin of this grace, and how I am bound up with it, I must understand its associations. Its origin is the centre of the glory; its association is the Person of the glory; and when I find myself in this association, through the grace of God manifested to me, I am "looking on the glory of the Lord." If the light made Paul blind (as a man*), he never lost the remembrance of it in his soul; therefore, he called it "the mark." *Sir Isaac Newton was so affected by looking at the sun with only one eye, that for three weeks, in a darkened chamber, he was haunted by a circular glare and image of it. May we be by faith so full of the glory of the Lord, that it may be ever before us, making us practically like Him, supplying us with power for our difficulties, and with abounding praise to Him who has blessed us with such a rich salvation. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 88: VOL 02 - THREE CHARACTERS OF THE LORD JESUS ======================================================================== Three Characters of the Lord Jesus John 5:17-47. There are three very important characters in which the Lord Jesus is presented to us in these verses: 1st, AS THE SUBJECT OF TESTIMONY; 2nd, AS THE GIVER OF LIFE; 3rd, AS THE EXECUTOR OF JUDGMENT. Now He stands in relation to all men in one or other of these positions. First, He presents Himself as the SUBJECT OF TESTIMONY; but it is, nevertheless, as coming in the Father’s name. "I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There is another that heareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which He witnesseth of me is true." (vv. 31, 32.) His own witness was also true; but that which He states is, ’If I am seeking to glorify myself, I demand not your confidence, I ask you not to believe.’ Just as He says elsewhere, "He that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh His glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. And this ever holds good. If a man is seeking to exalt self, he has a motive that is not truth, his witness is not true. At the same time there was a witness unto Himself, and as such He appeals to all the various testimony that existed for Him in the world. "Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth." (5: 33.) Again, "The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do bear witness of me." (5: 36.) Again, "The Father Himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me." (5: 37.) And again, "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." (5: 39.) The Lord Jesus refers to these four witnesses; first, John; secondly, his works; thirdly, the Father; fourthly, the Scriptures: and yet He tells those to whom He spoke, "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." (5: 40.) Presented with this full and adequate testimony to the consciences of men (not merely an abstract testimony, but that which was suited to their circumstances), they refused it all, they would not come to Him, that they might have life. And mark the terrible conclusion, "Ye will receive this evil, one." "I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive ME not: if another shall come in his own name, HIM ye will receive." (5: 43.) What a testimony against man! Another character in which we find the Lord Jesus presented here, is in LIFE-GIVING POWER: "As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom He will." (5: 21.) Life-giving is attributed both to the Father and the Son. But there is marked distinction in that which follows, as to the third character of Christ - THE EXECUTOR OF JUDGMENT. "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." (5: 22.) As "Son of man," He has been dishonoured and rejected by men; therefore all judgment is committed into His hands, in order "that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father." (5: 23.) Here He stands alone. And see the point that is settled here. When the Lord Jesus presents Himself as giving life, He also, and most graciously, shows us how we may count on the assurance of possessing life. Now this is of the very last importance. There is many an one that can with truth of heart own Him as the giver of divine life, that, nevertheless, is unable to say, "I have that life." Our Lord does not leave the anxiety of such unanswered. After stating that all men (even those who had rejected Him, as we have seen, one day in His character of Judge) should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father, He adds, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation (judgment); but is passed from death unto life." (5: 24.) The question is one of judgment or of life. We have seen that the Father gives life, and the Son gives life. We have seen, too, that all judgment is committed unto the Son. But here Jesus shows who is to come under the judgment, and who is to have life. This answers the question at once. He says, he that believeth "hath," not shall have, "everlasting life," and that such an one "shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life." On this basis all happy feeling before God, all joy, is founded. Here begins the exercise of all holy affections and ways. A child cannot love its parent before it is born (there is no need to reason about that), though it may love long before it can express it - long before there is intellectual explanation. Here is the difference between the law and the gospel. Law puts a man upon the acquisition of life; it sets him to do before he gets life. All Christian holiness, all Christian affections flow from the fact of having life. The voice of the good Shepherd reaches the ear, and he who hears it, believing that the Father hath sent the Son, has this assurance, he "shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." It would be to bring into doubt His own work, were Christ to call such in question as to salvation. He ever keeps distinct His two offices of Life-giver and Judge. It might appear that in vv. 28, 29 He confounds the two. But is it so? No; He states a further truth. He had before been speaking of the quickening of the soul, and now He says, "Marvel not at this," there is going to be a resurrection of the body also. It is in resurrection that He will fulfil the whole effect and result of His life-giving power. There will be a "resurrection of life," and also a "resurrection of judgment." The two things are kept most definite and distinct. But the honour of Christ as "Son of man" is secured from all. We (those who have believed) do not need judgment to oblige us to render Him honour, we honour Him now as the source of life; He has quickened us, forgiven us our sins; through Him we have fellowship with the father; He has done every thing for us. The wicked shall also honour Him then. There is a remarkable passage in Romans 8:1-39 in illustration of this distinction. The apostle, after speaking of the law, takes up the result of the work of Christ, and says, "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death," etc. And then in verse 11, "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." That will not be true of the wicked at all; they will not be raised in virtue of the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them - they have it not. We see then, as it were, this great track of life. Christ is the Life-giver to His people; first to soul, and then to body. The evidence to others of our having life is shown in conduct, though that is not brought out here; but the proof and the assurance to my own soul is based on this, "He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life." Whilst fruits will flow, and must flow, from faith in Christ, it is of the utmost importance, in the midst of the evil with which we are conversant, to have the ground on which peace rests as simple as possible, and that is just what God has made it. The work on which it is founded concerns all the glory; I see Christ coming, and dying, and communicating life, that into which life so communicated brings, being all the Father’s purposes in the Son, etc. etc. The link to my own soul is as simple as possible, it is not a long process which might tend to puzzle and perplex, but the evidence of the word, "He that heareth," etc. What is the effect of this? Christ becomes everything to us. Surely this is practical sanctification. If I wanted to describe a holy man, I should describe one who was always thinking of the Father’s love and the Son’s grace, and never of self. Here then there is comfort and peace (and what a comfort is the settled certainty of salvation!) in this setting to our seal that God is true. It is not in the searching of my own heart, but in the assurance of the word of God. There is nothing like the simple certainty of faith. "He that hath received His testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." I assume that I am a person in an anxious state of soul and wanting to get the certainty of life possessed, I look at the testimony of God. There I get absolute certainty. I say, ’God is true.’ This is faith. All that I discover in myself is not faith. I may be much exercised, but there is not one thing in my own heart that can in the least assist me in finding out anything about this life. Faith rests upon the testimony of God. When I have received and rested upon His testimony, it is important for me to examine myself as to my ways and the like, but I never go and search into my own heart for certainty as to whether the blessed Son of God has told me the truth, "He that heareth," etc. Observe again; there is no searching any further than this; I believe on Him who sent the Son; in the presence of the Father and the Son I have eternal life, who can give me more? Life may be fed indeed here, and glorified hereafter; but there is no searching any deeper. There may be exercises of soul in bringing to it; but the definition John gives of a Christian is this: "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us." "Hereby perceive we love, because He laid down His life for us." There is another point: the written testimony of God has a higher place than any other. A few words more upon the difference between life-giving and judgment. Now it is that Christ gives life. When He comes as Judge, He will not give life at all, He will come for judgment. There is no confounding or mingling of the two things, either as to time or act. If judgment comes in before grace has given life, who can stand? Having seen the way of life, there is next the contrast of result where testimony is not received. In the fall of our first parents, we see sin in three distinct and principal elements. And these have continued to characterise man ever since. Man gives ear to Satan, or, in other words, is led of the serpent; exalts himself to be as God; follows his own lusts, and is disobedient. Scripture gives us the development of this, in principle all through, and shows that it will be so at the end. Man whilst in the enjoyment of blessings, listens to and trusts Satan. But mark the suggestion of the devil, "Ye shall be as gods." He can tell truth if it subserve sin. If we have the truth nothing can harm us; but Satan can tell truth, a great deal of truth, provided he can only win attention by it, and so deceive. See his temptation of our Lord. There he quotes Scripture, gives a promise of God, quite rightly applicable in a certain sense, had Jesus listened. The first Adam did so, and came by the ways of Satan to know good and evil. But it was by disobedience, and he continued not with God. Satan told not all the truth, he did not say ’you shall be a lost creature.’ Lust worked, disobedience followed, and consequently exclusion from God’s presence. But testimony for Christ has another element in it. It is not merely that man is a sinner; there has been the rejection of God in grace. What was the question when Christ was in the world? Not whether man had sinned; but would man, a sinner, receive testimony for God in grace. If you traced the history of man, from the beginning until Christ came, you would say, his mouth must be stopped. Satan’s power over the heart is revealed throughout. Driven from paradise, instead of becoming better, Cain kills his brother. Then comes the deluge, sweeping away the whole race except eight persons, but afterwards they are as bad as ever. Noah gets intoxicated, Ham dishonours his father, and after that idolatry enters. Again, before Moses comes down from the mount, the people have made a calf. Before the eight days of solemn purification are over, Aaron’s sons take strange fire and offer before the Lord. In short, in all God’s dealings with Israel as a nation, this truth is strongly marked. The principle of the heart is wrong. Nay more, the nearer man is to God externally, the worse is ever the character of his guilt, if there be not living fellowship with Him. When Jesus came into the world, though He could get joy out of the Samaritans, and out of a poor Syrophenician woman, whose condition was as a "dog" in respect of Jewish privileges, "His own" were found full of pride of heart, and "received Him not." Judas was quite close to Christ, yet he betrayed Him. The development of evil is just in proportion to its nearness to good, if the power of good is not there. So with Christendom. The name of Christianity, where there is not the living power of it, is the very place in which the worst evil is to be looked for. And observe here the awful manner in which conscience can deceive itself. "The chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood;" there had been no scruple in giving the money for that blood. The very same money wherewith they had bought Christ, they will not put into the treasury! What a picture of man’s heart, of man’s consistency - exact about external, ceremonial points, callous as to moral pravity! But, as to the question of the reception of testimony. Into this world of sin and iniquity, however bad man might have been proved, it mattered not, the Son of man came down in grace. His testimony rejected - "ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life:" what is the consequence? "I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive ME not; if another shall come in his own name, HIM ye will receive." Here is a new form of evil. Man shall set himself up, and be received, because he comes in his own name. And yet it is but the ripeness and development of his sin in Eden, the same in principle, only, after Christ, he then exalted himself to be as God; to act after his own will, though in reality he was the tool of Satan. The same thing shall come to pass again, testimony having been rejected, as it is said, "because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." (2 Thessalonians 2:1-17) There will be a license, and more than a license too, for man to set himself up, to seek his own name, and "HIM ye will receive." If you trace man’s evil, you will find, it is true, a testimony to it bad enough, whatever the restraints God, in His supreme power, may have placed upon it. But there has been restraint, especially since the flood. Government met this point in the world, first, directly exercised amongst the Jews, and afterwards extended to the Gentiles, in the four great empires, of which Nebuchadnezzar was the first head - the Babylonish, Persian, Grecian, and Roman. Passing over their general history, it will suffice to say, that the fourth of these empires had just come out in prominence, when our Lord appeared on the earth. "There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." The result of this, as well as of religion in man, was brought out in His rejection. All joined together, the heads both of civil and religious power, to crucify Christ. The cry of the Jews was, "We have no king but Caesar;" and Pilate, representative of Gentile dominion, knowing His innocence, acquiesced in their malice. Another thing was brought out, upon the accomplishment of all this evil in man, a testimony unto the heavenly blessedness of those who believe in Him whom the world had rejected. "Blessed is he who hath not seen, and yet hath believed." There are those who believe on a record given of God’s Son, and eternal life belongs to them. Well, now, if we find any religious form of evil, we find it here in the profession of Christianity, not amongst the avowed haters of Christ. One special mark of the "perilous times" in "the last days," concerning which we have prophetic testimony, is the "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." The same thing in principle as amongst the Jews. The Pharisees were a religious people; they had the "form of godliness," but Christ, the "power," they "denied." (Acts 3:13.) Wherefore the testimony against them, "Now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father." One great principle of religious forms of evil is, that they are always suited to the flesh. There is a religious tendency in man: he will bow down to something. You may find a hard spirit here and there rejecting every thing; but, as a general truth, man must have his religion. The "form of godliness" is just suited to this. Nature through it seeks to satisfy its holiness, whilst at the same time man’s will comes in, man is exalted. Whatever the flesh can look at, or do, or cling to, as man’s works, ordinances, etc. etc., all these things will be esteemed. If it be but a "form of godliness," though the straitest sect of the Pharisees, a great deal of truth may be held, there may be intellectual clearness, of doctrine and the like; all this is within the compass of the flesh, and will be accredited by it. But there is one thing the flesh can never do, it can never trust simply in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life, and have "peace with God." The Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of holiness. If truth (the form of it) comes to me without holiness, I cannot receive it as of the Spirit of God, and vice versa, if there be apparent holiness without truth. There is always thus, for the humble believer, a corrective or countercheck, whereby he may detect the evil - Satan’s imitation. But there is another thing testified of - the last form of wickedness - man’s will exalting itself against God. The principle has been always the same; but now it will come out in full development. "The king shall do according to his own will." (Daniel 11:36.) Truth having been rejected, this is the result. There will be a public avowal of independence of God - man acting against God, speaking against God; but at the same time exalting himself to be as God. (2 Thessalonians 2:4.) Herein Satan’s agency will come out in manifest display. It is not merely the "form of godliness" (itself ensnaring enough, and liable to lead astray), nor yet even man’s will alone; no, it is declared to be a display of the "working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders." (5: 9.) Awful passage! And see what follows. When God’s patience is exhausted, or rather has no more place, then He, yes, "God" Himself, "shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie." (5: 11.) "Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved." God says, ’If you love a lie, you shall have a lie.’ His dealings with the Jews, upon their rejection of Him, is the same in principle. "Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes," etc. (Isaiah 6:1-13; John 12:1-50; Acts 28:26-27.) But we find exactly the same testimony given about the profession of Christianity, as about the profession of Judaism. The "mystery of iniquity" had begun to work in Paul’s time; "doth already work," says he. It is followed by a "falling away," or apostacy, and consummated in the appearance of antichrist - "that man of sin." Satan’s power, seductive power, and man’s self-will, in independence of God, will terminate in this: Man given up to the devil. But it will not be until the long-suffering of God has been tried to the uttermost; even as the sentence of judicial blindness on the Jews was pronounced 700 years before put in execution. At the present hour that long-suffering has been 1800 years running on; but when the testimony of truth has been fully rejected, the doom will come. People may deceive themselves, and say that these things are not to be looked for in a Christian land. It is just there, upon Christendom, that God’s heaviest judgments will fall After testimony God gave over the heathen to a "reprobate mind." (See Romans 1:1-32) The Jew, with his special light, is given over to a fat heart. Where Christianity is professed, it is the same thing; a "form of godliness," "the love of the truth" not received, "pleasure in unrighteousness" - God gives over to "strong delusion." Men love something. Trace the course of Judas. What was it that led him astray? He loved money, not so uncommon an evil. In this he was the world’s prudent man - "men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself." But observe the progress of corrupt nature; a little circumstance in John 12:3-6 may help us to see the connection. The lust there, Satan suggests a way to gratify it. Well, he goes on, and what is his next stop? Satan puts it into his heart to betray his Master. Judas, it may be, thinking that the blessed One would have been delivered in some way, as at other times, and thus he got his money, and yet save his character, consents. Man will excuse himself by any folly. Sin has its progress with a defiled conscience. Hypocrisy now enters; he sits with Jesus at the table (goes on with religiousness), even after he had sold him. Mark, too, it was "after the sop" that Satan entered, never nearer to Christ in form. Now he is hardened against even the relentings of nature, he goes out and betrays the Son of man with a kiss. Here then is the progress of corrupt nature towards this fearful consummation - first, lust; secondly, a means of gratifying it in his office of bearer of the bag; all this goes on along with religiousness, in the very company of Christ, from day to day thirdly, he is led to the ultimate character of his crime, at a time and in circumstances of most blessing to a true disciple; fourthly, the heart is hardened, so that the betrayal takes place even with a kiss, the token of affection. Sinning and religiousness go on together. Again we say, and here we have an illustration of it, that where the power of godliness is not, nearness to godly things is only the more dangerous. Well, we have the solemn declaration that such shall be the history of Christendom. "Three unclean spirits go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty" (Revelation 16:1-21) - that day when the long-suffering of God shall have closed, when, in fact, a longer delay would become the allowance of unrighteousness. Judgment will then be according to this nearness. Its full tide will roll in upon Christendom. We speak not of the judgment of the dead, but of the living. Where, then, is the resource from this dreadful progress and consummation of wickedness, in the place where righteousness is expected? It is not in man’s will, for through that he is the slave of Satan. Nor in forms of religiousness. Satan can enter in with the sop. Neither the one nor the other will keep him out. Man’s natural power, his capacity to do great things, may be vaunted on the one hand; and on the other, a reliance upon ordinances and observances be insisted upon. For a time these may seem the most opposing schools, but a connecting-link will be found in man’s corrupt nature, managed by the craft of the great enemy; and at last both will subserve his purposes, who is to "exalt himself above all that is called God, or is worshipped; so that he as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Where then is deliverance from the evil? where is the escape? The answer is most simple. In the fellowship of God’s love. The place of special privileges unheeded, of special light, will be the place of special judgment. A word in passing: Satan does not come all at once and say, ’I seek to turn you from God.’ He usually works by introducing that which would lead away from simplicity of reliance on the death of Christ - some "form of godliness" - and so ensnares. How are we to detect all this? In the first place, the believer must be set in heaven (not in body, but in spirit), in the presence of God Himself. That is now his true place. "The way into the holiest of all was not yet manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing." God was not, so to speak, then revealed in His own full estimate of good and evil. But now the holiest is open. The veil is rent. "The true light shineth." There is nothing between us and God. All is worthless that cannot stand in the light of His holiness. There were many things before which God did not approve, but which He permitted - Jewish divorcement, for instance. (Mark 10:5.) But at the death of Christ the full light of God’s holiness against the darkness of man’s fully developed sin was brought out. The veil was rent from top to bottom. Divine goodness had come into the world, and displayed itself with every witness; what had man shown himself to be? A hater of divine goodness, in deliberate judgment. The full evil of the world, and, in the accomplishment of righteousness for us, the full grace of God, both came out at the cross. All the pains God had taken to reclaim man, as culture to a good-for-nothing tree, only resulted in his bearing more bad fruit, until the deliberate evil of his nature in hatred to God was shown in the death of Christ. This was the climax of his sin. But here also was shown God’s perfect love. Man’s hatred to God - come in goodness, is one side of the cross, and the other, God in His highest act of love towards men in vileness. God’s own holiness has now come completely out. Since the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is no longer a question of coming up step by step to God. If man stand before God at all, he must stand in contact with the full light of His holiness. How did that light burst forth? In the absolute putting away of the sin of every believer, and that by the worst act of man’s sin. The very sin that was detected by the light, that would have hindered the soul’s approach, was put away through the blow that brought Jesus to the death, and now the sinner stands in the absolute and full enjoyment of God’s love. Such is His goodness! Trusting to the perfect work of Christ, the more the searching eye of God rests on me, the more, as it were, does He discover the perfect value of the blood of Christ. The clearer the light, the more is it to show that not a spot or stain is on me. What does He see? the efficacy of the blood of His own provided Lamb - that which hath put away my sin. The same light that detects the sin, manifests its being utterly and for ever put away; yea, has burst forth and shone in the putting it away. Here then is the safeguard. It is the knowledge of God’s full putting away of sin - peace through the blood. I can have no thought of getting up to God, etc., when standing where Himself has brought me, even in His very presence. We are called unto holiness, but what character does Christian holiness take? not the character of our own nature at all, nothing is recognised as of us. It is "that we might be partakers of His holiness." Man’s nature has been proved to be incorrigibly bad - it has hated and crucified Christ, God cannot own it, He seeks nothing from it. He has satisfied Himself in the cross about our evil; and now He says, ’Be partakers of my good.’ Here again is a safeguard for the saints at the present hour. Those who, through the teaching of the Spirit of God, have learned this great and blessed truth, and through grace walk in fellowship with God, will be preserved from all attempts at creature holiness. They say, We want nothing before God, but only to glorify Him in our bodies. They are as Christ before God, and they know it. Nothing else is wanted; nay, God would repudiate anything else. It would be to call in question the sufficiency of Christ. Faith rests where God rests. What we have to do is to glorify Him by our life down here. But our walk down here is, nevertheless, not our standing before God in righteousness, though it be a testimony in man’s sight to it. Reader, have you rested where God rests? What does God think about Christ? Does your soul say that is sufficient? God rests in Him as having made peace through the blood of the cross. Is that peace consciously yours? Salvation is the guard set up of God against the deceits of Satan. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 89: VOL 02 - WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH ======================================================================== Worship in Spirit and in Truth It is impossible to separate true spiritual worship and communion from the perfect offering of Christ to God. The moment our worship separates itself from this, its efficacy, and the consciousness of that infinite acceptance of Jesus before the Father, it becomes carnal, and either form or delight of the flesh. When the Holy Spirit leads us into real spiritual worship, it leads us into communion with God, into the presence of God, and then, necessarily, all the infinite acceptability to Him of the offering of Christ is present to our spirit; the acceptance of that sweet savour is that in which we go to Him. We are associated with it, it forms an integral and necessary part of our communion and worship. We cannot be in the presence of God in communion without finding there the perfect favour of God in which an offered Jesus is. It is indeed the ground of our acceptance, as well as of our communion. Apart from this, then, our worship falls back into the flesh; our prayers form what is sometimes called a gift of prayer, than which nothing often is more sorrowful; a fluent rehearsal of known truths and principles, instead of communion and the expression of our wants in the unction of the Spirit; our singing, pleasure of the ear, the taste in music and expression in which we sympathize, all a form in the flesh and not communion in the Spirit. All this is evil; the Spirit of God owns it not; it is not in Spirit and in truth; it is really iniquity. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 90: VOL 03 - "A LIGHT FROM HEAVEN ABOVE THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE SUN" ======================================================================== "A Light From Heaven Above the Brightness of the Sun" Acts 9:1-43 I would desire particularly to ask the question, Why was it that Jehovah said to Moses - who was a good man, as we should popularly term it - "Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet" (Exodus 3:5); but to a wretched rebel like Saul of Tarsus, in the hour when his malignity against Christ was at its height, God, as it were, draws nigh to him, addresses him by name, and then and there takes him up to make him a pattern of the grace that is in His own heart? There surely must be some weighty reason to account for the different way in which the blessed God acted in both these cases. Let us look a little at both. Moses, as I have said, was a man remarkable in his day for the very opposite of that which distinguished Saul of Tarsus, raised up as well as fitted of God to lead forth Jehovah’s people out of Egypt; and yet, when he ventured to draw nigh and look at the burning bush, he is not permitted, Jehovah Himself insisting on distance between Moses and Himself. Surely it is not that the blessed God is in any sense indifferent to the sorrows or afflictions of enslaved Israel. What a beautiful word that is - "I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows!" And yet, to the man who is to carry out all that is expressed in such words, Jehovah says, "Draw not, nigh;" and Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. The very contrary and contrast of all this is supplied in what is commonly called the conversion of Saul. Why is it that God keeps up distance with Moses, and Himself draws nigh to a persecutor like Saul? The answer is at once simple and plain, His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, had died upon the cross, and in death had so completely glorified God respecting all that was contrary to Him, that what God was not free to do in consistency with His own character in the day of Moses, He is perfectly free to do in the day of Saul of Tarsus. In the day of Exodus 3:1-22, and up to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, man, as a child of Adam, was recognized by God, and although fallen and ruined, had demands made upon him by God in righteousness; in other words, God was requiring from man what man was both unable and unwilling to give. Man was still on his trial, and because so, to him as such God says, You cannot come near me; "draw not nigh hither." The blessed God may, and does, bear with man, test him and prove him in every way; but nearness to God is that which cannot be known, while as yet the first man is allowed a standing before God. But it may be said, Why could not God have granted nearness to Himself, or Himself drawn nigh to a sinner, as in the case of Saul of Tarsus, on the ground of the sacrifice of Christ TO BE offered? The answer is as simple as it is plain: so long as the history of the first man {or man as connected with Adam) is not closed or ended, as long as man is allowed a place, though on trial, God must, while demanding from him, keep him at a distance, else we should have a wilful, rebellious creature allowed on that ground, and brought into that relationship which is true only of the one who is in Christ a new creation; and beside all this, as long as the first man is a recognized existence before God, God must, in consistency with Himself, demand from him; but this very demanding from him is in itself keeping man at a distance, as he cannot meet the claims of a Holy God. When I speak of the first man, I mean man as he is by nature connected with Adam, who brought ruin upon the race; and when I speak of a recognized existence, and God making demands upon it, I mean that judgment had not been executed upon it: God looked at man as still to be tested and tried, and consequently looked for what became Him from man. But to turn to the history of Saul of Tarsus; how different it is there. God comes to give righteousness, not to look for it or demand it. His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, had been to earth, had died on the cross, and by His precious death had both completely and fully glorified God, as well as judged and condemned sin in the flesh, and in doing so He most blessedly and righteously supplied an answer to every righteous claim of a holy God. God can now come out and express His love for the sinner, yea, for the very chief of sinners; and here it may be well to look at what made Saul of Tarsus the chief of sinners. It surely was not that he was an immoral man, or an outcast from society, as we say were he of this character he would never have been selected for, and charged with, the mission on which he was running when God stopped him; on the contrary, Phil. 3 tells us that Saul was one unequalled among his fellows for morality. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the Church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless." What then constituted him chief of sinners? not immorality, not the gross wickedness at which refined society blushes, but the dreadful will and malignant opposition with which he set himself against the purpose and mind of God. Hear his own account of it: "I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities." (Acts 26:9-11.) Who could conceive wilfulness or hatred of Christ and God more desperate than this? To force from city to city the scattered saints of God, and not this only, but to compel them to blaspheme the One who was to them above everyone; on whose account they are suffering at the hands of this relentless hater of Jesus of Nazareth. Oh, what contrasts rise up before the soul as we think of it! With our natural thought of God and His ways, what should you predicate would be the course He must adopt with a wretch like Saul, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the object of his terrible hate? Why, of course you say, Almighty power would sweep from the earth such a plague; the sword of Divine vengeance and justice must be unsheathed to overtake such an one in his wild wickedness. But oh, how different from all this natural thought of God was His blessed way with poor Saul. Stop him God will; but with what? with the pit? No; but with glory. A light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shone round about him. At midday, when the sun is brightest, Saul is arrested by that which is brighter still. What a sight! A scorner, despiser, hater of Christ in heaven, awakened, arrested, addressed by that very blessed One Himself - "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" That very One Himself; too, who had been on the cross, under the judgment, because of man’s sin - that very One Himself who, in that wonderful moment, knew what it was to be forsaken of God, that such as Saul might never be forgotten of Him; now risen up from among the dead, and received up into glory. He it is who commands the rays of that glory to fall upon the persecutor’s path, draws nigh to him, speaks to him, comes not to hurl him into the bottomless pit, but to take him up, in the riches of grace and mercy, to give him forgiveness, righteousness, glory, to make a pattern man of him, a chosen vessel unto Himself, to bear His name before the Gentiles, kings and children of Israel Such is the way of His grace now, even to: the vilest sinner. Christ has died, and by His death righteousness has been established; the love of God, which was not set free to travel out to sinners until righteousness is established, now goes out world-wide. There is not only salvation for the vilest sinner, but glory. It is the very joy of the heart of God to minister now everything from Himself to sinners, even the vilest of the vile, and to make them not only vessels of mercy in themselves, platforms as it were upon which the blessed God makes declarations of His grace and goodness; but He delights to make them living witnesses of what His own Son the Lord Jesus can be to them, as well as what great things He has done far them. W. T. T. