Selected Ministry - Volume 1

The epistle to the Hebrews strikingly illustrates one quality of the Book of God. It may be read in various lights; yet no one ray interferes with another. In six or seven ways this epistle could be read with the greatest ease. I will specially look now at the first two chapters. It opens the heavens to you as they now are.

How blessed is the introduction of such a thing to the heart! You look up and see the physical heavens above you; but it is only the superficial heavens you see. This epistle introduces the inner heavens to you, and not in a physical, but in a moral character. It introduces us to the glories surrounding and attaching to the Lord Jesus, now accepted in the heavens. We are thus enabled to see the heavens in which He has sat down, what He is about there, and what will succeed those heavens. When the Lord Jesus was here, we learn in Matthew 3, the heavens opened to get a sight of Him. There was an object here then worthy of the attention of the heavens. He returned - and the heavens had an object they had never known before - a glorified Man. And now it is the office of our epistle to show us the heavens as the place of this glorified Man. And as in Matthew 3 we get the heavens opened to look down at Christ here, so in the Hebrews you get the heavens opened that you may look up at Christ there.

But supposing you ask, Is that all the history of the heavens? Have you gone to the end? Indeed I have not. In chapters 4 and 5 of the Revelation, we get the heavens preparing for the judgment of the earth. Then at the close of the volume, I find the heavens not only the residence of the glorified Man, but of the glorified church. What a book it is that can present to us such secrets as these! It is a divine library. You take down one volume from your shelf, and read about the heavens; in another volume you read of man in ruins; take down a third and you read of God in grace; and so on, in precious, wondrous variety.

Now we will set ourselves down before chapters 1 and 2. "When he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high". That is just taking up the pledge I gave - that the epistle is going to open to us the heavens. The Lord has been here purging our sins, and He has gone up to occupy the heavens as the Purger of our sins. Supposing I had been to a distant country, I might describe it to you so as to fill you with delight, and with desire to visit it. But when the Holy Spirit comes and shows you the distant heavens, He does more than this - He shows you that your interests are consulted there. Our Representative is seated in the highest place, and seated there in that very character. Is it possible to have a more intimate link with the place? It is a wonder we are not all on the wing to get there as soon as we can! To think that because He came to die a wretched death for us, He is seated there! I defy you to have a richer interest in the heavens than God has given you.

Now in verse 4, we see that not only as the Purger of our sins, but in the verity of His Manhood He is there,

seated above the angelic hosts. We have seen already what an interest we have in Him as the Purger of our sins. Now the chapter introduces Him to us as the Son of man above angels. Man has been preferred to angels. Man in the person of Christ has been seated above angels, though it be in Michael or in Gabriel. The whole of chapter 1 is thus occupied in giving you two sights of Christ in heaven. What two secrets they are! The Purger of our sins, and very Man, like ourselves, seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

I read the first four verses of chapter 2 as a parenthesis. Do not you like these parentheses? The Holy Spirit speaks for our understanding. We see friends when conversing together, turning a little aside to converse about one another; so the apostle speaks here - 'I am teaching you wonderful things. Do take heed that you let not such things fall on a careless ear'. We must not be mere scholars. If we are disciples of a living Master in the school of God, we shall have our consciences exercised while we are pursuing our lesson. That is what the apostle is doing here. That parenthesis falls on the ear most sweetly and acceptably.

But though a parenthesis, it opens a new glory to us. How the field of Scripture teems with fruit! It is not a thing you have to till diligently and get but little fruit. That parenthesis contains another glory of Christ. (Surely we ought not to need exhortation!) He is seated there as an Apostle - my Apostle. What does that mean? He is a preacher to me. God spake in times past by the prophets, He is speaking to us now by the Son; and Christ in the heavens is the Apostle of christianity. And what is His

subject? Salvation. That salvation which, as the Purger of our sins, He wrought out for us; and which, as the Apostle of our profession, He makes known to us. There is more furnishing of the heavens for you.

Then verse 5 returns to the theme of chapter 1. It goes on with the distinctive glories of Christ, as super-eminent, above angels. "For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come". What is "the world to come"? It is the millennial age, which we read of in Psalm 8. We have three conditions of the Son of man here. "Thou madest him a little lower than the angels;" "thou crownedst him with glory and honour;" "and didst set him over the works of thy hands". So that the world to come is not put in subjection to angels, but to the Son of man. Now you find that you have an interest in this glorified Man. I was saying that if I went to a distant land and described to you its scenic wonders, you would desire a sight of them. But this epistle shows you that you have a personal interest in these glories. Is there a single point that the Son of man has travelled in which you have not an interest? The apostle traces it here for you. So that again I say this epistle is opening the distant heavens to your view, and showing you the glories that attach to Christ, and that you have an immediate, personal interest in those glories.

In verse 10 a new thought comes in, "to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings". Only pause here for a moment. It became the glory of God to give you a perfect Saviour. Do you believe it? What thoughts rise in the soul when we come to that! Are you in possession of Him, so that you never in a single thought are tempted to look beyond Him? We have got an

unquestionable, infallible salvation, one that will stand the shock of every coming day.

From verse 11, we further see our interest in the glorified Man. "Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren". Not ashamed! Tell it out that earth and heaven may hear! This glorified Man has brethren - the elect of God. He is "not ashamed", because of their dignity. Not merely because of His grace, but because of their personal dignity. He has appointed me a share of His own throne. Is He ashamed of His own doings - of His own adoptings? Do not get creeping, cold thoughts as you read Scripture. Our thoughts of Christ should be such as to take captive our old man - to bear us on eagles' wings. "In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee". Christ raising and leading the song of the ransomed ones, and not ashamed to be found in their company! "And again, I will put my trust in him". He did that when He was here, and we do it now. "And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me". There is our interest in the glorified Man.

Then we return to see what He was in humiliation. "He took not on ... angels; but he took on ... the seed of Abraham". He left the angels where He found them. The angels excelled in strength. They kept their first estate, and He left them there. Man excelled in wickedness, and He came and linked Himself with man. Then verse 17 introduces us to another glory that attaches to Christ in the heavens. We see Him there as our High Priest, ever waiting with propitiation for sins, and succour for sorrows. The epistle teems with divine glories. It is massive in

glory, and ponderous in the divine thoughts that press into its short space.

Chapters 3 and 4

We were observing that one leading characteristic of this epistle is that it gives us a look into heaven as it now is - not as it was in Genesis 1, and not as it will be in Revelation 4 or Revelation 21. The heaven of Genesis 1 had no glorified Man in it, no Apostle, no High Priest. The heaven of Hebrews has all these. That being the general character of the epistle, we looked at the Lord Jesus as in that heaven. Then we were observing how the Lord is there as a glorified Man - as the Purger of our sins - as our Apostle preaching salvation, and as the High Priest making reconciliation for sins. Every page is fruitful in casting up the glories of the Lord Jesus, now in heaven.

Now we will take up chapters 3 and 4. Having been introduced to the heavens, where Christ is, and to the Christ that is in those heavens, chapters 3 and 4 turn a little round on themselves, and look a little sharply at us and tell us to take care now that we are travelling along the road in company with Him. The first thought is that we are to consider Him in His faithfulness. The exhortation here is commonly misunderstood. For what are we to consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession? Is it to imitate Him? The religious mind says so. But that is not the point of the passage at all. I am to consider Him as faithful, for my sake, to God; faithful so that I might be saved eternally. If I do not consider Him so, I have more than blunted the point of the passage, and lost the sense of

grace. The word should be not "was faithful", but 'is faithful', or 'being faithful'. Not in walking down here, but now in heaven. I look up and see Him discharging these offices, faithful to Him that appointed Him. What business have I to imitate Him in His high priesthood? I am to consider Him for my comfort.

What a constellation of grace there is in all that! The grace of God that appointed Him, the grace of the Son that discharges the work, and the grace that opens chapter 3, is infinite in magnificence. Could there be more sublime exhortation, or more divine doctrine? We get the Son, in the highest heavens, there seated as the Purger of our sins, the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, and could any exhortation be more divine than that which tells me to sit still, and look at Him in His faithfulness up there?

Then in verses 3 and 4 and onward, we get further glories unfolded in contrast with Moses. The first dispensation is here called a house. It was a servant, to serve a coming Christ - Moses and the house are identical. All the activities of that dispensation were worth nothing if they did not bear testimony to a coming Christ: therefore it was a servant. When the Lord comes, on the other hand, He comes as a Son, to claim that which is His own as His own; and the whole thing now depends on this - will the house, over which He is set, be faithful to Him?

What is your faithfulness? To continue in confidence and hold the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. 'Christ for me, Christ for me!' I will take nothing but this all-sufficient Christ. Cling to Him day by day, till the wilderness journey is over. Then you are part and parcel of that house over which He presides as a Son. He not only

presides over it, but He claims it as His own - a dearer thought. It is quite right to be subject to Him, but He tells you to lie near His heart. Faithfulness is not merely being subject to the headship of Christ. If I am lying on His bosom, then I am faithful. So that when the Spirit comes to exhort, in chapters 3 and 4, He has not left the high and wondrous ground of chapters 1 and 2.

Then, having come to that point, He turns aside to Psalm 95. If you begin to read at Psalm 92 and read to the close of Psalm 101, you will find it a beautiful little millennial volume. It is exhortings and awakenings of the Spirit of faith in Israel, summoning them to look forward to the rest of God.

How is that brought in here? The wilderness journey of Israel is a beautiful, lively picture of the journey the believer is now taking from the cross to the glory. People sometimes, at the opening of chapter 4, turn it on themselves. But rest to the conscience is not the thing that is thought of at all. It assures us that we are out of Egypt and looking towards Canaan. The danger is, not lest the blood should not be on the lintel, but lest we should break down by the way, as thousands did in the wilderness. It never calls you to re-investigate the question of having found rest in the blood, but to take care how you travel along the road. When He speaks of rest, it is the rest of the kingdom He talks of, not the rest of the conscience. Then He calls the whole age through which we are passing one day - "To day". It was a short day to the dying thief, a short day to the martyred Stephen. A longer day to Paul, and a longer day still to John; but let the wilderness journey be short or long, it is one day, and you are to hold

by Christ to the very end. If you are to be partakers of Christ, you must hold fast to the end.

Now, what is the Christ of verse 14? A Christ crucified? No, Christ glorified. You are made partakers of Christ in the kingdom if you hold fast by Christ crucified. Let this "to day" ring in the heart and conscience every hour. Holding to a crucified Christ is my title to the rest of a glorified Christ. Two things contest this with you - sin and unbelief. Do you not recognise these two enemies as you pass along? Shall I continue in sin? Am I to give place to one wrong thought? I may be overtaken, but am I to treat them other than as enemies? Then unbelief is an action of the soul towards God. You and I do not know what saintly character is - what it is to be between Egypt and Canaan - if we are not aware that those two things stand out to withstand our passage every day.

Chapter 4 still pursues the subject. The Christ of chapter 3: 14 is the rest of chapter 4; Christ glorified - rest glorious. He has us out of Egypt. The exhortation attaches to a people out of Egypt. We have left the blood-sprinkled lintel behind. The glorious Canaan is before us. Take heed lest you come short of it. "Unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them". The gospel, not of the blood of Christ, but of the glory of Christ. It took one form in the ear of the Israelites and it takes another form to us; but to them, as to us, rest was preached.

Then He beautifully falls back on the Sabbath rest of the Creator. The blessed Creator provided Himself a rest after creation. He promised Himself a rest in Canaan, after bringing them through the wilderness. Adam disturbed His creation-rest. Israel disturbed His Canaan-rest. Is He,

therefore, disappointed in His rest? No; He has found it in Christ. The secret of the whole Book of God is, God retreating into Christ, when man in every way had disappointed Him. Christ is the One who has worked out that rest, and who holds it now, and it remains with Him both for God and for His saints. "Therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein". It is no longer a fallible thing, depending on Adam, or on Israel, therefore let us take care that we do not come short of it.

Now we get two ways in which to use Christ. We had two enemies in the end of chapter 3, now we have two uses of Christ in the end of chapter 4. We are to use Him as the Word of God, and as the High Priest of our profession. Is that the way I am using Him? These two uses stand opposed to sin and unbelief. Let the Word of God discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. Instead of giving place to your lusts and vanities, invite the entrance of the two-edged sword, that makes no allowance for a single bit of sin. And when you have dragged out the enemy - found some favourite lust lying in this corner, and some unsuspected vanity in that, what are you to do with them? Take them to Christ, and let His high priesthood dispose of them, in the mercy and grace that are in it.

There we pause for the present. We have seen the heavens opened, and looked in, and found there a Man arrayed in glories, every one of which I have an interest in. Then comes the exhortation. Two enemies beset you - take care. Instead of yielding to them, make use of the two-edged sword; and when you have found them out, take them to Jesus. There is a beautiful suitability between the Christ that is exhibited up above, in chapters 1 and 2,

and you and me as we are exhibited here below, in all the characteristics of chapters 3 and 4.

Chapters 5 and 6

We will read now to verse 10 of chapter 5; and from there until the close of chapter 6. We may observe that the apostle turns aside to a parenthetic warning. He is full of that style; and our style with one another is full of it. Such little breaks and interruptions in a discourse are always grateful to us.

In the first ten verses of chapter 5 a most weighty matter is introduced to our thoughts. In the first verse we get a general abstract thought of priesthood. It is that thing which serves men in their relationships to God. Then the character of service is presented to us - "That he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins;" that is, that He may both offer what is pleasing to God, and effect expiation for us before God. He stands to conduct our interest with God in whatever form. He is "taken from among men" that He can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way. He is not taken from among angels, therefore we read in Timothy, "the man Christ Jesus". God, in ordaining a Priest for us, has chosen One who can have compassion. We find at the close of chapter 7 that the Lord Jesus was separate from infirmity. But the priest here was one who by reason of infirmity could sympathise. The Lord Jesus had to learn how to sympathise, as well as to learn obedience by the things which He suffered.

Under the Old Testament scriptures, two persons are distinctly set in the office of the priesthood - Aaron in

Leviticus 8 and Leviticus 9, and Phinehas in Numbers 25. The difference between them was this: Aaron was simply called into the priesthood; Phinehas acquired a title to it. When we come to the Lord Jesus, we find that both these, Aaron and Phinehas, are seen in Him. He was called of God, as was Aaron. Aaron was a mere called priest. The priesthood of Numbers 25 stands in contrast with Aaron's. Phinehas was not called, as was Aaron, but he acquired his title. How did he do this? He made an atonement for Israel in the day of their great breach, touching the daughters of Baal-Peor, and enabled the Lord to look with satisfaction again at His erring camp. Phinehas stood forward to avenge the quarrel of righteousness and to make atonement for the sin of the people. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Phinehas ... hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel ... Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace ... the covenant of an everlasting priesthood" (Numbers 25:10 - 13). Nothing can be finer than this. You could not have a more magnificent light in which to read the Christ of God, than in that act of Phinehas. Aaron was never in this way entitled to a covenant of peace. So you have these two Old Testament lights in which to read the priesthood of the Lord Jesus. He was the true Aaron and the true Phinehas. Melchisedec was the third (Hebrews 7).

Both these are brought out here. The blessed Lord Jesus was called into office, as was Aaron; but He was in office because He made an atonement. This earth was like the outside place of the temple, where the brazen altar was. The Lord Jesus is now seated in the sanctuary of the heavens, which God has pitched, and not man, because He

has passed by the brazen altar on earth. He has passed it by, and has satisfied it. Nothing can be simpler, and yet nothing can be more mysteriously grand. How did God bear witness to the satisfaction of the brazen altar? By rending the veil. Then it is an easy thing to pass in. If God has rent the veil, am I to let it be rent for nothing? If it be now rent I have as much right to go inside as the Israelites of old were bound to keep outside. By satisfying the altar He has passed by the rent veil into the sanctuary in the heavens. All that is brought out here. He glorified not Himself to be made a High Priest.

Why is it a matter of honour to be made a high priest? You will tell me that nothing can dignify the Son of God; and I grant it. But let me ask you, Do not men know what it is to have acquired honour, as well as hereditary honours? The son of a nobleman goes to battle, and may he not acquire honours as well as his hereditary family dignities? And tell me, which will he value the most? Those which he has acquired. He himself is more honoured by them. His hereditary dignities are his, and no thanks to him; but his acquired honours are more specially his own.

Divine things are illustrated by human things. Who can add anything to Him who is God over all, blessed for ever? But the Son has been in the battle and acquired honours that would never have been His, if He had not taken up the cause of sinners; and dear and precious honours they are to Him! That word "called" is very sweet in the original. God 'saluted', 'greeted' Him, when He seated Him in the sanctuary, as He greeted Him when He seated Him on the throne, "Sit thou at my right

hand" (Psalm 110:1). The epistle to the Hebrews shows, in the opened heavens, a throne as well as a sanctuary.

In verses 7 - 9 we find some very weighty truths connected with ourselves. "Who in the days of his flesh" (let us mark that with holy reverence), "when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death". The scene of that conflict was eminently marked in Gethsemane. What was the transaction there? He properly shrank from undergoing the judgment of God against sin. "And was heard for his piety". He was heard because death, the wages of sin, had no claim on Him. His claim to deliverance was allowed. Instead of the judgment of God being sent to wither His flesh, an angel was sent to strengthen Him.

Yet He suffered death. He might have claimed His own personal exemption from it, yet He went through it. He learned obedience to His commission by travelling from Gethsemane to Calvary, and He now presents Himself to the eye of every sinner on earth as the Author of eternal salvation.

We see the Lord in Gethsemane pleading, as I may express it, His title against death. His title is owned; yet, though death has no claim on Him personally, He says, "Thy will be done". He might have gone from Gethsemane to heaven; but He went the rather from Gethsemane to Calvary. So, being made perfect there, He became the Author of eternal salvation to all who receive Him. Then, when the altar was satisfied, the sanctuary received Him, and there He is.

In creation God set a man in the garden in innocence; in redemption God has set a Man in heaven, in glory. There is a glory that excelleth. The glory in redemption leaves the glory that was once in creation as a nothing.

Now we have got down to verse 10. Observe that the language of verse 10 is taken up in verse 20 of chapter 6, and the argument there has not advanced beyond this verse 10. Supposing, then, I were to take you to chapters 1 - 3 of 1 Corinthians, you would find the apostle there hindered in his teaching. 'You are carnal; I cannot teach you the rich treasures I have stored up for the church'. It is so here; only there the evil that hindered was moral; here it is doctrinal.

It was very difficult for the Hebrew to detach himself from the things in which he had been educated. He was "unskilful in the word of righteousness". The legal mind is apt to take up righteousness as Moses did, as a thing demanded from us. God takes it up as a thing that He will give us. And in the next chapter, finding this hindrance among them, he sounds an alarm, as in the opening of chapter 2 he sounded an exhortation. A carnal mind and a legal mind are two great villains. They are both little foxes that spoil the vintage of God.

Now, says the apostle, you must leave these things. I must put you down to another volume, and that volume is perfection. "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened ..". That is, 'It is not within my reach to do it'. We must leave it to God whether they be brought back or not. It is just between themselves and God. It is a terrible thing, having known Christ, to go back to ordinances; but I have no warrant to say that it will not be forgiven in the

person of many who have thus been ensnared but have come back.

Chapter 7

To look carefully at the Melchisedec priesthood of Christ is important to our souls. Therefore, for the present, we will lay aside the parenthesis at the close of chapter 6, and read part of chapter 5 and the whole of chapter 7. We are looking at the priesthood of the Lord Jesus, as reflected in Aaron and Phinehas. Aaron, we saw, was simply called into his office; Phinehas earned his office. We will now look at the Melchisedec phase of the same priesthood.

Supposing I said to you that this world is a scene of forfeited life - you would understand me. Life is but suspended death. To return to life is to return to God. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Sin worked the forfeiture of life; consequently, if I can make a return to life, I make a return to God. In two characters God visits this world - as a Quickener, and as a Judge. John 5 tells us that we are all interested in one or other of these visits. Now it is the office of this epistle to let every poor believer in Jesus know that he has returned to life, and that his business now is with the living God and with God the Quickener. "The living God", is an expression that occurs often in this epistle. "Departing from the living God", "To serve the living God", "The city of the living God". The living God thus occupies the field of my vision, both now and in glory. I am now not to depart from Him, which intimates that I have got back to Him. I have escaped from

the region of death and got back to the region of life; and by-and-by in glory I shall find "the city of the living God".

The question is, How have I got back to Him? The epistle beautifully unfolds that. It is a magnificent moral subject to trace the Lord Jesus in His ministry through the four gospels, and see Him, from the beginning to the close of His history, displaying Himself as the Son of the living God in this world. To mark Him at Gethsemane - to mark Him giving up His Spirit - then as the Son of the living God rising from the tomb, and bestowing the Holy Spirit. We see the Son of the living God in a scene pregnant with death. It is the office of this epistle to the Hebrews, very specially, to present Christ as the Son of the living God. The apostle is full of the death, and the cross of Christ. It would not be the epistle to the Hebrews, if it did not take up Christ in His vicarious character.

But though we see the Lamb on the altar, we see the vacant sepulchre too. We have remarked before that the Lord Himself always attaches to the story of His death, the story of His resurrection. "The Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death ... and the third day he shall rise again" (Matthew 20:18, 19). We have the same thing here, only in a doctrinal and not an historical way. The cross is often named, but always in company with the ascension. Take the opening of the epistle "When he had by himself purged our sins". How did He purge them? By death. Death looks at you at the very opening of this epistle; but at once you read, "Sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high". Again we read, "That he by the grace of God should taste death for every man". Does the

story end there? No; He is "crowned with glory and honour". What is done historically in the gospels, is taken up doctrinally in the Hebrews.

The Holy Spirit is considering the living God in the Person of Jesus, as Jesus was exhibiting the living God in His own Person. So again chapter 2, "That through death" - death looks again at you, but what follows - "he might destroy him that had the power of death". Have I not again the empty sepulchre, as well as the altar and the Lamb? I go in this epistle to find an empty grave; but not as Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary. I expect to find it empty. Their mistake, dear women, was that they expected to find it full. I go expecting to find it empty, and I do find it so. When I see the Lamb on the altar, and the empty sepulchre, I have got hold of victorious, infallible life. That is the rock-life of which the Lord spoke to Peter.

In chapter 5 we find that in Gethsemane He transacted the question of His title, and was heard for His piety. He had a moral title to life. Then He surrendered that moral title, and took His vicarious place. From Gethsemane, He walked on to Calvary. Gethsemane was a wonderful moment. There the great question of life and death was settled between God and Christ; and instead of taking the journey He was entitled to up there, He went along the dreary road our sins put Him on down here. There is exceeding blessed interest about all that.

At Calvary, again, we find Him in death; but the moment He gave up His spirit everything felt the power of the Conqueror. He had gone down into the darkest regions of death, but the moment He touched them every one felt the power of the Conqueror. The earth quaked, the rocks

were rent, the graves were opened, and the bodies of the saints arose after His arising.

If we look in John 20, we see not merely the vacant tomb, but the tomb containing the tokens of victory - the linen clothes lying, and the napkin, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. We shall never be able to read the mystery of the Christ of God, if we do not remember Him as the Son of the living God in the midst of death, getting victories worthy of Himself. We see in His death the rending of the veil. In the grave, we see the napkin wrapped together in a place by itself, to tell the story of conquest. We see Him then with His disciples, and He is exactly the Son of the living God of Genesis 1. We find God there breathing life into the nostrils of man - the Head and Fountain of life. In John 20, the Lord shines under our eye, as the Head and Fountain of infallible, unforfeitable life, breathing into the disciples and saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost".

In this epistle we find Him in that character, as entitled to life and as holding it for us. That is His Melchisedec priesthood. He is not merely the Son of the living God. He would have been that if He had gone to heaven from Gethsemane; but He went to heaven after Calvary, and is now there as the Son of the living God for us; and God is satisfied - to be sure He is satisfied. How could He be otherwise? Sin has been put away and the blessed God breathes the element of life. It is, so to speak (with worshipping hearts may it be spoken), His native element, and He is satisfied. And God has expressed His satisfaction. But how? When Christ rose, in the face of the world that said, "We will not have this man to reign over

us" (Luke 19:14), God said, "Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool" (Psalm 110:1). That was His satisfaction in a rejected Christ.

When Christ ascended to the heavens in another character, as having made atonement, He put Him in the highest heavens, with an oath, and built a sanctuary for Him - "the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man". Is it possible for Him to show us in more interesting form that He is satisfied with what Christ has done for us? Are the services of such a High Priest enough for me? They must be so. I am in connection with life, and every question is settled between me and God. He is King of Righteousness and King of Peace, and He dispenses all you want, in the royal authoritative virtue of His own name.

The moment you get the living God expanded in this epistle, you find that everything He touches He communicates life for eternity to it. His throne is for ever and ever - chapter 1 tells you that. His house is for ever and ever - chapter 3 tells you that. His salvation is eternal - chapter 5 tells you that. His priesthood is unchangeable - chapter 7 tells you that. His covenant is everlasting - chapter 9 tells you that. His kingdom cannot be moved - chapter 12 tells you that. There is nothing He touches, that He does not impart what is eternal to it. To entitle the epistle to the Hebrews in a word, we might say it is 'the loaded altar and the empty sepulchre'. Christ has put Himself in possession of life, not to keep it to Himself. The living Jesus in the highest heavens says, 'Now that I have life, I shall share it with you'. Oh, the depth of the riches!

Chapter 8

We meditated as far as chapter 6: 7, and there we left it, taking up chapter 7. Now we will read the close of chapters 6 and 8. But before we pursue the doctrine of the epistle, we will look a little at what we called the hortatory parenthesis in chapter 6. At chapter 5: 10 we left the doctrine, and from that to the close of chapter 6 is a parenthesis. The apostle having turned aside to exhort them, we were observing that the thing he feared in the Hebrews was not moral, as in the Corinthians, but doctrinal depravity. And do we not see such moral varieties around us now? One has a Corinthian bias, another has a Galatian bias. The thing he feared in the Hebrews was a giving up of Christ as the Object of their confidence.

What is the blessing that God is giving our hearts now? (verse 7). It is not law but grace. Moses was on the principle of law - the Lord Jesus was on the principle of grace; and free, happy, grateful hearts are those who receive it. How is your soul before God? Do you apprehend Him in judgment or in grace? Is the communion of your soul with God in the liberty of grace, or in the fear of a coming day of judgment? If the last, it is not yielding fruits meet for Him by whom it is blessed. Thorns and briars are the product of nature. They are the natural product of a corrupt scene, whether it be the earth I tread, or the heart I carry within me. Supposing I am acting in a legal, self-righteous mind - dealing with God as a Judge - is not that natural? But these are all thorns and briars. But if I walk in the filial confidence of one who has trusted in

the salvation of God, that is the earth yielding fruits meet for Him by whom it is blessed.

Now what is the ground of the apostle's persuasion of "better things" touching them, in verse 9? Not confidence in the simplicity of their apprehension of grace, but that the fruits of righteousness were seen among them - beautiful things that accompany, but never constitute, salvation. Therefore the apostle, seeing this beautiful fruitfulness, says, 'Though I am sounding an alarm I do not attach it to you'. Having got on that ground, he pursues it to the close of the chapter, and does not return to what is doctrinal till he reaches chapter 7. He prays them to continue to minister to the saints. Does your knowledge of Christ lead you to two things - secret communion of soul with Him, and practical energy of christian walk and faithfulness? 'Now', says he, 'do you go on with the beautiful, practical work you have begun. Do not be slothful, but followers of them who by faith and patience inherit the promises'.

Then he brings out Abraham, as one who did not slacken his hand to the end. Abraham not only had the promise in Genesis 15, but went on in patience, till it was confirmed by an oath in Genesis 22. We are called not only to faith, but to the patience of faith. May you not have a consolation, and yet not a strong consolation? We see it in Abraham. He had a consolation in Genesis 15, and a strong consolation in Genesis 22. A saint once said to me, 'In that last sickness, the Lord brought me so near Himself, that I felt as if I had never believed before'.

The apostle would have us like Abraham in Genesis 22, that "we might have a strong consolation, who have

fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us". This passage is commonly misquoted. It is not a sinner running to the blood for refuge, but a saint running to the hope of glory from the wreck of every prospect here. This is enough to try us. Do you and I sit on the wreck of everything here? Are we promising ourselves hopes for tomorrow? Abraham was a man who fled from every prospect here, to lay hold upon the hope of glory. The apostle says, "Lay hold upon the hope", not on the cross. The word of God has an intensity that commonly escapes us. Now he returns to the Levitical figures. Does your hope enter within the veil? Have you not a hope about tomorrow? What is the thing the expectation of your heart hangs about? Is it the hope of the return of Christ, or the promises tomorrow?

"Whither the forerunner is for us entered". The Lord Jesus is here brought out in a new character. We see Him in heaven, not only for us as our High Priest, but to secure a place for us with Himself. Oh! if we could unfold the glories of the present dispensation! It is full of glories. Jesus is now in heaven, in the glory of a Forerunner - a High Priest - the Purger of our sins. There He sits, arrayed in glories. He will put on other glories in the millennial heavens. He will also be King of kings and Lord of lords, on the millennial earth. He is not that now; but there are glories in which He is displayed to the eye of faith. Do you go and meditate, broken-heartedly, on the glories of "these last days", as they are called in this epistle?

But we pass on to chapter 8. "We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; A minister of the sanctuary, and of

the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man". What exquisite words! What glories filled the heavens in the days of creation? The sun, and moon, and stars were set there. His fingers garnished them. And pray, have not they garnished the present heavens? If there were glories set in the superficial heavens by the fingers of God, there are glories set in the interior heavens by the grace of God. One of these glories is a tabernacle which the Lord has pitched there. Christ came down from the glory, to glorify God on the earth. Was there anything too brilliant in the way of glory in which to array such an One?

What intercourse we get here between God and His Christ - between the Father and the Son! And among the glories that awaited Him, there was a temple pitched by the Lord Himself. The sun comes out of his chamber to run his course. The Creator built a habitation for the sun in the heavens (Psalm 19). God, in redemption, has built a habitation for the High Priest; and He is seated there in the highest place of honour. Christ could not be a priest here. The place was divinely occupied. It has been foolishly said, He could not go into the holiest. Surely He could not, for He came of the tribe of Judah. Did He come to break God's ordinances, or to fulfil all righteousness? What business had He in the holiest? A priest of the tribe of Levi, if he found Him there, would have been entitled to cast Him out. He was entitled to everything, but He came as a subject, self-emptied Servant. Did He intrude on the two poor disciples at Emmaus? Much less would He intrude in God's house.

Here we pause a little. In this epistle we find one thing. From the beginning to the end, the Spirit is taking

up one thing after another, and laying it aside, to make room for Christ, and when He has made room for Christ and brought Christ in, He fixes Him before us for ever. And we must all submit to it. Has not God laid you aside, and brought in Christ in your stead? Faith bows to this. It is what He has done in every believing soul.

So in chapter 1 He lays aside angels. "To which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?" Oh! how faith consents to it! Oh! how angels consent to it! Next we see Moses laid aside. "Moses verily was faithful ... as a servant ... But Christ as a Son over his own house". We can part with Moses, because we have Christ - as the poor eunuch could part with Philip because he had Jesus. Then in chapter 4, comes out Joshua. But he is laid aside also. "If Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day". Christ is set before me as the true Joshua, who really gives me rest. Then Aaron is set aside to let in the priesthood of Christ; but when I have it before me, I have it for ever. He is the Administrator of a better covenant. The old covenant is done away, because the Lord has nothing to say to it. And at the close we read the beautiful utterance, which might be the text of the epistle, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever". He, being brought in, is the same for ever. What a magnificent thought it is to think of God bringing in the blessed Jesus to the displacing of everything! That is perfection, because God rests in Him. This is exactly the Sabbath of old, when God rested in creation. Now God rests in Christ, and that is perfection; and if you and I

understand where we are, we are breathing the atmosphere of perfection - an accomplished work - a Sabbath.

There is nothing more fruitful in glorious luminaries than the epistle to the Hebrews. It is an epistle of untold glories, and of inestimable value to the conscience of the awakened sinner. It is the title of my soul to breathe the atmosphere of heaven itself; and if I do not do so, shall I put a cloud on my title because my experience is so poor?

Now at the close of chapter 8, we see another thing set aside - the first covenant. The covenant that Christ ministers never waxes old. Your sins I will forgive, your iniquities I will pardon. There is no wrinkle on its face, no grey hairs upon its brow. The Lord touches everything and fixes it before God for ever; and God rests in it. He perfects everything He touches. While everything gives place to Him, He gives place to nothing. And would not you have it so? Would not John the Baptist have it so? When they came to him and said, "Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptiseth, and all men come to him" (John 3:26), he answered, "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled" (verse 29). This ought to be the instinctive utterance of your heart and mine. If the Spirit has dealt with you in your soul, you ought to say, 'Blessed be God for it! He has set me aside to bring Jesus in'. There is wonderful unity between the discovery we get here, and the experience of our own souls. We shall never get to an end of these glories till we are lost in an ocean of them by-and-by - a sea without a shore!

Chapters 9; 10: 1 - 18

We closed at chapter 8; and pursuing the structure of the epistle we will now read chapter 9 down to chapter 10: 18. This is the last section of the doctrinal part; and then to the close we get moral exhortations. From the opening of chapter 9, to chapter 10: 18, is one argument. Suppose we linger a little over the structure of the epistle. Did you ever present a little distinctly to your mind the glories that belong to the Lord Jesus? There are three forms of glory that attach to Him - moral glory, personal glory and official glory. From the manager to the cross was the exhibition of His moral glories. In "these last days", the Lord is exhibiting some of His official glories, and by-and-by He will exhibit more of them, as in millennial times. The prophets of old spoke of His sufferings and the glories which should follow - not glory. But His personal glory is the foundation of every one of these.

This is a grand subject for our constant meditation - the glories of the Lord Jesus from the womb of the virgin to the throne of His millennial power. All through life, He was exhibiting His moral glories. The scene for these is past now, and He has taken His seat in heaven; but that has only given Him an opportunity to display others. The four gospels give me a view of His moral glories here. In the epistle to the Hebrews, I see Him seated in heaven now in a constellation of official glories. In other writings we get His coming glories. Whenever you see Him, you cannot but see Him in the midst of a system of them.

In these chapters 9 and 10, you get what He was doing on the cross, the foundation of every one of His present

glories. In the first eight chapters we get a varied display of the conditions of the Lord Jesus now in heaven; and now, as the sustainment of all these, in chapters 9 and 10 we have an account of the perfection of the Lamb on the altar.

Do you ever make "these last days" a subject of thought? Why is the Spirit entitled to call the age through which we are passing the "last days"? We shall have other days after these. Why then does He call them the last days? Beautifully so - because God rests in what the Lord Jesus has accomplished, as thoroughly as He rested at the close of creation in the perfection His own work. It is not that in the unfolding of the economy of God we shall not have other ages; yet, in the face of that the Spirit does not hesitate to call these the "last days".

In all the Lord has done, He has satisfied God. He perfects everything He touches, and makes it eternal, and God does not look beyond it. Everything is set aside till Christ is brought in, but there is no looking beyond Him. "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever". Now the moment I get God resting in anything, I get perfection; and the moment I get perfection I am in the last days. God has reached satisfaction, and so have I. Christ may be unfolded in millennial days; but it is the very same Christ that we have now. Shall I get Moses then, or Joshua? They are all (treated in the light of Christ) "beggarly elements". All give place, one after another; but Christ being introduced to the thoughts of God, God rests in Him; and when you come to see where you are, you are in God's second Sabbath - and see how one thing exceeds the other! The rest of the Redeemer is a much more

blessed thing than the rest of the Creator. In Christ you have perfection - the rest of God - and you are in the "last days".

Now when we come to chapters 9 and 10, we see Christ, not properly or characteristically in heaven, but on the altar. The glories that surround Him now have been given to us one after another - the glory of the priesthood - the glory of the Purger of our sins - the predestinated Heir of the world to come - the Apostle of salvation - the Dispenser of the covenant that never gathers age to itself - the Giver of the eternal inheritance. These are the glories of "these last days".

In chapter 9: 14 we see the cross that sustains them all. How blessed it is to trace from Matthew to John a path of moral beauty. Was the Lord Jesus in office here? No; He was here in subjection. When I have looked at Him thus I am invited to look upwards. Is it One travelling in moral beauty I see there? No, not that specially; but it is One who has been seated at the right hand of the Majesty with an oath in the very midst of glorious beauties - One whom the satisfied heart of God has seated there. It was the testing purpose of God that seated Adam in Eden. It is the faithful heart of God that has seated Christ in heaven.

And now we come to read the perfection of His work as Lamb of God, as the grand foundation of all these glories. He would not have perfected His moral glories here if He had not gone on to the cross and died there. He would not have had His official glories in heaven, if He had not gone on to the cross and died there. When the Lord Jesus was hanging as the Lamb of God on the accursed tree, and over His bleeding brows was written the

inscription, in every language, "This is the King of the Jews", they sought to blot it out - but God would not have it blotted out. He would have the whole creation know that the cross was the title to the kingdom. The inscription that Pilate wrote on the cross, and God kept there, is very fine.

