Table of Contents

Love of God

Spirit Characteristically

Present Blessing

Prophecy and the Day Star

God's Delight in Blessing

The House of God

Freedom

Joy

Marks of a True Teacher

The Marks of a True Teacher sent from God

S. L. Jacob - Addresses

S. L. Jacob

This document may be found online at www.stempublishing.com

You are welcome to freely access and use this material for personal study or sending to other Bible students, compiling extracts for notes etc, but please do not republish without permission.

With the prayerful desire that the Lord Jesus Christ will use this God-given ministry in this form for His glory and the blessing of many in these last days before His coming. © Les Hodgett (contact@stempublishing.com)

The Love of God

The Spirit Characteristically

The Importance of Present Blessing

Prophecy and the Day Star

God's Delight in Blessing

The House of God

Freedom

Rich and Poor

Joy

The Marks of a True Teacher Sent from God

Love of God

The Love of God

1 John 4: 7-21; Hebrews 12: 29

Seventy or eighty years ago Mr. Haldane came from Scotland to the city of Geneva, and having heard of some young men there of a sceptical turn of mind, he became much interested in them and sought an interview. This was arranged and they met together, an interpreter being present as Mr. Haldane could not speak French. Mr. Haldane began by saying, "God loves Himself supremely, and all He has done is to gratify Himself." "Translate that," said he. "I cannot," said the interpreter, "it would never do." "Translate it," said Mr. Haldane sternly, and it was translated. It was God's message to these young men, and great was its effect. Six of them were brought to God, and among these were the famous Merle D'Aubigne (Author of the History of the Reformation) and Caesar Malan used of God so greatly in Switzerland and elsewhere.

We greatly need the same truth presented by Mr. Haldane, and so much owned of God. When we love ourselves it is because we are selfish, but God in loving Himself shews His unselfishness. He is all that is perfect, He must love Himself, and He must labour unceasingly for the gratification of His own love. He must have the happiness of blessing, we may have all the happiness of being blessed. Would that we understood this better.

It may however be asked, What scripture do you give for this? The answer is that God says, "My glory will I not give to another." What is God's glory which He cannot give to another? The glory surely of being the source of all goodness and blessing. He cannot be otherwise than what He has ever been. "God is Love," and He cannot but sustain that character. This is His glory. Ours is to know Him in the love and to reflect that character.

I have felt very much of late the difficulties we have in understanding God's language. He has a language of His own because He is God, and although He uses man's words, they are so changed by His handling, so enriched and wonderful have they become that they are no longer recognizable without a new power and a new inward state. Unless there is this power of the Holy Spirit, and this spiritual state, God's language is a sealed book to us though every word in it is quite familiar to us according to the language of men. To understand God we must become like little children; however wise we are we must become fools to learn. Nothing is so fatal to the understanding of divine truth as the idea that we have some knowledge, hence the Father reveals Himself to babes, and hides Himself from the wise and prudent. He speaks to the heart instead of to the intellect.

Take, for instance, the word "love." There is no commoner word, the mass of poetry, and most of the books written are on the subject of love, yet that which God calls "love" is but little understood even by the people of God, and it is a blank to the world. So much so that the God who is love is more maligned than anyone else, and men find fault with His ways because they say they are lacking in love. Look at verse 7. This shews us that patriotism, a mother's love, and all the other human forms of love are not such as God can call "love." Love, according to God, is far higher than all these. God does not call that love which does not act through righteousness, and in which there is any selfishness or any motive save the glory of God. Man's love is greatly alloyed with selfishness, and neither righteousness nor the desire for the glory of God are necessities to that love. So different are men's thoughts to God's.

It is because of this great difficulty in the apprehension of love that there is not much about love in the Old Testament. We learn much there about righteousness, much of the mercy and loving-kindness of God, but not that God is love. In the Old Testament we only get the back parts of the glory of God. Before His face could be seen, and we could understand that God is love, it was necessary that the righteousness of God should be manifested. Love will make any sacrifice, will go to any length to gratify itself, but it can only act in the way of righteousness.

But how are we to learn love? We cannot learn what love is by what we see around us. The creation around does not manifest love; on the contrary, it is full of confusion, and those who judge by what they see are full of perplexities. There seems no clue to the mystery, and the wiser the enquirer, the more the pain, as the wise man tells us in the book of Ecclesiastes. It is because men will judge in this way that they have such hard thoughts of God, and God, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, is so misjudged. You and I would never endure it if we were misjudged as God is.

Verse 9 shews how the love of God has been manifested. God has sent His Son; and it shews too the object of this manifestation of love, that we may live by Him. Live when? Not by and by in heaven, but live now. How do we live? By the sense of love. There is no other way.

Verse 10 shews us what love is, that its source is the heart of God. Love is not indigenous in man. It comes from God to him. How do we see this? In the sending of His Son to be the propitiation for our sins: not to make* propitiation, but to be it, see 1 John 2: 2. It is not a past thing, it is a present blessing, which the soul enters into. A present sense of favour owing to what God's Son is as to our sins.

{*There is only one place where to make propitiation is spoken of, i.e. Heb. 2: 17, New Translation. This is priestly work for the seed of Abraham and not a work for sinners as it is so often understood to be.}

God is so anxious for us to enter into present blessing, but we have been always thinking that we shall get a blessing some day, and thus losing the present blessing, which is God's special thought. What assurance have you of future blessing, if you are not blessed now? Years ago we learnt forgiveness of sins, we found peace with God, we heard that Christ was coming again for us, and we began to look out for Him. Also we received the Holy Ghost. This is very right and very blessed, and yet if we stop here we lose the main blessing altogether and fail to give the joy to Christ which He looks for.

We must begin by being babies, and a baby is a beautiful thing; but would you have the baby remain a baby? He would very soon be a monstrosity, and this is what so often occurs with us. We started well, but soon our growth became stunted, for we did not go on to get the present blessing by which we would be matured and ripened unto perfection or full growth. This is what God wants, and for this we must be enjoying love, and by enjoying love we shall be formed in love. There is no other way.

What has God sent the Spirit here for? Not to give us what the saints had before. They anticipated the glory and all the blessings of God by faith, but present entrance into these blessings was not possible to the Old Testament saints: this present entrance is reserved for us. If we have it not, the whole point in the coming of the Holy Ghost is lost. I fear we are not sufficiently exercised as to this. May God exercise us.

What have we generally understood when we have said we were saved? Did we not mean that we were sure of heaven? But if this is all, we are not there yet. Salvation (except where it refers to the full result including the resurrection body) is something for the present, and if we are not in the possession of present power over sin, we do not know salvation. So it is with all God's blessings, they are for present enjoyment, power and use, and we have made a great mistake in relegating them to the future. This is pressed in the chapter we are considering, "As He is so are we in this world." These last words are added in order to press the present aspect of the blessing. Moreover, there is nothing in this chapter for faith, but all is for the sense and consciousness of love that God may be satisfied by making us satisfied. A satisfied heart delights God.

When it says that God sent His Son that we might live through Him, what does it mean? When we are in the enjoyment of that love, which will form the delight of heaven, then it is we live. Therefore it is that life is so little understood; a dissatisfied heart does not live, it only exists. If you would live, drink in the love of God to-day. It is all present; to-morrow will take care of itself. Our place is to bask in His love to-day.

When we relegate the blessings of God to the future we can pass muster as tolerable Christians, but when we see that they are all present then we have to own with shame how little we have pleased God the Father, how little we have honoured the Son, how little we have used the Spirit. Who is it that honours the Son? Not those who merely ascribe to Him an equal place with the Father, but those, who let the love of God flow through the heart of the Son into their hearts, whose hearts are made free by that love, and who have lost the sense of distance they once had, for they know that they are before God in all the value of the Son. They dwell in God and God in them. All this is lost to the one, who puts the blessings of God into the background of the future. Alas! we are all guilty. God grant we may not be guilty of this any more. We must enjoy the love of God, if we are to please Him. It is this sense of being loved that makes us superior to the power of the world. Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world, but this refers to the Spirit as characteristic, otherwise this power will not be known.

We have often thought of heaven as a prettier kind of earth, and the description of the heavenly Jerusalem is often taken literally, but let us get into the truth of the chapter before us, dwell in God and know God dwelling in us, then we shall know what heaven is. No one will get to heaven if heaven does not get into him. Shall it be that God takes all this trouble in order to bring us into present blessing, and we not respond? Shall we have the opportunity of rejoicing the heart of the Son and be oblivious to it? There is such a golden moment for us now, all the world is slighting God's Son; how blessed are those who, during the present period, can shew the love of the Son rejoices their hearts.

The love of God is the most real of all things, yet we may deceive ourselves and think we love Him when we do not. There is much sentimentality abroad, and we have to take good heed that we are not ensnared thereby. Because of our liability to err God graciously gives us tests to try ourselves by. It is easy to ascertain how much I love God, for my love to my brother is the measure of my love to God. When we test ourselves thus, then our love seems woefully small.

We must understand, however, that this love when present is shewn as God's love is: that is, love is intensely anxious for the best blessing of those loved; the spiritual is far more important than the natural, yet this latter is not neglected. Love, however, can only act in righteousness, though it will go to any length in order to fulfil righteous claims in order that love may have its desire.

The test is a very real one when it is a question of those to whom we are not naturally attracted; those of different dispositions, different social position, and above all of a different race. Do we love those brethren, who are naturally most removed from us, and do we seek their good with all our hearts? Our Lord said, "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples that ye have love one to another." Do we really show our discipleship in this manner? It is useless saying that we love the God whom we have not seen, if we do not love the brother whom we have seen.

Mind you read the scriptures aright. Often when we read, "Love one another," we say, "Why do not my brethren love me?" This is how the devil teaches us to read scripture. We are not told to get love, we are told to love. Love where we are loved, and love where we are hated. To love always and in all circumstances, never mind whether others love us or not. Many read scripture backwards. When they read "Give" they say, "Oh! that is very nice, who is going to give to me?" Do you think such people know the love of God, or get any good from scripture? Impossible. One professor said to me, "I ask because I want to give my brethren an opportunity to fulfil Matt. 5: 42." I said, "Be consistent then, go about smiting your brethren, suing at the law, and forcing them to come along at your bidding in order to give them the opportunity of fulfilling the three previous verses." Alas! let us see to it that when we read, "Love ye," we do love, and when we read, "Give ye," we give, and so with everything. The one who yields all gets all; the one who keeps all, loses.

Also do not forget 1 John 5: 2, 3. Love must be shewn according to the commandments of God. But what are the commandments? Are they the ten? Surely not. They are not, Do this, and do not do that. To get these commandments we must be formed in love. Then we shall understand, not otherwise. What is love? To walk after His commandments. But what are His commandments? To love one another, see 1 John 3: 23 and 2 John 5, 6. Clever people will tell us that this is not logical, it is merely reasoning in a circle. Quite true, and an uncommonly good circle it is for those who understand it, for the rest it is necessarily utter foolishness. Explain as much as you like and the carnal will not understand, because these things are only known experimentally: to the poor in spirit it is all simple and easy.

I also read Heb. 12: 29. It seems very different to say, "Our God is a consuming fire" in contrast to "God is love," but really these statements go together. Our God is a consuming fire because He is love, because there must be an intense action both preservative of the good and hostile to the evil. Can God be indifferent to that which would hinder His love being known? Impossible. How does the mother feel towards the snake, which would bite her child? Love is a fire which many waters cannot quench, and he who understands the jealousy of love will be thankful that God is a consuming fire. He will understand it. Our jealousy is the result of selfishness, but God's jealousy is the result of absolute unselfishness. If we know the love of God, we are thankful for every attribute of His. If not, even His kindness fills us with dread.

When Jacob was at Bethel God appears to him in a vision and shews Jacob that he is the object of God's tenderest care. Does Jacob rejoice in this? No, he says, "How dreadful is this place." This shews he did not know God, and was not at home with Him. How different was the case with Abraham, the Friend of God.

How is it with us? To have received innumerable benefits from God is one thing, to know Him, to be at home with Him, to bask in His love is another thing. Have you ever said with a saint of old who had not a tithe of the light you have?

"To Thee, Lord, my heart unfoldeth,

As the rose to the golden sun —

To Thee, Lord, mine arms are clinging

The eternal joy begun."

When you know this you will not need to ask, as so many here are doing, What is this life eternal? You will have it, and will not need to ask What is it? Its joy will fill your soul, and you will wonder how it was you missed it before, for now you cannot exist without it.

Spirit Characteristically

The Spirit Characteristically

1 Cor. 12: 11-13, 25-27

I will tell you of a mistake I made myself for many a year, and only got clear on the subject little by little, and I press it on you because we naturally attach great importance to what we learn in our own soul's experience. Well, I used to think that whenever the Spirit is spoken of in scripture it only referred to the Spirit personally and not the Spirit characteristically. It is, of course, an immense thing to get hold of the truth that the Holy Ghost is a person, just as much a person as the Father or the Son. He is really God. The Holy Ghost is God, and He is a person. I use the word "person" for want of a better. This comes out in that part of the chapter where it says in verse 2, "Dividing to every man severally as He will." An influence could not do that. It could only be done by a divine person, who has a will of His own. Of course, His will is not like ours. Our will is a wrong will, His is right.

The Holy Ghost, according to scripture, came down to dwell on earth at Pentecost, and He is dwelling here to-day. We need to get hold of that truth very clearly. It is one of the great truths God was pleased to restore to us in the early part of the century, and it is extremely important, but we should not stop there as we are apt to do. I admit that I read the passages where the Spirit is spoken of very differently to what I used to in days gone by. The Holy Ghost is a divine person, and He came down to earth in order that He might form Christ within us, so that might be our character, and that we might express Christ, not self. It will only take us a very little way, if we have the Holy Ghost dwelling in us, if He does not also characterize us. It would be like a householder, who had a beautiful cooking stove in the house, but the meals were daily cooked in the primitive Indian fashion on three bricks; the stove is there, but for practical purposes it might be non-existent.

