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T. Austin-Sparks - on Faith

Contents

Attaining Unto The First Three

"By Faith..."

Faith Operating in a Dark Day

Faith's Persistency

Faith's Witness in a Dark Day

Friendship With God

The Galatians and the Witch's Spell

The God Who Does Wonders

God's Faithfulness To Us in His Son

God's Good Pleasure

I Have Learned... I Know... I Can Do... Through Christ

"I Have Loved Thee"

The Most Difficult Thing in the World

Not Now But Afterwards

"Not This Way Before"

Principles of Divine Guidance

The Problem of the Stone

Resting in the Lord's Care

The Silence of Sovereignty and the Action of Faith

Taking the End by Faith

"Thy Way Was in the Sea"

Waiting God's Time

Wings

Attaining Unto The First Three

"These are the names of the mighty men whom David had... Adino... Eleazar... Shammah" (2 Sam. 23:8-12).

"(Abishai) was made their captain: howbeit he attained not unto the first three" (2 Sam. 23:19).

We are not so much concerned at the moment with the details of the exploits of these three men as with the fact that David had a number of mighty men who came to him when he was in the stronghold in the wilderness, shut up because of Saul, and that the thirty chief men were divided into groups, each group representing a standard. The thirty were, shall we say, of one more or less general standard of excellence, and then they were divided into smaller groups, each of which represented a higher standard of excellence, until we arrive at the three named above, who are called the first three. Of all the others it is said that they attained not unto the first three. The point which I want to deal with is that of attaining unto pre-eminence in the estimation of the Lord.

Why was this story written? Why have we the record of these men and their feats of strength? Do you think it is just to include in the Bible some thrilling stories of wonderful things that certain men did? Sometimes some of them seem almost phenomenal. But do you think that the record is here just for that purpose? If the Bible is written really on the basis of spiritual principles and not just to record human stories, earthly things, there is something which is spiritual behind everything.

Different Categories Of Spiritual Greatness

If we look behind these exploits for the principle which the Lord has desired to enunciate and illustrate, surely we find it to be this - that it is possible to be first, second or third rate people; that is, it is possible to be put into different categories of spiritual greatness and effectiveness. That is the first thing. Paul sought to encourage Timothy to be no second-rate servant of God, but to attain unto the first, to be outstanding and not just one of a crowd; to be of particular, special account to the Lord. That is the principle, I think, lying behind all that is here. We can be classified. We can be of the thirty, of that category which has a certain quite real spiritual value, significance and accountability. Such people are not by any means nominal. Indeed they are something far more than the nominal crowd of men in Israel. But even so it is possible to go more than one step higher: you can go further and then still further. There is a place which is represented by the first three. I think Paul himself was the embodiment of the spirit of the first three when he said, "One thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:13-14). "What things were gain to me" (and they were not wrong things at all), "these have I counted loss for Christ. Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord" (Phil. 3:7-8). "The excellency"; the thing which excels; the excelling knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. That is the embodiment of the spirit of that which is first with the Lord.

A Question Of Attaining

Now Paul uses this very word 'attain'. "If by any means I may attain . . ." (Phil. 3:11). It is a question of attaining. This has nothing to do with our initial salvation. We do not attain unto salvation in the initial sense, for that is not the result of any effort or resolve on our part. Salvation, in the sense of our being brought from judgment to reconciliation to God and the abundance of forgiveness and assurance, and so on, is given to us. But then there does arise again and again in the New Testament the matter suggested by this word 'attain'. One man came to Jesus and said, "What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10:17). The Lord Jesus did not say you cannot inherit it. He said substantially that you can inherit it, but that there is also something more to be attained unto. Attaining is something beyond our conversion, it is something more than our receiving the gift of eternal life. There is a position to be reached of value to the Lord which is the position par excellence, the supreme position. The Lord wants to find in us the determination that, by His grace, we are not going to accept anything less than the highest and the fullest that God means in respect of our value and usefulness to Him.

Marks Of Supreme Greatness

(A) The Perception Of God's Full Thought

You will ask, Well, what are the marks of this kind of pre-eminence? I do not know that it was altogether what these men did that made them excel, although what they did was certainly outstanding. There were others who did very remarkable things. One other went down into a pit and there slew a lion, in time of snow. Well, get into a pit with a lion! A lion at bay is quite a proposition; it presents a challenge and needs a good deal of courage. Others engaged in battle with mighty giants and slew them. These were exploits. These three, perhaps, did something even more outstanding than that. But I do not think it was altogether in what they did that their superiority lay. Of course, Adino slew three hundred men single-handed. (1 Chronicles 11:11 gives the number as three hundred, and 2 Samuel 23:8 as eight hundred; the discrepancy we will not discuss at the moment.) Singlehanded he tackled this overwhelming situation, and did not stop until the task was accomplished and the last man lay dead. Then of Eleazar we read that there was a band of Philistines threatening to attack a plot of ground full of barley. The rest of Israel fled before them, but Eleazar stood in the midst of the plot and defended it, and slew the Philistines until his hand was weary and clave to his sword (1 Chron. 11:12-14). And what of Shammah? In similar manner he defended a plot of lentils from the marauding Philistines when all others had fled, and slew the enemy, and thus preserved the food of the people of God.

The above exploits may have their own symbolic significance, but that is not the point. The point is this: these mighty men lived in a day when things were in transition. Something not according to God's full thought for His people was holding the ground. Saul was on the throne, and that was not God's thought. The people had been brought under the domination of this other order of things, and were therefore all the time in peril of spiritual starvation, of defeat, in weakness, bondage and uncertainty. They did not know where they were nor which way to go. Everything was indefinite and in a most unsatisfactory state, because another thought than God's thought was prevailing amongst the Lord's people. God's thought in fulness was centred in David; and the first characteristic of the mighty men, all of them, was that they perceived the state of things. They saw that the word of the Lord revealed as God's mind something more and other than what was prevailing, and that 'seeing' was the beginning of the movement, the transition, the secession, to David. That is the first thing - to see what is not generally seen by the Lord's people: the thing which the Lord really would have: that which, if only it were established, would mean such a big change for the people of God. In what greater fulness and on what a higher level they would be living! That is the beginning of the greatness that in principle is here before us. They perceived the thought of God, the direction in which that thought lay, and they said, 'We have done with this other! We have been a part of it, but we have finished with it. From now on, we are out for God's full thought, and we are not going to take anything less.' They committed themselves to it. That was the beginning of the greatness.

(B) A Sense Of Responsibility

Then you find these men were characterised by a very real sense of responsibility. They seem never to have needed any encouraging, or to have anything said to them, to urge them on. They took the initiative in the matter of responsibility. They each one said, in effect, 'Well, this supreme matter of God's full thought becomes a personal matter with me; I bring it right down to myself. The others may have gone, there may be no one else here for it, but because I have seen it I refuse to abandon it. I take this thing up myself.' And so, whether against three hundred or eight hundred or the whole unnumbered band of Philistines, these men take their stand, though alone. It is the whole responsibility of this full testimony taken up by the individual as though it rested upon him alone for the time being. That is superior greatness. There are people who can move in crowds, and who will act when they have others supporting and encouraging them, but many fade out when it is a case of facing this tremendous thing alone. Superior greatness is shown by taking personal responsibility whether others do so or not.

Look at Paul. From his conversion to the end of his life he seems to have been like that. At the end we hear him saying, "All that are in Asia turned away from me" (2 Tim. 1:15). This one has gone, that one has gone - "Only Luke is with me" (2 Tim. 4:11). He is practically alone, but he is not giving up. It is just at that time, more than ever, that he stands for God's full thought; and we get the fruit of his stand in his prison letters. Superior greatness is willingness to stand for what God has revealed as His will, though we have to stand alone. It may be one against many, there may be a considerable amount of aloneness, but that is where the test of our spiritual measure comes in, in initiative and responsibility that does not wait for an organisation to come into being to deal with the situation, but makes it a personal matter - and a thorough-going one, too.

(C) Spiritual Stamina

Then it does seem that the measure of their endurance in seeing the thing through to a finish was a feature of their spiritual greatness. A thing that seems characteristic of them all is said about one of these men - "his hand clave unto the sword" (2 Sam. 23:10); that is, he had held on so firmly and so persistently that he now could not let go when he wanted. His sword had almost become a part of his hand. He is in great weariness with the fight, but he sees it through to the end. And this is very important. There are plenty of people who can take up things and start them with zest, but who leave a whole host of unfinished things all over the place. Their lives are marked by unfinished things. They begin in good spirit, but nothing is carried through to the end. There comes a point of tedium, of weariness, a point where the cost or the danger increases, and then the hand slackens and the thing is not finished. There is a lot in the New Testament about enduring unto the end. Spiritual stamina is a test of greatness. Oh, we do need spiritual stamina to stick to a task and go through with it and not give up, our hand cleaving to our sword: we have got into this thing, and we just cannot let go. It is not even a question now of whether we want to let go, we are so committed that we cannot. A mark of greatness is that stamina which goes beyond the initial zest and the first enthusiasms, beyond all the stimulus of a fresh challenge, of a new situation. When tedium sets in and all romance has gone out of it, it is a grim, grim business: now we have simply to stick at it. So Eleazar's hand clave to his sword. He was weary, but he finished the job; he was not put off half-way through. That is what is written over all that these three men did. They finished the task; it was very costly, but they got through, they proved their stamina. It may be all right to go down into a pit and slay a lion, and get it all over in a few minutes; or to go up to a giant and give him one blow, and that is the end of the business. But it is another thing to stand and fight man after man, raid after raid, rush after rush, repelling constantly-renewed attacks. You may take it these bands of Philistines did not make just one assault on each of these men. One after another the enemies fell before him; they re-formed and others came on - whether it were three hundred or eight hundred of them. They came on until the last of them was done; and David's warriors did not give up until the fight was finished. The stamina of these men is remarkable. In like manner we find Paul continuing to the end. Yes, weary, heart-sick, worn out in the battle, but he can yet say, "I have finished the course" (2 Tim. 4:7). There was no giving up.

(D) Inclusively - Standing For The Fullness Of Christ

This is the test of spiritual stature; firstly, seeing God's full thought and accepting nothing less, being committed to that; secondly, initiative and responsibility where that thought of God is concerned so that we do not have to be told what is needed, nor urged nor coerced into doing it: we are alive to it, and on the spot, and doing it because it has become a matter of personal concern to us; and then, thirdly (to change the metaphor), having put our hand to the plough, no looking back, no half-ploughed field, no breaking off because things are getting monotonous or difficult, but going though with it even though it be in weariness.

I do not know that there is much else to say about this. There is no doubt about it, we are in the counterpart of such a situation to-day, and the majority of people are not prepared to pay the price. It is easier to accept a lesser thought of God, one that is not so costly. But the point is, are we going to attain to the first three, or are we going to be in the second group or in the third group? That is the question we have to answer. When we have said everything else, what does it amount to? In a word, it is the establishment of the Absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ, and of the Absolute Sovereignty of God's full thought as embodied in Him. David represented that. He was the embodiment of God's full thought. Fullness was to come in with him, and it was to come in along the line of his absolute headship, and lordship. Well, that is a type of the Lord Jesus.

A Way Of Faith

I might add this word. It was a day of faith. These men truly perceived that the Word of God for its fulfilment lay in the direction of David, but you must remember David was a lonely man at this time. He had very few with him, and those with him were in a real state of weakness; they had been denuded of everything; and the whole country was with Saul. Saul had the reins of government in his hand. It was a risky thing to break with that. You did not know, humanly speaking, whether David's cause was going to succeed or not, and you did not want it to be one of those small revolts that would be suppressed and then everything would be lost. You were risking everything. Ah, but it was a day of faith, a day when all who took that line had to take it by faith, they committed themselves to the line of faith. Surely it is like that. To abandon ourselves to God's purpose in its fullness (which is not the general objective of God's people) and become an apparently small nucleus who are after something more than the average, and to believe that it is going to have any success at all, a lot of faith is needed for doing that. If you want an easy time, you will not take that way. But there is the test again. Is that not just the whole point of Hebrews 11, when you reach the summary of it all - "What shall I more say? for the time will fail me if I tell of..." You notice that David is mentioned and it is said, among other things, that those concerned "subdued kingdoms... waxed mighty in war..." They did exploits. I think these men of David's come in there, and it was the triumph of faith. That was the test of their spiritual measure.

This challenges us. Are we going to be second-rate, third-rate, or first-rate, recognising that it is an extra cost that is involved, and that the Lord is in need of it? David was desperately in need of this kind of helper, and we are not wrong in saying the same thing of the Lord - He is desperately in need of people like this. There are not many, and His cause is very largely suffering because He has not this type. Surely He is calling us to face the challenge which this presents.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-Jun 1950.

"By Faith..."

READING: Heb. 10:37-39; 11:12:1-2.

In order rightly to appreciate and apprehend the value of this part of the letter, from the end of Chapter 10 through into Chapter 12, we have to remember the position in which these Hebrew believers were represented as being, or the position to which they were being called, or of which they were being reminded; that is, the heavenly position as over against the one to which they were at least in danger of falling. You know that the whole purpose of this letter was to cut in between these believers and that which was seeking to bring them down again on to an earthly religious level and basis, as under the government of the outward temporal forms of religious life as set up through Moses. The course of the letter is the unveiling of the fact that all those Old Testament things were but shadows of Christ Who was the substance; pointing on to Him, and that with His coming all were fulfilled and became heavenly in meaning, in value, for life now. And now these saints, under great pressure and trial, were being tempted to let go the heavenly position and come down again to the earthly, to that which, for the flesh, is so much easier a position of just doing religious things outwardly, and letting that be the beginning and end of everything. Thus the heavenly position is that which gives point to this last great summary, and it shows that it is the very position to which the Lord's people are called which becomes the ground of their greatest testings, that they are tried according to the position they have taken. That is so in every grade and every stage and every level. If the measure is small, then we are tested according to that measure, but if we take the full and the ultimate and the highest, then the testing becomes supreme. We are tested according to the position we take up.

Every Dispensation Governed by Faith

Now, there is another thing which this shows, and it is that faith is not something which has come with the New Testament dispensation, but that faith has been the principle by which the Lord governed His saints in every age. The Lord never intended the dispensation of the law through Moses to be other than a faith dispensation, and it is not just the contrast between the works of the law and faith that is before us; because you have faith here taken up in relation to all the people who were under the law and made the standard of their judgment. By faith Moses... by faith Israel, and onward under that whole dispensation, everybody was judged according to faith. Faith ever has been and ever will be the primary thing with God, the supreme thing. It is a thing which governs all ages in the mind of the Lord. Faith is the thing for every age.

The Basis of Faith

Now, what is the basis of faith? When you look at this chapter, the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, to see what the basis of faith is, you discover that it is and was something spiritual, done within a person. I know that in a number of cases recorded here, things happened without. There is Sarah, there is Isaac, there was deliverance from the furnace: many things like that happened without. But whatever happened without depended entirely upon something which had happened within. We do not know how all these things took place. For instance, by faith, when he was called of God, Abraham went out. We do not know how he was called of God. It may have been that an angel of the Lord appeared unto him, or the Lord Himself may have appeared in a bodily form to Abraham. Now we might say, Oh, if only that happened to us, then it would give us such a substantial foundation for faith! If only three men appeared to us as they appeared to Abraham, and proved to be the very representation of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost in bodily form (as I think undoubtedly they were; if you look at the incident closely, that is the implication), how easy faith would be, or how different would be our foundation for faith! He was called of God.

Now, beloved, I do not think it was a thing which happened without which became the foundation of faith. It was something which, however it came - it may have come by outward instrumentalities, outward things - however it came, it was something which was done inside, something registered inside, something effected in an inward way; for it is very doubtful whether ever an outward happening, a phenomenon, however marvellous it might be, be it an angel from heaven, can ever be an abiding, solid basis for faith. We can at times under given circumstances always doubt our greatest outward experiences. There is that in us called the soul which is a psychical thing and it is capable of producing the most remarkable and astonishing phenomena, so that we can believe things which the soul produces, and then presently turn round and say, Well, I was evidently overwrought, things began to happen, I heard things, I saw things! Thus we may question all that on a psychical or psychological basis. That is the temptation. Was I really at that time in a state of poise and balance, or was I in a state of nervous tension? Did I imagine these things, and were they only after all psychical things? And that could happen to any of these men in either the Old or New Testament. If that were the basis of faith, it is altogether unsound and unsatisfactory. However the Lord comes and whatever means He uses, the real basis of faith is something that has been effected in us, something wrought. Although it may have been the God of glory Who appeared unto our father Abraham, the effect was this, that Abraham knew something had happened in him, something had been wrought in him, and he could say from that time, There is something in me that is much deeper than the means and method used by the Lord, that has become a part of my very being! If you think for a moment that, were an angel to come to you, you could more easily believe in the future than you can without the angel, remember you can always doubt your angels. There is no guarantee that you will believe because you have seen an angel, or because you have had an open heaven. It is something which has to be inside, which, after all, is invisible, intangible, but something very real. It is something the Lord has done, something of the Lord Himself, something that the Lord has made real to you about Himself, His way, His mind, His will, something wrought by the Holy Spirit. That is the basis of faith - the Lord and His effect in your own life. I am not saying your experience is to be the basis of faith, but the Lord Himself as a reality within you, effecting something in you and affecting you in a deep inward way. That is the essence of faith here in this chapter right through. They knew the Lord in an inward way, and that was the beginning and that is the end for them in the matter of faith.

The Nature of Faith

Now, you see there was a result from that. They came to a place where they could and did believe for something which must eventuate, though in many cases, in the majority of cases, it never did eventuate in their lifetime. But the great statement here in this chapter is that this made no difference. They had come to such a position with the Lord, in this knowing of Him, that they could all die not having received the promises. All died in faith. You see, they did not even at the last have the stimulus of seeing the thing materialising; but they were able to die in faith. It may be somewhat easier to live in faith, if by that you mean that you expect the thing to be realised in your lifetime. But the essence of faith is - 'This must be! It is a part of God, it is God Himself, and whether I live to see it or not, that makes no difference to faith; it will be! And I live now, not to see it in my lifetime, but I live now in relation to it to be realised at some time in the purpose and intention of God'.

Then we have a further wonderful statement. They received not the promises, they died in faith, but they looked on, they looked on to us. Faith carried them beyond their own lifetime, and the statement is that they could not "be made perfect". That word 'perfect' is very interesting. It simply means they could not come to the consummation, the full growth of their faith. That thing could not reach its ultimate end until we came in. It demanded us. They, apart from us, could not reach the consummation of their faith; and faith goes on and sees that there are yet things to be brought in by God for the realisation of that which is in our hearts, for which we are living, for which we are labouring, for which we are suffering, for which we are being patient. Faith goes right on to the end and says, It may not be in my time; there may be more things to be brought in yet to make the consummation possible, but eventually, my faith in God will be vindicated, and the thing will be realised! Faith is a big thing, a comprehensive thing, and a real purity of faith means we do not just live to see things in our time, so that, should there be any doubt about our seeing them in our time, faith would go out. That is not the essence of faith at all. We have to have an after-life faith, a long view faith, which is not made less active because the prospect of a full realisation in our time begins to be overshadowed. No, their faith came into being on the ground that God intended something and they knew it, and God would realise it sooner or later; but God might have to bring in much more even after they were gone to realise it. Moreover, they were with God for that with all their hearts. Even though they might not see it, it must be. That is the basis and nature of faith here.

The Issue of Faith

What then is the issue? Twice over it says here that, by this kind of faith, they received a good report. The elders received a good report (v. 2). Then, toward the end, it says they all received a good report (v. 39). That is what they did receive - a good report. What is a good report? You know in the next chapter, Chapter 12, we are children at school, children of a family. Father is dealing with us as with sons, and it is all part of this whole argument: My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord and so on. It is all for this good report. I do not believe that it is true in the case of those referred to in Chapter 11 that the good report related to what they achieved, what clever people they were, what they were able to do in their lifetime. That was not the good report. God is writing the report of their life. What is the report for? No, it was not because they achieved so many wonderful things. The good report was this, they trusted in the Lord and did their utmost through faith. They did not say, Oh, well, this will never be realised in our lifetime we shall never be able to see this done; it is no use! It needs better people than we are! No, they faced the whole thing, and saw that, in the main, the thing was humanly impossible, only God could do it. But that did not make them sit back and say, Oh, I can never be in this, and never have a part in this: I can never be of any use in this! No, they believed God, they trusted the Lord, and then they put themselves right into it with all their hearts and lived in a positive trust in God. They did all that faith could lead them and make them to do. Faith is always an active thing. The good report was that they trusted the Lord and got down to it, gave themselves to it, however difficult things were.

Faith is going to determine which of two things is going to characterise us. This is the real point. It is either going to be that we are living under a terrible paralysis, as altogether petrified through confusion, perplexity, inability to understand, being unable to disentangle, to sort things out, to see straight and see clearly, to know what is meant by happenings. That means utter paralysis, simply standing with our hands on our hips, helpless and hopeless. That is the effect of the absence of a positive faith. The only way of life and deliverance from such a paralysis is a deliberate faith in God which causes us to take the attitude that we are going on with God, understanding or not understanding, explaining or not explaining, having light or having no light; we are going right on with God on the basis of what God has done in us, made real in us, of what God Himself is to us by what He has effected in us. We are going on!

We, beloved, shall come there and may come there more than once in the course of our life; we shall come to the place where we realise we are going right out into outer darkness and despair and paralysis, to be ruled completely out of any effectiveness, fruitfulness, or value whatever, unless we pull ourselves together and say to ourselves, 'The whole thing is an inexplicable, bewildering confusion, tangle from our standpoint or the standpoint of man; but God is, God is faithful. That is what He Himself says He is'. Thus without questioning God we go on believing God. We have even to believe God to the point of putting over on to Him the responsibility for failures, for mistakes, in so far as we have really and honestly put our lives at His disposal and have become utter for God and are free from personal interests and worldly interests and are here only for God. We have to make over to the Lord's account things which may have been mistakes or failures, and trust Him with these and go on.

What is the alternative? That is always the point. What is the alternative? It is to give up and go out, to lose our ground altogether; and when you come to weigh it up at the end - why? Well, we did not trust the Lord. You see, the Lord is not requiring that we should be perfect as God is, and that is the standard we are trying to get to so often; that we never make a mistake, that we never have a question about it, that our way has been so utterly perfect that we have every confidence in our own way and every step we have taken. No, you and I will never be there. Abraham made mistakes, Moses made mistakes. All those people made mistakes. Elijah was a man of like passions as we are, and Elijah threw himself under a juniper tree and requested for himself that he might die. They all went that way, but you see here is the record - they all obtained a good report. Oh, Elijah got a good report. Moses getting angry and losing the promised land, got a good report. Abraham going down to Egypt, Abraham and Ishmael; Abraham got a good report. Do not let us try to be perfect as God is perfect. What the Lord wants is a heart perfect toward Him; not that we did our work perfectly but that we trusted the Lord. We must ever remember that there is a great difference between faith and presumption, between faith and self-will or self-strength. Faith is based upon selflessness, and men of faith have always been very humble men, marked by adjustableness when they made mistakes. Let us not seek to be infallible, but faithful.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-June 1942, Vol 20-3

Faith Operating in a Dark Day

Our motto for 1970 circles round the declaration of Jeremiah in chapter 32, verse 17 of his prophecies: "Ah, Lord Jehovah... there is nothing too hard (wonderful) for thee." This declaration was made in circumstances of extreme difficulty. Recall that situation.

