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Overcomer Testimony

by T. Austin-Sparks

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazines, 1945-46

Vols. 23-5 through 24-1

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Fact of Overcomers

Chapter 2 - The Nature and Function of Overcomers

Chapter 3 - The Prize of the On-High Calling

Chapter 1 - The Fact of Overcomers

Reading: Isa. 1:9; Rom. 9:27,29; 11:2-5,26; Isa. 8:17,18.

After long and very deep exercise of heart and weighing things solemnly before the Lord, I am led quite strongly to the conclusion that His message for us at this time, and not for us only, but for His whole Church, is concerning Overcomer Testimony. The definition will wait upon all that we have to say; I do not stay to try to explain that in any preliminary word. You will notice that I leave out the article and just say "Overcomer Testimony", not something new in itself perhaps to any of us, but I believe in the intention of God, new in emphasis. We begin by reminding ourselves of the fact of overcomers throughout the whole history recorded in the Scriptures, the fact of Overcomers in Divine history.

The Fact of Overcomers

Overcomers date from the very first spiritual declension. Abel marked that development and was the first Overcomer, and Overcomers are found at every point of spiritual climax; when things had proceeded and their whole tendency or actual course was a departure from the essential mind of God. When that course reached a climax, at that point you find Overcomers. Enoch marked such a climactic point, and he not only historically signified something which stood against the general spiritual course, but was in himself prophetic of this whole course and consummation; prophetic that throughout history God would have that which was quite different from things in general spiritually, and a positive counter thereto. The little reference to Enoch, as you know, comes right there in the midst of the monotonous recounting of men's deaths and burials. The whole course is just broken into, suddenly, strikingly, with the simple statement before the old course is resumed - "And Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him" (Gen. 5:24). Then you revert to death and burial. Noah and his family were the embodiment of the principle of overcomers. Joseph again took up that principle, one of a whole patriarchal family. The spiritual level had become very low, a period of spiritual paralysis had been introduced and was about to run four hundred years. Right into that situation, Joseph stood as something different, distinguished. In himself and in his testimony and in his experience, he embodied very much of that which goes to make the Overcomer.

It is not our intention to stay with all those details. Every one of the Overcomer features in all these people would occupy an hour. That is not our business. Joshua and Caleb form a link in this chain when death is rampant, active, running its course to wipe out the whole generation of the Lord's people because of spiritual failure. Joshua and Caleb maintained God's original position and are maintained by God against the course of things, and are brought through into the full inheritance. Elijah undoubtedly occupied that position and fulfilled that capacity of the Overcomer in his day. Indeed, we may say of all or most of the prophets. Daniel stands out amongst them. The seven thousand who bowed not the knee to Baal were the Overcomers of their day, and the hundred prophets hidden by Obadiah in two companies of fifty. Ezra, Nehemiah and the Remnant - they stand in this succession, until we come to the end of the Old Testament to find what is almost like a Remnant of the remnant in Malachi when even the Remnant has declined. "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one with another" (Malachi 3:16 - Overcomers of the end.)

We move into the New Testament and are immediately in the presence of Overcomers - Anna and Simeon in themselves, and then they spoke to all those who looked for the Redemption of Jerusalem. But they were a distinguished people, they were waiting for the Lord. In the Gospels, this is exactly what is happening. The Lord Jesus made no national appeal, and certainly no political appeal. He gathered out a nucleus - if you like - as to things as they were then, a remnant, for those who came into living association with Him: the twelve, the one hundred and twenty were something different spiritually from the religious life, and the best religious life, of their day, and they proved to be Overcomers indeed.

Then we pass to the end of the New Testament, and we know that sevenfold repetition of the very phrase in the second and third chapters of the Revelation - "to him that overcometh". And what is represented by the seven seems to be gathered up into one in Chapter 12 and has now become a corporate expression or representation of Overcomers in a Man-child concerning whom it is said - "And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death".

Very rapidly, that is a survey of the fact of Overcomers, and from that survey we are able to see that such are definitely recognised by God. They are taken account of by God Himself and to such He makes special promises. They are of account to Him in a special way. That is expressed in the words concerning the little company in Malachi's time - "And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in the day that I do make, even a peculiar treasure". Now, perhaps all that needed little emphasis and perhaps hardly needed to have been said. Nevertheless, we must have our foundation of Scripture for all that we have to say.

The Nature of Overcomers

1. Negatively

So we pass from the fact of the Overcomers to the nature and function of Overcomers, and firstly just a word negatively, what Overcomers are not. They do not stand related to anything partial. I do want you to take very careful note of this. It is most important that we are clear as to what it is we have in view. I repeat therefore that Overcomers do not stand related to anything partial. They are not the sponsors and champions of particular doctrines and interpretations, and such things. With them, it is not a matter of certain conceptions of truth and practices in relation thereto, although from time to time a specific emphasis has been necessary because at certain points particular weakness and failure has arisen. Nevertheless, in the thought of God it is the whole counsel of God which He was seeking to restore and not some part of it. Overcomers, if they are according to God's mind, are not people individually or collectively who simply underline certain truths and keep to that. Therefore they cannot be a separate and distinctive movement marked by just particular and specific teaching and separated from all others for that reason. They cannot be joined, you cannot join the Overcomer band. You cannot argue, discuss, reason out Overcomer truth and adopt it or reject it. You cannot have a Round Table for considering this thing, and then deciding what you are going to do with it. All such conceptions, mentalities and activities are ruled out. It cannot be taken up, for it is not an "it" as something apart from all God's thought. It is the very embodiment of all God's thought. We have heard a certain interpretation given to a fragment which is repeated in those early chapters of Revelation. "If any man", and "to him that overcometh" and the explanation, the interpretation, is that at the end things are no longer corporate but just individual, and the suggestion or implication of that interpretation is that all that is in Ephesians is cancelled out by Revelation, that all the teaching on the corporate nature and expression of the Body of Christ is now suspended and it has become resolved into a personal and individual matter. "If any man," and "to him". Dear friends, I have always found very great difficulty in believing that any one part of God's Word rules out another part, and especially such parts as Ephesians; and while, as you shall see in a moment, there is an element of truth in that interpretation, unless it is safeguarded, it is very dangerous and misleading. Anything that is misleading is very dangerous.