We read in the thirteenth verse, "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." This you will understand is characteristic. Now supposing I were to say the Boers in South Africa are all animated and imbued with one spirit, you would understand that easily enough. They are all of one mind, they are all bent on the same thing; heart and soul they are seeking the same object. Well, that is what we get here, "We have all been made to drink into one Spirit." What is that Spirit? It is the Spirit of Christ, that Spirit which produces likeness to Christ. What is "the Christ."* The company of Christians in Corinth, that is called "the Christ?" Why is it thus named? The Spirit had formed this company, and it was given this name that Christ might be manifested in Corinth. It has not at all come home to us in power, that seeing that the Holy Spirit dwelling in us is a divine person there can be but one result, viz. that Christ be set forth in us; that the likeness, the lineaments, the features of Christ must be seen in us, if there be any reality in this great truth.

{*It is not meant that "the Christ" always means this. All that is meant is that this is the meaning in this passage.}

I feel sure that you will find this same thing running all through scripture. I will just give one or two instances, because they will help us. Take, for instance, the eighth of Romans, the last part of the ninth verse. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His." What does that mean? Years ago I would have explained that wrongly, for we are slow to learn. What it means is this: If a man is not like Christ, he cannot claim to belong to Him. If you want to claim to belong to Christ here upon earth you must shew your likeness to Him; and if you do not, then what you say is worthless. That is very simple. We often make everything a matter of whether we get to heaven or not, but that is not God's thought. The point is where and what are you now? Not where and what are you going to be by and by. Taking it in a general way, we are very poor judges of what is going to happen to a man in eternity. Do not attempt to judge as to your neighbour in this matter. The great thing is, Do we belong to Christ to-day? and God wants us all to shew whether we belong to Him or not. Supposing a man comes to you and he has got thick lips and the crisp, curly hair that belongs to the African negro, and he says to you, I am a European. You will at once say, I don't believe you, your features betray you. Well, in the same way, unless we are Christ-like it is useless to claim to belong to Christ to-day.

I will give you another example. Turn to 1 Cor. 2: 13. "Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual." What does that mean? It is characteristic. It does not mean that the Holy Ghost dictated things to the apostle Paul as you would to an amanuensis, but rather that the apostle gave out that which had been formed in him experimentally by the Holy Spirit (there is no article in the Greek before Holy Spirit), and all ministry must be of the same character, if it is to be worth anything. First there must be the inward entrance into the truth, and then the giving out of what has been first experienced within. If not, the ministry is a sham. Of course, when the scriptures were written the writers were kept from all error, while as to our ministry we are liable to error, but otherwise the principle is the same, and the apostles gave out that which they had first learnt experimentally; unlike the Old Testament scriptures which the prophets themselves studied but could not fully understand. See 1 Peter 1: 10-12.

Just one more example. See 2 Cor. 3: 17. "Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty." When you have got the mind, the thought of the Lord, you are in liberty. If you are like the Lord, you are in liberty. Was not the Lord in liberty? Whatever He had to do was not only done in obedience to the will of God, but He delighted in doing that will. This is liberty. There is no other way of liberty than that.

Mr. Darby, in his introduction to the new translation, speaks of the difficulty in the use of either the big or the little "s" for spirit, because so often the word means both the personal Spirit, and the result of the Spirit's indwelling. I feel this difficulty much. If you put in the little "s" you are apt to lose the sense of the personal Spirit, and if you use the big "S," you leave out the inward work of the Spirit as characteristic, and the loss is immense. Please, always remember this. I sometimes wish we had no capitals because of the difficulty in their use. Be sure it is not for nothing that Bible MSS. had only one kind of letter. Two kinds are most convenient, but they may easily mislead. On no account leave out the thought of the Spirit as characteristic.

Well now, to come back to 1 Cor. 12, it says in verse 13, "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." Now I feel a constraint upon me to say what I am going to say. The great point here is that all, whether Jew or Gentile, are made of one mind — one spirit — for the setting forth of Christ. Now I want you to weigh what I am going to say, which is this, That although we here are not a company composed of Jew and Gentile, yet in this tent* there are two quite different races, two different nationalities with different natural ideas, ways, and methods. In consequence of this I believe that we have an opportunity for the display of Christ, which scarcely any other people on the face of the earth enjoy. An opportunity, for instance, which the Christians have not in England. What have they in England? English Christians, in France French Christians, in America American. In America they have the opportunity, but as far as I know they do not generally avail themselves of it. The white and black races are not manifestly one in Christ. In South Africa the negroes form separate congregations. They are not one. We, in this country, of India, have a splendid opportunity of shewing out a little bit of the truth that was being pressed on the Corinthians at that time; that, no matter what the nationality, one spirit animates the whole. Let this be true, then the Jew no longer exhibits the Jew, or the Gentile the Gentile. It is no longer English and native: the natural tendencies are overpowered by a stronger power still, and instead of the display of what is national, Christ is displayed in all.

{*At a conference in India.}

This marvellous display is unknown where all the company is composed of saints out of one nation only. Social differences are very strong, but national are far stronger. When the power of the Spirit causes one and the same display in saints nationally diverse it is a most wonderful testimony. I verily believe we are very guilty in this matter. Oh! you say, it is very difficult. Of course it is. If it was meant to be otherwise, where would the wonder be? Do not you think that I feel the difficulty as much as you do? Oh, you say, I have come across so much that is counterfeit and unreal. Be it so, this will not in the least exempt you from responsibility. We have an opportunity in this country which is, as far as I know, unique on the face of the earth. If we had really drunk of the one Spirit we would shew that one spirit animating saints both the Europeans and the people of this land. We Europeans are very guilty as to this, and will have to answer for it at the judgment seat of Christ. I find that when an Englishman goes to France, within two years at most he is perfectly familiar with the French language, and has made many friends in the country; and so when he goes to any other country where he finds social equals and an interesting literature.

When he comes to this country it is different. There is no literature worth having, there is no society among the natives which he cares for, and often he never learns the language or gets to know the people. Nothing better can be expected from those who know not Christ, but what about us who do? Will not the love of Christ constrain us to do what the love of society and love of literature constrain the English people of this world to do when they get to another European country? Do you think that the excuses many of us offer will be accepted at the judgment seat of Christ? I am constrained to say these things. I feel that God is making me speak thus. Now that I am going away from this country, I am pressed to bring this matter home to you. Some of us may have to answer at the judgment seat of Christ about our neglect of our native brethren, because of our lack of love. We had better take heed because, believers or unbelievers, we do not want to be pulled up at the judgment seat. Surely we would all far rather be pulled up now while the remedy is possible than when it is too late.

Here then according to this passage there is one Spirit, and He is forming exactly the same thing in each. Nothing but Christ comes out of each saint who is so characterised. Could we say that this is manifested in us? Doubtless this has to be made good in the midst of disadvantages, through all kinds of difficulties and dangers. All these things are allowed of God that we may be tested to see whether we are willing to carry out the truth in the face of everything that is contrary, just as the Lord Himself did when here. The power given us is adequate for this display.

The chapter goes on to say everyone of us is necessary to everyone else. You say, That brother is so bad; but I say, He is necessary to you. You say, Oh! but he troubles me so much, there is this thing and that thing about him. Well, that is the very thing you want. Do you think there is a single thing that happens that is not necessary to us? This world is God's training ground, and God sees to it that there is everything to exercise us, and even to rub us up the wrong way, in order that He might have the opportunity to strengthen us and make us faithful. Thus it is that our spiritual muscles are developed, and we become Christians in truth instead of being sham ones. Oh! we should be magnificent Christians in our own opinions, if there were no difficulties, no obstacles, no stumbling-blocks; but really we should only be a set of hypocrites, because we should not know ourselves. We do not know what we are till we are tried. When we have to carry out the truth of God in the midst of very difficult circumstances then we learn whether we are in the truth or not, and generally the lesson is a very humbling one. It is only when a soldier goes to war that you can tell what kind of a soldier he is. Remember then, that everyone of us is necessary to the rest. If one is a bright Christian, he is necessary; if one is only a poor kind of Christian, he is necessary also. If you try to do without half the company you will suffer for it in your soul.

I often say to Christians in England when they talk of the one body, I do not think you know very much about it practically, for this reason, we are not tested as to this truth until we have a company composed of saints from diverse nationalities, which naturally do not amalgamate. The presence of a stray Christian or two from another nation is no test, for he has to fall in with the ways of the mass, but it is when those of another nationality are numerous enough to make their presence felt, if they walk in the flesh, then the test is felt, and it is very severe. Here in India we have this test, and we shew how poorly we have learnt the truth. How far have we advanced in the carrying out of this truth in heart and spirit? Very little. If this be so we are missing a most glorious opportunity. If we do not realise this now, then when we get to heaven we shall find out what an opportunity we had and we did not take advantage of it, and we shall see what a loss it has been. See that you do not lose this great blessing. If we have drunk of the one Spirit it will be effectual in making us overcome natural prejudices, and the testimony thus manifested will shew forth the attraction of Christ, and the power of the Spirit, more than anything else.

There is one thing more, "Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." This is not a matter of exhortation, it is a matter of fact. If I am in a bad way I affect you all, hinder you all. This is not the same thing as you get in Romans, "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." There it is an exhortation to shew sympathy, but here it is different. If a fellow-member of the body of Christ is in a low spiritual state the other members suffer spiritually in spite of themselves. If your foot aches you cannot disregard it. Then, you say, I shall always be thinking about somebody else. All the better. If you only think of them in the right way that Christ may be glorified in them, the more you think of them the better.

There should be no schism in the body. What is schism? Schism is division. At the present time the professing Church of God is fearfully divided even in an outward manner, and any number of separate companies are seen on every side. This is dreadful, but there may be schism without outward division or separation. God wants us to be one in aim, in mind, in heart and soul, in everything. God's object is for Christ to be set forth. The Church of God has terribly sinned as to this, and the difficulty is immense; at all events, seek to carry out the truth of this chapter with the company with which you are. I do not say confine it to that, but unless you carry it out there, you will not do it anywhere else. It is very easy to love in the abstract, to love (or rather to think you love) those who are afar off, but do you love those with whom you meet day by day? Do you love those saints with whom you would not naturally associate and who rub you up the wrong way because they belong to Christ? I know these things are very difficult for us, but if we want to please the heart of Christ, if we want to enter into the love of Christ, then this is the only way. It will be made up to you a hundredfold by the sense of love that will be poured into your heart. If you will only think of Christ and of all He went through, it will not be so difficult. If He loves you, and wants you, and walks with you, bearing with all your follies, blunders, and denseness. If He goes on with you in spite of the thousand things in which you grieve Him, is it so very difficult to walk with your fellow-Christians in the same way. Oh! but you say, I do not quarrel with my fellow-Christians, I do my best for them, but you cannot expect me to love them all; then I say, This is all worthless. You must love all, or it is of no use. Suppose a husband says to his wife, who is pleading for love, Why, what do you want? Do I not give you a house, food and clothes, all the necessaries and comforts of life, and many luxuries? What else do you want? If she be a true woman she will say, I do not want things, I want love. Nothing will do but love. Surely that is simple. The Spirit we all drink of is the Spirit of love; and unless we love we know not the Spirit. May God in truth give us to know the Spirit in this way.

Present Blessing

The Importance of Present Blessing

Judges 21: 25; John 10: 3-5, 28-30

These are two very different passages. I will speak about the one in Judges first. What was going on then is just what is going on all round us. There was no king in Israel, and every man was doing what was right in his own eyes. The same thing is happening to-day. There is no king, that is, the King is absent and invisible, and is only perceived by the spiritual, and therefore nearly everyone is doing what is right in his own eyes. When the King returns, and is on earth, He will make His presence felt very clearly. He will put down evil with a strong hand, He will not allow rebellion, and it will be no longer possible for men to do what is right in their own eyes. But this is yet future and as yet the kingdom is in mystery, and during the absence of the King all has got into almost hopeless confusion. It is not only that there is much open evil, but there is also so little knowledge of the will of the Lord that even the zealous and the earnest are continually adding to the confusion.

Why were the Israelites in such a state? They had the law, they had the Priests with the Urim and Thummim, they had the place where the Lord chose to set His name, but they were not sufficiently spiritual and dependent to reap advantage from these things. The tabernacle instead of being at Shiloh has somehow or other, how we know not, got to Bethel (see Judges 20: 18, N.T.). Very little is heard about the priests throughout this book, and even on the occasion when they did wait on the Lord there was much self-will mixed up with their actions. They did what they thought was right, but they knew not the mind of Jehovah, hence the terrible condition into which they had fallen.

Yet, terrible as it was, this and even worse is the condition of the professing Church of God to-day. You may say, "Yes, I see how wrong people are." But look within and you will see the counterpart of all the wrong there is around you, in your own heart. We have not come here to run down our fellow-Christians. We are come to humble ourselves before God and to learn of Him. If we are not spiritual we shall not profit much by the guidance which the scriptures give, and unless we are humble and broken in spirit we shall go utterly wrong in our interpretations. We only understand scripture up to the measure of our spirituality and by the Holy Spirit's teaching, and if we are not spiritual we shall go astray even though we have the scriptures. I will prove this to you. Look at 2 Peter 3: 16; there, in speaking of the apostle Paul, he says, "As also in all his epistles, speaking of these things in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction." What did they do with scripture? Why, they turned it up the wrong way, and to their own destruction. It is very easy to do that if unlearned and unstable in the things of God. We may be learned and stable in the things of this world, but this will not help us unless taught of God and established by Him. Our present spiritual condition is the measure of our understanding of the mind of God. Having been spiritual yesterday will not enable me to understand to-day. Hence it is that we see sometimes the mighty man of yesterday misses the simplest road to-day. Why is this? He is out of communion, and is seeking to interpret God by means of his intellect and not by the Spirit of God. There is no possibility of getting the mind of God merely by reading the scriptures intellectually. How differently people interpret scripture. Why is this? Because there is so little spirituality in us.

The first thing is to be poor in spirit. What do you look for as a sign of the work of God in a soul? The sign I look for is that of a humble broken spirit, a soul that is sensible of its own utter worthlessness, and with that a sense of the goodness and love of God. I have seen some people, who are not clear about a single doctrine, but I believe they are very sensible of the love of God, and I am very glad to meet with these people. Again, we meet with some wonderfully clear in doctrine, and they glibly say they are saved, but there seems to be no humility and brokenness of spirit in them. Where this is the case you may be sure they are not pleasing to God. God wants me to say, "I am all wrong, but God is right." I want to get God's mind in the matter. If you are in this condition, i.e. broken in spirit, God can speak to you. He says, Except ye become as little children ye cannot enter the kingdom of God. We must come down to enter into it in truth.

