Things that Remain
Ministry by W. J. Pearce
– Part One

The period for which we have his ministry – 1953-60 – was a period of decline culminating in

• Yet the closing verses of this epistle refer to some very precious things which will remain on the earth as long as the saints of God are here.

First there are those who can be called "beloved" – "But ye, beloved". These are those referred to in the opening verses of the epistle as "Beloved in God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ".

• It is comforting to remember that, in spite of all the departure that has come in, there are those who will be preserved by the Lord in the blessed features that are according to Himself – "preserved in Jesus Christ" – and upon such the love of God the Father can and will complacently rest.

• The love that rested complacently upon Jesus, in His solitary pathway here amidst the abounding corruption, now finds its resting-place upon those who are marked by His features, and will rest upon them till the end. May we all be truly numbered among them!

Then the faith remains: "your most holy faith", as it is called "the faith once delivered to the saints".

• It was introduced by the apostles in the power of the Holy Spirit; it has been held, and will continue to be held, in the hearts of God's beloved ones until the end. It will not die out.

• John tells us "This is the victory which has gotten the victory over the world, our faith". The faith is a victorious faith, for it centres in the One who could say, "I have overcome the world", and it is our "most holy faith".

• It is the treasured inheritance of the saints, and whatever the departure in Christendom at large, the faith will be held in all its holy character until the end.

• The faith, too, is that basis upon which we may build ourselves up, and the day will never be so dark that there will be no upbuilding. The work of God will never cease to go on; were it otherwise, the dispensation would be brought to an end.

• The work of building up will go on even in the day described here, the very trials of such a day being no doubt used of God to assist it, yet the basis upon which the work goes on is our "most holy faith".

• It is as we build ourselves up upon that that we shall be found here in stability, able to stand firm in testimony when everything else gives way.

The next word, "praying in the Holy Spirit", reminds us that the Holy Spirit remains.

• The Lord has said, "He shall abide with you for ever", and the darker the day, the more conscious we are of our need of Him. How essential to us is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit"!

• Here it is a question of prayer, and how we need to pray in a day such as we have here – in our day, indeed!

• In Romans: 8 we are shown that apart from the Holy Spirit we do not know how to pray aright; but we have Him, and as having Him our prayers may ascend to God as incense.

• The Holy Spirit would impart to our prayers the very fragrance of the Spirit of Christ, ascending up to the throne of God out of the scene of corruption. How blessed to have part in it!

Then the writer says, "Keep yourselves in the love of God".

• There is that upon the earth which is bathed in the sunshine of the love of God, for, as we have already said, the beloved of God are here, those who are able to say, "As He is, so are we in this world".

• However dark all may be around, upon the saints the love of God is shining, and our part is to keep in its shining.

• We need to retain the sense in our souls that we are a living part of that upon which God's love rests, that which is infinitely delightful to Him, and which draws down His love upon it.

• It is as we cleave to our most holy faith building ourselves up upon it, and as we pray in the Holy Spirit, that we shall keep ourselves in the sense of what we are to God, and of the preciousness of the wondrous love that rests upon us.

Further Jude says, "Awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life".

• How blessed is the thought that "the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ" remains! Did any ever call upon that mercy in vain?

• And where is He now? He is upon the throne, and watching over every one of those who wait upon Him down here.

• And our part is to await that mercy, to await it patiently, expectantly, as knowing the One whose mercy it is, "our Lord Jesus Christ" the One we know so well.

• The mercy that met us in all our need at the outset still remains, and will remain, to meet us in every need in the path of testimony here, however dark and difficult the day may be.

• Our outlook is towards our Lord Jesus Christ – we wait for Him; and the climax of His mercy will surely be when He Himself shall come from heaven for us,
  • delivering us from the apostate scene which has ripened for judgment;

  • delivering us, too, from everything which bears the stamp of death.

• Then death shall be swallowed up in victory, and mortality swallowed up in life.

As our spirits are kept in the light and joy of these great "things that remain", we are prepared to have our part in what is introduced in the end of the chapter –

• the compassionate work of God, and the service of His praise – for these are also to go on until the end of our days of testimony here.
• Dark as the day is, with the judgment so soon to fall, there are still those who are the objects of divine compassion, and we are to be in line with this in our thoughts and spirits, and in our activities too.

• The saving work of God will go on till the end, and though some are viewed as already in the very fire itself, we are to be ready to snatch them out of it.

Lastly, the service of God's praise is to go on, "from before the whole age, and now, and to all the ages".

• The difficulties of the day only bring out in greater relief the blessedness of "the only God our Saviour". What a Saviour He ever is and ever will be to His own!

• In the joy of this, may our spirits happily take up their part in this wonderful doxology:
  • "To Him that is able to keep you without stumbling, and set you with exultation blameless before His glory, to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might and authority, from before the whole age, and now, and to all the ages. Amen"!

The section of Scripture in which these passages occur is one which has a special appeal to every lover of Christ, for it contains the very words of the Lord Jesus immediately before going to the cross to die for us.

• Though it was the disciples who were actually addressed, we know that we were also in the Lord's thoughts and in His heart,

• and that we too are embraced in those precious words, "As the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you".

How wondrous these words are! As we think of the blessed Saviour – who He was in His Person, and what He was in all His matchless perfection here – how well we can understand it being written "The Father loves the Son"!

• Those who with anointed eyes beheld Him in His holy movements here – "full of grace and truth" – could say
  • "And we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father", John 1: 14.

• Like Isaac with Abraham of old, so the father and the son "went both of them together".

• The holy path of Jesus was to lead Him through death itself, so that every thought of the Father's heart should find its complete fulfilment.

• How precious was He to the Father! Yet, "as the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you".

• Despite all that there is on our side in the way of failure, forgetfulness and departure, that love ever remains in all its fullness.

It is from such a heart that these words come to us, a heart that was just about to prove itself at Calvary.

• We may also say that those words come to us from the glory, and to our very selves today.

• For though spoken on earth, and to the disciples, they were placed on record many years after,
  • when the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus had sent down from heaven, brought to the mind of the apostle John the words that Jesus had said on earth,

  • surely having in view all who should believe during the period of the Lord's public absence from this world.

So His word comes to us today, "Abide in Me". There was no need for the Lord to say this to His own when He was with them, and continually before them, the present Object of their hearts.

• But the Lord was going to leave them, and what were they going to do then? Would they forget Him? Would they say, as Israel said of Moses, "We know not what has become of him"?

• This, alas! is virtually the language of many in Christendom today! They believe in a Christ who was; but how many have a real, affectionate link with a Christ who is??

