No marriages were to be made with Moab; no
“The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations”, Num 23: 9. Here we have the negative side of the truth of separation. They are not counted among the nations. The world goes on, and so mean are they in its eyes that it ignores their very existence.
The Lord’s people are people of no reputation—not worthy to be in any way considered. Apart from the rush of human strife, they dwell alone. Oh, to accept this as the Lord’s word concerning His people! for it was the Lord who put this word into Balaam’s mouth.
But further, Israel “shall dwell in safety alone”, Deut 33: 28. The thought of God is still this same word for His people—“alone”. Israel is only safe when he dwells “alone”, as to all that surrounds him. He is safe then. No enemy can touch him then; and why—why is this? We must turn to another passage for the answer.
“Let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them”, Exod 25: 8. If they are contented to “dwell alone”, and contented not to be “reckoned among the nations”, God Himself will come and tabernacle among them. What a wonderful word that is, “Judah was his sanctuary”, Ps 114! Here was a place where the Creator could find an asylum of rest, while the billows of sin rolled over all around. And this is the positive side of separation.
His people must now be consistent with a fact that God is present with them. Everything must take its colouring from this fact. “The Lord is there”, Ezek 48: 35. Then as to every enemy they are safe. Every enemy retreats. “The sea saw it, 207
and fled”. “Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob” Ps 114: 3, 7.
intercourse or alliance of any kind with the people of the land. “The people shall dwell alone” (“in safety alone”) (Num 23: 9), and God, “whose name is Jealous”, will dwell among them, Exod 34: 14. They are alone with God.
Such is the truth, and may we accept it in all its naked simplicity. Nothing can be added to it, or God is not enough. For us it is still, “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”, Matt 18: 20.
From The Christian’s Friend—vol 15, 1888
208
THE DEPRESSED SERVANT
God is not unaffected by this condition. He has His eye upon His servant, and will care for him. One of the lessons of the way is to get hold of how God can stoop, and delights to stoop, to arrange the little things for His servants. Alas! how distrust of the One whom we serve—
distrust of the interests of His heart in us and in His people—thrusts its way oftentimes before the soul. Who would have thought of the blessed God preparing a cake, baking it, filling the cruse, and then sending His angel to that poor, weary, depressed servant of His, to tell him of what He had ready for him! Such is the heart of Him whom we serve. And Elijah eats and sleeps, and again is aroused by the angelic watcher to eat yet again. (How God lingers near us, so to speak.) “And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee”, 1 King 19: 7.
Oh, to be able to detect the “cake baken on the coals”, v 6. There it is preparing, when the poor weary heart only requests “for himself that he might die”, v 4. Not yet Elijah, nor at all. The “chariot of fire and horses of fire” (2 Kings 2: 11), are HIS way for thee.
“The journey is too great for thee”. He who cares for us has provided the sustenance. He who alone knows the need of the way meets it. Be assured there is the “cake baken on the coals” and the cruse of water for the depressed servant, and as we partake we gain strength. Cannot the servant who reads this bear witness? And so it ever is. “And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God”.
From The Christian’s Friend—vol 15, 1888
209
EITHER UNDER SATAN’S HAND OR UNDER
GOD’S
“What is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away”, James 4: 14.
But it is this life, so apparently unworthy of consideration, yet so pregnant in its after results, that Satan seeks to wholly usurp for his own use, as the wilfulness in a child does a toy—to destroy it, and then cast it away.
The life of the apostle Paul is a remarkable illustration of a life at one time in Satan’s hand, at another in God’s. Earnest we find him in each. When the Lord takes up the natural life, despoiling the “strong man” (Matt 12: 29) of his prey, that life becomes supernatural, and so was his. He is touching the strings of Paul’s life (after Acts 9), and in Acts 20: 24 what sweet music its chords give forth:
“Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course”. And is this the life that was once spent in breathing out “threatenings and slaughter” against Christ, and against all that were His? Yes, it is the same life. It is still “the life which I now live in the flesh” with all its cares; for thus he speaks of it in Galatians 2: 20. But a new power is behind it. What is it which has wrought this wondrous change? The answer is not far to seek, it is in verse 20: “Who loved me, and gave himself for me”. It is the hand of the Master that is sweeping over the strings now, bringing out the music of His will, and the melody of the strain thrills our hearts as we listen to it, Phil 3: 7, 8.
What grace has come in to carry us by a power above
nature—supernatural—to alter the whole occupations and objects of a man’s daily life! “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ”. He says, “I have suffered the loss of all things”. Nature had no voice here. Does he regret their loss? No. If he has suffered the loss of all things, his present judgment of them is, “Yea doubtless, and 210
I count all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord”, Phil 3: 8.
Oh that we all as Christians knew more of the satisfying power of the Master’s hand playing on the strings of “this life”! What a deliverance would it be for us from all the miserable selfishness so commonly seen in the lives of some called Christians today. Instead of it what heavenly melody would be produced from us, carrying its own reward with it—the satisfying joy of a life devoted to others. Paul knew this, and it encourages us to listen to him—if in any way seeking the same path. “And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved”. This as to his serving the saints; and if it were a question of the race he was running, it was,
“I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as the one that beateth the air”, 1 Cor 9: 26. Or, again, was it a question of satisfaction in his every day circumstances? He will say, “I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content”, Phil 4: 11. Paul carried that truth which made him a debtor to all men, and he lived merely for others. “I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise”, Rom 1: 14.
Does the meditation humble us? We are here but for
Christ, as Paul was. May we know more of the power of the Master’s hand bringing out from us, and also satisfying us.
May “this life” of yours and mine be onward one bright illustration of the meaning of our Lord’s own words, “A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth”, Luke 12: 15.
From The Christian’s Friend—vol 15, 1888
211
GOD’S DESIRE FOR US TO CONSIDER IT
(Deut 8: 16; 32: 29)
“Oh that they were wise, that they understood this,
that they would consider their latter end!” In the life of a man of purpose everything takes its colouring from the end to be attained. And if this is so in the natural life, so surely should it be in the exercise of the divine life. Hope—that is, something beyond—is the spring of human life from the cradle to the grave, even when a man’s view is limited to this world. True hope has to do with God and His purpose.
In the daily life of a Christian, when the end to be attained is clearly seen, and God’s purpose is accepted by the soul, still, I think, he has to learn another thing on the road. Nature always resists God’s purpose for us, and we have to learn God’s estimate of it as the flesh. I think we shall find there is no other way to go on. There is one way out for us, and God will surely bring us out, and accomplish His purpose in us all; but I must go through the process, painful as it is, wherein I learn what flesh is, and that God’s heart is set upon the end for me, and not on the necessary flesh rejecting, present process through which I am passing.
He wants my heart to be set upon it too. Nothing diverts Him, and everything moves on in my circumstances, which He has arranged, toward the accomplishment of His purpose for me. Whatever may happen to me on the road, God’s heart has in view the end, where there shall be no flesh and no evil occurrent. He would have us now, as we thread our way along His path for us (the every day circumstances of each human life), to be in communion with His mind about this. He would occupy us with what are His ultimate purposes and counsel respecting us.
When a poor sinner considers his “latter end” as a sinner, it must land him in the blackness and horror of despair. And it is just at this point that the gospel comes in with all its blessed and gloom dispelling light. “God, who 212
commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts”, for the ‘outshining’ of “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”, 2 Cor 4: 6. I see here that it is all settled, all finished for me, a poor guilty sinner. “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us”. And that glory which shines now, and which I see in the face of Jesus Christ, is God’s warrant and rest for my soul. “The true light now shines”. All is done. Thus the heart is set at rest as to the question of sins and judgment. But still I have to learn with God what the flesh is, and its corruption. This is the process when I have accepted God’s purpose and counsel respecting me, and as I accept the one I have to learn the other. But God would teach me the incurable nature of the flesh that is in me, not by occupying me with it, but rather with His purpose respecting me. I am privileged to say, wherever I may be along the path. But we do know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose, Rom 8. I can say it matters little what the fare on the road may be, so that I know surely and clearly what awaits me at home. God’s desire is to occupy you with what awaits you there. Christ is there, and the joy of that scene is what He is. You are going to be exactly like that Christ.
It is in this way that I learn what the flesh is, not by being occupied with it, but by being occupied with God’s final purpose and counsel for me. I say, Is this God’s purpose to conform me to the image of His Son? How unlike Him I am now! What a wretched thing is this flesh in me—
nothing but rebellion all the way along! This is true; but as your eye is upon the end and that blessed Object (to which, remember, it is God’s purpose to conform you, and not yours to conform yourself), you are “changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord”, 2 Cor 3: 18.
It was not when the apostle Paul was looking at himself that he saw how imperfect he was, but it was when he was looking at Christ. “I press toward the mark”. “Not as though I had already attained, either were already 213
perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend [lay hold of] that for which also I am apprehended [laid hold of] of Christ Jesus”, Phil 3. Perfection here is complete likeness to Christ in glory. This was God’s purpose for Paul, and nothing else is His purpose for each of us. But seeing that it was, getting hold of it in his inmost soul only set the apostle running faster in the race. “I press toward the mark”. It was clear and distinct before his eye, and it eclipsed for him everything else. “That I may win Christ”.
Has it become the eclipsing substance for us all?
Satan always is seeking to occupy me with myself.
This occupation never leads to a true judgment of myself, though to be moaning over my inconsistencies may appear to some to be pious and humble. The true object is outside; and as I am engaged with it, and with God’s purposes respecting me, I fashion my way and judge myself as an obstruction to those purposes. But Satan can get a good man occupied with himself. Job is an example of this, and in twenty chapters he expresses it; but God had to empty him of all that, Job 42: 5, 6.
To get you so completely before yourself that God’s purposes respecting you are all as if He had none—this is the object of the enemy. Herein was the ground of all the failure of Israel in the wilderness. Were they looking in unbelief at their strength, or in faith at God’s purposes for them, when they thought of the giants of Anak?
I am going to be like Christ in glory; and as I look at that Christ I am “changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit”, 2 Cor 3: 18. God’s desire then for me, as expressed in Deut 8: 16; 32: 29, is, that I should consider the end—His end for me; and it is similar to what I find Paul considering in Phil 3 He says, “I press toward the mark”.
From The Christian’s Friend—vol 15, 1888
214
“Work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling”. It seems to me to confuse the true meaning of this exhortation to say that ‘we have this salvation, and now we have to work it out’. The point here is not the salvation of the soul. If the whole passage be read, I think this will be clear to anyone. Nor does it cast any doubt on the fact of the salvation of the soul, which is the effect of faith, and is dependent on no works of ours. But at the time of writing this epistle the apostle was in prison, and he gladly remembered the obedience of these Philippian saints. They had manifested it when he was among them. Through taking heed to his words, they had saved themselves from the attacks of Satan, and from his wiles. And now that he was in prison, was it safe for them to be less obedient? No; if possible they were to be yet more earnestly careful and watchful than they had been in his presence, and this would manifest itself in obedience to his words. Therefore he says,
“Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure”.
Now it is clear that present obedience is that which the apostle inculcates and desires them to aim at, in order to their present blessing, and that blessing is what he calls
“your own salvation”22. And while none, save those who possess the salvation of the soul, can thus “work” (because only of such could verse 13 be true), the salvation of the 22 The reader will weigh this interpretation. For ourselves, while entirely agreeing with the line pursued in the paper, we understand
“salvation” in this passage to mean, as in chap 1: 19, complete salvation at the end—deliverance through all perils, temptations, &c, until the end of the race, at the Lord’s coming.—Ed.