Supposing the cross sustains the glory, according to the inscription, now tell me what sustains the cross itself? Is the cross without a foundation? The secret comes out in these chapters: as the cross sustains your hopes, it is the Person that sustains the cross. His personal glory is the sustainment of the cross. If He were less than God manifest in the flesh, all He did was no more worth than water spilt upon the ground. Of all the mighty mystery of official, millennial, eternal glories, the cross is the support, and the Person is the support of the cross. He must sustain His own work, and His work must sustain everything. This is just the argument of these chapters.

There was a veil hanging between the place where the priests ministered, and the mystic dwelling-place of God. That veil was the expression that that age gave a sinner no access to God. Were there not sacrifices? Yes, there were; and God's altar was accepting them. But they were "gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience". Beautifully then, at this point, He comes to your heart and demands a note of admiration. "For if the blood of bulls and of goats ... sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"

Supposing we inspect the old tabernacle, and see the beggarliness of all its elements. The blood of bulls could not bring you into the presence of God; and from the beggarliness of all that, look at the all-satisfying nature of the blood of Jesus, will you not exclaim, 'How much more shall it purge our consciences?' That is the way you are to come to the cross - laying doubtings and questionings aside, and losing yourself in admiration. The thing the Spirit does is to take you gently by the hand and lead you up to the altar at Calvary, and tell you who is the Victim that bled there. None but one who was personally free could say, "I come to do thy will". Have you any right to a will? Has Gabriel or Michael? To do God's pleasure is their business; but here was One who could offer Himself without spot to God. "How much more" then, shall such a sacrifice purge our consciences, and introduce us at once to the living God? That entitled me to say, that while we look at His glories - His official glories - we see that the cross is the sustainment of them all.

But if the soul does not know the personal glory of the Lord, it positively knows nothing. That is the secret you get here. He, for whom God prepared a body, through the eternal Spirit, satisfied the altar. Yes, satisfied the brazen altar before He went into the holy sanctuary to do the business of God's priest. And atonement flows from satisfaction. If I find out that Christ's sacrifice has answered the cravings of the brazen altar, I see that my reconciliation is sealed and settled for eternity.

The epistle to the Ephesians tells you to stand upon this, and look round about you at the glories of your condition. The epistle to the Hebrews shows you the

glories of Christ's condition in the compass of about three hundred verses. What a world of wonders is opened! You are sustained by what He has done; and what He has done is sustained by what He is.

Chapter 10: 19 - 39

We are coming now to another beautiful part of the epistle, and, as we hinted, to a new division of it. We will read from verse 19 to the close of chapter 10. You may have observed the general structure of the epistles. Take the Ephesians, for instance: in the first three chapters we get doctrinal truth, and in the last three the moral application of it. So in Colossians, Galatians, Romans, and so on. Now in Hebrews it is the same, and we are just entering now on the practical application of what has gone before.

'Now the full glories of the Lamb adorn the heavenly throne', as a beautiful hymn of Dr. Watts says. Constantly, through this epistle we have been looking up and seeing this. But let me ask, do you see glories anywhere in "these last days" that are not attaching to the Lord in heaven? You will tell me that all glory belongs to Him, and I grant it; but I tell you, you ought to see glories attaching to yourselves. Such is the wondrous working of God, that He has made the poor sinner a glorious creature. These same last days, that have set Christ on high in the midst of the glories, have set the poor believing sinner down here in the midst of glories.

I want that you and I be girt up to an apprehension of them. We do not wait for the kingdom, to see glories. Is it no glory for you to have a purged conscience? Is it no

glory to be fully entitled to be in the presence of God without a blush? no glory to call God, Father? to have Christ as your Forerunner in heavenly places? to enter into the holiest without a quiver of conscience? no glory to be introduced into the secrets of God? If we can lift up our heart and say, "Abba, Father"? If we can lift up our heart and say, 'Who shall condemn?' or "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" If we can believe that we are bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh; that we are part of Christ's fulness, will any one say there is no glory in all that? So that this epistle introduces us to most precious thoughts. It tells me to look up and see Christ adorning the throne, and to look down and see the believer having part with Him.

The world sees nothing of these glories. We only apprehend them in the glass of the word by faith; but I do say boldly, that I do not wait for the kingdom, to know what glory is. I look up and see the Lamb in acquired glories. I look down, and see the saint in gifted glories. Now the moral application begins. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus". There I look at myself; and will any one say there is not glory in such a condition? That is my title. Now the exhortation is that you are to enjoy your title. To enjoy, is to obey. The first duty you owe to God is to enjoy what He has made you, and what He has given you. "Let us draw near". Use your privilege, as we say. It is the first grand duty of faith, and I am bold to say it is the most acceptable duty of faith.

How slow we are to enjoy these glories. Do you ever look at yourself in the glass of the word? We are very

much accustomed to look at ourselves in the glass of circumstances - in the glass of relationships. If we say in the secret of our heart, with exultation of spirit, 'I am a child of God;' if, with exultation of spirit we can say, 'I am co-heir with Christ', that is the way to begin obedience. Here it is exactly that. "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith".

We should look on ourselves as the priesthood of God. The priests of old were washed when they were put into office. Then every day their feet were washed before they entered the tabernacle to serve the Lord. The pavement of God's own presence was not stained by the foot of the priest. He went in, in a character worthy of the place. Are you occupying the presence of God all the day long in the consciousness that you are worthy of the place? How will you be presented before Him by-and-by? Jude tells you - "to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy". You ought to know that you are in His presence now, faultless, or without spot. We cannot put ourselves in the flesh too low; and we cannot put ourselves in Christ too high. If one may speak for another, we find it much easier to degrade ourselves in the flesh, than to magnify ourselves in Christ. That last is what the Spirit is doing here.

Now He tells me, having got into the holiest, what to do there. If I know my title to be in the presence of God, let me know also that I am there as the heir of a promised glory; I am there to be kept there till the glory shines out. We are the witnesses of a class of glories, just as the Lord Jesus is the witness of a class of glories. We are in a wealthy place; and having got in there we are to hold our

hope without a quiver. Let us hold fast the profession of our hope without wavering (as the word should be). If we go in without a quiver, we are to hold our hope without a quiver. That is what our God has called us to. We are there with boldness; and being there, we are to talk of our hope. And we are to talk of love also, "to provoke unto love and to good works". What exquisite service! Who can utter the beauties of these things?

"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together ... but exhorting one another". When you get into the house, what are you doing together? Are you to be down in the depths of conscious ruin? No; but exhorting one another to love and good works. These are the activities of the house. We dwell together in one happy house, encouraging one another, and so much the more as we point to the sky and say, 'Look! the dawning of morning is near; the sky is breaking'. We want a great deal more to encourage one another, to know our dignity in Christ than to know our degradation in ourselves. It is very right to know ourselves poor worthless creatures. Confession is very right; but to gird up the mind to the apprehension of our dignity is much more acceptable and priestly work than to be ever in the depths. "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee" (Psalm 130:1). Here we see ourselves accepted; holding our hope without wavering; encouraging one another; and saying, as we point to the eastern sky, 'The dawn is coming'.

Then, having thus conducted us to verse 25, he brings in a solemn passage about wilful sin. We read the counterpart of this in Numbers 15, where presumptuous sin is looked at. Under the law there were two characters of offence. A man might find a thing that was his

neighbour's, and deal falsely about it, or he might lie to his neighbour, and there was a trespass offering provided. But when a man gathered sticks on the sabbath day, he was to be stoned at once. There remained nothing for him but "a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation". It was presumptuous sin, flying in the face of the legislator. This is the presumptuous sin of the New Testament. It is running in the face of the God of this dispensation, as the gatherer of sticks ran in the face of the God of the law. We are not to be careless about sin. If we do the least sin we ought to be broken-hearted about it. But that is not the thing contemplated here. It is a defection from christianity.

Then, having come to verse 31, he exhorts them to "call to remembrance the former days". Let me ask your souls, Do you all remember the day when you were illuminated? One might say, 'The light shone brighter and brighter upon me'. I believe Timothy may have been such an one. Timothy, I have often thought, under the education of his godly mother, may have passed gently into the flock of God. But most people know the moment of their illumination; and if there is a moment of moral energy in the history of the soul, it is the day of its quickening. Why do not you and I carry the strength of that moment with us? Is He a different Jesus that we have now? When I know that the day was when all was over between God and me, and that now the day has come when all is over between the world and me, that is practical christianity. What was that day that he called on them to remember? The day when, being illuminated, they "took joyfully the spoiling of your goods". Why was this? How does he

account for it? Their eye was on a better inheritance. Let me grasp the richer thing, and the poorer thing may pass away for aught I care.

We can account for victory over the world just as easily as we can account for access to God. That, let me say, is just the knot that this epistle ties. It puts you inside the veil, outside the camp. In the wondrous, divine, moral character of christianity, the grace and the blood of Christ work exactly contrary to the lie of the serpent. The lie of the serpent made Adam a stranger to God, and at home in this polluted world - inside the camp and outside the veil. Christianity just alters that. It restores us to citizenship in the presence of God, and strangership in the world; and verse 35 of this chapter is the one verse in this epistle that knits these things together.

Hold fast your confidence, and it will be the secret of strength to you. Where do we see victory over the world? In those who are happiest in Christ. Why are you and I so miserably down in the traffic of the world? Because we are not as happy in Christ as we ought to be. Give me a soul that has boldness and joy in God's presence, and I will show you one that has victory over the world.

Now the apostle tells us that a life of patience intervenes between the day of illumination and the day of glorification. I am not to count on a path of pleasure - a path of ease - a path of prosperity - on being richer or more distinguished tomorrow than today; but I am to count on a path of patience. And is not there glory in that? Yes, there is companionship with Christ. No greater glory is or can be yours, than to be the companion of your rejected Master. That is your path. "If any man draw back, my soul

shall have no pleasure in him". He was not ashamed to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were strangers here; but if we become citizens here, instead of strangers - strike alliance with the world - He who could say, 'I am the God of my strangers', can say to the citizen of the world, 'I have no pleasure in him'.

May you and I provoke one another to love and to good works, and, pointing to the eastern sky, say, The day is dawning. Amen.

Chapter 11

We have reached chapter 11. I think we observed that chapter 10: 35 was a connecting link between the two great thoughts of the epistle - that christianity puts you inside the veil, and outside the camp. That is, it undoes the work of Satan, which estranged you from God and made you at home in a corrupted world. The religion of the Lord Jesus just comes to upset his (Satan's) work. Nothing can be more beautiful than the antithesis which thus shows itself between the serpent and the serpent's bruiser.

The "great recompense of reward" shows itself in the life of faith that we are now going to read about. We are called, as John Bunyan says, 'to play the man'. If happy within we are to be fighting without. This chapter 11 shows us the elect of all ages, 'playing the man' in the power of this principle of confidence. "Cast not away therefore your confidence", for it thus shows that it has "great recompense of reward". Faith is a principle that apprehends two different things of God. It views Him as a justifier of the ungodly, as in Romans 4; but here it

apprehends God as "a rewarder of them that diligently seek him". The moment you apprehend God by a faith that does not work, you enter on a faith that does work. And while we rightly cherish a faith that saves our souls, let us not be indifferent to a faith that serves our Saviour. How boldly we sometimes assert our title, but do we value our inheritance? It is a poor wretched thing to boast in our title, and yet show that the heart is but little moved by the hope of the inheritance. Just so, if I boast of a justifying faith, it is a poor thing to be indifferent to the faith that we have here in chapter 11. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen".

Then you are told that it was the strength of all the worthies in old times, who through it "obtained a good report". It is another proof that, as we have said, everything in this epistle is to set aside law. If I take up the law as the secret power of my soul to do anything for God, I am not doing it for God but for myself. The law might chasten and scourge me and call on me to work out a title to life. But that would be serving myself. Faith sets law aside. Then, having established faith as a working principle, he begins to unfold the different phases of it from the beginning. I believe verse 3 may have a reference to Adam. If Adam was a worshipper in the garden, it was by faith. He may have looked behind all the wonders that surrounded him, and apprehended the great Artificer.

Now some say they can still worship God in nature; but when we left innocency we left creation as a temple and we cannot go back there. Nature was a temple to Adam; but if I go back to it, I go back to Cain. Here we come to Abel and to revelation. We are sinners; and

revelation, which unfolds redemption, must build us a temple. You must take your place as worshipper in the temple that God in Christ has built for you.

Then we come to Enoch. Enoch's was an ordinary kind of life; but he spent it with God. We are told in Genesis that he walked with God, and here we are told that he pleased God. As the apostle says in 1 Thessalonians 4:1 "Ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God". To walk with God is to please Him. Can anything be more welcome to us than the thought that we can give complacency to God? There was nothing in Enoch's life to make history; but whatever condition of life may be ours, our business is to walk with God in it. It is beautiful thus to see an undistinguished life going before a life of great events. You may hear some say, 'A poor, unnoticed thing am I, compared with some who have been distinguished in service for the Lord'. 'Well', let me reply, 'you are an Enoch'.

Now Noah's was a very distinguished life. Faith laid hold on the warning. Faith does not wait for the day of glory or the day of judgment to see glory or judgment. Faith in the prophet did not ask for his eyes to be opened. Faith here for one hundred and twenty years seemed to be a fool. Noah was building a ship for dry ground; and he may well have been the mockery of his neighbours; but he saw the thing that was invisible. How rebuking to us! Supposing you and I lived under the authority of coming glory: what fools we should be!

But I should not have passed over the word I took for my text. "He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him". Again, I boldly say, you would not have had that

definition of faith in Romans 4, "A rewarder of them that diligently seek him"! 'Why, what legal language!' some would say if they read it in a book. Ah! but it is beautiful in its place. The faith of a saint is an intensely working thing. Will God be a debtor to any man? No; He will pay to those who sow bountifully.

Abraham's life is next; and a picture of the varied exercises of faith. There was a magnificence in his faith - a victorious quality - a fine apprehension - all these qualities of faith come out in the life of Abraham. He went out blindfold; but the God of glory led him by the hand. So he came to the land; but to him not a foot of it was given. He must have the patience of faith; but whatever fell from the lips of God was welcome to Abraham. Abraham walked all his life in the power of the recollection of what he had seen under the hand of the God of glory.

Now supposing I tell you that the vision of Stephen has gone before every one of you. You need not be expecting the same vision that Stephen saw, but you have seen it in him. They may carry you to the stake; but you may say, 'I have seen heaven opened over me, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God'. If you and I are simple, true-hearted people, we shall just go forth as Abraham did when he had seen the God of glory.

Then Sarah's was another kind of faith. We must see God as a Quickener of the dead. Noah understood God so. The Israelites, under the blood-stained lintel, received Him in the same character. Death was there, and attached to every house in the land; but the Israelites knew God as the Quickener of the dead. That is what Noah, Abraham, Sarah, apprehended of God. If I make God less than a

Quickener of the dead, I make myself more than a dead sinner. It is as a Quickener of the dead I must meet with Him.

The thirteenth is a beautiful verse. The first thing to do to a promise is to apprehend it - then to exercise faith about it - and then to receive it by the heart. They "embraced" them. Their hearts hugged them. How far has my heart hugged the promises? One knows his own "leanness". But surely the closer we hug them the more blessedly we shall consent to be strangers and pilgrims in this world. This is a wonderful picture of a heart put into faith. Did they speak of strangership, because of leaving Mesopotamia? No; but because they had not reached heaven. They might have found their way back. Abraham could tell it to Eliezer; but that would not have cured their strangership. Supposing there were a change in your circumstances, would that cure your strangership? Not if you are among God's people. Mesopotamia was no cure. Nothing could cure, end, or close their strangership, but the inheritance. On they went to heaven; and God was not ashamed to be called their God.

In chapter 2 we read that Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren. Now, we read that God was not ashamed to call these strangers His people. Why is Christ "not ashamed to call them brethren"? Because they stand in one divine, eternal purpose with Him. One family embraces the elect and Christ. How could He be ashamed of such a people? And if you have fallen out with the world, God is not ashamed of you. For God Himself has fallen out with it, and He could not be ashamed of you, because you are one mind with Him. Therefore, when they said they were

strangers, God called Himself their God. Our hearts are terribly rebuked here. How much lingers in them of striking alliance and making friendship with the world!

Then we see Abraham in another light. Every hope of Abraham depended on Isaac. To give up Isaac seemed not only to become a bankrupt in the world, but to become a bankrupt in God. He might have said, 'Am I to become a bankrupt in God and in Mesopotamia?' There could not have been a higher stretch in the believing principle. Have you ever feared God making you a bankrupt in Himself? Has He turned away never to return? Well, he got him back in a figure, sealed as a fresh witness of resurrection. Do we ever lose anything by trusting God in the dark? If ever any one trusted Him in the dark it was Abraham.

After passing him we come to Isaac. Isaac showed his faith by blessing Esau and Jacob concerning things to come. This is the little, single bit of his life that the Spirit looks at. If we inspect his life, we shall find that that is the eminent work in it. That act shines out under the eye of God.

Jacob is more remarkable, as Noah had been more remarkable than Enoch. His was a very eventful life; but the only thing we get here is - "by faith Jacob ... blessed both the sons of Joseph". This is exquisitely beautiful. It shows how much in christian life may be rubbish. I do not believe Jacob's life was an exhibition of a servant of God. It was an exhibition of a saint who went astray, and whose whole life was occupied in getting back; and we do not get this act of faith till we come to the close, when he "blessed both the sons of Joseph". There he came in contact with things unseen, and things that came across the current of

nature. His life was the life of a man recovering himself; and just at the close he did this beautiful service of faith to God in the face of the resentments of his own heart and the appeal of his son Joseph.

But Joseph's is a lovely life - a life of faith from the beginning. Joseph was a holy man throughout; but there was magnificent outshining of faith just at the close. He had his hand on the treasures of Egypt, and his foot on the throne of Egypt; yet in the midst of all that he spoke of the departing of his brethren. That was seeing things invisible. That was the one thing the Spirit has signalised as an act of faith. Why did he talk in this way? He might have said, 'Ah! I do not walk by sight. I know what is coming, and I tell you, you will go out of this land, and when you go, take me with you'. The general course of his life was unblameable, yet we do find in his words as he was departing, the finest utterance of faith. And now that is what you and I want. Do you want to be righteous only? You must be so; but will that constitute a life of faith? You must seek to get under the power of things hoped for - things unseen - the expectation of the Lord's return; and till you do so in some energy, you may be blameless, but you are not walking that life of faith by which "the elders obtained a good report". Thus, so far we see faith as a working principle. Not the faith of the sinner, which is a no-working faith. The moment the no-working faith has made me a saint, I must take up the working faith and live in the power of it.

But we must go on. We will not forget what we hinted - that the whole of this chapter 11 depends on, and is the illustration of, chapter 10: 35. The stronger our faith is, the

more our soul is in the possession of mighty, moral energy. This chapter shows how this principle of faith gained the day. Do not read it as if it were the praises of Noah, Abraham, Moses, and others. It is the praises of faith, as illustrated in Noah, Abraham, Moses, and others. What a simple, blessed thing christianity is! I stand in admiration of it when I see how the devil has wrought a two-fold mischief in putting us outside the veil - inside the camp; and how Christ has wrought a corresponding two-fold remedy. Do I rejoice in the thought that I have gained God, though at the loss of the world? That is christianity.

"By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child". What is the meaning of that? It means that when he was born there was an expression in his countenance that faith read. 'Beautiful to God' is the word. There was a certain beauty in him that awakened the faith of Amram and Jochebed; and they were obedient to it. Was there not a beauty in the face of the dying Stephen? Ought not his murderers to have been obedient to it? They stand in moral contrast to Moses' parents. Under the finger of God they saw the purpose of God and hid the child.

Now in Moses we see a beautiful power of faith. It got a three-fold victory - three splendid victories, and the very victories you are called to.

First, his faith got the victory over the world. He was a foundling, picked up from the Nile, and adopted as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. This was personal degradation translated into adopted magnificence. What did he do with it? He "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter".

What victory over the world that was! We like those things that put worldly honour on us. Moses would not have it; and sure I am faith is set to the same battlefield, and challenged to get the like victory to this day.

Next we see Moses getting victory amid the trials and alarms of life. "By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king". What a terrible thing the life of faith is to nature! You have got a victory today - you must stand again tomorrow. "That ye may be able to withstand ... and having done all, to stand" (Ephesians 6:13). Here the pressure of life was coming on Moses, after the attractions of life had got their answer.

Then, in the third instance, Moses had an answer for the claims of God. It is magnificent to see a soul braced in the power of a faith like this. "Through faith he kept the passover". The destroying angel was going through the land, but the blood was on the lintel. From the very beginning, grace has provided the sinner with an answer to the claims of God; and it is the simple office of faith to plead the answer. God provided the blood and faith used it. Christ is God's provision. He is God's great ordinance for salvation; and faith travels along with Him from the cross to the realms of glory.

Then, "By faith they passed through the Red sea" - "By faith the walls of Jericho fell down" - "By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not". And what more shall we say? It is the story that animates the whole of Scripture. The story of grace and faith - grace on God's part, and faith on ours - gives animation to the whole Book of God. We are never called outside the camp till we are inside the veil.

The early chapters of this epistle show the sinner his title to a home in God's presence; and then you are to come forth from that home, and let the world know that you are a stranger to it. That is the structure of this beautiful epistle. It tells us our title to be in God's presence, before it opens the calling that attaches to us. Before Abraham was called out to a land that he knew not, the "God of glory" appeared to him. Does he ever send a man a battle at his own charges? Does He ever send you to fight with the world, before you are at peace with Himself? Everything is for me from the moment I turn to God. I am called in God, to everything that is for me. I am "come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem", and so on. This is chapter 12. Before ever David was hunted as a partridge, he had the anointing oil of God upon him.

We must linger a little on the two closing verses. They are very weighty, precious, pregnant verses. These elders obtained a good report, but with the report they did not obtain the promise. It reminds me of the prophet Malachi. "A book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels" (Malachi 3:16, 17). They are not His made-up jewels yet, but He has their names in His book, and He will make them up and display them as His jewels by-and-by. So with these elders. Why have they not yet obtained the promise? Because we must first come in, in the rich furniture of this evangelical dispensation, or all they had in their beggarly dispensation would never have done for them.

We find the word "better" constantly occurring in this epistle. "A better testament" - "A better covenant" - "some better thing for us" - "that speaketh better things than that of Abel". And we find the word "perfect" in constant use also, because now everything is perfected. Everything is perfected that gives God rest, as we have already said, and God is not looking for any satisfaction beyond what Christ gives Him. He has His demand answered - His glory vindicated - His character displayed - and all in Christ.

Now what is this "better thing" in the last verse? If we had not brought in our Christ, so to speak, nothing would have been done. God having introduced Christ in this dispensation, all the old saints that hung on it are perfected. For in one light of it, we look at this epistle (as we will now do, briefly and rapidly) as a treatise on perfection. Thus, in chapter 2, we read that it became the glory of God to give us a perfect Saviour; not merely my necessity, but God's glory required it. "It became him" - consulting for His own glory. It became Him to give the sinner an Author to begin salvation, and a Captain to close it. The difference between an author and a captain is just the difference between Moses and Joshua. Moses was the author of salvation when he picked up the poor captives in Egypt. Joshua was the captain of salvation when he carried them across the Jordan right into the promised land. Christ is the One who carries us both through the Red sea and the Jordan - the One who did the initiative work of Moses, and the consummating work of Joshua.

Then in chapter 5, we read, "being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation". Not moral

perfection - we all know He was morally stainless - but perfection as "author of eternal salvation". He would never have been perfect thus, if He had not gone on to death; but as it behoved God to give us a perfect Saviour, so it behoved Christ to make Himself a perfect Saviour. Then in chapter 6, "Let us go on unto perfection", the apostle says. That is, let us 'read our lesson on this subject'. Some read this as if they were to go on till they had no more sin in themselves. That has nothing to say to it. It is as if the apostle said, 'I am going to read you a treatise on perfection, and you must come and learn it with me'. Then he goes on with the subject in chapter 7. He says, You cannot find this perfection in the law. "the law made nothing perfect". You must look elsewhere. By the law here, is not meant the ten commandments, but the Levitical ordinances. In the midst of these beggarly elements you must look elsewhere for perfection. Chapter 9 thus shows you that it is in Christ, and tells you that the moment faith has touched the blood, the conscience is purged. Chapter 10 tells you that the moment Christ touches you, you are perfected for ever. Not in moral stainlessness in the flesh - there is no such thing here.

The moment Christ touches the apostleship, He perfects it. The moment He touches the priesthood, He perfects it. The moment He touches the altar, He perfects it. The moment He touches the throne, He perfects it. And if He perfects these things, He will, as to your conscience, perfect you, a poor sinner. So this epistle is, in one great light, a treatise on perfection. God gave you a perfect Saviour - Christ made Himself a perfect Saviour. Let me go on to perfection. If I seek it in the law I am in a world

of shadows. When I come to Christ I am in the midst of perfection. 'And there I stand, poor worm', as Gambold says.

Therefore these saints could not get the inheritance till we came in laden with all the glories of this dispensation. But now they can share the inheritance with us, when the full time comes. What glories shine in this epistle! What glories fill the heavens, because Christ is there! What glories attach to us because Christ has touched us! Is it no glory to have a purged conscience - to enter into the holiest with boldness - to say to Satan, 'Who are you, that you should finger God's treasure?' We creep and crawl, when we should be getting into the midst of these glories and encouraging our hearts.

Chapter 12

We will now read chapter 12. We have looked at the doctrine of the epistle. We are now eminently in the practical part of it; yet the blessedness of the doctrine shines out too. I would just say this first, we have been looking at the various characters in which the Lord has entered heaven. Now here in verse 2, we get Him in heaven in another character. Do not many crowns belong to Him? Will not you put a royal crown - a priestly crown - on His head? Can you put too many crowns there? What a cluster of glories fill the eye as we look at Christ in heaven, by the light of this magnificent epistle!

Now among other characters we see Him there as the One who perfected a life of faith on earth - "the author and finisher of our faith". The counsel of God is busy in

crowning Jesus. It is the delight of the counsel of God to crown Him - it is the delight of the Spirit of God to exhibit Him as crowned - and it is the delight of faith to see Him crowned. God, the Spirit, and the faith of the poor, believing sinner, all gather round Him, either to crown Him or to delight in seeing Him crowned.

Now we see Him owned in heaven as the One who perfected the life of faith. He passed through it to perfection from the manger to the cross, and is so accepted in the highest heavens. That of course put Him in collision with man. "Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself". Though ever ready to serve and save the sinner, in the moral glory of His manhood He was "separate from sinners", in His path here. You would not dare to take that language to yourself. It is too lofty a style for any but the Son of God to take. Was anything like that said of Abraham or Moses? No; the Spirit would not have talked so of one of them. So when you put the Lord Jesus in the wear and tear of life, in company with martyrs, you see Him, as in all other things, taking the pre-eminence.

It is so natural for the Spirit to glorify Christ! If He is looking at Him officially, as in the first part of this epistle, it is easy to look at Him with many, many crowns upon Him. Or, looking at Him here, it is easy for the Spirit to put this crown of peculiar beauty on His head. He "endured such contradiction of sinners against himself". It is a description which your heart would condemn you for taking to yourself, though you might be called to the stake.

The cross, in one aspect, was martyrdom. Jesus was as much a martyr at the hand of man as He was a victim at the hand of God. It is as a martyr we see Him here - and as

such we are put in company with Him. "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin". You have no deeper enemy than your own heart to strive against. It was sin in the Pharisees - sin in the multitude - sin in the chief priests - that carried the Lord Jesus to the cross. But He never had any sin in Himself to strive against. It was sin in others.

The apostle then goes on to put you, as a chastened sufferer, in company with the Father. Here we drop company with Christ. For He never was under the chastening of the Father. The moment I get under the scourging and education of the Father, I have dropped out of company with Christ. I am deeply in His company when travelling the path of the martyr. I am not a step in His company when I am under the chastening of the Father. So from verse 5 onward you are in company with your heavenly Father. Oh! these sacred, divine touches - that know when to introduce Christ and when to let Him disappear! How, or in what form of excellency, to display Him, and how to let Him out of sight! There is a glory, a completeness, in the very way in which the task of the Spirit is executed. He walks through life enduring the contradiction of sinners. I walk through it striving against sin. Then I am in company with the chastening of the Father - all resulting in a blessed participation in His holiness, but Christ is not there with me. If you put all the wit of aggregated intellects together, could it give you these divine touches that glitter in the Book of God?

In verse 12 we are exhorted to "lift up the hands which hang down". There is no reason why it should be so. Though you are under the scourge, there is not one single

reason why your hands should hang down, or your knees be feeble; for the Spirit has shown you yourself first in company with Christ, and then with your Father who loves you. Is there any reason why you should travel as if you did not know the road? This is a beautiful conclusion. We all know how the hands will hang down; but I set my seal to every word of this and say, 'Truth, Lord'. There is no reason that we should be fainthearted. Then having come to that he looks round. Do not let your own hands hang down; and in connection with others follow peace - in connection with God follow holiness. "What communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial?" (2 Corinthians 6:14, 15).

"Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you". If you consult at your leisure Deuteronomy 29, you will find a root of bitterness there spoken of; but it is a different kind from this. There it arose from some man taking up false gods - here it is failing of the grace of God. The whole epistle has it as its bearing and purpose, to nail your ear, in scripture language, to the doorpost of Him that is speaking of grace. It is not a lawgiver that is heard, but One who is publishing salvation from the highest heavens. Angels and principalities and powers are made subject to the Purger of our sins; and the Purger of our sins has taken our conscience up to the highest heavens and every tongue that could lay a charge against us is silenced, as we read in Romans 8:1 (See also 1 Peter 3:21, 22).

Now take care lest you fail of the grace thus published. It may end in the profaneness of Esau. It has been said by another, that this reference to Esau must have

been very striking to the mind of a Jew. 'If you fail of the grace of God, you will be left in the position of one whom your nation repudiates'. I do not care what you take up in His stead, if you slip away from Christ you may be tomorrow in the position of the reprobate Esau. How does Esau stand before you? As a type of that generation who by-and-by will say, "Lord, Lord, open to us". But their tears will be as ineffectual as Esau's by the bedside of his dying father. He came too late. So when once God has risen up and shut to the door, they will find no place of repentance. This verse 17 is very solemn. It tells me that that action of Esau is the presentation to our thoughts of that which is still to be realised in an Esau generation - and only in such - "Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish" (Acts 13:41). Esau despised his birthright, and this generation have refused the grace of God, and despised the Christ that has passed through the world and died for sinners.

After this, in verse 18, we get a magnificent sight of the two dispensations. It is as if the apostle had said, 'I have been showing you a martyr path, but now I tell you that the moment you look to God, everything is for you'. The martyr path and the chastening of the Father are only further proofs of love.

Now, leaving Christ and the Father, we come to God; and you see that all the eternal counsels of God have clustered to make you a blest one, as they have clustered to make Christ a glorious One. Do not be afraid. You are not come to the mount that might be touched and that burned with fire. Turn your back on it. The more advisedly I have turned my back on it, the more I have met and answered

the grace and wisdom of God, and rendered the obedience of faith. Am I to be turning round my head - to be looking over my shoulder - to be giving it some glances? Is that the obedience of faith? Then as to my face. Where is that turned to? To a cluster of blessedness. I was introduced by my own self-confidence to law, and found not a thing for me. Now I have turned my face right round and I see everything for me. "Ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all". The Lord, even in judgment, is for us, for it is one office of a judge to vindicate the oppressed. Then, "the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling". Everything is for you. And that is where your face is undivertedly to direct itself. Let your face be right fully turned to the one hill, and your back be right fully turned to the other hill.

But here at this place, in chapter 12, you are at the very beginning of the epistle again. In chapter 2 we read, "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord?" Now we read, "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh". From the beginning to the end, the Spirit is nailing your ear to the door of the house of the Master of grace.

Then it very solemnly closes: "Our God is a consuming fire", that is, the God of this dispensation. From the fires of Sinai there was a relief by turning and taking refuge in Christ; but there is no relief if God's relief is despised. If you turn away from the relief this

dispensation brings in, there is no more relief. "Our God is a consuming fire". What, I ask you, puts you in company with God, like simplicity of faith? As we said before, the purpose of the eternal counsels, and the joy of the Spirit is this, to put crowns on the head of Christ; and when I am simple in faith I am delighting to fill the field of my vision with these glories. Thus I am put in the most dignified company I could be in - God and the Holy Spirit. The Lord grant that you and I may be there! If we know these things, happy, thrice happy are we, if we rest in them!

Chapter 13

We are closing the epistle, and we get what is common in all the epistles - some little details. It is eminently the structure of Paul's epistles to begin with doctrine and close with exhortation. So it is here. "Let brotherly love continue". Then a brother may be a stranger. "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers". And to encourage them to that duty, they are reminded that some in their own history entertained angels unawares. Then another duty - "Remember them that are in bonds", and the encouragement follows - "as bound with them". Take your place in the body of Christ as His prisoners, not prisoners corporeally but mystically. When he speaks of suffering for Christ's sake, he appeals to you in your mystic place; but when he speaks of suffering adversity (verse 3) in a common, ordinary way, he appeals to natural life "as being yourselves also in the body".

Then we get the divine duties of purity and unworldliness. Unworldliness is expressed in the words,

"Content with such things as ye have", not seeking to be richer tomorrow than today. Then the Lord speaks in verse 5, and you answer Him in verse 6. It is the response of faith to grace - the reply of the heart of the believer to the heart of the Lord God. Then comes the duty of subjection - "Remember them which have [or rather have had] the rule over you". Not a blind following of them, as when they were heathens (1 Corinthians 12:2) following dumb idols. Are you to be led blindfolded? No; you are to be led intelligently. "No one can say, Lord Jesus, unless in the power of the Holy Spirit" (verse 3). We are living people of a living temple. So it is, "considering the end of their conversation". They died in faith, as they preached faith.

Now he leaves all that and starts in verse 8 from another point; and this verse 8 may be called the motto of the epistle. Only in one light I grant. What I mean is that, as we have seen before, the Spirit of God in this epistle is looking at one thing after another - taking a passing glance at angels, at Moses, at Joshua, at Aaron, at the old covenant, at the altars with their victims, and setting every one of them aside to let in Christ. And you would not have it otherwise. With your whole heart and your whole soul you set your seal to that. Let all go to make room for Christ; and when Christ is brought in, do not let Him go for anything. This is what you get in verse 8. He is gazing for a moment at the object of the epistle. 'I have displaced everything to let Him in, and now keep Him before you'. It is a most blessed peroration of the whole teaching of the epistle.

Then there comes a corollary - a conclusion to that: "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines;"

doctrines foreign to Christ. You have got everything in Christ; take care to hold fast by Him. Then if I get Christ as my religion I get grace. "It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace". The Lord is set before you and me as the sum of our religion, and that religion is a religion that breathes grace to the poor sinner.

Now do not read verse 9 as if you could to some extent establish your heart with meats. Observe the punctuation; a semicolon after "grace", cuts it off from the close of the verse. Meats do nothing for you; as he tells you in another place - "Touch not; taste not; handle not" (Colossians 2:21). They bring neither profit nor honour to you. Suppose you accumulate carnal religious observances. If Colossians 2 tells me there is no honour in them, this tells me there is no profit in them. When probed and searched out, they are all to the satisfaction of the flesh. The moment I get the Lord brought in, I get the heart established in grace. Did you ever hear it remarked that not a single religion on earth takes grace as its secret, but the divine religion? It is keeping God quiet, if you can, with them all. God's religion is the only religion ever thought of that takes grace for its basis. This is exactly contemplated here. Do not be carried away with doctrines foreign to Christ.

"We have an altar". What is the altar of this dispensation? It is an altar exclusively for burnt-offerings - the praises of God. The Jews had an altar for expiatory sacrifice. We have no such altar. Christ has been on the altar of expiation, and now we, as priests, minister at an altar of God's praise. We remember that the Son of God's blood has been shed, and we serve at an altar where we

know sin as cancelled, blotted out, thrown behind the back; and there at your altar you are rendering a constant service of thanksgiving. But they that go back to the services of the tabernacle have no right, no competency, to stand as priests at the altar of this dispensation. Many a loved and loving soul is struggling with a legal mind, but that is a very different thing from displacing Christ for anything, as the Galatians were doing, putting a crutch under Him. The Spirit, in this epistle, does not quarrel with the poor struggling soul, but if you are seeking to offer expiatory sacrifices and not holding your altar diligently for praise Godward, you are blaspheming the sacrifice of the Son of God.

Now, having put you at your altar, and also within the holiest, he shows you your place outside the camp. Jesus was accepted in the holiest by God, and He was put outside the camp by men. You are to be with Christ in both these places. That is where this dispensation puts you; and if ever moral glory attached to a creature of God, it is that which attaches to you at this moment. Called outside the camp with Him to bear His reproach! Are angels in such conditions? Did He ever say to them, "Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations" (Luke 22:28)? Angels are never invited to be the companions of His sorrow. He has never put such honour on angels as on you. Therefore by-and-by the church will be nearer the throne than angels. "Here have we no continuing city". Christ had none.