• Yet He is unchanged and loves us still with the love wherewith the Father has loved Him!

The world has never had any room for Jesus, and He says of it, "the world sees Me no longer".

• But it is not to be thus with us – "but ye see Me". This is a challenge to us; we may well ask ourselves, Do we see Him?

• The Lord has sent the Comforter in order that we should see Him, and in order that we should know where He is, and know Him where He is, and be here in real attachment of heart to Him.

So He says, "in that day" – that is, the Spirit's day, which is our day – "Ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you".

• The expression "I am in My Father" opens to us the heavenly scene. The Lord has left for ever the scene of man's hatred and wickedness, and has ascended up into the scene of love – His Father's love;

• for His blessed work for the Father's pleasure and glory is all finished, and He has gone up into the very presence of the Father, whose delight He is – a scene where verything is of the Father.

Yet He adds, "and ye in Me" – and how wondrous that is!

• In all the blessedness of love that rests upon Him in the heavenly place, the Lord has not forgotten us, but has carried us up into it in His heart; for this is surely what "ye in Me" implies.

• The High Priest of old carried the people of God upon his heart as he drew near to God; and so the Lord Jesus, as having gone to the Father, has taken us upon His heart into the blessed place that is now His.

• In love He holds that place for us; for did He not say, "I ascend to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God"?

Then He further adds, "and I in you"; and this makes our link with Him a complete and living matter.

• We are in Him – we may well be assured that nothing can ever alter that precious truth, for we need have no doubts as to the constancy of His love; but "I in you" is the other side.

• In John 20, after the Lord had spoken to His own about His ascension, He breathed into them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit".

• In principle, He breathed into them His own life, so that they, and we, are linked in a vital way with the ascended Christ, as participating in His life.

• This verse thus sets out in a wonderful way what we may call the true Christian position, our living link with Christ in the affections of the Father, a fixed matter.

But then the Lord's word to us is "Abide in Me". He would have us in practical, affectionate attachment of mind and heart to Himself, looking up to Him as the One to whom we belong,

• the One to whom we are livingly attached by the Spirit, the One from whom we may derive all we need in order to bear fruit to God, and who would be the source of life and joy to us.
• From His own side He has linked us vitally with Himself by the Spirit; indeed we can say we are members of His body (Ephesians 5).

• But the Lord's great desire for us is that we should answer to this by according to Him the central place in our minds and hearts.

• If in His love He has given us this wonderful place in relation to Himself, He looks to see the appreciation of it on our side, and this manifests itself in giving to Him the place that is His due.

• So that we delight to hold ourselves for Him, to turn our minds and hearts constantly to Him, making Him thus the Centre of all things to us, and as we have opportunity afforded to us,
  • we sit down at His feet in the contemplation of Himself, and the thoughts of His love, absorbing thus into our souls the blessedness of what He is. In all this the Spirit delights to help us.

• It is not that we are unpractical or negligent of the ordinary duities of life – far otherwise!

• It is not that we give ourselves over to a life of mystic contemplation, we live in the ordinary circumstances of men, taking up the daily path allotted to us,
  • but we hold in our souls the precious thought that we are livingly linked with Christ – "Ye in Me, and I in you".

• And as we seek to pursue this line, the Spirit helps us and makes Christ more and more precious to us, so that He Himself and His interests command us more and more.

• It is to Him we turn for refreshment and delight, and it is His pleasure we seek before all else; and we are maintained in spiritual joy and freshness by what flows down to us from Himself.

The Lord not only says, "Abide in Me", but He also adds the words, "and I in you".

• He loves to come into our souls, and to fill them with Himself. The one who is abiding in Him has his heart open to Him, and He delights to fill it.

• What joy must have filled the heart of Mary as she listened at the feet of Jesus! What fruit for God must have resulted! She is a pattern of one abiding in Christ.

• "I in you" would mean that Christ is in practical expression in us, and nothing but Christ; what a challenge it is to us! But the way to it is by abiding in Him. May we heed the word!

There are many things to divert us and Satan will see to it that they come our way.

• Many things that are not by any means wrong in themselves are very frequently used by him to divert us from Christ – our secular employment, family cares, natural tastes and many other things.

• But "without Me ye can do nothing". We may say we are not going on with anything wrong, but is it "without Me"? Are we just leaving Christ out?
  • There will be no fruit for God on that line, and no lasting joy for us either.

• Every true lover of Christ really longs to bear fruit for God – to bear much fruit, and we would all like to know more about what the Lord calls "My joy", and our joy being full. But all this depends upon abiding in Him.

May the Lord help us to make this the habitual attitude of our souls! With many of us, our contacts with Christ are occasional.

• Thank God if we have had contact with Him at all – if, so to speak, we have but touched the hem of His garment in faith, and proved His healing grace!

• Thank God if we know what it is to turn to Him in our sorrows, and prove the comfort of His love.

• But He would appeal to us to abide in Him, to be fixed and constant in our relations with Him.

• He is constant in His relations with us; and the Spirit would help us, and Christ's own love constrain us, to be constant in our attitude towards Him; "with purpose of heart to abide with the Lord", Acts 11: 23.

There are two worlds, one of which is the world we see all around us the world of fallen man.

• In some aspects it may appear corrupt and revolting, but in others it may appear exceedingly attractive, because we all, according to nature, are the children of fallen Adam.

• But whether we consider the attractive side or the revolting side, it is still "this present evil world".
  • It is a system which has been built up by fallen man under the influence of Satan, who is himself the god and prince of it.

• It has shown its true character in the rejection and murder of God's Son. It stands convicted before God, and its sentence has been irrevocably pronounced.

• Very soon the whole system will be carried away in judgment; indeed, we read that the earth itself, and all the works that are therein, shall be burned up. 2 Peter 3: 10.
  • "The world is passing, and its lust", 1 John 2: 17.

• Whether it be the political world or the commercial world, the world of sport or art whatever form it may take, all must give way in order that "the kingdom of the world of our Lord and of his Christ" may fill the scene. Revelation 11: 5.

Not only the world, but the order of man whose world it is, stands likewise condemned before God. Thousands of years ago God said,

• "The end of all flesh is come before Me", Genesis 6: 13.
• The cross of Christ is the expression of God's judgment upon man according to the flesh, as well as upon the world which he has built up, and soon both will be entirely removed.

But, thank God, there is another order of Man – Christ – the heavenly Man, the Man of God's purpose and of His delight!

• While every other man is to be removed, this blessed Man is to subsist eternally, and those who are morally derived from Him.