Rather should not the interpretation be this that while the corporate remains, we can only be in the corporate by a personal revelation. An Overcomer is one who has a personal history with God in these matters. What I have just been saying is that it is not a thing that you can take up, that you can have meetings about and you can discuss and argue and decide upon in a collective way, so that you get the resolution of the meeting as to what is going to happen and what course you are going to take. That is not so. It comes down to this - it is something between the individual and God. It is a very immediately personal thing of what God has been doing and is doing in the life, in the spirit, in the being of those concerned. Anything corporate must come out of that. Of course, that has always been the law of the Church. But here at the end in order to get back to a full and adequate corporate testimony, the individual has got to have a very living history with God as to what God is really after, has got to know that he or she, no matter what is happening to all the rest, he or she is under the hand of God and God is doing something. That is the bedrock of Overcomer testimony, and if what I have already said is not wrong, that Rev. 12 is the sum of Rev. 2 and 3 in its spiritual essence, the corporate is found in Rev. 12 in a Man-child. A Man-child is born which is spoken of firstly as a single entity and then referred to as "they". It is many in one; it is the corporate, but it is the sum total of all those individuals who have overcome, the "any man"s, the "to him"s now brought into a final collective expression. What I am trying to emphasize is this, that the essence of Overcomer testimony is that God has done something very definitely and very specifically, something much more than a general operation in the heart in relation to something which is very near to His own heart, and which the whole body even of Christians will not be prepared to accept and follow after. Well, that is the negative side - what it is not.

2. Positively

(a) Life and Spirituality

Let us come to the positive side. We begin from the circumference. God has His own very great thoughts and intentions as to His creation. Oh, I do pray God that I may not fail in this one thing that is in my heart, that Overcomer testimony is not some little thing, some little hole-in-the-corner thing, some little departmental thing - (I mean the testimony). People may be small, as we shall see later, but the Testimony is great. God has His own very great thoughts and intentions as to His creation. They are far, far too great for our comprehension at any one time. We can only grow unto them and into them. We have not the constitution to bear the full unveiling of the thoughts of God; we should just go to pieces, crack under the strain, we could not stand it. It is always true, - "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now" (John 16:12). Have you never, even in the poor, limited, fragmentary revelation that has come to you by some means had to say, Stop! I cannot go any, further, I have enough to occupy me for some time to come. Think of all the vast range and significance of Divine thoughts and intentions. At no one time can we comprehend them all. Moreover, it will take a vast multitude, a countless number, to grow into those thoughts. The most that anyone could ever comprehend will be a mere fragment, an atom. It will require that great multitude which no man can number to comprehend and express the thoughts and intentions of God.

And let us at once say that these thoughts of God are not just ideas and abstract mental effusions. They are all embodied and expressed in a living Person, His Son, God Himself incarnate. God's thoughts have been brought to us in that way. We must remember that, while the Lord Jesus had an individual consciousness, He also had a race consciousness. While He, in His own mind, was a Person, an individual Person, He was in Himself also a vast corporate company, He was the nucleus of a great multitude. That is why you can never come into the Lord Jesus and be an individual. If you are in Christ you are only a part of something very vast, and all these great, these vast thoughts and intentions of God are all centred in His Son, embodied in Him, and eventually, so great is He, so vast is He as the sum of all God's thoughts and intentions, that He will fill all things. That, of course, at once puts a great strain upon even our brains, and I hope it is not just going to be brain work. Vital union with Christ and vital union in Him is essential to the comprehending of these thoughts of God. The way of such knowledge is the way of life, and the way of life is positive corporate union with the Lord Jesus. The way of God's teaching is not the way of the classroom. The way of God's teaching is the way of practical handling of us and bringing about situations in which we have to know Christ in some new way, which knowledge alone can save us from despair, which knowledge alone can deliver us, which knowledge is absolutely vital and essential to our existence. It becomes a crisis like that, so that the true spiritual life is one of a series of crises which are ends and new beginnings; the end of something inadequate, the beginning of some new discovery of Christ, some new knowledge of Him. It is practical, vital knowledge, taught by and through experience. That is the way of comprehending God, His thoughts and intentions, and it is the only way. It is the only way to that position where there will be an issue in triumph.

The situation is sooner or later going to be one of defeat or victory, and utter defeat or utter victory. It is going to be right through and right out, or it is going to be the other way. That is the issue for the Overcomer, that is the issue for the Church, and it will only be those who, in this way of experience, under the hand of God, have come to know the Lord, to know Christ inwardly, who will go right through and right out. That is the revelation of the Overcomer, the Manchild, in Rev. 12. It is knowledge of Christ in life and growth, and that on the principle of the Body, organic and corporate, and again that by reason of deathless life. Oh, listen! Deathless life in which there is no old age or senility. I say that because many of us are very conscious of the latter. We know that old age is creeping towards us and we are very much aware of senility overtaking, that is, growing limitations in mental powers, concentration and application and mental endurance and in other ways; which means that naturally we are not going to learn a great deal more in that way, we are not going to comprehend very much more. We are going to reach our limit and then perhaps decline naturally. But what I am saying now is this, that there is that in us which in extreme old age can still be comprehending the vast, and going far beyond the capacity of nature. Spiritual knowledge is so different, spiritual apprehension is so different from natural. The capacity of Divine life knows nothing of decay, of corruption, of limitation, of coming to an end or declining. It is possible and it ought to be the experience of every true child of God that even in old age they bear fruit; in this sense, that there is that which still is fresh and still in growth when natural powers are declining. Therefore I say this knowledge of Christ on the principle of life knows nothing of old age and senility; it goes on. Do not surrender to nature; that is, do not surrender your Christianity to nature; do not surrender to nature your birthright, which is eternal life; and do not think of eternal life as only that you are going to survive after this scene. Remember, it is a quality of life with all God's potentialities in it, all the potentialities of reaching the vastness of those Divine thoughts in Christ. Later, if the Lord wills, I may have something more to say about that, but I just leave it there, and for the present hasten to round it off.

