SERVICE
SERVICE
We have briefly considered how we can distinguish between the flesh and the Spirit, first in the soul, secondly in fruits. Now let me examine how we should be able to distinguish between service in the flesh and in the Spirit. When service is in the Spirit there is one unchanging purpose, and that is to magnify Christ; no matter how small or how great the thing is. It is remarkable that in connection with every creeping thing which creepeth on the earth, it is added, “Be ye holy; for I am holy”. When we are so occupied with an object as to attend to the minutest details, there is no fear that the greater ones will be overlooked, for after all, the greatest things are made up of atoms. This simple but mighty rule, at once determines whether a service is from the [p. 137] Spirit or not. The Spirit is here to glorify Christ. The only really good thing to be known or conferred is Christ, for there is none good but One, that is God. The difficulty in service is to take care that while I confine my attention to man as claiming my service, I confine myself exclusively to Christ as the only One who can effect any real good in him. The snare is, that while making man the object, which is right, I turn to things which man would like and regard as beneficial, which is ‘charity,’ according to the meaning popularly ascribed to the word (though not true charity); and then my service, however kind it may be, is in the flesh. Were I to visit a widow or an orphan, the person would be a right one for my service, but if I am in the Spirit, I seek to console them if they know Christ, by leading their heart to look for His sympathy, and how He would have them to lean on Him, in this dark sorrowful hour, listening for His voice and personal soothings in such an untrodden path. There is really nothing to minister to man in nature, and yet there is a consciously unspeakable solace to the breaking heart. The reality of Christ is felt and owned as Mary knew Him, when He step by step accompanied her to the grave. It is a wonderful service when Christ is truly ministered to the soul, and the after effects are very marked and beautiful, like the springtime after winter. Now service in the flesh to the same sufferers, would occupy them with something in the departed which would be a temporary balm, because occupying them with what that one was to them, and the exalting of the dead thus, indirectly exalts the bereaved, and so much the more as he was bound up in them or idolized them. Nothing comforts the bereaved ones naturally more than to be reminded of how the departed one lived for, or was devoted to, them. They find a peculiar solace in recalling how they have been loved; but this is all natural, and imparts no strength, and the sufferers, instead of being helped, and enabled to proceed on their journey with a cheerful courage, are occupied with what tends [p. 138] to sink them into the gloom of a never ending sorrow - a protracted winter.
Now in the
MINISTRY OF THE WORD
the distinction between the flesh and the Spirit is more marked. One who ministers in the Spirit, presents Christ ever as the one thing to be reached, and maintained. He presents Him as the source of all joy to the heart in His own cloudless light, and for this scene of trial and evil. He shows and insists that there is no lack of power for anything when one is in conscious union with Him. He portrays to the heart a living contrast to man naturally, which, while it judges and rebukes man’s own ways and feelings, delights and enraptures him in the nature of Him who loved him, and gave Himself for him; and this nature - the new nature - is promoted and fed by every sight of Christ. This is a marvellous ministry - the ministry of the Holy Spirit, whether to saint or to sinner; yet the same minister, when he drops into nature, will occupy the heart or mind with the effects on itself, not to condemn nor to satisfy it, but to make it note its own feelings, and derive either pleasure from the way they are enlivened, or depression because of their insensibility. At all events, it is one’s own state that furnishes either pleasure or pain, like a miser who recounts again and again his possessions or losses. Lastly, in
WORSHIP
the unerring proof that I am in the presence of Christ, is that my flesh has no place there; it is in no way ministered to or recognized, as the apostle says, “Whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell”. Again, “Whether we be beside ourselves, [that is, literally outside of myself] it is to God”. There is no “bread” in the presence of Christ, - nothing to sustain nature. It is “through the veil”, which I have reached through the “new and living way”. Now when worship is attempted in the flesh, there is excitement and enthusiasm, the feelings are [p. 139] made the centre, and the effort is to move them to a burst of expression, like a firework exploding, rather than to engross the heart with Christ in rapture so deep, that silence is imposed, until there is time enough to comprehend something for utterance.
May the Lord use this faint attempt to distinguish between the Spirit and the flesh in a day like this.