Jeremiah was himself in prison, perhaps in a dungeon. His ministry, after forty years, was in a state of suspense, perhaps finished personally. Jerusalem was besieged by the Chaldeans, and about to be taken, and the land overrun and destroyed. The people were about to be taken into far captivity, and Jeremiah knew that it would be for seventy years.

In that seemingly hopeless situation the Lord told Jeremiah that his cousin Hanamel would be coming to him as the next of kin who had the right of redemption to ask Jeremiah to buy - redeem - the family land, the field in Anathoth. It may have been a bit of shrewd business on the part of Hanamel for Jeremiah might most likely be killed and the field be lost if it had not been redeemed. Perhaps Hanamel was not accepting Jeremiah's gloomy prophecies and still believed that the country would be saved. However, for Jeremiah it was another situation; his prophecies were - he knew - going to come true. To buy the field was either foolhardiness or faith. He proceeded in faith, and carried out the transaction meticulously; and he left no question as to whose right it was. So Hanamel had been, and the Deed of Purchase was signed, sealed, and settled. Jeremiah, by right of redemption, was the owner of a field which, for long years, would lie under the heel of a foreign power. For himself, he knew that he would never occupy it. Was he - maybe - enacting a parable which had a far greater context? Was the far-seeing Spirit of God making Jeremiah's action a prophecy? Was there Another Redeeming Kinsman in the shadows of Jeremiah's transaction, One who would redeem His rightful inheritance and have to wait long years, while the enemy - the prince of this world - ruled in it? Was Jeremiah just yielding to the pressure of circumstances?

No, two things governed his action. One, God had told him to buy the field, and his dream, vision, verbal intimation (whatever it was) concerning Hanamel had come to pass. Two, his own prophecies had contained a break in the far-distant horizon, seventy years hence, and that was a ray of hope in the dark present. On that streak of light his faith acted, and, not thinking of himself, he acted for posterity. Someone has spoken of his action as "faith staking a claim". But, as is usually the case, faith was tested by

REACTION

Jeremiah suffered this come-back. He seems to have come alive to the implications of what he had done, and a battle took place. He had to call to his help the omnipotence and sovereignty of God. "Ah, Lord, Jehovah, behold, thou hast made the heavens and the earth by thy great power and by thine outstretched arm; there is nothing too hard for thee."

This, surely, is a foreshadowing of "the faith of the Son of God".

Now, there are some valuable lessons for us in this incident:

1. There are times when we are so sure that the Lord has led us in a certain way, to take a certain course, to do a certain thing, or to a certain purpose. It comes to us with much life and assurance. At the time there seems to be real corroboration that it is of the Lord. Even our Hanamels turn up on time. We make our committal, set ourselves to the call or demand, and faith is all agog. Then, we are invaded by the adverse forces, like the prison in which we are found, or like the armies of the Chaldeans besieging. The temptation is to wonder if we have been mistaken, misled, and a trick has been played on us. A battle in the dark ensues and the whole question of the faithfulness of God is raised.

How true to history it is that the Lord's people, and His servants in particular, can never take a position with Him without - sooner or later - being tested severely by that very position! That important factor in Jeremiah's action must be borne in mind. Jeremiah acted without any personal interest influencing him. He was detached from his action, for he knew that he would not live to see the redemption made good. Faith was selfless and looked beyond his own lifetime. That is a very real test of its genuineness. Such thoughts never weakened his action! Perhaps the very reactions and assaults of doubt are only allowed in order to test the quality of faith.

A dungeon and an enemy host are sufficient to test the reality of vision!

2. "While we look, not at the things that are seen, but at the things which are not seen."

Jeremiah had an overwhelming amount of the impossible, the "too hard" in his seen situation. It would have been so easy at any time to surrender to existing conditions. Every servant of God who has been given "the heavenly vision", and been made acquainted with God's "eternal purpose" has, after a thoroughgoing committal, and some encouraging corroborations, come to the time of severe testing by circumstances which raise ultimate questions. The conditions argue that it is a vain hope; life will pass in disappointment.

Think of the vision of Peter, John, Paul, and then consider the state of the churches. They must have had some vision which eclipsed and transcended "the things which are seen". Paul said: "... we look at the things which are not seen." "Things", not imaginations, make-beliefs, vapours, but actual things not seen. These are the "eternal" and, like Jeremiah, the horizon of realization is beyond this hour.

How easy - to our time-fettered life - it would be to say that the Church is in ruins and irreparable; we labour in vain if we pour our lives out for the ideal! Well, the saints of old, the Prophets, the Apostles, and above all, our Lord Jesus in His humiliation, rebuke us. "Faith is the title deeds of things not seen." Jeremiah with the Deeds of Anathoth fits right in there.

Jeremiah linked this whole issue with God's Throne. This is the refuge of the sorely tried in faith. "There is nothing too hard for thee."

3. We must ask the Lord to, first, cleanse our hearts of all personal, and worldly motives and interests; to plant the Cross fairly and squarely in our soul-ambition, and then enable us to "buy the field" in confidence.

From "A Witness and A Testimony" January-February, 1970

Faith's Persistency

"Now Elijah said to Ahab, "Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of the roar of a heavy shower." So Ahab went up to eat and drink. But Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he crouched down on the earth, and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, "Go up now, look toward the sea." So he went up and looked and said, "There is nothing." And he said, "Go back" seven times. And it came about at the seventh time, that he said, "Behold, a cloud as small as a man's hand is coming up from the sea." And he said, "Go up, say to Ahab, 'Prepare your chariot and go down, so that the heavy shower does not stop you.'"" (1 Kings 18:41-44)

Two of the major elements in the spiritual life and experience of God's people are the seemingly slow and hidden ways of God and the demand for persistent faith in His servants. As to the former, you will know quite well how much there is in the Bible about it. Again and again you will find the psalmist crying out because of God's seeming delay or indifference. Whole psalms are given up to this very problem, and also in other parts of Scripture we encounter the same phenomenon.

In our own spiritual experience we often find that not least of our trials is the fact that God seems so slow to respond, so inexplicable in His ways; sometimes it would appear that He is careless or indifferent. This is a common experience, even among the greatest and most devoted of God's servants. It is not an experience confined to novices; in fact perhaps they know little of it, but throughout the centuries even the most outstanding of God's servants have been confronted by this problem of the slow response of the Lord. It sometimes looks to His people as though He were unhurried to the point of being tardy, and that just when their needs were most acute.

Faith's Importance

In this short passage our attention is also drawn to the second point, namely the demand for persistent faith. It might be thought that the most critical moment on Mount Carmel was when the prophets of Baal had exhausted themselves in vain prayers and had to give way to Elijah with his water-saturated altar and his simple, dignified appeal to Israel's God. This was indeed, a breathless moment and the high point of the story the great miracle when fire fell from heaven; but supposing that had been the end! For we must remember that the country had been suffering from three years of intense drought, and if life were to be sustained it was not fire that they wanted but water. What they needed was rain, and plenty of it. Wonderful and emotional as the burning sacrifice must have been, there could be no new hope if the rain did not come.

Now the Lord knew how critical their condition was and might have been expected to act, now that the people had repudiated Baal and committed their case to Him. When the crowd shouted, "The Lord, he is God" the reformation seemed to be complete, and the natural sequel should surely have been clouds, rain clouds, and water pouring down on a thirsty land.

Yet no rain came. Elijah was quite assured in his own heart, and he unhesitatingly told Ahab that it was coming. Nevertheless he did not relax at all but went higher up on this mountain of crisis, put his head between his knees, and set himself to pray the issue through. The reference in James' letter tells us that "he prayed earnestly" or 'he prayed with prayer,' implying that something more than ordinary prayer was needed on such an occasion; it seemed to call for concentration and persistency. There was no sign of rain. God seemed so slow at this time of crisis. How can we explain His apparent lack of response?

For my part I think that this has a close connection with the anonymous servant, giving us all a lesson concerning service. This man not only is given no name but there is no mention of where he came from. Until this experience on Mount Carmel it seems from the narrative that Elijah was alone. After this he was dismissed at Beer-sheba, and later it was Elisha who served Elijah as a servant. The anonymous servant is just mentioned in this episode and then passes off the scene, but not before he had helped to illustrate to us one of the principle features of service to God, which is persistency. The battle had been fought through: it seemed that a mighty victory had been obtained; and yet - still no rain!

Faith's Disappointments

This provides a very serious warning against anything in the nature of complacency. Even after we have poured ourselves out and been assured that we have succeeded, we must beware of letting go too soon. The principle or spirit of service surely demands a real persistence of faith. You will not find any servant of God of account or true value in the Bible who did not have developed in him this persistence of faith. We can see it in the case of this man, and strangely enough this was the very test put to the next servant, Elisha, whose real life's work started the day when Elijah was taken up to heaven. That was the time when Elijah said to Elisha, "Tarry here...the Lord hath sent me as far as Bethel" (2 Kings 2:2). The same suggestion was repeated stage by stage, "Tarry here...Tarry here...," but Elisha would not agree to do so, his response being. "As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee." At last the whole matter was gathered up into this one issue, so that Elijah promised Elisha "If thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee" - a double portion of the Spirit for service was consequent upon this exercise of persistency.

Now, to return to Carmel, there was no doubt that Elijah's faith had produced a remarkable answer from God. The fire had fallen. We might think that he would have been perfectly justified in telling himself that all he now had to do was to see God working the whole matter out. He could have folded his arms, or taken his ease, while God did the rest. If you had gone successfully through an ordeal like Elijah's, seen such a tremendous victory and had an inner assurance that the end was reached, would you not have been inclined to sit back a bit and just watch events? Elijah, however, did nothing of the sort; he went higher up into the mountain to get closer to God. "Ahab went up to eat and drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel" - to pray. He knew that his business was not finished yet, and was determined to see the matter right through.

At this point, our attention is drawn to the servant. He, too, must go up still higher, for there was something more to be done if the rain were to come. He was told to look toward the sea, the direction from which it would come. He looked and saw nothing, so he came back again to his master and reported, "There is nothing!" After all that spiritual battle, after all that prayer, that exhausting ordeal of laying hold of God and seeing the fire fall, was it possible that, after all, the skies were as closed as ever? "There is nothing!" Many of us have had to pass through similar experiences - we may be doing so just now - and we find it to be a most painful anticlimax. This is a moment of great peril for our faith, to have battled so far and expected so much, only to be disappointed to find a complete lack of any evidence of God's working.

What can you do? Well, one of two things. The first is to conclude that after all the whole thing has been an illusion, and to give way to the paralysis of despair because of the seeming unresponsiveness of God. The alternative is to keep going - if necessary seven times. There was nothing the first time, so the servant must go and look again. There is nothing! And yet a third time, but still a third time "There is nothing!" The man had to go a fourth time, but there was still no vestige of an answer. I try to imagine the tone of his voice as he returned the fifth and the sixth time, and think that he may even have added a few comments. 'What is the good of it all?' he might have questioned - 'there is nothing!' It would have been natural enough if he had remonstrated, "I do not see the use of going right up there again; I am tired of continually coming back to report just nothing.' In any case he was sent a seventh time, just once more; this time he was able to report a tiny cloud. That was little enough in all conscience, to find that all there was to be seen in the expanse of the sky was just one little cloud the size of a man's hand. It is surprising that God went so far in pressing this matter of faith's persistency. Whether there is any significance in the number seven is of little importance, but certainly there had to be the full continuance in faith until at last the situation broke. The little cloud was only a token, but it was enough to Elijah who immediately warned Ahab to prepare for a deluge. Faith is the title deeds of things unseen, and accepts the token for the whole. It was right to do so, for soon the heavens were full of clouds.

Faith's Victory

I think that this makes the message plain. It is so easy to make a big start, with a good deal of noise and activity and high expectations of something big which we think God is going to do, and then to lose heart because of disappointments and delays. Our prayers are apt to wane and our energy and enthusiasms to decline just because God seems to be unresponsive. What is He doing? He is making a servant; to Him this is more important than the actual service which is being done. Such a servant has to learn that the Lord is more concerned about His own name than we are, and knows best how to vindicate it.

"The Lord, He is God." The Lord had to make that clear a second time, not only in the fire, but in the water, in the rain; not only in the judgment but in the mercy; not only in the death but in the resurrection life. His delays, His hiddenness, His seeming indifference, are all the testing means by which He develops true faith in His servants, and works something of His own Spirit into their very constitution. It was easy for Him to send the rain; what was more difficult but infinitely more worthwhile was to enable His servant to go on watching and praying for the full seven times, never despairing, never doubting, never giving up. In the end there was no lack of rain. But it came as the result of a second battle. First there was the battle with Baal, and then the battle with unbelief; the outside battle and the battle inside. It is on the last inward battle that the whole issue depends. Full victory comes as a result of faith's persistency.

Faith's Witness in a Dark Day

We are going to be occupied with the book of Daniel, but not with any one particular passage in it. You know that in that great summary of faith's devotion and activities in Hebrews 11, some referred to in this book are mentioned (though not by name) as amongst the great men of faith, that great "cloud of witnesses" (for that is what they are called). It seems to me that the message of this book, so far as the men of God in it are concerned, is faith's witness in a dark and difficult day. There are many features in this book of Daniel which correspond to the position in our own time, and the spiritual principles are those of all time. They are fully revealed in the New Testament in relation to Christ and the Church. Some of those features I want to bring again to your remembrance.

The Saints the Focal Point of all That is Going On

In the first place, we are made to understand that the object in view with all that is going on is an elect people in whom the glory, the honour, the rights and the purposes of God are centred. How many times in this book of Daniel do the words "the saints" occur. In chapter 7 they occur six times, and you know that chapter 7 is a consummate chapter. If you glance at it, you will see how everything is gathered into the end of that chapter in the great throne, the great judgment; all is now brought to consummation, and in the consummation of everything those words "the saints" are repeated six times, suggesting that this is the object which has all along been in view and comes out with great emphasis at the end.

Of course, here you are able to observe that "the saints" has two sides. On the one side, it refers to Israel, that elect nation. They are here called the saints, and are such in type and in an earthly way. But it is quite clear also that what is here goes beyond Israel to the Church, and "the saints" are those of the New Testament inclusively - and not now in an earthly way but a heavenly, not in type or in figure but in fulness. That is what the Lord is concerned with, an elect people with whom He has thus closely and inseparably bound up His glory, His rights and His purposes. For that reason, their importance is such as to explain all that is recorded in this book, and it is a wonderfully far-reaching and comprehensive story; heaven and earth are both bound up with this great concern.

Prevailing Spiritual Poverty in the Saints

But here we find that people in a state which expresses anything but the glory, the honour, the rights and the purposes of God. They are out of touch with those things; a low spiritual life has resulted in a loss of the very testimony for which they existed, the testimony of God's authority. Looking at Israel in the time of Daniel, you certainly have anything but a testimony to the authority of God. They were called to be a witness to God's absolute supremacy in all realms. We know how God did stand by them in that respect in the days when their spiritual life was true, and there was not a nation that was able to stand before them; the authority of God was truly set forth. But now that testimony is lost, and, further, they are in a state of defeat and in bondage to the world. They are having to pay homage to the world, to seek at the hands of the world the very means of their subsistence; they are entirely dependent upon the world for everything. They are totally incapable of standing up in strength, in testimony, without help from the world, and they are in such a position as to be altogether out of immediate touch with what represents the full mind of the Lord: they are away from that.

Now all that is literally true in the case of Israel as seen here in the days of Daniel. I do not think it wants a very great deal of perception to recognize that, speaking in general, there is a state in the Church in our time which very largely corresponds to that. We are not able to say very much about our high level of spiritual life as the people of God. We deplore the poverty, and weakness of it, and while being unspeakably grateful for any and all who are going on with the Lord, we have to say of the great mass of those who fear His name that spiritual life is not on a very high level, not very rich, strong, clear; and consequently the testimony of the Lord's authority as expressed by means of His Church is very largely lost. The Church has not an authoritative message and word and position in the nations today. Surely in these days of world crisis we are feeling, Oh, that a voice might be raised! Oh, that some Divine authority might be expressed! Oh, that there might be something from heaven to make people aware of their state and their responsibility! Oh, that there might be something to halt this rush toward destruction and perdition! We do not stay to speak of how terrible the outlook is unless something happens from heaven. Well might men's hearts faint for fear and for expectation of what is coming on the earth. Truly the word of Christ has meaning that unless those days be shortened, there shall no flesh be saved (Matt. 24:22). Oh, for a voice of authority from heaven! Oh, that the Church meant something today in the nations! But we have to say that it is not so, that the Church hardly counts. Rather is she in a state of defeat and bondage to the world. Is it not true, speaking very generally, that the Church today is dependent upon the world almost for its existence, having to call on the world for its supplies, having to go to the world to maintain it, to keep it going? It is like that. And who will say that Christians are really in closest touch with the mind of the Lord as to His great purposes in the very election of the Church? I think I need not labour that there is a correspondence between Daniel's time and ours.

We are, then, led to consider Daniel and his friends in Babylon and what they signify, with reference both to their own day and, in figure, to today.

God's Need of an Instrument to Express and Embody His Thoughts

Firstly, they were an instrument of mediation between God and His people in their low spiritual condition, and between the people and God. There those men stood, there they poured themselves out to heaven, there they cried to God: they were the only mediatorial instrument that God had there to bridge this terrible gap between God and His people; to speak for God, and to speak to God about these things.

Much is said that indicates they were men who had intelligence and understanding, men who knew the Scriptures. They were probably the only ones who really had this insight, and together they embodied the mind of the Lord. They were the embodiment of God's mind about His people. Had His people been what the Lord would have had them to be, they would have been like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and any others that may have been of their type, prevailing with heaven concerning conditions here in this world. These alone were the embodiment of that mind of the Lord for the elect, for His people, for the Church. And then they were standing uncompromisingly for that Divine mind which they knew and of which they were the embodiment; uncompromisingly they stood for it at all costs.

We come by way of them to see what God's need is in all such times, and in our time so very greatly, namely, of an instrument to stand between Him and the poor, weak, defeated spiritual state of His people at large - an instrument that has knowledge of the time, has intelligence about God's thoughts for His people, understanding what the will of the Lord is, to whom the Lord has disclosed His counsels and His purposes as to the elect. He needs a people, an instrument, like that. But more than that, it must be not just as those who have knowledge, but a people who are themselves the embodiment of the Lord's mind, a corporate embodiment and expression of what He wants concerning the Church. That is a Divine principle which applies to all times. The Lord is not satisfied just to have people to preach His truths. He must have a people who embody those truths and express them in a living way - a voice, a corporate instrument. He must have a company or companies like that. It is so easy to speak about the purposes and thoughts of God, to give them out and then to think that is all that is necessary. It is only when the truth has been made known, and the Lord's thoughts have been revealed, that the work really begins. It is from that point that the revelation has to become embodied and expressed in a people, and all the work of the Holy Spirit to get a people according to that revelation has to be done. It has to be like that. The Lord must have a people who embody in themselves what they know by revelation of the Holy Spirit the Lord wants for His Church, and who stand positively and uncompromisingly for it.

Satan's Antagonism

We pass from the vessel itself to what such a vessel has to meet, and it is perfectly clear in this book of Daniel that the men of this kind had to meet no small thing in the matter of antagonism, hostility, hatred, and every kind of evil work. This antagonism, moreover, this cost attaching to their testimony, was universal in character. It embraced heaven and earth. You are familiar with that part of this book which brings out so clearly how that by Daniel's praying and fasting the very powers of heaven were shaken. Principalities and powers were stirred to attempt to frustrate this activity. Yes, that whole realm of spiritual antagonism in the lower heavenlies came into operation because of these men and the testimony for which they were standing. It seems that all heaven was moved, so that when Satan and his angels went out to oppose, God had to put into commission even His archangel Michael to overcome them.

Then of course there was the play of those evil powers upon the earthly forces. Those who could be used by them were all fully employed to destroy this testimony and to put these witnesses out of commission. It is not difficult to see the reflection of Satan in Babylon, of that pride which caused him to challenge the very throne of heaven. It was there in Babylon, man's glory in the place of God's glory. It is pride which will be found in Antichrist. It is at the heart of all antagonism to God. And when it is the Lord's glory alone that is the concern of His people, there is nothing else for them but a seven times heated fire and the den of lions and such like things. The antagonism against this kind of ministry and service to the Lord is terrific. The cost is great.

The Ground of Triumph - Separation From the World

We must hurry to note this final thing, namely, the ground of triumph. I think there is one thing that goes to the heart of it. It is an inclusive thing, that is, it touches so many other things, so many aspects. It may be gathered into one word - separation. I am not so fond of that word, but it is the word we need here. You notice that it says in the very first chapter of the book that Daniel and his brethren determined that they would not defile themselves with the king's dainties, nor with the wine from the king's table; and that is how they spoke of it when they went to Arioch, the king's representative, to plead their case. They asked - you would think hardly tactfully or diplomatically! - 'that they might not defile themselves'. It is hardly complimentary, at any rate, to speak so of food from the king's table. They pressed this matter of defilement. They had seen the principle - that by this means they and their testimony would in some way be compromised. It was a link with this world and with Satan's kingdom as in this world, and the effect of it would be - oh, how inclusive and comprehensive this is! - that they would be denying in their very persons the all-sufficiency of the Lord. If they were to go the way of the world and look like the people of the world, where would be the testimony of the Lord? If they did not go the way of the world and were to refuse to have any kind of compromise with the world, there would be great opportunity for the Lord to prove that He can go one better than the world, and is more than all the world put together.

This is the challenge. On various grounds and by various arguments, young people especially are tempted to compromise on this point. They think they will gain influence with people of the world by coming down to their level and doing as they do, thus getting on an even footing with the world; but they do not recognize that such a course so often involves compromise. More rarely still do they recognize that when God's people are going to the world for their sustenance and nourishment and pleasure and gratification and so on, it results in a question being cast upon the ability of the Lord to prove how far greater He is than this world. The bad spiritual state of the people in Daniel's day was wholly due to their being in bondage to the world. Daniel and his brethren would have none of it. They stood apart in complete separation from the world, its standards, its ideas and all its resources, to give God the opportunity of proving that He is better than the world, and His servants, by His grace, better than the men of the world. That is the testimony, and until that is true, we have no authority, no ascendency, no real testimony. Separation therefore, unpleasant and hard as the word may sound, is a very fundamental matter if we mean by it that we are separated unto the Lord, that He may show by means of us that this world is a poor thing compared with what we have in Him.