• This is the kind of man with whom all who have received the Holy Spirit are eternally and vitally linked.

• In the Holy Spirit we have the very life of the heavenly Man;
  • and this is our true life, in which we shall live eternally to God and in which we may even now enjoy what is truly life.

There is also to be another world: indeed, we may say that another world has already come to pass, though we do not yet see the full scope of it actually manifested.

• But we see our glorious Saviour, the Heavenly Man, ascended up far above all heavens, that He may fill all things (Ephesians 4: 10);

• and when this present evil world and the man who fills it shall have passed away for ever,

• this glorious Man shall be universally known, filling all things with glory and blessedness eternally.

This we await, but there is in actual existence down here that which Christ already fills – the assembly.

• "He is the head of the body, the assembly", Colossians 1: 18.
• The assembly is not to be thought of merely as the aggregate of those who believe in Lord Jesus Christ:
  • it is a wondrous living organism, animated by the Holy Spirit, and united by Him to Christ, the living Head.

• It is a vessel which is being filled with Christ, so as to be His counterpart, His like, as Eve was to Adam,
  • a vessel which is to be for the satisfaction of the heart of Christ, now and eternally, and for the service of the blessed God.

• The assembly is to know Christ and to respond to Him, and to know God and to respond to Him; and to shine in testimony now, and in glorious display eternally.

Now, of all that exists upon earth today, this alone is going through; this alone is worth living for.

• We speak of living for Christ, and indeed it is good to live for Him; but really to live for Christ is to live for the assembly,
  • for the assembly is Christ's sole interest here, and Christ and the assembly are one.

• Therefore every activity of the believer is to have the assembly in view.

• The preacher is to have divine feelings for men, but he is not actuated simply by the desire to save men from going to hell, and yet leave them in the world that God has judged.

• He is concerned to secure them for Christ and for the assembly. And so the pastor [ i.e., shepherd ] and the teacher (Ephesians 4) and every gift and every little activity of love towards the saints,

• all have in view, not merely their comfort and help, but the building up of the assembly, the body of Christ.

• If we present our bodies to God, as we are exhorted to do in Romans 12: 1, the Holy Spirit will make use of all our activities towards this great end.

Many of us may have very little in the way of ability, but if we love the Lord Jesus Christ, and have received the Holy Spirit, we have some little part in this wonderful system.

• Let us be concerned to fill it out!
• In man's world we have no part. We have to go through it, and God will help us through it, but we have no part in it, except to testify to Christ, and to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour.

• We have to earn our living, and discharge our obligations to those dependent upon us, and if we put God's claims first He will help us in this.

• But the Lord Jesus Himself said, "they are not of the world, even as I am not of this world", John 17: 14.
  • Our part is outside it all, in Christ and in that which is of Himself down here, His assembly.

• He has died to secure us for it, and given us His Spirit so that we might practically and effectively take up our part in it.

But if I am to take up my part practically in the assembly, I must first find the assembly;

• and in a day such as this, when divided and broken conditions prevail in that which bears the name of Christ, this may seem no easy matter.
• Yet even today there may still be found the twos and threes who seek to walk together in the light of the assembly, endeavouring, by the help of the Holy Spirit, to maintain every feature that is proper to it.
  • Such will never think of themselves as the assembly, or take any pretentious ground.

• They will be marked by a godly concern to be separate from every kind of evil, and to make full room for the streams of living ministry that ever flow from Christ the Head of the body.

• It is in a company such as this that the believer will in a practical way, in principle, find the assembly.

• He will prove the reality of it and the blessedness of having part in it. This is the Christian's world.

If, then, we are conscious of having been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, let us earnestly seek that we may find our place in the assembly.

• Let us throw in our lot wholeheartedly with those who are walking in the light of it, however weak and insignificant the position may appear in the eyes of men.

• As we do so, we shall find ourselves introduced in a practical way into the glorious system of which the exalted Christ is head,
  • and which is sustained in life by the ministry which flows down from Him in the power of the Holy Spirit.

• It is a wondrous and most blessed thing to find our part in relation to that which is at the present time the comfort and joy of Christ, the vessel of the service and testimony of the blessed God,
  • and which in the coming day will descend from heaven all glorious, the bride, the Lamb's wife, the holy city, Jerusalem. Revelation 21.

Let us not heed the derision of men, but, like Moses of old, let us esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. Hebrews 11: 26.

• Let us stand in full identification with those who have left Egypt – man's world – and are going on with what is abiding!

• Let us share their exercises, their sorrows, their joys, assimilating the precious ministry, and getting the gain of all the touches that the Lord gives in His spiritual movements among them!

• We shall find what will absorb our energies to the full throughout our little time down here, and that in connection with what is eternal, and unspeakably blessed,
  • and our spirits will enjoy a realm of spiritual affections where that which is eternal life is to be known.

The summing-up which the Holy Spirit gives of the life of David "having in his own generation ministered to the will of God", Acts 13: 36 – is a commendation which every one of us would do well earnestly to desire.

• In considering the great matter of God's will, our thoughts instinctively turn to the blessed Lord Himself, the great Antitype of David,
  • for in Him every feature pleasing to God in men finds its pattern and fullest expression.

Psalm 40 is of special interest because it contains, according to Hebrews 10: 5, the very breathings of the heart of Christ as he came into the world.

• The incarnation was a stupendous matter, involving that One who was Himself God should leave the conditions that pertained to Godhead, and enter into human estate in this world;
  • not ceasing for one moment to be God, yet becoming Man, and taking a place here where the delight of His heart was to do the will of God:

  • "To do Thy good pleasure, My God, is My delight, and Thy law is within My heart".

These words set forth what is to be characteristic of manhood according to God.

• It is no legal matter no matter of mere duty it is a matter of love. The words "My God" convey this.

• The One who said them was Himself God, but in this passage He is to be viewed as looking up to God –
  • a God known as only He could know Him, a God loved as only He could love Him; a God whose good pleasure He knew and delighted to do.

• What that good pleasure involved, we well know – the suffering life here, the shameful death, the death of the cross, with all that this involved.

• Our sins were to be borne in that sinless body; indeed, He was to be made sin for us. What this would mean was known to Him as it could never be known to any other;
  • for the One who said "My God" in Psalm 40, as coming into the world with delight to do His will, was to say upon the cross, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"

• Yet in Gethsemane, knowing all and feeling all so perfectly, He said, "Not My will, but Thine be done";
  • and He went forward to Calvary, that there might be brought into being a race of men patterned after Himself, who shall, like Him, delight to do the will of God.