But further, we see in verse 16 another beautiful thing, another character of service for your altar: "But to do good and to communicate forget not". In various scriptures we

find that the more joy we have in God, the more large-hearted we shall be to one another. It is the very character of joy to enlarge the heart. As in Nehemiah 8:10 - 12, where the prophet tells the people, "Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength ... And all the people went their way ... to send portions, and to make great mirth". A man that is happy himself can afford to look round and make others happy with him.

After this the apostle comes to those who have present rule. Those in verse 7 are those who had died. Is this a blind subjection, I ask again? No; you are to take knowledge of them. "They watch for your souls". Office without power, without the unction of the Holy Spirit, is a thing this dispensation does not know, and if we know of it, we have got into the corrupt element of it and out of God's element. It is a part of your fidelity to God to keep the dispensation in purity; and mere official authority is an idol.

This vessel of the Holy Spirit, this mightiest servant that ever served in God's name, comes down to the feeblest saint, "Pray for us", and he asks it on the authority of a good conscience. Could you ask another to pray for you if you were purposing to err? I will answer for it, you could not. And here it is on the ground of a good conscience that the apostle asks prayer. Then he gives them a subject of prayer. Oh! the familiarity of scripture! You are not taken out of your own world of affections and sympathies. Then he breaks out into his doxology. Now, if

we remember what we were saying to one another, we shall find here something new and strange. We get the Lord in this verse 20 in resurrection not ascension. The great theme of the epistle is, as we have seen from the beginning hitherto, Christ displayed in heaven, but here the apostle does not go beyond resurrection. Why in closing does he bring down Christ from heaven? He has been keeping our eyes straining after Him into heaven, and just at the close He brings Him down to earth. Yes, for it is very sweet to know that we need not travel beyond death and resurrection, to come in contact with the God of peace. You have reached the God of peace when you have reached the God of resurrection. Resurrection shows that death is abolished. Death is the wages of sin; and if death is abolished sin is abolished, because death hangs on sin, as the shadow on the substance.

The covenant is called "everlasting", because it is never to be displaced. The old covenant was put away. The new covenant is ever new, never abrogated. The blood is as fresh this moment to speak peace to the conscience as when the veil was rent. So when we come to daily life, we are brought down to be in all simplicity in company with the God of peace, that has raised the great Shepherd from the dead, by the blood that has sealed remission of sins for ever. So you may forget sin. In one great sense we shall remember it for ever, but as far as that which constitutes your condition before God you may forget it for ever.

Then he prays that God may adjust and mould us to do His will. What poor adjustment there is in you and me, compared with that verse. We are awkward in our business, as if we were not at home in it. And then, at the

last, he just closes by a few common words to the brethren. "Grace be with you all. Amen".

Conclusion

We may remember that I have observed several distinct lines of thought running through this epistle. In taking leave of it we may consider it and see how these various lines all meet in harmony, and give us in result a conclusion infinitely divine. The lines of thought are these:

(1) The Spirit is displacing one thing after another to let in Christ.

(2) Having brought in Christ, the Spirit holds Him up in the varied glories in which He is now filling the heavens.

(3) The Spirit shows how Christ, being brought in, acts on everything to perfect it; that whatever a glorified Christ touches He perfects: and, among other things, He perfects our consciences.

(4) This being so, on the ground of my reconciliation as a sinner I am introduced to a temple of praise.

These four things may be looked at independently, yet it is very blessed to see that they acquire fresh glory when seen in connection one with another. Now I do say there is a magnificence in such a divine writing that needs nothing but itself to tell its glory. I am in contact with something that is infinitely the mind of God, with some of the most wondrous discoveries that God can make of Himself to me. But ere we quit our sweet and happy task, we will look a little particularly at these four things. In chapters 1 and 2, the Spirit displaces angels to let in Christ. In

chapters 3 and 4, He displaces Moses and Joshua. In chapters 5, 6 and 7, He displaces Aaron. In chapter 8, He displaces the whole covenant with which Christ has nothing to do. In chapter 9, He displaces the ordinances of the old sanctuary, with its altars and services, to let in the altar where Jesus as the Lamb of God lay. One thing after another He takes up and sets aside, to make room for Jesus. This is a delightful task to the Spirit. God knows His own delights. If the Spirit can be grieved, He can be delighted too.

Then having brought Christ in, what does He do with Him? He keeps Him in for ever. Christ has no successor. When the Spirit has brought Him in He gazes at Him. And what is it to be spiritual? It is to have the mind of the Holy Spirit. Have you ever delighted to get out of the house, to make room for Jesus? Indignantly the Spirit talks of the things we have been looking at as "beggarly elements". Have you ever treated them so? The Spirit sees no successor to Christ. In the counsels of God there is none after Him. Is it so in the counsels and thoughts of our souls?

So, having kept Him in, He gazes at Him. And what does He see in Him? He sees glory upon glory. In chapter 1, He sees Him seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, as the Purger of our sins, and hears a voice saying, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever". He looks in chapter 2, and sees Him as our Apostle talking to us of salvation. Then He finds Him as the Owner of an abiding house, as the Giver of eternal rest, and sees Him in the sanctuary above, seated there with an oath, and hears Him uttering the salutation, "Thou art a priest for ever after the

order of Melchisedec". In these various ways the Spirit delights in Christ. Then in chapter 9, we see Him looked at in the heavens as the Bestower of the eternal inheritance, having first obtained eternal redemption. In chapter 10: 13, we see Him seated there in another character, with this voice saluting Him, "Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool" (Psalm 110:1). Have you ever in spirit followed Christ up to heaven, and heard these voices addressing Him? We want to give personality to the truth. We are terribly apt to deal with it as mere dogma. I dread having it before me as a thing I could intellectually learn. In this epistle it is the Person that is kept before you; it is a living One you have to do with. These are heavenly realities. Moses pitched a temple in the wilderness. Solomon pitched a temple in the land. God has pitched a temple in heaven. And oh! how it shows what an interest God has in the sinner, when for our Priest He has built a sanctuary, and that because He is our Priest and about to transact our interests. Then in chapter 12, when He had ascended, He was received and seated in heaven as the Author and Finisher of faith. That is the second line, and we see how it hangs on the first. The Spirit, having fixed Christ before us, displays Him to us.

The third thing we get in this epistle is perfection. If I get Christ perfect as Saviour, I get myself perfect as saved. If I am not saved, Christ is not a Saviour. I am not speaking now of a feeble mind struggling with legality, but of my title - and I have no more doubt that I have a right to look on myself as a saved sinner than that Christ has a right to look on Himself as a perfect Saviour. Salvation is a relative thing. If I take myself as a sinner to Christ, and

doubt that I am saved, I must have some doubt of the perfection of His Saviour-character. But we have already looked at the epistle as a treatise on perfection. It became God to give me none less than a perfect Saviour. Wondrous! He has linked His glory with the perfection of my conscience before Him. He has condescended to let me know that it became Him. Does it become you to come and serve me in some capacity? You might do it through kindness, but I should not think of saying so. Yet that is the language God uses.

So then, in the third place, we find the epistle a treatise on perfection. Not, however, the perfection of millennial days. Christ will be the Repairer of every breach. But the greatest breach of all was in the conscience of the sinner. There are mischief and confusion abroad in creation still. There is mischief abroad in the house of Israel. Christ has not yet set to His hand to repair that. There is a breach in the throne of David - Christ has not yet applied Himself to heal that. But the mightiest breach of all was between you and God. By-and-by He will turn the groans of creation into the praises of creation; but He began His character as a Repairer, by applying Himself to repair the breach that separated you from God; and now we have boldness to enter into the holiest.

And then, in the fourth place, we find in this epistle the Spirit doing nothing less now than building a temple for praise. Is He about to mend the veil again, which God has rent? Is He going to revive the things that He has indignantly talked of as "beggarly elements"? Unspeakably glorious is this fourth and last thing. The

Spirit of God has built a temple for you to praise Him - the fruit of your lips giving thanks to His name.

What have we not in this epistle? Though we may look on each line of thought independently, yet they do lend to each other exquisite and increased glory. The Spirit is, as it were, making a whip of small cords, and telling all to be gone to make room for Jesus. Of course I know they were willing to go. John the baptist uttered the voices of them all when he said, "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled" (John 3:29). Moses, Aaron, angels - all were delighted to be put out of the house for Christ.

These things are combinedly serving your soul by introducing you to deeper apprehensions of the Christ of God. What a Servant to our souls the Holy Spirit is in this dispensation - as the Lord Jesus was a Servant from the manger to Calvary. I believe we each need individually to be fortified with truth. We do not know how far Romanising and infidel errors may be getting ahead. If we have not the truth, we may be the sport of Satan tomorrow. I will give you an instance of it. The Galatians were an earnest, excited people (and I do not quarrel with revival excitement); they would have plucked out their eyes for the apostle, but the day came when he had to begin afresh with them from the very beginning. "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you" (Galatians 4:19). There was excitement without a foundation of truth; and when mischief came in, the poor Galatians were next door to shipwreck - and this epistle is

a witness to the same thing. The Hebrew saints were unskilful in the word. But we must be fortified by truth. A state of quickening wants the strengthening of the truth of God.

And now what shall we say? O the depth of the riches! O the height of the glory - the profoundness of the grace - the wonder of the wonders - God unfolding Himself in such a way that we may well cover our faces, while we trust Him in silence and love Him with the deepest emotions of our souls! But some of us can surely say, "My leanness, my leanness" (Isaiah 24:16).

Editor's note - In the book entitled 'Recollections of the late J G Bellett', written by his daughter, she states that - 'The pamphlet entitled "Musings on Hebrews" is the substance of notes taken at a weekly Bible reading at a friend's house (in Dublin). It was not written for the press. I think this ought to be mentioned; because the familiar conversational style was not what my father used in writing'.

THE HOLY CITY JERUSALEM AND ITS POLITICAL INFLUENCE IN THE COMING DAY

H D'A CHAMPNEY

Revelation 21:9, 10

The great political influence in the future day will be the holy city, Jerusalem, the bride of the Lamb. With this thought in view, I would like, with God's help, to bring before you the striking correspondence between the church, as here set forth in the symbol of the holy city, and Christ Himself, the Lamb, whose bride she is.

Christ was both inclusive and exclusive. He was inclusive, for He embraced everything that is blessed and beautiful. Nothing whatever was wanting in Christ that God could delight in, and which He would have man to be. The world could never produce a man like Christ. Christ was everything and had everything. Every moral grace and good was there, nothing was lacking. He fully expressed God and what was of God. The more the disciples listened to Him the more they were amazed to find how blessed He was. Each day He seemed to be more wonderful than the day before. In Him, God Himself was "manifested in flesh". Christ was the embodiment of all the good and of all the grace that is in the heart of God for man, and all that good was perfectly expressed in Man. He was entirely of God, the heavenly Man, the Man out of heaven.

On the other hand, Christ was the most exclusive Man the world has ever seen. He excluded everything that was of the world. He would have none of its thoughts and ideas

and none of its ways. The world can never boast that they made that Man. And indeed the world has never made a man for God, nor can it do. Whatever we have learnt from the world we have to unlearn when we come to Christ, and learn of Him. His thoughts were in direct opposition to the thoughts of the world. The world never educated Christ. He brought all that marked Him from heaven, from God, who was the true spring of all His precious thoughts and His blessed ways. He was absolutely exclusive of all that is in the world - whether it was the lust of the flesh, or the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life. He was exclusive of its pride and self-importance, its ambition and its vanity. He would have nothing of its evil, nothing of its lying and deceiving character, nothing of its hatred, nothing of its lust. He had nothing to say to its violence nor to its corruption. He was the very opposite of all that the world is. Who was ever so gentle as Christ? Who was so full of love and grace? Who was so meek and lowly? Who was so dependent and confident in God? Who was so faithful? Who was so righteous and true? In every way He was the delight and pleasure of God, inclusive of all that is of God, but exclusive of all else. He was essentially the Holy One and the True, righteous in the midst of unrighteousness, godly in the midst of godlessness.

Naturally we do not like the idea of exclusiveness. But Christ was also inclusive, inclusive of all that is truly beautiful, of everything that has real value and worth, and He distributed liberally on every hand. He came into a world of need with grace to meet every bit of it. He had all the sweet light of God to give to man. He never lived to Himself or for Himself. He lived to God, and for God.

Though greater than all, He came lower than any in order to serve, and to give Himself a ransom for all. He loved to communicate; and with the utmost patience He taught His disciples, and so He does still. All who are truly taught of Him become like Him, and soon will come with Him from heaven, in the character of the holy city, in order to exercise their holy political influence for the blessing of the whole world.

Now let us consider the inclusive character of the city - what she is and what she has. As the bride of the Lamb the city corresponds with Christ and is like Him. And first, Jerusalem is a holy city. This is in striking contrast to the unholy cities of this world, and the politics of today. Christ is "the Holy One", and therefore it must be a holy city. All who form it are taught to abhor evil, and to follow after holiness. The Holy Spirit is given us that we may be holy, and thus like Christ.

Next, the city is seen "Coming down out of the heaven from God". The city is heavenly, and its origin is God. This is another feature of Christ. He was the heavenly Man, and He came from God, and "such as the heavenly one, such also the heavenly ones" (1 Corinthians 15:48). What wonderful influence we should have even now, if every morning we came down, as it were, from heaven, from God, to illuminate men with the light of Christ! The church did so at the beginning, when all were in the power of the Holy Spirit, and individually we may do so now.

This brings out another thought - the city has the glory of God and a shining most precious. Her shining was "as a crystal-like jasper stone". Now in chapter 4 the jasper stone is descriptive of Christ, so that the church has the

glory of God and the shining of Christ. Christ Himself is the glory of God, and was so when on earth. He revealed God fully, and God was glorified in Him. Christ was also the light of the world, the great light to lighten every man. Never before had there been such precious light. So the church will come out of heaven having the glory of God and a shining most precious. We find too in Ephesians 3:21, there will be glory to God "in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages". The heavenly city then will bring the glory of God to the nations, and the shining of Christ. How sweetly will that light influence the whole world in the coming day, diffused, as it will be, through myriads of saints! May we have grace to do so in some measure even now!

Next, we read the city has "a great and high wall". The wall is for defence, and to keep out evil. It was of jasper and therefore like unto Christ, and presents that holy nature which repels instantly, and with abhorrence, everything that is not in accord with Christ. "Every one begotten of God does not sin, but he that has been begotten of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him" (1 John 5:18). It is the saving character of the divine nature which allows no evil to penetrate. "Thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise" (Isaiah 60:18). God has called us to the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, and this fellowship is to keep out evil and to protect the interests of Christ down here, and to share in the wonderful privileges and blessings connected with Him. But it necessitates the fellowship of His death, so that we do not live in that to which Christ died. We are thus drawn together away from the world and sin, and by

the Holy Spirit are bound together in holy fellowship. Christians need such help in a world opposed to Christ. They are not meant to walk absolutely alone, as if there were no others who love the Lord. We need the help of one another. Now the walls present to my mind that inner work of a defensive and protective character which is wrought in our souls by the Holy Spirit, without which fellowship would only be an empty name. Christ knew nothing whatever of sin, His holy nature was absolutely opposed to it. If then Christ is in us, we have a new nature which is abhorrent of evil and will have nothing to say to it. The wall is twelve times twelve cubits high. No sin or evil of any kind can get in, and this wall is now being built in the souls of God's people by the Holy Spirit, and can never be thrown down. It is insuperable and impregnable.

The number twelve in Scripture expresses perfection in service or administration. It occurs twelve times in the description of the holy city, if we count the length, breadth and height as separate twelves. Thus the great thought of the city is administration and service in the day to come, when she will distribute all the goodness of God for the benefit of man. The city has twelve gates, that is perfection in accessibility. No matter from what point you approach the city, you find a gate. It is accessible to all men. No one was ever so easy to approach as was Christ. And He is still. And it should be just as easy to approach us. The Lord teaches His people to put themselves at the service of the poorest and the most needy. None were too lowly or outcast for Christ to serve, and He encourages us to do the same. Often have heavily burdened souls found that they could approach christians, when they could approach no

one else. How blessed to think we may be accessible to any poor sinner who has a need, and that it is for us to serve them and to tell them of the love of God. We are left here for that very purpose, that we may give to any and every one the sweet light of Christ, and bring the gospel within reach of all men. There were three gates on each of the four sides that the gospel might go out to all, and that no one might have to go away because he could not find a gate. In the future day the city will be within reach of the whole world, and all nations will find easy access into the good of the city and into the blessing of God.

Another thing brought before us is that at the gates were twelve angels. Angels, though now unseen, have a blessed service in guarding the Lord's people. So that we have here perfection in providential care. Angels were constantly seen in the Jewish dispensation protecting and guarding the saints, or opening prison doors, rendering some outward assistance to the Lord's earthly people. And they still serve us though unseen. Hebrews 1:14 says: "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out for service on account of those who shall inherit salvation?" The Lord, too, says of infants, "their angels in the heavens continually behold the face of my Father who is in the heavens" (Matthew 18:10). We little know how the objects of God's love are cared for in this way. Angels will have their recognition in the coming day. They have, for nearly two thousand years, cared for and protected God's people providentially, and they are at the gates in the day of glory. They will escort the city when it descends from heaven. Though in a somewhat different way, they will serve Christ and those who are Christ's. They will ever be at the

bidding of Christ. They are "mighty in strength, that execute his word, hearkening unto the voice of his word" (Psalm 103:20).

Further, I would notice that on the gates were inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. God can never forget Israel. It is from them that we got our light at the beginning of the gospel, for the first preachers were all Israelites, and so too the first converts. Also the history of the children of Israel was written for our instruction. Further, there will not only be a wonderful heavenly rule in the day of glory, but there will be perfection in earthly administration by means of the twelve tribes of Israel, who will occupy the first place on earth, and form twelve great nations. Israel will get its greatness and glory from Christ through the heavenly Jerusalem. They will be the first to get the good and blessing of the holy city, and they in turn will become a blessing to the nations, and all who bless them will be blessed. They will love God with all their heart, and their neighbour as themselves, and be the centre of blessing on the earth.

Again, the wall of the city has twelve foundations. Everything at the present moment is unstable. Men's hearts are failing them for fear. Things that seemed perfectly safe are giving way. But the walls of the holy city are marked by perfection in stability. Very soon there will be a general shaking of everything. "For thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come" (Haggai 2:6, 7). And this means "the removing of what is shaken, as being made, that what is

not shaken may remain" (Hebrews 12:27). Christians receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken. The city cannot be shaken. Christ can never be overthrown, and never has been, great though the failure of our testimony has been. Christ still remains as precious and as faithful as ever to His people, and He is absolutely reliable.

Next we read that on the foundations are the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The Lord entrusted the apostles with the testimony to give to us. He gave them the words which the Father gave Him, and they received them, and they have ministered them to the saints. Then it was given to Paul to complete the word of God. We get, therefore, here, the thought of perfection in testimony. Centuries have gone by, but nothing has been added to apostolic testimony. The church has been built upon it, upon their presentation of God as revealed in Christ. Nothing can be added to Paul's gospel. The whole light of a Saviour God was preached at the beginning, and nothing has been added to it since apostolic days.

Next, we come to the measurement of the city. It is a golden measure that is used, for God only can truly measure things. The measure must be divinely right. And it is the measure of a man. The city can never rise to Deity, it must keep its true place, and Christ as Man is the only standard of measurement according to God. There can be no exaggeration, no making great what is small, nor making small what is great. We get here perfection in symmetry. There is nothing which protrudes nor which offends the eye, for there was nothing uneven in Christ. The city is a perfect cube and absolutely and entirely the work of God. The length, breadth, and height are each

twelve thousand stadia. It is far beyond any other city in measurement. It surpasses everything. It is God's greatest work, for it is the full setting forth of Christ. It is fifteen hundred miles high, whereas the wall is only about two hundred and fifty feet high. This shows that the greatest thought is not salvation, nor power to protect itself from evil, for Christ goes far beyond that. So, too, the city expresses a much greater thought than that of the wall. In every direction it measures twelve thousand stadia, and it sets forth the perfection of Christ. There Christ is set forth in all His greatness.

Again, the city is pure gold, like pure glass. Even the street of it is pure gold, as transparent glass. That is, the public highway is marked by divine righteousness and transparency. It is through and through what Christ was and is. There is no part dark. The saints are made righteous as He is righteous, and "created in truthful righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:24). Nothing less will satisfy the thought of God. Christ, who "knew not sin he has made sin for us, that we might become God's righteousness in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Both publicly and privately, as the street and the inner part of the city indicate, the church becomes the full expression of the righteousness of God. If the question be asked - How could God put sinners in heaven? the heavenly saints will give the answer, for there will not be a trace of sin about us, or in us, then, nothing whatever to show that we had ever been sinners. We shall be, in Christ, the perfect expression of God's righteousness in putting sin away in the sacrifice of Christ, who was made sin for us. The heavenly company will not be sinners. They will be absolutely abhorrent of sin and perfectly

righteous. We shall be entirely like Christ, and a grand proof to the universe of how completely God has put away sin in the death of Christ, and has satisfied all the claims of His righteousness.

I would say again, that great though the wall is, and high, the city is greater and higher still. It is blessed to be saved and to be impregnable against evil, but it is a greater thought that we should be in every respect like Christ and for the delight of God. What a wonderful day it will be when myriads of saints, in the image and likeness of Christ, reflect His glory for the blessing of the earth. At the present moment Christ is but feebly seen in us christians, but He is seen in no others, for none but true christians can bring the rays of a living Christ into this dark world. All others speak and act like the world, for they are of the world. Soon the whole world will be filled with His glory.

Next, we find that the foundations are adorned with twelve kinds of precious stones. "The first foundation, jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprasus; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst". Here we have then perfection in what is precious and valuable. Everything that has moral value and worth is found there, as was the case with Christ Himself, and is still. Nothing whatever was wanting in Him. All grace was there, everything that God could value. There was more value in Him when down here than there was in the whole world put together. He presented everything that is precious in the eye of God, and that in striking contrast to the world. Babylon, the false church, is built upon every

vile and worthless principle, on selfishness, pride and lust of all kinds, and will fall in one moment when its day of judgment comes. But Jerusalem, the true church, is founded in everything that is precious, as set forth in Christ, and now in those who are Christ's, at least in the measure in which they are like to Him. It will be the most valuable building in the universe, because it will resemble Christ more closely than any other.

Next we read that the twelve gates were twelve pearls. "Each one of the gates, respectively, was of one pearl". This sets forth perfection of beauty. At whichever gate you approach the city, you are struck by its amazing beauty. It is unparalleled. There was never such beauty seen in this world before as was seen in Christ. But it needed anointed eyes to see it. In the eyes of the blinded Jews there was "no beauty" that they should desire Him. There was no halo round His head, as is falsely represented in pictures. But there was a moral halo, an indescribable moral beauty which at once marked Him off from every other man. See, for instance, how, in contrast to the bitterest hatred round Calvary's cross, the beauty of His spirit shone out in the words: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). Similar beauty too, marked the early christians. The words of Stephen when they were stoning him to death, illustrate this: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge" (Acts 7:60). There is a beautiful spirit about christians who live and walk under the influence of Christ, which at once attracts those who are seeking light. The only approach to the city to get the good and blessing of it is by means of the gates of pearl, the beautiful testimony of Christ. Christ sold all that He had to buy the church, the

"pearl of great value". Its beauty corresponds with that of Christ Himself.

Here I would notice that the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it. For this city of light and glory will be the seat of the rule and government when God and the Lamb are universally owned. God could never connect His rule with Babylon, where man must have a name, and which is only a system of confusion and evil. The holy Jerusalem is the seat of His rule, and the saints will reign with Him for ever and ever. Yea, even now, if we are right, He rules in our hearts; His throne is there. If we submit to His rule now, we shall be trusted with rule and political influence when Christ reigns.

Then, proceeding from the throne is the river, a pure river of water of life. It presents the living influence of the Spirit flowing far and wide and bringing life wherever it goes. Its source is God and the Lamb, but no one can say how far it flows. "He that will, let him take the water of life freely". It is found in the city, for all true christians have the Holy Spirit. It is both now and in that day the Spring and Power of all blessing, and goes out far and wide.

In the midst of the street of the city, and on either side of the river, is the tree of life, producing twelve fruits, yielding fresh fruit every month. The tree is Christ Himself, and the twelve fruits express perfection in delight, for Christ knows how, both now and also then, to minister unceasing fresh delight to those who feed on Him. What was lost through the fall of man, is given us in a far higher and more blessed way in Christ. Then the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. It may be we

shall be employed in healing the nations, by bringing to them as it were a leaf from the tree of life. Oh, that now, instead of hurting one another, we knew more how to heal the wounded with the grace of Christ.

Now let us look at the exclusive side. There are seven things which the city excludes. First, no temple is there, no distance, nothing whatever between us and God. It excludes the religion of this world, which puts us at a comparative distance and would rail off God's people lest they should come too near. But we shall be in His immediate presence, in holy enjoyment of His love, and we may be now. The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. Secondly, the city has no need of the sun, nor of the moon, to shine in it. It is exclusive of all created lights. There is no place there for great men, nor for glorying in man. The Lamb is the great luminary there, diffusing the light of the glory of God. And instead of the kings of the earth hating the city, as they will do the false church, the great whore, Babylon the great, and destroying it, they bring their glory and honour unto it. The nations, too, greet the welcome influence of the holy city, and walk in the light of it. Thirdly, "night shall not be there". No authority of darkness has sway there. It is all light, there is no dark spot. All there love the light and are light. Therefore the exclusive city is always open. "Its gates shall not be shut at all by day". The gates of a city are shut at night, but there is no night there, and so the gates are always open. The more exclusive of evil we are, the more open we shall be for the blessing of man. We must be exclusive, if we would keep the gates always open. Fourthly, nothing common, nor that maketh an

abomination shall enter there. It is impossible to connect Christ with defilement. The city must be holy and so free from defilement. Fifthly, no idolatry has place there, "nor that maketh an abomination". God has had His witnesses against idolatry ever since the days of Abraham, and of Babel when, by means of idols, demons got man's heart instead of God. "Children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21). Everything that takes the place of God in our hearts is an idol. But nothing that works idolatry shall enter there. Sixthly, no lie is there, nor anything that maketh a lie. Satan brought in the lie. Christ was the truth. Nothing false will the Spirit support in those who are Christ's. All must be true. Lastly, no curse is there, for "no curse shall be any more". Sin brought in the curse, but Christ removes it. Christ never taught us to curse, but rather to bless. No people have ever been such a blessing as christians, and then we shall be the blessing of the nations. What a day that will be for His servants! They have been despised for thousands of years, but then they "shall serve him, and they shall see his face; and his name is on their foreheads" - not the name of the beast, but the name of God and of the Lamb!

Then when the millennium is over, and the new heaven and new earth are seen, the holy city, new Jerusalem, will be the tabernacle of God, and God will dwell with men for ever and ever. May we all be fitted now to have our part in it, for His name's sake!

Place and date unknown.

RESPONSE

G V STANLEY

Hosea 2:19 - 23; Hosea 14:1 - 3, 8, 9; 1 Corinthians 14:15, 16, 29 - 32; Revelation 3:20 - 22; Revelation 22:20, 21

The thought of response is on my mind. We see that feature - as every other feature - perfectly in the Lord Jesus Christ. When He was here upon earth, for the first time God had One here who yielded Him full and perfect response in every word, in every movement, in every motive of His heart. It is touching to think of what the Lord turned into account in praise to God; the books of Psalms show that He would turn even His abandonment by God into praise. Think of His turning the very hiding of God's face from Him into a theme for praise. If cities refused His ministry, if He felt their turning from Him, it says, that, "At that time, Jesus answering said, I praise thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes" (Matthew 11:25). He "answering said ..". He was giving a response to God. What a word for us if we are found in a complaining spirit! Jesus turned the very hostility, the very refusal of precious ministry, into account in praising God, and taking up thankfully the babes.

How important for each of us to give attention to ministry! If we despise it, dust may be shaken off the feet of some ministers against us; but God will see that some get it - "babes", some in simplicity, some lowly, some

shall get the blessing. The Lord saw in those babes those who would respond to His teaching, those outwardly small but potentially great - great enough at the end of that gospel to be told that they were to sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. So we see this feature of response to God perfectly in the Lord Jesus, constant communion and turning of things into account in praise to God. Is this feature with us? Do we allow God's ways with us to produce psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs? God is looking for response; if we fail Him, others shall be giving it to Him. What a wondrous opportunity we have of affording response to God!

I read from the prophet Hosea, feeling how interesting is the way in which God begets response in a day of failure and breakdown. Things could not have been much worse, things were so bad publicly, that the prophet has to be told to take as wife a harlot, a worthless woman. God's servants are to be sympathetic with God in His feelings: Hosea was to have the feelings of God over faithless Israel, and by the commandment of God he takes this woman, and by the commandment of God he names the first child Jizreel. God had fixed the name of that boy - his name means, 'God soweth'. Then the second child is born - a girl - and she is named by the commandment of God, Lo-ruhamah, - not having obtained mercy. Then the third child is born - a boy - and he is called Lo-ammi - not my people. Could things be worse? They correspond, I believe, with the outward position today religiously, and, lest we should be caught in the spirit of it we are to feel the position, we are to have our part, as Hosea had, in feeling how heartless is the public profession.

Then God comes in, for His prerogative is to have mercy. He comes in on His own side. He had had that first boy named 'God soweth'. Why should we be together here, freed from much that is religious? We must trace it to God's sovereign activities. Why should I have been freed from what has laid hold of so many? Because God sovereignly, from His own side, comes in. 'God soweth', and here is this little remnant, Jizreel, and the prophet is able to continue to speak of universal blessing. In some ways Hosea is as wide as any of the prophets, for he speaks of universal blessing coming in. How will the millennium be ushered in? Not automatically; it will come in in answer to those who cry to God. The heavens "shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the new wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jizreel", and God comes in in blessing. "I will sow her unto me in the land; and I will have mercy upon Lo-ruhamah; and I will say to Lo-ammi, Thou art my people; and they shall say, My God". Well, one loves to think of that moment when here on earth, actually here, there shall be demonstrated what it is for creation to respond to God, as in connection with those on earth who know Him: "they shall hear Jizreel".

So, at the end of this prophet, you get a most touching suggestion of this intimate conversation between Ephraim and God. "Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?" God says, "I answer him, and I will observe him". Ephraim says to God, "I am like a green fir-tree", and God replies, "From me is thy fruit found". The better translation makes the speakers clear: Ephraim speaks, God replies; Ephraim responds, God acknowledges that

response. Oh, how blessed this intimacy is! Have we part in it? What have I to do with idols? "Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Thou art our God". Is there not a tendency for us to be caught in the spirit of this age? It is a day when men are saying to the work of their hands, 'Thou art our God'. The tendency is to be interested in what is happening around us, wondering, for instance, whether England would be first in a race across the world. As a believer in Jesus how can I be concerned as to some national exploit, when the cross severs me from every national feeling; when the Lord Jesus died that I might be separated from the pride and vanity of man; foolish man who would venture into spheres that are not his! We ought to pray for those men. "Neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Thou art our God; because in thee the fatherless findeth mercy".

Oh, how blessed to have an entrance into a world of moral values, to meet the achievements of man by retiring into the blessed knowledge of a God who shows mercy; to find an outlet for our feelings at a gospel preaching; in a God who can bring sinners to repentance; a greater work than any achievement of man's mind or hand! We need to be judging ourselves as to the spirit of what is here; the tendency is to turn back to Egypt, to rely on horses, on the power of the flesh; its weakness has been demonstrated - "The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea" (Exodus 15:21). I need to keep myself in self-judgment to watch that I do not go back to trust in what the death of Christ has severed me from. Then, as I say, at the very end of this book we have this touching conversation.

What does it mean to be "like a green fir-tree?" I suppose this figure is taken up by the Spirit of God to demonstrate the possibility of being in a hostile atmosphere; in circumstances and surroundings that are against life, and yet be the expression of freshness, having life in oneself. The fir-tree has life in itself - the cold, the snow, the frost do not damage the fir-tree. Ephraim says, "I am like a green fir-tree;" God says, "From me is thy fruit found". It seems in Scripture as if the very best is reserved for the end. It seems, beloved brethren, as if we who have come in as eleventh-hour men come in for the very best. We have one of the brightest rays in the Old Testament right at the end, a handful of people thinking of Jehovah's name, speaking often one to another; thinking on His name, remembering Him. And we see God's appreciation of it, for He says, "I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him" (Malachi 3:17). God was about to have the supreme delight of seeing that blessed One in manhood, who should come in and fully express God, One who should serve Him as a Son; and He accredits that little remnant at the end with that very character of service. Is the day difficult? Let us be like this remnant, let us feel the conditions. The Lord Jesus wants us to feel more intimately the state of the public profession of His name, the heartlessness as to His interests, but to encourage us to lay hold of Him in the sense of the sovereignty of what God will sow.

Could anything be more delightful than heaven and earth in this touching conversation - a speaker and one who answers? Why, this is what eternity will hold; our praises will be evoked spontaneously. We know that

angels secure response from one another; they are crying to one another in Isaiah 6:3 and saying, "Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" The two choirs in Nehemiah's day surely have some significance - two of them would suggest there is to be responsive praise. Many of the Psalms are written in that way - a theme, a thesis, put forward - the response secured, then the swelling chorus of praise. The book of the Revelation would show how much of the praise in heaven is secured by way of response; one burst of praise begets in another company a fresh outburst of praise to God. Is it so with us, dear brethren? "I am like a green fir-tree", and God, responding, "From me is thy fruit found".

The scripture in 1 Corinthians 14 shows how precious this feature of response is, in that provision is made for the simple christian to say, "Amen". "If thou blessest with the spirit, how shall he who fills the place of the simple Christian say Amen, at thy giving of thanks, since he does not know what thou sayest?" It seems as if this feature of response, this "Amen", is so precious, that provision is made that the simple one may have his part in saying it, and I would raise an exercise as to how far we - each one of us - have our part in the prayer meetings? If we came to the prayer meeting to pray, we should have better prayer meetings. We tend to leave it to certain brothers to pray, we tend not to be there vitally. What a prayer meeting it would be if every brother and sister were praying! How much we need adjustment as to the way we come together! We come together to pray, the sisters come to pray; the brothers give oral expression to the desires represented in the company, but those expressions would be more fervent

and deeper, if all the company were praying. Provision is made for the simple one that he may say, "Amen". This response is so precious, so necessary, that the simple one is taken account of - How shall he say, "Amen?" - as if that is to be the normal order, the expected thing, that every one shall be able to say, "Amen!"

The feature of prophesying, too, is one as to which some of us have had to be adjusted; this coming together, speaking by two or three, and letting the others judge. We are all to be there in true exercise, one is speaking, others should be judging. There should be with us this faculty of discernment. It seems at the end, as if the feature of discernment is specially given to those who are true; right at the end of Malachi it says, "And ye shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not" (chapter 3: 18). The feature of discernment is to be with us; we are to weigh over every word, we are to judge critically, not harshly, to weigh over what is said and to appraise it rightly. "Let the others judge. But if there be a revelation to another sitting there, let the first be silent". What a sensitivity is suggested in this, such a sensitivity that the speaker is aware that another is being given something even more precious. It seems to me as if the word evokes what is still more blessed, as if while one is speaking, the Spirit is pleased to give to another sitting there something even more precious, and room is made for it. "For ye can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all be encouraged". How blessed these inclusive scriptures are!

Are we all kept thankful for what the Lord has brought about? There are believers who are groaning under the bondage that they feel; there are believers who seem afraid to pray for themselves. Do we appreciate the value of what the Lord has brought about? Do the boys and girls here take account of the blessedness of what the Lord has brought so near to them? You sit with those whom the Lord has sovereignly touched. You sit amongst those who have liberty to speak to God; you are in homes where there is liberty to speak to Him; your pathway is committed to Him daily; you are the subject of prayers. I think if some of us knew of the bondage that there is religiously, we might come more thankfully together, and in the spirit of contributing. There is room for each one to bring in his distinctive impression of Christ, "And spirits of prophets are subject to prophets".

Then a word as to Laodicea. "Behold, I stand at the door and am knocking; if any one hear my voice and open the door, I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me ... . He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies". What will this knocking be? Is it ministry? There is the Lord's voice; there is this knocking too. Does it suggest that the Lord insists on having our ear? Some of us were privileged to hear a word recently as to the "last hour". It was said, 'It is as if John says to the children, You must listen, I must have your ears!' The fathers have what has been written - "I have written to you, fathers". "I have written to you, young men". "I write to you, little children". You must listen, you must pay attention to ministry. It seems as if the Lord is knocking. There is His voice, and what a voice it is! You can discern

the voice of the Lord. The brethren of Christ have discernment to recognise the voice of the Beloved in the present ministry, it is the voice of Christ. "Behold, I stand at the door and am knocking; if any one hear my voice and open the door, I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me". And then it is as if the Lord holds again in reserve one of the finest thoughts: "He that overcomes, to him will I give to sit with me in my throne; as I also have overcome, and have sat down with my Father in his throne". What is it to sit with Him in His throne? It is exaltation, but exaltation in affection. Could there be anything more dignified, anything more precious, than what He says, "as I also have overcome, and have sat down with my Father in his throne?" It is not dignity and glory put upon Christ in an official way, but given to Him in love - "with my Father in his throne". And He holds and reserves that for overcomers in this final phase of the church publicly, the phase that is right at hand, the phase to which our heart answers, unless we are kept in self-judgment; the phase marked by this feature of assuming to have everything that the Lord has given, yet having nothing and being naked and blind. Oh, what an appeal the Lord would make so that we might answer to this knocking of His, to this voice of His! It has never ceased - and, thank God, He never will cease to speak to His assembly, as long as He leaves her here.

