INTRODUCTION
Our beloved brother, Mr J B Catterall, having departed to be with Christ since this address was given, we shall not have the privilege of hearing his voice orally in ministry again. The present article is a timely word for saints generally, and the distributer of these copies sends them forth in the fervent hope that the Lord may specially use them as a prophetic and deeply encouraging word to His own, in these days of general declension from the truth.
THE SUPPORT OF THE LORD IN VIEW OF
FORMATION
My desire, as the Lord may help me, is to speak in regard of the support of the Lord. I think every one of us must feel that a proper understanding of the support of the Lord must be a very important matter, and that not only is it important because of its necessity, but because of its preciousness.
I have chosen the account given us by the Spirit of God of the temptation of the Lord Jesus in the wilderness with this before my mind, that we might see the way in which we have been provided for in divine instruction as to all that is connected with the pathway of the Christian here.
I think one feels how very necessary it is to understand that the Lord was tempted in all points like as we are. I suppose that the common impression of the accounts of the testing or the temptation in the wilderness is that the Lord was tempted in three points, that while there are three heads 238
under which the temptation is placed, there are three chief connections, and these three connections cover all the points in which the Christian might be tempted in his pathway here.
And so I trust in the Lord that we may be helped together in consideration of them. I think one might say, putting it simply, that there are three ways in which we need the support of the Lord:
1. We need the support of the Lord in regard of what is temporal.
2. We need the support of the Lord in regard of what is divine.
3. We need the support of the Lord in regard of what is human.
I suppose to some of our minds there is not very much difference between what is temporal and what is human, but I think I might say this: All of us must agree that there is a great difference between what is temporal and what is divine; what is divine must be abiding, stable and enduring, but then when we think of what is temporal we may not yet have learned how to distinguish between the temporal state of things and the human situation. As we go through these considerations together I have no doubt that the Lord may comfort and help our spirits.
I see a temporal situation indicated in regard of the Lord being in the wilderness and being an hungered, and the way in which the enemy approaches the Lord is of very great importance indeed. May I say this before I go further into detail, that the enemy was with the Lord in the wilderness during the whole forty days of His trial; it was not simply that he approached the Lord in a special way when the moment of His hunger had come. For forty days and nights He neither ate nor drank and He was an hungered. And when He was an hungered the enemy made a special kind of attack on the blessed Lord. There was that 239
in the Lord that I suppose came under the enemy's notice.
He had been acquainted with the history of every man that preceded the Lord, and I think we may reverently suggest that the manner in which be approached the Lord was based upon all the knowledge he had of poor frail man in all his generations. But while it was so, that he approached the Lord specially when He was hungry, you will find from other scriptures that he was with the Lord in the wilderness during the whole forty days. For if you recall Psalm 91, you will remember how that Psalm speaks of the terror that comes by night. You will remember, too, how in that Psalm the Spirit of God speaks of the arrow that is shot by day and of the pestilence that comes in the darkness and the wasting that comes at noon-day. All that came upon the blessed Lord during those forty days in the wilderness.
Now, I speak reverently as to this, because I trust with the Lord's help to come to a point in our considerations when we shall feel how very graciously indeed we have been considered in all the various situations on our pathway. We are very much tested by what is temporal. It may be to some mind there readily occurs the thought that when I speak of what is temporal I am thinking of the question of the ordinary necessities of life—food and clothing. Indeed the Lord would make us very simple about food and clothing, and after all I should very greatly question at times if we are as simple about the question of food and clothing as the Lord would have us. I firmly believe that there is a very great deal more complexity with us about the question of food and clothing than there is in the mind of the Lord. My impression is that often our spirits are ruffled when the Lord would have them quiet. Very often our minds are concerned when the Lord would have our spirits very simple and restful. But I only touch upon that by the way. When I speak of what is temporal, I am not confining my thoughts to what are merely the ordinary necessities of our human lives, I would touch upon things that are connected with the natural situation, and which are a very great test to us. So 240
that the enemy may approach us in a testing way in regard of what is temporal. For instance, the apostle Paul in his epistle to the Corinthians speaks to the saints of an outward man perishing. There is no doubt about it that the outward man perishing is connected with the temporal situation. All our relationships in this life are temporal and are not intended to abide forever, but there are a great many anxieties and difficulties and very often a great many pressing, searching sorrows connected with temporal relationships, and unless our hearts learn the support of the Lord in these things they will not yield the good that the Lord intended they should. There never was a sorrow that was not intended to yield abiding good and abiding joy. Very often we are deprived of the results of the testing, not because there is an insufficiency of support, nor because there is a lack of care on the Lord’s side, but because there is a lack of simplicity or a lack of understanding and intelligence on our side. There is not an experience, there is not a necessity, there is not a consideration of care or a question connected with our temporal situation, into which the Lord is not prepared to enter. There may be things with which we are so very well acquainted in our human experience that we fall into the habit of leaving the Lord out, but I feel sure of this, that while you may not immediately miss Him in His presence and support, I believe that in time we shall inevitably know the sorrow that springs from being casual in regard of the interest of the Lord. There is no experience of our daily life in which the Lord does not desire to be included. How very sweet the simplicity of it, that into every exercise of your daily life you may take the Lord; you will never find Him reluctant to come, you will never find Him hesitant, you never find the Lord stand aside from the situation as if He judged it trivial, but you may often find yourself deprived of the joy and the nearness and the interest of the Lord because you yourself judged the circumstance to be too trivial for His attention.
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May I put it to you in a simple illustration. A person may say—Well I have learned my profession, I have gone through all that is necessary and I can do all that I need to do and I can do it well. But then, if you fall into the habit of trusting your capacity, what you will very soon find is this, you will find yourself doing things just as others do them, you will find yourself doing them in the same mind and in the same spirit: you may even find yourself doing them with the same ambition and you may very soon find yourself doing them as an eye servant and not as pleasing the Lord. All that arises from the fact that there is a misunderstanding in this, that into every circumstance and experience and interest and object of human life the Lord is prepared to enter.
There has been many a serious slip made in our pathway because we have been slow to give the Lord His place in ordinary human circumstances; when crisis have arisen with us we have turned to the Lord, our very fear compelled us so to do, but we had formed the habit of leaving the Lord out in the things that we judged ordinary—
but, my friends: there are no circumstances in our lives that are ordinary. Just consider this for a moment before we go further, that God is doing in the very short space of our lives what is going to endure for eternity. If we could every one of us here live to the full extent of the human span—
suppose it came to 70 or 80 years, what a wonderful thing, that in the short space or 70 years God is concentrating what is going to endure for eternity. There never was a soul, in view of the work of God, that you could speak of as being taken home before its time. Had the work in your soul and mine been done ten years ago, we should have been ten years at home by this time; because the Lord’s work was finished. Many have been taken, many have been spared.
I think if we looked at things in that light we should see that there are no circumstances in our human lives that are ordinary. The extraordinary value of every human circumstance is this, that it provides God with the 242
opportunity of doing His own work in detail in our souls, that we might be conscious of it, that we might be rejoiced by it, even as we are tested by it, that we might be established by it and that we might grow through it in the true knowledge of God.
I am not dealing at the moment with doctrine, what is on my mind is to get at facts that are of the greatest importance to each one of our souls.
If we do not give the Lord His opportunity, there is another who is always ready to take advantage, who is watching every opportunity. I would not put any soul in fear of evil because “He that dwelleth … under the shadow of the Almighty” (Ps 91: 1) is always under the cover of His wings—if he makes the “Most High” his habitation he is always protected.
Nevertheless we need to be in spiritual sobriety and spiritually alert. All our opportunities and circumstances give the Lord His openings, and if we fall into the habit of counting things too trivial for His notice, it is in that very supposition of triviality that the enemy may reach and touch us. I repeat there is nothing too trivial for His notice.
May I say it especially to the young again, the enemy has his eye on those who have links with the Lord and he is in every way alert. There are the things that we assume power and ability to do—we go into the concerns and occupations of daily life, and we may go into them in a casual way.
Suppose I go out to my daily occupation in the morning; I may say, ‘Well, I am only going to do things to-day that I did yesterday’. I have been doing those things perhaps for years. Yes, but I need the grace of Christ and the support of the Lord in it. Your very casuality about your circumstances means that you are casual about the Lord.
Would this not save our spirits from much that we feel to be the monotony at human life? In the relationships of natural life, there are the cares of parents, there are the responsibilities of a household. How much monotony may 243
come into these things—if we understood the great care of Christ to enter into those things in His support and in His sympathy, there would be no monotony to our spirits in them. You can go to the Lord and you can say—‘Lord, I am just going to do the same things to-day as I have been doing, perhaps for weeks and months’. And the Lord would answer you very tenderly and say—‘There is no monotony in those things for Me, I am not going to stand aside from you because those things are common. In My judgment they are not trivial, they are the sweet and well known ways in which I can draw near to your soul in the daily grace and sympathy and support that is necessary’.
I have been covering this ground because I want to bring what is before us into the comfort of our human situation. I can look back to the moments in my own life when I would rather have regarded the accounts of the temptation in the wilderness as only applying to me when great and serious things arose in my life.
In Matthew’s gospel you find the Lord Jesus in all the glory of His Sonship, as He comes up out of the waters of the Jordan and He is spoken to by the Father, the heavens are opened, and He is declared to be the beloved Son of God.
Then we see Him come up out of the waters of Jordan and carried up by the Spirit into the wilderness. I think somehow God would take our thoughts back to what came out in the movements of His earthly people. We get a very sweet analogy which is for our help, although they came up out of the Red Sea, and not the waters of the Jordan into the wilderness, but in the mind of God it was to be a pathway of very great dignity out of the wilderness, it was not to be a pathway shadowed and harassed and distressed, it was to be a path of great dignity. God did not bring His people into the wilderness to prove whether or not His love was worthily resting upon them—but He brought them into the wilderness that they might prove that the love and care of the God who had delivered them might be richly known 244
to them in their experience, and that their souls might be established in that pathway. It was in the glory of sonship that they came out of Egypt, it was not in the wilderness that it was to be declared, their pathway in the wilderness was to be according to it. While they were in Egypt's bondage, “out of Egypt I called my son” (Hos 11: 1)—“Let my son go that he may serve me” (Exod 4: 23) was in the mind of Jehovah. And so when you come to this account of the testing in the wilderness, you find that it takes the course that it took with His earthly people. What they were tested about first in the wilderness was the ability of God to support them.
We need not go into details, but the testings of the enemy all bear upon this, God’s own faithfulness and His ability to support them in the wilderness. You remember how in the book of Deuteronomy when they were just on the point of going into the land, the Spirit of Jehovah in Moses rehearses all their wilderness journey, all that had marked the journey from the beginning to the end is brought into review, and it is all made particularly to hang upon this very point that is raised in the first item of the temptation—“Man shall not live by bread alone …”. It was in regard of that that the enemy approached the Lord when He was an hungered, and said, “If thou be the Son of God”, etc..
We speak often of the wilderness. The wilderness is not a matter of whether our circumstances are pleasing or otherwise: when our circumstances are distressing, we very often say to one another—‘This is a wilderness indeed’, but when our circumstances are pleasing, we are very often silent about it. When there is no rest in that which is temporal, we speak of the world being a wilderness, but when we find a pleasant lodging in what is temporal, we do not feel it to be so much of a wilderness. It has often been said that prosperity brings out a man's weakness, and adversity tests his strength. Well then, if that be true, it is most important that we should see what the wilderness is 245
in relation to things in the will of God. It is not a question of what circumstances are in themselves, but what they are in relation to the will of God ... “Command these stones ...”.
There is no one who has any right to command their circumstances; whenever you bring in the element of command into the creature position you place aside at once all the right of the will of God. The suggestion of the enemy is that He should move out of the limitation of His own circumstances, that He should move out of the limitations that were connected with His humanity and His dependence here, and that He should use for Himself a power that belonged to the glory of His Person. His limitations were most wonderful, they were not, so to speak, limitations righteously connected with His own Person. We often find ourselves in limitations which are governmental, in the limitations that are the outcome of man's sin. But the limitations in which this blessed Person was found here as a Man were the result of His obedience. No limitation in Him was the result of anything that was contrary to the will of God. His very limitation was the result of His obedience,
“Man shall not live by bread alone”.
None of our circumstances in a temporal way could yield us abiding good were it not for the living and fresh communications of the truth of God in the Person of Jesus.
