ACQUAINTANCE WITH CHRIST - HIS PATHWAY ON EARTH
[p. 349] ACQUAINTANCE WITH CHRIST — HIS PATHWAY ON EARTH
I have read this verse in order to bring before you the next step of acquaintance with Christ. I have tried to present to you how you are acquainted with Him risen, as having removed every shade of distance between the blessed God and yourself, and that you are sealed by the Spirit of God, and have tasted His love in the very place of your misery; now the unfailing mark of that step is that you are not occupied with your sins or yourself, but with Him. Be assured this is the effect. Jonathan was not occupied with his sufferings on account of Goliath, when Goliath was gone; he was occupied with David.
The second step was that you are acquainted with Him in glory. The Holy Spirit has come down from the glorified Christ, and He is the One who has sealed us; and if we are walking in the Spirit, Christ is always paramount. I do not say, beloved friends, that He is paramount to every sealed soul, because the Corinthians were sealed, and the Galatians were sealed, but they were not walking in the Spirit. They were sealed, but we read in the epistles to them how thoroughly they were diverted from the true line; but when the apostle gains the ear of the Corinthians, he presents to them Christ in glory, where all things are of God, and flesh cannot be. In Galatians, he shows that Isaac displaces Ishmael. It is an immense comfort to your heart, because in your daily walk, it is not so much what you should do, as whether Christ is paramount to you. As a sailor in a storm looks out for the sun; if he can see the sun, he can tell the bearings of the ship. The great gain of knowing Christ [p. 350] in glory is, that you are brought into a new order of things; you cannot conceive any greater contrast than between Christ in glory and the order of things on earth where Christ has been rejected. In the scene of all your wretchedness and degradation, you have found a Saviour who cares for you; and at the very moment when you are most conscious of your unworthiness — like the prodigal son, or like Peter when he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord”, Jesus said to him, “Fear not” — you have found a friend in Jesus.
But beholding Christ in glory you have before you a new order of things, and, like the queen of Sheba, you are entranced. It is His wisdom now (you do not lose the sense of His love); when you believe in Christ as the wisdom of God, you have confidingness in Him. Love ensures confidence; but wisdom gives confidingness. You might be sure of the love of many, but you might not be sure of their wisdom; when you know the wisdom of the one who loves you, you can always confide, and the one in whom you most confide has the greatest influence over you, because he is in possession of your full mind. “She (the queen of Sheba) communed with him (Solomon) of all that was in her heart”. Now in this acquaintance with Christ, you are absorbed with Him; you are beholding every ray of the glory resting upon a Man. The glory is the expression of God’s satisfaction according to all His attributes — holiness, truth, righteousness — all rests upon a Man, your Saviour. You behold the Lord’s glory, and instead of being repulsed, or affrighted, as Isaiah was, you are greeted with the ministration of righteousness; and a wonderful thing occurs — you are transformed into the same image! Our translators could not catch the idea, and they put the word ‘changed’. The word is used only four times in Scripture, and it is translated twice ‘transfigured’, and in Romans 12 ‘transformed’. It [p. 351] means that you are brought into moral correspondence with Christ.