There was a deep rooted seduction in that table of the king, and they were alive to it. It was the snare of the good time, as people call it. It was the snare of a lost clearness and distinctiveness of testimony. It was the snare of arguing wrongly, "I am become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some" (1 Cor. 9:22) - so often a misapplied Scripture and carried altogether outside of what the Apostle meant when he said it. Do you think the man who gave that phrase to be written in Holy Scripture ever compromised with this world, with sin, with the principles of the Satanic kingdom, or ever lowered his standard?

That was not the Paul we know. With him the words quoted had another meaning. Do not be caught by a catch phrase like that. How many do you win? How many are won out and out for Christ by that policy of compromise? For after all, it is only policy, and policy is an accursed thing in spiritual matters. It is a low standard. The whole work of Satan is to get us somehow defiled, and then we are put out.

Satan's first effort, then, with Daniel and his brethren was to destroy them inwardly by this kind of compromise; but they refused to be defiled. When he found he could not do that, he turned to outward methods of destruction. Hence the fiery furnace and the lion's den - anything to accomplish their destruction, to nullify them, to quench them. The Lord needs men like this as His instruments. It is good to know how the Lord does stand by such. Read the last verses of the book of Daniel. "Go thou thy way till the end be; for thou shalt rest, and shalt stand in thy lot, at the end of the days" (Daniel 12:13). Daniel continued despite fiery furnaces and dens of lions. A true heart meant that the Lord stood with him and he finished his testimony, and no powers of heaven or earth could bring an untimely end to that testimony. The Lord will look after us so long as we are on this line of testimony for which these men stood, the absolute glory and dominion of the Lord, expressed here in a people of this kind.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-June 1951, Vol 29-3

Friendship With God

"And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend" (Exodus 33:11).

"Didst not thou, O our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend for ever?" (2 Chronicles 20:7).

"But thou, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend" (Isaiah 61:8).

"By faith Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac: yea, he that had gladly received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; even he to whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead; from whence he did also in a parable receive him back" (Hebrews 11:17-19).

"And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness; and he was called the friend of God" (James 2:23).

There are many astonishing things in the Bible. Few of them, however, are more so than this - that God should desire a friend.

We would think that of all things God would be able to get on quite well without having men in that relationship with Himself. I say it is an astonishing thought that God, in all His self-sufficiency, His fullness, His creative power, should want a friend, but here it is - "Abraham my friend" ... "the friend of God".

This, dear friends, is the one thing in the mind of God behind all His strange ways. Probably in all the Bible there was no one who had greater reason than did Abraham to think of God's ways as being very strange. How strange those ways were! And very rarely were they easy. Almost every step, if not every step, was fraught with perplexity. But God was governed in all His dealings with Abraham by this one idea and thought: to have a friend, and to bring a man into such a relationship with Himself as to be able to speak of him as "My friend".

You know, of course, that that title and that relationship are peculiarly and especially connected with Abraham. There are some wonderful things said about other men - Moses, Daniel ("O man greatly beloved") - but "My friend" is uniquely Abraham's title. To understand that we have to look again at the way by which Abraham was led and how at last he arrived in the heart of God.

While the whole life of Abraham is required to make up the full inclusiveness of this sublime fellowship, there is little doubt, I think, that comsummately it was bound up with that one incident of which we have just read: the call to offer his son Isaac. Just think what that really meant where Abraham was concerned! Did God call him from Ur of the Chaldees, to leave all and come out, without telling him anything more than that He would lead him to a land? If we knew everything we would see that that was no small step, for there is every reason to believe that Abraham was a prosperous and great man in Ur. Did God lead him out? Did God promise him a son, and then go away and leave him without fulfilling His promise? Did God bind up the whole of his life with that promise and with that son? The very justification of his move from that old country, leaving everything, was focused and centred in that son. Abraham's whole life, the justification of his living at all, and everything in his life, was centred in that son. All the commands and all the guidance of God to Abraham ended in Isaac. Did God so call, so lead, so promise? Did He make Isaac the exclusive vessel of His Divine purpose and the explanation and meaning of all His promises to Abraham, so that Abraham had no alternative to Isaac? Abraham tried an alternative and found that God was not in that. He tried through Ishmael, but found that that was no way through. There was no alternative for his life for God, his knowledge of God, his history with God, but Isaac. Should Isaac not exist his faith would have been in vain, for he had nothing else. God would have failed him, and his life would have been a failure.

Naturally, if Isaac did not exist, or if he died, there would be some tremendous implications. The obvious implication would have been that Abraham had been misled, deceived, and followed a false line; that God had mocked him and brought him into a trap. He had followed God in a way which he had believed with all his heart to be God's way for him, and he had committed himself without reserve to what he believed to be the way of God for his life. And all that centred in Isaac.

Then came: "Take thou thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest... and offer him" (Genesis 22:2). Dear friends, we cannot make too much of the seriousness of the crisis to which Abraham had now come. It was a tremendous thing for him! It might have raised the question of what kind of a God his God was, or who this God was to whom he had given his life, and there are many other questions and implications. All his guidance, his consecration, his long years of waiting and travailing, his faithful obedience - and now, at one blow, it looked as though it was all shattered. To survive that, and, more than that, to go through it triumphantly, is to explain what God means by friendship. Yes, that is the meaning of friendship - but what is it?

Well, if this is the Divine explanation of friendship, and we are called to be partakers of the Divine nature, and God is working with us to bring about such a relationship, it is going to be along that same road. If you and I want even to approximate to this relationship, this supreme relationship to God, if our hearts do respond to this suggestion and proposition that God should be able to speak of us as His friends (and, on the face of it, no doubt everyone would say: 'Yes. There is nothing that I would covet more than that God should be able to speak of me as "My friend"'), then see what it means.

Firstly, it means absolute and unreserved committal for life and with life to God, without reserves and without alternatives. Abraham had no alternative. This relationship, this going on with God, was everything or nothing for it was sealed in a blood covenant. You will remember the occasion when that covenant was made. The sacrifice was cut in two. The one half was put on one side and the second half was put on the other side. One side was God's and the other was Abraham's. Blood was shed and they together, in the true figure, joined hands and moved between the two halves. In the blood of that sacrifice each committed himself to the other in terms of blood, or life, for ever - God's "covenant for ever" (Psalm 105:8). Abraham's covenant with God was in terms of life. At Mount Moriah God was taking the very life-blood out of Abraham, but Abraham was standing to it. He was standing to the very basis of his relationship with God. It was a committal for ever with life itself to God, and the end of that was: "Abraham, my friend".

These are hard things that I am saying, and beyond our present attainment, I know. Not one of us would claim to have reached this point. Nevertheless, this is what God is working towards.

Friendship, further, means this: confidence in the other, when He neither explains His way, nor can we understand what He is doing. Of course, that is friendship at its best in human terms. If there is true friendship, a friend may not always explain to you why he or she takes a certain course, but you have come to trust that one so much that you do not want an explanation. You are ready to believe, without an explanation, that that one knows what he or she is doing, and you have perfect confidence in that one. It is friendship, even when the other one is silent and saying nothing.

There is a slight reflection of this in the life of Mr. Hudson Taylor. After having been in China, away from this country and from his wife, for a long time, he came home and his wife met him at the ship. They got into a conveyance together, and, of course, you would have thought that at once he or she would engage in voluminous conversation on all that had happened during the years they were apart. But they took that journey in absolute silence - and neither was offended! Not one word passed between them, but that was the deep, deep understanding of true fellowship. Oh, for something like that with the Lord! He is silent, and that silence is a most testing thing to us. Why does He not speak? Why does He not act? Why does He not do something? He is silent and inactive, and seems to be indifferent. Ah, to believe Him then is the stuff of friendship, a constituent of true friendship.

"Abraham believed God." You notice that that is connected with this very thing, the offering of Isaac. To have confidence in a friend when the friend seems to be mysterious, strange, inexplicable, un-understandable, reserved, silent, is a constituent indeed of true friendship.

But Abraham looked beyond the present and the immediate, and said in his heart: 'This is not everything. This is not the whole story. This is not the end, because it is not the end of God. Even if it is death' - oh, wonderful triumph of faith! - 'even if I have to slay that son in whom everything for me is centred, nevertheless, God is God, and He can raise the dead. Even if Isaac is there, dead, God can raise him. I look beyond death, beyond the present situation which may seem to have shattered all hope, and I see God as reaching further on. I believe God. I do not understand, and am not able to explain, but I believe God.'

That is very testing, and I say that it is beyond every one of us, but this is the basis of the ultimate relationship with God. Surely this is the gold of the new Jerusalem!

But what about Isaac? He was the new hope, the link in the chain of God's whole dispensational movements, and the embodiment of this friendship.

Young brothers and sisters, you are the next link in the chain of God's gifts and God's testimony on this earth. Do put your feet down on the ground of the link before. Take up the testimony of Abraham and take this position: 'I, not as something in myself, not beginning nor ending with me, but just as a link in this mighty chain of the ages, commit myself without reserve to my God, for life and with my life.' If you will do that you are the new hope of the next phase.

Of course, behind Abraham we are seeing God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, and we all know so well that any hope we have today is because God raised His Son from the dead. But that is not only a truth concerning Christ. It is a law of God's ways all through history - that something is baptized into death, and in that baptism the testing of heart relationship with God goes on. And that is the point. When Jesus was baptized into death on the Cross, it was the ultimate test of His heart relationship with His Father. His heart broke on that - but, oh! we are all so glad that the very last utterance was: "Father, into thy hands..." (Luke 23:46). That is triumph! He is through! Earlier He had cried: "My God, my God!", but now He is saying: "Father". It was a test, the ultimate, final test of His heart relationship with His Father - and, mark you, every baptism into death is that.

We are being found out, dear friends, by deep and terrible testings on the cross of baptism into death as to where our hearts are; whether they are in things, or in God; whether our life is bound up in some thing, or whether it is with God.

You see, that was the point with Isaac. After all, it was proved that Abraham was bound up with much more than Isaac, for he was bound up with God. 'All right!', said Abraham. 'Everything seemed to have been centred in Isaac, but if Isaac goes, I still have God.'

What is our life bound up with? Is it things? Is it life work? What is it? We shall be tested as to whether it is the Lord who has our hearts. If He has, we are not going to fight for our own ways, our own ends, our own interests or our own ideas, even in the work of God. It is the Lord who has to take preeminence over all things, and over us. Isaac embodied that position with Abraham.

Oh, dear friends, see to it that your heart is like that toward your Lord! If it is, you have the basis of this glorious end: 'My friend, My friend'. Is that worth having? Surely it is, and that He should say at the last: 'Come in, My friend!'

From "A Witness and A Testimony" May-June, 1971

The Galatians and the Witch's Spell

This message was given on 20 Oct. 1934

Galatians 3:1 “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched (lit. cast the witch’s spell over) you...?”

The apostle says that these people had come under a spell. Have you ever been under a spell? I should think (without having had any experience) that to come under a witch’s spell is to wake up at some point and realise that you have been in an unreal realm. It may have been pleasant for the time being, like the effect of opium, but afterwards it was revealed to have been an illusion, an unreality, a false world, everything had been suggesting what was not true after all. During that time of the spell you have been deprived of your normal state of good sense, you were not yourself, and the effects were quite different from those which had been presented to your mind under the spell.

To look closely into this letter to the Galatians is to see that that is exactly what had happened. It was a spell indeed, and a spell which meant that they were taken out of the realm of the greatest of all realities, and put into the realm of things which were false and deceiving, and where they were robbed of their true spiritual position, and placed in a false one.

What was the nature of the spell? The Holy Spirit is very apt in His way of describing things. The phrase: “the witch’s spell” could not be improved upon as a description of what had happened to these believers. These believers had come right out into a living place with Christ, and they had, through faith, received the Holy Spirit. They had been emancipated and set free from all the old thraldoms. They had been put in a place of spiritual liberty, spiritual ascendency, spiritual power, spiritual life, and they had had a great enjoyment of the Lord. But, being Gentiles, and having turned to Christ, certain things had entered into their experience outwardly. Outwardly they had become involved in a great deal of persecution. They had found tremendous antagonism levelled against them. Inwardly they had become aware of the fact of two natures, an old and a new, that which the apostle speaks of in this letter as the flesh and the Spirit. And, while they had come to the place where the old and fleshly nature was triumphed over by a life in the Spirit, they knew only too well that the old and the fleshly nature was not annihilated, and that to maintain their position of ascendency, every day they must maintain a walk in the Spirit.

The walk in the Spirit demanded a continuous appropriation of Christ and obedience to Him. These were two of the things which had come into their lives, and represented a certain amount of difficulty. It was not easy to suffer persecution. It was not always easy to be obedient and to walk in the Spirit. It represented a continuous yielding to the Lord.

The other thing which governed their life entirely was that it was a life of faith. While a life of faith brings into a wonderful realm of ever fresh discoveries and blessing, it is a life of faith, and the old and natural life never takes kindly to a life of faith, but is always seeking the seen and the felt, that which can be provided by the senses; that realm of outward perception, as over against the life which is entirely by faith in God. While these Galatians went on with the Lord they had a life of knowing and enjoying the Lord.

We all know that the Christian life is not a picnic every day. The Word of the Lord never promises that it will be. We are not in the playground; we are in the school. We are not here for pleasure and enjoyment; we are here for real business and grim conflict. A day of unmixed pleasure and glory lies ahead for us; in the meantime it is a life of training, discipline, equipping for that day, and it becomes strenuous sometimes. We would deceive nobody who is not a believer by saying that if you become a believer you are going to float about in the air, play upon imaginary harps all the days of your life and never have any trouble. You will come up against the grim realities, of which you may be altogether unconscious at present. You will find that you are precipitated into the battle, and are taken into a place of deep training and discipline. It is in that realm that we make our discoveries, and find our wonderful enlargement. That does not mean for one moment that while such things obtain there can be no joy. The New Testament is a strange paradox throughout: “Sorrowing, yet always rejoicing”; “Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation...” It is a strange contradiction, and the man of the world understands nothing of that.

However, the Christian life is a grim business for the time being, and the Galatians came to recognise that, and sometimes, in common with all other Christians at all times, the sense of the conflict and the pressure registered itself in a costly way. Nevertheless, ask anyone who knows the Lord best, and who knows the cost most, whether they would give up the Lord in order to escape the cost, and you will find that they will give no consideration to that — unless they become tricked, which is exactly what happened here.

There came down to these Galatian believers certain men who were Jews, who pretended to be Christians, and the most that can be said in their favour is that they acknowledged Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. That does not mean for a moment that they had seen Him as the Eternal Son of God, and it does not mean that anything was entailed in the setting aside of Judaism. These Judaisers, with the Christian name, went in the track of Paul wherever he went with the Gospel, and worked their way through the network of Jewish synagogues until they got into this area known as Galatia, and began their Judaising activities in direct contradiction to his Gospel. They found a point of contact, and said to these believers: Now, you are having a difficult time; this kind of life that Paul has shown to you is a very strenuous life (we are not saying they used these words, but this was clearly the line of argument); this struggle and this effort to live this life is because of a fundamental mistake! All you have to do to be accepted with God is to observe the law! You come to the synagogue and carry out these various regulations of Moses; that is all that is required of you! So many meetings a week, and so many sermons a week, so many outward observances a week, and all is well! God’s law is so-and-so: observe God’s law, and all is well (a very plausible argument)! Then, you see, you are suffering a great deal of opposition and antagonism from without, also upon this fundamental error! You have taken up a position which is bringing this upon you! You will find that a great deal of that persecution will drop away if you will simply let go this extreme position that you have taken, this life of faith, this detachment from the recognised and accepted religious system of the Jews; and things will become very much easier for you because you will be associated with that which is accepted and recognised! Paul is all wrong, and he has led you into this position, and these are the consequences! Our counsel is that you should all be circumcised, have the centre of your relationship to the historic order of things, carry out these regulations, and you will be left alone and escape this intense spiritual conflict, inwardly and outwardly! You will cease to have this inward pressure; you will not have all the strain of a life of faith, it will become a life of sight; and the way will become easy!

Because these Galatian believers were conscious of the cost of the life in relation to Christ, and were perhaps feeling badly just at that moment (for you may be sure the devil always strikes his blow at the weak moment) this whole proposition was like a witch’s spell. A lovely sensation crept over them: Oh, is it not necessary for us, after all, to have all this to meet, all this to suffer? Are we, after all, wrong? Is it really that we have made a mistake, have been misled? They let the doubt in, and we know what happened. When they opened their mind to a question of a fundamental character like that, it rushed in and became like a spell to them, a beautiful suggestion, a wonderful idea! The suggestion was: We need not give up anything of Christ, but it can be so much easier if we let go what is evidently an extreme position which we have taken! The witch’s spell did its work. They came under it, and let go their position.

Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians in that condition. When you look closely into it, you see that it was a witch’s spell. It was a lie! Paul says some very strong things about this: “...though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be accursed.” That is regarding these Judaisers. This gospel which they were preaching brought them into the category of the curse, under an anathema from God; they were preaching an accursed gospel. With Paul there was no myth about their position; he saw how deadly it was as a deception, and how, under its spell — as it had been so plausibly presented just in a time when these people were feeling the strain of things — it had worked to rob them of their true position. That which Paul keeps continuously in view right through this letter is the cross of the Lord Jesus. The central and inclusive statement is this: “...before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly set forth crucified”. Then in the rest of the letter Paul explains what that means.

We will look at some of these passages, not taking them in order of their occurrence, but rather in order of their spiritual significance.

A New Life

The first great passage is in chapter 2 verse 20: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” What is the declaration contained within that statement? The essence of the utterance is this: There is a life which is not man’s natural life, which is not original human life, but is a peculiar, particular, unique life; it is the life of God Himself. That very life of God, eternal, incorruptible, indestructible, divine life, is the life which it is the Lord’s will for every one of His children to possess. There the whole of the Christian life has its beginning, its spring. What is the Gospel? What is the Christian life? It is not Judaism taking on the title of Christianity. It is not Christianity taking hold of Judaism. It is the possessing of God’s own divine life. Anything short of that is not the Gospel! Whatever substitute may be offered it is a lie, and all lies are accursed things. The subtlety of this Judaising movement was to set aside the real Gospel, and offer an imitation, a substitute without the cost, something which can be had without paying the price. Paul here says that this life is the very foundation and basis of a true Christian experience, and it means this: It is no longer I, but Christ living in me. That is set right over against Judaism, which was all external, outward. This is inward. “Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live...” Well, Paul, how did you become possessed of that life? In what way did you come into that great reality of Christ living in you? “I have been crucified with Christ!” What did that mean, Paul? That meant that Judaism had to go; I was steeped in Judaism, far more than any other of my brethren, the apostles, Jews as they were. I excelled in my zeal for the Jewish faith; but when I saw the Lord Jesus, and when I saw the meaning of Christ crucified, that which had been my very life (Judaism) became as nothing. He became my life, and that other ceased to have any meaning for me! Paul is here setting the life of Judaism, which is no life, over against the life of the indwelling Christ, which is the life.

These Judaisers came along and tried to reverse the order, and offered the false life of Judaism for the true life of the indwelling Christ. What is it to be a Christian? It is to receive God’s very life in Christ into the innermost place in our being. “Christ liveth in me, and that life which I now live...” You cannot substitute that. There is nothing which can take the place of that. And yet there are those who think that if they go to meetings, and keep up their religious forms and observances, it is all well. It is not all well! That is the devil’s lie! Any religious system which is a substitute for the indwelling Christ is an accursed thing, by reason of its very effect.

The beginning of the Christian life is: Christ liveth in me! How? “I have been crucified with Christ...” What does that mean? That the whole of my old life, even though it may have been religious, is an outward thing. It does not matter how much Christianity I may have been brought up in, or even participated in. It does not matter how much religion there is in my make-up, in my temperament, and it does not matter how much I mentally assent to as to Christian truth, my relationship with God in eternal salvation depends entirely upon whether I have received this life in Christ dwelling within. When I have to stand before God and give an account, as Paul says every man must do, no questions will be asked as to whether I was born into a Christian family, brought up in a Christian home, whether I went to the Sunday School or whether I went to the services, whether I believed this or that, or something else as a doctrine of Christianity. No such questions will ever be put, neither will such questions as to whether I committed this, that or some other sin, or never did. The number of sins, and the kind of sins will never, never be the ground of interrogation. One question will sum up everything, and decide the whole matter: Did you receive My gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ as an indwelling reality through faith, on the ground of the cross of Calvary? “The Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.”

A New World

The next passage is in chapter 6 verse 14: “But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” The cross again is in the forefront. We are unable to deal with all the ground which concerns this particular passage. We are content to take one point of application, which is probably the most direct one. The apostle is saying here that his glorying is in the cross of the Lord Jesus, and that cross has represented for him his being crucified to the world and the world to him. Of course, that is a very inclusive, comprehensive statement, and embraces a very great deal, but there is a particular application of it, or a particular usage of the statement here. These Judaisers had gone to Galatia, and had sought to make Jewish proselytes of these Christian believers by having them circumcised, so that they might append these Gentile believers to the Jewish church. As we have noticed, the point of their approach was this: If you do that, a great deal of persecution will cease. You will come into a realm of tolerance; at present you are outside everything that is recognised and accepted, and all the world is against you. Come into the fold. Come into the accepted system of things, and you will have an easy time. What was behind it? Paul says their object is simply to count heads, to “glory in your flesh”, to say: See how many proselytes we are making! See how many converts we have got! No wonder Paul writes with heat, lest these Judaisers should glory on their side in their success, and then that these Galatians should discover that these people were only glorying on the ground of their having forfeited their high position. Paul says: “Far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” What does he mean? It does not matter to me what the world thinks! It does not matter one wit to me the attitude the world takes! Let it persecute! Let it say what it likes! Let the world defame. Let the world misrepresent. Let the world lie. Let the whole accepted religious system say what it likes. I have been crucified to this world! I am dead to all that, and that is dead to me! The cross of the Lord Jesus means the emancipation from the world in that sense.

We shall have to decide, once and for all, as definitely as Calvary was a once and for all thing, that we are not going to be influenced or deterred one little bit in our utterness of abandonment to the Lord by what the world (even the religious world) says and does. When we recognise that, there will be triumph. Paul was not altogether immune from the consciousness of what was going on against him. To him very often these things meant suffering. The attitude of the religious world did register itself upon his sensitive spirit, but it was settled with him quite definitely that he could never sacrifice his position one little bit in order to mitigate that suffering, in order to ease up that situation, in order to be more popular with men than he was. For him the cross meant that if he were to be unpopular universally he was dead to the question of popularity. We shall never be thoroughgoing Christians until we are there.

A New Power

The third passage is in chapter 3 verses 13-14: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree: that upon the Gentiles might come the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” The witch’s spell was cast to rob of the enjoyment, the living expression of the reality that the Holy Spirit had now become the power of their lives. How set the enemy is against this great, basic fact of the true Christian life!