The peculiar character of the kingdom of heaven to-day in its outward aspect is, that a fearful amount of licence is possible, and we have fallen into the snare, for we can pass current as good Christians while yet we are full of lawlessness, doing a great deal that we call good, but which is only the activity of our flesh. Hence hopeless confusion characterizes the visible kingdom to-day.

What is the real state of Christendom? Think of what India was in the days of the mutiny and of the confusion that existed then. Was it not terrible? and yet I say India in the time of the mutiny was in far better order than Christendom is in to-day. I am far more afraid of lawlessness than Ritualism or Roman Catholicism. However bad the latter may be, yet lawlessness is the thing above all others that we should be afraid of. There is a great deal of lawlessness that professes to be full of love, earnestness, and faithfulness, and many are ensnared thereby. It is a day when there is very little brokenness of spirit, very little trembling at the word of God, very little thought of obedience, though there is very much activity, and the benefit of man is very much thought of. Let us take heed that we are willing to go God's way even in doing good, and that we do not try and persuade ourselves that we can get God round to our way of thinking. This can never be.

Now, what is the Bible? The Bible is a heart-book; it speaks to the heart. And what is the gospel of John? It is just the centre, so to speak, of this heart-book. How we come to so much grief is we do not read it as if it were a heart-book, we read it critically. This will not do, but if you come with a humble and a broken heart to find a satisfaction you have failed to get elsewhere, it will tell you of the One who alone can satisfy, and in the company of that One you will find your heart's desire. Have you read it thus, and have you found the One of whom it speaks, and has He satisfied?

John speaks essentially to the heart. Once we know rest of conscience by the finished work of Christ then we want to know the person of Him who has given us this blessing. He is the Son of God, and it is especially in this gospel we learn Him thus.

The early chapters of the epistle to the Romans are to shew us the way to get rest of conscience through the righteousness of God, but eternal life of which John speaks is all for the heart, and even the epistle to the Romans, though it begins by leading to rest of conscience, cannot stop there, it goes on to teach of love, for we do not know God until we know love, and God must ever, therefore, lead us on to know love. Never think that you have found the goal until you are grounded in the sense of God's love.

Who are the sheep mentioned here in John 10? How am I to know that I am one of the sheep? A sheep here is one that hears the voice of the Son of God and follows Him. Have you heard His voice? You say, I know my Bible from beginning to end. This is quite possible, and yet you may never have heard His voice once in all your life. This voice is an inward thing, and can only be heard by those, whose ears are opened to hear. Their state is such that they can hear now that which they could not hear before, and they prove it by following Him. Follow Him where? To the place where He has gone. Where is that? He has gone out of this world unto the Father, and you follow Him into this out-of-the-world condition of things to the place where He has the pre-eminence. The preeminence of love. It is not an outward thing. Outwardly all may be unchanged, and yet inwardly all be different because you are changed and belong to a new sphere; in the sense of your soul you are outside the old.

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." This is characteristic. Do get hold of the present tense. Some people say, Do you believe that "Once saved for ever saved?" I say, I don't like it put in that way, for that is not the way in which the scriptures speak; and, dear friends, you will soon be led into error if you do not adhere to scriptural ways of expression. I see no comfort in this book for the man, who says, "I [am?] the one who is in touch with Christ to-day. I see no comfort in this book for the man who says, "I did believe once," but I see every comfort for the man who is connected with a living Christ to-day. I see nothing for the man who says he had something yesterday but has not got it to-day. The whole point is that God is speaking about to-day. The question is, Are we His sheep to-day? If you are, what happens? Why, you are hearing His voice today. Not the voice of scripture only that everybody hears, but that inward small voice that only His own hear. No one else hears it, but you hear, and you are attracted. You say, "There is no one like that One who is speaking to me. He wants me, and I must follow Him. There is no one like Him. Even though it goes against father, mother, children, my best interests here, I must follow Him."

It is a thing for to-day, not for to-morrow, and everything is his, who is in that place to-day, while there is nothing for anybody else. More and more it comes home to me how much all that the scripture speaks of is for to-day. A person says, Don't you believe in the eternal security of the believer? Of course I do, but how am I to know I am a believer unless I am believing to-day? God does not want to comfort a man in carelessness, to encourage him in a bad, wrong, proud, self-satisfied condition of soul, God would humble not comfort him. God cannot tell that man that he is all right. But if you want God to-day there is everything for you. God's day is to-day. Who are the sheep of the Son of God? They are those who are hearing His voice to-day, and following Him to-day. He set their conscience at rest by His work on the cross. That settled the question of their sins, but that is not enough. We need something for the heart — we want company. The whole point in scripture is that God wants to satisfy Himself by giving His creatures the enjoyment of Himself as revealed in His Son Jesus Christ. If your heart is not satisfied, you have not got as yet that which is in God's heart for you. You may say, I have the forgiveness of sins, I have justification, I have this and that, but it will not do. Have you got the satisfaction that the knowledge of the perfect love of God gives? If not, do not rest. You have not received as yet that which God gives. Supposing you marry a wife, what do you want? You want her to be satisfied, don't you? With what? With your love, and not with a fine house, fine furniture, position in society, etc.? No, not if you are a man. You want her to be satisfied because you love her and she shares your heart and all that is yours. God wants you to be satisfied because He loves you. And why is it we are such poor Christians? Because really we do not know this, and, therefore, not being attracted by the love of God's Son, we are always hankering after something or other in this world. That we are Christ's sheep is proved by the fact that we hear His voice, and can go on in quiet confidence and rest while all is in confusion around us. There is no other voice for us because His voice is heard, and we must go after Him because there is none like Him. We must have Himself, He has won our hearts.

We must, I believe, be careful to avoid definitions, but we are very fond of them. God's word always deals with characteristics, while we want definitions because we are carnal. Definitions will not help us. People continually ask, Do tell us what this eternal life is. I say, When you have eternal life you will know well enough what it is. Until a person gets possession of a thing, and knows it experimentally he will never understand it. This is true in natural things. There was a blind man to whom some friends tried to explain the meaning of colours. When they had finished they asked him as a test, What is red like? He replied, It is like the sound of a trumpet. Poor man! how could he know? He had never seen colours. So with us, no amount of definitions will help, but get the blessing and then you can recognise what it is by the characteristics thereof recorded in the scriptures, but for these characteristics we should not be able to say what it was we had received.

For instance, take up "Born of God." "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God," and again, "Whosoever is born of God does not commit [practise] sin." If these two characteristics are found in us then we are born of God. These characteristics prove it and are most useful for the encouragement of God's children, and for the detection of all counterfeits and imitations.

Here also it is a question of the characteristics of the sheep. A sheep is one, who hears the voice of the Son of God, and follows Him. If this characteristic is not found in me, what is my claim to be a sheep founded on? God challenges us. Can you take that place? We need the boldness of faith, and the confidence, which the sense of being loved inspires. No amount of explanation will shew you what a blessing means unless you are in the blessing itself. Once you are in the power of the thing then fixing the right name to that thing may help you, and you will see the place it has in the mind of God. Definitions do not do any good, they cramp and narrow the soul, and lead us into many errors; but get the blessing, and then your heart will be enlarged.

We are always wanting a cut-and-dried method of arriving at the point God would lead us to without the exercise of soul which is so necessary, and without real vital contact with the Son of God, and this cannot be done. In these matters men try to deal with things as wise men deal with them, whereas God's way is to be like a little babe. You ask a babe, What is an apple? "Oh!" it says, "very good," but that is no definition. It says again, "It is very sweet, and I like it very much." Well, that little child, who has eaten several apples knows much better what an apple is than all the wise men in the world, who have never eaten an apple, but only reason about it from its shape, colour, etc. Be like the child. Give it a fruit, what will it do? Why, begin to eat it at once. Do not reason about God's feast but eat, listen to Wisdom's call in Proverbs 9. She says, "Eat and drink abundantly, O beloved." Then when you have done this you will get the enjoyment and strength you lack. There will be plenty of time to get the right name by and by; at all events, see that you get the thing.

All blessing is obtained by contact with the Son of God. We get nothing really apart from Him. He has no intention of giving us anything in order that we may go away and enjoy it apart from Himself. He will give you everything with Himself, but nothing apart from Himself. It is like the case of Ruth's next of kin. He would have liked the possession, but would not marry Ruth, so he got nothing. If we have not Christ we have nothing. That is the point we want to ascertain, Is it Himself that is before me? With many of us it is not Himself who is our object. We want to be sure of getting to heaven by and by, and in the meantime we want to get as much comfort down here as possible. We do not want to taste of heaven now. We say that we want heaven by and by, but we prove the falsity of our claim by seeking to gratify the flesh (though, of course, we are very respectable people, and would not like to do anything wrong). What is profession of this kind worth? It is neither flesh, fish, nor fowl. It is a dreadful kind of thing, an abomination to God. God has got everything for the man that wants Christ to-day, but nothing for anyone else.

I said to a little boy one day, "Which is hotter, the sun or the moon?" "The sun," he replied. "How do you know?" I asked. "I read it in a book," was his reply. Now that is how we would fain learn the things of God. We read about them in a book. Well, I said to him, "You go and sit for a couple of hours to-morrow in the sun at midday" (it was in the hot weather), "and see if you do not get some better way of knowing that the sun is hot than by reading about it in a book." My advice to you is, Do not be bothering about definitions, but go and bask in the sunshine of the love of the Son of God, and let that warm you. The beauty of it is that His love must have vent, and, therefore, He cannot do without me, while I am so needy I cannot do without His fulness, so that we are just suited to each other. When the sense of that love permeates your soul you will then know what eternal life is, but no amount of definitions will help you a bit. May God give us the childlike spirit that must abide in the presence of God's Son and must have Him. The one who has this spirit will find that he has everything.

One word more. It says in John 10: 6, the disciples did not understand the things which Jesus spake unto them. Why was this? They were still Jews, still attached in heart to the things of the flesh, and while in that condition they could not understand these things. Alas! that so many of us Christians are only Jews (practically), hence we do not understand.

When the Spirit had come then a change came over the disciples (yet even with them it was not in a moment but gradually). Jesus had died, and they loved Jesus supremely, and they learnt that the death of Jesus had broken their links with that which was down here. Not only the links with bad things, but with good things, even with the very best, i.e. with the Jewish system. They were delighted to have their place with Him outside. In heart they were outside, because He had gone outside. They were glad when they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His sake. I am so glad, said the apostle Paul, that I have lost everything, and I count it all but dung that I may win Christ. It was not only that he lost what was material. He lost his reputation, his honour, and all that men glory in. He was looked upon as a lunatic and a fool, but it was his delight to suffer shame for the sake of Him to whom he had gone out. Every one of us has to go out, so to speak, if we are to share with him, for He is outside all the range of things ordered by man. If you do this, you will seem a fool according to the wisdom of men.

What has Christ to offer us here? His path was one of shame and loss and reproach down here, and He can only offer to those who follow Him the same kind of path as that which He Himself had. He was cut off and had nothing, so it will be with us according to the measure with which we follow Christ. But in this losing we gain everything, and in retaining we lose everything. This is one of God's strange paradoxes so difficult to the wise, so simple to the childlike in spirit. If you love your life you lose it. If you hate your life you keep it unto life eternal. Alas! we are most unwilling to let go our honour, our position, our place. A man says, "I have always been an honourable man, I am not going to stand reproach." Then I say, "You must be content to be without Christ, that is all." Surely you cannot accept such loss. You must have His blessing no matter at what cost. Well, every blessing in this book is yours if Christ is yours to-day. Do get hold of that. The test is not in that which is told us about the past, or about that which is to come, but the test is this, What is my attitude towards God and His blessed Son to-day. That is what God wants us to get hold of. The world is morally exactly the same as it has been all along, and therefore you may be certain that all that applied 1,800 years ago applies now. There has been no change in the world, and most certainly there has been no change in God and His truth. If, therefore, there was perfect satisfaction for those who followed Christ, then there is the same now, and if there was reproach for the disciples then there must be so now. Once we are spiritual then what is written in this book becomes the living voice of God to our hearts. God wants us for Himself. However much we may lose in this world there is infinite gain to be found in the Son of God, but the only way to get it is by following Him and having Him as the object of our hearts.

Prophecy and the Day Star

Prophecy and the Day Star

2 Peter 1: 19-21

Prophecy has its place, and a very important place; but blessed as it is there is also something better. A very large portion of scripture, as we know, is composed of prophecy. Now what is the object of the study of prophecy according to the mind of the Spirit in this passage. "We have a more sure word of prophecy," or, "word of prophecy confirmed," "whereunto ye do well that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place." The light, or the lamp, is the light of the truth as to what God is going to do with the world, and how He looks on it at present.

What are you going to study prophecy for? There is a wrong reason and a right reason. I may be curious, or I may want to pass as a knowing person, therefore I would like to know what is going to happen. Such are very wrong reasons. The right reason is when we want to be with God in the matter, and to understand what is according to God, and what is contrary to God, as to all that is around. We cannot understand these things unless God teach us: otherwise we have an altogether wrong idea of the bearing of things. We need to comprehend what it is that He will spare and what it is on which His judgment will come, so that we may be in correspondence with Christ in all these things. Judgment is hanging over the world, and we want to be morally apart from it, and according to the mind of Christ during His absence. This world is contrary to Christ. It has cast out Christ, and judgment is coming down on it. God is going to judge this world in righteousness by that Man whom He has appointed, and we want to have His mind about the whole matter. Christ is going to reign, and He is going to smash up all that is contrary to Himself.

Prophecy teaches us how He will deal with the things of the earth upon the earth in order to abolish all rebellion and self-will, and will instead establish that which is according to the mind of God. We are walking through a vain show, a scene in which man is magnifying himself, and making himself great on the earth. We want to be on God's side, to judge now what He judges, and to cling to that which He upholds. To be like Abraham on the heights of Mamre, where he had communion with God, who called Abraham His friend. To him was revealed the fate of Sodom, and he knew it would be destroyed before Lot did. Lot was in Sodom, and had not the mind of the Lord about Sodom as Abraham had.

