HOW SPIRITUAL LIFE IS SUSTAINED IN THE BELIEVER

John 6: 54–57, 62, 63; 7: 37–39

JAB I just have a few and very simple thoughts to set before the dear brethren, but I know they will be greatly augmented as we speak together about them. We might speak about how spiritual life is sustained. We all know that life is very important and it is a great thing to see it begin in a young believer. Earlier in this gospel we see the principle of new birth set out by the Lord Jesus, something beginning there for God, and then that developing, and life according to God coming to light. There may be others in this room who could join with me in saying that, while we have known that life, the test is to be maintained in it. While there is nothing so encouraging as to see a believer who is in life, there is nothing so sad as to see a believer who has been in life, then you see it ebbing away. I have found that something which is very real can just ebb away a little and not be what it was. So, I wondered if we could get some help together, dear brethren, about how life is sustained; not begun, but sustained. I trust that for everyone here, life according to God has begun. But my concern is that it might be sustained. We had a word on Tuesday evening, which greatly encouraged me, about the way in which the Lord Jesus is the Originator of life, but it is not just the initial thing. He originates it, and then as Mr Darby’s note in that section says, ‘It is used for one who begins and sets a matter on’. We were reminded of Joseph in Genesis as the Sustainer of life. That is my exercise.

We have read in a chapter which is a very profound scripture, and I read from John 6 with a bit of hesitancy. But I wondered if we see, in the first section we read, the culmination of Jesus’ teaching about how life is maintained. John 6 is not about initial life, it is about feeding on Jesus and, in that way, life in the believer being maintained. The verses we have read are the culmination of that line of teaching which begins earlier in the chapter—then these very precious and interesting words of the Lord Jesus in verse 63, “It is the Spirit which quickens”. The Lord has spoken in the previous chapter of how the Father quickens and the Son quickens, but now we see the Spirit brought before us as the One who quickens, and the necessity of understanding that “the flesh profits nothing—the words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life”. It is verse 63 which has been particularly before my mind, how we are sustained in life individually. We can never know life collectively unless we know it individually. There is only one way to it, and that is coming to appreciate the Lord Jesus as the only true source of satisfaction, and the Spirit as the One who makes alive. Then, as knowing the Spirit in that way, something flows out of the believer and we get the beginnings of what is collective in verse 39 of chapter 7, “which they that believed on him were about to receive”. My simple exercise is that we might encourage one another and be sustained in this wonderful life that has its origin in heaven.

JS I think it is very important to see the point you are making about this having to be a continuous thing. In verse 53 He says, “Unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, and drunk his blood, ye have no life in yourselves”. That would be the starting point. Then verse 54 says, “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal”, so that is to be continuous or characteristic of the believer, the appropriation of the death of Christ?

JAB It is a tremendous chapter and it begins much earlier by the Lord Jesus speaking of Himself as “the bread of God is he who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6: 33), and then “I am the bread of life—he that comes to me shall never hunger, and he that believes on me shall never thirst at any time” (John 6: 35). We need to know that. We may have had the experience of coming initially to Christ and having faith, and faith of course brings in life, “the just shall live by his faith”, Habakkuk 2: 4. But then what you have said about the death of the Lord Jesus is important. Say more about that please.

JS I just thought that the reference to eating my flesh and drinking my blood means that we can only really come to this through the appropriation of the death of Christ. We have to appropriate that in order to live and that needs to be maintained by us, day by day, does it?

JAB Yes. You are using a word which we always use when we speak about this chapter—appropriation. What does that mean?

JS I think it means that we give place to it in our minds and hearts, would you say?

JAB Yes, I do. The Lord Jesus had to die to make Himself available as this food. What does that mean for me? How much do I think of what it meant for the Lord Jesus to die, the Originator of life lying in death, because it was as in death, speaking very reverently, that His flesh and His blood were apart. We speak reverently of the death of Jesus. It is as having died that He becomes available to us. He came down from heaven to make Himself available to man as food, in the setting of this chapter.

JS Which shows it is a matter of the occupation of our minds with that, but also our affections. It has to reach into our hearts, has it not?

JAB I feel the importance of what you have just said. Quickening is not something that works primarily in the mind. It must have an effect on the way that I think, but, first of all, it must change my affections.

MGW What could you say about having an appetite for this. There cannot be any food or nourishment that is superior to this, it is infinitely wonderful. Can you help us about getting an appetite for it, a longing for it?

