THE ALTAR OF INCENSE
We have been seeking together, dear brethren, to gather some of the features that mark God’s dwelling amongst his people. For the assembly to which we all belong, if we have received the Holy Spirit, is at this moment during this dispensation, the dwelling place of God, and it is as well that we should have before our minds and hearts, the various distinctive features that characterise the dwelling place of God.
We have spoken of the ark as the central feature of that system, Christ cherished in the hearts of the saints as the Christ, that is the Person of the Godhead who became man in order to give effect in power and forever to all those thoughts of God has cherished, and who came into this world with God's will in the whole extent of it, whatever it might entail, cherished in his heart; His language being, “I delight to do thy will, oh my God; yea thy law is within my heart”, Ps 40: 8. And then we have spoken a little of the table and of the candlesticks and I do not need to go over again what we have said in regards of those. But I wish now by the Lord's help to say a little as to what is the pre-figured in the altar of incense, the golden altar. It represents, as I understand it, the great feature of prayer in
relation to the interests and testimony of God, and it is something that we should all be concerned and to take up. It is an important matter to have recourse to prayer continually. It is one of man's greatest glories, man as recovered the God, that he has access to God and can be pleasing to God. And if we are to have part in assembly prayer, or rather in prayer in relation to the interests and testimony of God, we must learn what it is that, first of all, to have liberty with the Father in private individual prayer, prayer in relation to the divine interests, while it finds expression particularly in the assembly gatherings for prayer, it is not to be limited to that, in no way should it be limited to that. There is plenty of scope for prayer in relation to the interests of God and the testimony of God to find expression by each one of us individually in our secret relations with God. There is no reason why the youngest brother, the youngest sister should not—and when I say brother and sister, I mean of course the youngest believer who has received the Holy Spirit. You may say, I am not yet breaking bread. Where all the Lord knows why you are not, it may be that you are not old enough yet, the Lord knows, but the point is you are one of the sons of God, if you have received the Holy Spirit of God, and you can have access to your Father, your Father who is in heaven, and you
can begin to cultivate the habit of praying to the Father, not only in relation to your own matters, but then extend further.
And so the Lord, in Matthew 6, as you remember, says, “when thou prayest, enter to thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in secret”, Matt 6: 6. Notice how the Lord makes it very personal. You ought to have your own closet that you use for drawing the God in secret. You ought to see that the door of that closet, your door, is shut. If everything else is excluded, you go there to express purpose of drawing near to your Father, praying in secret to Him who sees in secret. And so it is an important matter to cultivate this, the aggression, yet the youngest of us begins, if he has not already done so, and let the oldest of us continue, “when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray
to thy Father who is in secret. And thy Father who sees in secret shall render it to thee”. You might say, if I pray to the Father and pray to Him in secret, I have in mind that He will hear
in secret. He certainly will. But the Lord says He sees in secret. That is, that as you take up
this attitude of having to do with the Father on your own account, where in relation to your
own private interest, and you may supplicate those also, for the Father's interest is in all our interests, that you may address the Father in
taking on His interests. As you do so, He will give us the feeling that He is near. He is not only hearing, but He is near and seeing in secret. He would impress that idea of “in secret” upon you, that you know what it is to be alone with God, and to be content that His eyes shall rest upon you, and see you, and all that connected with you, as you draw near to Him in prayer. You may say, well, that will involve certain heart-searching and certain exercises. It may be that they will be. But then the Spirit of God has taken His abode in us, in order that we might be helped according to God, in facing every exercise that He raises. The desire of the blessed God is that every one of us should know the reality of liberty with Him continually and characteristically, and that we should not only know that we are sons in God's mind, and that He has given us the title to be sons, to take that place, but that He would have us to be in sonship, consciously, in the dignity of it., and here in the place of testimony, in the consciousness that we are, in fact, sons.
Well, now, the altar of incense as I have said
that represents this great feature of prayer, taking place continually in the dwelling place of God in relation to the interests and testimony of God. And you will notice that in the first I read in Exodus, it says that the altar was placed “in front of the veil, which is before the ark of the
testimony, in front of the mercy seat, which is over the testimony, where I will meet with thee”. See the stress on the testimony, and that the altar of incense is immediately connected with it. It is “in front of the veil, which is before the ark of the testimony, in front of the mercy seat, which is over the testimony, where I will meet with thee”. God is stressing this idea of meeting with us, that God is sitting as we have been saying upon the mercy seat. That is the position from which He speaks. He will assure us of His relations with us, and our relation to the mercy seat; He has accomplished righteousness in the death of Christ. So we can draw near with the greatest confidence and speak of every matter of our own concern in order to give God the pleasure of hearing us intercede with Him and supplicate Him in relation to the testimony here.