We were saying that these are not just abstract ideas, this is positive, practical, experimental knowledge, the result of the free action of Divine life in us, the mystery and wonder, the marvel of Divine life within which knows no limitations. Thus, fulness is governed by two things. Firstly by life and spirituality. Those two are one, one is but the definition of the other. Life and spirituality; it is spiritual life, it is a spiritual state which that life produces. It is related entirely to all spiritual things, related to association with God, union with God, knowledge of God. That life makes the link and defines the nature of spirituality. Fulness is based upon that. If any of us live on the basis of nature, in the measure in which we do that, we are unspiritual and miss God. If, for instance, you are just trying to get round and get over the immensities of God's thoughts by reason, projecting your head into that realm and trying to comprehend with natural reason, you will not only do yourself harm and bring yourself to despair, but you will miss the way entirely. This requires the renewed, re-born spirit indwelt and taught by the Holy Spirit. You people who call yourselves thinking people, your reaction is, Where does human reason come in? Is it not a Divine gift? Yes; but it is an after instrument. You do not begin with it. You have to have it in order to communicate with other people who are on the same level, rational people. To be able to say to others what God has shown to you requires your brain, but you never get that revelation by means of your brain. You will undo yourself if you try, and you will miss the way. So it is on any other line of the natural, we will miss the way. How often we have been brought to the point where in despair we have said, I give it up, I cannot see, I cannot understand! and we have fallen down before the Lord and said, I have extended myself to the last fraction to try and understand and apprehend; now I give it up unless you show and reveal it to me. In the very simplest way, with the greatest of ease, light just begins to filter through, and you do not know exactly when it happened, but you are able to say, I see now! That is the nature of spiritual knowledge. It is always like that, it will ever be like that. It is life, it is spirituality. It is that you are in living union with God, and not as merely a fact but a process, you are continually living in union with God.

(b) Corporeality

And secondly, corporeality. We have earlier said that it will take the vast multitude, the countless host, to really comprehend and express the greatness of God's thoughts and intentions. The measure of our spiritual growth will be very largely the measure of our fellowship with those who are growing. The Lord never just lays down laws in order to set up a system of laws. His laws are always the embodiment of His own thoughts, His laws are principles. It is a tremendous thing to be able to put your finger upon principles. Very often when precedent is not in existence, principle comes in with the power of law. You may not have a precedent for something, but there is a principle, and the principle is the precedent. Do you understand what I mean? You get the principle of a thing and you have the key to it all, and God is moving on principle, and anything that He says is not something just said to have things in a certain legal order, but because they are the embodiment of some great spiritual principle, because God is Spirit and everything that comes from God is spirit. When God says, "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together" (Heb. 10:25), He does not mean, Keep your meetings going. "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together... and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching". What day? The day of fulness, the day of consummation. Unto that you have to grow, and growth is corporate.

You know quite well, if the Body is more than a metaphor - and it is - that if you detach a member from the rest it will not grow any more. It is a simple law of corporate life. It depends entirely for its own increase upon its vital relationship to the rest, and otherwise any development of it will be entirely artificial. You might perhaps sever a member or organ from the body and give it some artificial stimulant and get some kind of growth, but it would be artificial because it is not governed by all the other governing functions of the body. The Body is no mere metaphor. It is a Divine thought embodying Divine principles and spiritual realities. This is why I said at the beginning - and I am keeping very close to the matter of Overcomers - that this is not something that you can join, take up, discuss. This is not something of special truths, the Church for instance, the Body of Christ. No, it is not doctrine just as truth. Overcomers are not those who are standing for truths, in that sense. This thing is the embodiment of spiritual laws without which, and without the observance of which, and the operation of which, these great ends and thoughts of God cannot be reached. The teaching of the Church which is His Body will not get us anywhere as teaching. We might well have meetings and circles and classes to discuss that, but that is not it. It is the spiritual reality of this, and you can only come into this organically. That demands the corporate, relatedness, the fellowship. So ultimately, you will find that the principle of the Overcomer works out like this - "Then they that feared the Lord..."; "and they overcame..." It begins with us individually and ends with us corporately.

I think I had better finish there for the present. We have only just got a little way into this matter of the nature of Overcomers. There are other very important things to note. Do not forget that God is after something which will be, as far as possible now in time, and then afterward, the embodiment of His full thoughts, not partial thoughts, not partial truths, not specific things, but the whole. If you look at Overcomers they represent a greatness, a wholeness, a comprehensiveness. It is the others who have lost; they are the greater company, but they have the lesser measure. The Overcomers are the smaller company but the greater measure, and that is what God is after, and it is that testimony to the greatest, fullest measure of God in Christ that God is seeking to have in a vessel; the greatest measure of Himself in Christ revealed in and through a vessel, call it a remnant if you like, call it Overcomers, what you like. It is the peculiar treasure and it is peculiarly a treasure of God because in it He finds a way for the larger measure of Himself.

Chapter 2 - The Nature and Function of Overcomers

Reading: Isa. 1:9; Rom. 9:27,29; 11:2-5,26; Isa. 8:17-18.

"To him that overcometh..." (Rev. 2:7, etc).

"And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony" (Rev. 12:11).

Our message is concerning Overcomer Testimony. We first of all passed our eye over the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation with a view to taking account of the fact of Overcomers in Scripture, then we spent much time on the nature and function of overcomers; we spoke of it in the first place negatively, what Overcomers are not - they do not stand related to anything partial; Overcomer Testimony embraces the whole counsel of God. Coming to this matter positively, we sought to see that God has vast, immense thoughts and intentions concerning His creation, far too great for our comprehension at any given time, far too great for any one or any small company of the Lord's people to comprehend even in eternity. It will take a vast multitude which no man can number to grow into the fulness of God's thoughts and purposes, and it will take the ages of the ages to express those thoughts in that great multitude. They are not just abstract ideas, but they have been embodied in His Son, and to know the thoughts and the purposes of God is a matter of vital union with the Lord Jesus; to come under the hand of the Holy Spirit to be dealt with and to be taken through experience after experience in which it is absolutely necessary to our very life to make some new discovery of Christ. It is knowledge of Christ in life, in growth, on the principle of the Body, the principle of organic life, development by life. We said finally that fulness - and it is that for which Overcomers exist - is governed by two things. First, life and spirituality: Divine life constituting us spiritual people with spiritual minds, spiritual understanding, spiritual conceptions. Secondly, relatedness - fulness rests upon relatedness; there is no such thing as individual fulness in the thought of God, fulness is corporate, making necessary spiritual, vital, organic relationship between the Lord's people.