Then, to refer to Revelation 22it is touching that the closing words of Scripture should give this feature of response. The Lord says, "Yea, I come quickly", and the immediate response is, "Amen; come, Lord Jesus". When God came into the garden of Eden, His creature was hiding

from Him. God did get an answer, however. He went on speaking until He won from them the story of what had come in. They made excuses, they tried to hide the matter, but God went on patiently speaking. What must have been His feelings as He came down! "They heard the voice of Jehovah Elohim, walking in the garden in the cool of the day" (Genesis 3:8), and Adam was hiding from Him! But here at the end we have, "Yea, I come quickly. Amen; come, Lord Jesus". It is as if the mention of it wins from John an immediate response. The Lord is coming quickly.

You may say, For nearly two thousand years it has been 'quickly'! Yes, it has been 'quickly', all the time, and the years have seemed like single days for the love He has for her. We shall marvel to see what the Spirit of God has secured in so short a time. Think of the patience of that holy, divine Person, patiently staying here, content to indwell a lowly vessel that He might provide a perfect answer to Christ. Oh, the patience of the Spirit! And the Lord says, "Behold, I come quickly" (verse 12). He has never had greater thoughts of His assembly than He has for her today; He is waiting for her like Isaac as he went in the cool of the day, in the eventide, to meditate in the field. He is waiting for her coming through the wilderness - "Yea, I come quickly. Amen; come, Lord Jesus". Then John thinks of all on earth that is precious to Christ, and he says, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints". Do you know, dear brethren, I believe, that if we are able to respond and say, "Amen; come, Lord Jesus", we shall think immediately of everything on earth that is precious to Him. The one who longs most for Him will think most compassionately, and affectionately, and prayerfully of all

who compose the assembly. John was on Patmos, he was there for the sake of the testimony, he was there for the sake of the other bondmen - "Yea, I come quickly. Amen; come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints".

Well, what a feature this matter of response is, and it is open to every one of us. "The simple" - well, the brethren think of you; God thinks of you; the Lord Jesus thinks of you. You will have special consideration if you take the place of being simple. There is one man in the Old Testament who says, "Truly I am more stupid than any one" (Proverbs 30:2), and that man got wonderful light! It is good to be amongst the simple with such a Teacher as Christ! It is good to be amongst the simple, when heaven is set upon our blessing. Think again of that one who read the scripture in his chariot and did not understand what he was reading: "How should I then be able unless some one guide me?" he says (Acts 8:31). Heaven provides a teacher for that one man, and beginning at the same scripture Philip "announced the glad tidings of Jesus to him". To speak simply, if we brought our difficulties with us in an inquiring spirit, they would often be answered in the meetings. If I bring my difficulties complainingly, I shall get no answer. If I bring those doubts and desires with me when I come, how often the Lord has proved that He will answer! How often the brothers have found the Lord has given them fresh thoughts, and they owe them to the desires of someone there; for the Lord is not working automatically, He is working sympathetically, He is using those who give themselves over simply to Him - responsive vessels. We need to make the most of these

blessed opportunities the Lord is giving us - the meeting for prayer; the reading of the Scriptures; the meeting for prophecy; that blessed occasion - the Supper - when most of all we may respond to the heart of Him who loved us, even to dying for us.

May God grant that we may each have part in this feature of present response; and, as the Lord says, "Yea, I come quickly", may we, as self-judged people, be able to say, "Amen; come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints".

From Response and Other Addresses, pp. 1 - 17, Place and date unknown.

THE LORD OUR TEACHER

G V STANLEY

Isaiah 42:1 - 4; Luke 7:44 - 50; Luke 10:38 - 42; Philippians 3:17 - 21

We read in Proverbs 30 of one who said that he had not a man's intelligence, who said that he had not learned wisdom, an attitude of mind that should be ours; necessitating our taking the ground of needing to be instructed in grace, taking the lowly ground, with the sense that mercy would give us, that divine things may be opened up to us. In regard to our learning, I wish to speak simply of the Lord as teaching, and teaching by way of model. Every teacher knows that one of the best ways of imparting things is to teach by models, even in human teaching. If a teacher can find a model he has gone a long way to securing the interest of those who are learning; if he can find an exemplification of the thing which he is seeking to teach, how good it is! If he himself is the exemplification of the lesson he would teach, how good it is!

The Lord takes the place of Teacher. He knows the best way of teaching, and He loves to teach by way of a model. He Himself as the Teacher, was the exemplification of everything that He taught. If He said, "Blessed the meek" (Matthew 5:5 - 9), it was because He was meek. "Blessed they who hunger and thirst after righteousness" - He was righteous; "Blessed the peace-makers" - He was a peace-maker. That great Teacher is

Himself the exemplification of every lesson He would teach.

In Isaiah attention is being called to Him personally. "Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth". God is looking on to the time when He will have One here who will represent Him in this scene. "Behold my servant!" The One who has no will of His own; whose delight was to do the will of Another. Think of God calling attention to the Lord Jesus in that way. "Elect", that is, He will answer to every thought of God as to Him - He is providing present joy to the heart of God. "In whom my soul delighteth". "He shall bring forth judgment to the nations". I think the reading of the prophet Isaiah moves many of us. To think that we were in God's thoughts before Israel was publicly set aside! God is looking on for the nations to be brought in, as He says here, "the isles shall wait for his law". God was looking forward to the extension of the sway of Jesus. He was looking on to the time when some out of every tribe and nation should come out to honour His beloved Son. He says, "He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment according to truth".

Teachers get discouraged with their pupils, but this Teacher never does! He takes you up as you are. "A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench". What poor material the Lord takes up! How do I look at my brethren? Do I expect them to be fitted to some standard of my making? I know that they will shine in the likeness of their Lord. Am I expecting that there will be

some great change? I believe that we shall have to go on with bruised reeds and smoking flax to the end. A word in the New Testament says that the unruly are to be rebuked, the weak are to be supported, the feeble minds are to be comforted, but we are to have patience towards all. Every brother and sister may test my patience. This blessed One comes in as God's Elect. He takes up the most unlikely material. Think of His patience with Peter, and of His patience with me.

Then it says, "He shall not faint nor be in haste". He is going on. He will bring in a universe for God's pleasure. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come". The holy city is yet to come down from God having His glory. The Lord "shall not faint nor be in haste". He is going on. God's glory, and the securing of it in the brethren - that is the thought. How it would help us to be patient with one another! Not that divine principles are to be given up. We are to stand by divine principles in the spirit of the dispensation. We are to be restful as to the ability of divine Persons to carry the work through.

Paul in writing to the Corinthians says of the report that reached him, "I partly give credit to it" (1 Corinthians 11:18). Some of us would have said he had abundant proof, but he says, "I partly give credit to it", and yet he holds to divine principles. He would be unsparing with those who are not keeping the commandment. "If any one thinks himself to be ... spiritual, let him recognise the things that I write to you, that it is the Lord's commandment" (1 Corinthians 14:37).

Then in Luke's gospel Jesus is teaching in chapter 7 by way of this model, the woman who has come into the house; she has come behind Him weeping. What a model

for every one of us here! Some of us may cease to shed tears over our state when once we find the liabilities have been borne by Jesus. We may tend to lose the sense of mercy. These tears are to go on. The kisses and the tears are blended - tears for what she is; kisses for what He is. Tears of repentance for her state, kisses, the greeting of love that He has come within her reach. He says, 'She has never ceased to kiss my feet from the time I came in'. Why cease? Why stop kissing those feet? We are to go on. Paul went on to the end. Long after his conversion he was shedding tears - "less than the least of all saints" (Ephesians 3:8); he was shedding tears - "who has loved me and given himself for me" (Galatians 2:20); he is blending the tears with the kisses. Oh, for a sense of mercy to imbue every one of us; that our souls might be steeped with the sense of mercy; that we may never move out of that sphere where the sense of mercy prevails! What a model this woman is! He uses her as an appeal to the proud heart of Simon. In spirit she has become the true hostess. It may be Simon's house, but she is doing the entertaining.

We are all living in towns, or cities, or villages, where what is big outwardly takes the place of honouring Christ, but at heart it is hostile. There is criticism of Him; in the teaching publicly in this country they are even questioning His Deity. What a need for us to come in with the sense of mercy! Kisses for those lovely feet, so beautiful upon the mountains. Why cease? I believe that these kisses and tears are to be maintained to the very end. As Mr Darby said, when nearing his end, 'I go to obtain mercy'. A sense of the mercy that has brought Christ near to us, and a sense of the unworthiness that marks us - this would give us a

fine opportunity of bestowing kisses with affection on that blessed One.

It says, "They that were with them at table began to say within themselves, Who is this who forgives also sins? And he said to the woman, Thy faith has saved thee; go in peace". They came in with their feelings of hostility. The Lord gives her a touch. Think of the Lord feeling the hostility publicly - feeling what people are saying within themselves, but turning to those He loves and giving them an added touch. I believe the Lord would love to do that as He feels what is being done and said in God's name. I believe He loves to commit another impression to those who are before Him in lowliness. He loves to touch us. What a model this woman still is for us! How much I need to learn of the spirit and manner in which I am to come before God!

And then as to Mary, she is sitting at the feet of Jesus and hearing His word. Martha was distracted with much serving; she came to Him and said, "Lord, dost thou not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Speak to her therefore that she may help me. But Jesus answering said to her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things; but there is need of one, and Mary has chosen the good part, the which shall not be taken from her". Mary has chosen the good part! What shall we lose when we go? What shall we leave behind? Social status will be left behind; wealth will be left behind; ability to excel over others. What shall we take? My fancied usefulness - that must be left behind. Martha feels so important in this house. To her credit she had asked the Lord in, and to her blessing, too, for if you ask the Lord in

He will be faithful. It is to Martha He speaks, "Martha, Martha". We have often dwelt on the love of the Lord in saying our names twice. He will say our name twice if we need adjustment; He has blessing behind saying the name twice. It is no ordinary matter. The Lord says, 'Mary is at My feet; she has chosen the good part'.

Do we not make excuses and say, Other people are more spiritual than I am? Do we not often try to excuse ourselves for our lacking of diligence in regard of spiritual things? Mary has chosen the good part. Mary has deliberately wanted this; she has gone in for it. The brethren who have served us long and faithfully - where did they get their substance? They got it in conflict - in carrying burdens. I have noticed that the brethren who serve most effectively amongst us are carrying a burden wherever they are. If they are out of the local meeting they are carrying the local exercises; they acquire this wealth of substance by deliberately choosing. "Mary has chosen the good part, the which shall not be taken from her". She has been at the feet of Jesus. We shall all be there. We shall know God eternally in Jesus. Throughout the eternal day we shall know God in Him and only thus shall we know God. Mary is acquiring substance. She says:

'Low at Thy feet Lord Jesus,
This is the place for me.
Here have I learnt deep lessons,
Truth that has set me free'.

What a model Mary is for us! - and the Lord would encourage it. He would give us to see that that place is

open to every one of us. If we feel that our minds are so wandering or unable to retain divine things, He would help us to be found at His feet, that that kind of mind might be judged and the capacity to hold and retain might be strengthened.

What opportunities there are in the prayer meeting, in the reading, in the edification meeting; what opportunities for time to be with God! How abundant the opportunities are! We may receive one impression. Some of us are not small enough, not lowly enough, to receive one impression. If we come in like Ruth into the field with a sense of mercy, we would faithfully take up every ear of corn, and we would know that there was One who would say to the brethren, You had better drop handfuls of purpose. The eyes of Boaz were upon Ruth; he saw that she was faithful, that she could be trusted. Ruth had much to commend her. Let us qualify by coming into the local meetings with a sense of mercy. Boaz says, "Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field ... keep here with my maidens" (Ruth 2:8). And she stayed with his maidens to the end of the barley harvest and of the wheat harvest. What a portion there is as we are found at the feet of our true Boaz.

Then Paul speaks of himself. He says, "Be imitators all together of me, brethren, and fix your eyes on those walking thus as you have us for a model; (for many walk of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly, and their glory in their shame, who mind earthly things:) for our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens, from

which also we await the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, who shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to his body of glory, according to the working of the power which he has even to subdue all things to himself".

"Be imitators all together of me, brethren", Paul says; one of like passions with ourselves. One who was an insolent, overbearing man. One who in his hatred of the name of the Lord Jesus had sought letters from the high priest to go wider in his ravaging expeditions, that he might stamp out the name of Jesus. Now he is saying, Brethren, take me and others with me as a model. This is what divine love can do. Do you think there was anything in Paul naturally to commend him? I believe when he speaks of these bodies of humiliation that he was conscious that the earthen vessel was not adequate, it was not in keeping with the treasure that God gave him. Are we looking for outward things? What do we look for amongst the brethren? Paul looks on to the time when these bodies of humiliation shall be changed. He knows the power that is with the Lord. He knows the finishing touch when these earthen vessels shall be made glorious, when they shall be in keeping with the treasure that they hold. But even with the body of humiliation, with all the attendant circumstances, that were disagreeable in what was outward, he could say, knowing the preciousness of the treasure that he holds, "Be imitators all together of me".

How the Lord delights to give us a model! Is there one in your locality? The Lord is looking for models. He is teaching by way of models. He Himself ever the perfect One; but He is looking for those whom He may take up as

models. There are those who to their shame wear special garments to show that they are connected with the service of God. If only we felt the shame of it - of those who profess the name and do not show it - our part is to see that we make up for it. If I feel there is any discredit to the name of the Lord, it is incumbent on me that I make up for what is lacking. If I see deficiencies in my brethren, it is incumbent upon me to make up for the deficiency.

Paul says, "yet shew I unto you a way of more surpassing excellence" (1 Corinthians 12:31). He is a model to the Corinthians. He could give an address on it; he could write a chapter so that it would move us to read it; language that is superb, language that is amazing, as Paul speaks of the features that mark love. Today the gospel is being slighted and the Lord would have particular use for models. If the word is refused, let us see that we are the exemplification of the lesson the Lord would teach. He will stand by us.

May the Lord bless the word!

From Response and Other Addresses, pp. 52 - 64, Place and Date unknown.

ENTERTAINING DIVINE PERSONS

G V STANLEY

Genesis 18:1 - 8, 16 - 19; 2 Samuel 7:1 - 10, 18 - 21; John 12:1 - 3, 7; Revelation 21:1 - 3

We were dwelling together this afternoon on the thought of hospitality. And seeking to encourage one another in providing those features in keeping with Peter's ministry in sobriety. And in keeping with the widowhood of the assembly here, as Paul held it in his heart - a widow who yet brings up children, who shows hospitality, who washes the saints' feet; and in keeping with John. Hospitality according to John would give us to be found with spiritual discernment as to those who are moving in keeping with the Name.

One desires now to dwell on this thought of entertaining divine Persons, of providing what gives pleasure to Them. It says of Benjamin in the blessings in Deuteronomy 33:12, "The beloved of Jehovah, - he shall dwell in safety by him; He will cover him all the day long, And dwell between his shoulders". That is, God will dwell between the shoulders of Benjamin. It is no doubt a prophetic reference to the mountains that came in Benjamin's portion of the land, in the centre of which was Jerusalem. Think of God committing Himself to Benjamin, covering him all the day long, and then dwelling complacently between the shoulders of Benjamin. That is why God reveals Himself. He comes out in the expression of His own love, and so secures what is great enough to

hold him. He covers Benjamin, and wins from Benjamin such a response.

How blessed were God's thoughts in relation to this man Abraham, who sits in the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day! Some of us tend to put off christianity as we go to our work, and to put it on again as we are free, but our work and our life of responsibility here are to be part of the testimony. I am to be ready in the heat of the day. Abraham is restful as he waits for this divine visitation. Three men come to him. When he saw them he ran to meet them from the tent door. The tent door is blessed, but we are to prove God in our circumstances and to come out as conquerors, as facing responsibility and meeting it, and yet restful for what divine love may disclose, and then vigilant, alert, mobile, as occasion requires. Abraham bowed himself to the earth, and he said, "Lord". What stature there is with this man! There are three men, but he says, "Lord". He recognises One is distinctive. He speaks to One.

I do not think we could exhaust the greatness of what is here. It is a matter for contemplation, indeed for worship, for God is visiting this man and is visiting him in a man's form, drawing near to Abraham in a way that he understands. Abraham says, "Lord, if now I have found favour in thine eyes, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant. Let now a little water be fetched, that ye may wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree". A greater than Abraham was to think of refreshment for the feet: a greater than Abraham was to lay aside His garments and gird Himself with a linen towel and serve those He loved as He washed their feet.

What must it have meant to God to find these sensibilities with Abraham! He says, "I will fetch a morsel of bread; and refresh yourselves; after that ye shall pass on; for therefore have ye passed on towards your servant". It is as if to say, I know that the divine pleasure is concerned with others, and with other things. I know that you are only calling on me; but let me hold you, let me do something for your comfort. You stood within my range to see if I would hold you, but wait while I provide something. Let me keep you. How the Lord must love desires like these! Do we want the Lord for His own sake? We needed Him for what He would do for us, for what He brought to us, as we were on the roadside half-dead, stripped. I needed Him on the night I confessed Him in the gospel, but do I need Him for His own sake? Do we value His presence, so that we ask Him if He will stay while we provide something to minister to His own heart?

The next thing is that "Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah". He is going to bring her into it. Love is never selfish. She is there in the tent: she does not have to be sent for, she is a keeper at home. Hers is to knead the bread, to get it ready. She can do it. She is not buying it ready made. She will make it, and these heavenly visitors will wait while it is made. It is to Abraham's credit that he brings Sarah in. He says, "Knead quickly three seahs of wheaten flour". I believe there is an answer in this to the fact that there were three visitors. Every fresh ray of light that reaches us is to have its effect, and future movements and actions are to be coloured by it. A fresh touch today from the Lord is intended to colour the rest of our spiritual experience and movements here. As we get the light, the

Lord wishes us to review everything in regard of it, and Abraham says, "three seahs of wheaten flour". Abraham is a man who is with God, and intuitively he is doing what is pleasing to heaven. Is it not pleasurable when you find you have been so under the control of the Spirit that intuitively you have done what was pleasing? "Three seahs of wheaten flour". Knead it, and make cakes. One would plead, dear brethren, for cakes. A cake is a whole thing. No matter how diminutive they may be, let us have cakes in the reading meetings. Let us have whole thoughts. They do not possess them in professing christendom: they have only partial thoughts; they take one truth and press it at the expense of every other. Let us have whole truths. The Lord Jesus gave to Saul of Tarsus a whole truth as He said, "Why dost thou persecute me?" Behind that one sentence, pregnant with meaning, is the thought of the assembly complete, the unity of Christ and the assembly. We were singing:

'And then with Thee blest Saviour,
We evermore shall be,
In deepest, fullest blessing,
For ever one with Thee'. (Hymn 140)

That was behind what the Lord said in His first utterance to Saul of Tarsus. "Why dost thou persecute me?" The apostle is to come out with a ministry that shall give the saints the blessed light of the oneness of Christ and the assembly. It was a cake, so to speak, a whole thought. Do not let us be discouraged with poverty locally, with smallness or breakdown, but let us cleave to the Lord and

have cakes, whole thoughts. Let us not be partial as to the truth: let us see that all we have is connected with completion. The Lord says to one assembly, "I have not found thy works complete" (Revelation 3:2).

"Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf tender and good, and gave it to the attendant; and he hasted to dress it". He is going to bring in the young brothers. How blessed to bring them in! Are we looking for the next generation? Do the children know they are loved? Do the young people feel that there is help for them, and affection and expectancy as to them? We want to see them in the divine service; out at the meetings, but also making things their own. He "took a calf tender and good". A greater than Abraham speaks of a fatted calf. We must wait for the Lord Jesus to be here in manhood that we may know the full thought, but Abraham has typically his own appreciation of Christ. He is going to present this to these heavenly visitors. He will detain them over the excellencies that he sees in this calf, tender and good. He gave it to an attendant; and he hasted to dress it. We are to trust one another in regard of the work of God. Abraham is not restless or interfering. The young man will do it. Abraham's is the choice, a mature choice, you might say. It is like the contribution of a proved brother, but he brings in the young man, to have his part as he makes the meal available.

Then it says, "he took thick and sweet milk, and the calf that he had dressed". I am not to speak to the Lord in the crudity of nature, nor in the refinement of nature. The scholar's voice and the uncouth voice are both ruled out, for I am to speak in the grace that belongs to those who

know God. Much matters as to my manners in the house of God. I am to be there in a becoming way. All this would go with the thought of the sweet milk.

Abraham's provision was set before them, and he stood before them under the tree as they ate. He can entertain these heavenly Visitors: he has all this to present to them. It finds us out, dear brethren. Do we know enough of the excellencies of Jesus to be able to hold the attention of God Himself? It says, "the men rose up thence, and looked toward Sodom; and Abraham went with them to conduct them". How blessed this is! Abraham does not just let them go, and it means that he will be given further disclosures. God says, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?" Without being fanciful one can see an order in this as to our own Lord's days. After the privilege of knowing the drawing near of divine Persons, we are well equipped to be instructed together in the word, and then to be before God interceding for men. Abraham keeps up his pleading. Wilt thou destroy the city for fifty? If there are five missing, Wilt thou destroy it for forty-five? Down the scale he comes, lowering his number. We have to wait for another day - a greater day - for God to come down to one Man, a poor wise Man, who by His wisdom delivered the city. We must wait for the greater day for the full expression of God's mercy secured in Christ. All these Old Testament scriptures are pointing on to Christ. Abraham has known intimacy in his entertaining the heavenly Visitors, and now as feeling for perishing men, who deserve the judgment of God, he detains God for them. It is a conversation that one marvels at. God will continue to answer, and Abraham continues to plead. Finally it says,

"Jehovah went away when he had ended speaking to Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place". Oh, for more communing in the gospel! A clear gospel, a good preaching, a stirring time, may have their part, but there should be more communing with God over the gospel. It says that He went away after He had ended speaking with Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place. There would be more secured in the gospel preaching if we were on this line of communing with God as to it.

Then as to David, it says that the king dwelt in his own house: "See now, I dwell in a house of cedars, and the ark of God dwells under curtains. And Nathan said to the king, Go, do all that is in thy heart; for Jehovah is with thee". On the same night God speaks to Nathan, and says, "I have not dwelt in a house since the day that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but I went about in a tent and in a tabernacle". Think of God speaking thus, "I went about". Then He sends the prophet to David to assure him of the prosperity of his line, and to speak to him of the one who is to come after him and to establish his house. What pleasure God has in the promotion of those who love Christ! David sits in his own house, and there comes to him this thought, the ark still dwells under curtains. Shall I not build a house of cedar? He does well to speak to the prophet. You notice that God speaks to the prophet. He does not speak directly to David: He speaks to Nathan, and Nathan comes and tells him all the words and all the wisdom God had revealed. Now see what David does. He went in and sat before Jehovah and he goes over in the presence of God his own feelings as to mercy, and all God's feelings as to him, and all His

goodness. He sits before God, rehearsing the way He has taken. In these days we are concerned that we may have a prophetic word, but it is not to end with the word in prophecy. We are to take the prophetic word home to our hearts, and to go in and sit before the Lord. Think of having such an experience with God that you can hold His attention as you rehearse His ways with you, as you come into the light of Solomon, the true Solomon, and see that every thought of God has been established irrevocably in Christ. You are able to sit before God with substance in your soul, restful and complacent, rejoicing in the fact that He has One, the true Solomon, who shall carry through every thought of His heart to its full completion. We have been concerned as to the prophetic word, as to the meeting for edification. Let us, dear brethren, go further than this, and see that the prophetic word is to awaken within us a longing to go into the presence of God Himself; and in the knowledge and light of what He has given in the prophetic word to be found in the good of it as we sit in His presence.

In John 12, "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". You notice, beloved brethren, that in all these three passages we have read the suggestions come from those who are seeking to minister pleasure to divine Persons. What can we say of Mary? Her contribution is of great price. It was the wealth that had accrued as a result of sitting at the feet of Jesus. She had

gone in for the best. We know from Luke's gospel how she had acquired this. She does not appear again in Scripture; she merges in the company now. She is assembly material. Having learnt at the feet of Jesus in choosing the good part which shall not be taken away, she had become intelligent in love. She goes the whole way as she thinks of her Lord. He says, She has kept it "for the day of my preparation for burial". Some of the disciples were amazed when their Lord was taken and crucified; but love in this woman, love wrought out subjectively in her, had given her to go all the way. How intelligent is Mary and the house is filled with the odour of the ointment. It brings out what is hostile. Do not let us be too concerned, dear brethren, when elements that are hostile come to light. If there were spiritual conditions amongst us, what was hostile would have to come out. When the Lord Jesus went into the synagogue at the beginning of Mark's gospel a man cried out. What was evil came to light, and was exposed as the Lord Jesus came in. Do not let us be too troubled at what is distressing coming out, if we have the house filled with the odour of the ointment. The Lord Jesus says what He thinks of it. She has that which ministers to Him, and it fills the house. Thank God, we have known a little of it. As someone's precious appreciation of the Lord Jesus was being spent entirely on Him we have known Him as supreme. Love has been in movement as there was presented what was gratifying to His own heart.

In the Revelation, "I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband". One feels one's incapacity

to say a word about it, but here it is, God tabernacling with men. I think I could understand if it said that men would tabernacle with God, the God who has made Himself known in so blessed and so gracious a way, that He secures men to ever find their joy in dwelling with Him. Here God is tabernacling with men. It is God finding in men such capacity, such state, such delightful features that He commits Himself to them, tabernacling with them. It would give us to marvel more and more at the incarnation - that One who is God became Man. We learn that all God's thoughts cluster round Christ, and we see that God's purpose from eternity is connected with men in the likeness of that blessed Man. In this consummation of things, the holy city, the assembly -

'Complete and in His beauty dressed',

the new Jerusalem, comes down from God out of heaven, adorned as a bride for her husband. The heart of Christ is forever satisfied as He gazes upon the one He died to secure; and then God tabernacles with men. God dwells with them, finding those who know Him and love Him and understand Him, those who have been touched in grace and drawn one by one. "And he shall tabernacle with them, and they shall he his people, and God himself shall be with them, their God".

One desires, dear brethren, that we may each know something of providing features that will hold divine Persons. As They draw near to us (and in grace They do) may there be with us capacity to present what is so acceptable, so pleasing, that we may detain Them. What

an opportunity there is ere we are taken out of this present scene, that we have the blessed privilege of providing features in love that will hold divine Persons, that will detain Them, and will minister to Their hearts. So that God Himself can delight in the features of Christ presented to Him by those who know Him. May the Lord bless the word!

From Response and Other Addresses, pp. 95 - 109, Place and Date unknown.

RETURNING

G V STANLEY

Ruth 1:6 - 10, 14 - 22; Malachi 3:7, 16 - 18; Luke 17:11 - 19; Luke 24:32 - 36

In these well-known scriptures we have the thought of returning. It would form part of the great subject of recovery, representing the subjective side with us, the answer to the Lord's appeal in grace, as in response to that appeal we return. This woman Naomi is one who is returning. She had known days of blessedness, but she had come, through self-will, to a time of soul famine and here she is seen returning. She has heard that God has visited His people in giving them bread and, leaving the fields of Moab, she sets her face in the direction of that land which was blessed with bread. She is a returning one. How good it is that such are to be found today! There by our side, for our encouragement, are those who are self-judged, who use this language, "I went out full, and Jehovah has brought me home again empty". They are accepting God's ways, accepting in self-judgment their own part in what has proved so disastrous, but thankful in their spirits to be brought back. Now Naomi is returning, she has her face in the right direction. One loves to think of her companion - Ruth.

What an encouragement for the youngest here, someone who, like Orpah or Ruth, may be just at the point of decision. How many there are coming to the meetings, recognising what is good, but who, like Orpah, come part

of the way and receive Naomi's kiss and then go back; but Ruth is credited with returning. The last verse of chapter 1 makes it clear that Ruth is regarded as returning. You say, she had never had part in this, she had never lived before in Bethlehem; but the Spirit of God credits her with returning. You, dear young friend, will find that the Lord will early put to your credit all that He can. The Lord has sovereignly designed and planned this portion for you, but as you answer to His appeal in grace, and take your place along with self-judged persons, you will find that He loves to credit you with all He can. Orpah goes back, but Ruth says "Do not intreat me to leave thee, to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried". She has, so to speak, measured all the distance. It is as if this self-judged woman, Naomi, had had her part in effecting this spirit in Ruth. Naomi says: "Call me not Naomi [pleasantness] - call me Mara [bitterness] ... I went out full, and Jehovah has brought me home again empty". There was once a king who said that the bitterness of death was passed: he walked gaily, but he was hewn in pieces, 1 Samuel 15:32, 33. Here is one who acknowledges the bitterness of death, it is not over for her. She will retain the sense of it as long as she is here. Here is one who judges her path and past, but steps thankfully into the blessedness of that which God delights to reserve for those who judge themselves and return. It is as if Ruth's very spirit is permeated with the same feeling, for she says, "Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried". It is someone coming into fellowship, so to speak,

with nothing before them but to have part in all that the Lord's people are feeling and bearing in their exercises here.

"And they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley-harvest". It is always the beginning of barley-harvest amongst the Lord's people. It is barley-harvest today. Is there someone here hesitating, someone who has not thrown in his lot with the people of God? We can tell you in truth that it is barley-harvest. As we lift up our eyes, we see the fields white unto harvest - the features of Christ out of death appearing in His beloved people. We find later that Ruth had her own desires; she suggests that she should go out to glean, (chapter 2: 2). What a comfort that would be to Naomi! Ruth goes out into the field, and you will remember the inquiry of Boaz as to this returning one who has come up from Moab. The eye of Boaz is upon her. The Lord's eye is upon you. He asks the brethren about you, for He wants to know if you are in their prayers, He wants to know if they take account of you. Boaz says to the servants "Whose maiden is this?" He gets the information through the servant. It is as if the Lord would give us concern, dear brethren, as to every inquirer who may come along. The Lord would put upon us the burden and responsibility of knowing from whence each inquirer comes. "Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from here, but keep here with my maidens". It is the language of affection. You know that there are other fields - the field of education, the field of culture, the field of sport, the field of ambition. There they are, each one is a temptation to you, but the Lord says: "Go not to glean in another field". Do not

complain that the meetings are difficult. Meetings can be difficult. You can understand that it must be so, if even Peter, the first of the disciples, sovereignly first, could speak of things "hard to be understood", that the beloved brother Paul had written. If Peter finds ministry difficult, may I not find it difficult? The best ministry is the most difficult. Gleaning is such a simple thing! The very attitude suggests lowliness, thankfulness to get even one thing in any reading, thankfulness at the prayer meeting to get one impression of the Lord, who has stooped so low that He looked upon me when I came up from Moab. It is the gleaners that are needed at the prayer meetings, and readings, those who will bend, those who in lowliness of spirit will seek to gather some fresh impression of Christ. He will not disappoint you. He will see that there are handfuls of purpose for you - not one, but many! How blessed to be in this field! There is full provision. There are young men, thank God, who are working. You can drink of what the young men have drawn. The Levites are at their work. The young men are not failing, there is what they have drawn; there is refreshment in this harvest field, there is the protection of the maidens of Boaz - keep with them. Do not choose worldly companions, but "my maidens", suggesting those who have purity of affection for Christ.

She gleans, if you remember, until the end of the barley-harvest and of the wheat-harvest. How blessed to have part in it all, from the first sign, so to speak, of the features of Christ amongst His beloved people, right on through the wheat-harvest, for it is going to end in the wheat-harvest. Those feeble, failing Naomis, those self-

judged ones, will yet shine in the likeness of Christ. The harvest is going to be full and complete. He will be satisfied only with perfection, and He will have it in the beloved brethren as He takes them to be with Himself. What an opportunity for someone to return today! How much the Lord has in His heart for one who comes back - who returns.

Then God makes an appeal through the prophet Malachi. He says: "Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith Jehovah of hosts. But ye say, Wherein shall we return?" The figure that Malachi takes up right through his prophecy is of a disobedient child or children, throwing back in the mouth of the One who is speaking to them, His very words. God says, "I have loved you". The people say: "Wherein hast thou loved us?" (chapter 1: 2). God says: "Return unto me, and I will return unto you". The people say, "Wherein shall we return?" The figure is that of disobedient, gainsaying children, throwing back as a retort the very appeal of love. What an appeal the prophet has made! - showing that right at the end of the dispensation there is this touching appeal of God to return.

"Then they that feared Jehovah spoke often one to another". Just at that very juncture, when there was a hostile attitude on the part of God's professing people, these few made the most of their opportunities. Thank God for the opportunities we have of being together, recognising the weakness of the outward position, but with fidelity and affection that would make the most of every occasion. "Then they that feared Jehovah spoke often one to another". How often? As often as I can be with my

brethren; as often as I can get an ear, as often as I can share another's impression of Christ.

"And Jehovah observed it, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared Jehovah, and that thought upon his name". It is as if the Lord takes account of the very feeblest desire after Him. You say, These people do not do very much, there is no great public activity. Ah! but there is fidelity to Christ, there is fidelity to the Lord here! "And a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared Jehovah, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be unto me a peculiar treasure, saith Jehovah of hosts, in the day that I prepare; and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him". It is as if the Lord retains one of the brightest thoughts for the very end of the dispensation. He clothes the outward weakness of the position with one of the most dignified thoughts: "I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him". It is what God longed for in the beginning. It is what He was about to have in perfection as Christ stepped into this scene, but He clothes this weak, you might say outwardly hopeless, position with this bright thought, as though He had reserved it right through the dispensation.

How blessed the expression, "Jehovah of hosts!" It is the post-captivity prophets who delight in this title of God - "Jehovah of hosts". It is right at the very end that this blessed thought is brought in in a peculiar way. We are in touch with the Lord who is thinking of all His people, of His assembly. As we break bread together, we long to do it with assembly affections and feelings, to take account of the love of Christ for His assembly, to think of Him as the

Lord of hosts. It may be but a handful; it may be two or three, but He is looking upon them in the light of His love for all His own, and they are comforted that He is still Jehovah of hosts. "I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him".

To turn to Luke 17:19, the Lord says, "thy faith has made thee well". One feels that the exercise is necessary with all of us as to whether we are accepting the blessing without giving to the Lord, the Blesser, and to God, the Blesser, what is due. How much we have been brought into! Taken from the dunghill, set among princes! How much light there is! What a flood of precious ministry! How much there is that we expect and take almost for granted!

Think of the Lord here as moving on to die; His face is set; He is moving on to Jerusalem in grace, and He passes through these villages and towns. The witness of the grace of God is exemplified in those ten lepers who get blessing. It is as if every question of responsibility can be met. Ten are cleansed, but one returns. "And Jesus answering said, Were not the ten cleansed? but the nine, where are they?" How blessed to be entrusted thus with the feelings of Christ! One of the greatest favours He can confer upon us is to share with us His feelings as to what is outwardly indifferent to Him. He answers this faithful one, this worshipping one, this returning one, by sharing with him His feelings over the nine. He said: "Were not the ten cleansed? but the nine, where are they? There have not been found to return and give glory to God save this stranger. And he said to him, Rise up and go thy way: thy faith has made thee well". A question for each one of us in

our localities is, How much He can entrust us with in regard to His feelings over what is here? We can easily be caught in the spirit of what is in the world. I remember one Christmas morning years ago, waking up and listening to the bells; they have their appeal. I suddenly thought of the cross. What do they mean - the bells? Outwardly, that Christ is accepted; outwardly that God is honoured; but go into the street and speak of Christ; go to those who make the greatest show in any town religiously, and what heartlessness you find! But the Lord must feel this! What are the feelings of His heart over it all? He would have us sympathetic with Him. He would share with each overcomer the feelings of His heart, for only such can truly feel with Him. He is looking for returning ones to share His innermost feelings. What follows here is the question of His rejection. The Pharisees come up and they speak of the kingdom of God. "He answered them and said, The kingdom of God does not come with observation;" there it was, in the midst of them. How the Lord must feel about that which publicly takes His name, but which at heart is indifferent and even hostile to Him!

Then at the end of the gospel, chapter 24, the Lord out of death walks with those two to Emmaus, and they constrain Him, saying, "Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is declining". He went in to stay with them; and you will remember that, "having taken the bread, he blessed, and having broken it, gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognised him". It says that when their eyes were opened, "he disappeared from them". I have been thinking a little of this expression, "he disappeared from them". That was not a normal

movement, but the Lord loves the two so much that He withdraws from them suddenly. It evidently had its effect upon them, for they speak to one another immediately; they recall the touches they had as they walked, and then "rising up the same hour, they returned to Jerusalem". I believe that the Lord loves us so much that He does not give Himself to us apart from our being with the brethren in a full and intimate way. I think it is possible to go on for years expecting some revelation from the Lord, expecting some answer to the longings that only He knows, and to find disappointment, because the Lord is longing to have us with His brethren. He would have us together in assembly features and assembly setting. How can I know the satisfaction of every desire apart from being in touch with that which is so precious to Christ here? That to which He gives His whole and undivided attention, until He has her finally in His presence? "He disappeared from them". Is there someone here who has been disappointed in these very longings after Christ? He will give you more than you can ask for, but there will come a time when, on individual lines, He will disappear. He will suddenly, so to speak, withhold support. He will give you an uncomfortable sense that all is not right with you: He is longing for you to return; He is longing to have you with His people. The company is greater than the individual, greater than Paul, greater than Peter, greater than the greatest servant! So they go to Jerusalem, and they find that Peter had already had the light of the Lord being risen, and they bring in their contribution. How blessed that is!

