I need not tell you that Jeremiah lived on to the close of the history of the people of God in his day.

• Long before this, of course, the nation of Israel had been divided, and so far as the ten tribes are concerned, their history had closed in judgment; Shalmaneser the Assyrian had carried them away into captivity, and they have been there from that day to the present;
  • they will, as we know, be recovered, and will yet be brought back into the land, and the whole nation will be reunited and brought into blessing;

• but even as to the kingdom of Judah, this prophet lived very near the end, he lived in the days of Josiah the king, and what marked Josiah's time in the beginning? When he came into the kingdom everything was very dark, they were suffering under the hand of Jehovah the results of their unfaithfulness.
  • But I just want to say that there was a wonderful revival in the days of Josiah and of Jeremiah.

• The house of God was in a very sad state, and the service of God in connection with it was practically well-nigh abandoned; but God wrought – Josiah was but a youth, but the heart of the young king was in exercise of soul before God,
  • and he began where every true revival generally begins, that is, with God's interests here, and, of course, those interests at that time were centred in the temple – the house of God – just as God's interests are now centred in the assembly – the church of the living God – the house of God.

• So Josiah began to clear up things in connection with the house of God, Shaphan was the scribe; Hilkiah, the father of Jeremiah, was the high priest, and in connection with the work inaugurated by Jeremiah Hilkiah discovered in the house of God the book of the law of God, the book containing the mind of God concerning His beloved people.

• I must only speak briefly, but the book was given to Shaphan the scribe, and Shaphan carried it to the king, and the book was read, and the finding and the reading of that book was the beginning of a wonderful revival among God's people.

Now Jeremiah alludes to this, In connection with his appeal to Jehovah he writes his own personal experience; he says,

• "Thy words were found, and I did eat them".

• Hilkiah, the father of Jeremiah, literally found them; but it is not the details that I dwell on, but with the fact itself, What a wonderful thing! "Thy words" – the very words of Jehovah, setting forth what was in the mind of Jehovah concerning His house, and concerning His people – concerning His interests here in this scene, Jeremiah says:
  • "Thy words were found, and I did eat them".

• You can understand the figure without any difficulty, because it is a very simple figure; in eating food we appropriate it, and in the appropriation of it we realise the good of it.

• Eating food is what we are in the habit of doing constantly and literally, but Jeremiah speaks of eating in a moral sense, though the simplicity of the figure is kept up, and the result of eating the words of Jehovah was that he realised in his own soul the good of those words; and the first result was they made him very happy; he says,
  • "and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart".

• But why did they make him so happy? Because those words of Jehovah made known to him the blessed fact of his complete identification with Jehovah, and his complete identification with Jehovah in the way of blessing.

• It is well to know that a person is happy, but it is better to know why they are happy, and Jeremiah tells us why:
  • "Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Jehovah God of hosts";

• he learned his complete identification with Jehovah God of hosts; it was such a wonderful identification.

• As illustration – when a woman marries, she takes her husband's name – she becomes called by his name; so Jeremiah was so wonderfully identified with Jehovah God of hosts, that he says, "for I am called by thy name."

Then you get the next effect of "eating those words".

• First – they discovered to him his complete identification with Jehovah, and thus they brought to light his privilege, as identified with that name, and they filled his heart with rejoicing.

• That was one side, but then the other side was his responsibility, and that which measured his privilege and his blessing on the one side, measured his responsibility on the other side.

• If being called by the name of Jehovah God of hosts, was the full measure of his privilege, it became also the measure of his responsibility; he was responsible to stand apart from everything that dishonoured that name. So he says:
  • "I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of thy hand: for thou hast filled me with indignation".

Now it was not because of the rejoicing that filled his heart in the discovery of his privilege, it was not on that side that he had got into reproach –

• although, of course, these things cannot be disconnected – these two sides of the truth are never really apart. You may distinguish them, but you cannot separate them, for they go together.

• There is joy in the apprehension of privilege, but there is also the exercise connected with the apprehension of the side of responsibility, and, in a word, that is where you get into trial.

• The devil does not care how happy you are; he is not concerned about your apprehension of privilege and your joy in the apprehension of it, but what the devil is opposed to is separation, and separation will get you into trouble. It always has got the people of God into trouble.

• That is nothing new; it could not be otherwise, I think, in a sense, that it was Abel's separation that got him into trouble with Cain. I think one might say, speaking reverently, it was so with the Lord. Oh! it was His intense separation that man could not bear. He was
  • "holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners".

• That was one reason why He suffered as He did at the hands of men. There is a wonderful testimony in separation, not in denunciation.

• Souls will get hardened under denunciation; you can easily get hard, and bitter, in connection with denunciation,
  • but testimony is in separation, and as sure as we are marked by separation we shall be in the reproach that Jeremiah suffered from;

• and we know from the body of the book how he not only suffered reproach, but he suffered in every way from the hands of his enemies.

Well now, what I want to come to is this. Just as there was a revival in the days of Jeremiah, so there has been a revival in our day, and, let me say,

• it is God who brings about a revival.

• God brings about revivals in the history of His people, and He brings them about for His own glory and for the blessing of His people.

• You always find, beloved, in a divine revival that God ever has respect to that which He has established, to that which He has set up.

• There may be but a very few who are directly, personally, involved in the revival, but I am bold to say that in every revival God has in view, not only the maintenance of the testimony which He has established, but He has in view the blessing of His people.

Well, God has been pleased to bring about a revival in our day. He has been pleased to recover the truth for His own glory, and for the blessing, not simply of the few that may be immediately and personally concerned in connection with the revival, but God has in view the whole of His people.

• I wish we could think of that, because sometimes it seems to me we act as if we thought we were kind of favourites – a few select ones, and that God had some special interest in some few of us that He has not in all His people.

• Well, there is the revival; but now the question is, what is your relationship and mine concerning it? God brings about a revival. But then a great many people become connected with it in a mere outward way. It was so in times of old; it is so in more modern times.

• In the days of Martin Luther there was a revival, and I believe God brought it about. He brought it about for His glory and for the blessing of His people, all His people; yet how many there are that have a mere outward, historical connection with it! They still speak of belonging to reformed bodies or reformed churches; but, alas! it is only like what the Lord says about Sardis,
  • "a name that thou livest and art dead".

• It may be so now. I am not saying whether it is so or not, but it may be a mere historical, outward, doctrinal, or ecclesiastical connection.