We proceed from that point. We just say in going on that the nature of Overcomers is that of those who are firstly in the freedom, power, freshness and progress of resurrection life. That will interpret the messages to the seven churches for you at once; that will explain Overcomers in all ages; those who are in the freedom, the power, the freshness, the progressiveness of resurrection life; for resurrection is emancipation, it is liberation. Resurrection is power, even "the exceeding greatness of his power... according to that working of the strength of his might which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead" (Eph. 1:19-20). Resurrection is freshness, it is a new beginning, it is a begetting again unto a living hope (1 Pet. 1:3). And resurrection is not something once for all; it is the beginning of an eternal expansion, continuous enlargement. That is the power of His resurrection, that is the life which is the inheritance and the birthright of the Lord's people, and Overcomers are to be the embodiment of that.

Secondly, Overcomers are, therefore, those who are held together by life. I think it wants but a very casual glance at spiritual history to see that Overcomer Testimony has been defeated by the disintegration of the Lord's people; their separations, their breakings up, their schisms, their divisions. It is all Satan's way of countering the testimony of Jesus. Overcomers are not those who go in for Christian unity and try to find some basis upon which they can be all agreed and stick to it as long as they can. No, it is something deeper than that; it is inwrought in the power of an indestructible life, held together by life, so that the final emergence of an Overcomer company is one, a Man-child called 'they'. "She was delivered of a son, a man child"; "and they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb" - passing almost immediately from the singular to the plural about the same object; an organic whole.

Features of the Overcomer

Now let us get nearer to this thing. Come to the actual word; in the Old Testament you will have recognized that very largely the Overcomers are called a Remnant. We have read some passages in which that word appears. "Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant" (Isa. 1:9); "Though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them shall return" (Isa. 10:22). That is the Old Testament name, especially in the latter part of the Old Testament, for Overcomers. The New Testament word is Overcomers. Let us get back to this Old Testament word, because it is tremendously enlightening. I make no claims to be a Hebrew scholar, but a lexicon and a concordance are very useful things, and the Hebrew concordance is very enlightening on this word. There are at least five words employed for this general idea, but every word has its own aspect of an Overcomer. I want to give you just the sense of the five words.

1. Triumph over Corruption of Death

Firstly, there is the word for remnant which is in the sense of that which has escaped corruption, something which lives in spite of death; that which has escaped the corruption of death, and lives in spite of death. You hardly need go further to get your idea of Overcomer. Is not that the very thing with which the book of the Revelation is introduced, and is not that introduction to the book of the Revelation the basis of the Divine appeal and challenge? "I am he that liveth; I became dead, but behold, I am alive unto the ages of the ages and have the keys of death and of Hades" (Rev. 1:18). And at the beginning of the Church's history when it as a whole was in the Overcomer position, the great proclamation by the witness concerning the Lord Jesus and His crucifixion, death and burial, was this - a quotation from the Old Testament - "It was not possible that he should be holden of death. For David said concerning him... Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades, neither wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption" (Acts 2:24-27). Therefore God raised Him from the dead. "Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades"; "and have the keys of death and Hades", complete mastery of death. "Thou will not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption", "He whom God raised up saw no corruption" (Acts 13:37) is the Apostle's testimony. And here is this Old Testament word used by the Holy Spirit for a Remnant which just simply means that escape from corruption, living in spite of death. The Adversary's great effort all the way through is to corrupt the people of God, and in bringing them into spiritual death to bring them to corruption spiritually, to disintegrate them by spiritual death, somehow; to reverse the testimony of Jesus in His Body, the Church, to contradict the great primal fact that death and corruption have been vanquished by Him fully and finally; first, spiritually in its principle, and finally physically in its outworking. The story of the book of the Revelation in its beginnings is of death and corruption in the churches. You have no need that I even mention those words, those statements, indicating death and corruption in the churches; and right into the midst of that the Lord says - "He that overcometh..." An Overcomer is one who escapes corruption and lives even though death is all around. It is a living people in the presence of spiritual death which is working amongst the Lord's people - I am not talking about the world - spiritual death, decline, break up, disintegration; yes, and corruption, mixture, false elements are abroad amongst Christians, and in the midst of it all the Lord is seeking that body, that company, which has escaped the corruption and lives triumphant over death. So much for the first of these five words.

2. Freedom from Slavery

There is another word which just means that which has escaped from slavery and is breathing free air. That is a fine picture, a fine portrait for Overcomers - that which has escaped from slavery and is breathing free air. I dare not stay to interpret that. Some of us, even in our Christian lives and histories, know what it is to escape from slavery. Oh, the old bondage of the Christian system and order, expectation and demand, all the old rota and legality! - to be free of it all! Not only to be raised with Christ, but to have the grave-clothes taken off and to be breathing the free air of the spiritually emancipated! That is what this word calls a remnant, and that is not something extra to Christianity. It is exactly what you find at the beginning with the Church. The Lord had cried in the midst of a burdened, tyrannised, religious nation - "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matt. 11:28-30). What is the old yoke, the old burden, which has harassed and worn these people so that they are weary to death, drawing out His compassionate appeal - "Come unto me, and I will give you rest"? It is the old yoke and burden of legalistic religion, 'thou shalt' and 'thou shalt not': 'you must' and 'you must not' - the whole system built up like that, a great burden. "They bind heavy burdens." He said "and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with their finger" (Matt. 23:4). And this word for remnant means such as have escaped slavery and are breathing the free air. You find them in the beginning of the book of the Acts. Overcomers are those who go back to the beginning in experience. They do not take up something further which is deeper teaching, fuller light. It is the primal freshness and fulness of Christ that Overcomers represent - unfortunately, in contrast to the general situation.