Firstly the enemy is always seeking to bring around that life a wrapping of death, to smother it, to arrest and check the progress, the development, and the activity of that divine life; to bring us again into the realm of spiritual death, where that life is no longer functioning. Then he is against our position, as through the cross, outside this world, and is always trying to bring us back into it somehow. He knows that if he can do it he has finished our testimony, he has robbed us of our position, he has denied the Gospel. He is dead set against this life of which the Holy Spirit is the energy. He is after a life in the flesh instead of the life in the Spirit, to counter a Holy Spirit filled and dominated life. He is the spirit of this age; he is the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience; he is the great evil spirit, and he is set against the Holy Spirit of God. So these believers were knowing something of that historic effort of the enemy to quench the government of the Holy Spirit.

We are in a spiritual succession to these Galatians. The Christian life is a life with Christ indwelling as its life. It is a life cut off by the cross from the world and all worldly considerations. It is a life indwelt and governed by the Holy Spirit in all details. That is where faith comes in. That is exactly the point where faith has its meaning. It is so much easier for the flesh to walk according to sense than it is to walk by faith in the Spirit. Life in the Spirit is sometimes so intangible. It calls for such an exercise of faith that you have to commit yourself to the Lord and go on when you cannot see, where you have no feeling, and believe implicitly that the Lord is not going to fail you and let you go wrong — even if He is hidden from your view, covered from your sense; yes, oft-times deeper than your very consciousness itself. You are living for His glory, and as you are at liberty within your heart to move you have to move and believe implicitly that God is going not only to preserve you from wrong and from mistakes, but is going to bring good out of your faith movement with Him. That is a life of faith, and our natures do not take to it at all kindly. It is a life in the Spirit, as differing from a life in the flesh. The best of the Lord’s people sometimes cry out: Oh, that I might know exactly what it is the Lord is doing! The Lord says: You go on with Me and trust Me. I know what I am doing! We discover at length that the Lord did know what He was doing. He does make it plain. He is undoing the mischievous work of the devil from the beginning, that work by which he put into the very nature of man unbelief in God, doubt and questioning of God. The Lord is destroying that by the very life of faith, and showing to us that God is true and faithful and can be relied upon, and He need give no evidence to our flesh of that fact, but He proves it to those who repose faith in Him as the faithful God. How do you know? By believing! How do you come to see? By going on and not seeing, but trusting God. You say it is a difficult life! Well, the witch’s spell can deliver you! You can have something else in its place! But you will find that the witch’s spell is an illusion, and there is no substitute for that. It is the way of a wonderful, continuous discovery of the wonderful things of God. It is to those who believe that God makes known His deep secrets. Enrichment of life comes there. Paul says that this new life in the Spirit, with the Holy Spirit as the power of our life, comes by way of the cross.

A New Nature

Then in chapter 5 verse 24 we read: “And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof.” There is something about that statement which in its implication is not pleasant for the eyes of Judaisers to detect. What Paul is saying, in effect, is this: It is all very well to accept the law; all very well to get back into the externals of religion; but does that deal with the moral issue? Are you quite sure that by that you are going to have rest of heart over the sin question? That was never so in Israel. The sin question was a thing kept perpetually in view. It was never finally dealt with. If you had watched Israel round that tabernacle, and seen the continuous stream of sacrifices, and the veritable river of blood daily flowing in the court of that tabernacle, you would have known that sin was not once and for all dealt with. You would have known that the sin question was always in view. We may be, after all, deluding ourselves that being outwardly religious gives us a standing with God, but it does not deal with the sin question. It does not deal with our very natures. Men may find substitutes. Men may find ways and means of trying to hush the voice of sin, and they may seem to have effectually done it. They may have a great religious system by which they think that they have dealt with the sin matter by passing responsibility over to someone else. We sing: “At peace with God...” It is a false peace that is merely based upon a system of outward religious activities. It is a false peace if it is not found in the precious, eternal efficacy of the Blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, which cleanseth us from all sin. The apostle says to the Galatians: They may have deceived you with their spell, and you may think that going back to Jewish ordinances deals with the sin question, but you know that it does not. You will go out and discover that you are in bondage to the lusts of the flesh all the time.

By way of the cross there is a new nature, a nature introduced which gets the upper hand of the old. The old is there, but it is not now reigning. Sin has not dominion. There is another nature which rises up and meets the old. Something has happened, and in that something a position has been reached which is just this: that old nature is no longer the master. It has been crucified. It has been put into the place where it no longer dominates. It has come under the veto of the cross. How does it work? By the positive fact of a new nature introduced, the divine nature in Christ. It is not a constant effort to suppress the old, a struggle to say, No! It is that there is a positive factor which is working for us against the old. It does not mean that never at any time do we make a mistake, perhaps a slip, but we do know that there is a reactionary power at work within us now, which registers upon that old a veto and says with strength: “Thou shalt not”. It is a new law, not imposed from without but the law of an inward power, a new nature within. As we walk in the Spirit that new nature grows and increases, and more and more gets the ascendency over the old. Conformity to the image of God’s Son is going on: a growing, an increase in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. The flesh, with the affections and lusts thereof, under the power of the cross, and a new nature.

Look at the context of that last passage, and you will see a whole long list of the fleshly lusts and passions are mentioned, and over against that those things which are of the Spirit. The apostle says, in effect, to these believers: That is what is the true Christian life, and Judaism has nothing that can substitute that. It never deals effectively with the sin question; but by being crucified with Christ, and raised together with Him, the sin question is dealt with, and there is a settled registration in our very being that no longer is the old nature the only thing, the unrivalled nature, and the nature which has the upper hand; but the Spirit is making war upon the flesh.

The God Who Does Wonders

"Thy way was in the sea, And thy paths in the great waters, And thy footsteps were not known, Thou leddest thy people like a flock, By the hand of Moses and Aaron." Psalm 77:19-20

What a strange juxtaposition of similes! It would be difficult to have a greater contrast than that presented in these two verses - the pilot in rough water and the shepherd in green pastures. On the one hand we have a reference to the turbulent sea, whipped up by tempestuous storms, and right alongside of it a reference to the shepherd tenderly caring for his flock. The first is a picture of unrest and anxiety, with stressful forces in action, while the other suggests tranquility and restfulness. What a contrast! And yet they are brought together in one statement concerning our Saviour God - He is the Pilot and the Shepherd.

We have to read the whole psalm to get its full value. The earlier verses report a record of bewildering distress, so great as to provoke the questions: "Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?" (v.9). In the midst of his outcries the psalmist suddenly seems to check himself, recollecting what he already knows of the character of God. He confesses: "This is my infirmity" adding, "But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High... I will remember thy wonders of old" (vv.10-11). The whole tone changes. Recollection and review bring reassurance and lead on to this comforting climax concerning the Pilot and the Shepherd.

This, however, seems to be by way of an introduction to the following psalm, for Psalm 78 is a great historical record of the Lord's dealings with His people. It is a long psalm, recounting the movements of the people of God as He guided them and dealt with them. Read in this light, the function of the pilot in the storm and the shepherd in the plain bring comforting reflections to us all.

The first principle which arises out of this psalm is that the divine purpose governs all His ways with His people. At the beginning of their history, Israel certainly proved that God's way is in the sea and His paths in great waters. What dread seized them as they found their way barred by the Red Sea, with its waters lashed by the howling east wind. The waters piled up as a wall on the left and the right, doing little to abate their terror. It must have been a terrible night as they passed through that sea. The word translated 'troubled' (v.16) is a word which is used to denote travail. The nation was born in the Red Sea that night when its waters were in anguish.

This reminds us of the divine purpose working in the tempest. Behind all the fearful stirring up of the waters, the divine purpose was governing, bringing to birth a nation who were chosen for His glory. Truly there was a path for Him in those great waters. Faith must learn to appreciate this principle, namely, that the things which seem to threaten to be our undoing are being governed by divine providence to produce something of value - sometimes great value - to the Lord. It was the recollection of this which saved the psalmist when his soul was perturbed by questions about God's grace and loving kindness.

He spoke for the people. They felt abandoned and forgotten. He therefore exhorted them to look back to the beginning of their national life. They had been born in a threat. They began their history in what looked like destruction. Yet they were brought through those tempestuous waters and by the skill and power of God they were delivered and set apart for Him. As the psalmist remembered this, he was freed from his doubts and questions, as we may be when life's rough seas threaten to engulf us. God has a purpose and is steering us through to it as a wise, experienced Pilot.

We have to believe in the wisdom of God as well as His power. He not only knows the end, but He knows how to get us to that end. He is that One who chooses the way through the stormy waves. To us His ways may seem strange. We wonder what He is doing, or whether He is doing anything at all. "Have his mercies clean gone for ever?" we ask. The answer is that the Pilot knows both the destination to which divine purpose has called us and the best way by which we can reach that destination. He knows - but He does not tell us. "Thy way was in the sea... and thy footsteps were not known".

To help us to understand the psalmist's meaning, let us imagine a visit to the Egyptian side of the Sea after the wind had quietened down and the tempest come to rest. We look to see where His footprints are, and we cannot find them. We fail to trace His movements and cannot discover how He did the miracle. He leaves no traces by which we can explain just how He did it. We have to be content that He did do it, and He did it because He is all-wise - the Pilot who has the knowledge of the way within Himself and so can bring us through every storm and work wonders on our behalf without giving any account as to the 'whys' and 'wherefores' of our experience.

This is why we have the complementary title of the Shepherd. It moves us on from the consideration of His power and wisdom to an appreciation of the greatness of His love. This is not an official Pilot who is disinterested and detached, just doing His job, but a Shepherd, who has a heart of love for His flock.

If there is one picture of heart concern for the good of others in the Bible it is this of the shepherd. Both the Old Testament and the New make much of this title for the Lord. We are not surprised, then, when the psalmist, having voiced his question, "Is his loving kindness clean gone for ever?", immediately realises that this is not the truth but is due to some infirmity of his. It is a common infirmity in times of great trial, to harbour questions about God's love. The only thing to do is what this man did; he resolved to call to mind the past experiences of himself and his people with their Shepherd God. The hand of the Most High was exercised through Moses and Aaron, under-shepherds of the Great Shepherd who will never forsake or forget His own.

There are three facts which every child of God must master - facts which are suggested by this psalm. We are not really qualified for the Christian life, let alone for Christian service, until we have mastered them. We will be challenged again and again about them, but without them we will be weakened almost to the point of despair. They relate to the power of God, the wisdom of God and the love of God. He is indeed both our Pilot and our Shepherd. He is the God that doeth wonders.

God's Faithfulness To Us in His Son

"God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord" (1 Cor. 1:9).

"There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can bear: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it" (1 Cor. 10:13).

"Faithful is he that calleth you, who will also do it... sanctify you wholly... your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5:24,23).

"The Lord is faithful, who shall establish you, and guard you from the evil one" (2 Thess. 3:3).

"If we are faithless, he abideth faithful; for he cannot deny himself" (2 Tim. 2:13).

God's Faithfulness Based Upon His Love For His Son

"God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord". That comprehensive statement means that God's faithfulness is based upon His love for His own Son; His faithfulness to us is because of His faithfulness to Him. Because of the fellowship with His Son into which He has called us, we enter into that faithfulness. That means much. It raises the very big question - which question, of course, we ought never to entertain - as to whether the Father would ever be unfaithful to His Son. We have a fairly solid block of Scripture to establish the nature of the relationship between the Father and the Son, and the Father's estimate of the Son, which would certainly lead us to rule out any such question as to whether the Father would ever be unfaithful to the Son, would ever fail Him, would ever go back upon any promise to Him. That, of course, is unthinkable.

The Father's Attitude To Us in His Son

It is not quite so easy for us to believe and really to enter livingly into the further statement that the Father's attitude to the Son is His attitude now to all who are in fellowship with His Son. We have selected a few passages of Scripture, which can be supported by a very great deal more, to show that that is so. God has Himself called us into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, and on that ground the same faithfulness which is toward His Son is carried over to us. That is something very strong, very far-reaching and much-embracing.

God is faithful. How? Why? It is a tremendous thing to find that to be the introduction to the first Corinthian letter. We know what is to follow in that letter. We know the disclosures that are going to be made about the state of things among the Corinthians. Another side, that of our responsibility, will develop, but when all has been said - and not much more could be said, I think, of human imperfections and the failures of Christians than we have in the first letter to the Corinthians - when all has been said of that kind, the faithfulness of God still stands, and all that is required from our side is that, when God shows where the faults and weaknesses and wrongs are, we adjust, we respond, we obey; and when we do so the Lord just goes on with the rest. We know quite well that if we resist the Lord, if we refuse obedience, if we do not walk in the light which He has given us, then of course we put ourselves out of the blessings and benefits of His faithfulness.

But there is the other side. I think sometimes we get loaded too heavily with our side, and do not take sufficient account of God's side in this way, that, given openness and responsiveness of heart to the Lord: given that there is no wilful, conscious resistance, disobedience, refusal, neglect, carelessness: given that we are toward the Lord and that the fellowship of His Son is to us the most precious thing: I say, given that, the Lord takes a tremendous amount upon His own faithfulness. He can be trusted to look after the imperfections and everything else, and I think that this, standing right at the commencement of this letter, just says, 'Well now, you Corinthians, there are many things where you are at fault, and many things that have to be put right, but if only you seek grace to make the adjustments and be obedient, God will faithfully fulfil all that He has undertaken to do. He will do it. Yours it is to seek to step into line with the Lord; His it is to perfect that which concerneth you: and He will.' God is faithful. And His faithfulness, as we have said, is not affected so much by our weaknesses, our defects. It is affected by His devotion to His Son. He has sworn to His Son, He has made promises to His Son, and He is not going to fail Him. Wherever He can get a way, He will fulfil His word to His Son. He is the covenant-keeping God, and all His covenants are related to His Son.

There are many covenants made by God in the Bible. There is the covenant of the rainbow; there is the covenant of the Sabbath day; and there are many others. But if you look at them you will find that in every covenant there are the features of the Lord Jesus. The covenants do not finally and exclusively concern only those to whom they were immediately made, but all the promises of God are ratified with a Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 1:20). That is to say, God looks beyond the temporal occasion to His Son and His Son's interests, and He has secured everything in Him. The faithfulness of God to His Son is the solid rock of our confidence.

Faithful to Conform to the Image of His Son

When you break this up, you find that it applies to so much. As a matter of fact, this word "through whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son" applies to everything that affects us. The first calling is into the fellowship of His Son, and then within that fellowship we find that we are called "according to purpose". That is in Romans 8:28. Looking to see what the purpose is according to which we are called, we find we are "foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son". God is faithful to carry that out, not on the ground of any struggling on our part, nor of anything at all that we can do other than walk in the light He has given; that means, to take our steps in the direction of His will as made known to us. Then the Lord is faithful to fulfil this work of conforming us to the image of His Son.

Faithful in Leading Into Afore Prepared Good Works

Then we are told that we are "created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:10). This same sovereign calling relates to the works which God has afore-prepared for us to walk in; and if He gets us responsive and obedient in His hands God is faithful to see to it that we are found in the afore-prepared works. It is not a case of our straining to be in the work of the Lord, but of the outworking of this Divine sovereignty. God has appointed certain things which He calls good works in relation to His Son, and if He possesses us completely, we shall find that, in the sovereignty of God, we shall come into the good works afore-prepared.

Faithful in Fulfilment of Vocation

Then the same thing is said about our vocation. We are familiar with such words as Ephesians 4:1 - "I... beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling". Or again in 1 Tim. 6:12 - "Fight the good fight of the faith, lay hold on the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called". This Divine calling lies behind every aspect of the life of the child of God, whether conformity to Christ's image, or the works to be performed, or the vocation to be fulfilled; the calling gathers it all up, carries it all. Our calling into the fellowship of His Son means that we are brought into all that: and again, given a full-hearted response, the faithfulness of God to His Son demands that we do not miss the way for want of light, that we do not miss the calling because we never had the Divine help in that direction. If we miss the way after we have wholly put ourselves into the Lord's hands and responded to His calling, then that is God's unfaithfulness, not to us, but to His Son. If any of these aspects, of the work and way of God fail where we are concerned when He has us wholly, then God has failed His Son; and if you can think of that, then you can think of failure in these respects where we are concerned. If you cannot believe that God is going to fail His Son, then, apprehending the truth that Christ and ourselves are one now by the calling of God, you need not fear that God can fail us. He is faithful.

It does not say that we shall always be able to see how God is doing it, but He is faithful. The end will be attained, it will be an accomplished fact, and when eventually we see things as God sees them, and know what He was doing and how He was doing it, we shall see that He has reached His end, and say, 'Well, I could not see it, I had very bad times about it, but God has got what He was after, and He has got for His Son what He intended Him to have'. God is getting for His Son what He has promised Him by the way in which He is dealing with us and leading us. He is faithful to His Son, and therefore He is faithful where we are concerned. That is the one side.

The Ground of Rest

But there is the other side. What is the ground on which we shall come to rest in this matter, and to assurance and to relief from strain? It will be the ground of the Lord Jesus. It will be when we take and maintain this attitude: 'Lord, it is for Thy Son, not for me, it is all for Him. If greater gain is coming to Him, if Thy faithfulness to Him is being proved by my being denied or deprived of many things that I feel would be for Him, that I would like for Him, that I think would be best - so long as He is gaining His end and Thy faithfulness to Him is working out in His having that which Thou dost want Him to have where I am concerned, that is the only thing that matters. If in any way I have to adjust, I count on that same faithfulness to be shown to me as was shown to the Lord Jesus, to bring me into the knowledge of my need, that I shall not err in ignorance, and the Lord Jesus shall not lose anything because of my blindness or failure. I count on Thy faithfulness to work in that way for my enlightenment. I make it a matter of Thy faithfulness to Christ, and that faithfulness to Christ will mean also faithfulness toward me; and though it may express itself in ways contrary to my expectation or desire, I come to rest on that'.

Now note this as a personal application. If you go to the letter to the Romans, you have these same things emphasized, but you find there much that is individual. When you come to the Corinthian letter, you have come more on to the collective ground of the Church; and then you move right on to the highest expression of that in 'Ephesians'; but the same thing applies right through from the individual aspect to the corporate in 'Ephesians'. Every step, every stage, from the individual to the whole Church is governed by this faithfulness of God to His Son. It is all a matter of God's keeping His eye on His Son, and therefore upon everything that can be for His Son, and faithfully seeing to it that, wherever He has a chance, wherever there is response to Him, the goal is reached. With all the seemingly hopeless conditions as at Corinth, God says even there, "God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord". He says, in effect, 'I am going to tell you what is necessary from your side in the matter of adjustment and correction, how this and that must go, and this and that must come in. Give your response, and I will see to it that all that ever can be for My Son shall be, even in Corinth, even in you'.

Oh, this is only walking round a little fragment, seeing it from different aspects, but the affirmation of our hearts must be - God is faithful. We may not think He is being faithful because He is not taking us the way we want or would like, but God is faithful and the whole universe hangs upon that. For us there is no bigger issue raised than that of the faithfulness of God. For us, everything for faith, for life, our very existence, hangs upon whether God is faithful. If we have any question about that, our world goes to pieces. We have nothing to stand upon if we have any question about the faithfulness of God, and that, not as a general and abstract thing, but as concrete and personal. It must not be personal in the sense that we want God to come our way. It is only personal in the right sense when it is in fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1950, Vol 28-1

God's Good Pleasure

"Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32).

It is upon a part of that statement that I want to dwell: "it is your Father's good pleasure". There is a very great, a vast, opening out of that fragment in the later part of the New Testament - later, that is, so far as our arrangement is concerned, not later actually in date, for the Gospels were written much about the same time as many of the epistles. But when we turn to such fuller revelation as we have in Paul's letter to the Ephesians we have this: "having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will" (Eph. 1:5). "Your Father's good pleasure"; "the good pleasure of his will". And then again: "making known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ" (Eph. 1:9,10). And again, in Philippians 2:13, we have this: "It is God which worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure". The good pleasure of the Lord is a tremendous thing. "To give you the kingdom"; "foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will"; "making known unto us the mystery of his will" (how great a thing that is!) "according to his good pleasure"; and He is 'working in us to will and to work according to His good pleasure'.

And yet it is not the object that is with me for this moment. It is the fact of His good pleasure. We have recently passed through a season of the year in which the old Authorised translation of Luke 2:14 has been very much used: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men". There are different views as to how the original ought to be translated here; the renderings are various. "Men in whom he is well pleased", or His "goodwill toward men". I do not think it matters very much, because the upshot of it all, and the very accompaniments and associations of that great event, all combine to speak of His goodwill. And, after all, was not that the beginning of the Gospel? - and the Gospel is "good news". It is the spirit, the attitude, the mind of God toward us that is the thing of importance - His goodwill.

The Battle to Maintain Faith in God's Goodwill

I am not going to speak of the associations of that goodwill, that good pleasure, as we have them in the passages which we have read. Each one of them relates the goodwill of God to some tremendous thing. But you and I need constantly to be held strongly to this fact, that God's attitude toward us is a 'goodwill' attitude, in a very vast and full way. It is not always easy to feel that; it is sometimes difficult to believe it. Does that sound too bad a thing to say? Are there not times when you really do wonder about this - when for anybody to say in those situations and conditions that the Lord is in an attitude of goodwill toward you sounds almost like mockery? We know this conflict with the evil forces that are always trying to come between us and the Lord, to make the Lord appear evil, as giving Him their own complexion, or giving us their complexion and transferring it to God, suggesting that God is not a God of goodwill. It is a real battle to maintain that position, otherwise there would have been no point in the Lord saying to His disciples, "Fear not, little flock". 'You will go to the slaughter, you will know suffering, you will know what it means to have your innocence made into evil by evil-minded people, you will know what it means to have your purity besmirched and blackened, your good name defamed' - all that the Lamb Himself knew, we shall know it as the little flock - 'but fear not, none of this is evidence that God is against you, none of this is proof that God is other than a God of goodwill toward you'. That is something that we must constantly hold on to. It is a part of the very victory that has to be maintained. "Your Father's good pleasure".

The Frown of God's Goodwill

Now, strangely enough, the very goodwill of God is often hidden behind a frown. I turn to my friend John Bunyan. You know that he had a man called Goodwill. He lived at the wicket gate, and Christian's first contact with Goodwill was when he came to the gate. He saw the notice written up, "Knock and it shall be opened", and he knocked and the man opened. It was Goodwill. But how is he described? "A very grave person called Goodwill". Surely that is a contradiction! Surely that is not right! If we had been describing Goodwill according to our idea, well, we should have said he was a boisterous, hilarious, hearty, jovial sort of person who was just falling over you with beneficence and everything light and helpful and cheerful. But in John Bunyan's story it was a very grave person that Christian met when he met Goodwill at the wicket gate. And, the gate having been opened to him somewhat, and seeing this very grave person and being asked what he wanted and giving his reply, he was suddenly laid hold of by Goodwill with a terrible grasp and pulled in so strongly that he might almost have been torn to pieces. Anything but goodwill, it seemed! Christian did not expect that, and he turned to the man and said, 'Why did you do that?' 'Oh', he said, 'Beelzebub has a castle just over there, and he is always watching for pilgrims coming, so that he can shoot them down before they get through the gate. He was going to shoot you down, so I pulled you in'. Sometimes we need rough handling, and it does not mean it is not goodwill.