No human circumstances can yield you what is abiding. Let us take its joys; I like to speak of the joys connected with human circumstances, because I think in the past I have sometimes spoken of things like that as if Christianity shadowed them all, but I know better now. I know that God in His care for us on creature lines has very richly provided us with much that has been peculiarly sanctified by the knowledge of God. But let us take the joy of natural relationships. You may say—‘I take it as an expression of the mercy of God and His goodness to me’. Well now, you find a great deal in the joy of human circumstances but what do you find abiding in them? Why is it that God has given us the joy of human circumstances? That in the 246
knowledge and the confidence of His love we may be quiet and restful in His presence, and that as we recognise His will so His work might proceed apace in our souls. The joys of human circumstances are sent that the things that are dearer to God’s heart may be wrought out in us, the things that are abiding. There is no human joy that does not carry the burden of sorrow in it. There never yet was a light of human happiness that had not, often long before the shadow came, the elements of that shadow in it. What are we getting out of things? We need not be pessimistic when we come to deal with these things. “Man shall not live by bread alone”—No, not even the bread of affliction. Whether his bread be eaten in joy or whether it be eaten in affliction—Man shall not live by bread alone.
You may judge your days, as I have done, to be ordinary days because of no special circumstance of testing, and you may not have turned to the Lord for support, but, my friends, it is the quiet days that test us most. I will tell you why they test us most. When a little storm arises in your circumstances, or a cloud of anxiety passes over your sky, you turn to the Lord, but in the days when there are no clouds you often take your own way, do you not?
Because there is no special need of turning to the Lord for His care you may not turn to Him at all. There are dearer things to the heart of the Lord for us than the support that is necessary for our circumstances. Why does the Lord administer support? He ministers support and care and tender mercy in order that the work of God might be carried out in our souls. You know Mary chose a quiet day to sit at the feet of the Lord and hear His word. Very noisy and very distressing and exercising it all was for Martha. She turned to the Lord and said—‘Lord speak to Mary—she has left me to serve alone, I am doing all that is called for and she is sitting there quietly’. And the Lord replied, “Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her”, Luke 10: 42. Who was taking it from her? Only Martha. Poor Martha! The Lord looked at Martha and He 247
looked at a power that is ever keeping your soul from dependence on Himself. Your quiet days test you, I know they do. May I give this a personal bearing: “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”. What had the Lord been depending on, what had He been living on, day and night in His passage through the wilderness? He had been living on the word that came out from the mouth of God. A word for a quiet day? Yes. We look for the word on the days that are a test to us, but the days in which we have no circumstantial reason for turning to the Lord for support and protection we may not turn to Him at all. But there is a word cometh forth from the mouth of God, and it is all our life. It is not simply that we get fresh understanding of scripture. We might come here together to-night and something might occur to us that never occurred to us before. We might get more knowledge and light—I would not at all deprecate that—but we might not get the word that means most to our souls. You may say, The truth is all told. Yes, it is. It is no question of fresh revelation here.
In the principle of our communion we do not look for fresh revelations, God’s revelation of divine truth is all unfolded, it is all out in the Person of His own dear Son; but in the power of the living and abiding word of God we need a word for every day; a word that meets your state, a word that is a guide for your pathway, a word that is a lamp for your feet, a guide in your circumstances, and yet something more precious and sweet and wonderful than that even. A word that puts into your soul in time what is going to abide for all eternity. Are we looking for it?
I remarked that I was not bent on giving any exposition of doctrine or truth but I am concerned about what really means most to our souls. Every day brings its word, and let me say this; if ever it does not bring its word for us, then rest assured the day provides an element of weakness and gives an opening to the enemy. But following the course of the people of God through the wilderness we need not go in fear, we need not be disquieted. In the very 248
centre of that people as they passed through the wilderness there was the living and abiding word of God, the oracle was there. The very centre of all things for the people as they passed through the wilderness was the place where God was to be found, the place from which He spoke. Every need of that people called forth from God the living and abiding word, the word that was quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, a word that test as to our works, as to our expectations, a word that searches the heart, and yet puts the work of God as deep as the searching goes.
What are we set for? “Man shall not live by bread alone”. That covers the whole temporal question. “Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day”, 2 Cor 4: 16. Look out upon the whole temporal situation. I am not now thinking of the pride of the world system and all its greatness and its domination, I shall touch upon that later. But I am now thinking of the temporal situation of the people of God, their links together in this life, natural relationships and all the exercise and cares connected with temporal life, which give God His opportunity. May I say again before I come to the second item, there is no circumstance in which the Lord is not prepared to draw near to us in the most touching and real way. You may say, I am going somewhere, I will look up the time table; we look up the time table and we see when the train starts, and then it arrives at the end that we hope to reach to. We look at the time table oftener at times than we look to the Lord. I am no pessimist and I trust I do not say anything that will impress you as though it were meant to be super-spiritual; it is not meant in that way at all. But I would say this to you, The Lord never intends that a temporal circumstance should displace Him from our thoughts. We enter tomorrow, if the Lord will, upon the very duties that we may have carried out to-day. When we enter upon them, we need the Lord in His nearness, the Lord in His support, the Lord in His understanding, in His gracious supply of light and wisdom. In the Lord Himself we get the 249
word of God that is able to build into your souls by temporal circumstances and exercises what is abiding. “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle”, says Job, chap 7: 6. I remember when I was a little boy looking in upon the hand loom weavers of those days, and their shuttles flew very fast indeed to and fro. I think one is impressed by the applicability of the figure “swifter than a weaver’s shuttle”.
Very fast indeed, but every time it goes and every time it comes it puts a fresh thread into what is being woven. Every day? Yes. Has there been something done in our souls to-day? Have we the impression upon our spirit that the day has been barren. Wherefore has it been barren? From no lack or interest in the Lord’s thought, from no lack of tender and near approach to us. It may have been our casuality that has kept us from getting the fruit that the Lord’s touch would put into our souls. There has been no lack on His side. And may the Lord help us so that none of our days may be barren ones.
Now I come to the next part. It touches upon what is due to God. The enemy takes the Lord to the holy city and takes Him to the very pinnacle of the temple, and He says to the Lord—“Cast thyself down ...” Now this second item of the testing is in relation to the things of God, in relation to divine things. We are tested all through our course here and will be to the end, in relation to the things of God. I think I can understand why it is that Jude in such a very touching and remarkable way presses that exhortation upon the saints—“But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith … keep yourselves in the love of God”, v 20. We are tested in regard to the things of God, because oftentimes with all our knowledge of divine things, in the matter of our communion and spiritual power, we may be very near the edge of things. I have often wondered at how very near to the edge of things a soul may be, and only the power of the Lord’s hand keeps it back. There have been times when we have run many serious spiritual risks; it is a most serious spiritual risk to be at the edge of things.
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May I put this homely and simple word to you. Suppose you find with yourself a little disposition to curtail the number of the occasions when you see the saints together.
It may be we fall into the habit of seeing them at the breaking of bread and perhaps not seeing them again until the next breaking of bread. It may be of course that the circumstances of a person might not warrant any more, but I feel sure that if their heart is right, their heart will go up to the Lord and very soon the Lord will make their circumstances conform to their desire. But there is nothing so awfully venturesome as a soul drawing near to the edge of divine things. The wicked one took the Lord Himself—
perfect in His dependence—he took Him to the pinnacle where really it never was intended that man should be displayed, and he put Him right at the outmost edge. The Lord submitted to it in order that His perfect dependence upon God might be demonstrated—he took Him right to the edge of it—Now, he says, “Cast thyself down”—you will be preserved. Many a time a soul has drawn near to a thing, may even have entered into a thing in the supposition that it would be preserved from its consequences because of its links with the Lord. I deal with this solemnly. We have much light in these days, much light that others have not got. We have seen things and understood things, really the result of the Lord's mercy to us, many souls would be greatly rejoiced if their hearts were lit up with the things that many of us have been in the light of since our very earliest days, and yet in regard of such wonderful things we may have become casual, we may be so well acquainted with them, so clear in our understanding, that at times we may have little understanding how very near we were to a fall in respect of them.
“Cast thyself down”, etc ... That pledge was given in respect of a Man who is walking in dependence on the earth, not in respect of a man upon the edge of divine things, and, so to speak, in the mind to take spiritual risks. He rebuked the suggestion of the wicked one—“Thou shalt not tempt the 251
Lord thy God”. Where are we in divine things? I mean in our communion. In our holy joy before God. What is the effect of all that comes before us, let us say in a reading meeting? We get fresh light, fresh information, as to a scripture, and we may be very often more elated with it than humbled, very often more informed than affected, more enlightened in the human way than searched and probed, for, if we take things on the line of information alone there is no protection in that. You remember how the Spirit of God speaks of knowledge as tending to puff up. If we have it on the line of information, but he that knows God loves God and is known of God, and that is true knowledge, the knowledge of divine Persons. You may say—‘That is a little above the heads of the young’. I do not think so; I think we often suffer from a tendency to cut things down to diminutive sizes because we think the young are going to be met by a thing that is cut down to a diminutive size. I have been greatly encouraged by this that those who were the simplest in the presence of the Lord were the young. We find the disciples with all their knowledge and understanding driving the children away; but in Matthew 18 the Lord called a little child to Him; the scripture does not tell us it was afraid to come: in Mark’s gospel He took the same little child, and when He had taken it up in His arms He spoke to the disciples. In Luke’s gospel, in the same incident He took the little child and set it beside Himself. Often the young are more free to approach the Lord than the older ones and if it is a matter of the knowledge of divine Persons we need not seek to meet the young by cutting things down to diminutive size. If the knowledge of God marks us, there never was a thing more simple or attractive or delivering from fear than that. And so I speak of the second item of the temptation in that way, not forgetting the glory of the Lord Jesus Himself and His own perfect dependence. I do not believe a person knows anything about the habitation of God by the Spirit unless they know what it is to abide with the saints. They may be 252
acquainted with the Scriptures and they may be able to distinguish between one feature and another feature, but the reality of the thing is found in the comings together of the people of God, in the power of the Holy Spirit. If we come to any desire to diminish our intercourse with the saints, then we are coming near the edge of things; if we come to any line of deprecating the saints we are very near the edge, and there are no risks so serious as spiritual risks.
People take care of their bodies in these days, they are wiser in that matter than they used to be when I was a boy but they know far less to-day about taking care of their souls than they did then. I speak of men in general. There are far more spiritual risks taken to-day than ever there were in the history of man, and may the Lord grant that we who are the people of God and in whom there has been placed the knowledge of God, may be preserved from every form of this evil. “He shall give his angels charge concerning thee”. Yes.
“In all thy ways”, Ps 91: 11. That was a little word that Satan left out. It is not a matter of going to God simply in regard to things that are a distress to us, but just seeking to be near God and in communion with God in the power of the Holy Spirit every day of our journey, every day of our life. On the quiet days, the more ordinary days as you judge them to be, may be the very days that if they are put into the hands of the Spirit could be the days to yield most of communion and divine joy.
Now I come to the last item, which is really the human situation. He takes the Lord to a great and high mountain and he shows Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. This is a point that I think perhaps some of us, perhaps the young, might be a little inclined to confuse with what I spoke of temporal. This is the great human situation as it surrounds us, with all its pride and its greatness and its glory, all built up at the expense of Christ, every feature of its magnificence, telling out to our ears, eyes and hearts the fact that Christ is rejected. If the eye of a true believer looks out upon the world, I believe it 253
turns very quickly back again. I can understand the ambitious man looking out upon the world, and fixing his eye for a time on its prospects, but I cannot understand the eye that has seen the beauty in Christ, resting longer than a very short space indeed upon the greatest of its objects.
All its make-up, yes, everything in all its construction tells out to our hearts afresh and more forcibly than ever as time goes on the solemn, searching fact that Christ is rejected.
“All these things, will I give thee ...”. The Lord's answer was,
“Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God ...”.
The enemy often touches souls in this connection: he gives very often to the children of God (very often to the young) the impression that their path is a very narrow one, that their prospects are going to be very much cramped simply because Christ has been made precious to them. I do not believe that for a moment. I do not believe the appreciation of Christ ever diminished your prospects in what is legitimate. I was saying to a young sister some weeks back, who said to me—‘Mr Catterall, I used to be happy with the saints, but I have got shadowed; I have been disappointed, and as I stand at present I look back and what I say to myself is this, that if it had not been that Christ was precious to my parents as you speak, my circumstances would have been much wider and much more pleasant than they are’. I said to her—‘Look here, my sister, there is one thing you are leaving out-—If Christ had not been precious to your father and mother before you were born, you do not know what your human circumstances might have been.
You don’t know but what Satan and his things and his system and his world might have shut out all else’.
