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THE SPIRIT

R. H. Selwood Just a thought, beloved, that has come to me while we have been together, particularly from the meeting we had this morning, where the great thought of the Spirit was brought before us. One has noticed that in this epistle to the Galatians every time the Spirit is alluded to, with the exception of one, He is spoken of as “the Spirit”. What came to one’s mind in this is the importance of what we are sowing to, whether we are sowing to the flesh, or sowing to the Spirit, because whatever we are sowing to the crop that we shall have will be on that line. The great point here is, “he that sows to the Spirit, from the Spirit shall reap eternal life”. What results there will be from the Spirit Himself as the result of sowing to the Spirit! One would desire that we might all be marked by this feature more and more, dear brethren, of sowing to the Spirit, so that “from the Spirit” we “shall reap eternal life”. God’s great thought is that we should all be in the present enjoyment of eternal life, in a living system of things that we have had before us today, and the great point here is, that if we are to be in the enjoyment of that, we must heed the importance of sowing to the Spirit, and then it says, “from the Spirit shall reap eternal life”. What a place the Spirit has in the great economy of God!

I just read the verse in Timothy because it says there, “Think of what I say, for the Lord will give thee understanding in all things”. We have had “all things” before us today, and it says here, “the Lord will give thee understanding in all things”. In this epistle everything that is for the pleasure and glory of God is all spoken of as being “in Christ Jesus”; that is in Him where He is, in a position that the enemy can never attack. But then, on the other hand, Paul, in writing to Timothy, has much to say about the Lord, and the Lord is, at the present moment, the great Administrator of all that is established in Christ Jesus. And He is not only the Administrator of it, but He is the One who is the Deliverer and Supporter of those who are here in the testimony. Hence the great importance of recognising Paul’s word - “think of what I say”. For us today, we are to think over what we get in the ministry, for instance in these meetings; we are to think over it, and the Lord will give us understanding in relation to it. The great thing is to think over these things in the presence of the Lord, in the sense of His presence supporting us, and He will give us the understanding in all things. Then as the epistle proceeds, Paul has much to say about the Lord. He says, “The Lord knows those that are his; and, Let every one who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity”, chapter 2: 19. Then in the next chapter we have the sufferings spoken of. Paul’s sufferings that he was going through, but what is he able to say in regard to them, dear brethren? He says that out of them all “the Lord delivered me” (verse 11). What a sense he had of the presence and delivering power of the Lord in the sufferings through which he was passing in the testimonial position here, and what a word that was to Timothy. Think of the young brethren here, what a word this is for you, dear brethren, to think of Paul, just about to finish his course and passing on such a word as this to Timothy; he says, “and the Lord delivered me out of all”. It was in the experience of his soul that he speaks of this, dear brethren. It is not simply a matter of doctrine, but it is an experience of his soul; he was conscious of the Lord’s delivering power as he was moving here in the pathway of testimony. Then in chapter 4 he says more, he says, “But the Lord stood with me, and gave me power” (verse 17), that is, he got the conscious sense of the support in power of the Lord as he moved in the testimonial position here, and one’s desire in touching these scriptures is that we might all have a deeper sense in our souls of the power of the Spirit, and of the power of the Lord, for His name’s sake.

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