• But what I am concerned about is this, beloved, have you and I in our souls a living, vital connection with that revival which, unquestionably, the Lord has brought about in these last days?

• I do not wish to undervalue any one or any thing, but I am inclined to the conviction that we have witnessed the last revival in the history of the assembly here, and it is a very serious question – what is your relationship and mine to it? – for, however God may have wrought, and by whomsoever He may have wrought, the revival has come.

• God has brought it about, and what I think is emphasised in the passage I have read to you is this – that whilst the revival concerns the honour and glory of God, the glory and the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, whilst it concerns the whole church of God, you and I have to be brought into it individually.

• God has not a remnant of the church before Him. Do you think He has given up the church? Never, He will never give it up; the church, beloved, is just as much an object of interest and concern with God, and with the Lord Jesus tonight, as at any moment in its history.

But while it is true that the revival is not a matter that has for its object the blessing of an individual, or a number of individuals, but that in it God has the assembly in view, the honour and glory of God, the maintenance of the testimony of our Lord –

• I repeat that I think what we should learn is, that you and I have got to be brought into it individually.

• We like large companies, and I am not averse to them; I am very thankful to the Lord for all that are here tonight; but we have to take this matter home to ourselves, each one of us, and we have to look it in the face, how far are we personally and individually in what God has brought about?

• My father, mother, brothers, sisters, may be in the meeting; but that will not do, If you are going to touch at all what God has wrought, if you are going to know the reality of it, you must know it for yourself:
  • "Thy words were found, and I did eat them".

• These things test us as to our spiritual state, as to how it is with us in relation to God. Jeremiah ate His words; he had an appetite for them: have you an appetite for the words of God – for the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ?

• Then we see from what Jeremiah goes on to say that the question which was involved in the word of God's truth was identification of God's people with God Himself.

• You may say, Is not that true of the whole church? Yes, I grant it is; but have you got a personal experience with regard to it? Has there been wrought in your soul such a spiritual appetite for God's words, His truth and His testimony?

• Some people are where I was once myself, when one thought the whole thing, the acme in Christianity, was in being saved, and I am not saying anything against safety, nor certainty, nor enjoyment; but I am opposed to sitting down on the doorstep of Christianity.

• There are a great many religious people in these days, there are a number of people, Christians too, who think that the whole thing is to get a little blessing for themselves.

• But that is not all; of course we all have to learn our A B C; but that is not the end of it:
  • "Thy words were found, and I did eat them".

• It is a very serious question – have we learned for ourselves our identification with the Lord Jesus Christ as the prophet, learned his identification with Jehovah God of hosts? That is the test.

• I am afraid that we somehow hide ourselves under the general statement of the truth we know. Oh! you say, I have seen wonderful things about the assembly. But how have you seen them?

• Have you seen them through the light of the Spirit of God in connection with your own experience? If not, you are only the victim of a theory; it may be a very beautiful theory and quite correct, but that is all.

• Perhaps you have been brought up in the meetings – have been converted, and you break bread, and I am thankful for it; but you will not mind if I ask you the question, have you really in your soul grasped this – "for I am called by thy name"?

• We did not all learn it so easy; some of us learnt it alone – apart from teachers, or evangelists, and apart from tracts and books – and it cost us something, and I want to press upon you the reality of it. Have you got the joy of it?

• We are told in the Old Testament that "the joy of the Lord is your strength". You ought to be happy; you and I are divinely entitled to be perfectly happy, and it is a great thing to be happy; you are so safe when you are happy divinely:
  • "Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name".

Then there is what comes with the happiness; there is responsibility.

• There are many people of God who claim to see the truth, they like the truth and hold it; but what about the separation? If your separation is not equivalent to your joy, I am rather suspicious about your joy.
  • "I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of thy hand: for thou hast filled me with indignation".

• Have you just left one thing and joined another? That will not do. "I sat alone". That will do. You have got to sit alone outside "the assembly of the mockers".

• In 2 Timothy 2, we read:
  • "If therefore one shall have purified himself from these in separating himself from them, he shall be a vessel to honour, sanctified, serviceable to the Master, prepared for every good work".

• Then you flee youthful lusts, you do not do it in a crowd, you do it alone, and you pursue righteousness, and faith, and love, and peace; you do that, then you are clear; and when you are clear you find a few more, and then you can walk with them.

• We want to have a personal experience on these lines at the present time; and now let me say this, lest I should be misunderstood.
  • Do not think I am speaking against fellowship – against the joy and blessedness of walking with a few of your fellow believers in these days, God forbid.

• But I would like you to enjoy it when you get it – and you will only enjoy it in the measure in which this has been made personally good and true in your soul.

And then, what was the indignation about?

• "for thou hast filled me with indignation".

• It was about the Lord's name. The Lord is your joy, and you are indignant at the dishonour to Him. If you get indignant about persons you will get hard, and you will be most unlovely and unlovable. Jeremiah says,
  • "because of thy hand".

• His indignation was for the Lord's dishonour; he could not go on with the mockers. It was his separation from them that got him into trouble; all manner of things were laid to his charge.

• Well, it seems from the appeal of Jeremiah that the Lord did not come in at once. I take it that the Lord allowed Jeremiah for a while to suffer, and so he makes a desperate appeal. He says:
  • "Why is my pain perpetual …?", etc. Here is the answer –

    "Therefore thus saith the Lord, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them".

• What wonderful words! I have no doubt that we need them in these days.
  • "And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brazen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord, And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible".

Of course these words of Jehovah could be, and no doubt were, taken in a literal way by Jeremiah – all in perfect keeping with the character of that dispensation;

• but we must take them in a spiritual way, and let me say that in the answer of Jehovah taken in that way there is everything that the heart of the believer could desire.

• You can count on the Lord; you can count on His making you to stand; you can count upon Him for your spiritual protection and preservation, for your deliverance.

• I would like to encourage any trembling heart that has been brought face to face with a little of the consequences of what it is to be true to the Lord at a time like this. He will really cause you to "stand before the Lord" – to have a standing, as it were, in His presence.
  • "And if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth."

• Beware of indiscriminate condemnation or censure of anybody. Learn to discriminate; there is the precious and there is the vile; learn in your souls to discriminate spiritually. God encourages every one of us in that direction. He says:
  • "Thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them".

• If the Lord has separated you, never set your face in the direction of what He has separated you from.

Well, beloved, I have spoken simply and personally. I have not thought of entertaining or of pleasing you; but I have spoken with some desire of helping you,

• and I trust the Lord may really take up these feeble, scattered thoughts, and bring them home to you, that they may be a real blessing to you and to us all.