Now I come to the third step in your acquaintance with Christ. You have made acquaintance with Him in glory; and the great effect of it is, that you desire to be acquainted with Him in His pathway here. He was superior to circumstances here where you are to serve. That is our subject tonight. You are upon earth, and though you know Him and see Him in glory, in unclouded beauty in a new order of things, you are down here in this scene, and you have to learn to walk here even as He walked. You have to make His acquaintance in His pathway here. Beloved friends, I know how very little we are practically superior to our circumstances in this world. If you know Christ in glory, the effect on you is that you seek to be clear of every interruption. You have been in the highest circle, you have seen the glory of God resting on a Man, and that Man your Saviour. And now you learn the apostle’s own experience — “Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus”. You are in this world, and it is a terrible thing to find that you are in a place where everything is contrary to God, and therefore the question is, how can you maintain your acquaintance with Him under these circumstances? I am sure this is a question which will interest every one who seeks to serve Him. You may say, as many a Christian can say, I know the Lord, I know what it is to lose myself in His presence, in the sense of the blessedness He is in. But you are here to serve Him; look at all around you; look at yourself; look at the power of the enemy; look at your own weakness. Though you are acquainted with Christ in glory, still there is here where you are, the power of Satan as well as your own weakness. There is conflict here, and you ever want succour for conflict and support for infirmity. You have to learn as Israel did: Israel crossed the Red Sea, and they [p. 352] drank of the bitter water, they drank death; then they fed on the manna; then the rock was smitten; and then there is conflict. Conflict is with the enemy. First you must feed upon Christ in death; “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you”. You then feed upon Him, as He was here; that is the manna. You must “reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Jesus Christ our Lord”; which is fully carried out in 2 Corinthians 4, where the apostle tells you his own experience, “always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus”. I believe that if you were entranced with the blessedness of knowing Christ in a scene of incomparable perfection, you would be glad to be free of everything which would interfere with your enjoyment of Him. The Corinthians failed because they were not dead to sin; that is the beginning of every failure. If you are not walking in the Spirit, you are not in faith reckoning yourself dead with Christ. You will be free of your old man through His death; it is not merely sometimes but ‘always’. Some do not know the way; some do know it, but do not keep up to it, and then they are not walking in the Spirit. As we read in Galatians 5, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit”; every believer in Christ lives in the Spirit, but everyone does not walk in the Spirit, and if you are not walking in the Spirit, you are walking in the flesh. I need not dwell upon it, but it is plain that if you knew and enjoyed the fact of being in a scene of transcendent blessedness where every ray of divine glory is resting on your Saviour, you would not like anything which would disturb or hinder your enjoyment. But you are on the earth where the impediments are two-fold; one the power of the enemy, and the other your personal weakness. In Exodus 17 you find that Amalek came out to fight against Israel; now that is conflict. When Moses held up his hand [p. 353] Israel prevailed; they were succoured. I am now speaking of the opposition you encounter here. I will come to our own weakness presently. You can rise above the opposition, “In that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able also to succour them that are tempted”. Look at our Lord’s temptation by Satan. In Luke you find the moral order: the first temptation, “If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread”, is, use your own means, act independently of God. Constantly you see a believer thus ensnared: the Lord refuses, quoting Deuteronomy 8. The second is, to accept power from the god of this world; this many Christians do. And the third is, you seek for some palpable proof of God’s intervention on your behalf. If you fail in the first, the others will follow.
You know very little about your own history if you do not know that the effort of Satan has been to divert you from following the Lord. As Israel encountered Amalek when they were first starting in the wilderness, so you may have seen that when a believer is starting for the Lord, the first thing Satan does is to try to turn him aside by the fear of man. There are two things, the fear of man, and the favour of man. You may stand fear pretty well; but very few can withstand the world’s favour. The first form of opposition is intimidation, that is Amalek; but God will have war with Amalek for ever and ever. Amalek is not a type of the flesh, the flesh is judged; Amalek is Satan, and Satan is overcome through the intercession of Christ. Let me ask you, when the power of fear confronted you in your path, did you find that the Lord had been interested about you, and that you, as Joshua, prevailed through the Spirit of Christ?
In the verse I have read the Lord says “My peace I give unto you”. Think how the Lord walked in this world. I am not aware that He ever altered a circumstance for Himself; but I find we are often [p. 354] wishing and expecting that the circumstances will be altered. When the Lord was in the storm in the ship He was asleep; Matthew 8. Some commentators tell you that He was taking rest. That is not the point; He was there to prove His superiority to the circumstances here. He is not now in these circumstances: He is supreme. As we know Him in His walk here we learn how we can be superior to circumstances here. The Lord was down here in our circumstances, but always superior to them. He did not seek anything for Himself; He had not where to lay His head; but He always found His true resource in God; as He said when He came to the most painful moment of His history, “Ye shall leave me alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me”. Thus He taught them the Father — “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” — as their compensation for their loss of earthly things.
