Exclusiveness: Its Ground and History
Ministry by J. B. Stoney
– Part Two

Now it is remarkable the various ways by which God in His faithfulness brings every one whom He leads into this experience.

• One in this experience never likes to refer to himself, and not only this, but he thinks everybody's nature is better than his own.

• Hence there is no rest or sense of escape from self-condemnation but in Christ, where there is no condemnation, and where this is the known region of the soul, everyone begins to be looked at from Christ's side and as they relate to Him.

• He – the rest and life of the heart, necessarily becomes the spring and standard of everything.

• If He be exclusively my life and joy, and if I have nothing outside of Him but a nature that I abhor and condemn, how must all my desires and tastes run in concert and keeping with His,

• and everything else which is contrary to Him is not only avoided because contrary to Him,

• but also because it claims kindred with me and addresses my nature, making me feel still more excruciatingly that I not only have a nature that I am ashamed of, but that everything which opposes Christ, who is now everything to my heart, finds an auxiliary in it.

The more thoroughly we see ourselves as God sees us, the more we turn from ourselves and rejoice in being in Christ, because there is a sense of clear distance from our nature;

• and the more through the Spirit we are conscious of this holy exclusion, the more susceptible we shall be of the little things which cause us to drop outside of this circle of life and peace.

• Reading a common-place book, listening to common conversation, will at times have the effect of connecting us sensibly with self, and in a way
  • breaking open the closed doors of the chamber of horrors, calling up remembrances of selfishness and vanity, as traced in a landscape which has been hid from our view when in the sanctuary with Christ.

But this experience does not end with oneself. It demands not only the exclusion of oneself because one sees that the cross is the only answer of righteousness,

• but it requires that everything which has grieved the Spirit of Christ should be excluded from the assembly where He would be in the midst.

• I mean, that if I have learnt how precious the holiness of Christ is to myself, and how happy an answer it is to me that everything which would offend should be excluded, I cannot suffer in the assembly anything which would offend.

• I go from the inner circle to the outer circle. In the inner circle I deal with inner things; the exaction is sweeping and complete. In the outer I deal with what is apparent.

Now if I can tolerate the apparent and what is openly reprehensible, it is evident enough there can be no deeper separation within.

• This is to me the secret cause of the misapprehension of exclusiveness more than this, it indicates the true principle for exclusiveness.

• No point of doctrine on mere independency, is of itself the principle for exclusiveness.

• The principle for it is that it offends against Christ, that it intrudes on that holy ground where the soul knows deliverance from condemnation and enjoys Him – the Deliverer, in His own life and surroundings.

• I maintain this in the inner circle in my own soul for light and peace. Nothing is spared that is not of the Spirit.

• All my rest depends on exclusiveness, and God here insists on it as due to Christ. His will is essential to my own enjoyment of Him.

• Then I allow not a particle of root; I must, for everything, be absolute about it.

• Well, then, if I am such an one, how can I go into the assembly gathered to Christ's name and for His presence, and tolerate there, not roots, for I do not see them, but branches,
  • which indicate that there are roots of the flesh which I could not suffer for a moment in the inner circle, growing and developing themselves in the outer one without check or condemnation.

• Now to me it is plain that if the visible – the branches, could be tolerated, there has not been a real conscious exclusion of the roots in the presence of God.

• The soul has not known as yet the sweetness and gain of holiness that allows no intrusion from the noxious roots of the flesh; for if it had known this great gain there would have been no toleration of the open tangible development of it.

• If, I repeat, I can tolerate in the outer sanctuary what is but a variety of unrepressed flesh, how can I have known the claims of Christ in the inner sanctuary where none of it is admitted?

I write this because I think there is an attempt in many to reach the ground of exclusiveness by other ways than from the inner to the outer,

• and the consequence is that there is no hearty acceptance of it, though there be of the truth in keeping with it.

• The ground we are on is valued on account of the orthodox teaching rather than on account of the principle of exclusiveness which has cleared away everything to reach this ground.

And hence even when the ground is avowedly occupied, there is really no moral power in the soul to discover and trace the moral path by which it was reached.

• And there is none of the restful feeling that one enjoys when, having emerged from the thicket, one has the assurance of being at the place desired.

• The desired place is not enough; doubtless it confers benefits and advantages of its own, but there is not the exercise of the sense of grace conferred in buffeting all antagonisms until it was reached.

• And not only this, but there is a lack of the assurance of having passed from the valley of Achor, of having in true contrition of heart abnegated unto death everything, and oneself, in the point which first led one into practical indifference.

• That is, that I not only know the grace which has empowered me to escape from it, but I know also the humiliation in myself which such a process entails.

I believe the history of exclusiveness must be accepted and traversed as well as the ground of it occupied.

• If there be the latter without the former, you will be neither happily nor firmly there.

• When I know how to reach the favoured spot, I know how to find out whether I have lost sight of it.

• If I only know the spot, I may indeed adhere to it, even if there is departure from the principles which morally constitute it, but I cannot be there in power if I do not know how I have reached it.

I say all this because I fear that the ground of exclusiveness is more readily accepted than the history of it, which is the only true way to it.

• And when this is the case, there is not sufficient sense of Christ's sanctuary as His sanctuary, and hence there is no true sensibility as to His being Centre in the assembly.

It is not the furniture, the teaching, which makes it the sanctuary to me;

• it is that there is that which suits the presence of Christ, and nothing else is admitted;

• I get the true principle of this myself, and no ground could be assured to me as divine but one based on this principle.

First, christian ministry with ordination embraces all christian ministers, whether episcopalian, presbyterian, or dissenters.

• These ministers preach the gospel – that a soul is saved not by works, but by faith in Christ, the only sacrifice and ransom for our sins.

• They themselves have faith in His blood, and they one and all preach this, though some do so more fervently and effectively than others.

• They generally have but two great objects before them in their ministry; one that the soul should be saved, the other that the converted one should be a good citizen of the world.

• There cannot be any higher practical life flowing from it than this; for if the sum of Christ's work is only to save me from judgment which is still future
  • (for however truly assured I am of it by the word of God and the work of faith in my soul, yet it is future, and at best I can happily contemplate the future),

  • the only gain I have in the present is that I am not afraid of the future, and the conscience is at rest so long as the law is kept in the eye and judgment of man.

• The fruit or disciples of this ministry enjoy neither Christ in heaven nor the Holy Spirit on earth.
  • They have not His comfort and support, and but rarely the sense of the relationship which He expresses.

The christians under this ministry necessarily do not go further than the Jews in the millennial day –

• clear of judgment, because the blood of Christ has availed to ransom them; their duty being now to walk here according to the law, the law the rule of life.

• Hence, according to their means, and as the providence of God has blessed them here, they are good members of society,
  • and faithful supporters in word and deed of the church or system to which they belong, which in a great measure defines and constitutes their testimony.

• In a word, they are good religious worldly men; this is the fruit of the ordained christian minister.

Christian Ministry Without Ordination

Now the christian ministers who refuse all formal ordination, I divide into four classes.

The First Class

The first in simple devotedness go forth preaching the good tidings that the blood of Christ is the only means of safety, that he that looks lives.

• It is simply the greatness and freeness of the grace of God, and many are rescued from destruction through this instrumentality.

• But these preachers, while they earnestly and zealously rescue souls from the judgment due to sinners, have no light as to the order and edification of the saints on earth.

• Though beyond the ordained ministry in the matter of ordination, they have, as it were, no pasture, church order, or discipline for those converted by their means.

• This class, the broadest section of lay preachers, has nothing of a church or a congregational testimony with which they would connect their converts.

• Hence the fruit of their ministry are extremely lax respecting all forms of church order, and as a rule are quite as much mixed up with the world as the fruit of ordained ministers.

• It could not be otherwise, because they do not hesitate to employ and press into their service every human expedient of position and natural influence;
  • and, in every way they can, they bring themselves and their work before the eyes and ears of the multitude, using their name and position to create an impression.

