THE NEW INTEREST AND THE NEW POWER
[p. 274] THE NEW INTEREST AND THE NEW POWER
Beloved brethren, I desire to occupy your hearts with the subject of our new interest on the earth. It is quite clear that we have, first, a new place out of this earth; secondly, a new interest in it; and in connection with the interest, a new power. You will see how it forms us.
There are, as we have often remarked, two distinct ministries in the New Testament; the one, the ministry of the gospel, and the other, the ministry of the church. No one can truly take his place in the church, if he has not learned the gospel.
In the gospel I see what has been done. Matthew 27: 50, 51, unfolds it. “Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom”. Here is the gospel of God! It is plain that man had created an immeasurable distance between himself and God. Man could not remove it, but God has so removed that distance on His own side, to His own satisfaction, that that veil, which hid all the secret things of God, is “rent in twain from the top to the bottom”. God no longer dwells in thick darkness. Some might say that the earthquake rent the veil, but any thoughtful person would say that something wonderful must have been done for God to allow the veil to be rent. It was the testimony that God had removed the distance between Himself and man. The Son of God has come that He might destroy the works of the devil, annul his power. Sin brought in death, but God laid help on One that is mighty; and now the thing is done; and the divine testimony is that God is free to come [p. 275] out to the sinner; every bit of distance is removed. That terrible thing that was brought in by man’s sin is removed, God was glorified in the most distant spot. Now the Son of man is glorified; and God’s eye rests on the glorified Man. It must be either on the lost man down here, or on the glorified Man up there.
It is a most important thing to get clear about this great fact - where Christ is, and why He is where He is. He is at the “right hand of the majesty on high”, and God’s eye rests on the believer there, because Christ has removed everything according to the will of God. Unless this is known in the soul, there cannot be a true knowledge of what Christ has done. God says, ‘I have removed everything from My own eye in the most perfect way’. If you do not believe this, you cannot enjoy what He has done. Do our souls grasp the fulness of that wondrous fact, that God has a glorified Man in heaven, on whom His eye ever rests; and not on Him only, but on every believer in Him now?
I turn for a moment to 2 Corinthians 4, which is the consequence of God having a Man glorified in heaven. In verses 4 - 6 we read, “lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ .. . should shine unto them .. . for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ”. Now, if I ask anyone in this room where the light comes from, what would be the answer? Do you reply, it comes from God? But I say, from what spot does it descend? It comes from the top, from a glorified Saviour. It is of immense moment to every heart to be clear about this, to know really from whence the light comes. It does not come from a crucified Saviour. No! but from a glorified Saviour, who has removed everything from the eye of God. The gospel of the glory of Christ comes from the top, from the very highest [p. 276] spot; from a glorified Saviour the light shines down; and the record is, that in its first display, in all its effulgence and splendour, it reaches Saul of Tarsus, a man who is in the very frenzy of hatred to Christ; and it surrounds him, not to repel, as with Isaiah (see Isaiah 6) but to invite. What a wonderful thing! There is a Man in the glory of God. From there the light shines down, and invites you to share in what His work has accomplished for you. If that be the case, I must be, in the eye of God, either in the lost man in terrible misery, or in the glorified Man in all His delight. All is done for the believer. The power of the enemy is broken, and the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.
In Exodus 24, as soon as the blood was sprinkled, the whole body of heaven in its clearness was seen. The moment the blood was seen, the distance was gone; heaven was visible. I do not think that the blood here was for the sinner; the blood of the Paschal lamb was; but here as elsewhere (so far as I know) it has to do with approach. The nearer I approach the better off I am, because I am approaching the source from which all blessing comes. God has removed everything offensive from His own eye in the cross. I look up, and behold His glory in the face of Jesus Christ, and I am transformed according to it. All His glory rests on my Saviour, and as I behold Him there, I am morally conformed to it. If I go back to the flesh, God has no claim on me for it, but it must be as absolutely removed from me as at the cross. You revive in yourself what God has removed in the distance of the cross. God has no claim now as to sin; but if we do sin, and do not judge the flesh, we may be assured that the sin we indulge in and do not judge, for that very sin we shall have a purgatory, not after death, but in this life; the thing you spare in nature will become your scourge. Our God is a consuming fire, and the form [p. 277] in which you give licence to the flesh, that will be your plague. If you judge yourself, God will not judge you. It is on the ground that He has removed everything that He deals with you. He looks at the glorified Man, and sees you in all that blessedness, but if you revive what He has removed in the cross, He must judge it, and you must suffer.
