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T. Austin-Sparks - on Ministry

Contents

Abounding in Love

Accredited Ministry

The Altar of Incense

The Belovedness of Christ

"But Ye..."

Christian Service From God's Standpoint

The Continuance of Divine Instrumentalities

The Cross and Ministry

David's Last Words

Equipment for the Ministry

"Even Barnabas"

Food for the Hungry

God's Man

God's Sovereign Activities

God's Standard of Values

"Here Am I; Send Me"

The Holy Spirit in the Life of a Child of God

"A House of Prayer For All People"

In the Train of His Triumph

The Incense-Bearer

The Intrusion of Natural Life in the Service of God

Is He Really Lord?

Leadership and Ministry

The Lord's Government of the Ear and the Hand

"A Man in Christ"

Man's Way vs. God's Way

The Meaning of Christian Service

The Meaning of Union With Christ

The Nature of the Testimony

Not Here, and Not Now

The Ordinances of Heaven

Partners

The Peril of Divided Loyalties

Priesthood and Life

Responsibility For What We Have

Satan's Main Objective

The Servant and Service of the Lord

The Servant of the Lord

Service

The Service of God

The Service of the Lord

Significant Salutations

The Spirit of Service

Spiritual Ploughing

Spirituality: The Key To All That is of God

Stewardship

Taking Responsibility for the Testimony

That Extra Mile

"This is the Message... Fellowship"

Training in the House of God

The True Nature of New Testament Christianity

Vessels of Ministry

The Well Within

"Whither the Tribes Go Up"

The Word, the Work and the World

Worship

Abounding in Love

"The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we also do toward you" (1 Thess. 3:12).

"We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, even as it is meet, for that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the love of each one of you all toward one another aboundeth" (2 Thess. 1:3).

"For this cause I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and the love which ye show toward all the saints..." (Eph. 1:15).

"And whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as he gave us commandment" (1 John 3:22-23).

"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God" (1 John 4:7).

The Lord's Coming Related to Love in the Saints

There is something which lies behind these particular passages and which gives them their real force and value and emphasis. The matter before us has a prominent place in Paul's letters to the Thessalonians, and those letters themselves occupy a place of great spiritual significance. They were the first of the recorded letters written by Paul, and in chronological order they ought to come right at the beginning of his epistles, before Romans and all the others; but, seeing that they are so largely occupied with the Lord's coming and all the matters connected therewith, it is as though the Holy Spirit said, 'Yes, they come first chronologically, but really they belong to the other end,' and so He caused them to be taken out of their chronological order and put last in the arrangement of the letters as we have them. All this about the Lord's coming is after this and this and this as represented by all the other letters. So the letters to the Thessalonians are really the culmination of everything in the coming of the Lord. In them we have the last things: and the Holy Spirit has put them in their right place - at the end and with a significance which we are going to indicate in a moment.

We pass over to the letters of John, and we find they also are occupied with last things. When John wrote, every other New Testament writer had gone to be with the Lord. His are the last writings and they are occupied with last things - the Lord's coming, the antichrist, and so on. He says "it is the last hour." Here is the same feature as in 'Thessalonians.'

But with the Lord's coming in view, what is to be the thing which characterises the Lord's people more than anything else? What is the culmination of the whole process and progress of spiritual things? What is the issue of 'Romans,' 'Corinthians,' 'Galatians,' 'Ephesians,' 'Philippians', and 'Colossians'? What is it all to amount to? You notice in both places where the last things and the last times are most in view - 'Thessalonians' and 'John' - the emphasis is upon love. That is the impressive thing here. What is the Lord coming to? What has drawn Him at any time? What is it that He delights to find and come to? "Then they that feared the Lord spake one with another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, even mine own possession, in the day that I make" (Malachi 3:16-17). There you seem to have something of an advent of the Lord, as though He saw something there and said, 'That is what I am looking for and there I can come.'

Heart Love, not Head Knowledge, Attracts the Lord

Now, I am not setting aside the personal advent of the Lord. His coming will have many aspects. It will be for judgment, it will be for many things; but as central to it all, must there not be a magnet - something that draws Him out? Will He come only to judge the nations, to judge iniquity, to judge the man of sin - will that be enough for Him? Will He not rather come because He has found a treasure, and everything else of judgment is bound up with that treasure?

A familiar illustration is found in the life of David. When he was being driven out from his rightful place by the usurper, for the time being an exile from his city and throne, he sent back the priests with the ark into the city, to be there as a focal point for his heart's affections while he was in exile (2 Sam. 15:25). We know well that the priestly aspect of things in the Scriptures is the love aspect, as the kingly is the administrative. Again, we find the love aspect coming in with Aaron. What is almost the first thing that is said about Aaron to Moses? - "when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart" (Ex. 4:14). It was a heart matter that brought in the priesthood. The principle obtains all the way through Scripture. It is the priest who in his love and devotion holds the Lord's people in a heart relationship with the Lord; and when the Lord had to say the hardest things that He ever did say to His own people it was because the priests were then carrying on a system with no true heart relationship with Himself. Yes, the sacrifices and the services were there, but "this people draw nigh unto me, and with their mouth and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me" (Isa. 29:13). There was all the priestly service without the heart. The priest represents the heart side of things.

Now this matter of love is the most practical thing that ever we can have to do with. It raises more problems than anything else. But let us look at it firstly in the light of the Lord's coming. If the Lord is coming, what will He come to? I do not think He will come because there are people who have a lot of truth and a lot of exactness in their technique and all that sort of thing. Do not let us disregard the great value and importance of light and truth, of being right according to the Lord's laws and principles; but all that will never satisfy His heart. What He will come to will be that in which He finds His heart satisfaction because of love. Paul, in the first letter to the Thessalonians, prays that their love for one another and for all men may increase. In the second letter he does not pray any longer that it may be so, he gives thanks that it is so; their love to one another does abound exceedingly. And in that context he opens up the matter of the Lord's coming. I do not think we are straining our interpretation here. The Holy Spirit is so consistent in His thoughts. We can talk about the Lord's coming when we can say our love aboundeth, overfloweth, but I wonder whether we can talk about the Lord's coming with any real heart confidence unless that condition obtains.

Love Not Offended by Appearances

"Abound in love one toward another." Love for those of our own company may not be so difficult. But the Word adds "and toward all men." That goes deeper. I have of late felt more deeply and strongly than ever before the force of very familiar words - "Knowledge puffeth up, but love buildeth up" (1 Cor. 8:1), and other words such as "maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love" (Eph. 4:16). If we are going to be affected by that which is present in other people, all those features in Christians and in Christian work and activity which are repugnant to us, we are going to close up and withdraw in heart and nothing is going to be done in the way of mutual helpfulness and edification. Again and again the very practical question arises - because of this or that which we meet in another can anything be done, is anything possible? And very often, in the acute consciousness of so much that appears on the surface, we have revolted against it; and then, going to the Lord about it and facing it out with Him, we have been enabled to go on, and something has happened and the Lord has wrought, and we have been surprised, and rebuked for our original offendedness. We have to look through all that to the heart, and be reminded every time that the Lord looks on the heart. We are looking on all this which is largely the result of ignorance, lack of proper teaching and so on, and this can offend us. But the Lord looks on the heart; He sees if there is something deep down under all these preponderances, if there is a real heart love for Himself, and He knows if this is really the endeavour to express that love. There may be misapprehension, there may be ignorance, there may be other causes, but this which offends us is, on the part of those concerned, their way of showing their love for the Lord, and we must not be turned aside - we must get close to them and find what possibilities there are for the Lord. He is going on, He is not giving up; He is making all He possibly can of the least bit of heart love for Himself and for all men. The challenge of this is very practical and very searching for us. If we are affected by what we meet, by what we see and hear, by that whole world of sense - I am speaking in the realm of Christians now - we shall be put off, give up and decide that nothing is possible. "Love buildeth up"; you find there is something possible, there is some building up possible, more often than you would really believe or imagine, if only you take the love line - not the reserved line of criticism and judgment, but the love line. If there is any possibility at all for the Lord, that is the only way to find it, and you have to do a good deal of digging down, and apply yourself to it with real purpose, to discover whether, after all, there is any genuine, pure heart devotion to the Lord behind all the rest and wrapped up in it. And that 'all' covers a great deal which I will not attempt to detail. If you find that true heart love, you have found your ground of possibility; and for us, dear friends, this is our business, a business to be diligently pursued. It is not a sentimental matter at all, but intensely real spiritual business.

Love Not Offended Because of Deficiencies

So much for the preponderances; there are also what we may call the deficiencies. We may say of others that we do not find in them knowledge or truth or teaching or understanding; we find, as we feel, nothing to work upon. We are tempted to say 'they do not know, they have not seen'; oh, the iniquity of a phrase like that when it is used as some people use it! 'Poor things,' they say, in effect; 'they have not seen this aspect of doctrine which we have seen'; and they pass them by because they have not seen! I say, that can be an iniquitous thing because it may be robbing the Lord of any possibility at all. It may be true that little or nothing is understood of that with which we are familiar; they may know nothing about this or that aspect of truth. But is there some heart relationship to the Lord, even with the very minimum of spiritual understanding and enlightenment and instruction? Because there is nothing of all that which we feel to be so necessary, are we going to abandon such children of God? This is a matter in which I feel we do need to be fully awake, and if necessary, to make adjustments.

Love Looks Upon the Heart

Love - not the presence of a lot of understanding and teaching and truth, and not the absence of all sorts of things - is the governing matter with the Lord. It is not that He Himself in His heart accepts the wrong things, but He sees through them, He sees differently from ourselves. There are two statements about David made in the Scriptures - made from two different standpoints. Speaking of David, the Lord said to Samuel, "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7). That meant that the Lord's look upon David's heart was one which was favourable. But when David went to take bread to his brethren in the army his eldest brother looked at him and said, "Why art thou come down? ...I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thy heart..." (1 Sam. 17:28). Here we have God's look and man's look. We have to be very careful concerning the standpoint from which we are looking upon people before we judge them by the outward signs.

You can see there is no hope of building up unless there is love - and love for all men. You and I ought to be greatly concerned with this matter of building up. Oh, God only knows how much of spiritual increase and building is needed! It is a paralysing situation that faces us if we look at our own limitations. I am sure nothing is going to be done unless we have a very large heart to look over and in and through and beyond, refusing to be held by the thing that is glaring at us, striking us and hurting us, and reaching through to that which is true in the heart.

Love Builds

In the light of the Lord's coming, it is very important to be well instructed and to have all the light that the Lord can give us, but never let us think for one moment that light and truth and teaching are inevitably the building factors, for there are many people with a vast amount of truth and love who are not very large spiritually; they are very small, shrunken and closed up. It is love that builds. Moreover, it makes differences in those who exercise it, it brings them into rest. Truth alone may bring a strained look into the face and eyes. Love ought to bring into the countenance some suggestion of quiet strength and restful confidence. Look again at those closing verses of Romans 8 - "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors." Look at the things in question - the ultimate things so far as our lives are concerned. No, none of these things can separate us from the love of God. Well, let us sit down in the armchair of His love and be at rest, and then get to work. You cannot work unless you have a background rest, and rest does not spring firstly from truth. It comes from love, God's love. Whatever else He gives us and adds to us, may the Lord make us a people who are characterised supremely by this love for one another and for all men.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jul-Aug 1948, Vol 26-4

Accredited Ministry

(An Abbreviated Message)

"And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God... Let a man so account of us, as of ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." (1 Cor. 2:3-5; 4:1).

"For we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning our affliction which befell us in Asia, that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, insomuch that we despaired even of life: yea, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead." (2 Cor. 1:8-9).

"Therefore seeing we have this ministry, even as we obtained mercy, we faint not... always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? or need we, as do some, epistles of commendation to you or from you?" (2 Cor. 4:1,10-11; 3:1).

Paul is speaking concerning the ministry being accredited, and links this accrediting with his sufferings. Before writing 2 Corinthians he went through a very deep experience in Asia: "...weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power... we despaired even of life". God "who raiseth the dead" became his only way out, and from that deep experience this second letter sprang.

Ministry is that of the Church. Apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers were given as gifts for perfecting the saints unto the work of ministering; the ministry, therefore, belongs to all.

Truly accredited ministry is through suffering. Accredited ministry represents a tremendous victory, set in a background of great conflict.

A determined effort is made through the age to discredit spiritual ministry, and to do so through the one engaged in that ministry.

In the case of the Lord, there was a persistent effort to discredit Him, and thereby discredit His ministry. It drew forth the words: "No prophet is acceptable in his own country" (Luke 4:24).

In the case of Paul, the Judaisers sought to discredit him, and thereby discredit his ministry. At Corinth a great battle raged over his position as an Apostle, and 2 Corinthians is much taken up with the establishment of his own position, and therefore his authority in ministry.

One who counts for the Lord, is a joint of supply, who can be of value in any way to the Lord's people, and stand in His testimony, will know the enemy's effort to render those spiritual values nil by discrediting. The enemy will give a strong sense of unworthiness, unfitness, uselessness to the Lord, or he will cause something to be associated with the vessel for the discrediting of the ministry; he may even patronize in order to compromise, as when the demons cried: "These men are servants of the Most High God, which proclaim unto you the way of salvation". Sometimes he will cause to associate with a pure thing people who are unsaved, to bring discredit.

The Lord's answer to that is to keep the vessel of ministry in weakness, dependence upon Himself; so that all is kept spiritual, and all is of the Lord alone.

The essence of the second letter to the Corinthians is that here there was a wholesale discrediting of the Apostle and his ministry. He will not be accredited by asserting his rights. God will take him into death itself, where there is no way out, and then as from the dead bring him back, and pour through him a new stream of life for the Lord's people. In the realm of spiritual intelligences, where all is known and understood, there is a clear recognition that the effort to discredit has broken down, that this ministry is of God, and cannot be overthrown.

Such ministry may be personal or through those who constitute the assembly, or of a home.

Resurrection becomes the hallmark of that which is accredited of God.

Metal is passed through the crucible and refined then the stamp is put upon it to show its calibre.

So God brings through the fires of Satanic antagonism, allows the thing to reach a point where He alone is its life, and then brings it up out of the conflict, and puts the stamp of resurrection life on it, so that it has in it the power of an indestructible life - that only comes through death.

All ministry that is to be accredited will be bound up with suffering; a decision we have to make is as to the object of our ministry. A good many things can be taken into consideration, but there comes a point where all other things have to be ranged on one side, and one thing on the other side - the real spiritual value, without alloy: that which is wholly of God and not at all of man. In the measure in which that is true there will be suffering. To stand utterly for what is spiritual is a costly thing.

There must be a willingness to be dealt with by the Lord, in such a way as to keep the ministry living and pure. All ministry which issues from such suffering is going to count. It may not be welcomed or desired by the mass, but where there is need and a call for that which we have gained through suffering there will be response.

Two tragedies today amongst the Lord's people:

(1). So many have no knowledge of the truth in any adequate way, and are therefore spiritually immature.

(2). So many have a great deal of truth, and are dead. The Lord needs a vessel to meet these conditions - a vessel that has gone through the fire, and is living in the power of resurrection.

Such a vessel is going to be a suffering vessel, which has come to the place where God Himself meets the situation.

This may explain much; it may be a challenge; it may be a call.

"Seeing we have this ministry... we obtained mercy" - we have received grace to help - and so "we faint not". But the treasure is in vessels of fragile clay, the vessel is being broken day by day. To stand in the power of God, the revelation of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, represents cost. Are we prepared for that? That is the way of the accredited ministry.

God has accredited the ministry of His Son, yet there was a universal combination to set Him at naught.

God has accredited the ministry of His servant Paul, but he was taken through depths of suffering.

So for us; ministry accredited of God is linked with suffering, but the suffering produces that which is wholly of God and cannot be destroyed.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1946, Vol 24-5

The Altar of Incense

Reading: Exodus 30:1-10.

In reading through the book of Exodus you will be struck with the strange break of continuity, that, passing from the most holy place into the holy place where three vessels are found, the table of shewbread, the golden lampstand, and the altar of incense, the account stops with the lampstand. Then there is the lapse in these chapters from 25 to 30 before the third vessel in that part is mentioned. So we have this considerable space between, occupied by a great many things, before that third vessel in the holy place is taken up. I think the order of things gives us the clue to this, for it is not an accident, not just that the writer omitted or forgot and then came back again remembering, but there is government, and the very order of things here is full of valuable significance.

The Order of Things

Let us note, then, the order of things as set forth by the Lord. The Lord began in the most holy place with the ark, and then the mercy seat. Then He passed into the holy place, to the table of shewbread and the golden lampstand; and then He took up the matter of the curtains of the tabernacle, and the coverings; then the boards, the sockets, the bars; then the veil; then the door of the tabernacle. From there He passed to the great altar, the altar of burnt offering. Then He dealt with the court, its pillars, its hangings, its sockets; then with the gate of the court. After that He spoke of the olive oil for the light; and then of the priesthood; firstly Aaron, and then Aarons sons, the garments of the high priest, the garments of the priests, the breastplate of Aaron, the robe of the ephod to be worn in the most holy place; and then of the consecration of the priests; then of the daily offering; then the altar of incense.

It is remarkable to start right at the centre of things, the most holy place, and work outwards to the very circumference, taking up everything as to the components, as to the ministry, as to the offerings; omitting only one thing, leaving it to the end: the altar of incense. No one who thoughtfully reads this account can fail to be impressed with that, and no one would ever think that it is because this altar of incense is of such insignificance that it can be left to the end. The reverse is the truth.

A Priestly People

All this of which we have been speaking as coming in between chapter 25 and chapter 30 is, on the one hand, a revelation of Christ in relation to mans fellowship with God. It all has to do with how God brings man into fellowship with Himself in Christ, how mans desire and mans need and the very object of mans being is to be realised, that is, fellowship with God. That is all set forth in this very comprehensive order in type. On the other hand, it is all a revelation of the churchs vocation, the vocation of the people of God as a priestly people. It is a wonderful vocation. The priestly vocation of the Lords people is to me one of the most wonderful things that God has ever revealed. It is amazing that God has brought man into fellowship with Himself in a priestly ministry in this universe, to embody and express in a spiritual life the wonder of redemption, of a redeemed universe by the blood of Jesus Christ. The churchs vocation is to embody and express not only in doctrine or in word, but in spiritual power and influence, the great fact that this universe is redempto-centric, that redemption is at the heart of this universe. That is the essence of the familiar phrase, hath made us a kingdom and priests (that is, a holy nation; that is, a holy church) unto our God. This is all, then, a revelation of the churchs vocation in that capacity.

Grace and Glory

There is one little phrase in Scripture which gathers up all that this tabernacle and its system represents. It is the little phrase in the Psalm: He will give grace and glory (Ps. 84:11). The acacia wood always speaks of the grace, that is man in fellowship with God. The gold overspread, covering, encasing, is the divine glory. The two things are brought together, grace and glory. You find the whole system is shot through with that twofold blessing of God. You can take it as a key. The grace of God issuing in the glory of God! The glory of God resting upon us because of the grace of God!

The Altar of Incense

Now we come to this altar of incense, and as it comes in where it does in this remarkable way after the whole thing has been comprehended and set forth, it shows one thing so very plainly and emphatically. It is almost as though the Holy Spirit had just suspended that and said, Now then, we will just hold this for a minute. Let Me go over everything, touch on everything, and give you a full revelation. That is tremendously important, and it shall come in when I have set out everything else. So it comes in there, and declares its own emphatic message, that everything is carried on and made effectual through prayer. That is, in prayer which is in virtue of the precious Blood, for the blood of atonement is sprinkled upon the horns of the altar and the altar itself. There is a very clear prescribing of that here in this account, and it is prayer in virtue of the blood of Jesus which touches everything, affects everything, makes everything of living value, and causes everything to be effectual. Pauls phrase is everything by prayer.

You see how everything in these chapters is made to lead up to this altar. Everything is taken hold of and eventually leads to this altar, and then you see the immediate association of this altar of incense. Look again at this account, and you will find that it is before the veil that is by the ark of testimony; it is before the mercy seat that is over the testimony; it is beside the table of shewbread, beside the lampstand.

The Value of Prayer

Prayer in virtue of the blood of the Lord Jesus touches the deepest things, touches everything and is associated with everything. It is as though the Lord were saying, Yes, there is an atonement; in the most holy place atonement has been made. Yes, there is a mercy seat for communion. Yes, there is every provision. But for a daily value of that, a prayer life is essential." All this is ministry by prayer, is entered into by prayer. There is nothing  however great and comprehensive the divine provision may be  which can be known independently of prayer. Find a prayerless life, and all the great, wonderful meaning of Gods provision in Christ is of little real value. There is no entering gloriously into Gods great provision where prayer life is at low ebb. Whether it be communion with God, that communion is in prayer; whether it be in testimony to the world, that testimony is made effectual through prayer; whether it is in feeding upon Christ, the Living Bread, that is by prayer. You say, The Word! Yes, but what is the Word without prayer? If you divorce your Bible from your prayer life you simply have a Book of laws and instructions, a manual, and you become merely theological or doctrinal. But prayer in association with the Word makes the Word live and makes it of spiritual value.

Notice what the Lord said: When Aaron dresses the lamps in the morning, he shall offer incense (verse 7). What does he do in dressing the lamps? He takes the snuffers. Some wick has got a bit dry and used up, and it is smouldering and smoking and filling the atmosphere with something that is not pleasant, and that is the flesh. This old man does get up, and this flesh life does manifest itself from time to time. Even though we have the Spirit, the flesh becomes unsteady at times, and there is always the possibility very near at hand of the flesh and the self and the old nature filling the air with something obnoxious, unpleasant, smoky and smouldering. That has got to be trimmed every morning by prayer: Lord, trim the smouldering wick of my fleshly lips, of my fleshly doing; trim my nature, Lord, this morning. Cut off that which is me, which if not cut off today will make for much that is regrettable, and fill the day with cloudy, smoky, smouldering flesh. Aaron trimmed the lamps with prayer every morning, and every evening when he lit the lamps he offered incense (verse 7-8). There is always darkness about, ready to encroach and overcome the heart which is Gods sanctuary, and it has got to be withstood lest the light which is in us become darkness.

The Lamps  the Testimony

So the lamps have to be lit against the darkness, the light has to be maintained as a testimony against darkness. How? By prayer. The light of a testimony; to use the words of Paul about this world: in the midst of which we shine as lights in the world. Our testimony, the testimony of Jesus in us, can be overpowered by darkness around us, but it has to be maintained by fresh supplies of the oil of the Spirit continually. How are the fresh supplies of the Spirit received? How is the light of testimony maintained against the darkness? By prayer.

Now you see the testimony is in view here: When he trims the lamps... when he lights the lamps. That lamp is the lamp of the testimony of Jesus in the believer, in the church, so that the testimony of Jesus is always in view. Prayer is related to the testimony of Jesus. That is the basis of prayer, the maintenance of a clear witness, a clear testimony to Him in our lives. As we have said, if the prayer life is weak, then the revelation of the Lord Jesus in us will be weak, and rather than being a revelation of Him it will be a manifestation of ourselves, and that is the thing the Lord says has got to be trimmed.

The Horns  Power and Strength

Then we read:  the horns thereof shall be of one piece with it (verse 2). The more perfect translation of the phrase would be, the horns shall be itself. One piece. Of course, that is what it means; not something made apart and joined on, but as wrought of one piece. But the literal translation is very emphatic: the horns shall be of itself. The point is this. You have prayer in view, and this altar, and the horns in Scripture are always types of power, strength, and the strength is of itself, the strength is of prayer; prayer is strength. Power is not something apart from prayer, not something made in itself and given to us. Power is a part of prayer, and prayer is power. It is one thing. We have to learn more and more the power of prayer, and the prayer of power.

The Blood of the Sin Offering

Finally, the blood of the sin offering shall be sprinkled on the horns of the altar (verse 10). That blood is always in the Scripture a witness against what is of the old creation, to cut it off, and to bring in a new creation; a witness against the earthly, the worldly and the fleshly, and therefore the satanic; a witness unto the heavenly, the spiritual, and that which is of the Lord. It means here that the blood of the sin offering being sprinkled on the horns and on the altar makes everything heavenly. Our prayer life has got to be on a heavenly basis. It is not enough just to be praying for our earthly affairs. It is so easy to get up in the morning and hurry through a few words asking the Lord to bless us and ours, and our earthly things for the day, as though these things of this life were all. Oh, no! The Lord would have prayer touching things heavenly, things spiritual, related to that which is not of time but of eternity, not of this world but in relation to His eternal, heavenly intentions. He would have us separated from the merely temporal. There is a place for bringing those before the Lord, but they have got to be lifted in relation to the heavenly and not be dealt with as things in themselves. The blood makes everything heavenly, separating from the old creation. There is a very great deal of the old creation in our prayers; it is our convenience, our deliverance from inconvenience and discomfort, our salvation from what would bring us a great deal of trouble and sorrow. That is the motive behind a good deal of our praying. Lord, dont let anything happen today, because it would spoil our life today!

But supposing the Lord would lift us into something altogether new through sorrow, are we then going to pray that prayer? No, our prayer must be: Today, Lord, I want that which is of greatest account in relation to spiritual values and if that must be by way of trial and adversity I do not pray to be delivered from it. I say, Lord, there is power to carry me through, and by prayer I come into touch with that power to carry me through the trials of every day in relation to the meaning of the trial. That is heavenly praying. That is praying with your heart in heaven. If ye be risen with Christ seek those things which are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your affections upon the things which are above, not on the things which are on the earth, for ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God (Col. 3:1-3). Our citizenship is in heaven. Now the life of the believer is to be, therefore, one with heavenly interests always in view, and our prayer life is in relation to those interests.

Warfare in the Heavenlies

Where prayer counts most vitally and effectually is in the heavenlies. Ephesians makes that perfectly clear: Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers... the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. Then, providing for that warfare, he gathers it all up, Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. The warfare is in the heavenlies, and the prayer is most effectual there. That is where the power is indeed against the spiritual forces, and that blood brings us out there as our protection for a realm which is spiritual and therefore counts for most. The place of the altar of incense, the holding of it to the end till everything else has been brought in, gives to prayer tremendous significance.

Now one closing thought. There was to be a crown of gold round the top of this altar of incense (verse 3), and that crown speaks of the glorifying of the Lord Jesus as the Victor. But we behold... Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour (Heb. 2:9). The crown of the Victor over sin and death and the reason for that victory in this connection is in Isaiah 53: He made intercession for the transgressors. The implication is that by His intercession for the transgressors in His cross He won. There were transgressors doomed under judgement, and His cross was a great work of intercession for the transgressors  and we were among them. By intercession in His cross, His great ministry of intercession in giving Himself, He saved us. You and I are today in Christ, saved men and women, because of the intercession of the Lord Jesus. He triumphed in intercession for us, and as High Priest He ever lives to make intercession, and every day we are living in the benefit of His continual intercession. That is the point in the crown of gold, the crown of glory. Now the Lord is calling us into that ministry. It is not only to share the travail, but to share the glory, not only to share the humiliation but to share the crown, and the crown is not just some objective thing given to us but for the Lord to come and crown our lives. That is to be His seal upon us, and He will say, Well done! As I have overcome so you have overcome; share with Me My throne. If that can be because my life was a life of prevailing prayer, that is the glory of it; and even now to know what it is to prevail in prayer is glory; it is the crown of glory.

Now you see there is a glory connected with prayer. The Lord calls us, then, to consider our prayer life, because everything depends upon it. It must be the time for trimming the wick, the works of the flesh. It must be the means of keeping the light clear and strong against the darkness and it must be the means of power, the ground of power, and of prevailing. The Lord use His word, then, to bring us back, if needs be, to the strength of a full prayer life.

The Belovedness of Christ

Reading: Exodus 32:1-6, 15-29; Malachi 2:4-6; 3:1-3; Numbers 4:1-3; Luke 3:23.

The matter of the priestly service or ministry of the people of God, the service of God in terms of priestliness, is one which has been on my heart for a considerable time now. We will introduce the subject with a very simple consideration of what I am going to call the 'belovedness' of Christ, in this particular connection - His priestly ministry.

In the passages which we have just read, to which a great many more could be added, two things are quite clear. One, that the Lord's people are called to be a priestly people - that is their vocation; two, that in that function they are peculiarly precious to the Lord. You cannot read the many passages in the Scriptures about the Levites without being impressed by that one thing, that they are very precious to the Lord. The last reference to them in the Old Testament, which we have read, indicates that. There is a tone of very real endearment in the words of the Lord about Levi at that point. At the end of the story of the Old Testament, after all that has taken place through the years, the Lord looks right back to that day of which we read in Exodus 32, and speaks of how precious and valuable the Levites became to Him, so much so that He entered into a covenant with them, a covenant of life and peace. "My covenant was with him of life and peace".

THE PRIESTLY MINISTRY OF CHRIST AND THE FATHER'S LOVE

And you will notice the connection between the statement in Numbers 4:3, that the active Levites started their ministry at the age of thirty, and the statement that Jesus was likewise thirty years of age when He began His public ministry; indicating not only in itself, but by other features which we shall notice, that His ministry was essentially a Levitical, that is, a priestly, ministry. We all believe that, and we know how much is made of that, especially in the letter to the Hebrews. But notice that that statement in Luke - 'Jesus...when he began... was about thirty years of age" - follows immediately upon His baptism and the opening of the Heavens, and the Father's voice and attestation: "Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." There is something about the Lord Jesus, just at this point when He takes up His priestly ministry, which draws out the love of the Father for Him in these affectionate expressions. It is true that He was the Son, and therefore He was beloved of God as His Son, but I believe there was a particular connection between His beginning of a priestly ministry, and this expression of the Father's love and appreciation for the preciousness of this upon which He was entering. That is the point of our concentration just now - the 'belovedness' of the Lord Jesus, and so of the Levites, as entering into the meaning of Christ's ministry in terms of priesthood, precious to the Lord.

I suggest to you, dear friends, that the thing that you and I need, and perhaps more than anything else desire, to be assured about, is: What is there, peculiarly precious to the Lord, into which we may be brought, in which we may be found, which may be entrusted to us! What we really are seeking for all the time is: What is it that the Lord wants more than anything else? What is it that is more precious to the Lord than anything else! Can there be something in the life of God's people corresponding to this 'belovedness' of Christ! It is very important to know that. There are many things that may be of value, but they may be of comparative value. What we want to know, what we must know, is: What is that which the Lord really looks upon as most precious to Himself, which will serve Him to the greatest value! The Lord Jesus received the assurance that the Father's love, appreciation and valuation were focused upon Him, just at the point when He stepped out into His public ministry. It is a great thing to start any work or move out into any service on a basis like that, is it not! Just think of what strength there would be if we had absolute assurance that that to which we were committed was something of tremendous value to God!

As we go on in our Christian lives and in our manifold work for the Lord, we find that time is a great sifter. Trial, testing, adversity and suffering, and all the things which come to bear upon us, very often make us raise seriously the question of values. 'Is it worth it! Is it justified! Does this really matter! Is this of such importance!' From time to time we are forced to ask, 'Now, what does it all amount to, after all!', and it is then a great delivering and confirming thing to have the answer: 'This is precious - of very real value - even of supreme importance to the Lord'. It was the starting-point of the Lord Jesus in His life-work - His belovedness to the Father, not only in His Person and Sonship, but in the thing to which He was committing Himself.

It is very important to know, and it is not wrong to say, that we can be brought into that belovedness. The Levites, representing God's thought for all His people, came into that in a very real way. The Lord let it be known right through the centuries that they represented something very valuable, very precious to Himself. "My covenant was with him of life and peace".

AN OPEN HEAVEN

Then you notice that when the Lord Jesus began at the Levitical age of thirty, the one thing that marked that beginning was the opened Heaven. The Heavens were opened. Now look back again at Exodus 32, and you see that that is exactly what is there. Moses, receiving the law and the testimony on Sinai in communion with the Lord, came down from the mount. The Lord had already told him what was happening down below, but Joshua did not know. Joshua was always a man of war, and any noise to him sounded like war, and when he heard the sound from the camp he interpreted it as war. His spirit rose to the occasion for fighting, but Moses said, 'No, that is not war - I know what that is', and he came down and saw, and took it all in.

Moses stood in the gate, and Israel became divided into two parties. On the one side, Heaven was closed. No doubt about it, Heaven was closed to them that day. It was doom, judgment, darkness, exclusion; they were set aside, cast out. Heaven was no longer open. On the other side of Moses were the Levites, and the open Heaven was with them. On the basis of their action, their decision, the open Heaven was their inheritance that day, and from that time onward theirs was the ministry of the open Heaven. Levitical ministry is the ministry of an open Heaven, and the opened Heaven is the sign and seal of the preciousness of that to the Lord. To be living, walking, working, in the good of a Heaven opened, is the mark of preciousness to the Lord. No judgment, no exclusion, no doom, no darkness, no wrath, but an open Heaven - the inheritance of the Levite, and the inheritance of the Lord Jesus, the greatest of the Levites.

Do you grasp the significance and importance of that! We are talking about service. Forget for the moment the terms in which we couch the message - 'levitical' and 'priestly' sound very ecclesiastical, very formal - and just think about the service which is precious to the Lord. That kind of service means the service which corresponds to the Lord Jesus, that pre-eminently marks the Lord Jesus. It has the seal of God upon it, that this is something supremely precious to the Lord; and the seal is that you have an open Heaven. That is, the way between you and God is wide open: there is no shadow, no cloud, no interruption: the course is clear between God and yourself, and yourself and God. If it is not like that, the service will be hard going, always under a sense of Divine reservation, that the Lord is not really with you as you feel He ought to be.

THE MARKS OF THE MINISTRY

An open Heaven, and "My covenant... with him of life and peace". What is the mark of this kind of ministry? What is the mark of a people standing in such a position, such a relationship with the Lord under an open Heaven?

(1) Life

Well, it is always with this twofold characteristic. First of all, life is being ministered all the time. Look at the whole history of the work of the Levites. We shall perhaps say more about that later. Their whole ministry was one of maintaining life, keeping open the way of life, ministering life. But for them, death would have set in: they were the bulwarks against death. They were the channel of life from Heaven to the people of God, and I suggest again that the real test of the service that is precious to the Lord is not 'size', not many things that men think to be the marks of success, but whether there is a ministration of life: is life being ministered, is life being poured out! is the one thing of which you are conscious in that ministry the presence of life? It is not just a matter of our understanding the terms and the phrases and the language and the teaching, but our recognition of life.

And what do we want apart from that, and what do we want more than that? Is it not that that the people of God need, after all! Oh, for life! It is life we want, we must have life - give us life! We cannot live without life! And the Levites were the ministers of life. Christ, the great Levite, was the Minister of life; and real service to the Lord is that we minister life - not that people come necessarily into a great range of truth, a vast amount of knowledge and information that is purely intellectual or mental, but that they have life ministered to them. That is the seal of the real service of God.

But when you come to think about it, that, after all, is the whole matter. It is summed up in that, and - because of the preciousness of this kind of service into which you and I are called - in the 'belovedness' of Christ. Oh, what a wonderful thing! That is something that we cannot talk about; we can only feel and sense. If it might be that the Lord should be able to look toward us with deep appreciation and say 'beloved', in recognition that there is something in our lives, in our service, in our ministry, of very, very great account to Himself; that there might be transferred to us something of the belovedness of His own Son.

(2) Peace

"And peace." Was it peace for those people who broke loose on that day? No, in the very deepest sense it was war. It was war between them and God, and between God and them. No peace with that. But the covenant of life over against their death, and of peace over against their controversy - or God's controversy with them - the covenant of life and peace was with Levi. Peace: it is a wonderful thing to be in the place where God is satisfied, and your heart is at rest. That place is in Christ.

GOD'S JEALOUSY OVER THE LEVITES

Now, because of the value of that to God, see how jealous He was over the Levites. It is a long story of Divine jealousy concerning their place and ministry. God was so jealous about the Levites, as to their rightful place, and the ministry which was entrusted to them, that some of the most terrible things in the history of Israel happened when the Levites were not given their place and their portion. This book of Malachi is just full of that. Glance through this short book, and note how many times reference is made to priesthood and Levi. You will find that the whole thing really focused upon that. And what is the trouble! Oh, everything is wrong in Israel at the end. It is a wretched, miserable story: everything is breaking down, everything is wrong, there is nothing happy at all. And why? The Levites are not in their place, the Levites are not functioning, and the Lord's people are not giving the Levites their portion and the Lord is so jealous about that, that everything else is allowed to go wrong.

But the conditions that obtained at the end had occurred repeatedly in the past. You recall the tragedy in the case of Uzzah and the ark. The Lord smote Uzzah, so that he died. Why? Because the Ark had been put upon a cart, when the Lord had prescribed that it should be carried by the Levites. The Lord is very jealous. Dear friends, it does matter, does it not, whether the Lord is jealous for us - whether the Lord is ready to stand by us, to uphold us, to be with us, to let it be known that "he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye" (Zech. 2:8)! There is something in that - to have the Lord on your side, to know that God is jealous over that to which you are committed, and fiercely jealous over it, that the Lord is not going to let it be set aside, the Lord is not going to let it be overlooked. Even if, in all innocence and in all good motive and good will, as with David and his cart, the principle of the Levites is forgotten, is overlooked, the Lord does not overlook it. This is something which is pre-eminent with the Lord, God is jealous for something; and what matters is that we are in that something for which God is jealous. Oh, to have the jealousy of God on our side in the work to which we are committed!

Now, the history of the Levites is a long and varied and mixed history. They were not always in good condition; they were not always in their right place, position and function. Sometimes they were incapable of ministering simply because they were involved in the bad state of the people of God. Sometimes they themselves were out of adjustment. It is a long and painful history. But what I want you to notice is this, that even in the last recorded phase of that history - a long history in which there are many dark chapters - even in the last phase, as we see it in Malachi, God has not given them up. The last word about them is that He will "purify the sons of Levi", after all. He has not abandoned them; He has not given them over. The Lord has made a covenant, and He is standing to it.

But it is not always a matter of the people. Here it is a matter of the ministry. There is some ministry which is of this kind, which has this importance and value in the sight of God. There is a particular kind of service to the Lord to which He is peculiarly committed, and, while those who are connected with it may change, may sometimes go wrong, the Lord is jealous for this thing, and He is not giving it up, He is not casting it aside. If that had been His way, where would the ministry of the Lord be to-day? Think of the Dark Ages, even of Christendom. Think of all those periods in this dispensation when things have been in a deplorable state, and the Lord has seemed to have little or nothing of this kind. But the Lord has never given it up, and He never will. The last chapter of the Old Testament sees the Lord coming back to it again. He is committed to it. It is a great thing to know that there is that which is of such importance to the Lord that if we come into it, we shall find God persisting in spite of failures, of weaknesses, of imperfections, of days of darkness, of seeming eclipses. God is going on with that thing.

There are things to which God has not committed Himself. There are those things which God has left, from which He has withdrawn; but there is that concerning His Son to which He has committed Himself, which He will never give up, no matter what happens. If we ask what that is - in a phrase, it is priestly ministry. We have to learn what priestly ministry is.

THE CHASTENING OF THE SONS OF LEVI

There is chastening connected with it. "He will purify the sons of Levi". Yes, chastening. But let us always keep a broad line between judgment and chastening. The Devil always tries to wipe out that difference, and interpret all chastening as judgment. Judgment is for rejecters of the Lord; chastening is for the accepters of the Lord. The form of the judgment may seem to be exactly alike for unsaved and saved: you cannot see any outward difference. The unsaved may suffer physical judgment for sin. The saved too may suffer physically - yet this is not judgment, but chastening. One is destructive, the other is constructive, and God's dealings with Levites are always on the constructive principle. Remember that. There may be suffering, there may be the fire purging and purifying, but it is always constructive. God is just using these ways to secure that upon which His heart is set.

SATAN'S HATRED OF LEVITICAL MINISTRY

This has been but an introductory word, but note one thing before we close: the hatred, the Satanic hatred, of this Levitical ministry. When Jesus began He was, as we have seen, about thirty years old, that is, of Levitical age, indicating that the ministry He was beginning was priestly ministry - the open Heaven attesting that this Person and this ministry were peculiarly precious to the Lord, beloved of God. What came next! The wilderness and Satan. And what was the point of assault! The very point upon which God had focused everything - the 'belovedness'. 'My Son, My Beloved'. "If thou be the Son..." He might just as well have said, 'lf Thou be the Beloved' for that was the point of the thing. 'If you are beloved, if you are so precious to the Father...' "If thou be the Son..." Satan hates not only this Person, but this thing, Satan is not only against the Person, but he is against the ministry; and the one thing that he will always try to do, in order to cripple, destroy or nullify that ministry which is so precious to God, is, if we may put it this way, to becloud the belovedness.

Do you not realize how Satan is all the time trying to make you believe otherwise than that God loves you, that you are beloved of God! It is often the last thing that we can believe, is it not, that we are beloved of God! Satan is always busy from every angle to try to becloud our belovedness. If he cannot do it by direct assault, he does it by suggestion, by insinuation. Or he will do it by trying to cause us to slip up, make mistakes, go wrong, and then bringing upon us accusation, saying, 'You are no longer beloved of God'. His devices and his efforts are countless and unsearchable, with the one object, as with the Lord Jesus, so with those who are with the Lord Jesus as the sons of Aaron, as Levites, of somehow bringing a cloud, raising a question, over this preciousness to the Lord.

I use the word again because it is a good word and gets us a bit off our beaten track - the belovedness of Christ, transferred to His fellow-priests or His Levite sons, the beloved. Let Satan get in there and he has destroyed everything. If there should be one reading these lines who has lost the assurance that God loves him, you not only know the unspeakable misery of it, but, what is more, you know how you are put out of service - you know quite well that you would not attempt to serve the Lord. It is no use - you are paralyzed until you know and are assured that the Lord loves you. If you have lost that assurance, you have lost your testimony, you have lost your ministry, you have lost everything, and that is the chief work of the Devil. Paul says: "he hath made us accepted in the beloved" (Eph. 1:6, A.V.). That is the belovedness of Christ transferred to those who are in Him. Do not believe the Devil. "Evil company doth corrupt good manners" (1 Cor. 15:33) and if you have a talk with the Devil, and listen to him, your whole conduct will be affected and coloured by that. The one object the Devil has in view is to raise a question, nay, to establish in you a question, as to God's love and your belovedness to God - that is, personally.

And then he is after something more - he is after your ministry. You see, on that day when the Lord Jesus stepped out to His ministry, the Devil stepped out too, and said, 'Not only will I raise a question, if I can, about His relationship with God and God's relationship with Him, but by raising that question 1 will destroy this ministry, if I can, right at its birth'. You and I are no use to God if we have a question about either His love for us or His love for that to which we are committed. If we have any doubt about that, we are finished. This sense of what I have called 'belovedness' is essential, not only to life, but as an assurance and rest in service. It gave encouragement to the Levites to go quietly, assuredly and restfully about their work, and so they did. Day after day, by day and by night, they went on quietly with their ministry. To go on quietly, persistently, assuredly, in peace, all rests upon this - the recognition that that into which I have been called by God is of infinite value to Him, and because I am called according to His purpose, I am beloved of God.

That is a simple word with which to begin, but it is basic to everything. May I just sum it up like this! The Lord is calling us to something which is not a comparative thing, but an absolute thing: which is not just something that, well, the Lord likes and will bless, but is that upon which all His heart is set, which means more than anything else to the Lord. May our hearts reach out for that in these days, and may the Lord show us what it is.

"But Ye..."

"And he said unto them, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within his own authority. But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:7-8).

"Now when they beheld the boldness of Peter and John, and had perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus" (Acts 4:13).

"Not... times or seasons... But ye..." The Lord thus turns the whole question of the new dispensation into a matter of people. The old dispensation commenced with a man. He was God's key to everything in the creation. And here, in the book of the Acts, we have the commencement of the new dispensation and the new creation; and it is focused in a Man - the Son of man - and in men. The key to everything is - "But ye..." The disciples were interested in something objective to themselves, and yet in which they would have a place - the kingdom of Israel. That meant they were interested in the interpretation and fulfilment of prophecy - one of a good many themes and subjects; they were interested in teachings. But the Lord said, 'No, it is not teachings, nor truths; not a movement, an enterprise, a kingdom.' All that was to be subsequent to getting the men, and getting the men inwardly in the position which was necessary.

Well, that is a very simple word, but it really goes to the heart of things. What are we waiting for? What are we expecting? Is it a change in our position, circumstances, conditions, location, association? Are we waiting to be precipitated into some movement, for the Church to take action where we are concerned, for others to take responsibility for us? What is it? Well, let us note this: the Lord says, "Not... but..." Not any things like that, in the first place, but you: the man, the woman, in right relationship with the Lord, under the full government of the Holy Spirit, filled with love for Christ and for others: the man, the woman, whose eyes have seen the King. That is the key to everything. It may change the circumstances, it may change everything; but to change everything without that would not get us anywhere. The Lord says, 'It is you, everything waits for you'. It is not this and that which you can tabulate, something you may be either definitely or vaguely expecting in connection with a day when you will be in some other position and your job will change and you will be out in 'the work'. You will go on like that to the end of your life; you can have any number of changes but not be getting to the real goal. It is not this and that, but ye... The Lord gets us where He wants us and as He wants us.

It is quite clear that is exactly how it works out. We can see that. Here and there are such people, men and women in whom, because of their utterly selfless abandonment to the Lord and because they are so full of the Spirit, the thing is happening. All that we long to see happening is happening with them, the work is being done, there is movement.

So do not let us wait for things. Let us at once recognise the fact where we are. We may not be moved elsewhere. This is to hold good just where we are now, without waiting for some change of time or place or situation or set of circumstances. It is not the thing outside of us at all: we are the key to it all. What is required is that both the Lord and others should be able to look on us and say 'They count, they express the Lord'. And, after all, it does not matter what we might get of official position and place in anything that is going. What is the value of that, however great it may seem to be, if it is not the expression of Christ? Let us ask the Lord to show us clearly just what has to be ruled out in our case - that of which He says, 'No, not that, but ye...'

We are apt to think that if and when the circumstances and conditions of our lives are changed and we are in another position than the one we now occupy, then something will happen, the purpose of God will begin to be fulfilled. The Lord would say, 'No; it is not circumstances, not conditions, at all; it is you.'

Some think that it is a matter of graduation and ordination and office, and that when they get into an official position, and have recognition there, then they will begin to fulfil the purpose of their lives. So they are waiting until they are either ordained or appointed to their work. The Lord says, 'No, it is not office, it is not ordination, it is not placing; it is you; you are the key.'

And alongside that, many are looking to the organization, the society, the mission, the church connection to which they are related, and expecting a new day for themselves to originate there, and that when the institution, whatever it may be, takes action, then the work of their life will begin. And the Lord says, 'It is not the church, the mission, the organization, the society, the institution; it is you.'

These men in Acts 1 were waiting for something to happen outside of themselves. They called it the restoring of the kingdom, the setting up of an order which would be a national - perhaps an international - movement: a new order outside of themselves in which they would find their place and probably be allocated, appointed or ordained to it. And the Lord simply swept the board of all those ideas and said, 'No, it is not that, it is you.' That is how it proved, how it worked out. We individually may be the key to everything in the purpose of God.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, March-April 1951, Vol 29-2

Christian Service From God's Standpoint

What is the work of the Lord? What is Christian service from God's standpoint? It is contributing to the fullness of Christ. It is in the measure of each several part (of His Body) ministering to that end, that all things shall be summed up in Christ and that He shall be the fullness of all things.

That great Divine goal has many ways and many means of attainment, and it is not a matter of whether you or I are serving the Lord in the same way as someone else. That is not the point at all. We standardize and departmentalize Christian work, and we think of the activities of ministers and missionaries and such like functions and call that the work of the Lord; we think of that when we speak of going into Christian service. But while I do not say that that is not the work of the Lord, it is a very narrow and a very artificial way of viewing things.

The work of the Lord is, and can be, no more than contributing to the fullness of Christ and ministering of that fullness to Him and from Him. How you do it is a matter of Divine appointment, but that is the work of the Lord. So it is not necessarily a matter of whether I am in what is called the ministry, a missionary or a Christian worker, in this particular category or that, or whether I am serving the Lord in the way in which certain others are serving Him. That is quite a secondary matter. We would all like to be doing what certain people are doing, and doing it in the way they are doing it. You might aspire to be an apostle Paul, probably if you understood a little more you would not! But, you see, whether Paul is doing it along his Divinely appointed line, in his Divinely appointed way - or Peter, or John, or this one or that one - the object comes first, the way afterward.

The service of the Lord, whatever may be the means, the method, is ministering to the fullness of Christ and ministering of that fullness, and you may be called upon to do that anywhere. It can be done just as much out of public view as in public view. Many who have ministered to the Lord and by whom He has been wonderfully ministered are those of whom the world has heard and read nothing. This, you see, is a 'Body' matter, and a body is not all hands, not all major members and faculties. A body is comprised of numerous, almost countless, functions, many of them remote and very hidden, but they all minister in a related way to the whole purpose for which the body exists; and that is a true picture of the service of God.

So think again. While we would not put you back from aspiring to the fullest place of service, nor say that you are wrong in desiring to be a missionary, to go forth into the world in a full-time spiritual capacity, remember that even before the Lord puts you into that specific work, you are a minister all the same. For 'minister' is not a name, a title, a designation, but a function, and the function is contributing something to the fullness of Christ and ministering something of that fullness.

So it comes back to us as a question: What am I ministering of Christ; what am I contributing to that ultimate fullness? If it be by leading the unsaved to Him, I am adding to Christ, so to speak. That is all it means, but that is what it means. I am building up Christ. If I am encouraging the saints, I am ministering to Christ and of Christ. That is ''My servant....in whom My soul delighteth.'' In whom does God delight as His servant? Those who minister to His Son, and that is the beginning and the end, however that may be done by Divine appointment.

"Behold, My servant....'' God calls attention to the servant in whom His soul delighteth. The beginning of all service in relation to God is the servant himself. What makes a servant of God? We think of a servant of God being made by academic training, Bible teaching, by this or that form of equipment; and we think when we have all that, when we have been through the course and have in our minds all that can be imparted of that kind, we are the Lord' s servants. But that is not the way the Lord looks at it at all.

In the first place, the Lord looks at the servant, and He is going to demand that He shall be able Himself to point to His servant and say, ''Behold, My servant.'' I know that there is a right sense in which the instrument has to be out of view, but only in one sense; that is, that he in his own person, his own personal impression as a man, his own impact by nature, shall not be the registration made upon people; only in that sense he has to be out of view. There is another sense in which he has to be very much in view. If that were not true, all the autobiography in Paul 's writings would be wrong in principle. Paul keeps himself, in a right sense, very much in view. He calls attention to himself very properly and very strongly and persistently. The Lord is going to require that He shall be able to say, ''Behold, My servant", and the servant to whom He will call attention will be the servant who is the impression of Christ. Yes, Christ registered, Christ presenced, Christ apparent, in the servant. The beginning of all service, I repeat, is the servant himself. God is far more concerned with having His servants in a right state than He is with having them furnished with all kinds of academic qualifications and titles. It is the man, it is the woman, that God is concerned with.

If you turn to the letters of Timothy, you find there that beautiful designation of the servant of the Lord: ''O man of God'' (1 Tim. 6:2). Paul's appeal to Timothy is in those terms. And then, speaking of the study and knowledge of the Scriptures, he uses the same phrase again: ''....that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work'' (2 Tim. 3:17). But note the order: he says, ''that the man of God may be... furnished completely", not that there may be a complete furnishing to make a man of God; the man of God already exists. Now all his study with the Word is to make him who is the man of God an efficient workman. The man of God comes before all his study. He is that before he has a knowledge of the Scriptures.

You know that 'man of God' was the great designation given to some of the prophets of old. Elijah on one occasion, having been hidden by God at the brook Cherith, found the brook to dry up; and the word of the Lord came to him, saying, "Arise, get thee to Zarepath... behold, I have commanded a widow there to sustain thee" (2 Kings 17:9). Elijah went, and you remember how he found the food situation. She was gathering two sticks to bake her last cake for her son and herself, and then to die. But the barrel of meal did not fail: the Lord was faithful to His word. But then, after that, it came to pass that the woman's son fell sick, and so sore was the sickness that there was no breath left in him. The woman made her very pathetic appeal to the prophet. He took the child up to his own chamber and called upon the Lord, and saw the child revive; and he presented him alive to the mother, who said, ''Now I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.''

What were the credentials of his ministry? That he had the secret of life triumphant over death. He had the words of life and the word of life is not always the mere usage of Scripture. You can use the Scripture and it may have no effect at all, or you can use it and it may have a mighty effect. A great deal depends upon who uses the Scripture. It is the man of God who can use it in that way and be attested as the true servant of the Lord. It is the spiritual power of life that is in the man that makes him (to use Paul's words to Timothy) an approved servant of God.

''Behold, My servant.'' Do you grasp the point? It is with you and me that the Lord is concerned; it is with what we are; it is with our personal knowledge of Himself. It is that we may have within us the secrets of the Lord that it may be true of us as it was of the Lord Jesus and of others that the key to the situation spiritually is in our hands. We, as Elijah hidden away in secret, have been in touch with God. There is a background. God had said to Elijah, ''Hide thyself''; and he was a long time hidden before the word of the Lord came, saying, "Go, show thyself..." Someone has remarked that for every servant of God there must be much more of the hidden life than of the public life. How true that is!

The Lord will take pains to ensure that the secret history, the spiritual history, of every true servant of His is looked after. With all the eagerness to get out to do the work, and may it not abate!, with all our enthusiasm to be active, all our desire and craving to be serving, let us remember the first thing is the servant, not the service. The first thing, the beginning of all service, is the instrument. We see that the servant comes firstly into the Lord's view, that He may have one to whom He may draw attention in a right way and say, 'Look at that servant of Mine and see My work. See My grace, see my power, see the traces of My hand.'

The Continuance of Divine Instrumentalities

The question concerning every instrumentality raised up by God in relation to His purpose is: What justifies His maintaining it? There are evidently some things which do not justify His preserving such instrumentalities.

In the first place, because God originally raised up an instrumentality - it came from Him... it was His work initially in bringing it into being - that does not justify His keeping it. We should take serious account of that fact - that because God raised up a thing, it does not mean that God must of necessity keep that thing right through, no matter what its state or character may be in the course of time.

Again, because God has greatly used a thing which He Himself raised up, that does not justify His preserving it.

Further, because that thing has had a wonderful history of devotion to Him... and has at some time been a very real and full expression of His grace and power... even that does not resolve itself into a claim upon Him to keep it; and He does not regard Himself as under any obligation to preserve even that.

But we have to press the point still further: Because at any given time many commendable things are to be seen in that instrumentality - things which the Lord Himself may praise... there may be not a few such things... nevertheless, even that does not justify God's preserving it in its place; even that does not mean that He may never consider putting it out of its place, or that He is bound to refrain from so doing.

The issue with every one of the seven churches of Asia (Revelation, chapters 2 and 3) was whether, under the Lord's permission, they could go on or not - whether they could continue before the Lord. The Lord had them before Him, shall we say - had them in His hand - and was determining whether He could keep them or whether He would have to put them away; whether He would have to remove the "lampstand" out of its place or whether it could go on in relation to Himself. So the question was clearly one of continuing in relation to the Lord's purpose or of passing out.

We have seen bodies cross the sky at night, coming from afar and gaining in brilliance, it seemed, as they got nearer to us... flashing on their way and then disappearing altogether from view in the darkness of the sky. Here are these churches of Asia - "stars" brought in out of the eternal counsels of the Godhead - flashing in with the glory of His grace, some of them to pass right out... to fade from view, lost to sight.

That is a very thorough sifting of anything. It might be thought that if God raised up a thing - if it came in the first place from His own hand, if God had used that thing and blessed it, if it had shown the features and characteristics of His grace and of His love, and if it still had in it many things which God, looking with His eyes as of a flame, could commend - surely that is enough to argue for its continuance before the Lord.

Understand that we are speaking about instrumentalities; we are not speaking about souls. We are not dealing with the question of salvation; we are dealing with the question of service to the Lord.

What is it... and what is it alone... that justifies God in maintaining any instrumentality in relation to Himself and His purpose? It is not that the instrumentality has a lot of good things. It is not that it had its origin with Him. It is not that it has a great history, a great past. It is not that it has a name, a reputation - the same name carried on as it once had in more glorious days. It is that there is today the same undying flame of Divine Life in its mighty testimony against the power of death all around. That is God's justification.

When you come to analyze the state of these churches of Asia, you find that in five of them, at least, there is a variety of elements of which each is a contradiction to the Holy Ghost - a contradiction to the Spirit of Life. That thing - being within the vessel, the instrumentality... amongst the Lord's people... constitutes an element of death and provides Satan with his foothold, his place; and all unconsciously for the most part amongst those people, the testimony is definitely contradicted and nullified.

Satan will resort to anything - his methods and his means are numerous - to get some foothold for death into a Divinely constituted instrumentality, so that that whole thing becomes a contradiction right at its very center. It has a name, it has good works - it has many things which even the Lord Himself cannot judge, because they are good; but the thing by which alone the Lord can be justified in maintaining that instrumentality has been countered.

The enemy does not mind how many "churches" there are, or how much preaching there is, or how much religious worship; I do not know that he minds very much how much orthodoxy there is - what we might call sound doctrine. What he is against is Life. You can go to multitudes of places, and so far as the preaching is concerned - so far as the things said are concerned - you can find no fault; but you have no sense that there is a vitalizing. There is no energizing, no impact, no moving of the people to register the testimony of the risen Lord against the forces of evil. The enemy is getting them all quietly, nicely, snugly into spiritual death. It is not a question of what was at one time... or what is today... counted as good, but rather: Does the Lord have that central, basic, essential, indispensable thing for which He has ever raised up His instrumentalities, whether individuals or companies, and brought them into relationship with Himself... that for which He apprehended them - that which was intended to be their specific vocation?

That applies to all of us. We have all been apprehended of Christ Jesus, and there has been a purpose behind that apprehending. We have not been apprehended just to be saved. Our salvation is but basic and introductory to something very much more. Then, as to collective instrumentalities, the Lord gathers His own together to form them into a corporate vessel of Divine purpose. He raises up such instrumentalities from time to time. But whether they be individuals or companies, the one constant danger is that the essential thing in the Divine thought in raising up - in apprehending - that vessel should somehow be lost, while many other things may continue.

What was the Church raised up for? I do not believe that the Lord originally thought of having a general Church and then a special one within it. I can never believe that the Lord was going to be content with having a general mass of believers and then a company called "overcomers" in the midst. That never has been the design of God - it is what we might call an emergency state of things. It became essential because of failure. It seems to me that the very word "overcomer" declares very loudly that there is failure somewhere. The Lord's purpose for all His Church as a vessel - which nevertheless may only be realized in a few - is that that vessel should maintain the testimony of a Life which has conquered death... and will conquer death right to the end. It is a Life question.

It is the testimony of the New Testament that God raised Jesus from the dead... and that He is alive for evermore. That is the essence of the testimony. So the whole thing resolves itself into a matter of a testimony in Life - a testimony of Life. Is the flame burning as at the beginning, witnessing that Jesus lives and is triumphant, even over the dark, deadly background of this world? That is the question for the Lord's people.

I have no doubt in my heart as to what the issue of our time is. I have not the slightest shadow of a doubt but that the issue of our day - of this hour in the Church's history - is more than ever the issue of life and death in a spiritual sense.

I trust that we shall know that God is not only making us aware of the great issue which is at stake for His people... and not only warning us about the perils of it... but assuring us that He comes mightily to our aid and shows us what is on our side in the battle.

The Cross and Ministry

The second letter (to the Corinthians), as we know, is the ministers' letter! It tells us what a minister is from the Divine standpoint when the Cross does its work. Moses, the minister of God, is brought very much into view, ministering in the old covenant, declaring the thoughts of God, revealing the Divine mind. That is what a minister is. A minister, this word says, is one who shows forth the Divine thoughts, who manifests the mind of God. When Moses read the law, his face shone, the glory of God was expressed through him as God's servant, God's minister. That, mind you, was under the old covenant, the covenant of signs, the covenant of symbols, of types; yes, and a ministry of death and condemnation: and, says the Apostle, we have another ministry, and ministry is the shining forth of God in the face of Jesus Christ in our hearts. That is what a minister is; and let me put that simply, plainly.

There is no such thing in the New Testament as an official ministry as such. God has never, in this dispensation, appointed officials, as such, to be ministers. The ministry is a matter of a revelation of God in the face of Jesus Christ in the heart shining out, and what constitutes one a minister more than another is the measure of the revelation of Christ in the life; and we all ought to be ready to give place to that. It must be a revelation of God in your heart, in my heart, that constitutes us God's ministers.