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 91: VOL 03 - "THE END OF THE LORD" ======================================================================== "The End of the Lord" Hebrews 12:1-11. There is no possibility of fellowship with God on any other ground than that of grace - no matter when, or where. There never was. True there have been many dealings of God to prove this; but there never could be communion between God and man except in grace. No dealing of God with sinners could have been anything but rejection, except He met them on the simple ground of grace. This principle runs through every thing - God’s providential dealings, and the like; it is stamped upon all. Our hearts are never right with God unless we are standing on this ground of grace. Even in chastening us, it is the patience of God’s grace that is manifested in taking all possible pains with His children. If I as a parent meet only with that which is pleasant in my child, it is easy for me to act in the way of love and blessing towards it; but to go on patiently dealing with a disobedient and rebellious child, is the proof of a great deal more love. If in chastisement, in our desires after holiness, or in any thing else, we do, not realise our standing in grace, we get off the only ground of fellowship with God. It may be difficult, at first sight, to see how God can deal in grace with a sinner; but in His dealings with Adam at the outset, this is brought out. There was no symptom of repentance in Adam. He was charging the fault on God, and on the woman - "The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." God immediately comes in on the ground of grace, saying, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head." When no promise could be made to man, as man (for no promise could be made to the flesh), grace comes in, and sets us in fellowship with the" seed of the woman." Just as it is said of our blessed Lord, that He "grew in wisdom and in stature," so is the Christian expected to grow in grace, and in the experience of God. Now the old man, that in us which Satan addresses, seeks to hinder us here, and therefore the dealings of the Lord apply themselves to it. Through the evil of our own nature, circumstances without come to be connected with that which is within, and thus produce conflict; then comes the secret working of God. Thus that which may be the exercises of our hearts in struggling against Satan, may become identified with the chastening of God. Our blessed Lord Himself learned obedience by the things which He suffered. But then He began quite at a different end from ourselves. Because we are disobedient, we have to learn this lesson: in suffering, temptation, and trial (patience having in Him its perfect work), He practically learned obedience in a way in which He never could had He not humbled Himself, and taken upon Him the form of a servant. What we want to know more of is that faith which, having made proof of the Lord’s care, can fully confide in Him for all things; as the apostle says, "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me." There is all the difference between knowing this as a principle in the beginning of our course, and the being able to say, "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content; I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound," etc. Now, dear friends, we know experimentally that we have not all "learned" this, though as an abstract truth we may know it. I repeat, there is a great difference between a young Christian saying, "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me," and such an one as "Paul the aged" saying, "I have learned." He could say it in practical fellowship with Christ; he had passed through all these trials, and had proved the sufficiency of the Lord’s grace in them. What hinders the development and manifestation of holiness in the saints? The old nature remaining unmortified. Well, then, through chastening and discipline God brings us practically into fellowship with "His holiness." He deals with our hearts, causing us, by the very conflict which He puts us into, to own, in the full consciousness of our own evil, that One is good, even God. What was the effect of the striving against sin that these Hebrew Christians were called to? That of drawing out the evil of the flesh. The world called them to walk as the world. Satan found them as rebels in his kingdom; their temptation was to be frightened at his terrors. The Lord suffered all these trials and exercises to come upon them, that the evil nature of their hearts might be discerned in its tendencies, and that they might be matured into separation from evil, as well as matured in fellowship with God. What was it that produced this "striving against sin"? Conflict with Satan and man. But it tended to the discovery of that which was within themselves. The effect of presenting temptation to Jesus was to show that He was perfect in everything. In us it is the discovery of that in ourselves which would blunt the edge of our spiritual service, and hinder our maturity in holiness. A person may walk a good while in the fulness of fellowship with God, and evil may have no actual power, or there may be the discovery of sin, and it may be struggled against; but where there are things indulged, because we do not discern what their real tendency is, there comes in the Father’s chastening. We may look at it as the contradiction of sinners, or as the power of Satan (and so it may be), but after all it is the constant exercise of the Father’s love, in order that we may be partakers of His holiness. Let patience, then, dear friends, have its perfect work. There is not one of our souls that does not need this. If trouble or conflict exercise us, let us see if it is not because our own wills have been crossed. We have to be patient with circumstances, doubtless, but to be patient with God’s perfect work. Elihu’s reproach to Job was, that he had chosen iniquity rather than affliction. God had His own end in his dealings with Job; He is "very pitiful, and of tender mercy." It is said, "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time," etc. If man exalts himself, he will be humbled; when God exalts a man, there is no danger of this. Christ humbled Himself under the mighty hand of God in drinking the bitter cup which was given Him to drink, therefore God also hath highly exalted Him. If we would deliver ourselves, and get out of this path of trial, it must be by some by-path, and we shall lose blessing. We must remember it is added, that in due time God will exalt us - not a minute after the time. When He has wrought the whole purpose of His love, then He will exalt us. ____________ FATHER, I know that all my life Is portioned out for me, And the changes that will surely come, I do not fear to see; But I ask Thee for a present mind Intent on pleasing Thee. I ask Thee for a thoughtful love Through constant watching, wise To meet the glad with joyful smiles, And to wipe the weeping eyes; And a heart at leisure from itself To soothe and sympathize. I would not have the restless will That hurries to and fro, Seeking for some great thing to do, Or secret thing to know; I would be treated as a child. And guided where I go. Wherever in the world I am, In whatsoe’er estate, I have a fellowship with hearts, To keep and cultivate; And a work of lowly love to do For the Lord on whom I wait. So I ask Thee for the daily strength, To none that ask denied, And a mind to blend with outward life While keeping at Thy side, Content to fill a little space, If Thou be glorified. And if some things I do not ask In my cup of blessing be, I would have my spirit filled the more With grateful love to Thee And careful - less to serve Thee much, Than to please Thee perfectly. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 92: VOL 03 - "WE HAVE SEEN THE LORD" ======================================================================== "We Have Seen the Lord" John 20:1-31. There is a word in the Scriptures which says, "God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord." I would say to you, Dwell on, rest on, the acceptance of "that finished work," and then go on to learn more and more of Him who has done the work for you. If you look at Romans 8:1-39, and other parts of Scripture, what do you find? That you are made "sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty." Have you ever dwelt in delight on that word - "sons of God" - not sons of men, creatures that might perish, but "sons" of the holy, eternal, unchangeable God! It is something too great for the heart of man to conceive. "Heirs of God," "co-heirs with Christ!" If these truths had full sway on our hearts, what would become of us? How the world would be as an idle nothing! We wait the confirmation of our pretensions before men; but we should walk in the consciousness of being in possession of that which is unfading, amidst everything that is fading, of knowing the truth when everything around is but a lie. This chapter does not tell us of the work of the Lord Jesus, excepting what is implied by His showing His disciples His hands and His side. (5: 20.) But there is a great deal about the Lord in it, and about the affections of others being drawn out towards Him. In looking forward to the appearing of the "morning without clouds," what is the brightest part of it to you? Is it not the thought of being the everlasting companions of the Lamb - the following Him whithersoever He goeth? Let me ask you to turn with me to John 16:16 : "A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father." It is very difficult to understand this (were the disciples’ thoughts), we cannot tell what He saith - "A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father." The Lord then speaks of that which depended on His going to the Father. (See vv. 20-24.) I would now ask you to turn to a verse in John 14:1-31 : "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." (5: 18.) The Lord was going to pass out of the world altogether, but at that period - when "the world seeth me no more," He says, "ye see me." We should pass on into everlasting companionship with Jesus. "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." (5: 21.) I need not say that this is spoken as true to us now through the Spirit. "Judas saith unto Him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." (vv. 22, 23.) The heart is never to be satisfied - there is a void in it that cannot be filled up - by anything, except the presence of Jesus. Look at the Lord’s mysterious manifestations of Himself to His church during the forty days previous to His ascension; very varied were they, and intended, I believe, to be descriptive of the way in which, during His absence, He would manifest Himself according to the varied need of His people. Mary was in one condition, (5: 14,) the disciples with the closed doors in another, Thomas in a third; but in each condition the Lord met and satisfied them with His presence. There is such a thing, beloved, as knowing the Lord so with us as to he able to realize that word, "Your joy no man taketh from you." The Lord had been taken from these disciples. Mary weeps at His grave. The two are sad in going to Emmaus. All their thoughts are about this - the Lord is gone. They had hung their hearts and fortunes on Him; they had been attracted by His grace; they owned Him to be the Son of God: whatever they looked for and expected, they expected with Him. They were bankrupt, broken-hearted, dispirited. Their Lord, who was their joy, their hope, their everything, was gone! The great day of solemnities at Jerusalem passed over the grave of Jesus. What a picture of religion without life! "Ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice." The "little while" over, their "sorrow is turned into joy." He comes back to be their everlasting companion. If you could throw yourself into the disciples’ circumstances of sorrow at the loss of their Lord, and then of their proportionate joy at His return, you would learn what should be your uninterrupted known joy in having Him to be your everlasting companion. You may have trial and adversity of every description, but still the word is, "I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you." Just consider, besides that cherished faith which you have in the indwelling of the Spirit in you individually, there is another truth equally important; namely, that the Holy Spirit dwells in the midst of you as gathered according to that word, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." When so gathered, we are called on to expect the Lord in our midst. If we wanted a comment on such a passage, I would say, We find it here. What was it that brought the disciples together? Not the sense of their common bankruptcy, but their common love to Jesus. They had lost Him whom they loved, and they came to speak about Him. Whether it was in the expectation of meeting Him as being really risen or not, still it was the name of Jesus which brought them there. But there is such a thing as grieving the Spirit. If it be true that the Lord dwells in the midst of us, and if we come together in the expectation of His presence, we should be able to say when we part, through the sense of His presence, either in joy or in searching power, "We have seen the Lord." What was Mary waiting for? In the midst of much ignorance and obscurity, her Lord was her object. She would rather have Him dead, than not have Him at all. She wept at His grave, though not questioning about the forgiveness of her sins. If you do not know the realized presence of the Lord, weep for that - that your souls are not knowing abiding fellowship with Jesus. This weeping has nothing to do as to the forgiveness of sins. Do you know the presence of the Lord with you in your assemblies? Do you know it as you walk together two by two? Do you know it, above all, in secret? Be it your unbelief, your haughtiness of spirit, or aught else, that is hindering, this is the proper reason for pouring out your soul in weeping to the Lord. You are washed, you are cleansed, you are justified, but if you have not that which is proper to a pardoned sinner - the known companionship of Jesus - weep for that! If you meet together without being able to say afterwards, to those who are at the door or absent (like Thomas), "we have seen the Lord" - weep for that! And it should be equally so in our private intercourse, or when alone - the Spirit revealing Christ to us, opening Him to the delight of our hearts, enabling us to say, "We have seen the Lord." May we so walk that the promise of the abode of the Father and His Son Jesus Christ may be realized by us daily. "Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep my words and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." (John 14:23.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 93: VOL 03 - 2 CORINTHIANS 6:14-18. ======================================================================== 2 Corinthians 6:14-18. Amongst the numerous hindrances to thorough consecration of heart to Christ, which I earnestly desire for myself and my reader, "the unequal yoke" will be found to occupy a very prominent place indeed. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what partnership hath righteousness with unrighteousness [or rather lawlessness]? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." (2 Corinthians 6:14-18.) Under the Mosaic economy, we learn the same moral principle. "Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled. Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass together. Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together." (Deuteronomy 22:9-11; Leviticus 19:19.) These Scriptures will suffice to set forth the moral evil of an unequal yoke. It may with full confidence be asserted that no one can be an unshackled follower of Christ who is in any way "unequally yoked." He may be a saved person - he may be a true child of God - a sincere believer, but he cannot be a thorough disciple; and not only so, but there is a positive hindrance to the full manifestation of that which he may really be notwithstanding his unequal yoke. "Come out . . . and I will receive you, . . . and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." That is to say, "Get your neck out of the unequal yoke, and I will receive you, and there shall be the full public practical manifestation of your relationship with the Lord Almighty." The idea here is evidently different from that set forth in James: "Of His own will begat He us by the word of truth." And also in Peter: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." And again in 1 John "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God." So also in John’s gospel: "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." In all these passages the relationship of sons is founded upon the divine counsel and the divine operation, and is not set before us as the consequence of any acting of ours; whereas in 2 Corinthians 6:1-18 it is put as the result of our getting out of the unequal yoke. In other words, it is entirely a practical question. Thus, in Matthew 5:1-48, we read "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; in order that [hopos] ye may be, the sons of your Father which is in heaven: because He causeth His sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and the unjust." Here, too, it is the practical establishment and public declaration of the relationship, and its moral influence. It becomes the sons of such a Father to act in such a way. In short, we have the abstract position or relationship of sons founded upon God’s sovereign will and operation; and we have the moral character consequent upon and flowing out of this relationship, which affords just ground for God’s public acknowledgment thereof. God cannot fully and publicly own those who are unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for were He to do so it would be an acknowledgment of the unequal yoke. He cannot acknowledge "darkness," "unrighteousness," "Belial," "idols," and "an infidel." How could He? Hence if I yoke myself with any of these I am morally and publicly identified with them, and not with God at all. I have put myself into a position which God cannot own, and as a consequence He cannot own me; but if I withdraw myself from that position - if I "come out and be separate" - if I take my neck out of the unequal yoke - then, but not until then, can I be publicly and fully received and owned as a "son or daughter of the Lord Almighty." This is a solemn and searching principle for all who feel that they have unhappily gotten themselves into such a yoke. They are not walking as disciples, nor are they publicly or morally on the ground of sons. God cannot own them. Their secret relationship is not the point; but they have put themselves thoroughly off God’s ground. They have foolishly thrust their neck into a yoke which, inasmuch as it is not Christ’s yoke, must be Belial’s yoke; and until they cast off that yoke, God cannot own them as His sons and daughters. God’s grace, no doubt, is infinite, and can meet us in all our failure and weakness; but if our souls aspire after a higher order of discipleship, we must at once cast off the unequal yoke, cost what it may; that is, if it can be cast off; but, if it cannot, we must only bow our heads beneath the shame and sorrow thereof, looking to God for full deliverance. Now, there are four distinct phases in which "the unequal yoke" may be contemplated; viz., the domestic, the commercial, the religious, and the philanthropic. Some may be disposed to confine 2 Corinthians 6:14 to the first of these; but the apostle does not so confine it. The words are, "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." He does not specify the character or object of the yoke, and therefore we are warranted in giving the passage its widest application, by bringing its edge to bear directly upon every phase of the unequal yoke; and we shall see the importance of so doing, ere we close these remarks, if the Lord permit. 1. And first, then, let us consider the domestic or marriage yoke. What pen can portray the mental anguish, the moral misery, together with the ruinous consequences, as to spiritual life and testimony, flowing from a Christian’s marriage with an unconverted person? I suppose nothing can be more deplorable than the condition of one who discovers, when it is too late, that he has linked himself for life with one who cannot have a single thought or feeling in common with him. One desires to serve Christ; the other can only serve the devil: one breathes after the things of God; the other sighs for the things of this present world: the one earnestly seeks to mortify the flesh, with all its affections and desires; the other only seeks to minister to and gratify these very things. Like a sheep and a goat linked together, the sheep longs to feed on the green pasture in the field, while, on the other hand, the goat craves the brambles which grow in the ditch. The sad consequence is, that both are starved. One will not feed on the pasture, and the other cannot feed upon the brambles, and thus neither gets what his nature craves, unless the goat, by superior strength, succeeds in forcing his unequally-yoked companion to remain amongst the brambles, there to languish and die. The moral of this is plain enough; and, moreover, it is, alas! of but too common occurrence. The goat generally succeeds in gaining his end. The worldly partner carries his or her point, in almost every instance. It will be found, almost without exception, that in cases of the unequal marriage yoke, the poor Christian is the sufferer, as is evidenced by the bitter fruits of a bad conscience, a depressed heart, a gloomy spirit, and a desponding mind. A heavy price, surely, to pay for the gratification of some natural affection, or the attainment, it may be, of some paltry worldly advantage. In fact, a marriage of this kind is the death-knell of practical Christianity, and of progress in the divine life. It is morally impossible that any one can be an unfettered disciple of Christ with his neck in the marriage yoke with an unbeliever. As well might a racer in the Olympic or Isthmaean games have expected to gain the crown of victory by attaching a heavy weight or a dead body to his person. It is enough, surely, to have one dead body to sustain, without attaching another. There never was a true Christian yet who did not find that he had abundant work to do in endeavouring to grapple with the evils of one heart, without going to burden himself with the evils of two; and, without doubt, the man who, foolishly and disobediently, marries an unconverted woman, or the woman who marries an unconverted man, is burdened with the combined evils of two hearts; and who is sufficient for these things? One can most fully count upon the grace of Christ for the subjugation of his own evil nature; but he certainly cannot count, in the same way, upon that grace in reference to the evil nature of his unequal yoke-fellow. If he have yoked himself ignorantly, the Lord will meet him personally, on the ground of full confession, with entire restoration of soul, but in the matter of his discipleship, he will never recover it. Paul could say, "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be disapproved of." (adokimos.) And he said this, too, in immediate connection with "striving for the mastery." "Know ye not that they, which run in a race run all, but one obtaineth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every one that striveth for the mastery is temperate [self-controlled - egkrateuetai] in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air," etc. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27.) Here, it is not a question of life or salvation, but simply one of "running in a race," and "so running that we obtain," not life, but "an incorruptible crown." The fact of being called to run assumes the possession of life; for no one would call upon dead men to run in a race. I have got life, evidently, before I begin to run at all, and hence, though I should fail in the race, I do not lose my life, but only the crown, for this and not that was the object proposed to be run for. We are not called to run for life, inasmuch as we get that, not by running, but "by faith of Jesus Christ," who by His death has purchased life for us, and implants it in us by the mighty energy of the Holy Ghost. Now this life, being the life of a risen Christ, is eternal, for He is the eternal Son; as He says Himself, in His address to the Father, in John 17:1-26, "Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him." This life is not conditional. He does not give us life as sinners, and then set us to run for it as saints, with the gloomy foreboding that we may lose the precious boon by failing in the race. This would be to "run uncertainly," as many, alas! are trying to do, who profess to have entered upon the course, and yet know not whether they have life or not. Such persons are running for life, and not for a crown; but God does not set up life at the goal, as the reward of victory, but gives it at the starting-post, as the power by which we run. The power to run, and the object of running, are two very different things; yet they are constantly confounded by persons who are ignorant of the glorious gospel of the grace of God, in which Christ is set forth as the life and righteousness of all who believe on His name; and all this, moreover, as the free gift of God, and not as the reward of our running. Now, in considering the terribly evil consequences of the unequal marriage yoke, it is mainly as bearing upon our discipleship that we are looking at them. I say mainly, because our entire character and experience are deeply affected thereby. I very much question if any one can give a more effectual blow to his prosperity in the divine life, than by assuming an unequal yoke. Indeed, the very fact of so doing proves that spiritual decline has already set in, with most alarming symptoms; but as to his discipleship and testimony, the lamp thereof may be regarded as all but gone out; or if it does give an occasional faint glimmer, it only serves to make manifest the awful gloom of his unhappy position, and the appalling consequences of being "unequally yoked together with an unbeliever." Thus much as to the question of the unequal yoke, in its influence upon the life, the character, the testimony, and the discipleship of a child of God. I would now say a word as to its moral effect, as exhibited in the domestic circle. Here, too, the consequences are truly melancholy. Nor could they possibly be otherwise. Two persons have come together in the closest and most intimate relationship, with tastes, habits, feelings, desires, tendencies, and objects diametrically opposite. They have nothing in common; so that, in every movement, they can but grate one against the other. The unbeliever cannot, in reality, go with the believer; and if there should, through excessive amiability, or downright hypocrisy, be a show of acquiescence, what is it worth in the sight of the Lord, who judges the true state of the heart in reference to Himself? But little indeed; yea, it is worse than worthless. Then, again, if the believer should, unhappily, go in any measure with his unequal yoke-fellow, it can only be at the expense of his discipleship, and the consequence is, a condemning conscience in the sight of the Lord; and this again leads to heaviness of spirit, and, it may be, sourness of temper, in the domestic circle, so that the grace of the gospel is by no means commended, and the unbeliever is not attracted or won. Thus it is in every way most sorrowful. It is dishonouring to God, destructive of spiritual prosperity, utterly subversive of discipleship and testimony, and entirely hostile to domestic peace and blessing. It produces estrangement, coldness, distance, and misunderstanding; or, if it does not produce these, it will doubtless lead on the part of the Christian to a forfeiture of his discipleship and his good conscience, both of which he may be tempted to offer as a sacrifice upon the altar of domestic peace. Thus, whatever way we look at it, an unequal yoke must lead to the most deplorable consequences. Then, as to its effect upon children, it is equally sad. These are almost sure to flow in the current with the unconverted parent. "Their children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people." There can be no union of heart in the training of the children; no joint and mutual confidence in reference to them. One desires to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; the other desires to bring them up in the principles of the world, the flesh, and the devil: and as all the sympathies of the children as they grow up are likely to be ranged on the side of the latter, it is easy to see how it will end. In short, it is an unseemly, unscriptural, and vain effort to plough with an "unequal yoke," or to "sow the ground with mingled seed;" and all must end in sorrow and confusion.* *There are many cases in which one finds persons united, who, though they cannot exactly be said to be "unequally yoked," are, to say the least, very badly matched. Their tempers, tastes, habits, and views are totally different; and so different, that instead of maintaining a desirable balance (which opposite tempers, if properly arranged, might do), they keep up a perpetual jar, to the sad derangement of the domestic circle, and the dishonour of the Lord’s name. All this might be very much obviated if Christians would only wait upon God, and make His glory more their object than personal interest or affection. I shall, ere turning from this branch of our subject, offer a remark as to the reasons which generally actuate Christians in the matter of entering into the unequal marriage yoke. We all know, alas! how easily the poor heart persuades itself of the rightness of any step which it desires to take, and how the devil furnishes plausible arguments to convince us of its rightness - arguments which the moral condition of the soul causes us to regard as clear, forcible, and satisfactory. The very fact of our thinking of such a thing, proves our unfitness to weigh, with a well-balanced mind and spiritually-adjusted conscience, the solemn consequences of such a step. If the eye were single (that is, if we were governed but by one object - namely, the glory and honour of the Lord Jesus Christ) we should never entertain the idea of putting our necks into an unequal yoke; and consequently we should have no difficulty or perplexity about the matter. A racer, whose eye was resting on the crown, would not be troubled with any perplexity as to whether he ought to stop and tie a hundred-weight [50Kg] round his neck. Such a thought would never cross his mind; and not only so, but a thorough racer would have a distinct and almost intuitive perception of everything which would be likely to prove a hindrance to him in running the race; and of course with such a one, to perceive would be to reject with decision.* *It is important for the Christian to bear in mind the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." Whenever I am in perplexity as to my path, I have reason to suspect that my eye is not single; for assuredly perplexity is not compatible with a "body full of light." We frequently go to pray for guidance in matters with which, if the eye were single and the will subject, we would have nothing whatever to do, and hence we should have no need to pray about them. To pray about aught concerning which the word of God is plain, marks the activity of a rebellious will. As a recent writer has well remarked, "We sometimes seek God’s will, desiring to know how to act in circumstances in which it is not His will that we should be found at all; if conscience were in real healthful activity, its first effect would be to make us quit them. It is our own will which sets us there, and we would like, nevertheless, to enjoy the consolation of God’s direction in a path which ourselves have chosen. Such is a very common case. Be assured that if we are near enough to God; we shall have no trouble to know His will. . . . However, ’if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light;’ whence it is certain that if the whole body is not full of light, the eye is not single. You will say, That is poor consolation. I answer, It is a rich consolation for those whose sole desire is to have the eye single and to walk with God." [See an admirable article in The Present Testimony, January, 1856, entitled, "How to know the Will of the Father." I cannot too highly recommend this paper to the attention of the Christian reader. It is deeply practical.] Now were it thus with Christians in the matter of unscriptural marriage, it would save them a world of sorrow and perplexity; but it is not thus. The heart gets out of communion, and is morally incompetent to "try the things that differ;" and when in this condition, the devil gains an easy conquest, and speedy success in his wicked effort to induce the believer to yoke himself with "Belial," with "unrighteousness," with "darkness," with "an infidel." When the soul is in full communion with God, it is entirely subject to His word; it sees things as He sees them, calls them what He calls them, and not what the devil or his own carnal heart would call them. In this way the believer escapes the ensnaring influence of a deception which is very frequently brought to bear upon him in this matter - namely, a false profession of religion on the part of the person whom he desires to marry. This is a very common case. It is easy to show symptoms of leaning towards the things of God; and the heart is treacherous and base enough to make a profession of religion in order to gain its end; and not only so, but the devil, who is "transformed into an angel of light," will lead to this false profession, in order thereby the more effectually to entrap the feet of a child of God. Thus it comes to pass that Christians in this matter suffer themselves to be satisfied, or at least profess themselves satisfied, with evidence of conversion, which, under any other circumstances, they would regard as utterly lame and flimsy. But, alas! experience soon opens the eyes to the reality. It is speedily discovered that the profession was all a vain show, that the heart is entirely in and of the world. Terrible discovery! Who can detail the bitter consequences of such a discovery - the anguish of heart - the bitter reproaches and cuttings of conscience - the shame and confusion - the loss of power and blessing - the forfeiture of spiritual peace and joy - the sacrifice of a life of usefulness? Who can describe all these things? The man awakes from his delusive dream, and opens his eyes upon the tremendous reality, that he is yoked for life with "Belial!" Yes, this is what the Spirit calls it. It is not an inference, or a deduction arrived at by a process of reasoning; but a plain and positive statement of Holy Scripture, that thus the matter stands in reference to one who, from whatever motive, or under the influence of whatever reasons, or deceived by whatever false pretences, has entered into an unequal marriage-yoke. Oh, my beloved Christian reader, if you are in danger of entering into such a yoke, let me earnestly, solemnly, and affectionately entreat of you to pause first, and weigh the matter in the balances of the sanctuary, ere you move forward a single hair’s breadth on such a fatal path! You may rest assured that you will no sooner have taken the step, than your heart will be assailed by hopeless regrets, and your life embittered by unnumbered sorrows. LET NOTHING INDUCE YOU TO YOKE YOURSELF WITH AN UNBELIEVER. Are your affections engaged? Then remember, they cannot be the affections of your new man; they are, be assured of it, those of the old or carnal nature, which you are called upon to mortify and set aside. Wherefore you should cry to God for spiritual power to rise above the influence of such affections; yea, to sacrifice them to Him. Again, are your interests concerned? Then remember that they are only your interests; and if they are promoted, Christ’s interests are sacrificed by your yoking yourself with "Belial." Furthermore, they are only your temporal, and not your eternal interests. In point of fact, the interests of the believer and those of Christ ought to be identical; and it is plain that His interests, His honour, His truth, His glory, must inevitably be sacrificed, if a member of His body is linked with "Belial." This is the true way to look at the question, What are a few hundreds, or a few thousands, to an heir of heaven? "God is able to give thee much more than this." Are you going to sacrifice the truth of God, as well as your own spiritual peace, prosperity, and happiness, for a paltry trifle of gold, which must perish in the using of it? Ah, no! God forbid! Flee from it, as a bird from the snare, which it sees and knows. Stretch out the hand of genuine, well-braced, wholehearted discipleship, and take the knife and slay your affections and your interests on the altar of God; and then, even though there should not be an audible voice from heaven to approve your act, you will have the invaluable testimony of an approving conscience and an ungrieved Spirit - an ample steward surely for the most costly sacrifice which you can make. May the Spirit of God give power to resist Satan’s temptations! It is hardly needful to remark here, that in cases where conversion takes place after marriage, the complexion of the matter is very materially altered. There will then be no smitings of conscience, for example; and the whole thing is modified in a variety of particulars. Still there will be difficulty, trial, and sorrow, unquestionably. The only thing is, that one can far more happily bring the trial and sorrow into the Lord’s presence when he has not deliberately and wilfully plunged himself thereinto; and, blessed be God, we know how ready He is to forgive, restore, and cleanse from all unrighteousness the soul that makes full confession of its error and failure. This may comfort the heart of one who has been brought to the Lord after marriage. Moreover, to such an one the Spirit of God has given specific direction and blessed encouragement in the following passage: "If any brother have an unbelieving wife, and she think proper to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And if any woman have an unbelieving husband, and he think proper to dwell with her, let her not put him away. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy . . . For what knowest thou, O wife, if thou shalt save thy husband? or what knowest thou, O husband, if thou shalt save thy wife?" (1 Corinthians 7:12-16.) 2. We shall now consider "the unequal yoke" in its commercial phase, as seen in cases of partnership in business. This, though not so serious an aspect of the yoke as that which we have just been considering, will, nevertheless, he found a very positive barrier to the believer’s testimony. When a Christian yokes himself for business purposes with an unbeliever - whether that unbeliever be a relative or not - or when he becomes a member of a worldly firm, he virtually surrenders his individual responsibility. Henceforth the acts of the firm become his acts, and it is perfectly out of the question to think of getting a worldly firm to act on heavenly principles. They would laugh at such a notion, inasmuch as it would be an effectual barrier to the success of their commercial schemes. They will feel perfectly free to adopt a number of expedients in carrying on their business, which would be quite opposed to the spirit and principles of the kingdom in which he is, and of the Church of which he forms a part. Thus he will find himself constantly in a most trying position. He may use his influence to christianize the mode of conducting affairs; but they will compel him to do business as others do, and he has no remedy save to mourn in secret over his anomalous and difficult position, or else to go out at great pecuniary loss to himself and his family. Where the eye is single, there will be no hesitation as to which of these alternatives to adopt; but, alas! the very fact of getting into such a position proves the lack of a single eye; and the fact of being in it argues the lack of spiritual capacity to appreciate the value and power of the divine principles which would infallibly bring a man out of it. A man whose eye was single could not possibly yoke himself with an unbeliever for the purpose of making money. Such an one could only set, as an object before his mind, the direct glory of Christ; and this object could never be gained by a positive transgression of divine principle. This makes it very simple. If it does not glorify Christ for a Christian to become a partner in a worldly firm, it must, without doubt, further the designs of the devil. There is no middle ground; but that it does not glorify Christ is manifest, for His word says, "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." Such is the principle, which cannot be infringed without damage to the testimony, and forfeiture of spiritual blessing. True, the conscience of a Christian, who transgresses in this matter, may seek relief in various ways - may have recourse to various subterfuges - may set forth various arguments to persuade itself that all is right. It will be said that, "We can be very devoted and very spiritual, so far as we are personally concerned, even though we are yoked for business purposes with an unbeliever." This will be found fallacious when brought to the test of the actual practice. A servant of Christ will find himself hampered in a hundred ways by his worldly partnership. If in matters of service to Christ he is not met with open hostility, he will have to encounter the enemy’s secret and constant effort to damp his ardour, and throw cold water on all his schemes. He will be laughed at and despised - he will be continually reminded of the effect which his enthusiasm and fanaticism will produce in reference to the business prospects of the firm. If he uses his time, his talents, or his pecuniary resources in what he believes to be the Lord’s service, he will be pronounced a fool or a madman, and reminded that the true, the proper way for a commercial man to serve the Lord is to "attend to business, and nothing but business;" and that it is the exclusive business of clergymen and ministers to attend to religious matters, inasmuch as they are set apart and paid for so doing. Now, although the Christian’s renewed mind may be