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soul is not the point in the apostle’s mind. Obedience to the words of an apostle (and now to the words of all the apostles) goes on at the same time as the working of God, by His Spirit, within the soul. They never oppose one another.
Indeed obedience is wrought by the Spirit. Nothing can be a greater proof of the possession of divine life than this, that because God speaks in His word, I do not question, but I OBEY. Then it was the words of the apostle which they had heard (when he was with them), and which they were reading now again in his letter to them: “To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe”, Phil 3: 1. Obedience produces a quiet and steady walk on earth even to the end, and Phil 2 sets this path before us in perfection. It was the path of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is presented in it. He “always obeyed”, as the apostle desires them to do, and the result is that “God also hath highly exalted him”; and Satan’s history, in opposition to the Lord in His walk of obedience, is a history of his continuous defeat. So should his history be in conflict with us, and this is the point, I believe, in the passage before us. The enemy was ceaseless in his efforts against them.
But he says, “in nothing terrified by your adversaries”, v 28.
We have not only to believe, he says, “but also to suffer for his sake”, v 29. The question is, How are the saints to save themselves from all the traps and snares which Satan spreads for their feet? Why, by having the “same mind”
which marked Him who walked calmly on amid them all, because He walked in obedience. Here is the one grand and only remedy to meet them all—obedience. No saint (however long on the road) is safe but in the path of obedience. By it he works out his “own salvation with fear and trembling”, from every trap and from every snare which Satan spreads in his path. Fear and trembling will always accompany me—not distrust of God, but distrust of myself—because I see what a poor thing I am in conflict with my wily foe, and how I tend to respond to the very suggestions which he makes to me on the road.
It is important also to notice that this verse (Phil 2: 12) is one of the texts which is used by the enemies of the 216
truth to deny that one can know that he has the salvation of the soul. They say, ‘even Paul tells the Philippians to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling’.
When the context is seen this assumed difficulty disappears. It is most disastrous to take words or passages of Scripture out of their connection; for, if kept and read where God has placed them, the harmony and beauty of the whole is preserved; and what is more, the enemy is often defeated by the very text with which he sought to defeat us.
No one need fear to look at the passages of Scripture he quotes.
From The Christian’s Friend—vol 15, 1888
217
Christ has stood for us, and this has given us a standing for eternity—without it we could have none. The Epistle to the Ephesians encourages us to stand. The truth presented in the Epistle is that there is a NEW CREATION, and also a vital UNION now of all believers with Christ as the HEAD of His body the church. The wildest attacks of Satan are therefore directed against the saints if they accept this truth, just as they were formerly directed against Him who was personally the Truth, when He stood on the earth, proof, as Man, against every effort of the enemy against Him. All that we have to do, we are told, “Having done all, to stand”, Eph 6: 13.
I stand on the ground of the truth as revealed in this epistle. Nothing can be more wonderful than that I should be vitally in union with Christ the Son of God. I do not stand in any strength of my own. It is cheering to read over very often what is said, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might”, v 10. The Lord has met Satan and annulled him, and I know that He is more than a match for him when he comes to attack me. Because His strength is enough, I can stand, for this is my only proper attitude; but surely he will come to the attack, so that I cannot sit down yet as if I had attained.
A condition also always attends this attitude, in all who are standing. They wear “the whole armour of God”, v 11. This is and can only be individual. We do not wear the armour as a company, though we may be of the company that professedly wears it. The proof will be when to that company Satan comes. Only the saints who have the armour on will then stand. The others will retreat or give up the conflict, or if they remain yet in the field, it will be seen that they have been sorely wounded. But if this last is a very practical way of learning to put the armour on, still you cannot separate the armour from the truth of Ephesians either. Both will balance the man, the one is within, the other without.
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This present standing is most important, and we should be clear about it. It is the portion of the believer. It is important because of the reward. I shall not stand throughout eternity on the ground of what I have done, but I shall stand on the ground of that which Christ has done.
“Accepted in the beloved”, Eph 1: 6. As His, and made fit for Himself, God “hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them”, Eph 1: 6; Num 23: 21. Yet I shall stand, in a glorified body (1 Cor 15: 52), at the judgment seat of Christ, to either receive or to lose my reward, dependent on the way in which I have been able to “stand” in this day in which I live, 2 Cor 5: 10.
Now is it not an important question? How am I standing, and if I am standing, must it not be on the Ephesian base of truth? (See 2 Tim 4: 7, 8 standing and reward.)
And “let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall”, 1 Cor 10: 12.
From A Voice to the Faithful—vol 22, 1888
219
MY PATH
“To me to live is Christ,
To die is gain”,
Blest pathway mine through earthly scenes
Of joy or pain.
Ever my feet to place
Where His have trod,
Who lonely walk’d, forsaken, stood—
Faithful to God.
He wills me this employ,
Untold delight,
Tracing His blessed footprints out,
Morn, noon, or night.
I learn ’midst daily cares,
My will to lose,
Christ in my body magnified,
Ever to choose.
No weary path is mine,
No doubtful fight,
Bright round me beams the “Star of day”,
Far spent’s the night.
“To me to live is Christ”,
None hinders here;
He gave me but this one employ,
Each day to cheer.
Such be my path below,
And I content,
For those for whom my Saviour died,
“Spend and be spent”.
From A Voice to the Faithful—vol 22, 1888
220
WHAT GOD HAS DONE, AND WHAT HE HAS
NOT DONE
In reading the history of God’s chosen people Israel, we see that these two things often come before them, as matters for their contemplation. A third thing also might be, and was, often added to these two, where faith was in exercise, namely, what He would yet do for them and with them.
Similar are the exercises of God’s people today. One or other of the three is the subject of the reflection of every child of God. But the effect produced by the contemplation of the soul is the important thing for us, for daily contemplation will produce a daily effect.
Here, then, are the three: first, What God has done; secondly, What He has not done; thirdly, What He will yet do. And as to this second, we notice about it that it comes in historically between the other two; also that faith is not necessary concerning it. It is of God by His Spirit to occupy my soul with what He has done already for me; and it is of God, by the same Holy Spirit, to occupy me with what He will yet do; but it is distinctly the work of Satan, the enemy and adversary, to occupy me with what God has not done for us, and he does this in order to produce a certain effect upon me, an effect which, alas! is always the fruit of such occupation of soul.
Now what is this effect? It is always a murmuring against God. Notice that it began in Eden. God has not given you, says he, what He well knows would greatly benefit you, Gen 3: 5. And the poor heart, finding fault with God, prompts the ready hand to stretch forth and take. But there was first the contemplation of that which Satan suggested. For she “saw” that it was good for food, and “to be desired” to make one wise, hence, “she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat”.
Satan cannot deny what God has done for me in the
past, for “IT IS WRITTEN”, nor can he hinder that which God 221
will do for me in the future, “Who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph 1: 11); but he can fill your heart and mine with questions and doubts as to what God is doing for us in the present, and this is his continual work.
This he did with Israel, and all along the path there was murmuring and discontent. He has not given us water, nor bread, nor flesh. “Wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us into this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates”—“would God that we had died when our brethren died before the Lord”, see Exod 16 and Num 20.
But let us turn from this sorrowful picture of our own hearts to Exodus 15. What are they contemplating as those rejoicing words come forth from gladdened hearts? What is the spring that produces this joy of the timbrel and of the dance? They are occupied solely with what He has done, and this song is the result. Never had the wilderness heard such a chorus as that—never had the redemption song of
“six hundred thousand on foot that were men” (Exod 12: 37), beside children”, echoed and re-echoed from its flinty rocks before, Deut 8: 15. And again (but it is the same picture), look at Paul and Silas in their prison at Philippi, Acts 16. What are they, too, occupied with, when from bodies beaten and bound in the stocks of the inner prison, the notes of a song of praise arise, and pierce to its very recesses? Do their circumstances cause them thus to rejoice? Oh no, He had not seen it necessary to hinder their stripes or imprisonment. They are not occupied with that—
with what He has not done, but rather with what He has; for no circumstances will ever alter that. Like Israel of old, the wilderness was still there and all untrodden as yet; and the gloomy prison, with all its bolts and bars, was still enclosing them, but the Spirit was above all that surrounded it, triumphant and free. It was free with God, in the contemplation of His own boundless grace to them, and praise, only praise, is the result, 2 Cor 3: 17.
“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matt 12: 34), and that which comes out 222
manifests what is within; surely this is true in the history of every soul. What, then, are we contemplating? Self has no place if I look at what God has done, and self has no place if I look by faith to what God will yet do: both are according to His own purposes and grace, but self can be introduced if I consider what God has not done, and its introduction silences every note of praise. Satan will get self before the soul if he can. He brings it in as a question of your health? Of the desertion of your dearest friends? Of this world, and the difficulty in it of even earning your bread? The bitternesses and trials of the wilderness are around you, and all will be used to cause you to murmur, but you will find that they can be all summed up in this, that they are things that He might have done, but which He has not done, and my soul delights in, and seeks, and possesses, brighter and better occupation than with these.
Let us “sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea”, Exod 15: 1. This He has done, and as to the future, “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established”, v 17.
We cannot be singing and murmuring at the same time. Yet we are exhorted to “Rejoice in the Lord always”.
“Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord”, Eph 5. Let us take care that the enemy is not occupying our thoughts. Which, then, is it with you, What God has done, or what He has not done?
From A Voice to the Faithful—vol 22, 1888
223
SPIRIT’S MINISTRY
TO CHRISTIANS WHEN THEY ARE IN A
CARNAL OR A SPIRITUAL CONDITION
(l Cor 2: 4-16; 3: 1-3)
It is only by the Spirit that the gospel is made effectual when preached, 1 Thess 1: 5; 1 Pet 1: 12. So also it is only by the continued ministry of the Spirit that the soul is led onward in the truth, and more distinctly separated from all those earth-ward tendencies which hinder its progress, and “war against” it, 1 Pet 2: 11.
Every believer (in the full and proper meaning of that word) has received the Spirit. We find this is true, whether we turn to the saints who were walking well in this world (Eph 1: 13), or whether we look at those who were walking badly, 1 Cor 2: 12. God has taken up His abode here by the Holy Ghost (consequent on redemption) in the body of each individual believer, as His temple (1 Cor 6: 19) and the Spirit, thus in-dwelling, “searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God”, making known to us what “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man”, chap 2: 9. This is the object and desire of God for us by His Spirit—that Spirit who only and fully knows these things.
Is this object and desire of God accomplished then for each of us? If not, what is it which hinders? That there is a hindrance must be clear, since many a Christian will frankly admit that the Spirit of God dwelling in him does know all things, “yea the deep things of God”, but will deplore at the same time how little he himself knows of them
—how little his soul is filled with them, as the one and all-absorbing object of delight. Yet is it not true for all of us who are believers that we have received the “Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to as of God”, v 12? To fill us, so that the vain show around us is spread there in vain!
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It was this purpose, to fill us and to satisfy us, that God in His grace has had in view. To accomplish this He Himself takes up His abode here in us. As the Lord says to the woman of Samaria, “Whosoever that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”. To be thus in uninterrupted communication with the very heart of God—to be receiving from Him the things which are freely given to us of God, through the ministry of His Spirit to us—this and this only will fill and satisfy the heart of man. And when this is going on with us, and is descriptive of our state, the Spirit is speaking to us as “unto spiritual” (this 1 Cor 3: 1 says, the apostle could not do) which is the simple and proper condition of every child of God.