I now refer to Balaam. The Balaam snare is the opposite to fear; it, is favour with the world. The Corinthians failed because they were in the favour of the world, they were in social friendship with it. You will find that a Christian who is on social terms with worldly people is greatly hindered; he is leavened by them; and his children suffer from it. There are these two hindrances; one fear, and the other favour. When you suffer from fear you triumph where you are cast upon the Lord. “He ever liveth to make intercession for us”. A wonderful cheer when the heart learns it. You turn to Him as the One who lives to succour you, and you know His succour. The Lord make you know it more and more. You will never know Him as your friend until you do. It is said, ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed’. When you have proved Him a friend, you prevail over Amalek in the Spirit of Christ. You are thus led into personal acquaintance with Himself. It is a wonderful thing to be acquainted with Him as He was here. You are [p. 355] in the world where everything is contrary to God, and He says, “My peace I give unto you”, unbroken, unruffled peace, though you are not untroubled. “My peace”. What a wonderful thing! It is not only “Peace I leave with you”, but “My peace I give unto you”.
I have spoken of the conflict, the power that is against you. You see what is before you in this world, but you have His succour. Bear in mind that I have not touched upon the enemies in the land. If you cannot run with the footmen, you cannot run with the horsemen; if you cannot overcome in the wilderness conflict you will not enter on the heavenly conflict. Heaven is your place; and so much the more should you be able to enjoy it. It is not a question of your right; you have the right, but you may not enjoy your right, because you do not follow the lead of the Spirit of God.
Turn to John 14: 26, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send unto you in my name. He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you”. In the gospel narrative we read how the Lord went through this world, how He bore up against everything. And now the Comforter is come to teach us how He was here. You cannot get this by reading the gospels; you get the account of it by reading the gospels, but you get it by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven by the Father. He enables you to walk here even as Christ walked, so that, though you were not on the earth with Him, yet when you read the gospels in the Spirit, you can realise nearness to Him. The Bible surpasses every other book, for it leads you into living reality with the things related, as if you were there yourself. You get such touches of His grace in it, “When he was alone he expounded all things to his disciples”. How He endeared Himself to them! In what a way they knew [p. 356] Him! Hence you can understand the apostle saying, even after thirty years, “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord”. Be assured that this is the measure of every one, not your knowledge of the Bible, but your knowledge of Christ. Peter says, “Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ”.
I turn now to your weakness. Sometimes we think only of the power against us, but there is infirmity on our own side. In the gospel narrative you see not only the man overpowered by the legion, but you see the woman who spent all her living on physicians and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. She had to contend with infirmity. In the one case, power against you overcomes you, and in the other, you are oppressed with infirmity. Man is in a sad case! It is good to realise the state of things you are in naturally. I have spoken of the power of the enemy against you here in the wilderness. I do not speak yet of the power of Satan connected with heavenly things, but only of his opposition to you upon the earth, and this opposition has two forms, the fear of man and the favour of man.
Now I turn to the hindrance from infirmity. In John 11 you get a practical illustration of Hebrews 4; and it is most important to apprehend the Lord’s support in your infirmity. In John 11, you have the death of Lazarus. Martha does not obtain sympathy or support; she gets relief eventually. As I have already instanced about the storm; you are probably looking for relief from it; you may say, the storm is beyond all human endurance. I know it is, and hence, generally, we are looking for relief. But there is a greater blessing for us than relief, there is the Lord’s support, for it imparts to you an acquaintance with Himself which relief does not. Relief makes a man more satisfied with things here. I have known some [p. 357] who could tell you of a long list of mercies, most touching, truly the proof of the tenderness of the blessed God. Thank God, we all know something of this tenderness. But then there is a greater blessing, namely, that He does not remove the pressure, but raises you above it, so that, though you are not relieved, You are better off than if you were merely relieved, because you know His heart who supports you under the pressure: you have made a deeper acquaintance with your Lord; and your heart is more attached to Him. The great object or moral intention of the epistle to the Hebrews is to detach you from earth by drawing away your heart to Christ in heaven.