So far is the gospel. The first step is, that the ground is cleared; and what marks that step is, that we love to give to the One who has cleared the ground for us. Like Jonathan to David, we would strip ourselves of what is of most value to us for His sake. The ground is cleared, and the One who cleared it occupies my heart. Nor is that all, but we stand in all the excellence and acceptableness of the One who is at God’s right hand. Thus we have the magnificence of God’s grace displayed. In the scene of my alienation and degradation I am not only cleared, fit for heaven, but I stand in the acceptance of the glorified Man.
Now the second step is (I am still speaking of what is individual) that I find what the Lord is to me personally in the wilderness. He is indispensable to me, and the way I find that out is in His priesthood. This is Hebrews. Priesthood is for infirmity while we are down here. There are three sorts of infirmities; first, pressure of circumstances, such as poverty, etc.; second, sickness; third, sorrow. Sorrow is what you cannot remedy; there is nothing like sorrow to test souls. Circumstances and sickness may often be remedied, but in sorrow, that is bereavement, there is no remedy. Now it is here I find that I have One who has gone through the path, and upon whose help I can count; that is, if I am on the road to heaven. If I am not travelling to heaven, He will not help me. This may seem severe, but it has the support of Scripture: “Let us labour therefore to enter that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief”, Hebrews 4: 11. There we are seen as going to heaven; and we never get His sympathy unless we are on the road. You will get the word to show you that you are not neglected, but not the sympathy. What is the difference? It is immense. When I get sympathy, I am so supported, that instead of being occupied with support, I am occupied with the Supporter. Mary of Bethany learned sympathy in John 11 and passed on to be occupied with the Supporter in chapter 12.
In the gospels we have two women with their alabaster boxes who came to anoint the Lord. The difference between that of Luke 7 and of Matthew 26 is this; the former makes much of Christ for His service, here on earth; the latter anoints Him for His burial; her heart is with Him; she is a follower. He values following more than giving. Many a one would give to Him who would not follow Him. The affection of Ruth to Naomi, exceeded that of Jonathan to David. She says, “entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee”. Following marks devotedness. It flows from attachment between myself and Him, “If any man serve me, let him follow me”. “They forsook all and followed him”. A thoroughly devoted man follows.
When we look at the brute creation, we may learn lessons that shame us; how often a dog will follow its master, in spite of everything; beat him, give him meat, nothing will divert him, he will follow; he may have to cross a river, or make his way through hedge or ditch, but he persists in following. A follower never calculates. There is no calculation in love. Love does not calculate what it will lose. Some interpret Luke 14: 28, “Counteth the cost”, as calculation, but that is not the meaning of the passage. The question there is, Have you the right material? Thank God there have been, and are, saints who are thus devoted. May we all be more so!
[p. 279] The third stage is union, and here I come to our corporate blessings, what is true of us as of the assembly. I have not yet touched on the new interest. For the heart to be in the understanding of it, and really taken up with it, there must be the apprehension of what union is: one must be taught of God to know the reality of being united to that blessed One in glory, the sole object of my heart. Nothing can surpass the blessedness of realising what union is. In how few cases among saints where it is owned theoretically is it actually known! Of what value is it to a man to be born a prince, if he is not in the enjoyment of his position? Nothing transcends that moment in the soul’s history when it apprehends, I am united to Him, I share in all His. Then I can “shout”! Joshua says, “Shout; for the Lord hath given you the city”, Joshua 6: 16. That illustrates what I mean. Shout when you know it. The shouting results from the peculiar sense of possession.
Now what marks this stage? Occupation with His interest. There may be deep personal affection without the knowledge of union, and with defective intelligence. That is seen in the case of Mary Magdalene, in John 20. She had affection, the only true preparation for union. The disciple (verse 8) who “saw and believed”, had intelligence, and he went home; but affection would not go home, will not rest till she finds Him; and she does find Him. It is a great thing for the heart that loves Christ to find Him where He is. A wonderful moment for the soul to find Christ in glory. Paul says, “That I may know him”. Mary will not go home till she has found Him, and when she does find Him all is changed. He says, Go now and attend to My interests. Go to My brethren. It is not now her own interests or her own love, but His interests. He knew of her devoted love, and He tells her where He will be, and then He commissions her to attend to His concerns.
