REMEMBRANCES
It was a saying of J.N.D's that he did not preach well on any subject until he had preached forty times on it. (p.33) How true what Mr.D. says with reference to the woman at Philippi (Acts 16) who gave testimony to Paul's work, "The devil wanted to have a finger in the pie". (p.39)
J.N.D. used to say, "The twelve had not fulfilled the great commission. Paul did". (p.42) As J.N.D. has said of John 17 - "He first sets us as Himself in the presence of the Father, and then sets us as Himself in the presence of the world". (p.54)
J.N.D. makes John 21 a millennial scene. Peter was out of the current of the Lord's mind when he went fishing. (p.69)
J.N.D. says, and I believe it to be true, that it is on the earth, where He is not, that you remember His death. (p.75) Eternal life is (as Mr.D. says) "outside the senses", an "out-of-the-world condition of things". (p.107)
As Mr.Darby has said, His springs were in God: our springs naturally are in ourselves. (p.125) A humanity, as J.N.D. writes, which had its spring of action in God. (p.132)
J.N.D. used to say that we should not only go to Scripture for thoughts but that we should think in Scripture. (p.133)
J.N.D. used to say that anyone who would try to define God manifest in the flesh would soon fall into error on one side or the other. (p.134)
You have evidently two duties. One to your family, and another as the Lord's servant, and as J.N.D. says, "You cannot have two objects at the same time". (p.140)
J.N.D. used to say that Paul (in Philippians 3) was reaching on to everything, not perfected in anything yet. (p.146)
I remember a line of dear J.N.D's: The more you are in God's righteousness, the higher order will be your own practical righteousness, or words to this effect. (p.162)
As J.N.D. has said, we cannot die ourselves, but as we bear about in our bodies the dying of Jesus, God rolls in death to help us. (p.194)
J.N.D. says that he is careful not to present a new idea in Scripture unless he has seen it in all its bearings with other Scriptures, and how every truth would be affected by it. (p.242)
J.N.D. said of --- that he was trying to explain with his mind eternal life, which must first be understood in the soul. (p.259)
Mr Darby's great power has been that he was imbued with the Word of God - the Spirit of scripture: his mind was dyed by it, therefore he must see things in the light of it. (p.264)
(Letters of J.B.Stoney, Vol.1)
THE CHILDREN'S RICHES
Solomon was already a king when he said in prayer to his God, "I am but a little child". Actually he was in his late teens at the time. He knew how much God loved the people over whom he had just begun to reign. God had said to him "Ask what I shall give thee". What a reminder this is to us who know the gospel, that Jesus said to a poor blind beggar. "What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?” Solomon could have asked for riches and so, I suppose, could Bartimaeus. But David's son asked for an understanding heart because he thought of God's great people, whilst the blind man asked for opened eyes so as to see David's greater Son. Truly both of them were rich towards God.
Israel's treasure in the thousand-year reign of Jesus over the earth will be the fear of the Lord and it is our treasure also now. His fear means that we refer everything to Him and not of course, that we are afraid of a God who has proved His love by sacrificing His Son and sending the Holy Spirit. The cost of redemption of just one child's undying soul cannot be compared to silver and gold. These products of the earth are indeed valuable, but the deep and inexhaustible mine from which precious faith comes is the word of God. The treasure is won by hearkening to the word so that we may put our faith to work and enjoy the result.
To be taunted at school or elsewhere for belonging to the Lord Jesus is hard to bear but it is great riches. You will remember that the man of God, Moses, esteemed the reproach of the Christ as "greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he had respect to the recompense". Suppose for a moment that such reproach could be put into one pan of a great pair of scales and all the attractive treasures of the world in the other! Can you say which side would go down and which would go up like emptiness?
J.C.Evershed