The Lord has brought about most blessed conditions amongst His people. You will find that the brethren

welcome the least expression of Christ and they will gladly make room for it. How blessed to think of these two returning ones as they bring in their contribution. There is no rebuke: the Lord had brought it about in love. It was evening. It was not the time to set out on a journey, but these two had had such a touch that they felt they must return that same hour. They were like the Philippian jailor who washed them from their stripes, "the same hour". He did not put it off. He had his part in causing those stripes, but now he is washing them. It says, "he took them the same hour of the night and washed them from their stripes" (Acts 16:33). It does not do to put things off. These two rise up immediately, and they return to Jerusalem. It is a question of having a present touch from Christ that will set our hearts in movement towards Him, for this question of returning is to be before us all the time; in our circumstances, in our deportment, in our attitude. It is what we are to be doing all the time, returning. Each touch of the Lord in love is to secure from my heart an answer, not on individual lines, but as set with those who love Him, to whom He will appear. "And they related what had happened on the way, and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread. And as they were saying these things, he himself stood in their midst, and says to them, Peace be unto you".

This, in a way, is well-worn ground, but how blessed if any one of us should get a touch to set our hearts in movement towards the Lord, that we might all be found in the spirit of returning! We all have our responsible histories, and then we have all had our part in church breakdown. "I went out full, and Jehovah has brought me

home again empty", says Naomi as returning. "Call me not Naomi - call me Mara;" but she is coming back where the Lord is visiting His people with bread.

How blessed it is to have older brothers, and older sisters, moving in self-judgment and winning those of us who are young into this pathway of decision; returning with them, coming back into the portion and part the true Boaz reserves; keeping fast by His maidens and not gleaning in another field. Then, when the position outwardly is in weakness as in Malachi's day, we have those who "spoke often one to another". The Lord is making the way for us to return, and giving the feature of discernment - a precious feature right at the end - the feature of discerning those who are serving God, and those who are not serving God, a feature that the Laodiceans needed. The Lord puts His own valuation on it. "I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him". There is room, one feels, for us all to be on the line of returning.

May the Lord grant that we may be found with those who return. "Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith Jehovah of hosts".

From Response and Other Addresses, pp. 141 - 156, Place and Date unknown.

FEET-WASHING

R DUNN

John 13:21 - 26; John 14:18, 27; John 15:7 - 18

R.D. What was before the heart of the Lord when here was that we should, when the Holy Spirit came, know divine Persons intimately. Now, John's ministry is a ministry for our affections, so that we might be enabled to take up what is for the pleasure of divine Persons on the one hand, and that which would further the interests of the Lord Jesus on the other. It is a ministry that would promote growth in our affections. Paul gives us intelligence in spiritual thoughts and ideas, but John gives the affections to take up those thoughts.

In John 13 we get the blessedness of being in relation to the Lord Jesus, so that no cloud exists between Himself and our spirits. That is the practical effect of feet-washing. John gives this. He is so near the Lord, and his spirit so unclouded that he can look up to the Lord Jesus and ask Him any question. It is a very blessed thing to contemplate, but immediately we come to the application, we find nothing is so testing. Why could not Peter do this? Are we satisfied to be on the terms that Peter was on, or do we see that our blessed privilege and portion is to be on John's terms?

R.W. Why was Peter not affected in the same way as John?

R.D. That is the whole point. What the Lord did was for a pattern; He would engage us with this blessed

service. We serve Him and serve the saints in washing one another's feet, but the question is, Am I prepared to put my feet in the hands of the brother who would do this? Why should I object? Peter had a pious kind of objection.

F.R. He thought it was too menial a service for the Lord to perform.

R.D. That is the way he put it, but as a matter of fact there were secret thoughts in his heart which accounted for his reserve with the Lord. So when a question is to be asked later, Peter beckons to John to ask it. We want to see what the Lord intends as the result of feet-washing. He intends that we should all be so in the enjoyment of His unclouded presence that we have direct reference to Himself in the intimacy of love, and we do not need, like Peter, to refer to another. Many are content to refer to some one else. What is the reason? There is a deep moral reason.

Ques. Is it that one is too satisfied with oneself?

R.D. That may be so with one; it might be something else with another. Peter could not lay his head against the bosom of Christ, for there were things in his heart entirely out of correspondence with such a place. It raises the question as to whether there may be anything in our hearts unsuited to Himself. If so, we cannot enjoy "part with me".

A.F. It becomes a serious thing if we prefer to go on with those things rather than have part with Christ.

R.D. Everything must go which is out of keeping with this ministry of Christ. We want to be so set at liberty that we can come and ask Him about everything. We cannot have our own thoughts and schemes and enjoy intimacy with the Lord Jesus. At the finish Peter got to the

same spot as John. He throws his heart open and says, as it were, Lord, I could not ask Thee questions once, but now I can invite Thee to look into my heart. Peter came into the blessedness of what John had enjoyed all the time. It would be a great matter if this were laid as an exercise on each of us, that we should allow the Lord to search our hearts, and see if there be anything that prevents our having direct access to Him, and then that we might let it go.

He invites us to the sweetest and most perfect intimacy possible, and this would lead to spiritual intimacy with one another. Peter had to say to John, You ask the Lord. He enjoyed an intimacy with John which he had not with the Lord, but the Lord will not be satisfied till intimacy with Himself is deeper than with any other. Our relations with one another should flow from our link with Him. If I have reserves it hinders me from enjoying this intimacy. The Lord cannot be untrue; His love is a true love, and there cannot be intimacy until reserves are gone. Look at John living in the sunshine of the Lord's own love and moving there all the time. He speaks of himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved, but this is for our exercise and encouragement. The springs of all our affections are to be there, and the Lord would have us realise an intimacy that should never be beclouded. He died to secure the happy confidence of our hearts, so that we might never be so much in holy liberty as when with Himself, never so much at home as when beside Him.

It is a great exercise if I am to ask the question, "Lord, who is it?" and for the heart to say, I do not mind if He should expose anything to me out of keeping with this blessed atmosphere. The psalmist says, "Search me, O

God, and know my heart" (Psalm 139:23), that is, he never wanted to have thoughts and schemes in his heart in which he could not have the Lord's approval. If Peter had only embraced the opportunity that was his, and gone to the Lord to ask his question, the Lord would have said in effect, Before that question is settled, what about those reserves that will lead down to the bars of death? and he would have been saved that long, toilsome road of sifting. The Lord does not want to sift; it is ever so much better to let Him lay His hand directly on what is hindering.

Ques. What is the distinction between the two questions, "Is it I?" and "Who is it?"

R.D. They are very much akin, but "Is it I?" is self-examination, so that I am made conscious of what I am capable of. "Who is it?" raises the question as to what exists in the company. I can only face the evil in others as I have judged my own capability to do the thing. Thus I can always turn to Him, and if a cloud exist, I shall get an indication where it is. It is very testing, and causes one to examine one's associations.

D.G. Could these not be right, and yet there be reserve?

R.D. The hindrance might lie in one's associations, or it might be self-confidence, as in Peter's case. The root was there, and we must take account of this rather than of the overt thing which only calls attention to the root. If we valued the intimacy that we have been considering, we should be preserved from going as far as Peter did; the Spirit would immediately produce a sense of distance, or cloud. If I have to ask a brother rather than go to the Lord, what does it mean? Distance is there, and if we valued

intimacy, we should be sensitive as to this. Are we to be satisfied with less? The Lord is not, and it is beautiful to take account of the working out of His love in His pursuit of Peter, till He brings him to the point that He can entrust His sheep to him; He can constitute Peter a shepherd. Now many may try to be shepherds, but unless their spirits are formed through living in this cloudless communion with the Lord, they will leave marks on the sheep instead of shepherding them.

It is good to be reminded that the Lord never allows us to be happy or at rest, till we are in nearness to Him. His present service is to go on until saints are all brought to enjoy the very bosom of His love. One is struck with the grace and manner of the Lord in connection with feet-washing. He lays aside His garments and girds Himself. If we attempt the service, it is so often official, but we want to catch the Lord's thought, that He is set to introduce us into the sphere of divine affection. "The Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me" (Galatians 2:20), is the language of a man who knew this near place. How readily a cloud overcasts our spirits! You are in a difficulty and you say, There is brother So-and-so, I shall write and ask him. Very good, but what about this blessed favour of referring directly to the Lord Jesus? (John 13). That place is open to every one of us. The exercise of all should be to take advantage of it, and if we do, it will raise the question of our private pursuits, the company we keep, the books we read, the benefits we enjoy - for any one of these things could shut us out. It might even be the innate sense of being the most devoted brother in the meeting, but this

must not be cherished. I must be emptied of everything, so that I simply fall back on the heart of Christ.

Rem. Where such things are known and allowed they will hinder.

R.D. The question of intimacy, the consideration of the blessedness of it, will bring you at once into the presence of Christ, and the first thing He will do is to lay open to you everything that hinders. He does not throw a load of exercises on our hearts, so to speak. He puts His finger on this thing and then on that, and says, This is a wicked way. You may have been doing a thing for twenty years, but when the question is raised you can no longer go on with it. He may take something else up with you tomorrow, but you do not fear; on the contrary, you are very glad if you are to get as much gain out of tomorrow's exercise as out of today's.

I look at John on the Lord's bosom, and take account of the blessedness of it. The Lord would tell me I can always be there, nor will He be satisfied till I am. The psalmist had come this way that we have been speaking of, and he says, "How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God!" (Psalm 139:17). He had looked into that book to which he alludes in the previous verse and it gives him such an insight into God's thoughts that his desire is to be in line with them.

If we go on to chapter 14, we find the Lord manifesting Himself to us. The chapter begins by describing how He is to go up to heaven to prepare a place for us. Nothing, I think, endears Him so much to one's heart, or would engage one in devotedness to His interests as the sense of this. It conveys so much to one's heart; that

we are to be brought in there with supreme delight by the Lord Himself, in all the blessed consciousness that He Himself has prepared the place! In the forethought of His love He has gone to do this. I never read J.N.D.'s lines,

'There in th' unsullied way,
Which His own hand hath dressed', (Hymn 79)

without recalling this scripture. His own hands have indeed prepared the place, and when we get there we shall find every indication of the thoughtfulness of His love. But now, in the present moment, those who know this blessed intimacy of which we have been speaking, have the opportunity of expressing love for Christ, and it is expressed in the way we are here for His interests.

We have presented here what is laid open to us in the way of privilege. "If ye love me, keep my commandments" (verse 15). Here is a wonderful door for us! The Lord expresses things from His heart for the saints, and I say, That is for me. Christ has gone to prepare a place for His people, and I am left waiting, but here are His interests. In devoting ourselves to them, we are preserved from self-seeking, and officialism, preserved from the pursuit of that which is not Christ, and we get compensation in this path, for He manifests Himself to us. "He that has my commandments and keeps them", the Lord says, "he it is that loves me; but he that loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him" (verse 21). That is the regard in which Christ holds the one who is found cherishing His commandments. That is a conscious love, you do not tell any one of it. Feet-washing

is a commandment; love will discover all the commandments. I follow the Lord, and I hear Him express one commandment after another, and I love Him, and would delight to do them.

Paul speaks of the commandments of the Lord, but John gives you the manner in which they are taken up, that is in the power of affection. They are taken up in the devotedness of love by those who cherish every thought that is dear to the heart of Christ. His commandments protect what is eternal. Apart from keeping His commandments, all would be in disorder and we could not enjoy together the blessedness of family affections. Everything, so to speak, is bounded for us so that there is no disorder inside, and we are free to share together in the blessed enjoyment of heavenly things. But if you have to stand alone, Christ will manifest Himself to you, and the manifestations are very interesting. If the commandments are set aside, saints cannot get the good of a manifestation, and one may have to stand alone. Be it so, He will not forsake that one. What He says is very full and very blessed, "I will love him and will manifest myself to him". Have you a troubled heart? Here there were hearts troubled by the apprehension of parting from Christ; then there are all the conditions that would trouble saints in a world where there would be anything but peace, but the Lord would quiet our spirits. Do not be afraid of disaster, He would say. Do not be afraid of evil tidings.

The manifestation of Christ Himself can be enjoyed, the Father's love can also be enjoyed; it is a special thing. It is a conscious love, it would distinguish the one who knew it. God Himself appreciates the interest you have in

the interests of Christ, and He loves you for it. Paul said, "The Lord stood with me" (2 Timothy 4:17). That was a manifestation, and he had another when things were not too bright with the devoted servant. The Lord drew near to him and said, I know and understand all about it, but do not be discouraged, I have not given you up; and at that moment the cloud passes, and the servant can go on. John, too, had a manifestation in the isle of Patmos, and what disclosures accompanied it! You cannot limit a manifestation.

Furthermore, He would have us in the enjoyment of the full thing. He says, "if any one love me, he will keep my word" (verse 23). "My word" involves the whole thought of God in christianity. All is expressed in Christ, but presented to us as God's mind for us. Take that word in John 1:14, "We have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father, full of grace and truth". That gives God's thought for us. He has in view a home and affections there, and in order to have us in the blessed relationship of sons in our eternal home, He gave His Son. How blessed is this word, and we can enjoy it now! We see two who are introduced into it in chapter 1. I cherish it in my heart as God's thought, and realise that the enjoyment of it is possible now. "If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him". It is an immense thing if God has secured, by the Spirit's power, an answer to this in the heart of a man. He so delights to get an answer now, "We will come to him and make our abode with him". He speaks as if to say, You need not wait for what is eternal, you can have it all now. Today we have "my Father" and the Lord Jesus Christ making their abode

with us, and by and by we shall be in our abode with Them. If we realise this now, supposing death comes in it will but lead to the continuation. It is the Spirit's day now so all this is possible, and in heaven it will be just a continuation.

One injunction in the Old Testament in regard to the Sabbath was that it was to be observed in "ploughing time and in harvest" (Exodus 34:21). One might have reasoned that the Sabbath might have been set aside at those arduous seasons, but the Lord would say, Whatever toil you are subjected to I am not to have you deprived of the Sabbath. Applying this, we see that in a higher way this blessed dwelling of divine Persons is not to be affected by the place I have in the testimony here. This is all private.

We might look for a moment at another thought. In chapter 15 we go out; chapter 14 is inside. The present moment affords the opportunity for fruit-bearing and that is outside. There is a break at the end of chapter 14; the Lord says, "Rise up, let us go hence", therefore what follows here is more in relation to what is outside. So He says, "I have chosen you ... that ye should bear fruit". Fruit is little understood. It is spoken of occasionally as something hardly definable, something that escapes in the air. But fruit is very practical. It is something tangible it is fruit, it is not fragrance. One would be exercised on the lines of being fruitful. The psalmist says, "Let the beauty of Jehovah our God be upon us; and establish thou the work of our hands upon us" (Psalm 90:17). One wants to be practically of service to God and pleasurable to Him, and we get a very encouraging word here as to this: "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what

ye will and it shall come to pass to you". I am hereby encouraged to pray, and it is in relation to myself that I should be fruitful. Suppose I am exercised about this. "Ask what ye will", the Lord says - more grace, more patience with my brethren, all the wisdom necessary - "and it shall come to pass to you". I may have the simple desire to shepherd my brethren, and I may feel I am anything but a shepherd. But I am exercised in consequence that something of the tenderness and grace of the heart of Christ may be manifest in me, so that there may be fruit in this way. Just ask, the Lord would say, "and it shall come to pass to you".

"I have chosen you, and have set you", He can say to the disciples here, "that ye should go and that ye should bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide". Think of the wonderful results of the apostles going out in this way! Fruit is a very practical thing. It is very blessed that saints should be set to be fruitful; it is pleasurable to God. A brother needs to be recovered, and one is in the hands of the Lord to refresh him, and he is restored - it is that which abides. A divine idea, if given to one by another, is for eternity; it remains. Fruit-bearing is intended to produce wonderful results. Gracious consideration is exercised towards one another, so that saints are kept in bloom and freshness; souls are restored and the unconverted brought to God. All this is rich fruit. In the end of Hosea you get it, when Israel at last lifts up her head and becomes fruitful. But they have to own that it is all the result of what God has wrought - "From me is thy fruit found" (chapter 14: 8).

So then we become disciples. "In this is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, and ye shall become disciples of mine" (verse 8). I start on a line that puts me on the road as a disciple, but I go further and come out as a friend. A friend prays, but what he prays for now is for things to be done in the saints. First, something is done in me, and I am enlarged, then I pray for something to be done in the saints. The Lord has a particular regard for friends, and to such He makes disclosures. Suppose I see that the saints in a certain place are lacking in affection. If I am a "friend", I ask this for them. I pray that they may develop in affection, and the Lord hears, and the saints begin to move. Or one might see they were deficient on the lines of Colossian truth. One tells the Lord and suited ministry comes along to help them. A friend never becomes official. As a disciple I am ever learning, but learning to become a friend, and the Lord does not have us long as disciples before He makes us friends.

In closing, I would say that all our education is about to cease, and He is to take us up to our own place - to the Father's house - but it is in the power of the affection we have been considering that we are preserved till we are all there. The apostle in writing to Timothy says, "that thy progress may be manifest to all" (1 Timothy 4:15). Now this is the way of progress. Moving on these lines in affection, saints will develop in wisdom and in moral stature, for the Lord will withhold nothing from friends.

From Memorials of the Ministry of R Dunn, Volume 2, pp. 10 - 25, Dundee, December, 1918

PHILADELPHIA AND THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES

NOTES OF A READING WITH R DUNN

Revelation 3:7 - 13; Deuteronomy 31:7 - 13

What is your thought in suggesting Deuteronomy in connection with Philadelphia?

I thought in looking at Philadelphia we should see that the very name suggests what we were speaking about as the beginning of things in Acts. Family relations are there and the Lord can take account of them. Philadelphia means brotherly love. I think, perhaps, with many there is misunderstanding in regard of what first love is. I understand that Philadelphia is the response of first love in character, secured by the grace of the Lord Jesus before the assembly is translated. The Lord in His gracious ministry and love to the saints, before the assembly is translated, secures an answer to His heart in first love.

So what was lost at Ephesus is regained in Philadelphia.

Yes, regained morally. We must not forget what we speak of as the public ruin, which is what is outward. Now we take account of the outward thing, and we recognise the ruin; but what was to be seen in Philadelphia were the moral features of the beginning. The question arises what first love is. I thought the type would help us. You have a people dwelling in the land. Moses spoke all these words to them in the plains of Moab. He had in view their possessing the land and loving Jehovah. Then also they

were put together in such conditions that they loved one another, and he speaks of a day in which this law was to be read. It was to be in the year of release, and during the feast of tabernacles. (Deuteronomy 31:10). This second law was made in the plains of Moab, and refers to what is enjoined in the book of Deuteronomy - a set of conditions which were to govern them in view of their possessing, and dwelling in, the land for God's pleasure. In that way we see the obligations that devolve upon us as pertaining to the fellowship. My point is that it was at a peculiar moment this law was to be read - during the feast of tabernacles.

Why was it during that particular time?

That was the time when no brother had any difference with another, but every one was at liberty. Every brother was set free from all his bonds; there was nothing to square up with masters or servants. Every brother moved out, and was at liberty. So you have brethren in relation to each other without any wrong influence during the feast of tabernacles. How good it is to dwell together in unity! Brethren have come up out of their local exercises and settings, and have come to live together on family lines, surrounding the place where God's name was, and where God dwelt. I am quite sure the Lord is speaking to us today that we might desire to see brethren at liberty. There are many things, it may be, in this and other districts, putting brethren at a distance from one another. The Lord is jealous that we should take account of one another, that we as brethren might be in full liberty in the circle. In the beginning of Acts we have the year of release. No one had influence over another brother in a way that hindered him

in his liberty. One feels that is the force of the name Philadelphia - brotherly love. The death and resurrection of the Lord had brought in the year of release. They were released to love one another.

And no man called anything his own.

I love that expression, "the commonwealth of Israel" (Ephesians 2:12). "Commonwealth" seems to me to be a better word than citizenship. But what is our commonwealth? It is the wealth that belongs to us all, and which we would love to see every brother and every sister set at liberty to enjoy.

Why does it say "solemnity of the year of release" in Deuteronomy 31:10 (AV)?

It means a set time; that is the time when it is celebrated. I fear many brethren have a wrong idea of first love. Most would say it is our supreme love to Christ. That is an element in it, but first love is a very full thing indeed. It means that the blessed God has a full place in my affections, as He has been pleased to make Himself known. I know the blessedness of revelation, and what I have been brought into in christianity. One is under the influence of the love of Christ; also in the good of spiritual possession of divine territory; in possession of the land in first love; and one loves one's brethren. You come into the gain of all that is open to you by the Spirit. I think we have been inclined to connect first love with Christ. I think first love speaks of the Ephesian position being enjoyed with all the saints. I thought the passage in Deuteronomy suggests the land occupied in spiritual conditions, and the character maintained on our part of all that devolves upon

us - all being on covenant lines to secure family affections.

You connect family relationships with the plains of Moab?

Yes. I suppose when they did take possession of the land, covenant relationships did not lapse; they were still maintained.

You remember in Joshua 1:8 the Lord said in view of their entering into the land, "This book of the law shall not depart from thy mouth ... that thou mayest take heed to do according to all that is written therein". Recognising being put in possession and enjoyment of the land according to God's pleasure, they were never to forget the instructions given in this law, and binding on them all, binding because of the covenant. We cannot enjoy what is beyond the covenant - what lies in family relations - apart from the recognition, in a spiritual sense, of the covenant bond.

Would you say we have been brought into covenant relation by the death of Christ, and family relationship flows out of that?

Of course the covenant in its actuality is made with Israel. We have the blessings of it spiritually. I think family relationships flow out of being children of God, but covenant relationships have to do with the responsible side of things. The difference between the bond proposed at mount Horeb, and what was proposed in the plains of Moab, was that at mount Horeb the people should serve God, but in the plains of Moab the bond entered upon was that they should be on family lines for the pleasure of God. Apart from recognising the principles and claims that

come upon us as having put our hands to the fellowship, we cannot be together as brethren.

John brings in the light that is to govern the position as brethren, so that we should walk in the light, being prepared to be bound by all that the light discloses. Fellowship is wider than what is vital; fellowship has to do with bonds and covenants, but being on family lines does not involve bonds, although it is protected by them.

What does "This cup is the new covenant" mean?

It is simply the setting forth of the love of God in the death of Christ. It is that which speaks to our hearts of the love of God, but on the principle of a covenant. It is the expression of the love of God and the love of Christ to our hearts. Paul brings in the bond of obligation in the presence of the world: John brings in the line of obligation in regard of loving the brethren. Paul gives what we refuse in order to be true to the brethren when we are away from them; being loyal to the fellowship of the death of Christ in an unrighteous world (1 Corinthians 10). But John takes up the other side of things, where we are brought together in love to have part in the family of God. So we have two lines, the line of the wilderness and the line of the land.

You referred to the feast of tabernacles would you say a word as to that?

The present bearing of the feast of tabernacles is that we live together on entirely spiritual lines.

I have noticed that this feast is peculiarly available and prominent in remnant days.

Yes, because it is a feast that secures spiritual relations with one another. It would test us to live next to each other for a whole week; and the proposal was that

they should come up for eight days out of all their own dwellings, and come to the place where the Lord's name was. If you have family affections it would be a most blessed time; it would bring about acquaintance with one another spiritually. The more we see what a wonderful thing it is, and learn to keep company with one another, and speak together of the blessed God, and the things of God, the more we live with one another now, the better we shall be fitted to live with one another eternally.

The feast of tabernacles brings in what is spiritual and eternal, God tabernacling with men eternally - the year of liberty; it is beyond any kingdom thought.

It is a necessity on family lines.

Hitherto one has thought of the feast of tabernacles as having a fulfilment in the millennium.

So it will have as the end of God's ways, which is rather the presentation of it in Leviticus. But in Deuteronomy you have three feasts by which all the people in the land will be able to touch one another, and live with one another on family lines, dwelling together as surrounding God Himself, instead of living according to their tribes. Here you have a Danite, a Simeonite and a Reubenite, living next to one another on family lines, dwelling together entirely as brethren, and God the centre of it all.

When the apostle Paul wrote his epistle to the Colossians, what was on his heart to minister to them was that there should be an answer to the truth of the body now. If people are to be here in the sensibilities and affections of Christ, he says, "I would have you know what combat I have for you, and those in Laodicea, and as

many as have not seen my face in flesh; to the end that their hearts may be encouraged, being united together in love ..". (Colossians 2:1, 2). That is, in other words, that we should be bound together on tabernacle lines.

I think that the feast of tabernacles might apply in three ways. First, in what is really to be secured here for God. Then secondly, when God has reached the end of His ways and at last reached His thought, that He should dwell with men and they with Him. Then thirdly, the end for us that we should be actually together with Christ in heaven in the presence of God. But the moral import of it, according to Deuteronomy, is that we should possess the land in spiritual power now, and that it should be held by us in spiritual conditions for God's pleasure. So we have to introduce two thoughts, children and sonship. I think that these thoughts are involved in the name Philadelphia - the assembly in the last days that answers to the heart of Christ. It is no small encouragement to think that the heart of Christ is to be answered to in these last days when everything outwardly has gone to ruins. The more we feel the ruin the better, but what was proposed at the beginning was moral features, and that is what is secured now.

Nothing the Lord died for has broken down.

Nothing. So I suggest "first love" as one of these moral features. It is what is for God's pleasure, as well as for Christ's pleasure. It has to do with entering into the whole extent of the truth; not the outgoings of affection at the beginning merely, but saints under the influence of Christ; love in known relationship enjoyed in the land.

Could you make the recovery in Ezra run on the same lines as Philadelphia? Here you get an open door.

The subject in Ezra is the house, not the walls; the altar, too, as well as the house, and the house occupied. Nehemiah is setting up the defences that protect the house.

Ezra is more John, and Nehemiah Paul.

So in the epistle of Jude there are two things Jude speaks of as praying in the Holy Spirit - building yourselves up, and keeping yourselves in the love of God. John gives family relations; building yourselves up, that is Paul.

What about the Thessalonians?

The Thessalonians did not know first love. There are three different ways in which the affections of the saints are taken account of. First, early love. It is very sweet to the heart of Christ, the first upspringing of the heart of His beloved ones when they begin to know Him. "Draw me, we will run after thee" (Song of Songs 1:4). Then there is virgin love, when no one has any place in the heart but Himself. Then there is first love, what you have in Ephesus. The love of the people of God when they went out after Him in the wilderness, is not the same as love secured in the land, when they reach possession of everything and when the feast of tabernacles is held in the year of release.

I thought it was a development of the same love.

Oh, that will do; but the development is not from babes of sixteen weeks old.

You say Thessalonians is early love; where is virgin love?

It is proposed in Corinthians "I have espoused you unto one man, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:2). No one else has a place in our affections.

One can conceive there being entrance into virgin love, and yet the inheritance not occupied, and family relations not known in their fulness.

"First love" supposes that you have gone right on to possession in the land.

You know what Ephesus was. All the Lord says about Ephesus is very good indeed: "But I have against thee, that thou hast left thy first love" (Revelation 2:4).

"First love" is really in the enjoyment of the land when you are there.

Yes, quite so. We think first love is something we have to go back to.

It means prime love, first in quality and character; not first in history.

You would not get it in Acts?

I think you do. I think these saints in the beginning of Acts had more than the first upspringings of affection. They had not the doctrine of these things, but they had the blessed reality of them.

Those in Acts had gone a very great way. The truth had very real weight with them.

The hundred and twenty had not come into the land by way of Jericho, they had gone up like the spies by the south land. They had learnt what was in the land in the presence of Christ.

They had continued with the Lord since the days of John the baptist.

Do you not think the south land is an allusion to Christ? The hundred and twenty learnt all in the presence of the Lord. There is a distinction between the people who had to cross Jordan and those who went by way of the

south land. The latter came into it by divine favour. We have little conception when we speak of the disciples of the Lord, how very much they had. We are inclined to think they had nothing till they had the Spirit, but the scripture we were considering would refute that.

They were the most wonderful company that ever existed in one sense. They lost Christ, and had not the Spirit, but they survived.

I think you said there were conditions to which the Spirit could come. That was brought about by the Lord.

There was formation in their souls for the material of the house.

The Lord had educated them and given them many precious thoughts.

I think we see that from the way they come out in the end of Acts 2; they come out in character like Christ as having all things common.

Well, it is very cheering to the heart that would be prepared to be for the divine pleasure, to discover in the Lord's address to Philadelphia that there is to be such an answer to His heart.

Why is the Lord presented as having the key of David?

That just suits the exercised heart; the key of David opens the way to all the treasure house. Nothing that is proper to the assembly is locked up to us. You cannot tell me a privilege, or blessing, or divine thought for the assembly that is not available today.

The thought of the open door is that there is encouragement to spiritual energy to take advantage of it.

It seems to me any exercised heart would greatly appreciate this word which the Lord speaks to us; He says, as it were, It is available for any one to come in and be formed in the moral features pleasing to My eye in Philadelphia. If the heart loves Christ nothing else will satisfy it.

Will you say a word as to "the holy, the true"?

There is no change in Him whatever. If He says "the holy, the true" it raises the question of holy conditions that are to be answered to. "The true" implies that nothing has lapsed in unfaithfulness on His part, He is unchanging. Philadelphia would not wish anything else but what is holy and true; that just meets the heart of Philadelphia.

What do you understand by keeping my word, and not denying my name?

I think His word is a very full thing indeed. I think His word embraces christianity, all that came out in Christ when He was here, all that is disclosed to the assembly; the revelation of God is the greatest thing of all. If you have the revelation of God there must be the truth; but His word refers to what He has to say particularly to the assembly. We have in the epistles and gospels everything that has come out in Christ for us, what the one who loves Him would treasure up in his heart. If we think of it for a moment, what an immense privilege is ours in the presence of all the ruin! There is the failure in our own day, and the failure that came in before we were born. The true Philadelphian would recognise all that - the failure that has come in - but then, too, he would take account of this fact that the Lord in His faithful love has opened a door, and no one can shut it. The heart that chooses it has

this door open to him; and I can have every spiritual blessing as I wait for Him, in company, of course, with others, for Philadelphia is not an individual making his lonely way; do not let us give up the idea of assembly relations. How could we have brotherly affections if we have not our brethren? So the idea of saints walking together will continue until the Lord comes. Things will never be so reduced that we shall not have others to walk with us.

No one would claim to be Philadelphia, but the moral features pleasing to Christ are set forth there, and if I love Christ these moral features will be pursued. Philadelphia is not public, but we can take account of moral features and let these be our ideal. There is no room for pretension at all, because the question is not who the Philadelphians are, but what the moral features are. I have often thought the best example you get in scripture of a Philadelphian is Paul, in the last chapter of Acts. It is all very simple. I like that case because you have a very simple man there living in his own hired house in Rome. He had passed through experiences that really are a lovely picture for us. Thrown ashore on an island after the break-up of the ship, it might have been said Paul would be a case of, 'Light of the lonely pilgrim's heart'. There is the break-up of the ship, but what you find is that at that moment the hand of God is over Paul and those who are with him. It is very interesting to recognise God's providence, and His special care. Paul was on that island just as long as his service to God called for it. Then there is a ship lying there - had lain there all the winter - but that ship sails on a certain day for Paul. He goes so far and comes to a certain spot, and he meets

brethren - not a lonely path - and they have the feast of tabernacles together seven days. He goes on and meets more brethren, and then the saints of Rome come out to meet him; thus the Lord's interests go on, and there is an open door for everything proper to the assembly. For the same reason Paul is allowed liberty in Rome; the Lord ordered things and put His hand over them, so that Paul having liberty hired a house for two years. It gives us a beautiful example of a Philadelphian in the full support of the truth, and in the practice of it, and going out with a full heart in the gospel.

The picture gives every comfort to the heart in regard of circumstances down here. God has particular care for those who love the testimony. I do not think we can conceive even in this year - 1921 - and all its strange legislation, the immense clouds that may be gathering with regard to our livelihood down here. I do not think we can conceive anything more difficult than Paul had; yet he is able to hire this house and live in it for two years, and go on with the saints and with the gospel. One is thus afforded a view of our apostle, so that we should see the ministry he unfolded to us practically carried out in these last two years. I think it is very blessed to think, if we are friends of Christ, that our heavenly Father knows what we have need of. Do not let us take that instruction up as if it belonged to all who profess to be christians; we want to recognise that these things are ministered to us on conditions. "All things work together for good to those who love God" (Romans 8:28). There are none so sure of being seen through peacefully as those friendly to the truth.

So if your tent is pitched by the tent of the tabernacle you will come through.

And the cloud will be between you and trouble. The enemy attacked the hindmost of the people, those who lagged behind the cloud. If I move where I like, and act according to my own plannings and schemings, I am not going to have the protection of the cloud, nor guidance by the movement of the cloud.

"My word" is all that comes out in christianity.

One may only know very little of it. I think His word is really enlarged amongst one's brethren. Mary sat at His feet and heard His word. It begins with the desire to be under the influence of the love of Christ, to be here answering to His full mind. Then the Lord would make known everything to one. I think keeping "the word of my patience", is what a devoted heart would be doing at the present moment; what we are as Galileans in sympathy with the heart of Christ, in reproach here cherishing His interests. While He is waiting, what a great thing it is to Christ's heart to have a few down here who love His interests, and who are in line, and suffering with His suffering interests.

Do we gather from verse 8 that the door was opened because of these moral features you were speaking of?

Yes, because it is in answering to these conditions that all this is secured to us.

I was thinking of these conditions when you were speaking about Paul; there were these conditions, so the door was opened.

This door is presented as something available to us as set on these lines. We have talked about these things and

yet ignored the conditions. We want to read Scripture wisely and carefully, and if conditions be spoken about let us face them. I think His commandments are taken up on covenant lines; the commandments protect what is internal. His words are more the presentation of what God's thoughts are, but Christ's thought for us today in christianity, and every precious thought that is ministered to us, is cherished as His word. We have the truth about Israel; about the nations; and about what is evil. These have all come to light consequent on revelation, but His word has to do with us; so we receive His communications, and all that is set forth in the Lord Jesus, as that which is God's mind for us. Keeping it, is that we treasure it up in our hearts in such a way that it becomes our very life; we respond to it. Mary sat at His feet, and heard His word, but the next thing is to keep it.

We cannot keep His word if we do not hear it. If I go on easily and say, It is all very nice what is engaging these brethren, but I do not interest myself in it, that is a very easy way of getting out of it. The heart that loves Christ wants to answer to Christ today. It is very easy to shelve things and say, I am not going in for these things. Mary had more than a general interest in things - she sat at His feet and heard His word. The Lord put His wing over her; the thing she has gone in for nobody shall be allowed to take from her. Her heart is set as a friend of Christ. I suppose I begin by being a disciple, but I continue by keeping His word. A person who is indifferent to the ministry the Lord is giving may break bread, but will never be a Philadelphian.

These things are addressed to those who have ears.

Yes.

Would you say a word on the overcomer? In what sense is there an overcomer in such a company?

Because it is the last mile that tells. None of us are overcomers yet; one is an overcomer when one goes in. I can say a man like Mr Darby was a Philadelphian; he has gone home. But the point is the door is opened to us to go in for that. Still, as long as we are down here, it is as Paul said, "not that I have already obtained the prize, or am already perfected" (Philippians 3:12).

Jacob was an overcomer at the end; he gathered up his feet into the bed. He had finished his last footstep here; but he was so enlarged as a prince with God that he worshipped God and blessed his children. Speaking of himself he says, "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they do not attain to the days of the years of the life of my fathers, in the days of their sojourning" (Genesis 47:9).

And to Joseph he says, "The blessings of thy father surpass the blessings of my ancestors, Unto the bounds of the everlasting hills" (Genesis 49:26). I really have something greater to indicate than Abraham or Isaac. He was telling the truth; and then he speaks specially in regard of Joseph's sons, about the God who shepherded him all his life long, and who redeemed him from all evil. You have morally there a true overcomer, passing in in the height of things.

Passing in in full sail. There is something very princely in Jacob, when about to depart. All that engages him is the purpose of God, and the discipline of God.

One has often remarked, in this address to Philadelphia, on Christ's personal attitude to those on earth who show this purpose of heart, and this brotherly love, and who pursue these moral features. The Lord opens out His heart to such in these last days. The ministry in these last days is the unreserved opening of His heart to the saints. There is not a word of blame here. There are two assemblies the Lord addresses without blame, one is suffering Smyrna, and the other is Philadelphia in the upspringings of first love. I believe no greater favour could have been bestowed on us than that we should have been born at the present moment, and to have had some little opportunity of availing ourselves of this opened door.