• Let me say to you, the measure of your helpfulness among your brothers and sisters in the Lord all hangs upon the measure in which in your own soul you answer to the Lord and are found in intelligent response to His mind.

• Remember there is the privilege, there is the joy, and then, on the other side, there is the responsibility of separation – of being apart from everything that would dishonour His blessed name, by which name we have been called.

What I desire, in the first place, is to attempt to shew you from the scriptures, especially the New Testament scriptures, what I might term the origin of sonship,

• and in connection with the apprehension of this I think we shall be brought to see something of the character of it, something of the significance and meaning of sonship.

In the first place, I think the real origin of sonship is the relationships and affections existing between divine Persons in the Godhead, I speak particularly with regard to the Father and the Son;

• I think every one of us must feel that if we are going to understand anything of scripture, anything of the truth of Christianity, we must begin with God,

• and we must begin with the revelation that God has been pleased to make of Himself in the Person of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ; and I am increasingly persuaded, as to myself, that it is most important that we should start there.

• Now I may say things that are very simple, but I believe they are important, and need to be clearly apprehended in our souls; and I would make this remark – that when you come to the revelation of God in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, what you come to see is this – that in the revelation of God there has come to light the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

• I trust I speak soberly and carefully, and that I shall not say anything that would lead anybody to think that in respect of these things there is any ground given for mere intellectual speculation we are shut up, beloved friends, to the revelation of God as given us in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, with regard to the Spirit, there is a simple statement in Mr. Darby's translation, in the Gospel of John 15: 26, about the Spirit.

• We are told that the Spirit proceedeth forth – now mark! – from with the Father. Thus you see the blessed Spirit in all His wonderful ministry, whether it is on the side of the revelation of God, or whether it is on our side – our apprehension and appreciation, or, you may say, our entrance into the revelation of God,
  • you see how the Spirit of God Himself stands inseparably connected with the relationship subsisting between the Father and the Son.

• Well, you can only speak of the Father and the Son according to what has been revealed, and what is really written in the scriptures.

• To pretend to know one jot or one tittle outside what is recorded in the scriptures would be a vain pretension and would simply indicate that one has some confidence in one's own mind apart from that which is written. We have the wonderful revelation in chapter 1: 18 of John's gospel –
  • "No one hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him".

• In that wonderful verse comes to light something of the truth of the relationship between the Father and the only-begotten Son, and, may I say, the use of the word "bosom" not only points out the relationship, but points out the affections existing between the Father and the Son in such relationship,
  • for the bosom, beloved friends, is used in scripture as a figure of speech to indicate the home of affection, and in this case it conveys the thought of the home of divine and holy reciprocal affections subsisting between the Father and the Son – all the Father's love to the Son and the Son's love to the Father.

• I am going carefully, and a little slowly, but I want you to get hold of this wonderful subject. What we find is this – we have been speaking of the revelation of God in the Person of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, but in speaking of this the fact of incarnation is, of course, involved;

• and incarnation, as simply as it can be stated in the light of scripture, is the fact of a divine Person, an eternally-existing Person, that divine Person has taken upon Him the form of man, the condition of man.

• To put it in the exact language of scripture, chapter 1: 14 of John's gospel states
  • "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father), full of grace and truth".

• Whenever He is viewed in scripture as having taken upon Him the condition of man, His personal and distinctive title is the "Son of God". The title Son of God does not describe Him as a divine Person in eternal relationship with the Father; it describes that same divine Person as a Man down here, as a Man born in time, for when He was brought into this world the Father salutes Him,
  • "Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten thee".

• Every thought of begetting, or of having been begotten, must be put out of your mind when you conceive of Him as a divine Person in eternal relationship with the Father; the reasoning of theology is fatally false and misleading; theologians have said that He was eternally begotten before all ages by the Father; it is nothing but confusion;

• it is as a Man, beloved friends, that we have the account of His generation in time. Then it was that God said to Him:
  • "Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten thee";

• and we know from the opening of the Gospel of Luke, when the angel Gabriel had that wonderful interview with the Virgin Mary, how he said to her in response to her beautiful expression of wonderment as to how this could be:
  • "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and power of the Highest overshadow thee, wherefore the holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of God", Luke 1: 35.

Now to speak in a very simple way – a very direct way: in that blessed Person – the Son of God who was begotten by the power of God – by the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the virgin, we have, as to His actual being here in time, the beginning of sonship.

• Wonderful men had been here, men owned and used of God; it has always been a marvel to me to read of certain men in the Old Testament scriptures: I am not losing sight of the peculiar character of Christianity, and of what we are brought into in Christianity,
  • but take, for instance, a man like Daniel as the Holy Ghost presents him to us, one feels how small one is in the presence of such a man;

• but, beloved friends, never had there been such a Man in this world before as that One born of the virgin – begotten in the womb of the virgin by the overshadowing power of the Highest – of the Holy Ghost. There never will be such another as He.
  • We have read, "for ye are all God's sons by faith in Christ Jesus";

• but that Man is not a son of God. He is not one of the sons. He is the Son of God. He, as born into this world, was "the Son of God";

• God stood in a relationship to Him as Man that He never stood in to any other, and never will. He is the Son of God; and I am sure the Spirit of God would lead us to give Him His proper pre-eminence; He would produce even in our minds, as well as in our hearts, thoughts and feelings in relation to Himself as He would to none other.

Now it is in Him you have the beginning, the setting forth of what sonship is, and I think the gospels help you.

• I am not taking account of the distinctions between Matthew and Mark and Luke and John; there are distinctions, important distinctions, but you may read the four gospels just as they stand, and if you keep your eye upon that blessed Person you may learn the truth of sonship in Him as in no other.

• There was in Him – in that Man; not only the revelation – the perfect expression of all that God is as Father, as Son, and as Spirit in all those wonderful divine relationships and affections,
  • but there was more than that, there was in that Person, that same blessed Man, the perfect setting forth of sonship – that is, of what man is in relation to God; man in the knowledge of God;

• man walking in all the light of what God is; perfectly answering to it, the Object of the Father's affection, and the One too in whom responsive affection is fully set forth.

• I am not drawing your attention to anything new; it has often been said that whenever the Lord addresses God, whether in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, it is never under the name of God; the only instance of that is on the cross where He was making atonement – where it was a question of meeting the claims and maintaining the rights of God as such, sin being in question,
  • but apart from that it is always "Father". God, as God, may speak of responsibility – of judgment, but not the Father. That word is a word of holy and divine affection, a word of grace, beyond all human thought.