Now what is this better thing, better than the understanding of prophecy according to the will of God. "Until the day dawn." What day is this? It is no outward day. Until the day dawn for you. I do not think it is the rapture at all. I will tell you what I think it is. Recollect that the day-star arises in your heart. It is something in your heart, and not anything in the world. The light of prophecy is to tell us what the world is, its end, and what God is going to set up in its place. But more than this, there is such a thing as the day dawning in your heart. That is something deeper and more blessed even than the light of prophecy, for it is Christ known, not as He is revealed in prophecy as God's King who must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet, but as One in heaven. As He is in Himself in His own person. Prophecy will teach us what He is going to do, but when the day dawns we shall be led in spirit away from the earth altogether to the place where Christ is, then it is that over and above His acts we value Him for what He is: the heart attracted to Himself because of what He is in Himself apart from the benefits we derive from Him. The attraction to Himself for His own sake outside the order of things which is down here is what is doubtless meant by the day star arising in the heart, and in this way Christ is known in a far deeper manner than He can be by the study of prophecy.

Prophecy is most useful for the dark night of Christ's absence as it is a lamp in this dark place, throwing a measure of light on what is around, but when the day dawns it is a far greater brightness to the soul, and there will be an entrance into the love of Christ in a way that is impossible while only prophecy is known.

Let me then ask you, Do you know Christ as the Day or Morning Star because you are attracted to Him away from this present scene? There is nothing that will please the heart of Christ so much as being wanted for His own sake. When you find that He Himself is infinitely beyond all His gifts, and He is the desire of your heart for His own sake; then, I say, the day has dawned for you, and the day star has risen in your heart.

God's Delight in Blessing

God's Delight in Blessing

Luke 15: 11-32

What we are presented with here is not a picture of something for eternity, but for time. A picture of something to be known and enjoyed now. God does so want to bring us to His own Son, and where He is there is the Father's house.

It is the action and the joy of the Father which are in view, nevertheless the Father employs His servants in fellowship with Himself in this blessed work of putting on the best robe.

Who are the servants? Are they not Peter and John and Paul, whose ministry the Father is still employing to make us to know His will? For instance, How should we know the truth as it is in Jesus (Eph. 4: 20-24), if it had not been for the apostle Paul (though, of course, it is all of God)? What is this truth? It is that of new creation. Old things have passed away in Christ (the old self along with these old things), and new things have come to pass, for God has reconciled us to Himself for His own good pleasure.

If we turn to the ministry of the apostle John we do not find the truth put in the same doctrinal way as in the writings of the apostle Paul. He gives us the truth in the way of its characteristics. For instance, the Lord says, "If the Son shall make you free ye shall be free indeed." The truth as to the person of the Son apprehended in the soul makes us free by making us suitable to the Father. Thus it is that the Son gives us the freedom of the house.

In John 17 you see the Son about to leave this scene, but before He does so, He puts His own into the Father's hands to have the same place with Him which the Lord Himself had. They are so dear to Him that nothing short of this can satisfy Him. He prays "that the love wherewith thou hast loved Me may be in them and I in them." This unspeakable love cannot but render the objects of its love suitable for its own presence and delight. Love is inexorable in its demands, and though it must fulfil the claims of righteousness yet it will go to any cost to make good its own desire.

Many are continually asking, "Do tell me what eternal life is?" I can only say, Get hold of the truth of the Father's love, and the truth of the Father's house as known in the Son, and you will know what eternal life is. It must be enjoyed in order to be known.

The best robe is not what some of us thought it to be, viz, justification. True, God justifies the ungodly, but if that were all, it would only be a clean robe put on a dirty person. He is clean outside, but he is not clean within, but God could not justify the ungodly unless He meant to complete the work, and unless He were going to make him to be what He begins by counting him to be, a righteous one. Thank God that nothing short of our being with the Father according to His own desire will ever satisfy Him.

We begin by learning justification, that God counts us to be what we are not. This is our side, and it is a great blessing when we learn it. We learn that we are sinners, the judgment of God rests on us. We ask, How can a man be just with God? And it is great joy when we learn that God has justified us. Our sins are gone to rise no more against us in judgment.

But after this comes up the question of our state. We find a bad state within, and this troubles us dreadfully. We do not learn this all at once, but step by step. Then we see that it is not self-improvement which is the goal, but that self has to go in order that that which is new, the work of God, may come in its stead. That which was self is then no more self once we are really in Christ, i.e. subjectively. Of course, there is no other way of realizing practically the truth but this, only sometimes we accept the doctrine while knowing not the power thereof. Such acceptance is purely nominal. If we are in Christ, i.e. of His order, we are no more in Adam, and we reckon ourselves dead unto sin and the Spirit is that which is characteristic of our new state before God and not the flesh.

Here, however, it is not put doctrinally but in a simpler and more easily understood manner. The point is, I must get to the Father, all blessing is there, therefore I must get there.

It never entered into the prodigal's mind that it was possible that he should become more to the father than if he had never sinned and had never left his father's house. I think, too, it is a long time before it ever enters our mind that we are far more to God than if we had never sinned.

How slow, too, we are in learning that the Father gets far more out of us than we from Him. Yet it is so simple. It is more blessed to give than to receive, and He, the Blesser, must get more than we who are blessed.

What is the theme of this chapter? Is it not the gratification of God Himself, His unspeakable delight in blessing? Oh! how happy it makes God to do this. If we only saw this better we should better apprehend the character of the blessing, for we should see that God blesses us for His own satisfaction and joy, and how much this will do towards making us at home with Himself. His unspeakable love will make it such joy to be consciously in His presence. Do you find it hard to realise this? Does not the mother get more out of the baby than the baby gets out of the mother? Does not this help you?

Moreover, what He does for me must be commensurate to the value which He sets upon His Son. We know God so very very little. What we generally call love is not love at all. It is pity, kindness, mercy, etc., that we see, but God wants us to see that He cannot do without us. Have you ever said, "The Father loves me so much He cannot do without me." I believe that most of us see this much, that God is very good and kind, but what we do not see is this; because God is love, and I am one whom He has linked with His Son, therefore He cannot do without me, and heaven would not be heaven for Him if He could not have me there.

If you get hold of this truth you will not have any difficulty in understanding eternal life. You know the story of the mother whose daughter went astray. The door was never closed for many years, and one night the girl came back and found the door was ajar. She said to the mother, "How was it that the door was not closed to-night?" The mother replied, "That door has never been closed from the time you left us; it has always been left ajar for you. All these years I have been waiting for this moment." So God cannot do without His children, He must have them with Him. He is so happy in blessing them. We are defective in everything, but the special point in which we are most defective is in the sense of His love. What does God's Son deserve? Everything. Then that is the value of what God gives to you. He must lavish everything on you.

What is the best robe? It is not something put over us to hide our nakedness as clothes do, but, God's clothes are inside; it is Christ formed within. It is the divine nature formed by divine love, that which is altogether new; His own workmanship for His own pleasure. He enjoys Himself by making us capable of enjoying what He enjoys. You see that this is something which goes far beyond justification.

If you want to gratify the Father's heart you must enter into this love and enjoy it, and the more you enjoy it the more He will be pleased. I have heard a story of two children to whom two kittens were given. One had one and the other the other, and they loved them much, but one day one child was seen crying over her kitten. Why was this? she was asked. Her answer was as follows: "Oh! the kitten that Bobby has whenever he strokes it is so pleased and it purrs; but my kitten, no matter how I pet it, it will not purr, and never seems pleased." How many of us are like that kitten? we do not show our pleasure in response to the infinite love of God shewn to us. Is it not sad that we should be so ungrateful for this love? If you want to give satisfaction to God you must be like the kitten who purrs. You know what pain it gives you parents when you find that your child thinks you do not love it, and are not doing the very best for it. How often have parents to feel this pain, and sometimes when two children are treated alike one is so pleased and bubbles over with joy, while the other is glum and dissatisfied, and his conduct pierces the father's and the mother's hearts?

What then is the fatted calf? The fatted calf is the Son. It is God's feast of joy in His own Son. Nowadays a rich man often makes a feast for a number of poor people, but he does not sit down and share it. He does not make it for himself. He does not say, "Let us eat, and be merry."

It is the Father who gets the most joy of all, and no one enjoys the feast as much as He does, and how little we enter into His joy. Self is so fearfully predominant.

Take the Lord's supper, how much do we enter into this? Very little, I am afraid. The Lord's death is generally looked at from the side of our need, but this is not to eat the Lord's supper as we should. The Lord's supper is feeding upon the love of Christ, delighting in Him for what He is, not delighting in His gifts, but in Himself. If we really eat the Lord's supper we are with Him in happy liberty, and are perfectly at ease with Him. You wanted Him for Himself, and now you have Him your heart is satisfied.

The elder son was further away from the father than even the younger son was when he was in the far-off country. This is the worst place of all: to be positionally near, while in reality to be very far off. We are often deceived thus, and think all is well when all is wrong. He shews when he speaks. This is what we all do, as it is written, "By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." We may be in the most blessed place nominally and in reality have nothing because we have never touched divine love at all.

When the elder brother said, You never gave me a kid that I might make merry with my friends, he shewed what was in his heart. He wanted to make merry away from his father. There is no happiness to be found in this way.

The people said to the disciples, Why does your Master eat and drink with publicans and sinners? The disciples might have answered, Because it makes our Master so happy, and it makes God so happy to bless.

When we repent we say, I am all wrong, I must let God come in and have His way, and this it is that makes God so happy, for then He can come in and bless.

I am sure we shall all find it a very blessed thing to get a real taste of this love. There is a very great lack here, and the sense of being loved is something better than all the intelligence in the world.

When we really have a grasp of this love we shall find the joy thereof such a strength and power. What is so powerful as love? There is a well-known story that an eagle carried off a babe on to a high mountain. Among those who witnessed it, and sought to save the child, was a sailor. He, with others, tried to scale the cliff, but even his head swam, and though he climbed further than the rest, yet he had to return. When this happened and all seemed hopeless, lo and behold the mother started up, and in some wonderful and semi-miraculous manner clambered up the cliff, clinging to the ivy or whatever there was. Up and up she went while all gazed on her with awe till she reached the eagle's eyrie and brought back her child safe and sound. If this is what love will do in natural things, what will not divine love do? What will not God who is love do? And above all, He will cause us to have the best robe, and thus to be formed in love ourselves. There is no real power save that conferred by the sense of love.

Faith is that with which we begin, but we must go on to love; and how does faith work? By love, and by love only.

The House of God

The House of God

God has always had in His mind and heart to have a house for Himself to dwell in. God must have a house for Himself, for this is one of His chief ways of blessing by coming to dwell in (which is best of all) or with His people.

It will be helpful to us if we trace in the scriptures from the beginning God's thought about His house. The Old Testament is full of the truth of the house of God. There is not much of it in Genesis, but you get Jacob saying, "How dreadful is this place; this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." Gen. 28: 17. Doubtless Jacob understood but little of this, but he spoke prophetically for our sakes.

In Exodus the children of Israel learn in the song of Moses, "Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation"; and we have God saying to Moses on the mount, "Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them." From that time onwards the truth of the house of God is inseparably bound up with the history of the people of God. When the house was in its right order there was blessing on the nation, but when the house was slighted or abused then judgment and trouble came upon the people. Every faithful servant of God had a zeal for the house of God.

When king Hezekiah came to the throne, he called together the priests and the Levites and said to them, "Hear me ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers. . . . For our fathers have trespassed and done evil in the eyes of the Lord our God, and have forsaken Him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord. . . . Wherefore the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and He hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, and to hissing as ye see with your eyes." Then they cleansed the house that the wrath of the Lord might turn away from them.

During the time of the captivity, though the house was practically non-existent, for it had been burnt down, yet Daniel, even at the risk of his life, must in praying look towards Jerusalem; where to faith the house still stood, see 1 Kings 8: 44-48, though he knew that for so doing he would be cast into the den of lions, and he might have avoided this by praying in secret. Thus he shewed how dear to him was the place in which the Lord chose to set His name, however desolate it might be.

When Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the remnant of Israel came back from the captivity in their weakness they at once began to be occupied with God's house. They set up the altar as their protection, and then they laid the foundation of the house. But alas! opposition daunted them, they ceased to build, and sorrow and trouble came upon them. Why was this? We are not left to conjecture, for it is written, "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, consider your ways: Go up to the mountain and bring wood, and build the house, and I will take pleasure in it, and will be glorified, saith the Lord. Ye looked for much and, lo, it came to little, and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of Hosts. Because of Mine house that is waste, and ye run every man into his own house," Hag. 1: 7-9. But directly they began to build the Lord's house the prophet was commissioned to say, "From this day will I bless you."

How then was it when the Lord Jesus Christ was on the earth? Did He, because He was spiritual, make light of the earthly house of God? We find that He could not bear to see that material house desecrated. You see Him (speaking with reverence) more moved on that occasion than at any other time, driving the people out of the house with a scourge of small cords and pouring out the changers' money and overthrowing their tables with the words, "Make not my Father's house a house of merchandise," and the disciples remembered that it was written, "The zeal of Thine house hath eaten Me up."

Then again we know that in the age to come there will be a material house of God once more, and the prophet Ezekiel gives us a great deal of detail about that house which will be very precious to God as the house of God was in the days of the tabernacle and temple of old.*

{*It sometimes puzzles some to understand how, when there is no material house now, that there can be a return to a material house in the millennium. The explanation is that the present period is unique, and though chronologically it comes before the millennium, yet as to its blessings it is essentially spiritual, and it belongs to new creation, and to the eternal state, and therefore morally is after the millennium.}

Why was this house so dear? It was a shadow of good things to come, a figure or picture of a very blessed reality, and it was very dear on this account. Thank God, we have that of which this house was the figure, and if the figure was so dear, how much more dear the reality. God in His grace has been pleased to educate us by pictures and figures, and they are an immense help to us as long as we do not take the figure for the thing signified. The law only had a shadow of the things to come. The real habitation of God was not yet present, though this was a picture, and even as a picture it was exceedingly dear to the heart of the Lord, and to the heart of every faithful follower of the Lord, and it was meant to be so. I have heard of a daughter, who always dusted her mother's picture herself, and would let no one else touch it, because it reminded her of her mother.