It is when the total setting aside and condemnation
of what scripture calls our old man (Rom 6: 6) in the cross of Christ is not seen, or if doctrinally held, is but feebly if at all practised, that we are in no condition for the ministry of the Spirit “as unto spiritual”, and we do not get it. What we get in that condition (and it is the only ministry that will benefit us) is to be addressed as “carnal”, and to be spoken to “even as unto babes in Christ”, and this is the manner in which the Holy Spirit speaks to us, 1 Cor 3: 1.
And whether the Spirit of God ministers to me by the study of the word in private, as dwelling within me, or ministers to me by means of others in the body of Christ, He has but one and the same object in view. My condition is well known to Him, and all the ministry to me is either to lead me on and encourage me in the path that is according to His mind for me, and which I am already in, or to correct in me that which He knows is now hindering my entering into that path, and enjoying in it all that He is, and all that He has for me. Whether, therefore, I may stay at home to read in my room (perhaps thinking the fault is in the meeting I attend) or whether I go to the lecture, to the prayer, or reading meeting, the Spirit never ministers anywhere to me, ignoring my condition. We may well 225
remember the words of the Psalmist, so true in their application as to this matter to us. Whither “shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there”, Ps 139: 7, 8. And it is just forgetting this that leads Christians to speak as if the blame of little joy and defective walk should be attached to other Christians—to the meetings—indeed to any one and to anything save to themselves.
Now if I am in a carnal condition, I ask can the Spirit of God, ignoring that condition, send me away from intercourse with Him glad of heart? Impossible. When we come to the light, and God is light, is it that evil shall be encouraged or that God can ever overlook it, and address us as if it existed not? No, we read far otherwise, “neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should he reproved”, John 3: 20. And while we do not say that joy may not follow, consequent upon self-judgment, joy does not immediately result from converse with God if I am in a carnal condition.
It is not true at the moment.
It is nevertheless as distinctly the work of the Spirit of God to send me away from intercourse with Him sorrowful as to send me away filled with joy. And the one or the other must depend on how He has spoken to me, whether as “unto spiritual”, or “as unto carnal”. It is important always to remember it. To expose me to myself, to point out to me faithfully wherein I have long erred, to shew me afresh how I have slighted the love of His heart, to disclose to me that I am trifling and playing with the truth, which I profess to hold in faith—all this is sorrowful but necessary work; yet it is the work of the Spirit of God in me and to me who is jealous of God’s glory, and of what has come between Himself and me. He feels it.
But making us sorry (as it is intended that it should) we often turn away from this ministry of the Spirit, because it addresses itself to our carnal condition. We rebel against it, because it exposes, judges, and condemns it. We are more pleased to listen to what is called ‘high truth’, which 226
goes over our heads and does not touch the conscience, than to feel there the sword of the Spirit “piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart”, Heb 4: 12. We are found saying, if not with our lips, then in our hearts, “Speak unto us smooth things”, Isa 30: 10. Alas for us, we are sorrowful, but do we remember that sorrow is not enough for God? “The sorrow of the world worketh death”, 2 Cor 7: 10. And do we ask what is meant by the sorrow of the world? It is a sorrow along with a continuance in the same course of things. There is no self-judgment in this kind of sorrow, here called (2 Cor 7) “the sorrow of the world”, no real heart work with God, and hence no deliverance.
When the Spirit of God addressed the Corinthians by
the apostle, in the first epistle as carnal, it made them sorry.
They were “made sorry with a letter” 2 Cor 7: 8, but they
“sorrowed with a godly sorrow unto repentance”, v 9. Here we have the proper effect and the desired object of the heart of God in the ministry gained. When I am in a carnal condition, it shews the love of His heart that He should minister at all to me. But He does. It is nowhere written in scripture, ‘Silence not’, but “grieve not the holy Spirit of God”, Eph 4: 30. A carnal state cannot exist together with an ungrieved Spirit. The Spirit grieved and carnality go together. But He is not silent in me and to me. Again and again, unweariedly He speaks. His voice—the voice of God
—the “still small voice” which Elijah heard, and hearing which “wrapped his face in his mantle” (1 Kings 19: 12, 13), that same voice comes to me, testifying the truth, and exposing my true condition to me. If grieved He cannot, and He does not, address me as “spiritual”, and His ministry which is addressed to the “spiritual” is not for me, 2 Cor 7
shews us that the proper result then will be “godly sorrow”, working in me “repentance to salvation not to be repented of”, 2 Cor 7: 10.
How then is the Spirit speaking to you? Is He speaking to you as unto “carnal” or as unto “spiritual”? Oh 227
turn not away from His ministry, nor if it condemns you cast the blame on others. How often has He to address us as carnal, hindered by our condition from leading us into the “deep things of God”, 1 Cor 3: 10. Has He not often ministered in your presence that truth which your own heart told you—you could neither enter into nor enjoy, and is this to be your continued condition? He that hath an ear is bidden to hear “what the Spirit saith” unto the churches, Rev 2, 3. May our ear be so attentive as to be able to discern the difference of His ministry, and that it is addressed to either a spiritual or a carnal condition, and so as to profit by right exercise in the present moment, in which He is speaking to every one of us.
From A Voice to the Faithful—vol 22, 1888
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JERICHO REBUILT BY A “BETH-ELITE”
That which we allow in ourselves we foster in others, and when we encourage in ourselves principles opposed to God, that is, the principles which govern men in “this present evil world” (Gal 1: 4), we go about to build others up in them. By this we render ourselves amenable to God’s governmental judgment. He is not indifferent to what His people are doing, however He may allow this world to go on in its defiance, and He visits His people often now with the rod. The day of the ‘ world’s’ judgment is also surely drawing nigh, Acts 17: 31.
The builder of Jericho, the city that lay under the curse of God because it was the stronghold of all the opposition of the enemy, was a “Beth-elite”. There is a meaning conveyed to us in this word which the Spirit of God has thus used. Beth-el means the ‘house of God’, Gen 28: 16-19. This man belonged to it. But first he is found away from God’s house, and then there is this second step, he is rebuilding the house of the enemy. The king of Jericho meets us here with all the strength of his city (Josh 6), and he is the arch-defier of God, and the opposer of his purposes. God at that time was fulfilling the song which He had put into their mouths on the shores of the Red Sea.
Faith had sung, “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established”, Exod 15: 17.
Satan (typified by the king of Jericho) says, ‘ My home is here, my house is here, and I oppose you and your purposes for this people’. God goes on, and the walls of Jericho fall down flat, and more than this, all in it is devoted to destruction, and God records that it is never to be rebuilt.
God’s place for His people then was Canaan, where
He placed also His earthly sanctuary, and dwelt among them. It was a type of the place He has for His people now.
Jacob was found as a wanderer from the place of testimony, 229
which God had for Himself even in an earlier day, see Gen 12: 7-8. And when, weary and distressed, God turns his eye again to it, the word to him was, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there”, Gen 35: 1. We see here also that God’s desire is to have us at home with Himself. For us in this present day it is not earth but heaven. Redemption has laid the ground for God thus to effect His purpose, and to satisfy His own heart in having us there so near to Him. The New Testament brings this fully before us. The heart of the Father had only fully satisfied itself when the wanderer was seated with Him, Luke 15. The joy in the presence of the angels of God is the joy of the FATHER. They witness that His heart has satisfied itself. In the passage before us one whose place was the earthly house of God has gone out of it and is rebuilding the house of the enemy.
Strange departure. But if strange we must admit that the principle of such action is not uncommon in our own day. First we depart in heart from the true place, then we build for ourselves and seek to make ourselves comfortable in another place, which, however, is the house of the enemy.
The Lord brings before us the light in which He views Jericho in Luke 10. It is there, this present evil world, the man went down, and the whole human race is found by nature there; hopeless, helpless, and in the power of the enemy. But if man has arrived at this lowest possible point, and he has, Christ the true Samaritan has also come down to him there. He has in mercy come down, ‘He came where he was’.
And if this was to rescue me, it was also to definitely record for me God’s judgment of this world and of its Prince too. At the same moment as my rescue was effected was the record written, “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out”, John 12: 31. He has taken for ever the wounded dying one into His own care.
As the Shepherd, He has laid the sheep “on his shoulders rejoicing” (Luke 15: 5), but He only knows one ultimate place for it, and with it “he cometh home”, there to call together His friends and neighbours, saying unto them, 230
“Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost”, Luke 15: 6. It is the house again, Beth-el, the house of God. The house is full of joy. Is it not blessed for faith to hear that this is its home, and to be bidden of Him who has prepared it to “dwell there”? Are we sharing it—the “music and dancing” of the house? Do we not know something about them even now?
The house on earth should reflect and shew in this
world the order and principles and joy which are found in the house above. If this has been forgotten, it is nevertheless still the “pattern”. It has not been set aside by God. (Compare Exod 25: 40 with the order in Eph 5: 24, 25, &c, and 1 Tim 3: 15.) “Holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, for ever”, Ps 93: 5. What is the house of God on earth today? since “The most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands”, Acts 7: 48. First, He dwells in each believer individually by His Spirit, 1 Cor 6: 19. Second, He also dwells in the church, or assembly, 1 Tim 3: 15; Heb 3: 6. Indifference or carelessness as to what is suited and becoming to us to build, who are brought on earth into God’s house, and who form it, is a serious matter. We see that in the case of “Hiel the Beth-elite”, God puts His finger in judgment upon the house of the man who, himself away from God’s house (as we may be in heart and interests) was surely found re-building the enemy’s house. God’s word had lost all power of control over this builder. For what was God’s word respecting Jericho? It was “Cursed be the man before the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it”, Josh 6: 26. And this governmental judgment fell upon the Bethelite, as we learn in our text, for (whether a man is a child of God or not) one principle applies to all, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”, Gal 6: 7. And if God’s word was distinct as to Jericho, which He had judged, it is distinct also today as to all that is of this world and of Satan its prince. “All that is in the world, and the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world”, 1 John 2: 16.
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I am sure that we have to watch ourselves lest we be found, first in heart, then in practice, re-building Jericho; lest the maxims and ways, the habits and pursuits of this poor world are becoming our maxims and ways, and our habits and pursuits; lest, in fact, we are becoming
“CONFORMED” to this world (Rom 12: 1, 2), when we ought daily to be “TRANSFORMED” by seeking to express in it, the life of Jesus in His walk here. For every soul is a builder.
Even the infidel is a most laborious builder—but he is erecting his house on the sand, Matt 7: 24, 27. Others are building on the rock. All Christians are builders too. They ought to be edifying or building up the church of God, 1 Cor 14: 12. They may be building again those things which they destroyed, Gal 2: 18. They ought to be building that which will stand the fire, 1 Cor 3: 12-15. They may be building wood, hay, stubble, which will all be consumed in the day that is coming. May we all see to it, and be individually clear before the Lord about that which we are building up first in ourselves, and then in others. Will it stand the day which will “try every man’s work of what sort it is”? In short, are we re-building Jericho or not, for a Bethelite may be thus occupied?23 If you or I meet a Christian, is it sufficiently prominent with us that we shall build him up in worldly principles if we do not build him up in those which are divine, that we shall foster in him either the “old man” or the “new”?