thoroughly convinced of the fallacy of all this reasoning - although he may see that this worldly wisdom is but a flimsy, threadbare cloak, thrown over the heart’s covetous practices - yet who can tell how far the heart may be influenced by such things? We get weary of constant resistance. The current becomes too strong for us, and we gradually yield ourselves to its action, and are carried along on its surface. Conscience may have some death-struggles; but the spiritual energies are paralyzed, and the sensibilities of the new nature are blunted, so that there is no response to the cries of conscience, and no effectual effort to withstand the enemy; the worldliness of the Christian’s heart leagues itself with the opposing influences from without - the outworks are stormed, and the citadel of the soul’s affections vigorously assaulted; and finally the man settles down in thorough worldliness, exemplifying in his own person the prophet’s touching lament, "Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire: their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick." (Lamentations 4:7-8.) The man who was once known as a servant of Christ - a fellow-helper unto the kingdom of God - making use of his resources only to further the interests of the gospel of Christ, is now, alas! settled down upon his lees, only known as a plodding, keen, bargain-making man of business, of whom the apostle might well say, "Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present age." (ton nun aiona.) But perhaps nothing so operates on the hearts of Christians, in inducing them to yoke themselves commercially with unbelievers, as the habit of seeking to maintain the two characters of a Christian and a man of business. This is a grievous snare. In point of fact there can be no such thing. A man must be either the one or the other. If I am a Christian, my Christianity must show itself as a living reality in that in which I am; and if it cannot show itself there, I ought not to be there; for if I continue in a sphere or position in which the life of Christ cannot be manifested, I shall speedily possess nought of Christianity but the name, without the reality - the outward form without the inward power - the shell without the kernel. I should be the servant of Christ not merely on Sunday, but from Monday morning to Saturday night. I should not only be a servant of Christ in the public assembly, but also in my place of business, whatever it may happen to be. But I cannot be a proper servant of Christ with my neck in the yoke with an unbeliever; for how could the servants of two hostile masters work in the same yoke? It is utterly impossible; as well might one attempt to link the sun’s meridian beams with the profound darkness of midnight. It cannot be done; and I do, therefore, most solemnly appeal to my reader’s conscience, in the presence of Almighty God, who shall judge the secrets of men’s hearts by Jesus Christ, as to this important matter. I would say to him, if he is thinking of getting into partnership with an unbeliever, FLEE FROM IT! yes, flee from it, though it promises you the gain of thousands. You will plunge yourself into a mass of trouble and sorrow. You are going to "plough" with one whose feelings, instincts, and tendencies are diametrically opposed to your own. "An ox and an ass" are not so unlike in every respect as a believer and an unbeliever. How will you ever get on? He wants to make money - to profit himself - to get on in the world; you want (at least you ought to want) to grow in grace and holiness - to advance the interests of Christ and His gospel on the earth, and to push onward to the everlasting kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. His object is money; yours, I trust, is Christ; he lives for this world; you for the world to come; he is engrossed with the things of time; you with those of eternity. How, then, can you ever take common ground with him? Your principles, your motives, your objects, your hopes, are all opposed. How is it possible you can get on? How can you have aught in common? Surely all this needs only to be looked at with a single eye in order to be seen in its true light. It is impossible that any one whose eye is filled, and whose heart is occupied with Christ, could ever yoke himself with a worldly partner for any object whatsoever. Wherefore, my beloved Christian reader, let me once more entreat you, ere you take such a tremendous step - a step fraught with such awful consequences - so pregnant with danger to your best interests, as well as to the testimony of Christ, with which you are honoured - to take the whole matter with an honest heart into the sanctuary of God, and weigh it in His sacred balance. Ask Him what He thinks of it, and hearken with a subject will and a well-adjusted conscience to His reply. It is plain and powerful - yea, as plain and as powerful as though it fell from the open heavens - Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. But if unhappily my reader is already in the yoke, I would say to him, Disentangle yourself as speedily as you can. I am much mistaken if you have not already found the yoke a burdensome one. To you it were superfluous to detail the sad consequences of being in such a position; you doubtless know them all. It is needless to print them on paper, or paint them on canvas, to one who has entered into all their reality. My beloved brother in Christ, lose not a moment in seeking to throw off the yoke. This must be done before the Lord, on His principles, and by His grace. It is easier to get into a wrong position than to get out of it. A partnership of ten or twenty years’ standing cannot be dissolved in a moment. It must be done calmly, humbly, and prayerfully as in the sight of the Lord, and with entire reference to His glory. I may dishonour the Lord as much in my way of getting out of a wrong position, as by getting into it at the first. Hence if I find myself in partnership with an unbeliever, and my conscience tells me I am wrong, let me honestly and frankly state to my partner that I can no longer go on with him; and having done that, my place is to use every exertion to wind up the affairs of the firm in an upright, a straightforward, and business-like manner, so as to give no possible occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully, and that my good may not be evil spoken of. We. must avoid rashness, headiness, and high-mindedness, when apparently acting for the Lord and in defence of His holy principles. If a man gets entangled in a net, or involved in a labyrinth, it is not by bold and violent plunging he will extricate himself, No; he must humble himself, confess his sins before the Lord, and then retrace his steps in patient dependence upon that grace which can not only pardon him for being in a wrong position, but lead him forth into a right one. Moreover, as in the case of the marriage yoke, the matter is very much modified by the fact of the partnership having been entered into previous to conversion. Not that this would in the slightest degree justify a continuance in it. By no means; but it does away with much of the sorrow of heart and defilement of conscience connected with such a position, and will also very materially, affect the mode of escape therefrom. Besides, the Lord is glorified by, and He assuredly accepts, the moral bent of the heart and conscience in the right direction. If I judge myself for being wrong, and that the moral bent of my heart and conscience is to get right, God will accept of that, and surely set me right. But if He sets me right, He will not suffer me to do violence to one truth while seeking to act in obedience to another. The same word that says: "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers," says also, "Render therefore to all their due. . . . Owe no man anything;" "Provide things honest in the sight of all;" "Walk honestly toward them that are without." If I have wronged God by getting into partnership with an unbeliever, I must not wrong man in my way of getting out of it. Profound subjection to the word of God, by the power of the Holy Ghost, will set all to rights, will lead us into straight paths, and enable us to avoid all dangerous extremes. 3. In glancing for a moment at the religions phase of the unequal yoke, I would assure my reader that it is by no means my desire to hurt the feelings of any one by canvassing the claims of the various denominations around me. Such is not my purpose. The subject of this paper is one of quite sufficient importance to prevent its being encumbered by the introduction of other matters. Moreover, it is too definite to warrant any such introduction. "The unequal yoke" is our theme, and to it we must confine our attention. In looking through Scripture, we find almost numberless passages setting forth the intense spirit of separation which ought ever to characterize the people of God. Whether we direct our attention to the Old Testament, in which we have God’s relationship and dealings with His earthly people, Israel; or to the New Testament, in which we have His relationship and dealings with His heavenly people, the Church; we find the same truth prominently set forth, namely, the entire separation of those who belong to God. Israel’s position is thus stated in Balsam’s parable, "Lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned amongst the nations." Their place was outside the range of all the nations of the earth; and they were responsible to maintain that separation. Throughout the entire Pentateuch they were instructed, warned, and admonished as to this; and throughout the Psalms and the prophets we have the record of their failure in the maintenance of this separation, which failure, as we know, has brought down upon them the heavy judgments of the hand of God. It would swell this little paper into a volume, were I to attempt a quotation of all the passages in which this point is put forward. I take it for granted that my reader is sufficiently acquainted with his Bible to render such quotation unnecessary. Should he not be so, however, a reference in his Concordance to the words "separate," "separated," and "separation" will suffice to lay before him at a glance the body of Scripture evidence on this subject. The passage just quoted from the book of Numbers is the expression of God’s thoughts about His people Israel: "The people shall dwell ALONE." The same is true, only upon a much higher ground, in reference to God’s heavenly people, the Church - the body of Christ - composed of all true believers. They too are a separated people. We shall now proceed to examine the ground of this separation. There is a great difference between being separate on the ground of what we are, and of what God is. The former makes a man a Pharisee; the latter makes him a saint. If I say to a poor fellow-sinner, "Stand by thyself; I am holier than thou," I am a detestable Pharisee and a hypocrite; but if God, in His infinite condescension and perfect grace, says to me, "I have brought you into relationship with myself in the person of my Son Jesus Christ, therefore be holy and separate from all evil; come out from among them and be separate;" I am bound to obey, and my obedience is the practical manifestation of my character as a saint - a character which I have, not because of anything in myself, but simply because God has brought me near unto Himself through the precious blood of Christ. It is well to be clear as to this. Pharisaism and divine sanctification are two very different things; and yet they are often confounded. Those who contend for the maintenance of that place of separation which belongs to the people of God, are constantly accused of setting themselves up above their fellow-men, and of laying claim to a higher degree of personal sanctity than is ordinarily possessed. This accusation arises from not attending to the distinction just referred to. When God calls upon men to be separate, it is on the ground of what He has done for them upon the cross, and where He has set them, in eternal association with Himself, in the person of Christ. But if I separate myself on the ground of what I am in myself, it is the most senseless and vapid assumption, which will sooner or later be made manifest. God commands His people to be holy on the ground of what He is: "Be ye holy, for I am holy." This is evidently a very different thing from "Stand by thyself; I am holier than thou." If God brings people into association with Himself, He has a right to prescribe what their moral character ought to be, and they are responsible to answer thereto. Thus we see that the most profound humility lies at the bottom of a saint’s separation. There is nothing so calculated to put one in the dust as the understanding of the real nature of divine holiness. It is an utterly false humility which springs from looking at ourselves - yea, it is in reality based upon pride, which has never yet seen to the bottom of its own perfect worthlessness. Some imagine that they can reach the truest and deepest humility by looking at self, whereas it can only be reached by looking at Christ. "The more thy glories strike mine eye, the humbler I shall be." This is a just sentiment founded upon divine principle. The soul that loses itself in the blaze of Christ’s moral glory is truly humble, and none other. No doubt we have a right to be humble, when we think of what poor creatures we are; but it only needs a moment’s just reflection to see the fallacy of seeking to produce any practical result by looking at self. It is only when we find ourselves in the presence of infinite excellence that we are really humble. Hence therefore a child of God should refuse to be yoked with an unbeliever, whether for a domestic, a commercial, or a religious object, simply because God tells him to be separate, and not because of his own personal holiness. The carrying out of this principle in matters of religion will necessarily involve much trial and sorrow; it will be termed intolerance, bigotry, narrow-mindedness, exclusiveness, and such like; but we cannot help all this. Provided we keep ourselves separate upon a right principle and in a right spirit, we may safely leave all results with God. No doubt the remnant, in the days of Ezra, must have appeared excessively intolerant in refusing the co-operation of the surrounding people in building the house of God; but they acted upon divine principle in the refusal. "Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel; then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto Him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither." This might seem a very attractive proposal - a proposal evidencing a very decided leaning toward the God of Israel; yet the remnant refused, because the people, notwithstanding their fair profession, were at heart uncircumcised and hostile. "But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel." (Ezra 4:1-3.) They would not yoke themselves with the uncircumcised; they would not "plough with an ox and ass;" they would not "sow their field with mingled seed;" they kept themselves separate, even though by so doing they exposed themselves to the charge of being a bigoted, narrow-minded, illiberal, uncharitable set of people. So also in Nehemiah we read: "And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers." (Nehemiah 9:2.) This was not sectarianism, but positive obedience. Their separation was essential to their existence as a people. They could not have enjoyed the divine presence on any other ground. Thus it must ever be with God’s people on the earth. They must be separate, or else they are not only useless, but mischievous. God cannot own or accompany them if they yoke themselves with unbelievers, upon any ground, or for any object whatsoever. The grand difficulty is to combine a spirit of intense separation with a spirit of grace, gentleness, and forbearance; or as another has said, "to maintain a narrow circle with a wide heart." This is really a difficulty. As the strict and uncompromising maintenance of truth tends to narrow the circle around us, we shall need the expansive power of grace to keep the heart wide, and the affections warm. If we contend for truth - otherwise than in grace, we shall only yield a one-sided and most unattractive testimony. And, on the other hand, if we try to exhibit grace at the expense of truth, it will prove in the end to be only the manifestation of a popular liberality at God’s expense - a most worthless thing. Then, as to the object for which real Christians usually yoke themselves with those who, even on their own confession, and in the judgment of charity itself, are not Christians at all, it will be found in the end that no really divine and heavenly object can be gained by an infringement of God’s truth. Per fas aut nefas can never be a divine motto. The means are not sanctified by the end; but both means and end must be according to the principles of God’s holy word, else all must eventuate in confusion and. dishonour. It might have appeared to Jehoshaphat a very worthy object to recover Ramoth-gilead out of the hand of the enemy; and, moreover, he might have appeared a very liberal, gracious, popular, large-hearted man, when, in reply to Ahab’s proposal, he said, "I am as thou art, and my people as thy people; and we will be with thee in the war." It is easy to be liberal and large-hearted at the expense of divine principle; but how did it end? Ahab was killed, and Jehoshaphat narrowly escaped with his life, having made total shipwreck of his testimony. Thus we see that Jehoshaphat did not even gain the object for which he unequally yoked himself with an unbeliever; and even had he gained it, it would have been no justification of his course.