I think we can see that all these elements are of great value in any locality, and there is no reason why they should not be present, for the days in which Samuel is introduced were about as bad as they could be.

• Indeed, they are referred to at the end of Psalm 78 in terms that show that the conditions among God's people had at that time become as bad as they could be, but they afforded the background for God to intervene in His sovereignty to bring in David, and through him to establish all His thoughts concerning His people.

Priestliness

But then, before God brought in David, there was this previous history having its rise in the exercises of a godly woman named Hannah.

• There is no reason why the spirit of Hannah should not be with us, for the conditions publicly in Christendom are morally the same as the conditions that obtained in Israel in Hannah's day.

• That is, that which claims publicly to be in the position of the priesthood is corrupt, and so much evil and corruption of every kind are now connected with what claims to be divine service that it is nauseous to Him, so that the Lord's word to Laodicea is,
  • "I am about to spue thee out of my mouth", Revelation 3: 16

• – a very strong expression, showing how the Lord regards the state of indifference to what is due to Himself and His Name that marks the christian profession at the present time.

But it was in the presence of such conditions that Hannah had her exercises, her husband apparently satisfied to go on with what was formal; the yearly sacrifice was quite sufficient for him, so that he could hardly understand Hannah's exercise that she could be content with nothing less than a son.

• What God has in mind for His saints is that they should move before Him and serve Him in the character of sons, and Hannah desired a son. Elkanah said to Hannah,
  • "Am not I better to thee than ten sons?", 1 Samuel 1: 8,

• but Hannah pursued her exercise and in due course God gave her the son that she had asked for, and he was named Samuel, which means, 'Asked for of God', footnote c.

Now this is a most important matter for us to bear in mind, beloved brethren, and it is always open to us to ask of God. Samuel represents what is brought in on the basis of asking of God, so that whatever needs may disclose themselves in a locality, whatever falling short there may be in the actual answer to the truth, there is always open to us this avenue of asking of God.

• God loves to give in answer to requests, as the Lord said,
  • "how much rather shall the Father who is of heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?", Luke 11: 13.

• Hence Samuel represents what is brought in on the principle of one exercised soul having asked of God, having had discernment of conditions, and intelligence of what was needed to meet those conditions.

• It says of Samuel that he ministered before Jehovah being a boy girded with a linen ephod; that is, he morally displaced the priesthood that was so corrupt.

• Officially he was not a priest, for though a Levite he was not of the house of Aaron, but morally he was one. He ministered before Jehovah girded with a linen ephod.

That is the first thing to be considered in any locality: what is priestly, what will minister to the pleasure of God, not doing it in a merely formal way, but as having the moral conditions that the service of God requires, because it says that Samuel was girded with an ephod of linen.

• That represents that the moral conditions suitable to the priesthood were found with Samuel, even though at this time he was but a boy. That is what God looks for in His people; it was being developed, though in but small measure as yet, and God could now set aside the official priesthood that was so corrupt and distasteful to Him.

• I believe it is always God's way that, if He is going to set some thing aside, He has already there in existence what is qualified to replace it. So you remember when the disciples spoke to the Lord about the temple and called His attention to the fine buildings, He told them,
  • "not a stone shall be left upon a stone, which shall not be thrown down", Mark 13: 2.

• The Lord had there the widow who had cast in her two mites into the treasury, and therefore that which was only formal could be set aside; what was pleasing to God and devoted to His service was already there in the person of the widow.

That is always a principle with God, and I would urge upon the young brothers and sisters to start young in considering what is pleasing to God so as to develop in what is priestly.

• We can only develop what is priestly by being in the presence of God and being attentive to the Holy Spirit. It is only thus that we shall develop in what is priestly, but that is what counts above everything else in His testimony, and everything that is pleasing to God develops out of what is priestly.

• What Samuel was as a great prophet, what he was as a great intercessor and one who had power with God as calling on His Name, and what he was as a great judge, all flow out of his beginnings in priestly activities.

• He was not a priest officially but he was one morally, and it is exactly the same today with the saints of God who give place to the Spirit of God; they are characteristically priestly, and displace all that is formal and official in the priesthood around us.

• God passes over all that, and will shortly set it aside completely, because He already has in its place that which pleases Him.

So it says that Samuel's mother made him a little coat and brought it to him from year to year. How important this maternal element is in any company, the element that, as having already considered for God, will watch the growth of that which is young in the company.

• The suggestion is that there was normal gradual growth, and each year a fresh coat was needed, and it was the mother that brought it. It is most important that there should be this maternal watchfulness as to the spiritual growth of those who are younger, that there may be a steady development of what is priestly in the local company, because, I say again, what is priestly underlies everything else.

• There can he no power in the prophetic word, or with God in intercession, or in the spirit of judgment – there can he no power in any of these directions, save as it finds its roots in what is priestly.

The Prophetic Word

In 1 Samuel 3 we find that it says, "the boy Samuel ministered to Jehovah before Eli".

• It is very interesting to notice how the Spirit of God presents Samuel in contrast to what was around. In chapter 2: 11 it says,
  • "And the boy ministered to Jehovah in the presence of Eli the priest".

• And then we have a section which describes the evil and utter wickedness of the official priesthood. In verse 18 it says,
  • "And Samuel ministered before Jehovah, a boy girded with a linen ephod",

• and in verses 22 and onwards we get the incapacity of Eli, his oldness and his lack of moral power, so that while he reproves his sons, he has no power with them. In verse 26 it says,
  • "Samuel grew on, and was in favour both with Jehovah and also with men".

• Then we get in the final section in that chapter the man of God coming to Eli and conveying to him God's judgment of his house. Chapter 3: 1 reads,
  • "the boy Samuel ministered to Jehovah",

• that is, the Spirit of God is continually reverting to Samuel in contrast to all that is around, which is so displeasing and abhorrent to God.

In chapter 3 the Lord honours Samuel and calls him by name, saying,

• "Samuel, Samuel!"

• Samuel was slow to understand who it was speaking to him, but eventually he says.
  • "Speak, for thy servant heareth".

    It says, "Jehovah came, and stood, and called as at the other times, Samuel, Samuel!"

• That is, Jehovah is now definitely taking account of what was there. I am seeking to apply this to the conditions that may obtain in our localities, because as the truth that God has ministered among us is responded to by us, there is that which provides a full answer to Him notwithstanding the corrupt state of things around us.

So God is honouring Samuel. Jehovah came, and stood, and stood means took up His stand deliberately. He was standing in relation to Samuel.

• Judgment had already been pronounced on the system around, and Jehovah was taking His stand in relation to Samuel: was Samuel going to fail Him or not?

• That is the position now; the Lord has passed by that which is around us and has taken His stand in relation to what God has brought in vitally, though in smallness. The point is, are we going to fail Him, or are we going to answer fully to all that He looks for?

• He knows Samuel and calls him by name. He would give Samuel to know that He knows him by name, and Samuel says,
  • "Speak, for thy servant heareth",

• and then Jehovah says a most remarkable thing to Samuel. We do not know exactly what Samuel's age was at that time, but he was sufficiently young to be called a boy, and Jehovah tells him what He was about to do in Israel, a thing,
  • "at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle".

• That is, the Lord does not hesitate to say to the boy that the conditions around him, in the midst of which he was, were so bad that He was coming in in the most drastic judgment. He would have the boy understand all this.

So it is important for the young to face these things; it is a question of understanding what the privilege of our position is, that through grace we are found in separation from evil around, and in a place where the truth is known; and the question is, What are we going to do with it?

• Are we going to see that the conditions provided are maintained so that the service of God can go on to the end? The Lord did not hesitate to tell Samuel what He felt about these things, and about Eli, and Eli's house; the whole matter was laid out before Samuel.

• We can understand why Samuel would fear Jehovah. We can understand how it would promote the spirit of fear in his heart, as he found himself in the presence of Jehovah who spoke to him of doing such a thing in Israel.

Jehovah was not sparing Samuel, so to speak; He was making him feel the seriousness of having to do with God, for there is to be no trifling with the holiness of God. With a sense of that, Samuel is to speak with spiritual power.

• t is a question of God, His house and His service, and the holiness that becomes it, and Samuel is to understand that God will maintain the holiness proper to His house. So Eli calls upon Samuel in the morning to tell him what Jehovah had said. Eli says,
  • "I pray thee, keep it not back from me: God do so to thee, and more also, if thou keep back anything from me of all the word that he spoke to thee".

    And it says, "Samuel told him all the words, and kept nothing back from him".

• Samuel was faithful. In Jeremiah 23: 28 we read,
  • "he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully".

• I believe it was this faithfulness on Samuel's part in telling Eli exactly what Jehovah had said, although extremely painful and difficult to do, that established him as a prophet of Jehovah. He would say, Now I have one I can rely on, someone who will not water down My word to make it popular, someone who will convey My word faithfully.

And it says, "Samuel grew", chapter 3: 19. How encouraging all these statements are in the early chapters, the Spirit of God taking account of the growth that was going on, starting with what was small.

• The Spirit of God watched it and recorded it as it grew in priestliness and faithfulness in regard to the word of Jehovah. There was at any rate someone in Israel who would pay attention to what He said.
  • "Jehovah was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, knew that Samuel was established a prophet of Jehovah".

• So he is established a prophet, but what underlies it is priestliness, ministering to the Lord clothed with the linen ephod.

What is needed is the prophetic word. It says in the prophet Hosea,

• "by a prophet Jehovah brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved", chapter 12: 13.

• The prophetic word is intended to deliver the saints from the world, and to preserve them as they pass through the wilderness identified with the service and testimony of God; hence it is always needed,

• so the epistle to the Corinthians encourages us to desire the ability to prophesy, 1 Corinthians 14: 1-5. We have to see to it that we are following after love, and then we may desire earnestly the best gifts.

All our desires for ability to prophesy should be prompted by desire to see the saints prosper and to promote the pleasure of God in His people. If that is the basis of our desires, we may desire earnestly that we may prophesy.

• It is a question of bringing in what is needed, and so we get instruction as to the gift of prophecy, and one may mention at this point, how Isaiah in the 6th chapter tells us of his own conversion, and how one of the seraphim flew to him with a live coal taken with tongs from off the altar, and touched his lips, and said,
  • "Behold, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin expiated", verse 7;

    and then Isaiah heard a voice saying,

    "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?", verse 8.

• That is, someone is needed. Let us bear that in mind; someone is needed to convey the mind of God. It is a means by which the people of God are preserved. Isaiah says,
  • "Here am I; send me".

• The idea of being sent is that you have a message. So Samuel starts his history as a prophet by having a message, and telling it faithfully.

• It is important to recognise the need, and to get to the Lord about it, as ready to be available, not wanting to be someone, equally pleased that it should be someone else, but at the same time not holding back, but accepting responsibility.
  • "Here am I; send me".

Now Scripture shows that sisters also may prophesy, and that they may have their part in conveying the mind of God.

• That is a feature that showed itself in the early days, it was there in Anna, it was there in the daughters of Philip, but we do not often see it now.

• It may be a question for sisters as to whether there is something lacking in this respect, whether that feature which ought to be found among the people of God is lacking, because evidently it has a place.

• Sisters may exercise an influence in the way in which they may convey the mind of God as having received it themselves, and as being marked by moral power as those who have to do with God.

• So this element of prophesying was found with Samuel, and it says that
  • "Jehovah revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of Jehovah".

At the end of 1 Samuel 3 we find that the mind of God is now being manifested, and what is priestly having been secured and being maintained, this element of prophesy is greatly increased.