I look back to the fact that my parents loved the Lord, and for His sake ... all others that loved Him. I look back to that, I do not look back to the beginning of a path that was going to be narrower and narrower as time went on—
but to the beginning of a path that has been getting wider and wider every day I tread it. I am only beginning to learn 254
now that my feet have been put in a large place. My path is not getting more shadowed as time goes on, neither need yours be. “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day”, Prov 4: 18.
What is the end of Psalm 91? “Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him …”, v 14.
You see what follows in the temptation is this, all the kingdoms of the world spread out before the Lord in their glory, and the wicked one says to the Lord, If you pursue the path you are pursuing, you will lose all this. Ah no! the pathway He was pursuing was the pathway to gain it all.
There is not a principality or a power that is not going to be under your feet and mine when we come out with Christ—
not one. We are going to come out with Christ in the day of His glory—that will be soon enough for anyone of our hearts that love Him for His own sake. We will come out with Him in His glory and all the kingdoms of the world will be subject to Him because of His worth and because of His preciousness, and we shall be with Him in His exaltation, and He will be precious beyond all telling, to our hearts for time and to eternity. Let me ask you this, when you are quiet and alone, have you any regrets about leaving the world? You know there is no soul going on in the appreciation of Christ that has any regret after anything it has lost.
The blessed Lord took a pathway of humiliation and sorrow beyond all telling, He went right through it for the glory of God, and without a regret. In John 17, there are no regrets, no shadow of a work diminished in its measure, no, not even is there any sorrow because He had spent His strength for naught—“Thine they were, and thou gavest them me ... And all mine are thine and thine are mine ... I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost ...”, vv 6, 10, 12. What is our dignity? My friends, we are the companions of the Son of God, we are in association with the Son of God; we have 255
been given to Him of the Father. Let our souls be in the presence of it and how poor and how small everything else appears. To be like Christ and with Christ, for the pleasure of the Father and the pleasure of His own heart throughout eternity, will be greater than any other form of glory to our souls then. Yes, greater even than coming out with Christ in the day of glory, is the fact that the glory that the Father has given Him He has given us, we like Him, for His pleasure, and in His reign we shall come out with Him in His glory. But the greatest thing to our hearts will be this, that we belong to Himself, that we are His, for His pleasure, His possession and that we have been given to Him by the Father.
May the Lord use these observations for our help. It is not only at one time or another we are tested, but we shall be tested right through to the end under these three different headings. You will be tested in respect to what is temporal, in respect of the things of God, and in respect of the human situation as it surrounds you, and the Lord is prepared to be near us in the consideration and tenderness and sweetness of His support to the end of the journey of testing. May the Lord comfort our hearts.
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Brief notes of an address
If we are to be here for the will of God in the wilderness, we need to feed upon Christ as manna. We know little of what it is to feed upon Christ as manna, because we know little of the wilderness. Do we realise that this scene is a wilderness when things are prospering with us, or do we only think of it as a wilderness when things are adverse? This scene is a wilderness at all times, and we need to feed upon Christ as manna if we are to be in it for the will of God. What a joyful theme for my soul to think of the Lord Jesus in this scene entirely for the will of God.
Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, although realising what it was to be here for the pleasure of God on the principle of faith, cannot be compared with the blessed Man who was entirely, and at all times, and in every detail of His precious life, here for the pleasure and will of God. How my soul is overwhelmed as I think of Him thus!
We are prone to reach out to the “old corn of the land”
in our minds and in doctrine, and to think we have the ability to feed upon Christ in glory, while yet in our souls we have not known what it is to feed upon Christ as Manna. If we have grieved the Spirit, or are allowing things here which grieve the Spirit, we must not think we shall have an appetite to feed upon the manna. We may read about it, and think we have the doctrine of it very clearly in our minds, but it will be like reading down an inventory of stock that belongs to us in a business and yet realising we are unable to raise anything upon the stock. It is all ours, but we are unable to realise anything on it for the moment.
Christ as manna is wilderness food, and it is interesting to note that the manna continued for five days 257
after the crossing of the Jordan. The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month; the passover was held on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho, and they ate of the old corn of the land on the fifteenth day, and the manna ceased on the morrow, “when they had eaten of the old corn of the land”. We need the manna even to take us over the Jordan, and until we reach Christ in glory, and not until we reach Christ in glory, can we do without the manna.
The two and a half tribes who remained in the plains of Moab did not get the benefit of the manna, for the manna went over Jordan; nor did they enjoy the peace of God, which surpasses every understanding and garrisons our hearts; neither did they taste the old corn of the land, which is Christ in glory. We may try to settle down here, as the two and a half tribes did in the plains of Moab, but green grass is not “manna”, and we are told they built protected cities in the plains of Moab for their wives and children.
“Fenced cities” do not savour of the “peace of God”.
The numbers of the days of the month when they get over Jordan are identical with the days of the month at which each step was taken in the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt. That is very interesting. After we have followed the “ark of the covenant” over Jordan, we need to
appreciate the manna in the same way in the land until we eat the old corn of the land at Jericho, when the manna ceases. We are naturally a flesh-eating people. This may sound hard, but it is not intended to be; I am exercised as to where our souls are in connection with the will of God.
We may think ourselves spiritual and above others of our brethren, because we have doctrine clearly defined in our minds, doctrine even as to “the manna”, but our spirituality lies in our being here for the pleasure and will of God.
God gave them the quails (flesh) because they asked for them, but He only gave them the flesh food in the evening. He gave them the manna in the morning, because 258
He knew that “quails” would not sustain them during the day, but the only sustaining food for the wilderness is
‘Christ once humbled here’. Flesh-food will never build up a constitution or enable the saints to grow up for God in the wilderness. Manna is the only food to nourish and build up the saints there. The manna only came down where the camp was. We cannot appreciate and feed upon Christ as manna on independent lines, for it is only given where the camp is.
I think it is quite a real thing to-day to appreciate the mercy of God. We are all ready to realise that mercy has been shewn us in our conversion to God, but do we realise that it is the sovereign mercy of God that has given us light as to the truth to-day in the midst of all the professed religion around us? What a mercy from God that we have light in the midst of all the religious system of things, which has very little place, if any, for Christ as Manna. What exercise it should give us to really face the things here that hinder us enjoying Christ as manna.
I well remember, when I was nearing eleven years old, walking with my mother and aunt in the streets of Glasgow, and I suppose my mother and aunt thought I was interested in things around me, as I walked by their side, and I was a dull child at that. They thought I would not be listening to their conversation, but I was. My aunt said to my mother,
‘What a pity Andrew [for that was my father’s name] has no ambition’. I took all that conversation in, and I remember thinking of my father as having no ambition. But I have had to thank God many times since that my father was very careful and watchful for my soul, and was more concerned for my soul and my being here for the will of God than having any ambition for me. The Lord watches over our souls, and sometimes allows discipline in His care for our souls, to keep our feet and our minds from travelling quicker than our hearts, and very often when we would reach out to the “land” in our minds, we are detained by the 259
Lord through discipline to learn some very needful lesson in the wilderness. This is His love and care for our souls.
* * * *
The “living bread which came down from heaven” is neither wilderness food nor the old corn of the land (Christ in glory), but is an eternal and an abiding thought.Harrow
22nd February 2024
From Mutual Comfort vol 17 (1924)
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I thought I might venture to pursue a little further this evening the consideration of the subject that has already been before us so encouragingly of the Lord. One desires that we may have help of the Lord to regard what may be presented from the point of view of its application to each one who is a lover of Christ. It would, I think, be a comforting impression for every heart, especially those who are younger, to realise that the foundation and spring of all service and attachment to the precious interests of God is affection for Christ. Apart from our being lovers of Christ there would be no reason for God committing anything to us in regard to His interests. I am reminded at this juncture of a very sweet word from our Lord when dealing with his disciples here; you will find it in John 16: 27. He calls their attention to the fact that the Father’s love to them was because of their love for Himself: “The Father himself has affection for you, because ye have had affection for me”. It is not there the sovereign love of the Father finding its reasons only in its own satisfaction, and in the preciousness and glory of the Person of the Son; it is rather that aspect of the love of the Father that finds its motive, as it were, in the fact that the disciples were attached to Christ; and out of that love to the Lord there arose all the sweet commitments in regard of divine interest and service. I would connect with it also the fact that the Lord, when about to leave them, personally breathed into them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit”, John 20: 22. Not only do we see in that an indication of the necessity of the gift of the indwelling Spirit, but we see it coupled, in the action of the Lord Himself, with those wonderful sensibilities and feelings in regard of divine service that were found present with Him as the Sent One.
The breathing into them of Holy Spirit was the communication of those sensibilities to them. Doubtless 261
these same sensibilities are connected with the divine nature, as may be seen from John’s epistles; and as set forth in the Person of Christ we see them moving along the line of devotedness in regard of the will of God. So in breathing into them, as He did, you see not only His own act as the last Adam, a quickening Spirit, in its authority, but in the quality of His act you see involved the sensibilities of His own love, as the One who was here for the will of the Father. I would enlarge on this, as the Lord may help me, and I trust it may appeal to all our hearts, especially to the hearts of the young.
The guarantee of all our attachment to divine interests is based on our attachment to Christ. It is the outcome of the love of God, and it centres sweetly in the Person of the One who laid down His life that we might be secured for the pleasure of the blessed God. I wish to speak in all simplicity on the matter, and I have turned your attention to the gospel of Mark because of the feature that shines out so preciously in that gospel—the glory of the Lord Jesus Himself, and His prominence as the great Levite.
Now, if we take the course that the Spirit presents to us, we follow the Lord in affection of heart, as it were, to the holy mountain apart, and we look afresh upon Him as He is there presented to us. I think you will agree that every instinct of the heart that centres in the Person of the Lord Jesus rises with delight to contemplate Him. He is the object of the Father’s pleasure! If you ask me where we would get an impression of the holiest, I think I may say that in the three gospels that record the incident we would get it on the mount of transfiguration. We find on that mount the disclosure of the Father’s pleasure, and the shining out of the glory of the Lord Jesus. We find that every other glory is surpassed there; it is the glory of God. So it becomes the joy of the heart to contemplate the Lord as He is there presented.
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Now I wish to make to you this suggestion: it was the Lord who inaugurated the movements that led to this ministry to the disciples. It was not in answer to an enquiry from them that they beheld this glory; it was His own movement. There is sovereignty in the Lord’s care of His disciples, just as there is the apparent sovereignty in His choice of those disciples. It was in His interest in regard of their preparation for levitical service that He judged it necessary for them to witness His glory, and the good pleasure of God in Himself. He took the three disciples to a high mountain by themselves apart, where no disturbing element could come. There they were removed from the surroundings customary to them in the world of men.
I think I may here express the thought, that while in a certain sense service takes its commencement from the side of the congregation, and has God for its object along the line upon which it moves, there is another aspect of that self-same service which takes its character from the fact that the precious motives are found in the holiest. It is from the holiest it proceeds. And in this gospel we see it is so in the Lord Himself. Now, if that be the character of the Lord’s own ministry, how sweet to consider that it is the character of His ministry to, and through, His own. He would appeal to us graciously in regard of this power in ministry. He took His disciples to the mount of transfiguration, where, in the peace of the holiest, as it were, the glory that had shone into their souls might be viewed according to God; there they saw His glory; it was but for a brief moment, but surely, as we think of the ministry, the results were imperishable.
They were privileged on that occasion to have blotted out from their vision even what the Lord was in His humiliation here, and to see Him in His glory. The luminous character of His glory, as mentioned in Mark’s gospel, shone out: “His garments became shining, exceeding white as snow, such as fuller on earth could not whiten them”, Mark 9: 3.
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We were reminded this afternoon, and in a way that I think should touch the heart of even the youngest who loves the Lord Jesus, that when anything that is committed to us of God falls in our handling from its proper relation to the Lord, it becomes little better than a religion. The whitening of the fuller goes on all around us; may God preserve us from it! At best the fuller depraves the things of God. The purity that holds divine things in their right setting and value, and in their sweetness and power over the saints, as also in their preciousness for God, is the purity that comes from the holiest. Where Christ is, we are safe. If it be a question of the strife of tongues—and that is one of the accompaniments of the present religious position—it is not heard on the mount. The psalmist, in his exercises, takes account of the need for preservation from such strife; he says: “Thou hidest them in a pavilion from the strife of tongues”, Ps 31: 20.
We need to be taken away from things that mark the public position at times, to the presence of God, where our souls may absorb, in the power of the Spirit of God, the truth as it is in Jesus, so that we may retain it. Ah! it is no passing glimpse that we need of the transfiguration glory.
