OUR TITLE ENJOYED
[p. 216] OUR TITLE ENJOYED
2 Kings 2:9 - 12; Matthew 14:25 - 29; Ephesians 1: 19, 20
The first thing we have to learn is what grace has done for us; that you get in Ephesians. “That ye may know ... the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe ... which he wrought in Christ”. That is our title; but a great many do not know it is theirs. The first thing is to know that it is yours, the next what it is to enjoy it.
I read the other scriptures in order to show the state of the heart before it enjoys the grace. What I have in Ephesians is, it is actually given to me; it is mine. A person says, I never enjoyed it. One aspect of the death of Christ is Jordan. Our place is over death, though you may not know it. Christ died so that we might be there. The first thing you have to learn is that it is so. Why do I not know it? That is the great question.
Neither Elisha nor Peter knew it, but they would like to have known it. Neither of them had what you and I have. The power is ours, but we may not enjoy it; they had it not, but they desired to have it. That is the difference between them and us.
Read Ephesians 1: 19. It is that we may know the power that wrought in Christ. It is for us. The same power that brought Christ up to heaven is the power that brings us up. We were all brought up to heaven together a long time ago. It is not that we add anything to Christ; we come from Christ, all raised up together. We take a long time before we know it, but it is great gain when we do know it.
”.. . The Spirit’s power
Has ope’d the heav’nly door
Has brought me to that favoured hour
When toil shall all be o’er”. (74:5)
There it [p. 217] is!
The first thing in dealing with souls (and that is the difficulty) is to make them alive to the fact that the power is theirs, though they do not use it and may never have enjoyed it. The same death that brought me out of Egypt brought me into Canaan. The same death that saved me from eternal judgment has entitled me to eternal glory. Christ not only bore the judgment, but everything He acquired in suffering for man He acquired for us. That is the wonderful character of the grace; not only complete discharge from all that lay upon us, but all the glory, all the distinction, He acquired in paying our debt, is ours! I am not only out of debt, I have a fortune. The One who paid my debt paid it in such a manner that He has entitled me to glory: “The glory which thou gavest me I have given them”. Of course that is not His essential glory.
You must have right to a thing first before you can know what is the good of it. You must be over Jordan before you can talk of possessing heaven. In Colossians a man is over, but not possessing. He is going on to possession. You are entitled to be over, but are you over? It is no use yet to talk of anything else. Until you are over Jordan you cannot enjoy the place. You cannot understand the prayer in Ephesians 3 till you are on heavenly ground. Why do I not enjoy it? I will show you two reasons why you do not know it.
The apostle says to the Ephesians, Since I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love to all the saints, I cease not to pray for you. The counsel of God is one part of the prayer, the other is verse 19, that you may know the power that puts you over. Until you know that, you cannot know what the power does. It must first act upon yourself. It puts you into a new position. You must know you have the power before you can use it. A person reads Ephesians 1, and says, It is very clear the power is [p. 218] mine. But do you know you have that power? Can you honestly sing:
”... The Spirit’s power
Has ope’d the heav’nly door,
Has brought me to that favoured hour
When toil shall all be o’er”. (74:5)
Not will bring, but has brought.
I turn to Elisha, to see the first thing that must spring up in your hearts. Elijah is going away: he says to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for thee”. A very solemn question to put to yourself. If the Lord says, I am going away. What would you like best? Some would say, the conversion of my children; others, some other thing. What did Elisha say? “Let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me”. I can face this world in your absence if I have your spirit. That is what will make up to me for your absence; I can bear it if I have your spirit. People say, Have not I received the Spirit of Christ? Quite so, I admit it; but the question is, Do you value it? Elisha valued it as that which would make up to him for the blank caused by his absent lord. Does the Holy Spirit make up to you now for the absence of Christ from the earth? Is that the one thing that satisfies your heart in the scene where He is not?
Our blessed Lord does not ask His disciples what He should do for them; He tells them what He will do: You shall have another Comforter. I do not put you on the ground on which Elijah put Elisha. I tell you what I will do, I will pray the Father and He will give you another Comforter, who will abide with you for ever. That is the Holy Spirit. Elisha had not the Holy Spirit, but have you the same value for the Holy Spirit that Elisha had for the spirit of Elijah? Have you the same interest in the presence of the Holy Spirit? I will test you in a minute about it.
[p. 219] Elijah told Elisha he should have it, on a certain condition. Mark the condition: “Thou hast asked a hard thing; nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee”. He was to see him taken. You say, We have the Spirit, we are better off than Elisha; but have you the same heart, and do you really fulfil the condition that Elisha had to fulfil? Is, your heart set upon Christ taken? Not an object here for me now that He is taken.
