“Take Up His Cross Daily”
“TAKE UP HIS CROSS DAILY”
I have in my heart to speak of the path of discipline, and of the importance there is for us in taking it up daily. This is what the Lord Himself says in the passage that we have read: “If any one desire to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me”. From time to time, we sorrow over certain ones who leave the way; it may be that they had a good beginning and the question arises: How has it come to this? Every true heart knows the answer, but I would like to show where the safeguard to it is found: it is in these very words of the Lord that we have referred to, in which He charges us to be renewed daily in the path of discipline and ready to accept it, denying ourselves.
The Lord had asked His disciples, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” There were different points of view on this matter. Then, He puts the question to them: “And ye, who do ye say that I am? And Peter answering said: The Christ of God”. Why was Peter’s answer so different from that of men? It was because he had received light and God had worked in his soul. We ourselves are in such a privileged position: God has worked in our souls and His desire is that each of us should appreciate Jesus not only as the Christ, but the Christ of God. If someone among us is conscious of not having a definite appreciation of Jesus according to this light, I would urge you actively to come to God to find it, for He is pleased to enlarge our view as to the Person of Christ. He will not fail to answer to every desire expressed by one of His own on this subject. “The Christ of God” implies that He is the Elect, chosen by God Himself, and in considering Christ in this aspect, we will realise that, if God has revealed to us the Object of His own choice, He could not have any possible rival. God cannot fail to have made the best possible choice. In the book of Esther, when the king wanted to make known whom he was pleased to honour, Haman and every other rival had to disappear. Thus, when we have indeed grasped in our souls that Jesus is the Christ of God, every rival element in us has to be excluded. It is the conviction that it is well to be so that will help us to have a true estimation of what is already emerging before us and becoming imminent.
When Peter had confessed Jesus as the Christ of God, “earnestly charging them, he” (the Lord) “enjoined them to say this to no man, saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up”. He was not to be announced as the Christ of God before He had suffered and been killed and risen; this is very striking. It is only at the day of Pentecost that He was revealed as the Christ: “God has made him, this Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ”, Acts 2: 36. It is God who has done this and two important things are signified in this verse: first, God has not done this in relation to the present world, but in relation to the world to come; then, He whom God has made Christ is identified as the One whom the world has rejected. That is what explains why the Lord does not allow His disciples to announce Him under the title of “the Christ” before He has suffered and been killed and has been raised. He must be seen by His own as rejected of men, who have judged Him unworthy to live, but chosen of God and precious in His eyes, victorious in everything; thus it becomes clear that if we devote ourselves to the Christ of God, this implies for us the world’s rejection. The two things go together.
The Lord counts upon those who have the desire to follow Him. Peter had the desire, ten others among the twelve also had it and many others besides, such as Mary of Magdala, whom God had drawn to Him. On one occasion, when some of those who had been His disciples ceased to follow Him and no longer walked with Him, the Lord turning round to the twelve disciples demanded: “Will ye also go away?” and Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast words of life eternal”. Will we find the words of life eternal elsewhere if we withdraw from Him? There are no words of eternal life in the world, nor in men’s religious associations. If we withdraw, we lose all the value of the words of life eternal and the present gain of what that life is for us. So the Lord, thinking of those who would have the heart to follow, says “If any one will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me”. If we are called to realise what it is to carry our cross daily, we have first to understand what the burden of His cross has been for Christ. It is by the way of the cross that the Lord Jesus has gone through this world. He was rejected here and crucified. “Crucify him”, was the cry twice. The death of the cross is an ignominious and shameful death; the cross is the perfect expression of the world’s despising of the Christ of God. On the other hand, this cross tells us that God has fully condemned and judged man after the flesh. When Christ took our place on the cross, the first man was judged there by God, and judged ignominiously. The death of Christ was not an honourable death; it is written “Cursed is every one hanged upon a tree”, Gal 3: 13. So the cross of Christ has demonstrated, without any possible equivocation, how God estimates man after the flesh: the history of this man had to be ended judicially by a judgment without appeal, judgment that manifested openly God’s holy aversion of carnal man who is a sinner in all his activities.