Passing glimpses, and impressions for the moment, may be given to us, but we want what leaves a mark. We need what will be productive of results; and results arrived at from the truth as it is in Jesus go to the bottom of our exercises, and produce fruit for God. Fruit springs up from what is most deeply rooted in our souls. One thing I have learned: no illustrations are required to make divine things simple. It is we who require to be made simple; divine things always are! What could be more simple in its expression, yet more profound, than this scene of the Lord’s transfiguration?
How completely above all man’s adornment, how completely clear of all the thoughts of man, his will, and his ways. How searching to us, yet how comforting is this presentation of the glory, of the Lord; it goes to the heart!
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The disciples saw others beside Jesus, and with Him; everything comes out with the most touching significance possible in Mark’s gospel—“There appeared to them Elias with Moses”. They were together; one of them was used at the commencement of a dispensation, to introduce it, and the other appears almost at the close of that dispensation.
Moses was used by God to give what was initial, wonderful in its character and administration, and Elias came in when the people had lamentably failed, and, in regard of God, led in faithfulness to God. To see them together on the mount of transfiguration is to see much; how good to see the full value of their ministry as it centred in Christ. I have been told, at times (and alas I have, I think, contributed to it), by some, that they would not have the ministry of certain brethren in their bookcases, but they would have that of others. It matters comparatively little what we have in our bookcases, it is what is in our souls that is important; that is what counts. Whether it be what the Lord has given us in the past, or in the present, all has come to us through much sorrow, heart-searching, labour and sacrifice. It might be said that what was given in the past served the need of those times—it served more, it served the need of the souls of the saints, it serves God’s end; it is one ministry. If we hear the certain sounds of the Lord’s present ministry to the saints, may we carry the gain of it in our souls; it is one ministry; Elias and Moses were together, and they talked with Jesus. What they talked of specially was that wondrous decease that He should accomplish at Jerusalem; the manner of His going out; I might speak of it as the supreme act. The supreme sacrifice in His service was the laying down of His life. His present service is, blessed be God, the extension of all that was formed as a basis when He laid down His life. His love will never again be tested as it was tested there, and His fidelity will never again be subjected to the test to which it was subjected there. Who will venture to describe the sufferings of the Lord! We cannot describe them, but we may seek grace 265
from God that what we know of them may be enshrined in our souls as centring in the Person of Christ Himself.
His present service of ministry to His own, and support for His own, goes on. His service will sustain all in the world to come, for God. His authority will sustain all in blessing for man. When the world to come in its glory has given place to the eternal day, He will be Head for ever. He remains a Servant for ever; He will support all in His service as the One who is subject to God throughout eternity. “But when all things shall have been brought into subjection to him, then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection to him who put all things in subjection to him, that God may be all in all”, 1 Cor 15: 28. All there will be based on that supreme act when He laid down His life; all has been brought to pass through it. He laid down His life! May our souls cherish that in its sweetness and power. It is the basis of our attachment to the interests of God, and of our Lord Jesus. Our interests in the gospel, our affection to one another, everything must rest on that. They saw His glory, they heard the conversation. It is indicated here that they heard what passed between Moses and Elias and the Lord, and it seems as if Peter felt he must speak, as if he were under an obligation to add his quota to the whole, hence he speaks as he does. But he had to hear the oracle. The oracle was in the holiest, and until we hear the oracle we cannot speak aright. Ah, let us hear God speak about Christ! We can afford to be silent when God is speaking.
How often our hearts are not silent, and there is no room for response. Here God speaks, and He says: “This is my beloved Son: hear him”, Mark 9: 7. They were on the mountain top, and if it were only the mountain top we were to consider, we would say our souls will rest here, it is good for us to be here. It would almost seem as if Peter felt that the building site had been shown them by God, and so he says, “Rabbi, it is good that we should be here; and let us make three tabernacles, for thee one, and for Moses one, and for Elias one”, v 5. Three tabernacles would have meant 266
three tents of service, three tents of meeting, but no, there must be one tabernacle where the glory of the Lord is resting and where our souls adore. It might be thought if you take this line in regard of the Lord personally, you will undervalue your brethren as brethren, their service, their care, and all the other ways in which they have to be regarded. I cannot see it; but the thoughts of Peter, James and John, in regard to one another, must have been enhanced when they saw His glory, and heard God’s thoughts about His Son. They must have looked upon their relative services and valued them in a more distinct way when they looked upon the One who was the centre and the supporter of all service, and saw His glory who was the pleasure of God. But, they had to come down, and you know it is the coming down that tests us; the moving about in the camp, and the everyday exercises, and the cares, test us often in such a searching way—in such an unseen way.
They prove us in regard of our fidelity to Christ, our love of the truth and our valuation of divine interests. When they came down, the Lord found His disciples in perplexity at the foot of the mount, and they were being subjected to criticism. There is a touch of exceeding beauty in this gospel in the way in which the Lord defends His own. It is very sweet to see how He comes in between His own and the opposer. They were in weakness, as we have often been found when questions of great moment have arisen, and the necessary wisdom, spiritual power, and grace to meet them have been lacking, and the Lord has been toward us. The Lord finds in regard of this case of peculiar need that the scribes are contending with the disciples, and He comes between them and the opposers and says, “What do ye question with them about?”, v 16. How sweet is the grace of the Lord! Where would we be but for the way in which the Lord covers us in regard of His interests together. He becomes their defender publicly, but in private He puts before them the needs on their side. Viewing the possibility of our unwittingly injuring or neglecting what belongs to the 267
Lord in regard to His own, we would feel how we need His word. Our attention has already been called to the case of one engaged in the service of cutting down wood, whose axe-head flew off and injured his neighbour so that he died, though he hated him not in time past. There is no need of having a dry axe handle where there is so much of the grace of the Spirit. It proves that service can only be maintained rightly as with the Lord. You will remember too the case of the son of the prophet who went to cut down wood; he had an axe which was borrowed. He was engaged in building, and was felling a beam, when the head of the axe fell into the water. He was powerless in his service, and he calls to the man of God, feeling the gravity of the circumstance. The exercise points again to the very place of the loss. Had it not been for the power with the man of God, the axe-head would have been irrecoverable; he made the iron to swim, he cast in the stick, which speaks of Christ. The axe was borrowed, and borrowed things are seldom rightly cared for.
What we have in our souls in relation to the Lord is watered by the Holy Spirit, and kept fresh and pure and holy, having power in service for God.
I call your attention to these things, because here we see the Lord as the defender and the instructor of His own.
This difficulty was of the kind that goes out by nothing but prayer and fasting. It was the result of what might have been passed by in the history of divine things. May I speak a word to my brethren; I am speaking to you who are older than myself—grey hairs are honourable if they are found in the way of righteousness. There is nothing so appalling as grey hairs in a path of sin. “The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it is found in the way of righteousness” (Prov 16: 31), but, with the sense in my spirit of how much farther many may have gone in experience than I have, it behoves us, everyone, to remember the younger generation. Let us remember and pray for them. Brethren, if the Lord does not come they will be needed. When the opening is made for them it may be found there are deficiencies in them to which 268
we may have been contributors. Shall I relate to you this incident—it is far from here that it happened. After a gospel meeting in which the Lord had helped in speaking of the rapture of the saints and the Lord’s appearing, a lad, son of parents in that company, confessed to his blessing, but brought out the fact that until then he had not known of the rapture. Tell me, what would be the result of a defect of that sort in a little while? But, we say, there is the present ministry. Indeed, there is! If I sound at all as if I do not love it, before the Lord I say I do. But when you come to consider the young among us, I say all truth is necessary. May the Lord help us to think more of the coming generation. I know the Lord is thinking of them, I see it coming out in the ministry, and I rejoice in it. He is thinking of them; their whole history has ever been before His heart. I speak to ourselves—the Lord would help us to care for the coming generation, so that it may be for the service of God, and the glory of the Lord, if He does not come awhile. You will agree with me that when we would appeal to the hearts of those that are young, it must be on the simple ground of their attachment to God’s things, and the interests of our Lord Jesus Christ. The heart that centres in the Lord for His own worth is a heart that God will entrust with His interests. In this we stand together, from the least to the greatest.
I read those other scriptures because I want to show in what way the necessity may arise for prayer and fasting.
Prayer brings God in, fasting shuts man out. I do not think, speaking generally, that we would be much pressed in upon by certain exercises and snares, if there were more prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting involve our definite decision as to things in the light of divine pleasure. The snare to Barnabas was not wrong things, it was natural ties, and earthly things; they came between him and the work. The retention of these brings in reproach in connection with the testimony. So that the power which is connected with the
‘going over’ stands above nature, and earthly links, because as the result of the constraining love of Christ we thus judge 269
that if one died for all then were all dead. I think that many of the needs which arise are the outcome of not going over, and thus lacking the attachment to, and support of, God’s ordering there. The ark of God was only on one side of the Jordan, only on one side was the heap of stones representing all the tribes. The twelve stones in the river where the ark had stood represented all the tribes—but there were also the twelve set up in Gilgal. There was only one Gilgal and that was on the same side of the Jordan as the ark. Those two and a half tribes on the other side of the Jordan were in divine territory, but their hearts had not gone over. God gave them cities of refuge to provide for their practical needs, and to prepare their hearts to go over to the other side. They were all set eastward toward the sun rising. But the meaning of the names of the cities on the other side is interesting. The first was holy; yes, the holy city was there; the next one is a shoulder, speaking of power; and the third one speaks of affection or victory.
Holiness, power, affection and victory; are the names of the three cities on the other side of Jordan. On which side are our hearts found? The three cities on the wilderness side of Jordan were separated by Moses and assigned by Joshua.
But only the three on the other side were hallowed.
Barnabas, son of consolation, had been serving with the brethren, but there came a testing time. Do we think at the outset that there will come a time of testing for us? In regard of prayer and fasting that must come, I mean in individual history. Barnabas was the son of consolation; he had sold all his possessions, and laid all at the apostles’
feet, and yet the day came when it was found that he had another holding in regard of which he apparently had not prayed and fasted. You may say, that is over the heads of the young. I think not. The young in the nature of their affection and the character of their exercises sometimes pray and fast more than would appear. However, there was a lack in Barnabas, upon which I will not enlarge. I speak simply, it was not in pursuing essentially wrong things he 270
failed, but in regard of earthly things he was turned aside from the path of the testimony, and what was for the glory of the Lord. There was Mark; he was related to Barnabas, who was a vessel for influence and control; but his influence and lead to Mark were not directed according to the movement of the ark, or the holiest. Mark’s education for future service in a fuller way, in the things of God, was hindered for the moment; what had happened in his case, as we have it stated in Acts, was this; at the time when prayer and fasting, as at Pamphylia, marked the service, he forsook the work of God. Now Paul says to Barnabas, as it were, Mark has a lesson to learn, and I want him to learn that lesson. In my affection I would take him into the city of refuge. He asserted the gravity of the case; he did not want to be severe upon him, but he wanted him to learn that it is the glory of the Lord that governs the service. You say, that makes little of us. Indeed it does; but not only so, it makes much of us according to God. Anything else would only make little of us. God has been pleased to take us up in the infinitude of His mercy, to be vessels of His glory, and service. It is too wonderful almost to attempt to speak of it further, but there it is, in its blessedness in Christ. God has done it; the treasure is in your soul, and (I speak to the young) the reality is present with you in the work of God.
Its consciousness is with you in the power of the Spirit.
May the Lord encourage you to go on. When the heart is centred on the glory of the Lord, we need the help of the Lord. At the very time when the apostle Paul, in the power of the Holy Spirit presenting the truth, made Agrippa tremble, he most sweetly acknowledged that he had obtained help of God to continue to that day. Pride and the precious light of the glory of the Lord are never found in company. We constantly carry the tendency to pride with us, but it is not in us when our hearts are taken up with the glory of the Lord.
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Mark was tested, Barnabas took him, and sailed away to Cyprus. That was an action not directed by the Lord! There were things that were good in the sight of man at Cyprus, the human side of things. Then see this: Silas takes the place of Barnabas, and Timothy the place of Mark.