In the world's great events everybody wants to be in at the finish.

If any of us would seek to extend our fields today and to settle down here, these things said to Philadelphia might well pull us up, so that we may rather seek to minister consolation to Christ, and to the brethren.

We can even accept all the present unrest from the Lord's hand.

Oh, yes, and the suffering connected with it. We might even have to go further in that way.

Paul had to get a fire together when conditions were difficult. You find Paul doing things at the bottom and living at the top.

The very fire that discovered the viper consumed it. The warmth of brotherly love will discover evil, and consume the viper that settles on the hand; it is ready to serve at the lowest point.

You get in the last part of Ezra a very rainy day - rain and cold.

We have been in the habit of looking at rain as ministry.

But sometimes in Scripture it has to do with adversity. Sometimes it is not refreshing.

There are two things ministry will do: it will comfort and refresh; and it will also add something.

The next brick needed in building, ministry, if it be from God, will provide, even though that brick may raise a question in the conscience. I do not think ministry works unless the conscience is reached in some way. I think one of the most dangerous things in connection with ministry is to become a pipe, rather than a reservoir. Unless a thing first of all affects my own conscience, and my own heart, the handling of it in ministry will be damaging to myself. Judas went out preaching, he handled divine things, but it went for his destruction.

"He shall go no more at all out". The Philadelphian often has to go out today. One may constantly have to be in trying circumstances and conflict. In John 10:9, it is "shall go in and shall go out", the idea there is liberty; but here it is that having to stand for the truth I may have to go out; I may find plenty of opposition, and that is trying if you love the truth. Each fresh bit of light may bring you into conflict, even with your brethren, but the things for which you may have suffered, and which you have cherished, will have their answer in that day: "He that overcomes, him will I make a pillar in the temple of my God".

Then the writing is upon the pillar; you become expressive in that scene of what you have stood for here. "I will write upon him the name of my God".

From Memorials of the Ministry of R Dunn, Volume 2, pages 26 - 49, Oxford, February 1921

READING ON COLOSSIANS 2

R DUNN

What is the gain to us of the truth of this epistle?

I think it is that by a response to its ministry you would be established in the christian circle. If we were all in the gain of holding the Head, there would be a ministry to God of all that is for His pleasure now in the body. The body, as presented in Colossians, is for the present pleasure of God, "to walk worthily of the Lord unto all well-pleasing" (chapter 1: 10). One feels it would be well if all were interested in this, that it is for the present pleasure of God; it is His mind that there should be a ministry for His pleasure from the body. He had from His beloved Son an unceasing ministry for His pleasure, and this is to be continued in the body. The truth of this is presented that we might come into the circle of experience as members who have their hearts exercised that God should have His pleasure now.

This epistle is written that the Colossians might be confirmed in the truth of being risen with Christ, and that they might increase with the increase of God. They were moving in that direction, and this is to confirm them. We could not enter into the purpose of God unless we are first in Colossian condition. The type is instructive. In Colossians we get them pressing through Jordan to the other side. There is no break between the crossing over Jordan, and relations formed on the other side by the Spirit. We get into that circle where these relations are regulated by Christ as Head. Then the going up to the land

is Ephesians. Unless we are in the Colossian condition as well as position, we do not enter into the gain of the land. We reach Ephesians through Colossians.

Colossians brings us to Gilgal. We are not actually in the land till past Gilgal. We should go on to the heavenly position and enjoy it, and enjoy the heavenly atmosphere proper to it. Colossians then is a presentation of Christ to the heart, in order that He should have the supreme place in our affections. In the type Joshua is presented in all his excellence, and magnified as leader before them. So Paul presents the Lord in all His greatness and perfection, in order that we should accord Him the first place in our hearts, and so follow the ark across Jordan.

None of us will move unless attached in heart to Christ. It is important that we should have Christ altogether as the Object of our hearts; so Paul presents the Lord here as the ark of the covenant. He is the One who was for the pleasure of God. The apostle has certain things in his mind as to the prosperity of the saints at Colosse, and so he had great conflict for them. It is important to listen, for we are confronted with this, that if we are to come into the good of the Colossian position there must be deep exercise on our part; it was so deep on the apostle's part that he calls it conflict. Neither are we going to enter in lightly. And we are not to be satisfied with light; light is not stature. There is wonderful light in this chapter, but the apostle becomes the instrument in building them up in the truths he unfolded, in such a way as to draw out hearts to a risen Christ.

In the beginning of Joshua, when the people were to cross Jordan, they had to make provision: "Prepare

yourselves victuals" (Joshua 1:11). It involves very deep exercise if we are moving in the gain of association with Christ; it requires deep exercise. We may speak lightly of the great truth of being risen with Christ, but it is a Herculean exercise. They had to prepare victuals and come down to the bed of Jordan three days. The three days bring in a very important time; it involves Jordan with all its force. Jordan was overflowing all its banks. It is there we get a revelation of Christ to the heart. We leave the plains of Moab, with all its allurements, and accord to Christ the supreme place in our hearts.

Moab stands for the place where my own interests occupy me legitimately. I am set up in the power of the Spirit, come out of Moab, esteeming the things of Christ and His circle as my supreme interest here. They had to go down into Jordan but they had food. They needed strong meat for Jordan. I understand the truths in Colossians to be very good victuals. If we feed upon them, Christ and His love and what is dear to His heart become very dear to our hearts. "Jesus, having said these things, went out ... beyond the torrent Cedron" (John 18:1). The ark of the covenant moves.

It is a wonderful thing for our hearts to contemplate the movements of that One, who was the true Ark, as He faced Jordan knowing what was before Him. He said to the disciples, "None of you demands of me, Where goest thou" (John 16:5)? Why was that? Well, I think it is this way, we do not like to speak of a subject that is very unpleasant. The Lord had said He was going away; He counted upon their affection. They did not care to speak of it, for sorrow had filled their hearts. Jordan was

overflowing all its banks. In John 18 and 19 we get Jordan overflowing all its banks.

As regards Paul, part of his conflict was that he knew the particular danger that confronted them at Colosse. He had intimate intercourse with Epaphras, and had heard him praying for Colosse. The apostle writes with a very intimate knowledge of the saints. He knew the dangers they were in. There were those who were bringing wild gourds to shred into the pot. The apostle is bringing meal to nullify that. That is chapter 2.

The ark presents the Lord in Joshua in four ways: (1) as the ark of the covenant, (2) the ark of testimony, (3) the ark of the Lord of the whole earth, (4) and the ark of God. It brings before us the way the Lord is presented in the gospels. Matthew presents Him as the ark of the covenant; Mark as the ark of the testimony; Luke as the ark of God; John as the ark of the Lord of the whole earth. Think of an appreciation of Christ like that given in our hearts. What a place He should have as Leader of our affections! Joshua comes in as a type of Christ; he is magnified before all. He looks for hearts to be throwing out tendrils for new territory. Because of those feelings they are led on. So I want to raise the question as to whether we are satisfied with light? Is the light as to Christ risen enticing us on to new territory? Would we all like to come into the gain of a risen life with Christ in the christian circle? The purpose of Colossians is to bring us into the gain of that.

"That their hearts may be encouraged, being united together in love" (verse 2). It is first that their hearts might be encouraged. We shall never have moral power unless the

singers are in the first rank. "Giving thanks to the Father, who has made us fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light" (Colossians 1:12) - we cannot come into the good of the Colossian position without it. Does it not engage our hearts to know that God, in His grace and goodness, has given us light as to these things? If we come under the influence of Christ as Head, we know what the effect would be; abiding in Christ would give us a very deep impression of encouragement. Paul engages them with moral thoughts. "That their hearts may be encouraged, being united together in love". If we are going to take in these moral thoughts, we need the ministry of the apostle John. Paul desires that the hearts of the saints might be encouraged. Although we might move on and study these things with a measure of light, it will not have much effect on us unless we are under the influence of John. If the saints are together in love, living under His influence, so that their hearts are warmed up with love, will they not be happy together? That would be a perfect meeting. The apostle aims at having the saints encouraged, being united together in love. We should not desire anything less, though we are often content with much less.

If we are "giving thanks to the Father, who has made us fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light", if we really accept this as wonderful light to the soul, what less can be before our hearts than to come into all the good of our inheritance? We hide it in our hearts that the Father has made us fit for the inheritance - fit to live on the other side of Jordan. May the Lord exercise our hearts that we may all come into the good of it. The apostle would have us united together in love by spiritual links,

acknowledging Christ as Head for the pleasure of God. The verse (verse 2) goes on, "and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the full knowledge of the mystery of God". We come into the gain of the mystery, come into the risen life of Christ and remain there. Our hearts are encouraged; and not only that, but united together in love. It is very necessary that we should see the importance of our hearts being united together in love. I think in this uniting together we learn to live with one another spiritually; in touching one another those bonds are being formed. Do you think I could come to a meeting for twenty years and only know twelve people intimately? With all the rest I may be merely on hand-shaking terms. That is not being united together. With whom do you walk home from the meeting? What do you talk about? On whom have you called during the week? Are they always the same saints? That is not being united together.

The apostle prays that the light and faith they had might be consolidated. That would follow naturally if their hearts were bound together in love. I am very much afraid of cliques. Is there any one I cannot get near to? Sometimes we find sickness brings us quickly in touch with one another spiritually. Perhaps we have not had any uniting together at all, and one sickness may do it. Do we follow it up then? Love begets love. I should be able to break through any reserve between myself and a brother or sister. A grand time for that is between the meeting and the house. Have we walked home fifty-two times a year from a prayer meeting with the same person? Or do we get away by ourselves, which is worse. How many opportunities we lose.

As the Lord becomes the supreme Object of my heart, and I follow Him across Jordan, are His interests to be supreme to me? What are the exercises of Paul as to it? He says, "I would have you know what combat I have for you". I can understand the Colossians saying, If Paul has combat like that for us, we cannot be unmoved by it. How blessed to think that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are available to us through grace. What is the mystery? I think it includes all the will of God for us in Christ, but what Paul had before Him is the body.

What is Gilgal?

Gilgal is the point where, having come to the light of the position as risen with Christ, we now realise it experimentally. I see it very much now, that position hinders saints from getting near one another. At Gilgal I am prepared to deal with the very best I have. The apostle speaks of all he was naturally, and he does not touch the bad side. A Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. We might say, What a fine brother he would make if only we could get him! That is taking account of a man naturally. Holding the Head would help as to that. Only in relation to Christ as Head do we touch the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I am shut up to Christ for all that is going to fill the universe; all is found in Christ, in whom all the fulness of God dwells.

The apostle takes up three things to be refused: (1) philosophy and vain deceit, (2) an order of things in which ritual has a part, (3) the world of sentiment, the human mind. These things they were in danger of and he

warns them. First he presents what is positive in Christ; everything of value derives from Christ, not from any of those three sources in verse 8. So, to use the type, we are not to go to other fields to glean; if we do we shall get wild gourds. Boaz said to Ruth, "Go not to glean in another field" (Ruth 2:8). Naomi said, "not in any other field" (verse 22). There she comes in touch with the mighty man of wealth. It is Christ, and the supply would more than meet all her desires. So Paul would have them go to no other field to glean, but he first introduces them to the mighty Man of wealth, Christ. That is chapter 1.

What is meant by philosophy and vain deceit?

We are in danger of having human wisdom. The use of a proverb, for example, sometimes introduces a worldly principle, a wrong element. The bases of philosophy were established in Greece. It is the introduction of human ethics, the establishment of an order of things to bring in certain ends. We need to turn our minds from that kind of wisdom. It is brought in with the idea of regulation and order to a certain end. It is a system of ethics to secure a certain end. The apostle says in effect, Do not touch it.

Secondly, he warns them to refuse what had been set up as to holy days, feasts, and so on, things that had their place in a previous dispensation, but are now set aside. They have no place in the christian circle. "Having effaced the handwriting in ordinances". They were part of the Jewish system, divinely established, whereas philosophy is human. That is the second point.

The third point is very important at the present moment. It is the tendency of the mind of man, human sentiment, to intrude into unknown regions. They profess

to get into touch with unseen beings. But in the mystery are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; we have everything in Christ. If the Lord Jesus Christ is held as Head in our affections in this way, we turn to Him for direction under the impulse of affection.

Is that individual?

Each individual does it, but as each individual is part of a circle, it becomes true of the company. We come under His influence, our affections are kept alive, and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are available for us in Him.

How do we get them?

By holding the Head. It is a very simple expression. John says, "abiding in him". "Keep thy heart more than anything that is guarded; for out of it are the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23). We give Him not only faith but affection. Holding the Head is the normal experience of every member of the body; abiding in Christ is John's way of putting it.

But the next thing is, are you going to come into the good of it all, so that being united together in love, maintaining unity together, holding the Head, the whole body becomes prosperous? The affections are moved; you appreciate a thing and enjoy it. That is not state yet, later you receive it with joy. The conscience is reached, and there is a feeling of disparity. If we feel that, the Lord will help us. Then there is a result for the pleasure of God. It is a living, present thing, holding the Head; there need be no interruption. On your part the exercise is, you know the sun is shining brightly, and you remain in the sunshine;

that is, all that makes for blessing and growth will come down to you.

We see that Paul gives us a ministry of divine thoughts, while John gives us a ministry of affection. Paul's ministry will have no effect unless John's ministry comes in to cement us in affection. "If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ ... have your mind on the things that are above" (chapter 3: 1, 2). If your affections have followed the ark of the covenant you can go on to experience risen life with Christ. But He says, Have your mind upon those things. We are not going to be established unless we are set upon these things. God has perfection before Him. He is going to put you there, but it will be through exercise, and the further you go the deeper the exercise. May the Lord give us all to go in for these things, that we may know more of the reality of risen life with Christ, having Him as the supreme Object of our lives.

From Memorials of the Ministry of R Dunn, Volume 1, pp. 86 - 98, Prahran, November 1921

FELLOWSHIP

R DUNN

Summary of a reading 1 Corinthians 10:6 - 33

The greatest calamity that could happen to us is to be what is called, 'out of fellowship', and there are five steps indicated in these five verses (6 - 10) that must be avoided if that is not to happen, and they are given in moral order. We have not to think we stand, but to keep our hearts more than anything that is guarded, for out of the heart are the issues of life.

Decline begins by confusion of view. We lust after the earth-grown plants of Egypt, which, first allowed in the heart, subsequently get into the house. They spoke of the good times they had in Egypt. They lusted after evil things. It was the first step on the downward road. It is most important that the sense of being near the Lord should be always guarded, and that unseen things should be my object.

"The rock was the Christ". The idea is that He is always available. At the start, at Marah, they cry to Him, and the wood is cast into the waters (baptism); the Lord Jesus is presented in an affecting way, and the water becomes sweet. There never was any need to go to Egypt for anything. The Rock followed them. When they thirsted, He knew of it, and the Rock was smitten. Then, at Meribah, He knew they were thirsty, and the word is speak to the Rock. Through neglect of communion you return to the things from which you have been delivered - those

things you did before you were converted. I may be fond of music, and I have even heard of christians going to cinemas. The eye is off Christ. You are not satisfied with the Lord. This is the first mark of decline.

We now come to verse 7. In the first step your eye is off Christ, but in the second other things have become my object and this is idolatry. The people forgot who brought them out. "For this Moses ... we do not know what is become of him!" (Exodus 32:1). You have been indifferent as to where Christ is. Are you near enough to the tabernacle to hear the movements of Christ in heaven, like the bells on the high priest's garments? If not, the thing you have turned to has become your object instead of the Lord. I will be out of fellowship if I am on this road. This is the second step. Think of a brother who was once in touch with Christ's movements, attending canaries, attending to his garden, or playing the violin. We always take up the things we used to go in for. It has not become public yet, but I have taken two steps. I am trifling in the presence of eternal realities. These things happened as types of us. These are landmarks for me - not in historical, but in moral order. There is always a way back, if we take warning in time.

Verse 8 is the third step: Moabitish associations. We lose our attraction to the Lord, and so to His people, and make unholy alliances, giving Christ second place in our hearts. It is a serious thing to take a holiday where there is no meeting. We spend our holidays under the influence of natural relationships - our relatives - a grief to the Lord, and to our brethren. We may excuse ourselves and say we want to help them, but nine times out of ten we sink down

to their level. Can we company with our worldly relations with that which is spiritual predominant? If we take up these links outside the fellowship, the result will be we shall follow their gods, and go their way. This becomes public now and we are out of fellowship, actually if not positionally.

Then verse 9, "tempt the Christ". I am prepared to take myself out of the Lord's hand - and to put Him to the test. I move on an independent course, all warnings unheeded, and ultimately go out into the darkness. We take spiritual risks - spreading out when we should remain small. If I do anything, or go anywhere, without the Lord's support, I am moving away from the pathway of the will of God. "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God" (Matthew 4:7).

Then murmuring against God (verse 10). Finding fault with one another, and everybody, and seeking other company than Christ's. The end is destruction. Now you are publicly out of fellowship, positionally as well as actually. It is a terrible thing. "Let him that thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall". Their carcases fell in the wilderness.

But then there are also the attractions of the fellowship. There is the faithfulness of the Lord, whatever temptations come (and we shall be tested), He is always near. Every test has its issue. I may find, perhaps, that I shall have to do with less to live on, but I shall probably be happier and have more time for the Lord, and have less worry too! I shall find the issue, and be preserved from going out of fellowship. A difficulty may arise that appears insurmountable. People say, You cannot do it; the law says you cannot do it; wise people say you cannot do

it; the brotherhoods of men say you must not do it. But David said: "By thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall" (Psalm 18:29).

As we stand in this world for Christ; Satan will mark us - he will say, Here is a man too many for the earth, and he will set out to crush us. But God is faithful; there will always be an issue, and the difficulties are only such as are common to men - what all the people of God have had to contend with. We may have to die. I like to think of the brethren as those who have died. We die together to live together. We are going to have glorious times. We have wonderful opportunities of being devoted in christianity. I have no doubt that in these last days things will become increasingly difficult, but they will be the brightest of the assembly's history. We live in a wonderful time - "upon whom the ends of the ages are come".

In the records of the future they will be referred to as the days of the assembly on earth. Think of the days before the flood; there were giants, men of renown, in those days, but where are the Napoleons and the Kitcheners of that day in the divine record? They are not found. We do not know the name of a single one of them. The only man whose name we know is Noah, and the days are called the days of Noah. The days of the assembly of God on earth are great days. Greater than Solomon's; greater than Hezekiah's; greater than the days of Luke 1 and 2.

"The cup of blessing which we bless". Do you bless the cup? When you grumble about the brethren; you are not blessing the cup. Every christian has a part in the blessing of the cup in virtue of the death of Christ.

Does every christian, wherever he is, share in it?

No, alas! It is for every Christian, but not everyone avails himself of it.

It is not local, this fellowship. If I am on individual lines I am not in fellowship. As we keep in fellowship, we keep saying, We have known and believed the love that God has towards us. We bless the cup. We do not live in grumbling corner; we live in no-complaining street. As the day grows darker we realise more what the fellowship is. We die together. The martyrs lived as long as God intended they should live. As long as Almighty God chooses to leave us on the earth He will see us through. That little I do not want to lose. The enemy does not intend that we should hold a foot here, and will endeavour to overthrow us. But He says, I will see you through. The bonds of fellowship and its limitations I love. I love to be regulated.

From Readings and Addresses in Australia, pp. 44 - 46, Sydney, December 1921

CONDITIONS IN THE LAST DAYS IN THE ASSEMBLY OF GOD

R DUNN

Deuteronomy 21:1 - 9; 1 Corinthians 1:1 - 3; 2 Corinthians 1:1 - 3; 2 Corinthians 13:7 - 14

G.A.v.S. During these meetings we have had more than once a reference to the divine principle of local responsibility. It is a principle in regard to which several of us have for some time past had exercises. I thought we might, perhaps, look into the subject in relation to the universal thought of the assembly, so as to be preserved, on the one hand from parochialism, and on the other hand from metropolitanism. I feel that the thought of local responsibility is one which contains a great deal more than we have, as yet perhaps, understood, and that there is the danger of putting into the background the universal thought of the assembly. I had Deuteronomy 21 in mind.

Rem. I think that is the exercise of a good many.

R.D. There is certainly universal responsibility presented in Deuteronomy, and no room for metropolitanism, for you have not Jerusalem there, but Shiloh, which stands for the assembly as a whole. I think the important thing to notice in the principle involved in Deuteronomy 21 is that we approach the local position from the universal position. I think that is important in regard to the exercises that relate to what involves a local assembly in any certain matter; that you do not take it up in a congregational way, but rather it is to be taken up in

relation to the universal position from the outset. I think that in referring to the principle of local responsibility there has been the tendency in certain quarters to say, 'hands off, this is our matter'. That is because it is not approached according to the order of Deuteronomy 21, nor according to Numbers 1, which gives, typically, the regulations of each part in relation to the whole. The whole is in view at the outset, so that whatever may concern a local company relates to the whole position. The matter is taken up, first of all, not by the local company, but by the elders and the judges of Israel. They, and the whole of the land, are concerned about this matter, because it affects all Israel, although it be traced to the nearest city, and has to be taken up in divine order and regulation by that city. At the same time an account has to be given to all Israel, as to how the matter has been dealt with. It is not that that city is cleared of the blood, but the land is cleared of it.

Rem. So that whatever is done locally there is unity of action.

R.D. Whatever is done is in relation to the universal position.

A.C. In relation to the whole assembly of God?

R.D. Yes.

W.D.R. Then a trouble in Sydney, if it were known elsewhere, assuming that such are gathered according to, 'Thus saith Jehovah' would affect them?

R.D. It would affect them as much as if it were in their own locality.

E.E.L. The slaying of the man would indicate the existence in Israel of a state of lawlessness, which was inappropriate to the people of God.

R.D. Yes, and it would disturb the happy relations of the family of God dwelling in the land, and the pleasure of the blessed God who lives in the midst of their affections. So that it has to be dealt with for God, and for the complacency of divine affections.

E.P. I suppose every Israelite would have been horrified at this man being found slain, irrespective of his tribe?

R.D. Quite so. It would disturb the conditions in which God found His pleasure. I think that is a very high point to move from in regard to any disturbance that comes in amongst us. So that, first of all, we should see that the complacency of the heart of the blessed God, as dwelling amongst His people, must be disturbed if violence takes place anywhere within the circle.

G.A.v.S. So that there will be the exercise that one's soul should be in the full light and enjoyment of what the assembly of God is, as a whole, for the pleasure of God; and it should be in that sense that any local trouble is taken up.

R.D. And the element of responsibility in the assembly that is represented in the judges and elders, would be concerned as to how this matter was to be dealt with so that innocent blood should be put away from the land. First of all, it is important to see that it is those who have the sense of responsibility who should take the matter up. The conscience of the whole assembly is affected, and it is brought home to the local conscience in the nearest city.

G.A.v.S. Do the elders and judges set forth a special class, or do they set forth, morally, characteristic conditions?

R.D. I think they set forth the responsible element that is qualified to deal with these things. First of all, these are the elders and judges of all Israel; they stand, as it were, for the universal conscience. It is important that every brother having to face difficulties in a locality should take account of the universal conscience. It would be a very serious matter for a local gathering to have to take up any matter, and give an account to all for what they do, so as to satisfy the universal conscience. The universal conscience demands that God's nature should be satisfied as to the particular question.

G.A.v.S. Individual judgment must be subordinated then to the universal conscience?

R.D. Well, your individual judgment would have in view, first, how it affected God; then, how it affected the local gathering, and the universal gathering.

F.W. Is the first thing to see that what has happened is a challenge to the Lord's honour amongst the saints here?

R.D. According to Deuteronomy it is even greater than that; it is a challenge to divine affections. As I said, in choosing this scripture, we have chosen a very high standard from which to regard things. You see the people are dwelling in the land for God's pleasure, and God is dwelling in the midst of them, in the place where He has been pleased to put His Name. This, we know, was at Shiloh - not a public place, but a place for the complacency of His affections. And there are certain commands, regulations, statutes and ordinances, that are given for the protection of those affections, for the maintenance of conditions in which the blessed God

should find His restful pleasure - in the affections of the saints whom He has brought into the enjoyment of the heavenly inheritance. So that again I say, in choosing this scripture we have chosen a very high standard. But it brings home to us all the more forcibly that we have to give an account, both to God, and to the conscience of the whole company in regard to how we take things up locally.

E.E.L. The judges of that city were put in a very serious position.

R.D. That is what I was feeling. I felt that if we took this matter home to ourselves, that in connection with whatever matter may be handed to us to be dealt with in our responsibility, if we took it up with the same solemn acceptance that the judges of this city did, it would materially improve our actions in regard to local troubles.

E.P. What had you in your mind in speaking of the principle of 'hands off?'

R.D. What I hear as I go about. A few people get into mischief in a locality, and they quarrel with one another. They get hold of something that has gone around about local responsibility, which they think they understand. So they feel that, as long as they can keep up a ferment amongst themselves, they can say to all the gatherings round about, 'You have no business with this whatever; it is not your responsibility, and so long as we are pleased to go on in this troublesome way your hands must be off'. I have met it in many places, and I feel the Lord has something to say to us about it. It is a distressing matter for those who may be spiritual in the midst of such a state of things. As having a conscience in regard to the condition of things here for the complacent affections of

the blessed God, we are all responsible as to what takes place anywhere on earth.

Rem. The measuring is done outside the locality where the trouble is.

R.D. Yes; the measuring is done by the elders of all Israel, but it is traced to the nearest city.

E.P. Do you think we have taken up Deuteronomy 21 in order to safeguard our local position, rather than to safeguard the whole general position?

R.D. I am not blaming brethren at all. I am speaking of a tendency one sees on the part of mischief-makers to isolate local responsibility from the universal, as well as the district, responsibility. It will help us to see that local responsibility is subservient to the universal responsibility of the assembly of God.

E.E.L. The responsibility is really to see that any obnoxious state of things ceases.

R.D. Ceases for all Israel, yes.

G.A.v.S. The measuring of the distance to the city finds its answer in the exercise of those who seek to put the matter on the conscience of those who are immediately affected by what has happened.

R.D. Yes, and it is brought home to the local position that it is their immediate responsibility to deal with the matter; and deal with it to the satisfaction of God. So that the complacency and affections of God should be satisfied in regard to what has taken place, and the heifer slain in the ever-flowing watercourse that has neither been tilled nor sown, is the only means by which violence can be met.

A.C. You mean that the measuring to the nearest city, from where the man is found slain, is to connect it with the nearest local meeting?

R.D. Well, we do not want to dwell on the question of evil. We want rather to consider the principles that regulate us in view of blessing. That is why I suggested Corinthians, because in 1 Corinthians 1 you have, in principle, the elders of Israel addressing the matter to the local gathering at Corinth. When Paul addresses the saints at Corinth, he does not address them merely personally, but there is present in his address all the authority of the apostles. And he connects all the saints with him, as much as to say to those of Corinth, 'This is not your matter only; it is our matter'.

L.M. It was not only his concern, but it concerned the brethren with him.

R.D. Yes, he says that the Lord Jesus Christ is "both theirs and ours". Mark that, "both theirs", and he puts himself in with them and adds, "and ours".

G.A.v.S. Then you would say, in that form of address, it was directly calculated to arouse the affections of the saints in connection with the evil he was about to bring under their exercise?

R.D. Yes, and calculated to arouse the Corinthians to the deep and solemn responsibility which was theirs, in relation to the various things that Paul was about to bring before them. Indeed, the first epistle is very much taken up in readjusting the saints at Corinth. They had evidently swerved, and Paul's exercise was that they should be recovered, and he is about to bring before them that which would be the means of their recovery, and

which it would be their responsibility to attend to. But mark you, he approaches them from a universal standpoint, he addresses them with the whole weight of the saints behind him, and he brings it home to them that those local matters about which they were so insensitive, were matters that concerned the whole fellowship on earth. And Paul could speak with the affections, exercises and anxieties of all the saints in regard to it. It would be well if, on every occasion we had matters to adjust locally, we felt they had to be adjusted in relation to the universal position, or the brotherhood which is on the earth.

A.C. Would you say that when the apostle Paul wrote that epistle, with all the saints behind him, it would answer to the principle of the judges in Israel bringing home to that company the evil in connection with the man found slain in the field?

R.D. Quite so. That is why I suggested these three verses in 1 Corinthians 1. That answers to the principle. I do feel we would get great benefit in regard to our living relations to one another, as belonging to the family of God here for His pleasure, if we saw that the recognition of these directions afforded an avenue for divine affections to flow through the christian circle down here.

E.P. Like Psalm 133?

R.D. Yes, brethren dwelling together in unity, that is not a local company merely.

Rem. I suppose affection would set us rightly in relation to the saints generally?

R.D. That is why one is very thankful it was Deuteronomy and not Numbers that was suggested.

Because I do not know anything that will affect us more than to see that if we are careless in regard to the commandments and the regulations, it is going to disturb the happy family relations that are proper to the family of God. In these God finds His present pleasure, and is getting His present response. Now, take a little meeting that shuts itself up; it may be a little meeting within a city. It goes on breaking bread, it may be, and says to the rest of the brethren who are very anxious in their affections for God, and for the brethren generally, and it may be for that little company, 'hands off'. What is that little company depriving itself of? Of the enjoyment of the love of God that is within the family circle. And I am quite sure that if we, brethren, knew better the living relations of love that bind us together as brethren, if we valued family relations, we would cherish the statutes and ordinances and principles that preserve those happy relations intact. A little meeting shuts itself off, say in Sydney. Do you not feel your affections are disturbed, as well as having anxieties in regard to the divine order? You feel that it is a positive loss to God as well as to us.

Ques: In what way is a meeting breaking bread shut up?

R.D. Oh, that the brethren simply say, 'Hands off'. In effect they say, 'We are going through disturbances, but please do not interfere'. And when anxious brothers in the meetings around, who have a sense of responsibility in regard to it - the responsible element that we were speaking of, as well as the qualified element - approach them and seek to bring the responsibility home to them of having wisdom from God, as to what is the real

issue there which is causing the strife, they are told that the principle of local responsibility debars them from having anything to say about the matter at all.

Ques. Would it be right for them to consult elders in another meeting?

R.D. It would be right for them to be anxious in regard to the universal position, and be very glad of anything which might be helpful on the part of those who have the care of things in the universal way. It would emphasise greatly their own local responsibility. I am not pleading for mere interference.

E.E.L. So that they might be clear of the matter?

R.D. Yes, and it is in order to see how the happy relations are arrived at that I suggested the last few verses of the second epistle. Judges and elders both give place to the priestly element, and I am afraid sometimes that is the element that is forgotten when we are dealing with exercise. We forget the priestly element.

Ques. Do you mean taking it up in a legal spirit?

R.D. Taking it up on the lines of authority, and stopping there. The judges and elders hand matters over to the priests.

G.A.v.S. What is to be understood by leaving out the priestly element?

R.D. Trying to do things in an arbitrary way. There is an insistence that there shall be a priestly discretion and consideration for God, and wisdom and spirituality to deal with the matter as well as authority enforced. That should be the first exercise when the matter is brought home to the local conscience - where is the priestly element to deal with it?

G.A.v.S. Then the priestly element is what seeks to put things on a spiritual basis in the exercises of those who are immediately involved in the trial?

R.D. The priestly element is the element in the meeting that considers for God.

E.E.L. Why are they the priests, the sons of Levi, and not the priests, the sons of Aaron?

R.D. Oh, I think it traces them back to their priestly tribe in Deuteronomy. Men who qualified for priesthood through refusing natural influences as Levi did.

A.C. Then you think, in every difficulty, the first thing is to consider for God, and then to consider for the peace of the brethren?

R.D. Yes, in Deuteronomy Aaron is not in view. The priests are always referred to as the sons of Levi - 'of the Levite'. They are included in the Levite. It is rather the spiritual element that cares. I have often seen troubles in meetings drag on and on because the priestly element does not get a chance. In a meeting in England there was a trouble that went on for years, and a brother told me how many brothers' meetings they had had. Now in all those brothers' meetings the elders and judges were busy, but some spiritual brother suggested they should come together in the name of the Lord, and wait upon Him, that He might give them a spiritual judgment in regard to the trouble. They came together one night and got to the bottom of things. You see the priests got a chance. Urim and Thummim were consulted.

Ques. Should not a judge be marked by priestly grace?

R.D. The thought is that they work together; the judges and the elders take up the question of responsibility. But the priestly element should be found in the same company, or persons, to consider for God, and for the complacency of divine love, and to deal with a thing at its very root.

G.A.v.S. It would be discriminative rather than prescriptive?

R.D. It would.

Ques. Do not the judges and the elders in the universal way, bring it home to the local ones and leave them to act?

R.D. The judges and the elders in the universal position bring it home to the judges and elders in the local position. The judges and elders in the local position do not begin to deal with the matter - they hand it over to the priestly element. The trouble with us is that the elders and judges begin immediately to handle the matter, and forget all about the priestly element. If you have a local exercise the point is - now is there spirituality and moral power to deal with the case, is there anybody with desires to consider for God and to act for God? And you know the thing is never settled till the priests settle it, and the priests settle it by regarding it in the light of the death of Christ.

The consideration of this heifer, whereon never had come yoke, demands that this thing should be dealt with according to the death of Christ, and then the land is cleansed - not simply the city, but the whole land. A local evil is a blot on the land.

G.A.v.S. That fifth verse is very beautiful. "And the priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for them Jehovah

thy God hath chosen to do service unto him, and to bless in the name of Jehovah". Then it goes on, "And according to their word shall be every controversy and every stroke".

R.D. And the trouble is never settled until the priestly element is ready to deal with it.

G.A.v.S. Do you think that is the reason why many things fester and go on indefinitely, and then break out again, because things have been settled in an arbitrary way without priestly intervention having been invoked?

R.D. If the judges and elders deal with it themselves, they will deal with it mathematically, but when the priestly element is called in they deal with it morally, and according to God. It is never settled until that is done.

E.E.L. Would you tell us what is the teaching in regard to the heifer that has not been wrought with? The heifer is taken to an ever-flowing watercourse, which is not tilled or sown. What does all that indicate?

R.D. It all refers to the death of Christ. The death of no other person had ever yielded a harvest of blessing to God, but the death of this Person was going to yield a harvest of blessing. I mean, it was to be in an ever-flowing watercourse not tilled or sown; there had never been any crop out of that valley before.

Rem. That means death.

R.D. Yes, and it means what accrues as a result of the death of Christ.

G.A.v.S. I suppose the ever-flowing watercourse involves that those who have recognised their responsibility, and have concern before the Lord, are taking up, in their own exercises, the way the death of

Christ has really gone to the root of all that has caused the trouble?

R.D. Yes, and the fruitlessness, the barren condition which must be there if God is set aside. If things are taken up in the ever-flowing watercourse, which has not been tilled or sown, in that way there is a yield of blessing as the result of priestly exercise.

E.P. Is that what Paul means by "perfecting" (2 Corinthians 13:9)?

R.D. Yes, I had that in mind, too. We want to see what is the normal perfect order that should mark us.

A.C. Why was it a heifer and not a bullock?

R.D. I think it suggests the subjective side of things.

Ques. Why did the elders bring the heifer? Why did not the priests bring it?

R.D. The elders are facing their responsibility. It raises the question of responsibility again. But the priests have to be satisfied as to the operations of repentance - the searchings of heart and judgment. So that the heifer is brought, in evidence of a moral condition that satisfies the priestly element that it can deal with it.

Ques. Would it mean that as the priests bring home the power of that death, there would be fruit resulting from it?

R.D. We know, in regard to the exercises of the Corinthian saints, that it was a very untilled valley for them. The conditions that they passed through demanded that the local conscience should satisfy the universal conscience, and this having been done, the conditions afterwards were such that delighted the heart of Paul.

E.S. I suppose in actuality the responsible element and the priestly element are found in the same people?

R.D. Normally they are found in the same company. But there is the distinction between what is capable and responsible, as seen in the elders and judges; and the priestly concern, discernment and wisdom, as seen in the priestly element, in regard to what will meet the holy nature of God.

Rem. All believers are priests, but all are not in a priestly state. Is that right?

R.D. Yes.

Rem. Should not the elders and judges have been in a priestly condition? Is there any excuse for the elders and the brethren not being in a priestly condition? I was thinking of Acts 15, where there was a case of trouble, and the elders and brethren were present to deal with it.

R.D. There is no excuse, but there is a priestly state and there are priestly conditions. Not only is it important that there should be a priestly state in the gathering, so that there is capability to deal with things according to God, but the priestly state should be in priestly conditions - that is, that it may be available at any time. We are dealing with a type here, and we see how some were judges, some were elders, and some were priests. But, as our brother was remarking just now, those elements should be present in the same people. It is a matter of exercise that we are not formed much in priestly state. We are careless as to the conditions because we are not ready to deal with matters at their inception - "watching lest there be any one who lacks the grace of

God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you" (Hebrews 12:15). There is priestly grace and discernment, priestly alertness, as it were. Bitterness is in the root, you know; it must be nipped in the bud. "Lest there be any fornicator ... as Esau"(verse 16). There you have a priestly state exhorted to be looking diligently.

