DISCIPLINE OF THE SERVANT NO. 4

^[p. 190] DISCIPLINE OF THE SERVANT NO. 4

Dear ———— is, I trust, being fitted for the Lord’s service here. I have said that Jonah was at college, but that Paul was a graduate in Philippians 1. There are two kinds of discipline — one to correct you, the other to help you. Jacob is corrected at Shalem, and he is helped at Bethel. It is only oneself who can distinguish them. Hebrews 12 is the latter. I hope you will continue to see ———— I daresay that there is an unsatisfied desire there — the light received not acted up to. The is altar at El-Elohe-Israel indicates a heart not in the “large place”. Bethel is the altar where you are in His circle of things. I am more and more convinced that the real check to our spiritual growth is from some defect in infancy — an imperfect apprehension of the gospel. The death of Christ and all involved in it must be entered into before the value and greatness of the resurrection can be estimated.

I feel much for ———— . Deep indeed is his affliction, but the Lord has been leading him on in so marked a way that we must not be surprised if He calls him to ascend Mount Moriah. “We who live are always delivered unto death”. Death here is the only setting of life in Him.

The better we submit to the discipline of the prison the sooner are we set at liberty. We must be much inside with God when He would use us much outside, and it is really from inside that we must come to be of any use outside. It is in abstraction from all here near the Lord that we are truly and rightly influenced to act for Him where everything tends to distract.