3. The Retaining of Excellence

And the next word for remnant is that which is sometimes translated 'residue', in the sense of those who retain excellence in spite of deterioration. It very aptly describes Overcomers. Deterioration is almost universal; that does not need arguing, everyone will agree, it is not necessary to make out a case. There are very few people who, in their most honest hearts, are not very much concerned about the spiritual state of things. Overcomers are those who retain excellence over against deterioration. That is what the Lord wants and, because the Lord wants it, it is possible, and because He both wants it and makes it possible, if we will come the Lord's way, we can know it. This excellence, again, is not something added to Christianity. It was said of Israel that they were a chosen race - "Ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that ye may shew forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light" (1 Pet. 2:9), and the Overcomers are those who are fulfilling the original purpose of their calling - to show forth the excellence, retaining excellence today, when the general impression is anything but that of His excellencies.

4. The Finding of Refuge

The next word is that which is best translated, I think, into our English word with which we have become sadly familiar in recent days - a refugee; the essence of this word is that. It means one who has left a region of desolation and found refuge from desolation - a fine thought for Overcomers. It is possible to know spiritual desolation even amongst the people of God, to know desolation of heart even in the Christian Church. So many write to us and speak to us - 'The place where I attend is a desolation, there is no food, there is no life, it is all barren and dead; what are we to do?' And that is a Christian church, so called; a Christian circle. Yes, we say it quietly because we do not gloat over that; it is the opposite of that that is in our thought. We have to take note of facts, and these are facts, that there is spiritual desolation today in Christendom and often even in evangelical circles; starvation and death, and the Overcomer, the remnant, are those who have left that region of desolation spiritually and have found food, come into life, into wealth, into spiritual affluence, who have found the realm of heart satisfaction. That is how it was at the beginning.

5. Survival

Then, finally, there is the word for remnant which just means survivor and survival. The picture is that of one who has squeezed through a narrow opening into liberty, and who is alone left, but being alone left, is living and free, a survivor. We know all too much of the tragedy of that word in these days. The ships that have gone down, the lifeboats packed, one after another dying from exposure and starvation, and one left at last and rescued, a survivor perhaps of a whole ship or at least of a boat-load, having, so to speak, squeezed through the narrow opening between life and death, alone but living and free. It may take a little while to recover from the suffering; but the realization, - I am alive, they are all dead and I am alive and I am out, I have escaped, they have all perished! is a tremendous thing to such an individual; to be one who has squeezed through that narrow gate and is alive; of course it is a great responsibility, but all that is crowded into a single Hebrew word for remnant. I am not saying that any one of these words fully describes the Overcomer, but put them all together and you get the Overcomer. The final thing is - Out, survived, living and free! It is unto that that the Lord has called us, to realize something of the narrow escape we have had, what a thing it is to be alive in the Lord. How many there are who do not know the life that we are enjoying. In this world we are survivors, living and free, and that, tragically enough, amongst many Christians who have been engulfed. We are defining the nature of Overcomers, and that is what it is.

Overcomers for Signs and for Wonders

Now let us pass on quite quickly for a few minutes. There came a point at which God broke with the nation, Israel, as a whole, and gave Himself up to the Remnant. We have read those words in Isa. 8 - "Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel". "I and the children whom God hath given me". First of all, see what that meant in the case of Israel and Isaiah the prophet. It meant that God had brought into being that little family, that little domestic circle, in such a way, and had preserved and maintained and succoured in such a way as to serve Him in this capacity of putting them right in the midst of Israel, to be firstly, for signs; that is, to signify something, to imply and indicate something about God and God's thought and mind concerning His people. There is a very great mistake being made just now of taking the Hebrew prophets and using them to the nation, the British nation and the nations. It is a mistake. You cannot put the British nation or any other nation in the place of Israel. The nation is the Lord's people, the holy nation, and it is to the holy nation that the prophets have their message and ministry, and it is through the holy nation that the nations are to be fed. Here the Lord broke with the whole nation, Israel, and gave Himself up to the Remnant, and that Remnant was to be like Isaiah and the children whom God had given him for signs, to signify in their own being, in their own constitution, in the way in which the Lord had brought them into being and had dealt with them, how the Lord was related to them, to signify what His thought was to all His people. That is the function of a remnant. "And for wonders in Israel", and, dear friends, you cannot have the background of wonders without being put into the position where it wants a wonder to bring you out on top so that you say, It is a wonder I am alive, it is a wonder that I survived that I got through, that I am where I am today; only God could have done it! And that is what the Remnant is for - to show what a wonderful God He is in our experience. That is not something extra, that is basic. "The exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to that working of the strength of his might which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead". The greatest wonder of all is the resurrection of Christ; and the maintaining of a people in resurrection life in a world like this and in the midst of the awful forces of evil which are set for their undoing and setting aside. In life - yes, in life, not in existence but in life, and the maintaining of life in any measure of fulness and victory is a wonder. The Lord wants to get hold of a people who will serve Him in this capacity as signs, signifying His mind in their own being, their own history, an example of what the Lord wants for all His people.

But do not forget, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews lays hold of that fragment in Isa. 8 and he brings it in in the second chapter. "Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same". The quotation comes right in in that connection. "Behold, I and the children which God hath given me". "Both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying... Behold, I and the children which God hath given me". That is a basic and original idea, that union with Christ basically and subsequently, not at an advanced point, but union with Christ is supposed to have this very element and nature. "I and the children whom God hath given me are for signs and for wonders". Our very union with Christ is supposed to be a wonder and a signification right at its beginning. To recover that is the work of Overcomers. We are on the function now. You see, the Remnant and Overcomers have as their function to be God's vantage ground in a day of widespread spiritual declension and failure, to be vantage points, that upon which God can act and say, not, This is my idea for you, but, Here is my thought positively expressed, here is the thing that I am after! That is the function of Overcomers, to be to God like that. "I and the children whom God hath given me are for signs and for wonders". Here is the thing, God is saying. Look at this, look at Isaiah and his children, look at Christ and His own as God wills them to be and you have what I am after, what my mind is! The remnant is for that, God's vantage ground in a day of declension to show the thing to others.

