Joshua 14:6 - 15; Deuteronomy 6:20 - 24; Proverbs 4:1 - 4, 10 - 13; Jude 20, 21
I would like to speak from these scriptures about being preserved in life. It is important that we should be preserved here in spiritual life amidst a scene where the deadening influences of Satan abound. Believers need to have before them the sphere where Christ is, in glory. Scripture speaks of our life being "hid with the Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). What a great matter it is to lay hold of that truth. In Romans 6, it says, "in that he has died, he has died to sin once for all; but in that he lives, he lives to God" (verse ). What a thing to get a hold of in your soul -- that Christ is living to God! We are to live to God too. The apostle Paul could say, "but in that I now live in flesh, I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). May we be exercised to be maintained in life and able to enter into the enjoyment of the heavenly things that God has in mind for us.
I read this portion in Joshua 14 to illustrate the fact that Caleb was a person who was conscious that God had kept him alive in the midst of so much unbelief. The men that had gone up with Joshua and Caleb to search out the land were marked by unbelief, and were not prepared to go into the land again. Caleb had the land in his heart. Joshua and Caleb said, "The land … is a very, very good land" (Numbers 14:7). Oh! that we might have a fuller impression of
the richness and fulness of that land that is beyond the Jordan. It typifies the heavenly land where Christ is, the sphere which divine Persons have purposed that we should enter. That is the land Caleb had in his heart. He had it by faith in his heart through the wilderness; he could speak well of it and bear witness of it.
Caleb reminds Joshua of what had been said before. He says, "Thou knowest the word that Jehovah spoke to Moses … concerning me and thee". There was a two-fold witness in Joshua and Caleb of what Moses the man of God had said. Caleb says, "I brought him word again as it was in my heart. And my brethren that had gone up with me made the heart of the people melt; but I wholly followed Jehovah my God". I commend it to every one here, that we should acquire a knowledge of God, so that we can each say, 'My God', as having relations with Him.
We are to know God and His love. "If any one love God, he is known of him" (1 Corinthians 8:3). God would have us to be whole-hearted. The unbelief of others did not turn Caleb aside. How many, alas, have been turned aside! We need to keep our eye on Christ and on that sphere of blessing, the land. Moses swore to Caleb that day that the land whereon he stood would be his and his children's assuredly. Caleb was in no doubt whatsoever. He was holding fast and could bear witness to the fact that God was with him and would bless him and his household too.
That is what we look for, beloved, that the saints and their households should be blessed. These dear young people are growing up in a place of wonderful
privilege; may they be preserved from the world, for there are terrible things going on there. May the young be preserved as growing up among the saints where God is known and where the things of God are spoken about and cherished. It is a wonderful thing in our household readings to have the impression of how God can help and encourage us. It gives a wonderful sense of victory, as passing through such a world as we are in.
At eighty-five years of age, Caleb was still strong. He had not lost any of his strength. I think that flowed from the maintenance of his links with God. Our spiritual strength lies in waiting upon God in order that we might be maintained here until the Lord comes to take us to be with Himself in glory. We have, as it were, to dispossess enemies who have no right to be in the land. We have to understand that, until the end of our christian pathway, there will be conflict, and we need to understand that we are to take our part in it. We are to go out for war in dependence upon God, and come in to enjoy the fruits of the land. In addition, Caleb being a man of faith, asks for the mountain that God had spoken of.
That is an important matter. God had in mind for His people to bring them into the mountain of His inheritance, and Caleb lays hold of it in faith, even though the Anakim were there. He says, "If so be Jehovah shall be with me, then I shall dispossess them". Those who are with God and move in dependence upon Him, are strengthened by the Spirit to lay hold of the inheritance. I commend that to
each one of us at this time, so that we may lay hold of the purpose of God, and enter into the enjoyment of it with one another. Caleb's inheritance, Hebron, was built "seven years before Zoan in Egypt" (Numbers 13:22). It thus, typically, antedates the whole world system, and Caleb had the light of another world in his soul.
The inheritance is something we can enjoy together; it is both present and future. The Spirit is "the earnest of our inheritance" (Ephesians 1), and before we enter into the fulness and blessedness of God's purpose, He gives us a foretaste of it even now. How blessed it is to share these things! God would help us to enjoy with one another the great things that He has designed for us in the purpose of His love. How great it is! So it repeats, "Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb … to this day, because he wholly followed Jehovah the God of Israel". Note that: "the God of Israel". God always had the whole twelve tribes before Him, and, despite the defection of the two-and-a-half tribes, He would bring about His purposes and bless His people. That is what He had in mind.
What a man Caleb was! We have no record of his death. That may suggest continuity in the maintenance of what he represents. He said, "Jehovah has kept me alive". May we all have a sense of that; God is keeping us alive in relation to a spiritual order of things which is for His pleasure, which exists in the power of the Spirit, and which we can enjoy with one another. The psalmist says, "dwell in the land,
and feed on faithfulness" (Psalm 37:3). These words are to encourage our hearts.
In the scripture in Deuteronomy 6, God anticipates that the young would raise questions. "When thy son shall ask thee in time to come, saying, What are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which Jehovah our God hath commanded you?" The young persons would, no doubt, see what their parents are enjoying, and ask what led them into the understanding and enjoyment of these things. What a blessed matter it is, if we are marked by obedience to God's commands and testimonies. All this is in view of the preservation of life. I believe that is what God has in mind in these days.
So the children of Israel were to say that they had been delivered: "We were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt; and Jehovah brought us out of Egypt with a powerful hand; and Jehovah shewed signs and wonders". We should all be able to speak a little of the wonderful deliverance God has effected for us through the death of Christ, and in the power of the blessed Holy Spirit. He would give us some appreciation of Christ as the great Deliverer of His people.
And then we have this beautiful touch -- and we need to be reminded of it: "and he brought us out thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he swore unto our fathers". Let us have that continually before us. God brought us out -- that is one part of His operations in the glad tidings -- extricating us from evil in ourselves and the world system. It was all in view of bringing us, typically,
into the land flowing with milk and honey, "the land which he swore unto our fathers".
So we have the apostles' teaching (Acts 2:42) and Paul's teaching (2 Timothy 3:10) which have been handed down to us, and we can be thankful for that. Many of us have an appreciation of what has come down to us through spiritual fathers. We have had rich impressions of the enjoyment that belongs to the land. And Moses says, "Jehovah commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Jehovah our God, for our good continually". May we understand what is for our good; God acts as a Father to us, and in His tender care and love toward us He may pass us through circumstances that perhaps are not congenial to us, but it is in view of bringing us to know His love better, and to bring us into the sphere which His love has designed for us.
Then it says, "that he might preserve us alive, as it is this day". May we be preserved in life, through however many days may ensue in the history of the testimony. Apostasy is increasing on every hand, but God has in mind to maintain in His people a testimony to life. What a great matter that is, to see that the saints are going through such a world and being preserved in life because they have their aspirations and longings in relation to another world, where Christ is, in glory. What an object for our souls!
That feature comes out in Joseph at the end of Genesis. He says to his brethren, "Ye indeed meant evil against me: God meant it for good, in order that he might do as it is this day, to save a great people
alive" (Genesis 50:20). So you can see how prominent this thought is with God, that His people should be preserved in life. It is our privilege thus to love God and obey His commandments in view of being preserved at the present time.
In the scripture in Proverbs 4, it is a father that is speaking. Think of the tender appeal that comes out in this scripture. "Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father". Oh! how God loves to instruct us. If we are to be instructed, we must be obedient, and in subjection, and pay attention to what God is saying. As we understand that it is a Father's love that is behind it all, it makes it easier for us to accept it. It says, "attend". We have to attend to these things, and as we do we shall prove that "the liberal soul shall be made fat" (Proverbs 11:25).
It says, "I give you good doctrine". May we learn the good doctrine in the presence of fathers who know God. That is what marks fathers -- they know God, and have proved Him, and are able to give good doctrine, so that we who follow in their footsteps may be preserved in life. Then he says, "forsake ye not my law". What an appeal that is! Remember how God appealed to His people of old, and how He watched over them in the wilderness in view of their preservation. "Forsake ye not my law". May we understand that is a "law": The word means 'teaching' (footnote f). Love lies behind a Father's law. There is a man in Psalm 119 who loved God's statutes and His commandments. That is the kind of man that is able to have part in the service of God.
"For I was a son unto my father, tender and an only one in the sight of my mother. And he taught me". What a great matter it is to come under divine teaching! The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 23, "one is your instructor, the Christ" (verse 10). How blessed it is to sit at the feet of Jesus, as Mary did, and to listen to His word (Luke 10:39). It is important that we should set aside a part of our life daily to pay attention to what the Lord is saying, and to receive divine instruction. If you have come to that in your soul, then you will not be moved, nor swayed by "every wind of that teaching, which is in the sleight of men" (Ephesians 4:14), such as is about today. I commend it to each one of us at this time. We, as believers, are all children of God. Let us heed the exhortation, "Hear, ye children". We have come into a wonderful relationship as children of God, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ. We will soon be with Him and share with Him in that wonderful scene where He will be supreme.
Then it says "Hear" again in verse 10: "Hear, my son, and receive my sayings". I think it is very important that we give place to the Spirit if we are to receive these precious things. What preservation lies in that! Many of us have proved it. How wayward we have been, yet God in His love and tender care has instructed us in the way that we should go, so that we might be preserved in life in view of giving pleasure to Him. I think that is what God has in mind in these verses.
There are other blessed features: it says, "Keep thy heart more than anything that is guarded; for out
of it are the issues of life" (verse 23). I think that is God's great appeal at the present time, that His people might be maintained in life, in the enjoyment of the heavenly calling. May it be our portion to continue in these things. That involves that we may have to be adjusted sometimes in the acceptance of God's will, but the result is that we come into a fuller knowledge of God Himself and are able to serve Him more acceptably. Discipline is necessary for each one of us. We may not like it at the time, but as we accept it there will be results for God. That is what God would have in mind.
Now, in our last scripture, Jude is writing, in a dark day testimonially, about what has come in among believers. He speaks of those who "have gone in the way of Cain, and given themselves up to the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core" (verse 11). These three examples are set before the people of God, so that we might take warning. He says, "But ye, beloved, remember the words spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they said to you, that at the end of the time there should be mockers, walking after their own lusts … not having the Spirit" (verses 17 - 19).
Again he says, "But ye, beloved". Now he addresses the saints in this endearing way because of his affection for them. Jude tells us at the outset that he meant to speak of "our common salvation", but he had to turn aside and to write "exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints" (verse 3). Oh! may we indeed hold fast to that
which has been committed to us. "The faith" involves a system of teaching by which, if we are subject to it, we will be preserved in life and kept here for the pleasure of God.
Then Jude speaks of the antidote: "building yourselves up on your most holy faith". Jude stresses holiness: "holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). Holiness is an absolute necessity as we have to do with God. It says in regard to His house, "holiness becometh thy house, O Jehovah, for ever" (Psalm 93:5). There is no relaxation of that matter, because God is a holy God. It is important to become more acquainted with the faith, the christian faith, and how it has come down to us through the apostles' doctrine. The Spirit is unfolding in these days the great things of God. He is opening up to the saints an order of things in which they will be preserved here in a scene of rising apostasy. Jude has in mind the preservation of the saints.
Another feature of the last days is "praying in the Holy Spirit". What a need there is to be cast upon Him for help and instruction in relation to what may come into the pathway here. What a great matter it is to know the Holy Spirit as One who dwells in us. He is One to whom we can appeal, and we should be here as those who are continually praying in the Holy Spirit. "Keep yourselves in the love of God". We are to be in that state, always enjoying the love of God who has purposed us for blessing. Then we can enter into something of the fulness and blessedness of God's love as it has reached us in Christ, and
appreciate His giving us the Holy Spirit as Comforter to help us here below. He is the One we are to know. "Ye know him", the Lord says (John 14). We are to know the help that He can afford as we are subject to the will of God.
Jude says, "awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life". We are looking forward to that. Wonderful mercy has been shown us. I believe we need to deepen in a sense of divine mercy that has taken each one of us up, while passing others by, and has preserved us here right up to the present time.
May we be encouraged by these thoughts, and, like Caleb, continue in the line of faith, be prepared to receive the instruction of a father, and take advantage of these features that Jude brings before us, so that we may be preserved in life until that moment when the Lord will come and take us to be with Himself.
May He help us, and bless His word, for His Name's sake!
J. Taylor
1 Corinthians 14:20, 21; Ephesians 4:7 - 16
I desire to say a word about manhood, the divine thought being that God should surround Himself with men, with families no doubt, but with men, for it is said as the heavenly city comes down from God out of heaven, that "the tabernacle of God is with men" (Revelation 21:3). So that God's thought for us now
is that we should be men; although we have to begin as babes, we are not to remain babes, for there is nothing said as to babes in that world. God has men before Him.
So, in coming to the New Testament what is presented is a Man. The saints in the Old Testament times could not be men in the sense in which I am speaking, except in a typical way. I have no doubt that Jacob, in type, arrived at manhood in the wrestling with the angel. He had strength, and he received a name which indicated manhood, his name being changed from Jacob to Israel, for "thou hast wrestled with God, and with men, and hast prevailed" (Genesis 32:28). So we find that Jacob, in his interview immediately after with Esau, has tender sympathies that belong to manhood. These are expressed to those who come under his care.
Esau proposes that Jacob should accompany him. No! Jacob says, the children are young and tender, and the flocks too. We do well to take that in. We have to take account of the weakest. I may go on in my own soul with God, but I cannot leave the weakest behind. Jacob had had to do with God alone -- the children were not there, the cattle were not there, they had all gone over the brook; they had gone on ahead; but a Man wrestled with Jacob until the break of day. God would have to say to him, and weaken him, but Jacob's weakness was his strength, for immediately afterwards he takes account of the weak ones of the flock.
So the stronger I am spiritually the more I shall
be content to wait. I shall not lose anything by waiting, for I cannot lose anything if I am with God, but I can be content to wait for the weak ones. Esau said, "Let us take our journey, and go on, and I will go before thee". Jacob replied, "My lord knows that the children are tender, and the suckling sheep and kine are with me; and if they should overdrive them only one day, all the flock would die" (Genesis 33:12, 13). There must be no overdriving in the things of God.
As regards my own progress, let no one stop me. As the apostle says to the Galatians, "who has stopped you?" (Galatians 5:7). Ye did run well. Let no one interfere with my spiritual progress, but if there be children, young and tender, what about them? Is my agility to become their death? We all understand what kind of man Esau was, a man of the field, an athlete, one might say. His pace would be too much for the little ones, and so the man who had just wrestled with God thought for the little ones and the flocks.
Now these are the exercises of a man, for Jacob had become that, and he took account of the little ones, and thus those who are with God today, those who are developed into manhood, will take account of the little ones, for the weakest amongst us must necessarily retard our outward progress. We have to tarry, "wait for one another" (1 Corinthians 11:33). We all know how in the world those who have the care of the young and the sick must have patience.
When we come to the New Testament, we come to manhood. Saints in the Old Testament could not possibly arrive at manhood, being kept under tutors
and governors until the time appointed of the Father (Galatians 4:2). They were kept there. It was a matter of God's appointment. They, under the old covenant, could not be perfect, for the law made nothing perfect, not even a David or an Isaiah (Hebrews 11:40). They without us could not be made perfect. We must come first; those who form the assembly must have the first place.
So when you come to the gospels what is presented to you, what the soul finds, is manhood. The Lord is presented to us in the perfection of manhood. He looks up into heaven and the Spirit of God comes down in the form of a dove, and the voice from heaven says, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight" (Matthew 3:17). Then we are told, that He is "led" (Luke 4:1), or "carried up" (Matthew 4:1), by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Mark 1:12 says, "the Spirit drives him". He does not go there, but is carried, reminding us that true manhood according to God does not take up evil unless the Holy Spirit leads him to it. The Lord is carried into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, but then He returns from the wilderness "in the power of the Spirit" (Luke 4:14). He returned and came unto Nazareth, "where he was brought up".
He is now in full levitical manhood, and He takes up His levitical work. The book of the Scriptures is handed to Him, and He sets before us an example of levitical perfection in that He finds the scripture that fitted the position He occupied. He was there to
announce the gospel. It was to be announced in Him, in full levitical manhood, and He finds the place and announces that "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4:21). There is the perfection of levitical manhood in Christ. He is presented to us as a Model, and so one would seek to lead to this, that we may apprehend Christ as He is presented in the gospels, for directly one arrives at manhood one finds oneself in the gospels. The epistles set us free, so to speak, to go to the gospels. When the epistles treat of the Old Testament, they employ it generally in the way of relief, that our souls should be relieved; whereas the gospels, in the main, especially as the Lord uses them, present the Old Testament as it speaks of Christ.
How do you read the Old Testament? A young believer is likely to read it in the light of the epistles; a mature believer will read it in the light of the gospels, because it presents Christ. Do you read the Old Testament thus? It says the Lord began at Moses; that is, the Pentateuch, including Genesis; He began there and in all the prophets "he interpreted ... the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27); you have there an inexhaustible mine and storehouse for your soul.
So the Lord says to the Jews, "Ye search the scriptures, for ye think that in them ye have life eternal, and they it is which bear witness concerning me" (John 5:39). Let the Old Testament have its place with us. It testifies of the Lord. Thus, too, it is quite right to read the Old Testament in regard to the needs of one's soul. The apostle says in Timothy,
"Every scripture is ... profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). You ask, Is the first chapter of 1 Chronicles profitable, all that list of names? Yes, that is profitable; it is divinely inspired.
A brother once wrote to me referring to the New Testament as 'where only we get christian doctrine', as if the Old Testament has nothing to say to christian doctrine. We need doctrine, because the affections are set up in their proper course by doctrine. And reproof, do we not need reproof? Is it not profitable for correction? Yes, profitable for correction. And is it profitable for instruction in righteousness? Yes, profitable for that too, that the man of God may be "fully fitted" (2 Timothy 3:17), that he might be perfect, according to God.