That is the way the apostle puts it in Colossians: “Christ sitteth on the right hand of God”. That is what Stephen found; “he being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus”. The Comforter is come down, but have you the heart of Elisha? His eye was upon the taken one. Is yours? It was so with the apostles at first, their hearts went with Him. It was said to them, “Why stand ye gazing up into heaven?” He was to come back again. The very thing not allowed in Acts 1 is what marks the action of the Holy Spirit in Acts 7. “He being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up stedfastly into heaven”. It is a very simple thing to put it to your own hearts. The Spirit of God always turns you that way. It has been said that man is the only animal that looks up, and a Christian certainly is the only person who can look up. It is a great thing to look up. Everything turns in a sense upon a look: “Life in a look”, the hymn says; I admit it, but everything depends upon a look, beholding the Lord’s glory now. It all shows where your heart is. The object of my heart is gone up there. Therefore that was the condition: “If thou see me when I am taken”. Do you not think he kept his eye upon him?
I trust you will understand that it is not only that you have the Spirit, but that nothing can make up to you in this world for the absence of Christ except the Holy Spirit. All the riches, all the honours (I [p. 220] do not mean worldly honours), all the favours that may come from the hand of God, nothing but the Holy Spirit can make up for the absence of Christ. So now, if you want to know His action and power, you must keep your eye on the taken One.
In Elisha you get what alone can compensate you for His absence. I put it to my own heart, Can I say honestly, Nothing can compensate me for Christ’s absence but the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the source of everything to me. The apostles were told to tarry at Jerusalem until endued with power from on high.
I turn to Matthew 14. You get here another trait which I believe is of all importance; affection in Peter that wants to be with Him. It is not merely grace and the power to go to heaven. The first question with the soul is heaven or hell, as another has said; the second is, heaven or earth. I have seen a great many who would happily give up what they had on earth for the Lord, but I have not seen many who would give up the earth altogether to be with Him. Like Rebecca or Ruth: “Whither thou goest I will go”. You are out of everything. You would not be one bit less capable in the things down here, but the Lord would be with you in them, because your heart is with Him. Your heart is so with the Lord you must be according to His pleasure here. In Matthew 14 the Lord is seen in a new position. Peter in the ship sees Him walking on the water. It seems a very unaccountable place. Of course it is. It is as hard to walk on smooth water as on rough. Peter had not the power. You have the power to walk on the water. The believer has the power to set his mind on things above. We are better off than Peter, better off than Elisha. I do not say we have the same heart. In Elisha we get the heart that says, I can stay in the place of your absence if I have your spirit. In Peter I get, Nothing [p. 221] would please me but to be in the place where You are. Everyone knows a ship was made for water. I get out of the ship to go to Him, to walk in the most unaccountable way. You have not gone this road heretofore. A new road it is surely, but Jesus has gone the road; that is enough for me, and He has opened the way. “Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water”. The Lord says, “Come”. There is a reality about it. Do you believe it?
I was once alluding to this passage when a nice intelligent man was present, spiritually intelligent, I mean. He said to me later, Two years after it flashed across my mind what it meant, the reality to overcome everything here to go to the Lord. He only looked at the figure while I was speaking. Do not be discouraged. It takes time to work things out, like some corn that is so many months before it will sprout.
How did Peter come to get that power? In Elisha I get, Nothing can console me for your absence but your spirit; in Peter I get, Nothing would satisfy me but to be where You are. And the Lord said, “Come”. Why did He say Come? Simply because Peter had affection enough to wish to go to Him. These are the two things really: you do not value the Spirit of God enough as the only One to make up to you for the blank of your Lord’s absence, and the other is, you have not affection enough for Him, like Peter. You do not say to Him, “Bid me come”. Peter had not the power. He got it for a minute, it was delegated to him, so to speak, but we have it. If you understand Ephesians 1: 19, we have it in Christ; we may never have used it. Why? Because you were never like Elisha nor like Peter yet. We do not want title, we have it; but we want heart to make use of what we have. If we have heart for the Lord, as the hymn says,
“No place can fully please us
Where Thou, O Lord, art not”. (56:4)
[p. 222] One illustration I give you. It brings out the actual knowledge of the power. The parent bird, when the young birds are fledged, goes up two or three feet above them. The young birds will not fly. Like Christians now, you have the power, you have the wings. Why do you not use them? You would never forget it if you had. The parent bird knows very well that the young birds will try to get to it; it counts upon their affection. They have the affection, but do not know that they have the power to satisfy their affection. What now? The young bird begins to move, and to its surprise, finds it can fly. Have we got the affection? We have the power; all we want is the affection. We find, when we have the affection, we have the power to satisfy and gratify it.