Hebrews 10 tells us that by God's will, carried out by Christ in His sacrificial death, we have been sanctified;

• and Peter tells us that we have been sanctified "to the obedience … of Jesus Christ", 1 Peter 1: 2.
• It is not only that we have been sanctified to obedience, but to the obedience of Jesus Christ –
  • to obey in the spirit of His obedience, to do God's will as loving it, because we love God Himself.

• In moving out to us in Christ, the blessed God has become known to us, we have learned Him in the love of Jesus, and as having learned Him, we delight to answer to His mind, and to do His will.

The epistle to the Romans helps us greatly as to this, for it shows us that the One who died to secure us for the will of God is now living to be a Husband to us,

• to engage our affections and to give us divine support, so that we may serve in newness of spirit, instead of the bondage of legality.
• We are to serve happily, as "doing the will of God from the soul", Ephesians 6: 6,
  • our hearts being kept in the shining of all that God is as known in Christ, the new Husband, the present, living Object of our hearts; Romans 7: 1-6.

• The power for this is granted to us in the presence with us of the Holy Spirit of God, who is here to secure in us an answer to God's "good pleasure".

• The Holy Spirit works in our hearts, and leads us from within, so that the will of God is endeared to us, and we find power to be here in accord with it.

The word in Romans 12: 1 – "I beseech you therefore, brethren" is really the utterance of the apostle Paul under the constraining of the Holy Spirit.

• So endeared was the will of God to Paul, that he would fain beseech us to present our bodies, a living sacrifice.

• "By the compassions of God" – how wondrous indeed they are, and how wondrously expressed in Jesus!
• The exhortation comes to each of us today: if we value those compassions, if the beseechings of divine love are anything to us, let us present our bodies to God, for the proving of His good and acceptable and perfect will.

• It has often been said that whatever may be our measure, each of us has a body, which can be presented to Him, holy and acceptable;
  • and as the Holy Spirit has His place with us, this will be our daily concern.

• It will work out in every detail of our lives, and in every sphere in which we move: in our private lives, our family, our business, and also in relation to the people of God.

• In every sphere our first concern will be "to minister to the will of God".

But ministering to the will of God has a wider bearing than merely what concerns individuals;

• for God is "the Lord of the heavens and of the earth", and He is working out His will in regard to the whole created scene.
• Specially is He working out His thoughts in regard of His people, his assembly here being at the present time that with which God is particularly engaged.

• Ministering to the will of God would therefore mean that we are seeking to further, in so far as we can, all that the blessed God is engaged with at the present time.

• It does not say that David did the will of God, although that would be true, but that he ministered to the will of God in his generation.

• In different generations, God has been working in different ways, though all the features of God's work tend towards one glorious end.

• David, for instance, served God in the bringing of the ark to Zion, and in preparing for the building of the temple, and in the ordering of the service of God.

• These things were embrace in the will of God for David's generation. He did not build the temple: that was reserved for another generation.

• He learned from God just what God would have to be done in his own generation, and bent all his energies towards it.

In the history of the assembly, there have likewise been many generations, and many who have devotedly ministered to the will of God in their own generation.

• Paul did so in his, and Timothy in his.
• In later days, men such as Luther and many others took up their part, being used of God to recover the truth of the gospel from the heathenism and dead formalism that had enshrouded it.

• Still later came the generation when the Lord was pleased to revive in a remarkable way the truth of the assembly,
  • and we can thank God for those who in that generation ministered to the will of God.

• Now we have been brought upon the scene, and the challenge comes to us: are we, in our generation, earnestly concerned to minister to the will of God?

In order to minister to the will of God, we need to know what that will is.

• If we pay attention to the ministry that comes to us from God in the power of the Spirit, we shall soon get understanding as to what God is especially engaged with today.

• In Ephesians 5: 17 we are exhorted to be "understanding what is the will of the Lord";
  • and God will always direct and enlighten those who love Him and really desire to do His will.

We may feel that there is but little that we can do towards this great matter, but God will set us where we can in our measure minister to His will.

• It is a good thing for us to accept the setting in which we may be found as having been allotted to us by God for this very thing.

• Epaphras was apparently a prisoner (Philemon 23), but he found a way even in prison of ministering to God's will:
  • "always combating earnestly for you in prayers, to the end that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God", Colossians 4: 12.

• Every feature of God's will was precious to that devoted man, and the burden of his constant prayers was that the beloved saints at Colosse might stand "perfect and complete" in it.

• He would have them all fully in it, perfectly united together in the maintenance of everything that God could delight in.
  • How blessedly he thus answered to the One who said, "Thy law is within My heart"!

• He has long since fallen asleep, and his generation has passed away, but his name stands with the divine commendation in the inspired record.

• May our names too be found in the records of heaven, as those who in our own generation have ministered to the will of God!

Separation from the world is a cardinal feature of the believer's testimony down here, and one which we need constantly to maintain.

• In speaking of the world, we are not referring to the earth or to men as such, but to the system that Satan has established here to hold men in bondage to himself,
  • and to keep them from the liberty in which God would have them to be established for His own pleasure and service.

Perhaps no section of Scripture has a more powerful voice to those who love Christ than John 17, the wonderful chapter in which

• our Lord pours out His heart to His Father on the very eve of the accomplishment of the mighty work to which we owe our all.
• In this wondrous utterance we have the spirit and substance of some of the highest and most blessed thoughts into which men can be introduced:
  • and yet also the continual reminder that our place is apart altogether from the world in which our life of testimony is to be spent.

"These words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father".

• These words in themselves lift our hearts altogether outside this present world, and into the Father's love, where the blessed Lord as Man ever found His home,

• and in which we too, through the Holy Spirit's power, in marvellous grace, find our life and our home.

The Lord then proceeds to speak to His Father about His disciples: "The men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world".

• In principle this applies not only to the disciples, but to all who have believed on Him through their word.

• Not only have they been given by the Father to Christ, but they have also been given to Him "out of the world".

• The Father's sovereign love has been pleased to reach down to us where we are as in the world, and to take us out of it and give us to the Son. How blessed to be the subjects of such an operation!

• But are we maintaining links with that from which divine love has thus separated us; given by the Father to the Son;
  • given "out of the world", and yet going on with the world that has seen and hasted, as the Lord says, "both Me and My Father"?

"Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me". Long ere the earth was founded we were known of the Father, claimed by His love and for His love, and given to Christ,

• in order that through His death and His teaching we might be fitted to be for the eternal satisfaction of His love.
• What part is there in the world for such? "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world".