The credentials of ministry are the shining of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ in our heart, and anybody who has that can be a minister; and anybody who has not that has no right to call himself a minister. The Cross must strike at all ideas of ministry that are merely professional, which are anything other than spiritual. Spiritual gifts, spiritual revelation, spiritual knowledge, spiritual resources, spiritual riches, these alone constitute us ministers.

David's Last Words

"Now these are the last words of David. David the son of Jesse saith, and the man who was raised on high saith, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel: the Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was upon my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me: One that ruleth over men righteously, that ruleth in the fear of God, he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, a morning without clouds, when the tender grass springeth out of the earth, through clear shining after rain. Verily my house is not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for it is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he maketh it not to grow" (2 Sam. 23:1-5).

"But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7).

"Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed" (2 Tim. 2:15).

In the fragment we have read from the second book of Samuel - the last words of David - we have a clue or an explanation. When we read the unvarnished story of the life of the great servants of God in the Bible, and note how so many of them failed, how they broke down and were guilty of things which are to be very greatly deplored - in the case of David, for instance - the question arises: If God knew the whole course, the end from the beginning, foresaw what would happen, foresaw the sin that David would commit, why did God choose him? Why was he allowed to come into such great responsibility where God's own name and honour were involved? Ought not the Lord either to have chosen people who would never do that sort of thing, or entirely safeguard His interests from the weaknesses of His servants and prevent them from making those terrible mistakes? Some such question often arises when you see how much the Lord made of these men, what great things He said about them, and what responsibilities He allowed to fall into their hands. Yet nothing about such men is covered up. It is all exposed to full view.

David's Reliance on Another

I think the clue or the answer is found here in 2 Sam. 23. It does not lie just on the surface. You have to look again and find the help which is in the marginal chain for some of the things in the text; and this is what it amounts to - David has seen Someone, he has seen a glorious One. You will see, as you read with the help of the margin, that David is not talking about himself when he speaks of One Who will rule in righteousness, One Who answers to this beautiful description which he gives. He says, "My house is not so; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure." He has seen another One, and it is concerning that One that the covenant has been made with David. "I will set up thy seed after thee, that shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom" (2 Sam. 7:12).

The effect of this is to assure David that God has chosen him on two grounds - or a ground with two sides. As to the first, his language is, in effect, this: 'God has provided Himself with the supply of all my defects in Another; He has provided Himself with a covering for all my sins in Another; He is putting to my faulty account all the perfections and glories of that Other; He has made a covenant with me in blood concerning that Other. My house is not like that; I am a very faulty man; but God has the One Who satisfies Him on my behalf.' There is no doubt about it that in his last words David was lifting up his eyes from his own failure, his own coming short, his own weakness, yes, his own grievous sins, and at the end of his life he is saying with Job, "I know that my Redeemer liveth" (Job 19:25). 'I see the One Who will complete my life and "perfect that which concerneth me" (Psa. 138:8), and make good on my behalf where I have failed.'

A Positive Heart Relationship with the Lord

But there is the other side to that, which is found in those words which we read - "the Lord looketh on the heart." There also is a clue. Those words were not spoken actually of David, but their setting warrants us in taking them as directly applicable to him, and they mean that David was not just taking this attitude - 'Well, I am a very imperfect, sinful man, but the Lord knows my heart, He knows that I am well-meaning, He knows that I have never really meant to do wrong; I was overtaken, I slipped up, but really I am not an evil-meaning man at heart, I mean well.' No, that was not it, and that is not it with God. That is not good enough. This looking on the heart by God is never negative. There are many people who take that position, thinking to cover up a lot. But it was not like that with David. It was a positive heart relationship with the Lord Himself on the part of David which provided the ground for the Lord to make good all that was in Christ to this faulty man.

Concern for the Lord's Interests

You can see it in several respects. First of all, note that one of the very first things that sprang out of or followed that statement of the Lord was the incident with Goliath. David arrived on the scene not under commission, not having had this matter put to him; he just came up, it would seem casually, on an errand; and while there, he saw this giant come out from the ranks of the Philistines and vaunt himself and challenge Israel. As David saw and heard him his heart boiled. Oh, it was not just a young man wanting a fight, presumptuously wanting to take something on. His language afterwards as he accepted the challenge was, 'You have defied the Lord; it is the Lord and His interests that you are vaunting yourself against; and therefore I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, I take up the Lord's interests.' It was positive jealousy for God that was in the heart of David, that made him boil when he found something that was reaching out and laying a hand upon what was precious to the Lord. The Lord knew that heart of David, that it was jealous for His interests. It was positive; and when the Lord finds a heart like that, that is inwardly moved for His glory whenever it finds His interests challenged, then there may be weaknesses in the life - blunders, mistakes, tragedies - but the Lord looks on that heart and says, 'Yes, but that heart is not passive, negative, toward Me; that heart is really positive toward Me, set on My interests, jealous for My Name and My glory; and I can come alongside of that and make good, in view of what I have in My Son, the defects and the weaknesses.'

That, I think, is very true in principle in the Word of God. We cannot fail to see in the apostle Paul another one like this. It is all wrong to think of such men as infallible. Paul made mistakes, but the sovereign grace of God is marvellously displayed in them. Why? Because here is a man whose heart is on fire for the interests of the Lord at any cost. When the Lord gets that kind of heart He accepts the weak, faulty vessels, and supplies their wants in Jesus Christ and His perfections.

A Gift Developed for the Glory of God

You notice another thing about David which sprang out of his secret life - the developing of gifts for the glory of God. Notice that little fragment in his last words - "David... the sweet psalmist of Israel." Away there in the fields, minding his father's sheep, hidden from public view, living his secret life with God, he was learning to play, developing a musical gift for the Lord; and you find that came into very great use and service for the Lord later on. It was said of him that he was skilful in playing (1 Sam. 16:18). He taught himself alone in the field to play, and it came in as a mighty force - at times against evil spirits, but supremely in the psalms. "The sweet psalmist of Israel." What should we do if the psalms were cut out of the Bible and taken from us? How the saints in all the ages have found help from those psalms which David sang! He became not only a great solo musician, he became also a great organizer and leader of choirs and bands. It was he who instituted the twenty-four courses of the singers so that the whole round of the twenty-four hour day should have no hour in it without praises to God.

David's heart led him to develop whatever gifts he had or could have unto the Lord. He did not have mixture in his music; it was all unto the Lord. Oh, the variety of strains! You find everything here in his psalms, from the depth to the height, but you find nothing evil; all is unto the Lord. That in itself should be a word to us. The heart upon which the Lord is looking, to which He can bring so much more that is of His Son, is the heart that is so toward Him that spontaneously, without having to be provoked and urged and persuaded, and out there alone in the wilderness, with none of the incentive of publicity or the inspiration of an audience, it will develop its gift unto the Lord, so that later, in the midst of the Lord's people, that gift just breaks out into full volume. A secret devotion to the Lord finds expression along that particular line. Have you some line that you can develop, for the Lord? Have you some gift that can come under your heart's devotion to the Lord and be made to serve Him? Or have you a lot of fallow ground, latent possibilities, that you are not developing for the Lord? Just look round. "The Lord looketh on the heart."

A Passion for the Lord's House

Then, again, David had a secret in his heart. When it came there we do not know, but it was evidently of long duration, and was one dominating, all-consuming passion. It breaks out from time to time in his phraseology, as anything that is deeply in the heart is bound to do. This is always coming out with David. What was it? The all-absorbing ambition, the vision, the passion, was - the house of the Lord. On one occasion he said, "I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed; I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids; until I find out a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the Mighty One of Jacob" (Psa. 132:3-5). Then, when he had found it and had got the pattern and had prepared the materials for its construction, he divulged something. He said, "Seeing that I have a treasure of mine own of gold and silver, I give it unto the house of my God..." (1 Chron. 29:3). See his master passion for the house of the Lord! The Lord had looked into that heart and seen this; and when He finds a heart like that, He has ground on which He can work. Are you conscious of faults, weaknesses, failures? Do not be discouraged, do not give up, do not think you are no good. The Lord has a place for you if your heart is like David's. There is all the margin of what the Lord Jesus is to set over against your weaknesses and failures.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Nov-Dec 1949, Vol 27-6

Equipment for the Ministry

"And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent... but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue" (Exodus 4:10).

"And the Lord... said go, and thou shalt save Israel... And he (Gideon) said, Oh, my Lord... behold... I am the least in my father's house" (Judges 6:14-15).

"Then said I, woe is me! for I am undone... And he (the Lord) said, Go..." (Isaiah 6:5,9).

"Then said I, Ah! Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child... The Lord said... Thou shalt go..." (Jeremiah 1:6-7).

"I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son... And the Lord took me... and said unto me, Go..." (Amos 7:14-15).

"And he appointed twelve that they might be with him, and that he might send them forth" (Mark 3:14).

"Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me" (Acts 1:8).

The last words quoted above are the answer to all the others. Although Pentecost marked a new epoch and method of the Holy Spirit's activity, yet throughout all time God's Work has been done through the Spirit's agency. Were we asked what is the essential and indispensable equipment for the work of God we would say unhesitatingly; The anointing and filling with the Holy Spirit!

In the instances cited above we have men of vastly different types, but they are all brought to a common basis. Moses was a man of tremendous natural and acquired ability. There was initiative, drive, passion, devotion and courage on the emotional and volitional side, linked with "all the wisdom of the Egyptians" on the intellectual side, and evidently considerable strength on the physical. Isaiah and Jeremiah were not without a wealthy endowment of inherited social, religious, and ecclesiastical advantages and good training. Then what need we say about Paul on this side? On the other hand, Gideon, Amos and most of the Apostles were of humble and simple birth, meagre education, and few worldly advantages. Of the latter it is recorded that "they were ignorant and unlearned men". All these, we have said, had to be brought to a common basis. Through painful and sometimes long drawn-out discipline and trial the former had to come to the place where they recognized that only God could do His own work, and that He never uses any man or his natural equipment except on the ground of an utter dependence upon Him: that gifts, training, ability as such do not count with God and are only of service when the man has been translated from a natural ground to a spiritual through the deep inworking of the Cross in its principles and laws. Nothing but spiritual endowments can meet spiritual forces, and this is the background of all the work of God.

God may use the gifts with which He has entrusted men by nature or acquisition, but not until they have been brought through death on the natural plane to life on the spiritual. Moses went that way; Paul went that way; and so have all who have really been used of God for Spiritual and Eternal ends; that is, if the worker as well as the work was to be accepted.

No one will think that we are against all-round training and equipment. Far be it from us to suggest that this is of no vital consequence. What we are emphasizing is that though given every possible natural or acquired endowment, education, natural ability, zeal, evangelical faith and doctrine, a knowledge of Christian work, etc., there may yet remain an essential without which all this is going to fail. This superlative factor is: "filled with the Holy Spirit".

On the other hand, a Spirit-filled man is never one who holds a brief for ignorance or despises and neglects such acquisitions of knowledge as will be ground upon which the Lord may work. It is one of the romances of the Spirit's activity that under His stimulation and quickening many of the most illiterate have become able and eager to master things for which they had neither desire nor ability before.

Now these simple basic things lead us on further. The Lord Jesus as

THE MODEL SERVANT

declared: 'I do nothing of myself; as I hear I speak.' 'The words that I speak, I speak not from myself.' 'The works that I do, I do not from myself.' Here is even a sinless "myself" refusing to speak His own words or do His own works. He was deliberately hanging and drawing upon the Father for everything. It is clear that He realized that even in His own sinless case this was necessary, and to do otherwise was to lay His mission open to infinite peril from without. Thus it was an utterness of God. For such an utterness - which, let us urge, must characterize all who are to most closely approximate to God's ideal servant - there must somewhere at some time be a zero point on man's side. This zero point is clearly seen in the life and ministry of so many of the Lord's servants - the time when despair of everything well-nigh engulfed them, and 'God was their only asset'.

But is it necessary that this point should only be reached at a more or less late stage in Christian life and service, after perhaps, years of activity? Should there be a considerable degree of ineffectiveness, failure and abortion because such a large percentage of the effort and activity is "in the flesh", or of man? It is necessary that at last, perhaps at long last, the big framework, the loud hammering, the feverish busyness, etc., should begin to fall away and the genuine spiritual and eternal result be comparatively small. We may settle it once and for all that only what the Holy Spirit does will attain unto God's end and remain eternally.

Surely God would have zero on man's side reached at the beginning! Surely this is according to the experience of men in Scripture! At least it was a definite registering of that point to which they were continually brought back if they tended to move beyond it in self-sufficiency.

This, we believe most earnestly to be the true nature of training for the Lord's work alongside of and in company with, a growing knowledge of Himself in His word and in experience. The only knowledge of the Word of God which is of any profit in service is experimental knowledge. That knowledge is the knowledge of God Himself which makes the Word live.

Moses was trained for His life work in the hard school of inaction. Forty years in a wilderness tending sheep for a man of a tremendously active disposition! He had set out with great visions. His motive was good and the end in view was right. His filling up of the outline, however, was mistaken. How to be patient with wrong without condoning it or losing a passion for right is one of the big lessons to be learned by those who would deliver men. Not to put a halo of romance about service for men and to think that there will be a due appreciation of one's self-sacrifice without becoming cynical by reason of disillusionment is another. Not in any way, manner, tone or conduct to suggest superiority is a third. These were some of the minor lessons which Moses had to learn, but they were themselves big ones. Dependence, faith, obedience, humility were the primary things, and these cannot be got from books or lectures.

Isaiah had to have a vision by which he was overwhelmed with his own unfitness.

Paul had to come off his intellectual, ecclesiastical, traditional, official high horse with a tremendous thud and grovel in the dust in subjection to the hated and despised "Jesus".

The disciples had to learn many lessons as to their own miserable inability to satisfy the heart of their Divine Master, and, at length, they all suffered the shame of having been proved incapable of believing through the cross.

This is all necessary training and preparation. How few there are who would voluntarily accept a course of training like this! But this surely ought to be the nature of the work done in a place for the preparation of God's servants. There should be a handing over to the Holy Spirit to take into and through all such experiences of spiritual discipline as are necessary to a deep knowledge of God. There should be the knocking of the bottom out of our ideas of work and service. There should be the making of everything inward and not outward; spiritual and not natural; from God and not from ourselves. If needs be, there should be the discipline of inaction. It is so easy to be content if only we are busy and active, but often this only gets in God's way, and He has to take our work away in order to teach us that it is Himself, and not service as such. With many the Lord has to adopt a wearing-out policy, for they will not yield otherwise.

THE IDEAL SCHOOL OF THE PROPHETS

The ideal 'School of the Prophets' is that in which the spiritual life has first consideration; where the Holy Spirit is dealing with the individual and where the Word of God is being made necessary for light, strength, comfort and direction. If we are going to live by the Word, the Word must live for us, and experience is the meeting-place of life and knowledge.

No training centre is adequate which is only intellectual and practical in the sense of doing work. There must be primarily the attention to the spiritual life, its nurturing and directing, and especially the presence of the Holy Spirit must be sought and guarded for that work which can never be done from without.

Now, having said all this, we come back to recognize that, in principle, this was the basis of the mighty activities of God from the time of the fulfilment of Acts 1:8. The Cross, in all its fullness, was brought by the Holy Spirit into the lives of those first believers and witnesses, and the change in the character of the apostles is most noticeable. They became selfless, humble, fearless, full of love, patience, and long-suffering. 'Position' or 'place', reputation, prestige, 'success', popularity, etc., no longer motivated their service. Note how on everything they are directed and controlled by the Spirit! The Lord is released when the bands of the self-life in all its forms in His servants are burnt up by the Fire. As through His Cross He came to His own personal liberation to the boundless so, as His Cross is planted deeply in the natural life of His servants, He is free to do His mightier works. Oh, that we could see early enough in our lives that when Christ went to the Cross He not only took our sins, but He took us! and that not just as sinners, but as men; as preachers, teachers, workers, and everything, so that "henceforth it is no longer I, but Christ". All too late some of us have had to be crucified in one or more of these capacities; and through death preaching has had to be put off the human level and born again from above. And the same with other things. Oh, for a new company of such who right at the beginning are put there! Then God will do His new thing and we shall see a fresh release of the Lord. He is not straitened in Himself, but He is straitened in the natural activities of His servants, which activities are brought over into spiritual things by the horizontal method instead of by the vertical - that is, along the human line, instead of by the Cross, the resurrection, ascension and descent from above.

As it was in the time of the types the strictest laws governed the anointing with the holy oil, and it was repeatedly stressed that "upon man's flesh shall not the oil come", so the Lord, who is no less particular today, will not give His Spirit to come upon man's "flesh" - man's self-life. All that must first come under the power of the Blood and be taken to the Cross to give the Spirit a clear way. The first witnesses had nothing to gain, but everything to lose in this life by even naming the Name of Jesus. There was nothing that could be in the slightest degree a sop for the senses. Those at Jerusalem lost everything very early and were scattered abroad. From without the Lord kept everything pure and free. But He never departs from His principle, His original premise, and where He is allowed He will work this state into the very spirit and life of His servant in order that all things may be of Himself, and "whatsoever God doeth it shall be for ever". The law of the corn of wheat most surely operates: enlargement through limitation, gain out of loss, life out of death.

From "A Witness and A Testimony" July-August 1970.

"Even Barnabas"

From "A Witness and A Testimony" January 1962, Volume 40-1.

"...even Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation." (Galatians 2:13.)

What a pity that such painful and unhappy incidents should have been placed on record for all time! What a still greater pity that they should ever have happened at all, and that right at the heart of the Apostolic circle in those most vital and crucial of all days! The Holy Spirit, as Custodian of the Divine records, must have had some very justifying reason for causing or allowing such things to be in the Bible. And there are - sad to say - not a few of such things.

When Paul wrote this in his letter there must have been a distinct change in his tone at these words - "even Barnabas".

This is, perhaps, the most vehement of all his letters. He is truly on the war-path in white-hot jealousy for the truth and purity of the Gospel, and he says some very strong things.

But at this point we can discern the mingled tones of surprise, grief, disappointment. "Even Barnabas" - Barnabas: the one who had befriended him when, being under suspicion, he stood alone, the other Apostles fearing him and "not believing that he was a disciple"! The one who had sought him out at Tarsus as the man needed for the hour! The one who had been committed with him to the work and had laboured and travelled far with him! The one who had seen and shared and gloried in his ministry to the Gentiles! Barnabas, the "good man" (Acts 11:24)! Can it be true?

When certain from James came to Antioch Peter withdrew and others also. Paul does not emit surprise over Peter, only condemnation (Gal. 2:11). But for race-prejudice and discrimination to approach in his dear friend Barnabas, that shocks him, and he says in astonishment, "Even Barnabas"! Was this the betrayal of something in Barnabas, which, although for some time it was covered over and they worked on together for a while, yet eventually came out again in another connection and resulted in their permanent separation in the work?

What are we to make of it? Can we, without wrongly judging Barnabas, put our finger on that flaw, that something which so painfully spoiled a relationship? What is it that we are intended to learn from this being put into the glorious story of the first years? What did Paul call it? - dissimulation. What is dissimulation? It is hypocrisy, play-acting; literally it means 'from behind a mask': pretence, unreality, falsehood.

There is a Scripture that touches this very directly - "the fear of man bringeth a snare" (Prov. 29:25). Perhaps in other ways Barnabas was not afraid of men, but the weakness - the fatal weakness - that shows itself here is allowing his natural temperament to govern him when most serious issues were in the balances. Barnabas was evidently a very sociable man: that was his temperament. The feature of that temperament is that it does not like to be unpopular; out of standing with people whom it wants to please or who can affect its interests. This, therefore, is the tragedy of compromise for the sake of pleasantness and popularity. This is the disastrous leaning to policy instead of standing firm on principle when serious matters are on hand.

Yes, we know that it was no simple matter for Barnabas. This very incident brings out into clear definition the terrible strength of a system and tradition. All the holy vehemence of the greatest Apostle is drawn out in wrath by the strength of this system. This judaising element was going to die hard. It had taken the devastating power of a personal appearing in glory on the part of the Lord to break Paul clear of it. It was going to be the everything-or-nothing question from then onward. If a mask of insincerity, prevarication, equivocation, and disguise was being put on, then Paul tore it off with no light hand. He saw too clearly the disaster of both the old system, and of trying to be two contrary things.

In this same chapter verse 20 occurs. Everybody knows Galatians 2:20. There it is shown that the Cross of Christ puts 'Finish' to this kind of thing. Later in the letter, reference will be made to "the offence of the cross". That offence in this context is in relation to compromise in order to save our face, our standing our advantage, and so on.

It is a sad revelation, and fact, that a "good man"; one who has seen great service for God; and has had association at close quarters with so much of God's work, can fall into the snare of 'safety first' rather than stand by truth and principle at all costs. This has much to teach us, but it is all summed up in the cry - 'Be true!' 'Be honest!' ' Be transparent!' Do not walk with men first, but walk before God. May it never be that all that may be so good and creditable eventually falls under this verdict - "...even Barnabas was carried away."

So, a great friendship and a vital colleagueship was threatened and then disrupted by - what? Was it a secret jealousy of the outworking of the sovereign choice and using of that 'vessel', the vessel over which Barnabas rejoiced until some personal interest or temperamental weakness was touched? Paul may have been a rather strong and sometimes overbearing man in the utterness of his abandon to what had come to him "by revelation of Jesus Christ". What he had to be AGAINST, still marked him as FOR Christ. One thing Paul could not countenance on any account was compromise. He was capable of being both very forceful and forbearing, but he was not capable of being double.

Barnabas may have wanted peace, and would do ANYTHING for it. But that ANYTHING might lead him into 'sitting on the fence' or trying to agree with two irreconcilable positions, and the end be that for all time a "good man" made a terrible mistake, so that the potentialities of a great friendship and partnership were lost.

But the work must go on. Barnabas had an overwhelming amount of evidence as to where his friend stood, and how utterly he stood on this, the greatest dispensational, issue, and he allowed himself to be influenced by James and his strong leaning to the Jewish complexion. So, in the transition, which was making distinctions very clear and putting men on this side or on that, Barnabas EVENTUALLY fades out. Silas (Silvanus) fills the gap, and even John Mark who brought the relationship to a crisis becomes - at length - 'profitable' to both Peter and Paul.

Turning corners is always a perilous time, and in the turning of the dispensations, in which these early saints were involved, there were not a few casualties.

The Lord help us to be true to all the light available.

Food for the Hungry

"Give ye them to eat" (Matt. 14:16; cf. Mark 6; Luke 9; John 6).

It is significant that the feeding of a multitude by Jesus is something recorded by all four writers of the Gospels, even if the two occasions are not reported by each.

This significance in its general meaning can be easily recognized, although John focuses the occasion upon the particular point of the Person of Christ; that is the statement of Christ - "I am the living bread", and carries upward to the "Father" and right back to Israel in the wilderness.

There are some points in this universally recorded work of the Lord which are to be noted.

1. The deep and heartfelt concern of the Lord that people should be fed. "He had compassion on the multitude". John very carefully, meticulously, and fully transfers this, as from the lips of Jesus, to the spiritual life, as of far greater importance than the physical. But the physical necessity is an illustration of the spiritual.

God has so constituted the human body that its very life, strength, growth, energy, and usefulness depend upon food. The very fact of the New Testament is a powerful declaration that, what is true of the physical body, is - at least - true of the spiritual life in every respect.

Multitudes of Christians seem to think (if they do think about it at all) that, once they are born again, work is the only thing that matters, and that this can be done without sound, solid, and ample food. Growth does not matter. Energy can be found without feeding. Endurance does not depend upon nourishment. This is a mistake which will find such people out, sooner or later. Jesus did not so think. The very survival of the multitude depended - in His judgment - upon their being fed. It was a precaution against "Lest they faint". Such a possibility and probability gives immense significance to the spiritual food question.

A weak, feeble, poor, stunted, dissatisfied condition in the life of the Christian is certain to follow - at some time - poverty, scarcity, or meagreness of spiritual food. There was a generation of strong, robust, and fruitful saints, the values of whose lives have come down to us in their written lives and ministries. It is impressive to note how the substantial nature of that generation is being called back in the reproduction of that ministry today. That was the generation of such men as A. J. Gordon, A. T. Pierson, A. B. Simpson, F. B. Meyer (to mention only a few), and it was the time of the inception of the convention movement which had as its basic motive "the deepening of the spiritual life".

What a galaxy of stalwarts "Northfield" (in America) and "Keswick" (in England) represented and produced in those days. The repercussions and momentum of those times and ministries lie behind much of the original missionary work in many lands. Missionary work in its strongest and purest nature sprang out of - indeed was an extension of - those days of spiritual solidity and strength.

The names of Pierson, Gordon, Simpson, Hudson Taylor, Inglis, Andrew Murray, etc. are tied in with the two aspects, the convention movement and the missionary movement. These have been largely separated in our time, and the solid background or foundation is lacking in the greater part of missionary work and workers.

Let us recover and bring forward the attitude and concern of our Lord, as demonstrated in the multitude-feeding on record for the recognition of the Church in all ages. His very Person and glory are bound up with a people well fed and satisfied! Do not let us allow ourselves to separate compassion from the food question. Jesus did not!

2. Then note the time factor in the act of Jesus. Jesus did not intervene casually. He did not just say: 'Perhaps we had better let the people have something to eat now. Let's have a little interval and diversion, and eat something.' There would probably - in such case - have been those who were not particularly interested in feeding. Or there might have been those who were more interested in temporal food than in spiritual. But Jesus moved when, and because, the situation was critical, essential, and imperative.

The Lord may be generous in His provision, but He is neither casual nor wasteful. The record shows that He conserves even in His bountifulness. There was real hunger and felt need. The Lord only provides when this is true of those concerned. Little hunger - little food. Little appetite - frugal provision. The Lord's compassion is for those who are consciously hungry to the point of real necessity. It is a fixed way with the Lord that He does not move until something like desperation makes it evident that it is His move, and is supernatural. The disciples would say, "Send them away"; 'Let them fend for themselves'. But Jesus knows when things are beyond that point, and buys the situation for Himself.

3. Then we note the intermediaries of provision.

Human agency and instrumentality was drawn into responsibility. The resources were definitely not with the disciples, and they knew it to be so. They were extended and taxed as to their faith and obedience. Their responsibility was not to provide but - knowing the Lord - to form a link between the need and the supply; between scarcity and abundance.

Many who take positions of responsibility amongst the people of God are themselves a limitation. The people are starved, but the intermediaries stand in the way. They have not got the resources themselves, but they do not move to bring them from where they are.

Like the story of 'the friend at midnight' in Luke 11, it is necessary to know where bread is to be found, and then, even if at considerable personal inconvenience, see to it that the need is brought into touch with the supply.

Jesus would teach us that: -

1. He is really concerned about the spiritual food question.

2. He will provide when - and only when - there is a real need.

3. He lays the responsibility upon intermediaries, and that the state of His people lies at their door.

"Give ye them to eat".

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jul-Aug 1964, Vol 42-4

God's Man

"But thou, O man of God..." (1 Tim. 6:11).

"O Timothy, guard that which is committed unto thee" (1 Tim. 6:20).

"O man of God... O Timothy". In these words you will sense a strong and intense going out of heart on the part of the Apostle. It is a cry, an appeal, as though the floods have welled up and are seeking to break out. You see, the Apostle is on the last lap of the race, he is near to the end of his course, he is conscious that he has very little time left in which to say all that is in his heart - and there is so much to say, the situation is so critical, the need is so great; and in this final stage he is speaking his last words. They are the last words of a great Apostle. He tries to condense into small space a greatness of desire, and so he breaks out - "O man of God"! "O Timothy"! Last words are always words to be taken account of, noted, regarded with solemnity.

We are not able, of course, in a brief space to note all the content of these last utterances of the Apostle, and I propose only to speak of the nature of the appeal which he makes and the way in which he makes it. This exclamation - "O man of God"! - is not an unfamiliar phrase. We know how often in the Old Testament it is the designation applied to servants of God; and there is a sense, of course, in which it is a specific term, the title of those who stand in a peculiar responsibility for the Lord's interests - "the man of God". But there is also a sense in which it is of general application, for surely this should be true of us all; surely this does represent what the Lord would have in the case of every one of us, the title "man" covering us all in Christ, and the designation resting upon us all - "man of God". An old missionary received a very heartening message one day from a man whom he had led to the Lord out of heathenism many years before. Another missionary was visiting that quarter and came upon this man, who asked after his old spiritual father and said, 'When you see him, tell him that so long ago I became God's man, and I am still God's man'. That is just what it is - all men of God, God's men.

A Challenge

Put like that, we can see how it can and should apply to us all. 'O God's man!' - which of course covers the woman as well; and in the very meaning and tone of that outburst from the Apostle's heart there is the message. We do not need to try to break it up and expound it to bring in all that it means to be God's man; the message is just there. It might startle us individually if someone approached us and addressed us in that way. Think of anyone coming to you and saying, 'O Man of God!' It is a challenge. The very idea brings us up short at once - 'A man of God!' Have you ever thought of yourself like that - as God's man? Amongst all men, you are God's man, God's woman; and because that is true, all the rest follows. All that Paul had to say to Timothy followed on that and came because of that. 'You are God's man; therefore I say to you all these things that I am saying and am going to say.'

The Responsibility of God's Man

(1) A Trustee Careful of His Trust

And you notice that certain lines run through these two letters to Timothy, and one of those lines has to do with himself as God's man - as to the supreme concern of God's man. Paul says firstly, 'Because you are God's man, you are a trustee'. "O Timothy, guard that which is committed unto thee" (1 Tim. 6:20). Literally, 'O Timothy, guard the trust', or, 'guard the deposit'. It is a banking term in the original language: someone has placed in the safe keeping of the bank something very precious and made the bank their trustee. And Paul says to Timothy, 'O Timothy, because you are God's man, you are a trustee; a great trust has been deposited with you'; and here there opens up all that is in these letters. Paul perhaps sat down to write a personal letter and to open his heart to Timothy as a father to a son - "Timothy my beloved child" he calls him - and perhaps he thought, 'I will say some heart-to-heart things to Timothy; he needs to be helped, advised, counselled'. But Paul finds that he cannot write on merely personal things; he is almost instantly caught away with the vastness of God's eternal thoughts, purposes and counsels. What there is of depth, profundity and vastness in these two short letters! Read them again, and see how far-reaching are the things mentioned. He says in effect, 'Timothy, the trust which has been deposited with you is no small thing; it touches all the ages and goes beyond them; it touches all realms. It is not just an earthly and temporal thing; not just your little life here as a Christian; no, far more is bound up with God's man than making a success of life here and now, according to this world's standards'. And so he says, 'You are a trustee; O Timothy, guard the deposit'.

And he does touch on some detail of that which may apply to some of us. 'From your infancy you have been taught the truth. Faith dwelt in your grandmother and in your mother. You are God's man with a responsibility; you have had the deposit of the truth. You are one of those who, out of the millions of your fellow men, have been brought, in the sovereign wisdom and grace of God, into touch with these supremely important and valuable things; you are responsible for them as God's man.' "I charge thee in the sight of God, and Christ Jesus, and the elect angels..." (1 Tim. 5:21); "I charge thee in the sight of God, Who giveth life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession..." (1 Tim. 6:13). 'I charge you, O man of God, before all heavenly intelligences and before men; you are in trust and have a great responsibility - not on the ground that you are a missionary, a minister, a pastor, or under some special designation in the realm of God's servants, but simply on the ground that you are God's man, that is all'. That is what it means to be God's man. You are a trustee.

(2) A Soldier Concerned Only For the Lord

You are a soldier. "Take thy part in suffering hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier, on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier" (2 Tim. 2:3,4). The appeal is - 'As God's man, you are supposed to be all the time on active service and must not be of a divided mind, a divided heart, with dual interests weakening you in the warfare, preoccupied with things of this world; but, whatever your work may be on the earth, you are to be of an undivided mind, of a single heart. Your one concern must be to give satisfaction to Him Who enlisted you to be His soldier; O man of God, that is how you should be; a man with but one passion - to bring satisfaction to your Lord'.

(3) A Husbandman Ready to Labour

'And', he says, 'you are a husbandman'; and "the husbandman that laboureth must be the first to partake of the fruits" (2 Tim. 2:6). By that he means, 'You have to labour'. The true husbandman, the true farmer, knows all about labour, if any man does. He is qualified to talk about labour, and he knows that he will get nothing without hard work. He will be the first to partake of the fruits of hard labour. Of a man who really labours it can be said that his heart and his strength are in his work, he is given to his task because he knows that fruitfulness depends upon that labour.

(4) An Athlete Resolute to Win the Prize

And he says, You are an athlete. "If a man contend in the games, he is not crowned, except he have contended lawfully" (2 Tim. 2:5). Timothy would call to mind the words which Paul had earlier written to the church at Corinth - "Every man that striveth in the games exerciseth self-control in all things. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, as not uncertainly; so fight I, as not beating the air: but I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage" (1 Cor. 9:25-27). Timothy well knew with what self-discipline his father in the faith had run his course, and Paul did not hesitate to remind him of it (2 Tim. 3:10 etc.).

"O man of God"! This is what the man of God is to be. Whether it be in the realm of the contest, or the warfare, or the hard toil of the field, or the trusteeship of riches - whatever metaphors are used, they all have but one purpose. The aged apostle seeks to utter something that lies heavily on his heart. 'O man of God! O Timothy! This is what should be true of you if you are God's man'. It is a heart cry - the heartbreaking cry - of a man who says, "I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come" (2 Tim. 4:6). 'I shall not be able to say much more, but I make this full-hearted appeal to you, O man of God!'

One line through the letters is just that - what God's man is and what he is like. There are other lines which we will not pursue, as I want to leave that one note of emphasis with you. I have found myself gripped, not so much by the content of the letters of Paul to Timothy but by the cry of the Apostle, as if that cry had entered into me. All I can do is to re-echo it in this very feeble way. It is true that, in the sovereignty of God, Paul had a brief spell of liberty from prison between the writing of the two letters to Timothy. I think he was a little surprised about that himself. But it was only a little while at most, before he was brought back to prison and he knew that very soon his course would be ended. "I have finished the course, I have kept the faith" (2 Tim. 4:7). But he makes this the basis of a fresh appeal for diligence and urgency - "I charge thee in the sight of God, and of Christ Jesus..." (2 Tim. 4:1). It is the end and it is a cry. Though in our case the details are different, nevertheless the same cry of the Spirit should surely reach our hearts today. There is an urgency. It is not merely the urgency of a closing ministry, but of a man of God who yearns that every one who may be called God's man, God's woman, should be like this - intent, utterly abandoned to one thing. You may be literally a soldier, a farmer, a banker; you may be anything literally on this earth; but over and above that, you are God's man. Your earthly vocation has to be made to serve God's ends; you have to be bent upon these eternal things, with undivided heart; not distracted by conflicting interests, not influenced at all by earthly circumstances, not preoccupied by things of this world, its pleasures, its gains, its successes amongst men; but motived by this one thing - to please Him Who enrolled you as His own. Listen with the inner ear to the inward implication - "O God's man"! If only you and I could get hold of what is in that - 'God's man'! I am God's man, I am God's woman. What ought such a person to be like? Well, above all things, on God's interests bent. "O man of God"! That is a comprehensive word, but it becomes personal - "O Timothy". Amongst God's men, O Timothy, you - you are marked out by Him as His man.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1951, Vol 29-1

God's Sovereign Activities

"And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, O Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee. And when it rested, he said, Return, O Lord, unto the ten thousands of the thousands of Israel" (Numbers 10:35,36).

The book of Numbers is concerned with a militant movement on the part of God, in the midst of His ordered people, in relation to His testimony. The ark is called 'the ark of the testimony', and the place in which it was resident or deposited was the 'tabernacle of testimony'; and everything centred in, circled round and was governed by that testimony - the testimony of God concerning His Son, Jesus Christ. That has an abiding message for the Lord's people at all times and at all stages of spiritual progress.

I would point out that this is not some peculiar testimony belonging to any one particular company of God's people. It is the testimony of Jesus. We will not stay to explain what it is, but we do know that, in the book of consummations - the book of the Revelation - where everything is brought out to its final fulness and dealt with in finality, "the testimony of Jesus" is the dominant factor from beginning to end. In the first chapter the testimony of Jesus is presented by Himself in His own Person. Then everything - the churches and the Church comprehensively, the nations, and ultimately the kingdom of darkness - is all dealt with and settled in the light of the testimony of Jesus; and finally that testimony of Jesus is brought out in glorious fulness in the symbol of the City, and everything about that City speaks of Him, and speaks of Him in glory in the saints.

That is just by the way, lest we should think, when we use the phrase 'a testimony', that we are talking about something other than the testimony of Jesus in its fullest sense as in the Word of God. I do want to deliver minds from the idea that, shall I say, 'Honor Oak' has a 'testimony' of its own. 'This testimony' - how I hear that all over the world from people who are associated with the company and the Lord's work here in this place. Please strip your mind and your tongue of that phraseology. It is not some private testimony we are talking about. It is the testimony of Jesus in its fulness, and it is, as I have said, God's movements in connection with that that the whole of the Scriptures reveal.

1. Sovereign Selectiveness

We start with Genesis. God's creative activity was there; we may deal with that more fully later. It brings us back to the whole outline of God's goings. But when things departed from the Divine intention, and that so early, God reacted in relation to His testimony, and we find that the whole book of Genesis is occupied with the sovereign selectiveness of God in this very connection. And here I am going to pass again to the key - to the whole Word of God, His Divine principle. If you get the Divine principle, you will understand the Scriptures. If you have not, you will do what has been done and is being done, that is, you will make theories and interpretations without number and without end. Take, for instance, all that has been produced on the book of Revelation. It is perfectly hopeless. Of all the multitudes who have sought to interpret it, you find hardly two that agree. The only sure key to the Scriptures as a whole or in any part is a Divine principle. When you have that, the whole thing opens up.

I suggest that the Divine principle with which God reacted to the fall was this sovereign selectiveness. It begins with the seed of the woman, and then it moves on along a thin line of witnesses, reaching to Abraham, and then, through Abraham, to Isaac and Jacob and then through them to the nation. There is a movement of God within the world of men, sovereignly laying hold of people in relation to that testimony which He in His eternal counsels had determined to realise. The testimony of Jesus began before this world began. It has been taken up along this line by the sovereign act of God, and it is there that we must find our strength. There are, of course, always the two sides to any Divine movement - the Divine initiative, and man's responsibility - but the Divine initiative always comes first - and that is our comfort, consolation and strength. "Ye did not choose me, but I chose you." (John 15:16). "He chose us in him before the foundation of the world". (Eph. 1:4). That word 'chose' is a marvellous key to God's goings right down through the ages.

The goings of God are seen along this line of sovereign selectiveness - and how much we owe to that! The very holding on our way, our very being kept by the power of God to the end, is simply because in the first place God chose us; God, if I may use the word, selected us. God looked and saw us and laid His hand upon us, and that, we are told in this marvellous revelation of the eternal goings of God, happened before ever we had a being. We were foreknown. All sorts of difficulties are gathered into that, but let me say here that it is not so much the individual, as that elect company for a Divine purpose, which is the occasion of this sovereign selectiveness.

You can see God moving in this way right through the Word. You cannot explain it. We shall come on to the mystery of God's ways sooner or later, but there is no ground of explanation outside of God Himself. The Lord Jesus chose His twelve disciples. There is no ground of explanation, none whatever, outside of Himself. "Did not I choose you the twelve?" (John 6:70) - and that is all there is to it. 'I chose you'. He never explained why; none of us could explain why. But He has done it; and what we know, immediately we come under the government, the control, of the Holy Spirit, is that we have come into line with something which is not incidental in life, something which has a very long history; we have become a part of something that reaches beyond time, both backward and forward, something beyond the limits of this world and this life. We are conscious of being related to some immense purpose.

I say again, we are not always able to explain or define it; but a consciousness comes to us that after all, whatever we may have felt or thought about it before, our birth is not just an incident, we have not come on the scene by chance - there is something more in it than that. No one knows that until they become linked with the Lord Jesus and thus become a part of God's testimony concerning His Son, which is the ground of all God's movements from eternity to eternity. We have come into something that is very near to the heart of God, and the more utterly you come into line with that, the more God stands by you, the more God is going to vindicate Himself and His wisdom. It is a tremendous thing to be wholly and fully in the mid-thoroughfare of those eternal goings of God.

So Genesis sees the beginning of this principle, which continues all the way through the Old Testament and New Testament - the principle of sovereign selectiveness in relation to God's testimony concerning His Son, the testimony of Jesus.

2. Sovereign Separation

We come to Exodus for the next phase in the goings of God, and here it is a matter of sovereign separation. There is the elect people, but the elect has got rather entangled in things, mixed up in things; the elect is in bondage, the elect, is in the world; and God must move sovereignly again. And God retains that sovereignty in His own hands. Moses tried to assume the sovereignty of God in separating the people from Egypt, and it was a terrible disaster. God retains the sovereignty in relation to His purpose. When God's time came, when the hour came for God to move, He did it from Himself, on His own account, right out from Heaven. You find God saying all the time, in relation to that emancipation: "I...", "I...", "I...", "Now, thou shalt see what I will do..." (Ex. 6:1). "Come now therefore, and I will send thee..."(Ex. 3:10). "Thus shalt thou say... I AM hath sent me unto you" (Ex. 3:14). God in sovereignty, the great I, is taking charge of this matter.

The second principle, then, in the goings of God, is God acting to get His people separated unto Himself: and separated, in the first place, as the first stage, from the world. No one who is really vitally related to the Lord, who has a life with God, who is under the hand of God, will ever fail to recognise those activities of His in separating them from the world. They will never have a happy time in the world. The most miserable people on this earth are Christians who are still 'in with' the world. Far better be an out-and-out worldling - they are so much happier than Christians who are in the world. Yes: for the Christian it is one thing or the other. The alternative is a miserable 'half and half' existence, which just is not worthwhile.

Look at Israel in Egypt, and see God at work with His own to make them inwardly know that they cannot be mixed up or entangled in this world. God's sovereignty will not allow it, and He makes that sovereignty known in the heart of His own people.

Then comes the next phase of separation. Once they are out of Egypt, there has to be an inward separation from themselves, which seems to be an even more complicated thing than getting them out of Egypt. That extrication had called for very great power on the part of God, and God was equal to it when it came to the matter of power; but in the wilderness it called for infinite patience. God Himself was, of course, again equal to it; but if God knows any comparatives in His activities - if one thing can be said to be easier or harder for Him than another, it seems that His task with Israel in the wilderness was much more difficult than His task in getting them out of the world. The inward work of God calls for infinite patience.

But here you see the goings of God. God is not just going to have a theoretical, doctrinal position; He is not just going to have a positional truth; He is going to have an actual condition corresponding to the truth. In relation to the ultimate object toward which He is moving in all His goings - that Christ in all things shall have the pre-eminence - it is necessary that self shall have no pre-eminence, that the natural life shall not be lord in any sense or in any way. And so His goings must be through the wilderness, in which He is ever at work to divide inwardly as well as outwardly. Exodus sees those two phases of God's goings with His chosen - outward separation, inwards separation; the outward from the world and its overlord, the inward from the self, the flesh, the natural life and its dominion - so that eventually the Lord has a people who have no other lords, outwardly or inwardly, but in whom His lordship is absolutely established. It was only for a bright, glorious but brief period in Israel's history that that was realised; by far the greater part of their history on both sides of that glorious period was of other lords having dominion. But what is in the Lord's view, toward which He is moving in all His goings, is to have a people unreservedly for His own. That is His testimony.

3. Sovereign Service

We come next to Leviticus, and here it is a matter of sovereign service: it is priestly ministry. I cannot stay to take out even fragments by way of reminding you of the contents of that book. We can sum it all up in this way: Everything here is "holiness unto the Lord" (Ex. 28:36, etc., A.V.). That is, ministering to Divine satisfaction, to Divine pleasure. All the feasts and the offerings speak of that which brings pleasure and satisfaction to God. It is all so highly symbolic of the perfections of His Son in Deity and in humanity. It is bringing Him for God's satisfaction; the priestly office and the priestly array all speaking of the glories of Christ in the presence of God.

There is another side to it. God ordains His service so sovereignly that there are many things connected with it which are exceedingly dangerous if they are not observed. If there is false incense, if there is man-made as distinct from Divinely-prescribed incense; if the requisite garments are not worn, the garments of glory and beauty; if there is a breach at any point in these laws of God concerning His Son, the consequences are fatal. So that He ordains this service, and He says, 'This is not optional, this is not a thing that you can take or leave; it is a thing upon which everything, so far as My ultimate purpose is concerned, depends.' It is a matter of life and death - holiness unto the Lord.

What is service to the Lord? It may take many forms, it may move along many lines, but the essence and true nature of the service of God is bringing to Him that which is for His pleasure and satisfaction, that in which He can have the glories of His Son, the perfections of His Son displayed.

That is His object with every convert. God's object in getting people saved is not just to get them saved. The proclamation of the Gospel is not merely a matter of 'rescuing the perishing' from Hell and getting them to Heaven as though it were all centred in them, as though they - or we - were the beginning and end of the Gospel. That is not it. Every newly born-again child of God, in the thought of God, is a vessel in which those perfections and glories of His Son are to be manifested, and each one is then to be related to all the others, to make the one glorious vessel which will eventually be seen "coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God". The object of winning souls is the ultimate satisfaction and pleasure of God. It is not only for the sake of the convert and the convert's eternal well-being; we have concentrated far too much on that.

If only we can see and grasp the fuller thought of God, what a motive it is! God can then commit Himself. Surely that is the main point, after all - that God should be able to come alongside and say: 'Yes, I am in this: this has something more in view than personal gratification; this has My glory in view, this has My Son in view.' That is sovereign service.

4. Sovereign Warfare

When you come to Numbers, you find the Lord's people in a position or condition of being constituted a warring instrument concerning the Testimony. This is something tremendous - for, so far as the ages down here are concerned, the testimony of Jesus is an outstanding thing, the most outstanding thing in God's universe. All the conflict, all the trial, all the suffering of the Church and the saints, is related to that testimony. If you will have nothing to do with the testimony of Jesus you will escape nine-tenths of your troubles, difficulties and sufferings. Touch that, come into relation to that, and your troubles begin. Indeed, we know that, on one side, your troubles begin as soon as you become a Christian! Praise God, that is not the whole story; but it is one side, and the Lord Jesus did not hide that. He made it perfectly clear that that would be the immediate consequence of relationship to Himself.

There is a great kingdom of antagonism to this testimony of Jesus - fierce and violent antagonism. It is a mighty spite against God. We have suggestions as to how and why it arose. There was one who aspired to the kingdom, to the inheritance, to a certain place next to God, to be equal with God. But that place was reserved for God's Son, and so the Son has for ever, in Heaven and on earth, been the object of that one's fiercest jealousy and hatred; and so because God is working all things in the interests of His Son, the one thing to which the Devil has committed himself, throughout all the ages, is to spoil everything that is of God - just to spoil it. Anything that God does, the Devil will immediately try to spoil, because it is related to God's Son. So we find ourselves precipitated into a realm of animosity. It is in the very atmosphere - you cannot avoid it. It is there all the time.

This conflict is a part of the testimony. The book of Numbers brings us there: we find the testimony in the centre and the people ordered for battle in relation to the testimony. But, blessed be God, the testimony is seen as completely victorious. "Rise up, O Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered".

Personal Applications

These few thoughts are just hints and pointers, rather than anything else, but if you take them up you will see their operation, not only in the Old Testament, but in the New, and also in our own lives. Firstly, God laid His hand upon us sovereignly: He made us know that it had to be Himself. We may have longed for Him, we may have craved for Him, we may have yearned for Him, but the Lord chose His own moment for clinching the matter. He did not allow any activities of ours to bring it about -

'It is not thy tears of repentance, or prayers...'

There is a side, of course, where we have to show that we mean business with God; but God chooses His own moment for doing this thing, so that we have to say, 'It was the Lord! I could not have got through of myself; I could not have brought this about myself. The Lord kept it in His own hands - I know He did it.'

That is so in every matter, not only in our conversion. We see the sovereignty of God dealing with us, His sovereign activities for our separation, outwardly and inwardly. God is working in that way. And until we let go of the world and of personal interests in this life as objectives, let go the government of any life of our own, let go any claim to direct and order our own paths, and come into the goings of God, we are not in rest, the testimony does not rest. "Return unto thy rest" (Ps. 116:7). As you are in the activities of God 'going', you come into the rest of God resting.

And then it is a matter of everything for God's pleasure. That is the meaning of holiness. Holiness sums it all up: everything to God's pleasure and satisfaction, everything concerning the Lord Jesus, He in all things having pre-eminence.

Finally, God's dealings with us do bring us into the realm of conflict: but it is conflict with tremendous issues and glorious assurances - the certainty of victory.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Mar-Apr 1956, Vol 34-2

God's Standard of Values

"For who hath despised the day of small things?" (Zechariah 4:10).

"Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes as nothing?" (Haggai 2:3).

"Then they that feared the Lord spake one with another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in the day that I do make, even a peculiar treasure; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him" (Malachi 3:16,17).

"Who hath despised the day of small things?" This is one matter, among many, concerning which it is very necessary for us to be clear in our hearts and to have our mentality adjusted. Just as a ship, after a long voyage, spends time in having its compass adjusted, because of interferences and variations, so it is with us, on our way. It becomes necessary for us, from time to time, to stop and think again; to get our minds corrected; and to be freed from those influences that upset the balance and the poise and a right appreciation.

This matter, then, of greatness and smallness is an important one. There is a good deal of confusion about it and that confusion can result in our missing the way and being found in an altogether false position. We need to know what we mean by 'greatness' and what we mean by 'smallness'. It is quite evident, from the Scriptures that we have read, that, in the case of that remnant of the Jews which had returned to Jerusalem from captivity, a certain kind of appraisal, a certain kind of observation, had resulted in a false judgment, which brought the people perilously near to calamity. The Lord, reading their hearts, used this word as to their attitude and their reactions - "despised"! "Who hath despised the day of small things?" And if you look carefully into these prophecies, you will find that an altogether different point of view about the matter was possible, and that the 'day' was not as small as they thought.

Bigness and Greatness, Littleness and Smallness

We have a way of confusing 'bigness' with 'greatness', and they are two entirely different things. 'Bigness' may be a matter of bulk - of outward physical dimensions - the impression that a thing makes upon the senses. 'Greatness' is a matter of moral qualities. You may not be able to take its measure, or even to see any measure in it at all, from human standpoints. Yet from God's standpoint it may be very great. There is a lot of difference between bigness and greatness from God's standpoint. In the same way, there is a great deal of difference between 'littleness' and 'smallness'. A 'little' person is one whose nature is petty, paltry, mean, despicable - little! But you can be quite small, and yet of tremendous value. You would sooner have an ounce of gold than many pounds of iron! It is a matter of intrinsic value.

You may have read the life story of Madame Curie, the discoverer of radium. If you have, you will remember how tons and tons and tons of byproducts from the gas-works were unloaded in her backyard. Working on this mountain of 'stuff', she obtained out of it the smallest particle of radium. That is a comparison of what is 'big' and what is 'great'. In that almost imperceptible speck of radium lay immense qualities, values, potentialities, all extracted from this great mass of stuff. There is certainly a difference between 'bigness' and 'greatness'.

'Smallness' we may judge merely in an objective and outward way. We may say of something: Oh, but it is so small! and 'despise' it. And yet, a 'day of small things' may be a tremendously potential day. "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32). Here, of course, we have 'little' used in the sense of outward size. There is something outwardly small which is immensely potential. You have only to run your eye through the Bible, to see again and again what God made of 'small' things, that would have been despised, scorned, overlooked, set aside, by those who had this mentality of 'bigness'.

A Despised Remnant, Precious to God

Now, if you look at these passages that I have quoted at the beginning, you will see that there was something there that was very precious to God, although the people, in their natural judgment, were calling it so small. The last passage that we read, from the 'end-time' of the Old Testament, finds God saying: "They shall be mine... in the day that I do make, even a peculiar treasure". "They that feared the Lord" - just that little company that feared the Lord, and thought upon His Name, and were occupied with Him - represented something of such value to the Lord, that our translation does not convey how precious it was to Him.

You notice those two words: "The Lord hearkened, and heard". That is not just the repetition of the same word in two different forms. The first word signifies: The Lord 'bent down', 'inclined'. The Lord said: 'Here is something to take note of! Here is something to which to listen! Here is something to draw Our attention' - God's attention! The Lord inclined, listened, heard. And the picture is: The Lord said: 'Fetch the book, the great book, the Book of Remembrance, and put down the names of these people in it.' "A book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord... in the day that I do make, even a peculiar treasure". And that, as you know, was right in the setting of this section of the Bible that includes Haggai and Zechariah.

What was it which made for this 'greatness', over against that which people were calling so 'little', and despising as such? What does the Lord look for? Well, here it is quite clear. This little company was, comparatively, a disciplined and chastened company. They had come out of the fires of Babylon. They had been through all the discipline of those years in exile. They were of those who had hung their harps upon the willows, and said: "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" (Ps. 137:4). "The Lord's song" - you can see where their hearts were. And then the day came when the proclamation was made: You can go back - you can all go back to Zion! The vast majority, feeling that their present position was a very much more comfortable one than it would be back there in Zion, decided to stay where they were. And this little company, with all the hardships, difficulties, sufferings, toil, and much more, that was involved in going back, went back, because their hearts were in Zion, and Zion was in their hearts. It was a matter of the heart relationship to the Lord, and of that which was dearest to His heart. And so they were always thinking upon His Name, talking together about His interests.

They are a little company, comparatively, a despised people. I expect that most of those who stayed behind thought them fools. Well, be it so. What did the Lord think? That was the point. Malachi tells us what the Lord thought. A chastened, a disciplined people, whose hearts were for the Lord. Small? If you like. Read the prophecies of Jeremiah: what a book that is! What a time it takes, and what patience it takes, to work your way through the whole of Jeremiah's prophecies! Malachi and Haggai - we call them 'Minor' prophets - what little books these are! But what have you got for the Lord (where the nation is concerned) in Jeremiah? He is a 'Major' prophet, if you like, but, in his time, there is nothing for the Lord. The others may be little, 'Minor' prophets, but there is something now very precious to the Lord.

The discipline has taken place; the chastening has been carried out; the heart has been searched: the Lord has got something. You say 'small'? Oh, no, not in the eyes of the Lord - it is something very great. That is what is precious to the Lord; that is what He is looking for, and that is what He calls 'great'! Although, looking at it with natural eyes - and the eyes of man always judge by the outward size and appearance - men may despise: from the Lord's standpoint there is much intrinsic value. And, with Him, everything is a matter of 'intrinsic value', not of bulk!

The Lord Jesus puts His finger on that matter in another connection. 'If salt have lost its saltness, what is the good of it?' (Matt. 5:13; Luke 14:13). You may have bulk - tons of it! - but it is useless; you had better throw it out in the street. A teaspoonful of salt with its savour in it is of more value than tons of savourless salt! It is a matter of intrinsic value. It is the Divine element, the sting of God, the vital quality! And, for that, there has to be suffering; there has to be chastening; there has to be discipline; the heart has to be searched; the work has to go very deep, in order to secure a people in line with God's abiding intention.

Concern for God's Eternal Thought

This people had one object before them: God's Home. The Temple represented God's heavenly, eternal, abiding thought - the place of His dwelling amongst His people. Before the world was, it was in God's mind to dwell with men; and all the way through the Bible it is just that. Right at the end of the Bible it is - "The tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them... and be their God" (Rev. 21:3). That is God's everlasting thought concerning His House, His dwelling-place in the midst of His people. We know the reality, the spiritual reality of that.

Here, then, are people in line with God's thought. In Babylon God's thought did not obtain at all; that was not His place.

The Lord always calls it spiritually great, when you are wholly centred on that which He has ever had in mind. When God has a people right in line with His eternal thought; a people right in touch with Himself as to that which He ever desires to have: when He has got that - let that people be 'small' from outward standards, and 'despised' by men of distorted judgment - God says: 'That is great! and you are not to despise it.' "Who hath despised the day of small things?" There is a rebuke in that interrogation; a correction. It implies: 'Pause! Adjust your judgment and your standards!'

Here is a people still with the vision in their hearts of what God intended and would have. They may have been greatly discouraged and disheartened; greatly perplexed as to the possibility of it, and very very tried as to the realisation of it. Nevertheless, it was in their hearts. They wept! - look at the context of this statement (Hagg. 2:3; Ezra 3:12). They wept over the situation! They were distressed that that which was, was so much less than what they knew the Lord wanted; they were troubled about this. And their perplexity and their distress even led them to drop their hands in despair, and, for the time being, to suspend operations (Ezra 4:23,24; Hagg. 1:2).

There was plenty there as a ground for discouragement; plenty there to give point to saying it was hopeless. But - you never feel hopeless if you have never had hope! A person who has never known what hope is, does not know what hopelessness is! They are just dead things. You can only know hopelessness if you have previously known hope. These people were troubled, heartbroken, distressed; and if they despaired for a time, and said: 'It is no use, it is no use!' - that was simply because they were, in their hearts, deeply disappointed. And you cannot be disappointed unless you have had some kind of appointment!

There, deep in their hearts, was the vision; and they were suffering in their hearts in relation to the vision. That is what God is looking for! People who, in their hearts, through all trial and testing, still have the vision of what God is after, and are suffering in their hearts concerning it, represent something precious to the Lord. He as it were lights on that, and says: 'We take note of that! Put that down in the Book; don't let that be forgotten; have that in remembrance. It is going to come up in the day that I make - I shall have that then!'

Pointing to the Lord Jesus

So we must revise our thoughts, and get away from these temporal ways of viewing things to the eternal standards and standpoint. For all this leads us to - what? To the Lord Jesus!

Here, in this very fourth chapter of the prophecies of Zechariah, is something that has a recurrence in the book of the Revelation: the two olive trees, standing before the Lord of all the earth (Zech. 4:3,11-14). You know where that comes in the book of Revelation (11:4). There is something here of eternal significance. The Lord Jesus is brought into view in these prophecies.

In Haggai (2:6,7) we read: "Yet once... and I will shake the heavens, and the earth... and the desire of all nations shall come". That is quoted in the letter to the Hebrews (12:26). 'The things which can be shaken' - the temporal things; the 'big' things, according to man's mind - they will be shaken to their foundations. But the things which cannot be shaken shall stand. The letter to the Hebrews is all centred upon the Lord Jesus, and His heavenly kingdom. "Receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken" (12:23). That comes out of Haggai.

As for Malachi, he dwells much upon the Lord Jesus - the very Messenger of the Covenant (3:1) - and His forerunner (4:5). Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, introduces the Lord Jesus in a very real way; it is all focused upon Him. And when God sees things focused upon His Son, He is alert and alive, listening and watching and recording. It amounts to this: that, from God's standpoint, 'value' is always a matter of how much of His Son is present anywhere. The test of everything is how much it represents Christ - how much of Christ is there; not how 'big' and impressive it is, from man's standpoint. We need to find the right balance.

Of course, God is a great God, and we expect a great God to do great things. At the great Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910, a slogan was introduced: 'Attempt great things for God: Expect great things from God'. Yes: but be sure that you know what 'greatness' is from God's standpoint, and that you are not confusing 'greatness' with 'bigness', intrinsic value with outward bulk. What the Lord is after is the values of His Son. They are the eternal values.

"Who hath despised the day of small things?" But - "they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel, even these seven..." (Zech. 4:10). From that point you are moving on the positive line of recovery!

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1960, Vol 38-5

"Here Am I; Send Me"

"I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us! Then said I, Here am I; send me." (Isaiah 6:8).

Whenever these words have been used in Christian circles - and they have been, and still are, very frequently employed - it is almost invariably in relation to missionary work among the 'heathen' or in non-Christian countries. It may, therefore, be something of a surprise and, maybe, a shock to have it pointed out that they were never so related when first spoken. Not the 'heathen' or 'nations', but the Lord's own people were the occasion of this missionary call and challenge. The Prophets - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others - were called to be missionaries to the people of God, and God only knew how desperately necessary that was!

Never was a 'heathen' nation more desperately in need of missionaries than were the Lord's people in those times. Speaking generally, we should find very little more sympathy and support than did those "missionaries" if we said the same things of the Lord's people today. Indeed, we should receive the same kind of treatment - in different ways - that was served out to them.

But there are two things to say about this. Why all the Conventions and Conferences? Why all the magazines and literature, and books? Why all the preaching and teaching? All of which carries as its strongest note and emphasis the unsatisfactory condition of Christians today. There is a wholesale deploring of that condition, and there is no fundamental basis for all these conventions and special spiritual occasions if all is well and as it should be. That is a general fact, although we may not take account of all those who have a special 'axe to grind', some particular line or aspect of teaching. The measure or degree of feeling and conclusion as to the declension or poor condition will be discerned in the messages given and emphases made.

There is, however, a further and much greater factor in the appraisement, and this is by no means general.

