POWER OR DECLENSION
POWER OR DECLENSION
Power is moral superiority over evil as it presents itself. It is declension when I retreat, because of present influence, from any principle or position which I had accepted. If I walk in the Spirit, I shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. This is power. The work of faith with power is the ability to rise above the temptation or hindrance as it occurs. It is not merely like a strong man exulting in his known strength, but it is, as it were,
[p. 391] occult, until an occasion for its manifestation occurs. Thus faith is always power. In declension God is not before the soul, and there is generally an impression that one is attaining to something much to be desired for oneself. It was plainly declension with Eve when she ate of the forbidden fruit, but at the moment she was lured and captivated with the gain which she thought she was securing. Adam was in power when he called her name Eve. When in any strait I rise to God, and act for Him, it is power.
There may be declension, though I do not leave the ground I have taken with God. There is declension in Lot when, departing from Abram, he chooses the well-watered plain; he does not leave Canaan, but he seeks what would suit himself. God is not before him. This is a very deceptive form of declension, because, while there is no apparent departure from the true ground, there is the attempt to acquire a position of advantage for oneself. If Ananias was true in joining the disciples, declension had set in when he sought to gain credit for a devotedness which was not true. Power, on the other hand, advances; it is a race, as it were, and as difficulties arise they are surmounted. Abram returns to the land. It is a signal act of power to retrace one’s steps. It is like ascending a steep one has fallen down. He came back to the spot from which he had departed; where faith ceased, faith or power resumes its course.
It is of deep importance to note how readily one acting in great power may decline. The fact that declension is so near and so easy constrains us to say, “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe”. We see in Jacob the history of many. Restored by divine favour to the land, and blessed in a very special way there, when he is in great prosperity, declension marks him; he settles at Shalem. He did not think there was any declension in his doing so. This is one of the worst forms of it. He was still in the land, and he was true to the blessing he had received; he had an altar, El-elohe-Israel; there was nothing [p. 392] outwardly to mark declension; but there was declension, for what was before his heart, and what characterised the altar, was the blessing God had given him, and not God who gave it. When the blessing, however great, is paramount to my heart, there is declension, because God is displaced by His own blessing. Our associates, as a rule, betray the extent and nature of this. It will always be found that declension plunges us into association unknown or unapproved of before. God in mercy restores Jacob. He says to him, “Arise, go up to Bethel”. Power always turns to God. As He is before me, He is the health of my countenance, and my God; and then, though my own blessing is not paramount with me, I get a deeper sense of it.
I desire to point out a few of the various ways in which declension works when one is in the path of faith or power. It is so sudden, and often so specious, that it is not discovered until its consequences are disclosed.
Ten of the spies could commend the land, and in the same breath discourage the people. Caleb and Joshua were in power, they kept God before them. The saddest chapter in our history is that declension may set in after a great successful conflict with the enemy, after we have broken from his trammels. Thus was it with the captives from Babylon. They came up, and began to build in great power. They were hindered, and declension set in. A people who had gone through so much, and who had so vigorously contended for God’s glory, “looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the LORD of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste”, and that for sixteen years! In vain they laboured — there was no advance. When there is power, there is always progress. The question, “Children, have ye any meat?” at once discloses whether one is in power or not.
In our Lord’s time, the great evidence of declension was the Pharisee. Where there is a lack of power, there is always an effort to keep up an appearance. Power [p. 393] expresses itself; it is what it is. A bird flies, it shows its power as it moves. The attempt to sustain an order of things, however right, is of itself an evidence of the lack of power. As it is said of Israel, “They sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness”, Ezekiel 33: 31. When we come to the time of full spiritual power, the declension of the unbelieving Jew is exposed. The blessed Lord was the power of God on the earth; any who followed Him did not walk in darkness, but had the light of life. Hence from that time there is no power apart from Him. “Without me ye can do nothing”; and declension begins when any believer drops out of concert with Him, however powerful or faithful previously. We have seen how readily declension supervenes, and we have thus learned that no one is at any moment safe from it. But now, seeing we are united to Christ, the source of power, we are on the one hand without excuse; and on the other, the declension is more apparent and decided. Power is defined by a Person; any independence of Christ is declension. When Christ was here, He kept His own by His power. Declension ensued on His going away. He restored them to Himself in John 21. Under His control they were kept in the right way. When He was exalted, He received the promise of the Father; the Holy Spirit was sent down. Power from henceforth is as we walk in the Spirit; when not in the Spirit, it is declension. The Spirit connects with Christ. Thus power or declension is easily defined.
