WHAT IS EXPRESSED IN CHRIST

John 10: 1–18; 11: 23–26; 14: 1–6, 20

R.W.F. There was reference this morning to the scripture in John 10 where the Lord says, “I am the door”: indeed, there was more than one reference to it. I wondered whether we look for something fresh, particularly on the Lord’s Day as a result of the Lord coming to His own. He delights to come and to impart what is fresh as He does so. But I did wonder whether this might connect with what we considered yesterday as to God speaking in the Person of the Son. One thing we concluded in the reading was that if God was speaking in the Person of the Son it was not simply as messenger; it was not simply by word, that is, by what is uttered; but there was that in the Son which set forth God Himself. Indeed, we know that the Son was and is God Himself so there was the expression in Christ of God Himself in both what He said and what He was. What He was, of course, includes His manner and His disposition. These scriptures, as the brethren will readily see, contain references by the Lord Himself to what He was: “I am the door”; ”I am the good shepherd”; “I am the resurrection and the life”; “I am the way, and the truth, and the life”. These are, to believers, very telling scriptures and the very mention of them immediately affects us (at least this is the way it seems to me) because they convey the extensiveness of what was expressed in Christ and what He was in His person.

The last scripture we looked at in the fourteenth chapter is rather different. It says, “In that day ye shall know that I am” – the ‘am’ is in brackets – “in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”, and I wondered whether we might understand that the Lord’s presentation of Himself as the door, the shepherd, the resurrection and the life, and the way, the truth and the life, is to lead us into a better understanding of His place in the Father’s affections and of His place in our affections. This is so much extended in John’s mind as to say that “I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”; words that to the natural mind are impossible to understand but which to the spiritual mind are full of meaning. I wondered whether we might also read back from the last verse to understand that when the Lord spoke of being the door, being the shepherd, He was conscious of His place, not only in the Father’s heart, but in the Father, and He was working to ensure that we should understand something of that. We cannot embrace it in its fulness but we should understand, at least by a little experience, what it is for Him to be in us - “and I in you”.

It seems to me that when the Lord says, “I am the door” or the Shepherd or the other words that He uses (which are almost titles), there is - underlying His words and not far beneath the surface - an allusion to His deity: “I am”. We reminded ourselves yesterday that for the unbeliever the Lord’s word is quite solemn. The word in the glad tidings is preached to convict and attract but there is what is solemn conveyed in the Lord’s words: “for unless ye shall believe that I am he, ye shall die in your sins”, John 8: 24. Embedded in that is the truth of His deity, “I am”, and I think we see it running through these scriptures. We might say, well, that makes the scriptures impossible to understand, and, in a sense, that is so. Which of us can understand deity? But the Lord also uses simple words and it is most interesting to trace (particularly in John’s gospel, although it is true of other gospels), that the Lord’s words and the Lord’s illustrations are exceedingly simple and understandable. The brethren will readily see something that perhaps we almost take for granted because of familiarity with the scriptures. The references to the door, to the shepherd, to the sheep, to the wolf, to one that climbs up and seeks advantage and to the thieves and robbers, are all words that are readily understandable. We have a very fine blend in scripture. Many words that the Lord uses as to Himself convey deity and therefore inscrutability. Other words are simple and therefore intelligible. I hope there is something in that which we can look at and feed upon.

V.E.W. There is no other whosoever who could speak as He does.

R.W.F. That is right. If you just take just the first of the references in the scripture which were in one’s mind, “I am the door”, no one else could say that, but it is full of meaning.

P.J.W. It seems to me – you will help – that it draws attention to Himself in contrast to every other. I thought about your reference to the thieves and robbers. He says, “All whoever came before me are thieves and robbers; but the sheep did not hear them.” How do you understand that verse?

R.W.F. Well, there were those that came in their own name, to whom we find some reference in the Acts, who drew away disciples. They came to an end, sometimes to an abrupt end. There were those who, within the recollection of the Lord’s hearers, announced strange doctrines. Such occurrences were rife, I take it, in the Lord’s day. He is not referring to those who were taken up for prophecy in earlier days, to whom we referred yesterday: “God having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets …” (Heb 1: 1), but rather to those who came in their own name who were exposed. But I think what you say is helpful: He contrasts Himself implicitly with all who went before whatever their doctrine, however strange it was, or however acceptable it might appear to be.