What exercises me is the poverty of one's service when one thinks of others who have served, and it is a wholesome exercise to compare yourself in your service with others. The word is "Remember your leaders who have spoken to you the word of God; and considering the issue of their conversation, imitate their faith" (Hebrews 13:7). It is a wholesome thing to take account thus of those who have ministered to us the word of God. What humbles us helps us. The Old Testament is given us that the man of God might be furnished, fully furnished, unto every good work. That is what the Old Testament is for in regard to the building up of our souls.
Then there is the other side, "they it is which bear witness concerning me" (John 5:39). The eunuch
reads Isaiah 53. He is reading about a Man, and he says to Philip, "concerning whom does the prophet say this? of himself or of some other?" (Acts 8:34). And Philip began at that scripture and "announced the glad tidings of Jesus to him"; Jesus! The Man. He read the scripture, "he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and was as a sheep dumb before her shearers" (Isaiah 53:7). What a word for that Ethiopian! What a word, what a consolation for that man!
It says in the Psalms, "I am as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs" (Psalm 38). What a word in regard to our difficulties. And so John says, in referring to that same scripture, "These things said Esaias because he saw his glory and spoke of him" (John 12:41). Isaiah spoke of Jesus, for "the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus" (Revelation 19:10). Then let us read the prophets in the light of all that. Isaiah saw His glory. He spoke of it. He spoke of the glory of Christ.
So with Abraham, I take these two instances. The Lord says, "Abraham exulted in that he should see my day, and he saw and rejoiced" (John 8:56). He saw Messiah. I have no doubt he saw it on the day that Isaac was weaned (Genesis 21:8). He made a great feast for Isaac; Isaac was everything on that occasion, foreshadowing the time when the true Isaac shall fill this place, when all shall revere Him. These instances illustrate what the Lord had before Him.
The Lord, in speaking to the two going to Emmaus, expounds the Old Testament as testifying to Himself (Luke 24:27). The gospels alone present
the Man fully. So when the epistles have done their work in the soul, one appreciates the gospels. Thus true manhood in the believer is nourished and maintained. It says, "Brethren ... in malice be babes; but in your minds be grown men" -- in your minds (1 Corinthians 14:20). Malice is a terrible thing and it crops up; it is one of the things which is innate in the human heart. So at Corinth the apostle speaks of the old leaven of malice and wickedness. "In malice be babes; but in your minds be grown men", not merely men.
If the epistles have served their purpose in removing the grave clothes from us, where do we go? You remember how the Lord said, "Loose him". That is the service the epistles render. "Loose him and let him go" (John 11:44). If I go to Romans I get the word of righteousness. Romans is to set me free from that state. It sets my soul in exercise so that I become practically righteous all the rest of my days. Love in Romans is said to be the fulfilling of the law (chapter 13: 8). Romans teaches us "that the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit" (Romans 8:4). Hence it sets my soul in exercise as to the claims of God and what I owe to the brethren, so that I cease to be a babe, and have my senses exercised to discern between good and evil. Why is it we cannot see the simplest things at times? Because our senses are not "exercised for distinguishing both good and evil" (Hebrews 5:14). If I discern between good and evil, then I forsake the evil and cleave to the good.
Now consider fellowship. There are different fellowships in the world, but "our fellowship", the fellowship to which we are called, is the fellowship of God's Son (1 Corinthians 1:9). He is Son over God's house (Hebrews 3:6). You cannot limit the Son of God to a locality. Paul preached that Jesus is the Son of God. The Son of God is over the house of God, Son over God's house. If I am called to the fellowship of God's Son, it is general fellowship, it includes all the saints. How then can I have fellowship locally if I have not got it generally?
Well now, 1 Corinthians helps me as to fellowship. Colossians enables me to enter Canaan, hindrances being taken out of the way. The latter is very much like John 12. The Lord said of Lazarus, "Loose him and let him go" (John 11:44), and then we find him in Bethany; they make the Lord a supper there (chapter 12: 2). Nothing hinders the activity of love in Bethany now. The shadow of the grave is gone, it is no longer there, not a word about that. The position there is almost entirely in keeping with what the saints do. There is no evidence that it was not agreeable to Christ. Martha is not cumbered now, for it is a resurrection scene. The hindrances are all gone. Colossians takes everything out of the way so that the way to heaven is opened up. And now, if I am loosed, where do I go?
They were marked at Bethany by keeping with Christ. Martha served and Lazarus was one of those at the table with Christ, and Mary had the ointment. Mark you, she had "kept" it (verse 7). It was not a
matter of impulse, not something procured that day. She had kept it in view of the Lord's burial, and she anointed His feet. She knew that those feet were to carry her Lord to death; Mary had thought about it. He says, "Suffer her to have kept this for the day of my preparation for burial" (John 12:7). His burial was very precious in her mind, and the Lord felt it.
If one is released, where does one go? I apprehend that we go to the gospels, for there we find Christ in the perfect way in which the Holy Spirit presents Him for our affections. I appeal to you as to this, that God would have us to be "grown men". In Ephesians the apostle presents the ascended Man as giving gifts for the "edifying of the body of Christ" (Ephesians 4:12). I love to think of the way the apostle includes all the saints: "until we all arrive", he says.
In Colossians he says, "whom we announce ... that we may present every man perfect in Christ" (Colossians 1). Think of the scope of his ministry. See how the gifts came down from heaven in Ephesians for "the work of the ministry, with a view to the edifying of the body of Christ; until we all arrive …" Notice that it is not 'until we are brought'. It does indeed say that He "has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus". That is chapter 2: 6, but I read from chapter 4: 13, "until we all arrive", that is my movement. Ministry is the presentation of Christ to you; the next move is yours. Ministry presents perfection in Christ.
Philippians is the other side to this, "I pursue,
looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus" (chapter 3: 14). He pressed forward. Thus ministry is in order that you and I may move on "until we all arrive". Arrive at what? "The knowledge of the Son of God" (Ephesians 4:13), at the perfect man, because sonship underlies manhood, for if God is to have men for Himself, He is to have us in that relationship. We are to arrive at "the knowledge of the Son of God" by ministry, "at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ".
I do commend to you the simple thought of manhood, for the Lord is seeking to bring this about in us. The babe state exposes us to Antichrist. You will remember that John, in his first epistle, says a great deal more to the babes than to the young men or the fathers. He warns them about Antichrist, and babes in Christ are exposed to the influences of men. The Antichrist is yet to come; hence the great need of having our senses exercised. Thus I come back to my text, if one might so speak, "in malice be babes; but in your minds be grown men".
May God bless the word, and lead us into its practical reality.
Ministry by J. Taylor, Oxford, England, Volume 12, pages 192 - 199, December 1920.
Ephesians 1:3 - 11; Ephesians 4:8 - 16; Joshua 10:10 - 14
I wish to say a word, dear brethren, as to God's thoughts concerning us as they are presented to us in the epistle to the Ephesians, and as to the means by which He is giving effect to them at the present time in the saints.
The apostle, as we have often remarked, as introducing this great subject, he introduces it in a spirit of worship, saying, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ". This would show that these things are not to be regarded by us in any academic way, but as entering into the feelings of love in God which lie behind the thoughts which He has made known concerning us; and getting some little impression of the greatness of what God is pleased to do for His own satisfaction, and the wisdom by which He effects it, and the power too, that is brought into expression in effecting these thoughts, that we should be developed in a spirit of worship.
You will remember that Jacob, who is taken up as an example of God's ways with one who is the subject of His sovereignty, finishes his days as a worshipper. He "worshipped on the top of his staff" (Hebrews 11:21), as though that is an end that God is working to with us, that every one should become developed in the ability to worship, and not only to worship, but also to celebrate God's praises intelligently and feelingly.
David, too, in the last chapter of 1 Chronicles,
speaks to God and says, "thou art exalted as Head above all" (chapter 29: 11). His heart rises to God in a sense of the exaltation which attaches to the blessed God. So with others also, such as Simeon, who, coming into the temple and embracing God's Christ in his arms, "blessed God" (Luke 2:28). His movements were in the Spirit, and the Spirit of God has a large place in the epistle to the Ephesians, for the Spirit of God in His ungrieved operations is essential if we are to have any true understanding of what God has taken us up for.
But Simeon came in the Spirit into the temple and took up the child Jesus in his arms. It had been made known to him by the Spirit that he should not see death until he had seen the Lord's Christ; that is, the Christ of God, and he took up the child Jesus in his arms, and blessed God. It is a great secret in regard of our spirits being called forth in worship Godward, to have an apprehension of the Christ of God; that is, not now in relation to ourselves, but Christ apprehended in relation to God, as the One by whom and in whom God effects every thought that His love has cherished.
Well, now, the epistle to the Ephesians, I need not say, is written from the standpoint of the exaltation of Christ, as, indeed, we are told in this very epistle that God has "set him down at his right hand in the heavenlies, above every principality, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name named" (Ephesians 1:20, 21). We are in the presence, in this epistle, of the greatest conceivable exaltation,
the greatest conceivable elevation too in a moral sense, and that is to give us an idea of the kind of riches, so to speak, into which we are introduced.
The greatest thoughts of God are now to be opened up to us, and Christ is already there as Man in the position from which those thoughts are unfolded. That is a great thing to take account of. In olden times, Abraham and others saw things as God revealed them to them distantly. "Abraham", the Lord says, "exulted in that he should see my day, and he saw and rejoiced" (John 8:56). At the same time, what he saw was still in the distance, but things are no longer in the distance. Christ is already in the place which God's purpose has marked out for Him, and the Holy Spirit is here, the Earnest (Ephesians 1), and in the Earnest there is the power in the saints to enter at the present time into all that will soon be ours in glorious actuality.
Indeed, dear brethren, one frequently reminds oneself that it will only take a twinkling of an eye; that is all the time it will take to prepare us for the place, and in the bodily condition, in which these blessings are to be realised in their fulness and for eternity (1 Corinthians 15:52). It only requires a twinkling of an eye to complete the matter so far as our bodily condition is concerned, but there is that completion to go on in the meantime in our souls in a formative way, and that is what we are concerned about.
What I am seeking to stress is that the day for these things has come, in that Christ is already in the position which the purpose of God has marked out
for Him as Man, and the Spirit has come. The day for heavenly things and spiritual things has come.
That is what one wants to reach, that the day for these things is now. We are not to put them off till the future, and so the apostle says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us". The apostle can speak in that way. He is dealing with God, and with God's standpoint, so to speak, and, as I say, Christ is already in that position, and, in Jesus where He is, is the setting out of what God has in His thoughts for us. It is well for us to take that in, and so the apostle can say that God "has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ". He has chosen us, he says, "in him before the world's foundation".
It is remarkable the scope that is covered in one or two verses, going back to before the foundation of the world, eternity in the past (if one may speak of the past in relation to eternity), going back to that, and then looking on to what is called the administration of the fulness of times -- which is the day that is to come; then in chapter 3, going on to all generations of the age of ages, which is eternity in the future. The apostle, in a very short span, so to speak, so far as words are concerned, covers an immense scope as regards time or eternity. He says, God "has chosen us in him before the world's foundation, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love; having marked us out beforehand for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will".
We have often gone over these things, dear brethren, but it is well to go over them again to get our minds and spirits saturated with the sense of the blessedness of God operating entirely from His own side; not presented as actuated by any question of need on our part or desire, for indeed these matters go back to before the foundation of the world, but choosing us for His own pleasure, choosing us in Christ. One sees, dear brethren, what divine purpose is, how marvellous it is! How, from the very outset, when once the thoughts of divine love were conceived, the incarnation was in view, as, you might say, the keystone of all that God was going to effect. He chose us in Christ. The explanation of it, of course, is that all is "according to the good pleasure of his will". It is not a question of what might meet our most exaggerated thoughts or desires; it is a question entirely of what will satisfy the heart of God. You might say, why should God desire it? Well, it is a matter for us to consider, why indeed?
I was speaking of different ones who were moved in a spirit of worship. Paul, himself, is another remarkable instance. So blessedly did he know God that, in writing an epistle like Romans, he constantly bursts out in doxology. In chapter 1, he refers to God as Creator, saying of men, that they "honoured and served the creature more than him who had created it, who is blessed for ever. Amen" (verse 25). Then in chapter 9, he speaks of Christ coming in of Israel, according to flesh, and then in order to establish the truth of His Person, he says, "who is
over all, God", but then he has to add, "blessed for ever. Amen" (verse 5). That is the spirit in which Paul handles divine things. As he thinks of God and as he thinks of Christ, a spirit of worship arises in his heart, and that is what the Lord would help us in, lest we should become academic or formal in these holy things.
In Romans 11, Paul traces God's ways and, as he does so, he says, "O depth of riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable his judgments, and untraceable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor?" (verses 33, 34). And then he says, "For of him, and through him, and for him are all things: to him be glory for ever. Amen" (verse 36). That is how Paul is affected as he thinks of God. If he thinks of Christ, who He is, he is affected in the same way. If he thinks of God's ways, he is also affected in that way, and as he thinks of the mystery, he is similarly affected, according to the end of Romans 16. The spirit of worship is intended to characterise the saints as they take account of God.
Piety and Other Addresses, Richmond, N.Z., pages 223 - 227. [1 of 3] 3 February 1947.
Hebrews 11:17 - 23, 27
As far as I understand the church, it was set up here entirely in the power of the Holy Spirit; I do not think the apostles had anything much of administration before them. They have a place in administration -- they are to "sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matthew 19:28). But there is something greater than administration, and that is the church's relation to the Father; the identification with Christ of the many sons that God is bringing to glory.
The church is the seat of perfect administration as the assembly of the living God; but it is the assembly of the firstborn which are written in heaven (Hebrews 12:23), and that is morally a greater thought. If you apprehend the God of resurrection, you cannot limit God to administration, any more than you can limit God's blessing to the line of the flesh, and it is in that way that I understand that Jacob blessed both the sons of Joseph. That is what he did when this world was fading out of view; and he worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff.
There are two things that mark Joseph at the end: he made mention of the departing of the children of Israel, and gave commandment concerning his bones. Resurrection is the ground upon which God delivered His people out of Egypt; and the fact is this, except God acted on the ground of resurrection, there are questions which God would have to raise with men. But the blood was the witness of death; God's
righteousness had been vindicated, and in the Red Sea God had, as we have seen, acted on the ground of resurrection, apart from the question of sin, or the law, or flesh, to bring His people into His light.
The brightest moment of Jacob's life, if I might say so, was his death; the fathers died in faith, and Jacob's brightest moment was perhaps when he died. So with Joseph: all his greatness in Egypt was gone, everything had faded from view, and what comes before him was that his brethren were in Egypt, and he makes mention of their departing; God would come in for them, and deliver them out of the land of Egypt. And yet Egypt had been the scene of Joseph's glory; his children were born there, his links were there, but, in the hour of his dying, Egypt was gone from him.
My conviction is that if Joseph had lived in the time of Moses, Joseph would have done what Moses did, for Moses carried out that of which Joseph spoke. Joseph had light to speak about it, but the time was not yet come for action; still, it formed part of the testimony of the God of resurrection, and all of that testimony will be made good in the power of resurrection. God does not deliver Israel out of Egypt again; it was the God of resurrection who brought them out. They never understood that, but, nevertheless, He was in that light, delivering His people out of the bondage of Egypt.
Joseph had not only light in that way, but he "gave commandment concerning his bones"; he would not leave any memorial in Egypt, and yet
Egypt was the land of his greatness. After the flesh he might have looked to have a statue in Egypt, but he would not leave even his bones there. That is where Joseph shines out as a man of faith, and, as I said, had he lived in the time of Moses he would have been the instrument of God's deliverance from Egypt.
The strength and ability of Moses after the flesh could not deliver the people of God, only God could do this; faith brought in the light and the power of God, and therefore had Joseph lived in the time of Moses he would have been the deliverer of Israel. Joseph and Moses are brought together in Acts 7, both as being in the first instance rejected of the people, and yet ultimately the instruments of God to deliver them.
Joseph lived in his own day, and had to enjoy the light that God gave him; and a man can never go beyond his faith, he can act only on the light he has from God. But if Joseph had lived in our day, he would have understood that he was risen with Christ! I gather that from the fact that he would not leave a memorial in Egypt. Most of us have some kind of a name there, and I believe that until a person has entered into the mind of God for him by faith, until he sees that God's mind toward him is that he is risen with Christ, he will not be willing to give up his name in the world.
It is just as much the mind of God for us that we are risen with Christ, as that we are justified, and until it can be said of us that we are risen with Christ, I do not think we are clear of the reproach of
Egypt. Joseph did not desire a memento in Egypt; in death his name died out with him, and his bones were not to be left there; not even would he be buried out of sight there -- the break with Egypt in that sense was complete. Egypt had gone from view; Joseph would have been delighted to enter into the blessed truth of resurrection with Christ.
It was when the children of Israel reached Gilgal that the reproach of Egypt was rolled away. People are not cleared of the reproach of Egypt when they are justified. It is a blessed thing to enter into deliverance from sin and the flesh and law; but it is a greater thing to be in spirit outside of all that is national and religious, where there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, but where Christ is all and in all, where everything is pervaded and regulated by the affections of Christ. If Christ is all and in all, He is in all in the sense of divine affections, and that is the scene which God has for His people. We do not find people always prepared to give up the Jew and the Greek; they cling a good bit to distinctions after the flesh, but these things have no place in God's mind for us; it is just as much His mind for us to know our place in the christian circle as that we are justified. You would be wise to accept the thought of God about you. Joseph and Moses would have done so had they lived in our day.
Now, beloved, we accept the mind of God, and this is by faith; but then, if you enter into the mind of God, the work of God is corresponding to it. He has "quickened" you "with the Christ" (Ephesians 2:5), so
that you can be with Christ without hindrance. It is not faith that brings you into conscious association with Christ, but God's work, so that you may be qualified for the greatness of the position which God has for you.