JAB Well, I think the key to it is what has just been said about the affections. We have all known what it is to be exhorted to read the ministry and to read the Scriptures and, at least I have to confess, not always having an appetite for it. But when your affections are engaged with the One who is the subject of that ministry, and the One who is the subject of the word of God that we read, then it completely changes the thing. What would you say?

MGW I think that what affects our hearts is the movements of love of the Lord Jesus into death. He loved us, and the heart that responds in affection to Jesus wants to feed on this.

You get to the point where you do not want anything that just activates or excites your mind, you want something that really moves your heart, and you get some consciousness that you are actually feeding on the Lord and the greatness of His love. He laid down His life for us.

JAB I think that what we are speaking about is, to a great extent anyway, experimental; we have to find for ourselves that Jesus is the only One who can really satisfy. When I was young I used to love reading literature, but you come to it eventually that there is no real satisfaction. There is maybe a kind of stimulation in it but there is no satisfaction; this is the only food—truly food and truly drink—that can satisfy the believer. Is that what we have to come to?

MGW Yes, “I am the bread of life” and then further “I am the bread which has come down out of heaven”. You recognise life when you see it and when it strikes into your soul.

JDG The emblems on the table on a Lord’s day morning are a tangible expression to us of the body and blood of Christ being apart. It affects us in our affections, does it not? It has been pointed out in ministry that the emblems remain there during the whole course of the service, so that the basis of what we come into was there in a dead Christ. But He is not dead now!

JAB Yes, that is right. I am glad of what you say, for while this teaching in John 6 is not the Supper, it has a bearing on the Supper and the way in which He is presented in the emblems. That should appeal to our affections. Indeed we know that it does, and we need to be kept in the good of that.

GBG So the Lord purposely took up this condition in view of ending it before God, in view of opening up life beyond death for us. That is where the affections come in, as you see the Lord moving in this way, otherwise we could have no part in His life beyond death.

JAB That is right. Life beyond death is more than the manna, is it not? Say more about that.

GBG I suppose the manna is to sustain us in the wilderness pathway, having the features of Christ.

JAB Yes, we need the manna. The manna speaks of the lowliness of Jesus as He walked here, but this is more than the manna. This is putting us in touch with One who is beyond death, and that is why I think there is a link between verses 57 and 62. In verse 57, the Lord speaks about “he also who eats me”, not now flesh and blood, but Me, “he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”. That seems to be the culmination of the teaching of appropriation in this chapter. Then in verse 62, “If then ye see the Son of man ascending up where he was before”, it is knowing Him where He is alive now, because it is from that position of glory that He satisfies our souls.

GBG The Lord has reached His present position by way of death. And we have to morally go by the way of death to have part in the realm of life with Christ. It has been said it is a passing-over food. We do not continually find our life in things relating to nature but in things relating to Christ where He is.

JAB Yes, I am glad of what you say, because we have all tried to mix it. We have all tried to feed on Jesus and on something else that is of human nature, and we find to our cost that we cannot do it. I wondered if that was the importance of the statement in the middle of verse 63, “the flesh profits nothing”. We have to learn that. The Jews here are listening to what the Lord Jesus was saying, and applying it literally, and just not getting the point at all.

They kept on asking for a sign and saying to themselves, What does He mean? How can we feed on Him like this? The Jews did not understand at all what the Lord Jesus was meaning, and neither will we if we approach this according to human nature. Is that what you have in mind? We have to accept that we have to die morally to get the benefit of this food.

GBG That is something that you do not just accept once for all. Accepting death is a moment by moment thing; the flesh is there in each one of us ready to assert itself.

JAB That is right.

JAG Would it help us to appreciate the vastness of God’s will and the greatness of His love, so that we find our life there; you get the thought of dwelling coming in.

JAB Say more about what you have in mind about dwelling.

JAG Well, I think that is where we would live, “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him”. It is a very blessed and buoyant position.

JAB I need the help of the brethren to open this up. In verse 55 the emphasis is on what is truly food and truly drink; we have to come to that experimentally, have we not, that there is nothing else that can satisfy us? But then what you have referred to in verse 56 takes us a little further, “dwells in me and I in him”. What is the link between satisfaction and dwelling?

JAG I think that they are bound up together, you will not live in a place that you do not like. It seems to me to bear a little bit on Colossians.

JAB Quickened together?