V.E.W. The Lord Jesus was here in this very scene but, in speaking as He does and drawing attention to Himself, it has no reference to this scene at all.

R.W.F. No, what He has in His mind and in His heart - because He has the shepherd’s heart - is to draw His sheep out of this scene. Is that what you had in your mind?

V.E.W. That is what was in mind. Yes, and as we were impressed this morning, into what is abiding, what is eternal.

R.W.F. To connect back once again, although we do not live on connections and links and so on, what comes to us is to be constructive. His sheep hear His voice so that if God has spoken in the person of the Son, there are those that have heard, there are those upon whom and in whom the voice of Christ - Christ Himself in whom God was speaking - has had an effect. I expect it is common knowledge, particularly with mothers who have had young children, that in a child’s mind, at a very early age, the voice of the mother is imprinted. From the earliest age the child is able to discern his or her mother’s voice. And this is the effect of the speaking of Christ, the effect of Christ as the Word, that as soon as we hear, there is that imprinted on the mind which is indelible. He would have it so and it is to our advantage and to our blessing that it is so. I think some of us would say that that has gone on with us unconsciously. What could a young child say about the imprint of its mother’s voice in its mind? It has gone on from an early age. It goes on with children among us. They might not appear to be interested. They might be occupying themselves in other things. (Even as adults we can be occupying ourselves with other things, but I have the children in mind, by way of illustration). There is what goes on, which is beneath the surface which is not visible to us and which is not even detected by us, but which the Lord is doing deliberately. He is imprinting Himself upon us.

D.J.R. I was thinking of what you said yesterday as to the Word. The Word is the Lord Himself. It is not a philosophy. What you have here in these others that came up are philosophies, but when they come to the Lord, it is the thing itself.

R.W.F. I hope what I have said helps to make the distinction between what is philosophical, which we can toy with in our minds, we can toss about, discuss with others and modify and so on, but there is nothing in it to match the effect of the Lord’s voice. We are to remember that. I hesitate to speak of these things because I think the brethren know them better than I do. There is that which the Lord is pleased to convey and which in grace He does convey, very often unknown to us, which is of an abiding character, and upon which He can then rely. He calls and His sheep come. Some of us can remember that happening in the glad tidings.

V.E.W. It is very attractive what you say as to the Lord’s voice. It is not only attractive and holds us but it is adjusting too - all in view, I take it, of entering in to what the Lord says as to Himself.

R.W.F. There is nothing condemnatory in the Lord’s voice. If it is adjusting, we find it is an adjustment in grace. We have spoken a little at the weekend of what is cumulative and we are to read John’s gospel, I think, in that way. The Lord had said in John 8 to the woman who was taken in adultery, “Neither do I condemn thee”, v 11. Now, I think that spirit of “no condemnation” – “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8: 1) – continues from that point in the gospel and we are to understand that there is nothing condemnatory in the Lord’s speaking and His sheep come to appreciate that, come to rejoice in it.

V.E.W. We had that in the gospel last Lord’s Day.

K.J.M. I was just thinking of what you said as to the divinity of the Lord. In chapter 18 in the garden, He says, “I am”, and “they went away backward and fell to the ground”, v 6. There was not there the capacity to receive Him or to appreciate Him that there was in this chapter.

R.W.F. That is a helpful reference. I was thinking about the reading and lighted on the scriptures that I have suggested but there are others, I think, that could expand the subject even further. We might say that the references by the Lord to Himself as the door and the shepherd and the resurrection and the life and so on are already very extensive and so they are. We need help perhaps to understand, if only briefly, what He had in view, but I have in mind not so much the detail of one reference or another but the whole scope of what the Lord says. From one point of view we can scarcely take it in at once and, of course, He does not refer to all the titles at once.

P.J.W. Is it your thought that the teaching through the gospel and what the Lord says is progressive and cumulative? You mentioned the woman taken in adultery. He says immediately after that incident, “I am the light of the world” (chap 8: 12) so that might be the starting point in our history, do you think? A light comes into the soul, then through the apprehension of Him as the door we may be able to enter into a little more of what God has in mind if we do, and then these other things. Is that your thought?