But to be quickened with Christ means to be rejected in the world, and perhaps, too, not to have a very great place in the providence of God -- you may not be favoured in that way. His providence is a veil behind which God hides Himself. But if you are sharing Christ's rejection you will certainly get glory with Him. If you suffer with Him now, you will be associated with Him in the day of His glory; you form part of the heavenly city which has the glory of God, and in which God will Himself be in connection with the whole universe of bliss.
The men of whom we have spoken acted up to the light which God gave them. It was limited, and in a sense their faith came out when they were dying; but I think you will accept what I have said, that they would have thankfully accepted the light of God, that they were "risen with Christ", and the reproach of Egypt rolled away, where the "body of the flesh" (Colossians 2:11) is put off not only for God, but for you too.
May God give us to enter into His mind, so that we may be prepared for the refusal of any name, or renown, or repute in the world.
Ministry by F. E. Raven, Volume 13, pages 27 - 31. [2 of 2].
R. Gray
Hebrews 3:7 - 14; Numbers 21:14 - 20; Joshua 3:2 - 5; Ephesians 3:8 - 17
The exercise in reading these scriptures is, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to speak about the testimony of our Lord at the present time. Many of us, especially those of us who are older, tend to dwell somewhat on the past, and that has its own worth. There is much that has gone on in the testimony that is well worth remembering and going over. Indeed, I think it is useful to have some understanding of the history of the church, from the beginning. And, of course, we look forward to the coming of the Lord -- that should be ever in our minds, too. But what is in mind, in reading these scriptures, is to speak about the present time.
The scripture we began with in Hebrews says, "Wherefore, even as says the Holy Spirit, Today …". If we were asked about the testimony, 'What is the Lord doing today', it would be an exercise as to how we might answer; and yet it is vitally important, because if we only look back (blessed as that is) and look forward (encouraging and bright as that is) the tendency is, perhaps, to go on somewhat aimlessly, looking only on the weakness of present conditions, and feeling it too, no doubt. But, what is the Lord doing today? Well, He is still working; that is certain. There has been evidence of it among the young in these parts, and indeed in the localities of the saints.
The expression "Today" as used here refers to a period of time, but one takes the liberty of applying it to ourselves, just at the present juncture in the testimony: "Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation". That applied to Israel initially, but then it has a bearing on us too.
Now, I am not charging brethren with hardness of heart, but what I am saying is that we need to be kept alive and tender in our affections towards Christ, first of all, and then to keep His interests constantly before us at the present time, because there are many distractions around us. Some one asked me recently as to what my church was doing about conditions in Sudan; why were we not furnishing a lorry and sending out goods (I do not despise these things; they have their place)? My reply was that I do not think that the assembly of Christ, the assembly of God indeed, has as its primary function, meeting needs in the world of that kind. I am not saying we might not do so as individuals, but it is a personal matter. Paul, was enjoined to remember the poor: "which same thing also I was diligent to do" (Galatians 2 10) -- that has its place.
I say this because the enemy would seek to distract us by any means possible from the real function of the assembly, which is to be here faithful to Christ and His interests, and to minister to His heart and to minister to God. The Lord emphasized that side of things when He said, "ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always" (John 12:8). That is, He was to be their first Interest, as He should be with us.
The Spirit of God goes on (Hebrews 3:10) to speak of Israel's erring in their heart, and so on, but what I wanted to come to was the reference in verse 12 to "the living God", and the injunction of not "turning away from the living God", because, to my mind, that bears very particularly on the present time. We can speak about how God brought about recovery of the truth early in the nineteenth century, and how He has maintained the truth; but what about the living God? that is, the God who is active today in the testimony. And how are we in relation to what He is doing now?
So it says, "See, brethren, lest there be in any one of you a wicked heart of unbelief, in turning away from the living God". What is the antidote? "But encourage yourselves each day, as long as it is called Today". "Encourage yourselves each day". One of the booklets available from the Kingston Bible Trust called, simply, "DAILY", deals with this very matter, and it is a very important part of our lives. What is daily connects with the testimony. There is what is weekly too -- beginning with the Breaking of Bread on the Lord's day -- but what is daily is vitally important in our lives: reading the Scriptures, praying, etc. You say, 'Well, we have heard all this before'; but do you do it? Do I do it? Let us keep close to the Lord, keep short accounts daily, for there is nothing so weakening as when a cloud comes between our spirits and the Lord.
"Encourage yourselves each day, as long as it is called Today, that none of you be hardened". I know
this may sound as if I am pursuing a rather negative line, but I know my own heart; the routine of things, the sheer pressure of being in the world from day-today, what we have to contend with tends to harden us, unless we are kept close to Christ and kept living in our links with Him. Remember, it is the living God that we have to do with; that God of whom it is said that He neither slumbers nor sleeps (Psalm 121 4).
I think, when we come to the judgment seat of the Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10), we will not only get a review of our responsible pathway here, but we will see how much God has saved us from in order to preserve us in view of the testimony. Think of Balaam, for instance, and his attempts to curse Israel (Numbers 22 - 24). Israel knew nothing of the fact that Balaam was there on the mountain seeking time after time to bring cursing on them. Who prevented it? God did, in His gracious intervention, and He put in Balaam's mouth words of blessing. What a God He is! The living God with whom we have to do, each day.
I go on now to Numbers 21 where the connection with "Today" might not be immediately evident, but I would suggest that this section bears very much on the present phase of the testimony. Israel had had distinctive leadership in Moses and Aaron, and from them they learned God's will for them. They had come now to a time when Aaron had died (chapter 20: 28), and Moses was soon to be taken from them. If we consider our own history, for many years there was what was spoken of as a universal lead, and
with it a definite and clear line of ministry, which had the Lord's support. It seems clear that the emphasis now is on what this section speaks of, which is as we have been taught, inward leadership; that is, the leadership and the power of the Holy Spirit known at the present time.
The Spirit is addressed here therefore, typically, and it is interesting, in this poetic section from the middle of verse 14, the number of references to water: "brooks", "stream" and then the "well" to which they sang. I believe that our salvation lies at the present time in having to do with the living God; and that includes our relations with the Holy Spirit, keeping them clear and being sensitive to His promptings. You may say, 'Well, does that mean that the Lord has a lesser place?' Most emphatically not; but the scripture we will come to shortly in Joshua, shows that the ark -- a type of the Lord Himself -- became greater in Israel's view than ever before as they came to the Jordan.
I would refer briefly to the fact that, when the Lord left His own, (and I am thinking particularly of John's gospel chapters 14, 15 and 16), the way in which He spoke of the Holy Spirit -- His coming, first of all, as sent by the Father, and as sent by the Son ("I will send", chapter 15: 26), and then as coming of Himself -- should emphasise to our minds and hearts the fact that the Spirit of God would have a very great place with the saints in the present dispensation. The Lord Himself said, "He that believes on me … shall do greater than these" (John 14:12).
That is, the building upon the foundation which the Lord had laid in regard of God's great thoughts as to the assembly, was to be continued and amplified in this present dispensation. I would repeat what has often been said in recent times, (again, one speaks of one's own experience), that there is a danger of thinking that the testimony is fading away. The truth of the matter is that God is still working, the living God is working. We have not come to the present phase of the testimony by accident. We may feel the effects of God's government, and rightly so; we would not minimise that, but the fact of the matter is that God is completing what was set on at Pentecost; He is doing it in these last days, and we are to have our part in it.
I would appeal to us all, that we should be alive in our minds and hearts to the fact that we are on the brink of the very greatest things. You say, 'We have been saying this for years'; yes, that is so. But I think this scripture would bear that interpretation. Instead of wandering, as has often been said, Israel went on. They became a purposeful company. It says, "And from the wilderness they went to Mattanah; and from Mattanah to Nahaliel", and so on; step after step of deliberate movement, because they had come to a certain point in which the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, typically, was known.
When we come to Joshua chapter 3 what we find is that Israel had come to the time of going over Jordan. As remarked already, what appears here is not that the Holy Spirit typically is in prominence, but
rather that Israel saw the ark move in a distinctive way. The arrangement, as is well known, as to the movement of the camp was that the cloud moved, then certain groups of tribes, three and three set forward, then the tabernacle and then the remaining tribes. Here, it would appear that the ark took the lead. It says, "When ye see the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then remove from your place"; that is, they were to follow it. I believe, for us, that is the fruit of the work of the Spirit. We begin to see the Lord, by the eyes of faith, more clearly than we ever did; our eyes are fastened on Him. We are sensitive as to His movements and we are ready to move; and more than that, we are fit to move; these persons had had special food (Joshua 1:11) and they were fitted to move as following Christ, typically.
I would turn aside briefly to Revelation where the scripture refers to the Spirit and the bride saying, Come. We have been well taught that that would always be the language of the saints of the assembly: "the Spirit and the bride say, Come" (Revelation 22:17); but I think we have to see that it has a peculiar resonance at the present time. How could it be that the bride would speak in consonance with the Spirit, except that her relations with Him were close and vital? I believe there is something of distinctive character being wrought out in the saints. It has been said that suffering nowadays is in the spirits of the saints. But the result would be, as Paul laboured for it in Corinth, and as the Spirit of God is labouring
for it now, that the Lord Jesus might be our sole Object: "I have espoused you unto one man, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:2). Thus the Lord becomes greater in our view.
"Remove from your place, and go after it". I would say this too, in passing, that one of the many ways in which the Holy Spirit serves us is as the Power for movement. We may be dismayed sometimes by the exercises that come up, especially when we are younger, for the world is a very attractive place to the flesh in us all. What is going to help us? You say, Attraction to Christ. That is true, but the Spirit of God is the Power for change. He is the One who will help us to change, and who gives us different tastes and a different outlook on things here. As we prove the Holy Spirit's help practically, may we come eventually to what is spoken of in 2 Corinthians 3:18: "transformed … from glory to glory". That is the height of His service in one sense.
But it says here, "When ye see the ark … remove from your place, and go after it", and "there shall be a distance between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure". That was a Sabbath day's journey, but in their case, it had in view that the full reverence due to the Person of Christ, typically, was maintained, and yet they knew what it was that was going before them -- the ark of Jehovah. The work of the Spirit then would be that we would have a clearer view of Christ than ever before, and we would have a greater impression of His glory and dignity, too.
I refer now to Ephesians, which is the crown of the ministry given to Paul. In fact, it is such an elevated setting out of the truth, that sometimes we may feel it is beyond us, but Paul was not so minded. He wished the saints to enter into what Ephesians speaks of, and enjoy it. He says, "I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ"; what a Resource -- the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! One of the things which was on his heart was that he might "enlighten all with the knowledge of what is the administration of the mystery". That is not exactly the assembly, it is the administration of it; that is how things are worked out in it, and this is to be seen, in some measure, in our local companies.
This "administration of the mystery…" was "hidden throughout the ages in God". You think of that! This was something so precious and so rare that God hid it in the safest place that He could: He hid it in Himself. He did not even tell the patriarchs about it. He did not tell Abraham or Moses or David. He hid it in Himself, and He has brought it out in this dispensation. What a glory belongs to this dispensation! What favour attaches to it!
And what else? "Hidden throughout the ages in God, who has created all things, in order that now to the principalities and authorities in the heavenlies might be made known through the assembly the all-various wisdom of God". That is today. That is what the living God is going on with. And He is working that the all-various wisdom of God may be made known. Saints are passing through circumstances,
tests and exercises that, perhaps, there is really no precedent on which to act. What is it to bring out? "The all-various wisdom of God". And who does He work it out in? -- local companies made up of persons like ourselves. Would that we had a greater impression of the glory and the grandeur of what God is doing. The world to come will show what God has secured for Himself, through the exercises we have spoken of, but I believe that eternal conditions will answer fully God's desires, and ours. "God himself shall be with them, their God" (Revelation 21:3).
Londonderry, 25 September 2004.
In our Lord's reply to Martha we have one of the very finest utterances that ever fell on the human ear: "Did I not say to thee, that if thou shouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" (chapter 11: 40). What living depth, what divine power, what freshness, sweetness, and comfort in these words! They present to us the very gist and marrow, the heart's core, the essential principle of the divine life. It is only the eye of faith that can see the glory of God. Unbelief sees only difficulties, darkness, and death. Faith looks above and beyond all these, and ever basks in the blessed beams of the divine glory.
Poor Martha saw nothing but a decomposed human body, simply because she was governed by a spirit of dark and depressing unbelief. Had she been swayed by an artless faith, she would have walked to the tomb in company with Him who is "the resurrection and the life" (verse 25), assured that, instead of death and decomposition, she should see the glory of God.
Reader, this is a grand principle for the soul to get a thorough grasp of. It is utterly impossible for human language to overstate its value and importance. Faith never looks at difficulties, except indeed it be to feed on them. It looks not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are unseen (2 Corinthians 4 18). It endures as seeing Him who is invisible. It takes hold of the living God. It leans on His arm; it makes use of His strength; it draws on His exhaustless treasury; it walks in the light of His blessed countenance, and sees His glory shining forth over the darkest scenes of human life.
The inspired volume abounds in striking illustrations of the contrast between faith and unbelief. Let us glance at one or two of them. Look, for example, at Caleb and Joshua, in contrast with their unbelieving brethren in Numbers 13:28 - 33. These latter saw only the difficulties which stood in their way. "Only, the people are strong that dwell in the land" -- not stronger than Jehovah, surely -- "and the cities are walled, very great;" -- not greater than the living God -- "moreover we saw the children of Anak there". It is very clear that they did not see the glory of God; indeed they saw anything and everything
but that. They were wholly governed by a spirit of unbelief, and hence they could only bring "an evil report of the land which they had searched out" to the children of Israel, saying, "The land, which we have passed through to search it out, is a land that eateth up its inhabitants; and all the people that we have seen in it are men of great stature" -- they did not see a single small man, not one trifling difficulty; they looked at everything through the magnifying-glass of unbelief. "There have we seen the giants" (no doubt!) "-- the sons of Anak are of the giants". And nothing more? Nothing whatever. God was shut out; they could not see Him at all through the glasses they used. They could only see the terrible giants and towering walls. "And we were in our sight as grasshoppers, and so we were also in their sight".
But what of Jehovah? Alas, He was shut out! Unbelief invariably leaves God out of its calculations. It can take a very accurate account of all the difficulties, all the hindrances, all the hostile influences, but as for the living God, it sees Him not. There is a melancholy consistency in the utterances of unbelief, whether we listen to them in the wilderness of Kadesh, or, fourteen hundred years afterwards, at the tomb of Lazarus. Unbelief is always and everywhere the same; it begins, continues, and ends with the absolute and complete exclusion of the one living and true God. It can do naught save to cast dark shadows over the pathway of every one who will listen to its voice.
How different are the accents of faith! Hearken to Joshua and Caleb, as they seek to stem the rising tide of unbelief (Numbers 14:6 - 10). "And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, of them that searched out the land, rent their garments. And they spoke to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it out, is a very, very good land. If Jehovah delight in us" -- here lies the secret -- "he will bring us into this land, and give it us, a land that flows with milk and honey; only rebel not against Jehovah; and fear not the people of the land; for they shall be our food" -- faith actually feeds on the difficulties which terrify unbelief -- "Their defence is departed from them, and Jehovah is with us: fear them not".
Glorious words! It does the heart good to transcribe them. "Did I not say to thee, that if thou shouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" Thus it is always. If there is a melancholy consistency in the utterances of unbelief, there is a glorious consistency in the accents of faith, wherever we hearken to them. Caleb and Joshua saw the glory of God, and in the light of that glory, what were giants and high walls? Simply nothing. If anything, they were bread for the nourishment of faith.
Faith brings in God, and He shuts out all difficulties. What walls or giants could stand before the Almighty God? "If God be for us, who against us?" (Romans 8:31). Such is ever the artless, but powerful, reasoning of faith. It conducts all its arguments, and
reaches all its conclusions, in the blessed light of the divine presence. It sees the glory of God. It looks above and beyond the heavy clouds which at times gather upon the horizon, and finds in God its sure and never-failing Resource. Precious faith! -- the only thing in the world that really glorifies God; the only thing that makes the heart of the Christian truly bright and happy.
Let us take another illustration. Turn to 1 Kings 17:7 - 16, and contrast the widow of Zarephath with Elijah the Tishbite. What was the difference between them? Just the difference that ever exists between unbelief and faith. Listen again to the utterances of unbelief. "And she said, As Jehovah thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse; and behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die".
Here, truly, is a gloomy picture. An empty barrel, an exhausted cruse, and death! Was that all? That was all for blind unbelief. It is the old story of the giants and lofty walls over again. God is shut out, though she could say, "As Jehovah thy God liveth". In reality she had no real sense of His presence, and of His all-sufficiency to meet her need and that of her house. Her circumstances excluded God from the vision of her soul. She looked at things that were seen, not at the things which were unseen. She saw not the invisible One; she saw nothing but famine and death. As the ten unbelieving spies saw nothing but the difficulties; as Martha saw nothing but the
grave and its humiliating results; so the poor Zarephath widow saw nothing but starvation and death.
Not so the man of faith, Elijah. He looked beyond the barrel and the cruse. He had no thought of dying of hunger. He rested on the word of Jehovah. Here was his precious Resource. God had said, "I have commanded a widow woman there to maintain thee". This was quite enough for him. He knew that God could turn the very barrel itself into meal, and the cruse into oil, to sustain him, if necessary. Like Caleb and Joshua, he brought God into the scene, and found in Him the true solution of every difficulty. They saw God above and beyond the walls and the giants. They rested on His eternal word. He had promised to bring His people into the land, and hence, though there were nothing but walls and giants from Dan to Beer-sheba, He would most surely fulfil His word.
And so with Elijah the Tishbite. He saw the living and almighty God above and beyond the barrel and the cruse. He rested upon that word which is settled for ever in heaven, and which never can fail a trusting heart. This tranquillised his spirit, and with this he sought to tranquillise the widow too. "And he said to her, Fear not;" -- precious, soul-stirring, utterance of faith! -- "go, do as thou hast said … For thus saith Jehovah the God of Israel: The meal in the barrel shall not waste, neither shall the oil in the cruse fail, until the day that Jehovah sendeth rain upon the face of the earth!"