JAG You are drawn over, you want to go over to where He is.

JAB Yes, that is good.

RG Is that the test for us, dwelling in Him? It is where He is, and the kind of man that is there. That is the only kind of man we would desire to dwell in us, in contrast to all that Christendom has become, typified in the Jews, and all that is around us, feeding on what might be quasi-religious. But is not the real food of this character, do you think?

JAB I am glad of what is coming in as to “dwells in me and I in him”, because that is where He is now, is it not? It is not that we are setting aside what we have been saying about appropriating the death of Jesus, because we must do that, and the teaching of the chapter is progressive, is it not? We need to see what the Lord’s objective is in the teaching of this chapter. It is occupation with Him, and so He says, “If then ye see the Son of man ascending up where he was before”. It is a wonderful thing to know Him there, where He was before. He has come, He has made Himself available, He has died and we feed on the meaning of His death, and understand what that means for us in human nature. Then we have this living link with Him where He is now.

RT It was only when they got over the Jordan that they ate the old corn of the land.

JAB Yes, say more about that please.

RT They passed over, there was a line of things that was finished, even the manna finished then, but they had to be in those circumstances over the Jordan. Then they had dwelling conditions there too, but they had to be over the Jordan to get it.

JAB So how are you linking going over the Jordan and the land with what the Lord is speaking about here?

RT Their eye had to be on the ark, they had to follow those movements of His, and He leads them into life everlasting.

JAB Yes, I have been very interested in verse 57 and the note to, “I live on account of the Father”. The note says ‘by reason of what the Father is and his living’. The Lord goes on to say, “he also who eats me”, and I think that is feeding on Him where He is now, is that what you have in mind, “he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”? If you apply the note to that it means that he who eats Him shall live also on account of His living and being. It is the thought of sharing in that character of life that He has where He is. Is that going too far to say that?

RT It introduces a life of dependence, does it not? Not self-satisfaction but dependence on this source of life.

JS I want to follow up this remark about “he also who eats me”, it is Christ where He is, Christ in His own circumstances.

JAB How do we feed on Him there? We have spoken about feeding on His death, which may be more readily understandable, the moral necessity of understanding what it meant for the Originator of life to lie in death. We can feed by the Spirit on what that meant for the Father, and what it meant for the Originator of life to be there, and understand that I have to go that way. That is feeding on His death, what we talk about as appropriating it and dying with Him; it is really the exercises of baptism. But how do we appropriate Him in the same way where He is now? What does that involve?

JS The Lord says, “As the living Father has sent me and I live on account of the Father, he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”. Do you think we are drawn into how He lived in relation to the Father, and still lives in relation to the Father, and as occupied with Him in that setting we come into the enjoyment of His life?

JAB Yes. Is it consciousness of association with Him where He is? Actually, realising that that association is real.

JS I think it needs to impress our souls that He is a real living Man, and we can have a living link with Him and be sustained in relation to Him in that world where He is.

JAB Yes, quickening is not entirely a matter of faith, is it?

JS Quickening is something that really happens. You might have gone on for a time in certain things (I am drawing a little on my own experience here) and perhaps you had not much interest in the Lord and His things, then suddenly something really strikes you, something happens inwardly in your soul and you realise you have a living link with a Man in glory. “He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit”, 1 Corinthians 6: 17. Do you think that feeding on His death separates us from the whole course of things here? Enjoyment and life come from a living link with Christ, by the Spirit, and that is really what sustains us.

JAB I feel the importance of that. That would take us on to verse 63 I think, “It is the Spirit which quickens”. We know that divine Persons are all involved in quickening and, of course, it is the Son of God who is “the last Adam a quickening spirit”, 1 Corinthians 15: 45. But, in the sense of the exercise that we are speaking about as to being maintained in life, the Spirit has a particular place in that subjectively. The Lord immediately says “the flesh profits nothing”, and that really is another way of saying that if we are not prepared for the ending of ourselves after human nature, then all that we are speaking about today is just a picture on the wall.

CKR My spiritual life has to be sustained both in the wilderness and in privilege, is that right?

JAB Yes.

CKR Now, what sustains me in each of these settings, because I do not think it is the same, is it?