We may exhort one another as to these things, Heb
10: 25. But I turn to the positive side, to what is true, and unchanging. “Blessed are they that DWELL in thy house: they will be still praising thee”, Ps 84: 4. They build themselves up and they build up others. He who is here, is not looked at as an occasional visitant, but as a dweller, one who has found his permanent rest. Restless as the swallow (v 3), God has in grace brought each of us into a rest, and into His own abode. Faith says that this is already true, 23 Is not much of what is called Christian work in the day in which we live but the re-building of Jericho, by some who take the place of Beth-elites?
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and enjoys the place now. One turns naturally (the divine nature does) to be occupied only with this place, Col 3: 1. I have a basis, a sphere, which is mine already, and in which I am entirely at rest and at home. No clouds, or sorrow, or death, come there, for the presence of God is there, and there God rests in all the delight of His heart concerning me.
When they asked the Lord, Where dwellest Thou? (John 1) He invited them to “come and see”. He does the same to each of us. He is not here, see John 20: 17, and Acts 7: 50.
It is often as necessary for the Spirit of God to exhort us to
“Arise, go up to Beth-el, and dwell there”, as it was to thus exhort Jacob. We are invited today, that is, each of us is invited, to “Come and see”. We shall find in Himself sufficient to detain our hearts in His blessed company, just as they found. They “abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour”, John 1: 39. And we shall not be found re-building Jericho as long as we dwell at Beth-el.
You will be away from Beth-el ere that occupation begins.
“Building up yourselves on your most holy faith”
(Jude 20), as “having … the Spirit” (v 19), and “praying in the Holy Ghost” (v 20), and collectively our occupation is
“edifying”, or building up, the assembly of God. “Let all things be done unto edifying”, 1 Cor 14: 26.
May we remember that we shall build where we dwell,
and that what we build will bear on it the marks of where we have dwelt, and what we ourselves were edified, or occupied with, at the time. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty”, Ps 91: 1. This word, and this basis, true in divine perfection of the Lord as a man (for here he is looked at as upon earth where He was exposed to “the snare of the fowler”, the “terror by night”, and “the arrow that flieth by day”)—His dwelling in this secret place above was the basis, whence He wrought for the edification of all below. He dwelt there (“the Son of man who is in heaven” (John 3: 13)), this is the important matter; then we think of this world, as the place of judgment, typified by Jericho, and He says of it, “me it hateth”, John 7: 7.
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May we so dwell in the “house of the Lord” above, that it shall characterise all our actions in the house here below, and that our attitude may also be a becoming one towards those who are of the world and still lying under judgment.
“I was GLAD when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord”, Ps 122: 1.
From A Voice to the Faithful—vol 22, 1888
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“And the taste of it was like wafers made with honey”
There is a peculiar and unique taste in the food which God gives to His people. Do you know the taste of what God ministers to you? There is no lack of ministry in these days.
Plenty of man’s assumed ministry exists all around us, but in order to discern what comes from God to my soul, I must know the taste of it. Every believer knows that the manna is a type of Christ, the food of God’s people in the wilderness, Christ in humiliation. It fell upon the camp, and from heaven, for all alike.
Where do people first get their tastes? Is it not from feeding on that which is offered to them? How is it that all the children of Israel could have told you (even the youngest child that could speak) what the manna tasted like? Ah, you will say each one had gathered it and eaten it for himself, and so they could not be deceived by a spurious article. Just so. The testimony of each about the taste of it was the same, “And the taste of it was like wafers made with honey”.
God’s food for His people is Christ. “Wafers made with honey”. What does it mean? Can we interpret that?
Wafers are generally made of crushed meal—and honey.
What is sweeter than honey? It was the food of the land. “A land flowing with milk and honey”. Angel’s food, the manna is called, Ps 78: 25.
The word ministers Christ to me. If a new-born babe desires to grow, it must be by the “sincere milk of the word”.
But Peter says, “If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious”, 1 Pet 2: 2, 3. Here, you see, is the question.
When the word which ministers Christ to me, is ministered to my soul—do I know the taste of it? Have I so individually gathered and eaten it alone, that I know the taste of it well?
Can I say of the ministry, because it was so to me, “The taste of it was like wafers made with honey”, Exod 16: 31?
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Alas, that the saints of God should be deceived by a ministry that never came from God, and which therefore never reaches up to God. Alas, that God’s saints should not be able to discern when the true manna is given to them.
They do not know the taste of it. If you go back to Egypt’s food, “the fish … and the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic”, do you think that you will preserve your taste? Is there anything that so spoils your taste, and destroys the taste of other things, as these Num 11: 5?
It is the figure which God’s word employs, and therefore we may use it too. But what is ministered is the important matter, and also whether you know the taste of the right thing when you get it. God can minister to me in any way He pleases, and He can use any vessel He may please to use in His service, see Rom 8: 28; Eph 4: 12. I look not at the vessel so much as what is ministered. May there be a more earnest cultivating of the right taste, by the right food.
There is no lack of the food. For forty years all through the wilderness, there it was, Exod 16: 35. No trials or unbelief altered the supply. There was either a store of it (for one particular day) or there it was, lying thickly all around the camp to be gathered up. Oh to remember this, as I get up every morning to take my journey along the sands of this desert; oh to feed upon it all through “the burden and heat” of this day. And then to lie down at night just repeating to one ear alone, to one ear that ever delights in the repetition, “And the taste of it was like wafers, made with honey”.
From A Voice to the Faithful—vol 22, 1888
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HOW GOD HELPS US IN OUR TESTIMONY
AND WALK
First, the truth having been received “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”, He labours by His Spirit which dwells in us, to produce definiteness of purpose. He has one desire for us, and it is that we should refuse the flesh in our walk here, Phil 3: 4-6. Then when this definite purpose is formed in the soul, He comes in to enable us to work it out practically, Phili 2: 13.
The cross is the end, in God’s sight, of man in the flesh. This truth we learn in our experience as we use it. It is a question for each individually. Am I so bent on disallowing and refusing the flesh in myself, having this definite purpose, that God can come in and help me to do so? Now this was the settled purpose of the apostle Paul.
He says, “It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory”.
This, in the first verse of this chapter, as in Philippians 3: 3, and other places, shews that he had come to this settled conviction about himself. Then God came in to help him to work it out, by giving him a “thorn in the flesh”, in order that he who was so highly favoured of God, should not, on that account, be exalted above measure. We are not all favoured by being caught up into the “third heaven”, where the existence of the flesh was forgotten by him; but if we forget that as long as we are down here we have the flesh in us, we are in extreme danger of self-exaltation. The flesh is never contented unless exalting itself. It is an unmendable thing, and the “thorn” kept him ever mindful of this flesh.
It was a thing which he could not shake off, and just in this way God helped him by it. To be kept continually mindful of the existence of this bad thing, which is always seeking to ruin me, is great grace, and leads to perpetual distrust of myself.
But this thing so painful, so continually thrusting itself upon his attention, the apostle felt would hinder his testimony for the Lord. But it was not so in the Lord’s account. Paul thought that relief and usefulness must 237
come by the removal of the thorn, which he saw must always keep him in a state of weakness here. The Lord would have him keep the thorn which always reduced him to this state of weakness, in order that by it He might teach His servant more of the power of Christ. Thus, whatever He effected in this world by means of Paul, it was a display of the distinct strength and power of Christ in the earthen vessel. “My strength is made perfect in weakness”, enabling the apostle to say, ‘Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest [or tabernacle] upon me”.
Here we are brought to the wonderful understanding
of how God is able to come in and remove any opportunity for the flesh to display itself. Weakness and infirmity were produced in the apostle. They are no hindrances to the work of grace, but the flesh is, if it act at all, whether it be in me or in an apostle, although he was privileged to have been caught up into the third heaven. On the earth, infirmities and weakness in himself, so that there could be nothing left for him to glory in; these are what we see in him: and on the other side, God accomplishing wonders in using such a vessel, for the display of His “strength”, and the
“power” of His grace.
But I return to the settled conviction which the apostle had about himself, in v 1. This is of great importance; and I would ask, is it yours and mine? This enabled God to come in and help him as He did. We find, in result, the power and strength of Christ displayed in an earthen vessel, similar to ourselves, instead of the display of the flesh—our great hindrance.
May the Lord so see in us that definite purpose to be for Him, “the second Man, the Lord from heaven” (1 Cpr 15: 47), that He can come in and help us to effect it; while we are conscious from such a passage as this, that unless we are reduced, the flesh will ever seek to assert itself.
From A Voice to the Faithful—vol 22, 1888
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Every person has some object, to the influence of which he becomes subject, hence the two words objective and subjective. The object is outside myself, but the subject state is all within myself, and has reference to my life and ways as they are governed by the object which I have before me.
If we take a simple illustration of both, it may help to make them clear to any who have not quite understood them. A child is self-willed at school, and resists every effort made to shew him that he is wrong. While still in this condition, someone puts before him the photograph of his mother. He at once recognises the object of his affection. A chord is touched within. That mother had often pointed out to him, and urged him to seek grace to overcome the strong will now troubling himself and all around him. As he thinks of this, tears quietly find their way down his cheeks. The object has produced a subjective condition, and has effected the desired end. He is in the proper subjective condition produced by the object he is occupied with.
One passage of scripture the reader may often have
noticed, and it shews us the intimate connection which exists between the objective and the subjective in a Christian. “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord”, 2 Cor 3: 18. Here the subjective state is produced by occupation with the Lord in glory. “The same image” is produced.
Where there is a bad subjective state it has been questioned if it is right to occupy the soul with it, and thus to make it look within. But it is clear that in the epistles to the Corinthians, especially in the first epistle, their bad state is fully dwelt upon and exposed. The Spirit thus (painful as it is) compels them to look at themselves and their ways. It is so also in the epistle to the Galatians. But along with this, there is in each the right Object presented (as we have said) in 2 Cor 3: 18. Nor is it wanting in the 239
first epistle. “Christ, and him crucified”, began his ministry among them, 1 Cor 1: 2, 3 and 2: 2. He still works on with his eye on the same eternal “OBJECT”, see 1 Cor 4: 1-4. As to the doctrine of the resurrection, he insists that “Christ”
is risen, or they are yet in their sins (1 Cor 15), and
“CHRIST”, in glory, we have already referred to as the present Object. All this is objective.
If there is a danger in the present day of turning souls in upon themselves by pressing the subjective side of the truth, is there not also the kindred danger of getting them to accept the objective side theoretically, and be most lax and careless as to the other? It seems to me that in our day the latter is the danger, rather than the former, while, if we turn back to well-nigh sixty years ago, when God began the present revival of His testimony among us, it appears that the former was the distinctive snare. Satan rarely denies the truth openly, but he seeks rather to disturb the balance of it, on the one side or on the other.
Should it not always be borne in mind that the objective side of the truth is never presented but with the desire in the mind of the Spirit of producing in us the subjective state answering to it? And where this is not effected, may we not conclude, that however correct the soul may be as to the doctrine of the objective side, it is merely the theory that he has got hold of?
The child who says, ‘That is my mother’s likeness’, was only broken down when the subjective state (his own conduct) pressed itself with overwhelming force upon him, in view of the love of that mother: and I think it is the same now in the Lord’s dealings with us. We must answer to the truth because of the Spirit of God, or it is only theory—
man’s mind.