Simeon, the well-known evangelical clergyman at Cambridge, had the picture of Henry Martyn hung on the wall before him, and he used to say, "If ever I feel inclined to trifle the one whose portrait is there seems to say to me, 'Don't trifle, life is too solemn for levity.'" And I say this house of God under the law, though it was only a shadow, was very precious, and we shall benefit exceedingly, if we closely study all the instruction on the subject given to us in the Old Testament. I am sure we lose very much by not studying the types; all the Old Testament is written for our learning, and is exceedingly helpful for those who learn the spirit thereof and are not carried away by the letter into legality and idolatry, and see the difference in the dispensation.

I say it solemnly that the Old Testament is very much neglected by most of us, and our souls suffer in consequence. No person can expect to prosper in his soul if he neglects the Old Testament, which is the divinely given book of illustrations of the truth of God.

Under the law, the house was a figure of something to come. Now that thing has come, but still we have got a figure, though we have got the reality as well. The temple is gone, we have no earthly figure of that sort at the present time. Men may build a house of brick or stone and call it the house of God; thus showing they have lost the divine idea. What then is the figure in these times? We, who are assembled here,* are a part of that figure — just a tiny portion. The visible company of the professing people of God forms the house of God, but that is the figure. The reality is invisible, but only the spiritual have that. Nevertheless the figure is a very important thing. Look at a man. What do you see? You say you see him. No, you do not see him, you see his figure, the real man is invisible. A man could not speak to you except he had a body, but the body is not he. That which dwells in the body is far more important than the body. The body will pass away, but the man will remain.

{*At a conference in India.}

Well, there is to-day an outward figure, and that outward figure is called the house of God. Thus 1 Tim. 3: 5, 15, "If a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the Church of God?" and "That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God." Now that is the outward thing, yet that outward thing is the house of God, and very important it is, nevertheless there is a deeper thing, and that is the spiritual and invisible thing. All this that we see is temporal, it is only the things not seen which are eternal.

The outward thing can be seen; the inward cannot. We must not despise or think lightly of the outward, but we must give the full place to the inward and invisible.

Roman Catholics and Ritualists confound the two, as if they were one and the same, and we are not free from the same error, for we are apt to see no assembly but the outward and visible company. This is a great error. On the other hand there are those who say, "The Church is invisible, and there are true believers everywhere," as an excuse for going anywhere, and associating with anybody and anything they like. This is pure lawlessness, and is worst of all.

The same kind of thing often happens in other matters. Take baptism: many attribute to the form all that is said of it on the supposition that it is the sign of an inward reality. This is very evil. It is gross legalism. Many others, especially in this country of India, say, What matters the form? belief in the heart is everything. I believe, and am not going to be baptized. This is very evil also. It is pure lawlessness.

Now turn to 1 Peter 2: 4, 5. "To whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men but chosen of God and precious, ye also as living stones are built up a spiritual house." Here we have the reality. If this passage is true of us what have we done; to what or to whom have we come out? I do not mean with what saints have we fellowship? That is an outward thing. But in our souls have we come out to share the lot of a rejected Christ? A number of stones piled together do not constitute a house. So it is we have not only to be saved, but to be builded together by God. This is divine work with divinely formed material. For this there must be Christ formed within, and there must be the strong attraction to the Christ of God, drawing away from the world, and making us willing to share Christ's rejection, and to take the outside place of shame and reproach. He will then be more to us than Naomi to Ruth or David to Ittai. The world does not want Him, the mass of so-called Christians do not want Him. Alas! even the majority of converted souls are satisfied with His gifts, and know not the sweetness of sharing His reproach. This is the sad feature of the day, and great is the dishonour to His name in consequence. The question, therefore, for us is, Has Christ been formed in us, and have we been made willing to come out to the rejected One because of what we find in Him? If so we shall know what it is to be built up a spiritual house, to be made part of that spiritual edifice in which God takes up His abode. It is a spiritual thing, and must be made good in our own souls. We must learn it in the power of the Spirit of God. The proof that we have learnt this truth is that we share the rejection of Christ because He has won our hearts, and we cannot do without Him.

As regards the outward thing it is a different matter. Everyone who is called a Christian has certain great privileges, but he has the consequent responsibilities, and so with every outward position. Everyone in any position has the privileges thereof, and he must bear the responsibility too. Everything outward only has its value if it is an outward expression of an inward reality. If it is not this it is hurtful and a sham.

Do not let anything satisfy you short of having the spiritual reality as well as that outward thing, and remember that no outward position can give you the truth inwardly. It is true that the right inward condition may, yea must, lead to a right outward position, but we cannot reverse the order. Men hope to produce the inward by adopting the outward. We have all been more or less affected by this snare, but it will not do. The more blessed the place the worse for us if we are there in a carnal condition, and unless we are prepared for suffering with Christ, unless willing to share His rejection, the sooner we get out of that position which professedly is connected with His reproach the better, for we shall only hinder others and be there for our own hurt. It was in the presence of Christ that Satan entered into Judas.

It cannot be too much pressed on us that the real thing is the invisible and spiritual, and that the inward reality must force us into every visible place or position, or all will be wrong. That is, an inward power must force a saint to take the place of an evangelist, or of teacher, or of one who takes the oversight. An inward reality must force us into fellowship with those, who are in the place of reproach. If it is not so, every apparent advance we make will only be so much condemnation upon our head. It is a solemn thing to take a prominent place among the people of God. Woe betide us, if we put ourselves forward. We must go forward if the Spirit of God forces us, but we ought never to seek prominence. If one seeks it for his own exaltation, it is the worst of sins; better to do anything than that.

I beg you to weigh the matter before God. It is of the deepest importance.

I must, however, speak a little more of the outward, visible, responsible thing. It is God's house and God dwells there, therefore we ought to have an exceeding zeal for it and an intense longing that the arrangements of that house should be, as far as is possible, in a day of ruin and confusion as now, according to the mind and will of God. This is not a matter of our progress as separate individuals (though our individual spiritual state must tell very much upon the corporate condition); but it is in connection with our corporate responsibilities, with our worship, our waiting on the Lord together, and together seeking the interests of the Lord, our discipline, our order, and all such things as these. Do not despise these things for they are matters of great importance, and the spiritually minded man feels an intense interest in the house of God, and all that is connected with it, even as Christ did in the earthly house, and he will labour incessantly for the well-being of that house because it is God's house and God's honour, and the honour of God's Son is connected with it.

Do let God have His own way in His own house. The first thing then to be done is to find out what is God's way. We can only find out God's way if we are spiritual. We cannot ascertain what is right by looking up the texts bearing on it. Many think this can be done, but if this could be done, then all that is necessary would be a good verbal acquaintance with the scriptures, a good memory, sound common sense, and good reasoning powers; and there would be no need of spirituality, of exercise of soul, of dependence on the Spirit, and of a deep sense of one's own nothingness. No, this will not do. To arrive at spiritual conclusions we must be spiritual. You may have the Bible at your fingers' ends and not know the truth.

The ruling characteristic of God's house is holiness, and we ought to be deeply exercised as to whether we are in accordance with the holiness of that house, and also as to whether our spiritual associations and ways are suited to Him who dwells in that house.

I will read, a passage. "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Having, therefore, these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." 2 Cor. 6: 14 — 7: 1. Here we have mention of God's dwelling-place and of the holiness of associations in consequence of connection with it. The apostle is speaking of outward results when he says, "Be not unequally yoked," etc.

Have you a zeal for the house of God, and are you exercised about the matter? There are great sins committed. One is that men have set their own rules and regulations in the house of God. This is a great evil. Fancy man presuming to do such things instead of being in awe of the holiness of God's house. Now who is it that has done this sin? You may say that good men have been thus guilty equally with bad, that Roman Catholics have most deeply sinned in this while Protestants are guilty too. Well, go further and own that your own heart is just as bad. You need never look outside for any sin. There is no sin ever committed but that you can find the counterpart within. Do you know that you were born with a Roman Catholic heart? What is Roman Catholicism? It is a religion marvellously adapted to suit poor fallen man according to his natural ideas. It is perfect for this, and, therefore, in spite of its unblushing effrontery and wickedness it still seduces millions. Yet remember whenever we rest in an outward form we are practically Roman Catholics in heart. Whenever we take the Lord's supper in a formal way, because we say it is right to take it on the first day of the week, we are before God Roman Catholics.

Yet bad as that is there is something even worse than this. It is a man refusing to be subject to man's rules and regulations, not in order to be subject to God, which is very blessed, but in order to do his own will. This is the worst thing of all. Man practically making himself God. Such an one may look down on the superstitious souls in bondage, but there is more hope for them than for him. The worst of all is when every man does that which is right in his own eyes. This is the acme of wickedness. Eve was tempted with the idea of being as gods, and since then man is continually aspiring to this: to choose for himself and plan for himself; of course, he has many reasons for what he does, and he does not say that he is doing wrong, but he does his own will and calls it right.

These two things, men assuming on the one hand to make rules for the house of God and men casting off every yoke to do their own will, are devastating and ravaging the house of God to-day. If we want to do right we must be broken in spirit, because of the intense pride of our hearts. We have to say, God is right, I am only a fool; God must do it all. God must arrange, God must plan, God must order, or all is wrong. We must be brought down that we may be lifted up. There is no way of being exalted except that of being abased first. Down we must come. The lower we get the higher we are. The more we lose for Christ the more we gain. The more we taste of death for Christ the more we shall enjoy life.

Then there is another thing: that is that you must consider your brother. You cannot do anything just because you have liberty to do it. You may have liberty to eat meat, but if your eating makes your brother offend then you must not eat meat lest you make your brother to offend. You use your liberty in this way, and you forego this or that, even though quite lawful if it causes your brother to offend. You think very much of the welfare of your brother, if you are in the truth of the house of God; and you forego many things you might otherwise do, because you want to profit your brother. You abstain from using your liberty in certain cases, though you maintain that you have this liberty. There is a great lack in this respect. One often hears, "Why should I not do so and so; I see no harm?" Still, if it harms your brother, do not do it. Abstain, unless you have a command from God. This tenderness for your brother may seem to hamper, but it will bring a rich reward.

It was fifteen years ago when we had our first Conference at Umballa. One Indian Christian was present, now you see a great many present, and the lot of the English Christians is irrevocably bound up with their lot. The thing is done and it cannot be undone. Some have said, "Why did we not go our own way?" But what is done is done, and we must accept the fact that our lot is bound up with theirs. If their state is good we shall prosper, and if their state is bad we shall suffer. Remember that you cannot help it, do what you will. As long as I have been here I have laboured among the people of this land as well as I could, till sometimes my own children have said to me, "You love the natives more than you love us," while the Indian Christians have often thought that they were not loved at all. That is the peculiarity of God's things, they will be either our blessing or our scourge. A blessing if we accept them from God, a scourge if we refuse or neglect what God lays on us. The only thing to do is to rise to the responsibility and to accept it while feeling our utter feebleness, our own utter insufficiency for it. We must accept our responsibility, each one according to his measure, or we shall suffer for it in our own souls.

There are a number of Indian Christians among us for better or for worse, and you have got to make the best of it. A measure of the truth which God has given us has been widely spread in North India, and we have to see that souls are cared for and nourished in the truth. Of course, this responsibility is not a thing to be taken up lightly, but it is not a thing to be left alone. It needs to be taken up in the fear of God, and in brokenness of spirit.

There is nothing on the face of the earth so beautiful as men from two nationalities, with diverse ways, opinions, and tastes, who have naturally little in common with each other, united in one common bond, by the one Spirit, and this one Spirit creating common joys, common feelings and tastes, and binding all together in one blessed fellowship in the house of God. Where all the company are of one nationality only, little of this is known; and we in India have an opportunity of shewing the power of the Spirit in a way altogether unique. I know the difficulties and I know the blessing of it, and I warn you not to be neglectful and to think that you can treat the matter lightly. Find out for yourselves what God wants of you. Accept your burden, and your burden becomes your gift (see Psalm 55: 22 and see marginal reading), your sorrow will become your joy. But if you refuse and say, "Am I my brother's keeper?" you refuse God's gift, and you refuse that whereby God wants to bless you richly in your soul.

We do not as children of God remain units. We become welded into a whole, whether as the house of God, or the body of Christ; and you cannot separate yourselves from that in any way according to God, or say, My brother is responsible for himself. You are welded into one whole. That is the truth of God. The view that some of us practically take is just this, that we are like a number of shot brought together in one box. We come together at will, and separate if it does not suit, but this is not the Church of God at all. Put that box into the fire and the shot will be fused into one whole. That is more like what the Church of God is.

Responsibility is a peculiar thing. Do what you will you cannot get rid of it. The most irresponsible act of our lives was when we were born. Since then we are tied down in every direction by responsibility though utterly unable to fulfil it, and the only thing to be done is to accept our responsibilities in brokenness of spirit rolling the burden on to Christ. You see God makes us responsible for what is absolutely impossible, and He wants us to accept the burden looking to Him, then He fulfils that which we could not do, and brings blessing out of that which otherwise would only be a curse. Blessed be His name.

Freedom

Freedom

John 8: 30-36

"If the Son shall make you free ye shall be free indeed." We will look a little into this matter of freedom. It is said some believed on Him, and the Lord says to them, "If ye continue in my word then are ye my disciples indeed." Now that is not the way some of us would have spoken. Some of us are very fond of that expression, "Once saved for ever saved," but it is not a scriptural expression and therefore to be avoided, and, moreover, it has obtained with some a very false idea attached to it. Practically with some it has come to mean that if some time or other, by hook or by crook, you can get yourself to believe or fancy that you believe that you are saved, then you are safe for ever, and no matter what you do nothing will upset this. Well, such an idea as this is certainly not the gospel of God. It is perfectly true that when God begins a work in a soul God will go on with the work in that soul for ever, but the only test of reality is continuance, and if you do not continue, you have no ground for saying you are saved.

