A NEW PLACE, ETC.

A NEW PLACE, ETC.

I am greatly interested in seeing the absolute importance of having a new place, whether as in the gospel, in which it is a hope only, from which all your present joys are furnished; or in the mystery — a seat there now in the heavenlies, as a member of Christ. If I have not the first, I have hopes and prospects here. The leeks and the onions come up before me, or the piece of land, or the oxen;

^[p. 97] but if I am abounding in hope by the power of the Holy Ghost, I am racing on to it, tasting of it in the sanctuary; while as a member of Christ I am ‘in spirit there already’, the goodly land is known to me. The effect from these two would be very marked. I should by the first — the hope — be diverted from the world, or rather from earthly things by the great supper; while in the second I should be strengthened by the might of His power to act for Him in heavenly beauty down here. The power that takes me up is the power that enables me to stand for Christ here. If it has taken me up in spite of all opposition and hindrance here, of course it will enable me to be superior to them when down here.

I dwelt chiefly on the fact that we have a place in heaven where Christ is, that we cannot be right in any way, or reach the finish of the gospel if we do not maintain that our place is in heaven, though we are still on earth; and the power of heaven, the Holy Ghost is in us here, and the more we are in the fellowship of the Holy Ghost the more we know and feel the opposition of the world....

In the gospel, I was saying, how seldom the sinner seeks more than escape from perishing, like the prodigal. To recover one’s first position with God is little thought of. Secondly, that it is not enough to say that God delights in saving, though that be perfectly true. The truth is that God delights in having; His heart must have the prodigal with Himself.