• So that when David flees from Saul to Samuel, and Saul hears that David is at Naioth by Ramah, Saul follows him there, and he finds a company of prophets prophesying and Samuel standing as president over them, and Saul is exposed, and he lies down naked, 1 Samuel 19: 18-24.

  It shows what power there was, all springing from the early beginnings of which we have spoken.

Power with God in Prayer and Calling on His Name

In chapter 7 we find that what comes to light is the power that Samuel had with God. In the beginning of the chapter he had told the people to apply their hearts to Jehovah to serve Him only, and He would deliver them out of the hand of the Philistines.

• "And Samuel took a sucking-lamb, and offered it as a whole burnt-offering to Jehovah";

• he does not disguise the true state of things. The sucking-lamb denotes smallness, it was just a sucking-lamb, not a bullock, but very small, indicating the smallness of their measure at that time.

• He does not pretend that things are better than they are, but it is the beginning of recovery, and the whole burnt-offering speaks of what is for God.

• The completeness of our acceptance in Christ remains unchanged, though our measure be small, and we can be brought in in the unchanged acceptance of Christ Himself and the value of His death, as indicated in the sucking-lamb. The measure may be small, but that does not alter the acceptance in which we stand before God.
  • "And Samuel cried to Jehovah for Israel, and Jehovah answered him".

He heard Samuel; the Spirit of God is stressing Samuel. If we are prepared to start with what is priestly, and go on growing in that, and seeking the pleasure of God in His people, what may not result from it? It says,

• "Jehovah answered him".

In the Scriptures, Samuel is remarkably honoured hundreds of years afterwards; according to the prophet Jeremiah, it is recorded that Jehovah said to Jeremiah,

• "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, my soul would not turn toward this people", Jeremiah 15: 1,

• evidently alluding to the great power that Moses and Samuel had as intercessors, but even they would not have availed to turn Jehovah toward His people, for the state in Judah was so bad. So God honours Samuel centuries afterwards.

In Psalm 99 he is mentioned also,

• "Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among them that call upon his name", verse 6;

• so it is open to us to develop power with God. How valuable this can be in any local company: power to be able to call upon God, and to get an answer from God. We get other instances in Scripture of God taking account of what individuals are. He says,
  • "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?", Genesis 18: 17.

• He was taking account of Abraham, and what Abraham was as walking with Him, and as pleasing to Him.
  • "I know him", he says, "that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of Jehovah, to do righteousness and justice", verse 19.

• He knew Abraham and what he was in his house, and because of what he was in his house, it says,
  • "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?".

• And he is called the friend of God, 2 Chronicles 20: 7.

• Then we get Daniel too, he was greatly beloved, Daniel 9: 23; 10: 11, 19.

• And so it is open to us, brothers or sisters, beginning with what is priestly, to cultivate power with God as considering for God's pleasure in His people, and who can tell what that may effect in any locality?

Spiritual Judgment

Then in the end of the chapter Samuel comes before us as marked by spiritual judgment, a most important feature in the assembly.

• We are to judge angels and the world, and in view of our judging the world, God allows all sorts of matters to arise in the history of the assembly; they arise in localities, and have to be dealt in localities according to the spirit of judgment, that is, right judgment.
  • "Judge not according to sight, but righteous judgment", John 7: 24.

• First of all, before any judgment is pronounced on a matter, the correct facts have to be carefully ascertained and thorough inquiry made, as we see in Deuteronomy 13: 14 and Deuteronomy 17: 4; then it is a question of bringing to bear upon these facts principles that are according to God.

So it says that "Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. And he went from year to year in circuit to Bethel",

• that is, the house of God, a most important element in judgment, for in the house of God, God requires that things should be suited to Himself.
  • Paul says, "that thou mayest know how one ought to conduct oneself in God's house", 1 Timothy 3: 15.

• We are always the house of God by virtue of the fact that God is dwelling in us by His Spirit, and that is a matter to bear in mind.

• You remember in Numbers that every leper and everyone that had an issue was to be put outside the camp
  • "that they defile not their camps, in the midst whereof I dwell", chapter 5: 3,

• that is the dwelling of God among His people was brought to bear upon them as the ground upon which they were to exclude everything that was not suitable to Himself.

So Samuel went from year to year and judged Israel.

• He went to Gilgal; this place suggests the cutting off of the flesh, what God has effected in the death of Christ, and what we are to maintain in the power of the Spirit; Samuel would bring that to bear on matters as they arose.

• How drastically God has dealt with the flesh in the cross of Christ, and the Spirit of God has come in in order that we may be maintained in what has been done for us! So Samuel would bring Gilgal to bear upon matters that arise.

Then he judged also in Mizpah. The meaning of Mizpah is 'Witness', and in Genesis 31 Laban says,

• "when we shall be hidden one from another … no man is with us; see, God is witness between me and thee!", verses 49-50.

• Mizpah brings that side of the truth before us: God is looking on, that even when we are by ourselves, God is witness. If, at your leisure, you turn to Genesis 31: 45-50, where the place acquired its name, you will see the force of it. Samuel brings that to bear upon matters.

Then, finally, it says, "his return was to Ramah; for there was his house, and there he judged Israel; and there he built an altar to Jehovah".

• That was the place where he maintained his personal links with God. It represents one of the elements of our maintenance, our personal links with God – a most important matter – and that also becomes the means of judging things that arise.

• If we cultivate personal links with God, we shall develop the power of spiritual judgment.

The power to bring Christ in so that
He acquires the place among God's people that He should have

In chapter 16, I think Samuel represents another element. I do not go into the detail of that chapter, but it is particularly occupied with a locality, that is, Bethlehem. It is in view of conditions pleasing to God being found in Bethlehem.

• Saul, that is, the first man at his best, had been rejected by God, and, speaking typically, the point is that Christ is to take his place.

• David was to be anointed, the man of God's choice; that is, to put it simply, the first man is not to be in evidence in our locality. Christ is to be everything and in all. That is what God has in mind, and that is what we should have in mind; we may say we are a long way from it, but let us keep the divine thought before us.

• Paul will admit nothing short of the divine standard in his labours. He says that he laboured to present
  • "every man perfect in Christ", Colossians 1: 28.

Samuel was to go to Bethel to anoint to Jehovah a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, to anoint the king He had provided.

• Samuel understands that if Saul is to be set aside, there is sure to be conflict. He says,
  • "How shall I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me".

• If anything of the first man in any form has a place in any local company, and the Spirit of God is going to work with a view to displacing that and bringing Christ in, we may rest assured there will be conflict, and the point is how to go about it.

• It is like a general, considering the best mode of attack, how to achieve his end with the least possible loss; and Samuel said,
  • "How shall I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me".

  • God said to Samuel, "Take a heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to Jehovah. And call Jesse to the sacrifice",

• and we find in verse 5 that when Samuel moves to Bethel, he says to the leaders that he has come peaceably.
  • "I am come to sacrifice to Jehovah. Hallow yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he hallowed Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice".

The idea of sacrifice to Jehovah was to be set before the elders of Bethlehem. Every true believer would respond to the idea of considering for God, and providing conditions pleasing to God in his locality,

• and so Samuel was to come to Bethlehem with the object of providing conditions that were pleasing to God, that which God could take pleasure in, and all were to be drawn into it.

• Samuel would bring the elders in too, and Jesse and his sons; all were to be drawn into this matter of considering for God with just one object in view, that conditions pleasing to God should be brought in. That necessitates that Christ should be brought in.

• But then Samuel was also to take a heifer with him, and a heifer being a female animal represents, I believe, a certain subjective formation. What I take it to mean is this, that if we would help the saints in any place,
  • we must not only bring in the authoritative word, the mind of God in prophecy, but be the exemplification of the thing; so Samuel was to bring with him the heifer, that which represented the subjective element.

• That is to say, he was not simply to go as a formal minister, but he was himself to exemplify what should be the result of the ministry in God's people, a most important matter.

One has often referred in this connection to the way Paul moved in relation to the Corinthians, bringing in the commandment of the Lord to correct the conditions that were there, but also sending Timothy, who, he said,

• "shall put you in mind of my ways as they are in Christ, according as I teach everywhere in every assembly", 1 Corinthians 4: 17.

• There was not only an authoritative message, but there was the idea of the exemplification of the ministry, by means of which they would be brought to the remembrance of Paul's ways as they were in Christ, as he taught everywhere in every assembly.

• The Spirit of God will always support what is of Christ, as expressed livingly in a place.

I think the history of Samuel is of great interest to us as showing what spiritual elements may be brought in for the help of the saints in any company, arising out of what is priestly.

• If what is priestly is brought in, and maintained, then there can be the development of the prophetic word, power with God in prayer, the spirit of judgment, and the power of exemplifying the truth as it is expressed in His saints.

May the Lord encourage us to go in for these things, for His Name's sake!

2 Timothy 4: 6-11

I have begun with the second epistle to Timothy, because that gives us the public position, that is to say the position of suffering.

• There is the position of suffering, and it is likely not to get less, but rather to get more as we draw near to the close, so the second epistle to Timothy is characterised by the thought of suffering, that idea entering into each one of the four chapters of the epistle,
  • but the fact that suffering enters into the position is in no way intended to discourage, for all through the epistle the apostle sounds a note of victory and triumph, and indeed, beloved brethren, if we will think of it for a moment, it is essential that some element of suffering should enter into our position here, however little we may feel some of us have touched it as yet.

• It is essential that the element of suffering should enter into the assembly's history, because we are to be the Lamb's wife, and not only be that, but to be displayed as the Lamb's wife, and to stand by the side of the Lamb in the day of His public glory.

So we read in Revelation 19: 7, "the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready";

• that is, she is enhancing the occasion by her presence there.

• She is in every way in keeping with the occasion, and the Lamb being the One who has suffered supremely in order to maintain the rights of God and the truth of God, it is fitting, and indeed essential, that the assembly should take on in some degree the same character of suffering,
  • but what one wants to call attention to in connection with this passage in second Timothy is the way the apostle is looking forward to "that day".

• It is an expression which occurs twice in the first chapter, and appears again in the passage we have read … "That day" stands in contrast with this day.

• This day has very nearly come to its end, and it is for us, dear brethren, as committed to the testimony in this day, to have definitely before our minds "that day" …

The apostle is triumphant in this fourth chapter of second Timothy. He says,

• "I am already being poured out, and the time of my release is come. I have combated the good combat, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith".

• He was conscious that he had come to the end of his course. He was now just awaiting martyrdom, the completion of his course in faithfulness to the Lord and to the truth was close at hand. Indeed so close at hand that he could say he had finished his course, and he was, as he says, already being offered.

• But what a note of triumph, dear brethren, when he was at the close. He says,
  • "I have combated the good combat";

• he is not saying, 'I have fought a good fight', as though to say that he had fought well. The point was that the fight in which he had been engaged is "the good combat", the only fight worth being engaged in.
  • "I have combated the good combat", he says, "I have finished the race, I have kept the faith",

• and so, dear brethren, there is constant conflict as we are set to maintain the truth.

He reminds Timothy, that God "has called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages of time, but has been made manifest now by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has annulled death, and brought to light life and incorruptibility by the glad tidings", 2 Timothy 1: 9-10.

• What a note of triumph goes right through as the apostle speaks of these things to Timothy.

• Let us think of our having been called with a holy calling, beloved brethren, and that according to God's purpose and grace, given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but now come into being.

• Life and incorruptibility have come to light in Jesus risen from the dead, and it is available to us, so to speak, by the Spirit, so that there is no reason why we should not go on maintaining the truth in holiness right through to the end.

