The Greatness Of Everything Connected With Christ
THE GREATNESS OF EVERYTHING CONNECTED WITH CHRIST
Matthew 1: 1; 2: 21-23; 3: 16, 17; 4: 8-10; 5: 1-12; 6: 6; 7: 21-23
I want, by the Lord’s help, to seek to show from these scriptures a little of the greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom we belong, and of the greatness of the things connected with Him, which the grace of God has made ours, and that, in the meantime our position is that of being in what Scripture speaks of as the testimony; and I want to show, too, by the Lord’s help, certain lines on which we may each be preserved individually until the Lord comes. Our eternal future is assured by the grace of God, and on the ground of the precious death of Christ; but what matters is the present moment; and it is of all importance that as believers we should have some definite idea as to why we are left here for a time, and also some definite idea of the lines on which we shall be preserved to the end, in living identification with the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I think we shall see that Scripture makes it plain that in being brought to Christ through the gospel, and receiving forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, we come into a great deal more than we realise at the time, that we come into what Scripture speaks of as an inheritance, and it is an inheritance which is shared with Christ; He is God’s appointed Heir of all things, and we through grace are the heirs of God and the joint-heirs with Christ. Hence, however little we may understand what we have come into, God would, at the very outset, give us an impression that we have come into great things, but they are things that stand connected with the Lord Jesus Christ, and must never be divorced from Him.
The early part of the gospel of Matthew will particularly support what I have been saying. The gospel commences with these words: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham”. That leads to an inquiry as to what is involved in His being Son of David and Son of Abraham, and anyone who is at all acquainted with the Old Testament will recognise at once that great things are spoken of David’s Son and of Abraham’s Son. For instance, in Psalm 89, God says in regard of David, “Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations”. So that one thing connected with the presentation of Christ as Son of David is that He is the One who is to reign for ever and ever. It is a good thing for a young believer to get the sense of that, that the grace of God has linked him up with a coming kingdom which will never pass away.
In connection with the Son of Abraham, in Genesis 22, God said to Abraham that “thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves”. I am sure all will recognise that this has not yet come to pass in a complete and final way, but it gives us a very wide view of the greatness and glory of Christ to understand that He is to possess the gate of His enemies, and that in Him all nations of the earth are to be blessed. I do not develop that further, but I mention it at the outset, in order that some impression might be left on our spirits of the greatness of Christ, and of the fact that there is connected with Him, in the testimony of God, a world of enduring glory, which is about to come in; and with which, through the grace of God, every believer in Christ stands connected. That world will be marked by features that do not obtain in this world; one being that the rights of God will be unquestionably acknowledged; and another that the glory of God will pervade that world, and the will of God will characterise it. So that we are called to another world, not this one; as Peter says, “the God of all grace ... hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus”, 1 Pet 5: 10.
Having the light of these things involves also that they should have a practical effect now in all those who belong to the Lord Jesus, and who carry this light from God in their souls. The Lord intends to find in the assembly, in the company of those who love Him and belong to Him, a sphere in which His rights are acknowledged and in which the will of God is done now, and where what is of God obtains; and all that, as practically recognised, works out in testimony. That is to say, that the testimony not only consists in what we give expression to by words among men as to the rights of the Lord Jesus and all that He is coming into, but it consists even more in there being a sphere here on earth among the saints where those rights are practically acknowledged and recognised, and where what is to obtain publicly in the world to come is now found—though it be in obscurity—among those who love Christ, in the power of the Spirit. Hence it is of great importance that every young believer should understand that he is called into something that already exists here and that is of vital importance, and I think we shall see that it must be accepted at the outset, that what you are called into has for the moment the character of being in reproach, but, on the other hand, it has all the support of heaven and will be supported right to the end, and our concern is therefore to be moving on lines in which divine support can be realised.