“[p. 280] Go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God”. Here we see in pattern what really characterises the person who knows that he is united to Christ in glory; he is occupied with the interest of Christ. The new interest is Christ’s own on the earth; he is occupied with this new interest. Neither in the history of Jonathan nor of Ruth can we find what we have here; both come short of it. You may love as Jonathan, and follow as Ruth, but until you know that you are united to Christ in glory, you will not be free enough from your own interests, to take up His. You are united to Him. It is all yours. All the rounds of the ladder are yours; but all your power, joy, and testimony depend on the round of the ladder on which the Holy Spirit has set you. We do not expect every one to be grown up. “We speak wisdom among them that are perfect”. I trust I am addressing those who would like to be perfect. I am not speaking of gifted people, but of every soul. Often the brightest specimen of divine grace is in a woman. I may remark that, while on the one hand all the ruin came in by a woman, what a triumph of grace that so great a commission was, as we find in John 20, entrusted to a woman. Mary Magdalene is a pattern, not a shadow. In the Old Testament, you get shadows; in the New, patterns; a pattern shows the way a thing is to be done. Mary’s simple and undivided affection for Christ was followed by her gaining intelligence. If I have true affection for the Lord - if my heart is right, I am sure to become intelligent sooner or later. Every one gets what he values. Mary goes about His interest; she no longer has a fear of losing Him; she is now in association with Him, and His interest is hers. I am in association with Him in unchangeable relationship to Him; and what occupies me now? Christ’s own treasure. Our souls want to know better that Christ’s interest,
[p. 281] His treasure, is on the earth. Following this new interest is what draws out the enmity of the world, as the Lord says, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own, but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.... But when the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me “. The Holy Spirit is the new power, and the only power for the new interest; you can carry on the testimony with the new power, but with nothing else. Any human resource is a hindrance. The enmity of the world is aroused if you refuse its help, but you can only maintain the interest of Christ by the new power on the earth. Here it is (and I say it with sorrow) that we have so failed; we have found resources in the world in one shape or another; we have adopted human means instead of leaning solely on the Spirit of God. It is most hindering to the testimony.
In John 15 Christ instructs His disciples that they were to love one another. “This is my commandment, that ye love one another”. And how far were they to go? “As I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”. And in the epistle we have it, “we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren”. That is to be the measure of our love to one another. Perhaps nothing so tends to exasperate your natural friends and relatives, who are in the world, as to find that you have new objects for your affection and interest, a new company which is nearer and dearer to you than themselves. The disciples were to be like an island in the midst of a ruthless sea; the sea tried to swamp it, but could not. So they were to be in the midst of a ruthless world: the storm may come and beat upon you, and the waves, but you will not [p. 282] be swamped, you will be sustained here. Some may say, As the whole world is against us, we shall be swamped. No! With this new power on our side, we cannot be swamped.
In the parables which I have read (Matthew 13: 44 - 48), we see that in the midst of all the confusion Christ’s treasure is here. We hear of all the political and social troubles on this earth, but in the midst of it all, Christ’s interest is here. If it were not here, the sooner I left this scene the better for me; but it is here; and the wonderful favour is, that He asks us to co-operate in His interest. He asks for our hearts. He says, I delight to take you into My interest, only, “Give me thine heart”. I do not ask for your property; I ask for your heart. If He has your heart, He will delight to have you as a partner in His own precious interest on this earth.
Now let us look at these three parables. These last three were given in the house. The first four parables were given out of the house. So speaking typically, the first four are outside, for man’s eye; the last three are in the house. The first of these tells us that His treasure is hid in the field. In the second, the pearl, we get what its quality is, its beauty; what it is to Him. The third, “the net”, shows how we are to co-operate with Him; not in catching the fish, but in selecting them. They sat down to select them. Now it is only inside, sitting down, as it were, with the Lord, that we can select.
You are not in your right place in the assembly, unless you have the sense that the Lord is there. If you have the sense of who the Lord is, you have a right understanding of your place; you are a living stone; but if you have not, you do not understand it: you are not held there in divine power. I am a component part of Christ’s building. I take my place in the assembly as a living stone, as one built in by Himself. That is a different thing from knowing [p. 283] that my soul is saved. The fact of my soul being saved is because of what Christ has done for me; but that which I am to Christ is connected with my being a living stone. I take my place as a living stone in His building; I am dwelling in Him, and have faith in Himself.