Here was the solid ground on which the man of
God rested when he ventured to offer a word of encouragement to the poor desponding widow of Zarephath. It was not in the light-heartedness, or blind recklessness of nature that he spoke to her. He did not attempt to deny that the barrel and cruse were almost empty, as the woman had said. This could have given her no comfort, inasmuch as she knew too well the facts of her case. But he brought the living God and His faithful word before her aching heart; and hence he could say, "Fear not". He sought to lead her soul to that true resting-place where he himself had found repose, namely, the word of God -- blessed, unfailing, divine resting-place for every anxious soul!
Thus it was with Caleb and Joshua. They did not attempt to deny that there were giants and high walls. That would have been of no possible use. But they brought God in, and sought to place Him between the hearts of their desponding brethren and the dreaded difficulties. This is what faith always does, and thus gives glory to God, and keeps the soul in perfect peace, let the difficulties be ever so great. It is the height of folly to deny that there are obstacles and hostile influences in the way. There is a certain style of speaking of such things which cannot possibly minister comfort or encouragement to a poor troubled heart. Faith accurately weighs the difficulties and trials, but knows that the power of God outweighs them all, and rests in holy calmness on His word, and in His perfect wisdom and everlasting love.
The reader's mind will no doubt recur to many other instances in which the Lord's people have been cast down by looking at circumstances, instead of looking at God. David, in a dark moment, could say, "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul" (1 Samuel 27:1). What a sad mistake! The mistake of unbelief. What should he have said? Denied that the hand of Saul was against him? Surely not; what comfort could that have given him, inasmuch as he knew too well that it was really so? But he should have remembered that the hand of God was with him, and that hand was stronger than ten thousand Sauls.
So with Jacob, in his day of darkness and depression. "All these things", said he, "are against me" (Genesis 42:36). What should he have added? 'But God is for me'. Faith has its 'buts' and 'ifs' as well as unbelief; but faith's buts and ifs are all bright, because they express the passage of the soul -- its rapid passage from the difficulties to God Himself. "But God, being rich in mercy" (Ephesians 2:4). And again, "If God be for us, who against us?" (Romans 8 31). Thus faith ever reasons. It begins with God, it places Him between the soul and all its surroundings, and thus imparts a peace which passeth all understanding, a peace which nothing can disturb.
But we must, ere closing this paper, return for a moment to the tomb of Lazarus. The rapid glance we have taken through the inspired volume will enable us to appreciate more fully those most precious words of our Lord to Martha, "Did I not say to thee,
that if thou shouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" (chapter 11: 40).
Men tell us that seeing is believing, but we can say that believing is seeing. Yes, reader, get hold of this grand truth. It will carry you through, and bear you above, the darkest and most trying scenes of this dark and trying world. "Have faith in God" (Mark 11:22). This is the mainspring of the divine life. "In that I now live in flesh, I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). Faith knows, and is persuaded, that there is nothing too hard, nothing too great, yea, and nothing too small, for God. It can count on Him for everything. It basks in the very sunlight of His presence, and exults in the manifestations of His goodness, His faithfulness, and His power. It ever delights to see the platform cleared of the creature, that the glory of God may shine forth in all its lustre. It turns away from all creature streams and creature props, and finds all its resources in the one living and true God.
Only see how the divine glory displays itself at the grave of Lazarus, even spite of the unbelieving suggestions of Martha's heart -- for God, blessed be His name, delights at times to rebuke our fears, as well as to answer our faith. "They took therefore the stone away. And Jesus lifted up his eyes on high and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me; but I knew that thou always hearest me; but on account of the crowd who stand around I have said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And
having said this, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And the dead came forth, bound feet and hands with graveclothes, and his face was bound round with a handkerchief. Jesus says to them, Loose him, and let him go".
Glorious scene! displaying our Jesus as the Son of God, with power, by resurrection of the dead. Gracious scene! in which the Son of God condescends to use man in rolling away the stone, and removing the grave-clothes. How good of Him to use us in any little way! May it be our joy to be ever ready! May His grace in using us produce in us a holy readiness to be used, that God in all things may be glorified!
Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, Volume 7, pages 40 - 50.
Ephesians 1:3 - 11; Ephesians 4:8 - 16; Joshua 10:10 - 14
As I was saying, we might well ask, Why should He purpose these things and why should we be the subjects of them? Long before man was created, He brought into being an order of creature infinitely greater in power and glory than man -- I refer to the angels -- and yet when we come to the epistle to Hebrews, we find, "he does not indeed take hold of angels by the hand, but he takes hold of the seed of Abraham" (Hebrews 2:16). That is God's sovereignty. Why should He do it, save that He is pleased to do it? He is pleased to magnify His grace, to exalt His
own Name in the glory of what His own grace is able to do, but, if, on the one hand, it is infinite grace that takes up such as we, there is another side to it and that is that He makes us entirely worthy of the position which His love has marked out for us.
While it is right to have low thoughts of ourselves, to be marked by humility, it is not right to have thoughts of ourselves lower than what God thinks of us. You will remember that when the unbelieving spies came back and spread a bad report of the land, they said, "we were in our sight as grasshoppers, and so we were also in their sight" (Numbers 13:33). That was not the divine view of the people at all. Balaam, a little later, had his eyes opened and said, "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen wrong in Israel; Jehovah his God is with him, and the shout of a king is in his midst" (Numbers 23:21). God's view of the saints is not at all that they are grasshoppers, and we are not to have a view of ourselves less than what God has of us.
So it says, "he has chosen us in him before the world's foundation, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love; having marked us out beforehand for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has taken us into favour in the Beloved". That is one central point that is to hold our hearts, "the Beloved". It is the light that governs the present dispensation. It says in Isaiah 60:1, "Arise, shine! for thy light is come, and the glory of Jehovah is risen upon
thee". Our light has come. It is the light of Christ in glory, and then of the assembly as of Him and united to Him, so that the first thing that is to hold our hearts is the light of "the Beloved". It is Christ in a settled position, loved of God, on account of what He is in His moral excellence in manhood and in sonship; beloved in that position. He is the antitype of both David and Solomon. It says, we have been taken "into favour in the Beloved". That is the position which we fill out in sonship, and then it adds, "in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences, according to the riches of his grace". We have that in the Beloved, and through His blood, the blood of the Beloved. How touching that is, dear brethren.
In Proverbs 8:24, Solomon writes, "When there were no depths, I" (wisdom) "was brought forth", but there came a time when depths came into evidence, and one of the greatest depths that came into evidence was when God's Beloved went down into death and judgment that we might receive forgiveness of sins. The depths have come into evidence, and God has brought in wisdom in order that we should be furnished with that which is intended to appeal to our hearts and enrich them with a sense of how blessed God is. Paul prays that God would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him.
That is the great thing, and then, not only are we taken up in sonship, but God would have us marked by intelligence. To be characterised by affection and
liberty are two great features of sonship, but also to be characterised by intelligence. A parent who has young boys regards them, of course, as his sons; they are his sons. At the same time, they do not represent, while they are boys, the full thought of sonship. The full thought of sonship involves full manhood, so that they are capable of entering in an affectionate and intelligent way into the thoughts of the father.
Having introduced this thought of sonship, we get the further thought then that God has abounded towards us in the riches of His grace in making known to us the mystery of His will. He wants us to be fully intelligent, and all this, dear brethren, is to take shape now. It is not at all the thought that it should be put off to the future. There is no object in putting off to the future our becoming intelligent as to the administration of the fulness of times, because when the fulness of times has come the administration will be seen, but what God wants us to be intelligent about is what He is doing before it actually comes to pass, and so He has made known to us the "mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself for the administration of the fulness of times; to head up all things in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth; in him, in whom we have also obtained an inheritance".
That shows the place that the assembly has with Christ. It answers to Eve as given to Adam, for Adam was set over all the works of God's hand.
There were the fowl of the heavens, the cattle, every beast of the field, the creeping things, and the fish of the sea, all were placed under Adam. He was set over them all as head. It was a prefiguring of what God has purposed for the administration of the fulness of times, that all things are to be headed up, both heavenly and earthly, in the Christ.
Now Adam being in that position, God said, "It is not good that Man should be alone; I will make him a helpmate, his like" (Genesis 2 18). There is the deep sleep and the rib taken out of the side of Adam, and the building of the woman, and the bringing her to the man. She was brought to the man in that position, and that is exactly what is before us here: "In whom", that is, in Christ, "we have also obtained an inheritance". We have an inheritance with Christ because He is to inherit all things, and we are to have part with Him in His inheritance. The point is, dear brethren, Are these things to affect us now? It is a wonderful thing that these things are ours, but how are we to be fitted to have part with Christ in that day?
Adam rejoiced when he saw someone brought to him whom he could recognise as being worthy of him, and capable of entering intelligently with him into the position in which God had placed him. He said, "This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this shall be called Woman, because this was taken out of a man" (Genesis 2:23). That is, there was, in feminine form, in the affections and grace connected with the feminine idea, that which was the exact counterpart to the man. That is what we are to
have before us, dear brethren. This is God's side of the matter.
In the fifth chapter of this epistle (Ephesians), we have Christ's side of the matter (Christ viewed in this position as the One in whom all things are to be headed up); "the Christ also loved the assembly, and has delivered himself up for it, in order that he might sanctify it, purifying it by the washing of water by the word, that he might present the assembly to himself glorious, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things; but that it might be holy and blameless" (verses 25 - 27). We only arrive at what is holy and without blemish as we are brought into correspondence with Christ, and hence that is what we come to in chapter 4, what God is working for at the present time in the assembly. We read in chapter 4 that Christ has gone up far above all heavens. "Wherefore, he says, Having ascended up on high, he has led captivity captive, and has given gifts to men. But that he ascended, what is it that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same who has also ascended up above all the heavens".
I was speaking a moment ago of the exalted position in which Christ is. He is there permanently, never to be dislodged from it. He is to be taken account of there. It says, "He … has also ascended up above all the heavens". In the first chapter He is presented as being set by God in this exalted position; in this chapter He is presented as gone there in His own right and power, "ascended up above all the
heavens". We get a wonderful view of Christ, the One whom God has supremely exalted on the one hand, and the One who has in His own Person the inherent right and power to go far above all heavens, beyond the created sphere, and hence we are in the presence of the greatest conceivable thing: a divine Person in manhood, and yet we are to be united to Him.
We are not to have part in Deity, of course, but, at the same time, to be brought near, to a most intimate and most holy place, to be united to a Man who has part in Deity. "He … has also ascended up above all the heavens". He has gone there in His own right and power, far outside the created sphere. What a glorious Christ! Then from that position, so to speak, unaffected by conditions down here -- that is, not operating from that standpoint but operating entirely from the standpoint of divine counsels -- He has given gifts, but then Paul calls attention to the fact that before He ascended He descended first into the lower parts of the earth. All that had in mind the formation of the assembly. The body of Christ is to be brought into view, and is to be brought into view as corresponding with Himself, as formed under the influence of His love expressed in death.
Adam went into a deep sleep, and the woman was formed out of what was taken out of his side in the deep sleep, and Christ has gone down into the lower parts of the earth. It means complete identification in love with the position in which we were; not, of course, that the assembly has any past history, I am not suggesting that, but then the assembly,
as the body of Christ, is to be formed in moral features, formed in features that are of God, formed in love, in righteousness, in holiness, and these things are learned in the light of the death of Christ. Those who are to compose the body of Christ are those who have had a past history, though viewed as the subjects of the work of God they have no responsible past history. So the process of formation goes on, and Christ has ascended up above all the heavens, and from that position He has given gifts.
Later in this same chapter, we read, "But ye have not thus learnt the Christ, if ye have heard him and been instructed in him according as the truth is in Jesus; namely, your having put off according to the former conversation the old man which corrupts itself according to the deceitful lusts; and being renewed in the spirit of your mind; and your having put on the new man, which according to God is created in truthful righteousness and holiness" (verses 20 - 24).
It is a question, I believe, of the way the work of God goes on. On the one hand, there is Christ personally before us: "But ye have not thus learnt the Christ", and then the entire disallowance of one order of man in order that an order of manhood created according to God in righteousness and true holiness should come into view. That truth is learned in Christ and in the light of His death: "ye have not thus learnt the Christ, if ye have heard him and been instructed in him according as the truth is in Jesus". Now the work of God is going on in the formation of the body of Christ.
We should bear in mind that what is in view is the formation of this vessel that is to be the fulness of Christ, the complete answer to all that is found in Him as a Man. There are two means which God employs, and the first is the gifts from an ascended Christ, and the second is what we ourselves do amongst ourselves as holding the truth in love. These are the two means by which God is effecting His present thoughts in the saints.
First of all, there are the gifts from Christ ascended far above all heavens: they represent the invincible power of the ascended Christ. They are used, it says, "for the perfecting of the saints; with a view to the work of the ministry, with a view to the edifying of the body of Christ; until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man". The Son of God is God's ideal. Christ in manhood is God's idea of manhood, and we are to have an apprehension of the Son of God and arrive, in the appreciation of Him, at the full measure of stature, no less measure of stature than that of the fulness of the Christ.
Piety and Other Addresses, pages 227 - 234. Richmond, N.Z., 3 February 1947. [2 of 3]
The books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah hang together. In Ezra, we get the temple built and
worship restored; in Nehemiah, the restoration of the city; Haggai opens out the secret of the hindrances to the work; in Zechariah we have truth presented by which God strengthened the hearts of the remnant.
Truth meets persons in our days in external things; it is common to see Christians opening the Scriptures and being struck with the fact of how unlike the things there presented are to what they see around them. Man would set to work to put things in order. God's remedy is to meet practical departure in oneself, to begin with self. We have "the word of the Lord",+ are we bringing our consciences to it -- not asking for increase of light, increase of power, but more honest, holy obedience to what we know, just doing that, in all our weakness, which God teaches us to be right?
I read Philippians 2:13, "it is God who works in you both the willing and the working according to his good pleasure"; if I am waiting for more power, before I work out that which it is His will I should do, I am denying that He is working in me to accomplish it by His power -- to will and to do.
We are to walk, step-by-step, as God gives the light. Some will say, 'Yes, when the door is opened, as it was for the Jews -- when power is put forth, as it was for the Jews, then we will go forth, not seeing that, when the Jews walked disobediently, God
+There was a moral appeal to conscience in the Jew -— 'you know what Moses says, and, you have departed from it' -— 'how came you Jews out of the land?'
raised up enemies from without, standing by to sanction their captivity'. The Jew could say, 'We must be in bondage until the years of the captivity be ended'.
Not so the Christian. God has set him free from all captivity, in Christ. If he get into bondage, through the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, or the pride of life, the moment God gives him light to see where he is, that moment the word to him is, "cease to do evil, learn to do well" (Isaiah 1:17). The question at the Reformation (and so now), was, 'Is the word of God to be obeyed or not? -- the Lord hath spoken, and shall not we obey?' It is for God to see in us obedience to His word, so far as we know it, and more knowledge will be given -- "whoever has, to him shall be given" (Matthew 13:12).
But, here, it is necessary for us to see that conduct may go beyond faith. If it does, it will break down. Right conduct on a wrong motive must fail. In Ezra 3, we have the Jews working for God, and that from the written word; for what Moses commanded, they observed (verse 2), and what David did, they set themselves to do (verse 10). But they failed. The adversaries of Judah came and stopped the work (chapter 4). Looking at the outward form, we should have said, 'Now here is obedience'. But God's eye saw through it all. Self-complacency was there; the corrupt heart was there. Haggai furnishes the key. The heart was unpurged. These adversaries, what were they? The remnant had escaped, had got into the land, had begun to build -- and why did they not go on? God was using the adversaries of Judah, as the occasion, to
show the cause of their failure.
Circumstances bring out the cause of failure; but occasion and cause are constantly confounded. The cause of failure was not in the adversaries of Judah, but in the hearts of the people which were set upon their own things and not upon the things of God, upon their own ceiled houses, and not upon the house of the Lord. And so, we find, through the whole of the word of God, the occasion one thing, the cause another. That which is not done to the Lord, is not done in faith.
Have we a purpose? -- Jesus had a purpose to which He ever turned. Oh! how little purpose of soul have we for God. The Jews had plenty of thoughts; but, when difficulties sprang up, they had no purpose. God, therefore, had to teach them purpose, to teach them whether it was His energy, or their own, they were walking in, to teach them to trust in Himself. Action, in the time of difficulty, is what God expects from us, as knowing and acting in the strength we have in Him -- to go forward in the purpose of God, as the channels for His energy to flow in, to show that there is strength and energy in Him, far beyond all the hindering circumstances, which may come to try our purpose.
Divine energy will never lose its purpose for God. Human energy will say, "The time is not come, the time that Jehovah's house should be built" (Haggai 1:2), and will be amusing itself with its vineyards and fields and houses, squandering the time, instead of carrying on with untiring energy, the settled
purpose of the soul, amidst all the difficulties and dangers which may threaten or oppose.
In Haggai, I find God acting; and there, I get a lesson for myself, for I have to do with God. I see the hypocrisy of man, doing a right thing, but not doing it to God, doing it from a wrong motive. Whatever is not done in faith, to God, will fail. As soon as there is confession, when the people "feared before Jehovah" (chapter 1: 12), there is the gracious answer, "I am with you, saith Jehovah" (verse 13) Thus, we have three great points brought out:-
1st. -- Are we walking in what we know, up to the light we have?
2nd. -- The course of the conduct the light brings into, will not do for the flesh to walk in, but the energy of faith alone.
3rd. -- Whatever connection the circumstances of providence may have with the things of God, they are not of power in the work of God. The providence of God may open the prison-door, lead the people out, raise up Cyrus, Zerubbabel, etc.; but, when they want power for action, we find the Spirit of prophecy opening their eyes to see their departure from God, telling them what was in their own hearts, and then telling of the grace in God's heart towards them, and the glory that awaited them. (See Ezra 5:1, 2).