G.A.v.S. It goes to the root of everything that causes dissension and pain and sorrow to the people of God.

R.D. And, of course, the priest's lips should keep knowledge (Malachi 2:7).

F.W. I suppose in bringing the heifer to the ever-flowing watercourse, and breaking its neck, there would be conveyed the idea that the spirits of those men would be in accord with all that the watercourse suggests?

R.D. Yes, quite in accord with them. So that the matter would be taken up in deep contrition, repentance, and searching of heart. There would be, as Paul said, "what vengeance" (2 Corinthians 7:11). It would work out in the "vengeance", showing how the priestly element had been able to bring things home to the conscience of the assembly at Corinth.

Rem. We get in 2 Corinthians 7:8 - 10, "For if also I grieved you in the letter, I do not regret it, if even I have regretted it; for I see that that letter, if even it were only for a time, grieved you. Now I rejoice, not that ye have been grieved, but that ye have been grieved to repentance; for ye have been grieved according to God, that in nothing ye might be injured by us. For grief according to God works repentance to salvation, never to be regretted".

R.D. That is very beautiful. There is unexampled evidence that there was a priestly element in Corinth,

which was preserved in priestly conditions; but the judges and elders would not hear it. There were Fortunatus, Stephanas, the household of Chloe, and there may have been others who kept in touch with Paul in regard to their spiritual exercises all the time. I can imagine some of these Corinthians saying, 'Don't you think Paul had better keep his hands off this matter; this is local responsibility?' I can picture somebody saying, to Chloe, 'Why did you write that letter to Paul; this is our local responsibility?'

Rem. In Deuteronomy 17:8, 9, if a matter arose which was too hard for them to deal with, these were the instructions - "If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between cause and cause, and between stroke and stroke, matters of controversy within thy gates, then shalt thou arise, and go up to the place which Jehovah thy God will choose. And thou shalt come unto the priests, the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire; and they shall declare unto thee the sentence of judgment". Does that help on local responsibility?

R.D. Do you not see that Scripture is intended to convey a principle to us; that is, that if there are difficulties about which there seem to be no solution, we must not conclude that there is no solution? The solution is with God, and immediately the mind of God is sought in assembly, that is, you go up to the place where God's name is, God will give His mind by way of the priestly element. Read what is said of Levi in Deuteronomy 33:8 - 11. So that we have a resource in coming together in the name of the Lord, and inquiring of God in regard to the difficulty concerning which we desire a solution. God will

give the answer. But do you know what is the real cause of trouble simmering and not being settled? It is a little bit of self-will somewhere. Immediately self-will is set aside, you will have the mind of God in regard to anything; the thing would be solved in a few minutes. But if you tell me of a meeting where, for years, they have not been able to break bread, or walk together, although they are in the same meeting, I know that self-will is going on there.

Rem. There is no question of innocent blood.

R.D. The question is taken up in this way, that we can take account of innocent blood. That is the way God is pleased to deal with the case. Of course it is the way God will yet deal with Israel, just as He did with Saul of Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus had to pass through all this in regard to his own soul, but then that prayer of the Lord's, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34), gives the outlook that God has for the repentant here.

G.A.v.S. I suppose in every trouble there is the innocent blood that suffers, those who are really concerned and exercised about things. And so whenever self-will asserts itself it must always involve innocent blood in their trouble.

E.P. We say a good many things to one another, but we do not say much to God. That is one of the weak spots.

R.D. Yes. In turning to God you very soon judge, in yourself, any self-will that may be there. I would rather be the victim whose innocent blood was being shed than the person who sheds it.

Ques. What is the remedy for all this?

R.D. We have just been speaking of the remedy. If I am the person that is the cause of it, I have the way of repentance open to me - what they did at Corinth.

Rem. Self would always judge number two, or number three, but never number one.

W.D.R. Hitherto we have always judged that, when trouble occurs, the most orderly manner to get at the true facts was by way of the local assembly. Brethren on the spot would be in touch with the matter. Otherwise brethren out of close touch might get a wrong view.

R.D. But all that is very carefully ordered. That is, the elders and judges of Israel say in effect to such a local gathering, 'It is your responsibility, and it is for you to deal with it. We do not care to touch the details, but mind you we have as much sense of responsibility about it as you have, and we care about it as much as you do. Ours is from the universal position, yours is from the local position. It is for you to attend to the details, but do not take the matter up as if it were your affair alone, because it is not - it is the affair of all Israel'.

F.W. Why is it here a city?

R.D. In Deuteronomy it is to bring out the point of local responsibility.

F.W. That is what I wanted to get at, because in many centres that we know now as cities there are a good many meetings, and the question of how local responsibility lies in a city where there are many meetings is not always quite so easy to understand.

R.D. Well, we have the principle in Paul's epistle to the assembly of God in Corinth, which would be the assembly in that city. But I do not think the city here is

intended to convey quite the thought of city, as the thought of a local company which was responsible. It would really suggest a local gathering, and local responsibilities in relation to the whole. But if you have a city, like Sydney for instance, with nine or a dozen meetings, it is important that all that is done in that city should be done in the recognition of what is to govern the position of the assembly of God in Sydney.

G.A.v.S. So it is the responsibility of the locality that they should recognise their relation to the universality of the assembly?

R.D. Yes, and if you have got one local meeting (that is one of the meetings in the city) taking up a matter, it takes it up as having a certain responsibility in regard to the local company where they are, but always in relation to the assembly of God in Sydney.

E.P. It struck me how grave the results even in a very small gathering may be. Take Alnwick, for instance, it was a small meeting, but what took place there measured the spiritual stature of every gathering in the world.

J.H. To deal with a matter that affects the whole, without having in view the universal thought, is simply to act in independency.

R.D. Yes, a little company in Sydney would have the greatest concern in regard to the conscience of all; it would have regard for the universal position. Now, in the beginning of 2 Corinthians you have another idea added, and that is district responsibility. So he speaks to the assembly at Corinth and he also connects with them the districts surrounding. Now that has to be considered.

A.C. Then you would say there are four responsibilities? There is local responsibility; then there is that which is connected generally with the truth of the assembly in a city; there is the district responsibility; and then what is universal.

R.D. Yes. You might even add your personal responsibility too, for Romans 12 shows how the individual is responsible as being of the body. You remember the order of the camp in Numbers. The simple position of a believer is that he is in his father's tent, or in his own tent; he stands by his father's standard in relation to a certain quarter of the tabernacle, either the north, east, south or west, where there were three different tribes. But you proceed by way of that to the universal position, to the tent of testimony: so that you have these positions: - You have your father's standard, which stands for your local company; you have the district position - the two tribes on either side of you; and then you have the universal position, where you look out upon the twelve tribes. Evidently the apostle Paul intended that the Corinthians should feel that what took place at Corinth affected the immediate district, and the result was that there was a move towards recovery. He mentions this city, and he mentions this district. You can understand how much the brethren around Corinth, and in the region round about would be disturbed by what was going on there, and how much it affected their relations together.

Rem. One on a self-willed path would forfeit his tent.

R.D. Yes, one on a path of self-will is in a leprous condition. I fear that self-will is allowed in the

assembly of God as something which is excusable. I think we have given self-will a good deal of rein in the assembly of God.

Ques. Would you distinguish between self-will and leprosy?

R.D. If a man goes on in self-will he is leprous, and we must not make room for self-will in the assembly of God. We should be able to deal with it. What was it that killed this man? Was it a leper? It was self-will that did it. That is what self-will will do. It will commit murder. Mr Darby asks the question: Is the church of God the only place on earth where a man is to be allowed to do what he pleases?

E.E.L. That is the last place is it not?

R.D. Yes, I feel we have been too lenient in regard to self-will, and we should have a holy judgment about it. I do not mean a man losing his temper. That is bad enough. There is an immediate way of recovery there, but if one continues on a path of self-will it will mean that he is out of fellowship at the finish. We ought to have power to deal with it.

Rem. You mean power to deal with it by way of recovery?

R.D. Yes, and dealing with the thing, too.

E.E.L. You cannot always recover.

R.D. No. Sometimes a man has to go a certain way to learn. Now, dear brethren, I think it would be a pity if we lost the lovely moral conditions that are suggested in Paul's great exercise at the end in regard to the Corinthians. In the second epistle he is free to bring in a line of ministry which was for building up. There are now

such conditions that a line of ministry can be brought in which would build up this local assembly, and now he speaks of "perfecting". That is, that they should rise up to the enjoyment of the Ephesian state of things. To this end there must be all this care, regulation and order, so that they can get on with one another in such wise that the precious work of God can go on in their souls together. I feel that immense blessing awaits us if we are prepared to be governed by the Lord, and pursue the normal local conditions. We would each one of us be exercised that no finger of ours moved to disturb the brethren, that nothing we allow in our homes, or in our businesses, should be of such a character that it would have a wrong influence upon the fellowship, or on the local gatherings. There will then be spiritual prosperity. Paul desires our "perfecting". Just look at the happy conditions that he suggests. "For we rejoice when we may be weak and ye may be powerful. But this also we pray for, your perfecting". He says, "For the rest, brethren, rejoice". Now, I think that is a good beginning. When there is a deep sense of thanksgiving in the local company, you come in and you look at the brethren and they are all happy. There are no clouds on their faces. You see them speak to one another, and they speak to one another with rejoicing. That is normal. Do you love to come into the meeting and feel that things are such that brethren are happy together. They are not afraid to open out before one another. The youngest in the meeting, if he has a difficulty, can state it; and if he is free to pray, he can pray? There is such an atmosphere of confidence and gladness amongst the brethren. You cannot have that if you are not careful as to the regulations and

the order and one's associations. I would like to come into a meeting where the brethren do not feel that everything is going to pieces, but where "the shout of a king" is amongst us. He says, as it were, 'Be encouraged, things are not going to the bad; things are moving up to Colossians, and on to Ephesians'. Now you have a clear avenue to move up into the highest position. And then he says, "be of one mind". You say, 'Ah, that is quite another proposal'. He says, 'I am not asking anything from you but what is the normal happy lot of a local company according to God'. "Be of one mind". It is not a difficult thing. I may not see eye to eye with a brother to start with, but we can be of one mind.

Rem. There is no blemish on the divine side.

R.D. No, but Paul is not asking for it to be on the divine side, he wants it to be on the subjective side.

E.E.L. Will you amplify that a little: that we may not be able to see eye to eye, but we can be of one mind?

R.D. Well, you and I may not be able to agree upon the meaning of a certain line of truth. But we are both set for the one thing, there is no self-will with us, and I am quite prepared to wait and to weigh up all you have to say, and if I do not see it, I am happy to consider it. We may not be able to speak the same thing, yet we can all be of one mind. It might be a question of a brother having something which I have not been able to see yet, but I am happy enough to wait upon God about it, and ask Him for light, whilst at the same time I can be of one mind with my brother. Then the apostle goes on, "be at peace". It should not be a difficult thing for all of us to be at peace. You say, Why have we not had this before? We were all too busy

with our rules and regulations, without the priestly element. But now there has been a priestly element coming in, and Paul observes an increase of spirituality amongst them. He says, "be at peace". And peace is not simply that we are a lot of companies that have no quarrels with one another. That is not peace.

F.W. The priestly element, and the judges and elders are hand in hand here.

R.D. Yes, and they were hand in hand in Deuteronomy.

G.A.v.S. The elders and the judges work together with the priestly element, so there is no chance of metropolitanism.

R.D. How could you bring metropolitanism into the book of Deuteronomy where you do not have a Jerusalem? You have a lot of cities, but they are cities of equal standing, and God dwelling in the midst of them in Shiloh. There is no metropolitanism there. In regard to the position at Corinth there is no metropolitanism, which agrees with the beginning of Numbers, where the centre is the tent of testimony, and the twelve tribes around it. There is no idea of metropolitanism, but you have still these district influences and the universal position.

Rem. In reference to the Acts of the Apostles, the centre was recognised as Jerusalem up to a point, but then the centre had shifted, so to speak, to heaven.

R.D. Quite so, but there is the tent of testimony in the affections of the saints down here, and there is that universal position which is, of course as you say, under the control of Christ in heaven. But one has to take account of it practically in relation to all the brethren all over the

world. The brotherhood is in the world, as our brother was saying, under the influence of heaven. But do not let us get occupied with troubles. Let us, instead, be occupied with this peace. The apostle says, "be perfected; be encouraged; be of one mind; be at peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you". I like to think of the saints presenting such an answer to the blessed God, that the God of love and peace is with us.

G.A.v.S. Do you mean that these conditions will ensure the God of love and peace being with us?

R.D. He says so. In presenting these conditions he says that the God of love and peace shall be with us. That is with us as a local company, so that you have something now growing in that watercourse. All the exercises through which we are passing are going to yield a precious harvest to God, where before there was no harvest at all. So the first consideration is for God, then for the company, or the saints as a whole, and then for the individual concerned. You see how beautifully they considered for the individual concerned after Paul had exhorted them. The consideration was more in his heart than theirs, but how beautifully it was to work out - that they should confirm their love to him.

G.A.v.S. Does verse 12 follow on verse 11, "Salute one another with a holy kiss"?

R.D. Think of what it would be if we could all greet one another with an holy kiss! That means I have not been criticising one brother to another. They all get so near to one another that they can greet one another with a holy kiss. I have been careful of my associations, and have a holy kiss for you - I would like you to look into my heart

because there is nothing but love there. That is the idea. Think of a whole meeting of brothers and sisters able to greet one another with a holy kiss. Now just look what he says, and this is what was really before me in reading this scripture, "All the saints salute you". Paul and the judges and elders are perfectly satisfied now: they are quite satisfied as to what has taken place in Corinth. He says, 'I can speak for the affections of all the saints now, the doors are all thrown open, and all the saints salute you'. Do you think that those little gatherings that shut themselves up and rob themselves of the affections of their brethren would waste ten minutes over their difficulties if they could have an outlook like this? Why, the affections of all the saints would be thrown around them. If I am in a local gathering where there is trouble, and I look for the salutation of all the saints, I am quite prepared to receive the benefit of their wisdom, care and prayers. I do not say 'hands off' to them. I would have it very much the other way. So here you have the saints at Corinth, looked at locally, brought back into certain conditions, not perfect conditions, but into certain conditions where they can have a pleasing outlook upon the universal position. Then he finishes up with what we would not wish to go on without, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all". Think what that means. He desires that the local company should have this. He says, 'I want this for you, not only that you should get on peacefully together, but that all the grace of our Lord Jesus might be with you'. What does that mean? The wondrous bounty of Christ, and the love of God. Not simply the love of the brethren, precious as it is,

but the love of God. You see, the heifer has been slain, the conditions have been satisfactorily met for the priests, and God's complacency and affections can now be unfolded to this company again, and he desires for them what he was not able to express at the end of his first epistle. It is interesting to compare the reserved desires that he has in the first epistle, with the full boundless desires he expresses in the second - the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit.

From Readings and Addresses in Australia, pp. 108 - 132, Sydney, December 1921

THE SPIRIT (1)

R DUNN

2 Kings 2:9 - 14; 2 Kings 4:17; Romans 8:1 - 5

R.D. As it has been suggested that there is an exercise in regard to the Spirit, I proposed these scriptures, feeling that, perhaps, we should start by regarding the manner of the reception of the Spirit. Then we might go on to consider, the Lord helping us, the use of the Spirit, or the recognition of the Spirit. In the first scripture, in 2 Kings 2, I think we get suggested to us, in type, how the Spirit is received, whilst the second (2 Kings 4), has more to do with how one takes advantage of the grace that lies in the Spirit for us.

A.C. Would the mantle that fell from Elijah, and which Elisha took up indicate to us the power of the Spirit?

R.D. The attitude of Elisha suggests the attitude of a soul to whom the Spirit is given. I think the Spirit is given in connection with our apprehension of the Lord Jesus gone up to heaven. Here there was a heart that had been attracted to Elijah, one who was prepared to follow him all the way in purpose of heart, with an appreciative attention to his master. On the other side of Jordan he apprehends that his master is going up. His master asks him what he would like. Not only had Elijah attracted Elisha to him, and drawn him into his company, so that he knew what he was asking, but he asked him to say what he would like.

F.W. Is that parallel to the attitude of the one hundred and twenty in Acts 1:12 - 14?

R.D. It is. That was a company who had been drawn by the Lord to Himself, and who preferred the Lord to themselves, and desired that they should be like the Lord. I think if you look at that chapter in the Acts, you will see how careful Luke is in giving the narrative, to repeat that they saw Him go up. "He was taken up, they beholding him" (verse 9); and "As they were gazing into heaven, as he was going" (verse 10). So it was a company of people who saw the Lord go up, and who had the most intense desire to be like Him down here.

A.C. Why did Elijah test Elisha when he said, "Abide here, I pray thee"?

R.D. I have no doubt it was to test Elisha's affections, so that Elisha should come practically into the appreciation of the new position into which Elijah was going.

A.C. In that way, you would say, our affections are tested from point to point, as to whether we are prepared to follow the One who was going up?

R.D. Yes. The Spirit is received by each one of us in answer to desire.

Ques. Would Luke 11:9 have any connection with it, "Ask, and it shall be given to you?"

R.D. Yes. You ask and you receive Holy Spirit. In John 4:10 the Lord says, "If thou knewest the gift of God ... thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water". Now, what Elisha wanted was that he should be like his master. The exercise was that we should see how the reception of the Spirit in the

believer, and the recognition of the Spirit, are necessary for spiritual formation. That is in view in the scriptures before us at this time.

H.B. Is that the way it is put in Luke 11, that you are exhorted to ask the Father, and He will give you the Holy Spirit?

R.D. But then, who asks? You are an asker, and the answer to the asker is the Holy Spirit.

Ques. What is involved in asking?

R.D. Whatever your exercise might be; in whatever way you might express yourself, the asking would involve that you want to be like Christ.

Ques. Why was a double portion of Elijah's spirit asked for?

R.D. Well, typically it is christianity that is in view. All the possibilities of christianity are there immediately you receive the Spirit. But what Elisha saw were the excellent graces that his master had, and he said, 'I would like to be like him, and like him in the fullest possible way'. So, he asks for what is, typically, the fulness of blessing in christianity - he asks for the full portion, and nothing less than that. When it is opened out it means everything that is in the heart of God for us is available now by the Spirit.

Ques. Would James 1:5 help in connection with it, "If any one of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God"?

R.D. Well, if one lacks wisdom, and has not the Spirit, he asks. The gift is the Spirit, and in that gift all is made available to one. I may have the Spirit and ask for wisdom, as James puts it, and this wisdom will be available by the Spirit.

F.W. There had been an antecedent work in Elisha's soul before he had this desire. Would you say a word about that?

R.D. I have no doubt there was a work with Elisha at the very outset of his being taken account of in Scripture. Evidently his heart was with the God of Israel. The first time he was found, he was ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he was with the twelfth. There was deep spiritual exercise going on in that young man's soul in relation to God, God's people, and God's interests. And God, by way of the prophet, laid a claim upon him at the very start. He threw his mantle over him. He did not appreciate at the beginning how much that mantle meant, because he did not then know Elijah. Consequent upon the mantle being thrown over him, which really claimed him as a disciple, he became acquainted with his master and with his master's interests. Then he is tested as to whether he is prepared to follow his master. The testing which comes out in this chapter, of course, is not the subject before us, but it brings us to the point where Elijah asks him what he would like. Now, I believe that is the question that arises in regard to the reception of the Spirit. What is it that we desire?

W.J.H. The point is to see Elijah go up.

R.D. The Spirit is given in relation to Christ being received into the new position. I mean if our hearts follow Him up to where He is, the Spirit would delight to place us in a suitable correspondence to where He is. The very height of christianity is in view from the outset.

Rem. The Lord takes up a natural father, and He says a natural father knows what to give to his children.

And then the Lord says, "How much rather shall the Father who is of heaven give the Holy Spirit" (Luke 11:13)?

R.D. To those who ask, yes. Whatever you ask of God, the answer lies in the Spirit. That is the point in Luke's scripture.

Ques. Would you not say that in the beginning of Acts the affections of the disciples were transferred from earth to heaven?

R.D. They were. The fact of the matter is, if you link up Luke's gospel with the beginning of Acts, you see how Christ going to the right hand of God links the disciples affections up with the right hand of God too, and all their desires and hopes take form from there.

W.J.H. It was a continuation really, of what was seen in Christ here. The desire was for that.

R.D. Yes; and the normal desire of anybody who has been brought into touch with Christ, would be that he should take character from Him. And I believe that that is how every believer moves when he receives the Spirit.

Rem. The difficulty one has is that the Lord Jesus Christ is not here personally now, and so we are exercised in our souls before we have the sense of Christ in glory. That does not come from Him personally; so the Spirit must be active in other ways before that point is reached.

R.D. Of course the Spirit is active in other ways, as He had been active with the one hundred and twenty in the beginning of Acts. There was a good deal that was formed in their souls before this. They had been in Christ's company, they loved Christ, and they loved one another. That could not be but by the work of the Spirit, and there

was material there in their souls; but still they did not possess the Spirit.

G.A.v.S. "Receive the Holy Spirit". Does that touch it; when the Lord rose from the dead and came into their midst (John 20:22)?

R.D. I think the Lord in John 20 gave them an impression of the greatest possible gift that could be theirs. I mean the reception of His Spirit.

Ques. Was that the Spirit of life?

R.D. More than that - a wonderful bestowal. It was made good when they received the Spirit at Pentecost.

F.W. Does not Elisha's request imply a sense in his soul of inability to answer to his responsibilities in the absence of Elijah, unless his spirit is given to him?

R.D. I doubt whether the question of responsibility was very much before Elisha's heart at the moment. Rather, I think, there was the desire that comes to every soul at the start when he hears the gospel, and comes into touch with Christ. The desires are connected with Christ in another place. That is, there are simple desires to be like Christ. That is where the exercise begins. In answer to that the blessed God is pleased to communicate the Spirit.

H.B. So the object on God's side, would be that there should be a continuance of Christ here in this world.

R.D. That is your desire. A soul, having received the gospel, there is brought to him the light of the forgiveness of sins. He begins to be attracted to the Lord Jesus Christ. He wants to be a little more patient, a little more meek. He asks for that. The answer is the gift of the

Spirit. One cannot be patient, or meek, apart from receiving the Holy Spirit.

Rem. Elijah's reply to Elisha is practically, 'If you want what you ask for, there must be intimacy; you must be with me'.

R.D. 'If you want what you ask for you must apprehend me going up'. And the Spirit is given in relation to Christ ascended. The object, of course, is that all our hopes and aspirations should be connected with Christ in the new place where He has gone.

F.W. Is what we get in 2 Kings 2 the very beginning of the believer's positive history?

R.D. Yes. Here you have things now taking a definite form in regard to Elijah, and all that flows from Elijah's ministry, the development of the double portion of the Spirit. It is really a setting forth of all the graces and blessings of christianity in its fulness. It is what the Lord speaks of, "That they might have life, and might have it abundantly" (John 10:10).

F.W. So that this is really normal?

R.D. We do not get help by looking at what is abnormal. As one apprehends Christ gone up to the right hand of God, the gift of the Spirit is given in connection with that. So that we can go on to the next scripture, which is a very important line of truth, and that is the way we come into all the subjective gain of the gift of the Spirit.

A.C. What is the thought of Elisha following Elijah over Jordan?

R.D. It is what I have been saying. You come to the point where you can apprehend Him going up. It is very much like where the disciples followed the Lord in

Luke 24 (which is connected with Acts 1) - on the other side of His death. He went up from their midst, and they beheld Him go up.

Ques. What was the "hard thing" which was asked?

R.D. It was to convey to us the sense that there was exercise in view of the reception of the Spirit, and exercise begins like this, that I want to be like Christ. There has been a great deal said about whether a believer has the Spirit or not. One would like to encourage every young person who may be exercised about things, as to the desires that are proper in the heart of young believers, which turn the heart to God, in such a way that God's answer is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

G.A.v.S. The very desire springs from the work of the Spirit?

R.D. Yes.

Ques. Has every believer got the Spirit?

R.D. We read of believers who had not the Spirit. It really raises the question of how much a person believes. Now Elisha apprehended his master was going up, and if he was to be left behind he would need his master's spirit, so he watched to see him go up.

Ques. The disciples stood gazing into heaven. The object of their affection was being taken up into heaven.

R.D. Yes, their hearts went up. They followed Him where He had gone. And the Spirit in that way would connect all our hopes and affections with Christ where he is; and our occupation down here would be in that blessed One's interests. So there is the expression of the features of that blessed Person whom we love.

E.P. Is your thought that the asking is continuous?

R.D. I think the reception of the Spirit is in answer to asking; but no doubt there is this continuous exercise that I might get all the gain of the Spirit received. But first of all one must have the Spirit.

E.P. I was thinking of Paul, when he speaks of the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

R.D. That has got more to do with our second scripture. What was observed on the part of Elisha, after he had seen his master go up, was that he was not wearing his own garment. He had disposed of his own garment. He rent it in twain. He had no more use for it. Now he was wearing his master's garment. That is the effect of a person having received the Spirit; he now comes out in the garments of Christ.

Ques. Was that seen in Stephen?

R.D. It was. They saw as it were, the very garments of Jesus on Stephen.

E.P. The Spirit is not only a gift, but is formative.

R.D. It is in view of something that we are conscious we need. First of all we express the desire. And in connection with apprehending Christ in the faith of our souls, gone up into glory and the Father's reception of Him there, the Spirit is now given, and I can receive the Spirit. But I can receive the Spirit as giving me the power to be like my Master.

Ques. Why did Elisha rend his own garment?

R.D. Because, in keeping with what he desired, having received his master's garment, he has no use for his own.

G.A.v.S. Is that not a test?

R.D. Yes. The truth is he preferred his master to himself, before he knew that he had received the capability to be like his master. Now he disposes of his own garment, and mark you, he does not hang it in the wardrobe.

G.A.v.S. Do you mean if Elisha had put his mantle in the wardrobe he might take it down and wear it again?

R.D. Yes. He had no more use for his old garment. For the rest of his days his desire and object was to wear his master's garment.

G.A.v.S. Do my garments, in Scripture, represent my natural characteristics?

R.D. Yes. That is what Paul did, you know. In a very beautiful way he speaks of it when he said that what things were gain for him, he counted loss for Christ. He said, 'I had very good garments, naturally speaking, but now I have no more use for them'. Paul had upon him the meek and gentle habiliments of Christ.

E.E.L. How can I rend my garment so that it can be of no further use to me?

R.D. It is an act of mind that you arrive at. You put them off. We are in the presence of the graces of Christ to dispose of all the natural characteristics that once marked us. Having now received His garments, the power to partake of His Spirit and graces, you have done with yours.

W.J.H. It is the appreciation of Christ.

R.D. As a matter of fact you put on Elijah's garment before you dispose of your own. You have appreciated in your affections those features of Christ, and you have no more use for your own characteristics.

H.B. I suppose, to put it in the language of the New Testament, it would be the old man put off and the putting on of the new man?

R.D. Well, that is what it comes to.

F.W. How did it come to pass, in the second scripture, that there had been no consciousness of the value of the oil?

R.D. That raises an important point. I have not so much difficulty about people having received the Spirit. I believe there are many who have not received the Spirit, many who believe to a certain point. They have not apprehended Christ gone up; and if one got into touch with them one would like to present Christ as having gone up into heaven, and seek to exercise them as to the possibilities that are theirs in the gift of the Spirit. But in the second case it seems to me we come to a great practical difficulty, a difficulty that is very evident amongst us, and that is whether we have the use of, or all that is available to us by, the Spirit. I believe that the great drawback with souls today is that they may have the Spirit yet not be in the gain of having the Spirit.

A.C. I suppose typically in the Old Testament, when the rock was smitten, the Spirit was given; but it was not until they had passed the brazen serpent and digged wells that they got the gain of the Spirit.

E.P. Do you not think we have been very deficient in the presentation of a glorified Christ?

R.D. It is an exercise for us. It is an immense moment when a soul apprehends Christ gone up to the right hand of God, Christ in glory. When a soul apprehends that you see what immense desires are

produced in the heart, in connection with which the Spirit is given and received.

E.P. It is the way Christ is presented, you love Christ.

R.D. The first effect of the Spirit's reception in the heart is this - that it makes me conscious of the love of God. I think that is what is typically referred to when the rock was smitten and the water was given.

H.B. That is demonstrated in Romans 5, where the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts.

R.D. Yes. The Spirit, like all that God gives, is given on the line of desire. It is a divine principle with God that He gives on the line of desire. And the scriptures we have been referring to speak of desire. Before Elijah departs he says to Elisha, 'What do you want?' 'Well', he says, 'I want to be like you'. The Lord Jesus in speaking to the woman at the well, said, "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water" (John 4:10). The scripture quoted in Luke is very simple - "how much rather shall the Father who is of heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him". That is the way things are presented in Scripture.

Ques. How is the desire produced?

R.D. The desire is produced by the Spirit of God, and in connection with those desires, the Spirit of God would lead our hearts to the apprehension of Christ at the right hand of God, because, if He is not there, the Spirit could not be given.

W.J.H. Every believer professes to know Jesus is in heaven, but all do not know Him there for the affection of their hearts.

R.D. That is what we have before us. We have, in the case of Elisha, a man who would keep in touch with his master, and whose affections followed him every step of his journey towards Jordan, to the other side of Jordan, and right up to heaven. The sons of the prophets knew as much as he did, as a matter of light. They said, "Dost thou know Jehovah will take away thy master from over thy head today"? We know all these things; you may have light about them, like the sons of the prophets; but when it came to the point of crossing the Jordan in affection and desire after this blessed master, you find fifty against one. At Jordan they know as well as he, that Elijah was going up; but this is a heart that has moved after his master, and he was prepared to follow him all the way, because he had the desire to be like him.

W.D.R. Do those who know their sins forgiven have the Spirit?

R.D. It is quite possible to know your sins are forgiven, and yet not have the Spirit.

G.A.v.S. Would you call that abnormal, to know that your sins are forgiven, and yet not have the Spirit?

R.D. Well, I think it is a step on the way.

W.D.R. How could you know your sins were forgiven, if it were not by the Spirit?

R.D. I would know it by faith, and faith is not the Spirit.

F.W. Is not the Spirit given in response to faith?

R.D. It is given in response to faith in relation to Christ where He is. The gift of the Spirit is given in response to desire.

J.H. Hebrews 10:15 shows us that the Holy Spirit is witness. That is, the Holy Spirit witnesses to us that our sins and iniquities God will remember no more. Is it not the Spirit that removes the sense of sins from the conscience, so that we can have no more the conscience of sins?

R.D. It is the Spirit that gives you witness. You could not receive the gospel apart from the work of the Spirit. But that is not the reception of the Spirit.

W.D.R. If you had the consciousness of the forgiveness of sins, would that not be by the Spirit?

R.D. It depends what you mean by consciousness. If you have the enjoyment of the forgiveness of sins it would be by the Spirit. But you might have the light of the forgiveness of sins on the principle of faith, without having received the Holy Spirit. Indeed we have in Scripture, in the Acts, those who had believed, and yet had not received the Spirit. I believe there are many today who believe who have not yet received the Spirit, and it is because there are such, one is anxious we should know how to help them.

J.H. Does not John 7 tell us that they did not have the Spirit given, because Jesus was not yet glorified? But now we are in the good of the day of Pentecost, and the Lord Jesus has been glorified so that we have the Spirit both as life and power.

R.D. We have presented to us the forgiveness of sins in view of the gift of the Spirit. The Spirit is here, but that does not involve that I have the Spirit

Ques. Did the Ephesian believers have the Spirit?

R.D. They did not have the Spirit at the start. They were asked the question, "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye had believed"? Their answer disclosed that they had not. There are many like that today.

Rem. They could not have entered into the counsels of God, until they had received the Spirit.

R.D. Quite so.

Rem. They had a knowledge of God, and they believed, but they had not the Spirit.

R.D. They believed a certain testimony that had been given to them, but that testimony evidently, was not to Christ in glory; and because they had only a limited testimony, it was not suitable that they should be sealed. God is not going to seal what is defective. What He does seal is an apprehension of Christ gone to the right hand of God, because of what God has in view in regard to those to whom He communicates the Spirit.

W.D.R. And when that is so the spirit in the believer cries, "Abba Father".

R.D. Yes; that is so. But it is not going to help souls who have not received the testimony, in the apprehension of their souls, of Christ gone to the right hand of God and what that involves, to tell them they have the Spirit because they are believers. You are going to damage their souls if you do that, and I would not like to have any part in it.

A.C. Would you say this, that we can go some way on the road, and not touch christianity proper at all? I suppose in a future day the earthly people will enjoy the forgiveness of sins, and peace with God, but they will not have the Spirit in the way in which we do.

Rem. Many souls have a wonderful knowledge of the letter of the word without the living power of the Spirit.

R.D. The recognition of the Spirit is necessary for the enjoyment of christianity.

Ques. "Do ye not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God; and ye are not your own" (1 Corinthians 6:19)? Is that of general application?

R.D. I believe those Corinthians had the Spirit; but we are raising the question whether there are not believers who believe a certain testimony, but who have not the Spirit. Paul, in Acts 19, does not give them a lecture and tell them that all believers are bound to have the Spirit, whether they are conscious of it or not. That would put them in a wrong position. He exercised them as to whether they had the Spirit or not; and, having raised that issue with them, they disclosed to Paul that they did not so much as know that the Holy Spirit had come.

Rem. Your point is that the apostles had been with that blessed Person for three and a half years, and they had desired to be like Him so much that they were in a suitable state to receive the Spirit.

R.D. Elisha really typifies the remnant who followed the Lord from one point to another, even to the other side of His death. We have that at the end of Luke's gospel, and the beginning of the Acts. They had, as it were, the most intense desire to be like Christ, and to be here for Him.

W.D.R. If a soul knows Christ, "delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification" (Romans 4:25), would not God seal that soul?

R.D. He would. That is Romans 4 and 5. There you have a soul brought into the light of Christ raised. His being raised there may go beyond the fact of His resurrection, to the testimony as an object of faith. He has been delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification, and the light of that apprehended, means that I am justified for another world entirely, and I am taken up in another Man. Now, if I receive that testimony, do I not wish to be like that Man? Do I not wish to have the blessed God as my object? Such a presentation of the glad tidings, which would bring that into effect, must mean that that person has the Spirit, and the Spirit brings home to the affections of that person the love of God. But if the testimony falls short of that, God cannot seal it; and if He does not seal it, that person has not the Spirit. I may be able to apprehend Christ on the cross, and yet not have followed Him to resurrection.

Ques. Would you say something about that scripture in Acts 19:2?

R.D. It is simple, Paul asked the question, "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye had believed"? In referring to it afterwards he said, "Having believed, ye have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise" (Ephesians 1:13).

G.A.v.S. In reference to that scripture in Ephesians - would that indicate that the gospel had been presented in its fullest character or otherwise?

R.D. We know the history of it, that Paul went to Ephesus, and he found a testimony had been given which

was not a full testimony, and the effect was that there were some believers in Ephesus who believed up to a certain point. They believed possibly all the testimony that had been given to them. It exercised Paul, because he discerned that they had not the Spirit. I think all that is related to us, in order to exercise us as to the reception of the Spirit. We have these types too, to help us, and we see how Elisha takes the journey, and reaches the point where he is ready for the reception of the Spirit.

G.A.v.S. I must confess I had never thought of connecting Acts 19 with the epistle to the Ephesians in that sense.

R.D. It was at Ephesus that he was writing to those very brethren. They would well understand the reference.

Ques. Is there any connection between what you have been saying, and what we have in Luke 4:18, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me"?

R.D. There the Lord is speaking as the anointed Preacher, and He speaks of the Spirit of the Lord being upon Him. God had anointed that blessed Man to be the Preacher of all the bounteous grace of God.

Ques. How would a person know whether he had received the Holy Spirit or not?

R.D. He would know surely, if he were conscious of the love of God being shed abroad in his heart. I believe there are many who have a certain amount of light, and who are real in regard to it, but who do not enjoy the love of God shed abroad in the heart. It is not going to help such souls to tell them they have the Holy Spirit. It is going to help souls if one would lead their thoughts up to

Christ, and show them what possibilities there are for them now that Christ has gone up on high.

J.H. Romans 8:16 says, "The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God".

R.D. Yes; but Romans 8 is not a question of the reception of the Spirit. First, you have the love of God shed abroad in your hearts, then you have the witness of the Spirit. That is the Spirit of God speaks to your spirit and He makes known to you, in real consciousness, the blessed place that Christ occupies now, and He witnesses that we are children of God.

Ques. May a soul have the conscious joy of the forgiveness of sins, having reached a glorified Christ at the moment of the forgiveness of sins, and still not have the Spirit, as having been sealed?

R.D. A soul may get relief, and may be able to rest upon that. That is to say that all that alienated a soul from God has been dealt with, and the light of that may be in the soul. But that is by faith. The enjoyment of divine things is by the Spirit.

Rem. Mr Darby has said that although a soul may receive the Spirit in that way, he may still have to go through the wilderness journey, and learn himself in Romans 7, and be as one who has not received the Spirit.

R.D. That is right; but that was not the question that was asked.

Ques. Is not the object of the Spirit that I may know Christ where He is, not where He was?