On what ground and as a result of what did this 'missionary' call and challenge come to the prophet? If that question were to be put to Isaiah, to any other prophet, or to Paul, Peter, John; that is: How did you come to see and to feel as you do? How did you come to be so utterly committed to and involved in this mission and ministry? Their answer - with one voice - would be: "I saw the Lord"!

"I Saw the Lord"

That was all, but that was enough. Whether it was Moses at one end or John at the other - with the many between - their life and work was due to their having seen the Lord. But that seeing of the Lord always meant a seeing of what the Lord wanted as opposed to the existing state. It was a comparison and a contrast. It is always impossible to see the Lord and to remain satisfied with things as they are. Any seeing of the Lord means a new seeing of what He wants, and is therefore a challenge and a commission. As in the time of Eli and Samuel the low spiritual state was because "there was no open vision".

There is therefore only one thing for the real spiritual purifying and uplifting of the people of God, and for their release from the captivity of lesser conditions, and that is a new revelation or seeing of the Lord. This will produce ashamedness, sorrow, repentance, and a new committal. It will humble us, it will empty us; but it will inspire us.

The most vital reality of seeing the Lord is not in the immediate emotional effect, but in the fact that we see the Lord Himself as the model or pattern of everything. We spend so much time and energy on plans, orders, arrangements, and forms. But the Lord is all that in Himself, and the government of the Holy Spirit will result in an organic reproduction of the Lord as the sum of all things.

Despite all our fussing and effort to reproduce a 'New Testament Order' we never get more than a man-made institution. The New Testament and what is there never came about in that way. If ever they got near to arranging things by discussion (and they did once, at least), the thing touched earth, touched death, and the result was stalemate. Everything then was the free and spontaneous movement of the Holy Spirit, and He did it in full view of the Pattern - God's Son. The ministry of the Holy Spirit has ever been to reveal Jesus Christ, and in revealing Him, to conform everything to Him.

No human genius can do this. We cannot obtain anything in our New Testament as the result of human study, research, or reason. It is all the Holy Spirit's revelation of Jesus Christ. Ours it is to seek continually to see Him by the Spirit, and we shall know that He - not a paper-pattern - is the Pattern, the Order, the Form. It is all a Person who is the sum of all purpose and ways.

Who will say that the Lord's people do not need above all things men and ministries which have behind them this dynamic - "I saw the Lord".

There is a desperate need for missionaries to scattered, defeated, and imprisoned 'Israel' - the spiritual Israel - of such as have seen the Lord and who are thus in a position - the only right position - to say: "Here am I; send me."

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-June 1963, Vol 41-3

The Holy Spirit in the Life of a Child of God

From "This Ministry" - Messages given at Honor Oak - Volume 3.

"But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature... And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he is keeping the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him; for we will not sit down till he come hither. And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look upon. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him; for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward" (1 Sam. 16:7,11-13).

"And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall over-shadow thee; wherefore also the holy thing which is begotten shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35).

"And Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit" (Luke 1:41).

"And... Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit" (Luke 1:67).

"Simeon... was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed unto him by the Holy Spirit, that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple" (Luke 2:25-27).

"He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit" (Luke 3:16).

"The Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form, as a dove, upon him, and a voice came out of heaven, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased" (Luke 3:22).

"And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led in the Spirit in the wilderness... And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee" (Luke 4:1,14).

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because, he anointed me to preach... to proclaim... to set at liberty... to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:18).

I feel it very much on my heart that the Lord would have me to say a little to you about the Holy Spirit. To some of you what I shall say will probably be very elementary, but it may be helpful to others, and we never get beyond the place where we need to be reminded of things which are, after all, the greatest things in the life of a child of God. It is not my intention to take up the above passages and speak about them in particular. They have been read in order to bring this matter before us with one object - at least to indicate how large a place the Holy Spirit has in the bringing in and the carrying through of God's purposes and God's instruments.

Some False Ideas Associated with the Spirit

Let me say at the outset one or two things about the negative side of the Holy Spirit and His presence, that is, what the Holy Spirit does NOT imply - for it is necessary for us to adjust our thoughts in this matter so that we have not wrong ideas which will lead to disappointed expectation. Many people seem to have the idea, more or less vaguely or certainly, that should anyone really be filled with the Holy Spirit and live in the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, certain things are sure to result.

One is that of course such an one will never come up against any difficulties which to him are completely insurmountable. He will, by the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit dwelling within in fullness, surmount his difficulties and solve his problems very easily. Or again, such a life ought to be very largely free from suffering and adversity; being sealed, owned of God, it could hardly be set aside and rejected and driven out, and, amongst men, made a thing of nought; God would see to it that it was not so. Such ideas do exist, and when experiences to the contrary come, a good deal of perplexity and questioning arises. After all, is the Lord with us? Is the mighty power of the Holy Ghost amongst us and in us? If the Lord were mightily with us, surely we should be carried right on and all our mountains would go down and our difficulties would be swept aside, our sufferings would be as nothing? And so on. Well, from the moment of the Spirit's descent upon the Lord Jesus at the Jordan, there followed the wilderness and the devil. By the direct action of the Holy Spirit it was so. He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tried by the devil. So with David; from the day the Spirit of Jehovah came mightily upon him his troubles began. Almost immediately he found himself a target of the devil. From that day he was a marked man and an outcast, and we know the long periods in which he was hunted, "as when one doth hunt a partridge in the mountains" (1 Sam. 26:20). This man, upon whom the Spirit of Jehovah came mightily, was hunted for his very life. Yes, he was completely rejected and set at nought, and even, at one time at least, despaired in his own heart of survival. So much for a man upon whom the Spirit of the Lord rests mightily. Let us adjust ourselves to this matter and not entertain false ideas of what life is going to be if only we are filled with the Spirit and the power of the Spirit of God rests upon us.

The Basic Fact in the Life of a Child of God

That is the negative side very briefly. Come now to the other side and get right back to the beginning of Christian life - for the sake of anyone who may have an insufficient understanding of what happens when you become the Lord's. Here again we need to correct ourselves, for many think that when you become a Christian, you just adopt a certain line of procedure: you are expected not to do many things that you have been in the habit of doing before, and you begin to do other things that you have not been in the habit of doing. You go to meetings, you associate with Christian people, you begin to pray, and to read the Bible, and do all sorts of things which are regarded as proper to a Christian. That all may take place and then life become one continuous struggle to keep it up. You have taken on something and you have to live up to it, and it is a struggle, and there does not seem to be very much in it more than that. Perhaps you enjoy the fellowship of God's people. You sometimes enjoy the meetings and sometimes you do not! It is a very unsatisfactory experience from your own personal standpoint in an inward way. After a while you get very weary and you wonder whether there is anything in the Christian life at all.

Well, there is a great deal to be said to correct this point of view. We must understand exactly what does happen when we really become children of God. Let us consider the case of the Lord Jesus, because in everything, from first to last, He is the exemplar, the representation of the whole Christian life. If you had looked upon Him as an ordinary person in this world in the days of His flesh, you would have seen nothing that marked Him out as essentially different from any other man - that is as a person in the world. You might have noted that He was a fine type of man and have been impressed by certain things about Him, as in the case of any other man; but apart from that you would not have noticed anything different. In outward appearance He may well have been like David, a splendid specimen of a man. I do not know what He was like physically, but David was that. The Lord had said to Samuel, "Look not on his countenance"; and almost immediately afterward the Word says of David "he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look upon." The implication is this, that, while you are not making the outward the criterion, there may be something quite good there; that is, ugliness is not at a premium. But that is not the point - "God looketh on the heart." Don't you look at the outward appearance; and even although the Lord Jesus may have been amongst men exceptionally fine in physique and appearance, His essential difference from other men was not in that fact. The difference lay deeper, hidden, quite out of sight. Even those in the closest association with Him physically, living with Him all day and every day, week after week, month after month, were not able to discern that difference until long afterward. They had suspicions, perhaps - fleeting impressions; they were often bewildered; but the vital factor lay hidden from them. "Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip?" (John 14:9). The difference lay deeper. What was the reality, the great difference, in the case of the Lord Jesus? It was a link between His inner being and His Father God. Those two were in perfect oneness, and out of that perfect, hidden, secret, spiritual oneness of His spirit with the Father, everything in His life took its rise. All His guidance came by that, and He did not act on any of the other lines of guidance common to men - advice, counsel, coercion, custom, expectation, even sympathetic appeal. He put back appeals that were made to Him out of the best of motives and desires for His good and well-being - even a mother's appeal. He had an inner union with God, and out of that He took His guidance, the yea and the nay for all His movements and for everything else. He lived on that, and that was the great inner difference between Christ and every other person. And that is the thing which distinguishes a child of God. No one who has not been born of God has that, but everyone who has been born of God has it - doubtless in a very elementary and infant form to begin with, because it comes by birth.

Here is the Lord Jesus again as example. He could have come and occupied the body of a man fully grown, and done the work which He really took up only when He was thirty years of age; but He started with birth because we all start there in our relationship with God - new birth; and the new birth is just the bringing about, by a miracle of the Spirit of God, of a union with God which was never there before, and it is out of that that everything of the Christian life takes its rise. It is by reason of that that you begin to do things that you never did before and you stop doing things that you did before. There is no question of strain about it, of compulsion, of law. From the beginning it is just the work of that Spirit's law of life, and you act spontaneously, you, do not stop to think about it. In the physical realm you never stop to ask yourself if you are going to take another breath, you just do it. That is living, and it is because you are alive that you do other things. You do your thinking because you are living, but you do not have to think in order to live. It is like that in the life of a child of God. You are alive, and then because you are alive, you become conscious that you are no longer drawn to certain things, but you are drawn to certain others.

The Basis of Spiritual Education

Now what is the outworking of this great fact of being thus alive unto God? As we go on, that factor of life-union is the basis of all our education. It is the nature of our life and it is the basis of our education. David, as an Old Testament saint, was not on the ground of a "born again" believer, but his life was lived under the government of the Spirit and therefore can serve our present purpose by way of illustration. Why, after the Spirit of the Lord had come mightily upon him, did David have the history which was immediately subsequent - adversity, expulsion, suffering, perplexity, bewilderment, even despair? It is a common experience of those who have the Spirit. Even the Apostle Paul - who unquestionably had the Spirit - said at one time that he "despaired even of life" (2 Cor. 1:8). Why that? For this reason, that this nature of our spiritual life has to be perfected. The way of spiritual joy is through natural sorrow. The way of wisdom is through utter confounding. And that is not done once and for all; that is repeated again and again, and the process becomes more severe as you go on! You are brought more and more to an end of any possibility of understanding the ways of God naturally, and more and more to the place where a Divine revelation is absolutely necessary to survival and emergence.

We have said, through sorrow to spiritual joy. We are talking about SPIRITUAL joy. It is different altogether from mere optimism and suchlike things. Oh, it is so different! You ask the question, how can certain people rejoice over against such and such circumstances? Well, there is the mystery. It is not something that you can explain naturally at all; it is supernatural, it is Divine, it is a miracle. And so it is with everything - joy, wisdom, strength. Spiritual strength is an altogether different thing from natural strength. Natural strength ebbs and comes to an end. Spiritual strength comes in and even vitalises the physical and the mental. But the position is this, when that work is advanced - should the Spirit of God leave you for a moment, you are utterly weak; that is, for all practical purposes you are useless. But now, for the demands laid upon you physically and mentally, you are living upon another energy, though in the natural world you are weak and a fool. You might be otherwise; if you had not been brought on to this level, you might be amongst men other than a fool, but you have come under the hand of the Spirit of God, and He is making all things to be out from God and nothing out from yourself, physically or mentally or in any way. It is "by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6), and the education is going on in order to develop our spiritual strength to be the energy of mind and body, the wisdom and the understanding of our lives. It is developing another entity in us, or, to put it more correctly, it is the growth of Christ in us over against ourselves.

Dependence on the Lord and Spiritual Responsibility

Now this further word. The point you and I have to watch carefully is this, that we do not get into the habit of expecting the Lord to do everything objectively to us and for us. If we do that, the inevitable result will be the stultifying of our spiritual life. You do everything for little children: you hold them up on their feet to start with; if they begin to fall, you at once save them; and you explain everything, you tell everything, and do everything objectively to them and for them. What would you think if you had to do that to a grown person? It would be altogether abnormal and wrong. And it is no less wrong in the spiritual realm. But this is where many become confused; for they realize that they are utterly dependent upon the Lord - and of course that dependence is necessary essential and right - and then they mistakenly collapse on the Lord because they are so utterly dependent and wait for Him to do everything. They expect Him to carry them, to support them, and to provide them with a life of continuous miracles. That is all wrong, and it is just there that we have to harmonize these two things - dependence upon the Lord, and spiritual responsibility; by no means an easy task.

That brings us to a more advanced point. We have got away from the beginning now. We are told we have to be utterly dependent on the Lord; on the other hand, we have to be responsible people. How do we reconcile these two things? How is it going to work out? In actual experience we often find that the Lord simply does not do the thing for which we had been waiting. He wants us to come into intelligence, where we recognise whether He says yes or no about the matter. When He says, Yes, we move forward and act, trusting Him of course for the necessary resource. We do not wait for Him to do it. If we have any witness of life and peace in our heart that that is the Lord's mind after sufficient testing of it by the Word and by prayer, then the responsibility for acting is ours. If, on the other hand, we have any reason whatever to doubt that that is the Lord's way, we must take the opposite course; however much we may want to do it, we must say, No; we must refuse to be moved in that direction by any kind of coercion or personal preference or desire. Let everybody say that is the direction in which we ought to move - that of itself is not a sufficient ground for moving. But here we must add a word of caution. What we are saying is based upon this - that the one concerned really has a life with the Lord, really does know the Lord, and that a sufficient breaking has taken place in the realm of natural will and natural likes and dislikes. The Lord Who lived on this basis and moved according to this law had been to Jordan and in type had there renounced the entire ground of self. There are many people who take an independent attitude on the ground that they have received their guidance from the Lord and therefore they are not going to take any notice of what others may say. But they are unbroken people; that is stubbornness, self-will, natural strength. We have to go through discipline, through testing, and through a measure of breaking, to be in the place where our interests are not governing, where what we would like is not dictating and where our natural thoughts and judgments are not the criterion. But given a true walk with the Lord inwardly, then there is a place of responsibility which we must recognise and accept and where we move or do not move according to what we judge to be the Lord's way after testing the situation.

It is then that the Lord comes alongside. We have been waiting for the Lord to come and act apart from us, and the Lord has been waiting for us to come to a place of spiritual intelligence where we move in that intelligence. As we move He begins to move alongside of us, and we find that things do happen, they do open up. It is wonderful how the Lord comes in and we find that is just what we have been praying for all along - for the Lord to do it; but the Lord has been waiting for something also. The Word speaks about the "set time." David said, "Thou wilt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for it is time to have pity upon her, yea, the set time is come" (Psa. 102:13). Yes, the Lord may have His set times, but in His infinite wisdom and perfect foreknowledge He makes His set time synchronize with a set condition. We cannot explain that, but there it is. The truth is that when the Lord's time comes and the thing happens, it is not just by an act of God unrelated to other conditions; you will find that that synchronizes with the end of a preparation, the arrival at a state on the part of those concerned, and the set time is in effect the time when they have reached a certain spiritual position. It may be a position of complete disinterestedness, where they are out of the picture - the last vestige of self-interest has gone and the set time has come. Or it may be any one of a number of other things. Whatever it may be, remember that the Divine activities are intimately linked up with a work in us, and that although it will be God's working alone that accomplishes anything, yet that working is delayed until we are ready to take our place of responsibility and to act in faith.

"A House of Prayer For All People"

Reading: 2 Chronicles 6; Isaiah 56:6-7; Mark 11:17; Ephesians 6:18.

"My house shall be called an house of prayer for all people."

The sixth chapter of the second book of Chronicles is a magnificent example and illustration of these words of the Prophet. In the dedication of the House by Solomon, prayer of a universal kind inaugurated the ministry of the House, introducing its function. The characteristic words of that chapter are: "This house" and "thy name". "When they shall pray toward THIS HOUSE, because of THY NAME which is upon it...".

You will remember the words of the Apostle concerning certain people, that they 'blasphemed that holy name which was called upon you'. The House is the link between the two passages historically and spiritually, and the Name called upon the House.

What was true of the temple of Solomon, as the House with the Name called upon it, is true of the Church, the Church of Christ, with the Lord's Name upon it. We have no difficulty in identifying the anti-type of Solomon's temple as being the Church. You are no doubt sufficiently acquainted with the Word to make it unnecessary to quote Scripture in this connection. Many passages will come to your mind which bear out that statement. The Church is God's House; "whose house are we", says the writer of the letter to the Hebrews; "a spiritual house to offer up spiritual sacrifices", says Peter. The identification is not at all difficult. And that the Name is upon the House is also quite clear. It was because of the Name which they bore at the beginning that the Church was so mighty in its going forth. The power of the Name was ever manifesting itself in their ministry. That is all very simple and needs no labouring. Then there are these other factors.

SONSHIP MARKING THE HOUSE OF THE LORD

The temple of Solomon was really the temple of David. It came in in revelation through David, and in realization in sonship, David's son. We know that in the Word both David and Solomon are types of the Lord Jesus, that He is great David's greater Son, and that He combines all that is spiritually represented by David and Solomon of sovereignty, kingship, exaltation, universal triumph and glory. You will remember how the Lord sent Nathan to David, to tell him that though he himself should not build the House, he was nevertheless to be the one to gather all that was necessary for it, and so be the instrument of making it possible. This so satisfied David that in the inspiration of it, and the tremendous stimulus of it, he went out and subdued all those nations which had been historic thorns in the side of Israel. And when he had subdued all the nations round about, and a universal triumph had been established, then the House came into being through Solomon.

We carry that forward into the triumph of the Lord Jesus by His Cross. He possesses the universal victory. He is exalted, enthroned, in virtue of all His enemies being overthrown by His Cross, and on resurrection ground the declaration is made: "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten thee." A fresh declaration of sonship is made, by reason of resurrection, and in resurrection, and in that sonship He builds the House, and the Spirit of sonship enters into every member of that House, and it becomes a 'sonship House' (Acts 14:33; Galatians 4:6).

THE MINISTRY AND VOCATION OF THE HOUSE

That all leads the way to this particular thing, namely, the ministry and vocation of the House, of the Church. The House itself has to provide the Lord with a place, a sphere, a realm, a vessel, through which He can reach all people. That is the working outwards; that is God securing to Himself a means of universal blessing. God moves universally through His House, and therefore He must have a House constituted on a prayer basis. Do you notice the two movements in this chapter of 2 Chronicles 6? There is a movement outwards, and a movement inwards. The outward is through the House, with Solomon, so to speak, ministering the Lord. He is, as it were, bringing out from heaven the gracious goodness of God, the interventions, the undertakings and resources of God, world-wide. He is making the House the vehicle of what God is, and what God has, unto all peoples. When you reach a certain point in the chapter the movement changes, and you see people coming to the House because of the Name. That is the movement inwards. They shall "pray toward this house, because of thy great name", said Solomon. That means that the circumference is going to find, not a direct access to God, but its blessing through the House of the Lord.

I suggest to you that those two things very greatly govern the New Testament revelation of the Church, and the Church's vocation. The one thing which embraces all is that God in Christ has bound Himself up with His Church, the Body of Christ, for this world's good, and that the fullness of the Lord will never be known nor entered into in an individual or individualistic way; that anything like mere individualism, separatism, will mean limitation. Any kind of detachment and isolation leads to being deprived of the larger fullnesses of the Lord, or, to put it the other way, to come into the fullness of the Lord we have to come into the fellowship of His people as the House of God. That is one law, and that is established.

That is the line which is more severe. There is a frown, perhaps, about that. It sounds hard. But it is the warning note which is very necessary, and especially in the light of the fact that there is a continuous, unceasing, incessant drive of the adversary in the direction of separation, isolation and detachment. It seems that at times the devil releases his forces and concentrates them upon people, to get them to run away, to get out of it, to break away, to quit because the strain seems so intense. Their whole inclination is to get away alone. They think that they are going to get an advantage by that. They are sometimes deceived into thinking that it will be for their good if only they get right away alone. They sometimes put it in this way: that they 'want to get away and think it all out'. Beware of the peril of thinking it all out! You can never think out spiritual problems. The only way of solving them is to live through them. If you have tried to square down to your spiritual problems, and bring your mind to bear upon them, and to solve them by 'thinking it all out', you know that you never get anywhere, and that the Lord does not meet you in that way. Spiritual things have to be lived through to clearness. We can only get through to clearness in spiritual things by living through them. If you do not understand that now, you probably will understand when you come up against another experience of this kind. Thus one aspect of the enemy's drive is to get you to run away. Why does the enemy want us to get away? Why is it that this whole force, this whole pressure, is to make us quit? He has a very good reason. He knows that it means loss and limitation. The Lord, to put it in a word, has bound up all His greater fullnesses with SPIRITUAL relatedness, and there can be nothing but grievous loss in failing to recognize the House-law of God, the fellowship-law, the family-law. There can only be loss if we TAKE OURSELVES out of God's appointed relatedness. Be very much aware of any kind of movement or tendency which is in the direction of either detachment or putting you into a place where you are apart. The enemy has many ways of getting his end. If he cannot drive us out from the midst of the Lord's people, he very often tries to give us a too prominent place in the midst of them. He can isolate us just as much by our being too much in the limelight, and we at once become uncovered, exposed. There is no more dangerous place than to be made too much fuss of, to be SOMEONE. There is such a thing as finding a hiding within the House of God.

But our particular consideration at the present time is this vocation and its outward direction, the House of prayer for all peoples. The Church, the Lord's people, form for Him a ministering instrument by which He has ordained to reach out to all the ends of the earth, a universal instrument wherever gathered together, even when represented only by two or three. The test of any company of the Lord's people, and of our position, is this vocation.

THE FACT OF REPRESENTATION

You begin with the representative fact, the fact of representation. Representation begins with two or three, and that immediately swings us completely clear of all earthly grounds of judging and estimating. It indicates the essential heavenly nature of the Church. In the Lord Jesus every member of the Church is included. If Christ comes, the whole Church comes. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the whole Body, uniting all the members in one. You cannot be in the spirit and in Christ anywhere but what you are there in the SPIRITUAL REALM, in the HEAVENLY REALM, with the whole Body, and the whole Body is there spiritually. Two or three? "There am I"! The whole Body, then, is bound up with the two or three. The fact evidences the heavenliness of the Church, the Body of Christ. This is not a possibility on the earth. You cannot bring the whole Church together in any one place on this earth literally. It is not the Lord's way, and it cannot be done. The Church is scattered world-wide, so far as the earthly aspect is concerned. And yet the Church is a heavenly thing gathered up in Christ, its Head, by one Spirit baptized into one Body, and when we come into the Spirit, into the heavenly realm, we are in the presence of the whole Body; not with earthly intelligence, that is, the whole Body is not conscious of the fact from the earthly standpoint, but spiritually it is true. That is the whole Church represented in the two or three if truly "in the Name". What the two or three may do in the Holy Ghost becomes a universal thing.

THE PRAYER MEETING

What we are seeking to press home is that this is so different from having a local prayer meeting, in the usually accepted meaning of that term. Suppose that where such an outlook obtains the announcement is made: 'We will have a prayer meeting on Monday night.' Who will come to that prayer meeting? People will say among themselves: 'Shall we go to the prayer meeting?' or, perhaps: 'Well, it is only a prayer meeting!' That is one way to look at it, as a local thing in a certain place at a certain time. But if I were to say: 'Will you come and minister to the whole Church of Christ universally in such-and-such a place at a certain time, and your business is to go and minister in that range to the whole Church!' that puts another point of view. It gives an altogether new conception of what we are called to. Let your imagination take flight, if you like, and see the whole Church from the ends of the earth literally gathered together, needing to be ministered to, and the Lord saying to you: 'Now you come and minister to the whole Church! Thousands of thousands, and tens of thousands gathered together, and I want you to minister to them. I have placed the resource at your disposal and will enable you to do it.' Perhaps you might shrink, and be fearful, but you would see the tremendous significance. You would not stay away because you were unimpressed with the importance of it.

This is not exaggeration. We are not straining the point. We are seeking to get to the heart of this ministry which is ours. When two or three are gathered together in any place, and they pray in the Holy Ghost, that is what is possible and it happens. They represent the whole Church, and become the House of prayer, functioning for all peoples, a universal ministry. We need to lift the prayer business on to a higher level. When we see the range, the significance, the value of a time of prayer together in the Name of the Lord, we shall stop our trivialities and take things seriously. We shall come together saying: 'Now, here are nations to be entered into tonight, and things which are world-wide and of tremendous significance to the Lord Jesus, and we are called to deal with them in this place!' There is no greater ministry. It is a tremendous thing to have a ministry like that.

It all comes back to asking whether this is true of the Church. What does this mean? Is it merely a passage of Scripture? Is it a nice idea, but falling short of any real meaning? What is the meaning of: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people"? It certainly does not mean that the whole Church can literally be gathered together in one place to pray, and it certainly cannot literally mean that the whole Church can pray together at the same time, though scattered. The situation is different in all countries. Day and night govern different parts of the world, and other factors come in. It is necessary to get away from the earth to explain this. And if you get off the earth and see that where two or three are gathered together into the Name all the rest are represented, and because the one Spirit is there the whole is therefore touched through that one Spirit, as well as involved, then the possibilities are tremendous. "A house of prayer for all peoples" is God's ordained way of ministry.

THE NEED FOR PRAYER MINISTRY

Leaving the great spiritual truth, and coming to what is immediate, so far as one's own heart is concerned, in this word, I do feel that there has to be a fresh registration in our hearts of a call to this ministry and the need for it. We may pray a lot, but I feel that we have to take this matter of the prayer ministry even more seriously, to regard it as our supreme ministry. The order is EVERYTHING BY PRAYER; not everything and then prayer, but everything by prayer. Prayer comes first. Everything comes by prayer. Prayer is the basis of everything, and nothing else must be attempted or touched except on the ground of prayer. We have to gather into our prayer the universal interests of the Name of the Lord. "Because of thy name"! The Name is in view, and is involved. It is the interests of the Name which govern the functioning of the House, and all the interests of the Name of the Lord have to become the definite and solid prayer business of the Lord's people. Oh, the Lord cut clean across that thing which makes us so casual, and which makes corporate prayer times so optional, and bring into our hearts, with a strong, deep, set conviction, the witness that prayer is universal business, and that we are called to it!

It may be that before long there will be very little else that we can do. It may be that before long the Lord's people world-wide will find that their other activities are brought to a standstill, and they are shut up. What is going to happen then to the Lord's interests? Is that the end of ministry? Is that the end of functioning, of value, of effectiveness? It may be that before long the Lord's people in all the earth will need, as they have never needed before, the prayer co-operation of other members. It may be that the Lord's Name has suffered because we have not regarded this ministry as we ought to have done. We are not blaming anyone, but simply saying that there is room for far more serious entering into this tremendous thing which the Lord has appointed for us. Only to dwell upon the words quietly and thoughtfully will surely mean that their implication will come upon our hearts? The Lord has not said that He is going to move directly out to the universe. He has said: "My HOUSE shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples." To put that in other words we might state it thus: 'I have ordained to meet universal need through an instrument, through a vessel, and My people, My Church, form that vessel. That is My appointed way. If My Church fails Me, if My instrument does not take this matter seriously, is occupied with itself rather than with the great world-wide needs of My Name, then I am failed indeed!'

Now this means that we must recognize that where but two or three gather into the Name, where it cannot be more, there is nothing merely local about such coming together in prayer, but that the farthest ranges of the Lord's interests can be advanced, helped, ministered to, by the twos and threes. If it is possible for more to gather, then the Lord desires that, but it is ministry to the Lord by prayer for which He looks to us. We must see to it that it is our first, our primary business to pray. It is strange that so many more will come to conference meetings than to prayer meetings! Is the mentality behind that, that it is far more important to hear teaching than it is to pray? Would it not be a great day and represent some tremendous advance spiritually, something unique, if the prayer gatherings were bigger than the biggest conference gatherings, or at least as big as the biggest?

Let us lay this to heart! Remember that the enemy is always seeking to destroy the essential purpose of the House of God. "Ye have made it a den of robbers." That was one attempt of his to put out the real purpose by changing the whole character of things. God forbid that anything like that should be true in our case, but it is just possible to allow the primary thing to take a secondary place. The primary thing is prayer for all peoples. That, the Lord says, is what His House is for, and that is our real ministry. We cannot all be in the ministry of the Word, but we can all be in this ministry. We can all be in spirit out to the Lord for the interests of His Name.

There seems to be weakness and failure along this line: that we are not functioning in prayer to the point of seeing things through. We pray about many things, and we preach many things, but we do not see them through in prayer, and the Lord's Name is involved in that. You will know whether the Lord is speaking to your own heart. I believe this is a fresh call to the primary ministry which is so very, very much needed. All those who go out into the nations need very strong prayer support. If we fail them we do not know what may happen. They may be in all kinds of difficulties which they need not get into if we were wholly faithful in this prayer ministry. The Lord lay it upon our hearts as a burden!

From "A Witness and A Testimony" July-August 1968.

In the Train of His Triumph

"...and by me sends forth the knowledge of Him, a stream of fragrant incense, throughout the world. For Christ's is the fragrance which I offer up to God, whether among those in the way of salvation, or among those in the way of perdition; but to these it is an odour of death, to those of life." (2 Corinthians 2:14-16, Conybeare's translation).

THE MINISTER AND HIS MINISTRY

The Apostle Paul is setting forth one of his conceptions of what the ministry of Christ is, and then what is the effect of the ministry. He is thinking here of the ministry of Christ as an incense-bearer. The picture in the background of these verses is one with which we are well acquainted.

Verse 14 brings into view the triumphal procession of a victorious war-lord, as he moves from place to place with his captives behind him, celebrating at many points his victory, and using them to provide the evidence of his conquests. But also in the procession there are those who carry vessels of incense, and the incense being diffused everywhere speaks in two ways, to two different classes of people.

There are some who are going to celebrate this day of victory by being slain. It was a custom to hold certain notorious or distinguished captives in bondage until the day of the great celebration of the victory, and then that day was marked by their execution. On the other hand, there were those who were appointed to be released as a distinguishing mark of the day. To the one the incense brought death near, and made them know that their hour had come. To the other the same incense made known that the hour of emancipation, of liberation, was drawing near. The same incense proclaimed death and life, life and death.

In the second part of the picture the Apostle sees himself in a different role. In the first, he has been viewing himself as one of those prisoners, led in the triumphal procession as an object of public exhibition, celebrating the triumph of the great Warrior. He has seen himself as in the train of the triumph of the Lord, being on full view as a demonstration of the greatness of that victory. Now he transfers himself into the second part, and takes the place of an incense-bearer in the procession. He says that he passes on through the world bearing incense, and that that incense is saying two things, having two effects, speaking to two different classes of people. It relates to life and death.

But the Apostle does not think of himself as merely carrying a censer of incense. He regards himself as being the vessel, and even - in a strange, deep, inward way, so as to become a very part of his own being - as the incense itself. He thinks of himself, not only as being the giver forth of the sweet savour, but as being the sweet savour itself; he sees himself as the means by which this effect is registered upon these two different classes of people.

In that presentation of the servant of the Lord, there is a deep, strong and solemn word for all of us who stand in the position of being the Lord's servants. The thing which should be going forth from us, the thing which should be the effect of our lives, according to these words, is the knowledge of Christ. Everywhere, not just as by us, but because of us, men should be coming to a knowledge of Christ. The very object of our being is that Christ should be known because of us. The Divinely appointed way by which men are to come to know Christ is simply through our being here and moving amongst them.

THE VITAL ELEMENT IN MINISTRY

That is simple, and perhaps we recognise and accept it. But the extra point which has to be noticed is this, that it is something more than our giving out knowledge concerning Christ - it is that we are to be to men the knowledge of Christ. There is a very big difference between the giving out of truth concerning the Lord Jesus -  even in large measure, in a great fulness, truth which cannot be denied because it is the truth - and that strange, deep, indispensable element of ourselves being that truth: so that the truth itself takes its power, its strength from the fact that here are those who are the living expression of it; who have gone through the depths, have been tested, tried, taken from place to place, subjected to experiences of intense severity, and in the fires have learned Christ, and are therefore themselves the embodiment of the knowledge of Him. Wherever we go, it is not that they have truth to give - it is that men and women learn Christ because of them. Of them it can be said: It is not what they say only; there is something coming from them. There is an indescribable 'something' which is an extra element to what they say. That thing has its reality in their being, and you feel that it is not only the words but the very virtue that comes out when they speak, or by reason of their presence.

It is that of which the Apostle is speaking.That is the real value of any knowledge of Christ which we can give,

which others may come to possess by us. It is not that they come through us to know more about Christ, but that there is a ministration of Christ Himself. That is the thing for which we should seek the Lord very earnestly.

THE COSTLINESS OF TRUE MINISTRY

We should recognize that this represents the costliness of ministry.

Ministry of this kind is an intensely costly thing. It is so different from being a preacher, as such. There may be a glamour about preaching, a fascination about gripping a congregation, and all that sort of thing, which is not costly but is gratifying to the flesh. The snare of the limelight, the snare of publicity, the snare of the satisfaction of feeling power over other people, has robbed preaching of that essential blood, and passion, and anguish. Paul was not a preacher of that kind. It is all very well to talk about Paul as the great preacher and orator, and to try to be another Paul along that line. But to be a Paul is a desperately costly thing, and to minister Christ is a thing into which our very blood will be poured.

This kind of ministry can bring no satisfaction to the flesh. This kind of ministry is not something for which to reach out for ourselves. This kind of ministry is something from which we should plead to be delivered, unless our life and heart passion is that Christ Himself - not ourselves, but Christ Himself - should be known.

That is the true value of ministry. It is indeed a costly thing, it is a thing of suffering, but it is the thing which goes beyond words, far beyond clever thinking and clever expressing, far beyond that acute needle-like brain that grasps truth and then begins to give it out. It is something which is an extra factor, without which the very best equipment in nature will fail to reach the Divine end. It is, in a word, Christ ministered: not Christ ministered about, but Christ ministered. Paul saw that there was no doubt about it - this ministry was effective, although effective in two directions. Not always did it result in people leaping into life, but it always resulted in something. If it plunged some people more deeply into death it was a proof that it was effective. If it brought death home to some consciences, that proved its power. To have real spiritual effect demands that we shall be ministers after this sort.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-Jun 1955

The Incense-Bearer

"...and by me sends forth the knowledge of Him, a stream of fragrant incense, throughout the world.  For Christ’s is the fragrance which I offer up to God, whether among those in the way of salvation, or among those in the way of perdition; but to these it is an odour of death, to those of life." (2 Corinthians 2:14-16, CONYBEARE.)

THE MINISTER AND HIS MINISTRY

The Apostle Paul is setting forth one of his conceptions of what the minister of Christ is, and then what the effect of the ministry.  He is thinking here of the minister of Christ as an incense-bearer.  The picture at the background of these verses is one with which we are well-acquainted.

Verse 14 of 2 Corinthians 2 brings into view the triumphal procession of the victorious war-lord as he moves from place to place with his captives behind him, celebrating at many points his victory, and using them for the purpose of evidence as to his victory.  But also in the procession there are those who carry vessels of incense, and the incense being diffused everywhere speaks in two ways, to two different classes of people.

There are some who are going to celebrate this day of victory by being slain.  It was a custom to hold certain notorious or distinguished captives in bondage until the day of the great celebration of the victory, and then that day was marked by their being slain.  On the other hand, there were those who were appointed to be released as a distinguishing mark of the day.  To the one the incense brought death near, and made them know that their hour had come.  To the other the same incense made known that the hour of emancipation, of liberation, was drawing near.  The same incense proclaimed death and life, life and death.

In the second part of the picture the Apostle himself passes from the first, where he has been viewing himself as one of those prisoners, led in the triumphal procession, as an object of public exhibition as to the triumph of the great Warrior.  He has seen himself as in the train of the triumph of the Lord, being on full view as a demonstration of the greatness of that victory.

Now he passes himself into the second part, and takes the place of an incense bearer in the procession, and says that he passes on through the world bearing incense, and that incense is saying two things, having two effects, speaking to two different classes of people.  It relates to life and death.

But the Apostle carries that thing inward, and he does not regard himself as simply carrying a censor of incense.  He regards himself as that vessel, and as - in a strange, deep, inward way, so as to become a very part of his own being - the incense itself.  He thinks of himself as being, not only the giver forth of the sweet savour, but that sweet savour itself; that he is the means by which this effect is registered upon these two different classes of people.

In that presentation of the servant of the Lord there is a deep, strong and solemn word for all of us who stand in that position as the Lord’s servants.  The thing which is going forth from us, the thing which is the effect of our lives, according to these words, is the knowledge of Christ.  Everywhere, not just by us, but because of us, men are coming to a knowledge of Christ.  The very object of our being is that Christ should be known because of us.  The Divinely appointed way of men coming to know Christ is by our being here, moving amongst men.

THE VITAL ELEMENT IN MINISTRY

That is simple, and perhaps we recognize and accept it, but the extra point which has to be noticed is this, that it is something more than our giving out knowledge concerning Christ; it is that we are to men the knowledge of Christ.  There is a very big difference between giving out the truth concerning the Lord Jesus - even in large measure, in a great fullness, truth which cannot be denied because it is the truth - and that strange, deep, indispensable element that we are that truth, that that truth itself takes its power, its strength from the fact that here are those who are the living expression of it; who have gone through the depths, been tested, been tried, been taken from place to place, been subjected to experiences of intense severity, and in the fires have learned Christ, and are therefore themselves the embodiment of the knowledge of Christ.

Wherever they go it is not that they have truth to give, but it is that men and women learn Christ because of them, and of them it can be said: It is not what they say only; there is something coming from them. There is an indescribable "something" which is an extra element to what they say.  That thing has its reality in their being, and you feel that it is not only the words but the very virtue that comes out when they speak, or by reason of their presence.  It is that of which the Apostle is speaking. That is the real value of any knowledge of Christ which we can give, which others may come to possess by us.  It is not that they come through us to know more about Christ, but that there is a ministration of Christ.  That is the thing for which we should seek the Lord very earnestly.

THE COSTLINESS OF TRUE MINISTRY

We should recognize that this represents the costliness of ministry. Ministry of this kind is an intensely costly thing.  It is so different from being a preacher as a preacher.  There may be a glamour about preaching, a fascination about gripping a congregation, and all that sort of thing, which is not costly but gratifying to the flesh; the snare of the limelight, the snare of publicity, the snare of that satisfaction, feeling power over other people, which has robbed preaching of that essential blood, and passion, and anguish.  Paul was not a preacher of that kind.  It is all very well to talk about Paul as the great preacher and orator, and to try to be another Paul along that line.  But to be a Paul is a desperately costly thing, and to minister Christ is a thing into which our very blood will be poured.

This kind of ministry can bring no satisfaction to the flesh.  This kind of ministry is not something for which to reach out for ourselves.  This kind of ministry is something that we should plead to be delivered from unless our life and heart passion is that Christ Himself - not ourselves, but Christ Himself - should be known.  Suffer that word thus to you who minister in the Name of the Lord.

That is the true value of ministry.  It is indeed a costly thing, it is a thing of suffering, but it is the thing which goes beyond words, far beyond clever thinking and clever expressing, far beyond that acute needle-like brain that grasps truth and then begins to give it out.  It is something which is an extra factor, without which the very best equipment in nature will fail to reach the Divine end.  It is, in a word, Christ ministered, not Christ ministered about, but Christ ministered.

Paul saw that there was no doubt about it, that this ministry was effective, although effective in two directions.  Not always did it result in people leaping into life, but it always resulted in something.  If it plunged some people more deeply into death it was a proof that it was effective.  If it brought death home to some consciences that proved its power.  To have real spiritual effect demands that this shall be the kind of ministers that we are. The living knowledge of Christ brought near to us in vessels which have been shaped and wrought through the fires will, in the first place, discover our state and then intensify our state.  It is bound to do those two things.  The two states are here presented as: In the way of life, and, In the way of death.

THE EFFECTS OF THIS MINISTRY

1.  FROM DEATH UNTO DEATH.

(A)  As to the unsaved.

Let us get quite clear on this matter.  This does not for one moment suggest - let alone support - the idea that some are elected to death and perdition and some are elected to life and salvation.  That is not the thought.  What is here is this, that there are those who are refusing life, and therefore put themselves in the way of death.  There are those who are open to life, and therefore may be in the way of life.  It is really a matter of the attitude of the heart.  It has nothing to do, in the first place, with the Divine predestination.  It has to do with our attitude toward Christ, our attitude toward the knowledge of Christ brought near to us in a living way. It is very simply explained.  It can be possible that there are those who are not open to Christ.  They have no intention whatever of giving their lives to the Lord.  It is far from their meaning that they shall be saved or shall become Christians, however they would put it.  It is not their thought or intention.  They are not open, they are quite closed.  It is quite a settled matter with them that they are not going to be Christians, or religious, or converted, or however they express it.  For them the situation is as bad as any situation could be. Christ in a living way is being brought near, and they are not open to Him, and they cannot remain as they are.  They are going to be intensified in their position, and more definitely and positively shut up to where Christ has brought death by being near, unless they change their attitude.

They may not be any more conscious that they are more set, but they are.  The coming near of Christ is going to be according to the Word, and according to truth, death unto death, from one measure of death to an intensified measure of death, from one point of distance from Christ and salvation to a removed point, further away from Christ and salvation. If ever the day comes when they do turn and desire the Lord, they will have a tenfold more difficult time than they would have had, and their salvation will be fraught with the most terrific suffering.  The infinite peril of that sort of thing is that: "He that being often reproved hardeneth.... shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."  "Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." Pharaoh hardened his heart once, twice, thrice at the call of God, and then God came in and shut his heart, and Pharaoh was incapable of opening it, though he may have wanted to.  That is the danger of being where Christ is livingly brought nigh and our hearts being closed, unresponsive.

(B)  As to the saved.

That does not only operate in the matter of our salvation in the first instance.  That operates in the case of believers.  It was not only Pharaoh who fell into that awful and tragic and disastrous state; but Israel in the wilderness, who had been saved from Pharaoh, fell into it.  The words of Hebrews 3 were addressed to Israel in the wilderness, and that whole generation failed to come into God’s full purpose and thought.  Why?  Because there was brought near unto them the purpose of God, the will of God, and they stopped short in their response. They had gone so far, they had come out, and had moved to a certain point, and then they went no further.  For some reason or another they ceased to go on with the Lord from a certain point.  Do you think they remained the same?  The Word of God makes it perfectly clear that they did not just stop there but, having stopped, there set in an intensifying process which eventually made it impossible for them to come into what God had appointed.

The door had been opened to them and set before them.  Their hearts had been imperfect in response and abandonment.  That led to the issue that when they wanted to enter and made an effort to do so they had not the spiritual life necessary, and the consequences were disastrous.  "Too late" is a terrible reality to face.  This may apply to the unsaved sinner; but it may also relate to the full object of salvation - the inheritance, the fullness of Christ.  Truth received and not responded to means spiritual declension and loss of capacity. It is just possible that we should belong to the Lord, and have gone so far, and then stopped; and yet from the day that we stopped, when we ceased to be obedient, to follow the Lord, to respond to His revealed will, Christ has been brought near to us again and again in a living way, all with a view on the Lord’s part to getting us to move from that position, to move on; but, No! Every time there has been the recoil instead.  There has been a failure to rise up and say: I am going on with God!  Those people do not remain in that condition.  All the time, perhaps unconsciously, there is a hardening within, which presently will be manifested as a situation which is impossible of overcoming.

There is a passage in the Word which speaks of those who even touch the fire and are not conscious of it; of those upon whose heads there are gray hairs and they know it not: the marks of lost vitality, lost life; time going and not conscious of it.  It is a terrible thing to suddenly wake up and find that your life has gone, all that could have been for God no longer possible.

As we become older, and are naturally more occupied with the past than with the future (spiritually we do not do that), life holds a great deal more in the past than in the future; we see how much more there might have been, and we regret that we have not made more of the opportunity and of the years.  We wake up to the fact that no longer have we the powers for mastering, no longer is it possible for us to make good. Think of that in relation to eternal things!  Christ constantly coming near in a living way, and yet all that that means never being entered into.  But, more; that only strengthening our position in death.  Oh! terrible thought!  That which is meant for life working out in death.

Is this not a very strong appeal to our hearts, that we should rise up and go on, that we should consider our state and say: Am I locked up? Am I becoming incapable of moving?  Whereas at one time it might have been difficult, but if I had resolved in the grace of God to move I should have moved, I should have been in a different place from what I am in today, today I am finding it less possible than ever to move, and, as things are brought to me, as Christ is brought to me, the truth is brought to me, and appeals are made in my presence, I find myself less inclined to respond!  That is a terrible situation, the knowledge of Him meaning death unto death.

Oh! do shake yourself from the dust, if you should be in that position! If you have had Christ brought near in a living way for years, and you have not come into the living value of that, now is the time for you to get before God and say: This must stop; this death regime must end; this bondage must be brought to a conclusion; I must break and go on with God!  Seek the grace to fight that thing through, lest all that was meant for you by the Lord coming near again and again should be eternally missed.

There is no getting away from the fact that Christ is effective.  If He is not effective unto life, He is effective none the less.  It is impossible for the Holy Spirit to bring Christ near without a result. There is no such thing as God’s Word returning to Him void.  It will accomplish a purpose, and the purpose of Christ is not to leave people where they were, but, if possible, to lead them into life; and, if they will not, to intensify their state, so that in The Day they will have no ground whatever on which to stand.  If God condemns He condemns thoroughly, and leaves no room for argument.

2. FROM LIFE UNTO LIFE.

The life may be in very simple forms.  It may not be in a large measure.  It may only require openness of heart, willingness of spirit, but that is toward life, life in its simplest form reaching out, incapable of doing very much, yet open and stretched forth.  Ah, yes! the very heart open to the Lord, ready for the Lord.  The coming near of the Lord means a ministration of more life. Increase of life requires that the life that is, should be active.  Even though it be in its simplest and smallest forms, yet to be active. It is only a state of heart.  Are you dead, or are you alive?  Are you indifferent, or are you reaching out?  The Lord draws near to minister more of Himself in life to every heart open to Him.  It is wonderful and blessed to see what happens when the heart is open and the spirit is pure.  There may not be a great deal of energy, a great deal of understanding, a great deal of instruction, a great deal of truth and teaching, but the most blessed results are not always in the realm where there is a great comprehending of truth, but more often in the realm where there is a simplicity, honesty, and openness of spirit. Some people are far too well informed to live.  Some people’s heads are the great obstruction to their spiritual enlargement.  It is noticeable today that the Lord is not particularly active amongst the people who know such a lot, and He is not seeming to be working to lay hold of the clever people, the well informed people, the people who are recognized as the authorities.  The Lord is moving in a wonderfully blessed way amongst people whose hearts are open, whose spirits are simple, and who have little to throw off in order to go after Him.  Are we active to the Lord in heart?  Are we really going on, or have we come to a standstill?  Have we never started?

Here is Christ brought near, and there can be an increase of Christ, an increase of Divine life.  It will depend upon whether you are open, whether you are not very concerned, not particularly interested, passive, perhaps antagonistic; or whether - not that you have a great deal of ability, or knowledge, or understanding of the meaning of it all - but whether your heart is open and reaching out to the Lord. Marvellous things can happen if you are in that state.  It is not that you should have a perfect understanding of everything, not that you should have confidence in yourself, that having moved you can keep going, but it is that your heart is livingly toward the Lord; then everything is possible.  That is the way of life (and to be in the way of life may only mean at its beginnings, that you are reaching out for the Lord), that is the direction of life.  That you are in that state is the way of life; that you are obeying whatever light the Lord has given you; that you are obedient to everything that He has made known to you as His will, that is the way of life, and the way of an increase of life.

The way of death may be, at its beginning, no intention whatever of being the Lord’s; or, at some point further on, where the Lord has said in your heart: That is My way for you; that is My will for you! you have perhaps not said, "No, Lord" in as many words, but that is what your life is saying.  That, No! has now been hanging over your life for perhaps five, ten years. perhaps longer.  It is not that you have never said positively: I will never be obedient; I am not going that way!  It may be that you are simply doing nothing.  That is a negative!  That is, No!  It is not Yea! to the Lord. The issues are tremendous.  When we think that there may never be a presentation of Christ without one of two results: we may either increase or decrease; we may be more positive or less so; we are either in a fuller way of death or a fuller way of life; it is a tremendous thing.  It is impossible to get away from the alternatives.

The Apostle felt the solemnity of this, and surely we feel the solemnity of it!  The Apostle was so deeply conscious of, and moved by, the solemnity of this position that he said: "Who is sufficient for these things?" Think of it, that wherever I go the effect of my life is more life or more death!  It is serious to be bound up with anybody’s life. So we would entreat, and would plead, lest it should be death unto death.  Open the heart!  Reach out to the Lord!  Move in obedience to every bit of light which He has given, and it shall be a savour of life unto life.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Nov-Dec 1934

The Intrusion of Natural Life in the Service of God

We have been at pains to show that Christianity has become very largely another Judaism, an outward system and a historic tradition. But it has become more than this. In its principles, methods, and means, it has largely become conformed to this world or age. Were we wanting to deal with the negative or defective aspect of things, it would not be difficult to write whole chapters on the weaknesses of present-time organized Christianity; but we would rather use our time and space on the positive line.

Let us, however, appeal to our brethren in responsibility to think again and seriously before the Lord as to the true nature and origin of much that goes to make up the means of propaganda and publicity of work for God. Let us take account of such things as the prominence given to human honors, glories, titles, reputations, distinctions. That men have gained these or been given them in various spheres of life - politics, philanthropy, industry, adventure, war, sport, entertainment, science, art, or education - may be quite all right in itself, but that those things should be so largely used as the ground of appeal may just imply that Christ is not sufficient as standing on His own merits, but must be surrounded by these natural embellishments. Must Christ be recommended or His servants accepted because of some human association of the word ''great'' in some earthly connection?

Again, let us be very careful, for the same purpose, of the encroachment of the entertainment feature of sacred service. ''Lovers of pleasure'' is an endtime characteristic, and the age is running headlong thither. Is it necessary to go with the age in order to attract? Is the gospel dependent upon this ''make up'' for its effectiveness and appeal?

Once more: let us watch that we are not carried away by the illusion of bigness. Many a once powerful instrument of God, personal or collective, has lost its spiritual value and impact when it has become big or popular. There is a Satanic snare in bigness, and we may by this illusion lose our very faculty for seeing just where God is doing His deepest work, and how. Often God' s truest work is hidden. It is becoming difficult, if not impossible, for many servants of God to believe or understand that anything of real account can be done unless it is well known and in the public eye.

When David put the Ark upon a new cart and things went just so far and then came to an ignominious and tragic impasse, it was not due to a lack of sincerity, devotion, zeal, energy, or wholeheartedness, but because he had all unwittingly drawn up from his subconsciousness an idea and method which had originated with the Philistine diviners. Those diviners had once put the Ark upon a new cart to send it back into Israel. David had fled in an hour of weakness to dwell in the land of the Philistines and had been infected with the methods and means of that world. When God made the breach upon Uzzah that he dies before the Lord, it would have been too hard and severe, in the light of the zeal for the Lord, if there had not been some extra factor. That factor was the hand of another spiritual system back of ''this present evil world'' of which the diviners were the representatives and servants and whom God had already plagued and cursed. There was no reason why Uzzah should be spared and the Philistines destroyed if the same factor obtained in both cases.

No amount of zeal can save us in the end if the principles are false. But note how subtle it all was. There was not the remotest idea that things were basically wrong. The idea of bringing up the Ark (the Testimony) to its right and full place was right and according to God's mind. The earnestness and utterness left nothing to be desired. The motive and its passion were wholly commendable. But somewhere, somehow, Antichrist (in principle) was hidden in the constitution of things, the energy of the flesh, the soul-life actuated or taken charge of by that which was not the Spirit of God.

If the soul, which is the natural side of man's being, is predominant on any or all of its sides, intellectual, emotional, or volitional, then the door is wide open to deception; and deception, being what it is, does not mean that there is no zeal for God, but rather that it is zeal but not according to knowledge. It is only as the child of God lives in and is governed by the Holy Spirit through his renewed spirit, not firstly his soul, that he will be made aware of ''the things that differ", even in his service for God.

David was eventually shown what the Holy Spirit had indicated in the Scriptures as to God's principles of service, and he found by tragic experience that spiritual principles are more important than zeal and energy, although these latter were no less when the true basis was established. Satan is very subtle and will espouse our zeal for God if by so doing he can eventually bring shame and dishonor into God's testimony.

God sees through it and would warn us of it. The trouble so largely is that, as in David's case, the drive and abandon associated with a great idea for God just ride rough-shod over quiet waiting upon God and inquiry of Him as to His mind concerning the means and methods to be employed. The point at which disaster will befall very much that is engaged in for God in all sincerity is that which leaves no time for quiet detachment, for unhurried waiting upon God. There may be prayer, but it is prayer with a drive of work behind it, instead of the other way round. The question is, Did you get that method, that means, that program in the secret place with God, direct from Him? Have you put everything back until all heat and hurry have been subjected to the judgment of the Holy Spirit? Or are you just getting on with it because it is for the Lord?

Why must judgment begin at the house of God? It cannot be because of a greater or lesser degree of Christian goodness or zeal. There must be something more in it than that!

Is He Really Lord?

Take the matter of service - ministry - the work of the Lord unto which we are called. Anyone who is really in spiritual ministry - really in spiritual work for the Lord - knows how difficult it is, how hard... intensely hard... growingly hard it is. It is fraught with difficulties of almost every kind; and one thing so real in this is the activity of the enemy apart from, and beyond, what men do themselves of themselves (if ever men do any thing of themselves; I am not quite sure that they do).

Apart from what you might call the ordinary difficulties of life and of the work of the Lord, there are these extra difficulties where the enemy seems to have so much hold; and this whole situation of service would seem so often to say that the enemy is so strong that the Lord has great difficulty in getting His work done. Do you believe that the Lord has great difficulty, because of the enemy, in getting His work done? This is something to face.

There it is: the devil has a lot of liberty and seems to have a lot of power, and he makes great difficulties which constitute for the Lord's servants a very hard and strenuous time. That is true, isn't it? It seems that the Lord is up against something that He can hardly cope with - that the Lord is face to face with a situation that is full of almost insuperable difficulties.

That is NOT the argument at all. Why has the Lord left the enemy here and given him such liberty - such a degree of power? Why does He allow our steps all the time to be met by these difficulties? Why is it that in the way of the Lord's will you meet something which brings you to a standstill? Why - if God is God on the throne... and the Holy Ghost is infinitely strong and mighty? This is the problem for so many people.

The explanation is this - not on the side of the enemy at all, and not on the side of the Lord; the explanation is in us. The Lord is seeking a conformity to the image of His Son, and every difficulty and trial and obstruction and activity of the devil is to draw us out to God and develop the features of the Lord Jesus in us. Spiritual ascendancy, faith - the mighty faith of the Son of God: the features of Jesus Christ, the love of the Spirit. All these features of Christ have got to be fully developed in us. So the Lord thinks it worthwhile to let the enemy carry on and to allow us to have difficulties, sorrows, and sufferings even while we are living in an absolutely sovereign, mighty Lord.

It is to bring out the features of Christ; and until you have that, you do not have the power to go through. If you begin to say the Lord is not with us - not able to meet this - or the power of God is not manifested, you have a lesser object... and you begin to circle round yourself, not Christ in the glory to whom the Holy Spirit is trying to bring you into conformity. It is necessary to get your objective and to see what the Lord is seeking to do with His children... and how He does it.

You cannot conform anyone literally to the image of another in any other way than by bringing him through experimentally. The thing is not done by teaching - doctrine - or by being preached at: you have to go through it, and the whole fabric of our being has got to be reconstructed according to Christ. There has to be a breaking down of all that is otherwise, in order that there might be a constituting of that which is of the Lord Jesus.

The Lord give us our Object - to see the Lord Jesus!

Leadership and Ministry

"For that the leaders took the lead... bless the Lord" (Judges 5:2).

While there are few things fraught with more difficulties, perils, and involvements than leadership, there are few things more vital and necessary. The fact of leadership needs no argument. It is in the very nature of things. Every situation that arises of a serious and critical nature either finds its salvation by the spontaneous forthcoming of the spirit of leadership in someone, or becomes a disaster for want of it. When an emergency arises, people are either paralyzed and helpless because there is no one to give a lead, or are galvanized into action or confidence by the right kind of leadership.

But not only in emergencies does this factor show its importance. Both in any enterprise, mission, and service, and in any realm of responsibility, this - which is an elemental principle -  invariably shows itself. We have much to say about its nature, its sphere, and its purpose, but first of all it is necessary that we should recognize and accept that leadership is a fact in the very constitution of life and purpose. It has been so from the beginning, and - in principle (if not in form) - has operated in every realm, not least in the Church.

In its right place, sphere, nature, and relationship it is a must; only chaos, confusion, and frustration can obtain where there is no spirit of leadership. Indeed, even where there may be a pretending to the contrary, it will be there somewhere if things are not completely stagnant or running to seed.

With all the desire and intention in the world to safeguard the unique and sole rights of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the Church, we still believe that there is an essential place for, and need of, subject and subordinate (to the Lord) leadership. Moreover, this we believe not to be out of order, but in the Divine order.

The place and function of the shepherd in the Bible is to "go before", and the sheep "follow after". The Lord is truly the Chief Shepherd, but there are shepherds in the churches, and they have to lead. While James, John, and Timothy were apostles of the churches, they were recognized as having particular responsibility in a local church. If this can be proved to be true in any case, it must be accepted as: (1) expressing a certain personal leadership, and (2) not necessarily violating either the headship of Christ, the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit, or the corporate nature of local responsibility. To argue otherwise is to say that it is impossible to have a corporate body of responsible men who recognize anointing for leadership amongst themselves - and to honor such - while not being under autocratic oppression. While we most strongly contend against autocracy, we as strongly contend that leadership even amongst responsible brethren is right, provided always that it is evidently anointed leadership and of the kind that is approved of God...

As is always the case, the positive is revealed in its importance by the opposition which it encounters. We have only to consider the leadership function of such as Adam, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Nehemiah, Paul, and a hundred others to understand the intense and many-sided antagonism levelled at them. Of course, the Lord Jesus as "the captain of our salvation" i.e., "the file-leader" is the supreme instance. Break, defeat, beguile, seduce the leader, and the battle is won - the forces are helpless. The focus of adverse attention upon leadership is its own testimony to its importance.

Then in approaching the question of what leadership is, we must say something of what it is not. Leadership (in the work of God) is not firstly on natural grounds. It is not - in the first place - a matter of personality, natural ability, assertiveness, enthusiasm, assumption, strength of mind or will. A blusterer is not a leader. A leader in God's work is not made or trained in the schools or academies. That may be so in the world's work, but we are dealing with spiritual leadership. Many natural things, inherited or acquired, may - or may not - be helpful subsequently, but God's leaders are not essential leaders because of certain natural qualifications.

Whatever may or may not be true in the natural realm, the fact is that God's leaders are chosen by Him. They, and others, may always have many questions as to Why, but that fact governs. God only knows why! When God does it, men have either to take account of it and accept it, or in repudiating it to be out of Divine approval. This is very true to the Bible, as we shall see.

What we have just said does not imply that there are no qualities in leaders. They go to school with God, and in a hard school the kind of qualities required by God are inculcated. Another general thing about leaders chosen by God is that they, while being human, are in many respects a class by themselves. They are pioneers, and pioneers are lonely people in more respects than one. In some ways they are difficult people. Their standard and measure has to be ahead of others, and as human nature generally likes not to be disturbed but would seek the easy way, the pioneer is often a bit too much for people. He is restless, never satisfied, always pressing and urging forward. The keynote of his life is "Let us go on". His is not the easy way, and because human nature does want the easy way the leader is not always popular. The whole nature of man is either downward or to a quiet and happy mean and smugness. The pioneer is therefore not always appreciated, but often very much otherwise. He is so much contrary to this mediocre gravitation. A part of the price of leadership is loneliness.

Leadership is a divine imperative. In the work of God, true leadership is not by the choice or desire of those concerned. Very often it is against their inclination or desire, especially when they have been in God's 'school of discipline'. Indeed, the man who wants to be a leader, who forces himself into that position, who assumes it, and who would not rather be saved from it, will most likely be a menace. It will be clear to all that it is more the man than the Lord. His leadership - such as it is - will be forced, artificial, and lacking in unction. The God-chosen leader is a 'cannot' man in two ways. Firstly - like Moses and Jeremiah - he will genuinely feel and confess, "I cannot." But on the other hand, he will know that he cannot do otherwise; it is a Divine compulsion, a fire in his bones, an urge and energy not of himself. While he is on his job, he may give the impression of personal strength - perhaps of efficiency or even self-assurance - but he and God know the depth of his secret history: the overwhelming consciousness of need and dependence, the awareness of limitation, and the desolating realization of failure and weakness.