By the mercy of God, the government of this country is favourable; the quietness we enjoy, the privilege of meeting together without fear of interruption or violence has been the boon (under God) of the government. This, to us, is a great
responsibility. But there is nothing of real power in service, but a "thus saith Jehovah". There is no power in the floating topics of religion, it must be the truth of God in our own souls -- knowing the truth of God, as God's truth, and then our action, action for God. Are we searching the word of God to find God there?
What is the value of seeing all the scenes pointed out in scripture -- things past, or things to come -- and not seeing God in them? There are two marks of spiritual experience in scripture. First, having studied such a portion, have you seen God as presented in those circumstances? have you met God there? If so, you have been bowed down and humbled; and, if humbled, you have got rest. Secondly, a spiritual reception of scripture will ever produce corresponding action, a going forth, a "Here am I" (Isaiah 6:8). If one say, 'I cannot understand' -- when the Spirit is teaching, He takes us to what we can understand. Power for service is learned in the presence of God, and there alone; for, in the presence of God, we get humbled and rest in His grace.
Is my study of Scripture a drawing out of God's word of what I am, and of what God is?
The Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, Volume 30, pages 18 - 21.
Exodus 12:1 - 9, 21; Matthew 26:26; 1 Timothy 6:6 - 12, 17 - 19; Proverbs 23:23
I would like to encourage each one of us to make divine things our own. Many of us have had the privilege of being brought up in a christian household, of being brought to the meetings at an early age, and of hearing about the Lord Jesus and about God, and that is a great blessing that many have not had.
We can appreciate what others have acquired of spiritual substance, and we can gain some blessing and joy from what others have to tell us, but there is no substitute for having stored up spiritual substance for yourself -- to have made it yours; no one can ever take it from you; it is yours eternally. The only one that can stop you having the joy of these things is yourself. You may get down in your soul, but you can be recovered through repentance, and in the ways of God, through grace. Impressions and thoughts of Christ that you have in your soul through having to do with the Lord Jesus, will be yours eternally, and be an anchor to your soul through the storms of life here.
How do you get spiritual substance? You need to have soul exercise and experience with the Lord Jesus; spend time communing with Him to get divine thoughts and make these things your own. God in His wondrous grace has made it available to you, but you have to lay hold of it for yourself. I would encourage you to do that. Every one here, I
trust, will have had some experience of reading a verse of Scripture or thinking over some point of the truth, and suddenly, through the help of the blessed Holy Spirit, the truth becomes living and real to you as never before. You may have heard about it, you may have understood it before in a technical way, had the light of it, but suddenly it becomes real in your soul -- it is yours! It may be a promise of God that you have proved. Take God at His word; God loves to be proved. God said to His earthly people of old, "prove me now herewith" (Malachi 3:10). He does not like us just to have the truth in our heads; He wants it to be put into practice. God promises you something because He wants you to enjoy it, and He sets it before you that you might prove it for yourself. It becomes an experience in your soul. It may be a bitter experience, or it may be a joyful experience, but you have gained something that is yours and that no one can ever take from you.
We have read of the passover lamb, which speaks to us of the Lord Jesus Christ. How available He is to every one of us. God would say to you, 'Take a Lamb'. Thank God for every one in this room who has taken the Lord Jesus as their own Saviour. That is open to every one here. God has made the blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus, available to you. Take Him for yourself! The Israelites were to take the lamb, the one that was going to be the sacrifice, as we read of here, the one that was going have its blood shed and put upon the doorposts and the lintel, the one that was to shelter the firstborn from judgment. The
blessed blood of the Lord Jesus cleanses us from all sin, the Lamb of God (1 John 1:7). Take Him; He can be yours! "Let them take themselves each a lamb".
For four days the lamb was to be kept in the house, and each one of that household, surely, would love that lamb, would appreciate its perfections, its blemish-free character, its beauty, its attractiveness. For four days that lamb was the centre of that household -- it was their lamb. So God says, in Exodus 12:5, "Your lamb", not just 'the lamb', not just 'the lamb of God's providing'. Yes, Jesus would never have been available to us had God not provided Him, but now God would say to us, He is your Lamb. Well, is He your Lamb? Have you treasured Him in your heart, treasured up the blessed perfections of the glory of that One?
Those four days have been linked to the four gospels, where you may read of the glories of the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, that are presented for your appreciation, to make your own; features of that Lamb, the One who came here for you -- not just to take as your Saviour (that is the starting point), but carry on, develop, learn, make Christ your own day-by-day, year-by-year. The Passover was going to be a yearly experience for them. The judgment was not coming every year, but the lamb was to be taken every year. In our experience it should be every day, I believe. Take Him afresh. Prove the Lord Jesus, make Him yours!
The lamb had to be slain -- there was no other way if the destroying angel was to pass over that
house. How we should grow in our appreciation of Christ and His sacrificial love. It does not just stop at the initial reception of the glad tidings when we opened our heart to the Lord Jesus; our appreciation is to go on and deepen as to the One who gave His life for us, the One who died that we might live. Oh! you say, in one sense the death of the Lord Jesus was an act between God and the blessed Lamb Himself, and so it was. Yet we are to be brought into the reality of the truth of it. One had to take that lamb, one had to sacrifice it. Each in the house would have felt it, the lamb being slain, the lamb that they had treasured, "your lamb" being slain that the firstborn might live, because of the blood of the lamb being put upon the doorposts and the lintel.
Then there is something further: the lamb that had been in the house for four days and then slain, was to be eaten. Every household in Egypt experienced death that night: either the death of the lamb or the death of the firstborn. Death is something that is to be ours too, as Paul says, "Whether ... life, or death ... all are yours" (1 Corinthians 3:22); death becomes a power for the believer. God would have us to make death ours. What does that mean? That we are to become formed in our affections through contemplating the One who bore the judgment for us and went into death. What we are by nature as sinners, God has removed, has taken away.
The Israelites were to take the lamb and they were to eat it. And we too are to feed upon Christ, contemplating what He has done for us, and to be
formed in our affections by it. Oh! let us take Christ, the One who has done everything for us, take Him as the One who has ended before God that which can never please God, the first order of man. Take Him as the One that has brought to life a new order of man that can please God, of which we are to be part as having believed on Him. So Moses says to the elders of Israel, "Seize and take yourselves lambs" (verse 21). Is Christ yours? No one can ever take Him from you; when you have that link in your soul with Christ, He is yours. May we grow in our knowledge and understanding of Him.
In Matthew 26, having partaken of the Passover, the Lord, in introducing the Supper, says in regard to the loaf, "Take, eat". Think of the Lord Jesus as setting on the Supper! What we enjoy on a Lord's day morning has come down to us from that time in the grace and faithfulness of God. Think of what the Lord Jesus took -- a body that was prepared for Him by God (Hebrews 10:5); a "bondman's form", His place "in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:7).
It is a very great privilege at the Lord's supper to be able to "take" the loaf that was given thanks for and then broken to make it available to us to partake of. The Lord would say, "Take". Maybe sometimes we do it out of routine week-by-week. May it not be so! May it be a living reality week-by-week to take it afresh. Think of the wisdom of God that has given us something that, to speak simply, we physically do take hold of. Think of the import of what you are doing -- taking and eating of that loaf which speaks
to our hearts peculiarly of the Lord's love.
Paul, in writing to Timothy, exhorts him to "Lay hold of eternal life, to which thou hast been called" (verse 12), and to "Enjoin on those rich in the present age ... that they may lay hold of what is really life" (verse 19). Have you made life yours? Have you made what is really life yours? Have you laid for yourself "a good foundation for the future"? Life is yours; it is your title as a believer in the Lord Jesus. Have you laid hold of it for yourself? Men would say, Lay hold of life here, make the most of the opportunities that are given to you, lay for yourself a foundation to really enjoy life. Ah! there is nothing here that is really life. There is nothing here that is worth your time and energy to lay hold of. What God offers you is far greater than anything that this world can offer you for life. Go in for the things that relate to the Lord Jesus; commit yourself to Him and His interests here. You may observe others who obviously enjoy life among the saints, but you will not enjoy it for yourself unless you go in for it.
Moses says to the children of Israel at the end of their wilderness pathway, "life and death have I set before you ... choose then life" (Deuteronomy 30:19). God would set life before you today. We are not just talking about life as having received the Lord Jesus as Saviour, but the enjoyment of life, life according to God. Enjoy this life, live it to the full as it relates to God. Sometimes we are so half-hearted in things (I speak for myself), we want some of this life here and some of that life, and we do not enjoy either. As
a believer, you cannot enjoy life here as men do -- nothing can really satisfy your soul apart from Christ. You will be disappointed, no matter how much of this life that you have in possessions and material things that go to make up man's life. Have they made him happy? No. Have they satisfied him? No, and they will not satisfy or make you happy either.
But there is something that will make you happy -- that is, life according to God; the power to live in the things relating to God. He wants you to live as His son. He has taken you up for blessing that you might be His son and that you might fill out your life here as a son and know Him as a blessed Father. There is no age barrier to being a son; there is no level of knowledge and understanding to be acquired in order to be a son. John writes to the little children. Why did he write to them? "Because ye have known the Father" (1 John 2:13). He has set before you life that you might have the power in the Spirit to live as a son for His joy, and to enjoy a link with those who love the Lord Jesus too.
That is life, the life that is found amongst those who love Jesus too. John says again, "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren" (1 John 3:14). We can love those who are marked by this character of life, and may we too commit ourselves to this manner of life and put our energy into it, and experience the joy, happiness and satisfaction it brings. There are so many things (and I speak simply, for myself), that perhaps we occupy ourselves with which we would have to say are not
"really life". They are bounded by death, and not worth time being spent on them. I am not talking about the things that we have to attend to in regard to our responsibility in fulfilling righteousness here. It is not a question of neglecting those things, but, having attended to them, being drawn away to something that is better, "really life". I think Paul knew it, and he was stimulating Timothy, and by him all the saints, to lay hold of something that is worthwhile and of great value. "Lay hold of what is really life". Seize it, make it yours, enjoy it for yourself.
We read in Proverbs: "Buy the truth, and sell it not". Buying involves a cost, a sacrifice. If things are to become ours in Christianity, if we are to progress and really make things our own, there is cost involved. The Lord says, "buy of me" certain things (Revelation 3:18). Are you willing to pay the price? It involves, again, a transaction with the blessed Lord Jesus, I believe; being alone with the Lord in prayer and, in the secret history of your soul, making these things our own. You do not get it just by reading about it, or by listening to others, but by being prepared to pay a price to get it. Once you have paid that price, it is yours. And do not sell it. It is yours, and it is eternal.
May each one of us be encouraged to ask the Lord Jesus that we might have these things made real to us, so that they are not just words that we speak about, or that we have heard spoken about, but they are realities that we prove, that we have
enjoyed, that we live in and that are ours, now and for eternity.
May it be so, for His Name's sake!
J. Taylor
Psalm 68:13; Revelation 4:1, 2
It is in my mind to speak about the Holy Spirit, but to confine my remarks to the Spirit as the power in the believer by which alone he can lay hold of, and enter into, his heavenly position. I have selected this verse in Psalm 68 because it speaks of doves' wings; "as wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with green gold". It refers thus emblematically to the Holy Spirit as characterising the believer. To those spoken of it is said that they should be like doves' wings. It is not that they have them, but that they should be as them: "ye shall be as wings of a dove".
The dove is emblematical of the Holy Spirit. We all remember how the Holy Spirit came down on our Lord Jesus Christ in bodily form as of a dove, and abode upon Him (Luke 3:22). When He came at Pentecost it was as cloven tongues of fire, and sat thus upon each of those assembled in the upper room at Jerusalem. The fact that He came in that way had its own voice: "And there came suddenly a sound out of heaven as of a violent impetuous blowing, and filled all the house where they were sitting. And
there appeared to them parted tongues, as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them" (Acts 2:2, 3). First of all there is the sound; and then the cloven tongues of fire; thus there should be, on the one hand, speaking, and on the other, the means of consuming what is unsuitable to God.
The result of the activity of the Holy Spirit as thus seen would be to bring about what we get in this verse; that although the saints had lain among the sheepfolds, they should be as "wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with green gold". That is the end reached; in other words, the believer is brought by the operation of the Holy Spirit in him to conformity with Christ. You should be as the wings of a dove, only covered with silver. The dove which came upon our Lord did not need that. We are not told what the wings are like or the plumage. It could add nothing to Christ in these respects, for all divine beauty was embodied in Him. The Holy Spirit came and abode upon Him; that is, there was a divine resting-place there.
In Genesis 8 we get the first reference to the dove in Scripture. It says there, "God remembered Noah" (verse 1), and as the waters of judgment abated on the earth, Noah sent out a raven (verse 7). The raven went to and fro until the waters were dried up. He brought back no tidings to Noah. Nothing accrued to Noah or to the occupants of the ark through that enterprise. Then it says, "he sent out the dove from him" (verse 8), as if to remind us of the link between Noah and the dove. One need not say as to that, that
the Holy Spirit is one in the Godhead. The Holy Spirit is referred to in Scripture at the very outset; He was hovering over the face of the waters (Genesis 1:2). He fully represented the divine thought in regard to the chaotic state which had come in. He hovered over the face of the waters, and was there when God said, "Let there be light" (verse 3). By Him God garnished the heavens (Job 26:13), and now when the raven fails to return, Noah sends out the dove from him. There was a link between him and the dove.
We are then told that "the dove found no resting-place for the sole of her foot, and returned to him into the ark"; suggestive again of a link between them. Then it says, "he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ark" (verse 9). The dove goes out again and returns with an olive leaf plucked off. This shows us that the Holy Spirit does not rest in a scene under judgment, but He takes account of the fruit He produces. It was not an olive leaf floating on the waters, but one plucked off. The product of the Holy Spirit in the believer is not regarded as detached, but in relation to its root; hence it says it was "plucked off" and brought back to Noah in the ark. What a remarkable testimony!
It is a kind of foreshadowing of the day in which we now are. The deluge is a type of baptism: "which figure also now saves you, even baptism" (1 Peter 3:21). In relation to that the Holy Spirit produces fruit for God. There is a nine-branched fruit tree in Galatians 5:22, 23, which we should ponder. The features the Holy Spirit looks for are the elements
which survive the judgment. In those who recognise the Holy Spirit and walk in the Spirit there is that blessed fruit for God, evidence of vitality; the dove brought the olive leaf back. There was the fruit of life in the midst of death.
Now the believer, as being like the wings of the dove with feathers of gold, may rise and enter into his distinctive heavenly portion. It was said that God bore Israel on eagles' wings and brought them to Himself (Exodus 19:4). Mark, it is eagles' wings, not doves' wings. When it is a question of being taken out of Egypt there is no thought of beauty or adornment, but when entrance into the divine sphere is in view the thought of adornment is introduced. If one is cold, one is not concerned as to the colour of his clothing, but the warmth that will accrue from it; if we need light we are not concerned as to the kind of light, whether it be candle, gas, or electricity, we want light; so it is in regard of power. When the Egyptian monarch was close upon the Israelites in pursuit, they were not thinking of the beauty or order of their equipment, what they needed was power -- swiftness to escape from the hostile armies close upon them. The eagle is the emblem of these features. So Jehovah says, "I have borne you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself". They are the wings of deliverance.
But when it is a question of entering into the divine sphere there is something further. Hence in Colossians we get the word 'fitness', because now it is a question of entering into Canaan. In Romans it is
exit from the world, which corresponds with Exodus; but Colossians is like the book of Joshua. Hence in Colossians we read, "giving thanks to the Father, who has made us fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light" (chapter 1:12). There is carelessness among the saints as to entrance into the presence of God. We have learnt something of the eagle's wings, but what about the dove's wings covered with silver and feathers of green gold, and entrance into the presence of God? When coming into the assembly it is not a question of eagles' wings, but of doves' wings. We are made "fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light".
In the message through Paul, the word was that they should receive an inheritance among them which are sanctified; the title to that is in the gospel, but Colossians speaks of fitness. Think of the light which shines in the circle of the saints! Were I ushered into heaven tonight what I should find would be ineffable light. Think of the magnitude of the grace of God which has made us meet for that! We know something of the full light of the sun at noon-time, but the apostle in his exuberance describes the light that shone around him as "a light above the brightness of the sun" (Acts 26:13). It brought him down to earth. Were we ushered into heaven tonight, ushered into all that light, there would be no falling down, we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, for "he has taken us into favour in the Beloved" (Ephesians 1:6).
The King's daughter is "all glorious ... within;
her clothing is of wrought gold" (Psalm 45:13). The "within" does not refer to her clothing, but to the King's palace; her clothing is in every way in keeping with the King's palace; yea, she adorns it.
It was thus with the prodigal: the servants were told to bring forth the best robe and put it on him; the robe was brought out (Luke 15:22). It is what Christ is as Man in the presence of God put on the Christian. Is there anything more magnificent than that? The robe is brought out -- the best one. There is only one best. The Holy Spirit brings out of heaven what Christ is as Man and puts it on the Christian, and he enters in that. It is wrought in the Christian; as here, "Though ye have lain among the sheepfolds, ye shall be as wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with green gold". The silver is the token of redemption; we go in on that ground:
Now the apostle John in the book of Revelation helps us as to this. In thinking over the subject my mind reverted to the epistles and traversed Romans, Colossians, Ephesians, and finally reached Revelation. The epistle to the Ephesians coupled with the book of Revelation shows the power of the Holy Spirit in the Christian as enabling him to enter into his heavenly portion. In Romans the Spirit is connected with the state of the Christian; through Him deliverance is practically effected. In Revelation the
believer is seen outside natural laws and impediments. It is well to take note of that. The epistles take account of us in this world for God. The book of Revelation contemplates a state outside natural laws; it comports in that with the feast of weeks (Deuteronomy 16), a feast not bound by time like the other feasts in Deuteronomy. The feast of tabernacles is the millennium; it is governed by time; a long era of great blessing, but limited. When we come to the feast of weeks, it is not so; no time of duration is given; it refers to what lies in the Spirit, and the Spirit is the power in us by which we rise outside of time and its limitations and reach what is eternal.