Thus therefore, to take up my cross signifies that I am ready to be identified by the world as someone who desires to be true to Christ. It is said of Simon the Cyrenian, who was coming from the fields when Jesus was led to the cross, that they “put the cross upon him to carry it after Jesus”. By this fact, everyone could understand what it was to be put alongside Jesus the Nazaræan who was being crucified; so to take my cross daily signifies that I desire to be distinguished by all as someone who belongs to Him whom the world has rejected, but whom God has chosen.
In maintaining this side of the truth in power in my soul as to the cross of Christ, I will be greatly helped. Having recognised how God has judged man after the flesh, the first man, I will maintain this same judgment as to myself, and so my way of behaving in this world will depend on it; without effort I will come to be different from the men of the world by the fact that I have judged in myself the man to whom the world gives such a place, and that I have acquired by the Spirit an appreciation of the Man by whom God has given me life. With such an appreciation of Him, it will be possible to take up my cross “daily”. I find myself thus in a new light that each day must be devoted to the will of God and to His pleasure, having my disposition to realise all this by the grace of Christ and the power of the Spirit.
So the Lord can say, “If any one will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me”. It is a matter of having the Lord Himself and His word before us day by day. By a living instruction coming directly from Him, the way of God’s will in which He would lead us will be continually marked out. The Lord adds to this a solemn warning for all! “For whosoever shall desire to save his life shall lose it”. We know only too well the tendency of man to save his life, to avoid the reproach there is in being identified with the rejected Man, but the Lord says: If you are on that line, it is the path to perdition that you are following. If on the contrary we take up our cross daily, what compensation we will find in the help that the Lord Himself will give us!
“What shall it profit a man …?” The Lord does not give an answer to this question. He desires that we should consider the thing with all due seriousness. “What shall it profit a man if he shall have gained the whole world, and have destroyed, or come under the penalty of the loss of himself?” Then He adds, “For whosoever shall have been ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his glory, and in that of the Father, and of the holy angels”. A three-fold glory is in view here. In contrast with what we read in verse 8 of chapter 12, after the Lord has enumerated minutely the care that the blessed God has for His saints: “Whosoever shall confess me before men, the Son of man will confess him also before the angels of God”. Think of such a favour! Our names confessed by the Lord Himself, and this just from having confessed Him before men!
May the Lord give grace to each, that the way of daily discipline may become ever more attractive, and let us seek in taking up with a fresh appreciation of the cross and what it signifies to be true in this way, until the end, for the glory and love of His Name.
At a meeting for prophetic ministry in Kennington, London
10th April 1945
Translated from the French magazine, ‘Ondées’,
November 1947
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY
I desire to speak of spiritual prosperity, a subject which is important for us all as forming part of the people of God, for if we do not prosper spiritually, God is not glorified. The more the saints prosper spiritually, the more there is praise to God; it is thus that the book of Psalms, which relates to us the experience of God’s people, ends with the praise which is rendered to Him universally, having begun by showing to us what the man is that prospers. Psalm 1 says, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked, that standeth not in the way of sinners, nor sittest in seat of scorners—but his delight is in Jehovah’s law, and in his law doth he meditate day and night”. And then is added, “And he is as a tree planted by brooks of water, which giveth its fruit in its season, and whose leaf fadeth not; and all that he doeth prospereth”. That is the culmination of what is said of the man described in these opening verses of the Psalms.
