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going up. He will come back; He is going to come back

blessing. But now is particularly the period of blessing, and

that blessing of the One who is in heaven is a blessing that is

available for you tonight. He is blessing; that is what He did

time after time, day after day. Think of those days, the days of

the Lord Jesus on earth, especially the days of those three-

and-a-half years of service, not much more than a thousand

days of public service, and every day—blessing. That

established the pattern that continues, so that there is a Man

in heaven just now, distributing blessing, and that is to have its

effect on your soul tonight.

Now, you would say, there is one Man in heaven, one Man

who has been received in glory, one Man who has been given

a place. He has been given a place on the Father’s throne.

That, too, characterizes this whole period of blessing, that

there is a Man seated on the Father’s throne, distributing

blessing. How is He able to do that? You cannot speak of the

gospel without in some way making reference to the fact that

this whole earth lies under a curse, and that the whole of

mankind from the days of Adam, from the days of the first man

that was upon earth, has been under a penalty. God created

man; He created him for blessing. He created him and He

gave him so much. He gave him a garden that he could enjoy;

He gave him his wife that he could enjoy; He gave him all that,

but very soon there was a curse upon this scene. Man was

cast out of that garden because of sin coming in; but God’s

affections were then exactly the same as His affections are

now. His affection for men, His affection for Adam, His

affection for Abel, His affection for Cain, His affection for

everyone as they came on the scene, was the same as it is

now, but these were persons under penalty. What was to be

the answer to that? What was to be the answer to the curse

that was upon this scene? How was God’s heart of blessing to

be opened up to a scene that was covered by a curse?