• They are so earnest, so true as a class, that I should not say a word to detract from their service, were it not necessary that I should do so, to give any true view of christian ministry as a whole, as we see it now.

The Second Class

Now the next class of unordained ministers surpasses the preceding one in knowledge, if I may so say.

• They understand in word the scriptural idea of the church of God; at least, they hold the fundamental truth that "where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them".

• This is the foundation principle which these avow, and they assert that they meet according to it; but in practice they do not support their assertion, because
  • they do not hold themselves responsible to exclude every believer, at any and every distance, who is knowingly in contact, directly or indirect-ly, with doctrine or morals dishonouring to Christ.

Now the ministry in this class extends beyond the mere gospel to sinners, though for the most part it is confined to that.

• There is in their meetings, besides a measure of light on Scripture, a general knowledge of the dispensations, and often zeal and earnestness in pressing faith and confidence in God, with practical brotherly love.

• The disciples or adherents of this class, though avowedly separate from systems and the world, are really defective in the mainspring of all godly separation.

• They do not understand the unity of the Spirit; they are not really in the known leading and power of the Holy Spirit; they seek and insist on the unity of believers,
  • but the unity of the Spirit, which they must uphold were they walking in the Spirit them-selves, they cannot enter into, and therefore they cannot keep it.

• They never understand the true place and portion of the saints on earth, and even though godly, they are not in heart and spirit weaned from the world;
  • and their chief service, as I have intimated, is not to the saints, because they have not the truth which would edify them.

• Hence their zeal and energies are directed to the unconverted, and thus they relieve their consciences of the service and edification which should be rendered to the converted.

• They are true plants, but, like forest trees in a flowerpot, never grow to any stature, though apparently right in outline and purpose.

The Third Class

The next class to this are quite clear as to the unity of the Spirit, and hold in a very uncompromising way

• decided separation from everyone who, directly or indirectly, by contact or otherwise, is indifferent to the name and honour of our Lord Jesus Christ.

• They are zealously true to the principles of the church of God on earth.

• But though they enjoy and help on the worship in the assembly, and delight in the saint's growth in deliverance and peace,
  • they are more evangelical than simply for the church; and hence in the assembly their teaching has as a rule more of an individual than a corporate character.

• The gospel is before the church in their heart, though they know church truth; and their care for the saints is more as individuals than as either the house of God on earth or the body of Christ.

If I am alive to the magnitude of the church as the dwelling-place of God through the Spirit sent down from heaven,

• then, if I labour in christendom in the gospel, I come forth to so-called christians conscious of the support and of the co-operation of the Holy Spirit.

• But if I do not start from this, I shall not be wholly dependent on the Holy Spirit, and shall drop into the use of means and human expedients in order to obtain a hearing;
  • and the moment I do so, and the more I do so, I not only lose sight of the support and co-operation of the Holy Spirit, but I am sensibly diminishing my own confidence in Him and consequently my individual benefit from Him.

I most freely own that God has blessed the labours of these ministers; but as there had been human means mixed up with the work, it is seldom that the fruit of their labours are led out into a decided spiritual prominence.

• For though the converts and disciples of this ministry accept the truth concerning the church of God, and are clear of man's systems,
  • they rarely get clear of the human element, there is a half-and-half way about them;

  • they are strict and correct in attending the break-ing of bread, but generally indifferent to other meetings, except the preaching of the gospel.

• Almost all children betray the defects of their parents more conspicuously than their perfections, and so it is with the disciples of any ministry.

• The ministers of this class doubtless enjoy more than they speak of, but they seldom present the heavenly portion of the saints;
  • their teachings are generally Christ's present care of His people, and how faith in Him is needed for everything here, and marvellously answered.

• Many of them are bright examples of the truth brought out in the epistle to the Romans. They know the truth of Ephesians, but it does not appear to be their line or aim.

The Fourth Class

Now the last class, for explanation's sake, I divide into two sections; one, the well-informed, the other, the spiritual.

• Not but that the two qualities may be, and are, found combined in the ministers of this class, but often where the former is most prominent, the other is not.

• This class of ministry combines the light and truth in any and all of the other classes; and however far any of us may be from it,
  • it is only in this class of ministry that the great principles of the truth of God in the church are upheld.

• It is here that the presence of the Holy Spirit is insisted on as the only means of testimony for Christ on earth.

The Fourth Class:
1. The Well-Informed   –   2. The Spiritual

The characteristically well-informed section of this class may sometimes be induced to use other means besides the distinct intervention or cooperation of the Holy Spirit;

• but none of the spiritual could lend themselves to any line of action which would in any way call in question the inexhaustible resources and appliances of the Holy Spirit.

• His hand is not shortened. He has His own mode and manner of action; and He would lead us, if subject to Him, to carry out His will.

• The presence of the Holy Spirit in the church on earth; union with Christ in heaven; our bodies temples of the Holy Spirit; these are truths on which the spiritual will more effectively insist.

• When I am spiritual, I make the most of my knowledge; when knowledge or the accuracy of it is too exclusively relied on there is less power, though there may be clear and useful instruction.

• These ministers, as they are gifted, preach the gospel, but in doing so they rely on the power and virtue of the word of God, instead of any accompaniments in their style and delivery;
  • and the fruits of their preaching, though not so numerous, are characterised by a deeper though a slower work in souls, which eventuates in a greater decision for the Lord.

Their teaching is marked by the presentation and unfolding of Christ, the one great central object, whatever be the subject.

• With the Father in heaven we are there as Christ is; and be it our walk here, or our relation to the saints or to man, the standard is to "walk, even as he walked", for our state is, "as he is, so are we in this world".

• It is not this or that particular promise or precept of Scripture which is insisted on, but Christ Himself, the ground and display of all the heart of God;
  • Christ Himself, the impersonation and expression of every beauty in the eye of God, to Himself and to man.

• The disciples of this ministry have spiritual tastes, though they may grow slowly and often fail; but in the end the Spirit of God, having been honoured by these ministers,
  • honours them by leading the souls under their care, like the Corinthians, from their unjudged levity into renewed zeal and vigour of life.

I have been much interested in seeing the marks of the Lord being with His people. I could hardly explain all to you now.

1. The first is the actual fact of His presence.

2. Such a respect for His presence that every association would be avoided unsuited to His presence; in a word, holiness in discipline.

3. Personal separation from all engagements and occupations which would unfit us for His presence.

4. His chief interest my chief interest. The church paramount.

5. A sense of the ruin around, but in the spirit and fidelity of the remnant adhering to the fundamental principles. The beginning insisted on.

6. Truth in all its branches, not limited and curtailed, but gradually expanding into their full dimensions.

7. Service according to His pleasure.

• I daresay this summary will interest you, though it is very crude and undeveloped.

You ask me to tell you the effects of the glory. You are transformed there.

• In Philippians 4: 6-7, you are transformed from depression of one kind or, another into the most inconceivably blessed state – you have the peace of God that passeth all understanding.

• See Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, how transformed he was – taking pleasure in infirmities which had so greatly distressed him, and for the removal of which he had prayed three times!

My speaking, says the apostle, was not in the persuasive words of man's wisdom,

• but "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God".

• It is not here a question of having the truth but of how it is presented.

The same truth might be held by two men, and one would press it in the wisdom of man, and the other in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

• The true servant, the more active his own mind, and the more he naturally values mind in itself, will seek the more sedulously to keep it under the control of the Spirit of God.

• This is in character the exercise which occurs in every godly soul daily, I might say hourly, whether I am led by the Spirit of God or by my own inclinations.

• We are set by grace with a divine nature, the nature of a Man new to us; and in His Spirit we are to act and behave ourselves, in the scene of our former self, as it were, in the way and manner of Christ.