R.W.F. Yes, that is the thought. There is a sense – I do not know what you think of this – in which what the Lord said when He said, “I am the light of the world” is no longer true because He said subsequently, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world”, John 9: 5. He is not the light of the world now in the sense He was when here because He is in another scene. While He was here, He was in the world and the light of the world as in it, but we can understand that there is great advantage now in the fact that He has gone to be with the Father because He can be seen by all – “we see Jesus” (Heb 2: 9) – in His glory. The light that shone in Him is not limited to Palestine, but it is available to all. He is now at the right hand of the Father and can be seen there, so “we see Jesus”. But if we speak of Jesus as the door, I wondered if we might be helped as to it. It does have a particular meaning for those to whom the Lord spoke. When He was here, He spoke having primarily in mind the lost sheep of the house of Israel. John’s gospel does not contemplate sheep as lost, as we know. But the Lord ever had in mind His people when here, and the scripture we have read makes that plain. He speaks of Himself as the shepherd and the One who lays down His life for the sheep and He says, “And I have other sheep which are not of this fold: those also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one flock, one shepherd.” The “other sheep” were the Gentiles and we are numbered among the “other sheep”. There is a sense in which the scripture has its application to us. The Lord is the door; He is the One by whom we come into the gain of divine pasture, into the gain of God’s blessing in its full extent. He is the One by whom we come into what is vast and is not constricted, as might be the thought of the fold.

D.J.R. “Shall go in and shall go out and shall find pasture” implies that there is a sphere where the sheep are at liberty and they are at liberty because of the Shepherd and the place that the Shepherd has established for them. We know the Shepherd and therefore we can ourselves know the liberty that comes of being in the flock.

R.W.F. We do not want to bring confusion into the scriptures but we can read scriptures with the benefit of the teaching in other passages, teaching that has become known to us now which was not known to the disciples when the Lord spoke to them. So we can understand in this passage that going in and going out speaks of liberty. Now, liberty is actually enjoyed by sons, and it seems to me that while the scripture does not say this, it takes us in our minds and our hearts through to the point where we enjoy the liberty of sonship. That is suggested in the scripture. There is another instance of it in the scripture we read yesterday, that we might “be children of God” (John 1: 12), and as is sometimes said to remind us so that we do not confuse one scripture with another, the scripture there does not say that we shall be called children of God; it says that we should “be children of God”, actually enter into the reality of being God’s children. Now, that implies something further. It implies the divine family. Of course, John develops that in his epistles. There is much, it seems to me, in embryo in John’s ministry, which shows us the richness of all that is to be known if we come to the Lord and recognise that He is the means by which we have entry into the greatest blessing that is available to man, that is, what is open to us in Him as the door.

V.E.W. “That they might have life, and might have it abundantly.”

R.W.F. Yes, indeed. Once again that goes on to touch the liberty, the reality, the joy indeed, of sonship. This is John’s ministry rather than Paul’s but we can see how fully they are integrated and consistent with each other.

E.C. I was just thinking that the Lord stands out alone and unique here as the good shepherd. “I am the door”, but it says, “All whoever came before me are thieves and robbers; but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: if any one enter in by me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and shall go out and shall find pasture.” I was thinking of the discernment that we need to have in relation to what has gone before. The Lord is saying, He alone is the door and there is no other entry in but by Him.

R.W.F. That is right. There is what has gone before and we can consider that in two ways. The Lord has had to do with His people already in the view that is given here: His sheep know His voice. They hear it and they discern it. They will not answer to the voice of strangers. They have already had to do with Him. There is that in the Lord’s voice which becomes imprinted on our minds and in our hearts which is unmistakable and indelible. However there are those who have in false activity tried to disturb that and undermine the Lord’s work. In the face of that threat we can understand the second reference here that the Lord is the good shepherd: “I am the good shepherd”, He says more than once.

A.W. Say something about life. There is One here that had to lay down His life that we might come into it.

R.W.F. Well, I hoped we would touch on that and I am glad you take us on to it: “I lay down my life for the sheep.” And He goes on to say, “On this account the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again.” It is most affecting but what has been accomplished, what is now open to us, has been secured by the laying down of His life. But the laying down of His life was not the end. He laid it down that He might take it again. What is more, as having taken His life, He has the power to impart life. It is a great thing to know Jesus as the One who has dealt with the power of death and has come forth victoriously in life and who now has the power to impart life, “that they might have life, and might have it abundantly.”