"He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved."  Some say, Oh! that is said to the Jew. True, it is so: but it is as true of you and of me as of the Jew. Do you understand scripture so little as not to see that while there is a present salvation there is also a salvation which is future; see, for instance, 1 Thess. 5: 8, 9. Who are the people who get this? Are they the ones who prove their reality by continuance or the reverse? The passage is as true of me as of the Jew, and I say, If I remain to the end I shall be saved. Does this disturb me? Not at all. I know God has wrought in me, and I know that He will continue to do so. I am quite at rest about it. If, however, a professed believer turns away, and does not endure, but lives in sin, can we say that it is sure to be well with him? Never. The proof of reality is continuance. The proof that it is going to be well with you at the end is that it is well with you to-day. There is every comfort in scripture for the man who is connected with Christ to-day. I believe we do not half enough press the living present reality of God's blessing, but rather try and rest on the past.

The whole of the first epistle of John is on this point. Its object is to lead real souls into a deeper enjoyment of the love of God and of all that which that love has provided, and also to expose unreality, and to prove the hollowness of that which is not in touch with God and with His Son to-day. If Christianity is a reality, then it is for present power and enjoyment. Christianity is not something to get a man to heaven by and by, while in the meantime he lives for earth and earthly things. It is to make us know heaven and the things of heaven to-day. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." That will be the result, but how are we to get this freedom?

Those present when the Lord spoke did not understand this. They said, "We are Abraham's seed, and have never been in bondage to any man. How sayst thou then, Ye shall be made free?" Jesus tells them the plain and naked truth. "Whosoever committeth (or practises) sin is the servant of sin." How exceedingly plain and yet how solemn. He cannot be free who is a servant of sin — a slave of sin. So simple that a babe can see it at once, and yet we could not find it out. It was necessary for God's Son to come from heaven to teach us this truth, and even now the mass of Christendom knows it not.

What is sin? It is the action of self-will. The creature asserting itself against the Creator by assuming the right to do what it thinks fit. What the man does need not be anything that people would call wrong, but if the will of poor fallen man is in action it is sin. Doubtless you may not like to offend against the rules of society, or to do anything which men would condemn, but you may desire to have your own will, that is the essence of sin. It is not freedom to think you are free. Let us take an extreme case. A man who drinks thinks himself a jolly fellow, and that he is in bondage to no one, but when he wants to give up drinking, he finds he is a slave. So it is with us all in everything, while we thought we were free we were in the most terrible bondage to a greater power than ourselves. So it was with the apostle Paul. He says, "When the commandment came, sin revived and I died . . . the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin."

The servant does not abide in the house for ever, but the son does abide for ever. This is not a contrast between the servant and the eternal Son. The question is, Are you a servant or a son? If the former you must go, but if the latter you remain.

What is the great point in being a son? It is likeness. The son must take after the father. Now I ask, Who is your father? I wish to press it home. I say you must be like your father. God will not allow the relationship unless you can shew likeness.

The Jews said, "Abraham is our father." But the Lord will not allow this for a moment. He admits the natural connection, for He says, "I know that ye are Abraham's seed"; but He adds, "If ye were Abraham's children ye would do the works of Abraham." He insists on likeness being essential, and He goes on further and says, "Ye are of your father the devil." Why? Because there was the terrible likeness stamped on them. Is it not a solemn thing that day by day and hour by hour we are shewing our parentage? What is God? God is love. Well, then, to be like God we must be formed in love, then we are sons. If not, we make the claim, but it will not be admitted. Is this not a solemn matter? But remember there is no other way of freedom but by sonship, and we cannot be sons of God but by divine generation, and the divine nature, which results in likeness.

Do not think, Shall I get to heaven by and by? Ask yourself this, Am I right to-day. He who is right to-day is right for eternity, but he who is wrong to-day is wrong for eternity. To-day is the day of salvation, not to-morrow. Many think, Oh! to-day is the day for getting it; this is true, but that is not the meaning here: it is the day for having it, the day for enjoying it, the day for shewing it. We shall not talk about salvation in heaven, there will be nothing there to be saved from. Salvation implies danger, enemies, etc., and there will be none of these things in heaven. I, however, want to press on you the value of "to-day."

People generally take up these things quite in the wrong way. They put everything off to the future, and thus they get rid of present responsibility and miss present enjoyment. With God it is the present that is pressed. How is it with us to-day? Let us ask ourselves, Are we free to-day? Are we sons to-day?

What is the sense of sonship? Why, that God's love is streaming into our souls. "Oh!" you say, "He loves me so much I cannot do without Him. I want to have His company, I want to walk with Him. I want Him to-day, I want Him all the time; I cannot do without Him. He is so good, and He loves me, He wants me; He cannot do without me. It is so blessed to know His love."

You cannot get liberty in any other way than this, for God must be supreme. He is free because He is love, and He must be sovereign in love. If you have the divine nature you are free, because you want what God wants, but if not you want to walk in your own way, and do not love God's way, and you are not free. What will the freedom of eternity consist in? Why, in God having His own way, and all delighting in that way. Well, the freedom of eternity is the freedom of to-day. Forgiveness of sins will not make us free. Justification will not make us free. For freedom we must be formed by love. To be free we must walk in God's way and enjoy so doing. It must be a willing thing, a thing of the heart. It is not freedom to do a thing while not liking to do it. For freedom I must love to do it, and find it my delight. How was Christ free? Because He found it a delight to do the will of God. (See Psalm 40: 8.) What made it a delight to Him? "Oh! My Father is love, He is so good, His way is perfect." Nothing else is freedom. Whatever God my Father does must be best for me, and the best also for everybody else connected with me. He wants the best thing for me, He loves me so much. Nothing is freedom short of this. How does the Son make us free? He brings us to Himself, He lifts us out of ourselves, He renews us within so that we love to dwell with Him. He makes us to share with Himself, He seeks to absorb us with Himself that we may delight in Him, and it may become grief to do what is not according to His will, because in so doing we lose the conscious joy of His presence, which forms our life. We walk in the light of His presence, and His love gives exceeding joy to our hearts, and the bonds fall off, for there are no bonds in love. Sonship is through love, and love carries freedom with it. Is Satan free? No, he is the greatest slave of all, because he is a stranger to love. Is he who grumbles or frets free? No. Is the one who feels wronged free? No. Christ was free, for He took all things from God. (See Matt. 11: 25.)

Remember, therefore, that it is the Son, who makes us free. We would all like to be free, but none of us can make ourselves free. No power of man can make us free. Money will not set us free. The payment of our debts will not set us free. You may be in the power of an earthly tyrant and yet be free. You may pride yourself on your freedom and be a poor slave. May God give us to understand this blessed freedom.

Freedom is the consequence of the work of the Son within us, it is the result of divine power acting on us inwardly, whereas we are always thinking of circumstances, but alteration of circumstances does not effect anything for God in our souls. Another thing that we are most unwilling to believe is that the state of things is as bad as the scriptures make out. It is hard to believe that our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, it is hard to believe that Satan is the prince and god of this world. It is hard to believe the state of things described in 2 Tim. 3:1-5 is a true picture of the state of Christendom to-day. It is hard to believe that the best things of the natural man will not do for God, so that they that are in the flesh cannot please God. It is hard to believe that only Christ will do for God, and that what is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. Yet these lessons have to be learned, and when learnt we thank God for teaching them to us in order that we may condemn that which God has condemned, that God may be free to work out His will in us, and bless us according to His mind and purpose.

What is God's purpose? It is that we should be conformed to the image of His Son. This is the work He begins now, and it is divine material formed within, formed in love. The work is done by the Son, and it is like growth; we are not conscious of growing, but we grow. So with the work of God's Son, if we are with Him, and we let Him have His way, and we do not fight against Him, He will work in us, and though we shall not be conscious of the work going on yet it will be manifested by its results. Moses was in the presence of God, and when he came out his face shone. He did not know that it shone, but others could not help seeing it. This is how God's work is done. It is like the growth of fruit, and not like the manufactories of man, which are carried on with great noise. Put a seed in the ground, it grows and grows, yet the growth is noiseless, almost imperceptible, and yet so real. It drinks in the dew of heaven, it extracts nutriment from the soil in which it is set, and it grows. The sunshine and the storm alike aid its growth, the rain and the wind and the heat are each good for it. Thus it is you will grow in the divine nature, if you will let the Son have His way with you. You will not have to do anything. It will all go on of itself, and it will be real solid work, and not like a piece of electroplate. Men take a vessel of brass and put it through a certain process, and it becomes coated with silver, but inside it is just as much brass as it was before. But God's work is from the inside, and it acts by displacement. In electroplating the silver does not displace the brass. If you scrape off the silver you come to the brass, that is the way man works, he seeks to cover up the old thing by civilisation, by education, by rules and regulations, but the old thing is there all the time, and the affections are untouched. God's way is quite the reverse. He forms new affections within by the revelation of His love in His Son, and displaces the old affections by the new which He has formed.

What is the character of the old affections? They all centre in self. One may be what the world calls selfish, another may be devoted to his family, his country, or even for the race of man; but if that is all, in the sight of God self will still be the object, for in the new affections Christ is the centre, for God cannot form affections, which have not that supreme object before them. Thus it is that God makes free. We are not free unless the new affections cause us to delight in the will of God.

I will give you an illustration. I once had an old "chaukidar" (watchman), to whom I said, "You are getting rather old for night work, and if you prefer, I can give you day work instead. Now tell me what you would like?" He replied, "I want to do whatever your honour wishes." I said, "You need not mind telling me what you would really like, for I really want to meet your wishes." His answer was, "I really like what your honour likes." "Now," I said, "look here, I want you to let me know what you have got in your inmost heart." "Well then," he replied, "if your honour really wants to know what is in my heart, that which I have never told anyone, that which I really desire above everything, it is this — that I like best what your honour likes best." When we can say this in our hearts to the Lord then we taste the sweets of freedom. If in some little measure we can say, "Oh! God is so good, I am quite sure He is doing all things well: I am sure of it, because He gave His Son, and I would not have it otherwise than according to His will for anything; I am certain that His way is perfect, even when I cannot understand," then we have begun to enjoy true freedom.

But this cannot be done in the flesh. It is not stoicism, nor is it resignation, it is really being made a sharer with God's Son in spirit in resurrection. It is not effort, the Son of God produces it. His desire is to have us for Himself for His own joy and delight. Can you say, "The Lord must have me for His surpassing joy," then you have made a great stride towards freedom.

I have not much more to say, but I hope I have said enough to make you see what a wonderful thing this freedom is. Of course, it is a very difficult thing to speak of. I fear none of us have more than a glimpse of its blessedness. We have thought, "Ah! Christ has died for us, we believe on Him, and we know that we are going to get to heaven by and by," and there we often stick for years: but as for getting to heaven now, and getting the joy of heaven as a present reality, most of us know very little of it. Can you say to the Father, "I know that Thy commandment is life eternal?" Unless we enter into this now we have not reached Christianity as yet. How much of heaven have we tasted? This is the measure of our Christianity according to God.

We say we want to get to heaven eventually; but, alas most of us want as much of this world's good as possible while we are on earth. I must acknowledge this is what we have all done over and over again, and it is a terrible thing. Babylon is the mistress of enchantments. She is so clever, such a witch, such a conjurer, that she often persuades us that we are uncommonly good Christians when we are absolutely living for the world. She has got a golden cup full of her enchantments, and by her fleshly piety she takes us in fearfully. Do not say, Yes, I know other Christians are thus enticed, but I am free from her snares. Not at all, you are no more exempt from her enchantments than anybody else. You need not look outside for evil, you will find it all in your own especial company and in your own heart. Have you not read, "Till the whole was leavened?" It is divine love alone which can expel the other affections and lusts that are in the heart, and nothing but their expulsion by this love will bring us into freedom. It is divine nature and divine material; all divine work from beginning to end, and it must work by expulsion. A strong affection crowds out lesser ones, so divine love must expel all those things that are contrary to God's will. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is not monasticism, nor is there anything morbid about this love. If you have it you will love your wife and your children a great deal better than you did before, only now the love will be true love instead of the selfish love of the past.

There is nothing in divine love to make you walk about as if you were a medieval saint with a halo round your head, and too good to think of what is down here. You will be interested in all you meet, but in a new way. You will be longing for Christ to have His good pleasure in them. Never was there such a natural* man in the world as Christ; there was nothing forced about Him. There was nothing in Him for the smallest child to fear. He always did what was in His heart. He had nothing to hide as there is often with us. He was always natural. All was spontaneous with Him. Wherever He went He was always the same. He could say, "I am altogether that which I say." What came out of Him was just what was in His heart. He was the most natural person that ever walked this earth, for there was no effort in anything He did.

{*Of course this does not refer to fallen human nature, nor even to Adam's nature unfallen.}

The ascetic is not so. With him all is forced and strained. It is all very different. Look at the Lord. He could go into the Pharisee's house and be just Himself; He could be before the king or ruler and be Himself; if with publicans and harlots He was just Himself. In every company and amidst every variety of trying circumstances He was always the same; just Himself, because He walked with God, and God was with Him. He always knew the will of God, always did it, and was always happy in doing it. There was absolute freedom with Him, because He was always dependent, and He had no desire but to do the will of God.

May we, too, learn the joy of finding our pleasure in the blessed will of God.

Rich and Poor

Matt. 19: 24-26; 2 Cor. 12: 9

Now I think it must strike anyone when he gets a glimpse of what God's thoughts for the believer are, what high thoughts God has about him! We exclaim, "Oh! this is absolutely hopeless. It is impossible." Well, that is perfectly true. It is impossible. The impossibility and the hopelessness of being what God wants us to be is the beauty of it. It stamps the matter as from God. If it were only very difficult indeed, there would be no encouragement, at all events, for ordinary people like ourselves, and it would only be a human thing after all. One or two especially earnest and devoted people with extraordinary natural powers might be able to attain to it, but the mass would have to give it up and say, It is too hard for us.