We see in Revelation 21 the holy city coming down from God out of heaven. In order to come down it had to be placed in heaven, and Ephesians and Thessalonians instruct as to this. Revelation touches on the power of the Spirit by which the believer has an exodus out of time limitations into what is eternal. Hence at the outset we read, "I became in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a great voice ... and I turned back to see the voice which spoke with me" (Revelation 1:10, 12). John sees Christ and sees Him here in the midst of the assemblies. After this things are shown him and the passage I read says, "I saw, and behold, a door opened in heaven", not now for someone to come out -- the Lord has come out. The Son of man descended and is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens. Now there is a door opened in
heaven; it is not here translation; that is not by the Holy Spirit, but by the direct act of the Lord Himself. He comes Himself, as in Thessalonians: "the Lord himself, with an assembling shout ... shall descend from heaven" (1 Thessalonians 4:16). The Lord comes down to meet us and take us up.
Here John hears a voice which said, "Come up here". That voice has resounded throughout the dispensation. If it enters our souls it makes strangers of us as in this world. If strangers, then pilgrims. The Lord calls us to our heavenly portion. John says, "Immediately I became in the Spirit". We see thus that entrance into heaven now is by the Spirit. I refer only to the principle, as of course what is spoken of in these verses was special. There is no ladder in view here as in Jacob's vision (Genesis 28:12). There a ladder was set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven, and angels of God ascended and descended on it. The ladder was for the angels to go up. The point was that Jacob here on the earth was the object of interest to heaven; that is, in picture, the millennium. The Lord says, "Thou shalt see greater things than these ... Henceforth ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man" (John 1:50, 51).
But now the Lord is in heaven and there is no ladder for us to ascend by, but John was in the Spirit. To enter on our heavenly portion we must become in the Spirit and know how to retire into what is spiritual. We can enter into divine things only by the Spirit; we must be as the wings of a dove; we reach
that by the power of the Holy Spirit. "Though ye have lain among the sheepfolds, ye shall be as wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with green gold". The Christian enters in that beauty into the presence of God. We shall have spiritual bodies also.
Thus, beloved brethren, we can understand the correspondence effected by the Spirit between Christ and the saints. "ye shall be as wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with green gold". They find their place as holy and without blame before Him in love, as those taken into favour in the Beloved.
Ministry by J. Taylor, Volume 12, pages 218 - 224. Hamilton, Ontario, 1920.
J. Mason
Most people now know the significance of the term 'decontamination' in connection with A.R.P. (Air Raid Protection) work. The gases released by the explosion of gas bombs contaminate the substances with which they come in contact, so that these substances themselves become such that they will give off dangerous vapours or cause injury by contact. Hence they need to be decontaminated so as to be rendered harmless.
The object of this paper is not to explain A.R.P. procedure, but to draw the attention of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ to certain very important principles, of which we are reminded by this subject. We are in a world where contaminating evils abound,
and, alas! we well know how easily we become contaminated, the flesh in us being what it is. It is true, also, that we may carry contamination, and so it is a matter of importance to see how we may be decontaminated, if we may apply the figure.
As having received the glad tidings, we have come into blessings which are eternal; blessings of which none can rob us because they have been secured for us by Christ; blessings, too, which are heavenly in character (Ephesians 1:3). We believers are a heavenly people (John 17:14, etc.), called out for a heavenly portion; but, while we wait for the full realization of our blessings, we are left down here to learn the moral character and attributes of God, and what is suitable to Him. We have to learn to judge sin, the flesh, and the world. For this reason the Scriptures abound with instructions for believers as to these things.
When a believer sins, his conscience witnesses to him of it, and therefore his joy and communion with God are hindered. On the other hand, there are wonderful divine activities on his behalf and for his recovery. "If any one sin, we have a patron with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1). Christ is there with the Father to take up our case, and He is always available: we have Him. Our being brought to feel sin and confess it are the outcome of His activities. The Holy Spirit, too, indwelling us, acts for us and in us down here. He is grieved where sin is, but grace brings us to repentance and confession, so that we can be free with God again, happy in
the presence of Christ, and in the enjoyment of all our blessings in the power of the Holy Spirit. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). The sin is judged and the sense of contamination gone. What a wonderful system of grace we are brought into! Yet we need to have a deeper judgment of what sin is and what the flesh is (see Romans 7). Christ had to be forsaken of God and go into death on our account, bearing the righteous judgment of God on sin and on all that we are in the flesh.
To continue in sin is most serious, for we not only dishonour Christ and lose our own joy, but we may have to face the consequences of it in the government of God. We should, therefore, get quickly adjusted; and it is blessed to know that divine Persons are active in view of recovery. The types in the Old Testament are instructive in this respect. In the book of Leviticus we see what a system of offerings was available to the children of Israel in relation to their approach to God, and what was provided for sin and trespass. It all suggests appreciation of the perfections of Christ and His one perfect offering, for it is only by Him that we can approach. He had to go the way of suffering and death on account of our sins and that the order of man who sinned might be removed judicially from before God.
Leviticus 13 and 14 give detailed instruction as to leprosy -- that dread disease, a type of sin -- lawlessness, the activity of man's will. It is not
intended to go into the details now, but what is to be noted among other things is that the leper was to be separated from the people (Leviticus 13:45, 46). He was unfit to be in the company of others, as the disease would spread. Great care was exercised by the priest as to the leper's recovery also. We must bear in mind that wherever the will of man appears, it is sin. Much of this has now developed in Christendom without being judged and put "outside the camp", so that many are defiled. How solemn it is when what is merely of man and man's mind enters into the service of God. King Uzziah (2 Chronicles 26:16 - 21), attempted to offer incense in self-will, and leprosy appeared on his forehead and he was driven out. So we are challenged as to the present conditions in which we are found. What are we going on with? Are we 'contaminated' with what is so rampant today in what professes to serve God? Are we associated with evil?
Some say that by remaining where they are they can exercise a certain influence for good; others say that they may worship God though they be side-by-side with unbelievers. But what really matters is: how does the blessed God, who is holy, regard these things? If we love Him, we shall accept His word and seek to walk humbly in the light of it.
A scripture directly bearing on these matters is Haggai 2:10 - 14. The priests were asked: "If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread ... or any food, shall it become holy? And the priests answered and said,
No". This question and answer show that holiness is not communicated to common things by associating with them.
Another question is asked: "If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, is it become unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean". The instruction is clear: uncleanness is communicated by association. So that a believer coming into contact with the dead system of this world -- even its religion -- is himself 'contaminated'. This is solemn, because what is offered to God is unclean in these circumstances (see verse 14).
And, further, it is these evil conditions which account for the barrenness and lack of food amongst many Christians now (verses 16, 17). There is so little concern in these days in which we live as to what is suitable to God. How it should strike home to every heart so that there may be a revival of affection for Christ and a desire to serve the living God according to His requirements. "Consider your ways", He says through the prophet (Haggai 1:5). Where we are exercised to provide right conditions there will be plenty (see Haggai 2:18, 19, and Malachi 3:8 - 12).
The New Testament supports this. The call now is to the people of God to come out and be separate (2 Corinthians 6:14 - 18), from the world system. Even the whole system of professing religion has been 'contaminated' by the enemy, and man's will has sway there, not the Spirit of God. Indeed, it is soon to come under the direct judgment of God, as the book of Revelation shows it under the figure of
Babylon. But we are called upon to have a judgment of it now and to purge ourselves. The voice from heaven is saying, "Come out of her, my people, that ye have not fellowship in her sins, and that ye do not receive of her plagues" (Revelation 18:4).
Then we have that word in 2 Timothy 2:19: "Let every one who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity", and, "If therefore one shall have purified himself from these" (i.e., vessels to dishonour), "he shall be a vessel to honour, sanctified, serviceable to the Master, prepared for every good work". We are then free to "pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart" (verses 21, 22), and so there can be true christian fellowship.
The Lord Jesus, ere leaving this world, expressed a desire to His own: "This do in remembrance of me". He again communicated it through Paul (see 1 Corinthians 11:23 - 25). The Lord's supper was intended to keep Himself livingly before our hearts and minds in all His great love for us, and so secure from us a response to Himself. How worthy He is! He, whose body has been given and whose blood has been poured out for us! Are we answering to this love and its request? Professing Christendom has forgotten Christ and is fast turning away, just as Israel did in Moses' absence. They said, "for this Moses ... we do not know what is become of him!" and they turned to idolatry (Exodus 32:1). Well, it becomes a challenge to every true Christian as to whether Christ has His place in his or her affections. The
Lord's supper is to the end that He may have His place in a sustained way. But it involves our being free from the iniquity and idolatry around, and being found in pure conditions suitable to Christ -- we must be 'decontaminated', so to speak. The teaching of 1 Corinthians 10 and 11 shows this. Evil must be judged in the individual and in his associations, and the Lord's rights practically owned. It is only in this way that we may have His presence and enjoy the privileges of the assembly. We must be guarded even in relation to professedly 'separate' companies of believers. Do they recognize the rights of the Lord? Do they make room for the Holy Spirit? Is the truth maintained? These are matters we have to see to in seeking to find "those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart" in an evil day.
These are urgent matters for us to attend to, for the days left to us here are few. The Lord Himself will soon have come to take us to be with Himself (1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17). We feel that moment is near and the prevailing world conditions show it, too. May we not be found going on with what is evil when He comes! May the hope of His coming burn in our hearts! The practical effect will be, as Scripture puts it: "every one that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure" (1 John 3:3).
Words of Truth, Volume 8, pages 119 - 125. Londonderry, 1940.
Ephesians 1:3 - 11; Ephesians 4:8 - 16; Joshua 10:10 - 14
I trust that I am able to convey what I have in mind. One seeks to present the great thought before the mind of God -- the body of Christ, the fulness of Christ -- and that what God is effecting now by means of the gifts is nothing less than this, and what we are to have before us is nothing less than this, "the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ", no less measure. The Son of God is God's ideal. The Christ is what He is working to, and so no less a thought than the full thought of manhood as set out in Jesus is to be before our hearts.
I need not say that there is a dual thought in God's mind, in regard to manhood as seen in Jesus: one is that Man is before Him entirely for His pleasure, capable of responding to Him in a way that affords Him satisfaction; and the other is that Man is in view as the One in whom God can be perfectly expressed. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion ..." (Genesis 1:26). Both these thoughts are to be filled out in Christ and the assembly, His body, for the assembly is the great vessel in which God is to be ministered to for His own pleasure, in affectionate and intelligent response ...
There is not only what ministry has in view, but there is also the part we are all to play in this. There is something now brought in which is not a question of gift. We are not all gifted, but we all have a part
to play in this matter of the edifying of the body. Verse 15 reads, "but, holding the truth in love, we may grow up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ: from whom the whole body, fitted together, and connected by every joint of supply ...". It is a question of the saints as set together, compacted, every joint doing its part.
How important this is in our local companies, that we should be compacted, and that every one should hold himself under the influence of Christ, and that the truth should be held in love, not abstractly, but in love, understanding that all the saints are essential for it. "God ... has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:4 - 6). All the saints are necessary. We do not want to be without them. It is a question of being fitted together, and connected by every joint of supply; each brother and sister having something to supply with a view to the increase and building up of this vessel which has one end in view, and that is the expression of Christ. That is what is contemplated here: "according to the working in its measure of each one part, works for itself the increase of the body to its self-building up in love". As the truth is held in love, and we are growing up in all things to Christ, who is the Head, and deriving from Him, there is the ability to edify ourselves. The body edifies itself in love.
In closing, I want to refer to the passage in Joshua, for I think that is illustrative of what I have been saying, and also brings in a further feature
which enters into what God is effecting. Joshua 10 is, I believe, the point of greatest power reached by the people under Joshua, and the beginning of the chapter presents to us certain kings, of whom the first was the king of Jerusalem, coming against the people to prevent them from entering into the inheritance which God had prepared for them.
Jerusalem in Scripture nearly always sets forth the truth of the assembly in actual expression among the saints, not in the abstract thought of it, which is more Zion, but in actual expression among the saints, and that was in enemy hands. A king of the Amorites was king of Jerusalem and it was a question of the people of God coming into their inheritance. They went to battle and the people themselves effected a great deal, and then, in addition to what the people effected, God effected a great deal. He cast down hailstones from heaven so that there was a complete victory gained by this two-fold means: what the people themselves did, how they slew the enemies, and then what God Himself did from heaven, casting down hailstones upon them.
It is a good thing, dear brethren, to see that these are the two lines on which God is operating now with a view to our being brought practically into His present thoughts for us. There is what is being effected in the power of gift from Christ in heaven, but we must not think that everything is going to be effected by gift. There is what we have to do ourselves, and as we set ourselves to do our part, we shall find that God is with us, and that the power
exercised by Christ in heaven will help to further what we, ourselves, are doing; but both means were used in this great victory to overthrow these kings, so that the people of God might go into the inheritance. But then there is another thing and that is the power of prayer. Joshua saw what was needed, that the day should go beyond the length of an ordinary day, and so he calls upon the sun to stand still. He says, "Sun, stand still upon Gibeon; and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon".
We must acknowledge that there is much to be done yet if the saints are to be brought into full possession of all that God has in His mind for them. With all the light that God has given us (and the Lord has been giving much light), we must acknowledge we have a long way to go yet as regards actually getting into these things in power. So that Joshua, seeing what was needed there, called upon the sun to stand still. He seeks that the full shining of Christ should continue: the sun stood still in the midst of heaven.
It is a question of appealing, so to speak, that the full shining of Christ should be brought to bear powerfully upon the saints. "Arise, shine! for thy light is come" (Isaiah 60:1). The apostle says, "Wake up, thou that sleepest, and arise up from among the dead, and the Christ shall shine upon thee" (Ephesians 5:14). It is a question of prayer that calls upon God to cause the light of Christ and all that it means to shine powerfully upon the present situation, that the saints should be brought into their inheritance.
So Paul, in the epistle to the Ephesians, doubtless feeling that it was beyond even his ability to set out at great length what the thoughts of God were, and indeed if there were any attempt to define them it would but limit them, whereas in fact, they are illimitable, just sets out enough to convey the mind of God in outline and to incite interest in it on our part, and then he prays. He tells us in chapter 1 at great length what he prays, and in chapter 3 he prays again, that the Father would strengthen us with might by His, the Father's, Spirit "in the inner man; that the Christ may dwell, through faith in your hearts" (verse 17). It is as though he is crying to the Father that He would cause the Christ to shine, and to shine unchallenged upon the hearts of the saints. That is what Paul does, he prays, he bows his knees.
There was never a day like this day in Joshua which extended about the length of two days, and that is what this present dispensation is doing. It is being extended about the length of two days. "One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8). This great dispensation is being extended because God has His choicest thoughts to effectuate in the saints. So what is needed, in addition to what we do ourselves and what Christ does from heaven, is that there may be power to pray, and power to pray in a way that will prevail: "And there was no day like that before it or after it, that Jehovah hearkened to the voice of a man". A man commanded the situation. You may rest assured that the more we pray in relation to
these great things, the more God will answer it in bringing the saints into them in power. Paul prays in chapter 3, and in chapter 6 he urges us to pray and persevere in it for all the saints (verse 18). He enlarges on the necessity for prayer. As to this great victory, it says, "there was no day like that before it or after it, that Jehovah hearkened to the voice of a man: for Jehovah fought for Israel".
That is all I had to say, to stimulate us in the recognition of the importance of this day, the great things that God has in mind for the saints that we are to be brought into. I repeat that it is not a question of waiting until the Lord comes to bring us into these things. What Ephesians has in mind is not the future but the present, the saints entering into their portion at the present time. There is ministry from the Christ in glory; there is also what each is to do as a joint of supply contributing his own part; and then, finally, there is the great power of prayer, prayer exercised by those who have power with God, for God will hearken to the voice of the man who is in the appreciation of His thoughts regarding the assembly and desires that the saints may come into them.
Piety and Other Addresses, pages 234 - 238. [3 of 3] Richmond, New Zealand, 3 February 1947.
Psalm 65:9; Ezra 8:15 - 23; Ezekiel 1:1, 26 - 28; Acts 16:9 - 13; Revelation 22:1
A touching description of a beloved servant of God, now with the Lord, was given by one who knew him well, in these words: 'He lived by the River of God, which is full of water'.
How much this was in accord with the references in the Scriptures to those who were found "by the river", prophetically indicating that they were enjoying the presence, and drawing from the resources, of the Holy Spirit of God, and were thus maintained in power, freshness, and spiritual vigour.
EZRA evidently attached great importance to this when he was about to return to Jerusalem with many of those who had been in captivity in Babylon. He "gathered them together at the river that runs to Ahava; and there we encamped three days". It was then discovered that there were "none of the sons of Levi there". As a priest, who had the interest of God at heart, he knew that, if the service of God was to be recovered, Levites were essential. So he sent messengers to "bring us ministers for the house of our God". They came, thirty-eight Levites and "two hundred and twenty Nethinim: all of them were expressed by name". The Lord knows the name of every one who is willing to consecrate his service to God!
Then at that river he proclaimed a fast "that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek of
him a right way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance ... and we fasted, and besought our God for this; and he was entreated of us".
How encouraging it is that in the face of the perilous journey of life and the desire in each heart to be a contributor to the work of God, there should be found by the river of God suitable PREPARATION FOR THE SERVICE OF GOD
and that, consequent upon prayer and fasting, the needed power for all that is before us is obtained in the Holy Spirit.
No wonder that journey which Ezra took was accomplished, despite all the perils, without harm and loss, and that the temple of God having been rebuilt, the service of God was re-established, when the spiritual movement commenced by the river!