* Nothing can ever warrant a believer’s yoking himself with an unbeliever; and therefore, however fair, attractive, and plausible the Ramoth expedition might seem in the eye of man, it was, in the judgment of God, "helping the ungodly, and loving them that hate the Lord." (2 Chronicles 19:2.) The truth of God strips men and things of the false colours with which the spirit of expediency would deck them, and presents them in their proper light; and it is an unspeakable mercy to have the clear judgment of God about all that is going on around us: it imparts calmness to the spirit, and stability to the course and character, and saves one from that unhappy fluctuation of thought, feeling, and principle which so entirely unfits him for the place of a steady and consistent witness for Christ. We shall surely err, if we attempt to form our judgment by the thoughts and opinions of men; for they will always judge according to the outward appearances, and not according to the intrinsic character and principle of things. Provided men can gain what they conceive to be a right object, they care not about the mode of gaining it. But the true servant of Christ knows that he must do his Master’s work upon his Master’s principles and in his Master’s spirit. It will not satisfy such an one to reach the most praiseworthy end, unless he can reach it by a divinely-appointed road. The means and the end must both be divine. I admit it, for example, to be a most desirable end, to circulate the Scriptures - God’s own pure, eternal word; but if I could not circulate them save by yoking myself with an unbeliever, I should refrain, inasmuch as I am not to do evil that good may come. *The unequal yoke proved a terrible snare to the amiable heart of Jehoshaphat. He yoked himself with Ahab for a religious object; and, notwithstanding the disastrous termination of the scheme, we find him yoking himself with Ahaziah for a commercial object, which likewise ended in loss and confusion; and lastly, he yoked himself with Jehoram for a military object. Compare 2 Chronicles 18:1-34; 2 Chronicles 20:32-37; 2 Kings 3:1-27. But, blessed be God, His servant can circulate His precious book without violating the precepts contained in that book. He can upon his own individual responsibility, or in fellowship with those who are really on the Lord’s side, scatter the precious seed everywhere, without leaguing himself with those whose whole course and conduct prove them to be of the world. The same may be said in reference to every object of a religious nature. It can and should be gained on God’s principles, and only thus. It may be argued, in reply, that we are told not to judge, that we cannot read the heart, and that we are bound to hope that all who would engage in such good works as the translation of the Bible, the distribution of tracts, and the aiding of missionary labours, must be Christians; and that therefore it cannot be wrong to link ourselves with them. To all this I reply, that there is hardly a passage in the New Testament so misunderstood and misapplied as Matthew 7:1 : "Judge not, that ye be not judged." In the very same chapter we read, "Beware of false prophets; by their fruits ye shall know them." Now, how are we to "beware," if we do not exercise judgment? Again, in 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 we read, "For what have I to do to judge, them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person." Here we are distinctly taught that those "within" come within the immediate range of the Church’s judgment; and yet, according to the common interpretation of Matthew 7:1, we ought not to judge anybody; that interpretation, therefore, must needs be unsound. If people take, even in profession, the ground of being "within," we are commanded to judge them. "Do not ye judge them that are within?" As to those "without," we have nought to do with them, save to present the pure and perfect, the rich, illimitable, and unfathomable grace which shines with unclouded effulgence in the death and resurrection of the Son of God. All this is plain enough. The people of God are told to exercise judgment as to all who profess to be "within;" they are told to "beware of false prophets;" they are commanded to "try the spirits;" and how can they do all this if they are not to judge at all? What then does our Lord mean when He says: "Judge not"? I believe He means just what Paul, by the Holy Ghost, says when he commands us to "judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts and then shall every man have praise of God." (1 Corinthians 4:5.) We have nothing to do with judging motives, but we have to judge conduct and principles; that is to say, the conduct and principles of all who profess to be "within." And, in point of fact, the very persons who say, "We must not judge," do themselves constantly exercise judgment. There is no true Christian in whom the moral instincts of the divine nature do not virtually pronounce judgment as to character, conduct, and doctrine; and these are the very points which are placed within the believer’s range of judgment. All therefore that I would press upon the Christian reader is, that he should exercise judgment as to those with whom he yokes himself in matters of religion. If he is at this moment working in yoke or in harness with an unbeliever, he is positively violating the command of the Holy Ghost. He may be ignorantly doing so up to this, and if so, the Lord’s grace is ready to pardon and restore; but if he persist in disobedience after having been warned, he cannot possibly expect God’s blessing and presence with him, no matter how valuable or important the object which he may seek to attain. "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." 4. We have only now to consider the philanthropic phase of the unequal yoke. Many will say, "I quite admit that we ought not to mingle ourselves with positive unbelievers in the worship or service of God; but then we can freely unite with such for the furtherance of objects of philanthropy - such for instance as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, reclaiming the vicious, in providing asylums for the blind and lunatic, hospitals and infirmaries for the sick and infirm, places of refuge for the homeless and houseless, the fatherless and the widow; and, in short, for the furtherance of everything that tends to promote the amelioration of our fellow-creatures, physically, morally, and intellectually." This at first sight seems fair enough; for I may be asked if I would not help a man by the road-side to get his cart out of the ditch? I reply, certainly; but if I were asked to become a member of a mixed society for the purpose of getting carts out of ditches, I should refuse - not because of my superior sanctity, but because God’s word says: "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." This would be my answer, no matter what were the object proposed by a mixed society. The servant of Christ is commanded "to be ready to every good work;" "to do good unto all;" "to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction;" but then it is as the servant of Christ, and not as the member of a society or a committee in which there may be infidels and atheists, and all sorts of wicked and godless men. Moreover we must remember that all God’s philanthropy is connected with the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the channel through which God will bless - that the mighty lever by which He will elevate man, physically, morally, and intellectually. "After that the kindness and philanthropy (philanthropia) of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." (Titus 3:4-6.) This is God’s philanthropy. This is His mode of ameliorating man’s condition. With all who understand its worth, the Christian can readily yoke himself, but with none other. The men of the world know nought of this, care not for it. They may seek reformation, but it is reformation without Christ. They may promote amelioration, but it is amelioration without the cross. They wish to advance, but Jesus is neither the starting post nor the goal of their course. How then can the Christian yoke himself with them? They want to work without Christ, the very One to whom he owes everything. Can he be satisfied to work with them? Can he have an object in common with them? If men come to me and say, "We want your co-operation in feeding the hungry, in clothing the naked, in founding hospitals and lunatic asylums, in feeding and educating orphans, in improving the physical condition of our fellow-mortals; but you must remember that a leading rule of the society, the board, or the committee, formed for such objects, is, that the name of Christ is not to be introduced, as it would only lead to controversy. Our objects being not at all religious, but undividedly philanthropic, the subject of religion must be studiously excluded from all our public meetings. We are met as men for a benevolent purpose, and therefore Infidels, Atheists, Socinians, Arians, Romanists, and all sorts, can happily yoke themselves to move onward the glorious machine of philanthropy." What should be my answer to such an application? The fact is, words would fail one who really loved the Lord Jesus in attempting to reply to an appeal so monstrous. What! benefit mortals by the exclusion of Christ? God forbid! If I cannot gain the objects of pure philanthropy without setting aside that blessed One who lived and died and lives eternally for me, then away with your philanthropy, for it assuredly is not God’s, but Satan’s. If it were God’s, the word is, "He shed it on us abundantly THROUGH Jesus Christ," the very One whom your rule leaves entirely out. Hence your rule must be the direct dictation of Satan, the enemy of Christ. Satan would always like to leave out the Son of God; and when he can get men to do the same, he will allow them to be benevolent, charitable, and philanthropic. But in good truth such benevolence and philanthropy ought to be termed malevolence and misanthropy; for how can you more effectually exhibit ill-will and hatred toward men than by leaving out the ONLY ONE who can really bless them for time or for eternity? But what must be the moral condition of a heart, in reference to Christ, who could take his seat at a board, or on a platform, on the condition that that name must not be introduced? It must be cold indeed; yea, it proves that the plans and operations of unconverted men are of sufficient importance in his judgment to lead him to throw his Master overboard for the purpose of carrying them out. Let us not mistake matters. This is the true aspect in which to view the world’s philanthropy. The men of this world can "sell ointment for three hundred pence, and give to the poor;" while they pronounce it waste to pour that ointment on the head of Christ! Will the Christian consent to this? Will he yoke himself with such? Will he seek to improve the world without Christ? Will he join with men to deck and garnish a scene which is stained with his Master’s blood? Peter could say, "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." Peter would heal a cripple by the power of the name of Jesus; but what would he have said, if asked to join a committee or society to alleviate cripples, on the condition of leaving that name out altogether? It requires no great stretch of imagination to conceive his answer; His whole soul would recoil from such a thought. He only healed a cripple for the purpose of exalting the name of Jesus, and setting forth its worth, its excellency, and its glory in the view of men; but the very reverse is the object of the world’s philanthropy; inasmuch as it sets aside His blessed name entirely, and banishes Him from its boards, its committees, and its platforms. May we not therefore well say, "Shame on the Christian who is found in a place from which his Master is shut out"? Oh, let him go forth, and in the energy of love to Jesus, and by the power of that name, do all the good he can! but let him not yoke himself with unbelievers, to counteract the effects of sin by excluding the cross of Christ. God’s grand object is to exalt His Son, "that all should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father." This should be the Christian’s object likewise; to this end he should "do good unto all;" but if he join a society or a committee in order to do good, it is not "in the name of Jesus" he acts, but in the name of the society or committee, without the name of Jesus. This ought to be enough for every true and loyal heart. God has no other way of blessing men but through Christ; and no other object in blessing them but to exalt Christ. As with Pharaoh of old, when the hungry Egyptians flocked to his presence, his word was, "Go to Joseph;" so God’s word to all is, "Come to Jesus." Yes, for soul and body, time and eternity, we must go to Jesus; but the men of the world know Him not, and want Him not; what therefore has the Christian to do with such? How can He act in yoke with them? He can only do so on the ground of practically denying his Saviour’s name. Many do not see this; but that does not alter the case for those who do. We ought to act honestly, as in the light; and even though the feelings and affections of the new nature were not sufficiently strong in us to lead us to shrink from ranking ourselves with the enemies of Christ, the conscience ought at least to bow to the commanding authority of that word, BE NOT UNEQUALLY YOKED TOGETHER WITH UNBELIEVERS. May the Holy Ghost clothe His own word with heavenly power, and make its edge sharp to pierce the conscience, that so the saints of God may be delivered from everything that hinders their "running the race that is set before them!" Time is short. The Lord Himself will soon be here. Then many an unequal yoke will be broken in a moment. May we be enabled to purge ourselves from every unclean association and every unhallowed influence, so that when Jesus returns we may not be ashamed, but, meet Him with a joyful heart and an approving conscience! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 94: VOL 03 - ANCHORAGE WITHIN THE VEIL ======================================================================== Anchorage Within The Veil Hebrews 6 The apostle had spoken, at the close of the preceding chapter, of "the first principles of the oracles of God," and here again he says, "Leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection: not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this will we do, if God permit." (5: 1-3.) We must remember to whom he was writing - persons who, though now professing to be, and, as he says (5: 9), really Christians, were those who had been familiar with the doctrines of the law before they were Christians at all, who had heard about Messiah, expected Messiah (another word for Christ), and had had their thoughts therefore connected with Christ, before the Holy Ghost was sent down from heaven. But it was quite a different thing to have certain elements about Christ, and to have "the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,"* after Jesus was glorified. *"The Holy Ghost sent down from heaven" is not being "born again," though we are born again by the Holy Ghost. The apostle alludes here to things, all of which were connected with the first principles of there being a Christ. A Pharisee held them, though not a believer at all; he believed there would be a resurrection of the dead, etc. The great mass of Christians stop here. But the apostle says it is useless to rest here; he would have them go on unto perfection. What he calls "perfection" is not connected with practice or conduct (except, indeed, as truth sanctifies), it was the going on to a full revelation of what was in Christ; it refers entirely to doctrine. In the next place he gives a reason why they should go on unto perfection. If they were firm in these truths, it was useless to begin them over again; if they had given them up, it was "impossible to renew them again unto repentance." All that belonged to the Jewish system, belonged to the old world; when Christ comes again it will be different. (Heb. 2:5.) It is in that sense he speaks of "the powers (the same word as ’miracles’) of the world to come." The power of Christ will entirely deliver from the dominion of Satan, and these miracles were samples of that. A Jew, who had rejected Christ in humiliation, might be converted, and own a glorified Christ (unto whom these powers of the world to come bore testimony). There was a glorified Jesus to be presented to those who had rejected Jesus when here. "But then," he says, "it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted of the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame" - if they reject these "powers" of the Holy Ghost, consequent upon the glorification of the Messiah - if they have seen and felt "the powers" of "the Holy Ghost, come down from heaven," from Jesus glorified, and then turn away, there is no other doctrine to be preached, there is no restoring them again unto repentance. He is considering the case of Hebrews turning back from the profession of Christianity to Judaism - that to which there was (save for faith) every inducement. They had no longer a visible Messiah, or temple, or sacrifices, or altar; they had given up all these, and (there was joy, no doubt, in believing) they had nothing tangible in their stead. Confirmatory of the gospel, there were these powers of "the Holy Ghost come down," but there was no Christ, in a third condition, yet to be presented. As a nation they had crucified Him once; ’now’ (he says) ’that He is glorified, and that there have been these proofs brought in, are you going to crucify Him again?’ There was no third condition. "The earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God; but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned;" all the rain that could come from heaven was spent upon this ground, and it remained just as it was, it brought forth thorns and briers. Being "partakers of the Holy Ghost" is not being converted, but just what Simon Magus hoped to obtain. (Acts 8:18, 19.) With him it was no question of conversion; he wanted to buy this preternaturally exercised power. Saul was "amongst the prophets." (1 Sam. 10:10, 11.) He was made a partaker (not in a New, but in an Old Testament sense) of the Holy Ghost. So Balaam, a thoroughly ungodly man. The Lord "met him," and "put a word into his mouth." (Numbers 23) I cannot turn back to these old elements, says the apostle, I desire to lead you on; but if you have rejected them, "it is impossible," etc. And then he adds, although having put before them this terrible picture, "But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak." (5: 9.) There is one expression (perhaps the most difficult of the whole) which it may be well to notice in passing, that of "tasting the good word of God." It looks like something real. But it is just what we have in the parable - a man’s "anon with joy receiving it," yet his having "no root in himself." (Matt. 13:20, 21.) A person may have his feelings moved, (like the women who followed Christ, weeping and wailing, and to whom He said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children,") the heart may be acted upon by certain truths just as much as the head, and there be no work of God in the conscience. Neither the natural heart or head have anything to do with it; there may be as much feeling as knowledge, and nothing of God at all. The things to which the apostle refers, as seen in these believers, were not "the powers of the world to come," but real fruit, meet for Him by whom the earth was dressed. "God is not unrighteous," he says, "to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have showed toward His name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister; "I do not expect you to fall away, "and we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end." There was the proof of life, and that which God would not disown (He never owned merely head and heart; it would be a sort of hopeless anomaly to say I own these fruits, and yet disown the persons who bore them; and he further desires for them full, undivided confidence in the Lord, and about themselves. There are three things spoken of in Scripture - 1st, "Full assurance of faith" (Heb. 10:22); 2ndly, "Full assurance of hope" (5: 11); 3dly, "Full assurance of understanding." (Col. 2: 2.) The "full assurance of faith" rests on the testimony of God. God tells me the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin, and I rest upon that testimony. There is more than this in the "full assurance of hope;" my soul counts upon a person who has made a promise. (See vv. 12-20.) Hence there is the leaning upon God (a different thing from merely believing a testimony), and, moreover, a looking "within the veil." It is founded upon what is perfectly immutable, not upon anything produced here, and which might be liable to change. Entering into that within the veil, God’s throne must be shaken before my hope. Faith rests upon a testimony that has come out; but it carries me up, and hope reckons on Him who is there. The "full assurance of understanding" goes a step further. Not only have I an object on which my heart and conscience rest, but it takes up God’s counsels; it "understands;" I can say, "It became God" to do this and to do that. When speaking about "hope," we must recollect it is not in the least like human hope (as though the thing was uncertain). In ordinary language I might say, "I hope such a person will come tomorrow," when that was extremely uncertain. Not so with "hope" in divine things. All that is meant is, that the thing hoped for is not present: "If we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it," because it is certainly coming. "Be not slothful." There is a certain characteristic diligence; otherwise we shall be going into the world at every step. We have the flesh and the devil (who is going about seeking to devour) to do with. Moreover, we have to come to God. Whether we look at God, the flesh, or Satan, it is always diligence that characterises faith. The devil will be diligent if we are not. "Wherefore, the rather, my brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure." Life is shown in action. Of a man that never stirs I cannot say, "He is alive." Satan is in the path, and the thing that guards us against Satan is diligence; without it, we shall get tripped, and be beaten. Satan cannot touch the new nature (1 John 5:18); hence, temptations really come to be siftings, and show if faith be in us. "Be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." We have need of patience. All this sifting will purify us. Else (where there is not patience