• How truly "not of the world" was Jesus the One who could say, "Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee".

• What part had the world in the life of Jesus that eternal life which was with the Father? Such is the life in which we are given to have part!

So the Lord says, "Sanctify them by the truth". In one sense we who have received the Holy Spirit are already sanctified, "sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints", 1 Cor. 1: 2 –

• but what the Lord had before Him here is the practical thought, and surely if we love Him we shall have His thought before us too.

• He would have us entirely set apart, in spirit, heart and though, from the corrupt scene around us, though we are sent into it in testimony.

"Thy word is truth". The Father's word, the testimony of what the Father is, and of all the Father's thoughts of love, is to fill our hearts, so that our spirits recoil from all that is in the world.

• John tells us in his epistle that if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 1 John 2: 15.

• How can it be, when "all that is in the world . . . is not of the Father, but is of the world"?

The Lord further adds, "I sanctify myself for them, that they also may be sanctified by truth".

• The Lord was, of course, ever completely apart in spirit from the world and all that is of it,
  • but now He was going to take up in actuality a heavenly position, completely separated from all that is here: save, indeed, from those who are joined to him by the Spirit.

• The present position of the Lord on high, as sanctified, marks the moral separation which God would have between those who are "His own" and the world which "knows us not, because it knew Him not".

The apostle Paul's exhortation in 2 Corinthians 6 helps us in the working out of this in practical detail. "Be not diversely yoked with unbelievers".

• The word is plain enough, and needs no explanation: it calls only for obedience.

• It covers very much that is characteristic of this day of amalgamation: such things as trade unions would come within its scope, but it applies to much simpler things as well.

• What about our friendships? What about our social links as they are called? Are we linking ourselves up in companionship with the world?

• Let us remember that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Indeed the word is,
  • "Whoever therefore is minded to be the friend of the world is constituted enemy of God", James 4: 4.

It is not that we are to be unfriendly or unkind – far otherwise.

• The Lord Himself, in His goodness to all, was spoken of as the Friend of sinners: but it is a question of associations and of companionships.

• When exercises on this line arise, it is common to hear it said, 'But they are such nice people'.

• Very likely they are, by man's reckoning: but are they believers or unbelievers? Are they marked by righteousness, or by unrighteousness?

• They may, indeed, be nominally believers, but are they subject to the Lord? Are they subject to the word of God?
  • Do they recognize "the Lord's commandment", 1 Cor. 14: 37.

Our only responsibility is to let our light shine upon them, and their responsibility is to answer to it.

• If there is with them no answer to the light, how can there be walking together? What fellowship can there be "of light with darkness"?

• 1 John 1: 7 tells us that "if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another": there can be none otherwise.

• God at the beginning separated the light from the darkness, light and darkness now take form in persons, and it is for us to heed the word,
  • "Come out from the midst of them, and be separated, saith the Lord", 2 Cor. 6: 17.

"Saith the Lord" – the word comes to us with full divine authority.

• If God is known to us by the blessed name of Father, is His word to have less weight with us than when as Jehovah He uttered His voice from Sinai?

• Shall we not yield to Him the obedience of love? "And touch not what is unclean": there are the unclean persons, and there is also "the unclean thing";
  • it is for us to learn what that is, Israel had those to teach them the difference between clean and unclean: we have the Holy Spirit.

• He abides in us individually, if we are really Christians, and He also abides in the saints collectively.

• It is not a question of what men think to be unclean, or even of what I myself may think to be unclean, but what the Holy Spirit esteems to be so, and I am not to touch it. I am to have no contact with it at all.

Then we have the promise, "And I will receive you". Would we not like the blessed God to receive us?

• Luke 15 teaches us how God receives one who leaves the far country to return to "his own father", as the passage puts it.

• But we shall not be sustained in the joy of the Father's love unless we answer to what we set before us here:
  • for "if any one love the world, the love of the Father is not in him".

"And I will be to you for a Father, and ye shall be to Me for sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty", 2 Cor. 6: 18.

• Let us note the little word "for". God is indeed our Father, if we have believed upon the name of His Son, but He wants to be "for a Father" to os –
  • to have us in the full liberty and joy of family relationship with Him.

• He wants us to be true sons and daughters to Him, in holy intimacy with Himself, His love flowing out freely to us, and our love flowing freely back to Him.

• So He calls us out from all that is opposed to Himself, that we may be with him, in the holy enjoyment of His love.
  • His word is "Come out", not "Go out". May we all be concerned to answer to it!

Psalm 132 is of great interest to us as revealing the exercises and desires of one who could be spoke of as a man after God's own heart, 1 Sam. 13: 14 –

• and it discloses to us that the great thought ever in David's mind was that he might "find out a place for Jehovah, habitations for the Mighty One of Jacob".

If David had been moved by the desires natural to men, he would have been seeking a place for himself.

• God was to give him a wonderful place as this very psalm goes on to show, but that was His answer to David's great desire to find out a place for Him.

When we consider who God is, in all the majesty of His being, it is a marvellous thing that it should be within the range of men to provide a habitation for Him.

• Solomon could say later, "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heavens, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain Thee; how much less this house which I have built!", 1 Kings 8: 27.

• And yet it is so, in the eternal day, when all God's thoughts are fully and finally established for His eternal glory and delight, it will be said, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men", Rev. 21: 3.

• We may well rejoice in what it will mean to those with whom God will vouchsafe thus to dwell, yet primarily it is for the joy of God's own heart that this wondrous scene is brought into being;
  • and the marvel of this present time is that what God will have for His pleasure eternally, He has in measure now, in answer to the exercises of those who love Him and cherish His thoughts.

When of old God brought His people out of Egypt, He said, "They shall make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them", Exodus 25: 8 –

• and a material sanctuary was provided for God by the responsive sacrifices of His willing-hearted people.
• But today God is affording His people the opportunity to provide for Him a habitation of a spiritual character, suited for the dwelling of God, who is a Spirit;
  • a holy sphere where He can enjoy the company of man according to His own delight, and where man can be in liberty and joy in the blessed sense of the presence of God.

• God would produce, in the hearts of those who love Him, the desire that this blessed and glorious thought should be furthered,
  • and that there should be at this present time, and on this very earth, a dwelling-place for Him.

This takes form both in individual persons and also in a collective way. We have the individual side in John 14: 23:

• "Jesus answered and said to him, If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him".
• How blessed that this privilege is open to "any one"! No matter where we may be, even in utter isolation, this precious word holds true.