R.D. Yes; it is in connection with where He is now; but I need the Spirit to understand and enjoy all the perfection that came out where He was.

W.D.R. At the end of Romans 4, we get this, after the statement is made that "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness" (verse 3), that "it was not written on his account alone that it was reckoned to him, but on ours also, to whom, believing on him who has raised from among the dead Jesus our Lord ... it will be reckoned" (verses 23 - 25). Could it be said of such a one that he had not the Spirit?

R.D. What you have been quoting is a matter of faith is it not? We must distinguish between faith and the Spirit; what faith apprehends, and what the Spirit confirms.

F.W. I think the difficulty is pretty general here. Many of us have had the thought that the Spirit commences a work in our souls, and leads us through certain exercises, until a point is reached when, in faith, the testimony of God is received, and that faith in the testimony of God is what is sealed by the Spirit.

R.D. The testimony of God is a very full thing. It involves Christ at the right hand of God. Now the moral sequence is this - the Spirit of God began the work in us, and He led us up to a point where there was repentance, and the reception of the testimony in Christ raised and exalted, then the gift of the Spirit. This is simple.

F.W. Yes, only I thought from what you were saying, it was necessary there should be a great deal more apprehension of what was involved in Christ in glory before the soul is sealed.

R.D. Oh, no. When you say 'the testimony of God', you are including what I am anxious we should all apprehend (and I have taken this scripture before us to

illustrate) what it is to be sealed. But supposing, Mr W., when we come to practical difficulties, that the testimony is just a bit of the testimony, do you think God is going to seal that, and confirm the soul who has before him less than God would have before that soul? Now, there has been a good deal of defective presentation, and the fact is that souls have received a certain amount as light on the principle of faith, but they have not received the Spirit.

E.E.L. The testimony the saints at Ephesus had received was defective, because the Holy Spirit had either been unknown, or, having become known to them, He was ignored by them in their preaching.

R.D. Quite so.

Ques. You have spoken of first, the reception of the Spirit; second the witness; would there not be a third, the controlling power?

R.D. That is what is evident with Elisha - he came out in the power of his master, and then too, another mark of having the Spirit is that I love the children of God.

From Readings and Addresses in Australia, pp. 5 - 25, Sydney, December 1921.

THE SPIRIT (2)

R DUNN

2 Kings 4:1 - 16; Romans 8:9 - 30

R.D. I think these scriptures view two exercises. First, that which has been dwelt upon somewhat as to whether one has received the Spirit. Second, as to whether, having received the Spirit, one is in the gain of it. In regard to the first exercise, I think we saw that, normally, every christian has the Spirit - everyone who may be counted a believer in the testimony of God has the Spirit. But we saw from one scripture that there were those who had received a certain gospel from a man who knew the way of the Lord, and the things concerning Jesus, but only the baptism of John. So his testimony was limited, because his converts at Ephesus had evidently not heard that the Holy Spirit had come. It does not say Paul told them about the Holy Spirit, but they had not heard the wonderful news that the Spirit of God had come. So Paul raised this great question with them, and it involved great consequences for them. That is, their hearts being set in right exercises by what Paul presented, the Spirit was given, and they received Him. One would raise the second question, as to whether we have the value and all the gain of the Spirit of God, who is with us and dwelling in us?

A.C. Did the woman in 2 Kings 4 get the gain of what she had in her house?

R.D. Yes. I think she sets forth one who has the Spirit, but does not know how much there is in the Spirit.

A.C. I suppose that it is only by the Spirit of God that we can meet our obligations down here. Evidently she was not able to meet her obligations.

R.D. Her difficulty was she had all those obligations, and she did not know how she was to meet them.

F.W. How did she come into the knowledge of the value of what was present in the house?

R.D. The prophet drew attention to it. I am sure the Lord would draw our attention to the immense resources consequent upon having received the Spirit.

Ques. Would the woman set forth the affection side?

R.D. Yes, the subjective side. She speaks of the heart's exercises as to moral obligations; and we are not free to have part in assembly exercise apart from characteristically fulfilling all our obligations by the Spirit. So the question is a very necessary one, if we are going to make advance in soul and find our part in the exercises of the assembly today.

G.A.v.S. I suppose we become bankrupt simply because we have been seeking to fulfil our obligations in the flesh?

R.D. Yes, and of course that is bondage.

G.A.v.S. When you speak of our not getting the gain of the Spirit, how do we get awakened as to the loss that has accrued through our not getting the gain of the Spirit?

R.D. The question of our responsibility is raised, and when we have practically decided the question of our responsibilities, we are able to live. I think it is important that we should face the question of our responsibilities. The proposal the Lord makes for us is that we should come out of the sphere of our responsibilities, not only characteristically meeting everything in the power of the

Spirit, but with much over - more than overcomers.

E.E.L. You deduce that from the fact that this woman, after she had sold sufficient to pay her creditors, had something left upon which she and her sons could live?

R.D. Yes. She had the principal left. It was only a part of it that she had used for the paying of her debts, and she had the great thing left - that upon which she and her sons could live royally afterwards. If we were to follow the type, she comes out in the next case, really, as the great woman.

F.W. Do you mean that she not only filled all the vessels, but when she had done filling them the original vessel was still there full?

R.D. She was still able to pay her creditors, and live on the principal which was left. It is really an amplification of what we were speaking of this afternoon, the double portion of Elijah's spirit. It is christianity entered into in all its fulness, in the power of the Spirit, but from the direction of fulfilling all our obligations.

Ques. Meeting responsibilities is righteousness, but here we get grace, do we not?

R.D. But it is all grace you know; grace enables us to meet righteousness. That is why it is oil in this case. It is oil as suggesting the supply of grace that is in the Spirit. It is not exactly the Spirit personally, but the gain that accrues to us by recognising the Spirit, and using the grace that is available for us.

G.A.v.S. So that it is in the multiplication of grace that our obligations are fulfilled?

R.D. Yes. I think it is when we begin to recognise

our responsibilities, and have the desire (that the gospel put into our hearts), that we should be in liberty to live in all the blessedness of the grace that has come out in Christ, that we come to recognise the necessity of using the Spirit, and availing ourselves of the grace that is ours by the Spirit.

Ques. Are you speaking of the individual or the assembly?

R. D. I am speaking of the individual. Romans 8 is individual.

A.C. Elisha did not give the woman anything, but he said, "What hast thou in the house?" I suppose we may have the Spirit, and yet not get the gain of what there is in the Spirit?

R.D. Yes, and what I think about it is this: there is not so much difficulty in regard to having the Spirit. As I said this afternoon, I believe there are some who, on account of defective preaching, have not reached the point where they have received the Spirit. That is not normal. What is normal is that all believers have the Spirit. I would like that to be remembered by all. I think it is a serious thing too, that so many may have the Spirit and yet be careless as to their obligations.

A.C. If I am not able to meet my obligations in connection with my responsible pathway as a christian down here, the danger would be I may come under the power of something here in this sense?

R.D. But you are able to meet your obligations. I want to press that. Are we exercised about meeting our obligations?

G.A.v.S. That is to say there is no defect in power or grace, but there is defect in the appropriation or enjoyment of the liberty that that power and grace imply.

R.D. Quite.

Rem. And in the recognition of the Spirit?

R.D. The recognition of the Spirit, and availing ourselves of all the supply which, in grace, the Spirit of God brings in.

Ques. Is responsibility in view of the company of saints here?

R.D. It is in view of coming into the fulness of christianity, and that involves a very great deal. This is the Spirit's day, when we may have life in all its abundance; but we cannot enjoy that apart from facing the question of our responsibilities.

G.A.v.S. Would you imply that the saints have not been awakened to their responsibilities on that side?

R.D. I think there is the danger. We see a woman here, now awakened to the exercise. The creditor has come along and he claims her two sons. This stirs her up. What she wants is liberty and life. The creditor has come to deprive her of both. Now she comes to the man of God, and she says, 'Help, I am in exercise now'. When people get a little move on in their souls you know, they begin to pray, and pray in regard to everything that would hold them in bondage. The first thing the soul desires is liberty and life.

Ques. Is the flesh the difficulty?

R.D. Well, you know, we have a good husband. In Romans 7 the Lord Jesus takes that name really, the name of the husband, not to the assembly, but to the

individual. Each one of us has a good husband. It is important, in approaching the subject to take account of this, that the Lord Jesus loves each one of us. He would have us so free that we should be fruitful for God. The way by which we become fruitful for God is that He brings in a supply by way of the Spirit.

A.C. That does not become available till we pass the brazen serpent aspect of the death of Christ.

R.D. But you are very glad to come to the brazen serpent aspect when you discover how utterly incapable you are yourself. You are glad to set aside the incapable man and turn to the Lord Jesus, who draws attention to what there is for you in the Spirit. The brazen serpent is not a question of the gift of the Spirit. Typically, the Spirit is given before. It is a question of recognising the Spirit, the following of the Spirit, and the singing to the well. So it is not a question of the well not being there, but rather of moving the stones that are before the well.

W.J.H. That is a kindred idea to borrowing empty vessels.

R.D. Yes, and when you borrow empty vessels, you go to your neighbours.

L.M. What do you imply by that?

R.D. If you had vessels from your neighbours it does not matter how many vessels you have, and your neighbours are those who live nearest to you. You are able to meet your obligations amongst all your neighbours; not only so but you go on to live.

Ques. Do you mean one's brethren?

R.D. Your brethren, or your fellow-men, the man next door, anybody with whom you come in touch. It is a

most blessed proposal that I should be able to come out in the grace of God, in such a way, that I can leave all my relationship with men, having been enabled to meet all righteous claims. I can leave them all in the sense that, in the Spirit's power, one has no encumbrances but rather the reverse.

E.E.L. What is the idea of selling the oil in regard to one's obligations? It was said of old, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth" (Exodus 21:24). It is something very different from that is it not?

R.D. Yes. It is the realisation of the resources in the Spirit, the grace that we have in the Spirit.

Ques. Those to whom this widow owed money got the oil, did they not?

R.D. She sold the oil, and paid her creditors. That is to say, she had exercises which realised that grace, so that she was able to meet everybody in grace.

Ques. Is the obligation pressed upon everyone of us when we come to know the Lord - our love to God, and our love to our neighbour?

R.D. Yes, that is good.

A.C. During our pathway through this world many things arise, in one form or another, to turn us aside, and we really have to meet them according to God. If we do not, we fall under their power. If we are in the good of what we have before us here, we are able to move through a scene that is against us and meet every obligation.

R.D. Yes. We have to do business in the land of Moab. We have our relationships in the land of Moab. We have to deal with men in that territory. The circumstances of the earthly pathway have to do with the natural

relationships. But the Spirit's power would enable us to come out in grace in such a way that every relationship of life, and every responsibility, is met, not as other men would meet them, but in the power of the Spirit of God.

L.M. She had nothing else in the house. "Thy handmaid has not anything at all in the house but a pot of oil".

R.D. Yes, the doors are shut, and she is inside with God, taking up this transaction; so that how she fills her obligations is all in a spiritual way by the power and the expenditure of grace.

E.E.L. Does the shutting of the door in regard to the Spirit answer to the rending of the mantle?

R.D. I think so. It puts you on an entirely spiritual ground. Now you have God before you, and the obligation is met in relation to God. In Romans 8 it says, "they that are in flesh cannot please God". Now in the discharging of your liabilities, that these creditors justly claim, the question is one of pleasing God. And so if one thinks of one's relationships of life, business matters, household matters, or whatever relationships they are, and our responsibilities in connection with them, we can meet them and please God in doing so, in the grace that is supplied by the Spirit.

F.W. So that you now move forward, not with any sense of your own greatness, but with the sense of the greatness of your possession.

R.D. Yes, and you become great, like this great woman. And as having no debts upon you at all, you begin to pay attention to this man of God who passes every day. The testimony begins to get the place in your heart. You

feel you would not like to miss the opportunity of having a part in the testimony. But you could not take up the testimony if you were in debt with your brothers, or in regard to business, or in any other way. Everything has really been met in grace, and I can now devote myself to maintaining the testimony. I would like, as it were, to ask the man of God, the holy man of God, who has got the mind of God, and the interests of God before him - I would like, as it were, to ask him to my house.

Ques. How did the woman become in debt?

R.D. It is the creditor who raises the question about it. We have to live amongst our neighbours, those with whom we have dealings. We are either characteristically meeting all the obligations in grace, or else we become indebted to them; we are detained, and we cannot get into assembly exercises that our hearts would long to be in. If I am conducting my business badly, I am in debt. If I cannot get on with my neighbours, I am in debt. If I cannot get on with my brethren, I am in debt.

G.A.v.S. Any assumption to take up what is spoken of as the testimony when one is under obligations to others which are undischarged, is an assumption in the flesh, not in Spirit.

R.D. Yes. You cannot afford to do it, because you have no money. This woman was a great woman; she had plenty of money, she paid all her debts, and she had excess. She could have a chamber built upon the wall, and furnish it, but that was with the capital she had. If we were to take up the chapter we would see that. However, that is not our point tonight.

G.A.v.S. She has that good husband, and when she

gets into debt, she says, 'where is the man of God'?

R.D. That is it. Then you are ready for all that is involved in the new husband. The husband meets everything from his resource; he enables her to pay all her debts and live on the rest.

Ques. Is that the thought at the end of Romans 7?

R.D. Yes. The beginning of Romans 7 is the presentation of the new husband. But the experiences you go through are because you do not know your husband's resources. Romans 8 shows you what a supply the husband has, and how he gives it to you in the Spirit.

Ques. Is the righteous requirement of the law, the obligation - love?

R.D. It is an obligation which expends itself in the supply of grace. So that you are able to meet every obligation to your wife and children; the men in your business; and everybody you touch. You are able to do it in a large and royal way, and find yourself moving in and out amongst your brethren, in spiritual relations, without any kind of reflection and as to how you have been treating men of the world.

Rem. That is to say, the Spirit is life on account of righteousness.

R.D. Yes. When you come up from the market place you do not need to do as the Pharisees did, go and wash your hands. You never dirty them. And when you come up from the house you do not have to say, as you leave your house, to your father and mother, 'I am going to neglect you because I want to attend to the house of God'. God does not want that kind of money. He wants the

expenditure of the grace of the Spirit from those who have been characteristically fulfilling their obligations.

G.A.v.S. Would you repeat that about the Pharisees washing their hands?

R.D. I was referring to the scripture in Mark, where the Lord is speaking of the Pharisees. He speaks of those who come from the market place and wash their hands, and those who, coming in from the house, leave the house in this way - that a man may say to his father and mother, 'I ought to care for you, but I care for divine interests, so you will have to do without my care'. Now God would send that man back to his house to care for his father and mother.

Ques. You must not shut out obligations then?

R.D. He might be a man who has a quick temper, and if all the brethren know he is quick-tempered he may think they have just got to put up with him. Is that how you come out of your obligations, with an admission that you have failed, when you have the Spirit, and the graces of the Spirit, that would meet every kind of demand and responsibility, and leave you free and at large for divine interests?

F.W. Does this suggest what is formative in us by the Spirit?

R.D. Yes, what is possible. In having the Spirit you have the germ of everything, all the grace you need is available by the Spirit. It is not state. Romans does not give you state.

F.W. I was thinking of what is said as regards the law, that the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us, not by us.

R.D. Yes, it is "fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit". Now as the Spirit is taken advantage of in that way, as the graces of the Spirit are used, I am formed; that takes you beyond Romans. It is a proposal in Romans. Romans 8 is a scripture where the Spirit of God really turns aside to draw attention to all that He has for you. It is one of those remarkable scriptures in which the Spirit of God would engage you with the wealth that He has for us, an unfolding by the Spirit of all that He has for us; and you know it is immense.

Ques. Was Zacchaeus a good example of one who met his obligations in a royal way?

R.D. Zacchaeus was a man of little stature. He follows on the blind man in the previous chapter. He is attracted by the Lord Jesus and follows in the way. Now with Zacchaeus there were just those exercises that we are talking about. Zacchaeus is beginning to discover the importance of righteousness, and so, before he saw the Lord on this occasion, no doubt as the fruit of divine operations, he had become engaged in the discharge of his obligations. If one might put it that way Zacchaeus had begun to know the good of Romans 8. And so after the Lord called him, he comes down, to be controlled by the Lord. You know there are many who have the gift of the Spirit, but who have never come to be controlled or regulated by the Lord. It is a very interesting scripture in that way, because just when the Lord secured him, he was on the line of discharging his obligations. You remember that he was walking along with the Lord, and a very remarkable thing took place as they were going along the

way. As we watch them we see this little man standing, and the Lord Jesus standing too, both very alert. It suddenly occurred to him the Lord was going to his house. He had not thought of that before. He says, as it were, 'I wonder if He will see anything in my bookcase that He would not like; I wonder if He will see anything in my household that He would not like'. So he says to the Lord, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I return him fourfold" (Luke 19:8). The Lord says, 'I will go to the house of a man like that and I will abide in it. I am going to link him with the testimony, and with my interests. He is a man who seeks to be regulated by Me, and if he is little of stature he will soon grow'.

Rem. He received the Lord joyfully.

R.D. Yes.

Ques. Would you say the Lord had an exercised heart to work upon, like the oil in the vessel?

R.D. Quite so, and there was a heart that was using it.

G.A.v.S. What about Onesimus? Was he discharging his obligations when he went back to Philemon?

R.D. Well, Paul has a young convert there. The question with Paul was this; Was he going to have this young convert in the good of his ministry? So he says, as it were, There are many reasons, but one of the reasons why I must send him back is that he should practise the ministry he has heard from me. Onesimus goes back to take up his obligations. And, more than that, he merges into the exercises of such an assembly as that in Colosse, in the fulness, not only of the discharge of his obligations,

but of living on the rest. He would need a good income to live in the meeting in Colosse.

F.W. Just to make plain a remark you made just now; Romans 8, you indicated, was our capital.

R.D. Yes.

F.W. You said, Romans does not give us state.

R.D. It does not.

F.W. Where do we go for state?

R.D. I think state merges from Romans. You have state that can be taken account of in Colossians and Ephesians. You have what will form state in the recognition of the Spirit in Romans. The beginnings of things are there, but one would not use the word - stature. The grass is just beginning to grow. The blade, if you like, is there, but the corn in the ear, and all that is to come, comes out afterwards.

Ques. "Ye are not in flesh, but in Spirit"?

R.D. Yes. All this is available for you in the Spirit.

G.A.v.S. Romans 8 is the discovery that things are available for us in the Spirit.

R.D. Yes, and it is going to work out in this way, that one is able to live on account of righteousness. The Spirit is life in view of righteousness. I have the power to discharge, characteristically, all my obligations.

F.W. Why then does it speak of Christ being in you?

R.D. That is by way of argument, "if Christ be in you". He raises the question, and he raises it for exercise. In reading Romans 8 it is important to distinguish when Paul uses the words 'we', 'us', and 'me'. Sometimes Paul

says, 'I must speak for myself' - "I reckon". He speaks generally at other times. He says, 'I can raise the question with you as to how far on you are'.

Ques. What is it to be "in Spirit", in Roman 8?

R.D. I think that is what you have arrived at, that the Spirit is recognised. You value the Spirit, and so you are in the Spirit. If one is in the recognition of the Spirit, one is in the Spirit, and not in the flesh.

H.B. In verse 2 he uses "me".

R.D. But he said it to them in the way that might exercise them, as that which was possible for them. He is raising the question whether the Spirit is with them or not. That is the question that I was raising this afternoon.

J.H. I thought that referred to the state that God takes account of as being not in the flesh but in Spirit.

R.D. Well, you may call it state, but I keep the word state for something else. State to me always involves what is formed in the believer. The point is whether one now has recognised the Spirit, and gives the Spirit His place. What is true of one who gives the Spirit His place is, that he is not in flesh, but in Spirit. But it is for each one of us to answer to.

G.A.v.S. Is it then a question more of really recognising dependence upon the Spirit in regard to the progressive resulting state?

R.D. Yes, it is that one should give the Spirit His place in that way, so that state is formed.

F.W. I see you have here all that which is going to produce the state.

R.D. All that is in the Spirit is for you, but until it is formed in you it is not state, so Romans does not take

you quite far enough for that. Romans 8 is presenting it to you, as that which is possible for you.

F.W. Evidently it is important that I should know that?

R.D. Of course it is. It is important you should know you have the Spirit, and then it is important you should know the wealth that is there. That is really unfolded in the oil because of your having the Spirit.

A.C. I suppose you have what is available in the Spirit in Romans 8, and in the epistle to the Colossians you get the work of the Spirit - what has been wrought in the souls of the saints at Colosse?

R.D. Yes, and Colossians gives you, not simply the discharge of your obligations, but the living on the rest. The question in Colossians is one of living. It is life in all its abundance.

G.A.v.S. It occurs to me then, that the real question is as to how far we have recognised what comes with the Spirit.

R.D. Yes. Now take such an expression as this, "if indeed God's Spirit dwell in you". The personal name of the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit" (2 Corinthians 13:14). But here Paul uses these expressions, "God's Spirit" and "Spirit of God". Now what would be the moral effect in us in recognising the Spirit in relation to God? It would be this; that we would be exercised that everything in our walk, and in connection with what we pursued was of God - the Spirit of God. Then you go on to the Spirit of Christ. Now that is characteristic. It means that I am marked by

the grace of Christ in my spirit. "If any one has not the Spirit of Christ", it does not say 'he is none of His', but "he is not of him". That is to say, that characteristically, he is not of Christ. One might have the Spirit and not be marked by the Spirit of Christ. I hope nobody will deny that.

A.C. I was thinking of that scripture, "But if the Spirit of him that has raised up Jesus from among the dead dwell in you, he that has raised up Christ from among the dead shall quicken your mortal bodies also on account of his Spirit which dwells in you".

R.D. Well, think of being conscious of having the Spirit of resurrection.

A.C. Then it is the Spirit of the God of resurrection?

R.D. Of course it is. I know I have now the Spirit, which is the power to touch my mortal body.

W.D.R. It refers to the resurrection, the coming of the Lord for His saints.

R.D. Yes, and the power that will give the finishing touch to the body, is dwelling there now.

G.A.v.S. Would you say a little in regard to the Spirit of adoption?

R.D. You have the possibility of entering into the good of the revelation of God as the Father, and along with that the power by which we are enabled to enjoy relationship, which is the Spirit of adoption.

F.W. So that Romans really lays the foundation for everything you get afterwards.

R.D. In Romans 8, I recognise the resources I have in the Spirit, and I see now that a double portion of

Elijah's spirit is possible. I mean that Elisha immediately set about using what he had. And I am able to look into the world to come. I can take two looks from Romans 8. I can look into the world to come, and I can see the glories of the world to come, where the glory of the God that I love is going to shine out in the universe, and the whole universe vibrate in happiness to God. But I can look up to heaven as well, and I can see my part in heaven with Christ, and I have the power now to enable me to enter into the blessedness of it. So that it is not, as you have in Galatians, the Spirit crying "Abba, Father", but in Romans 8 it is what we can say by the Spirit - "we cry, Abba, Father".

H.B. It is not that I will not fail through lack of watchfulness; this becomes the habit of my soul.

R.D. It is what marks you.

H.B. It is characteristic of you.

R.D. Yes, and if you are conscious of having failed, you judge yourself for not recognising the Spirit and drawing upon the wealth you have, nor the grace that is there by the Spirit.

A.C. I was thinking of Luke 10, where it says, "having put him on his own beast". Is it the same power that carried the Lord Jesus Christ here through this scene as a Man in dependence upon God?

R.D. Luke 10 is what He does. Our brother was speaking last night about the Lord having many friends. He is our Friend, and He keeps His friends. He has all the wealth of supply to meet those whom He would endear to His heart, so they never leave Him. And Luke 10 is our

Friend, and all that He supplies. Romans 8 is my exercise to avail myself of all the wealth.

From Readings and Addresses in Australia, pp. 26 - 43, Sydney, December 1921

CONDITIONS IN THE LAST DAYS IN THE FAMILY OF GOD

R DUNN

Deuteronomy 19:1 - 3; Deuteronomy 22:4; Deuteronomy 23:17 - 25; Deuteronomy 24:7, 10 - 14; Deuteronomy 29:1; Deuteronomy 31:9 - 13, 26

R.D. The book of Deuteronomy typically, gives instruction as to the manner in which we should be governed, as being together really on family lines, in the occupation of the land of purpose. The object of these instructions is that we should all be set at liberty for the service of God, and for God's pleasure. So that it is important to see that this book presents a different law to that given at Horeb. This was given in the plains of Moab, and it was to be put in a different place from the law that was given at Horeb. The law which was given at Horeb, the ten words, was to be deposited in the ark. This was to be laid up in the side of the ark - up against it. But the purport of it all is that we should take up these blessed divine instructions and commandments, so that we should be in whole-hearted liberty together as brethren. And that our service toward one another might be such as to set each other at liberty, in order that we might be together for the service and pleasure of God. I think it would be well to consider a little the character of these commandments.

W.J.Y. Would you say, generally, what the difference was between the two laws?

R.D. I think in connection with the first law, at Horeb, God's purpose is that we should come into the

good of eternal life. Whilst what is in the mind of the Spirit of God in connection with this law, in the book of Deuteronomy, is that we should come into the good of life - life in all its abundance. The commandments at Horeb propose that there should be such blessing for us, that we should be set free for eternal life. But what is before the mind of the Spirit here is, I think, that we should come into the enjoyment of the line of divine purpose in life in all its fulness, so that we should be for the service and pleasure of God. In these scriptures, cities of refuge in the land of Moab are not mentioned. In the book of Joshua there are three cities of refuge on either side of the river, but here it is supposed that all Israel are together as a family in the land of Canaan. The Spirit of God only refers to the three cities that way, that are on the other side of Jordan. If we listen to these injunctions, and answer to them, we are sure to increase in spiritual prosperity, so that if we need more cities of refuge we can have them. I understand the point in connection with these cities of refuge is that mercy and consideration should be amongst us. So that even in the case of the slaying of a man, we should be able to save one another.

E.E.L. What have you in your mind in regard to the slaying of a man?

R.D. It might be carelessness on a brother's part. That is to say, I may act in some way that offends a brother - I may do something that has the effect of our losing his value for the moment. You see I have been using my axe carelessly, and the head has come off, and hit this brother. Now, what am I going to do? Am I to be lost over it?

Now we get certain instructions here, showing the goodness and mercy of God, so that a brother can throw himself upon his brethren. We should not lose one another you know. To this end it is most interesting to see that the way must be kept open for this to be brought about. No grass must be allowed to grow upon it so to speak. The road must not be neglected.

W.J.Y. Is your thought that, although the highest christian privileges are suggested by being in the land, God makes provision for weakness and breakdown in individual cases?

R.D. Yes, the intent being that we should not lose anyone. If a brother has been mortally offended by my treatment of him, there is a way by which he may be reached, but so far as I am concerned, what am I to do? Throw myself upon God! It is then that I find the brethren have kept the door open for me. I can go into my brethren with confidence, and tell them what I have done, and I can throw myself upon mercy. The point is that there should be these tender compassions amongst us, that invite the confidence of anyone who may have, inadvertently, been overtaken in such a fault as this.

Ques. Would that lay the basis for the brethren to act, so that that brother might be won back?

R.D. That is another side of things, but you do not want to lose two brothers.

W.J.Y. We are inclined to look rather lightly upon what is done inadvertently.

R.D. We are; and it is important to see that these instructions are given so that we should not look lightly upon these things. But that there might be a solemn

exercise, as I come to the city of refuge, as one who has done this deed, looking for the compassion which God has for one of His own family who has been overtaken in this fault. The point is not the brother offended, that is dealt with in another way. The point is the brother who has offended.

G.H.C. Where does the question of discipline come in?

R.D. It does not come in here at all.

G.H.C. Where do you place this?

R.D. The injunction that there should be shown those tender compassions, which are in the heart of the blessed God, so that one might cast oneself upon God, and his brethren, and not lose the enjoyment of life. It is not the end of a course that is involved here - it is something done inadvertently, or through carelessness. The very fact that he turns to God, and flees to a city of refuge, thus taking advantage of the refuge that there is for him there, proves repentance on his side.

W.J.Y. Do you suggest the cities of refuge imply a spiritual condition amongst the people of God?

R.D. Yes, and it is in the family in this case - it is in the land. So that there should be afforded at all times a sense of confidence to cast oneself upon God, and upon one's brethren. What I had before me was that we should see in these various commandments, the importance of everything making for liberty amongst us. There should be no waste of time in regard to anything that might occur amongst us; but rather every inducement and encouragement to have things out at once, so that the brethren may all be in liberty.

G.A.v.S. In these tender compassions there is really established a principle proper to the condition of things as they exist now.

R.D. In the family of God, yes.

F.W. Are you distinguishing between the family circle and the assembly as such?

R.D. What I have before me is that these commandments govern the family circle.

F.W. The question of discipline is a matter for the assembly.

R.D. Another matter entirely, and I do not think this is quite a case for discipline. It is a case where someone has done something inadvertently, and which was not premeditated. I mean, it is not the result of a deliberate course.

Rem. In regard to being overtaken in a fault, one is reminded of the injunction, "Ye who are spiritual restore such a one" (Galatians 6:1).

R.D. Yes. The greater the spiritual prosperity amongst us, the more necessary will these cities of refuge become. We will need three, four, or even more as God prospers us. This is a day when God is prospering us. People are being attracted today to God's good land, and He would have us exercise those tender sensibilities, and gracious compassions that open the way for brotherly confidences.

G.H.C. That raises the question of state.

R.D. It does, and as I say, we are drawn in compassion to one another, and there is such confidence in each other that whoever it is who is overtaken in a fault, can safely cast himself upon his brethren.

F. W. Is this the John's gospel of the Old Testament?

R.D. It is. At any rate you have both John and Paul in Deuteronomy, but it is John's side I have before me this afternoon.

E.E.L. Has what you are saying any connection with what we get in James, "Confess therefore your offences to one another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed" (James 5:16)?

R.D. Well it would be in the exercise of these tender compassions that we would do that. One of the most important conditions governing the saints of God, is that we should have confidence towards each other. And that we should so livingly express our love towards one another, in brotherly relations, that it would be the easiest possible thing for one to cast oneself upon one's brethren. That is what applied to the manslayer, which, however, is not the point here. The point here is that we should have these compassions, that we should keep the way into the city of refuge always prepared, as it says, "Thou shalt prepare thee the way". One should see that the grass does not grow upon it, that the gates are not closed, and that no barriers are there, so that the man-slayer may flee there at once and have ready access.

G.A.v.S. The brethren would see to it that such was the case.

R.D. Yes.

Ques. Is it really that the compassions that lie in the heart of God should be expressed in the people of God upon earth?

R.D. That is right. That God's infinite love should be moving in all of our hearts. The effect of that would be that we would express ourselves constantly to-wards one another in washing one another's feet, and looking after one another.

W.J.Y. It implies that we are all living in the land.

R.D. Yes. These instructions are for the land only. As I was saying, you have not the three cities on the other side. It is family-wise here.

G.A.v.S. It would also imply that we are in the life of the family. Is that the life you speak of?

R.D. It is life proper to the family of God, in the enjoyment of the land of purpose. To put it simply, it involves us enjoying our portion in the family of God, as the beloved children of God, and in the enjoyment of what belongs to sonship. Now in the second scripture which we read, I think what we have enjoined is the way in which we are bound up with one another in precious moral obligations, so that we become very much attached to one another.

F.W. In caring for one another in matters of detail?

R.D. Yes, only we are so much involved in our care for one another that it just amounts to this, that whatever I have is yours, and whatever you have is mine. We care because that is a feature of the commonwealth. If you have a sheep or an ox, or anything else, it belongs to the commonwealth, and I care for it on that account. I think Philippians 3:20 is beautiful, "For our common-wealth has its existence in the heavens". We often use that in connection with a city. The point is, our commonwealth

has its existence in the heavens, and the book of Deuteronomy is written in order to give us some conception of what that commonwealth is. It means that all the wealth of that land, and all its privileges, belong to us. And so we are encouraged to care for one another's souls, to care for the spiritual things of one another, not looking every man on his own things, but on the things of others. We get so involved, do you not see, that the best thing we can do is to live together and enjoy things together. I do not like the idea of being independent when it comes to the commonwealth. I would rather be involved, so much involved in fact, that bookkeeping is useless. You can see, in that very remarkable little epistle to Philemon, how, in regard to Onesimus, Paul is in debt to Philemon, and Philemon is in debt to Paul. So that it is quite evident we shall all have to be in debt to one another, and go on together in that way.

F.W. We are committed to each other's interests?

R.D. Yes, so much so that it is a commonwealth. I do think, if confidence is established amongst us, it is well worth pursuing these lines, so that we are bound together, and we have the most loving consideration for one another, and we look for the prosperity of one another. You could not think of going out of fellowship if you know all the affections that are there, proper to the family of God. You could not afford to dispute with a brother. How could you? Why, that is to sacrifice all those spiritual affections, and the enjoyment of your commonwealth. Nobody can be independent of the commonwealth.

Ques. Is the commonwealth suggested in chapter 33: 3?

R.D. Yes. Chapter 33 is a beautiful spiritual conception of what we are speaking about. It is the end proposed in all its spiritual life and fulness. It is a sort of summing up of the book of Deuteronomy.

Rem. Every individual blessing is for the benefit of the whole of the company.

R.D. For the prosperity of the company, and not only so, but for what is going to add to the pleasure of God. Think of brothers and sisters coming up with one another's lost property saying, 'I have found this; it belongs to you'. How much obliged we would become to one another.

W.J.H. How would that find expression practically?

R.D. I think it finds expression in this way, that we take up one another's burdens. If you were in sorrow, I would be prepared to share your burden of sorrow. If your reputation was being surrendered, I should look to it that you got it back again. If I saw that you were becoming reduced spiritually, if you were losing the benefit of things, I would be exercised about it and come along to you and say, 'I feel you are missing something, you are not as fresh as you were. You have lost an ox, you have lost a sheep, and I would like to see you have it back again'. It is that gracious, loving attention towards one another. So that there would be nobody you would love, like one who attended upon you like that. Fresh bonds are formed, and that is how we enjoy our life in the commonwealth.

E.E.L. It is not that you are good-natured simply, in passing over a brother's little faults, and so on; but you bring them under his notice in the right way.

R.D. There is really no room for what is good-natured in the things of God. We do not want any 'honey'. There is nothing like divine love, the love that the Father has bestowed upon us, so that we should be the children of God; and as the children of God we love one another. That brooks no unrighteousness.

W.J.Y. It is God's answer to, "Am I my brother's keeper" (Genesis 4:9)?

R.D. Yes. We are not speaking about something we do not know a good deal about. It is what has kept us, and one can speak humbly and thankfully of the way the blessed God has preserved us all, through the affections of the saints. Now going on to the next scripture in chapter 23: 18, "Thou shalt not bring the hire of a harlot, or the price of a dog, into the house of Jehovah thy God for any vow; for even both these are an abomination to Jehovah thy God". This is a word to shut out anything that is unspiritual or unholy, in the presentations of the sacrifices of God's people.

G.A.v.S. Why is it in connection with the vow?

R.D. Because the vow is the excess of devotedness on the part of the believer. God does not want presented anything that is in an alliance with the world. If I am going on in an alliance with the world, and getting material gain, God does not want that. Or if I have been selling a dog, that is, if I have been dealing in anything that is unclean, God says, 'I do not want that, those are abominations to me'. Nothing but what is spiritual, the fruit of divine love moving in our affections, is of any pleasure to God.

F.W. You mean this in a practical way?

R.D. Yes. It is practical indeed. If in my business I am defiling my hands, or engaged in unholy associations, do you not see that if I seek to present anything which is the outcome of that to God, I am presenting what is equivalent to the hire of a harlot. In other words, what I present is the result of an evil alliance, and God says, 'Do not bring it here'. On the other hand if, personally, I am defiling my hands in the way I do my business, God says, 'I do not want it'. It may be you have sold a dog, and it is the price of this unclean dog which is yielded to God. Well it is of no use to God; it is an abomination to Him.

W.J.H. A gift does not blind God's eyes.

R.D. No, but a real gift, the fruit of the affections, delights the heart of God. It is something of Himself in His beloved people.

F.W. And then we are not to be harsh with each other in our dealings. Is that the next point?

R.D. Yes, that comes out in verse 19, "Thou shalt take no interest of thy brother". It goes on, "That Jehovah thy God may bless thee". Would you not like God to bless you? There are two things which I think are quite legitimately desired. One is that God should bless me because of what I am doing, and the other is that my brother should bless me. In this case it is God that blesses you, because you see your brother in a necessity, and out of pure, unadulterated love, you go along and you help him. It may be spiritually, or it may be in temporal matters; but you do it in such a way that you do not want any interest from him, nor do you expect it. Indeed, you do not want him to pay any particular attention to you, or to think well of you, or any other brother, because you have

done it. That would be interest. Just to be considered a very good, giving brother would be a bit of interest, would it not? What is the effect of that going to be? That as I draw interest from my brother, I destroy his liberty. Now I want to see my brother and sister happy amongst the saints, without any kind of undercurrent, such as for instance feeling that he or she is indebted to me, or that he or she should show me some little respect. We are not above that kind of thing you know.