Well, now what is the testimony? It is an expression which we often use, and it may be that younger ones have no very clear idea as to what it means. But get this idea in your mind that when the Lord Jesus became man, there
was here, in the Person of Jesus, a man whose whole thought was to do God's will, whatever it meant. Every other man in the world wants his will, and is independent of God, each of us is naturally. And it may be that even after we have received the Holy Spirit of God, it may be that
a considerable measure of self-will may still persist to some of us. All that has got to be set aside, we can never go to do with Christ with our will marking us. He shall have to be like Christ to see Him as He is, and the sooner we take character from Christ, the better. But the testimony is that God has had one Man in this world in the Person of Jesus who was wholly devoted to God's will, and He is going to secure hosts of men—women too, of course. He is going to secure hosts of men who are characterised by that same principle, delighting in God's will and set to carry it through. Well now if you have fifty persons in one town, in the midst of all the lawlessnesses that are about, who are characterised by single-hearted devotion to the will of God, that is the positive testimony in the town, if the testimony that God has secured in that town where Satan's influence is undone and instead of men being here to do Satan’s will, they are here to do God's will and to minister to His pleasure. Now that is the testimony. It may extend to other things, but
that in principle is the testimony. Now we are to have our hearts engaged with prayer in
relation to that, because we can rest assured
that, if God has something before His mind that He is going to secure his ends here on earth the devil will be set against it. There is no question about that, and therefore there must be
unceasing prayer to God. It is not that God just could not express His pleasure in the saints without our prayers, He could. But He takes pleasure in bringing His saints into sympathy with His own thoughts and He finds great pleasure in their prayer that what God in mind will be fulfilled.
Well now, I read from the well-known chapter in John's gospel because we get a supreme example in the Lord Jesus Himself, in the prayer of which we have details in John 17. We have a supreme example of prayer that was in every way fragrant to God, prayer in relation to the interests of God. And we see how the Lord stands, unique and pre-eminent in this and in all else. His personal glory of course makes Him unique and His holy perfection makes Him unique and pre-eminent in all things. But what has been set out in Jesus is to be taken on by us in the Spirit’s power by His saints. And what
we find in John 17 is the Son in holy communion with the Father, devoting Himself to the needs of the testimony right down the whole time, from the time when the Lord could go on high and the Spirit comes to the time when the Lord takes them to be with Himself. T
he prayer really covers the whole of that
period and in comparatively few words, pregnant with meaning, the Lord makes known what the needs of the testimony are and places
His saints in fragrance before the Father, and makes known those requests to Him. Why should it be placed on record? Evidently it is not intended to be simply a secret matter between Himself and the Father, He was apparently prayed in the hearing of the disciples. In any case by the Spirit it has been placed on record in order that we may take on, in the degree that is open to us in the liberty and power that the Spirit of God, something of the same spirit of intelligence and affectionate prayer in relation to the interests of God. It is as I have said to sustain us while yet here in the position of testimony, I believe the divine idea is that we should know something of what it is to be here in the place of testimony in the liberty and dignity of sonship and praying in relation to the testimony with the affection proper to sons.