• There is but one qualification: "If any one love Me". Is there a Christian who does not love Him?

• We all know how weak and faint our love often seems to be, yet surely we can each say with Peter, "Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I am attached to thee" John 21: 17.

Yet there is a searching test: "If any one love Me, he will keep My word".

• The lovers of Christ are identified, not merely by what they say, but by what they do.
  • As loving Christ, they cherish His word and keep it. It is not legality, but love.

• They keep His word because it is His word, and they love Him. How much this covers:
  • all that the Lord Jesus has said, and all that He is saying now, for by His Spirit He speaks today.

• Those who love Him discern His voice, and they keep His word, and the Father loves them for it. How blessed to attract the Father's love!

• How blessedly Christ attracted the Father's love! "I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love", John 15: 10.

• So if we keep Christ's word because we love Him, we shall attract the Father's love.

• We may attract the world's hatred, but what is that beside the Father's love, and the Father's presence, indeed the presence of the Father and the Son!
  • "We will come to him and make Our abode with him", John 14: 3.

Earlier in the gospel we read of those who enquired of the Lord, "Rabbi … where abidest Thou?", John 1: 38.

• To these the Lord said, "Come and see", and they came, and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day.

• The Lord would attract us also after Himself, that we might dwell with Him in the holy circle of the Father's love.

• But in chapter 14 we have the other side, the Father and the Son coming to the believer to dwell with him, delighting in the company of one who loves Christ and keeps His word.

But the great thought of God dwelling goes out far beyond what is individual, precious as that is.

• Ephesians 2: 22 tells us that the saints of the present period are being builded together "for a habitation of God in the Spirit".

• The whole assembly is being formed in order that God may even now have a dwelling-place down here.

Then further, this thought is to take form in every locality where God's people are; for in 1 Corinthians 3: 16 the saints at Corinth are said to be "temple of God",

• and in 2 Corinthians 6: 16 it is said to them: "Ye are the living God's temple; according as God has said, I will dwell among them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be to Me a people".

• God delights to have amongst His people a place where He can happily dwell, and where the blessedness of His presence and of His movements can be freely known.

This challenges us as to what concern we have that in the place where we are set there should be conditions suitable to God Himself – "a place for the Lord".

• Does David's desire find an echo in my heart? It is really Christ's desire – He is the true David, who could say, "The zeal of Thy house devours Me".

• Has He so won my heart that His desire has become my desire? It is not enough to know that God is dwelling in believers by the Spirit:

• God would look into my heart to see what concern I have that there should be conditions suited to Him who has vouchsafed thus to dwell.

God is not today looking for material, but for spiritual conditions, conditions of holiness and love,

• all that was found in Christ, in whom we read that "all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell", Col. 1: 9.
• God has given us the Spirit of Christ in order that these features might come into evidence in us.

• As we move among the people of God, may it be our concern to bring in among them the features of Christ, and nothing but Christ, for anything else is out of place in God's dwelling.

Of old, all that was brought was subjected to Moses. So today, if there is to be a place for God to dwell according to His own desires,

• what need there is for complete subjection to the true Moses, who has pitched the true tabernacle! Heb. 8: 2.
• Then, too, there were those who had been divinely fitted to work in the materials brought, so that everything should be put into shape according to the heavenly pattern.
  • So today there are those who have light and ability from God in a special way, and who labour in faithful love to bring to pass among the saints a full answer to all that God would have.

• If we love Christ and keep His word, if His desires have laid hold of our hearts, how gladly we shall subject ourselves to such to all "joined in the work and labouring", 1 Cor. 16: 16.

May we all be more affected by the wondrous grace of the fact that God delights to dwell with us,

• and more concerned that there should be the conditions in which in very truth the God of love and peace may be with us! 2 Cor. 13:11.

One of the most blessed things said in Scripture about the God whom we know is that He encourages those that are brought low. 2 Cor. 7: 6.

• There is great comfort in the knowledge that this is characteristic of the blessed God: for when He sees one who is brought low, His heart at once goes out to that one to encourage him.

• He is indeed said, in the first chapter of the same epistle, to be the Father of compassions and the God of all encouragement, His very nature causing Him to be that towards all who have need of it.

• It is also true, of course, that God may have to cast us down, for Hannah says in her song, "He bringeth low, also He lifteth up", 1 Sam. 2: 7.

• Nebuchadnezzar had to learn that "those that walk in pride He is able to abase", Daniel 4: 37 –
  • and how thankful we can be that if we are walking in pride, perhaps unrealized by ourselves, He is good enough to do this for us.

• Yet if God brings us low it surely is that He may lift us up; not, of course, to raise us up in pride again,
  • but to lift us up into the joy and liberty of the knowledge of Himself and of all the great and elevated thoughts of His heart for us.

Satan would not lift up those that are cast down: he would like us to be cast down and kept down, because he knows that if we are kept down, there will be no note of praise in our hearts for God.

• There are many, alas, who are like the woman of whom we read in Luke 13, who was unable to lift up her head, and the Lord said of her "whom Satan has bound".

• When the soul is cast down it is the work of Satan to bring in depressing thoughts which would turn us in upon ourselves: it is well to recognize this, and when these thoughts arise,
  • to turn quickly away to God who encourages those that are brought low, and who would say to us, "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you", Isaiah 66: 13.

It is always comforting to remember that God is never disappointed with us and never surprised at what we are or what we do.

• Before ever we came into the world He knew all bout us and all that we would ever do.

• He knew it all far better than we know it, measuring the depths of our sinfulness according to the perfect standard of His own holiness.

• Yet He so loved us that He chose us to be for ever holy and without blame before Him in love; He loved us so much that He gave His own beloved Son for us –
  • the One who identified Himself with all that we are and all that we have done, putting it all away for ever from God's holy sight,

• and identifying us with Himself in all his own beauty and perfection, so that we can say, "As He is, we also are in this world", 1 John 4: 17.

How surpassingly wonderful these words are: "As He is, we also are"!

• As He is in all His spotless perfection; as He is in the wondrous love that rests upon Him; as He is in the blessed nearness of relationship with His God and Father – as He is, so are we!

• How it draws out our hearts to the blessed God in thankful adoration as we contemplate the love that has so blessed us, and that in spite of all that we were according to nature.

• Indeed, it is not any goodness on our side, but our very badness that qualifies us to come into all the blessing that God has provided for men,
  • for the Lord Jesus Himself said, "I have not come to call the righteous men but sinners".

May our hearts then rise up to God! Let us not allow Satan to engross us with ourselves.