• Whatever influences contrary to the truth the enemy may seek to introduce, whether it be in the religious sphere, or in the political sphere, or whatever it may be, we are encouraged to go through to the end maintaining the truth in all its features in holiness, and having power for it in
  • "the grace which is in Christ Jesus", chapter 2: 1.

• Paul went through to the end, and at the end he says,
  • "I have combated the good combat, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith",

• and now he is looking on to "that day". It is intended as a stimulus to us to see that we go through to the end, whatever it may cost, fighting the good fight, finishing our course, and keeping the faith, and he says,
  • "Henceforth the crown of righteousness is laid up for me … "

Then he goes on to mention various individuals. It is a serious matter to take account of, dear brethren, that when the testimony of our Lord is in question individuals come into view, and they are tested, and made manifest as to what they are, according to how they have stood in relation to the testimony of our Lord.

• It is a question of the good fight, and whether we are going on in it to the end in faithfulness, or whether we are going to drop out of it.

• Demas dropped out of it, "having loved", it says, "the present age", and there is his name in Scripture, and millions have read about it, showing what a serious thing it is, if once we have had part in the testimony of our Lord, to drop out of it as loving this present world.

• God thinks so seriously of it, that He has caused millions to hear about Demas, a man named in Scripture, and named as having that character, that he gave up the conflict, the good fight, because he "loved the present age".

• Think of the seriousness of it, dear brethren, the seriousness of any such thing becoming true of any one of us just at these closing moments when it is a question of completion, and here is this man who, as the thing drew near to completion, so to speak, in his day, dropped out because he "loved the present age".

But then, on the other hand, Paul can point to one who was with him.

• He says, "Luke alone is with me", and then he says,

  "Take Mark, and bring him with thyself, for he is serviceable to me for ministry".

• Why those two men, Luke and Mark? Why are they singled out? Why is it that those two men are so honourably mentioned? Is it not significant, dear brethren, that they are two men who wrote gospels, two men who were qualified to become the vessels in the hands of the Spirit of God to write gospels?

• What does that mean? It means that they had studied Christ. It must mean that. No one who had not studied Christ could possibly become a vessel in the hands of the Spirit to write a gospel, and so these two men, the one who is with Paul, and the other who is serviceable to him for the ministry, are men, dear brethren, who have made Christ, so to speak, their study,
  • and therefore they go through to the end, because they have a perfect standard before their hearts, and that is the idea.

• Luke appreciates Jesus, the heavenly Man here on earth, the dependent Man, the Man whose influence always resulted in glory to God. Wherever He went, whatever He said, whatever He did, according to Luke's account, people glorified God as a result of it.

• So Luke was with Paul, whose ministry, as we were reading in Ephesians 3, has in view the formation of the assembly, which is to be the great vessel throughout all ages for glory to God.

Then Mark was profitable for the ministry. How is it that he was serviceable? He had once been unserviceable, unprofitable, but now he is serviceable. How is it he has become serviceable?

• The ministry is to go on to the end, there can be no question about that, and if the ministry is to go on to the end and to be fruitful, it is urgent that those who have part in it should study Christ and take Him as their Model. You remember how it says in Mark,
  • "He does all things well", chapter 7: 37.

• What a Model for those who serve in any degree, and so Mark, who, we might have thought, was one not particularly to be taken account of, especially when we think of his early history, is brought in here at the end as one who is serviceable.

• Then there is the reference, as we are so often reminded at the present time, to Paul's cloak, a reminder to Timothy that he is to have a true standard before him, for the cloak would be Paul's measure, and Timothy is to be reminded of it.

• Paul is about to disappear. He is about to depart to be with Christ, and Timothy is to continue in the testimony, but he is to continue as having Paul's cloak, so to speak, with him.

So, dear brethren, before I leave this passage, what one has in mind is that in the rigours and testings of the outward position what is needed is true manhood.

Ephesians 3: 8-21

In reading this passage in Ephesians what I had in mind was to point out that, as nearing the end of his course, Paul tells us that he is concerned about the mystery and about enlightening all as to it, and then moreover, having said that, he tells us how he prays in relation to it.

• We were hearing last night of Daniel as a praying man, and the importance and value of prayer, but here in this passage Paul comes before us as showing us how earnestly he prays.

But before that he speaks to us about the mystery, and the grace given to him to announce among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the administration of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things.

• "That now", he says, "to the principalities and authorities in the heavenlies might be made known through the assembly the all-various wisdom of God".

• Earlier in the chapter he tells us that he desired that the Ephesians might know his intelligence in the mystery; that is, he would have us understand that he, at any rate, had intelligence in the mystery, which, he says,
  • "in other generations has not been made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the power of the Spirit", verse 5.

• It is now revealed, and Paul, at any rate, had remarkable intelligence as to it, intending to convey that there is no reason why we should not increase in under-standing as to the mystery.

I do not say that we are likely to have Paul's intelligence of it, but at the same time he wanted them to know the intelligence that he had, in order to show that it is not beyond the range of the saints.

• Indeed, he was concerned to enlighten all as to the administration of the mystery, and that we might have our eyes opened to see what there is on earth in the assembly, through which principalities and powers in the heavenlies even now are learning the all-various wisdom of God, for, beloved brethren, it is God's masterpiece, the assembly.

• I am not speaking now of it abstractly or theoretically, but I am speaking of it as that which has concrete existence at this present time, and we ourselves are part of it.

There is here on earth – and I say again, we ourselves are part of it – that which is God's masterpiece in wisdom and love, a company drawn out from the nations, knit together, bound together in the power of the Holy Spirit in love amongst ourselves, and

• united in affection towards Christ in glory, and held in relation to Christ, so that He can speak of it, as He does, as "my assembly".

• Whatever Satan may do contrary to the truth, there is that here as held under the influence of Christ, and deriving wisdom from Him in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, which Satan cannot overcome.

• That is a great thing, beloved brethren, that there is a sphere here in which what is of God is maintained in living expression, and it is to be seen in various parts of the world, and in it the service of God is maintained in a unified way and in spiritual power.

• Love amongst ourselves is seen there, and whatever Satan brings in, God turns it all to account to further this wonderful interest of His, which He has here on earth.

• The war [1939-1945] and all the ravages of it, so to speak, all the testings of it, have just brought to light love amongst the saints in a universal way. And it has resulted in the saints being enlarged in their apprehension of this great vessel that God has here on earth, and the links in the divine nature which bind us together have been strengthened and become more real.

God has used all the moral confusion in the world, brought in by the lawlessness of man, with Satan behind it, to further this great interest of His here on earth.

• Whatever has happened, Satan has not been able to interfere with the service of God, but through all the testings the service of God has been enriched.

• The saints are being delivered from earthly-mindedness and from having their interest in things here, and heavenly things and spiritual things are becoming more and more real as a consequence.

• You can understand how angels are taking account of what is going on. They are learning in it
  • "the all-various wisdom of God".

• You might say, dear brethren, 'Well, it looks as though Satan is having it all his own way in the world', but it is not so. God is using everything and turning everything to account to further this great interest of His on earth, the assembly which He is forming, and He is bringing it increasingly into view and making it more real to us all …

After the apostle has spoken about this, and note, he was in a prison, though the conditions may not have been quite so rigorous when he wrote the epistle to the Ephesians as they were when he wrote the second epistle to Timothy, but he tells us he was a prisoner;

• in those conditions he was not praying to the Lord to take him to Himself or to release him from prison.

• He is engaged with the saints, and the ministry of the assembly committed to him, and wanting to enlighten all as to the administration of the mystery; that is, how it works, and the present importance of it, that principalities and powers in the heavenlies are learning in it the all-various wisdom of God. Surely, dear brethren, it is for us to have the assembly before us.

Having said all that, Paul tells us that he bows his knees. Why does he say that? Is it not that we should bow our knees?

• Is it not that we should understand that however much is ministered to us, if we really want to get an impression of the mystery, what the assembly is to Christ, and what it is to God, it is a question of getting down on our knees, of bowing our knees? That is to say, it is a matter of real exercise.

• One is reminded of the incident regarding Othniel and Achsah, Caleb's daughter. Achsah is a type of the assembly, and Caleb says,
  • "He that smites Kirjath-sepher and takes it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter as wife", Joshua 15: 16.

• That is to say, he is really presenting the assembly in her attractiveness. And Othniel goes and smites Kirjath-sepher, the city of the book, and overcomes it.
  • That is, we are not to suppose that we can get into the truth of the assembly merely by reading books.

• Read the ministry by all means, beloved brethren. If the Lord is giving ministry to the assembly, we ought to be diligent to follow it up. Thank God for the ministry, for the books in which it is recorded and made available to us, but let us not think we shall get into it merely by reading books.

And so Othniel had to overcome the city of the book. He moved in energy because he wanted to have Achsah, and if we want to have the assembly, so to speak, and the assembly as the wife, what she is to Christ,

• it is a question not simply of reading books, although we may get help as to the mind of God by reading books,

• but what is necessary is that there should be the energy of the Spirit, for Othniel no doubt represents one in the energy of the Spirit, to apprehend the truth, and if the energy of the Spirit is to come into evidence, what goes with it is that we should be marked by prayer. This thought of prayer is amplified in the incident.

• You remember that Othniel took Kirjath-sepher, and Caleb gave him Achsah his daughter as wife. But then she urges him to ask of her father a field. It is a question now of the influence that she exerts upon Othniel to ask of her father.

• That is what Paul was doing, he was asking of the Father. He said,
  • "I bow my knees to the Father".

• The assembly was so great in his mind that it urged him, so to speak, to get on his knees to the Father. Typically, that is what Achsah does; she urges Othniel to ask of her father. Then it says,
  • "she sprang down from the ass. And Caleb said to her, What wouldest thou? And she said, Give me a blessing; for thou hast given me a southern land; give me also springs of water. Then he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs".

Some of us have been together these last three days, and I think we have had a taste of the southern land which God has given us, a good land indeed.

• But now what is needed, beloved brethren, are the upper and the nether springs.

• It is a question of the power of the Spirit operating in us both in relation to heavenly things and also in relation, you might say, to the responsible life here, because if we are not maintained fulfilling righteousness in the responsible life here, we shall not be able to rise to the spiritual level that God has in mind for us.

So Paul tells us that he bowed his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

• "of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named, in order that he may give you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man; that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts".

• I know nothing more encouraging than this, beloved brethren, nothing more stimulating than that we should give ourselves to praying to the Father in relation to this great matter of the assembly and our apprehending it in a real way.
  • That the Father "may give you … to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man".

• It is the Father's Spirit. The Father is the Originator of these great thoughts of divine love, and in them, Christ Himself is the Centre. And the Father in devising the assembly has been considering for Christ, providing something for the affections of Christ.

• The more you think of it the more you see how everything dove-tails together in wonderful wisdom, but the Father is the Source of all, the One who has conceived it, and it is the Father's Spirit which strengthens us with might in the inner man.

The Father's Spirit will give us something of the Father's thoughts, and the Father's feelings in regard to Christ, and the Father's intentions in relation to Christ in giving Him the assembly,

• and will give us to understand the portion that the assembly with Christ is to fill out in the whole range of glory of which the Father is the Source.

• It says that every family in the heavens and on earth is named of the Father. What an immensity of glory, of which the Father is the Source, lies before us! And we are nearing the actuality of it. We are to get an impression of the immensity of it,
  • "the breadth and length and depth and height".