Well now, I need not to say that I cannot attempt to cover the whole prayer, but there are, first of all, two definite matters that come out in this chapter. One is the great thought that we should be preserved, preserved as in a world of evil. The Lord says, “I come to thee”, He was leaving the scene, and He says, “these are in the world, and I come to thee”. His great desire was that those who were to remain in the place of testimony should be preserved in an absolute way from the world in which they were. And when I say preserved, I mean preserved
morally, not necessarily preserved from the earth, they might have to suffer martyrdom. Stephen had to, but he was the victor, he was triumphant. When the Lord says that they should be preserved, he meant not necessarily say that they should be preserved as martyrdom, although of course if the testimony is to continue, they must be preserved in life. The Lord will see to it that the saints do go through, and go through with the testimony. But one great burden of His prayer was that they should be kept and not come under the power or influence of the world. Another great burden in His prayer is that they should be one. Now
those are two very important matters, dear brethren, for us to carry in our minds, that on the one hand we are to be entirely kept from the world, the character of which is to given to us in John’s epistle, where it says the whole world lies in the wicked one. Do not forget that: not only the world in its favourable features, not only the world in the features of it that are most elegantly wicked, but the whole world, the world in its more attractive feature, the world in features that may seem as it were alright. The whole world lies in the wicked one. The world in John’s writings is a great system. It is designed by Satan and influenced by him in order to rob the saints of their liberty, and rob God of His portion. And so the Lord prays that
they might be kept. He prays as one who had already overcome Himself. He says at the end of chapter 16, “ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world”, v 33. He has gone through. He knows exactly what the world is, He knows the character of it, He understands its principle; He had to face it. He has refused it and, at this point the ruler of this world came and found nothing in Jesus. He could not get in anywhere, not by any means whatever could he find an inlet in Jesus. The Lord went through the world as an overcomer and therefore He is able to enter sympathetically into the exercises of His saints who are in the world, and who in God’s care have also got to overcome the world. And He can support them and direct them so they may not be overcome, because the truth of God is connected with them; and for God’ own sake, the Lord is prepared and the Spirit is prepared in divine power to help and support all those who desire to be faithful to him.
And so as I was saying, the Lord desires that they might be kept. He says, “I am no longer in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou have given me, that they may be one of we”. He wants us first of all to be kept and that we should be one. But now He makes much of the Father's name: “they name which thou
hast given me, a remarkable expression. The Lord is referring to all that He found in His Father, all that His Father was to Him. It had been His portion, His cherished portion as a
man in this world. In a contrary scene, how regularly and constantly He turns to His Father. What liberty He has with His Father! At the grave of Lazarus, we read, “Jesus lifted up his eyes on high and said, Father, I thank thee thou hast heard me; but I knew that thou always hearest me”, John 11: 41, 42. Think of that! The Lord Jesus passing through this very same world in which we are, yet having a constant resort to His Father. An understanding with His Father always there; His Father was always at hand. He says, “Ye shall leave me alone; and yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me”, John 16: 32. All that has been the cherished portion and the great support of the Lord Jesus in His pathway here. And now He says, keep
the disciples in that Name: be to the disciples what you have been to me. That I believe is what has involved in it. Of course, when we are speaking of the Lord, in His relations with His Father, there is always that which is unique, we understand that. At the same time, He is asking that the Father should be known to the disciples in such a way as he had spoken to them, that this has had a definitely sanctifying and preservative effect. You remember that in John's epistle, he
said even to the little children, “I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father, 1 John 2: 13. They had a knowledge of the Father. When we received the Holy Spirit, He shed the love of God abroad in our hearts and, not only so He cries, Abba Father. A young believer may not know much about the Father, but he knows that the Father loves him, and the Spirit in him encourages him to take the name of Father upon his lips. So that from the outset of our spiritual history as believers we are intended to have relations with the Father and to know the Father. The young men in John's epistle are warned not to love the world nor the things that were in the world for this reason. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, he says it is not a Father, he writes it off in that way. If it is not of the Father, it is not worth going in for. It will certainly be a hindrance to you if it is not of the father and you go in for it. “All of it in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world and the world passes away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abides for eternity”, 1 John 2: 16, 17.
Now we want to have the love of the Father in us. I believe that means that in a twofold way: I believe the love of the Father in us involves on the one hand that the Father's love for us is
known by us, and on the other hand that there is love for the father in our hearts. If we want to know what the Father loves, we have only got to look at Christ. You know we want to be preserved in the Father's name. You will find that in a family, in a family where things are what they should be, you will find that the children are affected by the father. If the father says he does not like so-and-so, the children don't like it, they take on their father's view of things, and the father's influence over them and his instructions, regulates and forms their lives. Now we are to see that the love of the Father is with us, that what the Father loves we love, and what the Father hates we hate. It is the way to be here for the pleasure of God, and if we want to learn what the Father loves, we have only got to fix our eyes on Christ. Remember how He caused the heavens to open upon Him and says “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”. And therefore if we study Christ, study Him a Luke's gospel presents Him to us, beginning from His earliest days, characterised by the dependence, and then at the age of twelve concerned to be about His Father's business, and at the same time subject to the parents. And then in full manhood, content to go on thirty years in secret until the moment came, content to work in the circumstances God had allotted to Him as a carpenter, and to live in
the home that the Father had appointed for Him, a carpenter's home; and then three and a half years of devoted un-tiring service. If we study these things, we should more and more become formed in the understanding of what the Father loves and what He would have characterise His people. The more we go into these things, dear brethren, the more we would be preserved from the world. It is a question of being kept in the Father's name.