I need hardly refer you again to Ephesians 1. I trust it is plain to you, that we are superior, as to grace and standing, to Elisha and Peter. What we want is that real heart for Christ, that, like Elisha, can say, No other thing can suit me but the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, during Your absence. I show I value it by keeping my eye on You as the taken One, and, like Peter, no matter what my circumstances are, no matter what the difficulties, my heart is so set upon You where You are, that I am not thinking of difficulties. No doubt he began afterwards to look at the winds and the waves, but first “he walked on the water, to go to Jesus”. He lent Peter His power, as it were. It is not lent to me, but given. A gift is not a loan. Thank God, I have a gift. The only question is, have I used my gift? Like the young birds, have you used your wings? They had their wings before they used them. That is all I want to insist upon.
Turn to another scripture for a minute which marks the thing in a very definite way: Joshua 5: 9. The reproach of Egypt is rolled away. You have the [p. 223] power, and you have gone over Jordan. Two things mark the enjoyment of power, and are necessarily connected with it: a double action, in a certain sense concurrent. We never should be happy otherwise. When they knew the power, they got rid of what was unsuited to possession. I have parted with what would unfit me for this new position before I enjoy it. The old thing goes, in order that I may entirely enjoy the new thing. The new possession has it all to itself, no rivalry. One is gone, broken, silenced. It may rise up again? Quite true, but it is silenced. Hence there was Gilgal, rolling off the reproach before they ate of the old corn of the land. I part with what would spoil my enjoyment before I enter upon my enjoyment. I am clear of it.
Take the prodigal son. Do not you think he took off the old garments before he put on the new? “Put off” you get in Colossians 3, where it is a man over Jordan, but not yet in possession of the land. It is a most serious thing to think you could get into a fine place in unsuited clothes, never such a thing! I used to think that when I saw the Lord I should become like Him; but I shall be like Him to see Him: it would not be happy to see Him if I were not like Him. The bride will be brought to the king “in raiment of needlework”, everything done with a stitch; “all glorious within”, all fitting. That is the beautiful history of Rebekah. She gets off the camel, in true godliness showing her deference to her lord, and casts a veil over herself. There is Isaac, and she is ready for him.
I am in possession, a person says; but he has kept up the old thing. I do not believe it. You have to part with the old thing, and you would like to feel you have broken with it. Hence Gilgal comes before possession, as Colossians 3. I have the right of entrance? Yes, and more: the power to enter, but the very power enables me to separate from the thing [p. 224] that would not suit. You would not bring it into heaven, would you? Your nature, your self-gratification, your vanity, your natural worldly desires? You know in your heart you could not bring them in. Therefore Gilgal was before possession. There is renunciation always before possession. You are thus qualified for possession. The more the renunciation, the more thoroughly you are in possession. Paul in Philippians 3 had done with everything. Far better leave it all, not one bit or another bit, but all.
A person years ago was helped by a simple statement: A bird cannot fly unless he leaves the earth. He must leave it. The leaving came first. “Cease to do evil”, before “learn to do well”. It could not be otherwise. Nothing can be plainer in its principle. I take them in the order in which I read them. Now look at Elisha, what was the first mark of power in him? “He took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces”. He has done with them now; that is the first mark. Then he took up the mantle of Elijah and put it on him. He comes out now in a new dress. That is the mantle with which he went over Jordan. The more I look at it, the more I see that you must break from the man who is at enmity to Christ. That is the terrible character of the flesh. Not only, as in Romans 7, it is incompetent to keep the law, but as in Galatians 4, it persecutes him that is born of the Spirit. I have found out that you oppose Christ, and I have done with you. I like to be free of the flesh. When a person is getting on, how does the Lord help him? “We which live are alway delivered unto death”. I say, I shrink from this entanglement, and the Lord lets death in to help me. I tremble sometimes at what the process may be; wonderful examples one has seen. I cannot let my heart go that way any longer. Then the Lord takes you at your word. He rolls in death.
The Romanist says, Through my death I get life;
[p. 225] I say, I get life through Christ’s death; that is right, but practically death works in us. Through life I get death. The moment you desire to be free, the Lord says, I will free you. That is where the power comes in. You do not renounce to get the power; that is legalism. I illustrate it in this way, A dog tied up is trying to get loose, but when he is free, and you try to tie him up again, he avoids you. He knows what liberty is, he does not want to be tied up again. “We which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake”. The Lord never presses any one to devotedness, but He likes it.