• The Spirit of God uses these words to convey that there is an immense range that we are to take up, that we are to enter upon. We are in the very centre of it, dear brethren, because we belong to Christ. Christ is the Centre of it, and the assembly is with Him, in the very centre of it. The assembly has the foremost place with Christ. Wonderful thing!

And so the apostle prays that "the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts".

• As He dwells in our hearts, the true wifely features proper to the assembly will develop at the present time: faithfulness as to His interests and consideration for His tastes.

• There is plenty to do, dear brethren, at the present time. Proverbs 31 shows us how much there is to do, how the assembly is to be marked by activity that is the result of her wifely affections for Christ, as the outcome of the Christ dwelling in her heart by faith. All these things are open to us.

• I would beg of you, dear brethren, as I would urge upon myself, not to allow these things to be just abstract thoughts in our minds, but to seek that we might get a greater view in a concrete way of what there is here among the saints.

• The assembly is to be seen now representatively, and its features, in all that it is for the heart of Christ and for God, are more and more to come into expression.

But then the apostle gives us this wonderful example, he tells us that in the light of these great things, he bows his knees to the Father.

• There is much wealth in the passage which one could not touch upon now, leading up to that which we so often speak of as to the assembly as the great vessel of praise to God throughout all generations of the age of ages.
  • "To him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages".

• We are to be concerned as to the service of God now. How shall we develop in ability to ascribe glory to God unto all generations of the age of ages, if we do not avail ourselves now of the Holy Spirit, as capable of developing us in spiritual intelligence and affections, so that we might be formed as the vessel of praise?

Philippians 3: 12-14

Just a word now in closing, on the third of Philippians, because there we find Paul also at the close of his course, for he is ready to be offered, or rather as he says in chapter 2,

• "if also I am poured out as a libation on the sacrifice and ministration of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice in common with you all", verse 17;

• showing that he was contemplating martyrdom, and rejoicing in it. He was now drawing near to the close of his history, and what impresses one in relation to Paul in this epistle, is that, wonderful man though he had been, with wonderful gift, and wonderfully devoted in service, and he still was devoted to the saints, as we see from Ephesians 3, the one thing that was before his heart was that he might win Christ, have Christ as his gain.

• His one desire was to know Christ better. He speaks of the
  • "excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord", chapter 3: 8.

• It is what a spiritual man has before him at the close of his career; not that he is giving up service, not that he is ceasing to pray for the saints or anything of that sort, but over and above all that, he is commanded by one thought, that he desires to know Christ and to have Him as his gain.

• And not only that, but he has known that he has been apprehended by Christ Jesus, for a calling on high of God in Christ Jesus. He is viewing Christ Jesus, Christ in glory, the Man of God's purpose and good pleasure, and he sees that he, as an individual saint, and so with every individual saint, has been taken up to be found in Christ.

It is a wonderful thing, beloved brethren. If we have it before us, I think it will help us to renounce everything that would attach any kind of importance to us as in the flesh, or minister to self-gratification in any form.

• The more we get into our souls that we have been apprehended for a calling on high of God in Christ Jesus, Christ Himself where He is is the Pattern of it, the more we shall recognise that the one thing to do is to allow God to go on working in our souls to that end, bringing us increasingly at this present moment into conformity to the One to whom we are shortly to be conformed, even as to our bodily condition. For that is what Paul had before him.
  • He said, "we await the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, who shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to his body of glory, according to the working of the power which he has even to subdue all things to himself", verses 20-21.

• Christ's body of glory enshrines supreme moral excellence in a Man, and we ourselves are to be found in Him, and our bodies conformed to His body of glory. We have been apprehended for that.

Paul understood that God was using everything in his circumstances to further the work in him of moral conformation to Christ. He would accept everything with that in view.

• We read from the first chapter what the circumstances were; he was in bonds, and that unrighteously. And then certain brethren were seeking to add tribulation to his bonds by preaching Christ out of contention. Think of what that would mean to the spirit of a man like Paul! And now the question was, was he going to be overcome, or how was he going to meet it?
  • He says, "for I know that this shall turn out for me to salvation, through your supplication and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ", chapter 1: 19.

• He would not allow himself to be overcome by it. He rejoiced that Christ was preached, and as to the circumstances, in the way they affected him, he would accept them and be with God in them, in the spirit of obedience

• It is set out in its blessedness in Christ in the second chapter; it has proved itself of such moral excellence in the sight of God, that He has ordained that the One marked by obedience supremely, shall be acknowledged by all, heavenly, earthly, and infernal beings, acknowledged by all as Lord.

• God is going to exalt publicly the Man in whom obedience was supremely seen, and, beloved brethren, God will use every circumstance in our life, if we are with Him in it, and are in the light of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus, to promote further the features of Christ in us so that we may be found truly answering to our calling.

Paul says, "I do not count to have got possession myself; but one thing – 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".

• "One thing" – it is a good thing for us to have one thing before us. If we have one thing before us, beloved brethren, we shall make a straight course; and if we allow ourselves to be diverted from the one thing that God would have governing us, we shall not make a straight course.

• What a day it will be, when suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, we find ourselves absolutely and for ever with Christ. Not a trace left of what we have been, not a trace left of the flesh, nor of the poor, frail, mortal conditions that we are in at the moment; and yet it will be ourselves, in the full result of the work of God in us. What more is there to be desired? What glory to have it before us!

• The apostle would urge us, so to speak, by his own example. He is ranging himself alongside of us as one of the brethren and he tells us what is before him. And if that was before a spiritual man like Paul, as he was nearing the end of his day, we, as conscious that we are nearing the end of our history here, may well have it before us also.

Well, that was what I had in mind, dear brethren, that what was governing the mind of Paul as he neared the end of his course, might be found governing us also.

May the Lord grant it for His Name's sake.

1. First of all, the feature of moral excellence as taking character from Christ, seen in subjection and being clothed;

2. then secondly, the feature of intelligence, which, I think, is what is in view in Mary;

3. and then thirdly, the feature of the spirit of worship. I think God would look for all this in the assembly.

In each case, as I say, the person is spoken of as sitting – a spiritual habit which we need to cultivate – the ability to sit; not listlessly, nor self-indulgently, nor self-complacently, but sitting in subjection, and at the same time, in alertness. That is a thing to be cultivated.

• Perhaps there never was more need of it than today, because the tendency in present-day conditions, with things moving at a great pace, is for the mind to move continually from one thing to another, and it is often difficult to acquire a quiet mind; a mind that is alert, and at the same time restful.

• That, I believe, is essential – a quiet mind and a quiet spirit – if we are to have our part acceptably in the assembly.

While the Lord Jesus Himself is presented to us as sitting, it is not quite in the same way as it applies to us. In the case of the Lord Jesus, His sitting position speaks of exaltation, and of the completion of what He has done.

• As it is said, "But he, having offered one sacrifice for sins, sat down in perpetuity at the right hand of God, waiting from henceforth until his enemies be set for the footstool of his feet", Hebrews 10: 12-13.

  And then again in Colossians, "seek the things which are above, where the Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God", chapter 3: 1.

• We are to have the light in our souls that Christ is sitting at the right hand of God as indicative of a position of exaltation consequent upon His having completed the work of redemption, and also in order that our minds and affections might be carried to where He is, so as to understand that
  • there is a system of interests connected with Himself where He is, to which we are to devote our attention.

• He is also presented as sitting as a Refiner, Malachi 3: 3. That is intended to convey to us the idea that He has a matter in hand to which He is giving deliberate attention, so He sits down to it and attends to it carefully, and deliberately; He is sitting as a Refiner.

• That is going on amongst His people in this time, especially amongst those in any degree walking in the truth. The Lord's activities as a Refiner are constantly going on, and wisdom lies in recognising it and submitting ourselves.

Now to come to these three. As I said, we do not want to get the idea of sitting, as applying to ourselves, in any listless or self-indulgent way.

• We read of Eli grown old, sitting by the wayside, his heart trembling for the ark, but having no power to stem the course of evil that was over-running Israel. Then it says, he fell backward and broke his neck,
  • "for the man was old, and heavy", 1 Samuel 4: 18.

• We do not want to become like that, through lack of spiritual exercise. Then we read of Saul who was sitting under a tree at Gibeah, his spear in his hand, 1 Samuel 22: 6 – a man who would gather others around himself, and was marked by motives of self-seeking.

Luke 8: 35

Now the first of the three who are sitting according to God is the demoniac, or rather the man out of whom the legion had departed; he sets forth the first results of the teaching of grace. He had been brought into touch with the Lord Jesus.

• He is presented as an extreme case – one possessed of a legion of demons, but an extreme case is presented in order to show what the divine intention is, that each of us should be marked by the features that marked this man.

• They come and find this man sitting at the feet of Jesus. Obviously in a position of subjection, and now under a new control; he was clothed, and was now possessed of certain positive characteristics that did not previously mark him; for previously he wore no clothes; he was exposed in his nakedness. Finally, he was sensible – in his right mind.

Now it may be an elementary thing to say, but it is well to understand that none of us is a free agent, nor is it intended that we should be.

• Apart from the grace of God, whether men know it or not, they are the slaves of sin. In Romans 6 it says,
  • "But thanks be to God, that ye were bondmen of sin, but have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which ye were instructed", verse 17

• – ye were the bondmen of sin. God's way in grace to secure men and women for the assembly, which is the great object of God's operations in this time, is to bring them under the sway of Christ. He has no other way.

• It is not God's intention that any one of us should be lawless or marked by self-will. His one way of delivering souls from lawlessness, and securing them for Himself and His own pleasure and the assembly, is to bring each one under the influence and sway of Christ.

Now this man was there; he was sitting at the feet of Jesus. It says in Romans 6 that we were the bondmen of sin, but

• "have become bondmen to righteousness", verse 18;

• not become free agents to do what you will, but you come under the sway of that principle – righteousness.

• The world is a great system of sin, where every kind of will and fancy of man is catered for. Now the Lord Jesus has come in and died to sin once, in order that we might understand that God has set us free from the dominion of sin; grace entitles us to reckon ourselves
  • "dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus".

    "He has died to sin once for all; but in that he lives, he lives to God", Romans 6: 10-11.

God has brought in, in Christ, a Man great enough in His own moral excellence to transform everyone brought into touch with Him.

• Never was it more seen, I suppose, than in the case of the apostle Paul. He was taken up by God to set forth livingly every feature of the truth.

• He was a pattern sinner, an insolent overbearing man; the kind of man that you would not find it at all easy to get on with. In addition, a blasphemer and persecutor who breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, but what does he become? We all know what Paul became.
  • "I myself, Paul, entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of the Christ", 2 Corinthians 10: 1.

• He says, "I myself, Paul", as though he would set himself before them. They all knew well what his history had been, but he could now set himself before them and say,
  • "I myself, Paul, entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of the Christ".

• If Paul had not himself been marked by a spirit of meekness and gentleness, he would not have dared to say that.

I know this is fundamental, but I would urge it upon you, and young believers especially.

• Do not think, because you have trusted Christ, and received forgiveness of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, that that is everything.

• God has indeed forgiven your sins, and you are entitled to rejoice in His favour, for He is holding nothing against you, but has brought you into favour in Christ, the Beloved.

• You can be in the enjoyment of the love of God, but He intends that you should understand that the One who has redeemed you is the One to whom you are to live.

Christ "gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all lawlessness, and purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous for good works", Titus 2: 14.

• You notice what it says, "to himself". Henceforth the believer's attitude of mind and spirit is towards Christ. What a subduing and sanctifying effect that has.