From A Voice to the Faithful—vol 22, 1888
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“I HAVE SOMEWHAT TO SAY UNTO THEE”
We only get blessing from the word of God when we
see how its words affect us. Can we not each write our own name in front of the above quotation? If so, we shall gather instruction from it. The Lord Jesus values and looks for our love. His heart is conscious of any and every deficit in the measure of the love which He receives from us. When the creditor had forgiven all to the two unequal debtors, He asks Simon, in this passage, “Which of them will love him most?”
Now for the application of it to ourselves as He applied it to Simon.
“I entered into thine house”. This He says to each of us, see Titus 2: 11. In the most absolute grace, He has come to us, unattracted by anything that existed in us. How has this wondrous visitor been received? To Simon He says,
“Thou gavest me no kiss”. “Thou gavest me no water for my feet”. No welcome, and no refreshment. Ah! is this true of one reader of these lines? No welcome and no refreshment for Jesus when He came. He expects and seeks both. Do you say, ‘I have welcomed Him, I have refreshed His blessed heart, because I am a Christian’, as John 4: 33 teaches?
Well, there is still more than this to do. Again He says, “I have somewhat to say unto thee”; and again we do well to listen to His voice. “My head with oil thou didst not anoint”.
Is your service now all done in the power of the Spirit (the oil), and poured out upon CHRIST? There is no lack of service in these days; but oh, the importance of the addition of these two or three little words to what we do “as unto the Lord”! They completely alter the character of your work for Him. Can you say, It was little, but such as it was I poured it all out upon Him, and all in the power of the Spirit of God, and according to His leading and guidance? Did you? Is not this a testing question to each of us?
Observe in this passage this woman’s devotion to the Person of our Lord. How her love displayed itself—not so much in the amount of the work which she did, as in the 241
fact that she did it all to Him! No secondary motives guided her. He—He alone—was her one only object. Oh, the beautiful independence of this love! It asked no advice, nor copied from what others were doing. It expended its little all upon Him. He noted it. He valued it. The welcome to Him—the kiss. The refreshment, the water for His feet. The ointment with which she anointed His feet, this comfort given to Him, and where does He now seek and expect to find these things? In our houses. “I entered into thine house”. Has he found, and does He find them all there, my reader? Is it true of your house and of mine? Or, if we have not a house of our own, is there a corner where He gets from us individually that which He seeks?
But we are soon going into His house. What will be
there our welcome, our refreshment, our comfort? Will He fail to greet us with every one of these? Well we know that not one will fail. How cold our hearts as to the welcome, the refreshment, the comfort which He gets from us now! How fully, in that blessed day that is coming (the “presentation day”), will His heart satisfy itself in the pouring out of His own love to us! We are going into the Father’s house, John 14: 1-3. What met the prodigal at his approach there? No questions, only the kiss. It was the first thing, and it was the kiss of love, see Luke 15: 20. Then as to the delight of His own heart in that day to minister refreshment and comfort to us, what do we read? “Verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them”, Luke 12: 37.
Spite of all our failure and want of love now, what a blessed day is thus drawing nigh. A day in which in joy peculiar to Him we shall be with Him, and He will be with us. The “presentation day” of Eph 5: 27, when He shall bring the bride into the Father’s house, and when His own heart shall delight itself in her. How different our reception and comfort there then, and His here now, who in grace condescends to say to each of us, “I entered into thine house!” Yet He never changes, Heb 13: 8. The day comes when we shall fully know what love is, as it is displayed in 242
Him toward us. Does the prospect gladden us? Do we love His appearing, 2 Tim 4: 8? Then it will bring out from us in our houses a little more devotedness of heart now to Himself, whatever others may be doing.
May He guide us to this, keeping before us His interest in our love as forgiven ones, expressed in these words, “I have somewhat to say unto thee”. May you and I condescend to listen; so shall we profit thereby.
From The Christian’s Friend—vol 16, 1889
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(Revelation 2 & 3)
The church looked at, first, in her relation to Christ; second, in her relation to the world; and, third, in her consequent condition at the second coming of the Lord.
These three may be easily traced in these two chapters. In addressing the church on earth, just prior to His return, the Lord puts before her the real origin of her condition. He tells her that the beginning was departure in heart from Him, that her heart then went out after the world, and that thence has arisen all her present condition—a condition in which He will find her at His return. This condition He places fully before us in the last four churches. Her relationship to Himself and to the world He shows us in the first three.
In reading these addresses we must remember that
the whole professing church on earth is addressed, but that those in view are they “who have an ear to hear”. These are exhorted to overcome individually, when the mass is going on either with satisfaction or indifference. The mass, which calls itself the church, is satisfied with its condition, and indifferent to the thoughts of Christ. In this state of things individuals are exhorted to overcome.
It is as cast out of the world that God gives to the Lord (ie, as Man) the knowledge of His future purposes. The book we are reading is the “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass”. The Lord by the hand of John, an exile in “the isle that is called Patmos”, communicates these purposes to the church on earth. And He is first shown to John as invested with all authority. He is the “Ancient of days” (see Dan 7: 9), and holds the keys of hell and of death as the “LIVING ONE” who was once dead. These purposes of God to be executed by Him are those of judgment. He is about to return to the earth to execute God’s final judgment in and upon all in this scene, in the midst of which we live 244
and move every day. He “hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man”, John 5. “his servants” stand here in the relationship of John 15: 15—“his friends”—and as such He would communicate to them all that is about to come to pass on the earth. It is imminent judgment, and this is the subject of the book.
I. THE CHURCH IN HER RELATION TO CHRIST
First, then, He speaks to the whole church (in His message to Ephesus) of her relationship to Himself. She owes her existence to Him. He is the “Alpha” of God’s ways (Rev 1: 11); and He “loved the church, and gave Himself for it”, Eph 5: 25. Unchanged in His affection for her, He tells her that she has “left thy first LOVE”, Eph 2: 4.
Though fallen from that condition which marked her
when the “first works” were done in all the freshness of that
“first love”, how precious to Christ is the church! He would seek to remind her of this. She was taken out of the world to be for Him. He says, “I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you”, John 15: 19. And this is truly His voice, and what the Spirit is to her and to us, my brethren, today. The first works refer to what she did on earth, and at the commencement. These were done with the eye upon Christ. How changed is everything done by her now, as seen by His eye. “Works” are still there (v 2), but the pitcher is broken at the fountain; the spring that caused Him to delight in them is gone.
We are carried back to the relationship between Christ and the church at the beginning in order to get the sense in our souls of how vast the fall. As first seen, in the midst of all the rubbish of this world, no love existed in her.
“Hateful and hating” was her condition then, as Titus 3: 3
says. And it was when she was in that condition that He saw her: “When he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it”, Matt 13: 46. He went down to the bottom of the waters of death and 245
judgment to have her for Himself. “Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it”, Eph 5: 25. And thence it was that in her sprang up that which never existed before.
“We love him because he first loved us”, 1 John 4: 19. He speaks then of her love, and His heart is conscious that her love is defective.
And why does the Lord thus address her and us? (for
every true believer forms a part of the true body and bride of Christ in the midst of this vast profession which has taken up this responsibility and name). It is that true bridal affections, and “first works” which manifest them, may be awakened in us, and that hearts may shake themselves loose from all that worldliness which burdens and crushes the church in her testimony, and may start out afresh for Christ. For as we read on in these addresses we shall see that worldliness is the defect. The WORLD has come in, and this is the worm which is gnawing at the root of a simple testimony here for the Lord. Oh for the heart to realise—
the heart of each Christian individually—that the Lord is jealous lest anything intervene between us and Himself! To have every thought, every motive, every action consciously under His eye, and subject to Him, “to the Lord”, Col 3: 23.
How it tests us to ask, Did you do that to the Lord, and desiring only His approbation? These were the first works; the motive power was affection for Him. It is what the apostle Paul refers to when he says, “The love of Christ constraineth us”, 2 Cor 5: 14. Love, the constraining spring of service, and the only motive power that satisfies the heart of Christ. May the Lord lead us into this path more distinctly, that we may be found doing all that we do with the eye and the heart occupied with Himself. Everything done with reference to the Lord, who “loved the church, and gave himself for it”, and who is so soon coming back to receive her to Himself.
The first address of the seven (Rev 2) is to Ephesus.
The fitness of this being first is manifest. This assembly had been fully instructed by the apostle Paul as to the relationship of the whole church to Christ. It is in that 246
epistle that we learn that the church on earth is “his body”.
There we learn too that each Christian is among the
“members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones”. We learn too that Christ “loved the church, and gave himself for it”; a love so great, that “for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church”, Eph 5: 30, 31.
The church is not considered in these addresses as
the body of Christ, though that was the truth committed to Ephesus in Paul’s epistle to that assembly, but as the responsible woman—responsible, as knowing this truth, to be true to the relationship existing between herself and the Lord. The relationship is not affected by failure to answer to its claims. Ephesus is addressed as in the relationship, and she, (representing the whole church) is declared by Him who has loved her, and still loves her with a perfect love, to have been, and to be still, untrue to Christ. “Thou hast left thy first love”. Her heart was not His, His alone. She had left Him, and another had her affections. It is the world, and He fully unfolds it in what follows. In the meantime each Christian is exhorted to hear what the Spirit says in this address, as to the church’s present condition, and to
“overcome” in the midst of it, a responsibility resting upon every believer in Christ, wherever found; but observe, whatever the cost, it is one which, when responded to in the power of the Spirit, will lead into present food for the soul.
“To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God”.
II. THE CHURCH IN HER RELATION TO THE WORLD
This is presented in two aspects in the two addresses which follow. In the first (that to Smyrna) the world is seen in its own true character—that of a persecutor. This is in harmony with the Lord’s own words in John 15, 16. It is the only proper attitude which the world can assume if the church is true to Christ. The church should never know the 247
world, save as a persecuting world. “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you”, John 15: 19. If the church has ceased to know the world thus (as a persecutor), then God has given to individuals to prove it, when through grace there has been given to any a recovery from the worldliness into which the whole church has sunk. It is a great favour, given to us individually from God, to know the true character of the world, and to be called on to prove it in our walk on earth.
Hence there is no fault found with the assembly at Smyrna. He does not blame. She is the persecuted one, as He had been, and therefore in her proper position with respect to the world, and the Lord only comforts and encourages her. “I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) ... Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life”. The object of the enemy, who is the god of this world, is to turn aside the church from being true to Christ. This he attempts by persecution, seeking to
“wear out” the saints by it; and it may even go on to death, as it has often done in the times past (Acts 22: 4), man’s histories too agreeing with God’s that this has been so. The object of the world, and of Satan, its prince, is to oblige saints by persecution to give up Christ. The tendency of the natural heart is to faint under opposition and continued pressure.
But the Lord cares for this persecuted condition of His church, and is beyond it: “be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life”. The overcomer may have to go on to the death of the body; but if so, he shall
“not be hurt of the second death”. It is what is beyond and after death that is presented for our encouragement. “I will give thee a crown of life”. When the world has done its worst, the Lord is found on the other side.
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We have thus far seen what the church on earth was
to be in her relation to Christ. We have also seen what she was to be in her relation to the world. These are true for us today. The failure of the church to maintain both brings us to the condition of Pergamos, which is the next in order of the seven. May the Lord meanwhile arouse us all to increased devotedness to Himself.