• He always said Father; He ever walked in the sense of that relation ship with God, In Hebrews 1 we have:
  • "I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son".

• Was not that made good? How He walked in all the light, and peace, and joy of it! There was in His blessed heart, as Man, an unvarying response to all the Father's love, and to all the peace, all the joy of it.

• Peace and joy form the atmosphere in which that blessed name of Father is known, and in all the unclouded light of the Father's love, and all the peace and joy that belongs to it, He walked as man down here.

I have quoted it, but I will quote just once more, John 1: 14, It says:

• "And we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father, full of grace and truth".

• As it has often been said, He found nothing in manhood. Though truly a man, manhood never contributed to Him. He brought everything into manhood, as a divine Person taking His place in manhood, the distinguishing glory of His manhood derived from what belonged to Him as a divine Person.

Now that is sonship. Sonship is an integral part of Christianity.

• Sonship is not presented as a privilege dependent upon spiritual attainment on the part of Christians; it belongs to the wonderful revelation of God in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God – it is set forth in Him.

• It is as wide as redemption is, See Galatians 1: 16,
  • "To reveal his Son in me, that I may announce him as glad tidings among the nations".

• All that is set forth in Him – as another has said – is for every man – righteousness, life, sonship. God has no other thought for man, save what is set forth in that Man.

• Hence the Son of God is preached, and what is set forth in Him is God's mind for every man.

• But I go further. In speaking of those who believe, I can say,
  • "Ye are all God's sons by faith in Christ Jesus".

• There is no other position now for Christians – it belongs to Christianity; the place of sons is given to us and no other.

I think all would readily admit that the highest unfolding of the truth of Christianity is found in the Epistle to the Ephesians.

• Did you ever take account of that expression in connection with the prayer of the apostle, beginning with chapter 1: 15? He prays for three things –
  1. the first is, that we might know what is the hope of the calling of God – He addresses "God and Father", not "Father and God". In Ephesians we are not in John, we are in Paul, and so it is the "God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" –

  2. then the second thing he prays for is that we might know what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints;

  3. but look at the third – that we may know what is the surpassing greatness of His power towards its. Is that to a few Christians? – a few that might be taken account of as "young men "or "fathers"? 1 John 2. No, it is "towards us who believe".

• Is not that lovely? I want to cheer you tonight, and I pray that the Spirit of God may give the answer in your soul to what is really true of you – that you are one of the sons of God. There is nothing else – nothing lower for you.

• Would I make light of the Spirit's work in us – would I make light of spiritual attainment? God forbid. I take great account of the distinctions in 1 John 2, between the children, the young men, and the fathers; the fathers are characterised as those who have known Him from the beginning.

• That is the result of the Spirit's work, but, beloved, you are one of God's sons. Do not look within to learn what sonship is; look at the Son of God – look at that Man, and then take account of yourself as one of God's sons,
  • "We are all the sons of God by" what? – by experience, by attainment? Oh no, it is "by faith in Christ Jesus".

• Have you faith in Him? Well, He is the Son of God, and He is the measure of everything in Christianity.

• If we speak about the Spirit's work, let me say the work of the Spirit of God in you and in me does not proceed on the ground of speculation, or of questioning or of doubting.

• Do you say, 'I would like to know what it is to be in the good of sonship'? Are you sure that you would like that? Well, let me tell you then that there is One who desires it for you more than you do. He wants you to be in the good of it.

• But the Spirit of God is not going to work in your soul or in mine on the ground of unbelief. He works on the ground of faith – on the ground of our believing.

• Now let me ask, is it clear to you tonight that you are one of the sons of God? If sonship belongs to you, all the blessedness of it, whatever is connected with it, whatever attaches to it, belongs to you. What was the gospel Paul preached in Acts 9?
  • "And straightway … he preached Jesus, that he is the Son of God".

• That was the first note of it, and Paul never preached below that; he might emphasise this official title, or that, with regard to this wonderful work, but the first note of it was that Jesus is the Son of God.

Then, as we read just now, in Galatians 1, he speaks of his own experience, how it pleased God to separate him from his mother's womb, and called him by His grace, to reveal His Son in him.

• God did that. God revealed His Son, that is not the Father revealing His only-begotten Son, who is in the Father's bosom; but God, as God, revealed His Son – God's Son, in the apostle; and what for?
  • "That I may announce him as glad tidings among the nations".

• That was the gospel that had been announced in Galatia; the glad tidings announced to them were the glad tidings that Jesus is the Son of God.

• A Man? Yes; but oh, another kind of Man: a Man, beloved, that lived in the sense, not only of relationship – so that, as Man here, He could speak of God always as His Father – but He ever lived in the sense of the Father's love, and there was in Him a full response to that love.

Well now, we are all God's sons by faith in Christ Jesus; and what does that involve?

• Why, that you are in such a relationship with God, that you so know God, that your whole being is lit up with the light of God, and that in your heart there is response to that love.

• The "sons" speak a language of their own; they speak one language, a language common to the sons – "Abba, Father., Do you speak it?
  • "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God";

• we are apt to take that out of its context, and connect it with our responsible life in flesh, but it goes right on.
  • "For ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father".

• "Abba, Father" is the response from a heart that knows God as Father, and knows all that wonderful love that fills the Father's heart and is responsive to it. That is sonship.

• Hence, you see, the difference between Galatians and Ephesians; it is not that there is one truth of sonship in Galatians and another truth of it in Ephesians – it is the same truth of sonship in Galatians as in Ephesians;
  • the difference is not in the truth, but in the way the Spirit of God applies the truth.

The Galatians had had a good start; the right kind of gospel had been preached to them, the best preached gospel that ever was preached – that Jesus is the Son of God, and they had got the Spirit; they had had a fine start

• but something had happened since; those Judaising teachers had got in among them, and they were thereby hindered spiritually, they were taken up with that which is of the world – with "beggarly elements", and what else? With the flesh.

• These go together; and in turning aside from the gospel, and from what properly belongs to sonship, they had turned aside to the "beggarly elements" of the world, and to a religious revival of the flesh;
  • and now the Spirit of God through the apostle uses the truth of sonship to recover them, and to deliver them completely from all that under the power of which they had fallen … and how wonderfully he uses the truth to recover them.