I believe that Joseph and Daniel are presented as men who prospered. It is said at the beginning of Genesis 39, “And Jehovah was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man”; at the end of the chapter, we read that “what he did, Jehovah made it prosper”. Joseph prospered in adversity and he also prospered in better conditions. In a sense, he was different from David who prospered more in adversity than when he was on the throne. But Joseph seems to have been characterised by prosperity through the whole course of his life. The prosperity especially mentioned however is what we find in him in his adverse circumstances. The thirteen years passed in Egypt, partly as a slave and partly in prison, had been particularly testing for him. Psalm 105 says, “They afflicted his feet with fetters; his soul came into irons”. Not only were there adverse circumstances, but He was affected by them—in feeling the whole weight; and the painful circumstances which he went through were the more painful because they were not deserved. He was found in Egypt as a result of the enmity of his brethren whom he had gone out to seek and to serve. Jehovah having prospered him in the house of Potiphar, he could have thought that the conditions were ameliorated, but he was suddenly found faced with of a test of moral character and he faced it victoriously because he had God in his soul. He says, “how should I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” It is essential to us, if we are to prosper, to have God before us, so we shall be preserved in the face of temptations when they present themselves.
As a result of his faithfulness in temptation, Joseph is cast into prison and he prospers there again. God had given him revelations by the two dreams he had had and without doubt they pressed upon his mind, for it is said, “the word of Jehovah tried him”.
These thirteen years were to be a great test for Joseph while he thought of his dreams and of their accomplishment. As to what concerns his first dream, his sheaf standing up and remaining standing could perhaps be considered as an allusion to the life which is found in Christ Jesus; the fact that it remained standing testified that the inherent power of life was in it and its superiority over everything around was quite evident, so that the other sheaves came to recognise it. The secret of spiritual prosperity rests in our knowing something of the power of the life which is in Christ Jesus, a life which finds its satisfaction in the will of God. Then the other dream came which anticipates the day of the glory of Christ and that also enlightens our souls. In Paul’s second epistle to Timothy, where it is very much a question of the life which is in Christ Jesus, and where the apostle himself is marked by spiritual prosperity, he says, “if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him”. He had in his soul the light of the day of glory. He also says to Timothy, “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from among the dead, of the seed of David, according to my glad tidings”, as if to affirm that the day of glory is assured, which will be the recompense after the present test; the Lord is master of the situation.
I believe that the secret of spiritual prosperity is here, and it is perhaps a word for us all, because many of our brethren are in trying conditions, in continuing adversity, realising true mercy from on high, but very real suffering, their souls entering into irons; while many among us may not be in such circumstances for now; each must however pass through what is adverse. Are we able to face this and maintain ourselves above the trials, prospering spiritually?
What characterised Joseph is that Jehovah was with him and made all that he did to prosper; although the time of affliction was long, the end came suddenly in an unexpected way. What a test when Joseph had to realise that the butler had forgotten him for two years! Nevertheless, he is presented to us as someone marked by prosperity, and suddenly one day, without his expecting it, he is delivered from his position and set in the highest degree of glory. This is perhaps the issue for us. Who knows if we will not be delivered suddenly from the testing and adverse conditions to find ourselves with Christ in heaven? Whatever the circumstances, may we find the grace to be marked by spiritual prosperity.
The same feature is set out in Daniel and what may be remarked in the verse which has been read is that the Spirit of God says, “This Daniel prospered”. Chapter 6 is the end of the portion of the book which presents us Daniel as a man; the rest of the book is occupied with the ministry that was confided to him and the exercises which he had to face while receiving this ministry. But the end of chapter 6 ends the portion of the book that presents us Daniel as a man and the Spirit of God says, “This Daniel prospered”, as if to draw attention to the kind of man that prospers. It could be said that in this portion, chapters 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 refer to Daniel, but chapter 3 makes no reference to him, it is solely occupied with Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego, as if the Spirit of God would encourage us in showing us that if a man according to God’s ways is led into a place of pre-eminence in ministry or in the testimony, there are others who are a moral support to such a man.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego are not called to occupy the same position as Daniel in the ministry but chapter 3 shows that they are morally as he, being able to bear an excessive test in Daniel’s absence, and to come out completely victorious; so that at the end of chapter 3, Nebuchadnezzar speaks of “the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego”, and God is glorified. This is an encouragement for us all.