JAB Well, that is an interesting enquiry; they may not be entirely the same. It might help to go back to a remark that was made in a meeting recently that impressed me, and led me to enquire about this. It was at the burial of a sister a little while ago in Edinburgh. In one of the words, a brother said that the faith which our dear sister had, had animated her. That was a test to me. Does my faith animate me? That led on to thinking of how I was sustained in life. Now, in one sense the two things you have referred to flow into one another. What the Lord Jesus brings in in John chapters 4, 5 and 6 is individual, the Lord is speaking about what is available to believers. I am to be made to live by what the Lord brings in in chapter 4, the living water springing up into eternal life; then chapter 5, the voice of the Son of God, and those who have heard it shall live; and then this chapter, feeding on Him where He is. That will take us through the wilderness into the realm of privilege. What do you say?

CKR I was thinking of Caleb. Caleb said “Jehovah has kept me alive”, Joshua 14: 10. He kept him alive in the wilderness and He also kept him alive right into the land, and Joshua claimed his inheritance. That was a man who was obviously feeding on the right food, he was sustained. Now, we have the resource in Christ, in a living Man glorified in heaven, but also to reflect on Him as He was down here. So we have to hold both, and that is maybe a test for us, a healthy challenge.

JAB Yes, it is. I think it bears on what has been said already as to the affections. Quickening changes the affections and the believer whose affections are made to live regarding a Man in another world will be sustained through the wilderness and sustained in praise, because all of this has in view response to God. That is the objective.

JS Do you think it helps us to realise it is the same Person we are feeding on, whether it is in the wilderness or in the realm of privilege where He is? I think it helps us and strengthens us morally and spiritually to appropriate the Lord Jesus as having come into these circumstances down here. We see how He has been in them and we feed on Him as having been in them. The other side is, He is now in different circumstances and He wants us to share in these circumstances where He is. That is the kind of food that will sustain us.

JAB That is right. How often have we heard, and the truth of it just sinks deeper and deeper in a conversation like this, that to be like Him where He was, (that is here) we must know Him where He is. The young people here who listen in the meetings will have heard that said many times. That is really another way of saying what we are trying to say in this reading.

RT It says, “If then ye see the Son of man ascending up where he was before”.

JAB 1 thought that verse was important, say more about it.

RT It is not only as He was. Christendom is largely about Jesus as He was here. But it is “up where he was before”. He has become the Head of a new system altogether and from that Head there is flowing a supply of grace and power to sustain us in the joy of His present position.

JAB Yes. I had the impression that verse 57, “he also who eats me shall live also on account of me” is the ascended Man.

RG Is this worked out for us in practical terms in Stephen, do you think? It is obvious from the testimony which he renders, in Acts chapter 7, that he had followed and appropriated the Man that was here, but then he says, “Lo, I behold the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God”, Acts 7: 56. It is the Son of man that is

ascended, and Stephen’s life then is characterised by drawing on that Man where He is, as He is, because it is not only where He is, but it is as He is. That was the Man that he was going to continue in communion with, even through death of this flesh and blood condition, do you think?

JAB Yes. Really this aspect of what the Lord brings in here as to where He is, is amplified later in John’s gospel, in chapters 14, 15 and 16, and in chapter 17, of course, that wonderful prayer. We see this all opened out there. But the kernel of it is here, and one exercise I have is that this is accessible to every believer, to the youngest person here who knows the Lord Jesus as their Saviour. This life, and the maintenance of it, is available, because God wants us all to live in this way.

JAG This is the background to what sustains Philadelphia’s little power in the revival, as love amongst the brethren for instance.

JAB It certainly works out in that way in our relationships with one another, and we can stimulate one another in this, can we not?

JAG Yes, and keep His word.

JAB Well, I wondered if we could just get a little more help about verse 63. We are speaking about life, and the enemy wants to imitate life. He cannot make life but he can imitate it, and we see that too around us in Christendom, we see the imitation of what we are speaking about in an outward sense, where there is a lot of charisma and enjoyment and no doubt a lot of very real love for the Lord Jesus. You might ask, Is that quickening? That looks good. But then the Lord Jesus immediately says, “the flesh profits nothing—the words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life”. So we need to understand that this life which we can enjoy in Christ is enjoyed within the framework of His words, the truth. Is that right?

JAG Yes, I think so. There are persons who say they are Jews that are not, but lie, and that surrounds us. To be consciously quickened and alive is something very special.

JAB Certainly.