This is the marvelous shrewdness and honesty of Bunyan. Why was Goodwill a very grave person? Because of the aspects of the wicket gate. It looked down the way to the city of Destruction; and Goodwill had constantly in full view all that was going on down there - the souls perishing and going to perdition. He saw the road out, and the hard, difficult way from the city of Destruction to the wicket gate, and how many were caught and slain or turned back before they got through. He saw all that. And you cannot live in full view of the awful depredations of sin, Satan and Hell without being a grave person, with all goodwill. He saw the castle of Beelzebub, and the malignant eyes watching for pilgrims, to shoot them down before they could get through; he knew this hatred, this malice of the Evil One; and with all the goodwill in the world he could not but be a grave person in the light of that. And he saw on - he saw the way the pilgrims were going. He knew what they would encounter. He knew all that they had to meet. He knew all the rest of the story contained in that wonderful Pilgrim's Progress, which was not always progress as we think of it, for we make progress very often by falls, by mistakes. There are Giants of Despair, and there are deep and dark valleys, and there are many other things. Goodwill stands looking in all directions, taking in everything, but he is still Goodwill.

The point is that God is disposed like this. Goodwill is not just some soft, happy-go-lucky sort of person. The Lord takes in all the gravity and seriousness of the whole course of things, and He has never promised that we should be exempt from these perils and these dangers. He has not said, 'You will never suffer, you will never be tried'. No. He has promised us nothing short of: "In the world ye have tribulation" (John 16:33). But He has said, 'When these things come, do not forget that it is never to be interpreted as indicating that I am disposed toward you otherwise than in this way of goodwill, good pleasure'.

We have to meet, then, our difficulties and go through our trials and believe that in them God's will is good and perfect and acceptable. It is all in the good pleasure of His will. And is it not true that it just works out like that? We sometimes feel, 'Oh, that it might never have been, that this might never have been', and afterward we say, 'God meant it for good; the outcome is good, not evil; I did not see it, I could not see it, but it was the good pleasure of His will'. "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom". Rough handling - but it is good will. Many an adversity, but the goodwill is looking over it all and following the whole course. I can say this out of my own coward heart, that knows only too well what it means to wonder whether the will of God is always good. The Gospel begins with goodwill, and it develops and unfolds to a vast fulness encompassing all ages - the good pleasure of His will.

So He says, "little flock". He immediately, in so saying, admitted that His flock would be very small in comparison. They would be very full of suffering, because they were going the way of the Lamb, 'following the Lamb whithersoever he goeth'. A "little flock". But - 'fear not, small, despised, persecuted flock, fear not!' In the midst of all that comes upon the world, remember, it is the Lamb who has everything in hand, and He has it all in hand with a view to having with Him the company of which we read in Revelation 14. "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom". It is "the good pleasure of his will".

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Mar-Apr 1954, Vol 32-2

I Have Learned... I Know... I Can Do... Through Christ

"Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound: in everything and in all things have I learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me" (Philippians 4:11-13).

If there is one statement in Scripture that finds us out, it is this one. It was Paul who said it; but I wonder how many of us could say it, with the same positive affirmation? You will notice, however, that the Apostle is stating it as the result of a life-long schooling. 'This', he says, 'is the issue of my schooling with Christ. I have learned the secret. "I have learned... I know... I can do..."!'

The course of things is learning through experience, and thus coming to knowledge - knowledge which is not theory at all, but which works out in practice: "I can do". That is the meaning for us of life with Christ. If we, His children, want to know the meaning of our experiences in this very exacting school - for it is an exacting school: we don't get away with anything; nothing escapes; we are held to it, severely and strictly, though behind all is wisdom and love - the meaning of our experiences in the exacting school which the Christian life is, and is intended to be, it is that we may LEARN, that we may KNOW, that we may DO. God's end is always a practical end, and the end is DOING. 'Ihave learned... I know... I can do!'

And, of course, the way to that end is learning that you CANNOT do, and that you do NOT know. I suppose that that is the truest thing that could be said of anyone in the School of the Spirit. The thing that they are learning is that they cannot do, and they do not know. That is the way. It does seem, on the one hand, a negative process; it does seem to be an undoing experience; but God's ends are always positive. And an absolute necessity to our arriving at the position, "I can do all things" -a tremendous statement! - which is His will for every one of us, is a deep, fundamental consciousness and realisation of how bankrupt we are of knowledge and of ability apart from Christ. For the all-governing clause or fragment is: 'in Him - that is, in Christ - who strengthens me'.

But. while this is a message of rebuke and correction, demanding adjustment, here is a word of tremendous hope, tremendous comfort.

Self-Mistrust

I was reading recently Boreham's Oliver Cromwell. When Cromwell was a young fellow, farming in Huntingdonshire, he wrote a letter to his aunt, in which there occurred the following words:

'I am a poor creature; I am sure that I shall never earn the least mite.'

There is the foundation of a man who hurled kings and thrones from their places; turned a regime upside down; became the terror of evil-doers; and was, if not the greatest, one of the greatest champions of God in the history of this country. 'I am a poor creature; I am sure I shall never earn the least mite'! You should hear what Thomas Carlyle says about him. Someone said that Cromwell was one of the four greatest men in history. Says Boreham: 'Carlyle would laugh: "Four! The other three are mere puppets compared with Cromwell - they are not in the same world with him!"'

But, Carlyle goes on to say, there was a turning point in Cromwell's life. From the Huntingdonshire farmer, with the consciousness of his weakness, his insufficiency, his worthlessness, there came a turn. Carlyle's way of expressing it, because he did not know in experience what he was talking about, was: 'It was what Cromwell would call his "conversion".' We know what that means. And then, away ploughing in his field, Cromwell heard of the great need: 'Everything in this country', says Boreham, 'rushing pell-mell toward turgid crisis, wild tumult, red revolution, and the cry for a man, a good man, a strong man, a great man.' As he heard that cry, whilst ploughing his field, something inside him said: 'You are that man! The world needs a man, a good man, a great man, a strong man - Thou art the man!'

Cromwell set to weighing up his assets and his liabilities: 'I cannot be that man; I can never answer that call, meet that demand.' But then, as he was thinking about it after the day's work, in his country home, by the fire, with his wife at his side, and the little child in the cradle, he took down the big Bible, and opened it to read; and turning the pages, he came to the letter to the Philippians, and began to read chapter 4. He stopped at verse 13: "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" - and that was the beginning of the history that we know. It carried him through to the end. When he was at Hampton Court, passing from this life, he called for the Bible, and asked them to read; and they said: 'What shall we read?' And he said: 'Read from Philippians 4:13 - "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me".'

Now, you and I are not going to be Oliver Cromwells; we need not begin to get big ideas! But the principles are the same. 'I am a poor creature' - is that how you feel today? Most of us feel like that! 'I shall never earn the smallest mite.' Our worth, our 'worthfulness', is NIL. The Apostle Paul, with all his great endowments, was one man who was ever ready to tell us of his own worthlessness: 'Chief of sinners, chief of sinners'; 'I am what I am by the grace of God'; and much more like that.

The School of Christ

We have said that Paul arrived at this position through a long and difficult schooling. We have some catalogues given us by him as to what he encountered, in that School of Christ, of opposition and adversity, of trials and difficulties, of suffering and affliction. He is telling us that that was the nature of the school; they were the things that made up his schooling. But what he is saying is not: 'I have arrived today at this conclusion, after all that' - but: 'It was in the schooling, when I was in persecution, that I discovered this. When I was in hunger and nakedness and peril, my reaction to my situation was such as to make that experience yield a secret; to wring a knowledge, a secret, out of the very situation itself.'

Now, when you and I are in trouble, going through a difficult time, having a difficult experience, perhaps our first thought is to pray that we might get out of it, be delivered from it. We groan in it, and long for a change of the situation, some way of escape. That is usually our reaction. 'How long will this last? when will the Lord deliver me from this? when will He change this whole thing? when will it pass?' But I gather, from what Paul says, that his was another reaction. He took in this situation, and he said to himself: 'I have something to learn in this - something that is going to make me able for more later on. There is a secret buried in this, and I am going to extract that secret. I am going to make this yield something for the Lord and for the future.' With Paul it was not, 'HOW can I get out of it?', but, 'WHAT can I get out of it?' We usually say, in the presence of very real difficulties, sorrows and trials: 'I cannot... I just cannot go on; I cannot bear this any more. I just CANNOT!' Paul was saying to his situations: 'I am going to make you teach me how I CAN!'

A Positive Attitude

You see, it is a question of a positive attitude toward things, is it not? It makes such a difference, the attitude that we take. "I have learned...": I have learned the secret; I have made everything yield something of a positive character. The result is: "I know...": I know how to be abased, to be set at nought, to be walked over, trampled upon, ignored, regarded as worthless; I know how to take hold of that - how not to go down under it, but to make it serve spiritual ends. I know how to abound: when people are kind and good - when, as you Philippians, they send me gifts, so that I can say, "I have all things, and abound" - I do not get proud and uppish, and conceited and self-sufficient, and think myself something: I know that is ruination! I have learned the perils of prosperity just as much as the perils of adversity; I have found the secret. And so, come what may, for or against; be as I may be - and I am today in prison at the end of my life - I can! I do not say - After all this, I cannot bear any more; but - I can do all things, through Christ who strengtheneth me.'

I pass on this message, not as an elaborate address or discourse, but as a word from my heart. It is a challenge to us all as to our attitude. Our natural condition - which is not mere imagination, but undoubtedly something very real - would so often argue: 'I cannot! The situation is utterly disconcerting, utterly devastating, both inside and outside. Naturally, it is the end: it is paralysis: I cannot, I just cannot.' That is the situation, if we just look at ourselves: if we in ourselves represent the sum-total of everything. If we look at the situation, that argues finality; we may as well give it up and say: I cannot, I cannot! But what about Christ? Is there not another off-look from ourselves to 'Christ who strengthens me'? This is not a question of a psychological effect upon ourselves, in trying to be more cheerful, and to make ourselves believe something that is not true. There are the facts - in ourselves, and perhaps in our circumstances: they ARE the FACTS - they are stark facts: and there is no getting away from them.

A Greater Fact

Nevertheless, there is a greater fact than ourselves, and than our circumstances: the fact of Christ. And so you and I will have to seek from the Lord this grace, morning by morning, and day by day, perhaps even hour by hour, as we face our own inability and disability, our own utter futility and helplessness - the grace to say: Nevertheless, I can through Christ. I say again, it is not just a psychological reaction, or fillip, which will make us ignore facts. No! this is the act of faith; this is the link of faith; this is the plank of faith, across which we pass right over from ourselves and our condition to Christ. And today, when we are as weak, as helpless, as overwhelmed, as perplexed, as distracted by things as ever - nevertheless, today, and tomorrow, and all the days, I CAN - I CAN THROUGH CHRIST! If it is real faith in Christ, you will find that the Spirit comes in, and enables you to do what you never would have done, or could have done, but for that positive attitude. May we be helped to find the way of deliverance from the 'I cannot... I cannot... I cannot...' into the 'I can do all things through Christ.'

No doubt, with many this represents a very practical situation. As we look on ahead, we dread some things, for we know that those things are beyond us altogether; but we have got to take this position. We must look at our situation today, and say: 'This situation holds something. The Lord is not answering my prayer and getting me out of it; He is not changing it, He is just not doing all that I am longing for, and praying for, and craving for, and waiting for - changing my position and circumstances, and getting me right out of it. I pray, and there is nothing; there is no getting through; He is not doing it. Therefore, I must look at it in another way. There is a secret in this, and I have got to get hold of that secret. What does the Lord intend to teach me and to give me in this situation, that I can bring out of it as fruit, as stock-in-trade for the work in the days to come? What is it? I must get it!'

If we take that attitude toward things, I think we shall probably find that that is our way of deliverance, our way out, our way through. Let us ask for grace to do this, not only now, in our present situation, but as to everything that the Lord may require of us in the future - perhaps things that we never thought of. I am quite sure that that young fellow of twenty-three, in Huntingdonshire, pushing his plough, never, never thought of himself as becoming the Lord Protector of England, the ruler of this whole country, the changer of the whole constitution, the one who overthrew the mighty system of evil. Cromwell never saw himself as we see him, and know him to be, but his life was built upon this: 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.' While we may never rise to such eminence, or become great historic figures, nevertheless, through Christ things can be, which would go far beyond any dreams that we ever had, more than we ever thought.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Mar-Apr 1958, Vol 36-2

"I Have Loved Thee"

From "The Work of the Ministry" - Volume 2

Reading: Revelation 3:7-11.

You will notice that the words of our title are linked with the Lord's coming - "I come quickly". And with His coming imminent He addresses these words to His children. The issue, after all, at the end, in the coming of the Lord, will be that there is that which draws out His own heart and makes it possible for Him to say this kind of thing - "I have loved thee!" And this is a discriminating statement. We must place an emphasis upon the "thee" because that represents a certain condition that does answer to the heart of the Lord. The Lord loves ALL His children, but there seems to be something special here.

Straitness at the Time of the End

From this message to Philadelphia, which has the Lord's coming in view, we know how a faithful testimony may find itself at the time of the end. Undoubtedly the terms of this message indicate that the Lord's testimony will be in straitness, in limitation, hedged up, shut in. These words "key" and "door" surely indicate that there is something that is locked up, something that men would shut out, lock out, something men would hinder and frustrate and curtail and limit; doors that men would close and lock. Over against this, though it may be like that - and it will be like that to the end for a faithful testimony - the Lord says: 'I have the key. And no matter what doors men may close, I can set before you a door which no one can close. Keys and doors ultimately are with Me, in the presence of the severest straitening, curtailment and difficulty'.

The True Testimony and the False

And then we have this word which says there are those who "say they are Jews, and they are not", but are "of the synagogue of Satan", implying that there is something which seeks to simulate and represent what is of God, but which is not true and not pure. That is why the Lord introduces Himself as the One that is holy and the One that is true, in contrast to that which is false and impure, which is not transparent, which will not stand up to the scrutiny of those eyes of flame, with which He is presented to us at the beginning of these messages to the churches. He is looking through and exposing the false. But a true testimony will find it is based upon something that is true, as over against the seeming true which is false, savouring of that which is a lie - a synagogue of Satan, a legalistic system in antagonism to a pure, clear, full, free testimony of the Lord Jesus. That is how it may be in any expression in fullness of the Lord's mind towards the end. It is not going to be popular and have all the doors open in all directions, with everyone acclaiming and sponsoring. It is going to feel very much shut out and find many doors closed. 'Never mind', says the Lord; 'I know, I have the key. The issue is with Me'.

The Divine Approbation of Faithfulness

But what is it that brings out this divine approbation? 'I am going to make them know that I have loved thee'. There is a partiality of God - not just for persons, for people, as such; it is not a selectiveness among people which draws out His partiality. But there is a partiality of the Lord towards faithfulness itself. It is that which draws out this word, "I have loved thee". I am sure it must have been very heartening to the saints at Philadelphia to get a message like that. It must almost have startled them in their difficulties, in everything that seemed to say that the Lord was not with them and was not prospering them. There is so much that is against them; there are so many difficulties. Then suddenly a letter arrives, and in it the Lord says: "I have loved thee". Almost startling! Why? Here are the oppressed saints at Philadelphia, and the Lord says, "thou hast a little power". They themselves are more conscious of weakness than of power, seeming to be very much weaker than otherwise, and yet there is that there which speaks of the Lord, something that the Lord can light upon and say: 'In all your consciousness of weakness, in the seeming overwhelming insufficiency, there is that there which is My foothold, which speaks of Me'. "Thou hast a little power, and didst keep my word" - 'you have been faithful to My revealed thoughts and mind' -, "and didst not deny my name" - the Name of absolute supremacy and honour and glory -, and "didst keep the word of my patience".

"The Word of My Patience"

"The word of my patience". A strange phrase. What does it mean? Surely just this - that, all down the ages, God spoke a word to His servants, gave them something from Himself, and then it seemed He went away and left them, and they had to wait and wait and wait. They were tested by the word, having to pass through a long period of waiting for the word to be fulfilled, for God to honour His word. "The word of the Lord tried him", it says about Joseph (Ps. 105:19). He evidently had something from the Lord at some time, and now he is in a dungeon. His soul enters into iron. "The word of the Lord tried him". Here in Philadelphia they had the word, and had not given it up; they had held on through difficulties, through the darkness, till the word should be fulfilled. "Kept the word of my patience." Upon all that the Lord comes back and says: "I have loved thee".

We see a grand illustration and embodiment of all this in Daniel - the man who was so conscious of his own weakness, who had to be helped up on to his feet by stages, first to his knees and then to his feet, so conscious was he of his weakness (Dan. 10:8-11). "O man greatly beloved" (vs. 19). His strength was in God and not in himself. Daniel was one who 'kept the word' of the Lord. We recall how he came to know "by the books" - he had read Jeremiah, he had the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah - that 70 years should pass over Israel in captivity, and then they should be restored. Seventy years is a long time. He had discovered the word of the Lord and he did not let it go. He kept the word through all that time in Babylon: he held the word - THE LORD had said it.

And if ever a man had 'not denied His Name' it was Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar was a great name in Babylon, and every thing is now between the Name of Jehovah and the name of Nebuchadnezzar. And he did not deny His Name. He and his brethren held to the Name of "the God of heaven", Jehovah.

And as for the 'word of His patience', well, it was a long-drawn-out business for Daniel and his brethren. He was an old man when these later scenes of his prophecies were enacted. All the time his patience is being tested. If this happens or that happens, what about the Lord? And how many things could have happened! The fire could have devoured, the lions could have destroyed. The word of the Lord - where is it? Knowing God, neither fire, lions, nor anything else can upset that word. It is going to be fulfilled. "O man greatly beloved". "I have loved thee". Oh the faithfulness of Daniel in all these ways. He held on to His word.

It is so easy to say, 'Well, you see, everything has gone to pieces, and there is no hope now for a real testimony. I will make the best of things as they are. Jettison Ephesians, jettison Colossians. It may have been all right at one time, but give it all up now.' "Thou hast kept my word". Still holding on, if only it be in a remnant, a small representation of the whole, to see something that answers to the word of the Lord. Still holding on to the absolute supremacy of His Name over every other name, cost what it will and may. Still enduring many difficulties, many frustrations, knowing many closed doors and all that, and yet the word of His patience kept. 'The Lord is going to fulfil His word - He is going to fulfil His word sooner or later'.

That is faith, and that is the ground. It is a simple word, but that is how we may find things. The Lord is coming soon, and He wants to find, even if in a small way so far as numbers are concerned, a faithful people like that. He wants to be able to say, 'Your vindication will come', and the greatest vindication that you could ever desire or hope for is that He should say through it all, "I have loved thee". Do you want more than that? None of us wants more than that the Lord should say, "I have loved thee", "O greatly beloved".

The Most Difficult Thing in the World

READING: Heb. 4:1-13; 11:5-6.

I am going to speak for a little while on the most difficult thing in the world, that is, faith. So far as the Lord's people are concerned, it can be truly said that the whole of their life in every aspect - salvation in its first step and every subsequent step, spiritual growth, spiritual sustenance, spiritual victory, spiritual work and service, fellowship with the Lord and ultimate glory is all resolved into one thing and that one thing is faith. Faith is the key to everything in our relationship to the Lord. It is all just a question of faith - not faith as something in itself, but faith in God. That is something which has to be faced and as far as possible at any point, settled; but it is not a thing which is settled once and for all. There has to be a settlement made again and again on this point. We are really continually confronted with this question; in the presence of new situations and trials and perplexities and seeming contradictions, am I going to believe God or not, am I going to repose faith in Him or not, am I going to trust the Lord or not? That is true all the way along, and it always will be so. And sometimes those testings are very, very acute and severe. A brother wrote to me this week, one who has been greatly used of the Lord in other lands as well as in this one, who knows the Lord, and has a very real walk with the Lord, and he just put this in his letter. "It sometimes seems as though the Lord is a thousand miles away and has no interest whatever in me. It sometimes seems as though He has just cut me off". You may think that is very extreme, but some of you will not. You know quite well that such experiences are true to the life of a child of God. I was saying that this is something that has to be faced. That is the life to which we are called. The Lord has not covered it, has not veiled it, hidden it from us. We are called unto a life of faith, and we had better face it; and then we must, as far as possible, if we are going to get through, settle it, for I repeat there is no step or stage or aspect of the life of the child of God from first to last, from the beginning to the end that is not a matter of faith. Well, that is a fact, and let us be quite honest about it, and quite frank with ourselves. That is the situation. It will help to a very large extent if we have looked this thing straight in the face and not shelved it, not tried to evade it, but accepted it.

A Key to Faith

But we want to get inside of this matter of faith, and here in this letter to the Hebrews which is, as you know, from start to finish, a letter on the matter of faith, we have amongst others one very helpful clue and key to faith. It is in this fourth chapter. You may not think that it really is a matter of faith for it does not seem to lie on the face of it, but when you examine it, you find that that is the thing that it is touching - this strange, somewhat technical language - "For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit". You will notice that that statement begins with a 'for', and that 'for' links you with Israel in the wilderness failing to enter into rest. It is said that they had the Gospel preached to them, but the word spoken did not profit, not being mixed or united by FAITH. It did not profit, not being united by FAITH. Then there follows, "I sware in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest". They could not enter in because of unbelief. Then more about the rest and their failure to enter in, and then - 'FOR the word of God divides between soul and spirit'. This is the key to faith, or a key to faith. What is it? It is the conquest of the soul, and that is said to explain the whole of the wilderness failure and the subsequent not entering into the rest.

You know what soul is. I am not going to stay with soul and spirit very much. We know in this matter that the soul is the self-conscious life. By our souls we are conscious of ourselves and other people and all that world of things here. Spirit is just the God-conscious life. By our spirit we are conscious of God Who is Spirit, and all that realm. Self-conscious and God-conscious life, and because those two things were not defined, put apart and recognised in their difference, but allowed to overlap and bring about a state of confusion, they did not enter in. They failed because of unbelief. Well, what does that amount to? The self-conscious life predominated, and the God-conscious life did not predominate, was made subject and subservient. In other words, for them, everything was a matter of how self was affected by the situation and by the prospect. You find them again and again full of enthusiasm, full of zeal, full of what looked like real interest in the things of the Lord. Oh yes, they were going on, they were full of apparently real devotion to the Lord. But that was when the situation was pleasing them and when the prospect was presented so that it brought a great sense of possibilities for them, prospects for them, and their gratification. Oh, this is fine, this is good; tell us more about this wonderful land to which we are going, keep telling us about all its glorious wonders, and resources; go on, we are most interested in this, we are in for that! But it was all soul, self-conscious self-interest, self-gratification. And when there arose some situation, either present or in relation to that prospect which made it a matter of denying, sacrificing self, letting go self-interests, and having to face up to a very difficult situation which was going to be very costly to them, they were not so interested; their zeal went, and unbelief rose up; it was there and it rose up. They were not so concerned about this thing now, it was not now for them. What was it for? It was for the Lord ONLY first, and their interests were entirely eclipsed. They would only come into their inheritance when the Lord got His. The Lord first; "Seek ye first his kingdom and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt. 6:33), and that putting first often meant a letting go of everything personal.