Before I go further, I want to refer to the passage in Matthew 3. It says that “Jesus, when he was baptised, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”. Now that is great light to get into our souls in regard of our Lord Jesus Christ; take account of this voice from heaven, the voice of the Father, pointing out Christ, distinguishing Him from every other, and saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”. It was as Jesus came up out of the water that this happened; this was just a prefiguring of His coming up out of death, because baptism is a figure of death in which we all were involved; and in the grace of God the Lord Jesus went into death in order that the redeemed company might be secured to God by means of His death, but He has risen out from amongst the dead, and thus His glory comes into view as the Son of God. The scripture says, He is “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead”, Rom 1: 4. Thus we belong to One who is already marked by victory over death and has the power therefore, as well as the right, to bring up out of death all that belong to Him; and that means that there is a world that comes into view for faith, connected with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, which stands in resurrection.
It is an immense thing to get into our souls that we belong to a world of which the Son of God, known in resurrection from amongst the dead, a divine Person who became Man and died and has risen again, is the Centre; as it says, “Who is he that overcometh the world [that is, the present world], but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” 1 John 5: 5. We not only see there a world that stands connected with the glorious Person of the Son of God, but it is a world too which subsists in the favour, in the affections of God, for He who is the Sun and Centre of it is the beloved Son of God—“This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”. So I think you will see that the grace of God has done far more than given you forgiveness of sins and the certainty of eternal bliss, it has linked you by grace with a world of infinite glory connected with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and God has given each one of us the inestimable favour of being in this world for a little space of time, a few short years at most, in testimony to Him who is to come.
From chapter 2 we learn that when Christ was introduced into this world as a Babe, He immediately met with hostility. As soon as the report by the wise men reached Jerusalem, Herod the king and the chief priests were troubled; they were not glad, they were troubled; and the rest of the chapter shows that Herod the king did his utmost to get rid of Jesus; and, mark you, it was the Gentile king and the chief priests, the religious leaders; that is to say, the political and the religious world were seen as combined at that moment in hostility to Christ. If you go on in faithfulness to Christ, you will find that the world is of the same character now as it was then; its particular aspect in detail may change from time to time, but in its principle it is un changed, in that in all its phases it is hostile to Christ.
This chapter shows that the Lord Jesus being thus introduced into a world of that character, in conditions of outward smallness and weakness, indeed as a Babe, came under divine protection, that all through there was divine protection for the Babe and His mother, she being typical of all who love Christ and cherish the testimony—there is divine protection for them. But there is divine protection on the line of their accepting the fact that they were rejected, and hence the Babe and His mother and Joseph have to flee into Egypt; then, when the angel tells Joseph that the one who sought the young Child’s life is dead, Joseph returns to the land of Israel, but “when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee”. That is to say, although the Herod who actually plotted the death of Christ had passed away, his son reigned in his stead, and Joseph recognised intuitively that the position was really unchanged, that the hostility continued. That is what I want to make clear; that however things may change in the world, the hostility to Christ, whether overt or covered, continues; and that has to be accepted. Joseph accepted it, and was spoken by the prophets, “He shall be called a Nazarene.’’
I want you just to take account of these features that God impressed on His testimony at the outset. On the one hand, it is glorious, connected with the glorious Person of the Son of God; on the other hand it is in rejection and reproach, and God intends that it shall maintain that character—“He shall be called a Nazarene”. And if the saints of God ever move in conditions in which reproach ceases, you may be sure of this, that in some way they are getting away from fidelity to Christ.
In chapter 4, I refer to the temptations, for the encouragement of every one of us, in order to show that in the Lord Jesus we have One who has been tempted by Satan and has overcome him. We are coming now to the line of things which I indicated as the line on which we ourselves may be preserved, and it is important for every believer to understand that in the Lord Jesus we have One who has indeed been tempted by Satan. In Luke’s account of the temptations, three particular ones are mentioned, and then the narrative says, “the devil, having completed every temptation, departed from him for a time”. I call attention to that, because the saints of God as in this world will be subject from time to time to every form of attack from Satan, you may rest assured of that; if he is overcome in one point, he will try to attack in another. His attack at the present moment does not take on so much the character of violence, but the character of subtlety.