• It is not that the old is annihilated, but while it still exists, and where it has existed without interference, there it is to be superseded by and contrasted with the life of the One who has pleased God in every path and line of life down here.

• This is the daily exercise of every true christian. "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit". "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh", Galatians 5:  25, 16.

Now this true daily exercise, common to and incumbent on every saint, is par excellence to be observed by the minister.

• If I minister to that which should be repressed and supplanted, I am defeating the very object of ministry;
  • for instead of really helping souls, I am, by the wisdom of men, in some form ministering to the flesh.

• In every case, whether in myself, or in ministering to others, the one great thing is that the Spirit should be heard.

• Hence, if I were speaking to the unconverted, the one great thing I should seek would be that he should hear the voice of the Lord.

• I do not seek so much to convince him of anything as to bring his conscience under the eye of God.

• It is God I seek to present. It is His coming near in grace, detecting man's distance in the words, "Where art thou?" that I insist on as led by the Spirit of God.
  • It is how God would speak, and not how man might be convinced.

• It is evident that it must be in intelligible language, for the conscience cannot be addressed if the words used are not comprehended.

• But as I carefully avoid, in my own private walk and course, the counsel or dictation of my natural mind, so do I refuse and avoid every mere natural means, in language or manner, which would recognize and minister to the natural mind which is enmity to God.

• The one aim is to bring God's voice close to man's conscience. It is not man's voice, nor man's arguments, for then it is all man;
  • but it is to be the messenger of God, and that man's conscience may own it. As Manoah said, "we have seen God".

It is more difficult, though not less necessary, in speaking to the unconverted, to avoid and refuse the wisdom of men,

• because they have no spiritual mind to reach, and, therefore, if I am not very truly and simply in the Spirit, I am not really coming from God to this dark soul.

• In speaking to quickened souls, one thing must be borne in mind, that anything that is not of the Spirit of God will not really cleave to the new man in the believer;
  • hence there is loss of time on both sides when the wisdom of men is resorted to, instead of the demonstration of the Spirit and power, and it is here that bad building occurs. 1 Cor. 3: 10-15.

• Once the servant of God enters into the impossibility of the flesh and the Spirit being in any concert, he is on his guard, fearing the intrusion of the flesh, for the latter is not only labour in vain, but it damages souls.

• A tower begun in that crumbling material will not stand, like the house built on the sand.

The more I am in the Spirit, the more closely do I adhere to the pure mind or revelation of God in His word; and the more this is insisted on, the more the flesh is repelled and subdued by it.

• The wisdom of men excites and arouses the natural mind, and countenances the flesh, even though it provokes controversy and opposition.

• If the flesh, in its mind, is absolutely and continuously refused in ministry, there will be deepening in the soul as it is conscious of the incongruity of its being acknowledged and indulged in one's course and manner of life.

• But if in the ministry the flesh in any way gets a place, it will surely follow that in practical life there is a manifest admission of the tastes and ruling of the flesh.

• Whenever you see forwardness or timidity in one in natural life, there is surely an element of the flesh answering to it in that man's ministry, and if it had been refused in the ministry, it would have been rebuked in daily life.

• If not excluded from the pulpit, so to speak, it will be sure to be very prominent at one's fireside. If permitted and sanctioned in the house of God, it will almost reign in my own.

• The failure from the first has been that the Spirit of God has not been maintained in His proper place. He is here to testify of Christ, and to maintain Him in vigor and power in the believer's soul.

• When the servant loses sight of the Spirit as the sole power and aid in ministry, he is sure to enfeeble His activity or rule in his own heart, and thus a place is given to worldliness and the desires of the flesh.

• Surely if a place or recognition be given it in our services for God, there can be no escape from it in our own things; and it is here that the chief damage has resulted from carnal ministry.
  • "They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them", 1 John 4: 5.

• Those who first withdrew from the church were not simply worldly, but the Spirit of God designates them as "sensual, having not the Spirit".
  • They were of the natural mind, and could not brook the things of the Spirit of God.

• What gave the false teachers an acceptance denied to Paul, but that they in their ministry addressed the natural man?
  • They desired to make a fair show in the flesh, that they might glory in your flesh; then would the offence of the cross cease.

The carnal ministry gave countenance to the flesh, and with it the compound of ritualism and rationalism in Colossians 2.

• Man will accept to be a religious being, when allowed and claimed in the natural state. Christianity was nominally embraced under a ministry which virtually denied it.

• The one hindrance on every side was the wisdom of men, and yet the great testimony of christianity is that man is no longer to live in the flesh;
  • for if we live after the flesh we shall die, but if we through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live.

• The great thing now is to be in the body and yet neither to live in the flesh nor walk after it.

• The false teacher is the one who in some way spares the flesh, and then, however great may be the apparent effect of his words, it stands in the wisdom of men, and not in the power of God.

• Nothing can be plainer than that if I use carnal weapons I must, in some shape or degree, give the flesh a place, and
  • whenever this is the case, I am allowing, nay, promoting, an element contradictory to and subversive of the truth I enunciate.

• Broadly, every enlightened servant would agree with this, but many would diverge from it in practice.

• The most spiritual may fail at times, but then, like Paul, he is afraid, he is in weakness and fear and much trembling, he eschews the wisdom of men, seeking only the power of God.

Let us come to detail, and examine how and when we are drawn away from what is simply spiritual to human efforts or the wisdom of men.

• Often in gospel preaching, when the danger of souls is vividly pressed on one's heart, simultaneously with the perfect grace and mercy in God to avert it, one is rightly almost overwhelmed, and words would fail to express the yearnings of the heart.

• This might be quite of the Spirit, and when truly so, there would be a deeper sense of how ineffectually anything the wisdom of men would suggest would meet the demand.

• And then this deep yearning of the heart would be expressed, not coldly and languidly surely, but in solemn words of divine teaching, in such a sense of the gravity of the subject that there would be increase of fear lest anything not of God might intrude.

• Everyone who has ever known the vigor of fresh light breaking in on the soul must know the desire for an ardent utterance. Often this is impossible to convey, but when possible, it affords an opportunity for vehement utterance with an excited manner.

• But then the power is lost in the display which would have been repressed if the Lord's presence were more before one, and thus depth of feeling would have been produced.

• For the deeper the feeling, the less possible is it to convey it, and the less necessary is it for God's glory that it should be conveyed through human means.

• So that when Paul came down from the third heaven, though his heart was stored with the deepest things, yet in a natural way he was less fitted to communicate them than before he was acquainted with them.

• The vessel is the Lord's, and He made it. Our care is that He uses us, and that our own feelings, or the wisdom of men, do not sway us in our service;
  • for whenever the flesh is allowed in ministry, it ministers to flesh, and the end of ministry is defeated by itself.

It is, however, clear that there can be demonstration if it be in a right way. Paul exhorted with tears.

• They were the expression of his genuine sorrow at the moment, and not with any object of promoting the same demonstration in others; and then he was mindful of Timothy's tears.

• Tears as the expression of sorrow give no warrant for the histrionic appeals or persuasive words which seek to establish faith by the wisdom of men and not by the power of God.

Let us begin at Romans and study every book to the end of Revelation, and we shall find that the element of hindrance in souls is the flesh in some form.

• Whenever and however it was admitted, there mischief was introduced, and when it was by the teacher, then a taint of leaven and a carnal appetite was established which nothing could satisfy but carnal ministry after its own type.

• Thus we read, "The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears". Carnal people like carnal teaching.

• The stern, elevating demands of truth are unpalatable to those who walk as men, for invariably the less spiritual any are, the more readily and cheerfully they listen to an appeal to their senses, unless it offends against their peculiar ideas of good taste.

In conclusion, surely every faithful servant will heartily admit that his one and only duty is to promote the spiritual welfare of souls, and that Christ only, and nothing else, can effect this.

• If we all truly and before God adhere to this, there will be more spiritual ministry, and therefore more practical unworldliness;

• whereas whenever we give a place to the flesh before God, it will insist on and enlarge its place before man.