But, thank God, it is absolutely out of the power of man altogether; and therefore, if done at all, God must do it, and is not that a comfort to you and to me? Remember that it is not difficult but absolutely impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, and yet every man is rich naturally. Yes, it is perfectly true that we are all naturally rich, for every one of us has an uncommonly good opinion of himself, and is therefore a rich man. Yet it is impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God; no one enters there till he is stripped of all, and is rich no more. Then, when stripped of everything, he finds he is really rich, whereas when he was rich he was really poor. This is God's way, and it is wonderful in our eyes. Take the convicts in a jail, or take the man, who is a drunkard in rags, still he thinks well of himself, and makes excuses for himself, till God strips him.

It is a great thing to see that what Christianity brings in is divine from beginning to end. God has to do it all. Nothing of man comes into it at all. Who is the best off, the one who has most of what we call the natural good qualities? Not at all. The greatest hindrance to arriving at the point of blessing are the qualities men admire. "That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." That one is best off, who most quickly learns that he has nothing of his own but his sin, and that he has no strength to be any other than what he now is, struggle how he may. Therefore the more wicked I see myself to be, and the bigger the fool I recognise in myself, the better it is for me and the better for God, for then, and not till then, God can work. As Billy Bray said, when asked how it was he got on so well, "It takes most people such a long time to learn that they are fools, and I knew I was a fool to start with." But we think so well of ourselves that we struggle and fight for years and years rather than come down to this: we think if we do we shall forfeit blessing, whereas it is only then that blessing can come, for not till then can we belong to the company of the "blessed poor" spoken of by the Lord in Luke 6: 20. The difficulty is not in our badness, in our helplessness and need. The whole difficulty lies in this that we fancy we have resources, and will not abandon this idea. It is easier to give one's body to be burned than to realise nothing is our own but our sin. Once we come to know this all is easy, then God does the rest, and the impossible is brought to pass.

But till we come to this no blessing can come, for it is impossible that God should give His glory to another. Did He do so, He would cease to be God. He cannot hand over His place to you; He cannot give you the credit that belongs to Himself alone. Blessed be God, He must have the glory. Therefore it is that God must smash us to pieces in order to bless us, because only thus can He be glorified in His Son, and it be seen that He alone is worthy. Man is worthless, he is done for, there is not a single good thing in him at all. God has set him aside and begun again in a new Man according to His own heart, and when God works in us all is well, not otherwise.

Well, I know that you have an answer ready for me. You will say, "Then I am not responsible." "Oh! yes, you are, you are responsible all the time." You say, "This is not logical, not according to reason." But you are mistaken. Take God's word in its simplicity, accept it all, give each part its due weight. Accept all that is said about God's sovereignty. Accept all that is said about man's responsibility. Do not shirk either. It will prove to be perfectly according to reason, only that reason is of such a high order that man's reasons cannot reduce it to reason. Man is out of joint, and he will not understand till he gets into joint again. In the meanwhile we have to accept the truth like a little child would; then all will be simple, for we shall then be the subjects of divine power, and find that our badness and our foolishness are just the occasion that God desires that He may come in with His divine power. God has everything for the one, who takes his place as a poor one before Him.

God grant we may all hear the Lord's voice saying to us, Blessed poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God? What are the kingdoms of men? Kingdoms where men have sway, and, therefore, all is wrong. The kingdom of God is where God has sway in grace according to His love, and all is blessedness there. Therefore let Him smash you up and break you to pieces. You will find this the road to blessing. The reason why we have to be so smashed up is because we are something, and this something hinders blessing. "Nothing" cannot be smashed up, "nothing" cannot be squashed, "nothing" cannot be humiliated, "nothing" cannot be put down lower, "nothing" cannot be hurt. Oh! if we were only nothing to be made nothing of. If we would only let God come in in this way, and make room for all His blessing how happy He would make us.

Look at the cross on the one hand, and the glory on the other. Christ Himself was cut off and had nothing, therefore we have the answer to the cross in the glory. This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.

Joy

Let us look a little into the subject of joy as spoken of in the writings of the Apostle John.

"He that hath the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled." (John 3: 29.) Now that is the joy of John the Baptist, and very beautiful, unselfish joy it is. A wonderfully beautiful joy, for he had not the best place, and he knew there were others, who would have a deeper joy; still it was intense joy to him to hear the Bridegroom's voice. There was no jealousy about it, he delighted in the blessing he had, and in the thought that others would have a better place still. It is a very sad fact that at least half the sorrow that there is in the world is because of the blessings of others. This sounds very strange, but if you look into the matter you will see that it is true. The thing, which troubles most people and causes the most discontent and murmuring, is that some one else is better off than themselves. Oh! the misery caused by this envy and jealousy. If you take up one of the Indian papers, you will see it full of letters complaining because some one is better off than the writer is. In contrast with this it is very beautiful to see the unselfish joy of the Baptist.

Now we may have a far higher joy set before us, and yet we may have little or no enjoyment of it. We will come to our proper joy presently, but first wait for a moment and contemplate this unselfish joy. My mind is so taken up with it that I do not like to leave it, for I do see every day how the fact that some one has a better thing so often spoils a thing before delighted in. But there is no need to look outside for evil, for there is not a single evil that you find in the world that you will not find among ourselves. And there is no evil in the world that you will not find an answer to in your heart. The selfishness, oh, the terrible selfishness of our hearts, how it comes in! What damage it does. There is not a day but it comes in to hinder the cause of Christ.

"These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." (John 15: 11.) Now see the beauty of the Lord Jesus in speaking thus so that His joy, the joy of the eternal Son, who became flesh and dwelt among us, that His joy might abide in us and that our joy might be full. Now this is a joy much deeper and greater than that of John the Baptist. What is this joy? It is the joy that came to the Son from the knowledge of the intense love that the Father had for Him, and His desire in these chapters is to put His own into His place, that there might be the same sense of the Father's love that He had, and that thus their joy might be full. Now I want to say a warning word. I think some of us are over-zealous in some matters. For instance, some Christians, if they see a person saying the Lord's prayer, at once tell him he is all wrong and not spiritual. They take him beyond his depth, and make him legal, and in result he often breaks down altogether. If you take a Christian beyond where he is in his own soul, the result will be disaster. A snake for instance does not cast one skin till there is another ready to take its place. If a person gets a sense of the blessing spoken of in these chapters he will not be able to help seeing that dispensationally this prayer is in some measure out of place for him. If, however, he has not reached this in his soul, you will take him beyond his measure and damage him.

As a matter of fact most of us have not got beyond the title, "Our Father, which art in heaven." The question is have we got up to it, for it means a great deal? If I know God as my Father in heaven I shall not have a single anxiety about myself, because I know that my Father is looking after me with tenderest love, and has a thought for everything concerning me down here. Even this will not take us to the end of this wondrous title. It goes far beyond this, it includes the truth that the Father will take care of all the interests of His Son on earth. Look at Matthew 16 and 18. This is the title used there, and therefore all that is revealed there is involved in that title. The title taken by the divine Person is always the key to the revelation.

Now is it not true that a great many of us have not got up to this title much less got beyond it. Can I say to God that not only have I not got a single care, not only do I know that He will perfectly care for my interests, but also that I am sure that He will look after the interests of Christ down here, so that I can rest about Christ's interests as well as my own because He is the Father in heaven.

When, however, you come in your soul to the title "The Father," then you have more even than what is stated above. That something more is that you have entered into what the Father is to the Son, and what the Son is to the Father outside the interests of this world, outside of everything that goes on down here. It is only where we enter into this love and this joy that we know a higher title than "Our Father which art in heaven."

John 16: 23, 24 is, however, sometimes brought forward to shew that this prayer is not meant to be used by us. The argument is this, the Apostles had up to that time asked nothing in His name, that prayer is not in His name; therefore as all prayer henceforth is to be in His name this prayer must necessarily be dropped from the time of His death. I think, however, that those who use this argument do not understand the force of the passage, nor have they understood what asking in the Son's name involves.

The Apostles of course had not asked in the name of the Son up to the time of Christ's death: but to ask in His name is not the tacking on of certain phrases at the end of the prayer. It is right enough to say, "For the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ," "but to ask in the Son's name is much more than this. It implies a state of soul, and is not a matter of words. When you pray in His name, it is not yourself at all, it is Himself who asks. You are lost, you are gone. That prayer must be answered in full. There is no other condition necessary to such prayer as this. When you pray in the name of the Son, it is the Son asking through you. How can it but be answered. If, however, you say to me, Would you like all your prayers answered thus? I say, God forbid! I could not imagine a greater curse. Look at 1 John 5: 14, "If we ask any thing according to His will He heareth us." That is another matter, that is not asking in His name, but that when we ask according to His will He hears. This is very blessed, but it does not rise to the asking in His name. So also Phil. 4: 6, 7. This, too, is very blessed, but does it mean we get all we ask? Certainly not, that would be the worst result. We get a much better thing. We get the peace of God which passes all understanding. No one can ask in the Son's name but as identified with the Son. The speaker is gone, and there is nothing but the Son, who is speaking and acting in him. Thus it is that it is not the words, which are said, which constitute asking in the Son's name, but a state of soul in which you are lifted outside yourself by the knowledge that you are here as the Son was, and loved with the same love wherewith He was loved.

If you really want to get on and rejoice the Father's heart you must have this joy. This does not mean that you will have no sorrow; on the contrary, you may have very difficult circumstances indeed in your pathway here, but you will be so lifted up above these circumstances by the Father's love that your heart will be filled with joy. This is not patience or resignation, it is fulness of joy, an infinitely higher thing, the same joy the Son had from the sense of the Father's love.

But why is the next word about loving one another? Because the sign of all signs of this joy being made good in us is that we love one another: that we have the deepest longing for the interests of God's Son in one another. If now there was only something of that among us how it would stop ten thousand things that continually happen among us. Mind you "one another" means "one another." It does not mean certain special Christians, it includes all. But you say, So-and-so is not nice. Well, if you can only love the nice ones how do you differ from the world. You must love the nasty ones as well as the nice ones, if you are to carry this out; and you will not be able to help yourself. If this nature is in you you must love all the family. You do not try to, the love comes of itself. You must love.

Well, it was the joy He had in His Father's love which kept the Son amid all the ignominy and the shame of His sorrowful life down here. The love of the Father filled His heart and He does long for us to have this joy. (See John 16: 19-24.) How full these verses are of joy. He says, Ye shall weep. Why? Because you love Me and you will weep for My absence, but your sorrow will be turned into joy because you have Me back again, and far nearer than I ever was. The Son has not gone further away by going to the Father, on the contrary He has come much nearer. He is a great deal nearer now than when the disciples handled Him with their hands, and when John leaned upon His bosom. There is a far nearer place for you, if you will have it. Those were the figures, you may have the blessed reality figured by that handling and that leaning. How marvellous, the Father Himself loves you, not pities you, nor is gracious to you, but He can find His joy and pleasure in you. It is the same delight that He, the Father, found in His own Son. It is so blessed, so wonderful. There is nothing which can be compared to it. It is outside all the sorrowful circumstances of earth. This love takes us to the place where none of these things ever come: the place of the infinite love of the Father to the Son, outside all the failure and the strife down here, and the sense of this love fills your soul while you walk down here. Alas! how very little we know, it is such a very wonderful joy. Then He goes on, "Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." It is identification with the Son, the promise is absolute. There is no condition there except that you ask in the Son's name. These truths are so blessed and we lose so much by refusing entrance into them. The world seeks to rob us of this joy by presenting what will allure the flesh.

The Lord wants us to challenge ourselves about this, whether we know anything about this deep joy. It is the wonder of wonders that, at the present time, while yet in the body, and walking in the scene of His rejection, we should have the same joy that the Son had when He walked through this world of sorrow.

In 1 John 1: 3 and 4, the Apostle tells us that he declares to us that which he had seen and witnessed of the eternal life, which was with the Father in the eternity passed, and was manifested unto them, the Apostles, in time. The Apostle declares this that we may have fellowship with them, and their fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. This it is which will give you fulness of joy. It will be the part fulfilment of the prayer given us in chapter 17. In verse 11 it is the blessed fellowship of the Apostles with the Son in His fellowship with the Father. They were brought into this blessed fellowship. In verses 20 and 21 we are brought in. "That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us." This is a lifting out of all that is of ourselves, there is nothing of human nature here, nothing even of Adam unfallen, but a new order altogether. All brought to the same blessed fellowship of life and affections; one aim, one desire filling all, the same love permeating all and bringing all into the same joy.

This love is altogether unique, it is not a thing of earth at all. The Apostle will not call that love which is not of God, nor will he allow that any one can love, who is not of God. (1 John 4: 7.) Even a mother's love is not love according to John. Just as the brightest light that you can make upon the earth, if held up before the sun, becomes a black spot; so it is that a mother's love is no love in the presence of the infinite love of God made known in the Son. We all know that God is very good to us, we are thankful He has blotted out our sins, but how little we know of love. This alone will give fulness of joy. This alone will bring you into a fellowship where there is no failure, and no breaking down. This fellowship is in the light, there the Father is fully expressed in the Son, and there it is that the love of the Father is known in contrast with all that is of the world.

"I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full." (2 John 12.) "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." (3 John 4.) Now this shews what was the practical outcome of that love in the Apostle.

The sense of the love must manifest itself thus. The Apostle had a great joy in his children and he longed to be with them that his joy might be full. His love came out thus. He would be with them for his own joy. Love seeks the company of the loved ones. Yet this was not the love that allows a person to go on with evil. "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." His joy was in the truth, and in seeing his children walk in truth. It is not the false love, which acquiesces in that which is not of the truth in order that Christians may be pleased. In both these little epistles we see those, who have to be resisted. It is the love, which is founded on the truth; and which, while it must love, and cannot help loving, yet must act according to truth. This is love that we walk after His commandments, and this is the commandment that, as we have heard from the beginning, we should walk in it. Those, who love thus will have much sorrow, but their joy will super-abound above all the sorrow, for in the midst of the sorrow they will be filled with joy. It will happen to them as is said in Isa. 43: 2, death will prove to be their life, their sorrow, will turn into joy and that which threatens to consume will only consume that which hinders their entrance into the life of joy eternal. No lesser joy than this can the Father give to His own seeing He has to express by this joy His delight in His own Son.