• The leaven of Galatianism, which was introduced in Galatia, has been among the saints of God from that day to this. So the Spirit of God brings in the truth of sonship to recover them, and He tells them,
  • "Ye are all the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus".

• And that is not all; He tells them that they were not only the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus, but because they are sons God had sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their hearts.

• Do you know what really recovers people in this present day? Do you know what delivers the saints from everything that is of the character of Galatianism? It is their waking up to the truth not only of what they are, but of what they have got. He says,
  • "Ye are all the sons of God";

• and when did they come into that? When they believed on the Son of God; when they believed the gospel that came to them; and then because they were sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

• No wonder the apostle felt so keenly about them! How the enemy had come in through these Judaisers! – had really bewitched them and hindered them, when they might have been going on in all the joy and in all the freedom, in all the heavenly freedom of sonship!

Well, we may say a little more about the Lord Jesus Christ as a Man here, as the Son of God: what do you find? Why, you find He is the heavenly Man; He is the second Man out of heaven;

• and so His connections were not with anything here; His connections were in heaven even while He was here;

• and so, beloved, as sons of God we are not connected with Jerusalem here. Jerusalem above, which is free, is our mother.

• What would have been the use of those men coming front Jerusalem to Galatia and talking to the saints there about circumcision or keeping the law if they had been in the light and the good of sonship?

• What is the use of telling me that I ought to join this or that down here if I am in the light of sonship? I do not want to join anything.

What a wonderful thing it is to be in the faith of the gospel that Jesus is the Son of God!

• We receive adoption or sonship on the ground of redemption, but we receive it as gift from God, a gift which is nothing short of sonship!

• If you were not a son, you would not be in accord with the Lord Jesus Christ – the Son of God: you would not be in agreement with Him, there would be disparity on your part; but there is none;
  • He is the heavenly One, and He will always be the heavenly One; and we are heavenly ones.

• Is He the Son of God? We are all sons of God with Him. Did He as a Man live in the unclouded, unsullied consciousness of God's love as Father? He did, and that is your privilege and mine.

I am not opening it out fully; I have not the time to take up its connections, for there are certain connections which come to light in Galatians; you find amongst them new creation.

• We have to be the subjects of new creation to come into these things. Of course, the Lord Jesus Christ – I would say it reverently – did not need new creation.
  • That "holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of God",

• but we come in on the ground of redemption, and in us sonship involves new creation, and that is the only thing that counts; circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing.

• Now there is the same blessed truth of sonship in Ephesians, but it does not regard any present or actual spiritual condition on the part of the saints.

• Sonship in Ephesians is presented in the full light of all the purpose of God, and not only presented in the full light, but presented in connection with the full scope of those purposes of God … that is why I read those verses:
  • "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", Ephesians 1: 3-5.

• Sonship there comes out in the most marvellous way – in the largest way marked us out beforehand for sonship; it goes back before your history, back before the entire history of man in responsibility.

Now all this blessed light is brought to bear upon us, and I would that we might take account of sonship in this connection, because it sets the soul in such a large place, it sets you in the holy freedom of sonship,

• not simply, as in Galatians, to deliver you from Judaism, or the beggarly elements of the world, or the flesh in a religious way,

• but it is brought to bear on your soul to set you before God in all the greatness, the magnificence and largeness of the purposes of God.

• It looks on in Ephesians to the age to come, it looks on to that wonderful day of display; but it is the light of it now, the largeness of it now, filling our souls.

• Do not take it up doctrinally. God would have you to be in the good of it, in the good of what we are, and God would set us in the present light, and love, and heavenly liberty of it all, and in that way the Lord would maintain us here, and we should prove,
  • not simply what comes to light in Galatians, as setting us free, as delivering us from everything and anything the enemy would bring in – the man in the flesh, or any connection with the beggarly elements of this world –

• but the Lord would make it good in us in connection with that which is heavenly, with all that is divine, and with all that is eternal.

• It is an anticipation, of course, of what we shall be in the actuality of – but the blessed thing is, God has brought it before us in all this wonderful way that we might be in the reality of sonship even now.

I trust the Lord may interest our hearts in it vitally – not merely our minds, May He engage our hearts in all the present light of it for His name's sake!

The opening words – not yet His own utterance, but the words of the Spirit of God, as recorded for us, are significant: we are apt to read lightly or carelessly;

• our poor minds are not always under the direct power of the Spirit of God; we have our life and interests here, and these things occupy our minds too much, but let me just call your attention in a very simple way to the beginning of the chapter
  • "These words spake Jesus",

• We often sing, "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds", – Hymn 54 – and the heart does delight in the music of that precious name.

We must not forget that we are speaking from the Gospel of John. At the close of the gospel, chapter 20 – chapter 21, though just as much inspired as any other chapter, is in the nature of an appendix – referring to the signs, of which there are seven recorded in the book, the Apostle John says,

• "But these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in his name".

• The Spirit brings Jesus before us in the Gospel of John as the Christ and as the Son of God.

• It might perhaps be said that as the Christ it brings Him before us in a certain official way, in connection with His wonderful office and character as Messias, Christ, anointed Man, God's Messias, God's Christ, God's anointed Man;
  • but when it adds "the Son of God" I think it brings Him personally before us as a Man in relation to God.

• "Son of man" – and that is personal too – speaks of Him as a Man in relation to man,
  • but as "Son of God", while He is still a Man, it is His relation to God; that Man is God's Son.

I want to bring this before your souls, because I think it is very important that we should see that in this wonderful outpouring of His heart to the Father, the Lord is speaking as a Man.

• You will understand, I trust, there is no question in our mind with regard to His being a divine Person. Well, He was ever that, never less than that; He could not be – may I say it reverently – more than that, and He was never less than that;

• but still, here in chapter 17, He is speaking to the Father as a Man, and He says,
  • "Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee".

• Now, as a divine Person, how could He ask to be glorified? As a divine Person He is God equally with the Father and with the eternal Spirit; nothing could be given Him as a divine Person, because as a divine Person everything was His necessarily; but He says,
  • "Father, glorify thy Son";

• He asks the Father to glorify Him as a Man. It is true He was entitled to it, but the wonderful thing in John is that He will receive nothing, except from the hands of the Father; so He says,
  • "Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee".

• From the very first step of His path here to the last step His heart had been set on the glory of the Father, as He says a little further down,
  • "I have glorified thee on the earth".