I am quite certain that there must be, at any rate, a moral separation everywhere, between the ten spies and the two; or the two and a half tribes and the nine and a half.

• But there is this immense difference with us, who are members of the body of Christ, that
  • any advance that any member or members of the body make must now conduce to the help and encouragement of every other member.

• What is good and right for one member, is good and right for all the other members, and
  • the one who takes the step in advance should take it with the sense that he is not a unit, but part of a great whole.

• I believe it is of immense importance to seize by faith the intention of the Lord in giving back to brethren the truth as to the church of God.

• Do we accept the truth with the conviction that a fresh energy of the Spirit of God is connected with it – that it is not to be held as an abstract truth, but that every one who truly receives it is in communion with the present energy of the Spirit?

• The energy of the Spirit was always connected with that truth; but now, in the close of the church period, He has enlightened souls anew respecting it, and
  • every one so enlightened is in a very favoured and responsible position, for if he truly answers to the light of it he is enabled to be in the testimony in power.

Do you feel that you are called of God to be in this new and great and, I believe, last revival? I am sure you do, and

• the more you feel it the more you will encourage and help others to be there also.

• "Thou … hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name", Revelation 3: 8. It is not enough to come out of Egypt; you have to come into the land, and to stand there for God.

• If we do not know our vocation we are not only blundering, but we cannot avail ourselves of the power and resources given of God to maintain the testimony.

• The captain of the Lord's host is only in the land, is only connected with the testimony, for our vocation is according to it.

• The Lord keep you doing His pleasure that the light of His countenance may be so the cheer of your heart, that you will be immediately conscious whenever you have in any measure stepped aside.

• May you go on side by side with Him.

When you are established in grace you are called to

• "present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God".

• Now as born of God your tastes are divine, and, as the body is the Lord's, it is subject to Him for direction in everything, as a horse would be subject to its owner.

We are bought with a price, therefore there is a lack of integrity if we swerve in any degree from this; our simple duty is to glorify God in our body, which is His.

• If it be His will for us to have employment or relationships or any such claims here, we have to glorify Him in them.

Now nothing diverts us from the perfection of our calling so much as the influence of unspiritual company.

• It is not only that a worldly or foolish idea is suggested to yourself, but you see it confirmed by another.

• Thus from childhood to old age we are affected by the company we keep; as the old saying goes,
  • Tell me what company you keep, and I will tell you what you are.

• It is only as we keep fresh and vigorous in the position in which we are set by grace, that we are able to detect the harm that comes to us from our own company.

One might say, But I have to do business with men. True, but in business you are not seeking company,

• and if you keep separate socially, though you may be regarded as silent and austere, you are genuine, and you will be respected in the consciences of those with whom you have to do.

There is most danger for us with our relatives, because we are less on our guard with them;

• but if we are truly on our guard with them, they will have confidence in us, and will turn to us when in any serious difficulty.

The first thing is to get distinctly before us the danger of being soiled, and thus losing the devotedness which is in itself so enjoyable, and so honoured of God.

• Nothing can be more enjoyable than absolute devotedness to One whose goodness, love and worth command your whole heart.

• As the Nazarite lost his separation by the touch of a dead bone, so in the sense of such a loss can we appreciate the better the Lord's present service in washing our feet, to keep us fit for His own holy presence.

We see all through Scripture how the man of God is separate from man's thoughts and ways. Abel is not influenced by Cain; he takes a new and distinct path, because he has faith in God.

Faith makes God your Object; man makes himself his object.

• The more man can understand his fellows, the more dangerous is the influence. When man at Babel betrayed his desire to be independent of God, confusion of tongues was sent as a check to man's confederacy.

Now when God called out Abram, His word to him was,

"Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee".

• No doubt he was detained in Charran by his father's influence, for we read in Acts 7,
  • "When his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell".

Lot, his brother's son, went with him, but subsequently on his return from Egypt, he determined to be separate from Lot; and

• "after that Lot was separated from him", the Lord said to him:

• "Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever", Genesis 13: 14-15.

Our subject is to see how we are influenced by those with whom we associate.

• Isaac was influenced by Esau "because he did eat of his venison" – even very small attentions can influence one – and he sought to confer on Esau the blessing which was for Jacob.

• He did not lose the truth, but under injurious influence he would misappropriate it; as has been said, We do not lose the truth, but when out of communion we misapply it.

Jacob, after his return to the land, swerves from the path of faith, for he buys a parcel of a field from Shechem; Genesis 33: 18.

• No doubt he had bad influence at home for Rachel had idols – Genesis 31: 9 – and his altar, as is always the case, showed his true state, for he called it El-elohe-Israel;
  • he was an object to God, but he had no sense of what was due to God.

• Hence in chapter 35, when God tells him to go up to Bethel, he remembers the holiness of God's presence – chapter 28: 17 – though it was twenty years since he was there, and he says to his household:
  • "Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments: and let us arise, and go up to Bethel".

• In responding to God's call he got a sense of the exacting nature of God's presence.

I need hardly multiply examples for you. Moses is taught that it is a perilous thing to undertake the Lord's service without a pure conscience.

• God sought to slay him because he had not circumcised his sons, all through the influence, no doubt, of his Midianitish wife; Exodus 4: 24-26.

• Solomon, the wisest of men, the most highly favoured of God, is turned to false worship by the influence of his wives; 1 Kings 11: 1-5.

• Alas, that the man who dedicated the temple of God should disclose such alienation of heart from God!

Israel is warned not to allow any of the inhabitants of the land to remain lest they should become influenced by them – Exodus 34: 12-16 – but instead of driving them out,

• they made a compromise with them – Judges 2: 2, etc. – and learned their ways and eventually fell under their influence.

When Balaam was not allowed to curse the children of Israel, he taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before them – Revelation 2: 14 –

• that was, to mingle with them, and thus to corrupt them.

• It is remarkable that of all the varied forms of Satan's opposition – Pharaoh, Amalek, Balaam, and the seven nations – we are not warned against any of them in the address to the seven churches,
  • except Balaam's, which sets forth the baneful influence of company, and was the one which was most successful in corrupting the church.

In the foregoing scriptures we are distinctly taught the baneful influence of worldly company. I do not mean having to do with men in business;

• company is when there is interchange of thought and social intercourse.

• If the saint does not at once refuse it, he is influenced by it and sinks to the level of his company, whatever level that may be;
  • and the first evidence of it is, he loses his freshness and vigour, like a tree losing its top shoot.

• The first result of Israel's declension was that they had no rain; Deuteronomy 11: 16-17.

It may be helpful to trace a little the serious nature of this snare and the insidious way in which this device of Satan works.

• For instance, a christian marries and furnishes his house with the intention of declining the visits of his worldly relatives and acquaintances; this is his intention;
  • but often while the front door is closed to them, they find admittance, so to speak, by the side entrance,

  • and he is eventually swamped imperceptibly to himself by the worldly element, especially if he has means.

• The blessedness of the injunction to the bride in Psalm 45 is lost sight of, not only to leave, but to
  • "forget also thine own people, and thy father's house; so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him".

Those who know anything of the blessedness of communion with Christ will soon detect that they have lost ground when they lend their ear to the worldly element in their company;

• talking of their relations, and the like, they are liable to fall into the snare of the enemy, and they will become unhappy like the bride in Song of Songs 5, until their feet are washed and they are again in communion with the Lord.

It is right to think of our relations, but when we talk of their progress or their interests the worldly element is uppermost.

• Many a one is turned aside by adopting a relation or undertaking a responsibility to which God has not appointed him.

• It is just the difference between a river and a canal. A river has its natural bed, while a canal is of man's construction and often has a dry dock.

• Whenever we see the worldly element in any of our company, especially in a christian, unless we immediately judge it in ourselves, we are sure to become leavened by it.