Now I wish to mention what, I believe in the line of individual history, is a sweet and tender expression of the goodness of God, and the love of a brother. I allude to Paul’s reference to Mark, in his second epistle to Timothy he says,
“Take Mark, and bring him with thyself, for he is serviceable to me for ministry”, 2 Tim 4: 11. It may be that we sometimes see a brother step into the place of another who may have turned aside, but it is not so often that we see a brother recovered by the one who has taken his place. If Mark was displaced, he was only displaced because he had first gone out of his place. But if Timothy stepped into the place in the Lord’s sovereignty, he was in it in the love of a brother; in a brotherly, levitical, and priestly way; he had Mark with him; and Paul says, bring him. I should think one of the things sweetest to the heart of Timothy was to bring, as it were, in his embrace, Mark back to Paul, a chastened Levite, a recovered brother. Timothy brought him back as one who had known what it was to have turned aside from the way of the Lord Himself.
I have been thinking about this point, and you will bear with me in referring to it. If in our history in regard of the Lord’s things we have been turned aside, and the Lord has graciously touched us, it is that we might be recovered to the fellowship of the brethren and take up things in the light of the glory of the Lord. A brother recovered is one of the sweetest joys to the hearts of the saints; but, on the other hand, when a brother is recovered, do not say to him,
‘Here is the old thing that you were doing, this is where you left off’. If you give him anything, give him what is of God.
Recovery is to the Lord, and by the Lord, and for the Lord, and for all else, because for Him. True recovery supposes real power in regard of the one who had turned aside.
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May the Lord give us patience and grace, and consideration of what has been before us, and encouragement together, so that we may be more serviceable to Him from the least to the greatest.
Belfast
April 1924
at meetings with Mr James Taylor
(Old Series vol 63; New Series vol 19)—
copied from Selected Addresses, vol 1
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The Lord Himself has instituted the Supper, and when you consider what He has done, it becomes very great to your soul—far beyond an ordinance. If things are normal, the Supper is not a time for heart-searching, though I know of nothing that we do that searches the heart more. But do you not feel that the bearing of the personal matters, the passover must come first with us? When the apostle Paul speaks of the passover to the saints at Corinth, does he speak of it as an ordinance? No, he does not speak of it as an ordinance in a religious way, but in connection with the greatness of Christ: “For also our passover, Christ, has been sacrificed”, 1 Cor 5: 7. That is what carries the affections. “so that let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with leaven of malice”, v 8. If we say an unkind, bitter word in the middle of the week, is it surprising to find it comes between the Lord and ourselves on the first day of the next week? Do you think that the Lord keeps no histories? Has He no records? Yea, more, my spirit has records, and cause and effect are things we have to consider in a sober way. I may speak disparagingly of a brother or sister; I may say something that possibly could not be challenged in form, but it leaves an effect of malice, and when I sit down to answer to the Lord in the Supper, the brother or sister is there whom my word has made little of, and in virtue of what the Lord has done, He speaks in this wise: The one you have made less than yourself is as much to Me as any other, as much to Me as you; I laid down My life for you all.
But, you say, suppose a brother is not walking well.
Brethren, if I touch that at all, may the Lord give me grace to touch it in relation to Himself. The Lord has left us without the slightest ground for speaking ill of the brethren, and if I stand on that ground I am standing on ground of my own. I know of nothing in a way that may explain why there is not the rendering of an answer more free, more full, 274
and more fruitful to the Lord than the fact that we hold one another in our hearts at times in such an inferior way. I feel sure your hearts will confirm me in this, that any making little of the brethren must receive love’s challenge from the Lord Himself. The Lord will not have it. Evil speaking is not outside only, and that is solemn to think of.
And not evil speaking only, but the sense carried in the mind in respect of others that, either in their persons or in their service, they are less than we are, comes between our hearts and the Lord.
May the blessed Lord give us the power to esteem each other better than ourselves. No power in nature is sufficient for that. Nature may go to the length of allowing that another is as good as oneself. The grace of Christ, the patience of Christ, the beauty of the Lord—let these shine on the brethren as your eyes look on them for the Lord’s sake.
From: Words of Grace and Comfort, vol 3 (1925) (also published as a separate leaflet)
275
THE DEATH OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND
THE PURPOSE OF GOD
My desire is to speak to you of the bearing of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the great purpose of the blessed God in bringing many sons to glory. It is very specially impressed upon my mind how that, as our Lord tarries, there greatly increases the need that we should understand our dignity. I can hardly see how any one who belongs to our Lord Jesus Christ can tread their pathway here for God’s pleasure if they do not understand somewhat of the dignity that God has conferred upon them. If they do not understand the greatness of that with which the blessed God has connected them as His people, they will either descend to the things of the world or else they will tread their pathway through this world far more in legality of spirit and bondage than in the liberty of divine love.
I think that must largely arise from the fact that, while they understand the need of being separate and apart from this world, their separation is a thing far more decided by conscience than by the knowledge of God. They have upon their spirits a sense that they are passing through an evil world—and it is evil indeed!—that they are passing through a world in which every influence is increasingly inimical to Christ and to His own. As they pass their way, judging of that which surrounds them in this world by conscience, they realise the need of being apart from its ways, apart from its systems, apart from its vanities, but they are following a path of separation which is not really 276
and truly based upon the power of the Holy Spirit and the knowledge of the love of God.
There is all the difference between a separation that is legally performed and a separation that arises from the heart being set up in the knowledge of God. As we read the Old Testament scriptures, we see how the pathway of the people of God takes on a most peculiarly triumphant character from the hour of the lifting up of the brazen serpent; from that point, their pathway is regarded by the Holy Spirit as empowered by the love of God. There came out on the side of the people at that time not only the murmuring of the heart in its own nature and in its own course, but the Spirit of God touches very tenderly upon that incident, showing that their murmurings were the result of the fact that they had become weary of the way.
We may take a great deal for granted, and one of the things that we may take for granted is this, that amongst those with whom we walk, by reason of their light, there may be no weariness of spirit or thirst or hunger. But I think that we have had every reason to understand that it is not the possession of light in the way of information that will preserve our spirits here from the tendency to weariness or to burden; what will preserve our spirits here is the knowledge of the holy love of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. They came to a point in their pathway in which there was expressed from their own side the weariness of their spirits by reason of the way. They were on the borders of Edom at that time, and I think I may take that fact as indicating that they were in close contact with that which was natural. Edom was their brother in nature; their links with Edom were purely natural; and I think that really our greatest tests in the pathway of divine love and divine pleasure arise in connection with what is natural.
We find ourselves in close proximity to that which is natural on every hand; even in our companying with the people of God we find ourselves in contact with what is 277
natural; and I think I need have no hesitation in saying that whenever our spirits are affected by what is natural, we tend to become weary of the way. We look around, it may be, and see the progress that is made on natural lines; we may take account of those who have light from God and who move on natural lines, and witness the progress and the success and the gain they make, being natural, and we tend to be weary of the way.
I would challenge my own heart and appeal to yours, that the only thing that will support our spirits in a path of true separation in this world is the deepening knowledge in our souls of the holy love of the blessed God. I know what it will mean to you, my dear young friends. If your separation be governed by conscience only, if it be not supported by the affections of your heart for Christ’s sake, in a little while, when the tests of life arise, you will find your separation burdensome. You will look out in the view of nature upon things, and you may come to consider, as in the thoughts of men, that your path would be a path of greater prosperity on another line.
I find it a great comfort to my spirit to withdraw from theology. I cannot live on theology; I cannot water my spirit with it; I cannot govern my course by creeds. God purposes that my course be governed by Christ. I take it as a matter of comfort that we may contemplate afresh the greatness of the love of God told out in the dying of Jesus. Think of that great and holy love of the blessed God which takes up every element of contrariety connected with me personally, every feature of my natural heart, my natural way, my natural mind, and deals with it in the dying of Jesus for the gain of my soul. Every propensity of mine, apart from Christ, every feeling averse to God, every tendency of my own heart to create a world around itself, all are dealt with in the dying of Jesus. Everything with which I would surround myself, proudly or boldly, disappears in the presence of the dying of Jesus. In the presence of the great truth of the dying of 278
Jesus, all our tendencies to this present narrow time-defined world would pass away. The cross of Jesus brings to light the great purpose of the blessed God to have a people who have really made their exit from the world of man’s ways to His.
Now let me speak of the lifting up of the Lord. I think we feel the significance and glory of it when we consider the Lord’s own way of referring to that great incident, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, thus must the Son of man be lifted up”, John 3: 14. In that statement of the Lord’s there lies all the power and all the appeal of the love of Jesus, the Son of man. That He was Jesus the Son of God is blessedly true, but Jesus the Son of man was lifted up that all God’s thoughts should be given effect to for eternity. Jesus the Son of man lifted up, Himself would come into man’s place. Not lifted up apart from His holy acquiescence to the will of God, but lifted up as the Son of man in all His holy agreement with the will of God the Father. There is involved in that one statement all the intensity and the blessedness of the holy love of God, and all the sweetness and the power and the appeal of the love of Jesus. Put your soul, beloved, as I would put mine, in the presence of the love of God and the love of Jesus.
When Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, every bitten Israelite who looked to the serpent lived; and I would go back in thought for a moment to that great and solemn hour when, in our soul history we looked away from our sadness and fears, guilt and sin, to Jesus. Let us go back in our thoughts to that hour, and let us face the fact that, little then as we thought of the purpose of God, God thought of it all. What we were consciously committed to was one thing, what the blessed God of our salvation committed us to was another thing. I would go back, as the apostle Paul went back to it in his thoughts, when he said,
“but in that I now live in flesh, I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me”, 279
Gal 2: 20. Oh! beloved, that is what makes room for the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
I think we fetter the Spirit in His ministry if we look on the death of Jesus only on the side of relief. He has come to us to abide with us for ever, but He has come to make known to us the wealth of the power of God; not to be confined in His ministry to the things that stand in relation to our need, but for a ministry, the wealth of which is the love of God, in connection with the purpose of God, to lead us as the sons of God; not only to carry us as a people free from Egypt, but to carry us with a holy dignity as those that belong to another world, the Centre of which is Jesus, the Son of God.
We come then, after the brazen serpent, to the well of which God spoke—the only well in the wilderness of which God spoke. What God did at the rock in Horeb speaks of the death of Jesus, but in relation to moral need; this speaks of God’s provision in the Holy Spirit by the death of Jesus on the line of the purpose of God—that belongs to another world. May I read it into the holy Scripture, as from the New Testament, putting the light into the Old? From the brazen serpent their path was defined, it was a path of righteousness in which there was life, and in the pathway thereof there was no death. There is no perishing on that line. We shall feel all the more acutely when the things of nature pass away, but, blessed be God, we shall feel it with the greatest relieving to our spirits in the knowledge of the things which never fail. Never to be sullied, they are connected with another Man, with the blessed Man who has been glorified, the same Jesus the Son of God who was lifted up that believing on Him we might “not perish, but have life eternal”.
The Spirit of God is present with us, and the great object of His presence, according to the scriptures I have read, is to support us in the light and in the power and in the dignity and character of the purpose of God. May God 280
give us that elevation of spirit to see above the level of the wilderness, to be kept in the level of the purpose of God, that God may have His pleasure, and that Christ may be glorified. May it be so, for His Name’s sake.
Kingston, England
15th October 1926
From: Words of Grace and Comfort, vol 3 (1927)
281
SPIRITUAL LIFE
What is there living in that which we hold together?
Do we hold it together livingly? Is there the same preciousness, sweetness and purity in it as there was when we first touched it? Has the thing become increasingly precious to our souls? There is no standing still in these matters, and we may rest assured of this, if things do not become more living, they become less so; there can be no question about it.
There is nothing less satisfying to the heart of Christ than a thing that appears to live and is dead. The Lord is not satisfied with appearances; what the Lord is satisfied with, and alone satisfied with, is spiritual life and responsiveness, however weak the position or appearance may be. The heart that turns to the Lord for His own sake and loves Him for His own worth is what satisfies the heart of Christ most.
Had I gone into the house of Martha I am quite sure of this, that my own judgment would have been that there was far more to have been said for Martha than there was for Mary; had I looked on the scene I feel assured that when Martha made her complaint, I should have endorsed it; and yet what transpired was that the heart that valued the Lord for His own sake was what was most grateful to Christ.
From: Words of Grace and Comfort, vol 3 (1925) 282
ASSEMBLY
I think that there is something profoundly touching in these last addresses of the Lord to the assembly. I think there must be something of very great significance and meaning in what the Lord has to say to His own as the end of the days draws near, and I think it must be impressed upon every heart that is at all concerned as to what is pleasing to the Lord. I think there are not lacking evidences that the end of the dispensation is indeed very near, not only in what we see around us in the world, because that in itself can never be a certain guide to us, but I think that what is more certain and always more reliable, are the indications which are given to us by the Spirit of God in the way in which He presents the truth to us.