• He had come forth from the Father and had come into the world, and He was now about to leave the world and return to the Father; but, beloved, He is just as much set upon glorifying the Father now that He is glorified by the Father, as He was in the days of His flesh down here; so He says,
  • "Glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee". Then He continues: "As thou hast; given him authority over all flesh"

• – and the word means more than authority, it means one who has the right and title as well as the power. The Lord in His death has established His right and claim, though He speaks of it as given to Him of the Father, and that is in perfect keeping with this gospel.

• Has He not by the grace of God "tasted death for everything"? Did He not give Himself a ransom for all? Has He not died for all? Yes, He has; and He has the right, title and claim, based upon that wonderful death, yet He attributes it to the Father, He says,
  • "As thou hast given him authority over all flesh, that as to all that thou hast given to him, he should give them life eternal"

• – not to everybody, it is to "all thou hast given to him"; it is in principle, I might say, what answers to Matthew 13. He buys the field, but it is in view of the treasure hidden in the field, and so He has got power over all flesh, but it is in view of giving eternal life to as many as the Father has given Him.

Now I am coming to my present point. I am going to attempt to shew from scripture what eternal life is.

• You may say it is a bold attempt. I do not know that we should think so; surely we may well believe what the Lord says, and He tells us what it is. He says
  • "This is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent".

• You may hear even God's people sometimes talking about what they feel, or what they are trying to do, or what they are aiming to be, but that is not it.
  • "This is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God".

• No doubt that personal pronoun – "thee" goes back to the word "Father" in the first verse, He is speaking to the Father as such, and that word "thee" stands for the Father, who is "the only true God".

• If we speak of divine Persons in distinction we may speak of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Christian baptism is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God; but note the expression, "the only true God".

• It is not here a question of distinction between divine Persons in the Godhead; the Son, of course, speaks to the Father in the consciousness of His own relationship with Him, but as regards men generally He is "the only true God"; it is a question of the manner or character in which God has been pleased to reveal Himself.

• He has declared God, and if He, as Man, has declared God, He has declared God according to the relationship in which He stands as Man here to the God whom He has declared; so He says:
  • "And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent".

I would like to endeavour, for a few moments, to speak very simply and as plainly as the Lord may enable me, about eternal life – what it is.

• It is the knowledge of the Father as the only true God, and it is the knowledge of Jesus Christ – that blessed Man, who is ever viewed in this gospel as a Man here, the One sent of the Father.

• The word for "know" here – I add a word, because I understand there are three Greek words translated as "know" in our authorised version – is not the word which expresses "consciousness", but it is the word which expresses certain objective knowledge.

• For instance – "I know whom I have believed "; there is implied there a certain intimate acquaintance with the person. So here: "And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent".

Now the difference between Paul and John is this – Paul always speaks of "God and Father", but John speaks of "Father and God".

• It is just the difference between the two sides of the truth, and characteristic of the ministry of each respectively.

• For instance, take 1 Corinthians 8; it says, speaking of the heathen:
  • "For and if indeed there are those called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are gods many, and lords many), yet to us there is one God, the Father … and one Lord, Jesus Christ".

• As has often been said, it is not a question there of the divinity or the true deity of the Lord Jesus as such, it is a question of the wonderful way in which God has come out in the revelation of Himself,
  • and the relative position taken by God on the one hand – the Father – and the Lord Jesus Christ on the other hand – there is one God, even the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ.

• Now that is the truth here, only John reverses Paul's order, or you may say Paul reverses John's order. Paul, as we have said, speaks of God and Father: John of Father and God.

• Here it is the Son of God, and it is the One of whom God said when He was born in this world,
  • "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee",

• and so in John the Father comes first always. Take the language of the Lord in John 20, in the message He sent through Mary Magdalene:
  • "Go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God".

• So that eternal life – let me repeat it again – is the knowledge of the Father as the only true God, and it is the knowledge of Jesus Christ the sent One of the Father;
  • it is not the knowledge of divine Persons as such in their relationship to each other as in the Godhead.

• I have always had a difficulty in my mind with regard to statements of that kind, and we have the words of the Lord Himself in Matthew 11, where He says, without any qualification: "No one knows the Son but the Father";
  • and what do you and I know of divine Persons as such in their relationships to each other in the Godhead?

• We know what has been brought out in revelation in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ; we know there is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost in the Godhead, but the Lord says – we refer again to Matthew 11 –
  • "nor does any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son may be pleased to reveal him".

• How can He say that of the Father? Because it is the Son who has come into incarnation, and it is in the Son incarnate that the Father is revealed and made known. Again, in John 10: 14, the Lord says:
  • "I am the good shepherd; and I know those that are mine, and am known of those that are mine, as the Father knows me and I know the Father".

• Do not think, beloved, that these precious words bring you and me into Godhead. Do not think even that it brings us into that circle of knowledge subsisting between divine Persons as such in the Godhead.
  • It does bring us into a marvellous circle – we are brought into the circle of knowing the Father as that Man – the Son of God – knows Him,

• and we know that Son of God, that wonderful Man, as the Father knows Him. What a marvellous circle! That is eternal life.

• It is the knowledge of the Father as the only true God, but it is more than that, it is the knowledge of Jesus Christ as the Father's sent One.

• Why? Because in Jesus Christ as the Father's sent One you have not only the light of the perfect declaration of God, the perfect revelation of God in Him, as Man, but you have more than that, you have the perfect answer to it in Him as Man.

Now I apprehend, beloved – it is a very interesting point, though I can only just mention it, and it is peculiar to John – that salvation in John is a consequence of eternal life; that is, salvation from the order of things here.

• Let me give you a very well-known passage, John 10: 9;
  • "I am the door: if any one enter in by me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and shall go out and shall find pasture.

• What do you enter into when you enter in by Him as the door? I should say that you enter into the sphere of eternal life. You enter into the knowledge of the Father as the only true God, and more you enter into the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the sent One.

• I have not time to prove it by many quotations from John's writings, but you will find it to be so; salvation in the gospel of John follows in the train of eternal life. I think our brother Mr. Raven said, as it has often been said as to the gospel, that salvation follows in the train of righteousness.

• Well, that is true; but in John's gospel salvation follows in the train of eternal life. Take chapter 3: 14-15, the Lord's allusion to the lifting up of the serpent in the wilderness:
  • "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, thus must the Son of man be lifted up, that every one who believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal".

    Then verse 16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal".

• Not a word about salvation yet, but now read verse 17
  • "For God has not sent his Son into the world that he may judge the world, but that the world may be saved through him".

