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11

HOW CITIES ARE DELIVERED

J. A. Petersen

Ecclesiastes 9: 14–18; Hebrews 13: 10–14; 1 Corinthians 1:

21–24

I was thinking of the thought of the city and desire particularly

to make much of wisdom in the city. What is in mind is the

local assembly. I would say that we are facing matters in New

York and other places as to the continuance of the collective

testimony. The Spirit of God has anticipated the time when a

city may get into great straits and difficulties, such as the book

of Ecclesiastes contemplates, “a little city, and few men within

it”. When Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes Jerusalem was a great

city filled with persons and you wonder how he in writing this

book could envisage the distress that would come upon a

certain city—and distress has come upon some cities and on

this place too. There are few men in it; that is what the Spirit of

God anticipated. We had Matthew 18 this afternoon, and I

remember Mr. J. Taylor saying more than once that the Lord

anticipated the day of small things in that scripture, but none

the less the character of the assembly is to be maintained

although numbers be few. And the principal matter to turn to in

these times of difficulty is wisdom. In the last scripture read, 1

Corinthians 1. Paul commends wisdom to the Corinthian

brethren, it being the subject of the latter part of chapter 1.

Wisdom is the principal thing needed to bring about salvation.

There was one man in this city that the Spirit of God speaks of

as a poor man, no doubt a reference to the Lord Jesus as the

One who has taken on the burden of the cities in which we

live and who has defeated the foe in His death. It says about

this city that there were “few men within it; and there came a

great king against it, and encompassed it, and built great

bulwarks against it”. That is to say, the powers that are