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enlarged and Ananias called him “Brother”, the relationship

now being through the Holy Spirit.

Typically, Solomon was considering largely what is proceeding

in our local companies where there are few men, “and there

came a great king against it”. Solomon found the ‘poor wise

Man’. Have you found Him? The Lord Jesus who saved us

from our sins is the means of present salvation even now, and

He is the means of the local assembly’s salvation. All that He

did on the cross is available to us that we might know what it is

to be delivered from the power of this great king, he who has,

the might of death, that is, the devil (Hebrews 2: 14).

The Lord Jesus met him—alone in the hour of His death when

He went into the grave. What a time it was for Jesus! He said,

“I became dead”, Revelation 1: 18. Then not only was His

blood shed after He died, beloved brethren, but it was poured

out; He did that! These are wonderful things to think of. What a

Man He was! What He did for God; what He has done for you

and me! And there

it stands; He went into death. He broke the power of this great

king, and broke down the bulwarks of death. Many of us are

getting older, and are facing death. How are we going to do

against these bulwarks, when the waters of the Jordan

overflow their banks? How powerful it is!—and yet the Lord

Jesus has made a way through death, and He has made a

way for the whole city.

Is that not a wonderful thing that He came back and said to His

disciples, You go back to Jerusalem? They could be trusted to

go back because they were in fellowship with His death

outside that city. That is where the priest took the ashes, as

we read in the type. They offered the offerings, but the ashes

were taken outside the camp, speaking of the awfulness of

what the Lord Jesus endured in abandonment when He

suffered all the penalty at the hand of God.