MGW Did this not come in in response to a situation where some were offended and some were going away back, even His own who had been with Him? Does it bring up the question, Is there going to be evidence of life? When you come to your next scripture, if one is coming to Jesus and drinking, there is going to be evidence of that, because the brother or sister will not only be in life but they will always be in freshness, because they are regularly going to Jesus to drink. What is the point of merely talking about life? Someone has a right to ask, Where is the evidence of it?

JAB Well, life is available in Christ, and it is for everyone. The Spirit, a Person of the Godhead, is working actively in the believer, working formatively. It is not a matter of faith, but a matter of actual experience and therefore demonstration. You cannot imitate life, but you must be able to take account of it. If I am sitting here just talking about these things, then that would just be a parody of life, but the Holy Spirit is here to produce this formatively, in reality in believers, and we know what we mean when we say we can see it.

GBG It is the Spirit that quickens. You might say that it is the Spirit’s sovereign action, but does this quickening come on the line of desire? What would you say about that?

JAB Yes, I think it does. There may be believers in this room who have the Spirit but are not conscious of this rising up inside them, and they may say to themselves, I would like to have that. Turn to the Spirit. Something in Mr Meek’s book impressed me very much, he was quoting Mr Alfred Wellershaus, who said that in the desert, if you dig a well and just leave it, if you do not work at it, the sand will tend to drift in and clog it up. I know when that has happened in my experience. It is not that you turn your back on what the Spirit is doing, but you maybe just ignore it, you lie back, you lose the edge of your exercise in speaking to the Spirit every day, and the desert sand slowly fills the well.

GBG Psalm 119 is especially good for young persons. A number of times there the psalmist asks to be quickened. That is exercise from our side. So, where there is exercise, the Spirit will gladly come in and this quickening will be a continual thing, will it not? The affections have to be continually kept alive.

JAB That is an excellent reference and we can all do that, ask the Spirit to quicken us, to keep us alive.

JS Why does the Lord say, “It is the Spirit which quickens”, and follow that by the word, “the flesh profits nothing”?

JAB Because, as soon as the enemy sees this quickening, this vitality in a believer, he is in there fast. We have to be ready for that, and understand that the enemy will seek to deflect us from this, will seek to bring other things before us which he will pretend can satisfy us. He will seek to imitate what it truly life, what is truly food, so we have always to be on our guard.

JS Do you think in order to make room for the Spirit in His living power, we need to have a definite judgment of what would get in His way, what springs from the flesh?

JAB Yes, if we go through our lives in any measure of exercise about these things, we will have experienced times when we have waned in our appreciation of the Spirit’s work in us. It may not be because of gross evil, it may be pressure of circumstances or stress from whatever it might be, illness or family exercises. Even these things can deflect us from the enjoyment of the Spirit’s quickening service to us. But the flesh profits nothing.

RG The flesh takes different characters. The battle in this section of John’s gospel is against religious flesh. Now, we are surrounded by that kind of thing, but then it can come into me; I could be taking part, if you like, and yet it is as dead as the dodo. But what the Lord is getting at here is that there should be a quickening in me that would correspond with the One who is Himself alive at the right hand of God.

JAB I think that very much. This service of the Spirit is a constant one, “It is the Spirit which quickens”, that service is available to us constantly, to counter these tendencies in us. We all know what it is just to say the right thing. Anyone with a half-reasonable memory can remember what other people said at a particular time in the service of God and just repeat it, that is just what you say. But there is a vitality in those who are in the good of this which cannot be gainsaid, and it is very, very attractive.

JSp Would this correspond in some way with the exercises of Romans 8 with regard to the flesh and the Spirit? I think that is the way we arrive at true experience, the two lines that are in us, one leads to death and the other leads to life. If we make way for the Spirit He will lead us to Christ. He will lead us really into the assembly as well.

JAB Yes. He will. Do you think then that an appreciation of “the words which I have spoken unto you” would help us as to that? I have been wondering about the scope of what the Lord meant when He said that. Do you think it was only the words He had said to them up until this point in time, or do you think it had in mind the whole canon of truth that was expressed in Him, and then through His apostles, is available to us in the word of God? “Spirit and ... life” is a wonderful expression.

JSp I certainly think it is the whole canon of truth. It is what Peter came to, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal”, John 6: 68.

DCB When we eat naturally there is the thought of sustaining life, and the thought of gaining substance. These two things go together, do they not? We are sustained in what is spiritual, but there is substance being built up. Eating tends to be to satisfy our appetite, and tasting that the Lord is good would give us the appetite for these things.