The Overcomer Remnant in Relation to the Whole

That is not all, by a long way. May I just say this one more word before I conclude this part. There is an allusion in the original statement and in its citation in Romans. "Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like unto Gomorrah". There is an allusion there. The allusion is to Abraham, and it brings right into view that scene, that marvellous scene, of Abraham challenging and arguing with and persuading God, and God lending Himself to the challenge and listening to the argument and yielding to the persuasion. If there are fifty righteous, will you not destroy? And the Lord says, If I can find fifty righteous, I will spare the place for their sakes. He cannot find fifty righteous, and Abraham gradually reduces it and God yields to him every time. If I can find ten righteous, will you spare the cities? Yes, if you find ten. And he went and you may be sure he scoured the cities thoroughly to find ten righteous people. He had to come back and say, I cannot find any. God says, If only you could have found a remnant, I would have saved the whole. That is the argument of Isaiah and of Paul, and that is why I brought together those two passages: "Even now there is a remnant." 'Therefore shall all Israel be saved': the vocational aspect of being an Overcomer. It is not just for ourselves to get the extra glory and blessing. It is related to the service of God, serving God and serving Him in respect of all His people. Now, that is something that wants enlarging upon. I can see now something in those words "And his servants shall serve him and they shall see his face" (Rev. 22:3-4). Is that everybody? No.

God's thought concerning His Church is that it should be gathered out of the nations, slowly but surely formed into a bride worthy of giving to His Son as a gift, without spot or blemish or any such thing; given to Christ as His bride to be for Him the instrument, the agency of filling and fulfilling the coming Kingdom throughout the ages. That is God's thought about the Church. Can we say that that is being realised in any commensurate way? No, but God holds to His thought and He seeks an inner company whom we are calling a remnant or an Overcomer company to stand for Him in this service, to be a link between Him and His full thought in His people, and to be that instrument for the realisation of His full thought, to serve Him, to see His face. What is that? - to be to His Son the agency of filling the Kingdom and fulfilling the Kingdom in the days to come. That is tremendous service. It is unto that that the Overcomers are called. If you want to be in the work of the Lord, if you want to be the Lord's servants, it is not given to a special class called ministers and missionaries. It is to a whole company, to every one who overcomes. "He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne" (Rev. 3:21); "will I give to eat of the tree of life" (Rev. 2:7). These are all things symbolic of that full thought of God concerning His Church, gathered up and expressed firstly in Overcomers.

Chapter 3 - The Prize of the On-High Calling

Reading: 2 Cor. 12:1; Phil. 3:12-14.

The Overcomer's Declaration

We are going to gather up what we have already said, and present it in a simple and definite way. In the words which we have read, penned by Paul to the Philippians, we have the Overcomer's declaration, and it is gathered into a very small fragment of words. "One thing I do...". Before we can go further, we have to make a little adjustment, for Paul did not actually say, "One thing I do". You will notice the "I do" is in italics, which means that it is not in the original text. Paul said, "But one thing, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus". The verb "I do" is not there, but there is a verb which has to come in to make this statement intelligible, and the verb is found later - "One thing I pursue". That is the complete statement. "One thing I pursue". "I press on" - "pursue" is the better word. "One thing I pursue". Of course, it is quite right to say, "One thing I do", and I suppose in order to make the sentence simple for English readers the translators put those words in, but the correct, or the exact way of putting it is "But one thing, forgetting the things which are behind... I pursue..." "One thing I pursue". It brings the object of pursuit as the governing thing: not what I do, but the object. Paul is not saying, What I do is all-important. It is the object that I have in view that is all-important. So we are at once brought in that way face to face with the object.

The Object of the Overcomer

When we ask what the object is, he calls it "the prize of the on-high calling of God in Christ Jesus". You notice he has said, "Not as though I had already attained..." - it is not 'attained'. Properly, it is obtained and you can put in brackets there - 'the prize'. "But one thing I pursue - the prize of the on-high calling of God in Christ Jesus". The on-high calling has bound up with it, the prize.

The On-High Calling

Let us weigh our words as we go along. "The", the calling in Christ Jesus. Paul often used that word 'calling', and it is not what we mean when we say that someone called us. 'You called me', as you are called in the morning; or someone calls you across the road. That is not the idea of the word at all. It is what we mean when we speak of a calling or a vocation. 'This is my calling'. Paul used the two words in 1 Cor. 7:20. "Let each man abide in that calling wherein he was called". They are two different Greek words. One is being called, the other is that to which a man is called. This latter word can be seen in Eph. 1:18; 2 Thess. 1:11; 2 Tim. 1:9; Heb. 3:1; 2 Pet. 1:10. What he is saying is, Are you in this vocation or that? Do not seek to get out of it; abide in the calling wherein ye were called. The on-high calling, therefore, is a vocation which has to do with glory. It is that for which we have been apprehended or possessed. He says, "...that I may possess that for which I have become possessed by Christ Jesus"; and that possession is the prize of the on-high calling in Christ Jesus.

"In Christ Jesus"

Now we must go to the end of the statement again, to that well-known and yet still-so-little understood formula - "In Christ Jesus". "The on-high calling in Christ Jesus". Our thought about that is usually as of the sphere which Christ represents, that Christ is a sphere; a certain specified and well-defined limit or circle. Well, that is quite true, but that is only half of it. That defines a bound and sets forth or indicates the exclusiveness of Christ. That is a realm, and you are either in that realm or out of that realm; you are in Christ or you are out of Christ, and it makes Christ a self-contained, settled, fixed realm of things, and there is no overlapping; it is either in or out.

But the other half is that it is the inclusiveness of Christ. It is what is inside that sphere. "In Christ" means that God has put everything of His thought and intention within Christ, it is all found there. All that God has designed is in Christ Jesus. It is a mighty fulness, inclusive and exclusive. You have none of it outside, but all of it in, and it is what is in Christ by the summing up of God the Father that is indicated by this - "the prize of the on-high calling in Christ Jesus". That is why I just took that little fragment from 2 Cor. 12:1 - "visions and revelations" of Christ. That is what we want to see - what is in Christ, visions and revelations. Have you ever for a moment paused to ask the question - How did Paul get to know all that he talks about? I pick up the letter to the Romans and I read through near to the end of the 8th chapter, and I hear Paul talking about things that happened before ever this world had an existence, going back into the very presence of God and hearing the Godhead talking between themselves, so to speak, and arranging things and saying what They were going to do. How did Paul get to know all that? Is this imagination? Paul has got it from heaven. You notice what he says, in 2 Cor. 12 "I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not; or whether out of the body. I know not; God knoweth), such a one caught up even to the third heaven. And I know such a man (whether in the body, or apart from the body, I know not; God knoweth), how that he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter". "I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord". If they were not lawful for him to utter, they are not in the New Testament, but what is here is enough to get on with, and he intimates vast things, immense things, things altogether beyond our comprehension, things which will take eternity and the vast concourse of a countless host to understand, to enter into. "Visions and revelations of the Lord".