If you read the record of the temptations you will find that the Lord did not meet Satan in divine power, but on the ground of what was proper to man, and therefore the answers that He gave to Satan, and the lines on which He met him, indicate what is available to every one of us, and on these lines, we shall have His sympathy and support. So the first temptation is of supreme importance to us; the Lord’s answer to it was that, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”. Now that indicates an important line for every Christian to be pursuing, that he is to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God; that is to say, he is to addict himself to reading the Scriptures and to receiving the ministry of the word whenever it is available, and he is to take account of it as the word of God, and to see that the word has place in his mind and heart continually—he is to live by it. As he does this he will find that as to any subtle thing the enemy suggests, the Spirit of God will be faithful to bring to bear upon him what is needed to meet it and expose it in its true character.
I refer now to the third temptation, for it is one the enemy often uses especially to capture the young, that is, he uses ambition. He thought he had in Christ one who could be appealed to by natural ambition; but, thank God, we have in the Lord Jesus One who not only did not sin, but who could not sin. There was nothing in Him to respond to any evil suggestion, but in grace He indicated the way in which every believer, as having the Spirit of God, can meet Satan. So Satan showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and said, “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me”. A tremendous proposition, and the only condition was that He should give Himself over to the principle of pride and self-seeking which found its embodiment in Satan. That was the only condition, that He should adopt that principle, and if He would only do this, all should be His. Now the Lord says, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve”, meaning, I will worship Jehovah My God, and Him only will I serve. The word of God indicated that the right thing for man was to worship God and seek His glory alone, and Jesus moved on those lines. Hence, dear brethren, we can well afford as proposals come before us, to search our hearts as to what is the motive in what we do, and whether there is any self-seeking ambition in it as to this world. I do not speak of what is legitimate to earn a living and meet righteous obligations, but beyond that, we need to see if what is before us is some ambition which displaces God and Christ in our hearts.
I refer now to the last three passages only to touch on them, but they are of immense importance. The fifth chapter says, “he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them ...”. Now in these three chapters 5, 6, and 7—we get instruction for those who are the subjects of the kingdom of heaven, that is, those who belong to the Lord Jesus, who recognise Him who is on the right hand of God in heaven as their Lord, and thus are directed and controlled from heaven. That is the idea of the kingdom of heaven, it is a sphere down here which is ruled from heaven, and it includes every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and indeed takes in the whole Christian profession in which He is nominally owned.
These chapters indicate lines on which we shall never be moved; that is seen from the way the seventh chapter ends. The Lord says, “whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock”. Now that scripture does not contemplate the initial salvation of our souls through faith in Christ, but rather the believer pursuing a course, while he is left here waiting for the coming of the Lord, in which he is never overcome. He may be tested; the winds may come, and the rain fall, and so on, but he is never overcome; he is enabled, as pursuing the principles that the Lord indicates, to stand up in victory, and thus livingly to have a part in the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ. The first feature is that we know what it is to seek the Lord for instruction. The Lord went up into a mountain and He sat down, and His disciples came unto Him. His sitting down indicated that it was a deliberate matter; that He was taking up, so to speak, a position and attitude in which He intended to teach all those who were sufficiently exercised to come to Him. It required a certain amount of exercise to go up the mountain. Those who are not prepared to take up the exercise of having to do with the Lord Jesus continually, will never get the benefit of His teaching, but those who are prepared constantly to seek the Lord in private will get the benefit of the teaching, and the Lord had this in mind.