EZEKIEL, too, knew the import and value of this. His prophecy begins with the words, "as I was among the captives by the river ... the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God". It is significant that the centre of those visions was "a man" above upon the throne (verse 26). It was prophetic of Christ in glory, but it was given to this man, who could say, "the Spirit lifted me up ... and I came to them of the captivity ... that dwelt by the river Chebar, and I sat where they sat" (chapter 3: 14, 15). A moment had come in his life when, by the leading and power of the Spirit of God, he had been brought to sit with those who were true to God, who were mourning the state of the people and their captivity, and whose heart-feeling found expression in the beautiful words of
Psalm 137:1, "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion". Each one could say that he preferred Jerusalem above his chief joy.
As there was a sovereign movement of the Holy Spirit of God in that day, even so in this day there are those who, under the leading of the Spirit of God have identified themselves with those who, though despised, have God's centre in their hearts, and God's house and its holy service as their chief interest. In language often employed today, Ezekiel 'came into fellowship' by the river, with the result that he was given
In his inspired prophecy he lays great emphasis on the action of the Spirit of God -- seven times referring to His direct operations. To be intelligent as to God's mind, it is essential that each should be prepared to bear the reproach of Christ; to sit together with those who love God and cherish His assembly; and to dwell by the river-side, continuously empowered and enlightened by the Holy Spirit of God.
Words of Truth, Volume 7 (1939), pages 106 - 108 [1 of 2].
Matthew 12:15 - 21; Genesis 18:16 - 21; Romans 16:1, 2; 1 Chronicles 4:9, 10
I have in mind, dear brethren, to say a little, as the Lord may help, about the importance of persons to God -- the importance of men and women, and boys and girls, to God Himself. Men in general take little thought, I believe, for God, yet God is thinking about them. I use the word 'men' to include the female. You will remember when Paul writes to Timothy, he exhorts that prayers should be made "for all men; for kings and all that are in dignity, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life ... for this is good and acceptable before our Saviour God, who desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:2 - 4). Men are of such great importance to God that He wants them not only to be saved but to come to the knowledge of the truth.
In Genesis 1:2, it says, "the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep". What a transformation God effected in six days, for by then the earth was producing grass, herb and fruit-trees; there were animals on the earth, fish in the seas, fowl in the heavens -- the whole scene was teeming with life! And then "Jehovah Elohim planted a garden in Eden eastward" ("Eden" means 'pleasure'), "and there put Man whom he had formed" (chapter 2: 8); there He made "every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food" (verse 9). How beautiful that garden must have been!
"And Jehovah Elohim took Man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to till it and to guard it" (verse 15); and then God made Man "a helpmate, his like" (verse 18). What care, may I say reverently, God had taken for Man's benefit! Then we read of God "walking in the garden in the cool of the day" and He "called to Man, and said to him, Where art thou?" (chapter 3: 8, 9). Think of that! The mighty God, the Creator of all things, came down to seek out His creature Man. Such was God's interest in man then, and that interest continues right until this day. Indeed, He is going to dwell with men eternally. What a God He is!
Alas! Man was hiding from God, for he and his wife had sinned. Think of the distance that sin brought in between man and God! But God had in mind the incoming of Christ four thousand years later, who would take up the whole sin question, the liability that lay upon men, to God's satisfaction. Why? That God might have men and women, and boys and girls in nearness to Himself, for His pleasure.
We read in Matthew 12 about the word through Isaiah the prophet, "Behold my servant, whom I have chosen", speaking prophetically of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Genesis 18 we read of Abraham, a man of whom God said, "I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of Jehovah". In Romans 16 we have a valued sister in Cenchrea, who was going to visit in Rome, and so there was a letter written on her behalf by Paul -- the epistle to the
Romans -- commending Phoebe to the brethren in Rome. Then we read in 1 Chronicles 4 about Jabez who asked that God would richly bless him and enlarge his border. Think of some one asking God to richly bless him!
I referred to Matthew first, where it says of the Lord Jesus that "great crowds followed him; and he healed them all", and then Jesus "charged them strictly that they should not make him publicly known". The people would have made much of Him then, but it was not the time for His receiving glory from men. That day is soon to come. The next great event will be when the Lord comes to take all those who believe on Him to be with Him -- for those of us who are alive, "we shall all be changed, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet" (1 Corinthians 15:52); those who have died in faith "shall be raised incorruptible"; and together we will be taken up to be "always with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:17). What a moment that will be!
But the time for His display to this world will be after that, when the Lord will come out of heaven with His own to reign over the earth for a thousand years. What a day that will be! Christ will have His proper place then, but in the meantime He is in rejection. So, in Matthew 12, He would not have Himself made much of, and it is the fulfilling of the word spoken through the prophet Isaiah, "Behold my servant ...". Think of the delight of God in Jesus, and what He meant to God as, "my servant"!
"Behold" -- I do not suppose we use that word
much today, but I would suggest that it means that we should 'take a good look': take a good look at the Lord Jesus as the One who was here as God's Servant, "whom I have chosen, my beloved". Oh! dear brethren, what did the Lord Jesus mean to the Father? My Servant, My Beloved "in whom my soul has found its delight". What delight the Father found in Jesus as He was here upon the earth. He did everything that was pleasing to His Father; He did not do anything apart from the will of God. He came into Manhood for that purpose.
You and I might like to exert our own wills (and oftentimes my will will be in conflict with the will of God), as to the way in which we should live and deport ourselves here. The Lord Jesus knew nothing of that. He was here only to do the will of God, no matter what man or Satan might do to Him, or might try to do to Him. You will recall that they tried to throw Him over the edge of the cliff on one occasion, "but he, passing through the midst of them, went his way" (Luke 4:30). But here, typically, the Father was speaking of the One in whom His soul had "found its delight". Would that my soul found more of its delight in Jesus! Would that that was the portion of each one of us!
"I will put my Spirit upon him, and he shall shew forth judgment to the nations". He is going to do that very shortly. Before He reigns -- and we have spoken about that -- He will come and take all believers to be with Himself, both those who are living and those who have died. Then there will be the "time of
Jacob's trouble" (Jeremiah 30:7), and then the terrible judgments that will come upon Europe and its outgoings -- whether it be in the Americas, or Australasia, continents which were largely populated initially from Europe -- and then the Lord will commence to reign for one thousand years. You can read about those awful judgments in the Revelation.
Revelation is a book that has a blessing attached to the reading of it. Even if you do not understand it, there is a blessing for you for having read it (Revelation 1:3). It is very interesting the way it opens: "Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to shew to his bondmen" -- that is, believers -- "what must shortly take place" (chapter 1: 1). Now is that not a remarkable thing, that God would, may we say, think it well to put down His thoughts in writing so that you and I might understand what He was about to do?
"He shall not strive or cry out ... until he bring forth judgment unto victory; and on his name shall the nations hope". "The nations" is another interesting thought in Scripture, because the Jews were God's favoured people. Who were the nations? The Jews were the people of God, and the nations, or the Gentiles, everybody else. Thank God, that includes us, so that we too can have our hope on the name of the Lord. "On his name shall the nations hope". This is the One of whom the Father could say, "In whom my soul has found its delight". Oh! the feelings, dear brethren, that we are allowed to appreciate of what God thought about Jesus when He was here.
Now in Genesis 18 we read of Abraham, who is
said to be "father of us all" (Romans 4:16), and he had a very remarkable history. He was called upon by God to leave his country and his family and "Go ... to the land that I will shew thee" (Genesis 12:1). We find in chapter 18 that "Jehovah appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre. And he sat at the tent-door in the heat of the day" (verse 1). Abraham hastens (verse 6) and gets Sarah to knead "three seahs of wheaten flour, and make cakes". He runs to the herd and takes a calf, tender and good, and dresses it and provides a fine meal for these heavenly Visitors, who were typical, indeed, of God. But God is going on to judgment, as we find later in the chapter that "the men rose up thence", -- that is, these heavenly Visitors -- "and looked toward Sodom".
Then Jehovah says, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?" Abraham is called the "friend of God" (2 Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8; James 2:23). Think of God having a man for His friend! I seek to speak simply, dear brethren, but I trust reverentially, in relation to the feelings of the blessed God. We have spoken of the feelings of the Father in relation to Jesus, as the One "in whom my soul has found its delight", but here we have Abraham, a man of faith, who was called out from land and kindred, and who did not know where he was going, but he took God at His word and he came out. Of that man God says, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing? Since Abraham shall indeed become a great and mighty nation; and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him".
What a man he was! How important he was in the ways of God! Abraham's children, and their children, and the succeeding generations, were going to be brought into the land of promise, as God had told him in the previous chapter. It says in relation to Abraham personally, in verse 19, "For I know him" -- God knows him, just as He knows you and me -- "I know him that he will command his children and his household after him". Think of the way in which Abraham conducted the affairs of his household -- "and they shall keep the way of Jehovah". God was finding pleasure in Abraham, a man of faith, but a man who was able to organise his affairs in such a way that God says, I know what he will do -- "he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of Jehovah, to do righteousness and justice".
What pleasure God could take in that man! So He would today, as each of us take up our responsibilities before God to do what is right and proper in His sight. It says, "they shall keep the way of Jehovah, to do righteousness and justice, in order that Jehovah may bring upon Abraham what he hath spoken of him".
Then we find that Abraham is able to intercede with God. Abraham knew that his nephew, Lot, was in Sodom, and his wife and his family, and he intercedes with God for them. Do you see the way in which he does it? He says, "There are perhaps fifty righteous within the city; wilt thou also destroy and not forgive the place for the sake of the fifty
righteous that are therein?" Then Abraham reduces the number, bringing it down to forty-five, then forty, then thirty, then twenty and, finally, to ten, and Jehovah says, "I will not destroy it for the ten's sake" (verses 22 - 32). So Lot and his family were saved out of Sodom by the intercession of Abraham. We have thought of the Lord Jesus as One who is delightful to God, and in Abraham we have a man in the ordinary affairs of life, and he is important to God too!
In Romans 16 we read about Phoebe, and I think that is all we ever read in Scripture about her. It says that she is a minister, and footnote e tells us that she was a deaconess, that is, not one who ministers to the spiritual needs of others, but to their practical needs. From time-to-time, you may know of some one who is ill and may be in need of some assistance, perhaps to go to the grocery store or the pharmacy for some items; or a person who would be very cheered by a visit to inquire after their welfare, or to read to them. As we know, there are people who are unable to leave their home. They may not see anybody for perhaps days, or weeks on end. It is a good service to go and visit those who are not so favoured as ourselves, and, I believe, the Lord is pleased with such service to His own.
The Lord Jesus says in Matthew 25, "I was ill, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came to me" (verse 36). Of course, the Pharisees reply that they never saw Him ill, nor in prison. The Lord says, "Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me" (verse 40).
What a service we can render to a fellow-believer! Phoebe was one who did whatever was needed in the place in which she lived, in Cenchrea.
Paul says, "I commend to you Phoebe, our sister ... that ye may receive her in the Lord worthily of saints, and that ye may assist her in whatever matter she has need of you; for she also has been a helper of many, and of myself". Paul could speak of the way in which Phoebe had catered for his needs, and those of many others. I believe that Phoebe was an important person in the sight of the Lord. Paul could speak well of her, and he was one who was of great importance in the service of the Lord. Indeed, when he was taken up, the Lord said, "this man is an elect vessel to me" (Acts 9:15). He was an important person to the Lord.
But Phoebe's service was not ministering to the saints in other parts, but in ministering to the needs of those in her own home town, where she was an encouragement and help to those who were there, and to those who visited; and the Lord takes note of such service to His own. Let us lay hold of this thought, dear brethren, that we are of importance in the sight of divine Persons; They take account of our activities.
Now we read in 1 Chronicles 4, "And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, Oh that thou wouldest richly bless me". I wonder if we have ever done that -- asked God to bless us. What sort of blessing would we want? Help to pass our examinations? A good job? A nice house? What would you
ask for? Jabez was not vague in what he asked for. He wanted a rich blessing, no small blessing; he wanted to be richly blessed, and he said, "and enlarge my border". What did that mean? Jabez would be responsible for what was inside his own borders, but he is asking for more, for more responsibility. Now here is a man who is of great interest to heaven.
We only have these two verses about Jabez, but they have been retained in Scripture that you and I might read them and challenge ourselves if we are moved in our affections sufficiently to ask God to bless us. Do you ever ask the Lord to give you a job, to give you some service to do for Him or for His people? Did you ever do that? I believe divine Persons love persons like Jabez, who will ask for something else to do for Them.
"Oh that thou wouldest ... enlarge my border, and that thy hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil". Not only was Jabez looking for additional responsibility, but he was also asking that he might be kept from evil. He wanted to be kept serviceable, as it were, to the Lord, not to be distracted with evil but to be here doing what was pleasing to the Lord, as it says, "that it may not grieve me!" And what does it say? "And God brought about what he had requested". What will you ask the Lord for today? Will He give you something? Prove Him for yourself!
As believers, we are of great importance to divine Persons -- whether as those who have delight in
God's Servant; or as those, like Abraham, who arrange their affairs, and can influence those about them, in a way that is pleasing to the Lord; or as those, like Phoebe, who are willing helpers of the saints; or, like Jabez, who want the Lord's blessing and to be available to Him for service.
May our desire be, dear brethren, that we may be pleasing and serviceable to the Lord in the days that remain to us, until He takes us to be with Himself! The Lord bless these thoughts to us, for His Name's sake!
1 Timothy 1:4, 5, 18 - 20
The gospel is "the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God" (verse 11). It makes God known in His glory -- His righteousness, His power, His love -- and it shows how favourable that glory is to men. Men naturally dread to think of God, but all the glories that compose His name stand engaged to bless men. The glad tidings make known God to us as revealed in grace so that we may turn to Him and be blessed. "Sound teaching" (verse 10) is according to the glad tidings; it exposes every evil, but it puts the believer in the possession and enjoyment of good.
Those who have been illuminated by the glory of the blessed God as made known in the glad tidings
constitute "the household of faith" (Galatians 6:10). In a rightly ordered household each utensil has its place, and each servant has his or her appointed service to fulfil. But no household that ever was on earth had such a perfect ordering as the household of faith, if we consider it according to the divine thought, for God's dispensation, or household order, is known there. The word translated "dispensation" refers to the management of a household. God has a dispensation, or household, at the present time, and every one who knows God is called to take up the exercise of furthering it. This is a great privilege; everything should be subservient to it. That dispensation can be summed up in two words -- faith and love.
We all believe that there will be a wonderful ordering of things in "the administration" -- same word as "dispensation" in 1 Timothy 1:4 -- "of the fulness of times" (Ephesians 1:10), when the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth will be headed up in the Christ. There will be nothing out of place then. God's pleasure which He purposed in Himself will have its perfect answer. What a "dispensation" will that be! It will be a public spectacle of beautiful order; there will not be an element of imperfection in the administration.
But there is a dispensation now just as wonderful, though not so public, and it is of the utmost importance that we should know how to further it, so that it may work out efficiently so far as we are concerned. There are many things which do not further it, but such things are vain and worthless. "Other
doctrines", "fables", "interminable genealogies", "vain discourse", "law-teachers", all miss the mark. They "bring questionings rather than further God's dispensation".
God's dispensation is in faith, but we must not think of faith as something shadowy and unreal. Faith substantiates things hoped for; it is the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). When faith begins to operate, it powerfully affects every detail of our lives. Paul, while present in the body, walked "by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7), and there is no other principle on which to walk with reference to God. What is not in faith forms no part of God's dispensation. Faith leads to taking a course which is definitely in relation to God; it is an active and operative principle.
Hebrews 11 is a wonderful chapter as showing how faith acts. All through it is, 'they did so-and-so'. It is not simply that they believed certain things, but they took a certain course. No doubt we believe many things! We hear people say sometimes that they believe every word in the Bible! But the question is, Have I ever taken a single step which was simply in relation to God? a step which I should not have taken but for the fact that I had light in my soul from God? That bit pertained to God's dispensation; it was in faith.
Moses "persevered, as seeing him who is invisible", and in the light of that "he left Egypt" (Hebrews 11:27). Faith leads one to leave the wisdom of this world, and of the rulers of this world (1 Corinthians 2:6 - 8).
They "come to nought", but God's hidden wisdom was predetermined before the ages for our glory. None of the princes of this world knew it. Faith stands in God's power, and His ordering of things is outside this world, outside man's wisdom altogether; it is in faith. God had wonderful thoughts in Christ "before the ages for our glory", and when we come into the light of them in faith we leave Egypt; we part company with the wisdom of this world. If Christians do not do so they cannot further God's dispensation.
"And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace which has been given to me, to every one that is among you, not to have high thoughts above what he should think; but to think so as to be wise, as God has dealt to each a measure of faith" (Romans 12:2, 3). God's dispensation is alluded to here, and we see that each believer has his allotted place in it. "God has dealt to each a measure of faith". In His ordering of things He has served out to each a measure of faith which determines the place and service which each one has to fill in the household of faith. We have to think soberly and wisely about this, because what is in faith has to be furthered.
None of God's called ones can say that they have not had dealt out to them a measure of faith. It is for each one to find out what that measure is, and we find it out by thinking soberly about it. I must not
have high thoughts above what I should think, for I cannot have such thoughts with God, nor shall I have Him with me in seeking to carry them out. But, on the other hand, I must not allow my thoughts to come short of the "measure of faith" which God has dealt to me.
I believe most of us are more in danger of stopping short of our divine measure than we are of going beyond it. If a man takes the place of being able to do all that is needed amongst the brethren -- like a clergyman or minister -- he certainly has "high thoughts above what he should think". But amongst those who see the evil of this there is probably more need of the whip for the horse than of the bridle for the ass (Proverbs 26:3). We need inciting to come up to our measure as much as we need warning not to soar above it. Archippus was exhorted to take heed to the ministry which he had received in the Lord, to the end that he fulfilled it (Colossians 4:17).