Leaders know deeper depths than any others, and their battle with self-despair is more acute. Yet it is a part of their leadership and responsibility that they hide their own personal sufferings and sorrows. Like Ezekiel and Hosea they have to anoint their face and in the hour of deepest sorrow go before the people "as at other times." The troubles must not get into their voice or manner; if they do, their influence has gone; for if people are going on to the greater fulnesses of Christ, the supreme virtue is courage, and it is this that a leader must inspire. His boldest times - before men -  may be his times of deepest suffering before God. They know that they are involved in the 'impossible' but - in spite of themselves - they are committed; and for them compromise is unthinkable.

While writing this, I have come upon "The Making of a Pioneer", by the Misses Cable and French, and in it these lines occur in reference to the Pioneer:

"They are not an easy-going class of people and are subject to an inarticulate urge, the impact of a driving force pushing them forward to further effort and carrying them into what other men call 'impossible situations.' 'Appointed to pioneer work' is an expression which is a travesty of the true case, for no man can be called a 'pioneer' until he has proved himself to be one. The.... pioneer is heaven-ordained, not man-appointed."

It is in the very nature of true spiritual leadership that the leader has to have in his own being through experience that to which he seeks to lead others. He has gone the way before. He has tasted what he calls others to taste. He is no book leader; what he says to others and urges them toward comes out of his own life at great cost. The artificial 'leader' (?) can say the most extravagant things, can give all the theory and assume all the mannerisms; and he gets away with it and knows little or nothing of the real heartbreak. ''The husbandman that laboreth must be the first to partake of the fruits," said Paul, but while this may apply to the reward of labor, it may also apply to the cost.

When we have said all as to that special class of pioneer-leaders in spiritual things, we must point out that even if we cannot count ourselves among them, you and I should be leaders in the sense that we inspire and are an incentive to others to "go on" with the Lord. While "followers" there are always others who can be influenced by us, and the very essence of leadership is inspiration. May we all be leaders in this sense. Having introduced this matter of leadership in a more-or-less general way, we now proceed to look into it more closely in order to learn from Bible examples the principles which are basic to it and the features which delineate it.

Before coming to our first great example, let us emphasize the two common factors in spiritual leadership:

One is the fact of the sovereign act of God. In His choice of men for specific responsibility, God acts in the absolute right and independence of His own sovereignty. No one is allowed to question His act, His judgment, His reason. Sovereignty is unpredictable. God is answerable to no one, neither is He responsible to anyone. His thoughts and His ways are unfathomable, and in His wisdom He waits long past His acts for vindication. But it is always vindicated in the final issue. The second factor is that of God linking Himself with a vessel - a human vessel - and linking that vessel with Himself for a special purpose. This is the meaning of anointing in both Testaments. Anointing in which God so commits Himself to the vessel is always related to purpose, and man cannot touch that vessel or dispute its work without having - sooner or later, by sudden

intervention or the slowly-grinding mills of God - to reckon with God. It is here that we are forbidden to judge God's instrument on the ground of their humanity apart from God. We may think that they provide ground for adverse judgment, but if God is using them and is with them, it will only bring us into a controversy on the part of God with us if we touch His anointed - in word or deed. The Bible has many instances of this. Provided the vessel remains in meekness, God will take full responsibility for its defects and for its vindication.

Having said that, we can now proceed to the first example of leadership in the Bible. While the principle of leadership was at work from the beginning, leadership only had its full expression when there was a people needing and prepared for it. This full expression of the principle first came out in Moses.

Moses

What we have said regarding the sovereignty of God is unmistakable in the case of Moses. From his birth and preservation at birth right through his history, all the evidences of his being a "chosen vessel" are clear. He was where he was because God did it. Even when, out of sympathy and wrath, he essayed to assume the position of deliverer, that was negative, because this thing had got to be so utterly of God.

The endurance of Moses is a matter that is remarked upon in Scripture, but that endurance - as ours will be -  was greatly supported by his later knowledge that he was where he was because God had done it, and it was not of his own choosing. How important it is that Christians - and especially Christian leaders - should be in a position to say emphatically that they know how true Christ was when He said, ''Ye did not choose Me, but I chose you." This foundation of 'an act of God' is the only one to support the tremendous weight of responsibility and demand that leadership has to experience.

The second thing that comes out so clearly as making for leadership is the firsthand knowledge and experience of that out from which we are to lead others.

Moses had forty of the years in Egypt when the Pharaoh-complex of Joseph's time had so utterly changed from favor to hostility. He was born into that hostility and hatred and would have known from his mother and sister of his own Providential escape. He knew the palace and its tensions. He lived in the atmosphere of mingled fear and animosity. He daily saw the conditions of his own people. As with Joseph, "the iron entered into his soul". No doubt that background contributed greatly to his later reluctance to go back, and his effort to find a way out of so doing.

It is not God's way to send inexperienced people into leadership responsibility. Such people are really handicapped and in serious weakness. A part of the training of any leader should be a firsthand knowledge of the world and its inimical forces, and a life with God in the midst thereof.

Many a servant of God has been profoundly thankful in after years that - in the sovereignty and foreknowledge of God - he had periods in conditions against which God reacted through him. This may apply to various aspects and phases of life. God places His servants in situations which are not His ultimate will for them, and the time will come when they react against what at one time seemed to be wholly or almost wholly of God. It is strange that it is possible at one time to believe a position to be wholly of God, and later to discover that it was only the provisional will of God to qualify for something quite other. Such servants of God take with them through life a very real inside knowledge which makes it possible for them to say, "We speak that which we do know." We could hardly exaggerate the importance and value of this factor in leadership.

The third factor in this leadership is a fundamental lesson that the work of God is essentially spiritual.

Moses was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians". He no doubt had natural endowments. He certainly had rich acquired qualifications. He was evidently a man of considerable physical strength. His natural disposition was to be thorough in anything that he undertook, as see him slaying the Egyptian and separating the quarrelling Hebrews. He was not lacking in zeal nor weak in initiative. But with all this, God did not take him up on those grounds. "Not by might, nor by power" are words which very aptly apply to Moses at the age of forty years.

"The weapons of our warfare are not carnal." The real and eternal aspect of God's work is spiritual; therefore only spiritual men with spiritual experience and resources can do it effectively. God's true leaders are spiritual men and men of the Spirit.

All our natural ability, our training, our acquired qualifications; our strength, zeal, and learning will prove of little avail when we come up against the ultimate forces of the universe, which are spiritual. This Moses well knew when he came actually to his life-work.

Leadership is often born of the deep discipline of failure and self-discovery. The second forty years of his life served such a purpose and were no doubt deeply tinged with the bitterness of self- disillusionment. He was in a much safer place when he shrank from the responsibility than when he self-confidently tackled it in his own strength.

A further qualification for leadership as seen in the case of Moses is faithfulness, promptness, and humility in ordinary and unspectacular affairs.

Tending a few sheep at the back side of the desert by an erstwhile royal prince of Egypt for a considerable number of years could be a fair test of patience and lack of bitterness. The opportunity to help some defenseless women to get their flocks watered was neither beneath his dignity nor an annoying interruption in preoccupation with 'higher and more important matters'. He was not so disaffected by his disappointment as to be contemptuous of a humble piece of work.

High-mindedness is a disqualification for leadership. The Lord watches the out-of-sight life and determines His approval there. A true leader is not one who has to be shown and asked to do menial things, but one who sees a need and self-forgettingly lends a hand.

It is quite evident that God knew where Moses was, and that he was not a castaway servant. Moses had been inwardly disciplined in the school of inaction, a very hard school for his active and energetic type. The self-emptying had been a painful process, but it had effected God's intention and put him on that essential ground of spiritual leadership which is "no confidence in the flesh"; "all things are of (out from) God."

But the immediate point is that upon which the Lord's eye was looking during the time of waiting. That is, a spirit of service. It is so easy to be active and energetic when there is some big, interesting, or worthwhile job on hand, especially if it is in the public eye or alongside of others. But the real test is when things are quite otherwise, and we are right down to bedrock principle; the principle of conscientiousness without the influence of relatedness in responsibility and another's eye upon us. Service is a spirit, not an outward obligation. There is very little of the spirit of service left in the world now, but with God it has always been something of which He has taken particular account.

This is His law of trust and approval: "He that is faithful in that which is least."

Say what we may about Moses himself and of Divine sovereignty in his life, but let it be understood that Divine sovereignty does not bypass simple 'everyday' behavior in what may seem to be very insignificant matters. A whole life's vocation may turn upon a seemingly small issue. It is our spirit that God looks at. The few sheep at the back of the desert, a few helpless women in difficulty had a place in God's esteem which led to a true exaltation.

The episode of the bush was the crisis and turning-point in the life of Moses. We could say that the past forty years found their meaning and issue here, and the following forty their strength. There is an incomparable meaning in this, and the significance was immense; for here we are in the presence of the Triune God in combined operation unto the emancipation of an elect people.

When Moses, many years after, pronounced the blessings upon the tribes, the highly esteemed Joseph was to know "the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush" (Deut. 33:16). Moses came to understand that "good will" in all its redeeming love. What a basis and background for leadership!

Moses may not have understood all the New Testament meaning, but he came into the power.

What Moses was meant to understand - for his great responsibility - was that humanity in itself may be frail, weak, and as vulnerable as a bush of the desert; but if God links Himself with it in the power of the Holy Spirit, it can endure and live and triumph when naturally it should succumb.

Joshua

Joshua, like the One Whom he typifies, is the link joining the great salvation from, with the great salvation unto. Moses - in the main - had to do with the salvation from; Joshua entered into that, shared it, and then took it to the great 'unto' of its purpose.

The unto broke down in the case of Moses, although he laid its foundation. It broke down with the first generation who came out. They failed to go through. The New Testament repeatedly refers to this failure in the most solemn warnings to Christians of this dispensation. In so doing, it reflects the very great importance of the leadership-work of Joshua, and thereby lifts Joshua and his special aspect of leadership on to very high and vital ground. Nothing less than the whole import of salvation, and therefore ninety percent of the New Testament is represented by the leadership of Joshua. True, in his own case, it failed of full realization, and Joshua did not lead them into the "rest" (Heb. 4:8). But he did - in eternal principles - lead to the One Who has made his work complete, even Jesus...

There is no doubt that Joshua was the Old Testament counterpart of Paul; each in his different and respective sphere. The one, the earthly, temporal, and limited; the other, the heavenly, spiritual, and universal. In both cases the dominating issue was THE FULNESS OF CHRIST as being God's supreme and all-inclusive purpose.

This was - and is - the object of the salvation 'out from'. Fail of this, and salvation has lost its most essential meaning and object. Fail of this, and we inherit all the reproaches resultant from the tragedy of Kadesh Barnea. Fail of this, and we are in the first letter to the Corinthians where - with this very example presented - a life-work can go up in smoke in 'the Day', and we be saved 'yet only as by fire'. Fail of this, and the most grievous things in the New Testament (see the Letter to the Hebrews, chapters 6 and 10, etc.) will apply to us. From both the Old Testament history and the New Testament admonitions, it is evident that it is possible to be saved in an elementary sense but lose the 'inheritance'; and it is the inheritance which justifies all.

Thus Joshua represents the leadership which, energized by the Holy Spirit, has in view and all-governing that FULLNESS into which Christ has entered and which He is - and has - for His  people: Nothing less or other than that.

This is a tremendous thing, and it constitutes a very great vocation. It gives leadership its highest and fullest meaning...   What Joshua really represents, then, is Christ under the anointing Spirit committed to the full purpose of God - the Heavenly Inheritance, God's FULLNESS in His Son. Who will say that to have even a small place in this work is not preeminently important? Here, then, leadership takes on its superlative meaning...

Let it be understood that for many years Joshua himself was in the school of leadership. He was being tested, proved, drawn out to be approved. This aspect of his history was in the wilderness, and forty being the number of probation, Joshua's leadership had its difficult and testing probation. No one leaps suddenly into this vocation. A great deal of history lies behind this ministry.

It will surprise no one that, with such a purpose in view, leadership is fundamentally linked with warfare. We first meet Joshua in connection with the withstanding of God's people by Amalek (Exod. 17). So early in the people's history, as they start with freshness toward the ultimate goal, evil forces arise to bar the way. Amalek took the initiative: "then fought Amalek".

It is in a time of conflict, when the enemy takes the initiative, that there is revealed what fighting spirit there is hidden amongst the Lord's people. Joshua was the embodiment of this spirit. He knew that this move of the enemy signified a disputing of the inheritance - that it was not just an incidental and unrelated thing. Defeat here had a long-range connection. Everything was involved. There would be many battles ahead and the approach of the full end would be marked by an intensification of conflict from which there would be very brief, if any, respite; but this very early assault involved the whole.

It would be a great thing if the Lord's people saw everything in the light of the full end and weighed what seems but incidental against the whole involvement of a defeat at any given point. How much hangs upon this spirit of leadership coming to light at a critical moment! Leadership, in Joshua's case, was hidden, so far as the record shows, until the hour of real need; then it is found to have been there - but latent. But there is little doubt that Joshua had A SECRET HISTORY WITH GOD.

So we come to a vital factor in leadership. It is a secret history with God which is motivated by a deep and intense jealousy for God's full thought. Later it came out in the revealing occasion when he and Caleb stood alone against all Israel.

The second occasion on which we meet Joshua is equally revealing as to his spirit. It is when Moses was in the mount with God. The forty days had proved too much for the patience of this vacillating and self-willed people. They broke loose, and Aaron's part in it was deeply discreditable (The story is in Exodus 32).

As Moses descended the mount, picking up Joshua on the way down, they heard the noise in the camp. It must have been loud and confused; indeed, very wild. Consistent with his very spirit, Joshua interpreted it as 'the noise of battle.' The war-horse thought he scented conflict. He was right, although the battle element was deeper than the appearance. They were making merry, but their very merriment was a battle against God.

Jealousy for God's honor will sense and see the really inimical and hostile elements in things like this. Anything that threatens to take the Lord's unique and utter place will make one like Joshua instinctively scent battle and rise to it in spirit. Joshua represents utterness for God and of God, and this always means battle. If the whole purpose of God concerning His Son and His Church really captures the spirit, compromise is intolerable and unthinkable. In thin, Joshua does foreshadow his great New Testament counterpart - Paul, and they very definitely meet in the latter's Letter to the Galatians.

The spirit of battle which characterized Joshua on the way down the mountain found its very definite materializing in the immediate act of Moses. His challenge of "Who is on the Lord's side?" found Joshua a wholly committed man. The test was a very grim and exacting one, but it is evident that he was wholly one with "the sons of Levi" in their uncompromising course.

The tent was pitched outside the camp and to it and Moses Joshua, with the sons of Levi, resorted at the call of Moses. This brings us to the next significant mention of Joshua: "....Joshua....departed not out of the tent." Joshua had chosen the place of complete separation and difference at great cost, and there he stayed.

The Letter to the Hebrews takes this incident up and applies it - on the one side to the compromising Judaizers, which it calls "the camp"; and on the other side to the non-compromising, committed devotees to Jesus Christ. It says that to the latter "outside the camp" is the place of "bearing His reproach".

Here, then, we have come on two more factors in true spiritual leadership. One is that the true leader is one who will never, however much it costs, be drawn into compromise. A leader must never be weak. He must never allow policy to override principle. He must never allow popular opinion to weaken his committedness. He must never allow sentiment to dilute his strength. He must never let sociability make him sacrifice supreme interests and spiritual or moral integrity under the cover and pretext of a false usage of Paul's words about becoming "all things to all men." 'Hebrews' says that "outside the camp" where Joshua elected to be is the unpopular place, and it is always very testing to be unpopular. But leadership often demands this price.

The other thing which arises at this point in the case of Joshua is reliability. Moses - not in compromise - returned to the camp. Joshua abode in the tent. This is stated in the narrative evidently with a serious meaning. What the full meaning is may be left for us to consider, but this one thing is clear: you would always know where to find Joshua. If it were asked, 'Where is Joshua?' everybody would have the answer: 'Oh, he is - where he always is - in the tent.' If Moses needed him, he knew where to find him.

Leadership absolutely demands this characteristic of dependableness. What a strength it is to know that a person can be guaranteed to be in a definite spiritual position - right on the spot spiritually; not temperamental, vacillating, variable, or unpredictable. The multitude, especially "the mixed multitude", is like that - not consistently true for two days together. You never know how you are going to find them at any given time. To lead them into anything more of God demands this feature of 'abiding'. Yes, there may be discouragement, disappointment, provocation, and heartbreak, but true spiritual leadership rests upon an all-or-nothing basis, and deep down there is an abandon to purpose which is stronger than all that is against.

The leader may adjust on points and be open to progressive light, but as to the ultimate Divine vision, he will die rather than betray or recant. He is no time-server or opportunist. He cannot be bought off. He is going on or he is going out. He has seen, and he can never unsee. He says, "Here I am, I can do no other. May God help me"; or, "this one thing I do".

Such a faithfulness and undeviating committal is something in the very nature of the call and the vocation.

But with all his strength of purpose, Joshua, like his New Testament counterparts, was always in school learning fresh lessons on leadership.

Our next touch with him is very indicative of this. It is in Numbers 11. The Spirit of God is exercising His essential sovereign liberty. Into this sovereign activity certain 'laymen' are caught up; that is, men who are not recognized official prophets; they are not in the recognized place for functioning in such a way. Eldad and Medad come under the spontaneous movement of the Spirit and prophesy in the camp. Joshua is alarmed and scandalized. He rushes to Moses in his jealousy for that great man and cries, "My lord Moses, forbid them." To his amazement and disconcertion, Moses shows no sympathy with his jealousy and conventionality. Rather does Moses rebuke it: "Would to God that all the Lord's people were prophets" - 'Do not be jealous for me.' In other words, 'Do not limit the Lord. Do not circumscribe the Holy Spirit.' The Holy Spirit will not be bound by jealous conventionality, nor by human fears as to what He may do next: "The wind bloweth where it listeth."

The situation is quite clear. Peter had to learn this lesson, and failure to do so fully only resulted in fettering the Church and some of its apostles. The absolute sovereignty of the Holy Spirit was something which meant an immense amount in the after life of Joshua and his leadership. If it is true that 'the love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind', that is only another way of saying that the Holy Spirit will demand the right and liberty to overleap our prejudices, our stringencies of interpretation - indeed, anything and everything that makes Christ smaller than He really is.

The very leadership itself can be jeopardized and falsified if this lesson is not well and truly learned.

But our special point here is not the range of the Spirit's work, for the occasion to which we are referring was amongst the Lord's people. What we are especially pointing to as an essential law of leadership is the absolute sovereign rights and liberty of the Holy Spirit to choose His own ways and means, places and times. The government of the Holy Spirit without deference to any one or any thing other than His own nature and authority has to be recognized, acknowledged, and accepted in order to implement the Divine purpose.

Having summarized the general ground of leadership as represented by Joshua, there remains one specific and inclusive factor which is given peculiar prominence and emphasis at the beginning of the book which bears his name. It is THE VITAL FACTOR OF COURAGE. If the first chapters of that book are the preparation for all that follows, or the foundation thereof, then quite clearly courage is the dominant characteristic. Four times in the brief first chapter is this note strongly struck: three times by the Lord and once by the people. Courage is made a command and a demand. "Be strong and of a good courage" is the Divine command and requisite...

There had been the great 'Out.' Now there was to be the great 'In.' There had been the tremendous fact of redemption. Now there was to be the Purpose of it...

If the 'Out' had made immense demands for courage in the case of Moses, the 'In' was going to make equal, if not greater, demands in the case of Joshua. Every value to be secured and every step of advance toward fullness was going to be fraught with powerful and relentless resistance. The issue was no less than absolute dominion, and for this no quarter could be given by either side.

The salvation of the Church from the power of Satan's dominion is a costly and withstood matter. But the collective forces of his kingdom are stirred to any and every kind of resistance when it comes to a growing and additional apprehension of Christ and a larger measure of Himself in possession of His people.

Not only the frontal attack or withstanding, but the paralyzing insinuating of his own character in the form of covetousness, as at Ai; or the deceptiveness of compromise, as with the Gibeonites, are very effective methods. Let it be clearly recognized that the effect of the second of these - with a very long crippling carry-over - was to take the fight out of the Lord's people. It is a subtly effective manoeuvre of the enemy to make the Church accept a compromise without the need for battle.

So there was always the temptation to accept an untimely and too-early settlement and satisfaction. This, in the case of Israel, resulted in the terrible period of the 'Judges' - the disgrace of the Bible. Discouragement, impatience, and weariness were ever near to rob of FULLNESS and finality.

All this was in the knowledge of God when He laid such emphasis upon courage at the beginning.

We could say that perhaps the greatest weapon of the foe of spiritual progress and fulness is discouragement, and he well knows the menace to his interests of spiritual courage. We need not stay to do more than remark that spiritual courage is a peculiar kind of courage, and of a higher order than physical or even moral courage.   The courage of Jesus when on trial - the courage to be silent - was more powerful than any other kind of courage. The courage of the Apostles on and after the Day of Pentecost was a victory over their own former cowardice and something that was above the natural. To meet the ultimate spiritual forces of this universe requires more than the best natural courage. The best human courage is no match for the Devil and his hosts, with their almost boundless resources of subtlety, malice, guile, cunning, strength, and tireless energy.   Only, as with Joshua, a knowledge of the "Captain of the hosts of the Lord" as being in charge, though unseen, will nerve the spirit of those in this battle.

That function of spiritual leadership to keep vision ever in view and to inspire to its attainment is in itself a battle with disappointment and despair. The leader has to infect others, like Joshua, through intermediaries, and be a constant inspiration to those in the battle... The leader has to get his courage at first hand from God, and this means many a secret courageous battle with depression. His temptation is very often and fierce to lower his standard, to lessen his demands, to modify his expectations, and to accommodate the situation so that it is not so exacting, but easier, for everyone.

In a thousand ways and in ever-recurring demands, courage is called for as the only way through.

Deborah (Judges 4 & 5)

It is a fairly far cry from Joshua to the Judges, and there is a terrible lapse from those days of triumph and conquest, as there was at the close of the Apostolic days. The Book of Judges is, perhaps, the most tragic book in the Bible...

That those were times of spiritual declension needs no arguing. That a primary reason for the declension was the absence of authority is definitely stated four times. It is as though the narrator focused all the trouble upon this absence of an authoritative leadership.

There seems to be more than the statement of a fact. The suggestion or implication is that it was more than an absence of leadership; it was a disposition. When it says that "every-man did that which was right in his own eyes", it seems to imply that that was how they were disposed to have it. They did not like the restraints of authority. They felt that leadership implied limitation; they made their own judgment the final authority. As they saw was the 'right' way - "right in his own eyes". It was independence run amok.

Possibly the loss of true spirituality and the enthronement of the natural mind had resulted - as it usually does - in an inability to see the difference between spiritual and anointed leadership on the one hand, and autocracy on the other. The dislike for, and resentment to, anything autocratic or in the nature of dictatorship makes people throw over and utterly repudiate law and authority, and become a law unto themselves. The unspiritual Corinthians gave this 'autocratic' interpretation to the authority which Paul said had been given him in Christ. To read his letters to that church is to see how he claimed and used that authority, but it is also to see that it was absolutely necessary to

their salvation as a church. But it certainly was not autocratic domination.

It is only lack of the spiritual discernment as to "things that differ", although they may appear alike - about which Paul said much to the Corinthians - that confuses things, and loses the values of what is God-given. On the one side, it was disastrous for Israel and meant four hundred years of confusion, weakness, and impotence. On the other hand, the salvation and periods of improvement were because the Lord raised up leaders.

When we come to Deborah, we have a significant and impressive thing. There is first Deborah herself, and then there are those to whom she refers when she says: "For that the leaders took the lead" (Judges 5:2). Deborah overshadows the whole story; therefore she must be seen for what she is: Being a woman in such a position, she must represent a sovereign activity of God. The Bible is quite clear that - in the normal order of God - women are not set over men. Normally it would be disorder if they were... In God's first order man is given the position of authority. But here in the case of Deborah, we have a woman by Divine consent and approval in that place...

Deborah, while being a real person, is - in effect - the spirit or principle of leadership. This is borne out in that she is called a prophetess. What is the supreme characteristic of prophetic ministry? It is inspiration. So we see that leadership in Deborah's case was her power to inspire. Both Barak and the leaders who took the lead fulfilled their leadership by reason of the inspiration received through Deborah. Leadership is a matter of inspiration.

It is an endowment. Not all who take the position can fulfil it. It is a pathetic thing to observe someone in the position without the inspiration or anointing. That is why it is so wrong and dangerous for anyone either to assume the position or be put into it by vote or human influence.

Let our godly women realize that their function is not to rule and govern, but to inspire. Deborah said to Barak: "Hath not the Lord commanded...." She knew the Lord, and out of that knowledge she was the spirit of inspiration.

It is no small thing to see the purpose of God and to inspire to leadership in it. This can be done, as in the case of Deborah, without personally going into the forefront of the battle.

Our lesson, then, from Deborah is that, whether officially in the office of a leader or not, leadership is essentially a matter of the gift and power of inspiration: a contagious influence, an emanating spiritual energy, and a potent example.

How often is leadership regarded as an official thing. The leader must have a title, an office, an appointment. Deborah teaches us that leadership is the expansion of the mother-spirit to embrace the whole of God's people. "Until that I Deborah arose....a mother in Israel'' (Judges 5:7). Not 'Till I a leader, a prophetess, a Divinely-chosen instrument arose' but "a mother." Hers was evidently a heart-concern, an affectional concern for the Lord's people.

We have earlier referred to the revolt against Paul's spiritual authority, but his answer to that was his love, even 'as of a nursing mother' (1 Thess. 2:7,11), and any seeming severity was born of his very deep paternal or - spiritually - maternal concern for them.

This element must be in all leadership; the element of a jealous yearning over the spiritual interests of those concerned. "I arose a mother," said Deborah. The incentive of her inspiring leadership was the mother-passion for a spiritual family.

Back of all that appears and sounds otherwise in the prophets of Israel, there can always be detected this sigh and sob of a heart-relationship with a wayward family, in trouble because of its waywardness.

The Lord's Government of the Ear and the Hand

The Ear

The Lord is to have supreme control of the ear. We must come on to the ground where the ear is dead to every other controlling voice, every other governing suggestion, and is alive unto God, and unto God alone.

It is quite clear that, in some way, the governing faculty of every life is the ear; not necessarily the outward organ, but that by which we listen to suggestions - that, as we say, to which we "give ear."  The suggestions may arise from our own temperament and make-up; the constraining things in our life may be our natural inclination; the pull and the draw of our constitution, deep-seated ambitions, inclinations, interests, which are not cultivated nor acquired but which are simply in us because we are made that way. To listen to these is to have our lives governed by our own interests.  Or it may be other things, such as the suggestions, the desires, the ambitions of others for us, the call of the world, the call of human affections, consideration for the likes of others.  Oh, how many things may come to us like the activity of a voice, to which - if we listen - we shall become slaves and servants, and the ear, and the life with it, become so governed.

You and I, if we say that we are consecrated men and women, mean that. we have brought the death of Christ to bear upon all the government and domination of voices which arise from any quarter save the Lord Himself. We are not to consult the voice of our own interests, our own ambitions, our own inclinations, or the voice of anyone else's desires for us. We must have an ear only for the Lord. That is consecration.

It is a solemn and direct word for everyone - and perhaps especially for the younger men and women, whose lives are more open now to be governed by other considerations, because life lies before them. It may happily be that the sense of responsibility about life is uppermost. The feeling is that it might be disastrous to make a mistake and along with it there is a strong ambition to succeed and not to have a wasted life.

Herein is your law for life, and although the course of things may be strange and the Lord's ways oft-times perplexing, and you may be called upon in a very deep way to give ear to the exhortation addressed to us in the book of Proverbs: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding", nevertheless, in the outworking you will find that God's success has been achieved and after all what matters more than that or as much as that? The course may be very different from what you expected or thought or judged would be the reasonable way for your life, but that does not matter as long as God has been successful in your life - as long as your life has been a success from God's standpoint. This is the secret - an ear alive only unto Him, and dead to everything that comes from any quarter other than the Lord Himself.

Chapter 17 of John's Gospel is an exposition of that. "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." If we were of the world, we should take the judgments of the world for our lives - what the world would suggest to be the course of greatest success, prosperity, advantage. The spirit of the world does sometimes get into our own hearts and suggests to us that it would be fatal for us to take this course or that: to give heed to that voice is to become conformed to this age. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service". From the outset the point of supreme government is the ear. The ear must be put under the blood, to be God's vehicle of government It means that we must have a spiritual ear. As children of God we have, by reason of our new birth, a spiritual faculty of hearing and we must take heed to develop it as the Lord would have us do.

It means that the ear must be a listening ear. Many people hear, and yet do not hear. They have ears and they hear, but yet they hear not, because they do not listen. The Lord says many things to us, and we do not hear what He is saying although we know He is saying something. There must be a quiet place for the Lord in our lives. The enemy will fill our lives with the voices of other claims and duties and pressures to make it impossible for us to have the harvest of the quiet ear for the Lord.

That ear must be an ear that is growing in capacity. The child has an ear and it hears, but it does not always understand what it hears. A babe hears sounds, and you notice the signs of the babe's having heard a sound, but that babe does not understand the sound that it hears. As it grows, it begins to know the meaning of those sounds. In the same way there must be a spiritual ear - a consecrated ear - marked by the same features of growth and progress.

Then, further, this ear must be an obedient ear, so that hearing we obey. Thus God governs the life from the outset.

The Hand

The Lord must have the place of honour and strength in the activities of our life, in the work of our life. Now this all sounds very elementary, but we must listen for the Lord's voice in it. The point is that in whatever we are doing, or about to do - in all our service - there must be death to self: no self serving, no world-serving, no serving for our own gratification, pleasure, advantage, honour, glory, position, exaltation, reputation. In the death of our Offering we died to all that, and now our hand, in whatever it does - and it may have to work in this world's business, to do a multitude of uninteresting things of a very ordinary character - whatever activity of life it has to engage in, on the one side our hand is to be dead to self and on the other side to work with the Lord's interests in view: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might..." (Ecc. 9:10).

You will remember how much the apostle warned about service being done to men, as by men-pleasers, and not as unto the Lord. He was speaking largely to the slave of those days. When the slave system obtained and the slaves had to do many, many things that must have gone much against the grain - he said to them: Fulfill your service, not as unto those men who are your masters, but as unto the Lord.

We must question ourselves as to why we are in any given place, or what it is that moves us to desire any particular place or work. What is the governing motive of our ambition for service? Before God we must be able to say that any personal or worldly consideration is dead and that our service now is not only a reluctant nor resigned giving of ourselves to what we have to do, but a ready applying of ourselves to even difficult, hard, unpleasant, and uninteresting things for the Lord's pleasure.

Do write this word in your heart: that the Lord will not - indeed cannot - exalt you and give you something else, something more fruitful, more profitable, more glorious for Himself, until in that least, that mean, that despised, that irksome - maybe even revolting - place and work, you have rendered your service utterly as unto Him, even if it has meant a continual self-crucifixion. That is the way of promotion. This is the way in which we come into a position where the Lord gets more out of our lives than we imagine He is getting.

There is a priestly ministry in doing that difficult and unpleasant thing as unto the Lord, but we do not see that we are priests at the time. The idea of being girded with a linen ephod at the time you are scrubbing floors and washing dishes, and other like things, is altogether remote from your imagination. Yet there is a testimony being borne which is effective, of which maybe you have no consciousness. It may come to light one day. Someone may say: I proved that Jesus Christ is a reality, simply by seeing the way in which you did what I know you naturally hated doing. It was wholly distasteful to you - you had no heart for it - but you did it in such a way that it convinced me that Christ is a living reality. That is no imagination and sentiment. It is true to life. The Lord has His eye upon us.

The Lord is to have the direction of our lives... all our outgoings and our stayings are to be controlled alone by the Lord's interest. We are not always being bidden to go. Sometimes the going is a relief. It is staying which is so difficult. We are so eager to go, and yet often the Lord has a difficulty to get us to go in His way. However the case may be, it is a simple point, it is a direct word. Our going has been rendered dead to all but the Lord, and our staying also. Our life has been poured out, has been let go, has been taken away, that is, the life which is for ourselves, of ourselves. Life has been taken up on another level.

Had He, the Supreme Example, ever an ear for Himself or for the world? Had He not an ear for the Father alone? Satan came to Him in the wilderness and began to speak - the strong bearing down upon the Lord Jesus of certain other considerations, every one of which was in His own interest. He heard what Satan said, but His ear was crucified, and the power of that voice was paralyzed by His consecration to the Father. In effect He triumphed on this ground: I have no ear for you. My ear is for the Father alone!

Satan came in other forms, not always openly but under cover. Thus a beloved disciple would sometimes serve him for a tool: "Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall never be unto Thee" (Matthew 16:22). The Lord turned and said, "Get thee behind Me, Satan". He recognized that as the voice of self consideration, self preservation. He was dead to that. This way of the cross was the Father's way for Him. He had an ear for Him only. And so it was, all the way through.

Was it true of His service? Did He for a moment seek His own ends by His works - His own glory by what He did? No! Even in tiredness and weariness and exhaustion, if there were interests of the Father to be served, He was alive to those interests, never consulting His own glory or His own feelings and I have no doubt that His feelings were sometimes those of acute suffering.

We read of Him as "being wearied." We know what that is, and how in weariness we would not only sit on the well but remain sitting on the well, even though some demand were being made upon us. If we are the Lord's we must be governed by the Lord's interests and brush aside all the rising suggestions of looking after ourselves.

So it was with Him in all His goings. He submitted His going or His staying to the Father. His brethren would argue that He should go up to the feast, but He does not yield to their persuasions and arguments: His one criterion is, what does the Father say about this? His mother entreats Him at the marriage in Cana, and says they have no wine. His unlooked-for reply is, "What have I to do with thee?" In other words, what does the Father say about this? So His whole life was, on the one hand, dead to self, to the world, and on the other hand, alive only to God. And what a fruitful life... what a God-satisfying life!

Are you reaching out for something? Are you being governed by your own conception of things, by what other people think of you, by what the world would do or what others would do if they were in your place? These are not the voices for you to heed. What does the Lord say? Wait upon that; rest in that. You may not understand, but be sure a life on this basis is going to be God's success.

Do you want God's success? God may do something through you for which you are temperamentally, constitutionally, altogether unfit, and for your part you have thought that because you are made in a certain way, that must govern your direction in life. Not at all!

Come, then, let us get down before Him on this matter, to deal with consecration, if needs be, all anew.

"A Man in Christ"

"I know a man in Christ" (2 Corinthians 12:2)

The object of our consideration is manhood in relation to the Lord's testimony, and for it we take a little phrase used by the apostle Paul about himself: "I knew a man in Christ". To it may be linked a few other simple phrases:

"I JESUS have sent my angel to testify unto you..." (Revelation 22:16)

"I JOHN, your brother and partaker with you..." (Revelation 1:9)

"Now I PAUL myself entreat you..." (2 Corinthians 10:1)

"I DANIEL understood by the books..." (Daniel 9:2)

These personal references were evidently inspired by the Holy Spirit, and therefore carry their own significance. Humanity is a divine conception, something taking its origin in the mind of God. Being, then, in the eternal thought of God, it has come to stay. There is nothing in all the Scriptures to indicate that God at some time, at some point, is going to finish that order of beings and replace it with another - angelic or otherwise. No, manhood has come to stay. In the divine thought, manhood is a very noble thing with a very great and high destiny.

THE DIGNITY OF MAN IN GOD'S THOUGHT

In this article we may have largely to be occupied with the correcting of faulty ideas in order to get at the true. Our ideas about man have become somewhat confused. Evangelical Christianity has placed great emphasis upon man's total depravity. I have nothing to take from that. We need to remember, however, that every truth runs close to error. It is just as true to affirm that man is a very wonderful creation, "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139.14). We are constantly discovering new realms within the human soul, and it is the soul of man which is the very core of humanity. From time to time we are surprised at what there is in us all of capability and capacity, of unsuspected forces at work. There are two sides to this matter of humanity; the one, which is perfectly true, of man's total depravity; the other, equally true, of the dignity of the human idea in the mind of God. These two must be properly balanced, or many evils may result. May we try to correct a few faulty ideas so that we can understand more of God's real thought concerning man?

OUR INDIVIDUALITY IS NOT ANNIHILATED BY THE CROSS

Running closely alongside of what is so often our unbalanced conception of man, there is our idea as to the meaning of the cross in his experience. We place a great deal of emphasis upon that side of the cross which relates to our identification with Christ in His death; not only the removal, by that death, of our sins, but also of ourselves. The cross wholly and utterly sets aside one kind of man. There is nothing to take from that, and nothing to add to it: it is true. But our individuality is not annihilated by the cross; the cross does not destroy our personal entity. It deals with the basis of that humanity upon which we are now living because of Adam, but it does not destroy us. We need to be very careful not to try to carry the cross into realms where it is never supposed to operate. We must not think that identification with Christ in death and burial somehow means that we cease to function as sensible beings. The cross is never meant to create or minister to asceticism.

OUR INDIVIDUALITY IS NOT LOST IN THE BODY OF CHRIST

Another faulty conception is related to membership of the body of Christ. The body of Christ is a great reality, a wonderful truth. We have nothing to take from the fact that we have a related life in Christ as members of His body. We must be careful, though, to avoid the false conception of the Church as Christ's body which regards the individual distinctiveness of each member as being destroyed so that all may be merged as it were into a general lump. Paul is very careful to point out the importance of the personal form of each member: "If the whole body were an eye... If the whole were hearing..." (1 Corinthians 12:17).

We have only to consider our own bodies, both inside and out, to know that the smallest organ has its own distinctiveness. Each has a specific form and a distinct function, and at times it is one of the effects of disease that it destroys the distinctive function of some organ. If this is true physically, it can be true spiritually. We must not confuse individualism with individuality. That is a mistake. Yes, individualism is unacceptable but individuality is of supreme importance.

The same truth obtains in the whole creation. One of the wonders of God's creation is its endless variety. Yet the whole of the creation is interdependent: every branch depends on another branch, the flower on the bee and the bee on the flower. This is a divine principle found everywhere, each individual living thing must have its own form, though being dependent on others for the justification of its existence and the realisation of its destiny.

GOD'S IDEA IS A MAN

A further faulty idea is to think that God's work is performed by reason of an office rather than with the person who bears that office. We think of them under certain designations, such as 'ministers', 'missionaries', 'whole-time workers' or 'preachers', but God thinks of them in their capacity as human beings. They must not cease to be persons and become things. It is easy for those concerned to regard themselves as something that belongs to a platform or a class and so obscure the importance of personality. We may think of sending out a missionary, but God talks of sending a man. It is the man not the occupation which matters with Him, and we must not let any office obscure the character of the person who holds it.

GOD WANTS ORIGINALITY

Here is a very important point, this matter of originality. From one point of view it may be argued that there is nothing in itself really original: "There is nothing new under the sun" was what Solomon said. Nevertheless God can do in us that which makes "all things new". Nothing should be copied or mechanical in our life and ministry, but everything emerging from a first-hand experience of God. This is the secret of spiritual authority. What made the authority of the Lord Jesus greater than that of the scribes (Matthew 7:29) was not that He had more academic information than they had, but that He clearly spoke from His own experience, He spoke directly from God.

On our case, too, God demands a history behind what we say. His testimony is not the mechanical propagation of truths but their living power as embodied in human lives. We are not here just to stand as a kind of middle man, taking up from a store and passing on in a mechanical way, but to communicate what has become original spiritual truth in our own personal experience. Originality is essential. Everything has got to begin with us before it can be given to others with an effect or lasting value. We need to begin with personal history. We cannot live on the experience of others, however real those experiences were to them.

"I JESUS." Does not that impress you, coming right at the end of the Bible and being the last utterance of the Lord to His churches? Notice that He did not say, "I the Lord", but "I Jesus". All Bible students know that in the New Testament the name 'Jesus' refers to the days of His earthly life. After His exaltation they always added 'Lord' to His other titles and names, and the apostles only used the name Jesus alone when they wished to emphasise His perfect humanity. Used by itself the name refers back to His life of humiliation when He took the form of a man. "He was found in fashion as a man" (Philippians 2:7). The word 'fashion' means that in all outward appearance He was like other men. Another word is used of what He was inside; that was something other. But in this outward fashion as a man He took the name Jesus, which was one of the most common names in Palestine then. So the name carries us back to the day when He was going through all that which made spiritual history in Himself - tried, tested, tempted in all points like as we are (Hebrews 4:15) and being "made perfect through sufferings" (Hebrews 2:10). History was being made in His Humanity. As a Man, He was learning obedience by the things which He suffered (Hebrews 5:8). This in no way questions His deity. It means that though God incarnate, Jesus was knowing all about human life, making spiritual history in terms of manhood, with intrinsic values which will be for the ages of the ages. Having done all that in terms of manhood, He at last presents Himself to His churches, saying: "I Jesus".

Then there is the writer of the book who introduces himself with the phrase, "I John". His experience was on so much smaller a scale, yet in its measure it was true that what he wrote was not something which had come mechanically to him but the result of vital experience. Of the Word he was able to say: "That which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, and our hands handled...". It has become a part of us. We have a vital relationship with the truth as it is in Him. It follows that we are now in a position to mention ourselves in relation to the testimony of Jesus.

Then Paul, who spoke of himself as "a man in Christ" was also allowed to bring himself into view with the authority of one who had history behind him: "Behold, I Paul say unto you..." (Galatians 5:2). What Paul taught had become the very substance of his being. He was not talking about abstract truths but about things which had actually happened to him. Having had the truth wrought into him he could affirm in the Spirit: "I Paul say unto you".

Was that not also true of Daniel? "O MAN greatly beloved" (Daniel 10:19). God did not say to him: "O prophet greatly beloved" or "O servant of the Lord greatly beloved" but "O man...". The man is a man of God, a man in the Lord, and so there is great spiritual authority when he says: "I Daniel".

Naturally woman is included, for God is concerned with humanity. He plans to fulfil His will in human beings. Leaving aside our special reference to Jesus, whom we know as a human being PLUS, we glory in the fact that these servants of God were so essentially human. John was so human. Paul was so human. Daniel was a human being. Through His Son God makes something of Himself as a part of human life, and in doing so constitutes the testimony of Jesus.

God's great objective with you is not to make you a Bible teacher, a missionary, a Christian worker. These may emerge, according to the form which your life may take, but they will not be eternal. It is you as a man or a woman with whom God is taking such pains, He is more concerned with our humanity than with anything else. You will misunderstand His ways with you if you fail to recognise that. You will be tempted to worry about your reputation, your job, your function, while God is supremely concerned with the kind of man you will be in Christ. All else is of lesser importance. The great thing is for God to find His eternal satisfaction in glorified men - men in Christ.

From "Toward the Mark" September-October 1978.

Man's Way vs. God's Way

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8,9).

There are two kinds of starting points — man and God’s. Man usually starts with big frameworks, with a big plant, machinery, publicity, structures, and so on. That is how man usually starts when he is going to do something for God. It is a propensity; it is our way. We may argue that God is worthy of something big. That is man’s way. God’s way is never like that — it never was. You search in vain to find any instance of God beginning like that. Pentecost came out of the deep and drastic dealings with twelve men. God’s starting point is always the intrinsic. Man’s beginnings usually end in only a small percentage of lasting value. God’s beginnings always end in a very great percentage of lasting value. But God’s beginnings seem so small, they appear so little. But so does a seed; it is a small thing, a little thing. Yet look at the potentialities in one seed, in one grain of wheat. It is the intrinsic with God. That is where God begins. That is why everything really of God has a long and hidden history of deep dealings on His part.

The thirty years of our Lord’s hidden life has a great bearing on the three and a half. The forty years of Moses away back there in the desert, looking after those sheep of his father-in-law, had a great bearing on the rest of his life. They were not lost, wasted, futile years. And so we could take up one after another — Abraham, David, and others, who had a long deep, secret, hidden history; it was out of that that the effectiveness came. Very often more is done, when God has been at work, in the last few years of a life than in all the years previously. That does not mean that all the previous years have been of no account, having no place. It means that God has been at work to get intrinsic values, and now at last these values are coming out.

God’s greatest things are coming out of intrinsic values to make themselves known. Therefore He takes a lot of time and a lot of pains in secret history with that one project. It may be that, though you are thinking the years are going, soon life will be past, all over, and you have missed the way, everything being a problem, an enigma; yet it may be that in a few years an infinitude of spiritual value will come out of the time through which you are going, out of this which you think is lost time. You must adjust yourself to this, that God is not careful at all about our standards of values, either in time or in method or in any other way. What God is careful about is to have the inherent, the potential, the essential, and the intrinsic. Lay that up in your hearts and cherish it and let it be a real governing factor with you. God works for depths. God works for solidity. God works for intensity. Therefore He works through testing, through hiddenness, and with very little appeal to our natural pleasure.

The Meaning of Christian Service

What is Christian service according to the mind of God?

It is not our having a very full program of Christian activities - not necessarily.

It is not that we are always busy in what we call "the things of the Lord."

It is not the measure and amount of our activity and busyness - the degree of our perspiration and enthusiasm in the Kingdom of God.

It is not our schemes - our enterprises - for the Lord.

Beloved, the test of all service is this: its motive. Is the motive, from start to finish, that in all things HE may have the preeminence - that Christ may be all in all?

You know the temptations and the fascination of Christian service - the fascination of being busy... being occupied with many things... having your programs, schemes, enterprises... being in it and always at it. There is a peril there, and that peril has caught multitudes of the Lord's servants: it is its bringing them into prominence. It has made the work theirs - it is their work - it is their interests; and they are the more pleased the more they govern the thing and run the thing.

No, there is a difference between going the round of the clock in Christian service as the mere enjoyment of activity and of the fascination of it, and of all the advantages and facilities it provides for ourselves - our flesh and its gratification - there is a great difference between that and this: "Christ is all and in all."

Sometimes that end is achieved by our being put out of action, and that is the test as to whether we are quite satisfied to be altogether put out of the work if only the Lord can be more glorified by our being out. If only He can come into His own, it does not matter a scrap whether we are seen or heard. In the grace of God it is somewhere to get when you are quite content to be put in a corner, to be taken no notice of, not to be seen... if thereby the Lord Jesus can come into His own more speedily and fully.

Somehow we have got caught up into this thing, and we think the Lord Jesus can come into His own only if we are the instrument. The rivalries - platform rivalries, pulpit rivalries - sensitiveness because one is put before another, because one address is given more attention than another - the favorable remarks all given in one direction, etc., etc. - I know all about it.

After all, what were you after? Winning your audience or winning your sermon... or winning your Lord? A great difference!

Sometimes the Lord gets more out of our bad times than we think; and sometimes we have our good times, and He has not got the most. Therein is the necessity for our being set aside, our being kept weak and humble: that He might have the preeminence.

The explanation of service according to God's thought is just this: what are you doing it for? Do you want to be in the work - to take up the work - to be busy? Or is it utterly and only if by any means He may come into His own? That God's end may be realized? And if it means that He can be "all and in all" by our death as well as by our life, have we come to the place where we can say, "That Christ may be magnified in this mortal body, whether by life or by death"?

That is the explanation of service from God's standpoint.

The Meaning of Union With Christ

What is union with Christ? It is union with Him as the new creation - as the new-creation Man; union with Him in the Life which is the Life of the new creation by the Spirit of Life.

What is the meaning of that union? It is that only by such union can God's works be done. What governed Him in relation to the Father governs us. Nothing can be done except on the ground of this union. It is not a matter of action or of undertaking for God, however well intentioned. What we see as seeming necessary to be done for the Lord's glory is not the criterion of service. Many things are embarked upon by the mere simple, though honest and sincere, judgment of the heart when confronted by what is judged as something to be done for God - something needing to be done. A tragic situation, for example, calls for action; we have the means to meet that situation, and so we embark upon it for the Lord. A vast variety of undertakings have been embarked upon in that way - from that basis - and the Lord Jesus says, No! Not so!

He is not governed by the apparent demand of a situation. He is not governed by the impact of things upon Himself, as calling for an undertaking. With Him it is a question of what God is doing... and doing just at the particular time. With one object, God does different things at different times... and has a different emphasis from time to time; and those who are really in union with Christ have to be governed by that which Christ at that particular time is Himself undertaking - is giving Himself to: "...what things soever he [God] doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner."

The whole question of spiritual perception in relation to the work of God is bound up with this union. We may embark upon many undertakings for the Lord; we have done it, and many are doing it. Sovereignly the Lord blesses and uses, but there is something which comes nearer to the heart of God than that... and which gets more directly and immediately to God's end. In a less roundabout way it gets right to the heart of things. It is that we should be found in that which is God's immediate object at a given time. Union with Christ brings us under that law. It is a matter of what God is doing... and of life-union with Him in Christ for the accomplishment of that.

So then, we have to put back all our schemes and all our plans and all our arrangements and all our programs for the Lord, and in the secret place with the Lord get into the value of true, living, spiritual union with Him... so that the purpose may not commence with us - in our thought, in our desire, in our will - but may begin with God and find a registration in us from God. He would have us see with spiritual perception what He is doing... and do it... and "in like manner"; for God is as particular about His method as He is about His purpose. The question is not one of doing a thing for God, but of God. In the new creation all things are out from God.

There is a Man in the work of God. There is a Man to whom all the works of God are entrusted. There is one Man - only one. All the works of God are bound up with that Man in the glory. The important thing for us is to see what Christ is - not only who Christ is but what Christ is - that Christ is an inclusive new-creation Man, that He is a Divine humanity now, and that He expresses fully and utterly, conclusively and finally, the thought of God. There is no expression of God apart from Jesus Christ, so far as the new creation is concerned. God's thoughts, God's will, God's desires, God's works are finished in Him. He is the First and the Last, and you cannot get outside of that.

Christ is representative and inclusive of the new creation. You and I, in order to come into the new creation and to work according to the new creation - that is, according to God's thoughts and will and desire, and God's works, have to come into that union with the Lord Jesus Christ... which means that we live by what He is. Our old humanity has to be set aside, and the new humanity of Christ has to take its place.

The deep mystery of Christ and of union with Christ is this, that by and in the Holy Spirit - in the one Life which we thus share with Christ - we are living upon His glorified, perfected humanity. That is to say, what Christ is as Man in the glory is our Life.

When we take food and drink, we take it into our very tissue; and that food becomes us physically. You know how that works in various ways. You become the kind of person you are physically very largely because of the kind of food you eat. You can tell very often what people feed upon by looking at them. It could be illustrated in many ways.

That is the governing law here in things spiritual. God has a standard Man in His presence. God has a conception of humanity realized in His presence. God says, For Me that standard - that conception - governs everything, and you have to live according to that... and that has to become you. What Christ is has to become you - to become the very Life of your life, the innermost reality of your being.

Your food becomes your power of thought. You do not know how it is done, but you can prove it; if you but abstain from food long enough, you will have no more thoughts. How your daily food is translated into the letters you write, the poems you may compose, you do not know; but it is a fact. Stop your daily food, and there will be no more letters and no more poems. You cannot trace the relationship, but it is a fact. Your food becomes your activity. That is your food in action. Stop your food and you do nothing more. You see the illustration.

Christ is God's standard, God's mind, God's thought; and in the Spirit, by union with Him, you have to live on Him, be governed by Him, open your being to Him... and think your thoughts, speak your words, do your deeds after Him - let Him become your mind, your utterance, your activity. That is the clear teaching of the New Testament. "Not in the wisdom of words, but in words which the Holy Ghost teacheth," says Paul. What is that then? It is simply Christ finding expression; not things springing from us but coming out from Him. That is the meaning of union with Christ.

To all this, is your reaction much as follows: Oh, well, how few know it, and how few live like that? With ninety percent it is just the opposite of that - it is a case of works for the Lord according to the judgment of the one or more concerned. Even so the Lord has done His work through the generations! Are we going to reason like that?

First of all, we must ask ourselves, Is this what is set forth in the Word of God? After all, that must govern us. There are a few other considerations besides, of course, which influence the matter. Are we quite sure, for example, that in comparison with all the mass of undertakings for God, the spiritual result is commensurate? Surely that is a question we need to ask ourselves? If we are influenced by the Word of God, we shall be brought to the position where we have to say: Well, the Word of God makes it perfectly clear that everything begins with God. The words, "In the beginning God..." express a ruling principle; and as in the old creation, so in the new. Everything is out from God, and the Holy Spirit is the executive member of the Godhead. He alone knows what God would do, and He alone can accomplish it.

Now, am I to abandon myself to what that implies; or am I, in all sincerity and earnestness according to the best light I have and the best desires I possess, to launch out in a lot of undertakings for God? They are two quite different things. We shall, if we are honest, sooner or later be brought to the position where, however things may appear and however small may be that which lives according to this standard, we cannot help ourselves - we must capitulate to this law; namely, that it must be the Lord initiating, the Lord projecting, the Lord energizing, the Lord directing - it must all come from the Lord. It is not for me to sit down and plan things for God; it must come to me by the quickening movement of the Holy Spirit. That is the meaning of union with Christ.

Oh, for a revelation of Jesus Christ. Paul said, "It pleased God... to reveal his Son in me...." That is the explanation of everything that followed in the life of the Apostle. If you read his life from a purely human standpoint, as so many have done, and run through his life as though it were the life of any other man lived for God, then you may argue for human initiative, human enterprise; but to get back of that and to see God - to see Christ - that alone can truly account for the effect of that life.

We have taken Paul as an example; we could well take the greater example of the Lord Jesus Himself. Write the life of Jesus on a human level and you cannot explain it in that way. The influence, the power through all these centuries, the spontaneous growth, cannot be accounted for on the ground of His being just a man. In a lesser way, that was so with the Apostle. Today Paul lives more than he did when he was here in the flesh. He has been growing all the time. What is the secret of that vitality? The explanation is union with Christ and in Christ.

There are those who want to build up a work which will forever be a monument of their name. They are building tombs, like Absalom, to their own memory. But that is a poor thing... and is bound to fade sooner or later. That which shall abide forever is that which comes out from God Himself... and is not done by us but through us, so that all things are of God.

A true knowledge of the Lord Jesus will reverse a good many of our ideas and a good many of our procedures. A true knowledge of Christ and union with Christ, with all that that means, will make us go to work in entirely the opposite way from that in which we have been accustomed to go. We shall come to be governed by this one consideration, that it is not what we would do for the Lord but what the Lord would do through us, that is alone to rule.

It is a very testing way. You can hardly believe, unless you have been the same way, how often and intensely and bitterly the enemy fights and tempts you to come down on to a lower position and to take up things again for God - launch big schemes, enter upon big undertakings, set up something on the earth that can be seen - because all those who are governed by that standard of things seen have said: You see, you are doing nothing! Show us what you are doing! You cannot show us anything for it all!

Satan does work on that line. To the flesh, that is not easy. To go on with God and have nothing to show for it - never to be able to have the work written up in the papers, to publish no reports nor statistics, and yet to know in your heart of hearts that, although it is hidden, something is going on... and that you cannot do otherwise than you are doing... is far from being a path of ease to the flesh.

It is a testing way, but - blessed be God - if we do endure the testing and go on patiently with Him, in His time... when that flesh has been finally laid low, when the voice of natural ambition is no longer sounding and having influence and we are now utterly at the place where, if things are not going to be of the Lord, then there is not going to be anything at all... the Lord has a free way and He is able to indicate that all the time something has been going on. He shows how He has been at work and how that in time there will be manifested a work of God - a work that shall have such a large percentage of spiritual value and meaning in it that you are very glad, after all, that you walked with God and not with men in the work of God.

The Nature of the Testimony

Life Incorruptible and Indestructible

Reading: Hebrews 11:1-19.

We are going to meditate upon the innermost nature of that Testimony which relates to the Lord in this earth, and in this universe. This whole chapter is occupied with that Testimony, but we are going to take but a part of it, seeing the Testimony as touched upon by the first four of the people mentioned.

Let us remind ourselves that the heart of the Testimony of the Lord is life; a life which is incorruptible and indestructible. We know, of course, that that life is bound up with a Person, "this life is in His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord." When we speak of the Testimony of Jesus we always keep in view the Person first, but then there comes that for which the Person stands, that which is the preeminent element in the Person and in the work of that Person. When you ask the question as to what it is that the Lord Jesus stands for in His very Person, and what it was that He came, lived, and went to the Cross for, the answer is found in one word, Life. He came that life and immortality might be brought to light, and He Himself is that life.

So that the Testimony of the Person, Jesus, is the Testimony of life incorruptible and indestructible, and that is the issue of the ages. That is the thing upon which everything has been hanging from the beginning. It was on that matter that the battle took place in the first instance in the Garden. It was the issue of life or death, and it has been that issue all along. Inasmuch as we are related to the Testimony of Jesus we are bound up with that issue as the primary thing in our beings, and therefore in our work, which we may call our ministry. If the Church has been brought into being as, above all other things, the Body of Christ, then it is in that Body that this Testimony has to be deposited and manifested, and when we speak of the Body as a whole we speak of all the members individually.

That is familiar ground, but it is the centre, the heart, of everything for us. It really defines what it is that we are called into, what, in the first place, is the very nature of the believer's relationship to Christ, the basis of that union; and then, in the second place, it defines the very object of the believer being here on the earth.

When we turn to this chapter we find that this central reality of incorruptible and indestructible life is illustrated, set forth, in principle in various ways, from various standpoints. The first four people mentioned in this succession of the Testimony bring before us a very real presentation of the basis, nature, and outworking of this life.

Abel - the Basis of the Testimony

We begin with Abel, in verse 4:  "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had witness borne to him that he was righteous, God bearing witness in respect of his gifts; and through it he being dead yet speaketh."

With Abel there is introduced the basis of the Testimony. The Testimony begins with Abel, and we know that wherever we find the beginning of a thing we always find all the subsequent development in germ form, and everything subsequent will, therefore, work back to that and be included in that. That is very clearly seen when you recognise that the basis, the introduction of the Testimony of life incorruptible and indestructible is by the shedding of blood. With Abel the shedding of blood is introduced in a definite way as the law and basis of the Testimony of Jesus. That leads right on to Christ, and includes every drop of blood shed, from the day that Abel offered his sacrifice to the day when Christ offered Himself in the shedding of His Blood.

There are two ways of taking up the Testimony, becoming bound up with it from the beginning. There is the way of becoming terribly responsible for it, so that that Testimony represents death and judgment and destruction from the presence of the Lord, the Testimony testifying against. But there is the other way, by a living relationship to the Lord Jesus coming into the whole Testimony from Abel onward, and into all its value - inclusively on the ground of the shed blood. Because of that shed blood he was instantly involved in the battle of the ages, the spiritual conflict of all time. From the unseen there immediately emerged one who was the antagonist of that life, him that had the power of death, and through Cain he slew what was mortal of Abel. But after millenniums the Word of God says he yet speaketh, he is not dead. His testimony was in relation to a life indestructible, and he still lives, "he being dead yet speaketh."

Abel was the first link in the chain of the overcomers, and you can relate the end with the beginning and declare from Revelation 12 that he overcame because of the Blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of his testimony, and he loved not his life even unto death. That was true of Abel, the first witness, the first link in the Testimony. It is the mighty power of the Blood of the Lord Jesus which in type is introduced with Abel, which is the inclusive ground of the Testimony of a life which is beyond the power of Satan and hell and men to touch and to destroy.

The Word of God makes it perfectly clear that everything in the life of a believer is related to that precious Blood.

Salvation is by the Blood. Just as Israel came out of Egypt to be God's people through shed and sprinkled blood, so alone are men and women saved from sin, from hell, from judgment, from death, from the power of Satan, by the precious Blood of the Lord Jesus. The sinner, then, finds salvation in the Blood and only in the Blood.

The saved find their life in the Blood, for they have, in that spiritual sense, still to continue to drink the Blood for their very life. The Lord Jesus said: "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves,'' and we know that the tense is: Except ye keep on eating and drinking ye have no life. He, in the value of His own Being, made over to us by the Holy Spirit becoming operative in us by Divine energies, becomes our very life as believers, to maintain us. So that the eating and the drinking continually are basic to the life of the saved.

Sanctification is related to the Blood. This very letter to the Hebrews tells us that in the second Chapter, verse 11: "For both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one..." Link that with Chapter 13 verse 12: "Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered without the gate." "...they that are sanctified... that he might sanctify the people through his own blood..." So that our sanctification rests upon the Blood of the Lord Jesus.

All our prayer has to be based upon that Blood for its effectiveness. There is no effectual intercession apart from the value of that Blood. Again this letter tells us that in Chapter 10 verse 19: "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus."