• You begin to discover in you some element of self-seeking, perhaps seeking a reputation even amongst the people of God, for
  • "The heart is deceitful above all things, and incurable; who can know it?" but then,

    "I Jehovah search the heart", Jeremiah 17: 9-10.

• Thank God He does! In faithfulness He discloses what is in our hearts, and at the same time freshly reminds us that He Himself went into death that it might be for ever set aside from before God. Our blessing lies in living to Him.

• As the element of self-seeking or wanting a reputation arises, the Lord speaks to you. He reminds you that He was in the form of God, that He is God; He did not think it robbery to be equal with God –
  • "did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself, taking a bondman's form", Philippians 2  6-7.

The Lord reminds us of these things, counteracting what comes to light in our hearts by what is resident in Himself.

• This man was sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed. He had previously been naked – worn no clothes; all the wretchedness of the flesh was openly manifest in him. They now find him sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed.

• What kind of clothing would you like to appear in? God has indicated the Man in whom He delights; it is because of the moral excellence that has come to light in Jesus that God has
  • "highly exalted him, and granted him a name, that which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow", Philippians 2: 9-10:

• the name of the One who made Himself of no reputation and took a bondman's form. That is the extent to which love would go.

God wants His assembly to be composed of persons who have taken on the features of Christ and of no other – this is essential.

• When He had in mind to bring in deliverance for His people Israel in view of His house, He raised up David, a man after His own heart.

• Saul was outwardly head, but he was not the man of God's choice; God found David a man after His own heart and set him up over His people, and in result they all came to appreciate David and repudiate the other man.

This man in Luke 8 is found sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and sensible. I do not think that supposes a large measure of intelligence, but that his mind is in the right direction.

• Previously his mind was entirely wrong, under the influence of evil, and Romans 6 is very much occupied with getting our minds in the right direction. You yield yourself to God, you take account of yourself as
  • "dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus", verse 11.

• Grace having set us in that position – bondmen of righteousness – you are wholly yielded to that principle.

A bondman is completely yielded to the person to whom he is bondman. As yielding ourselves,

• our "members instruments of righteousness to God", verse 13,

• we become bondmen of righteousness, and then it says,
  • "bondmen to God", verse 22.

• There is nothing to be ashamed of in being bondmen. Each of the five apostles who have been taken up to write to us, Peter, John, James, Jude and Paul, speaks of himself as a bondman, John in the Revelation, and the others in one or other of the epistles.

• There is nothing to be ashamed of in being a bondman of righteousness, a bondman of God, a bondman of Christ –
  • "the freeman being called is Christ's bondman", 1 Corinthians 7: 22.

• To be bondmen is God's way of completely delivering us and securing us for His pleasure.

Luke 10: 38-42

Well now, when we come to Luke 10 we have an advance on chapter 8, and I believe intelligence is more particularly in view in this chapter.

• In chapter 8 it is a question of subjection especially, and as a result, taking on moral features that are pleasing to God, which are derived from Christ,
  • but chapter 10 is a question of intelligence – characteristically listening to the word of Christ.

• The chapter raises the question as to what the Lord looks for and finds in places where His people live. He does not find the same conditions in one place as He does in another. The exercise is, what kind of conditions He is going to find in this place or that?

• The chapter begins with the Lord sending out seventy, two by two,
  • "into every city and place where he himself was about to come".

• That is a serious consideration! The Lord sending out the seventy has specially in view Paul's ministry, that is something additional to the ministry of the twelve in chapter 9. The Lord is coming to see what the result is, to take account of what is there as the result of the ministry that He has given.

Well, one cannot dwell on the chapter now, but an important point is that we are to rejoice that our names are written in heaven, verse 20.

• That is, we keep our mind in that direction, we take account that our calling is heavenly, and this will give its character, lustre and dignity to what there is for God in the place. As in Ephesians –
  • "walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye have been called", chapter 4: 1.

• That is, you test things; you test your behaviour in the assembly, you test what is going on in the assembly; is it in keeping with the heavenly calling?

• Then in the parable of the Good Samaritan, as we speak of it, the Lord shows the spirit in which His interests in the locality are to be cared for
  • – "Take care of him", Luke 10: 35.

• The spirit really of the new covenant, the spirit of grace; the spirit of supply and not demand; not the official spirit of the priest and Levite, nor the legal spirit of the lawyer; and all in view of the Lord coming to see what there is for God.

In the beginning of the next chapter we have the Lord praying in a certain place, showing the great place that prayer has in this matter, but in between we get this little incident as to the house of Martha, and Mary in it, and what the Lord commends. It says,

• "And it came to pass … that he entered into a certain village".

• This is a village with certain persons there, and marked by certain features; the next village would not have the same persons and features.

• What does He find? He finds a spirit of unsubduedness, of activity that is not rightly controlled. Activity for the Lord is good, but let it be rightly directed. Here Martha's activity was out of place, and it brings into relief the attitude taken up by Mary.
  • It says, "she had a sister called Mary, who also, having sat down at the feet of Jesus was listening to his word".

• That is, it was characteristic of her. That is important if there is to be intelligence – we are to be habitually marked by listening to the word of Jesus; as in Colossians,
  • "Let the word of the Christ dwell in you richly", chapter 3: 16.

  "The Christ" is the anointed Head, the glorious Head of the assembly, and He is always speaking to the assembly. Let us see to it that the ministry which He gives, that which is distinctively from Himself, has a definite place in our lives.

• That we will not just read it if we have time, but we will make time, and not just go to the meetings if we have time, but make time.

• I am not, of course, ignoring unavoidable circumstances that arise to hinder, the Lord knows about that, but I am only urging that this attitude of mind – listening to the word of Jesus in a spirit of subjection, sitting at His feet – should characterise us.

The word of Jesus is what comes to us, maybe through the local brethren, through gifts the Lord raises up, or through what is published, but the thing is, to be characterised by listening to the word of Jesus.

• I do not think we can expect that God will have the pleasure that He desires from the assembly if it lacks in intelligence. In Ephesians it says,
  • "he has caused to abound towards us in all wisdom and intelligence, having made known to us the mystery of his will", chapter 1: 8-9.

• How much do we know about the will of God? Epaphras laboured for the saints at Colosse that they might
  • "stand perfect and complete in all the will of God", chapter 4: 12.

• Let us ask ourselves how much we understand of the will of God. Not so much His will in relation to our pathway, though that has its place, but how much do we understand of the will of God which really centres in Christ and the assembly?

• God desires that we should grow up in intelligence, and that can only be secured as Christ is livingly held as Head in the affections of the saints, and His word is recognised in that light.

• We do not come to listen to this brother or that brother, but come in the faith of our souls that the Lord, as the living Head of the assembly, will take the occasion to speak, and His word is to be listened to.

• We have of course to prove all things. The Bereans are commended for that, they are contrasted with the Thessalonians as being more noble because of
  • "receiving the word with all readiness of mind, daily searching the scriptures if these things were so", Acts 17: 11.

Now the apostle, in writing to the Thessalonians, draws attention to that feature that was lacking in them, and says,

• "quench not the Spirit; do not lightly esteem prophecies; but prove all things, hold fast the right", 1 Thessalonians 5: 19-21.

• The feature that was marking the Bereans is the feature that the apostle specially mentions to the Thessalonians when he writes to them.

• And so the epistle to the Colossians develops this thought of the headship of Christ, and the intelligence that is to flow from it. He warns the saints against
  • "philosophy and vain deceit", chapter 2: 8,

    and then says, it is "not according to Christ".

• That is to say, everything that is presented is tested in that way – is it of Christ? Is it according to Christ? You notice the Lord commends Mary in saying,
  • "there is need of one",

• it really is, that is the one thing that is needful;
  • "and Mary has chosen the good part, the which shall not be taken from her".

If in any degree we have become marked by the features of the man in chapter 8, let us see to it also that we seek to take on this feature of characteristically listening to the word of Christ, that we may become intelligent in the mind of God,

• for God has nothing less than sonship in mind: and that involves affection and intelligence.

• A father and mother take pleasure in their young children and delight in their affection and simplicity, but they delight in seeing intelligence develop; they rejoice in the time when their children can converse with them intelligently and sympathetically.

• So God is like that: He wants His children not to remain babes, but to enter intelligently into His own thoughts, and respond to them according to His mind.

1 Chronicles 17: 16-27

Now when we come to Chronicles we have depicted what is greatest. I can only touch on it for a moment, but it says,

• "king David went in and sat before Jehovah".

• It was a deliberate movement on his part. He had it in his heart to build a house for Jehovah, but God intercepted him through the prophet Nathan and told him that he was not to build it: it would seem that something was necessary before it could be built. David understands.

• What is in view now is the assembly as the great vessel of praise and worship Godward; the place where God is served.

• Are our gatherings together worthy of God? Is our response worthy of the blessed God, is all that takes place in our gatherings suggestive of the assembly of God – the privilege, and dignity, and liberty, and intelligence of such a company?

• I believe intelligence and subjection are the two great features that should be seen publicly in the assembly as convened.

• Subjection should be seen in brothers as well as sisters; but I believe sisters are intended to set forth especially the great feature of subjection. Brothers too are to be marked by subjection –
  • "spirits of prophets are subject to prophets", 1 Corinthians 14: 32

• – subjection that is governed by intelligence, but intelligence is specially to be seen in the brothers. They should be able to speak intelligently, and move intelligently, whether in the service of God, or ministry towards the saints, and sisters are to set forth the great feature of subjection.

• So you will remember in 1 Corinthians 14, where the apostle is dealing with the assembly and what is to mark it, he speaks largely of intelligence and understanding, but he insists on the sisters being silent in the assembly and being in subjection, verse 34.

• Those two features are to mark the assembly: intelligence and subjec-ion. In so far as they do, it is worthy of God.

Well now, David as having in his heart to build the house, but being told he must not do it, goes and sits before God.

• In doing so he sets before us that, if we would develop in the ability to respond to God in a true spirit of worship, we must learn to sit before God, and allow God, so to speak, to become greater and greater before our eyes and hearts, as we take account of what He is going to do.

• Because, after all, God must be supreme; He must be greatest; and the more He becomes great before our eyes, the more there will spring up in our hearts the spirit of worship.

• So God deflects David from the movements which would have occupied him with what he was going to do, and he goes and sits before God, and allows what God has said to sink into his mind and heart, and to be impressed with the fact that it is all what God is going to do.

When we apply this idea to ourselves, I have no doubt we find the answer in Ephesians. If the answer to Luke 10 is in Colossians, the answer to this is in Ephesians where we find the apostle in a spirit of worship; and what is causing the worship?

• He is really imbued, as he writes that epistle, with a sense of what God is pleased to do for His own pleasure and according to His own glory.
  • "Paul", he says, "apostle of Jesus Christ by God's will", chapter 1: 1.

    Then he speaks of "the good pleasure of his will", verse 5, and the One "who works all things according to the counsel of his own will", verse 11.

    "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ; according as he has chosen us in him before the world's foundation, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love; having marked us out beforehand for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has taken us into favour in the Beloved", verses 3-6.

• What great thoughts they are, emanating from God Himself! Only God could have conceived them. They are not called forth by any condition of need on our part, for they were formed before the foundation of the world.

• God would display what He is in His greatness, but more than that, He would set forth what He is in the blessedness of His own heart: sons of men in the place of sonship; involving that a divine Person, in fulness of time, should become Man, accomplishing redemption that we might be brought into it by the grace of God, and stand before Him as sons.

The glory of redemption has shone out –

• "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences, according to the riches of his grace", verse 7.