• It is not a strange doctrine to scripture that salvation is the result of knowing God. There is a sort of intimation of it in the conversation of the Lord with the woman at the well in chapter 4 He said:
  • "Ye worship ye know not what".

• There was no true knowledge of God; what did their whole system of worship amount to? Nothing. It had no basis. Then He says:
  • "We worship what we know, for salvation is of the Jews".

• There was the true knowledge of God there, hence there was salvation there, Take the Old Testament scriptures, Psalm 27.
  • "Jehovah is my light and my salvation";

• it is not that I am going to reach Jehovah as the result of light and salvation, but Jehovah is my light and my salvation.

• Salvation lies in the knowledge of God; it is as you come to know God that you enter into all the blessed results and consequences of knowing God.

• So with regard to eternal life, what you find in John's gospel is – that those who have eternal life "shall not perish". The perishing is not future, but here and now. Eternal life guarantees you against perishing here.

Well now, that is how these things are put in John's gospel; but before I pass on to those who receive eternal life and what is involved in it I would like to speak a word about the Giver.

• In the passage immediately before us the Lord Jesus is the Giver
  • "that as to all that thou hast given to him, he should give them life eternal";

    so in chapter 10: 28, "And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall seize them out of my hand".

• The Lord Jesus as the Son of God gives it, and yet God gives it, Take 1 John 5: 11,
  • "This is the witness, that God has given to us eternal life";

    then he adds, "and this life is in his Son",

    "He that has the Son has life".

• God primarily is the Giver of eternal life, but He does not give it apart from Christ; and speaking again of Christ as the Son of God, He is said in Romans 5: 21 and Romans 6: 23 to be the Giver of eternal life;
  • so that He may be spoken of as the Giver, or the gift may be attributed to God.

• There is an interesting passage in John 4, in that connection; you remember at the beginning of the conversation, after the Lord had laid the walls of prejudice in that woman's heart flat to the ground, He said,
  • "If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water";

• it is not exactly that the living water is eternal life, it is the Spirit; but it is in view of eternal life, because He says again,
  • "But whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever, but the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life".

• That is bow it is presented; it is God's gift, and it is also the gift of the Son of God. He has that distinguishing honour and glory of being the Giver of the living water;
  • you and I may receive it; the living water as such may spring within us, or may flow out from us, as the Lord says in chapter 7; but nowhere are we said to be the givers of it, we are the recipients of it.

Well now, who receives eternal life? The scripture's answer is this:

• "Whosoever believeth in him".

• I apprehend there has been a mistake as to this: people have asserted that because they have believed they have got it.

• One thing is very certain, that if you have never believed, you have not got it, that is very clear; it is perfectly true that none but those who believe get it; that is, the believer is the kind of person who gets it, and if you are a believer, you have a right – a title to it, I admit that gladly, but let me say,
  • we have got very loose ideas about believers in these days; a believer, as spoken of in the Gospel of John, is one who believes on the name of the only-begotten Son of God.

• If you read the Epistle of John you are bound to own the distinctions –
  • "whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God";

• but what about the man that believes that Jesus is the Son of God? –
  • "This is the victory which has gotten the victory over the world, our faith. Who is he that gets the victory over the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?"

• I just want to say this, lest we should be carried away with taking up scriptural expressions loosely; in the Gospel of John a believer is one who believes in that Person who is none other than the only-begotten Son of God. Of Him as born in time God said,
  • "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee".

• It was of that One that the angel Gabriel said to the Virgin Mary,
  • "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and power of the Highest overshadow thee, wherefore the holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of God".

• Such a Man this world had never seen, had never known;
  • He was the "Second Man out of heaven".

Now it is the one who believes on the name of that Man who is the only-begotten, Son – the one who has the faith of the Son of God, he is the one who has title to eternal life, he is the one who gets it.

• How does he get it? What is the great gain of believing on the only-begotten Son of God? It is to get the Holy Ghost.
  • "This he said concerning the Spirit, which they that believed on him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified", John 7: 39.

• The Lord there anticipates Pentecost. That is the next step.

But we were speaking of how we get eternal life. We have light, and, I say, loose thoughts about this, because we do not give the blessed Spirit of God His place. It is not enough to have received the Spirit; we must give Him place.

• See what the Lord says about the living water. Speaking generally, we may say that the living water is the Spirit, but it is the Spirit in that special character; so He says,
  • "The water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life".

• Then see Paul's language in the Epistle to the Galatians:
  • "for 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 he that sows to the Spirit, from the Spirit shall reap eternal life".

• Every intelligent Christian would surely own they have the flesh in them:
  • "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us";

• but having the flesh in me need not issue in corruption; it is he that soweth to the flesh shall of his own flesh reap corruption. But now see the other side:
  • "he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting".

• There is not only the indwelling of the Spirit of God, we must leave room for the blessed activities of the Spirit of God. And that is how the believer comes into the present good of eternal life. I am speaking of eternal life as a present blessing.

• I know there are scriptures about it in connection with the future. We read of the hope of eternal life, but we are speaking now from John, and John speaks of the present gift of it and the present title to it, and the present good of it in connection with the activities of the Holy Spirit.

• That leads me to the next point – what is involved in it, I mean in the present possession of it.

• There has been such a way – and we have suffered immensely from it – of assuming that because I am a believer I have got it;
  • but the fact is, while we have loudly asserted our possession of eternal life, we have hardly been able to tell what it is, or to give any account of it.

• Generally speaking, if people claim to possess things, they are supposed to know something about the things they possess.

Well now, I want to speak of what is involved in eternal life. I want to speak most simply. Of course, you will understand that to begin with "you must be born anew".

• You could not speak of any one having eternal life who had not been born anew, that is going far back.
  • "Except any one be born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God";

• he can have no spiritual perception of it, no understanding or apprehension of it. The first thing then is that you are born anew.

• The next is that you have got faith in the Lord Jesus Christ – the faith of the gospel, that He was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification. To revert again to John – you have got the faith of that Person, the Son of God.
  • "That ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through His name".

• You have received the Spirit. But what does that involve? I want to shew you that after the reception of the Spirit there are the activities of the Spirit. There is the springing up; or, to change the figure, turn to Galatians 6, where there is the figure of the sowing and reaping.

• Now you know that in the figure a great deal takes place between sowing the grain and reaping it, there is the germination down in the ground, which you do not see; then you begin to see the little green shoot coming up from the ground, and you may take account of its subsequent growth, there are all the stages of the growth on to the reaping.