Many a one goes on happily for years until his family is grown up,

• and then he gets so interested in their progress and advancement that he is leavened by it, and his worldly prepossession seems to have revived.

• Barnabas would not have separated from Paul – Acts 15: 39 – and would not have been carried away by the Jewish element in Peter – Galatians 2: 13 – if he had judged it in himself.

"A fool … saith to every one that he is a fool", Ecclesiastes 10: 3.

"No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better", Luke 5: 39.

But the Corinthians are a warning to us; they not only lost sight of what was due to God in His own house, but they were a reproach in every circle, both at home and abroad.

• That highly gifted church became so diverted through association with unbelievers that the apostle has to say to them,

• "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God", 2 Corinthians 6: 14-18; 7: 1.

It is impossible for a person either to write or to speak without imparting in intent that which has weight with himself.

• Be he as guarded as he may, he imparts it, and thus, in my mind, he is the agent for good or for evil.

I feel it a great mercy that the Lord regards the intent, and blesses accordingly; and though the same words may be uttered by two, yet if one had a deeper and more spiritual intent in them than the other, though

• the Lord may in a measure bless both, that the deeper and fuller blessing will be where the deepest and most spiritual intent is.

• The spirit, not the letter of the statement, is the essence of it. If the spirit or essence be evil, no amount of sweetness or dilution in the vehicle will counteract the effects of the poison;
  • but, thank God, if the essence be of the mind of God, though the vehicle be unattractive and even insufficient, it will speak for itself.

My judgment is that no amount of useful or orthodox statements should warrant me to circulate the writings of one who at the time is under an evil bias,

• for though he may indite such apparently good things, yet there must be a poison in his mind which sooner or later will betray itself.

Now this is an influence which must ever address and ensnare the natural man;

• and hence faith in God, counting on Him who is invisible, was never connected with visible means;

• nay, it enabled the saint to act according to God, in spite of being opposed by the greatest visible means, thus showing that there was invisible power where there was no visible means;
  • for visible means are a support to the possessor of them, and thus they take the place of faith.

In every instance we see that when faith works, it is independent of visible means. Abram is called to break with all visible supports, and to

• come into the "land that I will shew thee". "And he went out, not knowing whither he went".

No one will deny that faith acts independently of means; but what I desire to show is, that

• visible means hinder faith, when possessed and used by the saint;

• though, to the man of faith, they are as nothing, when in the hands of his opponent.

• The green fields of Sodom met the eye of Lot, when he turned from faith. The visible becomes the ready support and attraction of the heart that drops from faith.

• The difficulty is to be superior to the visible thing; and yet the heart of man is ever seduced by it, and he acquires confidence and consequence as he possesses it, but possession of it obscures faith.

• Israel forfeited their highest favour, because in seeking visible support, they refused to keep the sabbatical year.
  • When they were captives in Babylon, and all visible means were in the hands of their enemies, then the faithful realized and testified that the power was invisible – that God was for them.

• The great kings had fire and lions wherewith to torture them, and make their power felt; but notwithstanding all, the power was with the servants of God. Fire is the greatest natural force, the lion is the strongest and fiercest of animals, but both were ineffectual before the invisible power.

Since man's departure from God originated in his being alienated from Him by visible things, it must be the greatest evidence of restoration and new life when it is not the visible but the invisible, which sways him. Hence

• "whatever is not of faith is sin".

If we turn to the scene of the thief on the cross, there we find grace coming forth in all its beauty and strength, rescuing the one degraded among men, by disclosing to his heart the Lamb of God,

• even He who died "the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God".

• The thief was not only enlightened in soul by beholding his Saviour in the Man who had "done nothing amiss", but also assured in heart that he would be with Him that day in the paradise of God.

• Visible means, then and there, were in great combination to exterminate both, while the invisible was accomplishing the greatest and most wonderful results; even in man being righteously delivered from judgment and the polluted place.

• What a triumph of the invisible power! Here all the means at man's disposal are used against God; and they betray an accommodation to man's evil which stamps them with their true character. They not only suit the natural man, but they support him against God.

• When our Lord warned His disciples, on the eve of His rejection, to remember Lot's wife, Luke 17:32, He taught them, chapter 13, that helplessness of any kind – the absence of any visible means, would not be their hindrance.

• Suffering or distress, exemplified in the case of the widow, should not tend to make them like Lot's wife. The powerless one, the little child, was the only one sure to enter the kingdom of God.

• But the one with possession of things visible is the one who is really hindered from entering.

• However, if we surrender the hindrance, be it house, land, or anything else, verse 29, we shall have a present reward; but if we retain it, some day or other it will be our scourge.

At all events, at our Lord's death, the question of visible means, and of invisible power, was settled for every awakened soul.

• Man and all his force was against Christ, and it appeared to succeed according to his evil purpose, but God triumphed over it all, and secured eternal blessings for man, while he betrayed his full evil and venom in directing all the means given him of God to put His Son to death.

• This culminating act of man's evil ought to teach us how the power God gave man is subject to man, and used by him for the worst purposes.

• It was given to Noah to repress evil, and now man has disqualified himself for ever from holding power, seeing that he has used all he had, to crucify the Son of God.

Next, when we turn to the scene of Stephen's martyrdom, we see how all visible forces were directed against him in vain.

• Apparently he was left unsupported and friendless, and yet never was any man more sustained by the invisible power;
  • "being full of the Holy Spirit, having fixed his eyes on heaven, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus".

• He is at ease in the heavenly glory. Neither the gnashing of the teeth of the solemn council – the great religious conclave – nor the pain inflicted by the stoning of his body, in the least overcame him;
  • he was not only tranquil and composed, but able to act for others. He knelt down and prayed for them, so superior was he to all their fierce combination.

As man had closed all hope for himself as a mere man at the cross, so now all hope for the Jew on earth is closed at the death of Stephen, and the mantle of Stephen must be worn by every true saint now;

• that is, he must see that there is nought but death here, but that there is the bright glory with Jesus above, apart from any earthly hope.

Now, when I come to the close of Paul's life, I learn another thing. Again, all the visible means are against him, and all his friends forsake him.

• "At my first answer", he writes, "no man stood with me, but all men forsook me … Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever", 2 Timothy 4: 16-18.

• He was on trial before the Roman tribunal; the saints were so intimidated that they forsook him; he had no visible support, but the Lord stood by him, and strengthened him.

• This is the view we get of the apostle, and I believe that, according as we are faithful, his mantle, as he is seen in this juncture, will fall upon us.

• All visible means here against us, even the desertion of our brethren, but if truly for the Lord, He will stand beside us, and though with hearts sorrowing for those who forsake us,
  • yet we shall be encouraged, and enabled to maintain the proclamation of the truth, in deep, unquestioning assurance that we shall be delivered from every evil work, and preserved unto His heavenly kingdom.

It only remains for me to notice the close of the history of the assembly up to the Lord's coming.

• Philadelphia and Laodicea run down to the end in parallel streams. The former is characterized by having a "little power", but it is invisible; the latter, by what is visible.

• It has a great deal to say for itself, but Christ is outside the visible thing; the possessions have diverted the heart from Christ, and they boast themselves of having property, while they have not divine power.

• In Babylon's day there will be, as we have seen, assertion and assumption of all power; but our privilege is that we have power superior to all visible means;
  • and our greatest glory here is to maintain, that, like Moses of old, we can endure as seeing Him who is invisible, and that when there is nothing to support or prop up the natural mind, we are happily dependent upon the invisible power;

• and that it is easier to do so when there is nothing to tempt or delude us; for when we have nothing, we can trust the Lord for everything.

May the Lord teach us, and lead us on in this most blessed exercise and privilege, for His name's sake.

The assembly must be comprehended under two aspects;

1. the one, as God's house on earth

2. and the other, the body of Christ.