• There is not only the glory of His grace, but the riches of God's grace, and the incoming of sin has involved that God has shone out in a way that could never have been known otherwise.

There has been a display of holiness, righteousness, grace; there has been a display of mercy and of power, in bringing in everything on the platform of resurrection, and we, as taken up according to divine purpose

• are intended to sit down before God and let the sense of the greatness of God sink into our hearts, that there might be produced more real substance, more real, intelligent appreciation of the blessed God, that there might be worship Godward that is worthy of Him.

• I believe that is set forth in this chapter. David speaks in a real spirit of worship. He says,
  • "Who am I … ?" and then verse 19 –

    "according to thine own heart, hast thou done all this greatness"; and then in verse 20 –

    "Jehovah, there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee";

• in verse 21, is the thought of redemption, and how David glories in it; then in verse 24 – all that God has said,
  • "Let it even be established, and let thy name be magnified for ever, saying, Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, is God to Israel".

• That is, He is not only the God of Israel, but God to Israel. Israel holds Him now in their affections in that regard.

That surely, dear brethren, is our portion –

• "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ", Ephesians 1: 3.

• He is God, He is that to us, so that as worshipping the Father in spirit and truth, what we come to is that the One we worship in this holy and blessed way, knowing Him as sons, is God, thus known,
  • and He becomes the great theme of worship of His people. God becomes all in all.

• God would bring this about in the assembly now, that a greater sense of the grace conferred upon us – that we should be taken up to form part of the assembly – should be with us. I believe we are to cherish above everything, that we belong to the assembly.

• We have everything in Christ and the Spirit to enable us now to seize every thought that God has in His mind for the assembly, and we should be developed in our affections and intelligence, and learn to sit before Him, that the sense of His greatness might sink into our hearts.

• May the Lord help us to cultivate the spirit of sitting at the feet of Jesus, and sitting in the presence of the blessed God!

In Ezekiel 1 the prophet is given to see a vision, and a vision which conveys that in an indirect and unseen way God is exercising control over what is moving on the earth.

• The prophet sees, amongst other things, wheels within wheels; wheels whose rims are exceeding high and full of eyes, indicating that there is nothing that escapes the notice of God.

• Above that, he sees the expanse as a terrible crystal, as though to impress us with the thought that
  • "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all", 1 John 1: 5.

• The heavenly city will come forth clear as crystal, but Ezekiel speaks of the terrible crystal indicating that there is no darkness with God, everything is as clear as possible in His sight.
  • All that is being done, whether by nations or by His people as moving together, is perfectly clear before Him as to its true character.

• Then above all that, he sees a throne and the appearance of a man upon it. We are reminded that the Lord Jesus is in supreme control, however much things happening in the world or even amongst ourselves at times might suggest otherwise.

• Faith recognises that the Lord Jesus is in supreme control and considering always for God, although He is there as a Man who is sympathetic with His people.

The thought of the government of God is a very salutary and sobering thought but an encouraging one if we are prepared to go on with what is good. The apostle says,

• "God is not mocked; for whatever a man shall sow, that also shall he reap", Galatians 6: 7.

• That is, it is an invariable principle with God. It is part of His ways, and I would say that His ways do not interfere with His counsels of grace.

• He has indeed taken us up sovereignly in His love for the greatest conceivable thoughts of blessing, but the fact that we are blessed in Christ, and stand in the place of sons before Him, in no way exempts us from the operation of His governmental ways.

• We have to bear that in mind, and as doing so, we shall find we are helped, because that preserves us in the fear of God and preserves us from coming under influences that might otherwise prejudicially affect us. So it says,
  • "whatever a man shall sow, that also shall he reap. For he that sows to his own flesh, shall reap corruption from the flesh",

    but then it says,

    "he that sows to the Spirit, from the Spirit shall reap eternal life",

• and that is rather the side which I wanted to stress.

• While there is the side of God's government which operates against what is evil, so that if I sow to my flesh I shall of the flesh reap corruption,
  • what I desired to stress is that there is the side of God's government which is advantageous to me; if I sow to the Spirit I shall of the Spirit reap eternal life.

In 1 Timothy we have a similar thing where the apostle says,

• "Of some men the sins are manifest beforehand, going before to judgment, and some also they follow after", 1 Timothy 5: 24.

• The government of God is inexorable. Then it says,
  • "In like manner good works also are manifest beforehand, and those that are otherwise cannot be hid", verse 25.

• That is a most encouraging word to go on with what is good in the sight of God whether it becomes manifest at once or not, for eventually the position is that it cannot be hid. Then in Luke 6 the Lord says,
  • "Give, and it shall be given to you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall be given into your bosom: for with the same measure with which ye mete it shall be measured to you again", verse 38.

• That is again an invariable principle in God's ways, that with what measure we mete it shall be measured to us again. So there is every encouragement to sow to the Spirit.

• It is a question of what we allow our minds to be engaged with, whether we recognise that we have dwelling in us the Holy Spirit of God who is ready to guide into all the truth.

• He has all the wealth of His Master in His hands – as in Genesis 24 – and whether we are prepared to allow our minds to come under the power and control of the Spirit, more and more characteristically so.

• We shall thus find that of the Spirit we reap life everlasting, the things of God become increasingly real and satisfying to us. They really become our life, and a life that cannot be taken away from us by death.

I read the scripture in Galatians to draw attention to this great principle of God's government which is always operating in relation to each one of us individually, and it is well for us to face it,

• for we are either sowing to the flesh or sowing to the Spirit, and it is a question of the lines on which we are going to prosper spiritually.
  • It says, "And Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year a hundredfold", Genesis 26: 12.

• That is how God operates in blessing towards those who pay respect to this principle upon which blessing is enjoyed.

Now I refer to the reign of Asa, as recorded for us in 2 Chronicles, as rather enforcing what I have in mind, and that too as relating to the people of God as going on together,

• because Asa was the king of Judah and really stood as representative of the people. The prophet Oded comes to him and says,
  • "Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: Jehovah is with you while ye are with him; and if ye seek him he will be found of you, but if ye forsake him he will forsake you", 2 Chronicles 15: 2.

• We often ask that the Lord will be with us, but I believe it is important to bear this in mind that the Lord is with us if we are with Him; it is a question of whether we are with Him.

• It should always be our concern to be with Him in what He is doing, to be with Him in His own thoughts, in His own outlook.

• If He is giving ministry to the saints we are concerned to be with Him in it, not to be inattentive to it, not to think it is too hard for us to understand, but to be concerned to follow it up, to be with Him in it.

• The Lord ministers to the assembly constructively, not promiscuously, and if we would be led into all the truth, if we are to answer to all that God has in mind for His people, it must be our concern to be with the Lord. The Lord is with us if we are with Him.

• The same thing also applies, not only in regard to what the Lord is giving in ministry, but in relation to any matters that arise amongst us; our great concern is to be with Him, and He will be with us as we are with Him.

• That involves exercise as to a suited state of soul. For instance, it says,
  • "God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble", 1 Peter 5: 5,

    and it says,

    "to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word", Isaiah 66: 2.

• That is the kind of man who can be with God, be with the Lord; one who is concerned to be suitable morally, judging immediately every working of pride and will, and maintained in the presence of God in a humble and contrite spirit.

• I believe that was what Elijah had in mind when he went with Elisha from Gilgal, first to Bethel and then to Jericho and then to the Jordan, and at each point he said, "tarry here". He was testing Elisha as to whether he was prepared to be with him.

• Elisha responded to the test three times showing that he was concerned to be with Elijah,
  • "As Jehovah liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee!"

• and thus he was fitted to take Elijah's place in ministry here.

So the prophet Oded says, "Jehovah is with you while ye are with him; and if ye seek him he will be found of you, but if ye forsake him he will forsake you", 2 Chronicles 15: 2.

• Then he goes on to indicate what had for a long time marked Israel, they were
  • "without the true God, and without a teaching priest"

• simply because of departure from God. God's government was working out and had been working out until they realised it, and when they in their trouble turned to Jehovah the God of Israel and sought Him, He was found of them.

• Then the prophet goes on to speak of what had marked those times,
  • "no peace to him that went out nor to him that came in, but great disturbances were amongst all the inhabitants of the countries", verse 5.

• It was a question of the government of God working out among the people of God, but Asa had brought in recovery, and in the previous chapter their faith had been tested when an army of one million Ethiopians had come against them and they were only about half as strong, but they were seeking Jehovah and He answered them and gave them the victory.
  • The prophet says, "Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded", verse 7.

• It says that when Asa heard these words he took courage and went forward removing all that was obnoxious to God among the people and it went right on to their taking an oath to serve Jehovah, and
  • "Jehovah gave them rest round about", verse 15

The second book of Chronicles is remarkable in this way that it does not only record history, but constantly gives us the moral bearing of it,

• and frequently shows us how the government of God follows us even to our burial, for there is no book like it for recording the kind of burial certain persons had

• and it will always be found to be in keeping with the course they had pursued, showing that the government of God will follow us even to our burial.

In 2 Chronicles 16 Asa is again threatened, and this time he does not turn to the Lord but turns to the king of Syria and at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa.

• This time it is a seer; in the previous chapter it is a prophet who came to him with the word of the Lord. The seer does not speak as having a word from the Lord to communicate to Asa but he speaks as one who sees things.

• We may see things as observing God's ways and understanding them, as it says at the end of Psalm 107,
  • "Whoso is wise, let him observe these things, and let them understand the loving-kindnesses of Jehovah".

• Observation enters into spiritual things and ability, as observing God's ways, to bring home to people what the consequences are sure to be of a certain course they are on. The seer comes and says,
  • "Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and hast not relied on Jehovah thy God, therefore has the army of the king of Syria escaped out of thy hand", 2 Chronicles 16: 7.

  • Then in verse 9, "For the eyes of Jehovah run to and fro through the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward him",

• a remarkable statement. The seer, though having to reprove the king on account of his defection, brings forward the operations of God's government in favour of those whose heart is perfect towards Him.

• That is what he would stress, what he would leave with Asa as if to encourage him to get away from everything that is in the nature of departure from God, and he would find, as going on with God, that he was not overlooked.

• What a word of encouragement for everyone of us in these days that are becoming increasingly difficult for the people of God, for those who desire to be true and faithful and not allow any compromise of the truth! What an encouragement to think that
  • "the eyes of Jehovah run to and fro through the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward him".

Alas, Asa was wroth and had the seer put in prison, and oppressed some of the people;

• a sorrowful ending of a man whose course in the main had been pleasing to God.

• In the thirty-ninth year of his reign he was diseased in his feet. After going on for many years with God, it is possible to get away at the end and become diseased in our feet so that our walk is no longer pleasing to God. The nature of Asa's burial is recorded,
  • "And they buried him in his own sepulchre, which he had excavated for himself in the city of David", 2 Chronicles 16: 14.

• Maybe the secret of his defection was that he wanted a monument to his own greatness, that that had been in his mind, and the Spirit of God brings it out now at the end.

• He was buried with mixed spices, as though there was a certain mixture that entered into it. It is a sorrowful thing that while there is the recognition of all that there has been of God there is also the recognition that there has been something else.

How different is the case of Jehoiada the priest. He was not a king but a priest, but it says,

• "they buried him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel, both toward God and toward his house", 2 Chronicles 24: 15.

• He had simply wrought good toward God and His house and having been marked by that throughout his long life of 130 years he died full of days, showing that he had gone on day by day with God.
  • The secret of spiritual prosperity is to go on day by day with God.