Now the great burden of the instruction in the next few verses is, that we are to understand that those whom the Lord approves are marked by entirely different features from the kind of man that this world approves. That is to say, that the Lord expects that His own should understand that God desires and intends that we should take character from Christ Himself, who is the great ideal that God has before Him; the kind of man that He delights in; a Man who was in every way faithful to God, never seeking His own will or glory, a Man who serves in love. I cannot enumerate now all the features of moral excellence that shine in Jesus, but if you study the gospels and take account of His words and movements, and, indeed, study all the Scriptures, it will more and more grow upon you that Jesus is an entirely different kind of man from the man that we are naturally, and that obtains in this world. Jesus went to the cross that all that we are naturally might be for ever set aside; and has given us His Spirit that we should learn from Him and take character from Him. You will find, as you do this, that it will bring you into reproach in this world, but the Lord says, if you come into reproach “for my sake, Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven”.
He began by saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted”. I do not think that only means mourning in connection with sorrow and bereavement here, though no doubt those who mourn thus are comforted by the grace of God, but I think it means those who mourn as to the state of things in the world and in the Christian profession. “Blessed are the meek”. You and I are not meek naturally; we shall be meek if we habitually come to Christ. He says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart”—and later on in this gospel we read, quoting from the prophet, “Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek”. Meekness is the kind of thing that will obtain in God’s world, and the Lord intends it should obtain now amongst His people that, as in meekness we take on the features of Christ, there should be maintained in this world a living testimony to what will come in at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. You can understand how it would bring you into reproach in this world, but then the Lord says, “theirs is the kingdom ...”—that is to say, all the power of the kingdom of heaven is available for the meek. Then it goes on, “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God”. The Lord, I believe, indicates these different features as the first elements in His teaching of His disciples in order to impress us with this great fact, that His saints here are to take on features learned from Himself which are entirely different from what obtains in this world. I commend to you the importance of taking up the exercise of coming to the Lord continually and learning from Him, as He says: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me”.
Now in chapter 6 a great feature is the practice of seeking God in secret. All this lies at the foundation of our spiritual prosperity, and we shall never make much spiritual headway or be able to stand up against the influences in this world unless we take up these fundamental principles which make for stability and prosperity. So in this chapter the Lord takes up three things: giving alms, praying, and fasting; and He enjoins upon His own to watch against any thought, which so easily obtrudes itself in our minds and spirits, of doing these things to be seen of men. He says, as it were, Cultivate doing things in the sight of your Father which is in heaven, in secret with God. It involves much soul exercise, but it well repays itself. So in regard to prayer He says, “thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and When thou hast shut thy door”, that is to say, do not let your prayer be casual, let God understand that you want to draw near to Him—enter into thy closet and shut thy door—let it be a deliberate thing that you seek the presence of God; and He says, “pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee”. The point is that the reward comes from God and not from men. So it says, “thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret”. What a happy thing it is, and what a privilege, to draw near to God, “thy Father”, as the Lord says, in the knowledge that He sees in secret; He sees all that is in your heart and understands all your desires. If we cultivate this, we shall not only find great strength in our exercises and testings, but we shall become enlarged and shall be enabled to pray, not only for ourselves and our own spiritual needs, but we shall become enlarged to take up the interests of God everywhere, and that is a very great thing. What I want to stress in this chapter is that the Lord encouraged secret dealings with God. Cultivate it, He would say, and “thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee”.
I want only to call your attention to the few verses in chapter 7, that we may learn to judge of things not according to appearance, but according to principles. It is an important thing to judge of things where God is concerned, not by appearances but by principles, and one outstanding fundamental principle that a Christian must always adhere to is, that iniquity must not be connected with the name of the Lord. Iniquity is the will of man exercised in the things of God. So that anything which cannot be proved to be according to Scripture is to be refused; iniquity must not be connected with the name of the Lord. The Lord says here, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven”. That is to say, the one who is subject, who is governed by the will of God, is the one who enters into the kingdom of heaven. Then the Lord adds a word that is most important for us in this day, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works”. A most salutary word for today, for there are many around us on every hand who claim to be able to do wonderful works and who connect the name of the Lord with them, but the question is, Are they governed by divine principles? Are they governed by what is right according to the epistles? The Lord says, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? ... And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity”. The mere performing of wonderful works is no proof that the thing is not iniquitous; you must submit things to the simple test of divine principles as laid down in Scripture with divine authority. If they do not answer to this test, you can safely disregard them, whatever wonderful works they do, or claim to do, for they are works of iniquity.