JAB We often speak about the need to acquire spiritual substance, but would you agree that it is a spiritual result of the process we are speaking about? If you are occupied with Christ, the Spirit will form substance in you which will go through into eternity. That is what we speak of as the work of God in a believer. Would you agree with that?

DCB So that it is of His character. There is what is formed in you that is of the character of Christ and there is substance that will go through into eternity.

JAB I wondered if we could just see how this works out.

We have been speaking about the reality of the Spirit’s work, how it is active and formative and now it flows out. It has its source in Christ, but it comes out, “He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. There is nothing so attractive and influential as someone who is really in the good of this.

MGW It is worth encouraging. Do you think there is a wonderful grace about the setting here? This was the great day of the feast, but it was as formal and as dead as it possibly could be. In the midst of this the Lord is recognising there were souls athirst that He could satisfy; they would be satisfied, not only for their own blessing and comfort and refreshment, but out of them would flow rivers of living water.

JAB That is right, that is what the Lord has in mind. It is a very interesting verse. I would suggest to all the young Christians here that they should ask themselves which scripture the Lord was quoting from, “as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. Do a little homework on that, try and find out what scripture the Lord was thinking of when He said this!

JDG Do you think all this came from the fact that the word that was spoken was spirit and their life? Do you think the substance flowing out comes from the results of that word entering into my soul?

JAB Do you mean that something enters in but then it is seen in testimony? Is that what you have in mind?

JDG Yes, what we spoke about earlier, “the words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life”. It has a result in the soul of a believer., now there is something that can flow out, that has flowed in.

JAB Yes. It has its source in Christ where He is and then it flows out horizontally. You get this reference to, “which they that believed on him were about to receive”, so it affects others. I trust that is happening in a meeting like this. Most of what we have been speaking about is individual and it has to start there, but then, if it is working, it will affect others.

RT Was this not demonstrated at Pentecost, first of all in the twelve, but also in the lame man walking and leaping and

praising God? We see how the dispensation has been set on in this character. Persons that believed on Him made room for the Spirit who had come in this character, and it flowed out into that man who came into the joy of Christianity.

JAB I think what you have said would emphasise and it is very important that all of what we are speaking about is not an end in itself. Our satisfaction is not an end in itself. The enjoyment of life is not an end in itself, it all has in view walking and leaping and praising God, so that there is an answer to Him from hearts that are quickened in this way.

CKR You could take it on to Philippi as well. Paul and Silas were actively believing, out of their belly flowed rivers of living water towards the jailor and towards Philippi. So the formation of every local company under Paul’s ministry reflects this line of approach, that something is received inwardly then comes out into the formation of what is for God in a place, in a person.

JAB Yes, so the extension of it is really in the composition of local assemblies. If they are composed of persons who are in the good of what we have been speaking of, it is something impregnable.

CKR So then you begin to look around your local meeting, is life being sustained?

Am I being sustained in life? Are my local brethren being sustained in life? And then beyond that.

JAB That is my exercise. I trust that, having spoken about it, largely on an individual basis in this reading, it will raise exercise with every one of us. We can ask for this, can ask God to quicken us, to make us live and to appreciate more the blessed One where He is. He is the source of this life.

JAG Persons in touch with Christ constantly.

JAB Yes, very much so.

RG What has been referred to already, at Pentecost, there were all these different persons saying, “we hear them speaking in our own tongues the great things of God”, Acts 2: 11. That is the rivers flowing out, is it not?

JAB Very good. That river is flowing today.

RG You have to get to the source, the source is not in

yourself, it is the great things of God by the Spirit, who is God, and that is flowing out to others, do you think?

JAB Very good.

GBG And that would be the Spirit in life to others, would it not? The Lord did not occupy persons with just ordinary things. Even in our houses with the brethren there can be spiritual conversations. That is the character of spirit and life. The great things of God would be on that line.

JAB These things are inexhaustible, the supply of the Spirit of life is inexhaustible. It is the only thing that can sustain the believer in life, and the only thing that can keep us satisfied.

Reading at Dundee
22 October 2005

KEY TO INITIALS

D. C. Brown

G. B. Grant

J. Strachan

J. A. Brown

J. D. Gray

R. Taylor

J. A. Gardiner

C. K. Robinson

M. G. Wood

R. Gardiner

J. Spinks