• Had the truth of the latter been preserved in the power of the Holy Spirit the virtues of the wise woman in Proverbs 31 would have secured order, and her Lord's honour in the house.

• The house is the habitation of God through the Spirit; and if the diversities of gifts, according to the administration of Christ in the body, had been maintained, the external disorder could never have occurred.

• But if the heart of the whole system becomes enfeebled, surely everything connected with it must indicate the lack of vigour.

• We must retain these two aspects of the assembly unto the end, and when there is any clinging to one, to the exclusion of the other, there is always an incorrect idea of the charge committed to us, and consequently an imperfect way of discharging our responsibility.

The great tempest which strained every timber of the assembly was when Paul was imprisoned; and "all who are in Asia", the scene of his greatest labours there, turned away from him. The great helmsman was driven from his post.

• Man's power deprived the assembly of him – the apostle of the gentiles, the master-builder; consequent on this,
  • the assembly lost the consciousness and acknowledgment of Christ's sway therein, as we see in 2 Timothy that it was not able to resist the babblings of the worst kind.

• The assembly was not internally in true spiritual power then, and hence outwardly it had become like a great house, with vessels to honour and dishonour.

• The individual in spiritual power then was to separate himself from the vessels, though he could not from the house, or external aspect of the assembly. This the apostle sets forth as the only course for service when the ruin had set in.

But evidently the majority, as in Acts 27, did not agree with the apostle in that day, nor in this; and it is this split, or difference of judgment, and consequent practice, which discloses the disunited and unsuccessful energies in the assembly

• like the sailors in knots in the ship, recommending and pursuing different plans for righting the ship, which must end disastrously, because the common good is not unitedly sought and preserved.

• Now the section who do not see with Paul, necessarily devoted themselves, at any rate, to the maintenance of outward order, and to do this when inherent power had lapsed,
  • from lack of faith, they assumed power and office as a substitute, and the more numerously they were supported, the more power ostensibly they acquired.

• They systematically assumed all the offices, from the vicar of Christ, down to the deacon; anything and everything, to give the church or ship the semblance of being in trim.

• Paul, as we shall see from 2 Timothy, did not lose sight of the external order which should distinguish the body of Christ on earth.

• The pit into which Paul's opponents fell, was that they ignored the truth of the body of Christ, while they aimed at order on the earth.

• Paul presses on Timothy the maintenance of the truth which would preserve both, as far as it was possible, when ruin had set in.

• How could any one expect a ship to be the same, when the mast and sails were swept away, and the hold full of water, as when it was in perfect trim and in full sail?

The apostle, in 2 Timothy, instructs the servant in the truth for the last times; but he directs his attention to the assembly, in the peculiar and singular light, in which it was only given to him;

• so that the servant who does not learn from 2 Timothy, must lose the course and commission of the assembly, in its innermost responsibilities.

• It is true Peter, Jude, and John instruct us respecting the house, or assembly building, more exclusively, while Paul alone instructs us respecting the assembly as the body of Christ.

• I do not say that he overlooks the house aspect, but I say he only combines both, or speaks of the body, while still keeping in view the house; while the other apostles speak of the house, and do not refer directly or indirectly to the body;
  • and yet their instruction is essentially necessary; for if the servant confined himself only to 2 Timothy, he would only have the house as it was in connection with the body, and how it was affected by the weakness of the latter;

• whereas, if he were at the same time imbued with the teaching of Peter, Jude, and John, he would see how the house was damaged by the builders and he would be instructed as to his duty when the rights of Christ on earth were rudely disregarded or misrepresented.

In 2 Timothy I am instructed in the internal state and the consequent service.

• In the others, I am instructed in the external, in order to help souls individually.

• Hence the servant who is only instructed in Peter, Jude, and John, thinks exclusively of what is due to Christ on earth, claims all flesh for Him, and attempts to enforce this by the assumption of office, and the adoption of all human instrumentality, instead of accepting the ruin, and strengthening only the things that remain.

• The servant then learns in 2 Timothy, that separation from evil, and confidence in God's resources, are the only means to surmount the ruin.

• The truth that God has revealed, he must continue in, with his eye full on the appearing of Him who will
  • "judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom".

• He is to preach the word; the whole counsel of God is to be proclaimed. He is to stand for the Lord, and the Lord will stand with him.

• He is not to expect countenance or co-operation from others; he must reckon rather on isolation, when he has to reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine; for instead of being attracted to the truth, they will run after teachers, that suit their ears.
  • "After their own lusts … heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears".

• The ship's company acknowledges no presiding power; yet the servant is to go on, making the gospel the great groundwork of all his ministry.

• There is defect in the foundation, when there is a defect in our walk for Christ. No one can understand how to be here for Christ, who is inadequately or imperfectly acquainted with what Christ has done;
  • as in Exodus 29, when the consecration of the sons of Aaron was instituted, the sin-offering and the burnt-offering were presented first; every part from the very beginning was laid, and made perfectly sure and positive, before the actual consecration was brought in.

• So in the servants now-a-days; the gospel must be the great groundwork, and then from it, the foundation –
  • "make full proof of thy ministry".

• It is not to end there, but it is to begin there;
  • and "the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Grace be with you".

• A very necessary benediction to the servant in the last times.

Now the truth in Peter for the last times, is more the practical side for each believer; as in the first chapter of the second epistle, giving him the "day star", as his hope, and not the light of prophecy.

• He regards them as living stones in the spiritual house, but we do not find in his epistles the body, in any expression, though there is nothing that militates against it.

• He warns of the false teachers in chapter 2 and as in the first chapter, the coming of the Lord is to encourage them, so in the last chapter, "the day of the Lord" is to sever them from everything; that they may
  • "be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless".

Jude exhorts us to contend for the faith; showing the duty of the remnant to rescue and discriminate, in the midst of earthly religiousness, corrupt teachers, and clerical assumption.

Now John insists on the grace of life, as it was at the beginning; while warning of the many antichrists; the denial of the doctrine of Christ;

• and in the Revelation, while showing, in the seven assemblies, the house aspect on the earth, he points out that the four last would continue to the end, each having for a time a special prominence in succession;

• yet when the fourth, that is Laodicea, had reached its climax, the assembly would be spued out of the mouth of Christ; it would then be characteristically hopeless.

• When truth ceases to be operative, there is no longer any hope for the house on earth; and as this increases characteristically, the influence of Philadelphia, which is the revival of the first standing, must be visibly declining, or the spewing would not be threatened as inevitable.

• If there was hope of Philadelphia rising over Laodicea as it had over Sardis, then the spewing out, or summary termination of the house on earth, would not have been threatened.

• Now this refers to the house, yet John sees that the end is marked by the bride, who with the Spirit says, "Come" to the Lord.

• Then he, as I apprehend, sets forth the truth that the servant is to insist on, in a two-fold way, in the last days;
  1. the truth which will deliver from Thyatira and Sardis, and preserve or extricate from Laodicea, on the one hand;

  2. and on the other, the assembly, as it is known to Christ; the bride in company with the Holy Spirit inviting Him to come;

• so that there is the house and the body in John without his referring to the doctrine of the latter or its characteristics; for the new Jerusalem is the house aspect I suppose.

The summing up is, that the servant requires varied lines of truth in the last days; and that all these are necessary, and subserve for the disorganized state of the assembly;

• and the heart truly stored with them will be adequate for the exigencies of service, in the midst of assembly ruin.

• If Paul only be known and followed, Christ's rights on earth, as the kingdom of heaven, would be over-looked, because they would only be recognized according as there was moral power or state suited for the body;
  • whereas if Peter, Jude, and John be exclusively adhered to, the rights of Christ locally would be fully admitted and enforced, but the corporate testimony would be lost sight of, though there would be individual state.

• Paul teaches the servant how to care for the house with reference to the body, mainly insisting on what he is to be for it.