A.W. It says here, “I lay down my life”: it is what He has done deliberately, is it?

R.W.F. Definitely. That has called forth the Father’s love: “On this account the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again.” It has called forth the Father’s love and when I read the section, I have to say, has it called forth mine? I would encourage the brethren to ask the question of themselves, not necessarily to say to others, Has the fact that He has laid down His life called forth my love? It called forth the Father’s love.

V.E.W. There was never a life like it.

R.W.F. That is right and never will be in this scene again.

V.E.W. But now it is a life in relation to another order of man altogether.

R.W.F. Yes. Tell us more about that.

V.E.W. I was thinking about what must have been involved in the Lord laying down that life that was so pleasurable to the Father, but now as out of death and in resurrection, it is the same blessed Jesus, but another order of life altogether.

R.W.F. Yes, I was wondering if we might touch that in connection with John 11. Martha was distraught at the death of her brother: “if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died” (v 21). But she had confidence in the Lord: “but even now I know, that whatsoever thou shalt ask of God, God will give thee” (v 22).

V.E.W. She would have had, I take it, the light of a Man in resurrection, but the reality of entering into it is another matter.

R.W.F. Yes, and in the Lord’s dealings with us, His words are to encourage us to progress. He knows that we are not able to take in everything at once and I think it is a great comfort to those that are younger (and perhaps those of us that are older) that the Lord will lead us on to appreciate one thing after another. That is very gracious, but, of course, it is just what we need. In secular education you do not arrange for a lesson to impart all knowledge at once. You arrange lessons in a timetable, over a period of weeks, so that knowledge might be imparted gradually. The Lord knows our needs and He is able to meet them. He knows the point we have reached and He is able to help us forward and it seems to me there is something in this scripture here which helps us to understand that. He was dealing that way with Martha but He is dealing with us all. He says, “I am the resurrection and the life”. What can we say about that? There are two things stated in one sentence: “I am the resurrection and the life”. As I understand it, the life in this verse is much the same as what the Lord refers to elsewhere and we find in other parts of scripture, that is quickening. When the Lord says, “I am the resurrection”, He was speaking of what had reference to death, that is to the condition in which so many were held and which binds man even now, which restricts him and terrifies him indeed, unless he has faith in Christ. “I am the resurrection” has a retrospective look because it has reference to death, the Lord’s power over it and the fact that He is victor over it, but when He says, “and the life”, there is a forward look. It introduces us into a realm where He has the first place, where all are in life, where there is life and that abundantly. So that there is the termination, (as we sometimes say in a rather doctrinal manner), of one order and the commencement of another, but I trust we do not rest in words. The Lord has had to say to death Himself and He has provided a means by which we can understand that the power of death has been broken for us also, but He has established a new order of life. Words almost fail: I do not like to use the word ‘order’; but He has established life and that in Himself: “I am the resurrection and the life”. We know the termination of what is so limiting, what to man is so terrifying, but we know at the same time the commencement of all that can be found in Him of all that abides, one of John’s favourite words. There is what abides and it abides in Him.

D.J.R. The bent of what you are saying is that things can therefore be present realities. Martha was looking forward to the last day. That was right. But the Lord was really bringing the whole matter of life right down to the time where she was.

R.W.F. And in the Lord’s words, “I am”, we have reminded ourselves that in a veiled way that speaks of His deity, but it is present: “I am”, not ‘I will be’. It does not only look on to His work and the completion of it, although always dependent on it as we can understand from the scripture in John 10. “I lay down my life that I may take it again” was in order that He might be to Jew and Gentile the door, that He might be shown to be the good shepherd. We can prove Him thus. He said when He was here, “I am” and it rings true as much now as it did then: “I am the door”; “I am the good shepherd”; “I am the resurrection and the life”. These things are to be known in Christ now. How attractive it is! How attractive He is!

V.E.W. All this is for the glory of God.

R.W.F. That was the intent the Lord had in this chapter. Go on.

V.E.W. I thought it would help in view of what we had in chapter 10 that He was the door. Think of all that the entering in would involve and it is all for the glory of God.

R.W.F. We come to a realm through Him as the door in which all is to God’s glory. There is little publicly to God’s glory in this scene.