There was declension at Corinth, though they were so greatly gifted. They reigned as kings; led away by self-indulgence, they were loose in their own lives, and therefore were so in the church. They were not led of the Spirit. They did not remember that “he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit”.
There was declension of quite a different kind among the Galatians. Having begun in the Spirit, they sought [p. 394] to be made perfect in the flesh. There was declension at Thessalonica, when an event, even the greatest event, engrossed their hearts more than Christ. There was declension at Ephesus, when they left their first love. There was declension in Asia, when it could be said, “All who are in Asia ... have turned away from me”. Declension marked the Hebrews, when in their hearts they turned back to earth, instead of running on to heaven.
Thus we have glanced at the many phases of declension as recounted in Scripture. I will now seek to define the more general forms in which it occurs, and, at the same time, point out how walking in the Spirit, which is power, would have preserved us.
The most common form of declension is when, after having taken a right step, we are tempted and drawn away by an offer ministering to our natural taste. Thus it was when the green fields turned away Lot, and when the water so engrossed the nine thousand seven hundred of Gideon’s brave followers, that they were suddenly disbanded and unemployed; ready and willing to serve, but disqualified — the case with many in this day. Thus, Mark, when at Pamphylia, returned to his house at Jerusalem. This is so common that no one is safe from it. In fact, there is sure to be a temptation presented to us after every advance, and the only preservative is to continue: “Whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing”. The insidious feature in this declension is that there is no apparent surrender of any position. Where there is power, there is the refusal of everything which would divert us from our good beginning. Indeed, the way to help one in this state is simply to recall them to their beginning.
Secondly, there is declension when one who has, through grace and much exercise, been led to the right ground, and has been blessed there, is overpowered by human influences, while retaining, as he thinks, the right ground and the truth — like Barnabas taking his kinsman, and going to Cyprus, or Jacob at Shalem; and all [p. 395] because a worldly sentiment was indulged in. This is a very painful declension, because one is like Ephraim; “Gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not”. There is no easy recovery from this, because one is deceived, unless one feels the pressure of the world one has fallen into; and then God restores, as He did Barnabas and Jacob. In both it was an unjudged worldliness which led to their fall. Had they walked on straight, as called of God, they would have been preserved.
Another class, while admitting the beauty and excellence of heavenly things, are really discouraged themselves from going up to possess them, because they have no faith, and discourage others. This shows the danger of sentimentalising on truth. It is here, no doubt, that Demas was, and all that are in Asia, who turned away from Paul. The knowledge of truth in itself is not power, as we see at Corinth, and with the two disciples going to Emmaus, and very markedly with the ten spies. They commended the land, but discouraged the people. They had not faith for themselves, and therefore they would taint others, as they were tainted themselves.
Again; often, when there is true devotedness with an unbroken will, there is a great deal of energy in preaching or doing. It is painful to see, at times, with much devotedness, really no spirituality; like Martha, cumbered about much serving, or the disciples going a-fishing. This declension is very specious, because many, as well as the person himself, regard such a course as very useful. It is the occupation with the usefulness which feeds the declension. Generally, those under this form are buoyed up with their own sense of what they had done; ready to say, “We have left all, and have followed thee”. When power works here, they are occupied with their gain in Christ, and not with their service, or their surrender for Him.
One more case. A declension of a very covert character, and one not easily corrected, is when one contends and [p. 396] suffers for the right position — the heavenly position — and while, like the two and a half tribes, he endures in battle to secure the position, he never tastes or knows the good of it, nor is he marked by the power of it. The position of a heavenly man, without the power, is delusive. It is the power that makes known the reality of the position. The two and a half tribes fought for the position in Canaan, but never enjoyed the land; their hearts were where their families and their cattle were. No one could, in faith, accept the position of a heavenly man, without being characterised by separation from this world, a real severance from all on this side Jordan. Perhaps in no way has the testimony suffered more than by insisting on heavenly position without practical self-denial. Worldly honours may be declined, while there is as much consideration for oneself in earthly things as if there were nothing greater.
The Lord give us such a sense of the greatness and reality of our heavenly portion that we may be found more truly in His path here.