and faith), it will prove there is no real anchor within the veil, and the ship will be driven. Then he turns to show them (while there will be temptations, and, therefore, the need of faith and patience) how strong and infallible the anchor is. "When God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, He aware by Himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise." But he did not get it all at once; there was a little failure (1:e. as to Ishmael), just as he had gone down into Egypt, at the outset, when there was a famine in the land, and (while Sarah was in "the house of Pharaoh," Gen. 12:14-16) had acquired cattle, and Egyptian riches in abundance. (Hagar was an Egyptian woman.) A man may get what satisfies nature, and seem to be going on very comfortably, when far off from God. But he had no altar in Egypt. Every camel and ox that came in ought to have broken his heart, and made him feel where himself and his wife were. "Saul," we read, "tarried for Samuel seven days;" but when he saw that he came not to Gilgal, and the people were scattered from him, he offered the burnt-offering. Just when he had done, Samuel came, and said, "Thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God: thy kingdom shall not continue." (1 Sam. 13) He had not had patience. A person may go on imitating faith, and the actings of faith, for a long time. In Jacob there was real faith in the promises (though he could not trust God about them). He used unholy means to secure them, just as one might use unholy means to do God’s work; but God did not take the promise from him, but He exercised and chastened him; so that at the end he had to say, "Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been," etc. It is a troubled and distressing scene of exercise and sorrow. We have need of patience. Faith is shown in the path, and God will put it to the test, while He is counted upon for power to accomplish the promises, as well as for faithfulness to secure them. And Jacob had to learn this lesson. In the end, when Joseph wants to get the blessing from his father for Manasseh instead of Ephraim, the old man crosses his hands, and says, "Not so, my son, not so." God will accomplish His purpose. And mark further how He sustains our faith. (vv. 16-20.) He put faith in Abraham still more to the test by telling him to offer up Isaac, and He then confirmed it by an oath. God exercises our patience; but while He exercises our patience, He gives "a strong consolation" to those who are exercised. Of old, the ark "went before them in the three days’ journey, to search out a resting-place for them." (Num. 10:33.) They were not to rest in the wilderness; still there was a little respite by the way. And there is this refreshment by the way to strengthen and cheer those who are in the way. The great Heir is already crowned with glory and honour. (vv. 19, 20.) Thus we have our hope confirmed in a manner in which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had not. It is a heavenly hope, because it "entereth into that within the veil;" and it is a sure and steadfast hope, because of Jesus having entered already there (as our forerunner), and, moreover, by the Holy Ghost’s being sent down. "Many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them," etc.; but we have more than even that, we have "the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven," the witness of the glorification of Jesus, and "the earnest of our inheritance." Our consolation is strong. But we shall find we have "need of patience." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 95: VOL 03 - BALAAM HIRED OF BALAK, AND USED OF GOD ======================================================================== Balaam Hired of Balak, and Used of God Numbers 22 - 24. It is a wonderful thing to see the way in which, through the overruling power of God, the efforts of Satan against the people of God only bring them out the more distinctly in their own place of blessing. We find in these chapters the connection of the name of God with the power of Satan. Some of the instruments which he uses may be, and some of them may not be, conscious that it is Satan’s power which actuates them. Nothing could be greater confusion than that which here passes between Balaam and Balak. Balaam, we know, was a thoroughly wicked man. (See Rev. 2:14; 2 Peter 2:15, 16; Jude 11.) Nothing could exceed the wickedness and perverseness of his ways. And yet he is called a prophet, as it is said, "who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass, speaking with man’s voice, forbade. the madness of the prophet." We know that he was acquainted with, and used, enchantments (Num. 24:1); and yet when he comes to Balak he says, "Lo, I am come unto thee: have I now any power at all to say anything? the word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak." (Num. 22:38.) Balak was looking for the power of evil against the children of Israel, God’s people, and yet looking for it from God. (Num. 23:27.) There was a sort of looking to the power and intervention of God, although God was not known, and thus all was confusion. And so in the world, even where Satan is working, and where in those who are intelligent in evil he is looked to as working, there is often a certain vague looking to God. Thus there is complete confusion - man’s will being Satan’s will, and yet with a certain owning of God. Numbers 22:1-6. We see the enmity of the world against the people of God brought out, and especially against the power of the people of God. God’s power was with His people, and this drew out the enmity of Satan. When the Son of God came into the world, the whole energy of Satan’s power and enmity was directed against Him; so afterwards against the apostles, those who had "turned the world upside down." (Acts 17:6.) But God’s power was with and for His people. See the song of Moses (Ex. 15:14-16). God had redeemed his people with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm from the power and bondage of Satan, and had brought them to Himself. (Ex. 19:4.) When this is the case, Satan seeks to force others into an open opposition to the people of God. Their presence becomes intolerable to their enemies. But the effect of it all is to bring out God’s people as being under His eye and care. The very wish that God should curse Israel only brought out the more God’s distinct blessing upon them: "And he" (Balaam) "took up his parable, and said, Balak the king of Moab hath brought me from Aram, out of the mountains of the east, saying, Come, curse me Jacob, and come, defy Israel. How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? or how shall I defy, whom the Lord hath not defied? For from the top of the rocks I see Him, and from the hills I behold Him: lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations." (Num. 23:7-9.) Here we find the effect of Satan’s opposition was to bring out into the clearest manifestation that they were not of the world. So long as Israel were living in Egypt there was nothing at all that drew out the thoughts and feelings of Balak and Balaam against them, or that made them intolerable to the world; but the chief point of this testimony to their blessing is, that they were a peculiar people, separated from all other people unto God, according to that word, "The Lord hath avouched thee this day to be His peculiar people." (Deut. 26:18.) Verse 11 and onward. Balaam at the suggestion of Balak seeks to curse Israel from "another place." He tells Balak, "Stand here by thy burnt-offering, while I go and meet - yonder." He does not seem to know whom he was going to meet. It is all the most thorough and perfect confusion. He says, "While I go and meet - yonder." But there the Lord meets him, and puts a word in his mouth, proving the firmness of God’s purpose concerning His people. "God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: hath He said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless." Balaam would gladly have altered this testimony of God, but he says, "He hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it." Then comes the testimony to the completeness of God’s justification of His people: "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel." This is not a mere abstract statement of truth. Israel had acted so failingly and unbelievingly during their wilderness journey as to bring out from Moses, the meekest man upon the face of the earth, the expression, "Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you." (Deut. 9:24.) The result of the judgment of the man of God about them, after forty years’ experience, was that they were a stiff-necked and rebellious people; but the judgment of God in reference to their justification was altogether opposite to his judgment of the moral condition of the people. It is most important, in applying this to ourselves, to draw the distinction clearly between these two things - the judgment of the Spirit of God within us, as to the evil of the flesh, etc., and the testimony of the Spirit, as to our being before Him in Christ. (2 Cor. 5:17.) God sees all who have received pardon through faith in the blood of Christ (Rom. 3:25), "justified from all things" (Acts 13:38, 39), "perfected for ever" (Heb. 10:14), "meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light" (Col. 1:12), yea, more, as to His purpose in Christ, He sees them already glorified. (Rom. 8:30.) Now this could not be true of all who are "the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26), if God at any time imputed sin to them. (Rom. 4:8.) "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1); and "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9.) He likewise says He will remember His people’s sins no more (Heb. 10:17); and "whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." (1 John 3:9.) We often find the soul forming a righteous judgment about itself, and forgetting that the ground on which it stands before God, the resting-place of faith, is what He has wrought for us in the Lord Jesus. The Spirit of God judges sin in me by virtue of its character as seen in the light of the holiness of God, but He makes me know that I am not to be judged for it, because Christ has borne the judgment for me. It is no question of examining the details of either good or evil that we find in ourselves; it is altogether a question of the efficacy and value of Christ’s work, and of His acceptance. We either stand under the broad condemnation of God, sinners dead in trespasses and sins, or are "accepted in the Beloved." Although it is most important that we should judge ourselves, as it is said, "If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged," etc. (1 Cor. 11:31, 32); yet this is quite a distinct thing from the judgment which God forms about us through the work of Christ. At the end of a long course of failure in the children of Israel, after their perverseness has been fully proved, God "hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel." Where the soul of a believer confounds the judgment of the Spirit within and about himself, with the judgment of God through the work of Christ for him, there can be no peace. "The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them." The distinguishing mark of the people of God is, that He is in them, and among them. (See 1 Cor. 14:25.) The utter feebleness of the saints is shown wherever this is not the case. It is a blessed truth that God has for ever saved and justified His children, but this is in order that He may "dwell among them." (Ex. 29:45, 46.) "God brought them out of Egypt; He hath as it were the strength of an unicorn" - "I dare not meddle with them" (Balaam says); "I have too much understanding of what they are to do so; they are connected with God, with His strength and power." "Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel: according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!" According to what time? the time when Israel was faint and weak, discouraged by reason of the length of the way, and none of their enemies on the other side of Jordan conquered. Their enemies were much mightier than they (Deut. 7:1, etc.), and yet he says, "What hath God wrought! Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain." The moment he sees them under the eye of God he says that. "And Balak said unto Balaam, Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all. But Balaam answered and said unto Balak, Told not I thee, saying, All that the Lord speaketh, that must I do? And Balak said unto Balaam, Come, I pray thee, I will bring thee unto another place; peradventure it will please God that thou mayest curse me them from thence. And Balak brought Balsam unto the top of Peor, that looketh toward Jeshimon," etc. "And when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he went not, as at other times, to seek for enchantments, but he set his face towards the wilderness. And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel abiding in his tents according to their tribes; and the Spirit of God came upon him. And he took up his parable and said," etc. (Num. 24:1-9.) He now begins to look at the people of God themselves, and sees Israel abiding in their tents, in their own proper loveliness. The sight of the fairness of God’s people thus is the occasion of the Spirit of God speaking as He does (5: 5, and onwards) - "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! as the valleys are they spread forth," etc. He looks at the people of God themselves, and sees their beauty in the vision of the Almighty. There were Israel occupied with their own foolish thoughts below, and this scene was going on above. So is it with us, beloved friends; we are occupied with our own ofttimes foolish thoughts, the accuser is speaking against us, and yet nothing can prevail, because God works for us. I am not now speaking of God justifying us, but of much more, and that is the beauty of the order, and the never-failing source of refreshment of God’s people - "All my fresh springs are in thee." God brings this out most fully through the evil desire of Balak and Balaam. We see in these chapters man working according to Satan’s will, and yet looking to the power and the intervention of God. Hence all is confusion, and it will ever he so. But the moment the children of God get into their right place before God there is no confusion, no perplexity; the path is as simple as possible. May the Holy Spirit enable us to realize as our own that peculiar feature of the Church of God, and that which is the power of their holiness, and of their comfort too - "The Lord their God is with them, and the shout of a King is among them." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 96: VOL 03 - CHRIST'S CROSS, AND GOD'S "DUE TIME" ======================================================================== Christ’s Cross, and God’s "Due Time" Romans 5:6-8. In the last verse of this chapter we have, in fact, the summing up of the great principles and ways of God’s dealings with man - "grace reigning through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." What the apostle has been speaking of as to God’s dealings, dispensational and personal, is, all is grace. "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." (5: 6.) "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (5: 8.) It is grace that did everything. (vv. 15-21.) "By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners," and they may have gone on sinning and setting aside the authority of God; but "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." And, in the sum of the whole matter, grace reigns. That which gave the apostle so much confidence in this was, that it was consequent upon the discussion of the whole condition of MAN, as looked at in every way and in every shape. The blessed result was not something that came in, and the discussion after; but, after the discussion of the whole condition of man (that having been gone through), GOD takes His own place, and manifests what He will be, and is, towards the sinner, in Jesus Christ. Now, that is, properly speaking, the gospel. The gospel is not what man is, or what God requires from man, but what God is, after He has thoroughly revealed what man is. When received in simplicity it leaves no possible question in the mind. It is the revelation of God, made after He has estimated all our need. The gospel, we repeat, is the revelation of what God is, when what man is has been fully revealed. "When we were yet without strength, IN DUE TIME Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But GOD commendeth HIS love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, CHRIST DIED FOR US." Peace of soul is constantly hindered through our not supposing that God has taken full cognizance of what we are. The gospel begins consequent upon His having made a full estimate. He knew from the beginning what man was, and would be; but after, in His history, He had brought out and demonstrated in ways and conduct what man was under all the possible circumstances in which he could be placed - when He had demonstrated him to be entirely lost, and that He could not trust him in any way or in any measure, He says, ’I cannot trust in you, you must trust in Me.’ Hence the reason there is often a long and painful conflict, because of our not being brought down in conscience to the point where the gospel begins. A man may acknowledge himself to be ungodly, but then he hopes to cease to be ungodly; and God, perhaps, lets him struggle on thus for some time, until in his own soul he is brought to the place where the gospel begins. It is not that the gospel is not simple, but that in conscience we are not in the condition where the gospel sees us. The work must be in the conscience. We read in Matt. 13 of a man hearing the Word, and anon with joy "receiving it," yet of his not having "root in himself." There is no work evidently in the conscience; it is not that he is insincere, but he has never been brought in guilty before God; "for," it is added, "when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the Word, by-and-by he is offended" (whereas, if he knew that his own soul was lost without Christ, surely he would say with the disciples, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life!" (John 6:68). It is a great deal harder to believe that we are "without strength," than that we are "ungodly." Many a soul believes the one that has not as yet been brought to believe the other. God has given us His history of the world from Adam to Christ. There was a "due time" for the death of Christ (a "due time" that is in the history of the world). So is there the "due time"* of the individual heart; not that the same feelings pass through the minds of all, that each must be brought to the result given us by the history of man previously to the death of Christ. *It has been said with truth that man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. It is true many a person admits himself to be ungodly that has not been brought to feel the full meaning of the word. It is wonderful how our moral distance from God has rendered us incapable of judging of this. If a man say that God is holy, and that he is a sinner, as judged of by his natural conscience, yet not admit that he is shut out from the presence of God, but reply, "Oh, I hope not!" he has not the power of apprehending His presence. On the one side, God is "of purer eyes than to behold iniquity;" on the other, he is a sinner; but he has no sort of conscience or consciousness that he is in the presence of God. There is not a single individual that would not put off being there. Our consciences can never naturally bear it; the whole secret is, that we have never been in the presence of God. (In one sense we are always in His presence, but I speak now of being brought near in conscience.) A man may be living absolutely without God, and yet be accounted a very good man after all. If he hurts his fellow-man it is another affair. In judging of right and wrong in the world, God is always shut out. There is no surer proof of the way man has cast off God, than his judgment of right and wrong; he calls "wrong" that which injures man, but the Divine presence and claims are shut out. It all shows this first great truth, that men are "without God." But there is another truth stated here - they are also "without strength." When a man is really brought to himself, it is always a question of present standing. An ungodly man will think (it is the natural thought) of meeting God sometime, of what He will be in the day of judgment. But is His presence revealed to the heart, is it His presence now that occupies it? Whilst there is merely the thought of going to God, there is another question man thinks about, how he can make up with God. He thinks the time is before him in which he can make his peace with God, though this is impossible: Jesus Christ alone could make peace. (Col. 1:20.) He is either unconscious of the state he is in, or is looking to something by which he hopes, at a future day, he may be able to stand before God. He has no real thought of God but as a Judge. Now hoping for mercy so, is no more than saying (and many mean nothing but this), that God is not of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, that He can let a little pass. As to the first point, the state of the Gentiles was thorough ungodliness. (Rom. 1) The apostle, after looking at man in every way (proud as man is of himself), brings all in guilty. But men have a natural conscience, and they are afraid to do in the light what they do in the dark. When in the outward darkness of Satan and ungodliness they "work all manner of uncleanness with greediness" (Eph. 4:17-19), worshipping stocks and stones, etc. Christianity makes men ashamed to do in the light what they did before in the dark (the profession of it, I mean; in that sense, it is borrowed light). Being in this condition, his own lusts his springs of action - the slave of Satan and of his own lusts, gratifying his mere natural wicked inclinations, that was a clear case. It did not become a holy God. It was plainly ungodliness. But besides this, there was another thing. God singled out a nation, to which He showed great kindness, and gave (as His people) a rule. And then the question was, whether there was strength in man to walk by this rule. He spake the ten commandments with His own voice on mount Sinai, and added, "Cursed is the man that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." After all the will of man was that which wrought in his heart, and he was a breaker of this law. But this went much further. I may have my mind open to see and estimate the spirituality of the law, and not be merely a carnal Jew - where does that bring me? Into the consciousness, not merely that I have failed, and broken the law without, but of a principle within - a "law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." (Rom. 7:23.) If I am put under a law, the better that law the worse my case. It may be said, ’Why then did God give the law?’ "It was added," we are told, "because of transgressions, till the Seed should come, to whom the promise was made." (Gal. 3:19.) To what end? "The law entered (perfect as it was) that the offence might abound." What could the law enter for, to man, already a sinner, and having a law in his members? The law entered that the offence might abound, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful." (Rom. 7:13.) This was the way God took to convince man that he was "without strength." And in that sense it was mercy. What is more difficult than to convince man of this. The judgment right and the affections right, still there was this law in his members, and the law, while it discovered and brought out this, imparting no strength, added to the character of the sin, for there was another thing, it made every act which was the result of this evil of our nature "transgression" - a thing done in despite of His authority. "Sin by the commandment became exceeding sinful." (Rom. 7:7.) Now clearly, a thing that makes sin "exceeding sinful," is not the way to make me (a sinner) have any righteousness before God! What is man without the law? what with? Man without the law is out of the presence of God. With, he has failed in responsibility, and is a breaker of the law. And when Jesus came, the witness of the goodness of God, he rejected Him. (John 15:24, 25.) Man has been tried in every way, and found utterly wanting. Wherefore? Was God ignorant of his condition? No; it was for the discovery of it to himself. God is now bringing home to his conscience that which He knew from the beginning. (Rom. 3:19.) A word here as to the triple form the law took. First, there was the perfect standard of what man ought to be; secondly, the prohibition of what man was disposed to; a positive standard of what God required, and the prohibition of that to which man was inclined; and as a third thing, an adjunct of certain ordinances and ceremonies "imposed until the time of reformation." (Heb. 9:9, 10.) What did God do all this for? On the one hand, to demonstrate that man was not righteous; and on the other, to point out One, who (holy and righteous) should suffer "the just for the unjust." What did man? He took, to make out a righteousness for himself before God, the thing God had sent in to demonstrate him a sinner; and then, in order to fill up the gap in his own heart, sought to eke out his righteousness through these ceremonies, types and prefigurings of Jesus, the substitute for the sinner. The moment there is spiritual understanding, when grace is not understood, the only effect is to make the soul miserable - it finds no strength. The more it understands the law to be what it should be, the more it feels justly condemned, and incapable of fulfilling it, or of delivering itself from its condition. "O wretched man that I am!" is its cry, and "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. 7:24.) All that is merely the question, "What is man?" Man is ungodly and without strength; and his history is summed up in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well now, have we been brought to the acknowledgment of the result of this history? Had we simplicity to receive by faith what God shows us man to be, we should have no thought of his being under a state of probation. For four thousand years man was under a state of probation, and as the result of the trial, no good is expected from the bad tree. The gospel is come on the ground of man’s being no longer under probation of God. He has given up looking for fruit. "A sower went forth to sow," etc. (Matt. 13.) The natural thing was for Jesus to seek fruit, but there was none there; all had become verjuice. Man having been put to the test, now God comes in. It is quite evident that, unless it be for everlasting condemnation, we must give up the thought of appearing before God as a Judge. (Rom. 3:19, 20.) "Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for in thy sight. shall no man living be justified." The more I know of myself, the more I know that. The love of Christ only puts me into a darker judgment of myself. Is God to pass by judgment, as if there was no difference between good and evil? Impossible! There is just the beginning of wisdom. We cannot stand before God; what is to be done? A man must, in that sense, have done with himself. I cannot trust God in anything I ever have been, or can be; God cannot trust in me. Now, can I trust in God? What God is, was before sin. If I begin to reason, I am under law; I cannot reason about God being grace to me. If I could reckon on it, it would not be grace. Where shall I find the revelation and testimony of what God is? In Christ. What was this blessed witness for God here? Never anything but grace. With the Pharisees He showed that their righteousness was only the adding of the sin of hypocrisy to their other sins. But whenever a man was before Him without any pretence to righteousness, let him be the vilest of the human race - a thief, an adulteress, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, whatever else - He was grace, and nothing but grace. I want to know what the God with whom I have to do as a sinner is. And what is He? Grace. Perhaps I say, "If I go to Him, I shall find Him gracious." But that is not all the testimony. Jesus came to us. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:9, 10.) In the coming of the Son of God I have the positive certainty of what God is to me (assuming that I believe Him to be the Son of God), I have the perfect certainty of His love. "When we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." From His mouth (if I am to take His testimony) I shall never hear anything but, "Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace." If I am in the truth of my sins, I shall find Christ in the truth of His grace. God has right to be sovereign, and there is the reign of grace. (5: 21.) But God is righteous, and therefore grace is to "reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." In the grace of God reigning, He has given His Son to be the proof of His love; but then, God is righteous, and could not introduce the sinner in his sins into His presence, and therefore He gave His Son to bear the sins. God’s righteousness is displayed in all its truth and power. The Lord Jesus died for the ungodly. He was obedient at all costs; He bore everything, and went down into the dust of death - man’s hatred, God’s desertion, and Satan’s power. We find Him there at the cost of everything. Everything that was against us was done away. By one man’s obedience many are made righteous. (Phil. 2:8.) God’s righteous wrath against sin has been exhibited. Where do I learn it? In the cross of Christ. Was it in holily sparing His Son? No. I see the wrath of God against my sin executed in that cross. The judgment of God against sin, the thing I dreaded, is now my salvation. "Out of the eater has come forth meat, and out of the strong sweetness." The head of Goliath, so to speak, has been taken off with his own sword. The Lord Jesus Christ has risen again as having borne the judgment. But more, He stands in living righteousness before God. Righteousness is there for ever under the eye of God. The blood of Christ shed in death - death as the wages of sin - is ever under the eye of God. I do not say that it is ever under my eye, but it is under God’s eye; He is the Judge. Never shall we feel about it as we ought; but sure I am He feels about it as He ought; He sees the blood. "When I see the blood, I will pass over." The blood is of infinite value with God. But there is another thing; He Himself is there, "Jesus Christ the Righteous;" He who has obeyed, who has accomplished all, is there. There may be chastisement from the Father (Heb. 12), and a great deal of painful discipline for our good; but righteousness is ever there, the righteous One, in the presence of God for us. The Holy Ghost was to convince the world of righteousness, because Jesus had gone to the Father. (John 16:7, 10.) Righteousness is to be found in the presence of God, and it is He who has borne my sins. And let us remember that this cannot be a question of hope. My soul may be looking to Jesus, and hoping that He will speak a word of peace; but I do not hope that Christ will die for me, I do not hope that Christ will rise again for me, and accomplish this righteousness. I believe. It is a simple question of the value of the blood, and person, and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. As to the Christian life. The first thing is to begin our conduct with God. Do not let us talk about what we shall be. If we come to God with our present in our hand, the first question is, What are you? Man is a sinner, and no present in the hand of a sinner is accepted. Where there is really truth in the heart, the conscience takes notice of its present condition, and will never dream of putting off. It is, I have seen thee; what shall I do? Job was a godly man, but a reasoner; yet the moment he sees God he says, "I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." He sees God, and that ends the whole question. There is another point. It is not merely the efficacy of the work as regards the past, so that I stand before God without fault; but I am there in Christ. I bless God for many means in helping me on in my walk; but as for my standing with God, were there anything whatever needed, it would be saying, I was not already perfect in Christ. Faith says, Christ has presented me in the presence of God, according to the mind of God, and I have nothing to seek. This is what the apostle means by "holding the Head." (Col. 2:19.) Another thing flows from this. As grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life in the work and person of our Lord Jesus Christ, realising my position by virtue of being united to Him, the life in which I am one with Christ will show itself down here in my living to Christ. The principle of the Christian’s position is just this. You have died with Christ; and, to be living as those who are "alive from the dead," you cannot have a single principle in common with the world. I am one with Christ (if I am a believer), and consequently, as Christ before God, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." (Gal. 2:20.) So again, "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal body." (2 Cor. 4:10.) It is not the demand of a certain amount of human righteousness, or the removal of certain evils, that hurt the conscience, and offend society. It is the living display of what Christ is before men. We should never be content when we fail to display Christ before men. As Christ is righteousness for me before God, so is He the example and standard of righteousness before men; as Christ is for me before God, so ought I to be for Christ before men. This is the way for the Christian to judge of right or wrong. We may be humbled because of failure, but we must not lower the standard. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 97: VOL 03 - DISPENSATIONAL TRUTH ======================================================================== Dispensational Truth Meditations on Subjects of Interest - 1. When souls surrender dispensational truth, they have committed themselves to the ocean of feelings and demands without a compass. If dispensational truth be not God’s present revelation, what is it? And if it be, can I expect to walk in the present scene according to His mind, without the light which He in His grace has supplied me? Man knows nothing of God, except through revelation; how inconsistent then for a child of God to admit that he cannot see the necessity of adhering to that which is the revelation for this present time; for, as a Christian, he must own that, if it were not for revelation, he must have, sunk into eternal darkness; and he has no right to reject or be indifferent to one part of the revelation, because it does not immediately bear on the question of his salvation. God’s revelation, in its full sense, and comprising all His arrangements on earth, is a structure of many stories, if I may say so. All the stories were not lighted up at once, but according to the need of those who would make use of the light. At one time it might have been sufficient to light up one story; but as the darkness increased (for in spite of what rationalists say, men are getting, in the spirit of their minds, every day further from God), there was of necessity a need for increase of light, which God, in His grace, vouchsafed for the use of those who would use it. Prophecy contained a suited and inexhaustible supply of the needed light; but this light could not act serviceably on any one who did not apprehend the order of God’s counsels on earth. Such an one neither occupied the right story, nor did he (from not understanding his calling) seek or receive that knowledge from God which would have made him, not only know his proper place before God, but would also have furnished him with grace and power to act therein according to God’s pleasure. How can God give a soul light to see the future of His purposes, if he be ignorant of or indifferent to the present? He who knows dispensational truth imperfectly, can never know prophetic truth rightly. If I disregard the manner of God’s arrangements - the position of His people now according to His mind - how can I expect Him to unfold to me more distant things? "To him that hath shall more be given." It is no excuse to say that the Church is in ruins; for if I cared for God’s counsel in the Church, the more inexpressive of that counsel I found the materials to be, the more should I seek to maintain it. God will not swerve from His own counsel; and surely it is marvellous grace that He should allow us to learn it; and still more, that according as we know and submit ourselves to it, He should entrust us with further purposes of His mind. The more difficult the times become, the more do I need dispensational truth. What other chart have I? How can I solve any of the incongruities that encompass me, or discover a clue to my right course in them, if I do not know the order and intention of God, and how that has been counteracted and disturbed by the wickedness of man? From the smallest remnant of the Church I ought to be able to put together what the Church should be in God’s counsels, and therefore to serve it according to His thoughts and love. In this relation to it I should most truly estimate what damage it had suffered, and what had inflicted the damage. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 98: VOL 03 - FAITH'S CLUE IN SIN'S CONFUSIONS ======================================================================== Faith’s Clue in Sin’s Confusions Into creation sin has brought confusion of every sort - confusion of thought, confusion of fact; but the Christian has a key of interpretation to it all. He has the secret with him by which he interprets every thing. He sees the confusion, he goes through it all, he feels it, but he cannot set things right. There are aching hearts he cannot touch, there are wrongs he cannot meddle with; yet, in the midst of all this labyrinth of evil, he knows the end of God. ___ ___ ___ My joy, my life, my crown! My heart was meaning all the day, Somewhat it fain would say; And still it runneth up and down With only this, my joy, my life, my crown. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 99: VOL 03 - FRAGMENTS ======================================================================== Fragments "I am that I am," was the glorious name under which God introduced Himself to Israel. God over all - none by searching could find Him out: He would be God, and take His own way and He would have mercy on whom He would have mercy, and would have compassion on whom He would have compassion. God is God. "By the grace of God, I am what I am," was Paul’s joy; it is mine: may it be thine, too. But, then, how different the force of the sentence when applied to Him and when applied to me. Compare word with word and you will see this only the more forcibly. And yet in both applications, the finger points out to reality, and what is - is owned, as being AS IT IS. "God is God." "And I am a poor sinner and nothing at all. But Jesus Christ is my all in all." Never, until we get to reality - never, until we let things be as they are, can we possibly have rest. And the beauty of the gospel is, that it puts God as God; and myself, just as I am, blessedly together, and appropriates all that He is to me, and identifies all that I am with Him according to the worth of the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of God and of Christ. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 100: VOL 03 - FRAGMENTS ======================================================================== Fragments "The history of Rahab has sometimes encouraged me about unconverted relatives; - her bringing all her family under the shelter of the scarlet line." "Soon our pilgrim journey will be over, and then we shall be recounting, like Moses to his father-in-law, what befell us by the way, and how the Lord delivered us." "Ought I not to have learned, by this time, not to expect or desire rest here? And also, how to trust simply with child-like confidence in His unceasing tender care." ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/christian-friend-magazine-26-volumes-volume-1/ ========================================================================