• Peter teaches how Christ's building is to survive, in spite of false teachers, encouraged by the "day star", and severed from the earth, by the "day of the Lord".

• Jude teaches how the saints are to contend for and conserve the faith; to rescue and discriminate, looking unto Him who is able to keep them from falling, and present them faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.

• John teaches the utter and eventual failure of the visible building, but the disclosure of the bride to the "bright and morning star", as Rebekah, when presented to Isaac. She comes to him, and therefore is practically, with the Spirit, inviting Him to "Come".

Let me explain that when you hold your heavenly position, it is not merely that you go to heaven, but that you cleave to Him who is in heaven. That is the secret of true love.

• "Whither thou goest, I will go".

• Here the church at Ephesus failed. It is a great help to read the Old Testament; you get there the great principles of truth. God is the same there as in the New Testament, only He has a different circle of interest.

• You will find all the way through, that the man who adhered to God's circle of interest for the time, was specially supported by Him; while the one who deviated from that circle, even though seeking another dispensation, was powerless and disaffected.

• Many a pious man now sticks to the dispensation which was in line when Christ was on earth; they love Jesus, are devoted and zealous, do many good works, but they are not in the line of God's chief interest.

• Now in the difficult days, what is the remedy? There is no remedy unless you adhere to the truth as it has been given.

• You may say, We are a feeble few. True, but that is all the more reason that we should adhere to it. It is an immense cheer to us in our insignificance to feel that, feeble as we are, we are identified with God's chief interest.

• The remnant is always most exemplary where the departure began. Like a man out of health. Supposing he has a bad eye, what would mark his restoration? Would it not be an improvement in his eye?

• Thus, the point of departure is the point of restoration. See how the church of Ephesus failed after all the favours shown to it.

• You find that church spoken of four times in Scripture.

1. In Acts we have the church of Ephesus in their first fervour, where they burned their books.

2. Then in the epistle to the Ephesians, where the greatest revelation of truth ever committed was given to them.

3. Again, to Timothy, the servant at Ephesus, the apostle writes of the two great evils, popery and radicalism.

4. Lastly, we have the epistle to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2, where John joins with Paul.

It is important to note that John always gives us the essential nature of the divine quality. It is not easy to explain it.

• The Spirit and the bride say "Come". Mark the recovery!

• The true remnant is most exemplary at the point where the failure began. If the church – represented by Ephesus – has left its first love, the remnant is marked by the love of the bride.
  • "The Spirit and the bride say, Come".

• How could any one know the feelings of the bride but the bride? The bride in company with the Holy Spirit is distinguished for her personal attachment to Christ. This is paramount.

• True affection never overlooks its responsibilities. It is an immense cheer that the great thing that marks spiritual power in a day of ruin, is that you are true to the truth which the Lord has committed to you.

Now as to the Scriptures which I have read, the first subject which I would press upon each one here is Christ's first circle of interest.

• I am addressing many of His servants. Surely His first circle of interest must be yours also.

• I daresay that you have heard some say that the corporate thing is over. Christ's chief interest is unknown to one who can say that; and if it is unknown to you how can you understand His mind about anything?

• If I have a friend am I not interested in his chief interests? Do you know Christ's interests? Remember that His treasure is here, hid in the field, as we read in Matthew 13. The field is the world, Christ's treasure is in it.

• I have read these two scriptures that we may see our calling, that we may have conscious knowledge of our great position.

• However we have failed in our corporate testimony we cannot escape from corporate responsibility. The apostle writes:
  • "I … after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you; making mention of you in my prayers".

• You may say that every one is not up to the knowledge of the mystery. This I admit. But why are they not up to it? Where is the defect? Because they are not established and restful in the gospel.

• You are not up to the mystery until you know that you have a Saviour in glory. You would not enjoy union with Christ if you did not know Him in glory; that is, if you did not know that all the distance between God and you had been removed on His side, so that the nearer you are to Him the more assured you are of His grace.

• You have a home in the Father's house. That is the gospel. That is the gospel from God's side. The prodigal found that the nearer he came to his father, the better off he was.

• The apostle presses upon the Corinthians that they would be transformed into the same image by beholding the Lord's glory. I would ask the youngest believer, Are you at home in the glory, and do you enjoy a Saviour there?
  • That would be "changed into the same image".

• No one can tell how it is effected; but it is not merely by reading the word; it is by beholding the glory.

• The glory is God's satisfaction, according to all His attributes, resting upon the Lord Jesus Christ your Saviour. The effect upon you through beholding the Lord's glory is that you are altered completely.

• It is not only that your judgment has changed; we find that in Psalm 73, but you are personally changed.

'Yet sure, if in Thy presence
My soul still constant were,
Mine eye would more familiar
Its brighter glories bear.
And thus Thy deep perfections
Much better should I know,
And with adoring fervour
In this Thy nature grow'. Hymn 51.

You may taunt me and say, If that is true, why are you not more there?<

• I am ready for that, for I am assured that if I were more there, I should be more affected by it, and then I should be a more effective servant.

I have not yet touched on the church, the mystery.

• If you are fully in the grace of the gospel, you will be ready and glad to know that you are united to the One who has wrought all this blessing for you.

• It may be said, All Christians are united to Him, and so we are, the moment we receive the Holy Spirit; but how many of us consciously know union? Believe me, union is a wonderful reality.

• The first sense of union is, He is my Head, He dictates everything. No doubt you will feel humbled at times that you are not under His dictation.

But before I proceed I call your attention to the exercises indispensable to the Christian.

1. The first is, you know that every purpose of God has been accomplished for you. There is immense satisfaction of heart as the light of this is known to you in detail.

2. The second is, that the Holy Spirit's work exclusively now is to make true to you the grace which is yours, to form you in the reality of all that which has been done for you; and for this the servant of God ministers the word.

3. Finally, your own soul waits upon God in prayer, that you may apprehend that for which you are apprehended. The apostle prays that they might be given the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.

• I would press earnestly upon you the value of these words. Often as I have read Ephesians those words seem to be increasingly wonderful to me.

• You may know every word of the epistle, you may know what is stated in every line of it; but if you have not the spirit of wisdom and revelation, it is no good to you; you will not grasp God's thought in it.

• I am lost in the immensity of it; and I am glad I am lost in it, because then I turn to God.

• The mystery is that when Christ was rejected here, then was divulged that His body was here. John says of the things that Jesus did,
  • "if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written".

• Nothing of Christ will be lost; all will come out in His body, the assembly. Can anyone compass the vastness of the structure which has been here over eighteen hundred years; and all will come out in the new Jerusalem, each of us being a part of it?

I do not dwell upon the hope of His calling

• it begins with the place, verse 4;
• then the state, verse 5;
• then the relationship, verse 6.

• That is the calling of God.

Now I turn to verse 19: "what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead".

• The word 'know' in verse 18 is the same word used in other places for conscious knowledge.

• It is important to apprehend that you should have conscious knowledge of the power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.

• All the members went up with Him then in God's mind. To give an illustration: all the feathers of a bird go up with the bird, and every feather came from the bird.

• Just as Eve came from the rib of Adam, so every Christian derives from Christ. The body is the complement of Christ. No one can know his place as a member of the body of Christ until he has conscious knowledge of the power which is to us-ward who believe.

Now I turn to chapter 3: 14. The subject is quite different. In chapter 1 it is that you may have the conscious knowledge of the counsel of God, of His calling.

• In chapter 3 you have the Spirit's work in you.

• Here you are made heavenly in tastes and interests. Hence we read,
  • "That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith".

• Do you note the greatness of the power to effect this in you, and that nothing but the power of God could displace what you are in nature? The old has to be displaced. God only can displace the old, and God only can erect the new.
  • He has made an end of you in the cross, and He only can make this which is true of you true to you.

• When we contemplate this passage, we can account for the small number of Christians who know that they are heavenly, however true it is of them before God. You must be strengthened by His Spirit in the inner man, that the Christ may dwell in your heart by faith.