And then another thing is that we are to be one. We are to move together in unity. If the saints are in disunity, it is a great dishonour to God, for God is one. You can never discern the slightest disunity between the Father and the Son and the Spirit. They set out a great idea of unity, absolute oneness in thought and purpose; indeed as more intimate than anything that we can express. But the idea is that the saints
should be here at one in testimony to God. And so the Lord says, “Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou have given me, that they may be one as we. When I was with them”, He said,” I kept them in thy name. Those thou hast given me, I have guarded, and not one of them has perished, but the Son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now”, He said, “I come to thee. And these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in them”. What was Christ’s joy? I believe that,
notwithstanding all these sorrows, and the testing and the opposition of the pathway of Jesus in this world in testimony to God, He had unfailing joy in the sense that He was doing His Father’s will and ministering to His pleasure, and had his approval: “my joy”.
Is it not open to us in our measure, dear brethren, to take up our position in the world in the testimony of God in the same spirit? I believe that is what the Lord has in mind for us in this wonderful prayer, that we should be here in some sense in the wonderful liberty and dignity of sons before God, as sons here in their Father's interest and do their Father's will and come under His eye with His approval, if in a favoured position. He says, “that my joy may be fulfilled in them”. That is not the Lord prayed for, that there might be the service of God. I mean, doing His will in the testimony here, serving God in gladness of heart, in the liberty and joy of conscious sonship. May the Lord help us in it more and more! The Spirit is here for that very purpose. I believe as the days draw near their close, the days of testimony, God will have in mind that there is to be what corresponds with Christ in His movement here in testimony, more and more among the saints.
And now the Lord said in verse 15, “I do not demand that thou shouldest take them out of the
world, but that thou should keep them out of evil. They are not of the world, as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by the truth, thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world”. What a stranding it is, dear brethren. Are we afraid to take it up? You may say you come very far short of the standard; that may be, but that is no reason to lower the standard. Nor is there any reason to be content with being less than the standard. It is a question of the standard. The Spirit of God here is faithful to God's own God and faithful to Christ to secure that there should be some correspondence with the divine standard. And so the Lord says, “they not of the world, as I am not of the world”. How could we be as born of God? Let us take account of ourselves according to what we are, born of God, as it says, in the first chapter of this gospel, to be “born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”, John 1: 13. And as born of God we are certainly not of the world. There is no possible link, there is no possible affinity between the world and what is of God. And so the Lord says, “they are not of the world, as I am not of the world”.
And then He goes on, “Sanctify them by the truth, thy word is truth”. And He goes on to say, “for their sakes, I sanctify myself, that they might be sanctified in truth”, or by truth. That
means, as I understand it, that the Lord was then about to do what He did do, and that is to depart from this world and take His place in the Father's presence. He did not mean, of course, that the Lord had to sanctify himself in any moral sense. Sanctified means set apart. For us it involves what is moral as well, because we are in a world of evil and because we carry the flesh with us. And therefore there has to be sanctification in a moral sense, sanctified in Christ Jesus. And the sanctification of the Spirit is spoken of, but when the Lord spoke of his sanctifying Himself, He simply meant that He set himself apart from the whole world system and took His place in the Father's presence, that we might learn in Him what our place is and understand that as He is, so are we in this world. May the Lord help us to carry it in our minds, so that we work it out in very real sanctification and separation. If there is one thing that Satan
is always seeking to do, it is to entangle the saints in one way or another in some feature of the world. It may seem in a small way, but he
is always trying to weaken things by
introducing principles or features of the world among the saints. And there is to be the constant exercise on our part to refuse anything at that sort. And the best way to do it is to keep
Christ Himself before our hearts as the standard of manhood and function under God's eye, and
we are to be brought into correspondence with it by the Spirit's work.