Each member of the body has an office to fill, and God has dealt faith to each for the function which is appointed to each in His dispensation. It is thus that we find our place as one body in Christ, and each one members one of the other (Romans 12:5), and we find that we are essential to each other, and that we can go on together for mutual help. Your faith is essential to my prosperity, and mine to yours. I would say to the youngest believer, The brethren need your contribution of faith. Think of the great "apostle of nations" (Romans 11:13) looking forward to seeing the saints at Rome, "to have
mutual comfort among you, each by the faith which is in the other, both yours and mine" (Romans 1:12).
God would have each of us to realise that we are indispensable to the body. The brethren need the contribution of my God-given "measure of faith". Let us get away from human thoughts as to ourselves, and seek the furtherance of what is in faith. We can only serve and comfort our brethren according to our "measure of faith". Every service rendered should be because God has given us faith to render it. A brother takes part in a meeting because he has faith to do so; and, indeed, this principle of faith touches every detail of practical life -- even eating and drinking. It is in that connection that it is written, "whatever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23). What cannot be done in faith forms no part of God's dispensation.
The Christian's privilege is to connect everything with God, and to bring God into everything. The knowledge of God has come to us in the glad tidings, and we now bring it to bear on all the detail of life. God would have us to connect the commonest things in life with Himself. What a privilege to know that we may hold everything in relation to God -- even the most trivial things! As we maintain faith, it gives a colour to our lives in every practical detail that nothing else could, and God's dispensation is furthered.
At the end of 1 Timothy 1 we see that maintaining faith involves conflict; it necessitates "the good warfare" (verse 18). Satan will do his utmost to hinder
the furtherance of God's dispensation. In regard to Timothy there had been prophecies which had definitely marked out his service. His faith would revert to them as encouragement in the conflict. In principle there have been prophecies as to us, for the line of God's ordering for us has been marked out beforehand in the holy Scriptures, and we are never to lose sight of it. We could not have faith for anything which was not in accord with the Scriptures. But we serve in personal faith, according to our measure, whether it be to prophesy, to serve, to teach, to exhort, to give, to lead, or to show mercy. (See Romans 12:4 - 8). Each of us has faith to do something; then let us see that we do it with diligence. It will mean a warfare, but it is through conflict that the saint becomes an overcomer.
Maintaining faith would include all divine light that has come to us, and a condition of soul that would hold it all in relation to God, so that it does not become mere orthodoxy.
Then a good conscience is of the greatest importance. God's dispensation has not to do with His eternal purpose, but with His ordering of things amongst His saints as found here in responsibility. If I do not maintain a good conscience, the precious truth of God is invalidated so far as I am concerned. Conscience applies the knowledge of good and evil to responsibility. If I recognise a thing to be good, I cannot maintain a good conscience if I do not pursue it. If I recognise it to be evil, I cannot maintain a good conscience if I do not abstain from it. One of
the most valuable counsels that I know lies in the words, 'Never go before your faith nor lag behind your conscience'. I would press on myself, and on others, not to trifle with conscience. The secret of the unhappiness of many believers is that they are not maintaining a good conscience. One who does not is neither going on with God nor with himself.
The maintenance of a good conscience has an important place in the furtherance of God's dispensation. Never do anything that do you not feel quite happy about. Conscience is one of the most valuable things down here, but it will not be needed in heaven. If we put away a good conscience there is great danger that we may make shipwreck of faith. There is no positive power in conscience, but it is an important check, like the anchor that holds a ship on a lee shore. If the anchor fails, the ship goes on to the rocks. One who puts away a good conscience may become a blasphemer like Hymenaeus and Alexander.
A boy went to buy a chemical balance, and he was told that he must handle it very carefully, as a minute's rough handling might destroy its sensitive accuracy. The conscience is like a sensitive balance; it can be thrown out of adjustment. There is perhaps nothing more needed amongst the people of God generally than sensitiveness of conscience. Of course, conscience can never in itself be the standard; the most accurate balance is not a standard, it needs correct weights; but, if used with correct weights, it can be relied on if not put out of order.
We are preserved from a morbid or perverted conscience by having our consciences purged and perfected by the value of Christ's offering, and by the knowledge of grace and truth as come by Jesus Christ.
In God's dispensation the great end in view is love. He would have holy affections developed in His saints: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision has any force, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love" (Galatians 5:6). What is in faith, and by the Spirit, will work out in the service of love. "The end of what is enjoined is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and unfeigned faith" (1 Timothy 1:5). Love is the product of these three things. Any attempt to get love in activity without these things as its root will not have a divine result.
All the impurity came into man's heart through God not being given His due place. Men failed to glorify God or to be thankful; they "honoured and served the creature more than him who had created it, who is blessed for ever" (Romans 1:25). Every kind of vile lust comes into man's heart if he gives up God. Every kind of idolatry is impure, but, in being brought back to God as the Source of all good, man's heart is purified. The gospel is the great purifier because it brings God to us as the beneficent Giver.
Read Peter's sermon in Acts 10 and see how he presents God. The light which Peter presented was used by God to purify the hearts of the gentile company in the house of Cornelius. "And the heart --
knowing God bore them witness, giving them the Holy Spirit as to us also, and put no difference between us and them, having purified their hearts by faith" (Acts 15:8, 9). The gift of the Spirit is thus God's witness to a purified heart. Peter gave great prominence in his preaching to the movements and actings of God. His hearers received the light of God into their affections, and thus their hearts were purified. From a heart thus purified, holy love can flow out in active service.
In knowing God and having the Spirit there is grace and power to maintain a good conscience. We must be true to the light we have; there must be no trifling with things which are known to be wrong.
A third thing is unfeigned faith. This had been found in Timothy's grandmother and his mother, and it was in Timothy himself (2 Timothy 1:5). It is very necessary to have unfeigned faith in the midst of a mass of unreal profession. Hypocrisy is a terrible leaven. Nothing but what is unfeigned will do for God, and it is more than ever essential in face of many pretenders to faith, and all the unreal conditions of the last days.
Where there is a pure heart, a good conscience, and unfeigned faith the end of all that God has enjoined can be reached. Love can flow freely, and the dispensation, or household ordering, of God reaches its end. His saints are set up in the knowledge of God; they maintain moral conditions that are suitable to God; and the divine nature is found in activity in His household.
What an atmosphere where the good of all is cherished by each! Each is there to serve -- to help -- as finding liberty and joy in so doing. All God's ordering is to this end. In His dispensation everything is in faith, and faith works by love. A young man who was desiring to identify himself with the people of God was told by a brother, 'I can promise you one thing; you will find love in activity amongst them'. The young man said afterwards, 'I have found his words to be true'. That is the way that God's dispensation works out when saints are set to further it. It brings about in the household of faith the freedom of holy and spiritual affections. May He give us grace to further it!
The Believer's Friend, Volume 18 (1926), pages 197 - 208.
Genesis 45:1 - 15; John 16:7 - 15
Taking up this scripture may have the appearance of going back, since last time we had before us the close of Joseph's career. But it struck me that there was a point which it was of some moment to see. I do not look upon Joseph as being at all times typical of Christ. I doubt if here he is typical. I use the history of Joseph only in the way of an analogy, and you do get striking analogies in Scripture. The analogy in Joseph is to what Christ is doing at the present moment, to the position and action of Christ; and that is a very important point.
The first time we were together the point before
us was the beginning of Joseph's history. He had the testimony of God. We do not see him at the beginning as the man of faith, but as having a testimony from God. That testimony was to his own exaltation; his brethren and his father and mother were all to bow down to him. Now, before anybody is exalted according to God, testimony must be borne to it; we see this principle in the case of the Lord. He bore testimony to His exaltation when He rode into Jerusalem on an ass; He claimed what was His in the way of testimony. The church, too, is here in witness to its own place in association with Christ -- its moral exaltation. It is in that way that I understand the epistle to the Ephesians; the church stands to its place of union with Christ, and that testimony precedes the actual exaltation. You first get moral exaltation, for that is the great thing with God.
Now Joseph reached, in due course, the glory of which he had testified; he may have been the greatest man of his time; he was in a peculiar position, second to none but Pharaoh; he had everything at his disposal; the administration of Egypt was committed to him, and his brethren had to come down and bow themselves to him. They did not at first know him, but eventually he makes himself known to them, and he sends by them to his father the tidings of his glory in Egypt. That is now my point. Then his father was to come to him in Egypt, for that was the object of Joseph sending; and if Jacob had not come down to Joseph in Egypt, he would have come to want (verse 11). Joseph was urgent in the matter; he lays
stress upon his glory in the land of Egypt, and desires his father Jacob to come down with all his household into Egypt. Now, as I said, I am not taking this up as typical, but only by way of analogy.
Joseph is, no doubt, in a great deal of his history, figurative of Christ; he is spoken of in that way in Acts 7. We see him there as the deliverer of his brethren, though first rejected of them; he is, like Moses, a figure of the Deliverer of God's people. But I do not see in what is before us that Joseph was quite a figure of Christ, though you get certain points which illustrate the position and activity of Christ at the present moment.
In John 16 Christ speaks of going to the greatest place -- the place of supreme honour and glory; and He would send down here a testimony to His glory; when He goes His way to Him that sent Him, He sends down the Holy Spirit. The Lord says to them, "It is profitable for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I go I will send him to you" (John 16:7). He speaks of the coming of the Comforter, and of what the Comforter will do: "he receives of mine and shall announce it to you" (verse 15) -- He was to bear witness to the disciples of the glory of Christ, so that their hearts might be attracted to Him. They were to reach Him in that sense; if they did not act on the testimony that came to them, the effect would be that they would come to spiritual poverty. So in regard to the present day: if Christians do not act on the testimony that has come down to them, they come to
spiritual poverty. Probably the bulk of Christians in the present day are suffering from spiritual poverty. They hardly fulfil the functions of priests, to which God has called them.
I see in the epistle to the Romans the idea of a good Christian in the wilderness, and in a sense you cannot go beyond that; but I do not see much about the priest there. You have the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit (chapter 5: 5), but, after all, the fringe of God's purpose is hardly touched. We have to go to other scriptures to find all that the Holy Spirit has come down to testify of the glory of Christ.
All this is much like Joseph in the land of Egypt, hidden from his brethren, in a position of great honour and glory. And what led Joseph to send word of his glory to his father was that he had strong affection for his father. I think he had affection too for his brethren, badly as they had treated him; but he had been the favourite son of his father, and loved his father. I do not think Joseph sent to his father simply to preserve his life from famine and death, but he had pleasure in the thought of the company of the one he loved; and that is the difference between love and philanthropy. A philanthropist does not necessarily care for the company of those he ministers to; a millionaire may give much to benefit man, but the evidence of love is that it delights in the company of those upon whom it showers favour.
So, though one object with Joseph was that his father and his household might escape famine, yet
one can see a deeper motive -- the promptings of real affection. And if we love one another, what we desire is the company of one another. Do you think that I could believe that a person really loved me, if he did not desire my company? If I have real affection for Christians I shall desire their company.
Now I leave Joseph and come to John 16. The Lord was going to the Father, and that was the greatest possible place. The Lord Himself had said, "my Father is greater than I" (John 14:28); He came forth from the Father, and He was now going back to the Father (chapter 16: 28).
The ground on which He was going to His Father was that the Father's will had been completely accomplished; everything that stood in the way of divine counsels had been removed. Jesus said, "My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work" (John 4:34), and now He goes back to the Father. It is brought out prominently in the gospel of John that "All things that the Father has are mine" (chapter 16: 15). This came out first by His own testimony, and then in the testimony of the Holy Spirit: "The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand" (chapter 3: 35). Everything is centred in the Son, so the Lord says, "He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall announce it to you" (chapter 16: 14).
I will endeavour to make it plain to you that the Holy Spirit was sent down here in testimony to what was Christ's. If you read John 16 you can see that
verses 8 to 11 are, in a sense, parenthetical; the direct line of the Lord's communications goes on from verse 7 to verse 12. The Spirit, when He came, would convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment; that is to say, incidental to His presence here. In view of the rejection of Christ, everything was brought to an issue; sin and righteousness had come into conflict, and the result was judgment -- the "ruler of this world is judged". The whole world-system is judged in the presence of the Holy Spirit; it is not a question of judging persons, but the system is laid bare and judged. Sin and righteousness never came perfectly to an issue until Christ was here, but now all is judged for God and for the Christian who has the light of the Holy Spirit.
But the point was that the Holy Spirit, when He came, was to bring into view another system -- a system of things that lay in the Father's counsels. There is nothing more important for us to apprehend than that God is sovereign in what He creates; it was so in regard to the first creation. If God sees fit to create millions of suns, He does so according to the sovereignty of His will. And if He sees fit to display His love, He is sovereign in the display of His love. God has His own plans and purposes, but the Object in all -- the One who was to be displayed in them -- was the Son. "All things that the Father has are mine" -- all that system of things that lies in the Father's counsel is centred in the Son; it is the glory of the Son. The glory of the Son is this, that having become man to give effect to divine counsels, He
becomes the Head and Centre of those counsels. He has power to give "life eternal" (chapter 17: 2) as the Father had given to Him; the Father's counsels all have the Son for their Object and Centre.
Ministry by F. E. Raven, Volume 13, pages 32 - 36. [1 of 2].
The opening paragraph of John 12 brings before us a scene of deepest interest, and full of most precious instruction. We feel we cannot do better than quote at full length the lovely record, for the spiritual benefit of the reader. There is nothing, after all, like the veritable language of holy Scripture.
"Jesus therefore, six days before the passover, came to Bethany, where was the dead man Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from among the dead. There therefore they made him a supper, and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those at table with him. Mary therefore, having taken a pound of ointment of pure nard of great price, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment".
Here we have illustrated, in the most striking and forcible manner, the three grand features which ought to characterise every Christian and every christian assembly, namely,
All three go to make up the christian character, and all three should be exhibited in every christian assembly. We consider it a very great moral mistake to set any one of these features in opposition to the others, inasmuch as each, in its proper place, is lovely; and, we may add, each should find its place in all. We should all of us know what it is to sit at table with our blessed Lord, in sweet communion. This will most assuredly lead to profound homage and adoration; and we may rest assured that, where there is the communion and the worship, there will not be lacking the loving activities of true service.
The reader will observe that, in the above beautiful scene, there is no record of any collision between Martha and Mary. Each had her place to fill. There was room for both. "Jesus loved Martha and her sister" (John 11:5). In verse 1, we read of "Lazarus of Bethany, of the village of Mary and Martha her sister". Here, in John 12, Martha is put first. Looked at from a divine standpoint, there is no need why anyone should in the smallest degree collide with another. And further, we may add, there is no necessity whatever for comparing the sphere of one with that of another. If Christ be our one absorbing Object, there will be lovely harmony in action, though our line of things may vary.
Thus it was at Bethany. Lazarus was at the table, Mary at the Master's feet, and Martha was about the
house. All was in beautiful order, because Christ was the Object of each. Lazarus would have been entirely out of his place had he set about preparing the supper; and if Martha had sat at the table, there would have been no supper prepared. But both were in their right places, and we may rest assured that both would rejoice in the odour of Mary's ointment as she poured it on the feet of their ever-loving and beloved Lord.
Is not all this conveyed to us in that one sentence, "There therefore they made him a supper"? It was not one more than another. All had part in the precious privilege of making a supper for the one peerless Object of their heart's affections; and, having Him in their midst, each fell naturally, simply, and effectively, into his and her proper place. Provided the beloved Master's heart was refreshed, it mattered not who did this, or who did that. Christ was the Centre and each moved round Him.
Thus it should be always in the assembly of Christians, and thus it would be, if odious self were judged and set aside, and each heart simply occupied with Christ Himself. But, alas! here is just where we so sadly fail. We are occupied with ourselves, and our little doings, and sayings, and thinkings. We attach importance to work, not in proportion to its bearing upon the glory of Christ, but its bearing upon our own reputation.
If Christ were our one Object -- as He surely will be throughout eternity, and ought to be now -- we should not care the least who did the work, or who
rendered the service, provided His name was glorified, and His heart refreshed. Hearken to the utterance of a truly devoted heart in reference to the very subject before us. "Do all things without murmurings and reasonings, that ye may be harmless and simple, irreproachable children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation; among whom ye appear as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life, so as to be a boast for me in Christ's day, that I have not run in vain nor laboured in vain. But if also I am poured out as a libation on the sacrifice and ministration of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice in common with you all. In like manner do ye also rejoice, and rejoice with me" (Philippians 2:14 - 18).
This is uncommonly fine. The blessed apostle presents in this exquisite passage a true sample of self-forgetting devotedness. He expresses Himself as ready to be poured out as a drink-offering upon the sacrifice and service of his beloved Philippians, utterly regardless of himself. It mattered not to him who contributed the component parts of the sacrifice, provided only that the sacrifice was presented as a sweet odour to Christ.
There was none of that contemptible littleness and self-occupation about that beloved servant of Christ which so often, alas! appear in us, and prevent our appreciation of another's service. We are all alive when any little service of our own happens to be under consideration or discussion. We listen with intense interest to any one speaking or writing about our usefulness, or the result of our preachings orMANHOOD
THE GLORY OF DIVINE GRACE
JOSEPH AS A MAN OF FAITH
THE TESTIMONY IN THE PRESENT TIME
BETHANY (VI)
THE GLORY OF DIVINE GRACE
THE WORK OF THE HOUSE OF GOD AND THE WORKMEN THEREIN
MAKING THINGS OUR OWN
THE WINGS OF A DOVE
'Higher and higher yet,
In Thee, through blood made nigh;
We taste the love that knows no let,
And "Abba, Father!" cry' (Hymn 427). MORAL DECONTAMINATION
THE GLORY OF DIVINE GRACE
BY THE RIVER OF GOD
THE IMPORTANCE OF PERSONS TO GOD
GOD'S DISPENSATION AS KNOWN IN THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH
JOSEPH'S WORD OF HIS GLORY IN EGYPT
BETHANY (VII)