PERGAMOS
(Rev 2: 12‧17)
The church is in fellowship with the world. This is what the Lord reveals in His message to Pergamos. The church is not a stranger on earth; she is dwelling where Satan’s seat is. Satan’s seat, or throne, is this world. Here only is the sphere that owns, nor will any other ever own, his sway, and in it she is seen by the Lord’s eye; not hastening through it, as through a defiled and defiling scene, to which she does not belong, but dwelling in it, as though at home there. And the Lord presents Himself to the church in this condition as “he which hath the sharp sword with two edges”. By presenting Himself to her thus, He declares that He will sever the unholy league into which, as one seduced, she has entered. There can be no tolerance of it. “All judgment” is committed unto Him, and upon the world it must fall, however unfaithful the professing body may be. And fellowship with the world, while professing at the same time to be for Christ, is the church’s condition.
For it is very evident that the church as addressed here has not cast off the profession of His faith and name.
She does profess to be His, however unfaithful she is. He tells her this. “Thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith”. Yet while He can own this, He does not withhold that the doctrine of Balaam is there also. And how feeble, how imperfect the church’s testimony! And if she is untrue to her calling, the Lord will show her what true faithfulness is. Antipas, not the church, is His faithful witness. How touching the allusion, if the church has any 249
heart to respond to it, when He says, “Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth!” “My faithful martyr”, says the Lord—words which He should have been able to use as to the whole company.
But this is impossible. The church in fellowship with the world can no longer be the “faithful witness”. And Antipas gives up his life as a testimony in the midst of the church that should have been true to her absent Lord.
But there is more than this, more than the inability of the church to be a faithful witness. There is a reason for it. The Lord continues, “I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam”. This is positive wickedness. It was an endeavour to seduce the people of God, and at any price, into association with the world. For in speaking of Balaam, the Lord throws back the veil, and shows that which destroyed all possibility of devotion to Him. That hidden spring, working under the assumed guise of ‘increased liberality’, is friendship with the world. Toleration accepted, there is then only a short step to amalgamation, and this is “the doctrine of Balaam”. God’s thought, the one great thought which can be traced like a golden thread running from Gen 1: 2, 3, down to Rev 22: 14, 15, is not toleration, not amalgamation, but everywhere “SEPARATION” from what is evil. “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all”, 1 John 1: 5. You can introduce no toleration of evil, and His thought for His people is consistent with Himself. It is ever so; and even Balaam, the deluded tool of the enemy, has to declare that separation is God’s thought. “The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations”, Num 23: 9. But, unable to curse God’s people, and compelled to speak only what the Lord would have spoken concerning them, what did Balaam teach? He “taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication”, Rev 2: 14.
There are always steps to be traced in decline in the history of our souls, and we can trace them here. Forgetting 250
her true relationship to Christ, who is not on earth, how easy for the church to forget that His place is hers. As He was not of this world, so the church is not of it. As He is heavenly, so she is also, for she is His body. The first thing that we read about Israel after Balaam had failed to curse God’s people is this, “And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab”, Num 25: 1. So the church is said by the Lord to be
“dwelling” where Satan’s seat is, dwelling in the midst of the place where the Lord had no place. He had on earth “not where to lay his head”. And what was the next step with Israel, and the next step in the church’s decline? Why, as dwelling there, Balaam’s counsel is, ‘Let us be all together; let us be social’; and, oh, what a subtle delusion is this of the enemy—this plea of friendship! “And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor: and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel”, Num 25: 1-3. And we see in this address to the church on earth that she has repeated Israel’s history, and that this is why the Lord refers her to it. The false prophet is within the church, and the result of his doctrine is manifest in her present condition. He is teaching that she may eat things sacrificed unto idols; that she may enjoy Moab’s food. He is teaching that she may, without fear, form alliances with this world, and so stop to rest (on her way to GOD’S rest) among those who have never any intention of going there.
And if we admit the complete analogy and parallel, as seen in the past history of Israel and the present condition of the church, we must, notwithstanding, thank God that it is He in His grace who calls our attention afresh to it. Still more is it to be regretted that any who call themselves Christians should now, nevertheless, remain blind and deaf to what is said—unable to “hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches”. For if it is fairly admitted, and people do fairly admit (without apparently any exercise of conscience), that they do not understand even these two chapters which are especially and only addressed to the church; is there not 251
both blindness and deafness as to what is the church’s present condition? Yet the Spirit says as to this book of the Revelation, “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand”, Rev 1: 3. He attaches a special blessing to the reading, and hearing, and keeping of what He here puts before us. And how can the soul keep what it has never in faith received?
One other matter the Lord speaks of before closing this address to Pergamos, and it is with reference to the Nicolaitanes. Much has been written as to the meaning of this word, and as to what these people were, and perhaps much of what has been said is right. As there is not in Scripture any explanation of the meaning of this word, nor of the word Pergamos, we may calmly weigh what godly men have written to explain each. It has been said that the word Pergamos has some relation to the Greek word for marriage, and that it points to the ‘marriage of the church and the world’. No doubt there is some important meaning for each word, and for the use of each. Enough is written in the Word, however, for us. The Nicolaitanes have been mentioned before in the address to Ephesus. We may compare these two references to them. We learn then, from Rev 2: 6, that although the church has left her first love, she is not yet quite prepared to sanction that thing which the Lord hates. He says, “But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate”. But He does not thus speak to Pergamos. Again he refers to the Nicolaitanes, but He cannot now say that the church hates them. No; as He has said that she allows within them that hold the “doctrine of Balaam”, so now she allows within also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, “which thing I hate”.
The reader, as a Christian, will see the inconsistency, and weigh the value of what is said to the church respecting this evil. She is said to hate their deeds, then to allow within them that hold their doctrine. You see that the PERSONS
are allowed. But “God is no respecter of persons”, Acts 10: 252
34. And the church must be governed by God’s Word; she does not make it, she is taught by it. It says, “If ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin”, James 2: 9. And “God accepteth no man’s person”, Gal 2: 6. When once there is a departure from a right path, with an assumption of rectitude, the word of God must, in some form or another, be given up, however much of it may be retained. But for the church, as well as for individual Christians, there is then no way of recovery but by the word of God; and if we do not use it as the way of recovery, HE must and will maintain the truth. And the address to Pergamos closes thus: “Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth”, v 16. It is the unsparing judgment of all evil.
May we give heed to the word that follows to the overcomer: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it”. And, seeking to be delivered from what the Lord condemns, may we be found individually feeding upon Christ in the sense of the immensity of God’s present favour to us. Amen.
THE THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE BOOK
We have drawn the reader’s attention to a threefold
division of the book of Revelation, given to us by the Spirit of God in Rev 1: 19. We again direct his earnest attention to it. It will keep him out of the maze of different interpretations given by many earnest men in answer to these questions, which must again and again present themselves to all diligent students of this important book; namely, What part of the book is already fulfilled? What part is now in progress of fulfilment? and, What is yet future?
The following are the three divisions to which we refer as given to us in this verse. John was bidden to write in a 253
book—first, The things that he had seen; second, The things that are; third, The things that shall be after these.
No careful reader would deny that the first things that John was here bidden to write about were those that he had seen in the vision of Revelation 1. By no possible means can we construe the words “hast seen” into ‘shall see’, so as to make them include all that he should see as detailed up to the end of the book. The language is most precise: “Write the things which thou hast seen”; that is, if we interpret it simply, ‘Write what you have already seen’. This is the first division and first part of the book, ending with chap 1. We then come to the second division of the book, “the things which are”. What are these? “Are” means to exist. What existed at the moment? Evidently the varied conditions of the church on earth, as seen in the seven different localities mentioned in Revelation 2 and 3.—The “things” are told us which the Lord commends, and the “things” which He condemns, in the church wherein all His interests are centred. Revelation 4 begins the third division of the book with the words of verse 1—“After these things” (NT)—so that we have all three before us. And since the words are precise,
“After these things”, the third division of the book is all unfulfilled, because “the things that are” are still around us, and the church is yet on earth as the seven golden candlesticks to sustain in this dark world a light for Him (whose eye even now, as then, discerns and scrutinises all)
“who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks”
(Rev 2: 1) today.
It is important for us to have a sense in our souls of WHO it is who condescends to tell us His estimation of the
“things that are”, in order that we may have some perception of the value of the communication. He is the
“Ancient of days” of the book of Daniel (chap 7), yet the One who stoops to lay His right hand on the poor exile of Patmos, in order to make him know that he has not to fear since he has to do with Him “that liveth, and was dead” (Rev 1: 18), now to die no more, but who is alive for “the ages of ages”.
He is the Almighty God of the Old Testament; the “Alpha 254
and Omega” of all God’s purposes; and, blessed for us to know, He is the One that John sung of in the 6th verse of the first chapter—the “I Jesus” of Rev 22: 16. If Jesus is before us as the glorified Man, He is none the less all these, and the Spirit of God would have us to know this, and He records it. Reader, have we grasped WHO it is? WHO tells us where His interests are today, so that in any little measure they have become our interests?
We have not to consult church history to learn the past condition of the church, nor have we to plunge into the Babel that exists among her doctors to know her present or future condition. All is unfolded here up to the end, when she will be rejected as the light-bearer. I know what He thinks of that which professes to be for Him as I read these two chapters, and that is of more moment to me than volumes of church history, coupled with the opinions of all her doctors; for the “things that are”, if (as here) they are fully described, are still.
We have seen the church in what should have been
her true relation to Christ (Ephesus), that of “first love”. We have spoken, too, of what would then have been her attitude towards the world (Smyrna), the ‘persecuted one’. We have also seen what is her present condition as to Christ—the first love left—as well as what it is toward the world —
fellowship with it (Pergamos). And now the four following aspects of the church’s condition, all of which run on to the end of her earthly history (since the coming of the Lord is before us in each), are the natural outcome of these first three. And although there can be no doubt that in a general way all seven assemblies and their conditions are necessary at any moment to present me with a perfect picture of “the things that are”, yet as the first three show how the ruin was wrought, so the last four instruct us as to what the ruin is, or the condition of the church at the coming of the Lord.
This event brings before us in each of them an event which is presented in other passages of the New Testament as the one HOPE of the church.
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THE CHURCH’S CONDITION AT THE SECOND
COMING OF THE LORD
OR
THYATIRA, SARDIS, PHILADELPHIA, AND LAODICEA
Thyatira is the next in order. The Lord reveals Himself here with eyes as a flaming fire; ie, in piercing judgment. Nothing could be worse as to the state of the church. Jezebel is the governing power, and by her name we are carried back to Israel’s apostasy in the days of Ahab, when she fed the prophets of Baal at her own table, and persecuted the prophets of the Lord. It is a similar case.
Children are born of her whom the Lord says that He will
“kill with death”, Rev 2: 23. But she is here the mother; and it is the voice of the church of Rome that says, ‘He who has not the church [of Rome] for his mother, has not God for his Father’. Thus we now have, in this phase of the church’s history, the greatest outward assumption at the moment of the grossest wickedness within. She is an actor, teacher, and seducer. But this is always the case. Where the voice of the spirit is not heard calling for judgment on the evil, there will always be found the greatest assumption of rectitude; and in this case she assumes to be henceforward THE CHURCH on earth, distinctly and exclusively so. This is Jezebel and her children. But the Lord’s eye discerns another company. These He addresses as “the rest in Thyatira”. They have not received this doctrine, or the teaching of Jezebel, and He encourages them, “That which ye have already hold fast till I come”. He who overcomes in Thyatira shall have “power over the nations”. Now, this is the very thing that Rome has sought.