• God knows our own depravity according to nature, infinitely better than we know it ourselves, but Christ has suffered – oh, how unspeakably! to put it all away,
  • and that we might stand before God as free of it all, in Him.

• Let us then rise up to God in the power of the Holy Spirit and in the liberty that is in Christ Jesus, to present to God, not a lamentation on account of what we are (or rather were, as in the flesh, which we are now no longer)
  • but a note of praise and appreciation of what Christ is, and a note of thankfulness to God.

What Satan is after is to stop the praises of God.

• In the world he has succeeded marvellously, for if God is thought of at all there He is blamed for everything, and praised and thanked for nothing.

• How often in the Scriptures we are exhorted to be thankful!
  • "In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus towards you", 1 Thess. 5: 18.

• Let us see to it that as far as we are concerned, the song shall not be hushed!

• Paul and Silas, even in the prison, and at midnight, were praising God with singing.
  • So let us say, like David, "I will bless Jehovah at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth", Psalm 34: 1.

These Scriptures speak of conformity, the first bringing before us the wonderful truth that the blessed God has predestinated us – or "marked us out beforehand" – to be conformed to the image of His Son.

• In His eternal purpose God ever had it before Him that there should be for His pleasure a vast host of men:
  • beings who should be in a position of subordination to Himself, which is right, for God must ever be supreme, but who should nevertheless enjoy the most wonderful blessedness and glory.

• They were to be in the most intimate relationship with God which is possible to the creature, in nature and character fully answering to God Himself,
  • knowing and understanding Him, and responding to Him in such a way as to give satisfaction to His heart, while themselves finding satisfaction in Him.

When creation came into being, God did not see fit to introduce at once the kind of manhood that His all-wise purpose had in view.

• The order of manhood introduced in Adam became corrupted by sin, and was proved altogether incapable of ever answering to the desires of the heart of God.

But when the fulness of the time was come, Christ came, the Man of God's pleasure.

• One of the blessed Persons of the Godhead, without ceasing to be God, stepped down into the position and condition of manhood, bringing with Him all the moral excellencies that were ever His as God.

• Nothing that He was essentially or morally was left behind, but all was brought into the subject place of manhood, a position taken up by Him in love
  • in order that by suffering and death He might give full effect to the blessed and glorious thoughts of God.

• How supremely delightful to God was the holy manhood of Jesus! How ineffable the affections that centred in Him as Man down here!

• No wonder that upon such a Man the heavens were opened, and that Voice from heaven proclaimed, "This is My beloved Son in whom I have found My delight"!

But what grace that we, who were of Adam's fallen and sinful race, should have been marked out from eternity to be conformed to the image of this glorious Person; to be among the many brethren of whom He is the Firstborn!

• Not, of course, that we can ever have part in Deity; but to be made exactly like Jesus in all the moral perfection of His Manhood.

• The apostle John tells us that we are to be like Him even in a bodily way, 1 John 3: 2 –
  • but this bodily conformity is in order that there should be an adequately glorious "house", 2 Cor. 5: 1-5 – to enshrine what we shall be inwardly as conformed to Him in a moral sense.

• He has now a body which corresponds with what He is in the glorious state of His Manhood; and we are
  • to be brought into conformity with Him in that perfection, so that we shall be suited to inhabit a "body of glory", Phil. 3: 21 – like unto His. God, we read, has wrought us for this very thing.

Over against such thoughts as these, we have the injunction of Romans 12: 2: "Be not conformed to this world".

• It is the world that hated Christ, the world that crucified Him.

• He came into it in all the grace of His Person, His very presence in it being a testimony to divine love: yet He was the despised and rejected One.

• Despite the world's refusal, He continued unswervingly in His pathway of love, and gave His flesh for the life of the world:
  • yet still His name is hated and despised. The whole world, we are told, lies in the wicked one – 1 John 5: 19 – who is its god and prince.

• Are we, who in infinite grace have been called to be conformed to the image of God's Son, seeking to be conformed to such a world as this?

• Do we seek to appear as if we belonged to the world that murdered Him? Or are we walking here in holy strangership, as those who desire to be conformed to the Son of God?

"Be transformed by the renewing of your mind". Those who have the Holy Spirit have what Scripture calls the "mind of Christ", 1 Cor. 2: 16.

• This is a mind that recoils from the world and from all that marks it; a mind which delights in God, and in what is according to God, even as Christ delighted to please Him.

• As we give place to the Holy Spirit, and to the desires and impulses that spring from Him, we shall be transformed according to Christ.

• Thus instead of using our bodies to effect our own wills, we shall present them a living sacrifice to God, holy and acceptable in His sight,
  • and as doing so we shall prove how good and acceptable and perfect is His will.

• What a delight it is to God to have those who find their pleasure in serving Him in the spirit in which His blessed Son served Him here;
  • conformed to Him who in the greatest possible pressure could say, "Abba, Father 𔃒 not what I will, but what Thou wilt", Mark 14: 36.

In Philippians we have the language of one who was truly transformed by the renewing of his mind.

• Once his mind was bent upon the extermination of the name of Jesus, but now his whole aim and object is to "gain Christ".

• All that once seemed to him glorious he now esteems to be but filth, on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord.

• We see him pressing on with dauntless spiritual energy to apprehend that for which he had been apprehended of Christ Jesus; that he might arrive at the resurrection from among the dead;
  • that he might reach the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus: and this necessarily embraces the full thought of conformity to the image of God's Son.

• It is as having passed through death that Christ is the goal and prize of the Christian.

• We are to be with Him where He is, and like Him as He is; and it is by way of suffering and death that He has reached the position of glory in which we now see Him, the way by which He must needs go if ever we were to be with Him.
  • And Paul would follow in the way that He has gone.

His death was very truly "a death of shame and loss" [ No. 227 1973 Hymn Book ] – the Messiah was cut off, and had nothing; Daniel 9: 26.

• He was bereft of all that attached to Him as a Man here, even of life itself, and all man's scorn and hatred found expression in the particular form of death which man demanded for Him – the death of the cross.

• Furthermore, the crucified Christ was the expression of God's holy judgment of man according to flesh.

• Paul would accept the full bearing of all this. He would relinquish all that attached to himself as a man here, repudiating all that he was according to the flesh,
  • and fully accepting the reproach and shame that the cross of Christ expresses: "the scandal of the cross", Gal. 5: 11.

We cannot read this chapter rightly without being deeply challenged by it, but it is beautiful to see how Paul would bring us all into the pathway with himself.