You see, this is coming into the place of intercession, of prayer ministry, and that is made effectual by the Blood. There is no prayer which avails apart from the Blood of Jesus. That Blood is the effective element. It is the living factor in our salvation, our sanctification, our intercession. It makes prayer living. If you want to get over death elements in prayer, that with which probably you are not a little familiar, if you want to know the deliverance from those forces which descend upon you in the time of prayer to quench you, your appeal must be to the Blood, and you will find that it is effective. It is the power of life which conquers death.

Praying through is praying in virtue of the Blood of Jesus.

Not only are salvation, and maintenance, and sanctification, and intercession based upon the Blood, but our victory continuously and finally is on the ground of the Blood.Again this letter tells us that in the second Chapter, verses 14-15: "Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same; that through death he might bring to naught him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."

By Blood, you see, He destroyed him that had the power of death, and delivered those who were in bondage because of the fear of death. Surely we can link with that again, Revelation 12: "They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb..." Victory, then, is bound up with the Blood.

Everything that comes out in a fuller revelation of the life in relation to God is based upon the Blood, and all that is found in germ, in principle, in the blood which Abel shed in offering his sacrifice to God. Very comprehensive is the first step in the Testimony.

Enoch - The Outworking of the Testimony

Hebrews 11 verses 5-6. "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God translated him: for before his translation he hath had witness borne to him that he had been well-pleasing unto God: and without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him."

Here we have something which is tremendously striking and impressive, that with one bound you leap from the beginning to the end of the Testimony. It is as though for the moment the Lord has set aside, kept in reserve, all that lies between, and shows us what the end of the Testimony will be as related to the beginning. He brings the two immediately together. Here is the Blood in the first instance as the basis of the Testimony, as containing the Testimony in itself; life which conquers death, a life incorruptible and indestructible. Then He looks right on and sees the end of that as typified in Enoch; that overcomer company lifted clean out of the realm of death, where death is raging, and translated that it should not see death.

We are too familiar with the Old Testament chapter in which the translation of Enoch is mentioned for us to go back over it again, but let us just call to mind the fact that in a chapter of considerable length, which contains the constant and monotonous reiteration of the death and burial of a whole succession of men, there is, right there, that one break that, although the course had been in case after case, "and he died," there suddenly comes a rift, "...and he was not; for God took him," and then the old story goes on again. It is life breaking into the course of death, conquering it, and not going that way at all. The end will be that. We sing sometimes, and our hearts always throb and thrill when we sing: "Oh joy! oh delight! should we go without dying."

That is not a vain expectation. That is secured in the Blood of the Lord Jesus for a company which will realise God's full thought. May we be of that company! In any case, whether we go through the grave or without going through the grave, we are called into this Testimony that death has no power over us. May the Lord find us in the way of faith, in that matter, because Enoch attained unto it by faith, and we need faith unto victory over death. The enemy is always seeking to bring down our faith in that direction, and to get us to accept death, not merely physical death, but all kinds of death, and all forms of death's expression, to accept it. Faith says the Blood of Jesus Christ has secured victory over death in all its forms. May we be of the succession of those who overcame by faith in the Blood.

That is all we intend to say about Enoch at the moment, but it is a very impressive thing that the Lord should bring the beginning and the end, the end and the beginning together here, and show that, because of that Blood of the Testimony, the ultimate issue is this - rapture!

We return to that which lies between. The two things which follow, which are really between Abel and Enoch spiritually speaking, are related respectively to those things. Noah is related spiritually to Abel, and Abraham is related spiritually to Enoch.... Let us see how that is.

Noah - The Testimony in its Ministry to the World

Hebrews 11 verse 7: "By faith Noah, being warned of God concerning things not seen as yet, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; through which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith."

Noah is the Testimony in the world, the ministry of the Church. God looked and saw that iniquity was well nigh universal, that wickedness filled the earth, that every imagination of man's heart was evil. Where there is no righteousness there must be condemnation, judgment and death. But Noah lived in the midst of a state like that, a state of sin, and death, and he lived against that state of things, he did not live with it. He stood as a rock in the midst of that evil current, that tide of Testimony, as to the nature of the Testimony, the explanation of it, but you can never carry the Testimony out into this world by taking out a form of doctrine, by taking out a system of truth. We can never take the Testimony out by what we say. The battle of the Testimony is usually fought in the spiritual realm, and that is why so often, before we begin to say anything, there has to be a mighty battle, and something has to be settled in the unseen in relation to the Testimony before the words are spoken. It is a position which has to be secured in advance. Life has once again to register itself triumphantly against the forces of death. The word can then come through in the power of that life, in the power of that victory. It is that very conflict which gives to the word subsequently spoken its power, its life, its effectiveness. If those of us who have anything to do with ministry simply climbed on to platforms and never had a background conflict in relation to those things, they would be mechanical, there would be nothing in it; but because there is continuously that background fight, that gives the very meaning, virtue and power to that which is said. The word comes out then in virtue of a fresh registration of life over death.

Much of this is said for those who are familiar with the phrase "the Testimony." It is said for one reason, to clarify the nature of the Testimony, and for another to call us again to see that it is not a mental apprehension of things said which brings us into the Testimony, but it is a spiritual position. The thing that we are to seek from the Lord is not that we might understand all the teaching, but that we might be brought into the power of His resurrection. That we may know that life, and know how to live by that life in the mighty virtue of His precious Blood, in all that the Lord Jesus has accomplished by His Cross. We are living on the opposite side of Calvary from that of Abel and these other witnesses. Their testimony led on to Calvary, ours comes out of Calvary. We stand in the positive realisation of that toward which their faith looked.

We are surely called, equally with them, to be men and women of faith. It is putting it mildly to say equally. All this means our positive attitude of faith. It is faith basically in all that that Blood represents, includes, signifies, secures, and faith for all that that Blood works out to. If you believe that the Lord Jesus really has conquered death, and has given to you the very life by which He conquered death; if you believe it with all your heart, then you ought not to be a victim of the dead state of things all around you. You ought to be in a state of life triumphant, even though death presses on every side; and you can be. Your faith will put you in that position of ascendency over death.

The Lord is truly seeking to get His company, by which the full issue of that life shall be displayed to this universe, be wrought out in this universe, a translation company. The rapture may take place in the lifetime of many of us. That is a possibility, at least. Some of us feel that it is a probability, but if we leave it just as a possibility surely we should be completely stretched out, that it should be true of us that the final phase of His victory is displayed in us in a life which displays the fact that Satan, who had the power of death, is a truly conquered foe. May we live unto that from day to day.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1935, Vol 13-1

Not Here, and Not Now

"...to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose" (Eph. 3:10-11).

"Who is there among you that will give ear to this? that will hearken and hear for the time to come?" (Isa. 42:23).

In those two fragments we have two things which really amount to this - 'not here, and not now.' Not here - "unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenlies might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God." Not now - "who... will hearken and hear for a time to come?" I think those two intimations ought to be a very great help to all of us, and especially to some.

There are a good many things in the ways of God which are altogether beyond our understanding. They are out of our range altogether. God hides Himself while He is working, and seems very much to delay His actions; and from these facts many of our problems and difficulties arise, and we find ourselves thrown into a state of great perplexity and our faith sorely tried.

The Problem of Apparent Fruitlessness

I want to be quite simple and practical, because, on the face of it, these verses contain rather abstract and remote statements; they could fail to help us. I think that one of the most difficult statements in the New Testament to apprehend with any sense of comfort is that in Ephesians 3:10. Most people cannot appreciate the fact that what is happening in their lives is of interest to creatures altogether outside of this world. That does not seem of very much practical help; but there is a very practical side to it. Many of you will never go to the mission field, as it is called; you will never go out into so-called full-time spiritual service. Many of you will never go far from the homes where you are; many of you will never leave the places of business where you are working. Many will never enter upon any particular aspect of work for the Lord. You will be called upon to live just where you are, to go on with what is called 'the trivial round, the common task.' No one will ever hear very much about you. Your name will never appear in the religious press for the great work that you are doing. You will be hidden ones, and you will have plenty of opportunity and occasion for wondering whether you are doing anything for the Lord, whether your life does amount to anything worth while. You hear of others being called and going out and engaging in 'The work.' You envy them, you wish that it were you, and then you begin to reflect upon your life and your place, and you ask the question, 'Well, am I living to any account at all? Do I really matter?' Probably the majority of you will be like that.

There are others who, in all desire to serve the Lord and be wholly for Him, find themselves under arrest, shut up, restrained, as they think - limited, restive, anxious, on stretch, like animals in a cage, going round and round and finding no way out. There will be others who will go out. You will go into what is technically called 'The work.' You may go abroad, or into this or that aspect of specific service and ministry, and when you get there you will spend nine-tenths of your life without seeing anything for it. You will go on and on, labouring and being quite faithful, and yet seeing little or no result.

And yet all of you, in whichever category you may be - and there may be others not mentioned - are conscious you are in something; at least you are aware that you are in a conflict, that this life for the Lord is not an easy thing; it is full of trial, of pressure, of experiences which you would not have if you were not the Lord's. It is not just an ordinary life like that of an unbeliever - not to say that all unbelievers have an easy life - but you have the extras that result from being the Lord's, and you meet those extras from all directions. You find you have to encounter sometimes quite naked, spiritual antagonisms and oppositions and difficulties.

The Supreme Realm - 'Not Here' but the Unseen

Well, of course, the answer to any questionings largely lies there; for here is this mysterious statement in Eph. 3:10, a statement in the Word of God. (I think that we believers are seriously lacking in a practical, Divine adjustment to the things which we have in our Bible and which we know so well; we do not look at them straight in the face and say, 'That is in the Bible; it must mean something, and it must mean something where I am concerned.' We do not do that enough. We are lacking in our attitude of definiteness toward the things which we believe and accept. There is something more there than we have yet faced and taken hold of.)

Now here is a statement which is in the Word of God - "to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenlies might be made known through the church the manifold (the many-sided) wisdom of God." May not that explain practically all that I have said? leaving room for this, that so far as we are concerned it may be necessary that adjustments be made before the Lord can use us: we may have to come into a position before He can do more through us. Leaving room for that and other such considerations, there still remains this very big realm in which it is not a matter of controversy with the Lord on any point at all, nor of our having to adjust on something before the Lord can do what He would do. We may be right there with the Lord, ready for any adjustment, and yet He does not do the thing that we want Him to do. There is this delay, this arrest. In such cases this word may very well be the explanation and the application. God is doing something with us, in us, by which He is reaching the end for which this universe was created.

Look again at the context of Eph. 3:10 and see the universal and timeless setting of what is there. The universe was created for the worship and glory of God, and the thing that He is doing is somewhere bringing creatures on their knees in worship and in wonder.

Divine Wisdom Manifested Through Believers

"The manifold wisdom of God." What is wisdom for? Why does anybody want wisdom? - to answer questions, and solve problems, to know how. We might illustrate by the story of an American firm who had a big engineering job done. When it had been completed the engineers sent in their account - simply a statement of a lump sum. When the firm looked at the account they were startled at the greatness of the charge, and sent it back with a request for details. So the engineers sent it back - Materials, so much (which was very small compared with the total cost); labour, so much (which again, put together with the material, did not come to half the total); knowing how - the balance. That is just the point - knowing how. Let us put it like this. Have you ever had a friend in whom you had absolute confidence? You had no question but that he knew how to get out of difficult situations or to solve problems. You have been with him when he has been put into the biggest situation you could imagine. It might be a debate, an argument. The opposition has piled up its case, argument upon argument, problem upon problem, and all the time you have been watching your friend and having no question but that he was going to get out of the difficulty. You have been tense with expectation but completely confident of the result. You have been saying to yourself, 'I know he will get out of it: but how? How will he face this, how will he answer that?'

That is exactly what is here. On the one hand there are the principalities and powers, the celestial kingdom, angels and archangels of light, heavenly beings having absolute and unreserved confidence in God and knowing quite well that He has the key to everything. On the other hand there is this immense situation built up by Satan's interference, by all that has come in through sin - the whole state of things in God's universe, and man's helplessness and inability to contribute anything towards extricating himself. The situation requires something tremendous in order that eventually the universe shall be filled with the glory of God. All these angelic beings are watching, almost holding their breath, as if asking, 'How will He do it?' And they watch what God is doing in you and in me and find their answer there. They watch grace at work; for it is written that we should be "to the praise of the glory of his grace" (Eph. 1:6).

How will He solve the problem of an individual life? The very constitution of the one concerned is contrary to God, and yet something is happening in that life that is making it contrary to itself, not according to nature at all. There is the most impatient person that ever you could touch; but look! Grace is making a most impatient person patient and gentle, forbearing and long-suffering. There is one naturally hot-tempered, who would flare up at the least word; grace is making him quiet and calm. I sat by a brother in Minneapolis who was dealing with a bit of intricate apparatus, a recording instrument, and all his wires had got into a terrible tangle, requiring hours of unravelling. I sat by him while he went to work quietly, just as though he had all eternity for his task. He said, 'You know, brother, before I was converted I would have lost my temper.' Grace! And the heavenly beings are looking on, seeing the wonder of the grace of God, what He is doing in this life, and in that life, making them altogether other than what they are naturally. "Manifold" - yes, 'many-sided'; the wisdom of God has to find a solution to many problems, as many as there are persons concerned, and the grace of God is sufficient for it all; and so there is worship. The Lord may be more concerned to get glory to Himself in His universe by the expression of His grace in us, than by the number of things we are doing for Him. So we have to wait, see no fruit, and find all kinds of frustration and disappointment. 'Not here, but there.' But, mark you, the manifestation is not only in some distant time - "now unto the principalities and powers." It is going on now.

The Supreme Age - 'Not Now' but the Ages to Come

We come to the other aspect - 'not now, but then.' "Who... will hearken and hear for the time to come?" We cannot stay with the context to indicate what it refers to, but there is the point - "for the time to come." This is where one of the things that we believe needs to be brought much nearer. After all, do we believe 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, and that our whole lifetime on earth, however long it may be, is only a mere 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 and of buying up opportunities and redeeming the time; but, nevertheless, when we have done all that is possible and used every moment fully, our life is but a span which is gone; and just as we are getting to the place where we might have something to give, when we have learned something that might be of value to people here, we depart. What an enigma life is, what a problem! "For the time to come." You notice the Apostles - they always had their eye upon that. "I will give diligence that... ye may be able after my decease..." said one of them (2 Pet. 1:15). That is the real test - whether we want to be always in view, and unless we do something, and do it in our lifetime, we have no interest in that thing at all. Yet you will be prepared tomorrow to go to China or India and serve the Lord for a few weeks and lay down your life, either in martyrdom or in sickness. The question arises, Will it be worth it? Many a young man has volunteered in the hour of crisis and national need, facing what was probably inevitable - a few days on the battlefield, and then life's end. He thought it worth while, he was prepared for it. You are prepared for that. Why? - "for the time to come," for the afterward. Is that it? If we did not believe really in some afterward, that the cost was worth the afterward, we would not do what we do. You believe it will be worth while in the afterward to go out just for a month to India and die, do you? If you do not, you have no right to go.

The Inspiration of an 'Afterward'

"For the time to come." Let us have "the time to come" as a real motive in living. The fruit will not all be immediate; only a mere fragment of the meaning of things can be in our day. The whole mass of value is to appear again afterward. We have to live not only for this time, because, though we live right up to the hilt for our own time, we cannot do or be much, and I doubt whether the outcome here is worth the cost. All this cost just for a lifetime? No, for a time to come; and it may be that the Lord is dealing with us as He is, not chiefly for now - though perhaps there may be much even in this present age. This present is the seed plot out of which there is to come much more later on. He has in view "the ages of the ages." Eph 3:10 says, "now unto principalities... the manifold wisdom of God." Yes, but Eph. 2:7 says, "in the ages to come... the exceeding riches of His grace..."

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1948, Vol 26-5

The Ordinances of Heaven

"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory! And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So I said: Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said: Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us? Then I said, Here am I! Send me. And He said, Go, and tell this people: Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed. (Isaiah 6:1-10).

I have... appointed the ordinances of heaven (Jer. 33:25).

Standing back for a moment from any particular portion of the Word of God, and taking into consideration its whole tenor and teaching, there is one thing with which we find ourselves, and that is this: that if we are to have God in fulness, with all that that means, we must have that which God has revealed as His mind. That is a very general statement, but also it is particular. We must provide God with that which He has prescribed as His basis and His means for the expression of Himself in fulness. If we only give God parts of what He has shown to be His requirement, we only have God in that measure. Every increase of the Lord will come along the line of His being given what He has indicated as the thing that He requires. Fulness of divine life and light and glory and riches moves along divinely appointed ways, and we cannot have that fulness in any other way.

Paul was instrumental in bringing in a full revelation as to Gods eternal counsels, and in connection with that revelation we find ourselves in the presence of a greater fulness of the Lord than anywhere else. No one will question that, when you come to Pauls written ministry, you are in the presence of vastness, fulness, depth. The measure of things has been immensely expanded in all directions. There is still plenty of room to move about in where Paul is concerned that we have not yet touched.

But what we must recognise - and this is the point for the moment - is that that fulness has come along certain clearly defined lines in relation to certain specified things, and it would not come otherwise, it could not come otherwise. Gods means are indispensable to Gods ends. Isaiah 6 brings to us remarkably and strikingly the four major factors in divine revelation related to the full committal of Himself on the part of God; they are clearly marked. Two of them are mentioned in verse 1  I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne  His train filled the temple. In verse 5 we have what the first of those means - My eyes have seen the King. Put the Throne and the King together, they are one thing. The Throne, the Temple. Verse 6, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. Then in verse 8, I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I; send me. The four major factors of divine revelation are the Throne, the Temple, the Altar and the Ministry, ministry of course of this kind, and they relate inseparably to divine fulness.

Just by way of indicating, before we speak more specifically of these four things, the sovereignty of God operates in relation to one thing, one supreme and ultimate object and end: that is the fulness of Christ, ...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). The divine sovereignty operates in many ways, and it would be a fascinating half an hour even to look at the many ways clearly defined along which the sovereignty of God moves, but whatever the ways of that sovereignty, however many and diverse, the goal and object is one; what Paul calls the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph. 3:11). Divine sovereignty, then, is moving to that end, and now because in the case of Israel the divine end is challenged, the state of the people generally makes it impossible for God to move through them toward that end. He acts sovereignly, and this is a sovereign ministry through Isaiah of blinding and deafening and hardening in order to secure that people from amongst them who will see and do see and hear and understand and embody the Lords full thought. It is sovereignty operating toward Gods end to have a people, and when that end, that wonderful end, the divine fulness in a people, is brought into view, these four things are set forth and laid down as basic and fundamental: the throne, the temple, the altar and the ministry. As we look at them separately, we shall see, I think, how that is.

The Throne

The first, the Throne - and it is always the first; the King. My eyes have seen the King. I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne. When God is moving in relation to fulness, that is the first thing always. Take the book of the Acts. What is the first thing in relation to spiritual fulness? It is the Lord Jesus exalted, on the Throne. That is their message, that is the beginning of everything. God highly exalted Him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name (Phil. 2:9). He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named (Eph. 1:20,21). That is where the church takes its rise. It is from that point that everything begins - the absolute and unquestioned sovereignty of the Lord Jesus where those are concerned who are brought into the eternal counsels, the eternal purpose.

Among the various designations which the apostle Paul (the apostle of spiritual fulness) took for himself, was the designation herald. The word is not so translated in our versions, unfortunately, but wherever you find the word preacher or preaching or preached you have in the original the word herald, heralding. Paul actually called himself that in both of his letters to Timothy, once in each. I was appointed a herald (1 Tim. 2:7); Whereunto I was appointed a herald (2 Tim. 1:11). Our version is a preacher, and the original idea of the herald was one who was called upon to make an official proclamation. He might be sent by the king to make a royal proclamation, or by a prince or by a magistrate or by a military governor, but it was an official proclamation he was called upon to make. Paul used that word in 2 Cor. 4:5: We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, we herald Christ Jesus as Lord, we make the proclamation that Christ Jesus is Lord, and the herald made his proclamation, and he did not ask anybody if they would accept what he announced; he did not make it optional at all. You can do what you like about it. You have to recognise this fact. What you do is your responsibility. This is Gods fact. God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified (Acts 2:36).

All that is meant by Christ as absolute Lord in the appointment of God, in Headship, the Head of every man, the Head of the creation, and Head over all things to the church - all that which we have not yet ranged and understood, but all that that means of the perfect Headship, sovereign Lordship, of Jesus Christ in all things, in every detail, is the first basic factor to spiritual fulness. In so far as He has His place in us and in our affairs, that will determine our measure of spiritual fulness, or the measure in which God is with us. The measure of God in fulness is the measure in which Christ is Lord. Of course, that is so familiar to you, that you wonder why there is so much emphasis, but there it is.

Now you can understand why it comes here in Isaiah 6, and point is given to it here because this is set over against Uzziahs presumption. In the year that king Uzziah died... And you know the story of Uzziah. Uzziah was a great king and brought Israel up to a very high standard, and while he was right, God prospered him until his heart was lifted up (2 Chron. 26:16), until pride arose within him, and then he went into the temple of God and approached the altar with incense. The priests appealed to him, pleaded with him, urged him. It pertains not unto you, Uzziah; but he proceeded, he asserted himself in his pride, he presumed upon his kingship, and there he was smitten with leprosy and went out white and leprous, and died a leper. In the year that king Uzziah died, in the year that that presumptuous kind of kingship was smitten, in the year that that assertive headship of man was stricken, in the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, highly lifted up... My eyes have seen the King, and everything is Holy, holy, holy. That could be more literally and properly translated: 'Exalted, exalted, exalted, is the Lord of hosts'. It is the dethronement of every other lordship, every rival lordship, every assertive lordship and headship, everything that presses into the things of God, taking the place of the one Lord.

Dr. Campbell Morgan calls Isaiah the prophet of the theocracy - that is, God is King. He works out his analysis on that principle right through these prophecies. Is Israel failing to give God His place? Then, like Uzziah, Israel must be set aside, and another brought in giving God His place. It means a great deal more than we mean when we say that we make Jesus King and we recognize that He is Lord, and we want Him to be Lord. But most of our troubles come along that line. We have not such absolute confidence in His Lordship, in His wisdom, the sovereignty of His wisdom, the sovereignty of His love. We have not such confidence as to make it impossible for us to have any quarrels with the Lord, disputes, controversies. The Lord is taking a way with us and we do not like it, and we feel very bad about it, and we get ourselves into trouble with the Lord because His sovereign wisdom is choosing a course that is not the one that we would choose, to say the least of it, and while these controversies go on, we say, The Lord does not seem to be interested in us, why should we take His interests to heart? We just give it up, do nothing about it.

While there is anything like that, we are at a standstill spiritually; there can be no possible increase of divine fulness, no possible committal of Himself to us in any further measure. It is all hanging upon this question of His Lordship. It is not till we get down before the Lord and say, "However it seems and whatever I feel about it, You Lord, must have your way; I must get out of Your way, I must come into line with you." We must really deal with the Lord like that. When that is true and thorough, it will be like the opening of a brass gate. There will be spiritual enlargement and growth on our part, and usefulness to the Lord. This kind of ministry is bound to be the end of it all. When He is Lord, there is a ministry of value to Him, serving His sovereign purpose. It begins with the Throne. Exalted, exalted, exalted is the Lord of hosts.

The House of God

The temple, the house of God. That is the place where God has all His rights, where God is ceded His rights. Now, not to take a lot of time in talking about the temple, let us go right over to the spiritual counterpart of this temple in the New Testament. When we come into the book of the Acts, where first of all He is Lord, the Kingship is established, is settled. The next thing is the house of God, the church, the spiritual temple, but you do not find that the temple is that thing in Jerusalem called the temple by the Jews. Neither is it the upper room where the apostles are meeting. What is it? It is the people themselves. This is a very mobile temple. It is moving up and down the streets, round and round Jerusalem from house to house. It is the people. I do not know where it was that they brought the proceeds of their sales of properties, goods and chattels, and laid them at the apostles feet, but I do know that there judicial ministry was fulfilled. The Holy Ghost brought in the judicial element.

Ananias and Sapphira met God the Holy Ghost. You have not lied unto men, but unto God. That could have happened anywhere in Jerusalem, out of doors or indoors, because the temple was no longer in one place, one building. It was a people, a people constituted by and on the ground of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Where He is Lord, there is His House, the place where He has His rights. So the temple now in this dispensation is a people gathered into the Name of the Lord Jesus, two or three the minimum, representing the corporate principle. One person cannot represent the temple of God in that full divine sense. Of course, our bodies individually are temples of the Holy Ghost, but that is another meaning from the house of God in the corporate full sense. So there must be the corporate indicated by two or three as a basis, gathered into the Name.

You know the way in which that Name was used at the beginning. In the name of Jesus. They were challenged - In what name have you done this? (Acts 4:7). In the name of Jesus Christ, and God was committing Himself in that Name, and the church was that constituted by the Name which is the Name of the Lord, the King. If the Lord is given this second thing in reality - not a congregation, not just a company of people, a number of people congregating in any given place, but a true corporate entity gathering into the Name of Jesus on the ground of His Lordship - you know spiritual fulness, increase. There you will have riches, life, light, glory and wealth. Outwardly it is a very simple thing. Inwardly it is a very radical thing to be found in organic union with other believers constituted by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, Whose business it is to honour the Name of the Lord Jesus. And Ananias and Sapphira met the Holy Ghost as the custodian of the Lordship of Christ, and the Holy Ghost exercised that custodianship in the midst of a company, a people who were constituted by His Lordship, who met upon the ground of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

What is the church? It is that which is organically built upon the Name, to which He gives His name. That opens a lot of Old Testament content, as you know - the place of the Name. But just to return to where we started, we said that if we give God what He has laid down and revealed as requisite to His full thought, He comes in on that in fulness. Give God a true spiritual expression of His Son corporately, the House of God which is only Christ corporate, and you find that more than ordinary life and light and spiritual wealth will be found there amongst those people.

The Cross

Thirdly, the altar. A live coal... taken with the tongs from off the altar. Here is another essential to God. He must have it; He has revealed this as indispensable. What is the immediate value and significance of the altar as indicated in this chapter, and capable of such wide expansion by the Word of God? Well, the altar, of course, is the Old Testament name for the New Testament Cross. But its immediate effect and value is this, that it is that which makes suitable for Gods house and Gods service. Isaiah saw the Lord, My eyes have seen the King. He saw the temple, the place where God is ceded all His rights, Woe is me! for I am undone. 'I cannot stand here in the presence of this Lord, I cannot enter this temple, I am undone.' I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. A touch of the altar made him suitable for the presence of the Lord and for the house of the Lord. It dealt with the condition which set him aside and ruled him out. It made possible his coming into the place of the thrice-exalted Lord, where all Gods rights were secured to Him. This has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away - by the altar, by the Cross, by its touch.

Your iniquity is taken away. That word iniquity is the word perversity. Uzziah the perverse; Israel, the perverse; Isaiah was involved in the state of perversity in the nation and was infected himself by that perversity, and with God perversity goes right to the very root of evil. God does not look upon us as just perverse little children. We may look at a little child and say, a very perverse child and make excuses, but God never looks at perversity like that. God, in all perversity, sees its whole history. He sees at a glance the history of that right back up there to the next one on the other side of His Throne, that covering cherub, Lucifer, Son of the Morning; perversity entering into him and heaven, and then later earth being wrecked and ruined by that iniquity. Till iniquity was found in you (Ezek. 28:15). That is the word of our Authorized translation. Until perversity was found in you. God sees the whole history of perversity, traces it back to its source and says, This thing is of the devil, and its meaning is rivalry to the very Throne of God. I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God - the perversity of Lucifer and his iniquity.

That very root of Satan in our natures which shows itself in every kind of rebellion, every bit of perversity, has been dealt with in the Cross. You cannot possibly be perverse in the presence of His absolute Lordship. The two things cannot go together. He cannot be King and you be king at the same time. Heaven could not contain two supreme lords, one had to go. And Gods house cannot have two lordships, two wills, two minds; there is only one here.

The Cross deals with the thing that is rivalling God. A rival to God, another will, another mind, another heart, another way - the Cross deals with that and brings us into the place where all His rights are secured. It breaks down all perversity. Uzziahs perversity brought on him leprosy, and then death. Isaiah recognised his perversity and submitted: I am undone. He did not assert himself; he went down in the dust before the Lord and was cleansed and became a living messenger of God.

In so far as the Lord has what is meant by the altar, the Cross, provided for Him by you and by me, that is the measure of divine fulness and only the measure of divine fullness. And if the Lord is going to get greater fulness in us and if at length the church which is His Body is going to be the fulness of Him that fills all in all, then the Cross will be very utterly applied to that church and to every member thereof. If God is going to secure this body - call it the remnant if you like - this representative company for His full expression, there will be the Cross applied; dealing all the way along with every bit of perversity, resistance, contrariness and everything that is not yielded to the Lord, to make us suitable for that spiritual house which is the fulness of Him.

The Resultant Ministry

Finally, the ministry. Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Who? Those who have come under the Lordship, who have met the power of the Cross, the altar and who have come into the house of God in this spiritual way - such will fulfil the ministry, such as know that their iniquity is taken away and their sin forgiven. Oh, what a blessed suggestion there is here. You see, the year that Uzziah died was a Jubilee year, and the Jubilee commenced on the evening of the day of atonement. And in the year that king Uzziah died the Lord said to Isaiah, Your sin is atoned for. Atoned is the word in the original; ours is an unfortunate translation. Your sin is atoned for  even better than forgiven. It is atoned for. It is the word here for atonement, covered some translations put it.

What is atonement? It is covering. Your sin is atoned for. On the eve of the day of Atonement, when Uzziah died because his sin was not forgiven, Isaiah lived and came into new ministry because his sin was atoned for. One exalted himself and there was no atonement; one humbled himself and there was atonement. These are they who can fulfil the ministry, who can respond to the divine need. This was not Isaiahs call to the ministry; that had come some time before and he had fulfilled ministry. This is his new commission. It was as a consequence of these other things to which we have referred that Isaiah was able to say, Then said I, Here am I; send me. When? When I had been made suitable by the Cross for a place in the house of God where only God is known as Lord. When that was so, then I said, Here am I; send me, and He said, Go.

But do not let us take hold of that wrongly in this way, that we are waiting to be made suitable. The Cross is an accomplished fact. It was accomplished long ago, and in Gods mind we were crucified with Christ. All we have to do is to step back two thousand years and say, it happened then; not, it is going to happen tomorrow. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I... but Christ. It is something already done to be stepped into, and when we stand by faith into that position, He can say, Go!

This ministry, this new commission which came to Isaiah was not a pleasant one. It was judicial. Shut their eyes. The word is really, Smear over their eyes. Make their ears heavy. Make the heart of this people fat. Take measures so that now, if they want to, they will not be able to; take away their ability. Terrible! I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery... that a hardening in part has befallen Israel, until... (Rom. 11:25). There is an until at the end of this chapter. Until what? Well, two things. All that has hindered God has been thoroughly dealt with; the other, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, until God has that object of His sovereign purpose from all eternity; then all Israel shall be saved. God has taken out of the nations a people for His Name: that church, which is neither Jew nor Greek and not a conglomeration of them all, but none of them at all. It is Christ as all and in all, Christ corporately expressed; that is the church, the people for His Name.

Isaiahs ministry, under the sovereignty of God, was not, after all, so negative as it looked. It was positive in its object, really only to get out of the way the obstruction to make way for His end. Whatever effect the ministry may have, Gods purpose is always positive. It is toward that end of His eternal counsels: the fulness of His Son in a people. That is the ministry which lies to your hand and to mine, in many ways, various ways, diverse ways. That is the ministry. That is there, so to speak, suspended, waiting. Listen to that. Believe that. It is true. You are called to the ministry, every one of you. You have to do nothing in an ecclesiastical or official way to be a minister. You need take no title; you need be given no title. You are called to the ministry of bringing a contribution of some kind toward that ultimate fulness of Christ in one of hundreds of ways, as many ways and many more ways than there are people here this afternoon; called to the one ministry, and it is waiting there. The voice of God is saying, Who? There is only one thing that stands in the way of your response. That is the Lordship of Jesus Christ established by the Cross, making us suitable to have a place in that house of God which serves the rights of God and brings to Him His rights.

Then said I... When? It is suspended. God invites us, He is inviting us to the ministry. Who? Here is an invitation to the ministry, but there is a then about it. We cannot respond until all this quarrel with the Lord, these controversies with the Lord, all this perversity, all this recalcitrance, is ended and He is Lord. The Cross has touched perversity and put it away, it is all dealt with by the Cross. Then we are able, we are allowed, to say, "Here am I, send me" and He will say to you, "Yes, go". May the Lord find us in positive value to Himself.

Partners

Transcribed from a message given by T. Austin-Sparks in 1958.

In the letter to the Hebrews chapter 3 and the first verse:

"Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus."

I want to put a ring round that fourth word: "partakers" - of a heavenly calling. That is, for the moment, the purpose of this brief meditation; the focal point. But, as you see, it is in the course of a process suggested by the first word of the sentence, 'wherefore'. It is a matter of common knowledge that this letter to the Hebrews is one full of comparisons and contrasts. They are very many. At this point they relate to two houses and two people responsible for and in those two houses. Two houses, as you notice in the immediately following words, on the one side, in the first place, that of Moses in which he was faithful as a servant. On the other side, the house of Jesus in which He is Son and over which He is Head.

The word 'house' of course, is more literally 'an economy', an order of God in this dispensation. So on the one side there is the earthly house, on the other side the heavenly in contrast. On one side the temporal, on the other side the spiritual. On the one side, as it says 'that which came through angels'; on the other side, that which has come through God's Son. The whole letter has that as its object; the superiority, the greatness of the latter over the former.

These words with which this chapter begins tell us something or indicate something as to the constitution of this heavenly, spiritual, so much superior house, when it uses these words: "wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling". Holy brethren... they constitute this house. The holy house then, is comprised and composed of those who are separated from one whole system, realm and nature, unto God; unto another order. Separated from the world, from sin, from death; that is the meaning of the word 'holy', holy - separated.

Brethren - holy brethren. Beautiful title for the house of God! A family of holy ones, of separated ones. This is the superior nature of THIS house. We would like to stay much with that because there's much said about it earlier, about Christ singing in the midst of His brethren and not ashamed to call them brethren, saying "I and the children which God has given me" and so on, all leading up to this: 'holy brethren...' The heavenly, spiritual house is a house of sanctified brothers and sisters. It's a HOLY FAMILY.

But then we come to the special point for the moment, the particular designation and conception of those who are of this house. "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers..." - an unfortunate translation. In the original it is "partners". Partners - the same word occurs in Luke 5:7 about the disciples and the fishes, "they beckoned unto their partners". That is exactly the same word here; why did they want to change it into partakers instead of saying, "wherefore, holy brethren, PARTNERS of a heavenly calling"? There are many designations in the Word of God of the Lord's servants. We're familiar with bond slaves of Jesus Christ, ministers of Christ, stewards of the mystery, fellow-workers; and so we could go on - a great number of titles and conceptions of the Lord's servants in the Lord's house. But here is one by itself. And if we could really just catch its peculiar and particular meaning to see that it goes a little further than many of the others... Practically all of those other titles carry the idea of delegated responsibility. A servant, for instance, well, he is entrusted as a servant with responsibility. A steward, he is entrusted with resources, it's something delegated to him. And so all the other titles have that idea bound up with them. But here is something which goes beyond - PARTNERS! Partners in a heavenly calling... brought into partnership with Christ and with one another concerning this house. This house is a partnership.

I'm quite sure, dear friends, that you are impressed almost every day that you live with the difference between an employee and a partner. We all see it, it shouts at us everywhere. I've been in the house in Kilcreggan during this week while the work has been going on. The employees have been at work. They think nothing of working and then going off to their meal and leaving ALL the electric light on! I saw a young fellow with a large light on, working, putting on his coat and making for the door. I said to him, "Where are you going?" "Going home to dinner." "Why leave the light on?" "Oh, I never thought about that!" You see, "employee" is one thing - I felt the hurt, I've got to meet the liabilities and all that. If he had been a partner - a partner, a co-owner - he'd have been very, very careful about that house, about all sorts of little details, because as a partner he is involved in all the liabilities. There's all that difference, it may seem very simple, but there's ALL that difference in the house of God between employees (servants, in a sense) and partners. And seeing that the partnership here spoken of is a FAMILY affair, the family is in partnership over the house, over the economy, over the order; a joint family responsibility - that's what's here. A joint FAMILY responsibility for this house.

It brings the house very near to the heart doesn't it? To REAL concern, REAL watchfulness, REAL jealousy. We're INVOLVED as partners! You see, the losses are going to be our losses, they're not the losses of the boss, the owner, someone for whom we're working and he's got to bear that; they're OUR losses. The gains are OUR gains! We are so deeply in this house matter that what touches it, touches us. The losses and the gains, everything to do with it is a matter of our very life, our very life. Joint responsibility, because, and it's a tremendous thing when we hear it said here, GOD'S house - God's house, yes it's the house of God and yet it's our house - it's our house. Whose house are we? And it is said we are heirs of God and JOINT heirs with Jesus Christ; this is our house, it is a joint ownership. It belongs to us in a spiritual sense, it's a part of us and we are joint sharers in all the interests of this house.

I put my ring round the word 'partners'; it's all I want to say, you think about it. It conveys a lot. I think it goes to the heart of everything, it really does. It's a beautiful idea, we are no longer just employees of the Lord - servants in that official or professional sense - we are partners. Think about those disciples in partnership on the lake, I'm quite sure that what affected one boat, affected all the partners. What affected one partner affected all the others. It was a joint thing and the loss of any part was the loss to the whole; the gain to any part was the gain to the whole. And when one boat was nigh unto sinking by reason of the greatness of the draught of the fishes, they didn't keep it all to themselves, their blessing; they beckoned unto their partners - they shared their blessing. That's the house of God.

May He just convey to us His own meaning in this: "holy brethren, partners in a heavenly calling".

The Peril of Divided Loyalties

Reading: 1 Sam. 31:1-13; 2 Sam. 1:17-27.

It is around Jonathan that our thoughts are gathered at this time. His is a strange and very pathetic story and raises a matter which is perhaps more difficult to resolve than most - the whole question of divided loyalties.

We take a cursory glance at Jonathan and his father Saul, and we see a good many variations in their histories; strange mixture, many conflicting and contradictory features. Sometimes both of them seem to be in the full flood of Divine blessing and help. At one time you find Saul moving out and subduing all his enemies round about, seeming to be in a tide of spiritual life and power and help from the Lord, and then at another time you see situations such as the one we have just read, with everything in reverse - defeat, failure, tragedy. So also with Jonathan. There was at least one outstanding occasion when with his armourbearer he went out and made that great assault upon the Philistines, issuing in the complete demoralization of the Philistines so that they fled before Israel. Clearly the Lord was with Jonathan on that day in great fulness and blessing. Then you come to the story we have just read - complete reverse. Taking such an inconsistent and contradictory history, you have to get down into it and behind it and ask some basic questions.

The Lord Not Prejudiced Against People As such

But we must first of all look at it from the Lord's side; and what I see as coming up out of this whole story in the first place is this, that the Lord has no prejudices against people as such. When a man is, even if only temporarily, stretched out for the Lord's interests and abandoned to His honour and glory, although the Lord knows a great deal more about him as to origins or as to ultimates and knows perhaps the failure that is coming later, yet for that time the Lord shows that He is not prejudiced against the man. He is with him while and when he is utterly for the Lord. There were times when even Saul surmounted that other side of his nature and seemed to be set upon the Lord's interests, and it is quite clear that Jonathan was like that. The Lord knew what the end would be and what was deeper down in the heart, but for that time He showed that He was not prejudiced against the individuals. It is a tremendous thing for us to realize, that "the Lord is with you while ye be with him" (2 Chron. 15:2). In spite of a lot that the Lord knows about us, and of the fact that He knows the end from the beginning, He is right there to give us a full chance and a full blessing, immediately we are utterly for Him. It is a thing to lay in store.

God Cannot Compromise on Principle

But while that is true, what comes out in the life of both Saul and Jonathan is that God cannot compromise on principle. When principles are contravened He cannot stand by the people concerned. Sooner or later it will be manifested that, while the Lord loves the people, He cannot support the wrong principles which are governing their lives. That will be the key to this whole situation, as we shall see as we go on.

No Compromise with the Self-Principle

Now, deep down in Saul there was the self-principle active; there is no doubt about it; and, although at times he seemed to rise above it and to have the Lord's interests at heart, that self-principle was recurrent, and when put to the final test with Amalek in Chapter 15, we find that it asserted itself again. That was the turning point, where the Lord rejected Saul and finally in intention passed the kingdom from him to David. The self-principle goes too deep for the Lord to regard it lightly. It is not just a matter of the person. It is there that the link with an entirely antagonistic spiritual system is found. Amalek was such a link. Amalek had stood in the way of Israel when they came out of Egypt and were making for the land. They had stood across their path in the attempt to frustrate the Lord's intentions of spiritual fulness for Israel, and that very people Amalek were the test case for Saul as to whether he was really wholly set upon the Lord or whether he had personal interests. When, through Samuel, the Lord commanded Saul to destroy every vestige of Amalek, leaving nothing alive, Saul reserved the best of the herd and the flock. He discriminated according to human judgment, to keep something that he fancied, that he thought was good. He set his own judgment over against the judgment of the Lord because of this self-principle that was in him, thus proving that in principle he was one with Amalek, that is, he was not set upon all that the Lord was after. The Lord was seeking to bring Israel into the land, that is, to spiritual fulness. Amalek said 'No'. Saul and Amalek found themselves one in principle. He spared them. But see what Samuel does to Agag, king of the Amalekites! - he hews him in pieces before the Lord. There is no compromise there.

The Self-Principle Links With the Kingdom of Satan

The self-principle goes so deep as to link with not just another nation, but with the spiritual domination of false principles that are standing right in the way of spiritual fulness. Any self-interest is Amalek straddled across the path which leads to spiritual fulness. It is not just a little bit of childish selfishness to be excused and pardoned. It goes right deep down to the kingdom of Satan, and God cannot compromise on a principle that gives Satan an opportunity to frustrate His full purpose in Christ. So God sees where this thing comes from, not just the form of its present manifestation. It comes from the devil, and the devil is all the time out to cut across the way of spiritual fulness. The Lord, knowing that, cannot compromise. We have to be quite sure that the background is wholly according to the Lord's mind, or all our fighting against what we think to be the Lord's enemies will only bring disaster upon ourselves, as in the story of Saul.

Divided Loyalties Issue in Disaster

Now take Jonathan. Even he can be involved at last in the awful tragedy of compromise. It is one of the saddest stories. We all want to shed tears when we read David's lament over Jonathan. We remember the beginnings of the relationship between David and Jonathan, how their souls were knit together. Their story is always being taken as a kind of classic and model of friendship, and yet even there there were divided loyalties in the case of Jonathan - loyalty to the realm of nature, to his father after the flesh, straining against his loyalty to David, and causing him to be a divided personality. When he is with his father, his heart is with David. When he is with David, he feels the pull of duty to his father. He is a divided man. What a problem divided loyalties present!

Jonathan must have known all about that Amalek episode and what Samuel did; that in the Divine intent the kingdom was then taken from Saul and passed to David; that the Lord forsook Saul and was no longer with him. He may have known of the consultation with the witch, the touching of that realm forbidden so strongly by the Lord. And yet, on natural grounds of some kind, Jonathan did not break with that whole system of things. What a different story might have been told if he had taken sides wholly with David and been David's right hand man for the kingdom! But this divided loyalty involved him in the ultimate tragedy. And even good people who have been blessed of the Lord, to whom He has shown His favour and whom He has used very greatly, may in the end be involved in spiritual tragedy if for some reason compromise has entered in. It may have come in because of policy. What a snare policy is! We tell ourselves we must be very careful that we do not do this or that because it may have such and such a result. It is all policy and diplomacy. 'We must be careful to avoid...' - what? just what we seek to avoid betrays the whole case. Are we afraid of losing prestige with men, support, friends, position, opportunity? Do these things weigh with us as over against implicit obedience to the Lord? If so, there is divided loyalty; and if we allow it, we may at the end pass into terrible tragedy; the tragedy that always follows compromise.

Divine Fulness Reached By Subjection to Divine Principles

The whole question of spiritual fulness is at stake. I have spoken of what might have been in the case of Jonathan. David came to the kingdom in fulness, and Jonathan might have been there at his side, his strength and support in the kingdom. But no; instead of that, he passes out in this tragic way. In a sense, there is nothing wrong with Jonathan; but he has become involved in compromise with another one and another instrument and another order of things, because he did not make a clean cut. It is not for us to judge why, but it does seem that it must have been that he argued on the ground of natural reasoning about this thing. What does it all amount to? If spiritual fulness is to be reached, we have to be governed by Divine and heavenly principles, and not by human considerations. Divine principles; not, What will the consequences be? not, What shall we lose? not even, What will the Lord lose? - because that is a very subtle argument. The Lord does not ask us to reason this thing out on that level at all. He says, 'What is the Divine principle? Let that principle govern and guide.' You may not see at all how it is going to work out. If you are governed by Divine principles you may seem to lose a lot here; you may, for a time, have to go out with David and wait. But in the end the principles will be vindicated. You have to recognise that compromise on principle only brings disaster. You see it everywhere.

Former Blessing No Argument for Present Compromise

The need is to seek to know what the Divine principle is in any matter. Has God revealed His own thought and mind? Then I must not pursue some other way on the ground that the Lord has blessed and the Lord has used that other way. That was true of Saul; that was true of Jonathan. But there came a point at which an ultimate issue was raised on principle by the revealing of God's full mind. Now I cannot argue that because people have been blessed and used of the Lord though they have not at given times and in given ways stood for that full mind, therefore it is not necessary for me to be abandoned to God's full thought. That is human argument. We must not do it. The Lord blesses when the heart is wholly for Him, but that does not mean that everything is there that He wants. The very people whom He is using He will presently bring to see something more of His will and how much more deeply His thoughts go. Then it is no less an issue than Amalek. Human judgment must be utterly put away, in the light of the Divine mind then revealed.

I have no doubt you can see through what I am saying a great deal more. If you do not grasp the whole thing, just take this as a guiding lesson in life, that where Divine fulness is concerned, the fact that the Lord blesses does not warrant us in arguing that we can stay in a certain position, that there is nothing more required. The point is, has the Lord revealed something more than is actually represented in the sphere where we have known His blessing? If so, it is for us to go on in the light of all that the Lord has revealed, and take the consequences. In the end it will be seen whether the principle was vindicated by God.

This story of Jonathan is, I say, a terribly pathetic and tragic story. No doubt he had a good argument for what he did, but he certainly did not argue from the heavenly standpoint. He did not say, 'God has made it perfectly clear that it is through David that His full purpose is to be realized. I knew from the beginning that David was the anointed, and not my father; I have had it confirmed again and again; I told David that he was going to have the throne and the kingdom; my heart is with him; and yet he is out there in the wilderness and I am here with my father. What am I doing here?' He did not argue, 'That is the direction in which the Lord's full purpose lies; it is for me to be there.' He doubtless had his arguments and his reasons and could probably have been very plausible as to why he was still sticking to his father and to the kingdom from which God had departed. He was compromising. His loyalty was divided and he was involved in the tragedy.

It is a fresh call to us to act on principle with the Lord and not to argue from any other standpoint, on any other ground. We must say, 'What has the Lord revealed? It will mean this, it will cost that, it will involve me thus; but that is not the point. I am not going to be influenced or governed by consequences at all. Policy must have no place with me. What God has revealed - that is the only argument for me.'

So Amalek became the occasion for bringing up the whole question of obedience to the Lord, involving the necessity for the setting aside of a great deal of natural judgment. "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?" (1 Sam: 15:22). Beyond all outward observance and profession, the Lord looks for full and uncompromising obedience to His revealed will.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Nov-Dec 1949, Vol 27-6

Priesthood and Life

What is a priest? He is not an official or a member of a religious caste, but a man who withstands death and ministers life. The one all-inclusive issue of the ages, the great purpose of God from eternity to eternity, can be described in New Testament language as eternal life. As soon as sin entered the world then death ensued, and so men needed an altar and the shedding of blood in order that sin could be countered by righteousness and death be overcome by divine life. Together with the altar there emerged the personal activity of a man called a priest, and so, as time went on, such service grew and grew until it developed into an elaborate priestly ministry.

Death as an active power could only be arrested, nullified and removed by having its ground of sin adequately dealt with, hence the priestly ministry of righteousness, the perfect righteousness of incorruptible life expressed by the blood of the offering. Israel was to be a nation of priests, a people based and grounded on God's own righteousness, and therefore able to face death and defeat it. The Church was called to take up this ministry. The Lord Jesus Himself foretold this by saying: "the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matthew 21:43). Peter later explained that redeemed sinners have entered into the spiritual calling, being the "chosen nation", the "royal priesthood" which has to undertake the great vocation of being God's ministers of life in the earth.

So we find that as members of Christ's body we have a relationship to Him, the great High Priest, which is analogous to that between Aaron and his sons who shared his work of priesthood. In the letter to the Hebrews, which deals with this subject, we have a kind of New Testament Leviticus. In this epistle believers are addressed as sons as well as "holy brethren", as though Christ regards us as His sons - "I and the children whom God has given me" (Hebrews 2:13). Through us, therefore, as members of Christ, the great high priestly work in heaven is to find expression here on earth. If we ask what is the significance of the Lord's continuous work as High Priest, the answer is to set life over against death, to nullify the operation and reign of spiritual death. The Church's great conflict is with spiritual death, and the more spiritual a man becomes, the more he is aware of the awful reality of this battle with the evil power of death.

No priest or Levite of the Old Testament was ever tempted to become lyrical on this subject or to talk in poetical language as though death were some sort of friend. Oh no, they knew death to be the great enemy of God and of all God's interests. When the Scriptures speak of death as the last enemy, they not only mean that it is the last on the list but that it is the consummate enemy, the inclusive expression of all enmity. The effect of priesthood is illustrated again and again in the Word of God. We observe death breaking in because of sin, and then God intervening with His answer of life by means of blood sacrifice. The blood speaks of an accepted righteousness, and by means of it, the priest was able to meet death, counter it and minister life. Finally we are told of the Lord Jesus, who met death in the concentration of all its enmity, overthrew it by means of the perfect sacrifice of His own life's blood, and then entered upon His priestly work of ministering life to believers.

The priest is a man of authority though this is spiritual and not ecclesiastical. He has power with God. The apostle John speaks of the case of one who has sinned a sin which is not unto death, and he says: "He shall ask life..." for him (1 John 5:16). This reference discloses that a believer who is standing on the ground of righteousness by faith through the blood of Jesus, can exercise the power of priesthood on behalf of an erring brother, and so minister life to him. Surely there is no ministry more needed on earth today than such a vitalising ministry. If we minister truths which do not issue in life, then we are wasting our time. God has not commissioned us to be mere imparters of information about divine things or teachers of morals; He has loosed us from our sins so that we might be ministers of life to others by virtue of priestly authority. We live in a world where death reigns. Daily there are multitudes being swept away by a tide of spiritual death. Why? Because of unrighteousness. What is needed is the activity of those who will accept their priestly responsibilities, both asking life for others and offering them that life through the gospel. We must minister Christ. Not mere doctrines about Him; not mere words or commandments; but the vital impact of Christ in terms of life. So every believer is called to stand between the dead and the living giving the answer of Christ to the activities of Satan.

No wonder that the kingdom of Satan was at war with Israel, for the presence of this nation on a right relationship with God proclaimed effectively that sin and death do not reign universally in God's world, but they have been met and overcome by the power of a righteous and incorruptible life. In the end Israel lost this testimony and so lost the priestly ministry. The Church was then brought in to take it up, being no longer a localised people in one land but a spiritual community scattered in all the earth, a people whose supreme calling is to maintain God's victory over death according to the testimony of Jesus. And what is the testimony of Jesus? It is the testimony of the triumph of life over death. He Himself so described it to John: "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and I have the keys of hell and of death" (Revelation 1:18).

This testimony was deposited in the Church, and immediately the disciples presented it powerfully among the nations. Alas! In many respects the Church is now failing in its priestly vocation. This vital element of victorious life seems to be lacking. The letters at the beginning of the book of Revelation show that Christ was not satisfied with the churches' many good activities, zealous works, correct teaching, patient persistence in orthodoxy. He sought to call them back to their true task of demonstrating the power of His overcoming life in the face of every challenge. What ministry do we want? To be running around taking meetings, giving addresses, supporting Christian work? All this may be included, but it is of little value if it does not fit into the context of priestly warfare against death, the bringing in of the powerful impact of Christ's victorious life to meet death's challenge.

The book of the Revelation makes it plain that such a testimony provokes the animosity of Satan, but such enmity should be a compliment to us, for it means that our lives are really counting for God. The day when you or I are no longer involved in the spiritual battle will be a bad day, for it will mean that we have lost our true vocation and are no longer providing any real challenge to spiritual death but are failing in this matter of priestly ministry. On the other hand, the painful antagonism of the powers of evil may be a clear proof that we are truly serving as priests.

Test everything by life. The life that is victorious over sin. The life which delivers from bondage, especially the bondage of fear. The life which expresses itself in terms of love for needy sinners. Not only does John encourage us to ask for life, he assures us that in answer to such prayer God will give it - "...he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death". We must not fail in our priestly ministry.

Responsibility For What We Have

"They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.... If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if one rise from the dead" (Luke 16:29,31).

That is a strange parable, or illustration, that our Lord gave about the rich man and the poor man and their places and conditions after having passed from this life! How much speculative teaching has been read into or made out of it! And yet, in truth, the Lord was not propounding a doctrine of life after death. Anything in that connection was quite incidental.

What He was really touching, as the context shows, is the matter of responsibility. Whenever He came into touch with the existing traditional religious system this was the issue which He deliberately raised and pressed. If the after-this-life factor does have a place in the above story - and it certainly does - it is this factor of responsibility which dominates the situation.

The rich man represents those who:

1. have had every facility and possibility of obtaining a wealth of the things of God:

2. have accumulated all that information, or a great deal of it:

3. have, by reason of it, come to a place of spiritual complacency, smugness, and contentment, or even pride and superiority:

4. have not grown spiritually although so well provided for:

5. have failed to realize that every bit of spiritual provision is a trust; it must not stay with them, but must enrich the needy always at the gate, as represented by the beggar - the sufferer, the suppliant, the hungry.

There is no need to spend many words in order to try to make the Lord's meaning clear. It just amounts to this:

A. Have we available to us those Divine resources, those riches of Christ, those ministries - personal or printed - which are intended by God to make us spiritually wealthy and of Christly stature?

B. If so, are they just THINGS to us, 'teachings', subjects, themes, 'lines of truth', Christian tradition, interesting and informative treatises, etc? How much are we REALLY 'growing thereby'?

C. What is the interest value to the Lord Who gave them? Do they stop at us, or is 'our profiting' the gain of others? Not the passing on of truth as such, but the value of our life with the Lord.

The Lord has been strong, almost severe in His warning that a very big responsibility lies at the door of everyone who is in touch with His Divine resources, and that what has issued from them will find us out in eternity.

From "A Witness and A Testimony" March-April 1953.

Republished July-August 1971.

Satan's Main Objective

The main objective of the forces of evil is by some means - no matter how - to rob the believer of real spiritual fighting force; not talking force, working force, organizing force, advertising force, holding-and-going-to-meeting force, listening-to-teaching force, soul force; but genuine fighting force in which the impact of the victory of the Christ of Calvary by the Cross is registered upon the forces back of the human and worldly elements - the "principalities and authorities, the world rulers of this darkness, and the hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenlies" (Ephesians 6:12).

Spiritual effectiveness is decided there, and not amongst the things seen. It is because of this that the enemy is well pleased amongst the spiritually superficial or unspiritual "Christians" to carry on a campaign of works and activities, programs, institutions, meetings, and churches... and allow or foster a certain kind of success imitative of good, but in which there is nothing that gets beyond time and earth and is lacking in that constituent which affects his hold upon the situation.

So many there are who seek to do God's work by natural capacity, or withhold from it because of lack of natural abilities. Human and natural force of mind, intellect, reason; status, position, influence; personality, acumen, training, advantage; temperament, disposition, constitution, etc. - these are the factors which are taken into account.

Whatever God may do through a man or a woman, employing any wholly sanctified mind or heart or will or resource within or without, it must be settled that the measure of spiritual effectiveness - the measure in which we count in the presence of the unseen forces - is just the measure in which we have come by the Cross to the place where we know - and live accordingly - that it is not in or of ourselves to serve God... that no resource of ours can count as an effectual basis... that God must do it in us and through us... and that all means, methods, forces, times, enablements must be out from Himself. Such was the lesson which God took great pains to teach Moses, Paul, and many other prophets, apostles, and men who had been most used.

The test question is not that which relates to influence amongst men - much or little - reputation, following, head-counting, full diaries, acceptableness, meetings attended and taken part in, teaching received, truth known, knowledge possessed, zeal demonstrated, suffering endured. It is not whether we are well known among men, but whether demons say, "Jesus I know, and __ I know." It is just how far the impact of Christ as Sovereign Lord is registered through His Body and its members upon the forces opposed to Him which are in back of all human conditions, and how far the registering of that sovereignty there makes its reaction upon the earth-situation as dominated by those hostile forces. We may be very much in action in all other kinds of work and - failing here - be really paralyzed; but we may be out of all other activities and counting in that realm - "labor more abundantly (and effectually) than they all."

The Servant and Service of the Lord

Reading: Exodus 21:1-6; Deuteronomy 15:12-17; Leviticus 8:14-28; Isaiah 50:4-5.

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches." (Revelation 3:20-22).

The Servant's Ear

You notice the common feature in all these passages is that of the ear. We are occupied with the matter of the servants and the service of the Lord, and it is not a little impressive to note how in the Word of God the ear has such an important place in the service of God. We need, of course, always to get an adequate background for any subject under consideration. It is very easy to make a Bible Reading of "ears," to gather up the "ears" of the Bible and form them into some ordered arrangement, but that is not sufficient. We want to get the range of things from the Divine standpoint and see how these things, are not just things in themselves, but they fit into something which is tremendous in its contemplation and application.

We might be helped to get this great background by reminding ourselves that the ruin, wreckage, all the misery and wretchedness, sin and sorrow, pain and suffering of every kind, all that has struck home to the very heart of God, all that has been a hand against His throne, all that has stood in the way to arrest His great eternal purpose, all that necessitated God giving His only and well beloved Son, all that made essential the Cross of Christ, and much more, is the direct result of an ear operating wrongly; all that was brought about by the capture of an ear by the enemy. The enemy in laying his plans to capture the race and the world and the place of authority for himself decided deliberately that the point of attack which would serve him best, would ever serve his interest most, would be the ear. And so he assailed the ear and made his insinuations by way of the ear. "Hath God said..." and all the rest followed. The ear was lent to the suggestion, to the insinuation; the ear was surrendered with these far reaching terrible consequences.

Now, beloved, that is only half of the story. The other half is this, that in the redemption of the world, in the redemption of mankind, in the re-capturing for God and for man of the government of the universe, in the overthrow of all that power and the destroying of all those works, God does it by capturing an ear. And these passages which we have read this evening, in type, relate to the ear of the Lord Jesus, that God had His ear. It was because God had His ear as He did have it that the rest followed.

You see you have got a tremendous principle there in this service and servant of the Lord, the Servant, greater than Whom there has never been a Servant of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Himself fulfilled His marvellous service, commission, His wonderful work, firstly by a surrendering of His ear to the Father. It was the law of the ear in relation to God that governed this Servant to begin with. Other things followed, as we shall see another time, but this was where it began, and while in His case it is so much more than it could ever be in the case of any other, yet the principle holds good for all the servants of God, that God is going to accomplish His heavenly purpose firstly by way of having an ear in His charge, under His control, in fellowship with Himself. And, if you and I are going to understand the nature of priestly ministry, we have got to come to know what it is to have our ear held by and for God. Now, of course, having established the background, or seen the range of this thing in principle, we can come down then to the illustrations of it, and can get the meaning of these various passages which have to do with the ear.

In the first of these passages in Exodus and Deuteronomy, the servant, the bondsman is brought in. Note one or two details. He is a Hebrew. He is not a stranger, he is a member of that race that has been delivered from slavery and bondage, whose covenant rights were liberty, but within the compass of a liberated people he is in bondage. He is a Hebrew. He is owned by a master. He serves that master for six years and then the seventh year, the year of jubilee, is the year of liberation. This bondsman comes to the day when his master is compelled to release him and let him go; he can hold him no longer so far as the law is concerned, and the bondsman is given his liberty. The master says to him, "Well, so and so, the time has come for you to take the liberty which is yours by right, to go out free, I can hold you no longer, there you are."