The Lord will give it to the church in His own time. When He reigns she shall reign with Him; but the order is, If we co-suffer, we shall also co-reign, 2 Tim 2: 12. Suffering comes first, and as He was, so the church must be—the rejected one on the earth. And while He says to the assembly, “I know thy works”, He cheers the overcomer as
“he that… keepeth my works unto the end” (Rev 2: 26); and he shall have the “morning star” for his portion through the gloom of the night.
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May we be found so separating ourselves in heart and association from all these things herein condemned, that we may enjoy even now this portion of the overcomer. Amen.
SARDIS
That which the assembly lacks is presented to each
in the manner in which the Lord speaks of Himself. He addresses the church of Sardis as “he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars”. Now, while we have not Jezebel and her doctrine in Sardis, we have not in her the unhindered and unquenched energy of the Spirit. There is truly “a name to live”, but the power of life is always the energy of the Spirit, and that is wanting. However, we see that there is a measure of recovery from the doctrines of Thyatira, so that we have before us Protestantism in the church of Sardis, the second phase of the church’s condition at the coming of the Lord. His coming is referred to in what He says in v 3. Doctrinal correctness is not enough. Hampered by human arrangements within, and clogged by state associations (ie, by the world) without, the Spirit of God does not bring out and develop in the assembly the life proper to it. Hence the works are defective. “I have not found thy works perfect before God”. The Spirit of God quenched, and human methods substituted to carry on the works within—all this, coupled with the worldly pride given by “a name to live”, reduces the church to the level of the world. Hence the Lord’s coming bursts upon her, as upon it, “as a thief”—unexpectedly. “I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee”.
The coming of the Lord to be watched for as the hope of the church is lost to it, and night and sleep have overcome her instead. But there are some in Sardis who have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with the Lord in white; for they are worthy. In these white garments the overcomer too will be arrayed.
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The Lord presents Himself here as the One who can
open and shut; that is, whatever seems to oppose, He has all power, all ability in Himself. He commends the cleaving to the Word, and the non-denial of His Name. We see here a great recovery from the Sardis condition. Not only are the doctrines taught in Thyatira refused (for keeping His word implies this), but also the Spirit of God is controlling, so that the walk and ways, the character, and (including all) the name of Christ is not denied. He will accomplish all the rest. “Behold, I have set before thee an opened door, which no one can shut, because thou hast a little power, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. Behold, I make them of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews, and are not, but lie; behold, I will cause that they shall come and shall do homage before thy feet, and shall know that I have loved thee. Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee out of the hour of trial which is about to come upon the whole habitable world to try them that dwell upon the earth. I come quickly: hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown”24.
There are the Word and the Name, and there is around us today a tendency to separate these two things—
a great assumption of ‘keeping the Word’, and but little understanding of not ‘denying his name’. Now, the name not only brings before me a person, but always what characterised the person who bore the name. The Spirit by which He moved, and which stamped His path as one separated from all the self-will that marks men, this Spirit ever guided the Lord here. But Christians bear that name, for by profession they belong to Christ, and are professed followers of Christ. The word of God may be gloried in, but it must not be severed from the Holy Spirit, who alone can wield it, and who so wields it that He first forms me according to it. My path thus becomes very simple. The 24 The rendering of the New Translation
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word of God has supreme authority, and the Spirit within me so uses it, that as I walk I do not deny His name, who as Man was ever led and guided by the Holy Ghost, according to that Word, in a path well pleasing to God. May the Lord guide and exercise as to this both reader and writer, that this may be daily and more and more seen in us!
When, through little strength, the tendency is to give up, the overcomer is characterised by ‘holding fast’. Power is not in us. All power is in the Lord; we must be subject in the power of an ungrieved Spirit to the Word; He does the rest. And the one who overcoming has learnt it shall be made “a pillar in the temple of my God”, the Lord says, “and he shall go no more at all out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven, from my God, and my new name”.
LAODICEA
The last of the four conditions in which the Lord will find the assembly is now before us. The Lord presents Himself as the “faithful and true witness”. This is what the professing church has totally failed to be. He speaks from outside the assembly, the professing company on earth, although His proper place in the assembly is not outside, but “in the midst”, Matt 18: 20. He says, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock”. He is not only outside; the door is also shut against Him. Within there is nothing but self-satisfaction and self-exaltation— the first man reigns supreme.
The church is not only totally ignorant of her loss of the Lord’s presence with her, but boasts that she is “rich, and increased with goods”, and has “need of nothing”.
Rich, but without Christ; has no need, but with Christ outside the door. Alas! how Satan has wrought to 259
manufacture a system that shall blind the eyes of his dupes!
for who is disturbed? Are we not rich? Our goods multiply, and is not the ‘cause’ triumphing? If we once numbered our missionaries by tens, do we not number them today by hundreds? Our places of worship increase. Our theological colleges, are they not springing up all over the land? Are they not filled with young men, all diligent students for the ministry? It is the voice of Laodicea, ignorant of the end in dishonour and shame of the church’s history on earth.
But the Lord is seeking individuals. “If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me”. If there is a heart desiring more of Himself, He will come in to refresh and satisfy that heart at a time when indifference to the claims of the Lord, coupled with immense assumption, mark the professing assembly. This word of cheer is what the spring of the oasis is to the thirsting desert traveller. This the Lord today is for the individual soul who will hear “my voice, and open the door”. But the end is not far off. It is when she is full of self-gratulation and indifference to Christ that her final rejection is pronounced. She is then repulsive to Him, and He says, “I will spue thee out of my mouth”.
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“HE THAT HATH AN EAR
LET HIM HEAR WHAT THE SPIRIT SAITH UNTO THE
CHURCHES”
We close by drawing the special attention of the reader to these just quoted and final words of the Spirit, addressed to those who are part of “the things that are”.
Professing Christians, these words apply to us. We must fix our individual Christian positions today somewhere. We are somewhere in His sight, amidst “the things that are”—
the professing church on earth. Where are we? “All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do”, Heb 4: 13. He knows exactly where each one stands, and He is (in these words) speaking to you and to me as individuals. It is, “He that hath an ear, let him hear”; and the voice is the Spirit’s voice telling me the mind of CHRIST, “who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks” today. God give to us grace to respond to the voice, and not to turn away the ear to those who say, “Speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits”, Isa 30. For now
“the days are at hand, and the effect of every vision”, Ezek 12: 23. Moreover, the time is short. He whose messages to the churches we have been considering, He who “loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Eph 5: 25), and He who
“testifieth these things”, saith, “Surely I come quickly”. May the writer and reader be able truthfully to respond, in the conscious sense of being delivered through grace from that which the Lord here condemns, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus”
(Rev 22: 20). Amen.
From The Christian’s Friend—vol 16, 1889
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1. When worship is an offence, and the worshipper comes under the judgment of God.
2. Why there is a defect of judgment in us, and inability to put a difference between ‘holy and unholy’, and between
‘unclean and clean’
The church, composed of all believers, and typified here by the sons of Aaron, is now in the place of privileged nearness and approach to God. And it is because she is so that God would have us consistent with the privilege, and would teach us a solemn lesson in this chapter. It is important that we should not forget that “whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope”, Rom 15: 3. As all are priests (1 Pet 2: 5), so all stand in nearness to God, to present to Him that worship (typified by the incense) the “sweet savour”, which He has found in His beloved Son, and in all the work that He has accomplished for God’s glory. In this God finds ever His own peculiar joy.
“And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He commanded them not. And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord”.
We note here that as Aaron’s sons they had the right of approach. We see too that the censers and the incense are not found fault with; but that which came with them— the fire. That which, so to speak, called forth the savour was the defect, and this led to the rejection of it all. There was fire with which all who were engaged with priestly service should have been familiar. It was that which burnt continually upon the brazen altar, Lev 6: 12, 13. It met the eye of everyone approaching from without. The brazen altar was the first thing within the court. There could be no 262
approach to God apart from the death of the victim upon this brazen altar. And the fire needed to produce the savour of the incense had to be taken from off this altar, Lev 16: 12, 13. This was not “strange fire”. The burnt-offering in Leviticus 1 presents the death of Christ, and His personal ability to bear the judgment. It is not strange but familiar to us, that it was the judgment of God testing Him fully there that only brought out the sweet savour more distinctly.
The fire thus presents to us a figure of the judgment of God. In the first chapter of Leviticus the fire consuming the burnt-offering only brings fully out the sweet savour which God received from the death of the unblemished victim. This judgment of God, fully searching Christ on the cross, found only that in which God could delight. But in the fourth chapter of Leviticus, where we have the death of Christ in another aspect, and the judgment still typified by the action of fire, we have another effect produced. It is not for sweet savour (save as showing who He was in the fat,
&c), but for consumption or destruction of the body of the victim, and not on the brazen altar at all, but far away
“outside the camp”, Heb 13: 11. Still the place is associated with the brazen altar; for it is where the ashes from it were poured out. It is the sin-offering. It is Christ made sin for us (2 Cor 5: 21), and bearing our sins, 1 Pet 2: 24. It is the cross as the place where the whole “body … of the flesh” (Col 2) was destroyed—consumed—under the judgment of God, so that the second time the Lord comes into this world it is
“without sin” (Heb 9); that is, with no question of sin at all to settle or to consider, so perfectly has this been done once for all on the cross.
The action of fire in the burnt-offering produces only a sweet savour. The action of fire in the sin-offering consumes, outside of the dwelling-place of God (the camp), all that is contrary (as charged with sin) to His holy presence. These two effects are connected with the action of fire, and both met their fulfilment at the cross. On this basis God seeks worshippers who shall worship Him in 263
spirit and in truth. But it cannot be apart from this action of the fire, nor apart from this remembrance of it; because the incense savour (type of our worship) was only produced by putting the incense on the fire taken from off the altar.
Worship in spirit and in truth has for its basis the refusal and judgment of all that I am in myself, and the confession that God has found His eternal satisfaction in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thus everything that prompts to worship save these
two is “strange fire”: Neither natural talent, gift, ability, intellect, or educational training will avail here as being only of the first man; and nothing of the first man (that is, which has its origin only in him) can come before God save for judgment. All Christians are on the common ground of worshippers; but self-assertion disappears if we see that Christ is the only object which delights the heart of God, and thus we discern that the place on which we stand is
“holy ground”. The fire consumes all that is contrary to the mind of God, and brings out before Him the person and work of His beloved Son.
It is important that what people call worship should be tested in the light of this scripture. If the meaning of Leviticus 4 be left out it will be Cain worship. Cain came to God on the ground of his own assumed right to come. This is leaving out the important truth taught in the sin-offering, and it is also a total denial of the fall. Unless God Himself make the way, man has none. In ourselves we have no fitness. We confess it, and we come in all the value of the person and work of Another. God Himself has provided it.
Every presentation to God of the person and work of Christ is accepted. We need no more. God has given us this, and can accept nothing in addition to it.