The origin of the house of God on earth was the rejection of Christ; it was brought in when Christ was rejected; Matthew 16: 18. The house is little known. It is of immense importance to apprehend what it is, a divine structure on the earth, where Christ was rejected, and to be the “pillar and base of the truth”. The body is a mystery, invisible, like the works of a clock, which are not seen, but which work the clock. The house is where you can walk into, and if it were in a right state you would learn the mind of the Lord there. The Holy Spirit dwells in it. People say that all is in ruins. That is true; but we are called still to make Christ’s interest here, our delight. The Lord confides His interest; He says to His disciples, “Ye are my friends”. If we were nearer the Lord, we should be more in His confidence. “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him”. The Lord delights to have a friend. He is my Friend. I can sing that with all my heart. But who gives a line - I am a friend of His? If we are occupied with His concerns we are like the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31: “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her”. Two things marked her. In unflagging devotedness, she fed her household and clothed them, regardless of all that it cost her. Nourishing and cherishing characterised her. That is carrying out the desire of Christ’s heart; “Feed my sheep, feed my lambs”.
In Ephesians we begin in heaven, and come down to be in God’s house on the earth, and are sustained here to be for Him in the scene of His rejection. “To the intent that now unto the principalities and [p. 284] powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God”, Ephesians 3: 10. That all might see it, that wonderful administration! How it should charm our hearts to think that the saints here are to be the beautiful expression of the glorified Man, of Christ in glory, and now the lesson book for angels. That is your new interest, I am not surprised at your friends seeing that your whole life is changed. They do not understand it. No one can understand the body who is not in it; it is a mystery. Persons who know us ought to have ground for surprise, in seeing that there is evidently an object here that has such an attraction for us, that we are so bent on following after it as to be manifestly outside the common interests of the world.
In 2 Timothy 3: 10 we have the character of a person who was consecrated to the interest of the Lord. The apostle says, “But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience”. That connects manner of life with doctrine. We never can truly commend the truth save as we are living exponents of it. If a man expounds great and wonderful doctrines, we may rightly ask - What sort of man is he at home? It was asked once of myself. I could never forget it. To dive into my private life, and to see what it announces! All our power in testimony is in proportion to the way the truth acts upon ourselves. I never minister on a passage that I have not accepted in faith. The sense of ignorance is often a prelude to my getting it. There are two experiences; one is that we have light; we see it; the other is, that we have faith. It is faith that brings us into the actual power of the truth. I have often to say, “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief”.
Paul exhorts Timothy; “be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity”. The servant is in a peculiar [p. 285] position. In 2 Thessalonians 3: 9, we see how the apostle’s aim was to make themselves ensamples. “Not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us”. A bishop was to be a pattern man. Do you not think the elect lady was a specimen? If there were more of this, we should not find all the worldliness that there is among us.
But, beloved, what I desire for you and for myself is that we may be so truly wedded to Christ that His interest may be ours; that we may have only one interest down here. I know the question may be raised, But what about my business and my family? You will not attend to your family one bit worse from making the Lord’s interest paramount; and be assured of this, if His affairs have a paramount place in your heart, you will find that your affairs have a corresponding place in His heart. I find that the Lord cares for my family far better than I can. I have not half the solicitude for them that He has, if I confide in Him. The Lord grant that we may understand the exceeding blessedness of it. It is far from my wish to put a yoke on the neck of any; but I do desire to lead you into a circle of the greatest delight, to that circle where Christ’s heart is. I long that we may all be helped on so as to Have our hearts in that circle where we may share the delight of His heart day by day. At the close of the assembly’s day on earth, the Spirit and the bride are found engrossed in one interest: “The Spirit and the bride say, Come”. May we individually be in company with it! By-and-by all Christ’s desires for us will be fulfilled. The bride will come down from God out of heaven adorned for her Husband. Then will be the glorious display to this world, of Christ’s great interest; the fulfilment of John 17; every desire of the Lord answered.
You will never satisfy the heart of Christ, unless you are making His interest yours. When you do,
[p. 286] you will be a different person. The Lord grant we may travel up to it. I am not up to it, but I want to be. I have obtained an interest that is unbounded. The queen of Sheba was entranced with the things of Solomon. There were seven things that entranced her, “When the queen of Sheba had seen all Solomon’s wisdom, and the house that he had built, and the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her”. If we could only see the wonderful net-work of machinery going on over this world, in the Lord’s ministry for His own, we should be entranced by it. May we know it better for His name’s sake.
The Lord grant that we may so know what it is to have lost ourselves in His company, that His interest on earth may ever be dear to our hearts!