Does not that get right to the heart of this thing? What is disappointment to us? Can we always say that disappointment which we think is disappointment with the Lord and over His things is because we did so much want the Lord to have what He wanted irrespective of our interests at all; we were prepared to let everything go, WE were not mixed up in this thing somehow? In the Lord getting what He wants, we see ourselves figuring in some way. It has to be a very sharp instrument that gets in between those two things and defines them because they are so mixed up. Is it not true that faith wavers, weakens and ofttimes goes right down and under when in the way of the Lord's interests OURSELVES are entirely shut out?

What is the key to faith then? The key to faith is this dividing of soul and spirit, or, in other words, it is the complete abnegation of self-interests - not in the Buddhist sense of annihilation, but in the sense of God's interests becoming positive and predominant. That is where the battle of faith rages; it rages upon that ground always. If we were so utterly - and not one of us really is - if we were so utterly consumed for the Lord's interests alone that no other interest in our lives had any precedence or power to govern us, we would be in victory all the time. It is this completely disinterested concern for what the Lord wants that is the key to faith. If Israel in the wilderness had taken this attitude - Well, this is a very difficult experience, but the Lord is after something, the Lord wants something, and He evidently knows that that is the best way to get it; all right, I am with Him, I may lose everything, I may suffer the loss of all things, but it is what the Lord wants that matters. The Lord wants us in that land; well, if it means everything, to be there for the Lord's pleasure, that is the thing that matters - if that had been their attitude, do you think they would have journeyed forty years in the wilderness round and round, do you think at the border of the land they would have been turned back to perish in the wilderness? You can see in the consummation, that next generation which did go in, went in on this matter of faith only. The whole story is based upon faith.

There is the faith of Rahab the harlot; her faith was the key to the land - Jericho. Then there was the faith of going round six days in silence and on the seventh the shout of faith, without drawing a sword or turning a hand to do anything but go round - ridiculous! It is all such utter faith. They went up and possessed on that basis. That generation did enter in because of faith, whereas the generation before did not enter in because of unbelief. But this generation went up because Joshua and Caleb had said, If the Lord delight in us, He will bring us in (Num. 14:8). That is the matter - it is the delight of the Lord, perfectly disinterested concern for what the Lord wants, and that is one of the most difficult things in life, to get this self out of the way.

The Result of Faith

(a) Rest

So, just finally, a little word on the result of faith. First of all, of course, it is rest. We are not now thinking of some future rest, some future land, whatever our hymn writers have to say about it. You read again this fourth chapter of the letter to the Hebrews, and you see "We who have believed do enter into that rest". Some of us have already entered in, says the Apostle. God defines a day - it is not the future - and some of us do enter in. This rest is not a time period, it is a state, and the Apostle says here so clearly that entering into rest is simply a matter of entering into a settled faith in God. You know quite well that however doctrinal and technical this may seem, it is very true. We can prove it almost any day of our lives. When we get to the place where we put ourselves and what we would like on one side and accept the Lord's will - not just resignedly saying Well, if that is what the Lord wants, I capitulate; if I could have it otherwise, I would, but this is evidently what the Lord wants: but if with all our heart we accept it and enter into this with the Lord to co-operate with Him, when we come there, rest enters into our souls, our souls come to rest, on all sorts of things, small and great.

(b) Power with God

Then victory comes because faith is power. If the Word of God is strong and clear about one thing, it is about this. Oh, faith is power. First of all, it is power with God. What is more powerful with God than to be well-pleasing to Him, and that is why I read about Enoch. "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and he was not found because God translated him: for he hath had witness borne to him that before his translation he had been well-pleasing unto God". That is all centred in, and made to rest upon, faith. "Without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto him". Surely that is our ambition above all - to be well-pleasing unto Him. How? - to believe Him, to trust Him, to repose faith in Him, to be well-pleasing unto Him. It is power with God. We can consider that along the other line, that our weakness with the Lord is always found in our reservation, our question, our doubt, our uncertainty. That is our weakness with God, and the Lord waits.

(c) Power over Satan

It is victory over the Devil because, if there is one thing that is the playground of the Devil, it is unbelief, and if there is one thing that the Devil is always seeking to promote and maintain, it is unfaith. The hallmark of the Devil's work from the Garden to the end is unbelief, doubt of God, to question about God and God's ways - and God's motives. That is where the Devil is coming all the time - with an 'if'. If this and if that. If God were what He says He is, then this would not be. You know the thousands of 'ifs' and 'buts' of the Devil. The only power of victory over the Devil is faith in God. We can use the language of victory and power over Satan and it counts for nothing. We must have a new position of power over the enemy. The key is faith; it may be faith in the Blood, or in the Name, or in the Lord, but it is faith.

(d) Power over the World

It is power over the world. "This is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith" (1 John 5:4). The world in this sense is that whole system and order and atmosphere and attitude of things which must have the seen, and the present. What is the mark of the world? It must see, it must have now. Anything that is unseen and not present is utterly outside of the mentality of the world, and we know how much of the world there is in our nature and the battle is there. Faith overcomes that world that is in our own natures and around us. "The things which are seen are temporal: but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. 4:18). Faith has to do with those things.

We could talk for many hours on the matter of faith. Please do not think I am laying down the law to you. God knows the battle in all of our hearts on this matter and how true we know this to be in our own experience. We simply talk to one another solemnly. We shall always have to fall down before Him and say, Lord, increase our faith! There will be many times when we shall say, Lord, I have not faith for that, I have not faith to face this, to accept this. It is a matter of a new dealing with the Lord on this question of faith. There is the fact, it has to be faced, to be settled, to be resolved again and again. Everything depends upon it - the Victory in every realm, going on with the Lord, getting through to what God has purposed. It is all this matter of faith in God, and thereby being well-pleasing unto Him. "He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him" (Heb. 11:6). Lord, increase our faith!

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-June 1945, Vol 23-3

Not Now But Afterwards

"Who is there among you that will give ear to this?

that will hearken and hear for the time to come?" (Isaiah 42:23).

Without considering the context of these words, we use them to ask ourselves if we really believe that there is a time to come. Do we believe that the time to come is a bigger time than now, that the afterward is much greater than the present, that there are ages of ages before us, and that however long it may be, our whole lifetime here on earth is only a small fragment of a dispensation? Do we believe that our service in "the ages to come" is far more important than in this age?

We do not thereby rule out the importance of this life in which we should buy up every opportunity and redeem the time, but even so our life is but a span which will soon be completed, and we depart just when we are reaching a condition of being able to help others. No sooner have we learned something which might be of value to other people than we are called away. What a problem, what an enigma life is!

"For the time to come." That was the perspective of the apostles, one of whom wrote, "I will give diligence that... ye may be able after my decease..." (2 Peter 1:15). This is the real test - whether we want always to be in view, interested only in what we can do in our own lifetime, or whether we are content to wait for the values of "the time to come".

The question arises as to whether you would be prepared to go to serve the Lord in India or Africa, and within a few weeks lay down your life, either in martyrdom or in sickness. Would it be worth it? If you think so, then it can only be in the light of the afterward, the "time to come". You believe that it would be worth while to go out to India for just a month and die, do you? If you do not, you have no right to go.

Let us always have "the time to come" as a real motive in living. The fruit of our lives cannot be immediate, for only a small part of its meaning can be in our days, the total value will appear in the afterward. We have to live not only for this time, for though we live right up to the limit in our own day we cannot do or be much, and I doubt whether the outcome here is worth the cost. The cost, however, is not just for our lifetime; the Lord has in view "the ages of the ages".

"Not This Way Before"

(Joshua 3:4)

The third chapter of the Book of Joshua is, in itself and in Israel's history, a very great chapter, marking as it does the consummation of a long, long story related to Divine purpose. But in its figurativeness it represents the greatest crisis and event in human history. There are some fragments in this chapter which are tense and weighty with significance; such as:

"Ye have not passed this way heretofore" (verse 4).

"Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you" (verse 10).

"(Jordan overfloweth all its banks all the time of harvest)" (verse 15).

"Clean over Jordan" (verse 17).

The great new prospect by a new step of faith.

The superlative evidence of the presence of the Lord.

The making of the overwhelming difficulty the very way of that evidence.

The finality of God's redemptive work.

If Jordan is a figure of the Cross of Christ, as it surely is, these are some of the major factors of His death and resurrection, and of ours with Him. The death means death's removal from before to behind. There is no prospect whatever while death is before, straddling the path. Its removal as a barrier opens up a vast new prospect.

The resurrection is the once for all and the abiding expression of superlative power as God's means of making His presence and His faithfulness known. It is the immense "Hereby". How shall we know? The answer, including all answers, is "The power of his resurrection". God never makes it easy for His people to have this 'knowing'. The Cross was no easy matter. It was the supreme test of God's superiority over adverse forces, and the principle abides. The experience of the "called according to his purpose" is that of an ever-increasing realisation of the depth and strength of Jordan. "So great a death," Paul called it. "That we should trust, not in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead."

Jordan in flood spoke of sin's overwhelming of the whole scene. It spoke of death's inundating spread and power, breaking all banks. It spoke of human weakness and helplessness before these great forces. But it spoke of God's superiority over all.

Lastly: "Clean over Jordan." The finished, perfected work of salvation from all the above, and unto "an inheritance, incorruptible, and undefiled, and which fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you who, by the power of God are kept...".

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1965, Vol 43-1

Principles of Divine Guidance

"Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of meeting, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward, throughout all their journeys: but if the cloud was not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and there was fire therein by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys" (Ex. 40:34-38).

Life Must be Viewed as a Whole

In this matter of guidance, life has to be viewed as a whole. That is the first thing about it, and a very important thing. The guidance of the nation of Israel through the wilderness is always viewed from the standpoint of the end, the goal. There are such words as: "He led them safely, so that they feared not" (Psa. 78:53); "He led them also by a straight way, that they might go to a city of habitation" (Psa. 107:7). In the phases and the stages of the journey very often that seemed not to be true. He led them on safely? by a straight path? In neither of those matters did it always seem to be true. But in this matter of their guidance, the end was always in view from the beginning. The fact is that they got there at last, and it is the end and the verdict which covers the whole course.

It is like that with Divine guidance. We must recognise this, and settle it, that we have got to take life as a whole. If we only take it at given times and in given situations, we shall be in confusion, contradiction, in a great deal of perplexity, uncertainty, doubt, perhaps with big questions, and a feeling that there is no guidance at all in our lives - that we have just been left. But we must take the long view, and the end will prove that we were being guided, even when we thought otherwise, that the Hand was upon us when it seemed that it was not so. Divine guidance has to be viewed from the standpoint of the whole. It is life in its entirety that has to be related to the guidance of God.

When we have got that clear - and the Word of God bears it out very fully - we are able to take another step, and to see that this inclusiveness and 'conclusiveness' of Divine guidance is related to two things.

God's Purpose of Fullness

Firstly, it is related to Divine purpose. His purpose is a very clearly defined thing, a very concrete and definite thing, a set and fixed object, and His guidance is completely bound up with His purpose. When His purpose is really governing, when it has become the sole interest and object of our lives, we find there is a sovereignty over everything. "To them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28). That is a very comprehensive "all things". The statement is that not one of the "all things" is without some good being definitely put into it, and got out of it, by the sovereignty of God, when His purpose governs. That cannot be said of the 'all things' which compose lives which are not so governed. Their 'all things' do not work good. The guidance of God is therefore inseparable from His purpose.

This is perfectly clear in the case of Israel. The purpose of God was made known from the beginning very clearly and definitely: it was to bring them into the land. It came out most definitely and positively when they were over Jordan, and Joshua was actually about to lead them in. The Lord said to Joshua that he was to be strong and of good courage, because he was to bring the people into the land which the Lord had SWORN to give them (Josh. 1:6). That was His purpose. We know that that is an historical figure and type of what we have in the New Testament - the heavenly country and all the riches and fullness of Christ. That land of Canaan was a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of wealth, riches, mines, and so on. We know that it was only a pale foreshadowing of what came in with Christ. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!" (Rom. 11:33). "The unsearchable riches of Christ" (Eph. 3:8). The purpose of God is the fullness of Christ, and all Divine guidance is bound up with that.

God's Vessel of Realisation

In the next place, Divine guidance is bound up with, and centred in, God's vessel. Here in the case of Israel it is set forth in the tabernacle. Immediately the Lord had accomplished the redemption of His people, He proceeded to reveal that great design which embodied His purpose - the tabernacle, His vessel. And again we know so well that the tabernacle was a twofold figure of Christ and His Church: if you like, Christ dominant, and then in corporate expression; Christ the foundation, Christ giving it its character, nature and meaning. That is the vessel of God's purpose. That was to govern - to be central or to precede, as the case might be - and all Divine guidance was related to that.

This is a point that perhaps has not been clearly recognised. This tabernacle was a far, far more important thing than we have realised. We like the pictorial aspect of it; we are very pleased with all this typology of the tabernacle; but it has been brought down to such an earthly level. Just reflect for a moment that for forty days and forty nights, in unceasing communion, God was revealing to Moses the details, the whole conception and construction of that tabernacle. Forty days and forty nights Moses was with the Lord in the mount, receiving the pattern; and then, when he had received that so meticulously and fully from the Lord, it required a definite coming in of the Holy Spirit to superintend the making of it in every part and detail. It needed men full of the Holy Ghost, with the Holy Spirit definitely in charge.

There is something here of tremendous significance and account. It is a great, heavenly order of things, a vast, heavenly system, condensed into the framework and material of a symbolic representation, but all there implicit in principle. And when it was set up, all Divine guidance was bound up with it. When the cloud rested, they could not move; the people could not move without the tabernacle. These prefigured Christ and the Church - His Body. The tabernacle was the combination of the Lord and His people, and although, in the wilderness, the people were apart from and objective to the tabernacle, in type they were one. What, then, was taught was that God moves Churchwise, and His people are governed in their movements by God's movements in the Church. It is the Church - when it is as God would have it - which governs Divine movement. God always moves in relation to His Church. He may have to stay and wait because a pause is called for in relation to the spiritual life of the Church. It may be a deeper unifying or an adjustment. It may be to deepen faith and patience. It may be unto deeper direct fellowship with Himself, which can be weakened if there is too much 'keeping on the go'. Whatever may be the occasion, God is concerned for His Church, and a supreme lesson to be learned by His people is that their way to fullness (the Land) is a collective and corporate one.

These are very important things for progress, for guidance. You are exercised about the guidance for your life. Your guidance, if this is true, very largely, if not absolutely, rests upon these two things: God's purpose, the fullness of Christ, and God's means or vessel, His Church. It is a related matter. I know that difficulties arise, but I am only enunciating the principle.

See, then, how jealous God was for this tabernacle - jealous over every detail of it, and jealous over relationships to it. For He was not seeing a THING called a 'tabernacle', or the tent of meeting and all its paraphernalia. He was seeing His Son, He was seeing His Church. God always has in view, not things, but the eternal reality, that of which this is only a pattern.

The Demand for Faith

Do take that to heart and think about it for it may answer some questions, or solve some problems. Now we note further that there was an element of mystery about this guidance, as there always is. God's wisdom and God's knowledge, in His ways with us, are not always revealed to us. The element of faith has always to be present. God's wisdom is a hidden wisdom, His full knowledge is a secret thing which He does not disclose to us. His 'whys' and His 'wherefores', what He is doing and why He is doing it, in this way or that, He does not explain. But there is always a meaning, as this history of Israel shows, in each stage of the Divine guidance. There is something lying within every phase of the Divine movements - or non-movements. This is not just something random, casual, inconsequential. With His purpose in view, God has a meaning in every phase and every stage of His ways with us. It is important for us to believe that, and always to look upon any particular phase or aspect of our life with God from this standpoint: What has God got in this? That is the thing that matters. Not, Let us get out of this as soon as we can, let us get past this, let us go on; but: What has this got to reveal? What has this got to teach? God has something there, and we have to discover it, because the cloud will not move until we have.

It may be that some are in the stopping place of Divine guidance, and you are all restless and hot to get on to the next phase, the next stage. You are impatient. But are you quite, quite sure that you have got your hand upon the meaning of the phase that you are in at present? Are you quite sure, quite clear, that you can say, 'Well, I do not know, I did not know, why the Lord brought about such a situation, such an arrest, allowed such an experience: but I have believed that He had some meaning in it, and I have definitely had this understanding with Him that I do not want to miss what He has got at this present time because it is all a part of that cumulative value which, after all, is the fullness of Christ'?

For the fullness of Christ is not some place to which you and I are going. It is a spiritual life which is growing now. We have to eliminate these geographical factors from an earthly representation of heavenly things, and remember that here time and distance have no place at all. They only have a place - if they have a place at all - in this, that we can proceed years in a moment, we can move miles spiritually in a step. We have only got to grasp what God means in the sense that we are determined not to move until we know that we have got what God means by our present experience. If we can only grasp it, see it, come alive to it, we have moved on years and moved on a great distance. Time is only a factor while we are failing for some reason or other either in apprehension or obedience. For instance, Israel could have got through to the land in eleven days. It took forty years. Why? Not because the Lord had appointed forty years, but because the purpose of God was not strongly enough settled in their hearts to rule out personal interests and considerations. And so it was they who made the extra time and the extra miles, not the Lord.

But let us come back to our main point. We have to make sure that we are learning what God is trying to teach us now, because there will be no movement until we do. The cloud will not lift and go on until we have grasped it. What has the Lord been after in all this? That is vital to the next phase and all subsequent phases. Have we got it? Are we quite sure about it? There is something hidden to be discovered and to be laid hold of in every phase and stage of the way.

Discipline

And all that is discipline. You see, the fact that God has a great purpose settled and fixed and clearly defined, and that we are called according thereto, and that there is a working of Divine sovereignty - all that never eliminates the factor of discipline, for the simple reason that God is not acting mechanically. This is not a machine just put together and wound up and started going by itself, by its own momentum. In God's purpose and in His methods with us, there is always the element of responsibility. God never made a machine, He made man, and man has responsibility. We are responsible creatures, and therefore discipline has its place. God will not reach His end mechanically, but only along the line of our choice. Will, of course, is the focal point of everything. Will, will, will - that was the trouble with Israel; that is the trouble with us all. The human mind will always be baffled, very largely, but the way through is a will that is absolutely set upon God's end, whatever that may cost.

Divine Sovereignty Over All

And then, with all this element of mystery and perplexity, discipline and instruction, growing intelligence unto responsibility, there will always remain a large margin for Divine sovereignty. Think again of Paul and his journey to Rome. You remember what he says at the beginning of his letter to the Romans, long before he went to them. The opening of his letter told them of his love and his unceasing prayer for them, and then he says that he wants them to know that he would have come to them again and again, but that he was hindered. Here is a man with his heart set upon the interests of the Lord in His Church as represented at Rome. He is a man whose life is wholly and utterly abandoned to Christ and to the Church, who is longing to be able to minister Christ to them in greater fullness. And he purposes to go, and then is hindered; and purposes again and is hindered; seeks to move in their direction, and apparently is frustrated once more.

The point is, what a strength of purpose and desire for God is here - and what a mystery of hindrances, frustrations and delays! And then, at last, at long last, how did he get to Rome? Very, very differently from what he had intended, purposed and thought! He had never calculated with that last voyage and all that was in it. It seemed, on the one hand, that all hell was determined that he should not get there. On the other hand, we see God's mysterious ways. We do not know what would have happened if Paul had gone to Rome in the way in which he had gone elsewhere, if he had just paid a visit, as he had to other places; but God had some infinitely greater thought in his reaching Rome than Paul ever thought. This is the mystery of God's ways.

We know the story of the imprisonment, the voyage, the shipwreck - the way in which he did get there. But the historian just sums it all up in one clause: "and so we came to Rome" (Acts 28:14). - "We came to Rome." Divine guidance has to cover everything. If Paul had settled on any one of these incidents, he would have been in very great difficulty indeed with the Lord. But he got there at last. If you and I are so governed, dominated, mastered, by God's end - the fullness of Christ - and wedded to Christ Himself; if we will allow the Lord to do things in His own way, and will seek to get hold of the meaning and value of every part of the way, then the end is sure, the end is secured. The end will be - "and so we came..." Sometimes it may have looked as though we should never get there. We may have known shipwreck, in many ways. It looked very much as though we would never arrive, but the fact is, we are here!

We must see the principles of Divine guidance. The first is God's purpose of fullness; the second is God's vessel of realisation, the Church. The Church is the fullness of Him, and a law of fullness is relatedness. Thirdly, there will always be enough mystery about God's ways to demand faith, which is another law of guidance. But, fourthly, sovereignty is over all; and no matter what the delays, frustrations, hindrances or threats, at the last we shall write over all those times and experiences and situations when we thought it was so otherwise -

'Jesus led me all the way.'

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Nov-Dec 1955, Vol 33-6

The Problem of the Stone

Reading: Mark 16:3-6. "They were saying: Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the tomb? ...for it was exceeding great".

This is one of those many human problems which have heavenly solutions. Let us look to see what this stone represented for those concerned.

The Disappointment of Expectations and Hopes

Firstly, it represented the disappointment of all their expectations and hopes. If they had been near when that great stone was rolled into position at the entrance to the tomb and if they had seen (as we are told elsewhere) the seal put upon it, they would have turned away, saying in their hearts, 'That is the end of all our expectations, that is the disappointing of all our hopes'. We know how two of the followers of the Lord went on a journey after that very time, and being interrogated as to the despair upon their faces and in their tones, they said, "We hoped that it was he who should redeem Israel" (Luke 24:21). For them all hopes for the redemption of Israel had gone with the closing of the tomb, and every expectation on which they had set their hearts was finished.

The Power of this World

Again, that stone represented the apparent triumph of the power of this world. The world had concentrated its power upon the One in that tomb and had seemingly triumphed. At that time the world had gained the day; all the evidence declared that its power had conquered.

The Spiritual Problem of Death

But more, that stone represented the terrible spiritual problem of death. Death is a great spiritual problem. I will not dwell upon that now; but in the presence of death you are confronted with tremendous problems, and are always asking all kinds of questions. There is about death such an utterness of helplessness, and demand for something that is beyond our giving. No one has ever come back from death to us personally, literally, to tell us anything of what we want to know. Death is always a tremendous mystery, and it was doubly so for those followers of the Lord; for they were not only perplexed by the general problem but also by the specific problem of His death. You can almost hear them inwardly asking questions. That He should die, that this should have happened to Him! What could it mean?