• Today is the thing that is important, how we get through today, and to watch the beginnings of defection, because every defection begins on one day and if that day had been watched defection would not have set in.

I only wanted to say that for our encouragement. We have to face as long as we are here that the government of God goes on inexorably without partiality, affecting every one of us,

• but there is great encouragement in it for it is operating in the favour of those whose heart is perfect towards God, and the Lord is with those who go on with Him,
  • "Jehovah is with you while ye are with him".

• May the Lord strengthen us to go on with Him to the end in that which is pleasing to Himself, for His name's sake.

We might enlarge upon the place that the Holy Spirit has in the various epistles, and yet it will be found that John's writings give the Holy Spirit a place and present Him in certain lights which are peculiar to John.

• I suppose we may say that Paul's service was to present the whole extent of the truth of God in a formal way in doctrine, and as we have said, he completed the word of God.

• But then John is raised up, as one has said years ago, as a reserve man. He is raised up having in view days when the truth, established through Paul's ministry, would be given up, and the public position would be in ruins. The things of God are to go through notwithstanding.

• The work of God is not going to fall to the ground, and so John ministers in view of days when the truth is recovered – not in outward recovery in a general way, but on the principle of life.

• John does not name things formally, but he gives us the truth vitally, held in persons who are going on with the Lord and with the Spirit. In that setting he has a certain way of his own of presenting the Spirit of God, that we may be fully assured that,
  • in the presence with us of the Holy Spirit, we have all that is needed to go through to completion, notwithstanding the difficult conditions that obtain in the last days.

• You remember that Paul in writing to Timothy, contemplating days of departure, all in Asia having forsaken him, said,
  • "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep for that day the deposit I have entrusted to him".

• I have no doubt he referred to the fact that, when everything was outwardly going to ruins, he so to speak handed back to the Lord the ministry that had been entrusted to himself, and said, I am assured that He will see it through.

• I believe we may say humbly, dear brethren, that we are living in days when the Lord is making good that confidence that Paul reposed in Him, the Spirit is making it good; so that whatever Paul brought out in his ministry is being recovered and held among the saints in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now I start with John's letter to the seven assemblies. The fact that he is writing to seven local assemblies shows that he has in mind not merely the statement of the truth in a kind of doctrinal way, but that there should be an answer to the truth.

• It is important, I believe, to bear in mind, in relation to local assemblies, that it is in the localities that there is (or there is not) an answer to the truth. The truth should come into expression in localities, and John is writing to seven local assemblies, doubtless intended to represent the whole assembly in its responsible setting.

• He presents the Lord walking in the midst of the seven local assemblies, taking account of conditions that He finds there, passing an appraisement upon them, commending what He can commend, but alas, finding much that He has to condemn. John in writing to the assemblies says,
  • "Grace to you and peace from him who is, and who was, and who is to come."

• That is, he is presenting God majestically, because he has in mind opposition to the truth rising to its height. He is contemplating, as this book shows as we proceed, the full development of lawlessness, and power accompanying it, in opposition to the truth. Having that in mind he presents God majestically.
  • "Him who is".

• That cannot be said of any man. God IS absolutely; as the Lord Jesus, who is in His Person God, said,
  • "Before Abraham was, I AM".

• He stands out majestically as the One who is. What is man in contrast to that? He is so to speak but a shadow. His life may last seventy, eighty, or a hundred years, but that is all, and what is that in the presence of Him who IS?
  • "And who was".

• That is what He has proved Himself to be historically. He who could support a man like Daniel, who could support Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego – Him who was – the God who has proved Himself in history.
  • "And who is to come".

  • John says, "and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne; and from Jesus Christ".

• This is something that Paul never does. This is something peculiar to John. Paul in his epistles says consistently,
  • "Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ."

  • John says, "Grace to you and peace from him who is, and who was, and who is to come" – that is God – "and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne".

• He invokes grace and peace upon the saints from the Spirit of God, and he even puts Him before the Lord Jesus – I will say in a minute why I believe this is so – not in any sense to interfere with the order in which the Persons of the Godhead stand in the economy, which is the Father first, the Son second, and the Holy Spirit third.

• We can see that is right, because the Son sends the Spirit as well as the Father sending Him. Nevertheless, here John, in the liberty that there is in the Holy Spirit, not only does what Paul never does, invokes the Spirit to afford grace and peace to the saints, but he even puts Him before the Lord. Why is that?

• Is it not, dear brethren, that he is giving peculiar place in our minds to the Holy Spirit of God as the great support, the great standby of the saints in the last days, and so he says, the seven Spirits which are before His throne. That does not mean that they are in heaven.

• Of course, when we come to speak of any One of the Persons of the Godhead, we cannot limit Him by questions of location. We cannot say that One of Them is on earth and therefore not in heaven, or anything of that sort; so that "the seven Spirits which are before his throne" means that the Spirit in fulness of power is here with the saints in order to support the throne of God.

• Everything that affects the rights of God, everything that challenges His rights, every issue as to the truth whatever it may be – the Spirit is here, the Spirit, who is God, is here personally in fulness of power to support the throne.

What a great thing that is, beloved brethren. We read in Isaiah 59: 19,

• "When the adversary shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of Jehovah will lift up a banner against him."

• The great resource of the saints is the Spirit of God. Indeed, in John's writings, we have two great supports that we can fall back upon. In the 13th of John it says, the Lord,
  • "knowing that his hour had come that he should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end".

• It is as though the moment having come for Him to depart, He so to speak took up that attitude of mind and let them know it, that one thing that they could rely upon through everything – through thick and thin as we say – was His own love, the love of Christ.

• We were having it yesterday – that nothing can separate us from it. In the 14th chapter He introduces the Comforter, to be with us for ever and to be in us. He is giving us a second resource that we can rely upon whatever arises in the course of the testimony here.

John puts the Spirit before the Lord here, and I believe for this reason, that he would establish us first of all in the sense that the Spirit, who is God Himself, is here to carry the testimony right through in power that cannot be overcome.

• On what lines is it to be carried through? It is committed to the saints, because the testimony is committed to men. It is committed to the Spirit it is true, but it is the saints that are being used in testimony. It is we to whom God has given the great privilege of being committed to the truth and to carry it through not only in word but in life, right through to the end.

• The testimony is entrusted in grace to men, but on what lines is it to go through? It is to go through on lines of suffering, and so he says,
  • "from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness"

• – faithful even unto death. He is the firstborn from the dead.

• Moreover, He is the prince of the kings of the earth. I understand, dear brethren, that it is a question of the truth going through in testimony right to the end. The Spirit of God, who is God, here in the scene of testimony and conflict to carry it through in divine power.

• The manner in which it is to go through is in faithfulness in manhood, even though it is faithfulness unto death. He is Jesus Christ, the faithful witness; He has gone through.

I need not enlarge on the doxology that immediately follows. It is a touching thing, beloved brethren, that when God is presented, or the Lord Jesus, in the scriptures we so often get these doxologies.

• I think it is a challenge to one, perhaps a challenge to us all, as to how we hold the truth; whether we just hold it in correctness of terms, or whether we hold it in affection for God and for Christ, and you might say for the Spirit.

• Here the Lord is mentioned as the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. John says,
  • "To him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins in his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father; to him be the glory and the might to the ages of ages."

• He has washed us from our sins in His blood. That is to say, we are never to return to them, dear brethren. Sin is lawlessness, and sins are just the accumulation and detail of the lawlessnesses, the way in which lawlessness is worked out in detail with every one of us, and He has washed us from our sins in His blood.

• We are never to return to the principle of lawlessness. He has washed us from it in His blood, in order that He may hold us as a kingdom, under His own protection and His own administration, in view of the service of God.

What I really had in mind is the way the Spirit is presented in John's writings, and so there is this remarkable expression, the seven Spirits before the throne.

• We get more than once in the book of Revelation the seven Spirits of God, showing that the Spirit is here in fulness of divine power to meet every exigency that arises.

• It may be that the fact that he says, "the seven Spirits", and there are seven assemblies, is in order to bring home to us in our several localities, however weak the position may be outwardly, that the Spirit in fulness of power is available to us in that locality.

• The testimony is in localities, and the Spirit is here commensurate to the demands and requirements of the testimony.

Before I proceed, let me just allude to what is well-known, how at the end of each of the seven addresses to the assemblies we have the word,

• "He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies";

• the Spirit speaking to the assemblies. In each of these addresses the Lord is dealing with the particular conditions that He finds in the assembly which He is addressing.
• In five out of the seven He has something to condemn. In Smyrna and in Philadelphia He has nothing to condemn, but whether He has something to condemn or not, He finishes with this:
  • "He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies".

• That is to say, the Lord will adjust things in a locality according to the conditions that He finds there, but having adjusted them He has in mind that that locality, with all the others, should link on with the universal trend of the Spirit's ministry.

• The Spirit has a voice to "assemblies", in the plural, and he that has an ear is to hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. That of course requires spiritual discernment on our side. It involves also that there should be with us a recognition of leadership in the ministry.

Perhaps one could just add in relation to what we have been saying as to the Spirit presented as power to support the rights of God – as the brethren will remember – in the 12th chapter of Luke the Lord is contemplating the saints having to appear before rulers or authorities and to give an answer in respect of their faith.

• He tells them not to prepare beforehand what they should say, for, He says,
  • "The Holy Spirit shall teach you in the hour itself what should be said".

• That is just an example of the way the Spirit is presented in this expression, the seven Spirits before His throne.

• It is a question of the rights of God being maintained; it may be the refusal to do something which conscience will not allow one to do, but whatever it is, it is a question of the rights of God, of the rights of the throne, and the Spirit is here to support in that relation, and the Lord says,
  • "The Holy Spirit shall teach you in the hour itself what should be said".

Now coming to John's epistle, this has not in mind our public position in testimony, but our enjoyment consciously of eternal life. The apostle is speaking of Jesus the Son of God.

• "This is he that came by water and blood, Jesus the Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that bears witness, for the Spirit is the truth."

• He then speaks of the three that agree in one witness.
  • "For they that bear witness are three; the Spirit (putting the Spirit first), and the water, and the blood; and the three agree in one."

• They agree in one witness, they all point to one thing, and the witness they agree in is this, as we read later on,
  • "that God has given to us eternal life: and this life is in his Son".

• Now this is a remarkable expression,
  • "This is he that came by water and blood".

• He is referring to the death of Christ. He came deliberately to die, in order that in the power of His death we might be set apart from all that attached to us as responsible in flesh and blood here, in order that we might be given life in God's Son.

• Not by water only, the apostle says. If it were water only, it might be regarded as reforming the first man, as an effort to purify and cleanse the first man. That of course is what the religious world is full of.

• He says by water and blood. I know that the blood meets the claims of God and effects expiation, but this is a cleansing that is effected by mean of death, and nothing less than death. The blood witnesses to that, that the death of Christ vicariously meant the ending of the man.

• I know that all will probably accept that as right teaching, but I wonder whether we have all honestly accepted it. We ought to accept it; we are not genuine if we do not; it is part of the gospel. Have we really accepted it, that the first man has been ended vicariously in the death of Jesus, in order that God might give us life by the Spirit in His Son?

• Is not that wonderful? Is not it a great liberation? Is not it dignifying, to think of God's thought, what God has set us up in? He has given us eternal life and we are set up before God in His Son, as it says later in this very chapter,
  • "We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding that we should know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ".

• We have a fixed place in the love of God in the Person of His Son; we are set up before Him in His Son. God has not come in to patch up the first man. He has come in in Christ to end his history in death, in order that, receiving the testimony brought to us in the gospel, we might receive the Holy Spirit and be set up before Him in life in His Son.