And so now the Lord goes on to this question of oneness. He says, “I do not demand for these only, but also for those who believe on me through their word, that they may be all one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me”. The Father was in Christ, Christ was in the Father. The Father had His place in Christ's affections, Christ had His place in the Father's affections. There is absolute oneness between the Father and the Son. And now the Father and the Son are to be the commanding interest of the saints. The Father love we know in Christ, and we are here set apart for the testimony of God, and then this is to be the commanding interest of the saints. The more it is so, the more we shall be one. What makes people one is having one object, one thought before them. If we have diverse interests, we shall not be one. If we are all commanded by the same interest, then we shall be one. And the Lord said here, “as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou have sent me”. Now of course the public testimony of the assembly in this world, alas, has been largely marked by disunity and what is sorrowful; but even in the small measure
in which the truth of God has been recovered, and is being recovered in these last days, there is something that can be seen in the way of unity among the saints, oneness, and it is a testimony of the world. Even in a few, it is there; there is nothing so undeniable that the testimony of life and unity among the saints. That is what we are to be concerned about. What comes into expression, as we have been saying today, works out in our local cities. It is there that we have seen in unity or in disunity, which every may be. It is there that we are seen in life or in moral deadness or weakness. The question is, what is accepted amongst us? Let us be concerned, dear brethren, that there should be this unity that flows from this cloud of incense being cherished and Christ being kept before the heart and love operating in our midst. Let us be concerned that real unity should be seen characterising us in our local setting. It will work out in testimony. It may be a weak testimony but it will be there, that the world may believe, as the Lord says, “that thou have sent me”, and then He says, “that the glory which thou have given me, I have given them, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and thou in me”. Christ is in the heart of the state, the Father is in Christ's heart. The Father has seen in expression in Christ, Christ seen an expression in the saints. That is how things are going to
work out. They will be worked out fully in the day to come. When the holy city comes down out of heaven from God, the saints will be seen in absolute unity, Christ seen in them and the Father seen in Christ. The world will know then that the Father sent Christ and has loved the saints as He has loved Christ. What a testament to God, that He loved men, the sons of the men, myriads of them, in the same way in which He has loved Christ. 10.16
Well now, these matters, dear brethren, our sanctification, preservation from the world, and unity, are very essential matters in the testimony. They are subject to the prayer of the Lord Jesus, and they may well become the subject to prayer on our part too. And of course, as we can enter into greater detail, we are privileged to take account of conditions, first in our own locality, and then in other localities as we see them, or hear of them, because we
should all cultivate an assembly ear. The “ears of the assembly”, it says in the Acts of the apostles, meaning that the assembly has ears to hear what is going on in other parts of the world in relation to the testimony of God. And as we hear things, if they call for prayer, there is prayer about them. Nothing is so delightful to God as to see His saints drawing here to Him in relation to His interests in this world. He will answer the prayers, He will affect things
politically, if necessary, in view of the testimony, in answer to the prayers to the saints. There is no limit to what God will do, if needs be in relation to testimony, but He loves to bring the saints into it, that He may do it as answering their supplication and their intercession.
And so, I have mentioned these things, dear brethren, that we may get some idea of the scope of divine interest, which we can take up in our prayers to God continually, our personal private affairs, and then especially our assembly prayers. Let the prayer meeting on Monday night be filled out in a universal way, in an intelligent way, in relation to the interests of God, and as this is so in every place, we shall find that the testimony will prosper more and more.
And now the Lord concludes on a wonderful note. He says, “Father, as to those whom thou hast given me, I desire that where I am they also may be with me, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”. We have often said that there is glory that the Lord confers upon the saints, glory that is given to Him, that He confers upon the saints. But this is a glory conferred upon Christ, which is not conferred upon the saints, but a glory which we may behold, that we may be hold it with Him,
“I desire that they may be with me”, He says, “where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”. I believe the Lord is referring to a distinctive glory, that belongs to Him alone, as being the One, who will come into manhood in order to effectuate all God's thoughts in regard of man. And in that position in manhood, He is loved. He has been loved from the foundation of the world, but now that love that subsisted between the Persons of the Godhead has now come into expression in this position, that it is no less than upon a man, a beloved man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Think of it coming into a position, in which love known by a man, in glorious substance: I am speaking of Jesus, that He should be brought within our range, so that we should contemplate it. And we understand we are brought into a position of affection alongside Him, so He is pre-eminent in it. He is the One in whom these thoughts of divine love are set out so vividly.