• He enjoins us: "Be imitators all together of me brethren"; "let us be thus minded" and "let us walk in the same steps".

• May we all be helped to accept the challenge, and to be able to say with Paul,
  • "forgetting the things behind, and stretching out to the things before, I pursue, looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus", Phil. 3: 13-14.

Christianity is a great system of joy. God Himself is spoken of in Scripture as "the blessed God", 1 Timothy 1: 11,

• the word blessed being the word that is sometimes translated happy.
• He being God, all His ways must result in His own supreme joy; and He being the God who has been revealed in Jesus,

• it is manifest that submission to His ways must result in the supreme happiness of those who are the subjects of His beneficent sway.

There is often a danger with us, however, of being too much concerned about our own joy, wondering perhaps why it is so small,

• and the more we get on to this line of self-occupation, the less and less will our joy become.
• But the secret of true happiness for us lies in considering for the joy of God.

• This may indeed seem often to lead us into circumstances which are anything but joyous; but as we have what is pleasing to God before us as our objective,

• we shall find strength to go through with everything that His will involves, and we shall find joy that has its spring and source in the blessed God Himself.

In Proverbs 23: 24 we read: "The father of a righteous man shall greatly rejoice". How truly we may see this in the blessed Lord Himself!

• At the very outset of his public pathway, we see going down into the waters of baptism, saying, "Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness", Matthew 3: 15.

• For Him, the fulfilment of all righteousness meant the establishment of that in which God should find the eternal satisfaction of His heart and the establishment of His eternal joy, and
  • in order to effect this the Lord Jesus was prepared to accept all that death involved for Him.

• What this was in all its fullness we shall never fully know, but He knew it, and as knowing it, went down into the waters.

But as he came up out of the waters, what an expression met Him of the joy of God in Him!

• The heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Holy Spirit descending as a dove and coming upon Him,
  • while the voice out of heaven proclaimed, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I have found My delight", Matthew 3: 17.

• So, in the full consciousness of God's delight in Him, the Lord could step forth upon His way.

• The very next verse says, "Then Jesus was carried up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted of the devil".

• In the power of the knowledge of the delight of God, the Lord would go forth to meet Satan, to meet death itself, even the death of the cross.

And now it is we who are in the scene of testing: we may say that it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.

• We are privileged to know that God is our Father, and that it is He who has begotten us.

• We belong to what Scripture calls "the generation of the righteous", and it is for us to display, in all our movements and in every relation, the features that give pleasure to Him who has begotten us.

• This will surely involve reproach and suffering, even as it did for Jesus, but the comfort is that God shall have joy, and the joy of Jehovah shall be your strength.

The following verse in Proverbs 23 says, "Let thy father and thy mother have joy, and let her that bore thee rejoice".

• The joy of the mother is to be considered, as well as that of the father.
• The mother suggests all the exercises of those who have gone before us, the anxious maternal care that has "travailed in birth" for us, Galatians 4: 19, and is ready to do so again, if needed;
  • the love of those who would cherish us "as a nurse would cherish her own children", 1 Thess. 2: 7.

• How much we owe to those who have thus watched over us, prayed for us, loved and longed for us!

• Perhaps we do not think of them as much as we should, but God would have us think of them and give joy to them.

• What strength it gives in the daily testings, the daily sufferings, to think of them as opportunities to give a little joy to the heart of God, and to the saints as well!

Then in Nehemiah 8 we have the collective side of things. Nehemiah's day was a day such as our own, a day of recovery.

• For many a long years Jerusalem had lain desolate, a mere heap of ruins, but now there was a movement of recovery, a movement of return, and something had taken form which was for the pleasure of God.

• The house had been built – not in the outward magnificence that had formerly marked it, but nevertheless the house of God –
  • and the service of God had been inaugurated; and the wall, too, was being built.

• There was a sustained activity which was resulting in a return in a practical way to what was for the pleasure of God.

• Men derided it: they said that even if a fox went up it would break down their wall, and Ezra speaks of it humbly and simply as "a little reviving".

• But God had said, "I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified", Haggai 1: 8, and faith was content with that, and found strength in the joy of Jehovah.

This has its answer in our own day. For many centuries after the apostles had passed from the scene, there was very little, if anything, of a collective character to minister to the joy of God and of Christ.

• But in these last days there has been again "a little reviving", so that there is at any rate something which has this character, and it is for us

• to be exercised to find it – remembering the word, "Seek, and ye shall find" – and as having found it, to be wholly committed to it in the sense of the delight that God has in it, the joy of Jehovah being our strength.

It is beautiful to see how the people move in Nehemiah 8. They are marked by intense concern to learn the mind of God.

• It is the people who speak to Ezra to bring forth the book of the law
  • "and he read it … from the morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women, and those that could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law".

• Does this reflect our concern to understand the mind of God?

• Are we making use of every occasion to hear the truth brought out, and to listen to those who have been specially raised up of God to "give the sense", and to cause us "to understand the reading"?

How sensitive they were, too: they wept when they heard the words of the law. How precious those tears were to God!

• Theirs was no mere mental interest, but a genuine exercise of soul, a real deep desire to answer to the desires of the heart of the blessed God – may we all have such desires!

• Much there was, no doubt, that called for adjustment, as there is with us, but God meets them with words of comfort:
  • "Mourn not, nor weep … and be not grieved, for the joy of Jehovah is your strength".

• God would give them to know how pleased He was that they had the desire to know and to do His will,

• and He would send them away happy and joyful and stimulated in the sense of His own joy in what they were going on with.

The latter part of the chapter shows that as the people pursued their enquiries they got further light

• and were helped to come into a most joyous privilege that had been lost ever since the days of Joshua – the feast of tabernacles.
• This feast was, perhaps, the brightest part of Israel's year, a time when the people were to rejoice before the Lord and to be "wholly joyful", Deuteronomy 16: 15.

• It speaks of the time when Jehovah will rejoice over His people with joy, and rest in His love and rejoice over them with singing, Zephaniah 3: 17.

And so it is with us. As we go on with God, considering for His pleasure, we are enabled to enter, not only into the light,

• but into something of the spiritual reality of the blessedness of the purpose of God, and to be wholly joyful before Him, as dwelling together in unity, with the sense of God's own joy resting on our spirits.
• Perhaps what we may touch in this way is something which has not been known in the same way since the days of the apostles.

• That we should be enabled to enter into it should stimulate our hearts, in spite of all the difficulties and obstacles that the enemy will most certainly raise,

• to continue steadfastly and energetically in all that contributes to the joy of the Lord.