• The way God has met the situation that came in through the devil is by entering into the situation Himself, first in the Person of Christ and then in the Person of the Spirit. The more you think about it the more wonderful it becomes, that God Himself has entered into the situation, first by bringing in Christ and then by giving the Spirit.

• God takes us completely out of one order of things and sets us up before Him eternally in His beloved Son. I say, that is a way that is worthy of God, and so he says, We know that the Son of God has come. Oh, what bed-rock that is!
  • "We know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we should know him that is true."

• The true God stands out before our hearts in the light of His movements toward us in Christ, that we might know Him that is true.
  • "And we are in him that is true."

• He that dwells in love dwells in God, John says. You come more and more to the sense that we are embraced in God.
  • "…: in His son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life".

• On the one hand He is God personally, and presents God to us in the light in which He has shone out; on the other hand He is the presentation in Himself as Man of the perfect answer to that.

• But now the Spirit witnesses to this. It is not a question of stating the truth objectively; the apostle has in mind that we should come consciously into the knowledge that we have eternal life. It is a question of conscious knowledge, and so he says the Spirit is the witness. He then says,
  • "for the Spirit is the truth" – a remarkable statement.

• In the gospel of John, Christ Himself is the truth objectively. In the epistle of John, the Spirit is the truth subjectively.

• I believe that is what we have to come to more and more, dear brethren. It is a question of the extent to which the Spirit personally controls our thoughts, and our affections. The more the Spirit has place with us in a practical way, controlling our thoughts and directing what we shall say in relation to the truth, the more we shall know it is the truth.

• If a brother stands up and is wholly controlled by the Spirit in his thoughts and words, you may rest assured that what he says is the truth. That is what is so urgent for us now, that we should arrive through exercise at the sensitiveness, each one of us for himself,
  • that is able to discern what is of the Spirit and what is not, and to reject in himself thoughts that are not of the Spirit, and commit himself fully to thoughts which are of the Spirit,

• because the more we move in the Spirit the more we shall be fully assured that what we are moving in, is the truth. The Spirit is the truth.

I come now to this well-known passage in the 14th of John's gospel, because it is a most affecting one, and is intended to establish us in personal appreciation of the Comforter.

• "The Comforter" is a personal presentation of the Holy Spirit which is peculiar to John's writings. John, of course, refers to the Holy Spirit in many ways, but when we come to this chapter, in which he records, by the Spirit, the Lord's own words, we have this remarkable presentation of the Holy Spirit as the Comforter – presented in a very personal way, and presented to us in this personal way by the Lord Himself.

• The Lord Himself is, if one may say so reverently, introducing us to the Spirit and commending Him to us. He would have us know Him and appreciate Him, indeed He says, Ye know Him. It raises the serious question whether we do. Evidently we are intended to know Him.

• The Lord is contemplating going away, leaving the disciples, and it is an interesting thing that in this chapter the Lord is seen speaking with the disciples, and the disciples speaking with Him, in the greatest liberty. They have difficulties; they do not understand everything, and so they express their difficulties and ask questions of the Lord.

• Thomas asks Him something, Philip asks Him something, and Judas, not Iscariot, asks Him something – they are all at perfect liberty to ask the Lord as to difficulties they have, and He answers them.

• But now He was going away, and they would lose all that, and the Lord says, I will give you another Comforter. That is to say, I will give you the Spirit, who shall be to you what I have been to you. You have been able to ask Me questions, and you have got your questions answered, and you will be able to ask the Comforter questions, and you will get them answered. How could He be another Comforter in place of the Lord Jesus if that were not open to the disciples?

• Another Comforter to be with you for ever, and not only to be with you forever but to be in you. Think of the wonderful intimacy, the nearness of it. Think what it means to have such an One dwelling in us. I admit that we begin to find out that this requires a certain amount of self-examination as to what we are going on with, and as to what we allow in our minds and thoughts and spirits and ways.

• Because, you see, if you receive a great person into your house you necessarily realise that you have to make preparation, to have things in suitability. If God Himself is coming to take up His abode in us, as He has done, what kind of conditions are we going to provide for Him?

• Suppose I were to ask you into my house, and you were to come and dwell there – and the Spirit has come to be with us for ever – you come into my house and dwell there and I do not speak to you. You speak to me, but I do not answer. How would you feel about it? Would you not feel insulted?

• The Spirit of God has come in to dwell with us, to take up His abode in us. He is ready to speak, and He is ready to be spoken to. He is ready to be asked questions; He was to be another Comforter. The Lord speaks of Him first of all as
  • "Another Comforter", and then He says, "The Comforter".

• The Lord was going away; He had been a Comforter, and now the Comforter is left with us to guide us into all the truth, as the Lord says, and to enable us to take up in liberty and power all that is open to us that belongs properly to the assembly.

• These verses have in mind what properly belongs to the assembly – assembly privilege. John, writing as we have said for the last days, brings it down to very small conditions outwardly-indeed he brings it down to only one.

• I have no doubt John in Patmos proved the gain of those words in regard to the Comforter. John is bringing things down to very small compass outwardly, but showing what the Comforter would be in relation to all the truth proper to the assembly, and the privileges open to us in the knowledge of the blessed God.

He not only says that the Spirit should dwell with us and be in us, but then he comes down to what should be known, known objectively by virtue of the Spirit being with us. He says,

• "In that day" – the Spirit's day – "ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you".

• We are dependent on the Spirit for our knowledge of that. It holds true whether we know it or not, but the Spirit will give us to know it. He loves to direct attention to Christ in the position that He is filling as Man in His Father's affections.

• The Spirit keeps it before our hearts day in and day out, that Christ is where He is, the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father. He is there as Man, that wonderful position of unalloyed affection.

• I believe, "I am in my Father" goes even beyond that. I believe the Spirit brings home to our hearts that this is He who is in His Person equal with the Father, although having taken in the economy a second place in order that God's thoughts regarding man should be made good.

• This thought, "I am in my Father", involves, I believe, the truth as to His Person. You will remember how the Lord says in verse 10 of this very chapter,
  • "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?"

  • Then again, "Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; but if not, believe me for the works' sake themselves."

• It is a question of who Christ is in His Person. The more this is before our hearts, and He is known in the glory of His position as Man in the Father's affections, the more the whole wonder of the economy stands out before our hearts, the way that God has conceived to make Himself known in thoughts of infinite blessing to men and to establish those thoughts so that we are brought into them.

• He establishes them in Christ as Man in His presence, and He gives us the Holy Spirit to set us up before Him in the life of Christ. The Holy Spirit shows us these things, He gives us to know that Christ is in His Father, and we in Him. It is a wonderful thing – we in Him!

• It speaks of our place as wholly united to Christ. We have no part, I need not say, in Deity. It is important to keep that steadily in mind, because we are brought so wonderfully near that we have to be preserved in our thoughts.

• We have our part as united to Christ in His Manhood, but the One with whom we are united in His Manhood is in His Person no less than God. A wonderful thing it is, the way God has taken to bring in an order of manhood wholly suitable to Himself and to have Christ before Him as of that order in glorious Sonship, and to bring men through redemption and the gift of the Spirit into a place of union with Christ.

• So, dear brethren, we are near to God in Christ, as it says,
  • "We are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ".

• How great these things are, and the Spirit makes them good to us. The Spirit sets them before us,
  • "that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you".

• Christ is in the saints, He dwells in our hearts. The saints are His body; He is there in the saints. What it means for the pleasure of God to see Christ before Him in the saints. A wonderful thing this is that God has brought to pass, and this is what He has given us to have part in now through grace. This is the heavenly calling, and our answer to God in the service of God should be in keeping with it.

One more word and I close. We have this well-known passage in the last chapter, where the Lord presents Himself:

• "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the assemblies".

• He has not spoken in this intimate way before in the book. He presents Himself in the beginning in a judicial capacity, involving certain distance between Him and the beloved disciple John, so that when John saw Him he fell at His feet as dead. The Lord immediately reassured him, laying His right hand upon him and saying,
  • "Fear not: I am the first and the last, and the living one: and I became dead, and behold I am living to the ages of ages",

• but still there was that judicial presentation of Christ. But now we come to the end, and He says,
  • "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify these things to you in the assemblies. I am the root and offspring of David".

• As dear Mr. Taylor has well said, the root is the gospel of John and the offspring is the gospel of Matthew.
  • "And the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say. Come."

• That is a presentation I think that is peculiar to John; the Spirit seen with the bride and the bride with the Spirit – the Spirit and the bride. This is the culmination, that which we are coming to.

• The Spirit is seeking to get His place with us all, that there should be no hindrance whatever to our moving along with Him; nothing to hinder concerted movement with the Spirit, because He wants the Spirit and the bride to arrive at this point, that with just one voice they say, "Come" to the Lord Jesus.

• Are we exercised to take on bridal features? You might say, Well, we love Christ. That may be, but a bride suggests something that is special. We read in Isaiah 61 about a bride adorning herself with her jewels. Are we concerned to adorn ourselves, beloved brethren, with that which will really be precious in the sight of Christ, or are we careless as to what He would look for?

• We know in natural things (I am not suggesting in any sense that we should take up worldly habits) a bride wants to look her best on her marriage day, and what will affect her as to what she will put on is what would gratify the heart of her husband. Are we concerned to take on bridal features?

• It is a good thing to be exercised in wifely features, that there should be faithfulness to the interests of Christ in His absence, and that we are to be in concert with His mind in all things, but what about bridal features, which stand for what is specially refined, adorning with jewels?

• It says in the 21st chapter, the holy city comes down in eternity prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. That is one of the things connected with the thought of the bride – being adorned for her husband. Are we concerned as to it?

• It is time we gave thought to these things, dear brethren, as to whether we are taking on adornment that is suitable to the heart of Christ, the kind of thing He would look for. Jewels to be adorned with are not easily picked up, they cost something, but they are worth having.

The Spirit and the bride say, Come. It seems to me that this scripture brings together the two aspects that we had before us in the previous scriptures.

• On the one hand, the public aspect, and the word to the Lord Jesus to come is really to come in relation to public conditions in the world and take up His rights where they have been so long denied Him. The Spirit would urge us in that direction.

• But then I believe there is the private side, linking perhaps more with John's epistle and John's gospel, that we cry, Come, to the Lord Jesus because we want Him, and He wants us. The Spirit and the bride say, Come. Then He says,
  • "Let him that hears say, Come. And let him that is athirst come; he that will, let him take the water of life freely."

• Another presentation of the Spirit peculiar to John's writings-the water of life; what there is in a living way among the saints in the presence of the Holy Spirit here; the water of life refreshing and constantly fresh; the river of God, it says, is full of water – no diminution.

• There is no lack of freshness, and that is what we should be concerned about in our local companies, that as having the Spirit there is a constant flow of that which is fresh and living, so that anyone who thirsts may take of the water of life freely.

Well, beloved brethren, I trust what one has said may stimulate our interest in all that the Spirit is prepared to be to us in these closing days,

• and if there should be the slightest hesitation on the part of anyone here as to speaking to the Spirit of God, may the Lord deliver you from any such fear or hesitation.

• There is nothing whatever in scripture contrary to it. There is liberty for it – where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. There is nothing whatever in scripture against it, and plenty in scripture to indicate that such a thing is pleasing to God;

• and the way the Lord presents the Comforter in the 14th chapter of John is the greatest possible inducement to us to avail ourselves of His presence and seek to cultivate an intimacy with Him which He will richly reward. May the Lord bless the word.