In worship, and when taught of the Spirit, we learn
what is pleasing to God. And having learnt this, this chapter goes on to unfold another thing, the need of which presents itself continually to us as we walk amidst a defiling scene, namely, ability to judge between ‘holy and unholy’, and between ‘unclean and clean’. “And the Lord spake unto 264
Aaron, saying, Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations: and that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean; and that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses”, Lev 10: 8-11. Who is able to judge between
“holy and unholy”, and between ‘unclean and clean’, but the soul which has learnt, from the intimacy of communion, and from that highest privilege which communion gives, namely, from worship, what is acceptable to God? Then wine and strong drink, and anything that moves the natural man, must be refused. In worship nothing is allowed save the fire, which declares my rejection and judgment, and Christ’s acceptance. It is not supposed that the wine and strong drink can be tolerated within; but then if I am in the habit of allowing nature to govern me without, if I am in the habit of feeding it, and of not judging it there, I shall find myself without power of forming a judgment in very simple matters. I lose the sense of right and wrong, and I am also a hindrance in the worship of the saints; for what I present is rejected. The soul thus loses the sense of what is holy and unholy, unclean and clean; and in this condition it is also able to instruct others in “the statutes which the Lord hath spoken”.
We find that it is only from learning in the Lord’s presence what is suitable to Him, that the minor details of daily life are regulated aright. The anxieties of the world, of the family, of the assembly, all bring before us cases in which the priest has to discern and pronounce the mind of the Lord as to what is holy and unholy, unclean and clean, and we can thank Him that He has made this complete provision, so that we should not be confounded, but should have a right judgment when such questions come before us.
It is useless to seek advice about anything from the soul who knows little or nothing of worship. Worship is our highest privilege on earth, and the joy of heaven. In it we 265
draw nigh to God with the consciousness that we delight His heart in so doing, and what can give greater joy to our hearts than this? The manner is indicated in v 3. This verse should be read and re-read. It is the key to all we have in this chapter.
From The Christian’s Friend—vol 16, 1889
266
A CONFESSION FROM THE BELIEVER’S
ENEMY
“Hast thou not made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side?”
This is a wonderful confession from Satan, who seeks to ruin man. But it discloses to us this fact, that he had sought to temporally injure God’s servant, but had been frustrated by the care of a living God. He had approached very near. He had looked on Job with the same malicious eye as had once gazed, in the early morning of human life, upon the garden of Eden. As he gazed then so he acted, and a desolating blight fell upon all that scene. But he cannot so act here. He looks upon one who has in simple faith cast himself and his all (see v 5) upon God. And now it is not a question of the man’s strength or faithfulness, but of God.
The enemy cannot approach His servant to touch a hair of his head. Nor can he touch one in that house, nor a single thread of all that belongs to Job. God’s defence is around him, and while Satan can see him encircled by it; beyond that defence, neither Satan nor any with his power can pass.
He has learnt practically, for we trace it in his confession—
he has learnt by the bitterness of defeat, that not Job, but Job’s LORD is there, and that He must be first overcome, ere His servant can be touched. The man is invulnerable: (Eph 6: 16), the barrier is absolutely impassable. “The wicked one toucheth him not”, 1 John 5: 18.
Oh, Christian, is there nothing for you and me to learn in all this? Satan succeeded in Eden, but he cannot succeed now. There is One, who has taken from him “all his armour wherein he trusted” (Luke 11: 22), and who is spoiling his goods, Mark 3: 27. Stronger than he, He did first bind the “strong man”, but we also are delivered, Col 1: 13. Satan is neither omniscient, omnipotent, nor omnipresent. These belong to God alone. But has not man 267
the same desires still, as he yielded to in the garden of Eden? And is not Satan now, even more skilful in his knowledge of fallen nature, than he was then? Why then the difference in Job’s case? He has truly the same desires, and Satan is the adversary still, but man dependent on God was not the being Satan overcame in Eden, and this man, my reader, is the man that he has to meet in you, if you are a Christian.
Are you an overcomer? I read, “They [the brethren]
overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony”, Rev 12: 11. Is there any overcoming apart from faith? I judge not. “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith”, 1 John 5: 4, 5. You are not of the world, John 15. You are shut in with God (as Noah was shut into the ark, “the Lord shut him in” (Gen 7: 16)) and the enemy was shut out. “We are in him that is true, even his Son Jesus Christ”, 1 John 5: 20. And what is outside? The whole world which “lieth in wickedness”, 1 John 5: 19.
It is written in the word of God, we have read it, Satan has tried to approach to injure, and he has proved and admitted it—that God is for us, Rom 8: 31. Think of this, God has met him about me and my house. Do you trust God with your eternal interests, the salvation of the soul, and yet are you disquieted about your temporal house and those that are in it—your temporal concerns and how it will fare with them? Ah, we want faith. We are bold and timid, but are not both self-will oftentimes and independence? If God care not for me, of what avail is my boldness, and if He care, why timidity? And what is the real truth of this case?
Let the enemy teach us, and put us to shame as we ponder his confession. “Hast thou not made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side?” Faith says, Thank God, perfect love, His, not mine,
“casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love”, 1 John 4: 18.
From A Voice to the Faithful—vol 23, 1889
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“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”
I desire to note that on two remarkable occasions, as connected with His ways with man, God visited him. He visited both the first man and the second. Others are found in the word of God, and coming between them; but there are none to me so fraught with meaning, none so wondrous (because they disclosed God’s mind fully) as these two.
We have two distinct occasions when God visited Adam. When He had finished the first creation, and had placed the man, the masterpiece of His hand, as head over it all, He visited him. God comes to inspect and consider His work, so to speak. Then and there He pronounced His judgment of it, Gen 1. “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good”.
Satan looked upon that scene of loveliness, which was only presented for a moment in Eden. It was a wondrous scene, more wondrous even than when the foundations of the earth were laid. “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy”, Job 38. And as the tempter, hater of God, and of His ways, he came in, and wrought ruin amidst it all. But if he did, he did not shut God out. God comes again after that to visit man. “Thou visitest him”. But what a solemn disclosure attended that visit as to man’s condition. “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden”, Gen 3: 8.
We see, then, that when God had done His best He
visited man, and that when Satan had accomplished his worst God again visits man. How we see here God is above all the evil! His own judgment pronounces all to be in accordance with His own mind at His first visit, and all to 269
be contrary to His mind at His second. And God discriminates, as a “God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed”, 1 Sam 2: 3. He pronounces a curse upon the serpent “above all cattle”, a curse upon the ground’s fertility for man’s sake, He speaks of sorrow, suffering, toil, and finally death for man himself, with especial reference to Eve’s failure as first in it, and finally drives them both forth from Eden, to walk upon the earth on which His curse rested, with death before them, and having the sword of judgment drawn against them, and the way to the tree of life “kept” from them. How awful! yet how important for us to know what the results of this visit of God were, when Satan had spoilt what His own hand had formed.
Yet both visits were visits in perfect grace, although as to any hope in man all was gone. God speaks of One who should, as the Seed of the woman, bruise the serpent’s head. All God’s purposes centre henceforth around Him. If God’s first visit to Adam declares His complacency in all, His second no less declares that all is ruined as to the first creation.
Here comes in another principle, faith. Between these visits to the first man in Genesis, and the coming on the scene of the promised Seed of the woman, we have the ages rolling onward, bearing practical testimony to the ruin of the first man in whatever way or dispensation we find him. Faith in God all along marks the line of testimony (Heb 11), without which “it is impossible to please him”, v 6.
In the New Testament the promised Seed having come, we have God, and on two occasions, again visiting man. Not the first man, but the second. There was no need to repeat the visits of Gen 1 and 3. But here was another man—“the second man”—“the Lord from heaven”, 1 Cor 15: 47. And God again visits the earth to express more than His complacency—even His delight in the One who is here.
God had indeed visited his people, Luke 1: 68. And when He is seen coming up out of Jordan, “Lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”, Matt 3: 17. It is the Father’s voice, as He contemplates the 270
One who is destined to be the Head of a new creation. So we have here, as in the early story of Genesis, God putting His own approbation upon His own provision for man.
But the tempter will seek again to mar, as in the distant day of the first creation. The story of Genesis is repeated anew. Jesus was “led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil”, Matt 4: 1. Frustrated and baffled there, and in every effort he employed, he left Him for a season, soon to return, to make a final attempt against Him with the power of death. This was all that he could do. He led man on to accomplish the hatred to God which dwelt in his own heart. “This is the heir; come, let us kill him”, Matt 21: 38. The world led on by its prince killed the “Prince of life”, Acts 3: 15. Casting Jesus out of this world, Satan has done his worst; and God visits the blessed ever obedient One lying there in the guarded grave. “God raised him from the dead”, Acts 13: 30. Man and Satan had put Him in derision between two malefactors; had crowned Him with thorns; had laid Him in the grave, sealed the stone and set a watch. God seated Him at His own “right hand”, and crowned Him “with glory and honour”, Heb 2: 7. Again, we have the result of God’s visit, when Satan had done his worst, and when he apparently had triumphed. God loses no time to speak after the manner of men. “If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him”, John 13: 32. God having been glorified in the cross as to the whole question of our sins, acts at once. He “hath glorified his Son Jesus”, Acts 3: 13. Ah, we may well delight to read the account of that early morning of His resurrection. They came very early to the sepulchre; yes, “at the rising of the sun”, Mark 16: 2.
But God had visited it before them. The tomb was not opened for Him to leave it. That, of course, were unnecessary. It was opened to let them look in, to see that He was not there.
But what are the results then to us of this last visit?
Who can estimate them? Who speak in any adequate way of them? God has found and expressed His own eternal 271
delight in Him who was made sin, and whom Satan and man accounted only worthy of death and the grave. Satan has done, in the case of the Lord, his worst. To Adam in Eden the result of this was to be driven OUT. To us the result is, that we are eternally received IN; every question of my responsibility taken up and settled. The enemy is defeated and silenced in the cross, and the only voice heard is His own, saying, “Peace be unto you”. “I go to prepare a place for you”. “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God”, John 14 and 20. And there He is, and that place is the home of every Christian. There is your finality.
I do not go beyond that, for that is enough. I am to be there with Him, who has met every question for me. With Him, the once humbled Man, yet “over all God, blessed for ever”
(Rom 9: 5), triumphing in the eternal defeat of Satan, and in the eternal blessing of those whom He purposed to bless,
“before the foundation of the world”, Eph 1: 4.
All our blessing for eternity is based on God’s estimation of what has been effected. But when man ( His creation) was tampered with and ruined, how we see the grace of God shining out. He will come and see; and when the One, who was ever His delight, has been tried in every possible way: yes, has died rather than yield to the enemy of God, as Adam did, He will again interfere and establish everything for eternity on that basis, on Christ, against whom the enemy has proved at the cross that he has no power.
And ‘Christ was there for me’, the believer can say.
Every question is settled, and He who settled them is in the glory of God. More than this, for the Holy Ghost has come down from heaven to tell me that the One who “bare our sins” (1 Pet 2: 24), and who was made sin (2 Cor 5: 21), who thus identified Himself with all my responsibilities, is in heaven, in all the unsullied light of the “Majesty on high”
(Heb 1: 3), and that I am to go into that place because He is there. Surely He has been mindful of us, to the praise of the glory of His grace. We can understand all if it is the 272
worthiness of His beloved Son in question. “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him?”, Ps 8: 4. It is the new creation in Christ, in Him, and there is no marring, no breath of sin or Satan to intrude upon it. After all the turmoil of sin, God has smelled
‘a savour of rest’, Gen 8: 21. Rest—a rest into which He has also brought us.
From A Voice to the Faithful—vol 23, 1889
273