These are to be preserved, and one would desire for us all that we might have a greater sense of what the grace of God has connected us with, and of the inestimable privilege of being connected with the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. till He comes. The Lord would have us preserved in every way, and if we take heed to the instructions in these chapters we shall find they will make for our practical stability and preservation till He comes.
place and date not given
From Words of Grace and Comfort 1936
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FOLLOWING THE LORD AND HIS MOVEMENTS
This chapter is an important one for the last days, being a kind of appendix to the gospel. The gospel of John, as we know, is written specially for the last days, and indicates how every feature of the truth is secured on the line of life. The subject of life runs right through the gospel, the idea in life being that we are in the reality of things, and thus independent, so to speak, of any outward organisation. That is, if the church publicly breaks down, as it has, you cannot destroy life; where there is love for Christ and desire to be pleasing to Him, 2 Timothy shows the line on which we may be pleasing to Him, and, as moving on those lines, the gospel of John shows that every thought of God can be realised.
This chapter comes in as a warning, for it starts with a movement of a sectional character, not under the direction of the Lord, of seven of the disciples under the influence of Peter, who was always active in service, and said, “I go a fishing”. The end of that incident is that, as moving independently, they catch nothing, but, as coming under the direction of the Lord, they catch largely. So that the great teaching of the incident is that in the last days particularly, the Lord would have us concerned as to being under His direction in all our service, and, not only so, but having the assembly in view, in our gospel service, and in all service.
As they came to land, they found that the Lord had there on land, so to speak, a system under His own hand. There was a fire of coals and fish laid thereon and bread; the Lord had there a system where there was warmth and food, and He said, “Bring of the fish which ye have now caught”. They were to bring it to that which the Lord had under His hand, showing, I think, that the Lord would exercise us in these last days that our service comes under His direction and has the assembly in view. Then, in order to emphasise that to Peter, He entrusted him with the care of the lambs and the sheep. He said to Peter, after He had challenged him as to whether he loved Him, “Feed my lambs”, and then He says the second time, “Shepherd my sheep”, and then the third time, “Feed my sheep”. In each case it was to be the evidence, so to speak, that he loved Christ. If he loved Christ, let him show it by serving in love that which was dearest to the heart of Christ—that is the point. Following that He says to Peter, “When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest”; that, I think, was just characteristic of Peter, that he had always been one to serve—girding gives the idea of service—but he had girded himself and walked where he would; that is, his service had not always been under the direction of Christ. and the Lord reminds him of that, but says, that “when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not”. That is to say that Peter would finish up in complete correspondence with the cross of Christ—it alludes to the fact that Peter would be crucified.
There is nothing more to be desired, dear brethren—however little we may feel we know of it—than that we should finish up publicly in complete correspondence with the cross of Christ. I am sure if we get the sense of belonging to the assembly, we do not want to be in any more esteem or popularity in the world, even in the religious world, amongst men, than Christ was Himself. Peter, having all along the desire to serve, by the grace of God finishes his days in that character. The Lord says, “when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not”, as though He would tell Peter that he would finish up by the Lord’s grace in complete submission to the will of God, delivered from every thought of his own will in his service, and in complete correspondence with the cross of Christ. Then the writer says, “This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God”. But if that was to be how Peter would end publicly, there is also what is to be realised at the present moment privately; so, having said that to Peter, He says to him, “Follow me”, and Peter immediately turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following; that is, there was one who was setting out the idea, there was one already doing it, without any command from the Lord, and it says of that one he was “the disciple whom Jesus loved … which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?”