I think there are undoubted evidences that the Spirit of God is, so to speak, closing up His accounts, that He is preparing for the time when He will present the result of His labours to the Lord Jesus, and will hand over the assembly, that which has been so especially dear to the One who is the Head of it, and hand it over with divine joy.
There are times, and we have proved it, when the Lord’s allowance of time and discipline has been too short for our conditions and our needs. The Lord always moves in view of what is in His own mind to enable us to take account of the needs that are on our side, but there are times when the Lord discovers our needs to us by the apparent suddenness of His movements.
There is no question of this, that if the end of the days is nearing, if the end of the church’s sojourn here is coming soon, it is of the utmost importance that we should be sober and redeem the time. The time is short, there is no room for what is passing. One feels the amount of time that one has given to trifling things, and how one has failed in the 283
trivial way in which one has handled divine things and serious matters.
Now we have come to a time in the church’s history when the Spirit of God is preparing for departure; there can be no question about that. The ministry is a clear and reliable indication of it; every movement of the Spirit of God is a sure and certain sign of it, and the labours of the Spirit in line with the mind of the Head of the assembly, are to free the affections of the people of God, to prepare them for their departure. In the spiritual atmosphere there are all the symptoms of it; all the appeals of the love of Christ are towards this end; every word of the Holy Spirit has this wonderful moment in view. May the Lord grant to every one of our hearts increasingly that we may be looking out to that wonderful exit, that exit that all the Lord’s own will make in blessed unison, the sleeping and the living together, when the Lord Himself speaks the word and we will go out of this scene secretly, but gloriously, never again to come into it as we were in it before, but to come into it crowned with the heavenly glory of Christ and of God.
Now in Philadelphia you have no word of reproof, no word of correction, you have no word of bringing to bear upon that company the searching light of His own knowledge and discrimination, but it is the Lord speaking to that which, though broken and small in the eyes of men, bears all the features of the bride to the heart of Christ.
Right down through all the days of the church’s sojourn here in this scene there has been that which was precious to the heart of Christ. It may have been hidden, there may have been times when it could not be seen at all even by many who loved the Lord; they looked in vain many times for that which was pleasing to the Lord, but the Lord had His eye on it. It has been the care of Christ ever since He entered the presence of God to carry through in spiritual purity the fruit of His own work.
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Now the Lord speaks to Philadelphia. I want you to notice this, that while our translation says, “I have set before thee an open door”, it should read, “I have set before thee an opened door”, compare Rev 3: 8, KJV and Darby Bibles. Not a door that swings on its hinges, but a door that though it were to appear ever so close shut to the power and the mind of man, has nevertheless been opened by the Lord.
There are times in the history of the testimony when we came to what we thought was a closed door; there have been such times in the history of the assembly, the times that we speak of as the Dark Ages. Where would we have been, speaking soberly (I am not forgetting the sovereignty of God), if in the Dark Ages there had not been so many who loved the Lord more than they loved their own lives?
“I have set before thee an opened door”. That opened door was to many a door right out of life, and out of life painfully, into the presence of their Lord; not a door that swung easily on its hinges. What are we looking for? We have come near to the close of the dispensation, but not yet to the end of its pains. We have not come to the end of its tribulation.
The door may seem closed in your circumstances individually. You may be feeling that the circumstances of your position are very difficult indeed; things are so trying and testing. Take this pledge of the Lord, that as you go forward in faith and affection, you can go up and touch that door with the finger of faith; you will find that it has been unlocked. The Lord knows us far too well to set before us that which has no door, He sets before us an opened door, a door that, however fast closed it may appear, if we only touch it in the power of faith and in the appreciation of the preciousness of the Person of Christ, we will find that it yields to the touch. There was never yet a circumstance into which the Lord called His own in the pathway of the testimony that did not yield to the power of faith. May the 285
Lord just help our hearts to put it to the test and we will prove it to be exactly as the Lord has described it to be.
The Lord has the key of David. Were the Lord to lock His own in in their circumstances, all the powers of the enemy would never unlock that door. If the Lord locks an enemy in, you may rest assured he is there until the Lord allows him to come out again. And whatever may be the appearance of things as the enemy creates it in this world, the Lord allows it. You may rest assured of this, that the Lord is the Master of the situation; He has the key of David, and He has set before us an opened door. Why? Because, He says, thou hast a little strength. The Lord can make His own way through anything. God made His own way through all the chaos and confusion in which this world was at the outset. When things were without form and void, God spake, and it was light; He set His own light going, and out of all the confusion He brought order and glory to His own name. Can you tell me anything that is an impassable barrier to God? Is there anything that is an impossibility to the Lord Jesus? Nothing. The Lord’s way is the way in which our security lies, and the Lord has made that way possible to the end; He has set before us an opened door that no man shutteth.
And now He speaks to Philadelphia. He speaks affectionately, He speaks of that which makes its appeal to His own heart. And then He goes on to speak to the overcomer. I want you to notice what He says to the overcomer. “He that overcomes, him will I make a pillar in the temple of my God ... and I will write upon him ... my new name”, Rev 3: 12. There is a day coming when the name of Christ will be no reproach, it will involve no suffering. What a blessed day that will be! Yes, blessed indeed. But what would our hearts prefer? The Lord has this wonderful delight in putting these inscriptions upon those who love Him for His own sake and are prepared to carry the impress of His name, whatever that might involve 286
in their circumstances or in their pathway here: “I will write upon him ... my new name”. Think of it! Think of all that the name of Christ means now. You say, It does not involve so much suffering as it used to. Perhaps not, in one form, and that is just where the test lies. I feel sure of this, that if one had been nearer the Lord one would have had a very much deeper sense, on the line of suffering, of the true state of things here.
The name that He has given us to carry we must beware of ever seeking to have obliterated. The Lord has made His own imprint on us, He has made His own impression on our spirits, what is of God is written on our hearts, and we carry the name of Christ indelibly stamped on us. A Christian cannot hide it; if he does not manifest it in his joy, he will shew it in his misery and departure. Have you ever seen a Christian who knew the light of the truth and the preciousness of Jesus in any degree, and went into the world again; did you ever know such an one satisfy his heart; did you know him make ends meet spiritually? No, it is impossible. If we do not carry the imprint of the name of Christ in joyfulness we shall carry it in misery.
The name can never be erased. Let us praise God for it. There is a day coming when instead of the name of reproach the Lord is going to write His new name. And let me say this, that if the letters were not there already He could never write the second time. He does not write the second time what was not there before, but to that name carried in reproach and suffering and in smallness and weakness, He gives this new significance, in that scene where God is all in all: He will make the name of reproach shine with the radiance of the glory of God. He will make it shine as He shines for the heart of God. He will make it shew what He is for the pleasure of God, as it has shewn here what He has been to the heart of the one that bore it.
“My new name” . Think of it; there is no reproach in heaven where Jesus is. Not a whisper of it, not a symptom of 287
opposition, nothing there but the fullest response to His worth, the fullest answer to His glory, the deepest response to His preciousness. There is a day coming when we will enter into all the actuality and the blessedness of it. May the Lord help our hearts to go on the line of overcoming.
What would the assembly be without Jesus? What would be for the pleasure of God without Christ? It is Christ in all that makes all for the pleasure of God. One feels, beloved brethren, how little one has understood it. How little it has laid hold of the spirit of our minds and of our hearts and affections, how little it has coloured our movements.
I have not much to say about Laodicea, except just to suggest this, that we may become cold in regard of the most precious thing. May the Lord keep us in spiritual movement, in spiritual warmth, the warmth of divine things. Peter was greatly concerned that the saints might have fervent love amongst themselves, the power of divine affections. You go into a house at times, it may be cold weather, you find just enough fire in the grate to remind you what it is for. If it were not that you know what a fireplace is for, you might mistake it for any other article of furniture.
There is just enough fire, sometimes, to justify the existence of a fireplace in a room. There are times, too, in our local gatherings when there is just enough affection to deny the report that there is none. It is fervency that we want, that was the fault with Laodicea; the fervency had gone out of things. The Lord speaks of it; it was nauseous in His mouth. The sensibilities of Christ are exercised in regard of Laodicea; He tasted things, as it were. He put them to the proof with the exercise of that divine sense, and they were neither cold nor hot, neither one thing nor the other, and the Lord says, “I will spue thee out of my mouth”, v 16.
May the Lord help us that we may retain our affection, our freshness, our purity, and that in the 288
retention of these things we may be precious to the heart of Christ. Let us take no refuge in ecclesiastical position.
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock”. I just take this illustration in closing. Suppose the members of the household have gone to bed. At an untoward time of the night you find your door knocked at. A knock at the door in the daytime is not unusual, but a knocking in the middle of the night is an ominous sound; it strikes your ear and affects you at a late hour of the night in a way that it does not in the daytime. “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock”. At the very late hour of the night, there are not many hours of the night left, the time is very near at hand when the Lord will come and He will not tarry. But in the midst of all the spiritual coldness that would deaden the response that the Spirit of God is labouring to maintain, the Lord stands at the door and knocks. “If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me”. It is late in the night when the Lord knocks, the supper is the last meal of the day, taken at the time that you might say is untoward. The Lord will never give up that which is precious to His heart in His own, and if it be not found in the many He will still retain it in the few. The Lord grant that we may be among that number.
From: Words of Grace and Comfort, vol 3 (1925)
289
There has been much to encourage in all the testing way one has been travelling. One feels desirous of better understanding and profiting by the details of the Lord’s ways with us, and so better formed in the result He would produce with us.
* * * *
It tenderly sweetens all to know that He produces that He might joy over us. It is for His joy, and He presents it in His joy to the Father. The Father, too, chastens us for our profit; and that we might be partakers of His holiness, Heb 12: 10.
* * * *
The Son is the Example and the Leader—the pre-eminent One in this path, which ends in the very glory of God in entire conformity to Christ. He learned obedience by the things which He suffered, Heb 5: 8.
* * * *
To have anything of substance to pass on to others, this way must be proved. One has but ever so feebly experienced it, but yet enough through His mercy to have seen others rejoiced by the passing on of what has been gained by being made to drink of the “brook in the way”, Ps 110: 7.
* * * *
The Lord very tenderly supports us in that we keep near Him in whatever is given us to do. He knows how to encourage without elating. Elation would mean He is not the object at the time in His own personal worth. Our joy and comfort in sorrow, our deepest joy in Himself, and our comfort in His own love and His pleasure in us. Blessed be His Name. We can never be dearer to Himself by all our 290labours than He has made us to His own heart in His own way. “Thine they were, and thou gavest them me”.
From Words of Grace and Comfort vol 4 (1928)
291
TO HEAVENLY THINGS
It is my desire to speak a little about the things of the Lord which would encourage our hearts to move over, so that we might prove in the power of spiritual joy and in a greater measure together the blessedness of our links with Himself in heavenly things. I feel sure that to every one of our hearts there must be at least a very great attractiveness in the thought of passing over to be with the Lord on His own side of things. Every one of us has had tender experiences in the grace ministered to us in this present scene, and the thought of that would assuredly be of itself of very great power indeed in prompting our hearts to a greater knowledge of the Lord and of His things. I think that every experience of the wilderness, every experience of the care and sympathy and tender consideration of the Lord Jesus, is intended to build into our souls something that is abiding, something that is what I may call in the nature of spiritual constitution.
I think that one thing that stands out very plainly is this, that all that God did for His people in the wilderness had an unalterable connection with His purpose for them in the land. God never provided His people with anything in the wilderness that was calculated to cause their hearts to remain there. One peculiar provision of God in the wilderness is the manna. I feel sure that the heart that has not partaken of Christ as manna has no spiritual constitution to pass into the land. The manna fell for six days over Jordan to shew that it was not only given to meet wilderness conditions, but in order that as it presented Christ in all His lowliness and His grace, there might be in that very provision that which might build up the spiritual constitution of the people of God; that they might not only 292
follow the ark of the covenant, but the course of the manna over the other side of Jordan.
To me it is a very touching thing that it is the same blessed Person we have proved wonderful in the wilderness who will be all our object when the wilderness is passed. I feel sure there is no heart that can really take up heavenly things that has not deeply appreciated Christ as manna.
There are dangers in the very light we hold—not in the light itself—which threaten us in respect of the manna in which that light may be received. Minds may travel fast and minds may travel far, but however clear our minds may be as to the objects that lie the other side of Jordan, there never was a heart that had the joy of those heavenly objects that had not first proved the preciousness of Christ as manna. It takes more than light to carry the heart where God delights to carry it.