Marks of a True Teacher

The Marks of a True Teacher sent from God

I want to speak to you of the marks or the character of a true teacher sent from God. I will speak to you in a personal way, though it is not exactly what I passed through personally, I wish to portray the way in which a real seeker after God will be led, and when I look back upon my own past life I find I was led upon lines somewhat like those about which I am going to speak to you.

Imagine then a seeker after God. He wants to know what he has to do, what way he has to go; how he is to act, how he is to get blessing. Thus I look around, and I want to know who will show me any good, not something to enable me to get on in this world, but something that will set me right with God. I am sinful, and I want someone to help me in this condition. I look around and I find no one to help me. What am I to do? I want to know someone, who has come from God and can help me. Being in what is called a Christian land I naturally turn to the teaching of Christ. What do I find there? I turn to and read from the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God."

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven."

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. . . Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

I would like you to read very carefully the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. I find that every person admits that they are most excellent teaching. Now this Man has one of the first marks of a true teacher. His teaching commends itself to every moral sense that I have.

The next thing I find is that I want something more from a teacher than to tell me what is right. Does the teacher himself carry out what he teaches? That is a most important point. The true teacher must himself walk in the way he teaches to others. I remember some time ago hearing a person, who talked so nicely, that I said I should like to go and see him at home. But then I heard that his life was very different to his teaching. Of what good is that? Now let us ask about this wonderful Teacher, who taught these wonderful things that I read to you. How did He live? Thank God, He lived all that He taught and more. He said, "Pray for your enemies." What did He do? When His enemies nailed Him to the Cross He prayed for them, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." When they crowned Him with thorns, and when they spat upon Him, He bore it in meekness.

He taught men to trust in God, and when the devil tempted Him (after He had fasted forty days and was hungry), to use His own power and convert the stones into bread, He was not moved from the path of dependence upon God. He said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." He tells us to be kind to those, who treat us badly, and when He was going to a village that treated His messengers badly His disciples wanted Him to call down fire from heaven upon them, but He rebuked them saying, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. The Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives but to save them,"

Now I find that everything this blessed Teacher taught He did, and more, in His blessed life of love down here in this world. He met all the ignominy and shame and contempt, all the malice and ingratitude of men, shewing all the time grace and kindness, meekness, goodness and truth, never getting into a passion, He went on unweariedly with all His works of love and goodness. I find in Him not only a Teacher, who could teach wonderful words, but who also lived a life more wonderful than His teaching.

Now I look around at other of the world's great teachers. I find great names, Confucius, Zoroaster, Mahomed, Krishna, Buddha, Gautama. I find in their teaching beautiful words. But you will not find in all their teaching anything like the teaching of Jesus Christ. Suppose I take the testimony of a man well-known, Professor Max Muller, who did so much to make English people acquainted with the literature of the East. Well, what does he say? Why he says, no one in his senses would dream of comparing the Bible with the Sacred books of the East, they have a jewel here or there, but the Bible is all jewels throughout. Now I see these teachers, and I enquire as to their lives. Some lived good lives, and some horrible lives, but I do not find anyone, whose life was like that of the Lord Jesus Christ as I desire to follow Him.

Well now, when I take the teaching of Jesus Christ, then the more I try to carry out what is enjoined in the sermon on the mount the more I find how utterly unlike it I am.

I appeal to you, if you have ever tried to follow a code of morals (and every one of us has some code or other), whether you did not find yourself incapable of attaining it. Jesus said, If you look on a woman to lust after her you have committed adultery in your heart. Are we able to follow His teaching? There is something in us that makes us unable to follow His teaching. There is no power in fallen man to enable him to carry into practice the true teaching. I need, therefore, that my teacher should be something more than a teacher, and much more than an example. I need a Mediator, one who will bring God to me or me to God, so that I, a poor helpless person, may find my sins blotted out, so that I can have to do with God. Such a person is Jesus Christ: not only do I find in Him a perfect Teacher, and an example in Himself of all that He taught, but that He came into this world to die for sinners, to reconcile men to God in His own body on the tree.

This is a tremendous thing. I find that this wonderful, remarkable, extraordinary Person actually died for me; died in order that I, at a distance from God, might be brought to God, so that I might meet with a loving welcome, and find, like the prodigal, my past all blotted out, and that I am reconciled to God. I receive a loving welcome, the best robe, a ring on my finger, shoes on my feet, and the fatted calf killed. The Father says, "Let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found." Then I find my teacher is my Mediator, and my Redeemer, and I am reconciled to God. I find nobody else, who can do that. Neither Buddha, Krishna, Mahomed nor any of these teachers could do that, whatever else I can find in their lives when it comes to this they are left far behind; Jesus Christ alone will do for me.

But I find I want still more than this. I am even yet powerless. How am I to live a holy, pure and unselfish life in this world? I want power, and power is just the thing I cannot acquire myself. Supposing I say, "I'll never do wrong again." That will not do. We shall never set ourselves right that way. Paul says, "I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died." He found he was powerless to keep the law or the code of morals, which his conscience thoroughly approved. The more conscientious you are, the more you will find how powerless you are to do good, and that evil is present with you.

Therefore this teacher of mine, who is my Exemplar and my Redeemer, must also be One who will give me power. Thank God, Jesus does give me power. He, the last Adam, became a life-giving spirit. He says, "The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." Living for self is not living. "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Paul could say, "I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Jesus Christ gives me power to live. He puts the Spirit of God into my soul.

You remember that at Pentecost Peter said, "This Jesus hath God raised up whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear."

Now I have found not only a Teacher, an Exemplar, and a Redeemer but also a Life-giver. Now I can understand things I could not understand before. I have a new power in me which is more powerful than the old evil nature. I do thank God that the blessed Lord Jesus Christ is the Giver of the Spirit, the Giver of life. Now I know God, I know His love, I know He is for me, and all His thoughts towards me are thoughts of mercy and blessing. I live, because I live to Him. It is not that I always do right. I still need to confess my sins to Him. Nevertheless, my whole life is changed. I have a new life. Oh! how I thank God for Jesus Christ.

Well now, having found that, I have taken a great step, so to speak, on the way. I find I needed a power, and a life which I had not got naturally, and I find all this in that blessed Teacher, Jesus Christ. But I want even more. I find I am surrounded with temptations and difficulties and many snares, and I have many enemies, not only men and women, but evil spirits, i.e. spiritual enemies. Satan and his hosts are against Christ and His people. Therefore I not only need a Teacher, an Exemplar, a Redeemer, and a Life-giver, but I want the support of that Person all along the way. Now this also I have in Jesus. He is my Shepherd, He guards and He keeps me. He is my blessed Head in heaven. My High Priest, for He represents me before God. He is my Advocate with the Father. He intercedes for me that I fail not, and if I fail His intercession restores me. In fact, He undertakes to look after me every step of the way. How great then is this Blessed Teacher. He is not now on the Cross, though He did die on the Cross, but He is a living Man in the glory, and He has sent down His Spirit to dwell in me. Still He has not done with me. He is caring for me every day. He hears my voice, He shepherds me. Grace and mercy follow me all the days of my life, and I have every reason to trust Him for every stage of the way. Not that the Christian life is an easy one. God loves us too much to let the Christian life be an easy one. He piles difficulties on us in order that we might find how much we need the support of Christ all along the way, and thus we learn to know that blessed Person.

Therefore I say beginning with Him as Teacher I find Him my Exemplar, I trust Him as my Redeemer, I know Him as the One who gives me life, and I have Him as my support all along the way.

But even that is not enough. I need to get satisfaction for the heart. Man is such a wonderful creature, he has been made in the image of God, and nothing will satisfy Him but that which is divine.

God has been pleased to set forth the Blessed Lord Jesus Christ, not only in all these ways which I have enumerated, but also as the supreme object of our affections, because He is the Object of the Father's affections.

Thus I have learned that God the Father has set His love upon me, that Jesus His Son has set His love upon me, and, strange to say, I am essential to their happiness. Love surpasses every other quality. Where you love you want the company of the loved object. Many people illustrate the Gospel of Jesus Christ somewhat in this way. Let us say there is a very poor man, he is sick, penniless, and out of work. A kind person comes along and finds him employment, having been very kind to him and providing for all his need. Now he says I have found you a nice appointment. I have set you on your feet, now go your way happily.

That is not in the least like the Gospel. The Gospel is this. God never sends us adrift to make our own way. We are essential to His happiness. The wonderful part of the Gospel is this, that I a poor worthless thing, horrible sinner that I am in myself, He has taken up, and taken such pains with that I may be His for ever. He died for me to cleanse me. He lives for me, He loves me so supremely that I am indispensable to His happiness, and He Himself is coming for me to take me to Himself, to live for ever with Him.

Jesus Christ said, "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." "Where I am," is the great theme in the Gospel of John. In John 17 He prays, "Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am that they may behold My glory." "With me where I am." Dear fellow Christians, He wants us. He cannot do without us. We are necessary to His happiness. Does not this make your heart run over with thankfulness? Now I have got all these six things in Him, and I say that He has left all His competitors far behind. No one could honestly compare Jesus Christ with any of the world's great teachers, Confucius or Buddha, Gautama, Mahomed, Krishna or anybody else. He is absolutely supreme in His excellence. All before Him must vanish as the stars before the rising sun.

There was a time when I longed to disbelieve all these things. I was very anxious to be a sceptic because I felt the sting of sin, I should have been very glad to believe that Christianity was based upon fable, but when I read infidel books their bias was so evident, their arguments so false, I  could not in decent honesty accept them at all, and I felt that as they had not better arguments than these they were but deceivers. Then I turned again to Christ, and found how blind I had been, and how fully a poor sinner could trust that blessed Person.

Now then I have found that this wonderful person, who is my Teacher, my Exemplar, my Redeemer, my Life-giver, my Support all along the way is also a Satisfying object for my heart. But He is even more than this. I needed to know that my Teacher was so great that He could not only take up my case, my helplessness and my need, but also everybody else's. In fact, I wanted to know whether He could deal with the need of the whole universe, and so deal with all the sin and evil which had come in, that sin should not be able to lift up its head again. Well this also I find in Him. John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, when he saw Him pass by said to his disciples, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Yes, although God, He became a Man, humbled Himself and laid down His life, shed His blood in order that He might purge the whole universe of sin. God has committed to Him the task of setting everything right. This world belongs to God, and God has no intention of giving it up to the devil. God is going to get the whole world set right. He will fill the earth with righteousness, the heavens being full of righteousness also. This wonderful Person has shed His blood, and He has gone up on high far above all heavens. What for? Why, that He might fill all things? Everything, the whole creation is going to be brought into subjection to Him, everyone is going to own Him as Lord. Under His mighty power all will have to bow to Him. God is going to fill the new heavens and the new earth with Christ, so that God can dwell there, as it is written in Rev. 21, "Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

How blessed is it then beginning with the enquiry for one to teach me, to find a Teacher who leads me on step by step, and as I go on I find that He is greater and greater than I ever imagined. A Teacher, who not only teaches the truth, but who has lived it out in the midst of the greatest difficulties. One who laid down His life to redeem His people. One who gives them His Spirit, and thus is their Life-giver. Then He sustains them all along the way, and He Himself becomes their Object, their satisfying Portion. Then greater still, I find that He is sufficient to satisfy the heart of God. He is sufficient to bring the whole heaven and earth into subjection to Himself, and when He has done that He will hand over the kingdom to God even the Father that God may be all in all.

Therefore I say in my soul's experience He has led me to see what a wonderful Person He is, and what an abominable thing it would be if I did not put my trust in Him, and seek to be in this world for Him.

There are a great many people now attacking Christianity. Well, thank God, the more they attack Christ the more His perfections are seen. The sad thing, alas! is that there are so many who are called Christians, who are not real Christians, and both from within and from without these enemies are pressing to the attack. A powerful argument in their hands is this, that we Christians are so little like Christ. If we were like Him it would be such a standing miracle before men that they would be obliged to confess that Jesus Christ is far more than they thought Him to be from reading the Bible. Nevertheless, nothing is more pitiful than to see a Christian ashamed of Christ and of His cross. A real Christian has the utmost confidence in Christ, and he is quite sure that Christ will triumph completely.

The Bible is quite clear as to the defection that would take place together with a departing from the truth. In 2 Timothy third chapter we read, "In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." Therefore we have not the least fear when we hear that men are turning away from the faith, and that false teachers are seeking to undermine the faith of Christ, only it makes us keep close to Christ. We know that the world will not be converted to God except by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Some perhaps are hindered by what they see in the lives of Christians, and we are sorry for this, but I say to you; be honest. I desire myself to be honest. I say if you are honest you will see that, there is nothing in heaven or earth like the Lord Jesus Christ, for one reason which alone will suffice an honest person. This reason is that He rose from the dead. He is a living man in the glory of God; you will find that there is but one Man, who will satisfy the necessities in which you find yourself as a sinful man in this world, and therefore you are bound to believe on Him. If you do find this I beg of you to have the manliness to own Him, because if you do not, it will cost you infinitely more to reject Him.

As to those who are Christians in name I appeal to you. Are you real Christians or not? Have you received the Holy Ghost? Have you been born again? If so, you have found what a blessed thing it is to be a Christian, to know the Blessed Son of God.

But there are some people, who call themselves Christians, who complain of Christianity. They thought by becoming Christians they would improve their circumstances. Oh! this is a horrible thing when men become Christians for the sake of worldly gain. One such Christian does more harm than a hundred heathen. Be real. Christ never came into this world that His people might get gain in this world. When one said to Him, "I will follow Thee," He replied, Are you prepared for it? "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head." It is a very real thing to be a Christian. You will find the power of the world and the devil against you, but you will also find the power of God for you. That is why the early Christians turned the world upside down. But alas! most of us who are real Christians are halfhearted followers of Christ, and the mass of Christians have the name without the reality. Do not let this, however, hinder you if you have never come to Christ, come to Him now. If you have come to Christ, then live to Him. Is He the supreme object of your heart's affections? He is so worthy. He is so wonderful. Be a real follower of Christ. Follow Christ with all your heart. He has said, "If any man thirst let him come unto Me and drink." He will satisfy. I long with all my heart to see men, who will be true to Christ, seeking nothing from the world, but longing supremely to live for Him, who died for you and rose again. There is nothing better in this world than to be allowed in some little measure to suffer for Christ. See you lose not this honour.