Now John is presented all through this gospel, save in the beginning of this chapter, where he is simply mentioned among the sons of Zebedee, as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”; that is, he had a peculiar appreciation of the love of Christ, and the love of Christ, I believe, for at the supper he is in the bosom of Jesus, and that is the assembly’s place. It is a great thing to get some sense of what the place of the assembly is in the affections of Christ; the Lord says in regard of His own, “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also”. The assembly’s place is the nearest place in the affections of Christ, she has her place rightly in the bosom of Jesus, that is her place, and John comes before us as one who understood it and appreciated it. That is to say, he was concerned to be near the Lord and to hear what the Lord had to say to him as to His thoughts of the assembly, and all He would tell him of the Father, so as to call forth the response to God that the assembly is intended to yield as under the impulse of Christ.
Now John was in that place, and it says, “which also leaned on his breast at supper”. Do we value the Supper? John did. Is there any lover of Christ, any believer, who does not take the Supper? How is that? John would never have thought of being absent from the Supper if he could possibly be there, he was in the bosom of Jesus at the supper and he leaned on Jesus’ breast at the supper. As the Lord indicated that one of their number should betray Him, John was leaning on His breast; he knew the love of Christ in such a way that he could depend upon it whatever happened. So, as having his confidence in the love of Christ, he could face it even when the Lord said, “one of you shall betray me”, and this is all brought forward in John 21 to impress on us that John understood the place he had in the affections of Christ and cherished it above everything, and he wanted to be near to Christ to hear His word, as the Lord said, “If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him”. He was characteristically following—Peter turned and saw him following; without any word from the Lord he was following.
What is the idea for us in this following? This has not so much in mind the public position, the reproach of the way in which we follow; the idea here is, I think, that it is characteristic of us that we are always listening to what the Lord has to say, for we understand He has in mind to secure a full answer to divine thoughts in the assembly; therefore, whatever He has given in the way of ministry, whatever His thoughts are as to the assembly, we are following them. The Lord indicated to Peter how he would finish up. What a comfort that Peter, having been marked as a young man by girding himself and going the way he would, is now brought into a way in which he eventually glorified God; but the Lord, having indicated that, says to him, “Follow me”.
I would stress the need for this with us all, that we should understand the importance of following the Lord’s movements. It is not now a question of following the Lord literally, for He is not down here, but following what He says; He is always speaking to the assembly, and this involves movement. As one thing is apprehended by the saints, He moves on to something further, and the full end the Lord has in view is that every thought of the blessed God as to the assembly should be realised by those who appreciate the affections of Christ and will keep near Him and follow Him in all His movements. So Peter turns and sees John following, and he says to the Lord, “what shall this man do?” And Jesus says, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me”. What a word that is for every one of us. The Lord indicates in that somewhat concealed saying of His to Peter concerning John that what John stands for is going through till He comes—“If I will that he tarry till I come”. What a comfort that is, that what John stands for is going through, that is to say, the Lord is going to see to it that He has here on earth right through till He comes those who appreciate the unique place the assembly has in the heart of Christ and cherish it, and show it by listening to all the Lord has to say, and as a result watch His movements and follow them. It is only thus we shall be led into cherishing the great thoughts He has for the assembly. The Lord has in the assembly a vessel in His hand in which He can secure the full measure of intelligent and affectionate response to God, so that God is glorified in the assembly; and the heart of Christ, too, finds full compensation for Himself; surely we recognise that there is nothing greater than that; and the Lord indicates that what John stands for will go through to the end, but, realising what Peter is prone to, He says, “Follow me”. So that He would say, that what John stands for is going through; the great thing for you is to have your part in it.
I believe the Lord would encourage us to seek Him that He might impress us more and more with the value and importance of the Supper and what it leads into; what the assembly is in His affections and to the heart of God. The Lord would lead us to value the Supper more and more and also to be concerned to have a ready ear and attentive heart to all He says in the way of ministry.
place and date not given
From Words of Grace and Comfort 1936
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