• It is not merely heaven which is brought into our hearts by faith, but it is the Man that is in heaven, who is dwelling in our hearts by faith; and, thank God, when the Christ dwells in our hearts, we are heavenly in life, and tastes and interests.

• Many have thought that they would become heavenly by renouncing the earthly. No; the real way to renounce the earthly and to be heavenly in taste is by Christ dwelling in your heart by faith; the Man who is exalted to the right hand of God dwelling with all His tastes and interests in your heart.

• Blessed be God, it required the mighty power of God to accomplish this for you. You are in Christ. That you get in chapter 1.

Now in chapter 3, Christ is in you. You have first to learn that you are in Christ, and next Christ is in you.

• No one can explain the blessedness of Christ dwelling in your heart by faith. Think how He would control you, according to His own will and pleasure. What a truce it would be to your will! Christ Himself swaying you in everything, for His service and testimony.
  • In Galatians Christ lives in you.
  • In 2 Corinthians 3, Christ is your object in glory.
  • In Colossians, Christ is your Head.

• But great as He is as your life, or as your object in glory, or as your Head, there is much more here in Ephesians 3;
  • "that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length, and depth and height" – the whole domain of glory; then – "to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge".

If the church at Ephesus had continued in the work of the Spirit in them, they would not have left their first love.

• Here you have come to the acme of the Spirit's work in you; and the consummation is,
  • "that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God".

• It is only now that you realise the power which wrought in Christ. You are now by the Spirit's power in the heavenly position. The blessed One who is in heaven is dwelling in your heart by faith.

• You are not merely made acquainted with the heavenly scene where He is, but Himself dwells in your heart by faith; so that it is not the scene of glory that is in your heart, but the Christ who is there. Divine power has brought you into this heavenly position.
  • "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us".

• The power is now in you; it is not merely that you are in the conscious knowledge of it as in chapter 1: 19, but you are in the power now. Hence the doxology –
  • "Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end, Amen".

• You have power now to be descriptive of Christ in this world. It is most blessed. In the house aspect you are fruit-bearing, and going forth as missionaries, as in John 15.

• But here it is more John 17. Christ first sets us as Himself in the presence of the Father, and then He sets us as Himself in the presence of the world.

• One might say, Is not the body in the house? Yes, it is; the body is the organism; like the machinery of a clock, it is inside. In a clock you do not see the internal working, but if the machinery is in good order the time is correct. If the time is not correct, you know that the defect is in the machinery.

I would now dwell on the heavenly ground, which evokes such terrible opposition. The whole force of the enemy is concentrated on the heavenly position.

• Now that you are in heavenly power you are to be on the earth descriptive of the heavenly man in every detail of life.

• Then you must begin at the beginning. Every good thing comes down; you come out now with Christ dwelling in your heart, and you begin with the church, chapter 4,
  • "Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace".

• If you fail in the first you will fail in all the rest. As you enter on the heavenly ground, all the force of Satan will be arrayed against you. Nothing aggravates Satan so much as to be descriptive of Christ in exaltation in the place where Christ's rejection, the most diabolical act, was perpetrated.

I say, with deep sorrow of heart, that I never made an attempt to accept the heavenly ground, without there was a bait thrown in my way.

• Satan has only two forces, like a double-barrelled gun;
  • the one is a bait to allure you;

  • if that does not succeed, he will try to crush you.

• You see it in the children of the captivity in Daniel; he first offers them the king's meat, and when they refuse that, he says, 'I'll burn them'. The same God who delivered them from the one can deliver them from the other, and in a more distinct way.

• May every one of you be so assured in spirit of your heavenly position that Balaam may not succeed in diverting you from it. Balaam is the social element which corrupts. I have seen it.

• Where did our children pick that up? In association, in company with others. I suppose there is not a father in this room who does not know what damage his children have got by association, social intercourse with the children of worldly Christians.
  • It is the social element that corrupts the church.

What is your vocation, brethren? What could be so dear to a man of real affection for his Lord as to stand for Him where the many are declining and lukewarm? The hardest conflict manifests the deepest virtue.

• You have heard of the officer who in face of the enemy tore down the colours and bound them round his body, saying, You will take me before you take the colours. That is what I call fidelity. Take me before you take them. You must not give up the colours, however things go.

• If you have reached your heavenly position in divine power, you will maintain for Christ in His exaltation as long as you remain here.

• I do not ask you to surrender anything; I ask you to have Christ dwelling in your heart by faith.

• You may say, Show us a pattern man. We all like to copy; but there is no gain in copying. You have to learn the Lord for yourself. All you learn for yourself will remain, and nothing else. Everyone has his own history.

In closing I would refer to the evangelists and the last three parables in Matthew 13. They are deeply interesting.

• I can rejoice in the evangelist's work, and I think his gift is the highest. The evangelist is given by the Head, but if he does not know Christ's chief interest he will not fit his converts for their right place.

• Formerly, a recruiting officer recruited for his own corps; you may be sure he selected his man. If you do not understand where or what the corps is, you have not the object in recruiting.

• Many an evangelist thinks only of saving souls. It is right, surely, to seek to save souls; but this would not the less interest and absorb him if in his heart he could say of the saved one, he is a member of Christ's body;
  • to sweep the house diligently, not for the benefit of man merely, but to find the silver piece and to put it along with the other nine pieces; see Luke 15.

• You must know where the other nine are or you cannot put your converts with them.

The first of these three parables is the treasure hid the field;

• the second, the pearl of great price, the value of the church to Christ;

• the third, the net.

• I would ask you to sit for ten minutes alone and meditate on Christ's interest in the church, the one beautiful thing dear to Him in this world; the one thing that His heart is set on, hid here in the midst of all the distraction and evil.

• As an illustration, think of a man who had a beautiful garden which a horde of robbers had devastated. When asked why he retained that garden, he would reply, I keep the garden because of the arbour in which my wife sits.

• The church, Christ's interest, is still on the earth, notwithstanding all the devastation. If evangelists do not keep this before them, they will not gather the good, the converts, into vessels.
  • We read, they "sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away".

• The Lord grant that each of us may so enter on our heavenly position, that in the power here made known to us we may be ready to withstand all the force of the enemy
  • and "having done all, to stand".

The words which are used in chapter 1: 19 are the same words that are used in chapter 6, where we read

• "be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might".

• No man can face Satan until he knows the power of God for himself, as we see in Joshua 3:10,
  • "Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you".

The power which has brought you over Jordan is the power by which all the force arrayed against you will be overcome.

• You must be first in your heavenly position, before you can face the enemy.

• In the type in Joshua 5 you do not meet the enemy until you are met by the captain of the Lord's host. You are in the heavenly position yourself. The same power that brought you there is the power which enables you to resist all the power against you down here.

In conclusion I give you Stephen for an example; Acts 7:55. The Holy Spirit 'ope'd' – for him – 'the heavenly door'. That is your privilege.

• Union with Christ was not revealed to Stephen, but he knew the power by which he was united to Him. He first faithfully declares,
  • "I see … the Son of man standing on the right hand of God".

• This is the true testimony: and now in the same power that made him a witness, he can encounter all the varied power of the enemy unswervingly, so that the finest quality of grace, overcoming evil with good, was expressed in him in divine lustre ere he died.

• The more they pressed him, the more Christ was manifested by him. The great virtue comes out most under the greatest pressure.
  • "Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out".

• The Lord grant that you may believe that you are called to a heavenly position, and that you may not be discouraged by the dilapidation with which you are surrounded.

• Though all is failure on our side, may our hearts be faithful and true to Him who has called us, and who is as true to His own, and as ready to help them as ever He was.

• May the sense of His love be revived in our hearts! The better you know His love, the better you will love Him; and as you love Him you will keep His commandments, and thus He will be able to treat you as His "friends", because He can safely trust in you.