So the Spirit of God draws attention to “This Daniel”, so that we should take account of the features that marked him. We remember how, when he was young, he was taken captive to Babylon; he was of the royal seed, from among the nobles, fair in countenance, without defect. This speaks to us of what the saints are in God’s eyes—and the king’s purpose was to teach them the wisdom and language of the Chaldeans, so as to ornament the Babylonian system. This is not God’s intention as to His saints. There is much to learn as to wisdom in relation to God’s things. It is no use to us to research the world’s wisdom, apart from what is strictly necessary in view of being able to provide for our temporal needs. All the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge are hidden in the mystery and we can well give ourselves up with confidence to this wisdom.
We have no more need to adopt the language of this world. The king of Babylon changed the names of Daniel and his three companions, giving them other names that were suited to the kingdom of Babylon, and forcing them thus to eliminate all that could suggest that their original names had reference to God. In the face of this, Daniel “purposed in his heart” (how many times have we made reference to this and it is indeed necessary that we do so again as it is important to consider it well), he “purposed in his heart not to pollute himself with the king’s delicate food”. What follows shows with what remarkable wisdom he acted, without opposing himself to the authorities set above him, but acting with a respect and a wisdom given of God, and God worked in his favour in a remarkable way.
Then in chapter 2, he had to pass through another crisis; he told his companions and they besought God, who came to them and revealed Nebuchadnezzar’s dream to Daniel and its interpretation. So God is never set aside; He can allow circumstances to occur in the world to show how far we can put our confidence in Him. Daniel speaks to God, he obtained an answer and his soul is wonderfully illuminated by it. In the same way as Joseph had been enlightened by two dreams, so God revealed Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and its interpretation to Daniel. Daniel took account of the whole vision and saw the stone cut out without hands strike the image so that iron, brass, silver and gold were crushed to powder and carried away by the wind, and no place was found for them, and the stone became a great mountain which filled the whole earth. This sheds a light in our souls as to the day of Christ; the stone cut out without hands, striking the image so that it is overthrown and broken, it is the day of the Lord; and the fact that it became a great mountain and filled the earth is the day of Christ.
How blessed it is to have this light in our souls, while we have to submit to the present conditions and subject ourselves to the authorities who might oppress us more and more. We have to learn to subject ourselves and at the same time to cherish in our souls the light of the day of Christ filling all things.
In chapter 4, Daniel is tested yet again to show how far he will be able to address the king with the respect that is due, and with the grace which must show what is God’s attitude towards the monarch. How far do we manifest the grace of the present dispensation? It was not a small thing for Daniel to go and find Nebuchadnezzar and give him the interpretation of the second dream, but in what a wonderful way he addresses himself to him, saying “Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness”.
In chapter 5, Daniel addresses another king in a different tone, a king who was an apostate, and Daniel speaks to him in a way suited to his rank but with severity, and he does not want to accept anything from him. Finally, in chapter 6, he is tested on the matter of the decree of Darius and this shows, as we have often remarked, the habitual way in which he lived—he prayed three times a day, his windows open towards Jerusalem. It is not that he turns away from the reproach or suffering, or that he wants to hide from them; he just goes on with what were his habits, Jerusalem was in his heart. This remarkably illustrates what David says in Psalm 122: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee”.
How far are we free from our personal exercises and our own burdens to continually present in our prayers the burdens of the assembly? Look at some of the features that marked Daniel, “This Daniel”. It is a matter for us of knowing if we are able to continue, and to continue prospering.
Chapter 1 finishes with the fact that Daniel “continued” and chapter 6 with the fact that he “prospered”.
May the Lord help us to pursue what leads to prosperity, so that we may be kept in this world, and that what is for God might be more and more enriched.
PARK STREET, LONDON
10th July 1945
Translated from the French magazine, ‘Ondées’, October 1946
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