Amongst these visions and revelations, he has seen the on-high calling of God in Christ Jesus, he is intimating that there is such a thing, and he is telling us about his own attitude toward that thing, he is seeking with all his heart to get all believers to take the same attitude and to be of the same spirit and mind as himself. "I labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily" to "present every man complete in Christ" (Col. 1:28-29). It is the same thing. He has seen what is in Christ as the on-high calling of believers, and that object is before him. It is an immense thing represented by Christ in the purpose of God from eternity to eternity, and he sees that that thing, that immense thing in Christ, is the inheritance of the sons of God."...bringing many sons unto glory" (Heb. 2:10). It is the inheritance of sonship, and, as you so well know, sonship, according to the New Testament, is something more than spiritual childhood. It is the full-grown man spiritually, and this is the inheritance of the full-grown sons.

Two Aspects of our Inheritance in Christ

(a) Conformity to the Image of Christ

"The on-high calling". I could not, even if I stayed and if I tried, speak to my own satisfaction or yours of what that on-high calling is, because I do not know. I can only come with this tremendous impact that it is something very great, very glorious, and say that this is the object which makes Overcomers and will make the Overcomer company of which we have been speaking. It is this object, and it is this attitude which will do it. This is only an appeal, with a feeble presentation of the ground of appeal. It is what God has revealed in visions and revelations to Paul as to our inheritance in Christ, and it has two sides or two aspects.

Firstly, it has to do with His nature. God has wrought out in the Person of His Son in human manhood right through to completion His thought for the new race, the new creation; taking it to the depths where "He who knew no sin was made sin for us" (in our place), and raising it to the highest heights, placing it at His own right hand, glorifying it with His own glory, filling it with His own fulness, and so expressing Himself in that glorified humanity, telling us that that is the pattern to which He would conform us and has predestined us. "Foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son" (Rom. 8:29). The Church is called to that and every part of it in its own measure to share that termed 'the fulness of him that filleth all in all' (Eph. 1:23) as to nature. This Church, of which we are parts, this Body of which we are members, is called to be so changed, firstly inwardly and finally outwardly, as to have the very glory that now fills Christ resting upon it. "A glorious church having the glory of God: her light was like unto a stone most precious" (Rev. 21:11); called unto his eternal glory (1 Pet. 5:10).

"I will come to visions and revelations", and the first one of those is what Paul saw on the way to Damascus and called "the heavenly vision". "I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19). He came to see by instruction of the Holy Spirit and by Divine revelation, heaven-given vision, that that which he saw on the Damascus road was the thing unto which he was called - to share that glory, to be glorified like that in Christ Jesus, and he says, That is the prize of the on-high calling! It has to do with our nature being conformed to the nature of Christ, sinless, therefore capable of being endowed with Divine glory.

(b) Service in Christ Jesus

But the other half is that it has to do with service, the service that is in Christ Jesus; His work. "The on-high calling of God in Christ Jesus" - the work as well as the nature of Christ in glory. The New Testament has not a few intimations as to what the work of Christ is and is destined to be throughout the ages of the ages. It is to minister God to the creation, to fill the creation with God, to keep everything fed by God. God is life, God is love, God is everything that is glorious, and to be the agency, the vehicle, the vessel of ministering God to the creation is the consummate vision of the book of the Revelation, in the form of the city, in the form of that which is right at the centre of the city, upon which the city lives, from which it derives its life; the tree of life, the river of water of life, and then the leaves of the tree for the health of the nations. It is all a symbolic intimation that here is a great ministry centred in the Church in Christ Jesus; the Church, one with Christ Jesus, to minister life, health, glory and all that God is, beyond itself.

"The on-high calling of God in Christ Jesus". It is what is in Christ Jesus as to nature and purpose. We must not think that the glorification of the Lord Jesus is the end, an end in itself. Our glorification is not going to be an end in itself. God does not believe in ends; there is no end to Him and He does not believe in having ends. "Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end" (Isa. 9:7). That is not only a matter of time limit; that is a matter of expansion, dimension, increase. It does not mean that the increase of His Kingdom will not cease at a certain time, it means the increase itself will go on and on, fulness so boundless. The high calling in Christ Jesus is to maintain that eternal increase. You may think that this is extravagant language and very high talking, but I will come back to the practical thing in a moment, now, to ourselves.

Hindrances to the Pursuit of the Prize

We have already said in our previous meditations that the Church being gathered out of the nations in this dispensation, and being slowly formed into a vessel, and inwardly changed, and spiritually developed, is being prepared to receive the resurrection glory of Christ with a view to ministering that glory, being the agency of that glory in the Kingdom which is coming, the everlasting Kingdom, when the kingdom of this world shall become the Kingdom of our Lord and His Christ, invested with His glory. Now Paul by revelation had come to see what Christ risen and glorified signified as God's thought and intention, for the Church which is His Body, and he says, That is our calling, that is our destined vocation. Then, if that is the object that He has in view and presents to us, the Christian life is something very much more than getting converted, however much that may be - and it is a great thing. Never let us be content with that. The good can be the enemy of the best in that respect if we are not very careful. That being the object, there has got to be an attitude, and Paul says, As to the object, this is my attitude; one thing I pursue, I am a man of one object, and upon that object I bring everything to bear, to converge, so that one thing in all things becomes the only thing that matters. As to the past - forgetting. In this chapter of his own history, he refers to two things in the past, things which he deliberately forgets. They are two forms of things that could very much interfere with this pursuit to rob of this prize. In the first place he mentions the prizes of this world, the other prizes. The prize of inheritance; look at the chapter - what he inherited as a Hebrew of the Hebrews! What an inheritance! The prize of inheritance, the prize of status - a Pharisee. If you really get a thoroughbred Pharisee, you have the embodiment and personification of status. Then there was attainment, he was a scholar of the best school. And so much more in that realm of prizes here. He says in effect, if I rest upon anything of worldly prizes, worldly status, anything at all that I have or am as to this world, it will interfere with this quest and get in the way of that prize, so I forget it, deliberately forget it, I banish it from my mind.

