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enemy was drawing the saints away from Christ. There is

nothing more serious. It is not a question of will exactly, Will is

indeed dangerous and sinful; but the will may be quiescent yet

the mind active and not formed after Christ. The subduing of

the will is on the line of obedience and righteousness; the

forming of the mind is on the line of holiness. You may

influence things by your mind and carry things as you may

think. If so, the Lord may leave things to you, as it says in Luke

13: 35, “Your house is left unto you”. In 2 Samuel 19: 11–14,

we read that David bowed the heart of all the men of Judah

even as the heart of one man. What an influence! They were

bowed as one man. It is like “the sun shining in its power”. It

suggests a power which influences. The sun sets forth the

idea of authority and influence.

Let us now turn to Revelation 5. The chapter shows the

sympathetic element. We get the book of the rights of God

referred to. No one was able to take up things for God. And as

the apostle sees this he weeps! Look at the world in its

hopeless confusion. Rulers are perplexed, social reformers are

baffled! It is not better dwellings people

want but a divine touch! The apostle John weeps as he

considers the position. Have you ever wept about the rights of

God and the condition of the assembly? How Jeremiah wept!

One would covet to have a heart like his. If on the one side

one would wish to be like Ezekiel, who rises above all human

feelings and views things divinely, on the other side one would

like to be as Jeremiah. There are tears in the testimony. Paul

refers to Timothy’s tears (2

Timothy 1: 4). Unless we have wept about a matter let us

leave it alone, for we certainly cannot rightly touch it. Have we

wept about things which have happened in our various

localities? The apostle wept much. In verse 5 he is told that

the lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed. Why was it Judah?

you ask. We must go back to Genesis 44 to find the answer.