The bondsman turns to his master and says, "But there are stronger ties than law, there are mightier bonds than legalism, there are such things as heart ties, and it is those ties that hold me. I have long since ceased to be bound by law, I have become bound by love and I do not want to be released from that, I will not go out free, I choose deliberately on the basis of a heart relationship to be forever, not for another six years, not for another term of the law, not for twelve or eighteen years or any number of legal terms, I choose forever for the whole length of my life, to abide in this house and serve." That declaration must be formed into a covenant, sealed in blood. The master takes him to the threshold of the house and with an awl bores through his ear to the door-post and the blood falls upon the threshold, and that threshold has become an altar with blood sprinkled on it, and in that covenant of blood the master and the servant belong to the one household forever.

Now that is all very simple, all very beautiful, but you see it brings in the true nature of the servant and of service as represented by the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus was under no legal obligation to come and fulfil that service, but He fulfilled it. He did not come because He was legally compelled or judiciously bound to it. He did not come in a spirit of independence, that He would do this thing but, of course, He would do it if He liked, but could resign. No! He came on this basis - for love's sake, on the basis of love. He was the bond slave of Jehovah to carry out this work in relation to the House of God, and that service and servant was sealed in His own blood. The shedding of that blood was the outpouring of His life, the token that life and death were bound up with this fact. It was a matter of blood, a matter of life and death, and love led to that, and that was the nature of His relationship to His Father.

Now there are two things, beloved, to be noted. One, the significance of the ear in this matter. Why could it not have been anything else? Why not first of all let us give our hand upon it? When we make a pact we say we give our hand upon it. Why not some other member or some other instrumentality, why should the ear be the basic thing in this? Well, the answer I think is obvious. That you can never do anything with the hand, that you can never express your service by any other means until you have come into an intelligent apprehension of what is in the heart of the one to whom you are giving your service, whose servant you are. The working of the hand is dependent upon the knowledge of his will, and this ear coming into evidence in this connection is simply saying this - forever, voluntarily, utterly, on the basis of the strongest possible tie, the basis of love, I have no ear for any one else, my ear as the gateway of intelligence is yours.

You see this bored ear, beloved, stands right over that freelance, lawlessness of the Adam man who yielded to Satan. It was the lawlessness of the ear in Adam that brought the trouble, and when you take the awl and put it through the ear, the ear has become sealed in blood to another, and it is the taking back of this ear from the realm of lawlessness which has brought about all the ruin and all his power to do his work, taking it back completely and utterly, and putting it into the hand of God that the works of the devil shall never again have a chance along that line; from that moment the ear is God's ear.

Now, of course, we understand that we are not just talking about the physical ear, although that comes in. The believer must be careful about what the ear shall listen to. It is just that in the ordinary every day kind of way with the physical ear that the devil does get so many advantages. The gossip which we talk, the rumours and reports which, in themselves are so often mistaken and distorted by the people who spread them, believing that they are very truth, and we believe them to be the truth, and when the whole thing is sifted out there is very little truth in them at all, and the whole thing has been mistaken. The Word of God tells us to "take heed how ye hear."

In the physical sense it is true that our inner man is affected by our outward ear, but we are not only speaking of that, important as it is for us to safeguard our ears, the real service of the Lord is not just that physical realm, it is in that deeper inner ear which is open to the Lord and which is the Lord's. I mean that the Lord is given His place in the inner life to be allowed to speak, and other things are being shut out that the Lord may speak; and that is a thing which is basic to priestly service.

The man or woman who has no inner ear, no inner silence, no inner place for hearing the Lord is never going to be of much use in the service of the Lord, and mark you, it must be the Lord, and we must be very careful that we do not give even good men and good writers the place that the Lord ought to have.

There is a time when we must sweep our books aside, when we must shut ourselves up from the voices of men, when we must get quiet with the Lord and listen, and more, we must seek to cultivate, by the grace of God, the ear that is always open to the Lord even when all the other sounds are around us. It is difficult, yet not impossible, that in the raging of the street and the rush of business life the Lord should say something; but He will only speak to those who recognise the value of listening to the Lord and who are giving Him His place of silence to speak when possible. The ear to hear the Lord when all other sounds and voices are around us is prepared and trained in these times of detachment which the Lord demands, and against which the devil is eternally active to capture the ear again.

Now, that is elementary (we are not seeking to be profound), but tremendously important. You and I know, never mind how spiritually mature we are - the one object of the devil is to capture our ear from God, to make it impossible for us to have the silent hour and the silent ear for God. The pressing in, and all the things which happen just when you have decided to have a little quiet time; then it is you have to fight for the ear - you know it is true. Do you see, there is something bound up with that; the undoing of the work of the devil, the registration of God's mind upon this universe, everything which is meant by priestly ministry, which is bringing God in, is bound up with this: God having the ear.

There are two things to note, this is one. The other is this: with this Hebrew servant it was a crisis. There came the day when he made a decision, the thing reached a point of decision and that decision was one which involved him for all time. A crisis. The voluntary decision. Now, beloved, the point is this. We have got to come, we shall be compelled to come, to the place where we decide once and for all whether we are going to serve the Lord under compulsion, under a sense of legality, under a sense of duty, under some sense of conscience and we go on day by day and year by year, but if only we could be exempt, if only it need not be; the groaning under it, the groaning in the service of the Lord. We have to decide whether it is going to be because we must, or whether it is going to be our delight to do His will, our joy. That is a crisis, and this crisis represents the position of appreciation of the Master to which we have come. Are we bondslaves in the sort of conscientious legal sense, yes, that we are afraid to do otherwise, we must do it, we are compelled to do it for various reasons, it would be a disastrous thing to draw out and give it up. Whether that is the spirit or whether it is "I love my master, I will not go out free," represents a point of our estimation of the Lord, our appreciation of the Lord, our sense of indebtedness to the Lord, our recognition of the value of the Lord; and, beloved, the service that the Lord is seeking is not service which we have to be coerced to do, the service which we will not render unless we are invited to do it, the service which is not spontaneous but which is organised, and unless we are asked to take it up we do not do it.

Oh, that we should get some better idea of what the service of the Lord is than that it is platforms and pulpits and open-air meetings. Beloved, service for the Lord is just as important when it is rendering some kindly act of helpful service to some rather depressed child of God in the ordinary domestic things of daily life; just as valuable as getting on the platform and giving a message. You see it is strengthening the hands of the Lord's children, it is coming in to check the crushing overweight of the adversary, coming alongside to lift up the testimony in some life or home where the enemy is trying to crush the testimony out - and the testimony is something maintained in domestic relationships, in family life, private life. There are too many who want to give up their domestic service and go to Bible College, failing to recognise that that service there may be just as valuable to the Lord as their going out to the mission field. It is spiritual, not technical, not organised, and you may be as much a priest of the Lord in going round to some home tomorrow where the enemy is pressing in, and giving a practical hand in helping with the washing, as you may be a priest in standing on the platform. Let us revise our ideas of priestly service and not think it is bound up with public ministry in the service of the Lord. Not always, very often perhaps for the majority it is otherwise, for more are called to fulfil priestly ministry in that realm than in this realm. Do not neglect it. Let it be the spontaneity of love for the Lord, not the compulsion or sense of duty, not merely for conscience sake, for when the heart is rightly related to the Lord these things become spontaneous. They are not forced, they simply flow out. Find the person who has most of the love of God in their heart, that person is most concerned for the other children of God.

There are many priests of God whose voices have never been heard in public, who have never been seen in a public way, who are unknown, hidden very often in the assembly and yet in secret history fulfilling a most valuable ministry. Get adjusted over this thing. We have to come to the point where we deliberately decide as to whether the Lord is worthy of this, and abandon ourselves to it because of our appreciation of Him, the Master. You see, this servant abandons himself freely, voluntarily, for all time to the service of his master because he has come to love his master.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1932, Vol 10-2

The Servant of the Lord

In choosing a model of a servant of Christ, we instinctively turn to St. Paul. He seems to us to be the most outstanding in every way, and from the greatness of his achievements, the success of his methods, the amazement of his endurance, and his dominating objective, we must get back to his own conception of himself as a worker.

He has given us that conception in many significant and suggestive phrases, some of which we select at once. Not once only, but frequently, he refers to himself as "the servant of Jesus Christ."

Now I venture to say that a right understanding and apprehension of that word "servant" - as Paul used it - is calculated, without other designations, to revolutionize all of our work for the Master.

The actual word used by Paul was "bondslave," and by it we are thrown back into the social conditions of the world in those days. Slavery was a part of the social life of that time, and the readers of Paul's letters were all quite well acquainted with the ideas and customs connected with that system; indeed, some of those readers were slaves themselves. Paul looked upon himself as having been bought by Christ. He gloried in that ownership, and whenever opportunity presented itself he boasted that he was Christ's. To him that ownership was permanent. The slave was bound for life, and there could be no termination of the relationship or obligations.

The transaction was permanently marked by branding ("I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus"). Professor Mahaffy says:

"In the numerous records of manumissions found at Delphi and at other shrines in Greece, we have learned the legal process by which a slave gained his liberty. He did not bring his master his earnings and obtain his freedom with his receipt for the money, but went to the temple of the god and there paid in his money to the priests; who then with the money bought the slave from his master on the part of the god, and he became for the rest of his life a slave of the god. If at any future time his master or his master's heirs reclaimed him, he had the record of the transaction in the temple.... If he travelled from home and were seized as a runaway slave, what security could he have? Paul gives us the answer. When liberated at the temple, the priest branded him with the 'stigmata' of his new master, Apollo. Now Paul's words acquire a new and striking application. He had been the slave of sin; but he had been purchased by Christ, and his new liberty consisted in his being the slave of Christ. Henceforth, he says, let no man attempt to reclaim me; I have been marked with the brand of my new master, Jesus Christ."

On the one hand, this Pauline conception of the absolute and indelible proprietorship of Christ throws much of our modern "service" into striking contrast. Rather than being in willing, full, and free servitude, vassalage, and slavery to Christ, we often regard our service as a kind of religious holiday affair. We may be interested, we may be philanthropic, we may be condescending, or we may be dutiful, but we are certainly not under any compulsion. We can do pretty much as we like about it, and if things do not suit us, we can either "throw up" our work altogether or go where we shall be more appreciated or where things are smoother sailing.

So today, the "worker" too often makes the cause serve him or her instead of being the servant of the cause. Paul took his directions as to sphere, time, and kind of work from his Master, Christ, and relegated every concern to Him. He was not his own, and he could not use either his powers or his time as directed by the flesh.

But on the other hand, he was fully aware and convinced that this "slavery" to Christ was for him the greatest thing in the world. He had caught the true significance of the Master's invitation to "Take my yoke... and you shall find rest unto your souls." That, to Paul, meant control and direction for the most serviceable life.

The stream rushes aimlessly, frivolously, and noisily on until it is yoked by a water-wheel, and then - by its arrest - it grinds the grain to feed mankind. The wind blows wildly to no purpose on the sea until the mariner yokes it with his sail, and thus it is harnessed to bear the enriching cargoes from shore to shore. To capture the electricity which would otherwise be lost, we suspend our telegraph wires and direct it intelligently along them, bringing the whole world into an intimate association. And so, as in these and many other ways, the yoke is the symbol of useful control and serviceable direction. Paul knew that the yoke of Christ's service and association would make his life more fruitful than his own independence. There is a liberty which leads to havoc, ruin, uselessness, and remorse.

But the supreme element in Paul's abandonment to Christ was a strong, clear sense of what Christ had done for him... and a perpetual consciousness of what Christ was to him. There is nothing which makes slaves of us more than love, and it is an ecstatic and sublime slavery which never wants release, and only dreads that a breach might at some time come. In the captivity of Christ's love, Paul would ever be found doing everything which would preserve it from suffering hunger in his life, and he would ever be found praying that the "marks" might be burnt more and more deeply into his soul.

"Who that one moment has the least descried Him,

Dimly and faintly, hidden and afar,

Doth not despise all excellence beside Him,

Pleasures and powers that are not and that are.

"I am persuaded that nothing shall sunder

Us from the love that saveth us from sin,

Lift it or lose hereover or hereunder,

Pluck it hereout or strangle it herein."

For effectual Christian service and the more powerful corporate testimony of the Church, it must be realized that the Divine calling and equipment for the prophetic, or pastoral, or teaching, or evangelistic, or apostolic work is not centered in one man in any given community, but that these personal gifts are distributed over the whole Church. Every true disciple of Christ is called to be a "servant of the Lord," and he should prayerfully seek to know in what specific capacity He calls him to serve - not taking up work at random, but having sought His guidance he should give himself earnestly, devotedly, and vigorously to his special ministry... and regard his calling as from God.

The "marks" of Christ must be seen upon His servants whether in the place where the Lord's people assemble, the business, the home, or the social circle; and he must ever be proud to say of Him: "Whose I am, and Whom I serve."

A vital relationship with Christ born of a deep personal appreciation of what He has done for... and daily is to... our souls, and a clear understanding with a profound conviction of what He wishes to do through our instrumentality - these, covered by a complete and utter abandonment to Him, are the only legitimate grounds for His service. Of such servants the world and the Church stand in tragic and pathetic need, and by such all problems of ineffectiveness and failure are solved. Such never take up the work lightly, and therefore never give it up easily - if at all.

Every Christian must conceive of himself or herself as being definitely called by God into the "fellowship of His Son," and as "workers together with Him." He must know that this calling is a solemn and irrevocable ordination to "the work of the ministry."

To be Christ's own purchased possession... and to be Christ's own controlled, directed, and equipped servant... is to have the strength of a great assurance that nothing can separate you from Him; that you work under supreme authority; that all the resources of Christ are at your disposal; and that while doing His work there can be no ultimate failure - unless He is ultimately to fail, an eventuality which is impossible.

This is a service which is eternal and supreme; yet it is only the probation for "higher service" where and when "His servants shall serve Him... and they shall see His face."

"Christ! I am Christ's! And let the name suffice you;

Ay, for me, too, He greatly hath sufficed.

Lo, with no winning words I would entice you,

Paul has no honor and no friend but Christ.

"Yea, through life, death, through sorrow and through sinning,

He shall suffice me, for He hath sufficed:

Christ is the end, for Christ is the beginning,

Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ."

It is so important, beloved, that we should be clear on this matter of service, and it will save us so much sorrow and heartbreak if we have this right as early as possible. We do not want to spend time in pointing out the tremendous mistakenness which prevails far and wide in this respect. "Christian service" has come to be a realm in which all the acquisitive, ambitious, obtrusive, assertive, self-seeking, and numerous other elements of the natural man have been vented and taken hold. It has created a system in which human distinctions are the order of the day. Yes, and much more which it is too painful to mention.

We need an adjustment of our minds by a true spiritual perception of the real nature of service, and it will be well for us ever to remember that all work for Christ is not service to Christ. A child may be very well-meaning and industrious in its "helping mother" (?), but poor mother may find rather more work created than done.

Now let us say right away... with emphasis... that the indispensable and basic thing to real service is THE SERVANT-SPIRIT AND THE SERVANT-MIND. The matter of service is infinitely more than busy-ness in religious causes, earthly activities in Christian interests; it is the accomplishment of a heavenly will and Divine purpose which registers its impact in the breaking of another, foreign will and destroying the works of the devil. This is the force of "obedience" and the "not my will" ...and this is the servant-mind and servant-spirit.

When a slave in Israel had fulfilled his time and could claim his liberty but preferred to remain with his master, he was taken on to the threshold and his ear was bored with an awl. The blood fell on the threshold, and he and his master stepped across that blood; by so doing, a covenant of service - now the service of love - was entered upon. To have stepped UPON the blood and "trodden it under foot" would have been to have "counted it an unholy thing," but passing over ("passover") it hand in hand was a covenant too sacred ever to be broken. So we are reminded that "we are not our own; we are bought with a price, even the precious blood."

The basic vision of all true service is that of "the Lord high and lifted up," His train filling "the Temple," resulting in ourselves being smitten to the ground with a realization of our own worthlessness. Such a vision makes us forever not masters but slaves... and necessitates an abiding application of blood-soaked, fire-impregnated coal from the altar if we are to be sent-ones - His servants.

Might it not be laid to our charge that our vision of service held ourselves high and lifted up and filling the frame as the goal... until we saw the Lord, and then - in that light - saw ourselves as worthless?

The Lord's need is to have bond-servants - such as... even though the extreme pressure at some time might make them say that they would "no more speak in this Name" ...find that they cannot forbear for long; but cost what it may, they must be in it and at it - the fire is in their bones and zeal of His House eats them up. May we be such, and may the true ground and motive of this fellowship in service be:

"I love, I love my Master,

I will not go out free!

For He is my Redeemer,

He paid the price for me.

I would not leave His service,

It is so sweet and blest;

And in the weariest moments

He gives the truest rest.

"My Master shed His life-blood

My vassal life to win,

And save me from the bondage

Of tyrant self and sin.

He chose me for His service,

And gave me power to choose

That blessed, perfect freedom

Which I shall never lose.

"I would not halve my service,

His only it must be!

His only, Who so loved me

And gave Himself for me.

Rejoicing and adoring,

Henceforth my song shall be

'I love, I love my Master,

I will not go out free!'"

For the work of God a wisdom and a skill different from... and far transcending... that of man at his best is essential. A wisdom which is the gift of God. A wisdom, however, which is very often foolishness to men, and yet which - when the work is done - makes the wisdom of men look like foolishness.

Many things are being constructed to which the Name of the Lord is being affixed - things which appear fine and great and like "the Church," but which are destined to collapse when God's hurricane and fire test every man's work. Good works - philanthropy, hospitality, reform, education, religion, relief, etc. - may be the products, or byproducts, of what is called "Christian civilization" ...and things for which to be profoundly grateful... but let us not confuse these with "a new creation," regeneration, a being "born from above."

The Church is nothing which man can build by any resource in himself personally or collectively. The Church is an organism, not an organization: "Behold, I show you a mystery - we are members of His flesh and of His bones." Build that, if you can! Launch that; organize that; "run" that! It cannot be done. It is the spontaneous outworking of spiritual forces released... in the acceptance by faith of tremendous facts concerning Christ - facts which are proclaimed out of experience in the power of the Holy Ghost. Not the theological Christ; not the doctrinal Christ; not the Christ of the letter; much less the Jesus of history; but the Christ of Eternity in all the meaning of His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension into the Throne of God revealed in the heart by the Holy Spirit - this alone is authority to preach, to serve, to occupy position, to "build" in relation to the House of God. It is folly to spend time and strength otherwise. It is wisdom to labor on this foundation.

Many inquiries have been set up as to the unsatisfactory situation which exists for so great an area in relation to the gospel and Christian life - questions concerning widespread indifference, gospel-hardening, wholesale backsliding, disappointing "converts," ineffective Christians, low level of spiritual life, worldliness in the "Church," the misleading of believers by false doctrine and deceiving spirits, spiritual immaturity, etc., etc.

To some extent such conditions existed from the beginning, even in the great apostolic days, but it was then much more the exception than now. It was then something in the midst of the greater and better conditions which made the apostolic Church so mighty in the world. Now it would seem to be the other way round. The genuine thing is the smaller company in the midst of the more general failure.

Far be it from us to join in the tirade against that which bears "His" name, but we are so constantly confronted with the heartbreaking story of the difficulties of service, the disappointment of workers, the despair of Christians, that we must enter the inquiry and seek to help.

Now without pressing it as our conviction - which it certainly is - we would present it as a question:

May not this state be largely due to an inadequate gospel?

Is the means used such as is calculated to achieve the tremendous end in view?

Have we an adequate conception of what that end is?

May it not be that such an inadequate conception has resulted in the eliminating or neglecting of essentials on the one hand, and the laboring of certain unworthy factors on the other?

With regard to the latter: Is fear of hell and gain of heaven really worthy of the "so great salvation"? Is the horror of being doomed to eternal punishment - giving rise to all the sensational means and methods by which fear is meant to be produced - really a sufficient motive? Is the personal going to heaven, with all the personal gains and pleasures associated therewith - producing all the sentimental appeals intended to capture by pathos, emotion, excitement, pleasure, etc. - really mighty enough to bring through the eternal purpose? The gospel of "escape from hell and going to heaven," with all the cheap elements of its proclamation which has nauseated so many and turned them away in disgust - may it not be this gospel which prejudices the true and has become played out in the emotions of many who can no longer be appealed to along these lines, setting up a gospel deadlock?

It is absolutely essential that if all the great purpose of God with its vast inclusions is to be entered into, and if there is to be an adequate impact upon men, there must be the sufficient background of the New Testament evangel. It would be very salutary if every "Christian worker" were to sit down... or kneel down... and prayerfully consider the background of New Testament preaching, exhortation, admonition, entreaty, appeal, instruction.

It will be discovered that that background begins in eternity past, before times eternal, in the eternal counsels of God. It will reveal a conception and design with which every movement and gesture of God throughout the ages is related. It will explain the existence of the universe and the purpose of the whole creation. It will set the sovereignty of the Son at the center and make it also the circumference. It will reveal that each soul saved is a vindication of the wisdom of God in plan and creation... and the justification of the existence of the world.

Salvation - conversion - is never something in itself. An ultra-individualism in being saved or in seeking the salvation of others is contrary to the Scriptures... and is baneful. The "therefores" and the "wherefores" of the New Testament are pegs upon which hang vast ranges and mighty weights of spiritual significance and reason.

Why should men be saved? Why should I be utterly abandoned to Christ? Why should I accept the Cross of Christ in its total application to all the elements of my natural life? Why should I leave all for the Gospel's sake? These and many other such questions must be answered in the light of that infinite background of "the eternal purpose" in the first place.

True it is that conversions take place from the preaching of the immediate issues of sin and hell... and salvation from these. But so often such remains for a long time with but the personal salvation and the immediate issue and a single note. Why should maturity be so long delayed - the nursery so long occupied? Why not the full compass of Divine Meaning from the beginning? Again we ask, may not the widespread failure of a certain evangelism be due to an inadequate motive?

Then in the next place there must be an ADEQUATE DYNAMIC. There is no subject which concerns the servants of the Lord more than that of spiritual power and effectiveness. We have prayed about this until we despaired. We have read books upon it until we were sick. Yes, we have spoken about it ourselves until shame has silenced us.

We see the apostolic example and demonstration.

We know the Master's promise.

We know the doctrine and teaching basic to power.

But what of the power itself?

Far be it from us to think that we can improve upon, or profitably add to, all that has been written. But if the Lord has taken us through an experience which has made possible an unfolding of His secrets, it will not be conceit on our part if we humbly place such at the service of His children.

It is not sufficient that we recognize the need for power and pray for it. Indeed, it might be very unsafe for the gospel and for the Name of the Lord if it were given. It is of primary importance that we should know the nature and the basis of power. It is equally important that we should recognize that it is that power which has as its object the building of the "House" - the "Temple" of God.

From Genesis to Revelation, resurrection is invariably the basis upon which the direct purpose of God is carried forward. Every instrument which is used in that direct purpose has to be wrought on to a basis of resurrection. The experimental spiritual ground upon which the Church stood at Pentecost was the Resurrection. Paul's whole life and work rested upon his own experience of the Resurrection. The basis of power is Resurrection union with Christ. The principle of "the eternal purpose" is Resurrection Life in Christ. The Holy Spirit comes only upon Resurrection ground. Power is to "know Him and the power of His Resurrection...." By that Life the Holy Spirit constitutes the believer a personal demonstration of the Resurrection, and the word of testimony thereto is only a consequence... but it is a consequence.

In the meantime, "the eternal purpose" proceeds, but it proceeds only in those and through those who have firstly recognized the death of Jesus as their death... and then accepted it in one all-inclusive reckoning of faith, trusting God to make it actual. They have claimed and apprehended by faith their inheritance in the Risen Lord, even Resurrection Life. It becomes the exclusive basis of all the activities of God within and through His children relative to the eternal purpose. But it is Resurrection Life - mighty, unconquerable, indestructible, deathless. The Holy Spirit is the seal of the Resurrection, and the Holy Spirit's law of operation is Divine Life.

Service

There is so much - and there are so many ways - which claim to be "God's service" and "mighty works in the Name of Jesus." Thank God, however, that we have not to judge and decide what is and what is not true service to God. It is given to us, nevertheless, to recognize and emphasize basic principles by which all who claim to serve Him must judge themselves in this matter.

It must be observed at the outset that, while the Lord makes even antagonistic elements and persons - even the wrath of man - and adversity of circumstances to serve Him, and while there is even such a thing as irreligious solicitude for God, His direct and elect means and method is by chosen and consecrated members of His spiritual household.

Now, of this service there must never be a judging after the seeing of the eyes or the hearing of the ear! This is a matter into which the senses cannot come without the peril of deceiving and misleading the whole life. The service of God - like every other thing in relation to Him - is essentially an unmixed spiritual thing.

There are two things at least which are basically wrong and inevitably disastrous from the standpoint of true spiritual value: one is the regarding of the work of God as a set system, just as any commercial, industrial, or professional system is a vocation or calling (So much is heard about "entering the ministry," "taking up Christian work," "becoming a missionary," etc. - and this as static, organized, systematized); the other is going into service on the basis of an external appeal to the senses, the intellect, the emotions, the volition, by reason of a presentation to the ears or the eyes.

We do not say that these means have never been overruled by God to something more, but in themselves as such they are both inadequate and perilous. Both of these things are not according to the principles of the Divine order, and the Word of God - read with spiritual insight - proves the point up to the hilt.

Moreover, every man and woman who has come up against spiritual realities in the service of God knows that it requires something stronger than hot air, electric atmosphere, vivid pictures, romantic conceptions, idealistic visions, mental impressions, and occasional stimulants for the will, to make them able to continue indefinitely and to be spiritually effective. No, in every way, the senses are an insufficient basis and a dangerous criterion.

The service of God, being spiritual, will always have an element of mystery about it. The mystery is this: the greater the degree of real spiritual effectiveness and value, and the more spiritually accountable a thing becomes, the less is it a thing that can be seen and handled by the senses and by the flesh - the less the elements and forms of human demonstration and natural appreciation.

Again and again we have marked the grievous tragedy of ministries - personal and otherwise - which were mighty in spiritual significance, that at length took on human significance and assumed forms of natural impressiveness at the expense of that essential value to God. Yes! It has grown big, expansive, famous. Yes! He or she has a name, a reputation, a following, a fame, and a position; but so often... oh, so often... at a cost of accountability amongst "principalities and powers" (This is where spiritual values are judged) which makes it all poor gain... and makes God's heart bleed.

Without seeming to judge of this ourselves, let us state a further principle or two - or re-emphasize in definite form: All-inclusively, only what God does Himself is God's service! This is basic to the entire revelation of the purposes of God in the whole Scriptures.

The Lord Jesus is most insistent upon this Himself:

"The Son can do nothing of Himself."

"The Father doeth the works."

"The Father speaketh the words."

"My Father worketh until now."

"It is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaketh in you."

This principle was well recognized by the Apostles. In fact, it is the primary object of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit: "The Holy Ghost said...." "The Spirit suffered them not."

Only as all service is brought within the limits of this Divine ordering by a positive witness within the sanctified and quickened spirit of the "chosen vessel" can there be "the works of God" which alone count. This, on the other hand, rules out all our works.

Motive, good intent, laboriousness, enthusiasm "in the name of Jesus," "for the Kingdom," "in the interests of mankind," etc. - these do not count in the realm of "the eternal purpose in Christ Jesus" if they are our own activities... with our own natural resources. It must be "God who works within."

We have yet to know the nature and immensity of the works of God... and how His ends call for His infinite energy; and when we have a little light on this matter, we shall see that all our works are "dead works" indeed.

The flesh cannot enter into the works of God; hence the measure of spiritual effectiveness is the measure in which the Cross of Christ has slain our flesh experimentally... not what appears to be successful Christian work, but what is done - not by men - but by God through crucified men. We must be content to have our fruitfulness and spiritual value registered in the unseen... and not be dominated by the scales of values as set up by men on the earth.

One sign of counting beyond mere flesh and blood is the malice and fury of the oppressor... and his persistent efforts to get one out of the fight.

Finally, we can only get into the true service of God as we are put into it by the Holy Spirit. This is not as from the earth, but as from above. Men cannot make these appointments or ordinations! To press into this service of oneself is to meet the fire of God breaking forth. To touch this "ark of testimony" with our hands is to die.

Even after Moses had been chosen, had received the revelation, and had been commissioned, "God met him and sought to kill him." Why? Because the circumcision of the flesh had been neglected... and no flesh can serve the Lord.

The Service of God

"To serve the living... God" (1 Thess. 1:9).

1. The Service - What It Is

If the service of God is to be as immediately and fully fruitful and effectual as it can be it is essential that we should have its nature clearly defined. If asked what the service of God is, many different answers would be given. Christianity has - on its practical side - been resolved into certain particular lines and forms of work, with their peculiar objects governing. Because the conception of Christian service has become so large and general it has become necessary to reconsider the matter and ask - What is really the Divine object in the service of God?

(a) The Object

If we look carefully at the Bible as a whole with this question before us, we shall see that there is but one all-inclusive and all-governing answer. The work of God may move along many and various lines and have different aspects but the object is one. This one object determines whether the work is really the work of God, and also determines the measure of permanence and eternal value of what is done in the Name of the Lord. Even with the best intention of doing God service, there is very much that misses the mark and fails of the Divine object.

The one object is Christ. God has, all-inclusively, committed Himself to fill His Son with all things, and to fill all things with His Son. To bring Christ in, and to increase the measure of Christ, both extensively and intensively, is God's sole object, and co-operation with Him in this is the only true service of God. That "He may fill all things"; that "in all things He might have the preeminence"; that "Christ (may be) all, and in all," is the only service which answers to God's heart. This is a statement of fact, and it is also a test of work. In the Old Testament, everything points to Christ, and He is implicit in all things there. The significance of Christ governs all. In the New Testament this is explicit. Conversions are not ends and objects in themselves. Every new believer is a vessel of Christ. The fact in every "new birth" is that Christ has come in. But the Scriptures do not leave it there. The greater part of the New Testament is occupied with the increase of Christ in believers. That is the personal aspect. Beyond this the Church as a whole is brought into view as that which is to be "the fulness of Him." Then local churches are represented as vessels and vehicles of Christ beyond individual possibility and capacity. The whole idea of the Holy Spirit is to make the fulness of Christ a reality. All the conflict is related to this, for the Adversary knows that his kingdom is weakened and narrowed in proportion to the increase of Christ. The test of all Christian work will be its effectiveness in really enlarging the measure of Christ in this universe.

(b) Its Nature

In this dispensation Christ is not on this earth physically, but is only here in and by His Spirit. Christ cannot, therefore, be known in any other way than spiritually. Further: Christ is not, in this dispensation, seeking to set up something on this earth as attached to it. He is detaching a people from the world and the nations, and attaching them to Himself in an entirely spiritual way. Their birth is spiritual - John 3:6. Their sustenance is spiritual - John 6:33. Their knowledge of God and of His things is spiritual - 1 Cor. 2:9-16. Their consummation is spiritual - 1 Cor. 15:35-38. Everything is now a matter of spiritual measure and value.

So the service of God in this age is essentially spiritual. Not what can be seen, counted, or in any way appraised by the natural senses; but what is the pure and alone work of the Spirit of God is the criterion.

The trend of things since Apostolic times has almost entirely been to set up a world-system of Christianity; a Church that is something of temporal account and position. The immediate result of touching this cursed earth is discord and division. Only a Church on heavenly ground is the "one body." (see Ephesians 1 and 4). As the Church of "the eternal purpose," so is its ministry, spiritual and heavenly; not 'ecclesiastical,' formal, and ritualistic.

2. The Servant

If the work of God is essentially spiritual, then it demands spiritual people for its doing; and the measure of their spirituality will determine the measure of their value to the Lord. Because this is so, in God's mind the servant is more than the work. If we are going to come truly into the hands of God for His purpose, then we shall be dealt with by Him in such a way as to continually increase our spiritual measure. Not our interest in Christian work; our enthusiasms, ambitions, energies, or abilities; not our academic qualifications, or anything that we are in ourselves, but simply our spiritual life is the basis of the beginning and growth of our service to God. Even the work, when we are in it, is used by Him to increase our spiritual measure. Any Christian work which does not have the effect of adding to the measure of Christ in the worker is either not the true Divine service, or is itself working to his or her condemnation and injury. The Apostle Paul is a great example of how much increase of true spiritual knowledge and Christly measure is resultant from the very service of God itself, when the servant is a truly spiritual man. There are numerous other instances of this, both in and out of the Bible.

The Apostle's word "not a novice"(1 Tim. 3:6) as to "overseers" would - if applied to all taking responsibility in the things of God - correct much that is weak and painful in organized Christian work. The lack of an essential measure of maturity has resulted in tragedy in many lives under strain, and many defeats in the work. Too often the devil has either weakened or destroyed the work and the worker by making the activities too heavy and exacting for the spiritual life to measure up. It is not truths stated, ideas set forth, doctrines preached, etc.; but the spiritual life, power, and measure behind it all that settles its real value and fruitfulness.

Again, because this is true, there is no end to spiritual growth in this life. We are really only getting to a position to be of some value, because of experience and understanding, when we are taken away. This would make life an enigma and something of a mockery were it not that the greater measure and nature of our service was to be afterward when and where "His servants shall serve Him. And they shall see His face."

There is a dangerous tendency to commit the interests of God to the hands of those who do not really know Him in a deep way, and to regard those who have measure through much experience as incapable of meeting the needs of the younger generation. The New Testament would soundly trounce this superficial tendency as a peril to the Church of God. Years may not be the criterion, either way, but spiritual degree most certainly is!

3. The Training

Because what we have said about the servant and the service is so true, the training must be above all things that which will produce spiritual men and women. Of course we recognize that this applies to all children of God who would serve Him in any way; but we are now having in mind such as may serve Him in more than a general way.

a. It is essential that there is a strong and sound grounding in the knowledge of the Scriptures. For every obvious reason this is so. But when we have given this matter all the place that it must have, it is necessary to point out that the letter of the Word is not enough. Lectures on the Bible, and analyses of its books will never make a true servant of Christ. The need is for a spiritual knowledge of the Word of God; it must be spiritually taught and apprehended. That which lies behind the letter as to the Divine mind must be seen. The teaching and study of the Scriptures must have immediate spiritual effect in the life of those concerned. The Word of God will only profit in so far as it comes to us in spiritual power.

b. There must be a practical life running side by side with the study work. This practical side should have two aspects at least.

1. There must be life as in a spiritual family, so that all the lessons of forbearance, patience, and co-operation are learned. The Cross must be known in the numerous and frequent occasions when the flesh in ourselves and in others rises because of human failures and faults. The great value of fellowship has to be learned in the testing conditions of life at close quarters over a sufficient period. The reality of the laws of "the Body of Christ" has to be established. Dependence, inter-dependence, inter-relatedness, as over against independence, individualism, and detachment, are some of these laws which will mean in their observance or violation life or death, fulness or limitation in the Lord's service. Our object must not be to get adherents to Christianity, but to build a spiritual "body," therefore we must know 'body' life, order, and function.

2. There must be practical spiritual expression in our training, and the best and most directly fruitful way for this is assembly life. The training of 'workers' should be in close relationship with 'church' life as constituted and formed on the true organic basis of the Body of Christ. Not just a preaching place, or one where meetings are held and attended; but where there is true corporate life and mutuality in building up. In such, and out from such corporate life, ministry and service should be developed; not just technicians from an institute. No one should really be allowed to go out into whole time Christian service who has not had a true 'church' training and learnt the meaning and value of corporate life. God is not wanting so many units, either for salvation or service. He is set upon His Church as the corporate expression of Christ, Everything, therefore, if fulness is to be attained, must be on that basis.

To sum up. God is working in relation to His eternal purpose concerning His Son, Jesus Christ. The Church which is His (Christ's) Body is the predestined "fulness of Him." This personal and corporate expression of Christ is not earthly, temporal, 'ecclesiastical'; not national, or sectarian, but heavenly, spiritual, eternal. The ministry of this corporate representation of Christ is essentially and solely a spiritual thing, determined by its spiritual measure. (Spirituality is what is of God and not of man - even religious man.) While there are those things which are of value in furnishing the Lord's servants for the human aspects of their work, the real training is spiritual, i.e. the knowledge of God vitally, and of His Son, in the Word of God and in experience. Training for the service of God should therefore be solely governed by the object of producing men and women of a sound and strong spiritual life, with a background of a deep knowledge of Him, "the word of God" dwelling in them "richly in all wisdom and spiritual understanding."

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Nov-Dec 1951, Vol 29-6

The Service of the Lord

Then you shall say to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord: Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me. (Ex. 4:22,23).

For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers... But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter... I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. (Rom. 1:9; 7:6; 12:1).

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting... from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. (Eph. 4:11-14,16).

In each of the above passages, in one way or another, the matter of service is referred to - "Let my son go, that he may serve me"; "whom I serve in my spirit"; "that we should serve in newness of spirit"; "which is your reasonable service"; and finally, in the Ephesian portion, while the word does not actually occur, it is quite clear that the whole of that portion of the letter deals with the matter of service.

An Underlying Principle of the Creation

It would be a very simple thing to say that service is a governing thought in the very existence of this world, and, indeed, of this universe. Everything exists on the principle of service. All has been brought into being to serve; to serve a purpose, and that which does not serve is altogether outside of the Divine thought. When you come to think of it, what a book of service the Bible is! The thought springs up with the creation and runs right through to the Revelation, where we learn that "his servants shall do him service" even when these ages are past, and eternity has come. All the way along the thought and law of service is in evidence.

The spirit of service is the spirit of the Lord Jesus; for He said concerning Himself, "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many". The Lord knows nothing of a working class and an idle class. The Word of God takes no account of part of the creation as being outside of service, and does not recognise anything or anyone not serving. The very highest positions to which the Word of God reveals it possible for us to come, even in relation to God Himself, are shown to be positions of service.

We are familiar with the term "son", and in our use of certain passages of Scripture we may perhaps have made a false distinction between servants and sons. But the Word of God is very clear, and very insistent, that a son is a serving son; that even to come to the position of sonship in its fullest sense is not to become one in a household who does nothing and has everything done for him, but who is there in a serving capacity. "Israel is my son, my firstborn... Let my son go, that he may serve me." So, right through, you find that sonship, the highest spiritual position to which it is possible for us to attain, is after all a position of service.

Service is a Thing of the Spirit

Moreover, service is a matter of spirit. Paul said, "whom I serve in my spirit", and in saying that, he was simply referring to his essential man. The real man is the spirit and he was saying in other words, 'whom I serve in the innermost reality of my being'. In the third passage - "that we should serve in newness of spirit" - he is only saying that his innermost reality, this real man, is altogether renewed and he serves "in newness of spirit". He once served in the oldness of his interests, his sphere, his energies. That was the old man seeking to serve.

Real service is not something imposed. The service of God is not something taken on from the outside. It is not a matter of compulsion or obligation. It is not something which we are commanded or told to do, nor that we have to measure up to and force ourselves to do. Service is a matter of the spirit, our spirit, and we are tested as to the reality of our inward being, as to its relationship with God, by the spirit of service which we show.

That takes us to Romans 12:1. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." I know the marginal words are different. We will come to that in a moment, but the meaning is the same. It is having our being held unto God. That is service, and all other service springs out of that. "By the mercies of God" - and of course Paul has been speaking of those mercies through most of the chapters leading up to chapter 12 - the mercies of judgment past, judgment swallowed up by the Lord Jesus; the mercies of justification by faith in Christ; the mercies of fellowship with God: all those wonderful mercies that come before us in those early chapters of the letter to the Romans, the Apostle makes the ground of his appeal. 'Well now', he says, in effect, 'because of these mercies, the Lord has a claim upon you, the Lord has a right to you, and I beseech you that you recognise the claims of God by reason of His abundant mercies; and, all-inclusively, the presenting of your bodies a living sacrifice is service'. Service is not, in the first place, something done. The Word of God does not know anything about that. Service to God is not, in the first place, what we do for God, but, according to His Word, it is firstly what we are for God; that is, that we are for God, wholly the Lord's, and when we get there in very truth, all the other problems or questions about service are resolved. We are not asked to decide what we will do, where we will go, how we will work. These questions are never raised by the Lord at all. The one question that does arise from His side is, Are you Mine? 'If so', He says, in effect, 'I take it for granted I can do exactly as I like with you, and can get exactly what I want from you. You will have no quarrel with Me if I ask you to take a certain line, to follow a certain course, to go in a certain direction or stay in a certain place'. All that is settled in the initial and comprehensive thing, "present your bodies a living sacrifice". Any kind of question or argument or difficulty with the Lord as to the nature or form or direction of service represents some basic and root reservation as to our utter subjection to the Lord, as to the question of our being wholly the Lord's. For, to have grasped the ground upon which this making of our bodies a living sacrifice unto the Lord; to have truly grasped the ground of that transaction, is to have settled once for all every other question that may arise.

The True Conception of Service

Throughout the Bible, there is one means of illustrating this that is frequently employed, and it lies there as a governing law of service. It is that of the law and purpose of relationship. Not only did the Lord say of Israel to Pharaoh, "He is my son, my firstborn", but we frequently find in the Old Testament another relationship represented as existing between the Lord and Israel, and Israel and the Lord. Take a fragment from a prophet. "I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals; how thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown." Do you catch the significance of that? Or take again the familiar passage in Jeremiah 31, "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord." "The love of thine espousals" - "I was a husband unto them." Now, if you look closely into the Hebrew law on that matter, you will find that the whole idea of that relationship was an idea of service.

Sometimes a whole book of the Bible is given up to the enunciating of but one principle only. You know that the book of Esther, for instance, has but one principle around which the whole book revolves. It is so, again, with the book of Ruth. What is the one principle in this case? It is the working out of one of the laws of the year of Jubilee. One of the laws relating to that year was that all alienated properties should be restored. But there must be a kinsman who stands in a position of ability and willingness, on the one hand, to receive, to take charge of the restored inheritance, and, on the other hand, to take responsibility for those concerned in the loss of the inheritance. Now, briefly, that is a law of the year of Jubilee. When you come to the book of Ruth, you find that, although the year of Jubilee is in view, it is all a question of the recovery of a lost inheritance. Naomi comes back to find that the inheritance has gone, gone into other hands. She is destitute. Ruth is with her and they two stand in relationship to that lost inheritance, but entirely unable to do anything for its redemption. Boaz is a kinsman, and one who is in a position to recover the inheritance: he is a man of affluence, a man of standing, a man of resource. He is tested on the matter, and found not only to be able, but to be willing. He undertakes all; and we know the scene in the gate of the city where he challenges another kinsman and finds him unwilling, and so enters himself into the transaction of redeeming that lost inheritance. Having redeemed the lost inheritance, he has also surrendered himself to another law bound up with that redemption, that he must be responsible for those who lost the inheritance.

I will leave it there for the time being, and step over to the other side of the little romance. There is Ruth, and she also knows the law on this matter. She is destitute, and wholly dependent upon the mercies of the redeeming kinsman to deliver her from her destitution, to save her from her terrible plight and to bring her back into an inheritance rich and full. But one thing governs, namely, that just as the redeeming kinsman must be willing to take responsibility for those concerned in the loss of the inheritance, the one for whom the inheritance is being redeemed has to be willing to be the servant of the redeeming kinsman, the life servant. And what is the relationship to be? For this is the law - oh! not of master and servant, but of husband and wife. That explains just why Ruth silently creeps into the tent of Boaz when he has gone to rest and takes the cover from his feet and spreads it over herself and over his feet. She is at his feet. She is from henceforth in absolute subjection to him as his property for his service. Well, all that is needed now is a formal recognition of a relationship, and that follows - their marriage.

But you see it is the principle of service and Paul is simply working on that principle when he says, "Present your bodies a living sacrifice... your reasonable service." The mercies of God have claimed you. The law of the mercies of God is, You must be the Lord's and be brought into the Church's most intimate relationship to Him, that of the bride to the bridegroom. The whole idea of the Church is one of service.

The matter of service to the Lord runs right through the Word of God. It is there in the book of Ruth. The most sacred and honoured relationship known in heaven or on earth is that relationship of which the Apostle speaks in Ephesians 5: "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the church." (vv. 31-32).

The most holy, honoured relationship known in heaven or on earth expresses itself in service. Oh! from heaven's standpoint, service is not servitude, vassalage. It is the most holy, and the most exalted, dignity. To be able to do anything for the Lord is the greatest privilege. Oh! how we need to be captured and captivated by Him to whom we belong, and not to regard the service of the Lord, because it takes certain forms, as something to be shunned, to be shirked, to be avoided.

The Test of Our Appreciation of the Lord

Now, there is the principle, the law of service. It is a matter, after all, of appreciation of the Lord. Whatever form it takes, it is that. But then we come to the matter of the form, and here we get very close to practical considerations. The Lord tests our spirit, that is, the innermost reality of our being, along the line of service. It would be no test whatever to our innermost being if the Lord always asked us to do the things that are the greatest pleasure to our flesh. There is nothing more testing than the service of the Lord, because that service swings us entirely out of one realm into another. Yes, I know that men outside of Christ serve; they give themselves. It is not for me to try and track down how much there may be of personal motive or interest in human service, how much there may be of self-satisfaction and self-gratification in it; for doing good work very often brings a great deal of satisfaction to the one who does it. It is not for me to search out how much ambition lies behind it for fame, influence, success, prosperity, and so on; but this I do know, that, when we really do get into the Lord's hands, the question or the matter of service becomes His means of finding us out.

Now, to come back to Israel. "Let my son go that he may serve me." That is the word that may be said to be written over Israel's going out of Egypt. That was the goal. Moses was challenged fully on that matter all the time. Israel too grasped something of its meaning, and Pharaoh on his part was recognising the significance of their serving the Lord in the wilderness. Israel's own idea of going out to serve the Lord in the wilderness was a very romantic idea, and doubtless there was a great deal of enthusiasm associated with it. That idea of serving the Lord was a glamorous idea, a captivating idea. But follow them out, and mark them in the wilderness, and see if, after all, it proved to be as romantic as they expected. All their enthusiasm died: all the element of romance disappeared. The thing assumed a form which required something very much more than all the enthusiasm of which they were capable, and their attitude came to be one of disillusionment. Oh! this is not what we expected it would be! This is something altogether different! We thought this and we thought that. We never thought it would be like this! Sooner or later, when we get into the hands of  the Lord, that is what happens. Whatever were our expectations, we come to the time when we discover that the service of the Lord tests us to the very core of our being, and the point of the rest is whether, after all, we are finding any personal gratification, pleasure or satisfaction in this, or whether we have such a devotion to the Lord that we are found in His service, and wholeheartedly in it, solely because it is for Him, for His pleasure, for His satisfaction; because of what He is and because of the mercies of God. God will corner us wholly on that question.

Now, it just works out in thousands of practical, everyday ways. If only the Lord would let us serve Him in this direction, how delightful it would be! how satisfying it would be! how happy we should be! The principle of service is one thing; the form of service is quite another thing, and we are tested there. We are not tested on anything less than our devotion to the Lord. The question that arises all the time is, Can this in any way serve the Lord's interests, be a contribution to the whole? We are not to ask how or what, we are to serve with our spirit. You get the spirit of service and you will have no difficulties over the form of service. It is the people who have not the spirit of service who are always in difficulties as to the how of service. They are waiting for something to come along which wholly accords with their idea of service. They have their ideas as to what service to the Lord is and, until their ideas have an opportunity of being realised, service does not exist for them. Oh no! The voice of the true servant is heard in the words, "whom I serve with my spirit". That is where it begins. The spirit of service solves all the other questions. Do not start off with the question of where you are going to serve the Lord, how you are going to serve the Lord, what you are going to do for the Lord, but see to it that the Lord has you wholly and utterly, that you are enamoured of the Lord; that you can say that the mercies of the Lord have captured your heart. I am the Lord's, as truly as ever Ruth was at the feet of Boaz, in the place of utter surrender and subjection to Him, for all time. You seek to be at the feet of your Lord, married to Christ, and all other questions about service will cease to exist. The Lord will be able to do as He likes and you will have no questionings nor debatings.

So the question of service is seen to be very definitely one of the spirit. That is only touching very lightly upon the matter.

Service Has Three Aspects

I would just mention one other thing, that service has three aspects, as far as I can see, in the Word of God; three and three only. First of all and above all, worship; for, indeed, that is what Israel went out to the wilderness for, and that is what God called service - "that he may serve me". When they reached their destination, it was a matter of worship. They could not do much else in a wilderness, in a land that was not sown. Listen to what the Lord said of them at the time of their going out. "I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals; how thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown" (Jer. 2:2). That is worship, when God can have us in a place and state and position of devotion to Him when we cannot do anything else, being in a barren place. Oh! we can give the Lord so much of what we call worship when we are having a good time, when all sorts of interesting things are happening in what we call the service of the Lord. But when we are in a wilderness, in a land not sown, that is, when we are cut off from these self-gratifying, self-satisfying activities in service, cut off from things, and we are shut right up to the Lord Himself, and only have the Lord, and the heart goes out to Him, then you have that which God calls the highest service. He is having us for Himself. Thus was it in the wilderness for Israel, where the Lord would have Israel for Himself and to Himself and find Israel responding to Him and being satisfied with Him. That is what God calls the highest service, that is worship. So the alternative rendering of those words in Romans 12:1 is, "which is your spiritual worship": "your reasonable service" - "your spiritual worship".

I am not going to speak about these three things, only to mention them, but the highest form of service to God is worship; that is, where the Lord is the one object of our devotion, not for what we get, not for the blessing that accrues to us, not for any pleasure or satisfaction of our own, but just for Himself. He calls that service. It is marvellous, I believe, what service that does render to the Lord, in addition to being His own satisfaction. I mean, if the Lord has a life that is really worshipping, devoted, given to Him for His own sake, there is an influence that goes out from that life, there is a power in that life, there is a testimony in that life. That is where service begins, and it is  unconscious service; it is a service of unconscious fruitfulness, just to be for the Lord.

Then there are two other phases of service. One of these is ministry to the saints, and the other, of course, is testimony to the world. Three aspects of service; worship, ministry to the saints, testimony to the world. When you have said that, you can resolve them into two. The first, Godward directly, and the second and third manward, Godward indirectly. As I said, I am not going to talk about those three things at length, but I want to say this, that, in the Word of God, all the Lord's people are regarded as being in each and every one of these phases of service; all the Lord's people, from the least to the greatest. Worshippers are not a class by themselves. I suppose you will accept the statement that all the Lord's people are regarded as being worshippers, wholly for the Lord. Well, that is service; that is the service of the Lord's people to Him.

All the Lord's people are also regarded as being in the ministry to the saints. That is a matter we are more and more being brought to face and that is just what the fourth chapter of the letter to the Ephesians is about. The Lord certainly did give special gifts to the  Church; some apostles, and some prophets, and evangelists, pastors and teachers. To what end were these given? For the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry. I believe that is what Paul meant. The punctuation should be arranged according to that sense. It was for the perfecting of the saints, the bringing of all the saints to a position where they could fulfil the work of ministry. The rest of the chapter makes that clear. You see what it goes on to say. "All the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love" (Eph. 4:16). The Body, with each several part working in due measure, builds itself up. It is what we call "mutuality". The service of the Lord, in the second instance, is the mutual ministry to the saints, the mutual building up of the Body of Christ. It is not that one ministers to the saints, but that all the saints minister to one another spiritual measure, and everyone in due measure. That has a very large place in the Word of God, both in the Old Testament and in the New.

Then, lastly, there is the testimony to the world. It seems to me that this third aspect of service has taken pre-eminence, as though the others were quite secondary. Testimony to the world - you can call it evangelization or soul winning - has become the service of the Lord. That is what people mean by "working for the Lord" today; most people have that in mind. I do not want to take anything from the importance of this aspect of service, rather would I strengthen it; for here again I want to say that the Word of God sees all the Lord's people in this aspect of ministry or service also. All the Lord's people are witnesses. You may not be an evangelist in the specific sense, but you are a witness, and that is a part of the service of the Lord, and one in which we must all be faithful.

Here, then, are three aspects of service, and we are all regarded as having part in them; worship, ministry to the saints, witnesses to the world. Yes, upon every one of us individually devolves this threefold service of the Lord.

Service and the House of God

Now, beloved, as I close, I want to remind you that service always begins in the house. If you look at the New Testament, you will find that the basis of all service is the local assembly. The local assembly has in it all those elements of service necessary to service. It is there that the highest form of service is expressed, namely, worship, and the local assembly is constituted upon the basis of worship. We are for the Lord, unto the Lord; we are the Lord's. The local assembly is also constituted upon the principle of mutual ministry the one to the other; and, further, it ought to be giving out of its life, and out of all the values of a local assembly, the resources and energies for testimony to the world.

Now, that opens a very great deal. The local assembly is the training and testing place for service. When there is a true assembly life, a safeguard is provided against a whole list of perils that are connected with service; and it means a great deal more. But I do want you to get at least a comprehensive, if not detailed, grasp of what service is and what service means, and especially to leave you with this urge in your hearts, that the test of our relationship to the Lord is found, firstly, in the spirit of worship, devotion to Him; and secondly, in how much we are concerned for the building up of His people and are in the way of that ministry; and then the spirit of service is proved by our witness to the world, our concern for the Lord's interests in the unsaved. This is the threefold test of the spirit of service.

May the Lord find us in the company of His servant who said, "...whom I serve with my spirit": "...that we should serve in newness of spirit"; "...present your bodies a living sacrifice... your reasonable service"; and about none of us may there ever be in the presence of the world a hesitation to give the declaration of our allegiance, as did that servant of the Lord in the words, "whose I am and whom I serve".

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Nov-Dec 1939 Vol. 17-6

Significant Salutations

Reading: Romans 16

This is a chapter which I expect you do not often read. The letter proper seems to end with the "Amen" of 15:33, and it is easy to regard the final chapter as of little importance. But even though it may be a struggle to read it, I suggest that the effort is well worth making. Like some of the Old Testament chapters devoted to names and genealogies, this should not be skipped as irrelevant, for these are included by divine inspiration and with a purpose.

Two preliminary observations may be of interest. The first is that the list of names here is so comprehensive that it might almost be called universal. Roman names are in the minority, being outnumbered by the Jewish and Greek ones, yet taken together they represent the world of their time. This was not a Latin church, a Jewish church nor a Greek church, but a true representation of that Church which is composed of men from every nation.

The other point is that this is one of the two churches which Paul had never visited, the other being Colosse. Paul had yet to go to Rome, which he later did, but that was some time later. Even at this juncture, however, there were quite a few people whom he already knew personally and even intimately. This is more than a mere item of interest. It seems to indicate something of how in those days the gospel spread abroad and the churches were built. For one reason or another, for business purposes or by political compulsion, people had to move about in the world. This may have been inconvenient and at times most unjust, but behind that movement was the sovereignty of God, using everything for the speeding up of the work of the gospel.

This gives us encouragement, then, to know that once our lives are wholly given over to the Lord, His sovereignty will govern and overrule all the ordinary affairs and circumstances of daily life and make them contribute to His purposes and glory. Take the cruel decree of the Emperor Claudius which expelled all Jews from Rome. Whether he was following some political scheme or simply venting his spite, the fact remains that people like Aquila and Priscilla had to abandon their home and business and become displaced persons in Corinth. This, however, not only brought them into contact with Paul but later, at Ephesus, made them such a great help to Apollos and gave them an honoured place in this list which we are considering. Their case opens up to us a world within a world, and it is a world of spiritual romance. If we could pass from one of the names of this chapter to another, we would doubtless find that in each case there were marvellous evidences of God's sovereign working, even at times before those concerned were actually converted to Christ. Some have even thought that the fact of there being saints in the Praetorian guard (Philippians 4:22) suggests that the centurion who stood by the cross at Calvary went back from his foreign service in Palestine to his headquarters in Rome and there witnessed to the Saviour. This may be only imagination, but it is at least possible, and just the kind of way in which Christ is always building His Church.

What is more, when we look more deeply into this chapter we find that the people here referred to not only had their lives overruled by God but were themselves intent on the Lord's business and ready to take responsibility for His interests. They were not passengers, just people who happened to come and go, individuals in the crowd; they each got involved to the utmost in the affairs of the kingdom of Christ. Paul's comments and allusions make it clear that the gospel was furthered and the churches established because these men and women put the Lord's interests before everything else in their work, their journeys and their circumstances. They had the urge of the divine imperative. Like their Lord before them, their lives were not at the mercy of chance but characterised by the word 'must'.

The Lord Jesus used this imperative when, at twelve years of age, He told Mary that He MUST be about His Father's business. From time to time this same spirit emerged in His conduct: "I MUST preach the good tidings of the kingdom of God to other cities also" (Luke 4:43); "other sheep I have... them also I MUST bring..." (John 10:16). Then, as He moved towards the end of His ministry, He announced that He, the Son of man: "MUST be delivered up into the hands of sinful men..." (Luke 24:7), and right on to the eve of His crucifixion, He behaved in accordance with His principle that, since the Scriptures foretold it, then "thus it MUST be" (Matthew 26:54). His whole life was governed by this imperative - must! must! It seems to me that this list brings before us disciples whose lives were also characterised by this imperative, this 'must'. For them this was the priority, the only consideration worthy of their attention; they were devoted to the will of God. It is to be regretted that so many names which can rightfully be included in the list of God's children cannot truly be described in this way. There seem to be so many passengers, so many who want to enjoy God's will but seek to avoid taking responsibility for it. Their lives lack the Christ-like, 'must'.

This, of course, presents a personal challenge to me. I wonder what Paul would have written against my name if I had lived in those days and been associated with him. If he had needed to write a salutation to me, what could he have said about the quality of my life, 'in Christ'? The phrase 'in Christ' is repeated eight times here, for you notice that this is the significance of the names listed, not what the people were in themselves, but what was their spiritual measure in Christ. The apostle had no thoughts of social niceties or of paying compliments to ensure good relations. No, what mattered to him was the measure in which these friends of his were counting for Christ. What, I wonder, can be put alongside my name in this connection?

At the end we are told not only of the book of life, but also of personal histories - "the books were opened" (Revelation 20:12). May it be that these books represent God's evaluation of men's lives? If so, what will be the eternal verdict of my life? What will the books have to say of my response to divine imperatives? Thank God that all my sins are blotted out. By the wonder-working power of the Blood of Christ there can be no accusation against me. And there will be no record of the purely personal virtues or failings which during this life assume such great importance. No, what will be eternally recorded will surely be what is true of us, 'in Christ'. So the reading of this heartening list of Paul's friends challenges us as to how much our lives are really counting for God. We know the story of these disciples. We know also the regrettable comments which Paul had to make about others of his former colleagues, men like Demas who seems to have shrugged aside divine imperatives and taken his own course. What will history - God's history - say about me? What will be my story, 'in Christ'?

Nothing seems to be forgotten. Phoebe's kindliness, Aquila and Priscilla's self-sacrifice, the labours of this one and the hospitality of that - even the writing of the letter 'in the Lord', by Tertius (see margin of verse 22). Every aspect of devotion to Christ in these lives was noted and appreciated, even the humblest service finding its place in the inspired Scriptures.

One more feature of this chapter is the fact that people are appreciated, as people. The letter itself is a masterpiece of spiritual instruction, so profound that it has engaged and defeated the greatest brains in the Church, and still remains far from exhausted in its wealth. In a sense this was Paul's magnum opus, his supreme exposition of the infinite range of redemption. The more striking, then, that place should be given for the names of these simple people. It means that the apostle, with all the divine wisdom and revelation given to him, was more concerned with persons than with truths. Doctrines can be considered and held in a detached way, but what value is there in abstract truths if they are not expressed in terms of individual people?

Great as was the ministry and spiritual significance of this notable apostle, he was clearly a man who took real interest in people. He remembered their names, he recorded their special features, he gave thanks for them, and he prayed for them individually. How easy it is for the servants of the Lord to become so absorbed in their ministry and so pre-occupied with their messages, that they neglect the very individuals to whom the messages are directed. When a man or a woman is led to trust in Christ he does not become one more cipher for statistics, but a live personality who matters to God and should matter to God's servants. And they matter not just as those who must be given instruction as to Christian doctrines, but as individuals in whom those spiritual truths should find outworking and expression. For the apostle, truth had to be incarnate, it had to be personified - and these names show that it was.

Why was Paul so lovingly drawn out to these people? Perhaps because he could observe the fulfilment in them of the revelation given to him of the power of the gospel of Christ. It must have been refreshing to pass from his exposition of the theory of redemption to the living outworking of his doctrines. So it is that I ask myself what fruit there is in my own life from the volumes of teaching which I know and communicate in my preaching. Are God's people being helped, are they being made better servants of Christ because of my kindliness or self-sacrificial labours? If not, then in my case all that Paul wrote and all that I teach goes for nothing.