Well now, as we contemplate that glory, as with Christ alongside of Him, beholding His glory, what shines before our eyes? I believe the
whole thought of divine wisdom and grace and love shines before us. We get an impression of what we speak of as the economy. We get an impression of the Father, retaining the
supremacy that belongs to God in His wondrous supremacy as Father, known as the Father. We get an impression of the Son, equal in His Person with the Father, but known in glorious manhood, and loved in that position, in order we might be brought with Him, in His life, and having received His Spirit, into that position of love and response to the Father. And we already know the Spirit, He is with us all the time, and He operates in our souls, making these things intelligible to us, and promoting the response to God in the light of these things. And all this results in worship to God. It results in God Himself and His blessedness being before the hearts of the saints, and the response being called for in the Spirit’s power.
Now the Lord is praying that this might be so. We might well pray that it might be so already in the assembly; why not? We have been filled even to all the fulness of God. May I ask, dear brothers and sisters, when we read these expressions in Ephesians, that we might be filled even to all the fulness of God, do you say to yourself, I do not know if I quite understand what it means. Well, you turn to the Father, you ask Him to tell you. You ask Him to open your understanding, that you may know these things. Paul brings these needs before the Father. The things are so great that God that he wanted the saints to come into, that he bowed his knees
before the Father, and tells us what he prays. Why should we not do the same? And ask the Father, and keep on asking, that the saints in our own localities, and in other localities too, should come into these things in greater power, and greater substance, and greater liberty, and greater joy, so that God, the blessed God, should be answered to in a way worthy of His name. Let us give ourselves to prayer in relation to these things. The time is well spent that we give to it, it will certainly produce results that God can take pleasure in, and He will be blessed in it too.
And so the Lord goes on to say, “I have made known to them thy name, and will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”. A
wonderful result of God being known in this glorious way, and of our having the Holy Spirit; that on the one hand, the Father's Spirit, the Holy Spirit, in the character of the Father's Spirit, can bring into our hearts something of the Father's delight in Christ. So that we can love Christ as the Father loves Him. You might say, how can that be? But it is so because the
Father's Spirit, operates in our souls. You remember how when the Lord went up to the holy mount, and took with Him Peter, and James, and John; and they were with Jesus on the Holy Mount, and the Father spoke to Peter,
and James, and John. And the Father said, “this is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”. Now why did He say that to Peter, and James, and John? Well, if we allow the tones of His voice to be heard—Peter said He heard such a voice when we were with Him on the holy mount—it is that the Father was bringing into the heart of Peter, and James, and John, something of His own feelings in regard of Christ, that they might be brought into complete affinity of thought and feeling with the Father Himself. And then on the other hand, the Spirit of God will take up the character in our hearts of the Spirit of God's Son, so we are capable of saying, Abba Father, of responding to the Father in the same character as response and affection which was found in perfection in Christ. And therefore the Father can see us in Him, “I in them”, the Lord says, a wonderful thing! We have no conception, it may be, until we begin to think of these things, how wonderfully near to God we are brought. And God desires it , that the Father’s chief joy, His joy in Christ, is to be known by us; and the Son’s chief joy, His joy in the Father, is also to be known by us. And therefore we brought into this most holy position.
Well, dear brethren, these are the thoughts that are in the heart of the Lord Jesus, and He has prayed to the Father in relation to them, and the
Father will find great pleasure in us, if in some degree we could take them up, and ask the Father in continual prayer—because it is a question of His thoughts being realised amongst men, both at the present time, in the presence of the evil, and then in view of the day of eternity, we can well take the m up in prayer, and as we do so, we will find that we have the strength of divine approval. Indeed, the Lord in the 16th chapter of this gospel, urges on the disciples and on us to ask the Father in His Name. And He says, “the Father himself has affection for you, because he has affection for me, and have believed that I came out from God”. It is a question of God having been brought out, and the answer is to be secure for the pleasure of God in men. And if we give ourselves to prayer in relation to these things, we shall have the sense that the Father has affection for us, because we love Christ and are engaged with His interests.
Well, may the Lord promote amongst us the spirit of prayer in relation to divine interests more and more, for His Name’s sake.
COATBRIDGE
These three articles, and the following address in Linlithgow, are taken—unrevised—from 204
tapes on which no record of a date is given; it is believed the meetings were in the mid-1950s.
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