V.E.W. Jesus is saying this to one that He loved. I thought that would be a point for us, that the Lord may have things to say to us but He loves us.

R.W.F. And what He says to us is always in love. Even if He has reason (and sometimes we acknowledge the fact that He has reason) to speak severely, He speaks in love.

K.J.M. It is common amongst men that they will question why God allows certain things, and that came in in this chapter, did it not? They questioned why Lazarus should have been allowed to die, but is that just to bring out the present power of life that was in Him?

R.W.F. Yes, I am interested you put it that way. It is not simply power over death but the power of life: “I am the resurrection and the life” I think reaches right on to that. That is no doubt what you had in mind.

P.J.W. So Paul says not only that He has annulled death; He has done that, but has “brought to light life and incorruptibility by the glad tidings”, 2 Tim. 1: 10.

R.W.F. Yes, that expands the matter for us. It is life and incorruptibility: that is, we are brought into a realm which is in itself incorruptible. We ourselves come into the gain of what has been established in Him. What God has done is incorruptible. I hope when we are younger we lay hold of that. We have spoken about an imprint, sometimes we speak of an impression, but I have used the word imprint because it seems to me that that is what the Lord actually does with us. He writes indelibly. That is a scriptural thought, writing on our hearts. We are to understand that the Lord acts that way early and He desires of holding us to it. In itself God’s work is incorruptible. We may allow other things to encroach upon God’s work, the robbers and the thieves might be active, but God’s work is God’s work in its integrity and in its incorruptibility. I think that is why the apostle says “that he who has begun in you a good work will complete it unto Jesus Christ’s day” (Phil 1: 6) because it is of an incorruptible character.

V.E.W. It is a work that is going through. It does not belong, as we have said, to this scene.

R.W.F. We have further expansion in chapter 14. We find there is much in this section which we have no time to dwell upon in detail, but the “Father’s house” and the “many abodes” give us some idea of the expansiveness of all that the Lord by Himself and through Himself, conducts us into. “In my Father’s house there are many abodes … for I go to prepare you a place”. We are to be assured as to that. But there was the question that was raised by Thomas, “Lord, we know not where thou goest, and how can we know the way?” It is the kind of question that we might have asked. “Jesus says to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” How full are His words! We have spoken of other ways in which He has presented Himself but “I am the way” implies the only way. It is the way of blessing but it is the only way of blessing. It is the way that the Father would have us to follow and it is the only way. He is the truth. The truth was fully expressed in Him. Nothing but the truth was expressed in Him. The truth is still to be discerned in Him and to be learned in Him. We do not come to the full understanding of the truth unless we learn it in Him. And once again, the life. That is not left out. We are not to be left resting in terms. I have no doubt all the brethren appreciate that. He is the life, the source of life, the Sustainer of life, the object of our hearts as we sense the power of His life working in us. He is the life as well as the way and the truth.

V.E.W. Do you get the impression that He is everything, both now and throughout eternity?

R.W.F. Yes. I am glad you say that. The words the Lord uses here are very comprehensive.

P.J.W. It must have had quite an effect on Thomas because it was Thomas that said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him”, chap. 11: 16. So whatever way He was to go, they would follow Him.

R.W.F. Yes. I did wonder whether we might understand, because the Lord says, “No one comes to the Father unless by me”, that the object in His mind is that we might apprehend the sweetness of relations of the Father and the Son. We are not able in their fulness to comprehend what they mean and which of us can say that we have fathomed the meaning of what appears to be simple language in this section. Nevertheless in the various ways in which He has manifested Himself as the door and the shepherd and so on, He is leading in this direction. It seems to me that the Lord is introducing us into the secret of His mind. We might almost say the secret of the divine mind. “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”

V.E.W. Are there not secrets in the souls of believers? I was thinking of the holy mount, of the way that those three disciples came into the secret of Who the Person was. Man would say and did say that He was a malefactor on that cross but there were those there that had a secret in their souls that He was the Son of God.

R.W.F. Yes, and so this gospel presents women standing by the cross. They were to a considerable extent in the gain of what the Lord had taught. I think they were in the secret of His mind. They were surely held in His heart and they held Him in affection in their hearts. They were prepared to stand by His cross.

V.E.W. So “in that day” I take it has in mind what is future and yet in the soul of the believer there is that cherished now.