In the case of many of these people, it was Paul's own life which had been enriched by them, as he readily acknowledged. Phoebe had succoured him, Priscilla and Aquila had "laid down their own necks" for him, Rufus's mother had cared for him and Tertius wrote for him. None of these were apostles, yet by helping Paul they contributed something, however small, to an apostolic ministry. They could not do it all, and nor could he; but the whole divine purpose could be realised because a number of people played their part, labouring in Christ and for Christ. People matter! Nobody is a non-entity in Christ. There is a place for each one of us in the divine record. And we shall be glad to finish the chapter as Paul did: "to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ... be the glory for ever. Amen".

The Spirit of Service

Transcribed from a message given by T. Austin-Sparks in April 1959.

The spoken form has been retained verbatim.

The book of Exodus chapter 32 and verse 32: “Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin-; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written”.

And in the letter to the Romans chapter 9 and verse 3: “For I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh”.

I think, dear friends, in these two utterances are two outstanding - perhaps the two most outstanding servants of God - in the two dispensations, the old and the new: Moses and Paul. We have the very highest point of service to the Lord represented.

We are all concerned with this matter of being of service to the Lord and we are ever seeking to know how that service can be best fulfilled and how we may rise to the highest possible level of service to Him. And I repeat, that this statement, this prayer by Moses (and if you look at the margin of Paul’s words you will see that that also was a prayer, the word ‘wish’ is really ‘prayer’ or ‘pray’: “I could pray…”) these two prayers of these two outstanding servants of God do represent the highest degree of service to the Lord. And that is because there is nothing beyond these statements, nothing whatever beyond them in the matter of selflessness. You can’t go beyond this: “Blot me out of the book which Thou hast written”; “accursed from Christ”. There is no degree beyond that.  The utterness of selflessness is in those prayers. They represent a greater concern for the people of God than, not only personal blessing or personal vindication or position or reputation, but life itself. It is only another way in which these men were saying, “Well, my life begins and ends with the people of God and I have nothing beyond that. And if they should lose or suffer, and I in any way could have prevented it, then I have missed the whole purpose of life and the very purpose of my own salvation. That is the sum and the end of everything.” What a devotion! What a devotion. That is service.

There were certain things that Paul and Moses had in common which are headed up in these prayers as you see the context of the passages; you see the sin of the Lord’s people. This thirty second chapter of Exodus follows the story of that terrible breakdown under Aaron’s leadership and the setting up of the idol and the worshipping of it and turning away from God and saying “These be thy gods oh Israel”; the awful sin of the Lord’s people. And then as for Paul’s context, it’s in the context of what Israel had done to his Lord, in the killing of Christ.

This devotion… the point is this devotion was not to a people who drew it out by reason of their goodness, the fineness of their substance, the lovableness of their nature. It’s tremendously strengthened, this devotion, by recognizing the kind of people to whom these hearts so utterly went out. It’s a rebuke to us in our service. It’s so easy for us to give and to devote ourselves to labour for those who give a return and who show kindness and who are nice people, we think are worthwhile people… And here, a love to the uttermost for people who were so utterly unworthy of it at all. That, Paul and Moses had in common. But further, they had this in common: that they themselves were objects of those people’s reproach and persecution. There had been times when Moses was seeking to bring the people out of Egypt when they turned on him, they turned on him and blamed him for their difficulties and situations. And we know that even after this incident many times they railed on Moses, they laid at his door all their troubles. And as for Paul, what a time he had at the hands of Israel! The Judaizers and all the rest, what a time he had! They denounced him as a traitor. And yet, although these men themselves were personally the objects of the opposition of those to whom they had given their lives, this was their spirit and their attitude: Forgive! If Thou wilt forgive… and he breaks off, he doesn’t finish that part, “If Thou wilt… but if You don’t, if not, blot me out of the book which Thou hast written”. “I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren’s sake.” What a spirit of service!

I say again: it’s a terrible rebuke to us. Here are these men exemplifying the spirit of Christ; that’s the point. We’re in Galatians and we’ve only got to remember He was made a curse for us; "I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren’s sake". He was made a curse… He carried the spirit of service all that way to being cut off from God, for that eternal moment when the Father hid His face... for the sake of His brethren. Turn to Hebrews and we know that it was for His brethren, “I and the children…” the brethren. Yes, so utter was His committal that He, Christ, actually suffered for that moment the loss of God; the loss of everything. What I’m stressing is the spirit of Christ in service, how far it must take us.

Now when you look at both of these passages in their context, there’s a lot of instruction. You notice that in each case, in each case, the previous chapter is a most wonderful and blessed chapter. The thirty first chapter of Exodus, Moses in the mountain in communion with God receiving the pattern for the tabernacle, and what a wonderful thing that was! It was the mount of revelation. We can say in meaning, the revelation of Jesus Christ in all the fullness of His mediatorial work; for that is what the tabernacle stands for. This pattern was shown in the mount and Moses was there with God. It’s a wonderful chapter! Presently that will all be taken up again and put into effect but there’s a dark chapter between.

Look at Romans eight; everybody knows what Romans eight is about but there are few more beautiful and glorious things than the closing words of that chapter: “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord". And in Paul’s letter there were no chapters. It ran straight on into what is in our arrangement chapter nine. A wonderful chapter is chapter eight, we’re lifted into the heights of the marvel of divine love. Presently that will all be taken up and you get to chapter twelve, everybody knows chapter twelve and onward, the thing now is coming into effect, but again, in between: the dark chapter. The dark chapter… Here is that to which we are called. The service of the house of God, the service of the revelation of Jesus Christ, the service of the love of God; all to be brought into concrete form in the Lord’s people. But between the revelation and the realization there is a terrible battle.

In every case, in these cases, and it’s always so, there’s a terrible battle between. There’s always this that we have in chapter thirty two: the breaking in of the enemy to spoil everything... the outbreaking of the flesh in men... the spirit of idolatry. It is about a wider and bigger thing than just the worship of some idol, this very comprehensive movement to draw away from God, and it’s found by the play of the evil forces upon men’s nature and that’s the realm of the battle. There’s something that has got to be dealt with and got out of the way. When Moses and the Levites dealt with it and got it out of the way then they could get on with the tabernacle. Paul dealt with this thing in Israel, he dealt with it very drastically. I think that is the point of the letter to the Galatians, I hope I don’t trespass and make it difficult for any brethren, but do you know that, if I may say this here, the letter to the Galatians saw a battle fought through which never had to be fought through again in that time. Once and for all, Paul through that letter settled the matter of the Judaizers in his time. After that it was finished. They were doing just what these people were doing at the foot of the mount. It was a battle, a desperate battle to make the way clear for the purpose of God.

Now that of course provides the very focal point for this message: Devotion. Utter devotion to God’s purpose concerning His people is going to make the uttermost demand upon any servant of God. It’s going to test and find out our spirit of service and it is going, dear friends, if we are really going to serve God in this uttermost way, it’s going to bring us to this point where we’ve nothing left to fall back upon of personal interest, position or blessing; it is simply a matter of God and God only. And if God doesn’t do it, we’re finished, we’ve nothing to live for. We’ve nothing to live for, we’ve no alternative, we’ve no second line, we are in this matter of the Lord’s purpose and interest to the very last drop of our blood. And if not, then there’s nothing more for us.

The, the purpose of God in His people will demand that. We shall find that, sooner or later, it’s no use, it’s no use, we can’t have any alternatives, we can’t have a second course; it’s everything or nothing, everything or nothing, and we shall be and we must be prepared to be brought to the place where we are prepared to get right out of the way ourselves, altogether out of the way in every sense if the Lord can reach His end, if only He can reach His end; we don’t matter. That’s what Moses said: I don’t matter! My salvation doesn’t matter, my life doesn’t matter! Paul said the same. What matters is that the Lord has His end in His people and if that is not reached then I don’t know what I’m alive for. I don’t know what I’ve been saved for!

How far removed this is, isn’t it, from being saved to get things for ourselves in time and in eternity, to get heaven and to get blessing and all manner of things. These are the things offered if only we will be saved and we find that we are saved to be brought into the great purpose of God as His servants. And it’s no use, it's no use complaining, no use complaining, no use saying well this is too costly, or this is costly, this is hard work and so on; it’s no use, we’re committed to death for this thing, we are just committed unto death. Now the Lord said that right at the beginning: “he that saveth his life shall lose it, he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” It’s a life matter. Saving or losing what? Blessing? No, your life! No less an issue than that.

Are our hearts, dear friends, are our hearts really so bound up with the Lord’s concern not for ourselves but for His people, for His church; so bound up with that that we have nothing else for which to live. That is our horizon. That is our beginning and our end. That is all that we are on this earth for, for the Lord to have what He has set His heart upon in His people.

Well that’s the word, that’s the message: “I’m not seeking something for myself in the work of God or in salvation. I’m not seeking place, I’m not seeking name, reputation; I’m not seeking any gain whatever. I’m committed so utterly to the Lord’s concern and purpose in a people. And far, far from doing those people an injury, hurting the Lord’s people - and oh there are a lot of Christians hurting the Lord’s people, doing a lot of hurt to the Lord’s people and to the Lord’s interests in His people - far from that, we would rather die than that the Lord should lose anything in His people. That’s the spirit of these words and these servants. And that’s the message, just that: a call to service, to recognize what that service is. It is the service of Christ and the service of Christ was "obedient unto death, yea, the death of the Cross".

Now this brings to this last very brief word which is in a way a reiteration of something said recently. The peculiar and particular sufferings and trials of the servants of the Lord… we don’t suffer for our salvation, we pay no price whatever for our redemption, that is all free and we have it without money, without price. Never attach your sufferings to your salvation. Keep those two things always apart but you need not be told that when you are saved you enter upon a life of difficulties and adversities and trials and afflictions and suffering. Why? Because you have been called not just to salvation, you’ve been called to service; you’ve been called to service. And the servant of the Lord or servanthood necessitates these fiery ordeals in which the dross of self interest is removed. That is the effect of our adversities and our sufferings, if they have their right effect, just to completely deal with this whole matter of personal motives and selfish interests and ourselves as featuring in the work of God.

The fire, the fire deals with the dross of selfhood which is always the menace to service. Look at the Lord Jesus. The master servant. The great servant. One thing that is clearer than anything else and more outstanding in Him is being yet what He was, the eternal Son of God incarnate, could lay aside His robe, gird Himself with a towel, take a basin of water and wash the disciple’s feet. There is the picture of the servant; utterly emptied of all selfhood, reputation, self importance, prestige, standing, dignity and everything else! It’s gone. It’s the spirit of service. “I came not to be ministered unto but to minister” He came to give His life. That is the spirit of it and it carries us all the way, we have nothing left of ourselves in this service but, I was saying, the explanation of our trials and sufferings and discipline is just this: to make us better servants, make us true servants. What Moses had in that way, until it was possible for it to be said “Now, the man Moses was the meekest of all men upon the earth” and therefore Moses stands a giant over the whole of the Old Testament with one word, one title: Moses the servant of God. And we need not indicate Paul, the servant of Jesus Christ, if ever there was a servant in this dispensation, he was. But look at this man: “I could pray myself to be accursed from Christ for my brethren’s sake.” That’s the spirit of service. The Lord inculcate that in us.

Spiritual Ploughing

"But Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62).

I have just had a couple of days at the farm and during that time I saw some ploughing, and afterward when we were back indoors this text came up, and we were told that, in its actual terms it is quite out of date, for modern ploughing is not done with the eye looking on. You have to look around, and especially back, in modern ploughing, but the principle is the same. The principle, of course, governs the heart. In the East you must keep your eye ahead to plough a straight furrow, and if you look back you spoil the work. Now you do not do that literally, but I say the principle is the same. If the heart looks back, everything does go wrong and all fitness for the kingdom is spoiled. This is a word which truly gathers up what Paul said about the Scripture - that it is "for reproof, for correction, for instruction" (2 Tim. 3:16). There are all those elements in this - "No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God".

Hard Work

Let us think for a moment of the work of ploughing as we have seen it in these days. It is by far the most difficult and the heaviest work that anyone might contemplate. For one thing it is at a time of the year when things are most difficult. The elements are far from helpful, everything seems to make this work hard. Ploughing is indeed heavy work. Against everything the plough and the ploughmen have to force their way. Ploughing in Winter is a lonely thing. There is nothing very much to inspire. It is not the time when the birds are singing and the trees are budding and all the signs of new life are in evidence. All that is absent. It is a desolate time, a lonely time, nothing whatever on the outside to inspire. Such is the time of ploughing.

If that is true in the natural world - and much more than that is true - it is true in the spiritual. Ploughing is hard work. Ploughing means the disturbing and breaking up, of settled conditions. When things and people have settled down, have accepted a position and become fixed, they do not like being disturbed, heaved up, turned over, and broken open. Ploughing is hard work. It goes against everything that is set and settled, fixed and accepted. Ploughing is the uncovering of what is hidden, and no one likes that. The presence of a Christian has the effect of uncovering the hidden. If it does not, there is something wrong with the Christianity. Our presence and our ministry in this world is to uncover. The Lord Jesus knew what He was talking about when He lighted upon this figure, this simile, the plough and the ploughman. He knew something of what ploughing meant in the disturbing of the settled and comfortable and accepted and fixed state of things. Oh, that is hard work! He knew the loneliness of the plough. He knew what it meant - the 'come-back' when His presence uncovered the hidden, for His presence in this world, if it had one effect at all, had that. Everything was uncovered by His presence. He said "I am come a light into the world." (John 12:46). The plough uncovers, opens up, discloses, drags out the hidden things, and people do not like that. It is hard work, it is something that has very little inspiration from the outside.

Lonely Work

It is lonely work. The plough gets deep down beneath the surface, and people love to live on the surface. They do not like their depths cut into. They do not like to be told that the Cross must go deep into their lives, right down deep into the subsoil. No, that is not the thing that we love. There is that which Paul called "the offence of the cross" (Gal. 5:11, A.V.), the Cross cutting deep down into the life and refusing to have anything superficial. We want to be like that, we want to have things in us covered over and pretty and undisturbed and unbroken into, but the plough of the Cross does all these things, and to plough with the Cross is lonely and uninspiring work. You may well return chilled to the bone with the cold blast in your ploughing work. It is like that. That is the work of the plough. Christ knew well what the plough of the Gospel, the Word of God, and the message of the Cross meant.

Temptation To Give up

And then the ever-present temptation to give up. I think if there is one thing calculated to make a man want to give up and go home and get by the fire it must be plough-work - I mean in our country, at any rate. It must be an ever-present temptation to just give up and go back and, if it is not actually done, very often the heart must be on the brink of it. There is the extent of the work, the ground to be covered. You look over the acres and acres of muddy land and feel the biting wind, and the heart could go out of you. You could say, 'No, it is too much'. And in this world of the work of God, our hearts can so easily be turned back, made to look back by the consciousness of how much there is to be done. Oh, do you not often feel like that? After all, how little has been done, how much remains, what a vast field of unsaved and of spiritual need remains untouched! I think we must confess that sometimes we feel the task is impossible, it is altogether beyond us. Shall we even touch it a little bit? If we begin with our earliest breath and finish with our last, what will there be to show for all, in view of all that there is? The temptation is ever present to say that, because of the greatness, the vastness, of the demand, it is hopeless or beyond us.

The Setbacks

And then what setbacks! The constant interruptions, the element of frustration ever present. It is not just all straightforward. It is not as though you get your plough or your tractor and go ahead up and down. There are these constant interruptions, these constant goings-wrong, comings-in of the extra and the unexpected and the element of frustration. Is it not like that in the work of God? If only it was straightforward, if only it were clearcut, if only there were not all these extras, these unexpected things, all this that constitutes the element of frustration. How we crave for a straightforward way. How we just long that things could be straightforward, and it seems that it is never like that at all. You think you are just going to get on with a fine furrow. Something happens, breaks down, goes wrong somewhere, and it is like that all the day long.

The Weariness

And then the weariness in the way. The Lord Jesus knew something about that. "Jesus... being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well" (John 4:6). He spoke of those who were weary, the heavy-laden (Matt. 11:28). He knew about it - that enemy inside. I think there are few greater enemies than the enemy of weariness. It is right inside. You are fighting against something inside.

Now do you think when the Lord Jesus said these words He was saying them harshly, without understanding, without sympathy, without knowledge of all this? Oh, truly not. He knew it all. He was the master ploughman, He was the chief of all the ploughmen of God. He accepted a difficult field, He took on a tremendous task; all the elements were blowing against Him from hell and the world; all the things we have mentioned were true in His case. And yet He will say to His fellow-workers, "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God". The heart must not go back. We must not contemplate giving up.

The Ploughman's Resources

Yes, that is all very well, and there would not be much help in that, in just being told that, even if He told us, if we did not know of the ploughman's resources. The ploughman must have resources or he will never get through. What are they?

(a) The Lord's Forewarning as to the Cost

Well, first of all - and it does not seem to be, at first glance, very helpful, but the Lord thought it had a place - you see, He told His servants frankly what they were going to meet and what it was going to cost. "Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:27). It is going to cost you everything, it is going to be a difficult way. If you are looking for self-gratification, this is not the way for you. If you are looking for popularity, this is not the way for you. Understand from the outset that this is how it is going to be. You will never be able to sow and reap and have the much happier side of life until you know something about ploughing. Plough life comes first. It is the basis of everything, and it is the hard grind with everything against. So that first of all it is necessary for us to be fortified with the realization of this, that we are not going to have an easy time with the Lord and in His matters. Let that be settled. If only it could be settled once and for all, it would undercut a great deal of this heart looking back. We pull ourselves together and say, 'But is this not what we knew it would be, what the Lord told us it would be? Is this not really the way that we expected, the way of the Cross? I say that may not be a very concrete asset, and it does not always bring us a great deal of invigoration, but nevertheless it has to be settled, and the Lord felt that was necessary; that we should not get anywhere until we had counted the cost, settling it beforehand in our hearts, knowing that it would work out in this way - and it does. The Christian must always be in possession of a basic understanding that right to the end there will always be an aspect of the Christian life which is like the plough work.

(b) Vision and a Sense of Vocation

But then there are the positive assets. There has to be - and without this we shall always be at a discount and loss - there has to be vision which produces a sense of vocation. How could a man go on with that plough work through the blast of Winter with all this that he is up against if he did not see ahead, if he had not got in his eye the result, the long run, if he did not look beyond the present to the future and see what it was unto? He must have vision. It is the great asset creating a sense of vocation. That is, this vision constitutes a call, a draw, a life-purpose, it brings the element of meaning into all. If you cannot see beyond this, there is no meaning in it - turning all this over for its own sake, doing all this just as an end in itself. No, he must see ahead and keep the vision ever before him or he will give up. And that vision must make him feel it is worth it, it is unto something, it is not in vain, there is purpose in it, a sense of vocation, and in the work of the Lord it must be like that. There is a purpose in the most difficult, the most heartbreaking work. There is purpose in it all. We must have that vision which has brought into us a sense of vocation. We are called with destiny, destiny is right at the centre of our being, and we are working under the grip of that sense of destiny, which is only another word for vocation.

(c) The Power That Worketh In Us

But then, it is uphill work. Ploughing, though it be on the level naturally, is uphill work always. You are going against something, you have to get over something, everything is against you. It is uphill work, but what a range is in that word in Ephesians - "raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all..." (1:20,21). "According to the power that worketh in us" (Ephesians 3:20). I wonder if you have noticed that word in the letter to the Ephesians, how repeatedly it occurs - "according to", "according to", and here it is. "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us". That is the ploughman's resource. We may not often be conscious of the exceeding greatness of that power working in us; more often we are totally unconscious of it and only conscious of our own weakness and feebleness and emptiness and foolishness. That has always been true - weak and foolish and empty and useless. How often have our hearts turned back, looked back, with this temptation to give up, to let go, to say we cannot go any further. Oh, we would be ashamed to say how many times, how true that is of our history. But we are still here, and we shall be there at last. As we are here at the end of this year, by the grace of God, because of the power that has worked in us and for no other reason at all, we shall be there at the end of all the years on the same ground - not because we were so sufficient, but because of the power that worked in us. It is hard work and hard going and lonely, and against everything conceivable, but there is the power that worketh in us. It will see the work done if we draw upon that power.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-June 1952, Vol 30-3

Spirituality: The Key To All That is of God

A spiritual state is the key to all that is of God. Spirituality is the door, and the key to the door, beyond which lies everything that relates to God. Without spirituality there is no way through; the door is closed. The word ''cannot'' stands written as an impassable barrier - ''cannot understand or receive the things of the Spirit of God. ''

The world of things temporal is only a shadow of another world and has no abiding qualities or values in itself. It is governed by the law of vanity, vanity meaning simply that it cannot of itself realize its own destiny. It will reach a point, and from that point turn back and in upon itself; its efforts, its groanings, its travailings, never issue in a final realization of its intention. Nothing of it, by its own properties, can realize Divine purposes and ends. It is very important to recognize this.

As we get closer to this matter, we see how it applies specifically to Christian work. Oh, how many things are gathered into organized Christianity with the idea of making for effectiveness! The idea is that if you can have these things you are going to get results.

Money - oh, how much could be done if only we had money! We must have money! I ask you, how was it in the book of the Acts? Was anything done? With all the money today, how much is done of an abiding, eternal, spiritual value? If only you can get names and titles on your programs and advertisements, you are going to effect something! Are you? If you can get reputation, scholarship, learning, ability, physical strength, business acumen, the work will be affected. Will it?

I want to say that not in one of these things, nor in all of them put together, in themselves, is there any spiritual value, and there can be a very vast amount of spiritual value without any of them. God has taken pains along both lines to prove that. Along the line of their presence in abundance He has proved their spiritual futility; and along the line of taking the weak things and the despised and the foolish and the things which are not, by something which was nothing in itself, He has through the ages demonstrated His own power and done mightily fruitful things for eternity.

Well, that is simple and obvious, and it is only one more contribution to this fact, that it is spirituality that counts, that is the effective thing, the thing that gets through, and nothing else. The learning, the money, and all the other things may have a place, provided they do not govern, provided they are subservient to what is spiritual and are never banked upon as the things which are going to do the work; provided it is never assumed that if you have these things, a great work for God can be done. God will make evident the folly of that assumption. A whole range of things is employed by organized Christianity to secure Divine ends, but it does not work. Well, that is the first thing that we note in connection with spirituality.

We proceed in the next place to recognize that for spiritual - that is, Divine, eternal, ultimate purposes, we have to be reconstituted on a spiritual level and basis. That, of course, is the very heart of John 3. Nicodemus is interested in, and concerned about, the Kingdom of God, wanting to know about it, and has come to the Lord Jesus by night, evidently to talk about it. He had, like all other Israelites, an entirely temporal conception of the Kingdom, an earthly idea. It was formal, an official matter. The Lord Jesus does not waste any time at all with that. He simply brushes it all aside, ignores it, and says, ''Ye must be born anew". ''Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.'' That is elementary, but we are coming to this fact: in order to know anything at all about the things of God (and I take the Kingdom of God to be that realm in which all that obtains is of God - -that which belongs to God) we have to be constituted according to God.

Nothing is possible until we are reconstituted on a new principle, until we are in other words constituted spiritual beings in a new way. The very beginnings of things in relation to God are that they are a new and altogether other constitution, just as absolute as would be the reconstituting of us to live a fish's life, and perhaps more so. We have to begin over again. For the very first thing of God, that is necessary. I know that I am not saying anything that is new in itself to you, but I feel very much that there has to be a reconsideration of the whole Christian conception of things if we are going to have effectiveness.

The ideas of doing God's work, and of what His work is, are very often far from the truth. The ideas of the means by which God would work are very often largely outside of the pale of God's acceptance. We are concerned with real spiritual effectiveness, are we not? Then we have to learn the secret of it; that is what we are after. There is a crippling, paralyzing ''cannot'' resting upon the natural, the soulical man where the things of God are concerned; and yet how much of that soulical life is employed and relied upon in Christianity today to secure spiritual ends! If only you can get high-tensioned atmospheres, a good deal of stir and movement and emotion; if only you can get certain conditions brought about by a forceful, powerful personality with its impact upon the people; then you will get results!

And a great deal of result is obtained, but it is not spiritual; it is not abiding and eternal. But unfortunately, the consequences are not limited to that. There issues ever more and more this great tragedy of people having tried and been disappointed, and determining never to try again. The world is strewn with people who have had an experience and no more. Oh, the devil is clever!

We are saying that there is an unbridged gulf between the natural and the spiritual, and there can be no carryover; and yet in the Christianity of our day there is a tremendous carryover of the natural to the spiritual. We find the realm of God's things is simply full of natural elements, and they are all paralyzing the spiritual. There has to be a tremendous removal of all this smother and cover of natural elements - men coming in with their drive and their ideas and conceptions and ways. It is killing the work of God. Until that is really dealt with in the power of the Cross of our Lord Jesus and all set aside, and God is free to do His own work by His own means along His own lines, there will be no commensurate result. God's means and God's way is spirituality from start to finish - the impact of a spiritual constitution.

Yes, there is an unbridged gulf between the natural (the soulical) and the spiritual, and there can be no carryover. Look at the fact. It is so often very striking that a person of very considerable natural acumen, learning intelligence and ability in this world is nothing in real spiritual things, though he be a Christian. Are you not often up against that? A Christian man may be tremendously able in business affairs and most acute in his business transactions, full of intelligence and worldly wisdom, able to carry the weight of an immense concern, to be the driving force of a great business, man of weight and consideration in this world, but when it comes to spiritual things he may be a babe. You speak about the things of the Lord, and that great brain is altogether beaten by the simplest things of the spiritual life. You can get nowhere in talking about the Lord.

I am often amazed as I meet and talk with Christian men who are carrying great responsibilities and who have undoubtedly great abilities, and when you talk about spiritual things they are unable to say anything, to make any contribution; you are talking in another realm. And yet they know they are born again, and they have been so for a long time. What is the matter? Well, there is a gulf. They have all that greatness on the natural side, but they are very small on the spiritual. All that they have of intellectual ability and equipment and power in every way to handle big things naturally serves them in no stead whatever when they come to handle the things of God; whereas somebody who has none of it is a giant, a teacher, in the realm of things spiritual. Well, that is a commonplace in our experience.

But it comes right back to this, that there is a gulf, and there is no real bridging of this gulf, there is no carrying from one side to the other. The word ''cannot'' stands there. Here the word is not about the unregenerate, the grossly sinful. It is the Christian who is still natural, living on the basis of his soul rather than in the realm of his renewed spirit. The natural man ''cannot". That is the closed door in things spiritual. Whatever he is in things natural, in things spiritual he is a babe or a fool.

Let me say without any hesitation: the measure of external ritual and formalism and that sort of thing determines the measure of spirituality. The more you have of that, the less you have of true spiritual life, of real spiritual food. A real life with the Lord is something very simple, shorn of all the art of religion; a few children of God gathered together in something which has no ecclesiastical traditions, no religious embellishments, no external forms, but just a simple meeting in the Name of the Lord. There you have life, power, fullness. I am not saying that things must be shoddy in order to have spirituality; I am saying that the law of life is spirituality.

It works in another way. The nearer to earth we get, the more we ourselves feel our importance. Man is biggest when he is nearest to the earth; he is smallest when he is farthest away. I remember my first time in an aeroplane; at ten thousand feet up, I looked down on the ground that meant so much weary toil to cross. It looked only inches big; the people and animals were like toys. The nearer to heaven you get, the less important are the things of earth. All this religious embellishment is the importance of the earth, of the world. The nearer you get to things spiritual and heavenly, the less of that you want, it all goes; you see how really petty and insignificant it is. See the Church from heaven, and all this that goes on down here is like playing at going to church, it is so small. There is a great deal of difference in the spiritual constitution.

To sum up what I am saying, it is this: Spirituality rightly understood is the secret of all that belongs to God. At the very beginning of our life with God, we have to be reconstituted as spiritual beings.

''That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.''

''He that is spiritual........''

"As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.''

Stewardship

"Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful." (1 Corinthians 4:1,2)

A steward is a man who, on the one hand, stands in a living relationship to all that his lord has and, on the other hand, has an equally close relationship to all those who look to his lord for the supply of their needs. So that the steward is a very responsible person.

The Steward's Responsibility

The steward is responsible for the reputation of his master. What the world knows of that master will very largely accord with the steward's character and behaviour. What the world or the household receives of good and enrichment will depend upon him. The apostle Paul spoke of himself as a steward, as one who had been entrusted with such a task; but it is impressive to note that he applies the term to the believers in the Corinthian Church also. We can quite readily understand and appreciate that Paul should be a steward, but when, he so addresses the members of the Corinthian assembly, bringing them all in, that shows that the designation can be applied to very ordinary believers. We cannot, therefore, evade the issue by saying: Well, that applies to special people like Paul. It clearly applies also to the Corinthians and ourselves, pressing the point that men should be able to regard us and take account of us as stewards for God.

This speaks of something more than merely having a standing as believers. We might perhaps think that the world must take account of us as Christians; they will do that in any case if we make a profession of faith in Christ, but this divine thought takes us much further. It brings us out into a place of specific and definite responsibility in two connections: firstly to the Lord, binding up the Lord's interest with us in an active way; secondly, in a like practical way, to men. We are stewards, standing in a place between, and with a responsibility in two directions.

The Lord's people need to be reminded from time to time that there is a tremendous responsibility resting upon everyone who is related to Him, because that relationship ought never to be a passive one. It is not just that the matter begins and ends with our claiming to be members of a family. Membership of the household of faith is but one phase of truth, of the teaching of God's Word. Believers are called by a variety of designations which do not counter one another, being so many aspects of a whole, and not mutually exclusive. For instance, in the case of earthly relationships, for one to be a member of the family would preclude one from being the steward of the household, but with the spiritual relationship it is not so. We have to keep the family relationship in its place, recognising that it brings its own obligations, but at the same time we must appreciate that we are given the position of steward, with its special responsibilities. This holds good for us all. It is God's thought for every believer that he should be a steward. This leads us to several important considerations.

The Steward's Qualifications

A fact which should be very helpful to us is that all the Lord's dealings with us are with the design of making us the kind of stewards which we ought to be. A steward has to be qualified for his task. He must be a man of certain definite characteristics. The fulfilment of his stewardship will demand experience. He cannot step into a spiritual stewardship at will. There has to be a real preparation, a real development and a real endowment for such an office. If you read carefully the connection in Paul's mind between the stewardship and its fulfilment, you will see that the connection is a very practical and active one. He was conscious of the need of special enablement, special gifts, special qualifications, and for such equipment he recognised the need for special experiences. Stewardship is a matter of training, and deep training at that.

In order to make us able stewards, the Lord takes us into many different kinds of experiences, some of them extraordinary and unusual; such a variety of experiences as come to none but His own people. No one else goes through quite the same training, for they do not need it. Other people in the world may go through certain sufferings which are similar; they may know the difficulty of poverty, the difficulty of maintaining their position in the world; outwardly there may be a similarity, but inwardly there are elements associated with the experiences of believers which are peculiar. With the believer there comes a challenge which others do not know and demands to be faced which do not come to those who are not believers. Simply because we are the Lord's servants we have to pass through discipline and face enemies; all this is permitted by the Lord who is seeking to train us.

(1) An Experimental Knowledge of Need

To what end is this? We have already shown that what governs the Lord in His dealings with us, His mysterious and strange dealings, His unique permissions, is His design of making us stewards. These things are meant because the steward must learn to know the needs of the people to whom he is to minister. He must enter into the nature of men's needs. The man of God is not just an official; he is not someone taken out of a crowd and put into office with a daily task which can be learned by studying a manual. He has to have a vital relationship with the whole position, and he must have a living and experimental knowledge of the nature of the needs of those whom he serves. Between him and the people to whom he is to minister his Master's riches, there must be a sympathy of heart. He must know the variety of their needs, for what must be given to one would be quite unsuitable for another. He has to find, as a physician finds, that no two cases are exactly alike, because no two temperaments are exactly alike. A dozen people may have the same complaint, but it may be needful to treat each one differently because of the different temperamental factors in each case. Just as the physician takes not only the complaint but the individual into account, so it is with the steward. He must be a man with a heart understanding.

The Lord deals with us in order that we may be able to minister in an apt way. His stewards are to be men of understanding, so dealing with each individual as to elicit the exclamation: 'That just fits me! That touches my case! That steward must know by experience what it is like!' The Lord always knows, and He would take us through such experiences as will communicate this kind of knowledge to us, so that we may be capable dispensers of His goodness. The Lord's way of training us is to take us through things first, for who knows better how to help than the one who has already passed through the same suffering?

(2) An Experimental Knowledge of the Resources

Further, the steward has not only to understand the nature of the need to be met, but he must also have a knowledge of the resources from which he is to meet it. He must know the quality of that which is at his command, the nature of it and the values that are in it. Here again, we can never know the values of the things of God unless we have gone through experiences in which we have put them to the test and proved them. No one really knows the value of divine things who has not proved their power in his own life.

The stewardship of the gospel is something more than a New Testament system of truth concerning God's grace. It is something more than a formula of certain truths such as forgiveness of sins, justification by faith, and all the other doctrines of the evangel. The stewardship of the gospel implies that its power has become wrought into the very being of the steward, and that the steward is himself rejoicing in the good of it. Such a steward can come out of the treasure house and meet the household and those beyond, saying: 'I have something here of tremendous value; I am rejoicing in it myself; I know it, and I can assure you that this is not the result of my studies and gleaning from others, but comes from an up-to-date enjoyment of its benefits.'

What is true of the gospel is true of the many-sided mysteries of God. That is another stewardship of which Paul speaks (Colossians 1:25). You and I are led into the mysteries of God, into the depths, to discover those secrets and to come out with the treasures of darkness. We may for a time feel that all seems death and desolation, with poverty and starvation reigning over us, but to come out with treasures from such dark experiences constitutes a man a true steward of God's mysteries. Stewards are men and women who have been through the dark and there discovered divine treasures which they are afterwards able to pass on.

(3) Faithfulness

How much have you to dispense? Are you sure that you are dispensing what you have? The Lord did not lead you through that trial, through that strange experience, just for your own sake. He has not dealt with you as He has in order that you should be shut up to yourself, to enjoy the result alone. He has done what He has to constitute you a steward. If we will only allow that fact to govern us in the days of difficulty and trial, it will help us through. We should hold fast to the fact that the trial is meant to provide enrichment for others and an increase of equipment and qualification for the work of stewardship. There are so many who have a measure of spiritual wealth and are not making it available to others. They have a knowledge of the Lord which has come through experience, and if only they would get alongside of others, they could impart to them some of the blessing and enrichment which they have first received.

Ask the Lord to release you into your stewardship within your measure. I am not thinking of an official, organised service which is artificial and demands of you what you do not have to give, but of the possibility of living contacts which God will give you with others. Children of God may cross your path in dire need, and may all the time be looking for the person who can help them. They may have been crying to the Lord to meet their need, and you may be the one through whom God can answer their prayers. If they cross your path and you only talk about all sorts of ordinary things, then they will pass on their way unmet and you will have failed in your stewardship. How sad if the chosen steward has disappointed those who had cried to the Lord, yes, and disappointed the Lord also!

"It is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful" (1 Corinthians 4:2). He must be faithful, though not necessarily eloquent, intellectual, with a strong personality or any such special gifts. I believe that the greatest virtue in the eyes of God is faithfulness; it embraces everything. Faithfulness is something which is after God's own heart. Look at Paul the steward: "Demas forsook me... all forsook me" (2 Timothy 4:10 and 16) and marvel at his steadfastness. He was left practically alone. He had more enemies than ever. Even some of his former friends seem now to have become enemies. But there is no thought, no suggestion, of giving up. His word is: "faithful unto death". This steward was faithful. It was not that his life was being vindicated up to the hilt. No, in some ways he seemed to be dying as a lonely man. But - as a true steward - he was found faithful.

What enrichment, however, has come to us all because of that faithfulness! All through the centuries men have been profiting from Paul's faithful stewardship through many and deep discouragements. His work still goes on. It is typical of faithful stewardship that the steward may be called away but his stewardship goes on. Faithfulness is always rewarded beyond men's wildest dreams. We must not be downcast, if for the moment our faithfulness involves us in an appearance of apparent failure. Our business is to be good and faithful stewards.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Mar-Apr, 1937

Taking Responsibility for the Testimony

"Now about that time Herod the king put forth his hands to afflict certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword.  And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. And those were the days of unleavened bread. And when he had taken him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to guard him; intending after the Passover to bring him forth to the people. Peter therefore was kept in the prison: but prayer was made earnestly of the church unto God for him. And when Herod was about to bring him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and guards before the door kept the prison. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shined in the cell: and he smote Peter on the side, and awoke him, saying, Rise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals. And he did so. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. And he went out, and followed; and he knew not that it was true which was done by the angel, but thought he saw a vision. And when they were past the first and the second guard, they came unto the iron gate that leadeth into the city; which opened to them of its own accord: and they went out, and passed on through one street; and straightway the angel departed from him. And when Peter was come to himself, he said, Now I know of a truth, that the Lord hath sent forth his angel and delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews." (Acts 12:1-11).

We will not read more for the sake of time, but there is a word that has been very much on my heart of late which I feel the Lord would have passed on to you; a very important message, I feel, for the Lord's children today.

It is with regard to our privilege and responsibility for the testimony, especially in relation to the ministry in the testimony of the Lord. Very briefly, what we have in this chapter is this.

The Lord was doing things through His servants, the Word was going forth in power; then, as always is the case, there is a mighty reaction of hell to the work of God, and the adversary stirs up his instrument, his emissaries against the testimony, and Herod is taken hold of and turned against the testimony of the Lord. And he slew James and then proceeded to take Peter also. This whole object of the enemy is to curtail this testimony and to limit the spread thereof, and to shut up this ministry. Thus we find as a result of his second move, Peter in an inner prison with two chains on him and two guards beside him, and within a large number of other limiting things. That is the position, we may say, of the testimony at the moment. The testimony and its ministry brought under very severe limitations, brought under a captivity, for the moment checked, under arrest. Then the Lord reacts to that situation.

It is always very blessed to see the throne of the Lord coming in and the sovereignty of the Lord being put into operation: the Lord reacts to that situation, but He reacts along two lines. First of all by the Holy Spirit in His own people. And that is a very important side of things for us: and of course that is where our main emphasis is placed this morning. The Lord's reaction through the Holy Spirit within His own people, within the Church or within the assembly. And the Holy Spirit constrains them to prayer, so that here the assembly is found praying stretched-outedly to God. The position in effect is this, "Lord, this testimony and the ministry of this testimony is being crippled, is threatened with limitation, with bondage, with restriction, with curtailment, even with an end, and we cannot find it in our hearts to accept that situation. Rather do we find it borne in upon us that this must not be, that this testimony must be liberated and the ministry in relation thereto set free. We believe that is the registration of God's will in our hearts and so we are against this thing, and we are stretched out against this thing in prayer." And when the Lord, by His Spirit, gets His people to that position of intelligent co-operation with His throne in relation to the testimony and its ministry, then He acts sovereignly on His own part.

The sovereign acts of God do not operate, beloved, independently of the spiritual exercise of God's people. We must bear that in mind, for so often in a situation we sit down and say, "O Lord, do this thing," and in a kind of folded arms attitude wait for the Lord to act sovereignly for a deliverance, when the Lord first of all would energise in us unto stretched-out co-operation with Him before He would stretch out His hand in sovereign activity. But then He did act sovereignly by the angel, but the angel worked in fellowship with the Holy Spirit Who worked in the people of God. Now, beloved, the word for us this morning is on that other side, our privilege and our responsibility. Of course, there must be a position, a condition in us which provides the Holy Spirit with a ground of operation in relation to the Lord's will. I mean that we must have a very lively concern for the testimony, and that necessitates our having a clear apprehension of what the testimony is, and of the absolute importance of that testimony; how indispensable it is.

I do just wonder how far we are in that place, that position, that condition which is a lively concern for the Lord's testimony in an active way. How much we are concerned for our own testimony, for our own spiritual life and state, and we circle round ourselves very largely, spiritually. That may mean bondage, that may mean depression. There is nothing so strengthening, so emancipating as to be occupied with the Lord's testimony at large; and there is nothing so depressing, so paralysing as to be occupied merely with our own personal spiritual life. And I think that probably nine out of every ten of the frowns and unhappy looks which we carry are because we are occupied with our own spiritual condition; whereas if we were emancipated out into the Lord's great world testimony, we should be very much freer and a happier people. We want to be delivered from ourselves spiritually by all the Lord's universal interest.

Now are we out in that? Have we an intelligent, a lively interest, concern for the Lord's testimony in the earth; that which the Lord is after and that by which the Lord is going to get what He is after; the end of God and the means to secure that end? That is being in the testimony, and that specifically at any given time. Are we in that? Do we recognise what it is the Lord is seeking, what He is aiming at, what He is after at this time in the history of the world; this that we call the end time? Has it come to us? We have heard it a good many times; heard it with the ear, but has it broken upon us? Has it come to you, are you livingly in it? Has what the Lord is after at the end time gripped you? Are you intelligently in that thing, spiritually in that? Well, if you are, that is bound to issue in a real concern that that testimony and all the ministry in that testimony shall be absolutely free to go on, and that all limiting things, all binding things in that realm shall be broken, and that concern must be to stretched-out prayer; and, of course, the praying is the betrayal of our concern and intelligent understanding. You can always tell from how people pray just how much intelligence they have spiritually, and just how much really they are in the thing. You cannot pray really in a thing if you are not in it. If you are in it you cannot help yourself. That is a test, isn't it?

Well now, in just a very few moments, let us sum this up in a two-fold practical proposition. First of all, from the standpoint of concern for the Lord's testimony, do we recognise limitations which exist within the realm of that with which we are associated in the Lord? Do we see a handicapping within that circle, a limiting? Do we see that if only certain things were dealt with how much more could be realised for the Lord. Let Peter represent any one, or any thing that is of interest to the Lord. If only it were liberated it would mean that the testimony would come out and the Lord would be able to get so much more. Are you alive to the limiting elements in the testimony with which you are connected immediately? That is a realm for investigation, for prayerful contemplation. We must pray intelligently, we must pray in a living relation to the situation. We cannot pray theoretical prayers, abstractions.

We have to recognise where loosing is necessary; where those things which are crippling need to be dealt with, and we have to come right in fellowship, stretched out on that. You may think that is calling you again into strenuous, laborious work. Believe me, you will find your liberation, your joy in that. This assembly here would not believe their prayers were answered, but do not let us altogether blame their unbelief, let us give them credit for something else as well. Credit for the Lord having done more than they asked or thought. (Perhaps they asked for or thought of an acquittal at the trial.) And you know; when the Lord does things like this you are always a little incredulous, sometimes you cannot believe it has happened. Everyone of us has been there, have prayed with all our might for the Lord to do a thing, and when He has done it we have rubbed our eyes! Is it true?

Oh, that the Lord would find Him an adequate company of men who are free in the Lord spiritually, from every shackle, from every chain of system, where they are free in the Lord with a sovereign work of God at their back and an open way before them, and who can say: Now I know that the Lord has done this, no man could have done this, the Lord has done it, brought me out here! We need men and women who stand in that position and say the Lord has wrought a great emancipating work for them; and in relation to ministry, whereas hell rose up to bring an end to that ministry, God acted because He had chosen, He stood and delivered. But remember the sovereign act of God in that direction is in conjunction with the Holy Spirit-energised prayer of the assembly. This is our ministry, our privilege, our responsibility. What must that assembly have felt when Peter went on in his ministry and travelled far and wide and wrote his letters to the saints scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Aria, and Bithynia. That little assembly could have said, "The Lord used us to liberate that ministry, to make that ministry possible: if the Holy Spirit had not led us to pray and we had not been obedient, what a lot would have been lost." You do not know, beloved, how much the mighty world ministry of the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter, not only in the days of their flesh (it has gone on ever since in the 2000 years) is due to the Holy Spirit prayer of the Lord's people. There is a need along that line today:- the liberation of ministry, the destruction of limitations imposed by the enemy upon ministry. Do enter into that. Ask the Lord to give you the privilege of fulfilling a great world ministry along that line and making possible what hell is out to make impossible.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jul-Aug 1932 Vol. 10-4

That Extra Mile

"And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him twain" (Matthew 5:41).

The idea in this exhortation had itself taken a long journey. It originated among the Persians, was taken over by the Romans, and then applied by the Romans to the Jews during their (the Romans) occupation of Palestine. In the beginning it was the prerogative of a Persian envoy to call upon any man to assist in carrying the envoy's burden; and he could 'compel' such a man to help him for a mile. The said man had no option. The Romans thought this to be a good idea, and so they applied it to the Jews. Jesus was familiar with this practice and took it over for His teaching, but added a second mile to the first. No doubt Jesus was broadening the meaning from the literal to the spiritual, and had much more in mind. Indeed, this exhortation contains the very essence of Christianity.

The second mile represents a very vital transition.

The first mile is the rule of law, of obligation, of "Thou shalt", of "You must", of duty. The second mile is what is voluntary, spontaneous, free, gracious.

The first is: "Must I?" The second is: "May I?"

The first is: "Am I obliged, compelled?" The second is: "Can I not do more?"

Look at the two travellers! The legal one says: 'Pick up that load and carry it for me for this next mile.' Not even 'Please!' The commanded one obeys and they walk silently, sullenly, and begrudgingly. At the end of the mile - which has been measured carefully by the second man - the load is dropped and he turns back abruptly and without a word.

But Jesus is thinking of another second man. He receives the same order; he is under the same obligation; his is the same duty. But he tackles it in a different spirit. He goes at it with a different disposition. He is gracious in his manner and spontaneous in his undertaking. When he has reached the limit of duty and necessity, he says: 'Let me help you further.' The first man is taken aback. He has not met people like that. Something gives way and they talk freely for the second mile. Something has happened which, at least, makes number one think; maybe he asks some questions. A door fast closed on the first mile is now wide open. What has happened? The answer is: Grace has triumphed over Law!

So in its first and broadest meaning the word of Jesus as to the extra mile means the great transition from Law to Grace. It may be only a step from the end of mile number one to the beginning of mile number two, but it marks the frontiers of two worlds, two dispensations, and two dispositions.

What immensities meet and part at that point; and what a change in the atmosphere!

Then, how many other areas of life are affected by this transition across this bridge! This change would bring about an industrial revolution. The Christian is involved in this. Industry, business, work are very largely characterized by the first mile of obligation. 'How much must I do?' 'How soon can I leave off?' An eye on the clock. As little work and as much remuneration as possible. The second mile man, who stays a bit longer and does a bit more, is suspect, disliked, and persecuted.

But in the discourse from which our verse is taken, Jesus was not saying that those who did what He said would have all the good time and be universally popular. What He did say was that these would be the people who would inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, and that they are "the salt of the earth"; which means - among other things - that they would offset the corruption to which we have just referred. The coming Kingdom will belong to the people of the second mile in this respect. Others who ask to be of the Kingdom of Heaven will have been drawn to Christ by those who have paid the price of the extra mile of grace. So, business is a sphere, and a very practical sphere, for the law of the second mile.

Another area which often challenges to this law of grace is that of family life, or home life. It is so easy in the home and family life to keep just to duty, if even that. Just how much is obligation and compulsory: the least that can be done, and how much can be got out of. The sharing may be so unequal, the burden so unbalanced. If, for decency's sake, the first mile is taken, it is with no good spirit, no cheerful disposition, no spontaneous voluntariness. It is a must, not a pleasure. Perhaps there is no place where a true Christian testimony means more than in the home. Homes are an object of satanic dislike and disruptive activity more than anywhere else. So it is here that the testimony of Divine grace matters so much, and therefore the home is a place where second mile people are so much needed.

Along this line may we mention one more connection in which the extra mile is of such importance. It is the area of Christian fellowship. In the relation of Christians to one another there can be just the first mile of the common recognition, ordinary courtesy, a nod of acknowledgment, the glance of acquaintanceship. There may be the coming and going of congregational 'Public Worship'. It is possible to attend the same meeting-place for years and not to be known. Within the limits of the first mile the degree of community and relatedness may differ in its real meaning, and many a heart which "knows its own sorrow" has to carry that sorrow in loneliness, even in a crowd. There is large room for the extra mile people in the area of Christian fellowship. It may make demands, but it pays large dividends. Not that what may accrue in dividends should be the motive. One of the laws of life is, however, the ministering of life to others. A sure way to spiritual death is to keep to ourselves and not go out to others. True moral and spiritual character is to be measured by the law of the extra mile.

Jesus had very much greater and deeper thoughts and meanings in what He said than just platitudes and axioms.

This apparently simple word about going beyond compulsion had in it a whole realm and wealth of potential and actual values. If duty, necessity, obligation, contract, covenant, demand so much, do not - says Jesus - stop at that; put at least as much again upon it. This is grace with God.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Mar-Apr 1967, Vol 45-2

"This is the Message... Fellowship"

Reading: 1 John 1:1-2:1.

John uses the phrase 'This is' ten times in his brief letter, and the first of his identification of things is this one in verse five: "This is the message which we have heard from him". And if you look to see what the message is, you will see that it focuses upon one word, a word which is repeatedly used in the first part of the letter. It is the word 'fellowship'. It occurs twice in verse three, again in verse six, and again in verse seven; and the recurrence of this word indicates that here is something about which the Apostle is evidently greatly concerned in relation to believers.

The main issue with which John was concerned, in his Gospel, in his Letters, and in his great Apocalypse - the Book of the Revelation, the supreme, inclusive issue was this matter of life. I suggest that you read even the Book of the Revelation with that word in mind, and you will be tremendously impressed. This is the issue all the way through. It is the matter of livingness. Early in that book you have the "living creatures" (Rev. 4:6) and "the Spirit of life" (Rev. 11:11). The book closes with "the river of water of life" (Rev. 22:1), "the tree of life" (Rev. 22:2), and so on.

It is quite evident that the question, or the issue, with which John was so greatly concerned for believers, was not that they should have life - that was the object of his Gospel, but that they should know, that is, live continually in the consciousness of possessing this life. So he says: "That ye may know that ye have eternal life" (1 John 5:13).

Now you may see how he links these two things together at the outset. He will link other things with the matter of life as he goes on with his letter, but right at the outset, in this first section, he links the matter of fellowship with life. These two things are brought together, and it is as though he were saying - indeed, he is saying in other words: 'Life is a matter of fellowship and fellowship is a matter of life.'

A Family Fellowship

And what is the nature of this fellowship? Well, it is quite evidently a family fellowship, because you notice it is: "Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son". And then John says: "My little children". So it is quite a family thing: Father, Son and little children; Father, Son and the rest of the family. It is a family fellowship.

And what again does that mean? It is, of course, a nice word, a pleasant idea, but a family is built upon one life; just constituted by one life, isn't it? The great trust of life has been fulfilled, for life is a trust. It is something committed for transmission, for passing on, for reproduction. That great trust of life has been fulfilled, and the family is the result of the letting go, the giving up of life, the distribution of life. So that every member of a true family is a part of one life, all sharing a single life. In every one there is the same life. It will manifest itself in different ways, and, of course, that is the mystery and wonder of life. We cannot stay with that, interesting and instructive as it is, but in a family you have so great a variety, all from the one source, from the one life - variety of disposition, temperament, and so on, all in one family. But it is one life expressing itself in many ways.

The Lord's family is like that. Sometimes we are rather inclined to want all the members of the family to be exactly alike, to think the same thing and do the same thing. Really we want them uniform, but the Lord does not do it like that, either in the natural creation or in the family. That does not alter the fact that it is His own one life in all expressing itself in a multitude of different ways, but all coming from the one source. It is a family life. We all, therefore, share the life of the Father through the Son, and we are the little children - and God forbid that we should ever be more than little children in the family, that is, in spirit! There is a growing up, there is such a thing as maturity, but it is a good thing that however old we are in this Christian life and experience, however much we have learnt, we are still there where we know that we still have everything to learn, that we are only at the beginning of things. That is a good mark. It is a very bad mark when anyone in the family thinks he knows it all! That upsets the family, doesn't it? It just ruins everything if any think they know - they have no need to learn anything else, they have got it all, they know it all. Oh! that spiritual pride has been the cause of many divisions. However, that is by the way.

Here we are with this fellowship, and we want to compress into a short space a little on two matters in this very connection.

First of all, this fellowship just dates right back to God's eternal, primary desire to share His life, and by thus sharing it to have fellowship between His creation and Himself; just clear, pure, open, unsullied fellowship between Himself and man, between man and Himself. Is not that the first picture of the relationship of man with God? In the garden they walked in the cool of the evening, in blessed fellowship; God and the man whom He had made. That fellowship was something very precious to the Lord. We cannot understand why God, all self-sufficient, so full and so wonderful and so mighty, and, in a sense, so absolutely independent and sovereign, should find this in His heart, to have a creation with which He could have this kind of fellowship, as Father with a family. But there it is. That is what the Bible reveals as God's desire at the beginning. And this fellowship of which John is speaking just dates right back to that. You see, "our fellowship is with the Father" - that takes up the eternal thought and desire of God and brings it here right into expression amongst the Lord's children now.

Fellowship the Foundation of All

Now then, the very first thing in the Christian life is this matter of fellowship, union with God. The strain has gone, the breach has gone, the distance has gone, the isolation has gone, and everything that kept God and us apart has gone when we come into what we call 'new birth'. When we are begotten of God and born of the Spirit, then it is union with God. That is the foundation of everything. Let it be clearly understood that that is not only just an act which is carried out and finished, but it is the very basis and foundation upon which God is going to do everything. All God's hopes are bound up with that. All God's intentions are bound up with that. All God's purposes are bound up with that. All God's interests for time and for eternity are based upon this fellowship-union between Himself and His children, and His children and Himself. That is why this is such a battle, because God has vested in this very thing everything for which He hopes, and everything that He has purposed and planned He has just vested in this. It is God's great investment. And you know, when you come to the end of the Old Testament you find that the prophets are in a state of Divine distress because God has lost His family. The great word that governs those prophetic utterances is that God has been robbed of something. God has been robbed; something upon which He placed so much importance, indeed, upon which everything hung, has been stolen from God. God has been robbed of it. This family relationship between Himself and His people, has been stolen from Him. Therefore God in a sense is in desolation until that is recovered, and His people are also in desolation until that relationship is recovered and restored and re-established.

This is what John, by the Spirit, is talking about, saying that God has done something in us in bringing about a union. But it does not end there. All God's investment is in that union. He has invested all His hopes, all His purposes, all His expectations, all His interests in this union, this fellowship-union with Himself. All that we are ever going to come into, dear friends, of those great purposes and designs of God is going to be on this basis of our fellowship with God, our maintained fellowship with God. God works on that basis. Get out of fellowship with God and everything comes to a standstill. We know that quite well. If anything cuts across our fellowship with God, well, all has gone. It is as though everything is lost, and we know quite well that there is no going on, no getting on, no hope whatever until we get back and have that relationship put right and the way clear with the Lord. How much there is, then, bound up with this relationship!

Now, how is it to be? John tells us: "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another". With Him, of course; "our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son..." "if we walk in the light... we have fellowship".

Fellowship rests, then, upon walking in the light, "as he is in the light". John says: "This is the message... that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all... If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship".

What does that mean? It means far more than I can put into few words, but let us look at the Lord Jesus because this is what John is saying: 'This is what we have heard from Him; this is what we have seen in Him; this is what we have handled of Him - the Son.' And he is saying. 'This is what the Son did.' He walked in the light with the Father. How did He do it? What did that mean to Him? Well, in the case of the Lord Jesus He always raised one question about everything in His life - His movements, His goings or comings or stayings, His not moving, His doing this or not doing that; everything with Him was governed by a question - 'Is this in the Father's interests? Or is it in My own interest? Or am I governed by some other influence - ideas, policy, for instance? Is it politic to do this? Or how does it affect the Father? Is it in My interest or is it in the Father's interest?' He subjected everything, even His physical, quite legitimate physical requirements. He hungered, as we hunger in body - and it is not a sinful thing, is it, to take food when the body needs it? But there were times when Jesus said, 'That is secondary. There are interests of My Father to be served, so even those legitimate things in which there is nothing sinful or wrong must just stand aside while I attend to My Father's business.'

That is what He said at Sychar's Well, to the disciples. They came and said: "Rabbi, eat. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not... My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to accomplish his work." (John 4:31,32,34). Well, He hungered. He sent them to buy food because He was hungry and they were hungry. When they brought it back - 'That can wait. There are other interests. My Father's interests come first, before even My legitimate needs can be met.'

In the wilderness, with the Devil: "Command that these stones become bread" (Matthew 4:3). His question was: 'Where does this come from? From the Father or from another source? Is the Father's interest going to be served supremely by My doing that?' He decided 'No'. For the time being, after forty days of fasting, He hungered. Nevertheless - wait - 'I am in a spiritual battle, and it is the spiritual interests that have to be established before I can allow these perfectly legitimate things to have their place.'

You see what I mean? His life was like that. He was walking in the light with the Father. 'Father, is, this Your pleasure? Is it of You that I go here, that I do that? If I have not the witness that it is of You, then it must wait. It must be set aside.' There may be nothing wrong in a thing in itself, but nevertheless there is something higher than a life of 'Oh, there is no harm in it'. Many Christians are governed by that! 'Oh, you know, there is no harm in it. Other people do it. There is no sin about that - it is quite a natural thing.' But there is a higher standard than 'no harm in it'! That is negative! The positive life of the Lord Jesus is: 'What about the Father? What does He think about this? What is His mind on this?'

Walking in the Light

The Lord Jesus would not allow a shadow to come in between Him and His Father, not one bit of darkness to break in upon that relationship. He knew that the only way and the only ground for the fulfilment of the purpose for which He had come was by walking in the light with His Father.

So John says here that we ought to walk as He walked. Note it in chapter two: "He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk even as he walked" (1 John 2:6). "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another". Fellowship demands that you and I shall be walking with God. If one is not walking with God, not walking in the light, fellowship is interrupted. If some are walking in the light and others are not walking in the light, fellowship is arrested, and our fellowship, which, as I have said, means so much to the Lord and to us, requires that we are all keeping an open Heaven with God, that we are all walking in a transparent fellowship with Him, that we are all so committed to Him that any other interests, no matter what they are, come second to this: 'What does the Lord want in this situation? How does the Lord look at this? That is the thing that governs and I am going to walk according to that, God helping me, as the Spirit bears witness in me to the Will of God, I will walk in the light.'

If we all do this, oh, how wonderful the fellowship will be, and how the Lord will be able to take us on in all the fulness and purpose of His desire, and fulfil Himself in us and through us!

Now, there is very much more, but that will be enough for us to get on with for the moment.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-June 1963, Vol 41-3

Training in the House of God

"When Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued as far as Dan." Genesis 14:14

"His trained men, born in his house." This raises some interesting questions. It must refer to a big encampment, for they were not living in an actual house but in tents. The reference is really to a household, and it is in this connection that the word is used in the New Testament with regard to God's house. We have been born into a household (Hebrews 3:6), and this household is meant, above all other things, to be a place of spiritual training and education.

Whatever else Abram's men were trained in, they were certainly trained for war. We also have to learn that the House of God is the place of training for spiritual conflict. The household of God is the relationship and fellowship of believers: it is not a place, but the relationship in the Holy Spirit into which we are born again. It is the sphere of our training, so that we do not live our lives in the realm of mere theories, but are subject to the disciplining work of the Holy Spirit.

There are many blessings in the House of God, many amenities which are for our good, our comfort and our protection. We thank God for these but must never forget that this also is the place for our spiritual education. Spiritual training is not academic. It consists of learning the lessons of life together in fellowship with other believers, and because of this we may at times feel that we would like to run away and escape from such testing.

"Trained men, born in his house." What is the meaning of love if it is not a corporate thing? What is the meaning of patience, if it has not to do with other people? What is the meaning of so many things in the Christian life if they are not found in the context of related life? It is in this community life that we are tested. It is there that we find our real discipline and training.

"He led forth his trained men." Notice why he had to do this. Lot, the compromiser, was in desperate need. There is so often the difficult person, constantly getting himself and his friends into trouble, the awkward man, the selfish man who has put his own interests first and suited his own pleasure without seeking the will of God. At this time Lot had been captured, with all his family and possessions, and carried off by enemies. Abram might have rubbed his hands and said, 'Good riddance to bad rubbish! Thank God he has gone!'. But he did not do so. It was for this 'weak brother', this failing brother, this difficult brother who hardly seemed to deserve help, that Abram led forth his trained men, and he did not return until he could bring back this needy 'brother'. It is a lesson for us and an indication of what it means to become a member of the Father's household.

It hardly becomes any of us to judge or condemn Lot, for in fact we are all very awkward people. We all are the cause of trouble for the Lord. How wonderful to remember that "Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them to the uttermost" (John 13:1). That is a household matter; learning to love like that in God's House. Have you never felt that everything would be better if only some difficult brother or sister could be taken far away? This action of Abram's reminds us that the household in which we are being trained demands willingness to fight for the weaker fellow believer.

