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We get the word, “look to the rock whence ye are hewn, and to

the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look to Abraham

your father and unto Sarah that bare you; for I called him

alone, and blessed him, and increased him” (Isaiah 51: 1); a

passage constantly misapplied. God is saying there, Abraham

was alone and I called him. Israel, to whom God spoke this,

was then but a little remnant—Do not let that make you

uneasy, I called Abraham alone. Their being little was of no

consequence—God could bless them alone as well as

Abraham.

J. N. Darby (‘Coll. Wtgs.’, Vol. 32, p.380)

Ques What does James mean by “If the Lord will”?

FER It comes in to test your spirit; are

you free in spirit and in dependence? It is the spirit in which

you take up things here. The Christian does not do things

independently. Christ is our Lord, and what we do, we do to

the Lord; He expresses to us the authority of God. You might

do the lowliest thing to the Lord; a housemaid may sweep a

room to the Lord.

F. E. Raven (Vol. 14, p.173)

In the assembly everything works from the top, and for this

very reason the things at the bottom—if we may so speak of

the responsible life—must be in moral keeping with what is at

the top. How could there be moral disparity in a system which

on every plane is of God?

Thus the moral line and the purpose line are ever in harmony,

and the more we look into Scripture the more we see the

wisdom of God in maintaining both. Our great weakness really

lies on the moral side. G.V.W. in 1855 said that brethren had