That stone really was a very great one, viewed from every angle. Indeed, it is true, that "it was exceeding great". And we have to enter as we can into the spirit of what we will call the negative side, the dark side, of its meaning before we can really appreciate the other side - that is, what the stone came to symbolize for them and for us all in Christ.

The Imminence of Another World

In the first place, it symbolized the imminence of another world than this one. That young man in his white robe - we read in another record that there were two in dazzling raiment, but here it says one - was a visitor from another world; and everything associated with this stone and its rolling away, as given in the four records that we have, speaks of the intervention of another world. It declares that this world, after all, is not all that we have to reckon with, or that death or men or our disappointments have to reckon with. There is another world entirely, in close touch with this one, and mightier than it, acting in relation to the purposes of God centred in His Son, and which can never, on any account, be swallowed up in a tomb. That entire other world is interested in this stone, in all the problems that are bound up with it in the hearts of true, sincere, simple, devoted followers of the Lord Jesus. The imminence of that world was gathered into this stone when it was rolled away, declaring that that world is very near and to be counted upon when God's eternal interests in His Son are at issue.

We do not know - for we have no evidence on which to work - but it would not be surprising if from time to time in after years they referred to it. 'You remember our great problem about the stone, how helpless we felt that morning, how utterly impotent, how every hope was gone; that stone represented for us an impasse, an impossible situation. But it was not there when we arrived on the spot! It was as simple as that! It is good to remember that God can do it like that'. There is another world so superior as to make of our problems nothing, as to dismiss the greatest causes of disappointment and despair as simply as though they had never been; to wipe them out so thoroughly that at one time we feel the situation to be utterly impossible and yet when we arrive on the spot there is no situation at all to be faced. Afterward that was how it seemed to those women. God is like that. That is our resource in a day when there is an exceeding great stone. Yes, the imminence of another world.

The Triumphant Power of Life Over Death

Further, that stone became the symbol of the mighty, triumphant power of life over death. We are so familiar with phrases like that that perhaps they have lost their point; but is not God constantly solving our problems along this very line? We are looking for things to happen, and yet all the time the power of His risen life is silently working and solving so many problems. We look back and remember how often we felt that we could not go on any longer, that we could not survive very much more, that we were at the end of our resources - the situation was really beyond us, and some tremendous thing had to happen. The tremendous thing we expected did not happen. The fact is that we are going on today after many such an experience of trial and helplessness; we have quietly been kept going on, and we are going on; we are not yet submerged and overwhelmed and put out. That is the miracle of His Divine life silently solving the problem, dealing with so many things that seem to say, Death, an end! The power of His resurrection is the answer to many of our problems. We look for acts; He proceeds along the silent course of life, the mighty power of life overcoming death. "It was not possible" says the Word, "that he should be holden of it (death)" (Acts 2:24). They were saying, 'It is impossible for us to deal with this stone, this situation!' He was saying, 'It is not possible for death to hold Me'. There are two ways of viewing the impossible. Everything depends upon where you put the impossibility - on the thing or on God. The things which are not possible with men are possible with God (Matt. 19:26). And He answers these impossible things in the normal way - for it is the normal way; the abnormal would be by signs and wonders and extraordinary happenings: demonstrations to our senses; but the normal way in the Christian life is the way of the continuous transcendence of His life over the working of death. That miracle is far more general than we recognize. You have to live your life and do your work in a sphere of spiritual death where everything is against spiritual life, and there is nothing to support you at all, and yet you go on there in the Lord, and are not swallowed up, engulfed and destroyed by that atmosphere and by those conditions. That is the miracle of Divine life working silently. Yours, then, is a life - as is the life of everyone - set in the presence of the great stone of death, spiritual death. We know it, and yet we are preserved alive spiritually and we go on. That is the great miracle. It is the miracle of every day. That is the testimony that God raised Him from the dead.

The Transcendence of Former Hopes

This stone became the symbol of the transcendence of all their former hopes. It was not that in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus their former hopes were resuscitated. Their hopes had to undergo a transformation, their expectations had to be greatly changed. The point is not just the raising of their hopes again with the rising of Christ, but the absolute transcendence of all the hopes that had been disappointed. They were looking for the temporal redemption of Israel: they had to see the redemption of Israel in another light. In the resurrection of the Lord Jesus - or let me put it this way - in union with the risen Christ our hopes are far greater than all our worldly hopes. We may in His death have to lay our treasure in the dust, we may have to let go much that is very precious to us of hope and expectation and ambition and outlook. Our world may have to be placed with the stones of the brook (Job 22:24). In resurrection union with Christ something more is given back than what we formerly wanted. God is like that. You may say that is language and sounds very beautiful, but is it true? Well, I appeal to those of you who have any spiritual life and history at all. You have doubtless gone through a time of deep and dark trial in which you have had to hand everything over - you have come to a crisis where you have had to place on the altar something that was very precious and let it go to the Lord. If the Lord has not given that back to you, have you not come into some spiritual wealth, some spiritual good, something more in a spiritual way that makes you say, 'Well, it was worth it!'? The answer of God through the Cross to all disappointed hopes and expectations is, and in the very nature of God must be, something more than that which was laid in the grave. It is the very principle of Christ risen. He was a far greater Christ in resurrection than He was before - if I may put it like that without being misunderstood. He became universal and not local, spiritual and not limited by the physical. Yes, they would say that they had come into a greater Christ. He was not, of course, in actual fact a greater Christ. They had come into greatness that was always there, but which they had never before appreciated. It is the law of death and resurrection - always increase, always something more. One corn falls into the ground and dies, and many corns result. The transcending of former hopes comes that way - in the coming back again, but the coming back with something added. The stone which seemed at one time to say, 'there is nothing left' became the symbol of increase immensely greater than ever they had thought of.

Rebuke Unto Instruction

But with it all, that stone became the symbol of a rebuke, which is always, with the Lord, instruction. The Lord never rebukes in a dead way: He always rebukes instructively. I can imagine them saying to one another in their elation, 'Why did we spend all night preparing those spices? What were we up to, after all? We were going to anoint His dead body with our spices. Ours was a prospect of utter despair. We worked in unbelief'. If you work in unbelief it is always despair. They were rebuked by the stone rolled away. Very likely in after years, when they were contemplating a situation that was humanly very difficult or impossible, the reminder would come back to them - 'Remember the stone! Do not go down that street again; death is that way!' Thus the rebuke would be unto instruction.

And does not the Lord use our experiences like that? I am not saying that we never do go down that street again, and I am not saying that the Lord never allows us to come up against further impossible situations - He does; but in the second test we should derive something from the first, and in the third from the second, and so we go on building up. "God... delivered us out of so great a death, and will deliver: on whom we have set our hope that he will also still deliver us" (2 Cor. 1:10). We have learned something of Christ. Rebuke - and yet we need that rebuke. So often when difficulty arises we go down, we throw up our hands, we are overcome by it. We do not say, 'But remember, we were up against a difficulty once before, and the Lord saw us through, we did not go under'. We are slow to do that.

The Need for Subjective Exercise

What is it, then, to which this heads up? It is interesting, and I think it is instructive, to note that of the four Gospels Mark's is the only one in which the subjective exercise associated with this incident is mentioned. The other three only record the objective, the external, incidents of the resurrection. One says that there was a great earthquake and behold, an angel! John goes as far as to say that, coming to the tomb, Mary Magdalene "seeth the stone taken away from the tomb". But none of them mentions what Mark records - that they were questioning one with another as to who should roll away the stone. Here was subjective exercise. It amounts to this. Something has got to be done in us as well as for us. We want to proceed on the line of having things done for us, heaven intervening for us, our difficulties removed for us, having a straight path made for us. Heaven may be ready to come in, the Lord may be prepared to work for us, but it is not sufficient for Him - and it would not prove good enough for us - if that were all. The very principle of spiritual growth and maturity demands that He keeps the objective and the subjective balanced; that is, that something is done in us as well as for us.

It is the principle of the Cross again. He died for us - that is the objective. We died in Him - that is the subjective. Here are two sides in spiritual experience. He keeps the balance of things. We have to have this balance wrought in us, and to be delivered from this tendency of allowing our problems to obscure the Lord, this inveterate habit of ours of viewing the position merely objectively instead of saying, 'What does the Lord want to teach us about this? What does He want to do in us in this matter? There is something He is after in us.' He has something to do in us before He can do it for us. How often we have found that when we have come to a new position with the Lord, when the thing has been done in us, then there has been outward movement. So the mention of the subjective exercise suggests that we have to take this matter to our own hearts as something which requires a change in us. I am quite sure that is how they must have felt when they were able to sit down and go over it all again. 'We were terribly obsessed with our problem and were asking who could solve it for us. The Lord has made us to see that we must be inwardly different about these things, we must have a position of faith, of rest, over them, we must believe God.' We must gain inward ascendency over the stone before there is any ascendency to be known over it outwardly. The stone is really not outside of us in the first place. It is inside; it is in our faith, it is in our spirit, it is in our minds.

When the Lord moves for His own Son's sake, and has those interests governing, and when those interests have brought us into such a relationship with Him that we can say there is no stone so big to be removed, no problem so great for solving, no difficulty so intense, but the Lord will do what is necessary for His Son's sake - when we have come to a position like that, the Lord is free to do a lot of things very quietly. As we say, they just 'happen'. Ah, but they have been the objects of the exercise of exceeding great power - "There was a great earthquake" (Matt. 28:2). But here, in this aspect of the situation, it does not seem to be an earthquake at all. It has just happened. We must recognize that there is an aspect of activities in which the secret, quiet working of His immense power dismisses the greatest difficulties as though they had never existed. Sometimes He may bring us into the presence of the working of His power that is manifestly terrific, but not often and certainly not always. For faith it is more like this: there is such power at work as to make possible the setting aside of the obstacle very quietly, so that we afterward wonder - "And they were amazed". And the angel said, "Be not amazed". It is good to have amazement, but let us recognize that a certain amount of our amazement is because we have not sufficient faith.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Mar-Apr 1951, Vol 29-2

Resting in the Lord's Care

"For so is the will of God, that by well-doing ye should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men" (1 Pet. 2:15).

"For this is acceptable, if for conscience toward God a man endureth griefs, suffering wrongfully... For hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow his steps... who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously" (1 Pet. 2:19,21,23).

"For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears unto their supplication... And who is he that will harm you, if ye be zealous of that which is good? But even if ye should suffer for righteousness' sake, blessed are ye: and fear not their fear, neither be troubled" (1 Pet. 3:12-14).

"...casting all your anxiety upon him, because he careth for you" (1 Pet. 5:7).

The Lord's Care for His Own

This is just one of the many standpoints taken up by the Apostle in this letter. This one represents the position and attitude of the Lord Himself toward His Own, the realisation of which should produce a certain state in them. The Lord's attitude is one of solicitude for His Own - that is what Peter is saying. "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears unto their supplication". The Lord's attitude toward His Own is one of concern for them. He has His eye upon them, they are not out of His ken. Not only has He His eye upon them, but He has His ear open to them; and not only so, but He is taking definite care concerning them. These three things Peter says quite definitely.

Our Response to His Concern

Then he says, 'If you realise that, it will produce a state of restfulness, carefreeness, in you. You will cast all your care, your anxiety, on Him because He cares for you.' There are three things we might say about this. One - this word "casting" is a very deliberate word. This actual word only occurs twice in the New Testament. The other occasion is in Luke, where, in recording the entering into Jerusalem on the colt, it says, "they cast their garments upon the colt" (Luke 19:35). So if you can picture the people casting their garments on the colt for Him to ride upon, you get the mental conception of the word used here - "casting all your care..." I suppose the people were deliberate in what they did. It was something quite precise. They pulled off their garments and put them on the colt's back. And in our apprehension of the Lord's attitude and the resultant state produced in us, we deliberately cast our anxiety upon the Lord, put it over on to Him.

The second thing - as to the word "care" or "anxiety." It is one of several Greek words translated in the English "care." This one definitely means, as the Revisers have indicated, "anxiety." The word really means being drawn about - that is, pulled in various directions at the same time. That is what we mean by being distracted. It is the word used by the Lord to Martha when He visited Bethany. "Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things" (Luke 10:41); 'All these various things you have on hand are distracting you, you are torn. Here is My presence, here is Mary sitting here, you no doubt would like to be here, you have a pull here; and then there are all these other things you are occupied with, and you are pulled that way as well; and being pulled in various directions you are thrown into a state of anxiety, of agitation, of distraction; the whole atmosphere is disturbed; you are "anxious".' It is the word used in the parable of the sower, concerning the seed that fell among thorns; the Lord interpreted the thorns as the cares of this life. "These are they that have heard the word, and the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word" (Mark 4:18,19). The distractions, the anxieties, of this life leave no place or time for the quiet contemplation of, and response to, the word that has come. The Lord sows the word, the Lord gives something with great possibilities in it, but then we are at once called off and engaged and engrossed with all sorts of things which spring up, and the word does not stand a chance. It is anxiety - that is the word.

Carefreeness not Carelessness

The third thing to be said is this. It is as well for us to be perfectly clear about what we have said, because we shall come upon the same English word or the same thought in other connections which seem to be a contradiction. "Be careful to maintain good works" (Titus 3:8). And you find exhortations to carefulness scattered through the New Testament; we are exhorted to take care. It is not the same original word as the one we have been considering. When He says, "In nothing be anxious" (Phil. 4:6), or "casting all your anxiety upon him," the Lord does not mean that you are to become careless, indifferent, to put the matter away as though it is nothing to do with you, that you have no place in it at all. There is a place where the Lord expects us to take care, to be careful (in the ordinary usage of the word among us), to recognise that we have responsibility, we have to be watchful, we have to come into the situation, we have to be careful in this way and in that. That is another thing.

In the passages with which we began it is this terrible harass of anxiety that is in view, and it is that that has to be cast over to the Lord. While occupation must go on, many things must be attended to, there must be no distraction resulting from worry about it. "Be not... anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" (Matt. 6:31). Here is the same word again. What it amounts to seems to me to be this - that it is not just a psychological decision or resolution that we are going to be careless, we are going to be indifferent, we are not going to bother. It is to be positively an act of faith. The anxiety usually comes in as to how things are going to turn out, what the issue is going to be. The right care is to do our part. The carefreeness is the result of committing the issue to the Lord and definitely taking the faith attitude that He will look after the outcome while we are looking after what is ours to look after. It is not just spineless optimism, it is definite faith - faith that refuses to be harassed and distracted by many things, by anything.

Now, you know from this letter of Peter that the people to whom he wrote might well have been, and probably were, very much in anxious suspense. The situation was an exceedingly difficult one for them. Their homes, their families, their livelihood, their lives, all were in danger, and from every direction came threats and perils. If it is said to them, surely it should be said to us. He says, in effect, 'The Lord has the issues in hand, He is taking care about all that; you cast your anxiety upon Him because He really does care.' You have to believe that He does care, and, believing that, you definitely and deliberately cast over on to Him that which would cause you to be distraught with anxiety as to how things are going to work out, and what the issues are going to be. It is the committal of faith, very deliberately casting all your anxiety on Him for "he careth for you." "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears unto their supplication... Who is he that will harm you, if ye be zealous of that which is good?"

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sept-Oct 1948 Volume 26-5

The Silence of Sovereignty and the Action of Faith

"And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice" (1 Kings 19:11-12).

"And he said, Thus saith the Lord, Make this valley full of trenches. For thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain, yet that valley shall be filled with water: and ye shall drink, both ye and your cattle and your beasts. And this is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord: he will also deliver the Moabites into your hand" (2 Kings 3:16-18).

These are two very well-known stories and you have had many messages from the Lord based on them. There are truly many things in the whole of these two incidents of considerable spiritual value, but for now I want to concentrate upon one thing alone which will not be new to you, but which has a new and stronger emphasis in my own heart. It is, I believe, something of preciousness, wrapped up in a great deal more in these records.

A CRISIS BROUGHT ABOUT BY HUMAN FAILURE

In both of the instances from which we have read there was a crisis. In the first it was a crisis in the life of a prophet, and in the second a crisis in the life of a king. In both cases the crisis had been brought about by human weakness and failure. Elijah had inwardly collapsed and asked the Lord to take away his life. It was human weakness and failure. In the second case Jehoshaphat had made an alliance with Ahab's son. While Jehoshaphat himself was a man almost blameless in his own character and one of the outstanding men of truth for God in the difficult years of the divided kingdom, yet he did some unwise things and one of these was getting into touch with and allowing himself to be drawn into this conspiracy to go out in campaign against the Moabites. It was human failure which brought about the great difficulty and something which threatened absolute disaster.

THE TRIUMPH OF THE GRACE OF GOD

But while it is true that there was a crisis in both cases and in both cases a crisis brought about by the weakness of humanity, yet we see the triumph of the grace of God, a glorious issue from all just because of Divine grace.

THE SILENCE OF SOVEREIGNTY

Now the point upon which I am focusing at the moment is the silence of sovereignty and the sovereignty in Divine silence when the Lord's people are involved. There are times, of course, when the Lord breaks silence and comes out in a terrible manifestation of majesty, of might, unto destruction. But that is not His normal way and specially not His normal way with His people and with His servants. His normal way is silence. In both of these instances, as you see, there was a great silence which embodied tremendous power in which the mighty sovereignty of God was bound up. It is really a matter of the Holy Spirit in relation to the covenant purpose of God and in relation to the Lord's honour, for I take it that the still, small voice (or, as the margin has it, that voice of gentle stillness) is very typical of the Holy Spirit, if it was not the Holy Spirit Himself. I also take it that those waters which came down to save the situation in that terrible crisis in the life of Jehoshaphat are typical of the Holy Spirit, but how silently they came! He was not in the whirlwind, not in the hurricane, not in the earthquake, not in the fire - it must have been very tempestuous round about! - but in the voice of gentle stillness. "Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain", indeed, you will see nothing until it has happened.

How typical this is of very much of the mighty sovereign activity of the Holy Spirit! Take each of these instances. Elijah: well, the situation did seem to demand some tremendous demonstration of Divine power. Although there had been that wonderful demonstration on Mount Carmel, it did seem that Jezebel was even so in the place of greater power than Elijah at the moment. How strange a thing this human nature is, how deceptive and desperately sick these human hearts are! Even when we have seen much of the mighty works of God, how utterly despondent we can become after all. It is true, as James says, that "Elijah was a man of like passions with us" (5:17), but put it round the other way and it is just as true, we are people of the same infirmities as Elijah. Human nature is the same everywhere and it did at any rate at this point seem as though a mighty demonstration of Divine power was the only thing that could result in survival for the servant of God and what he represented, the Lord's covenant purpose. Sometimes it seems that the indispensable necessity and irreducible minimum is some sovereign act, unmistakable in its clearness of definition, something that no one could fail to acknowledge as an act of God that has saved the situation. It needs God's intervention for the situation to be saved and the vessel of the Lord to be vindicated. God must now do something that perhaps He had never done before. This can be true to our own personal spiritual experience, it may be true to the work of God with which we are bound up, it may be true as to the whole testimony of the Lord involved in the world. The situation might just now be something like that for many people on this earth with all going to the enemy, all being lost.

A CRISIS OF ENLARGEMENT

It seemed like the end for Elijah and I would not like to have been the man to argue with him at that point for I am perfectly sure that I could not have moved him or persuaded him that things were not as bad as they seemed. No, it was settled for him that this was an end. The best thing to do would be for him to pass out, to die. But what so strongly and desperately seemed like an end was really a crisis of enlargement. There is no doubt about it that the introduction of Elisha after this crisis was for enlargement. Elisha inherited a double portion of his master's spirit and carried on his work with mighty enlargement. And it all turned on this very point of apparent hopelessness!

How was this really a crisis of enlargement? It was not by a hurricane. God did not just sweep in at this point with the irresistible wind carrying all before it. It was not in the earthquake, upheaving and overturning everything, shattering and breaking. It was not in the fire, consuming and burning and destroying. The crisis of enlargement did not come in any of those ways or in anything like those things. It came in a voice of gentle stillness, a still small voice.

We pass on to the other incident in the life of Elisha. The emergency had arisen by reason of those who had embarked upon this campaign against the Moabites in the foolishness of an unequal yoke, a forbidden association, an alliance with the household of Ahab and with Samaria. Jehoshaphat and Jehoram went out to the wilderness, they went to the battle, and in the wilderness their water supplies gave out. Disaster threatened and was imminent. The whole of their army - and it would seem that that army was all that Israel could put into the field - and the whole nation was involved in this terrible threat. You know what happened. Jehoram said, 'God has brought us out to destroy us'. That is the reaction of unbelief. We need not put the blame objectively onto Jehoram. When we get into situations such as this, there is always that inside us which will say, 'The Lord is against us. He intends to finish us now'. Jehoram took that attitude. But Jehoshaphat, a man of God, turned to the Lord, called for a prophet and the result was: 'The Lord will make this valley to be filled with water'.

THE CALL TO FAITH TO ACT

In such a situation the call is to faith to act. Faith is called upon to act when all seems hopeless, just to act. Here God is not accepting passive faith, He calls for action, the action of faith. The valley was there. What do you want more than a valley if you are going to have a river? The natural situation seemed to be sufficient to provide God with a channel, but God is not just taking that. He says, 'You dig, even in the valley. There is something extra called for from you, make ditches in the valley.' That seems superfluous, unnecessary. Surely the situation itself is sufficient, it provides the Lord with a ground. No, that is passive. In this situation you have to do something about it in faith, to go the extra, to take action. I am sure you see the point. So often we are in a situation which seems to be most suitable for anything the Lord would do, a situation which is itself a ground for the Lord. What more does the Lord want? He wants some action on your part right in that situation, the action of faith.

How often a new practical committal has been God's way when all seems lost. Some of us remember how in the First World War when the whole situation seemed lost, when France was well-nigh overrun and the enemy was carrying everything before him and the slaughter was terrible, Field-Marshal Haig was asked, 'What are you going to do?' His answer was, 'I am going to take the offensive', and he did and turned the whole thing. When it seemed hopeless he took the offensive. Very often that is what the Lord calls for when things are like that. He calls on us to do something, not to throw up our hands and say that the day is lost, but in faith to do something. They had to make ditches in the valley.

The story is told and the lesson is very patent. A seemingly hopeless situation exists which can be put down to our foolishness, our folly, our weakness, our failure. There is a good deal for which we can blame ourselves if we want to, if we are so inclined, but the grace of God still abounds and the grace of God says, 'You are Mine, nothing is hopeless if you are Mine. If you are bound up with My covenant purpose, nothing is hopeless, I am going to fulfil it.' All that is left for you to do is to take the attitude of faith and to act upon it. However badly you may feel about your own weaknesses and mistakes, however badly you may feel about the situation as an impossible and hopeless one, you belong to the Lord and His covenant purpose is bound up with you and therefore nothing is finally hopeless. But you must believe that and you must do something about your belief. You must act in faith, rise up and act.