Beware, young people. The enemy can offer you prizes in order to steal the prize from you, he can substitute for the prize - and I am not saying that there are not prizes so far as this world goes. There are prizes, there are things for which men barter their souls and when they have got them, they find them wholly empty at the end. Beware of the counter-prizes. If you are going to be an Overcomer, you have got to be like this Overcomer and say, These things do not count so far as this one thing is concerned, those things must take a subservient place. You may say, I am successful! Do not say you are successful until you can say you have got the prize of the . It is an attitude - forgetting those things for the one thing. This does not mean that you should accept a low or meagre level of life and work, and be second or third-rate people. It only means that the chief end should overshadow all else.

Then he refers to another side which he deliberately forgets, which can equally retard the progress and arrest the advance and slow the step. "Persecuting the church" - he speaks of that to this church. The blind folly of yesterday, the blindness and ignorance of the past and what I did in it. Oh, Satan is so ready to bring up our past to paralyse us. The foolishness, the weakness, the mistakes, the blunders, the sins - yes, he is always bringing those up and saying, This disqualifies you, puts you out of the running, this prize is not for you! Look at yourself, look what kind of history you have! And Paul says, I put that out of the way, I am not going to be discouraged by past failures. An Overcomer must not be discouraged by past failure, though that has been repeated. If ever there was one who should have felt himself disqualified for this prize, it was this man. I persecuted the Church, I consented to Stephen's death, I held the clothes of the witnesses; I pursued the saints into distant cities, I cast into prison both men and women; I can never hope to be awarded that prize! Ah no! "Forgetting the things which are behind". "But one thing".

I have often said that I think Paul really did have a hand in the writing of Hebrews; whether he actually wrote it or not, he is there, and you remember - "Let us... lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking off unto Jesus" (Heb. 12:1-2). The weights that impede, hold back, the sin so easily besetting - what is it? There is no chapter division in Paul's letter, we have to run straight on. "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for the proving of things not seen... By faith... By faith... Let us lay aside... the sin which doth so easily beset us". If we are going to run, all unbelief, all doubt, all questioning must go; the easily besetting sin of doubt, unfaith, must be stripped and laid aside to run this race unto this prize. "I forget". The Lord would have us forget in that sense anything that would get in the way of this attitude. As to the past, I forget. As to the present, I gird myself, I press, I pursue. I may be a doctor, a teacher, a nurse or anything, but in and through all things, I have one object and my earthly calling, earthly vocation, earthly business, must be made the sphere in which this end is pursued. It must not be the thing in itself and the end in itself, but my occasion, my opportunity and my means of learning Christ. There is plenty in everyday life to make a real knowledge of Christ necessary, and so we should turn everyday life to use, in its adversities, its trials, its difficulties, to gain Christ, to know Christ. It is a present thing, it is not all in the future. It is a present thing, this movement to the great consummation.

Let us get this word - I pursue. In Phil. 3, that word occurs twice. You will not find it in the translation. Paul says he persecuted the Church. That is exactly the same word as he uses here - I Pursue. It sounds strange to say. I persecute the prize of the on-high calling, but you can see the meaning. How did Paul persecute the Church? Well, he did it very thoroughly and he stood at nothing, he let nothing get in his way. He went the whole way in persecution and not only men, but women; this thing related to Jesus of Nazareth had to go, lock, stock and barrel, and he would not spare himself until this was done! That is the spirit of Saul of Tarsus. He says, I bring that spirit right over in relation to Christ. He uses the same word. That is the spirit of the Overcomer, nothing less than that will do.

The Present Practical Value

I must close here by coming to that which I suggested just now would come back to us before we finished - the present practical value of this. It all looks so future, so heavenly, so beyond, but it is not. Dear friends, we should be very, very much the poorer if all this in the New Testament through and by the Apostle Paul was not there. I mean, how impoverished we should be had we not got what Paul brought, what the Lord has given us through that dear man. He never knew it was going to be like that. He wrote some letters out of his heart for some immediate local or localised situations and needs, to help curtail people in certain places over certain present difficulties and problems. He never knew they were going to be "The Epistles of Paul", lasting two thousand years, read the world over, fed upon and building up the Church for which he had such a concern, and bringing multitudes into greater fulnesses of Christ. There it is, and it is all due to this attitude and what he was prepared to pay in taking this attitude, of being of this mind and this spirit. That is where the practical thing is. If you are going to be an Overcomer of this sort, if you are going with the Lord wholly and utterly, to persecute in this thorough-going way God's full end, to pursue it like this and pay the price - do not do it with this motive and object - there is undoubtedly going to be tremendous enrichment of others, and the fact is, and it is a settled law, that the enrichment of others can only come in this way. Those who will not pay the price forfeit the fruitfulness. The real values of Christ have come all the way through the centuries through men after this sort, men of this mind. You may say that you are not a Paul, you are not a great person in the Church. No, but greatness is not measured by what you are in yourself. Your greatness and your value and your fruitfulness will be according to the utterness of your abandonment to God's full thought. He will see to the rest, and many will thank God that you paid the price, that you suffered for an utter way for the Lord, that you counted not the cost too great. That is the way of fruitfulness, and that is how it is that Paul has been such an enriching factor, simply because of his attitude, his spirit, because he carried this out. "One thing...". Not a man of divided interest, an iron in every fire. "I pursue the prize of the on-high calling of God in Christ Jesus". Because he so pursued, saints have been enriched and helped, strengthened and made full in every age since. That is possible, it is true. If you go the whole way and suffer with the Lord for His full purpose, that in itself will be the way of the enrichment of others, and that is where the thing is so practical. It comes down out of the ethereal, the merely visionary. You be out and out for the Lord and many will get the benefit. And so, as we have been saying, by a remnant the whole Church comes into blessing. The remnant satisfies God and then the whole is benefitted because God is satisfied.

The Lord make us of this spirit, of this kind. "One thing I pursue".