THE REMNANT CHARACTERISTIC

THE REMNANT CHARACTERISTIC

You must feel very much the gradual diminishing of your numbers, though this should lead to increased brightness. As the appearance to man’s eye wanes, the manifestation to God should be the more brilliant. This is the true characteristic of the remnant. The Lord is more to you as man is less. Yet one does not like to see the testimony die out of a place. There is no real testimony to the Lord but by the Holy Ghost. “He shall testify of me”; and any one led by the Holy Ghost must be against the world; not only abandoning the world, as the monk does; but as in fellowship of the Spirit the world is “reproved”. See John 16. The Spirit works one way, the opposite way to the world. By being with the Spirit you get the Father’s things, for “He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine” (John 16: 14, 15).

I fear that the saints are rather advancing in the world instead of retiring from it. Surely there never has been real advance but as there has been renunciation, and the “manifold more” is with reference to the surrender.

I am glad to hear that you are kept in dependence — the true place for the Christian, but at the same time I trust that you are without any anxiety. I had heard of ————’s illness — doubtless part of the discipline to which every “son” is subjected. I hope he may be able to receive it in this light.