P.J.W. I was going to ask about that expression. Would it be the Spirit’s day?

R.W.F. Yes, I think, in spirit, we do have entry into this now. He says, “Yet a little and the world sees me no longer; but ye see me” (v 19). He was to return to the Father but He was going to send another Comforter and this very chapter speaks of the Comforter. In fact, the reference we have looked at is bracketed by the Lord’s words as to the Comforter. “He will give you another Comforter” (v 16) and then in verse 26, “the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all the things which I have said to you.” Verse 26 would help us to understand that we enter into the spirit and the reality of what the Lord said even though we feel it is unfathomable: “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” Does that commend itself?

P.J.W. Yes, I wondered if it was only by the power of the Spirit, the Comforter, that we can have any apprehension at all of what the Lord says in this verse.

R.W.F. We are left at no disadvantage here because the Lord has gone. In fact, we are given every advantage. The advantage we have could almost be said to be greater than would have been the case if we were here when the Lord was here physically because the Spirit is available to all. The Lord when here was seen and heard by a few. The few entered into the greatness of blessing that was available to them through faith and through contact with Him, but the Comforter is available to all.

K.J.M. He would otherwise hardly say, “It is profitable for you that I go away”, John 16: 7.

R.W.F. Yes, that scripture was running through my mind. I wonder if we appreciate the profit of the fact that the Comforter is here. We would rejoice, no doubt, if we could in some way be translated or transformed - whatever was necessary - to be in Palestine when the Lord was here, but there is every reason to rejoice now because the Lord has sent the Comforter. The Spirit brings us into the gain and reality of what the Lord said as to Himself.

D.B. Tell us about the Lord’s words at the end of verse 20, “and ye in me, and I in you.”

R.W.F. Well, one thing I can say as to it is that it is very intimate. The Lord desires to have to do with us intimately in our minds and in our hearts. We might say that there is a suggestion of distance – I hesitate to use the word – when the Lord says, “I am the door” and “I am the good shepherd”, though there was no thought of distance in His mind, but we think of a door as that through which we go and we think of a shepherd as available to the sheep. We cannot exactly connect intimacy with the services of the Lord, but we can in this verse, “ye in me, and I in you.” “Ye in me”, shows us how far the Spirit is able to carry us in our spirits and our affections into an appreciation of the heart of Christ Himself and “I in you” shows the degree to which Christ is identifying Himself with His people. He is identifying Himself with His people in this scene to the extent that the scripture says, “I in you.” These things are very profound; they are very affecting if we allow the meaning of them to sink into us.

K.J.M. Do we get a similar intimacy in the address to the Laodiceans? “If any one hear my voice and open the door, I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me”, Rev 3: 20.

R.W.F. Yes, that scripture always conveys to me the desire of the Lord to be on terms of intimacy with His own. We might not have that desire. We might not be aware of His desire, but it is there: “Behold, I stand at the door and am knocking”. We might well ask ourselves and perhaps ask others – it is a question that is raised in the preaching sometimes – is the Lord at the door of our hearts? Does He have entrance? If we are given some inkling (and it is available to us in a meeting like this) of the strength of desire on His part, not only to have to do with us, but to be intimate with us, to be at home with us and we with Him, I think we would allow Him greater access into our hearts. Do you think that?

V.E.W. This is very practical. Does it involve what Paul says in Philippians that He had been “taken possession of” (chap 3: 12)?

R.W.F. I am sure it does. That is another way of looking at the matter, that the Lord has asserted His claim upon us, and He has taken possession of us. Do we respond to Him thus? He has not taken possession of us as if we are captive; He has taken possession because He loves us, because of the strength of the desire in His heart that we might be His, we might be for Him, that He might be able to commune with us. We had the word ‘commune’ yesterday. It is a favourite word of mine, but I do wonder for my own part about the extent to which I enter into it. The Lord desires that we might enter into communion with Him.

 

 

GILLINGHAM

26 November 2000

 

Key to Initials

D.Bodman, Gillingham; E.Christopher, Gillingham; R.W.Flowerdew, Sunbury; K.J.May; Maidstone; D.J.Roberts, Gillingham; A.Wraighte, Gillingham; P.J.Walkinshaw, Gillingham; V.E.Wraighte, Gillingham