It was a wonderful moment to Mary when the Lord walked beside her. “Jesus wept”. He is in sympathy with her, He can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, tempted in all points like as we are, apart from sin. Having therefore, “a great high priest, who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God”, who, in all our afflictions, was afflicted, but is now above the heavens. Most blessed when one knows a little of His sympathy, He raises you above the pressure by His nearness to you — the nearness of One who has passed through the heavens. There are three great pressures: the pressure of circumstances; you may be too rich even, or you may be poor; the pressure of bad health, a very great pressure; and the pressure of sorrow, which is the greatest of all, because there is no relief for bereavement. The Lord sympathises with Mary in her bereavement; He has a deeper sense of the terrible havoc wrought by death than any one. Mary discovers in her sorrow that the Lord thinks about her, and comes near her in His sympathy. When you were under pressure, were you looking for the Lord’s sympathy? The word exposes your motives and aim; for the Lord cannot support you unless you tread the path in which He walked. He spoke to Martha, but He did not support her. The Lord [p. 358] supports Mary first before He raises Lazarus; she learnt His sympathy before she was relieved.
It is an immense comfort that in bereavement He will support you all along to the resurrection. His mighty hand revealing His heart, reaches down from above the heavens, and He says, as it were to you, Take My Hand; I have been down into that sorrow; I have known the greatest sorrow: but am out of it all now, and I can raise you up to Myself. It is very wonderful; you know Him now in a way you never knew Him before; and thus the trial mellows you. If it does not mellow you, it hardens you. A man is not broken by trial, unless there is with it a sense of sin. Christians pass through trial after trial, but often grow harder and harder. Many go on nicely until some great affliction overtakes them, and then they are so engrossed with their sorrow, that they make the sorrow an excuse for self-occupation.
We see in Paul and Silas at Philippi a sample of the Lord’s way. They were strengthened by His grace; they had suffered dreadfully in every way, maltreated every way, but they are supported above it, and are praying and praising God; then comes the relief — the earthquake loosens their chains. Doubtless, relief will come, but it is great gain for you to know support first. The Lord would like you to have this blessed acquaintance with Himself.
The effect of relief without support generally is, that you are carried away with the greatness of the relief. On the other hand, the practical result of support is surpassingly shown in Mary’s act. John 12: 7, “Against the day of my burying hath she kept this” — a very rare act in our day. “And the house was filled with the odour of the ointment”. He had so drawn her heart to Himself, He so supported her in her deep sorrow, that if He is not here, nothing can be bright to her here. I need not add much more.
I have called your attention to the fact that you are [p. 359] in a world in every way opposite to the glory where you have known the Lord. It is surprising that things can go on at all in a place where He is rejected, where there is the deadliest opposition to Him, but also where you yourself are naturally of it. Hence you must begin with “our old man is crucified with Christ”. In order to live here as He lived, you must feed upon His death. You are glad to reckon yourselves to be “dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus”. I desire to impress this much on you. If you know Christ in the glory of God, you will rejoice that everything which interferes with your joining Him there, should be removed, even yourself in abeyance. But you are passing through a world of opposition, where everything is against you, where the prince of the power of the air uses the fear or the favour of man to turn you aside. Then your resource is “He ever liveth to make intercession”. He never ceases; and the more you are acquainted with Him, the more you know that He makes you superior to both. You cannot conceive anything more morally grand in itself than a man superior to his difficulties. In the world they say, ‘It is a fine sight to see a great man struggling with his difficulties’. How much greater to see a Christian superior to his. In Old Testament times they looked for deliverance, because they were on that ground, and doubtless the Lord is so gracious to us that He often meets us in that way. They were cast into the fire and not a hair of their head was burnt, cast into the lions’ den and not hurt. But what happened to Stephen? He was battered with stones. The power of God was for Daniel; the power of God was in Stephen. Which is the greater favour? To us it is said, “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world”. It is also true, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”; but it is a greater thing to have the power of God in you than for you. This power comes from the Lord by the [p. 360] Holy Spirit. It comes down from heaven to you, but it is to conduct you in His superiority through all circumstances here; so that whether it is the adverse power that you have to contend with, or the infirmity in yourself that obstructs you, “We are more than conquerors through him that loved us”. The great result, blessed be God, is, not merely that you are conquerors, but that you are more personally acquainted with Christ.
The Lord grant, beloved friends, that each one of you may turn to Him, and so seek Him, that you can say, I know Him better, and how He is for me, not only as my Saviour, but in passing through the circumstances down here, for His name’s sake.