What am I going to possess the other side? Heaven itself; ‘in spirit there already.’ Do you want to bring the flesh in? Not I. I have done with it! It is not simply I have put it by for a time, because it is Sunday, perhaps, but I have done with it. I will not be molested by it.
Peter in the same way left the ship. You may call it the Jewish ship, or what you like, but he did leave it, “he walked on the water to go to Jesus”. There was renunciation before possession, he left the ship. The first mark of power is renunciation, not enjoyment. Enjoyment is the second mark. I renounce that which would interfere with my enjoyment, and now I have my enjoyment without interference. Everyone knows that if you want to enjoy yourself over the fire with a book you shut the door first. Renunciation before enjoyment; you will find it so in every case. I know very well why we do not enjoy heaven.
What is it really? You are over Jordan, but you are not in possession of Canaan. You do not get that in Ephesians, because there it is all the power of God; but in Colossians it is: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above”. “Put off” - let it go. Mortify your members. It is not Marah. Marah is that I drink death as the thing arises; but Gilgal is circumcision, the old thing is [p. 226] over; all things are made new. Mortify all round the indigenous plants; put off the habits, the annuals. Proper education would perhaps help one to put off lying, evil speaking, ill temper, and so on, but the things we are told to mortify are all ingrained; you can only mortify them.
Circumcision is the first thing when you are over Jordan; it could not take place in the wilderness; you had not the power there, you were but struggling through the wilderness. Now it is the knife: “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus”.
One little illustration I give, to show how the Christian is qualified for possession. There is actual stripping of all that which would unfit you for the enjoyment of possession. We do not fight for possession, as they did, it is ours, but do we enjoy it? This is the way to enjoy it. I illustrate it by a recruit. A young man is enlisted and brought to the barracks. What does he learn? He has to leave all the civilian, his old dress, his old gait, outside. He did what he liked before. He is to be remodelled, he is to be made a soldier; he is divested of everything that does not suit a soldier, and invested with everything that suits a soldier; he has to get the ways, the movements, the evolutions of a soldier; it is a new course of education, but what does he start with? With his being stripped and divesting himself of the old things. That is the principle of Scripture. “Put off the old man ... and have put on the new”. I believe there is no conscientious person who would not say, I am delighted to hear it, the old thing goes first, and I am a free man to enjoy the new thing that I am brought into.
That is the first action of the power, freed from what embarrasses you. I do not doubt there is a practical severance as you grow in it. I am getting greater enjoyment in that scene, and I am glad to say, I [p. 227] am more detached here; not suffering by detachment, but pleased to be detached. Paul was not mourning that he had to go when he said, I long to depart and be with Christ; all my links are formed up there, so I am very glad to go; all the links loosened here.
The Lord lead our hearts practically to enter into it! What a thing to find we have this power according to Ephesians 1, the power to bring us up to that spot. You have the power, you have the wings. I tell you why you do not use them. “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest”. You never had the heart to go. You may tell me your prayers are three hours long, that you read the Bible and notes incessantly, but you have not the heart to go! If you had you would know that you possessed the power, and that nothing could console you in the absence of the Lord but the Holy Spirit, who leads you to where He is. He knew Himself nothing could make up for His absence but the Holy Spirit, and blessed be His name, He gave the Holy Spirit without our asking for Him.
You must be like Peter. It is not enough to see Him in that new position above everything; you must want to go to Him there.
Then I say, what is the practical consequence? Two things come out. You renounce the thing that would hinder your possession up there, the other is that you enjoy it. Believe me, you will find it so. Renunciation is always before enjoyment. I assert it, I know it, that if you do not renounce you would be actually spoilt and hindered in your enjoyment. It would be a trial to you. It is the principle of what Paul says: “Whether we be beside ourselves it is to God”. He was in an ecstasy like the queen of Sheba, “No more spirit in her”. You say, Do you want me to leave the earth? No. You will go back to your duties on the earth with a heart and a half, because it is His pleasure for you to remain here for Him.
[p. 228] A river runs within its banks. These are the channels you are to flow in, to testify in. Thank God, I know where I am to run, and I know where His grace will run with me and support me. I am not dead to nature, but I have to act in divine power in all my natural ties and duties.
The Lord grant that we may know where His grace has placed us, and that we may have the heart to use what His grace has given us, for His name’s sake.