So these people, these soldiers, turned to digging, digging ditches in a valley, doing something that seemed to be unnecessary, and the result was that there came waters. Where from? Well, there came waters, that is all. There was no sound of rain, no seeing of rain, no sound of wind, nothing ocular and nothing aural, just a quiet, silent movement of the Spirit of God. It just happened. And our history is going to be very largely like that.

Why am I saying this? Because we are so often found looking for, praying for, expecting, some mighty shattering intervention of God in our situation, the evidence and the proof that God is with us, something that we can lay hold of, something to which we can point, something that we can report on. But it does not happen and again and again when we have passed most critical points in our history, when we have turned most serious corners, we have to ask ourselves how we did it, how it came to pass. Well, it just happened. It undoubtedly involved very great power on the part of God and there is no doubt that if He had not done it, there would have been disaster. But it is done. How? We thought this and that, we thought the Lord must come this way or that way, we were showing Him the way, telling Him what He must do, and He never came our way, He never did it like that at all. It just, so to speak, happened. We are going on like that. It may be from time to time that the Lord will show His hand. He is the God of the sudden leap as much as He is the God of the long process, but normally the way of faith is this way: silently - almost imperceptibly - without any power to detect that He is doing it, it is being done.

It is not just that we get over the stile and continue across another field until we come to another stile. This is a way of enlargement and God is enlarging in this way, silently, almost imperceptibly. He is going on with His covenant purpose. That is the larger part of the Church's history. If we could write the whole history of the Church now, or read it, we should find that while there have been times when God broke in in wonderful ways, they are much fewer than those periods in which God silently and hiddenly worked and did marvellous things, kept His Church going, but kept His Church on the way of enlargement. And that is the story of our own inner experiences.

I feel this may be a word for us as a people and perhaps for some in their own spiritual life. If you are expecting the Lord to do some extraordinary, miraculous thing in your situation, it may never happen. What God does intend and has intended will happen, if we will believe Him and act on our belief. That does sometimes mean launching out on to water where it would be easy to sink if it were not for the Lord. "Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain, yet that valley shall be filled with water: and ye shall drink..." and "there came water". That is all. Not in the hurricane, the earthquake or the fire, but in the voice of gentle stillness they turned the corner and got through the crisis. For Elijah it was followed by the command of God to anoint Elisha. God's answer to such situations is enlargement, not less but more.

From "A Witness and A Testimony" May-June 1968.

Taking the End by Faith

Reading: 1 Peter 1:1-12.

We are here in the presence of the great transition, the great change, which had taken place in the case of Peter and the Apostles and of all who had believed. Before the Cross all their hopes and expectations, their entire mentality and horizon were on this earth. They were looking for the realization of a kingdom, a Messianic kingdom of a temporal kind centred in Jerusalem and bringing with it all manner of temporal benefits and advantages, with God working along that line, concentrating His power to show His favour in a temporal way, all the blessings being temporal blessings. The Cross had changed that entire outlook and swept it all away as in a flood for the dispensation. With the resurrection of the Lord Jesus it was shown that God's intention was quite different from what they were expecting, for the time being, and that everything for this dispensation is of a spiritual and heavenly character, requiring a complete transformation of their conceptions and judgments and outlook.

Before the resurrection it was a devastating experience for them. Everything had gone with the death of the Lord Jesus, but Peter says, "God... begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead", proving that the afterward which came in with the resurrection was far beyond and transcendent over what they had lost. The terms of this Letter are very clear. "Ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory", showing that they came to see that it was not loss but really gain through the Cross. That, then, is the background of this Letter: the tremendous change of realm and of form of Divine blessing. According to verse 5, the power of God in this dispensation is through faith.

We need to note the link between several fragments here: "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls, concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you" (verses 9-10). Which salvation? "The end of your faith... the salvation of your souls." The end is the salvation of your souls. "Concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently" to discover the end of our faith, the salvation of our souls.

That may not be very clear as it is stated like that, but just lay hold of it for a moment. The statement is quite definite. The prophets sought diligently to know, to discover something, to discover a salvation, and Peter says that salvation is "the salvation of your souls". And he says further that that is not the beginning of your faith but the end of your faith. We place salvation right at the beginning, Peter places salvation right at the end. That does not mean that we are not saved now; it does not mean that we are not being saved now; but it does mean that full salvation, salvation in its full meaning, is future. Soul salvation is the end of our faith. That is one thing.

"Concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you... wherefore girding up the loins of your mind, be sober and set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (verses 10, 13). That does not mean that we have not received grace, nor that we are not receiving grace. But there is a grace intimated to the prophets by the Holy Spirit who, as it says here, "was in them", a grace that is to come at the end, at the revelation of Jesus Christ. "Set your hope...". "Hope that is seen is not hope" (Romans 8:24). Hope relates to something future. "Set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." The apocalypse, the presence in manifestation of Jesus Christ, that is the grace that is to come to you.

Now the third thing which brings us right into touch with that is this: "Searching what time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow them" (verse 11). The Spirit of Christ in them testified to the sufferings of Christ that should follow. It is remarkable how Israel, the Jews, the Jewish interpreters and teachers, almost entirely overlooked and failed to see that the Messiah was to be a suffering Messiah. All the hopes of Israel concerning the Messiah were hopes of glory, but of temporal glory, glory on this earth. They seem to have entirely missed all that the prophets were saying about the sufferings of the Messiah.

But the prophets found two things going on in them by the Spirit of Christ. In the first instance He was making them know that the Messiah would be a suffering Messiah and He was making them know, not only by informing them, but by their own experience. You cannot read those Messianic prophecies and Psalms without knowing that the writers went through experiences which had to be interpreted, not as the common experiences of man in everyday life, but as something prophetic, something with fuller, further and future meaning. Hear David speak: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1). There is something more in that than just the ordinary experience of a man. The Spirit was making them know that the Messiah would be a suffering Messiah. The Jews missed that and fastened upon the other side, the glories. The Spirit was making the prophets know what the glories would be and the Jews fastened upon the glories alone. There would be the glories, but they would follow the suffering, be consequent upon the sufferings.

The glories are coming with the manifestation or revelation of the Messiah who suffered. That manifestation of the suffering glorified Christ is the grace that is to come to us. "If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him" (Romans 8:17). That is the consummation of grace.

This whole Letter of Peter, as you notice, focuses upon the trials and sufferings and afflictions of Christians in this dispensation. Now in this dispensation it is partnership with Christ in His sufferings and a Divine government of those sufferings in the salvation of our souls. Through trial and testing and by way of faith our souls are brought to complete deliverance from the grip of Satan and self over them, bringing them into fellowship with Christ and out of fellowship with Satan, bringing deliverance from the self-principle which was brought into the soul by Adam's decision. That is the salvation of our souls.

It will be a grand thing and this is what these scattered believers to whom Peter was writing had grasped. The language may sound extravagant - "ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory" - but they have grasped something. What have they grasped? They have seen that the time is coming when all this wretched, horrid, beastly self-principle that is in the creation, causing all this trouble in every one of us, will have been finally rooted out and replaced by the Christ-principle of utter selflessness where we are never affected or influenced by our own feelings, our own interests and how things touch us, but where we shall be completely delivered from our own souls, these souls which are a curse to us every day, our feelings, our ideas, our wants and our wills. If only we could be completely oblivious of ourselves, be completely free from ourselves, how happy we would be! These people grasped that the time was coming when it would be like that, their faith had laid hold of it and they rejoiced with joy unspeakable. That is the grace which is coming with the revelation of Jesus Christ. That is the prospect, and the trials and sufferings of the present time are working toward that - to get us free from ourselves, to turn us out from ourselves. They had grasped that and they laid hold of the end of their faith. By faith they received the end of their faith and they rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

If we are oppressed by our own souls and bothered by our own souls, let us at least turn our thoughts and praise God that the day is coming when we shall be completely emancipated from ourselves. It might be that if only we could take that attitude of faith and lay hold of that by faith, the joy would spring up now. This is not just eschatology or optimism. The Holy Spirit did this in the prophets and in these believers of the dispersion to whom Peter is writing. He said to them. "Ye see him not", 'you never saw Him in the flesh, you have nothing to go upon; the Gospel has been preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; you have nothing of material evidence to prove this; we saw Him - you never had anything like that, but you received it by faith when it was preached to you and the Holy Ghost ratified it and you rejoice.' It is a wonderful picture of what taking by faith, taking the Gospel by faith, taking Christ by faith, taking the end by faith, can do. They rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

In the meantime, "the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold that perisheth though it is proved by fire" is working the salvation of your souls, to bring in the fullness and finality of the grace of God, the glories that do follow. I do not know what sort of glories you are expecting. For me, there is very little appeal in the idea of having literal material thrones and crowns, or anything like that. But what does appeal to me is the prospect of being freed from this accursed self, then I shall be happy. That will be a kingdom that is worth everything. Well, that is the end of your faith and that is the outcome of your trial of faith. You have to read the whole Letter in the light of that, but there you have it summed up in the first chapter.

From "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, 1968 Volume 46-3

"Thy Way Was in the Sea"

Reading: Psalm 77

The heading of this psalm shows that it was contributed by Asaph, who was David's choir master - the leader of the singers. Quite a number of psalms are attributed to him, and in this one he was in real trouble; he was a man of music who had lost his music, a song leader whose only song was a lament. We do not know the actual cause of his difficulty, but it seems quite clear that it was due to the lack of evidence of God's presence or power. The signs which should have manifested God's glory were not forthcoming; Asaph could see nothing to indicate that the Lord had any interest or concern in his situation; and so, cast down and depressed, he brooded over the circumstances; and the more he did so the more he found himself in the mire of despair.

The words are alarming, but right in the full flow of his outpoured complaint there came a turning-point, when he pulled himself up short and decided that he would not allow his weakness or infirmity to govern any longer, adding, "But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High" (verse 10). This became the turning point. From then on the dark night began to give place to the rising sun of a new outlook. Once again life had a meaning.

In the course of his recollection there had come to mind one of his own experiences, "I will call to remembrance my song in the night" (verse 6). This does not mean that he proposed to recall that there had been a time when he was more cheerful and sang even in the dark, but implies that he called back to mind the subject matter of that nocturnal song. There had apparently been a night when he could not sleep and so occupied his waking hours by composing a song for the choir. Its subject matter was that ever-recurring theme of Israelite psalmody, the exodus from Egypt. Asaph remembered how he had indulged his poetic gift in describing the way in which the Lord got His people out of Egypt and through the Red Sea, celebrating the mighty work of God which was expressed in this deliverance. As the words came back to him, he suddenly realised that he himself was now in the same predicament, needing to find a way through, and that the song which had applied to the nation was now valid for him - he needed to take a dose of his own medicine. He remembered what he had said and sung to encourage others in their times of difficulty and was able to appropriate the same comforting truths for himself. It was at that moment that streaks of dawn came into his dark sky, heralding a coming day, so that his psalm finished in a blaze of light.

The operative phrase, which seems to be the focal point of his awakened memory, was "Thy way..." Asaph's own trouble was that he could see no way. His situation was such as to be like a siege around his soul; the dark forces had compassed him about and he could see neither a way out nor a way through. This is so often the perplexity of God's children: they can see no way through.

In his song that night, Asaph had made much of the fact that the Lord's way was in the sea and His paths in great waters. Israel could first of all find no way out - they were held fast in Egypt's bondage. Then God solved that problem, only for them to be faced by another and a greater, for they had been given a way out but there was no way through. The Red Sea lay in front of them, Pharaoh's pursuing army was coming up behind; and the desert and the mountains were on either side. So it was that they were confronted by that impassable, threatening sea which straddled their path ahead and only suggested death and the grave. They had come out, but now it seemed that shame, reproach and calamity were imminent. It looked very much like the end of the road.

On that occasion the problem was no problem to God. He was not in a panic, not even in a quandary, nor did He propose to lead them around by detours and by-passes. No He went straight through. We may be without a way, but God never is. He led them right through the deep. For others, great waters present an impasse, but the Lord has His own path through them. The words, "Thy footsteps were not known" suggest that everybody was wondering where the Lord could tread, for there was no visible foothold. When it was all over they were still wondering how He had done it, but the thing that mattered was that they were out on the other side. The Lord was not daunted by the waters - He just made His way through them and led His people with Him. Sea or mountains do not present obstructions to Him, for He proceeds unhindered on His way. He took His people with Him; He led them through the impassable.

How vividly Asaph remembered that night when he composed his encouraging song to celebrate that great historical movement through the sea, but now he suddenly realised that he was being challenged by his own words, as every speaker for God, and singer for God, always is. His sea was not the same as theirs, but it was just as threatening; the hostile pressure from behind was different from Egypt's armies, but just as cruel and just as unavoidable. What should he say? That God had forgotten? That God had allowed him to be hemmed in without a way of escape? That the waters were too deep for God, or that He who had brought him out was now unable to bring him through? No, that could not be true. He would think again of that song in the night, the song of God's deliverance and of the way through which He Himself made for His harassed people. "Thy way was in the sea." Then he would tell himself that this same God who brought His people through then, would make a way for him - even though it had to be through deep waters.

Again and again in the Old Testament this experience was repeated in the history of God's people. Men found themselves encircled by difficulties and confronted by the impossible, but in every case the Lord led them through. His footsteps were unknown, but they were always sure; as untraceable by man as any footprints on water, but direct and purposeful as befits our almighty God.

In Luke 21 the New Testament records a preview of the end, as given by the Lord Jesus to His disciples. The descriptions are such that they were certainly not exhausted by the happenings when Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70. Among the many predictions concerning features at the end-time is the prophecy that there will be "distress of nations with perplexity". The force of this last word is to describe an impasse - no way out. That, said the Lord, is what the nations will have to face, and face it without God. Was there ever a more accurate description of the world situation? Distress - with no way through, no prospect but despair? It is a dreadful experience to be gripped by complete despair, but this need never happen to Christ's disciples. He has promised that His faithfulness will always provide a way of escape. This time it will be upwards, so they must lift up their heads to see redemption - a way out - personified, as He Himself comes swiftly to greet them with footsteps which are not known.

So we see that what can be true for any Asaph in his own personal circumstances, will one day be equally valid for the whole Church. In the darkness of the world situation, the human prospects for God's people grow gloomier and gloomier. It may seem, as it did for the psalmist, that God's very mercy has clean gone for ever and that His promises have failed. God, however, has guaranteed to give a way out and up by the return of Christ. Men without Christ have every reason to feel their hearts failing them for fear, but the redeemed can quietly and confidently rely on a way through with God. No seas like these seas! No deeps so daunting as these! But God is not at all at the end of His resources. His way was in the seas as He led Israel through the depths; He made a way for Asaph in his time of distress; so we can be certain that He has a pathway for us too, even though it be through the darkest waters. "Who is so great a God as our God?"

From "Toward the Mark" September-October 1972 from a spoken message given in December 1957.

Waiting God's Time

"When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son...."

When the fullness of time came! It is not difficult for us to see in the case of Abraham how his faith was brought into relation to God's time. The time factor with Abraham was a very real one and was perhaps one of the keenest and most acute factors for his faith.

Again and again we come upon a test of Abraham's faith along the line of the timing of God. Indeed, from one standpoint, we may summarize the whole of his life and say that it headed up at last to the triumph of faith upon that particular factor. In the full Divine sense he never received the promises in his lifetime. At the end of his life he was still looking for the fulfilment of the promise. If his faith had given way he would naturally have taken the attitude that, since the thing had not been fulfilled in so long a time and in his lifetime, it all represented perhaps a big mistake on his part, a false expectation, some mis-guidance, and so on. But right at the end, if the letter to the Hebrews is to be taken as revealing the actual position, he still believed. He believed, therefore, that God had His time for fulfilling His purpose... and that, although it might not come in his own lifetime, it nevertheless would come. But during his lifetime - within the compass of the whole range of Divine purpose - there were instances of testing on the time factor; and, having been tested on that factor, the promise was fulfilled.

It is the principle that we want to get hold of. We have it illustrated supremely, perhaps, in connection with the promise of Isaac. It seems that it was at least fifteen years before the promise was fulfilled. It was fourteen or fifteen years at least, but how much more we cannot say, as the Hebrew is very uncertain in this matter.

Now, taking every other circumstance into consideration... promise, age, and so on... you can see that this was a real matter of faith - this time factor. The time is getting on. We are getting farther and farther away from any possibility of fulfilment.

Moreover it was a deliberate and definite movement of God. Why did not the Lord, knowing what He would do, wait until He was about to do it and just come and say, "Abram, this shall be!" - and bring it about? But no! He came, announced it, and went away, and year after year passed by. Then He came again and ratified His promise... and upon that there was still more waiting.

The Lord has strange ways. He deals with us like that. He must bring His instruments into oneness with Himself. There is a little phrase in the New Testament which runs like this: "When once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah." If that word means anything, it means that delay, in a case like that of Abram's, is not a pleasant thing for a man - not a thing that he would choose for himself. It would at least imply that if the Lord could have His way, He would perfect His purpose at once. Long-suffering, forbearance, patience, endurance - these things on God's part are not the things He would choose in carrying out His purposes, seeing all the suffering and the distress and the pain that there is. But He suffered... and suffered long, and His instruments must come into oneness with Him - oneness with His heart.

The point is that it lifts this thing on to a certain level. It is not that the Lord is just dealing with you and with me like a schoolmaster, trying to get something in us. It may be the Lord wants moral qualities developed in us - patience, long-suffering, and so on; there is no doubt that is true, but it is not just that. The Lord is saying, "I am not going to do this until you show signs of certain qualities." The Lord is lifting us right up on to the same level as Himself, bringing us into actual oneness with Himself, so that we have the same feeling toward others and toward the situation - toward the need - that He has.

I believe that when the Lord can get a corporate cry in His Church which is His own cry, then His time has come. The Lord is not just waiting for a time. There is something bound up with that time, and He is seeking to produce in the heart of His instrument that which is in His own heart, so that it cries one cry with Him. The Church has to cry and it has to cry God's cry... and that one cry is not in the Church. There are many voices - conflicting voices; and by the agony of delay, and the agony of the growing impossibility of the situation, and the agony of the need for that which is of God as over against all this other, the Church will be brought to cry that cry. At midnight there shall be a cry! Now that is oneness with God in His time.

Yet it is true that God has His time. There is a fullness of the time in respect of every Divine movement, and we cannot take things out of God's time. Perhaps we have learned that. We cannot precipitate things, we cannot hurry God, we cannot bring things about for which the time is not ripe. This knowledge is with the Lord, and He would bring us in spirit into oneness with Him on that point - to be one with Him in His time - that when His time does come He has us ready to His hand as those through whom He can move. Whatever be the purpose that is bound up with His time, the Lord must have an instrument through which He may move to its accomplishment.

And when the Lord's time comes, how we know it in our hearts! I think we all know something about this. Oh, how we have cried and groaned and agonized and striven... and done all that we could do to get God to do certain things; but His time had not come. We have been tested in faith, and we have come at length to the place where we definitely and strongly stand with God for that thing and hold on.

Then God's time comes; and we know in our hearts that the time has come, and in a wonderful way it just happens. All that it has cost of prayer and anguish would perhaps lead us to expect that, when it happens, the world will know all about it; but it just happens, and you hardly recognize from the outward indications that the thing has come about. God's time came, and it was so easy; it just transpired.

But we can never say - we are forbidden to say - that our holding on to the Lord, our prayer, our standing with Him, our getting through on that matter was unnecessary; that it would have happened in the appointment of God at His time, whether we agonized or not. You dare not take that position over anything in the way of God. Isaac may have been predetermined before ever there was a world, and yet Abram's faith was the essential factor to the bringing in of Isaac. The whole Word of God bears down upon that - that God Himself demands the cooperating faith of His own people, even to bring through the works which were foreordained.

Wings

''As an eagle stirs up its nest,

Hovers over its young,

Spreading out its wings, taking them up,

Carrying them on its wings,

So the Lord alone led him '' (Deut. 32:11,12)

The Lord' s mind for His people is that they shall have wings, wings that can cope with the elements and master them. He is altogether averse to their remaining unduly in soft lined nests, being fed, and dependent upon what comes from no exercise of their own.

1. While it remains fully true that ''in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing'', and ''apart from Me ye can do nothing'', with all that is meant by such words as to the utter inability of man by nature to produce or achieve anything for God' s satisfaction, it is equally true that by new birth we inherit a new set of spiritual faculties, capacities, and potentialities. In that which is imparted by this work of the Spirit of God, there are therefore inherent, though at first, largely latent, powers and possibilities, as in all infancy. These inherent potentialities must be developed, and here begins the discipline which involves us in all those struggles and conflicts and perplexities of the soul which have marked one side of the life of every one who has ever come to be of real account to God. See Hebrews 5:12-14.

2. The development of these faculties and powers will take place in a realm which spells disaster and death, but for the Lord. That expanse of emptiness, that abyss, into which the eaglets are hurled or forced by the mother eagle is undoubtedly, apart from her, the realm of their undoing and end. There is no doubt about it, that leaving all foolhardiness (sometimes misnamed faith) on our part aside, the ways of Divine demand are often those which spell our complete undoing if left to ourselves. Paul could speak of ''deaths oft'', and having ''the sentence that it was death''. But as the eaglets, through many a so-to-speak last minute intervention on the part of loving concern, learned what that strange way of love was intended to teach, they gradually turned that which in itself would have been their destruction to be their servant. Their wings mastered and used the air, the wind, the storm, and made these serve their purpose.

''The things which happened.......have fallen out....... unto progress............''

So the Lord would teach us, and bring us to a spiritual state, so that the very works of evil and Satan are taken hold of and made to serve spiritual ends. Paul says ''all things are yours'', and in the catalogue he includes ''death''.  ''Death is yours''; by which, in keeping with the other things mentioned, he can only mean that death is to be our servant, not our tyrant. Nothing could be more an enemy than death, but it can be made to serve very great interests. It depends upon how we view and handle it.

3. In our training to master the elements, we learn one lesson amongst many. It is that here is Divine providence and love that intervenes when things have got beyond a certain point. The fact is that many times we thought that the end had come; that now, at length, we were going out or under. We saw nothing beyond and ''despaired of life''. But, equally, the fact is that we have not yet gone under, and are still going on. Resurrection has taken place many times. We do not know just how it is, but here we are, and that after many years in which not a few experiences of imminent disaster have been ours. Well, He spread His wings under us and bore us up again, and He ''Who delivered us.... will deliver.... will also still deliver us.''

4. What is it all about? Yes, it is to develop capacity and ascendancy in us and to make us spiritually responsible, competent, and assured, but in that process the Lord is seeking to get established in us faith in His Divine wisdom. The terrifying experiences are really meant to issue in our confession that the Lord knew what He was doing and did the only thing by which, despite our questioning and doubting, His end could be reached. Thus do we come to know that wisdom lies within enshrouding mystery.

5. The last word is that this education is progressive. The mother eagle knows when wisdom dictates that a respite is called for. The Lord is no less wise, and spreads our training over an extended and graduated course. The beginners could not stand what those further on are called upon to accept, and it would be sacrificing value for the Lord to let us go back to the easier conditions of earlier stages.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1948