EXTRACTS

Now, to follow that up, I want to speak to you from the book of Ecclesiastes, which is from Solomon. He speaks of heat in persons, and obviously it links on very instructively with the psalm; what comes down from Christ is radiated. There is the idea of radiation, not at a distance, but in two lying together; “how can one alone be warm?” is the inquiry. There may be those here who have left the place of spiritual heat, but the wise man says, “how can one alone be warm?” It is for you to answer. Were you to tell the truth, you would own that since you left you have hardly had any warmth at all. The Lord has a word for you here. The passage also says, “if two lie together, then they have warmth”. Such is our constitution. The whole passage bears on brethren seeking one another, as if to say, We cannot get along without the brethren. You say, The Lord Jesus is enough for me. Well, He would say to you, ‘Do not forget the brethren. I never intended you to be in isolation; I have made provision for you; I have provided the brethren for you. They are available for you and with them you shall have heat’. Have you not found that you do not get warm spiritually in your isolation? Yet among the saints you get warm. The Lord would have us honour one another. We may be in the same meeting, and breaking bread as we say, and yet not really lying together, for our fellowship, dear brethren, becomes with many just theory, whereas the terms are divinely intended to be carried out in accordance with their meaning, and not only the idea of “lying together”, but that we belong to an organism; for a body is the figure used. Such is the interdependency of the saints on one another, that the striking figure of the human body itself is employed to show our relations with one another.

The obvious point in Solomon’s remark here is that isolated brethren should not remain so. The Lord has provided the brethren in whom there is spiritual heat, and it is for you to get as close to them as possible.

J. Taylor (Vol. 42, pp.217, 218)

There is nothing I cherish more than the light of God. Do not resist the light; you can get nothing without it. The way God works in a soul is to introduce light. Then if that light is accepted He comes in to work by it. There is nothing I covet more than that. Letters of F. E. Raven, p.291

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