The manna is a type of Christ in His lowliness, His down-stooping love, suited to conditions here contrary to the will of God. That precious spiritual food that God has been pleased to send will produce a spiritual constitution in the people of God, and will be the very foundation of their ability to pass over into heavenly things. In the book of Exodus it comes as a divine provision. There are certain necessities connected with the flesh and blood condition which it would not be like God to ignore. You remember how the Lord very tenderly and patiently brought out this fact to His disciples so that they should not be careful what they should eat, or what they should drink, or wherewithal they should be clothed. God will provide for you in your circumstances. The manna was not only to provide for the wilderness condition; it was a spiritual food.
Christ Jesus has made us free of the man of sin and death. That is the law which rules in the world. It is the law that affects you in your circumstances. Suppose God in His care of you brings you without much warning into circumstances grievously testing. This sudden handling of 293
your case proves that you are not prepared for its acceptance. There is a world of circumstances God may use for your good at any time. It is a very serious thing to be brought face to face with the fact that while in light you have been clear about the will of God, in your circumstances you have not been willing to accept it. The manna is, in the power of the Spirit, the minister of Christ; Him who came down here and lived wholly for the will of God, the one to whom no circumstances of testing, no trial, sorrow or judgment was too much. It was Christ coming down to a world that above all else was dominated by lawlessness, a world out of which the will of God was excluded.
There was never a soul who became really like Christ by light only, but by feeding on Him. If your circumstances be trying and discouraging, you will say, ‘Surely this is a wilderness’; if they be pleasant and prosperous you will forget it is. It has been well said that poverty proves a man’s strength; prosperity exposes his weakness. You cannot measure the wilderness by your circumstances, but you can measure it by the relationship of those circumstances to the will of God. The very foundation of our spiritual joys will be that we have proved the Lord. The One who occupies the highest place, the centre of it all, is the One who made a way to your heart by the tenderness of His grace that He displayed to you in all your testing.
In Numbers 11: 7 we are told the appearance of the manna was as bdellium. I take that to be the wisdom of God. Paul says to the Corinthians: “I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified”, 1 Cor 2: 2.
Think of One who came down so low as to be crucified. Was not that hidden wisdom? “Unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called ... Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” 1 Cor 1: 23, 24. I would say to the young, 294
you will encounter a good deal in this world that will discredit your wisdom. Someone will discredit the wisdom of putting Christ first. You will find in the manna enough wisdom to support your soul in all truth. In the manna there is the hidden wisdom of God, ministering to your soul that there might be built up a spiritual constitution that will abide when all the folly of man has passed away.
The time came when the people, preserved in the wilderness, carried through by spiritual food and drink, came to the Jordan, and the thought of God was to carry them over. Think for a moment what was in the heart of Christ when He went down into death. I am reminded how our Lord speaks in John 17: 6; “thine they were, and thou gavest them me”. For what? To be freed from Egypt only?
To be like Christ, as like Him as the blessed God can make us in His own place for ever.
There is no one here or elsewhere to whom Christ is precious who is not unalterably marked off by God from all connected with this world as a wilderness scene; Romans 6
shews it. God has you in His mind to be with Christ where He is. The Red Sea was the enemy’s power. Christ Himself broke the power for us. When you come to Jordan there are no enemies behind, no threats, no fears. If the power of attraction is not sufficient in our hearts, they do not go over. It was not the heart going over at the Red Sea, but it was at the Jordan. If you become earthly-minded, you cannot have the peace of God which passes understanding.
If you are earthly-minded, every adverse circumstance will invade your mind with disquiet: Your very earthly-mindedness has prevented you from feeding on the manna.
The blessed God, who forgets not—never forgets His own—
said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee”, Heb 13: 5.
If you are earthly-minded He has never forgotten you nor forsaken you, but there is a very great deal in His Person that you yourself have been deprived of.
The manna is wilderness food. But at times we have 295
thought there was a certain period of our own life when we were occupied with wilderness things, and then, if we got on in divine things, we were in the land and not in the wilderness. We shall be in the wilderness so long as we are in the body.
I grant you there will be a time with us—and the sooner the better—when we shall be less occupied with wilderness things and wilderness provisions, and more occupied with Christ and His own things, passing over to His own side. May our hearts, every one of us, seek grace to cultivate the knowledge of it, for His Name’s sake.
From Words of Grace and Comfort vol 4 (1928)
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BRIEF NOTES OF A GOSPEL ADDRESS
I suppose every person of mature years must be well aware of the great and sad changes that have taken place in that which bears the name of God on earth. You may wonder why I raise this question. I do so because of a fact which is clear to men of the world. We are found in times in which we hear it asserted that Christianity has failed, and men call attention to the professing church. I feel called upon to speak to you of a God who has not failed, who remains as He has ever done from the beginning. The responsibility of every man is to acknowledge God. No amount of failure will give man any ground for turning away from God. The house of God here was set up that God might be known. When we look upon that which exists having room for every vanity and evil, our hearts might well-nigh break. Nevertheless, God remains. “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever”, Ps 45: 6. There is no change in His interest in the souls of men, no change in the compassions of God. We may look upon the failures of men, but you are here in the days of the Holy Spirit of God, and you cannot evade your responsibility of having to do with God.
It remains that God is One. If there were a thousand sections of people who name the name of God, He would still be One! “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men”, 1 Tim 2: 5.
God is One. He has not ceased to speak compassionately of the souls of the sons of men. He speaks in the present as He has ever spoken, in compassion. “I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy, and I will feel compassion for whom I will feel compassion”, Rom 9: 15.
He is the same God who did not spare His Son, but delivered Him up for us all. Blessed be God! There is no change there. We are not ashamed of the gospel of God, for 297
it is the power of God unto salvation. Your circumstances change and the forms of your sorrows, but the gospel of God ever retains its divine power to bring blessing to the souls of men.
I call your attention to a most precious word,
“concerning a stranger”, 1 Kings 8: 41. In the loss of the compassions of God, men have lost the compassion for the stranger. The souls of men come under the interest of God.
Perhaps they have spent their life either in ignorance or in turning their backs on the light of God. There is no person in this land who can say he is without light. May God help those who spend their lives under the name of Christ and do not seek Him, do not know who He is, and what He is.
This is what a fallen Christendom has taught men to do.
There is no change in Christ. God’s Mediator petitioned for the souls of the sons of men. At every opportunity the blessed Lord inserts a word, “Concerning a stranger”. Man is a stranger because he has estranged himself from God. The great act of that estrangement was the crucifixion of Jesus. Yet by this act God reconciled the world to Himself. There is no change with God. If you feel yourself outside the blessing of God, the barrier lies with yourself.
Men call attention to their pressures and sorrows, and the enemy causes them to put it between their souls and God and to estrange them from Him. He was the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. In your pleasures you sought Him not; perhaps in your sorrows you will.
Christendom says that He enters into pleasures, but this only hides Him from you.
Dear friends, it is not Christ who has failed.
“Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”, Acts 2: 21. I call attention to the faithfulness of God.
God awakens your soul, and when you feel the hopelessness of your case it is the faithfulness of God that brings in the healing. “Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and do 298
according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for”, 1 Kings 8: 43.
Now as to the eunuch who had been to Jerusalem to worship and was returning. I do not know what distress was in his heart. He had been to a house which had Ichabod written upon it—“the glory is departed”, 1 Sam 4: 22. Israel knew not the hour of her visitation and her Saviour was gone.
The foundation of all Israel’s peace was in the sacrificial blood. Look to Christendom, and tell me what place the blood of Christ has. Does any soul here trust in a system which stands apart from the foundation of the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ? “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin”, 1 John 1: 17.
I can understand the eunuch saying, I have heard that He cleansed the leper. Is it true? Yes, He did. I have heard He opened blind eyes, raised the dead. Is it true?
Yes, He did. And you crucified Him? Yes, they say, He was an impostor.
Beloved, there are men who seek the dead to communicate with them. But if my dead are gone to glory and I shall see them, what more do I want?
Philip was told to go down to the south. God answered the prayer of the Mediator and saved the soul of the Ethiopian, while Israel still lay in distress.
Do not cover your confusion by the failure of others; get to God for yourselves. Beloved friends, you have no valid excuse for disregard of God. God can come to you, and oh, blessed be His name, you can turn to God! May God help every needy soul to see that their help is only in the blessed God. We have no other resource for time or eternity but in the blessed God.
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The eunuch no doubt was in feelings of sorrow. “Hear thou in heaven”. Our Lord Jesus is exalted in heaven; He can reach out and touch the stranger. If you have been a worldling by desire, and somewhat of a religionist by conscience, the Lord can touch you. Philip heard him read in the wilderness those sweet words, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter”, Acts 8: 32.
May I call your attention to the way the sufferings of Christ are treated in Christendom, as a mere fact of history.
“I beheld ... a Lamb as it had been slain”, Rev 5: 6. This is not mere history. Have you thought of the sufferings of Christ? Oh, for your soul’s sake go and look into them as the word of God sets them forth. Every sin I had taken pleasure in (man follows what he loves in his sinfulness) Christ suffered to atone for. “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter”. His life was taken from the earth. “In that he died, he died unto sin once”, Rom 6: 10.
In heaven above the Lord is for us and nothing can change it . The Lord reaches down His hand, He touches the needy. It was a wilderness scripture that the eunuch was reading. “He shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground”, Isa 53: 2. He does not come into your pleasures or your glories, but oh, when your heart breaks, He comes into that! A brother who went through the experience of the past war tells how when a ship was sunk, and many were upon rafts (he amongst them), and the sea was so rough that many were cast into the sea, that he heard cries of ‘Lord, save me’, ‘Lord, have mercy upon me’. Were those cries all to be saved from drowning? No, there was another sound in it. “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”.
There are many and many of the souls of men broken through pleasure. They let their souls and affections go in it, and some awake to find that they have lost eternally through pleasure, while others have turned their back on it and found their place among the people of God. The 300
entreaties of Christ are not forgotten. “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”, Luke 23: 34. There are those whose blind eyes will be opened and they will see.
They will add, We have been healed by His stripes. If one soul would say, O God, save me from my pride, He would save them.
You say, I have not realised all my sin. I shall never know how much I have been forgiven until God tells me at the judgment seat of Christ how much I have been forgiven.
God will help you to a way of escape from what you are following.
“He that calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved”.
From Words of Grace and Comfort vol 4 (1928)
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MEDITATION ON PSALM 84
I have been greatly rejoiced these last few days meditating on Psalm 84 as in connection with the way the Lord takes us. “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee—they, in whose heart are the highways! Passing through the valley of Baca, they make it a well-spring; yea, the early rain covereth it with blessings. They go from strength to strength; each one will appear before God in Zion”, vv 5-7.
It has greatly interested and held my heart. The most devious and protracted way in God’s loving care becomes a veritable highway to the heart that finds its strength in Him, and who loves the way. Romans 8: 28-30 gives the highway:
‘‘we do know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to purpose
... these also he has glorified’’. How blessedly in this chapter the valley of weeping is made· a well-spring, how the supply and ministry of the Spirit as “the early rain covereth it with blessings”. In the confidence of the holy love of Christ, in the steadfastness and strength of the changeless love of God in our Lord Jesus Christ, we go on our way until each appears before God in Zion. “But to him that is able to keep you without stumbling, and to set you with exultation blameless before his glory, to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty might, and authority, from before the whole age, and now, and to all the ages. Amen”, Jude 24, 25.
From Words of Grace and Comfort vol 4 (1928)
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THE LORD’S OWN MINISTRY ON EARTH
AND
THE GLAD TIDINGS PREACHED NOW
What is in my mind in reading these scriptures is to speak simply of the grace of the testimony which is presented to man in the glad tidings. I have read a very fair portion of Scripture, and my object in doing so is to bring before you these divine narratives as presenting to us in a very remarkable way the peculiar correspondence between the grace of the testimony which is preached in the name of Jesus, and the grace which marked the Lord’s own ministry here. Many people, I fear, are under a misapprehension as to the glad tidings. They think the gospel is a statement concerning Christ in some official way—concerning His work on the cross and His rising again. My desire is to speak to you more directly of Christ Himself, for the preciousness of the glad tidings lies peculiarly in the fact that there is presented to us in them a living Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the presentation of that Person is in all the grace that corresponds to His living ministry.
Now, I think we shall see that in the Acts of the Apostles. In those who were the vessels of the testimony of God there, we see definite features which answered to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not before me at this time to dwell upon those features, nor to draw attention to the persons, except to shew that the features in such men as Stephen, Philip, and Paul after he became the minister of Jesus Christ, were in correspondence with the testimony which they proclaimed. None of them is presented as an object in connection with the ministry or with the glad tidings; the one and only Object presented in their testimony is the living Person of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.