Not that Abram would allow himself to be involved in Lot's compromise. No, he would fight for his failing brother, seeking to win and save him, but he would have nothing to do with Sodom and its king. The king was grateful to him for seeming to support his cause, but Abram would have none of it. He refused Sodom's gifts and their flattery. He kept himself unspotted from the world, but he devoted his trained household to giving aid to the man of compromise. He himself was in God's House and had had to learn lessons of obedience and sanctification. Somehow we never think of Abraham as a fighting man, and yet the life of faith is one in which we have to learn to fight the good fight.

After Abram had left Ur and entered into the land of promise, he might well have presumed that he had arrived and that since he was now in his God-appointed place he could expect an experience of tranquility. We, too, are apt to expect that once we have obeyed the Lord and stepped out in faith we ought to enjoy a smooth experience of serene contentment. Are we not in the place of God's purpose, of His will and His covenant? We have to learn, as Abram did, that the opposite of this is true. To be committed to the totality of God's will as a member of His household is to find that one difficulty overcome only means a greater one yet to be faced. The realm of the greatest spiritual values is the realm of the most difficult education, the sphere of the fiercest and most persistent conflict.

It seems that whatever else these three hundred odd men were being trained for, they were called to enter a war and pursue a foe. This is one of the great lessons that we who have been born into the House of God have to learn, the lesson of spiritual warfare. We need to be trained in this matter for there are enemies - spiritual enemies - who will contest the will of God and harrass God's people. It is not enough just to have experiences, however deep these may be. It is not enough only to have history. We have to learn the meaning of our experiences, to be able to extract the Lord's intentions from our history. We have to learn in the House of God, which is the school of holiness.

According to Paul, one of the great purposes of the Scriptures is that we may know "how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God" (1 Timothy 3:15). Abraham was able to train others because he himself had to learn severe lessons. While he was in Chaldea it was different, but now he had moved on with God and what belonged in his new life was altogether different from what belonged to Chaldea. In Chaldea he could perhaps do things which he could not now do in the land. If we are to be trained to face and conquer the spiritual enemies of God's purposes, then we need that Bible truths should be wrought into our own personal experience so that we become embodiments of those truths. No teaching will ever be true teaching if it is not worked out in experience. And it is in the House of God, the related life together of believers, that such experience is obtained.

The temptation is to try to get away from such spiritual discipline, to break away from fellowship, to ignore the implications and great values of being born into God's house and trained there. Rather than succumb to such temptations by dividing up and separating, we should recognise that for our training in heavenly things we need to maintain the unity of the Spirit. The moment will arise, as it did in Abram's household, when there is a great challenge from God's enemies which will call us forth to make a stand, to prove the power of God to give us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, and so much will depend upon our having submitted to the discipline of being trained by the Holy Spirit and prepared for the spiritual conflict by the tests which will come to us in our fellowship life.

The very fact that we are considering God's great servant, Abraham, stresses the need for obedient and persevering faith. There must have been many times for him when it seemed that, far from enjoying the fulfilment of that hope which was based upon the strength of the Lord's word, everything was becoming less likely and more impossible. But he kept on believing. No doubt this was the kind of training which the rest of the household shared with him. And in the case we have been considering, there was a total victory and complete recovery of what seemed to have been lost. They "pursued as far as Dan". They did more than that. They returned in great triumph and demonstrated for us the New Testament assurance that "faith is the victory that overcomes the world".

We are "in a great house" (2 Timothy 2:20-21). Let us so respond to the Spirit's training and sanctifying work that we may be vessels unto honour, sanctified, meet for the master's use, prepared unto every good work.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1963.

The True Nature of New Testament Christianity

In what we are now, by the Lord's help, essaying to set forth, we are making a bold and honest attempt to uncover the true nature of New Testament Christianity. It is in the way of spiritual excavation, to lay bare the essential foundation and character of that which took its rise from the ascension and heavenly session of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It would be an over-bold person who, at this time of day, thought that anything that he could do would seriously change or affect the face of Christianity as it now exists, and no such illusion or delusion prompts these pages. But, having travelled far and wide over the world for many years, and having come into contact with Christians of very many connections and complexions, the writer has found a great amount of unrest, perplexity, dissatisfaction, and disappointment among them. Many older Christians are feeling that things are not as they should be, while the younger generation is in a state nearing revolt. It is felt - and there are few who will disagree - that Christianity in general, with some few notable exceptions, is failing to register any impact upon world-conditions, or is no longer something to be taken serious account of.

What we are about to offer, then, is for the troubled and perplexed minority who would be grateful for any help to understand the meaning of things and that would point the way to that which the Lord would have if He were given His ground. We can but hope that we shall be able to throw some light upon the beclouded way. There is no thought of instituting a new 'Movement' or forming a new body of Christians. The probability is that there will be some strong adverse reactions to some things said, but we can only ask for patient and open-hearted consideration, taking nothing out of its full context to give it an exaggerated interpretation.

The New Deuteronomy

Behind the subject-matter of the New Testament there is a feature which is not always recognized. It is that which corresponds to the Book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament; the fifth book of the Bible. That book was written with the object of restating precisely that which had been covered earlier in several books. The restatement had two aspects.

One, there had been a history of the people of God which, while it had been marked by His wonderful works of power and mercy - signs, wonders, and glories, had also been darkened with failure and tragedy on their part. A crisis had been reached and a chapter was closing.

Secondly; the call to adjustment was sounding out, and a new day was being presented. A calling to remembrance, a warning against repeating the mistakes, and an earnest appeal, comprised this new document to govern the future. The future was going to be one of greater glory or of deeper tragedy. They must decide.

These are the very two features which lie behind the New Testament writings. When these documents were written a point of crisis and departure had been reached. There had been a period of great glory, power, and progress. Mighty and wonderful things had been done by God amongst His people in the midst of the nations, but certain elements were beginning to show themselves which were threatening the very vitality of their testimony and world-mission. There was a growing threat to the purity and reality of the life of the Church, and there were symptoms of spiritual decline and retrogression. So we find the Apostles giving themselves to write the Deuteronomic documents to remind, to warn, to rebuke, to exhort, to encourage, and to urge God's people to either recover, maintain, or go on in relation to the full purpose of their high calling in Christ. We ought to read John, Peter, Paul, and others in this light. Like Moses, they wrote with an 'after my departure' concern. It was all reminder and reconsideration with the future in view. Were we to put into two words that which we feel to have been the real burden of their writings we should say it was:

Corporate Testimony.

When we have said that we have got within view of the nature of true New Testament Christianity. But we must first define those terms. After we have done that we shall proceed to consider some of the privileges, perils, and problems of corporate testimony.

What does the New Testament mean when it so often, especially at the end, refers to "The Testimony". A simple reading of the context will show that it does not refer to any particular aspect of "The Truth". It is not particularly the truth of the Cross, the Church, the Coming Again of the Lord, or any other. It is not a 'line of teaching' or a particular angle of interpretation or emphasis. It is not the propagation of certain doctrines. Neither is "the Testimony" related to certain ordinances or 'sacraments' such as 'Baptism', 'the Lord's Table', etc. These things may have a vital place in the Testimony when it is truly present, but they are not the Testimony.

The Testimony is the place and meaning of Jesus Christ, God's Son, in the eternal counsels of God; His universal fulness as Head of all creation which carries with it the essential nature of His person as the eternal Son of God. It is the Person, and particularly the significance of that Person in God's universe and entire system of things. The heart of the Testimony is His absolute triumph over, and destruction of, death by His own 'becoming dead, and being alive for evermore'. This is but a broad and general statement, for it does not say what that universal significance is, but what we have said serves to put the Testimony in its right realm; out of parts into a whole.

The second term to be defined is 'corporate'. While this word is not found in our translations of the Bible, it is inherent therein from beginning to end. Literally and fundamentally it means 'of the body'; that is, 'an organic body matter'. It is the organic and vital unity of a living entity, whether it be in the individual or in the collective relatedness of many. As differing from a stone or wooden structure or composition it is constituted by a single life; it is generic. In that life is an energy. In that life is a nature. In that life is a pattern. In that life is a destiny. To share that life is to share all these impulses.

Thus, in every category or class of animate creatures, God began with a 'seed' in which the germ of its own life, nature, and design existed. The family was inherent in the seed, and the family had the race as its horizon. The first generic person failed in the trust of life and his horizon became beclouded by death. God moved again in Abraham and secured through his faith and obedience, first a nation, and then the far-off 'Seed,' in which and by which the ultimate heavenly race will be secured. This is the new creation in Christ, sharing the one life which He came specifically and preeminently to give. This one unique heavenly life, imparted as a particular gift to every one who in 'new birth' is generated by the act of the Spirit of God, binds them together in corporate, organic, basic oneness. It is a fact, not always understood, appreciated, or lived up to. The values and meanings of this fact are only entered into by growth in that life and obedience to its laws, but the fact is deeper than the understanding, just as the fact of the organic unity, function, and laws of the human body are deeper than the knowledge of the uninstructed man or woman.

So far we have only indicated what is meant by the term 'corporate'. The fuller meaning will naturally come out in all that we have to say as we go on.

Putting the two terms together - Corporate Testimony, we can now say that 'the Testimony', which is God's testimony concerning His Son, now known to us as Jesus Christ the Lord, with all its vast significance and limitless values and meanings, is intended by God to be incorporated in, revealed in, and expressed through, a corporate Body and spiritual organism known as The Body of Christ. This Body was foreknown and foreordained by God for its eternal vocation "before times eternal". It is the supreme object of the Holy Spirit's activities and energies in this present dispensation. It is the essential motif of evangelism, and the purpose of all Christian instruction, discipline, and experience. Its securing "out of the nations" and preparation is the governing purpose of this age, and its full vocation, function, and glory will be through "the ages of the ages". It is never meant to be an end in itself, but its ultimate issue is found in the words:

"Unto him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever" (Ephesians 3:20, 21).

Fuller previews of the eternal position, glory and vocation of this corporate vessel in testimony are given us in Revelation 5:6-14, and in chapter 21.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-June 1963, Vol 41-3

Vessels of Ministry

"Moreover the tabernacle and all THE VESSELS OF THE MINISTRY he sprinkled in like manner with the blood" (Hebrews 9:21).

In thinking about that phrase, "the vessels of the ministry", I am impressed with the largeness of the number of vessels that there were connected with the tabernacle. Here there is an inclusive reference - "all the vessels of the ministry", all the vessels of the tabernacle. If you look at the record of the making of the tabernacle, you will find that there were many vessels, and every major part of the tabernacle had its own vessels. Reference is made to the altar and all its vessels, the laver and its vessels, the table of shewbread and its vessels, the candlestick or lampstand and its vessels. The number is not given, but "all its vessels" is a common phrase, and sometimes their particular use is mentioned. For instance, as to the table of shewbread, strangely enough, it says that all the vessels, made of gold, were for pouring out (Exod. 25:29, 37:16; Num. 4:7). Now, we do not know anything as to the content of the table, other than that it had the loaves, and yet connected with the table there were vessels of gold for pouring out.

That by the way, as to the number of vessels, the variety of vessels; but the specific use of every vessel is something impressive in the tabernacle, and every vessel was anointed with the blood and with the oil. That would be worth looking into in detail, but we shall not do so now. We shall simply take the spiritual implication of the fact that in the Lord's house, and for its service, its ministry, there are very many vessels. They have as many uses as there are vessels - a variety of uses. Every one of them has its own particular function, and all the vessels, no matter how small and insignificant, and however inferior might seem their function, even to the very snuffers for getting rid of the unpleasant elements of smoke and burnt-out wick, they all come under the anointing. Now, there are the corresponding ministries in the spiritual House of God, but I am not going to speak about them at this time. I am simply pointing out that there are these many vessels, and every one to serve a purpose, and no matter how small their measure and menial their purpose, the same anointing belongs to the small as to the great. They all share the one anointing to fulfil their purpose.

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN THE CHOICE OF THE VESSEL

The first thing I want to point out in that connection is the sovereignty of God in the choosing and the appointing of every vessel. This was true of the smallest vessel of the tabernacle. As with the whole tabernacle, the smallest vessel of ministry was according to the pattern in the heavenlies. It was a part of the comprehensive pattern, and the whole pattern came down to it. The Lord never left any place for man to make it out of his own mind, not even the smallest thing to serve Him in the tabernacle. The Lord did not say, 'Now, it is most important that the tabernacle at large, the great framework and these major things, should be exactly as I have prescribed; but as to all the little things that will have to be brought in and will be necessary and useful - well, I leave that to you'. He never did anything like that. Every part, every little vessel of ministry, took its character from the whole heavenly pattern, and was governed by the sovereign thought of God. God sovereignly kept in His own hands the design of the smallest part, both as to its nature and as to its function.

The sovereignty of God as to our place as a vessel of ministry is something that calls for a real attitude and exercise of faith. We are all the vessels of ministry. The sovereignty of God has chosen us in Christ. I expect we are all prepared to agree that Saul of Tarsus was a chosen vessel. As the Lord said to Ananias: "he is a chosen vessel unto me" (Acts 9:15). We will all agree that that was so, as regards Saul, and that it was a Divine sovereign act that secured that vessel from all eternity. But the same sovereignty, the same eternal purpose, governs every smaller vessel. Paul, of whom it was said that he was a chosen vessel, will later on write: "he chose us in him"; not 'he chose me particularly', but "he chose us in him before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4).

Do remember that this matter of election and predestination is related to function, to purpose - not to salvation. It is related to purpose. God has chosen us in His sovereignty, and has chosen us to serve as a part of the whole.

We must set aside the whole idea of typology, just write it off as very nice, very interesting, all right as illustration for the kindergarten, but nothing more than a set of pretty pictures for children, if we are not going to say that the tabernacle, from centre to circumference, from the whole framework to the last small vessel of ministry, represents Christ. It is the one all-inclusive Christ, and in every fragment Christ is to be found. If that is not true, then our interpretation is just playing at things; but if it is true, then every small part is a part of Christ, and is chosen in Him for THE comprehensive purpose of Christ - God's purpose concerning His Son.

There is one thing that we shall have to settle sooner or later, if we are not going to be as it were suspended between heaven and earth in indefiniteness and uncertainty, missing the mark and being misfits, and, as we say, cutting no ice. In Christ, by the grace of God, I am a vessel of mercy, and there relates to me, in the sovereignty of God, by my being chosen and called, a function, a ministry, an aspect of the purpose of God concerning His Son. It is in the sovereignty of God that I am now in Christ. So far as the initiative was concerned, it was not my doing to get into Christ. I should never have got into Christ by my own initiative; I should never have been brought to the Lord by my own choice. 'We did not choose Him but He chose us': that is perfectly true - the initiative was with the Lord. So we have got to settle down on this fact that we are in Christ, and not by our own choice or initiative, much as we may have longed for it. We would not have done it if God had not done it; sovereign grace has done it. We are in Christ, and therefore we are a part of Christ, and whether it be a spoon or a cup or any one of the numerous vessels, there is a specific function for which I am called in Christ, a ministry of the tabernacle which is my ministry.

You see, the thing which governs this is the numerous ministries. What a variety of ministries! I do not know if it would be true to say that there were not two vessels exactly alike in the tabernacle, but I do know that there were very many vessels and a great variety of uses, and every one was needed. In the same way, if we were missing, something would be lost in the whole tabernacle, there would be a weakness in the whole heavenly system, and that comes down to you and to me.

Now, that is the beginning of service, where we in faith apprehend that. I am in Christ: therefore that means that I have been chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. I am an elect vessel. I may not seem as important as some, but that depends entirely upon the standpoint from which you view importance. Are you viewing importance from the standpoint of size, or are you viewing importance from the standpoint of indispensability? A pin may be as indispensable as the garment which it holds up! It depends entirely upon the particular standpoint from which you are viewing importance. These little things on the tabernacle and on the altar and lying by the lampstand - they were indispensable, and it was that that gave them their importance. Do you think that God ever chose us in Christ out of His sovereignty if He had no need, that He just did it for the sake of doing it, without any real meaning or purpose of importance? Not at all! God is not like that. You look into Nature and you see importance attached to very small things, and if those small things fail, a whole big system may break down. I would like to follow that out and illustrate it, but the statement will be enough.

First of all, the sovereignty of God governs our being in Christ: and that sovereignty means that there is a purpose for our being in Christ, and that that purpose is attached to every one of us, and it may be an aspect of the purpose which is our peculiar vocation or function in the sovereignty of God. Would you adjust yourself to that first of all? Come away from the general to the particular, in your view of life and of yourself; come away from the indefinite; come right away from that questioning, doubting, wondering whether there is anything at all that relates to you, whether you have a place. It is faith that has to take a very deliberate attitude and step in relation to this.

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN THE MAKING OF THE VESSEL

Then the second thing is that the sovereignty of God is connected with the making of the vessel; not only with the choosing of its existence and of its function, but with its making. Do you not feel sometimes that perhaps our God is too small, too little - the God that we think of? The God that we have made according to our mind is far too small. To Jeremiah, the Lord said: "Before I formed thee... I knew thee, and before thou camest forth... I sanctified thee" (Jeremiah 1:5). 'I formed you; before you had a physical being, I had known you and formed you and called you'. And Jeremiah responded, "I cannot speak: for I am a child". If the Lord meant anything at all by telling Jeremiah that He formed him and chose him before he had a being, He must have meant: 'Well, you are just as I made you; I made you to serve a purpose like that. If I had wanted to make you differently, I could have done so. You think you would have been more suitable if you had been made differently; you think you would be able to do very much better if only you were made differently. You think I have made a mistake in the way you are made. All the time you are saying, "I am not made that way, I am not made for this, I am not made for that"; and you are really saying, "The Lord has made a mistake in choosing me"; or else, "I have got into the wrong place, I am not made for this"'. It is a thing about which most of us in our lives have had a bad time. Many a servant of God, finding himself or herself in a very onerous situation, a very responsible position, has cried out, 'Oh, if only I had been made for this!' - under a deep sense of being unfitted, unqualified for the work and the position. The thing is beyond us. Are we going to close down on that and say that is so? 'The Lord did not know anything about us when He called us; and the Lord never had any hand either in our being made or in our call. If the Lord had known about us, if He had really known what sort of people we are, He would not have chosen us for this'. That is the world in which we live and reason and argue.

The Lord said to Moses: "I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry...; and I am come down to deliver them. Come now..., and I will send thee...." (Exod. 3:7,8,10). Moses said, 'I cannot speak! You have chosen the wrong one; You need somebody who has a facility that I have not got - You really need a different kind of man!' (Exod. 4:10,13). The Lord said: "Who hath made man's mouth?" (vs. 11). 'Did I make your mouth? If I did, I made it as it is.' It was the same issue as with Jeremiah. "I have... set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, and to destroy and to overthrow; to build, and to plant" (Jer. 1:10). "I cannot speak". Did the Lord say, 'I am sorry, Jeremiah, I have made a mistake - I have got the wrong man!'? No! The Lord touched Jeremiah's mouth and said: "I have put my words in thy mouth" (vs. 9). "To whomsoever I shall send thee thou shalt go".

What does this mean?

It means that there is a sovereignty behind even the way we are made, when God gets hold of us, and He is going to be glorified, not in efficient, able vessels that could say, 'Well, you see, I am thoroughly well qualified for the job that I am in'. If there is anything like that, we shall have to come to another recognition about vessels, which we will see presently. But for the moment let us keep to this: there is a sovereignty in the choice of us, and God knows all about how we are made. He knows all about the disadvantages, the handicaps, the limitations; He knows what lies in the background. He knows all about it, and exactly how we are made; and, knowing all about it, He has chosen us. God did not choose us after we were made. He chose us before. He went back behind everything - and God is further behind things than we realize - behind our lives, behind what we call the misfortunes, what we call the handicaps; He is behind them all. Do you believe that? It is very difficult to believe sometimes. You are so overwhelmed with the sense of your limitations, your lack of qualification.

Is it not just here that we are not only vessels of mercy, but vessels of glory? What is the vessel for? - to show forth its own excellencies, or 'the excellencies of Him who called us'? (1 Pet. 2:9). The excellencies of the Lord can only be seen when they are not overshadowed by any human excellencies; when it is just frail vessels, poor vessels - and His glory. It is only another way of expressing what Paul said to the Corinthians: "Ye behold your calling, brethren". 'Have a look at the calling, the selection, that is represented by the Church in Corinth; have a look at the personnel of the Church in Corinth; see what calling means where the personnel is concerned'. "Not many wise..., not many mighty, not many noble... but God chose the foolish things... the weak things... the base things... the things that are despised... the things that are not, that he might bring to nought the things that are" (1 Cor. 1:26-28). Sovereignty lies behind what we are in ourselves, to make us then what He wants us to be.

THE LORD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN DEALING WITH THE VESSEL

The sovereignty that constitutes us for His service, firstly naturally and then spiritually, will then work out in this particular way that the Lord is taking, which, according to His sovereign wisdom and sovereign judgment, is the way most suited to - perhaps the only way to - the end that He has in view. You have to believe that. Why does the Lord deal with me thus? Why do I have this peculiar experience and history, so different from many? Why do I go this way? Why is the Lord dealing with me like this? Every one of us has a personal history with God, and usually in our personal history with God there is plenty of room for a 'Why?'. In His sovereignty, He is taking the way with you and with me which His wisdom has decided is the way of reaching His end where we are concerned. He could not do that with others. He has to do it in the way that He considers suitable to each case. Every vessel has to be shaped as though it were the only one for that particular purpose. God does not work on the mass-production basis with His servants. Every one is a special separate object, and He deals with that one in a peculiar way. There is something about that one's history which is, to the one who is concerned, their own lonely life with God; that is, there is much that no one can share or understand. God has, as it were, singled them out as individuals. That is His sovereign dealing with us. Do you believe that? We have to take an attitude of faith on all these matters, or we shall simply go round in a circle, we shall be suspended, held up, get nowhere, we shall have no particular impact.

THE LORD'S NEED FOR OUR CO-OPERATION

I close with two other things which are bound up with what I have said. One is that, in His formation of us according to His own thought and intention, the Lord counts upon our co-operation. To use the well-known figure of Jeremiah 18, He may come up against something in the clay which resists His hand, which stands out against the way that He is taking, which is a 'No' to Him, which is a reservation, a lack of compliance, and just at that point the whole glorious purpose may come under arrest. It is just at that point that we may be rendered a misfit, perhaps for the rest of our lives. The Divine intentions of grace may be defeated. It may be at that point that the history of a circle begins. We take a long tour round, and come back to the same place, and find that, after all, we have made no progress: a lot of time has been lost, a lot of value has been forfeited, and we are just back where we were before; we have not got past that. That has to be cleared up, of however long standing it may be - maybe months, maybe years - but not until it is cleared up, not until there is a yielding, a response to the Lord there on that point, do we take up the straight road again.

THE LORD'S EMPTYING AND FILLING OF THE VESSEL

The other thing is this - that God retains the right to fill and use the vessel, and therefore, as a part of His sovereignty, He must empty it of everything but Himself. Paul said: "Most gladly therefore will I... glory in my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (2 Cor. 12:9). That is an emptied vessel, a vessel emptied of its own strength, its own wisdom, its own will, its own way; emptied because God reserves the right to occupy the vessel to the full; He will not co-occupy with anything of man. The emptying may explain much. If we have any fullness of ourselves, fullness of any kind that is ours, then we shall not come to the purpose of God until it is all got rid of, and we are emptied out, for it is emptied vessels that God fills. It has always been so.

Here are some tremendous propositions! However challenging they are to faith - and they are challenging - take these steps one by one.

Firstly, am I chosen of God, or is this all my doing? Am I a Christian, am I saved, am I in Christ, because I have done it all, or has the Lord done this? And, if I have been on the way for some time, have I had sufficient experience to know that, if I had done it, I would have been out long ago? It was the Lord who did it, and the Lord who has held me. There is every evidence that the Lord is in this matter, with initiative and sovereignty. I belong to Him; and what does that imply? It implies a sovereignty of God in my choice, in my election, in my being chosen in God.

Secondly, why am I chosen in Christ? Just to be there and just to be saved? Does election and predestination relate to my being saved? Can I accept that - which must carry with it the implication that all are not elected to be saved, and God is arbitrary? Oh no, I cannot believe that! No; election relates to purpose. Then am I elect according to the purpose?

Further, is not that purpose many-sided? Does not the whole Word, Old and New Testaments, show that there is a many-sidedness to the purpose that is centred in Christ? I must, then, have some place in it, which is my place; and, if that is true, does God know all about it, all about me - has He chosen me because I am so suited and fitted and qualified for it? No! I very soon get disillusioned about that if I have any such ideas. The last thing for which I am qualified is the thing for which God has called me. He has to do all the qualifying.

So then, taking it stage by stage, let us get right to the Lord about it - let us settle this matter, and come to rest; it may be with a larger apprehension of the Lord, having a bigger Lord. He cannot be bigger than He is, but He can be bigger than we make Him. Oh, for a bigger God and Lord! That is our need. If we do get this far greater, more comprehensive faith in the Lord, we shall be saved from so much that now brings us into arrest, and puts us out, because of this and that and something else - all implying that the Lord does not understand, the Lord never took this into account, the Lord must have made a mistake. It is not so; the Lord knows all about it.

May the Lord make His word of some help and value, and enable us to take quite a definite attitude, for much may be hanging upon the attitude that we take, and upon our response to the Lord, in this matter.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Mar-Apr 1954.

The Well Within

"The water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up into eternal life." (John 4:14)

"And Isaac digged again the well of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped them up..." (Genesis 26:18)

The Word makes it clear that from the Lord's side the life of the Holy Spirit, with all its up-welling and outflowing, should be a spontaneous thing. On God's side there are no difficulties. So far as He is concerned there is nothing more to be done to make possible the reality of the well within. The very fact that when the Lord Jesus ascended to glory in the power of a completed and perfected work, the Holy Spirit spontaneously came down from heaven, is proof that from God's side there was nothing remaining to be done to effect that release. The Lord had made full provision. On the other hand, though, such a spontaneity of up-welling and outflowing of the waters of the Spirit is not as general among Christians as it should be. It is our intention to seek some explanation of this limitation.

The well is there; the spring is provided. If we have believed into Christ and truly belong to Him, then His Spirit is present as the well within. There can be no doubt about this if we are true believers. But we may have seen a swampy patch, with all the evidences of water but no freshness or flow, and have discovered that although a spring existed, its water was interrupted by some stone or obstacle which hindered its flow. This can happen in human life. The spring of the Spirit may be present, but with various obstructions lying heavily upon it, preventing the outflow in a definite course.

Abraham was noted for the wells which he dug. He was a man of faith, and faith always digs wells. The Philistines, however, blocked them up with rubbish after he died, so that his son, Isaac, had to unstop them. Isaac speaks of the power of a risen life in union with heaven, and this gives a good indication of the meaning of the opened wells. The Old Testament type finds its fulfilment in the Lord Jesus, the greater Isaac who, in the power of His resurrection, ascension and heavenly life, has opened up anew those fountains of the Spirit which had been blocked and choked by many things which were contrary to the will of God. The wells are opened in His resurrection. The Spirit is now freely given. But we have to see that no obstacles are allowed to hinder the flow. Perhaps it will help us to do so, if we consider a few of the hindrances which need to be removed if the well within is to be unstopped and the water allowed to flow freely.

HINDRANCES IN THE REALM OF THE MIND

Firstly, there are hindrances in the realm of the mind. We have been told that man is quite unable to cope mentally with the spiritual and heavenly things of God. For this reason God has provided the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth, of revelation and of spiritual knowledge. So there will obviously be hindrances to the free flow of the Spirit if we try to reason things out for ourselves instead of heeding the Spirit-inspired Scriptures. If we try to think things through ourselves, we become involved in all sorts of problems and questions. We are specifically told that: "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God... he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged" (1 Corinthians 2:14), a fact which needs to be accepted and remembered by Christians for themselves, as well as for the world around. There will always arise moments of crisis or experiences full of perplexity and seeming contradiction, for which the only answer is that we must trust God. If we resolve that we will reason the matter out, or if we turn to other men for their explanations, we will never understand the ways of God. His Word is our only source of light. It will, at times, be hard to understand. It will, perhaps, be difficult or even impossible to explain. But if we heed its message we will be delivered from man's foolish reasoning, and we will have lifted off a load of rubbish which was blocking up the well within.

There are bound to be matters which defy analysis or argument, for the ways of God are past finding out. The real test is whether we will trust God when we cannot fathom His ways; whether we will deliberately and positively take up a position of faith reliance on His faithfulness. Even that may not provide us with an answer which satisfies our minds and solves all our intellectual problems, but it will bring us that blessed peace which is promised to those whose minds are stayed on the Lord. This is just the opposite of the mind of the man who is stayed on himself and his difficulty. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee" (Isaiah 26:3). It does not say that his heart will be at peace because he knows the answers to all the questions. No! The basic thing is a faith attitude towards God's faithfulness. To act in this way is to remove a big stone, and I venture to say that it will clear the way for a new joy, and new peace and a new strength. The Holy Spirit has been pent up, blocked, hindered, arrested, by incessant reasonings of the natural mind. He is released by the simple exercise of a faith which feeds on God's Word and relies on His faithfulness.

HINDRANCES IN THE REALM OF THE HEART

There is another possible realm of hindrances to the up-welling of the Spirit, and this is the realm of the heart. The Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of love. If there is coldness towards the Lord, a lack of true devotion to Him, then this is like a heavy stone which makes the life more like a quagmire than a fresh spring. Any reserve which we have, not in the knowing of God's will but in the willingness to do it, will inevitably stem the flow of the Spirit's power. It is always the work of God's enemy to clog up our lives by introducing love of self or love of the world, and it needs ruthless determination to remove the accumulated rubbish and re-dig the well in purity of devotion to Christ.

It may well be, though, that the hindrances arise from lack of love to our fellow believers. We must remember that the Holy Spirit can never have free course in us and through us if we harbour unloving thoughts concerning other of God's children, let alone put those thoughts into actions. He is the Spirit of fellowship, so that if we fail in that realm then we fail in the matter of love. It is so easy to allow unworthy considerations to quench brotherly love, to be clogged up with resentment or to be wrongly influenced by our susceptibilities or hurt feelings. What is more, we find it the easiest thing in the world to say or hear unkind things about others, things which put them in a bad light and somehow make us feel self-righteous. We must not dismiss such matters as unimportant, for although they may seem small in themselves, they become the deposits which unite to clog up the well of the Spirit.

This matter of personal relationships is one in which we have to set ourselves definitely to digging out the earthiness which stops up the wells of the Spirit. We must refuse to speak and refuse to listen to those critical accounts of other believers which would grieve them if they heard and do grieve the Spirit who is always present and who always hears. More than that, we have to be active in positive cultivation of fellowship. To some it is quite natural to be independent. For them deference to others represents a major difficulty. Sometimes they may deliberately ignore or despise others, but sometimes they just prefer to do it alone and never seriously think of inter-relatedness and inter-dependence.

The Word of God, however, is most explicit in ordering us to esteem one another, to submit to one another and to live and work together. The Holy Spirit demands that the people of God live according to a team order of things, that they should be governed by a family spirit. Anything which is of an isolated or detached nature, which fails to recognise and fully accept the family thought of God, is a check on Him. By failing to observe fellowship we quench the Spirit. It is not only a matter of avoiding giving offence but of active pursuit of fellowship. Some may be wondering why there is so little up-springing from the inner well, when they are sitting back in a wrong kind of modesty, failing to bring in their own personal contribution to fellowship life and ministry. Unkindness is not the only obstacle in this realm. Shyness and diffidence can equally rest like a stone on the flow of life. The only thing to do is to dig it up and move it away. Get in, get right in, and let yourself go! Do not always choose the back seat because you like to be left alone, but come forward in the Lord's name and give the Holy Spirit a free course in your lives. He is well able to check you if you become too self-assertive, but there is little He can do if your well is all stopped up with fears and inhibitions.

HINDRANCES IN THE REALM OF DAILY LIVING

There is one more area of life in which this hindering work may be found, and that is that the flow of the Spirit may be checked by inconsistencies in the daily life. The question which constantly faces us is whether or not we want to know the free flow from the well within. Do we want that springing up of living water, of which the Lord Jesus spoke? Do we want that, as He promised, rivers of living water shall flow out from our inner life? If we do, then we must always give serious consideration to anything which may serve as a blockage. Any disobedience, yes, any reservation in obedience, from our side will be sure to hinder the flow from God's side, acting as a deterrent to the Holy Spirit in our lives. We can never know the well springing up and the river flowing out if at any point where God has revealed His will, we fail in the matter of obedience.

This well is choked by disobedience to the known will of God. It is choked and blocked by inconsistency of walk. The Lord wants more than mental agreement with His Word; He expects to see it working out in practical terms. He is concerned with how we spend our time, how we manage our financial affairs, how we behave both alone and before others. He watches us in the home and at our work, as well as in our fellowship activities, always looking for a walk worthy of the gospel which we believe and preach. Not that He desires us to have a narrow life. Far from it! The Spirit has come to bring enrichment and fulfilment to us. God's command to us, though, is that we must not quench the Spirit nor must we grieve Him; in other words that we do not allow any rocks, stones or rubbish to accumulate as a hindrance to the springing-up well. We need to watch the practical expression of our daily life and so avoid a quagmire of suppression, whereas God provides for a well of water springing up into eternal life.

From "Toward the Mark" July-August 1976.

"Whither the Tribes Go Up"

(Psalm 122:4)

"Gather my saints together" (Psalm 1:5).

It was a beautiful thought in the mind of God when, in His Divine economy, He prescribed for the periodic convocations of His people. Away back in the time of Moses He commanded that all the males in Israel should journey three times in every year to some place of His appointment (Deuteronomy 16:16), the details of which are worth noting. It is clear that David laid great store by such convocations. Psalm 122 is (by its heading) attributed to David, as were other "Songs of Ascents", or Pilgrimage. It was due to division resulting from spiritual decline that such gatherings ceased for so long, until Josiah had a great recovery celebration (2 Chronicles 34:18-19). It was therefore a sign of spiritual recovery and strength when the Lord's people so gathered from near and far.

We can briefly summarize the values in the Lord's thought for such convocations:

1. They were times when the universality of God's Church, or "Holy nation", as on the basis of the Passover (the Cross) was preserved in the hearts of His people. "They left their cities"; that is, they left exclusively parochial ground. By the gathering from all areas they were preserved from all exclusivism, sectarianism, and the peril of isolation. They were made to realize that they were not the all and everything, but parts of a great whole. Thus the ever present tendency to make God in Christ smaller than He really is was countered.

2. Thus, they were times of wonderful fellowship. People who belonged to the same Lord, but had either never before met, or had been apart for so long, discovered or rediscovered one another, were able to share both "their mutual woes, and mutual burdens bear", or tell of the Lord's goodness and mercy. Loneliness, with all its temptations and false imaginations, was carried away by the fresh air of mutuality. New hope, incentive, and life sent the pilgrims back to their accustomed spheres with the consciousness of relatedness.

3. They were times of consolidation. The Psalm says: "For a testimony unto Israel." The testimony of the great thing that the Passover (the Cross) means in the heart of His people. A testimony to the unifying power of the blood and body of Christ. The gatherings held a spiritual virtue in the livingness of the presence of the Lord. If they had been assailed by doubts, fears, and perplexities, they went away confirmed, reassured, and established in their common faith.

4. They were times of instruction. The Word of God was brought out, read and expounded. They were taught, and they "spake one to another". In a word, they were fed. There was spiritual food. The initiation of these convocations was connected with three "Feasts" (Deuteronomy 16). Eating and drinking in the presence of the Lord. They returned fortified, built up, enlightened, and with vision renewed.

5. They were times of intercession. Possibly not every individual was able to "go up". For various reasons - infirmity, age, responsibility, or some other form of detention - kept some from the blessings of joining with the pilgrims. But God's idea of the gatherings was - as put into later words - "My house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples." The New Testament is clear and strong on this point, that the representation of the "Body of Christ" in any place CAN, and SHOULD have real spiritual values for all its members because "the Body is one".

So, let the lonely, detained and isolated ones realize that when the Lord's people are together, they are being supported. And let those who are not so deprived of the 'gathering together' realize how vital it is, and what a necessity there is in expressing this Divine thought.

Would to God that all our gatherings were after this sort!

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

The Word, the Work and the World

(A message given to young Christians in October 1970)

From “A Witness and a Testimony”, Vol. 49 No. 5, 1971

I have been wondering if I could define and sum up your conference in three words, and I think I have them: the Word, the Work and the World. We are going to speak a little about these, but first we will read some fragments of Scripture.

“And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us” (John 1:14). The word “tabernacled”, which is used in the margin of the English Revised Version, is the correct translation here.

“This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14).

I am going to re-translate that verse into what is perhaps a more literal and true translation:

“This good news of the sovereign reign shall be preached in the whole world to set the evidence.” We will come back to that later.

“This is the sum of the things for the tabernacle, even the tabernacle of the testimony” (Exodus 38:21).

1. The Word

We begin with the Word, because that is the basis of everything. Everything must be according to the Word, out from the Word, and governed by the Word. The Work, which comes next, is the purpose, or expression, of the Word. Then comes the World, which is the sphere in which the Word has to have its expression.

Perhaps I should say that I am treating you as a group of students and am not preaching to a congregation, so I am expecting that you will follow quite closely every word that I say, for I am weighing up my words very carefully and there is a great deal more behind them than there seems to be on the surface.

As far as the Word is concerned — and I am now referring to the Scriptures — we must always look at any fragment of Scripture in its wider context. Do remember that, when you come to read any part, any sentence, even any single word of the Scriptures, because it is the Word of God it has a much wider context than the thing itself. It is not just a word, or a sentence, or a verse, or a portion of Scripture, in itself. It has a much greater setting, and you will be greatly helped, and it will be of really vital consequence, if you can see that wider context. In other words, look for the fuller content of any part of the Scripture, for it has much more in it than lies on the surface. There is an inexhaustible depth in anything that proceeds from God. Indeed, if it is true that the Bible, the Scriptures, are God-breathed, inspired of God, coming out of God, then they are as full as God Himself. There is not a little mind behind that word, that sentence, that statement or that argument. It is God’s mind, and that mind is inexhaustible. You will never fathom its depths, but it is there in every fragment.

Please try to remember that when you are reading the Word of God. Do not just read on and on, but take it fragment by fragment and seek to see both its wider context and its fuller content.

That is not just technical. I am speaking to you as one who has been with this Word of God for over sixty years, and I have found this to be of immense value. You see, the Bible has been preached and taught for some two thousand years now, but at the end of that time there is still something new to be found in just a fragment, as far as words are concerned. Take any one of these texts, so-called, on which people preach. You may have heard hundreds of messages on it, and if you are as old as I am, you will have heard preaching on it many times in many parts of the world, but, you know, it is never exhausted. There is always something new and fresh about that well-known bit of Scripture. How often we hear someone get up and announce his text, and our reaction is: “Oh, we know that one! We have often heard people talk about that one!” but, if the person speaking is really under the anointing, before he or she is through we have got something quite new on that old, well-worn bit of Scripture which we have heard so many times before. I am enunciating something of tremendous importance. This that comes out from God, is as big as God Himself, and can you exhaust God? Can you really get to the end of God’s mind? Never! Indeed, after all our years, however many they may be, we are saying to ourselves: “Well, when I get to glory I am going to ask for an explanation of that bit of Scripture that I have known so well. I am going to ask Paul what he meant by that statement, and the Lord what He meant by that one. I know there is something more there that I have not been able to fathom.”

I need not labour this, but I want to stress, first of all in relation to the Word, that its depth and its fullness are quite inexhaustible because it comes from God, and therefore it is as full as God Himself.

We are going to take an example. Our first passage was John 1:14: “And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” The Greek word “logos” is used, so we have: “And the Word, the logos, became flesh and tabernacled among us.” Let us break it up. “The Word, the personal expression of God, BECAME flesh” — not “always was”, but BECAME, and that is a point, a time in eternity. We do not know when it happened exactly in the mind of God, but, of course, we know the date in history. But there was a juncture, a crisis, a terminal point between the pre-existence of the Word which was God in the beginning and His becoming flesh — “and tabernacled among us.” As I have already said, that is the correct translation, for that same word is used many times in the Scriptures. The last time is in the book of the Revelation: “The tabernacle of God is with men” (21:3).

Now we begin to open out. John is writing his Gospel with a full Jewish background, and I suggest that you get down to that Gospel and track down carefully every allusion to the life, history and constitution of Israel. You will have to search very closely, but you will find that it is all there. Where does he begin? “…and tabernacled among us.” “He took up His residence in a tent.” The Greek word cannot be exactly translated into English, for it would sound too awkward if I said: “and entented among us.” You see, John is right back with Israel in the wilderness where we read of “the tabernacle of the testimony”. The tabernacle is in John’s mind, for it is part of this whole Jewish system which lies behind all that he is writing. He has a lot to say about the system, and you will find that he speaks about the manna in the wilderness, and Jacob’s well. Yes, it is all there.

John has this whole Jewish life and constitution at the back of his mind as he is writing, and he begins with the tabernacle. In effect, what he is saying, or meaning, is that what the tabernacle in the wilderness was long ago, Jesus is now. He has supplanted that tabernacle. It is dismissed and He has taken its place. The great transition has taken place. Presently the temple will come up in the same way with the woman of Samaria: “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship” (John 4:20). Jesus said: “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father.” What has happened? Mount Gerizim, the temple of the Samaritans, has been dismissed, and the great temple in Jerusalem has been dismissed. Someone has taken their place. Well, as I have suggested, read through this Gospel again and mark as many of the allusions to Israel’s life and history as you can.

We return to the tabernacle. First of all, God commanded: “And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8), so the object of it was: “that I may DWELL among them.” This is the same word again, although it is in Hebrew, and God was really saying: “that I may tabernacle among them.”

Then look at the making of this tabernacle. It is a revelation from heaven, and nothing whatever is left to the inventiveness or judgment or thought or imagination of man. The pattern is given in the Mount, and you notice the meticulous and scrupulous exactness of God over this. “According to all that I shew thee, the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the furniture thereof, even so shall ye make it” (Exodus 25:9). Nothing was left to man. Man, with all his imaginative, emotional, intellectual capabilities, is ruled out, set aside. He has no place in the making of this tabernacle. God is very particular, so much so that when two of Aaron’s sons made incense which was not according to the prescription, it was called “false fire”. It was not according to the prescription given by God, so He came down and you know what happened. It meant complete destruction, the obliteration of everything in this connection that was not God’s thought or mind, but was of MAN.

Why this very stringent jealousy of God over this tabernacle? Because His thought does not begin and end with this thing called the tabernacle. His thought is so much bigger, fuller and greater than anything that can be measured. And what is God’s thought? Nothing less and nothing other than His own Son, Jesus Christ, and every detail of this tabernacle in the wilderness symbolically, and of the Person in incarnation actually, is meticulously according to God’s mind. This is the One who came and tabernacled. There is a detailed, scrupulous correspondence with the mind of God, and that was what was governing the tabernacle in the wilderness. In God’s intention, mind and thought that tabernacle was an expression, a representation of the Lord Jesus in His character and nature.

That is the fuller content of: “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” So, you see, we cannot just go on reading the Bible on and on! We have to get this fuller, wider context, and the far greater setting of each fragment.

Well, that is the Word, and remember that you cannot go on with the Work until you have got that, because there is so very much that is of man’s conception, genius, idea, imagination and activity in the things of God, but God is not dwelling in all that. He is not there, for the very object has been lost or missed. To put that in another way: If God is going to come in, tabernacle, reside, be present, everything must be according to Christ. How meticulous Christ was Himself about that! He had His Father’s mind, and here in John 5 you will hear Him saying: “The Son can do nothing OUT FROM himself”. That is what the Greek says, not “of himself”. You see how you have to weigh every little word! What is coming out from us? “The Son can do nothing out from himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for what things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner” (verse 19). “The works that I do, I do not out from Myself. The words that I speak, I speak not out from Myself. It is the Father that speaketh, and it is the Father that doeth the works.” He is in touch with the ultimate thought of God in every detail. Was God in Christ? Has history proved that God came in through that One? Well, you have the answer to that.

That is the Word, which governs and is the basis of everything, but we must go on.

2. The Work

What is the work of God? You, of course, are very concerned about the work of God. Now, please do not quote me out of context. You are concerned with the salvation of souls, and that is quite right, BUT…, and when I put a “but” in it means that there is a question. You are concerned with the spreading of the Gospel. Quite right, BUT… What are you concerned with? I’m sure you can make a list of answers to that question. Why are you here at all? Why are you a Christian? Why are you going out to the various places to which you are going? Perhaps you would comprehend it all in this one sentence: “I am going out in the work of the Lord. I have committed myself and my life to the work of the Lord.” Please, what do you mean? These answers that you will give may be quite right as far as they go, and yet this “but” is there, and it is a very challenging “but”. It might be a very devastating “but”, for it might put us right out of our work. It might be a “but” that causes the Lord to lay us aside from His work for a time. This “but” may account for so many things.

What is the work of the Lord, dear friends? Will you take this to heart? Again, please do not say that I have said: “The work of the Lord is not to preach the Gospel, and not the salvation of souls”, for I have said: “Yes, it is” to those. These are means, but they are not the end. They are the means to an end. What is the work of the Lord? What does our passage of Scripture indicate?

“The Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us.” Why did Jesus Christ come into the world in the flesh? To save men? Yes. To bring men to God? Yes. To make known the Kingdom of God? Yes. But is that all? Are those ways, or are they the end? Again, I ask the question: What is the work of the Lord?

The work of the Lord is to bring God into His place in this world. That is all. In your being where you are, in your being a Christian and a servant of the Lord, in your preaching the Gospel or in your doing any of these things which make up the sum of your work, the challenge, the test is this: Is God present? When we meet one another, do we meet the Lord, or do we meet an enterprise, an undertaking, a piece of work, an organisation, or a lot of people interested in a THING? Is the presence and the impact of our life the impact of God upon a situation?

Let us come to our passage in Matthew 24: “This good news of the sovereign reign shall be proclaimed in every nation in order to SET THE EVIDENCE”. In the Greek, the word is “testimony”, or “witness”, and you know what a witness is — one who has a testimony. In no court of law anywhere will the judge allow you to say: “Now, I HEARD this. I WAS TOLD that. I BELIEVE that it was so and so. I READ it.” To that the judge will say: “My dear man, I do not want to hear what you heard, what you think, what you believe or what you read. I want first-hand evidence. Reading and hearing is second-hand and I do not accept that as evidence.” Do you not think that this is challenging where our witness, our testimony is concerned? The fact that you are in a situation is evidence of what? “This good news of the sovereign reign proclaimed in all the nations to set the evidence” — and of what is the evidence? That this earth is God’s by right. “This earth, and this patch upon which both my feet stand, is God’s, and not the devil’s, nor man’s. It is God’s by right of creation and by right of redemption.” If you take that position you have God on your side.

That has been the battle all the way through. It began when Abel took the position with an altar, testifying that this earth is the Lord’s by right, not only of creation (Cain got as far as that!), but of redemption, by right of precious blood. And the devil came out and slew him — and yet, did he? “He being dead yet speaketh” (Hebrews 11:4).

We come to Noah. By this time the whole creation has been wiped out, except for those few in the ark. Then they came out, emerging from judgment, death and destruction, and the first thing that Noah did was to build an altar upon the regenerated, renewed earth. In so doing, he said: “The earth is the Lord’s.” Men had robbed God of His place. The imagination of every heart was evil and men would not have God in their thoughts, so He said: “That is not what I created the world for. I created it for Myself, for MY dwelling and tabernacling.” So Noah put up an altar and there the Lord’s rights were recognised.

Abraham went up and down the land, and wherever he put his feet he built an altar, and in so doing he was saying: “This belongs to God. His rights of creation and redemption are represented here.”

We think of Moses. Israel came out to be constituted a nation by way of an altar, which was constructed on the threshold of every dwelling, for that was where the lamb was slain. From the basin which caught the blood of the lamb on the threshold a circle was made, which meant that that home and that family were encircled with blood, and out through that circle of blood they emerged as God’s nation. It was by way of an altar. They may not have understood all this, but the meaning was: “We are the LORD'S! We are redeemed by precious blood. The Lord’s rights are recognised and acknowledged by our very existence, for all the first-born of the Egyptians have died. Our survival is on the ground of redeeming blood, for we are the Lord’s.”

You go on through the Old Testament, and all these altars were leading up to the great altar of the Cross which included, comprehended them all with one inclusive, comprehensive meaning. What was the battle of Calvary? Well, you can say many things about it — atonement for our sins, and so on — but all that is included in one thing: the rights of God in this world were being fought out in the Cross. You are not surprised, then, that when that battle has been fought, the cosmic forces against God having His place have been stripped off and the battle of God’s rights has been settled by redeeming blood, the next great event in the history of this world is that heaven opened and down came the Holy Spirit to tabernacle in the church, the new tabernacle of God, the corporate Body of Christ. God is here, and now the work of God is to set the evidence, that is, to bring the Lord into His place.

Sometimes you can do no more than stand. Many of the Lord’s servants have been able to do nothing more than just stand where the Lord put them, “withstand, and having done all, to stand”. Sometimes they are not able to preach, not able to do what they call the work of the Lord. Let us get that straightened out, for sometimes to be unmovable and stand for God’s rights in a place is the greatest service that we can do for the Lord.

Well, this ought to revolutionise our idea of the Lord’s work! What is it? Much more ought to be said, but it is simply bringing the Lord in where we are.

I expect you have principles that you have been enunciating in this conference and at other times, but this is one upon which I want to put an emphasis. The principle of this work of God is a corporate principle, and no one worker ought to be left alone. The minimum requisite of the New Testament in the work of God is two. Be careful about isolating yourself, detaching yourself. The devil will make a mess of you and the testimony if he can get you isolated. This standing together is a representation of the principle of the Body of Christ, and Paul said that the body is not just one member. Always watch this corporate principle, because sometimes, if we have not got another alongside to stand with us, we will go under. We need one another to stand together.

This is devastating and challenging. It says to me continually: “Does it work out that the result of your being here, as a Christian, as a so-called servant of God, is more of the Lord? Because you have come this way, because you have been here, does it mean that there is more of the Lord?” Oh, how much we can be taken up with what we call the work, and the Lord is expressed so little! That is why I said that the Lord Jesus was so meticulous and scrupulous in seeing that everything was according to the mind of God. Take that to heart!

3. The World

The testimony of God and His sovereign rights — which is only another way of speaking of the Kingdom — are to be planted in every nation. It is not that every nation is to be saved in its entirety in this dispensation, but the testimony is there to set the evidence in all the world.

That, of course, will open the door for a lot more to be said — and my time has gone! But why was that tabernacle in the wilderness right at the centre of a nation? What was it for? And if you look at the terrible tragedy of Israel, why were they set aside, why have there been these two thousand years in which they have been in what the New Testament calls “the outer darkness”? It was because their testimony in the nations broke down. They were raised up, constituted and governed by God and by heaven in order that in the nations it should be known that God has the rights in this world, by creation and redemption. Israel’s presence was meant to be, in effect, the presencing of God. So, when the purpose is lost the thing is dismissed. God will have no more use for an enterprise when its purpose is lost and He will dismiss it. And the purpose is the bringing in of Christ. That was the history of Israel, and it is the history of many things in which the Lord manifested Himself, but which eventually lost the purpose of their existence. They went out on other lines and other things, and have been dismissed by God, like the tent in Shiloh, which became an empty shell, and like the temple in Jerusalem, wrecked and ruined, and dismissed from God’s purpose, for its object was lost.

Shall we pray: “Lord, don’t let that happen to me! Don’t let the thing for which You have brought me to Yourself lose its purpose and I no longer bring You in. Does my presence mean Your presence?” Let us pray like that, for there must be the impact of God.

That is the Word, that is the Work, and that is what we are in the World for. You are going to be scattered among the nations, and what are you going to do? You will preach; yes, it has to be proclaimed. You will labour, you will suffer and you will be very busy, I am sure, but remember this: There must be that life in secret with God which means that when you come out from the sanctuary, the secret place with God, the presence of God is with you and registering just where you are, and if men are insensitive, the devil won’t be! He knows where the Lord is. He is the arch-enemy of God and of God having a foothold in this world. He is the prince of this world and is not going to tolerate any interference with his kingdom without a fight.

Yes, bringing the Lord in has been a battle all the way through, but this is the work of the Lord, and this is what we are here for.

Worship

The beginning of everything in relation to God is worship; that is, God having the central and supreme place of recognition, of acknowledgment, of government... God having supreme right in our complete obedience and surrender - in every part and phase of our being. Worship begins there. It is a relationship, not only an exercise. It is not something that we do in specified ways and methods; it is an attitude of the life - a place which God has in the entire consciousness... that is worship.

Now if Satan is to counterfeit and take God's place, worship is his objective. With the first Adam, that was his objective - to draw man away from giving God the supreme place, in order that he might take God's place. He supplanted God in the reverence and the acknowledgment and the obedience of man. He captured his worship and became "the god of this age."

When the last Adam, the Second Man, came and entered officially, publicly, upon the great work that He had come to do, the one thing that the adversary sought to capture was His worship: "All these will I give thee if thou wilt worship me." The enemy has betrayed himself - he has shown his hand; if he could do the same with the last Adam as he did with the first, he has defeated the object of a new race.

Now it is just here that we have got to have light. The woman of Samaria (John 4) is saying, "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, but ye say that in Jerusalem men ought to worship." Jesus said unto her, "Woman, the hour cometh when neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem will men worship the Father; believe Me, the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth."

Oh, what is this? This represents a new regime - a new order. This is the crisis of the Cross in the realm of worship, the basic thing. But what has happened? Jerusalem was definitely Divinely ordained as the seat of honor and worship. The Samaritans imitated, with temple and mountain, the system which was at Jerusalem, while worshipping the same God. But it was God who had brought into the world that system of worship at Jerusalem; He had projected that. It was a temple, a building, a piece of elaborate ecclesiastical architecture with priests, with robes and vestments, with burning incense, offering sacrifices, making prayers, reading Scriptures... and many other things. Yes, God had brought that in, but now the Lord Jesus was setting the whole thing aside; and in so doing, He was implying as clearly as anything could be implied that this is not true worship: "Neither in this mountain nor at Jerusalem... but... in spirit and in truth."

What has happened, then, if this is not the truth? What is the truth? Not something which was but a type, an illustration, a set of symbols. God never intended that to be the final thing - never intended man to make that a thing in itself - never intended that that thing should go on indefinitely. That is the divide between soul and spirit... and that is where Christendom has gone astray. It was brought in to illustrate and represent something else, and its time of duration was until the Lord Jesus came. It all pointed toward Him - led up to Him - spoke of Him and His Cross, in which that which was merely of the soul would pass and that which was of the spirit would come in.

What is the spiritual life in the matter of worship? Oh, it is not ecclesiastical architecture, it is not vestments, it is not ordinances, it is not rites. They pass out with Calvary; the perpetuating of anything like that is a contradiction of Calvary. See where we are today. The maintenance of that sort of thing is because of a failure to perceive what the Lord Jesus has brought in.

What, then, is spiritual worship? It is getting back of all that and seeing the spiritual meaning. Worship is no longer the bringing of animal sacrifices, but the bringing up from the heart an appreciation of the perfection of Christ. The vestments of old were only types and figures and illustrations; the priestly apparel was speaking all the time in type of a righteousness and beauty and glory which is the nature of the God-Man, the Lord Jesus, and which is given to the one who by faith apprehends Christ... that in the sight of God we who are in Christ are wearing garments of beauty and glory and holiness. Again, the Temple and the Tabernacle were only types speaking of that spiritual fellowship of the saints as joined to an exalted Head - one Body - the Temple of God. The fitting together of the stones of the Temple, which were wrought in the quarry, brought together, and silently - without the sound of hammer or axe - fitted in, only speaks in foreshadowing of the living stones built together for a spiritual habitation... God now indwelling not temples made with hands, but a spiritual Body - the members of Christ joined to Him.

Why, then, perpetuate a thing which God has dismissed in the Cross and, by keeping to the lower, fail to reach the higher? Do you see where things are astray today? I know how sweeping this is, but all this has to do with worship.

Now note that when there is a failure to recognize the spiritual meaning of all this and to enter into it... and a maintaining of the old thing... you are still on a soul level, and you are open to deception; the whole thing may be a ghastly deception. And how does that deception work? In this way: that so many good Christian people are absolutely in bondage to a traditional system which is cutting clean across Divine revelation for them. It is their traditional system which is simply barring the way to spiritual revelation, whereas the Cross of the Lord Jesus represents the liberty in the spirit for God to lead into the fulness of His Life and Light.

That is the whole purpose of the Letter to the Hebrews. It was for that very purpose. Here was a people that had received light concerning the true nature of fellowship with God in Christ - that the Lord Jesus had taken the place of the Temple and the priesthood and the sacrifices and the ordinances... and even the Sabbath. Now it is no longer a matter of form, ceremony, external rites, buildings, priests, sacrifices; it is all Christ. They had seen that. The writer had called upon them to go outside the religious, formal, historic, traditional camp, and that brought persecution, ostracism, isolation, loneliness, and all manner of things. The official religious people made it very hard for them because of that. The price to be paid for what is truly spiritual and heavenly was... and is... great, and they were dangerously in peril of going back to the old thing. The Letter to the Hebrews was written just to save them from that peril and to tell them more fully about the great change that had come about in the Cross - the work of the Lord Jesus... to tell them that one system, the earthly representation, had passed and the other, the heavenly reality, had come in (You know how that Letter speaks about "the pattern of things in the heavenlies" and "the heavenly things themselves").

Now, you see, historic Christianity as such - traditional Christianity as such - may still keep us on a soul level of worship, where we must have a certain kind of building with a certain kind of window, a certain kind of music, certain kinds of prayers, certain kinds of people, and certain kinds of dress... and all this to "aid" our worship - all this to make real our fellowship with God. It is living back on pre-Calvary ground; it may be all soulish; and it may just be obstructing the path to a full, personal, inward spiritual life with God.

To know the Lord in Life, we must be free from the graveclothes of outward systems. Why, then, perpetuate a system? The Lord Jesus put all that away in His Cross; it is all gone. That is what He means by worshipping in spirit and in truth.

Beloved, it is as true as anything I have said, that if you want to know the Lord livingly in greater fulness, you have to be free from every external control of religion; you have to be free and open to the Lord; you have to be free in the spirit. Formalism has got to go, and reality and Life have got to come in. There must be a personal life in God that is not dependent upon place or anything outside and around us - that is dependent entirely upon our spiritual fellowship with Him. It can be as real, as blessed, in a dingy, rat-infested jail as it can be in the most gorgeous, ornate cathedral. Oh, yes; some of the most wonderful fellowship with God has been in the most unlikely places. You need no "helps" of that kind when you know God. Your life is with God.

Now remember, that letter to the Hebrews was written in anticipation of something. The Apostle knew that before very long the whole of that Jewish system would be in ruins. The Lord Jesus had prophesied it - that there should not be left one stone upon another. It would be scattered to the four winds. There would be no temple, no altar, no sacrifice, no festivals, no priests; in fulfilment of the Divine prediction, the whole thing would be smashed and cease. What would happen to these people if their fellowship with God was bound up with that? It would go. It would go with the system. And he wanted to save them from that thing which - being bound to earth - would go, and to bring them into a new thing which belonged to salvation.

Fellowship with God must be of that kind, that whether we can go to meetings or not, we still have the Lord; whether we have nice soulish music or not, we still have the Lord. Ye are not in that realm: "Neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem...."

Bricks and mortar cannot communicate with spirit. Man's soul can communicate with God only through the vehicle of his spirit in union with God. That is what Calvary has done. You can understand now, of course, why the message of the Cross is unacceptable... and that, because of this strong cleaving to a historic, traditional inheritance, you will be outside the camp if you are going to proclaim it and stand for it. And, too, the awful thing is this - that Satan has taken hold of the Divine representation, or typical system, to appropriate it, when God has done away with it, and that what God brought in for a temporary purpose he has captured for himself in order to obscure the real nature of fellowship with God.

Now no one will think that I am saying that there are no spiritual people in that system of things. I am not saying that; but I am saying that if that represents for them their spiritual life - if they must have that, if that is the realm in which they live... that they do not see beyond that and are not free from that as a thing in itself - then they have missed the meaning of Calvary, and they are bound to miss all the meaning of Christ crucified - the wisdom and the power of God.

Wrestling with principalities and powers wants something more than a system of external things. You see, we are up against a terrific business; we are up against a spiritual opposition which is colossal, and only a spiritual position is adequate to that - nothing less.

We do not want to be in any position less than the Lord's first and best for us. The toys, the picture books, the illustrations, the symbols, the types are for children who have little intelligence; they are taken away at a certain time when God is out to have, not children but sons; and there is all the difference between the two. And so Calvary dismisses the kindergarten of external things in relation to God and brings in the fulness of heavenly order so as to make of us full-grown sons of God. May we be so!

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, 1932