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I do not need to make any apology for taking up John 4 in preaching the gospel. It has been said that we have not the gospel in that chapter. That may be; but we have there the most wonderful Preacher that ever preached the glad tidings—a divine Preacher—the Son of God—and there are there also peculiar features that might well appeal to our hearts. If we take account of the Lord as presented in John’s gospel, we feel that the mind of the Holy Ghost is to impress us with the greatness of His glory as the Son of God—to give our hearts an understanding of the wonderful glory of the Person who came down from God into this world, who was God, but who became man in order that He might bring to men the knowledge of God and the knowledge of His love.
When reading John 4, it is well to give special consideration to the manner in which the Spirit of God introduces the narrative to us. He tells us that the Lord Jesus left Judæa to go down into Galilee, because it was said that Jesus made and baptised more disciples than John. The circumstance is recorded to us to give our hearts some little understanding of the humility and dependence on God of this wonderful Person. Here He was on earth.
As to the truth of His Person He was God, but He accepts as a man, in communion with God the Father, all that was proper to the place He had taken as man in dependence upon God. The Lord in His path here never took advantage of what would have meant popularity for Himself. The mission of the divine Preacher was to bring the knowledge of God to needy souls, not to elevate Himself. If ever man merited glory, and honour, and exaltation, this blessed Man did, but there was no desire whatever on His part to gain anything in the way of popularity. Whenever there was anything of that kind presented to Him—of human glory or honour, He turned His back upon it immediately, and in His own divine way placed Himself to meet the need of souls.
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It is truly refreshing to sit down and contemplate the presentation of Christ as in John 4 and to drink in the flow of this wonderful grace. The Lord leaves Judæa and was on His way to Galilee, and He must needs pass through Samaria. As you see the Lord here, there is nothing whatever to keep the heart at a distance from Him. It is often the experience of the heart that is astray from God, to have the feeling that inasmuch as it has to do with God, He has to say to it about its sins. That is very true, but it is never the tendency of the human heart to take into account the goodness of God, or the love of God that searched us out when we had no thought of Him.
Now in the chapter we have one with the Lord who was a sinner. When the Lord first spoke to her, she had no real sense that she was a sinner. She knew the facts to which the Lord referred, but she had no real consciousness of her need of the grace of God, and of the gift of God. It was not until the Lord in His gracious ministry opened up her need to her own consciousness that she had any understanding of it or of the grace of God that was there to meet it. I repeat there is no tendency in the human heart to allow for the undeniable goodness of God.
The grace of the Lord’s presence is wonderful. If you think of who He was, of all that He had laid aside, and of all that He suffered here, and then see Him here at the disposal of this hungry soul, in herself only a vessel of need, having nothing to offer the Lord, nothing to offer God, nothing in her at all for God, save that she was a vessel for His goodness, a possible vessel in which His goodness could be manifested—if we think of all that, the heart is bowed in the sense of it. I would press this point in regard to each and all of us, that in ourselves we have no more to offer than this poor woman had. It is not a question of comparison with another in regard of sins committed, when the truth of the gospel is presented. People will often evade their own responsibility by saying that they are not such 305
sinners as So-and-so, but that is no standard to judge by at all. When you listen to what the Lord has to say to this woman, you must come to the conclusion that the Lord’s testimony to her is not to point out how very great a sinner she was compared with others, but to point out to her that the whole tenor and habit of her life was that she left God out, and that she was a vessel of her own will; the real question was not how sinful certain of her acts had been, but that she had left God out.
When I think of the glad tidings, I think of the Lord Jesus as being as active in the preaching of them as He was when actually here upon earth. The great necessity for the heart is to understand that the glad tidings is not merely a story about a Person, but that you have to do with that blessed Person Himself, a living Person who is as graciously active in touching the hearts of men and women and children by the grace of the glad tidings to-day as He was in the days of His flesh. The understanding of that would test our hearts as to what place God has in my life. What place has the Christ of God in your heart? It will not avail to say that your life is free from what might be deprecated in the lives of others. If your hearts were subjected to the scrutiny of God, would He find Christ has any place there?
If this woman in John 4 had been set at the bar of human judgment, the results would have been altogether different to what they were. They might have been able to tell her some of the “all things that ever she did”; but they could not have told her “all things”, nor in the same way that the Lord did. The Lord knew all. And as she left the Lord’s presence, the effect upon her was she had the consciousness that there was not a detail in the entirety of her life in regard to which He was not cognisant. But she left His presence in the consciousness also of the grace of God—the all-embracing grace of God, which had come in in His own blessed Person. Had her case been adjudicated by you or me, would she have left our presence with that 306
consciousness? You may say that we could not have given her that consciousness, but we could have treated it according to human judgment. No one who compares themselves with another in regard of their responsibility could understand the grace of God. I am not under any necessity to endeavour to appear anything else than what I am. When I come to God in the consciousness of His grace, there is no necessity to mitigate the greatest of my sins, the most heinous of them, for Christ has died for me, and I can rely on the blessed grace of God which has been presented to me in the Lord Jesus Christ, in relation to every detail of my life.
Now I do not go into the details of the Lord’s dealings with this woman, but I want to speak of the marvellous directness of them. There can be no equivocation when the Lord speaks to us. You might be uncertain as to what I mean when I speak, but you will have no uncertainty when you have the consciousness of the Lord’s own voice to you.
There is no uncertainty about His words here in John 4.
They are just as clear, and direct, as they are full of grace; and they are just as penetrating and searching as they are true and gracious. If He turns the bottom of our hearts to the top, if He brings everything into the light, the object is to give us the consciousness that we are searched out in the presence of God, to the end that He might bring the grace of God into the soul.
The Lord’s way with this woman is indeed wonderful; see how He sets Himself to meet her need! The Lord questions her, and she answers on the assumption that she had to deal with Him as she had to deal with others, who were the same as herself; so she pursues the policy of evasion; indeed, she attempts to misrepresent things to the Lord, for she does not understand to whom she is speaking.
People who have heard the glad tidings from childhood up, and who have never fully responded to them, are very much in the same case as this woman. They may have light, but 307
they have never put their implicit trust in Christ, and they still go on in paths of self-will. Such cases act on lines very much like this woman acted on, when she answered the Lord. They do not come to see or taste the fulness of grace, and the gain of the glad tidings. The great gain is to throw the heart open to God. Let me ask you, Why do you put such difficulties between yourself and God? Why do you not find time for the consideration of God and of Christ? Is it not because your mind and heart are engaged in other interests? So long as you have inclinations so to do, you will find plenty to keep you at a distance from God, but remember that he who puts such means to your hand is not he who values your soul; it is the enemy of God and the enemy of your soul—of every soul—who takes every opportunity to fill in the lives of those who have any sense of their responsibility to God, so that God might be left out of account.
It has often been said that in preaching the gospel one should bring home to people that they are sinners; this is a great necessity, and I delight to see how the Lord Jesus accomplished this in regard of this woman. No one could ever bring home such consciousness to the hearts of men and women as the Lord could. He brought home to this woman that she was a sinner. But see how He did it! She was altogether without divine joy, altogether empty, for she had not God in her heart, she had not tasted either the goodness or the grace of God, and she did not know Him.
If we do not know what it is to be attached to Christ, if we have not the joy that comes from God through our Lord Jesus Christ, we have not drunk of the living water. In ordinary things of human life, when God is left out, everything really is sinful, it yields no happiness. Just think of that! There is no one here of whom I have the right to say that they are guilty of special sins; it is not my business; but I would point out that, be your ordinary life as clear as human judgment could declare it, yet if it leaves Christ out it is nothing but sinful. I am not here to preach 308
to-night because there are certain very wicked sinners here, I am here because the living grace of the Lord Jesus Christ would have you know that without what He has to give, that living water, you have nothing of any worth. I am here because the Christ of God, and all His grace, and the value of His work, are divine realities.
When the Lord speaks to this woman, He does not say that only a certain portion of her life that had come under the judgment of men was sinful; He goes right down to the bottom. He speaks to her in such a way as to shew that in His eye the whole tenor of her life was sinful, because she left God out—the whole principle of her life was wrong. He says to her, “Go, call thy husband, and come hither”. She says, “I have no husband”, John 4: 16, 17. Now that was a fact, or rather one-half of the fact. The Lord said to her, “Thou hast well said, I have no husband”.
In a five-fold way she had tried to fill her life in without God, and at the end she got into things that even in human judgment were sad and sinful; but the whole of her life was wrong. The glad tidings present a living and precious Saviour, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. If your life be examined in the presence of God, and Christ is not found in it, then all that life is sinful, and you need the grace of God. Apart from the Christ of God all the education that man could give you and all the opportunities that might be put in your way could never enable you to fill out your life in any but a sad and sinful way.
Now I want to refer to the other scriptures that we read. There is something very interesting in them because of the correspondence there is between the grace manifested while Christ is on high, and the grace manifested by that same blessed Person on earth. There is often a haziness in our minds in regard to the validity of the glad tidings. The glad tidings are concerning God’s Son, not in the sense that human narratives might speak 309
of a person as their subject; the glad tidings come positively at this present moment from the presence of the living God where Christ is. The preaching began by the blessed Lord here on earth, but the preaching now is the blessed testimony of the God of all grace from His presence where Christ is. The glad tidings have a living Person as their subject, and their efficacy is the direct power of a divine Person.
Nothing could be more calculated to bring home to our hearts the wonderful effect of the grace of Christ than the case of Stephen. It shews us one whose heart was so directly affected by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that in the very last· moments of his testimony, even when he was personally subjected to all the malice and hatred of men opposed to Christ, his demeanour, his attitude, and his words, were almost exactly the words of Christ. What does that prove? It proves that the living grace of Christ is available now that He has gone to the right hand of God, and that it can take up a vessel—one who was in the darkness of nature—just as the poor woman in John 4
was—and can so fill it with the living grace of Christ that it becomes like Christ. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is available in the glad tidings, it is as available as when the Lord Jesus was here. There is the same love of Christ, the same grace, the same goodness—every divine feature of that blessed Person—and you may make your appeal to it at this present moment. If your heart is oppressed with pride, the pride that has come upon man to his own sorrow, turn to the Lord, and you will find none of it there.
We hear in these days great talk of reparation (I do not refer to these matters as topics of the day), but there are things—vengeance for one—that men count necessary because of the terrible experience of war through which they have been passing; but take any heart that has been broken by human sorrow, how much good is retribution going to do? It will not give back the object that has been 310
taken away. There is only one thing that will give comfort—
the living presentation to the heart of the grace of Christ and, if man is the instrument of sorrow (I speak according to scripture) God has seen to it that man is the instrument of joy. Through the instrumentality of the Man Christ Jesus, joy can be brought into any human heart that has been subjected to sorrow at the hands of fellow-men—joy not only enough to make up for the thing lost, but having a fulness through the knowledge of God that never was known before. To any who have burdens, I would say, turn to the Lord. In the reception of the glad tidings the heart finds rest, not only from its sins, but from every burden—
no matter of what sort, sinful, or sorrowful. The gospel of the grace of God presents a living Person to my heart, and lifts every burden from my spirit. You see it in all manner of cases in the Acts of the Apostles. In Stephen you see the unmistakable evidence of the living grace of Christ in a vessel here on earth; you see the termination of a life in the grace of Christ, and again in Saul and in Philip you see the extension of that grace.
And take the woman’s testimony in John 4. It widens out from the little circle of the Lord’s ministry at the moment, and the Holy Spirit gives it a circumference that gives us to see that the grace of God is not confined to one case of need; the universe must be its compass and there is not a heart’s need in the universe that this present grace of Christ could not meet. So that when you come to the Acts of the Apostles, although we have not there the ministry of the Lord on earth, yet we have the living ministry of Christ on high, just as real, just as direct, just as holy, and just as good as ever, and it is all available now.
You may say, I do not see much of it. That may raise the question as to what you are looking for. If you are looking for the grace of God, you will not go far without finding it.
You think perhaps that Christians are such a poor lot, and you do not see many Stephens. That may be. There is not one of us that sees more grace than he deserves to see.
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Was there ever a heart that deserved the grace of Christ presented to it? When He touches hearts, the consciousness is that it does not deserve it at all. If you are desirous of getting to know what the living grace and fulness of the Christ of God is, there is no difficulty in your finding it. If you want Him to have a place in your heart, and a place in your concerns, put yourself honestly in His presence and all you desire will be divinely realised.
From Words of Grace and Comfort vol 7 (1931)
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