• The sowing and the reaping are here and now. We may be in the good of eternal life now. May we not know the Father – the only true God? May we not know Jesus Christ as the sent One? Who could surrender that?

• But I want to shew you now what is involved in these blessed activities of the Spirit. In Romans 6, towards the close we read:
  • "But now, having got your freedom from sin, and having become bondmen to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life".

• If you are a believer on the Son of God no one can question your title, but what about the present enjoyment of it?
  • People want to read a whole lot of time into that word – "end"; but it is not time, it is moral order.

• So again referring once more to the first Epistle of John, what characterises the man that believes that Jesus is the Son of God is that he has got the victory over the world. The world, alas! has got the victory over many, but in that man's case the scales are turned, he is not under the power of the world, he has got the victory over the world.

• We need to contend for the reality of things. That is what is involved in it. I would not discourage you, beloved. I would that I might be enabled to encourage you, but I would not encourage you in anything that is not scriptural.

• Have you got the faith? Has God given you His Spirit? Well, you are on the way. But are there now within you the blessed activities of the Spirit? Are you in the present good and light and joy of eternal life? John says, in the beginning of his epistle,
  • "These things write we unto you", not to make you unhappy, but "that your joy may be full".

• If you want the fulness of joy you may have it; it is all in eternal life; there is not a cloud there; you might be poor or rich; eternal life knows nothing of these things; the very things that naturally we seek to avoid and evade are sometimes very suitable conditions for our realisation of it in all its blessedness.

I only have one more word to say. I have just one more point to touch on. I cannot enlarge on it, but just a word as to the sphere of eternal life.

• The blessing itself, involving as it does an entirely new order of things, lies outside of everything here; it is beyond death, in the resurrection sphere. It is a faith-sphere "over Jordan" – as we sometimes say.

• That is the sphere of it, and as we experimentally reach that sphere in our souls we enter into and enjoy it in the power of the Spirit,
  • "The water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life".

But while this is so, yet it is a blessing that belongs to us while we are on earth as being in a scene where sin and death are, and in which lawlessness and idolatry prevail on every hand,

• and outside all this eternal life is to be enjoyed here and now

• Thus for Christians it belongs more to the present than to the future. I do not say that we shall lose it when we go to heaven. We shall not lose then any blessing that we have here;
  • but the term – eternal life – will have no force in heaven.

• It is for the present it is given to us, and it is while we are on earth that we are in the enjoyment of it.

It is important and helpful to distinguish the blessing of eternal life from the calling of sonship.

• The latter [sonship] belongs to heaven, and for the full enjoyment of it we must go to heaven.

• We have the light of it now, and we have received the spirit of it by which we may taste the blessedness of it; but still we await the actuality of it, and this will be when we go to heaven.

I do not mean to convey in any way that eternal life is earthly, but only that scripture connects the blessing with us as on earth.

• Eternal life is not a blessing distinctive of Christianity, for Israel will have it in the age to come. The "righteous" in Matthew 25 "go away into life eternal".

Well, I have overstepped the time. May the Lord stir up our hearts, beloved.

• Have you the knowledge that we have spoken of – the knowledge of the Father as the only true God, and of Jesus Christ, the Father's sent One?
  • "This is life eternal – to know thee – the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent".

God had wonderfully interposed in connection with His people: God had almost, as it were, departed from His usual ways; He had stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, who issued a proclamation to the effect that God had instructed him that he should build the house of God at Jerusalem, and he sent out the proclamation inviting a response.

• And there was a response; we are told in the beginning of the Book of Ezra the wonderful response there was. I do not go into the detail; I only want to say that we are told, with regard to those who returned from Babylon at that time, that
  • they went back with the express purpose of building the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem, and it would seem that at the first they set to work with a good deal of energy and earnestness; they addressed themselves to the work of rebuilding the house,

• and then after this first, and what we may speak of as a good start, there was a flagging of energy, they lost heart in the interests of Jehovah, they ceased to go on with the building of the house,
  • and, alas! the same thing is characteristic of the people of God at all times, and it is characteristic of us at this time. If we begin to be taken up with our own interests there is a corresponding decline with regard to the interests of God.

• There was a great opportunity, so to speak, presented to them in connection with their return to Jerusalem to make themselves comfortable, and they seized the opportunity and began to make themselves very comfortable, they built houses for themselves, wainscoted or cieled, and thus their hearts became set on their own interests and ends, and of course there was a corresponding decline with regard to the interests of Jehovah.

• We find just the same thing in the New Testament and at the present time. We see it in principle in the Epistle to the Philippians, where the apostle, speaking of sending Timotheus, says,
  • "For I have no one like-minded who will care with genuine feeling how ye get on ";

    then he adds – "for all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ".

• It becomes a great test at all times to the people of God; I have no doubt it is a testing point just now, we may have the opportunity within our reach of making ourselves very comfortable here, but if our hearts are set on that, there will be decline with regard to the interests of the house of God.

• Well, it is under these circumstances that God raised up the prophet Haggai and began to speak to His people. In the first instance He makes a very touching and yet a very solemn appeal to them. They were saying, the prophet tells us in the opening of this chapter:
  • "These people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built".

• It is wonderful how cleverly people can talk about this and that matter as to the suitable and unsuitable time for things of the Lord when they get interested in themselves, and have their own interests before them. They then imagine it is not the time to be interested for the Lord, and they do not like to be wakened up.

• Then came the word of the Lord to Haggai the prophet, saying,
  • "Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?"

• What a solemn and yet touching appeal! There was the house of God lying waste, and they were busying themselves with building their own cieled houses, looking after their own comfort and interest.

Now I should like to say, with regard to the house of God, whether then or now, that you have two aspects of it

• The one original builder of the house of Jehovah, the temple at Jerusalem, was King Solomon, the son of David.

• It is true that a certain preparation was made beforehand by David the king, and the Spirit of God gives him credit for all that he did in the way of gathering together the material; but the Spirit of God always attributes the building of the house to Solomon.
  • Stephen says, "But Solomon built him an house", Acts 7.

• Now in that sense there was no other builder, but as we know from 1 Kings 8, the house built and completed by King Solomon was dedicated to Jehovah, and Jehovah signified in a wonderful way His appreciation of that house.

Now I would like to make a remark as to the continuity of that house in God's mind. We find it in the gospels – the same house.

• I imagine that the act of that poor woman in Luke 21, who cast in her two mites into the treasury, was more pleasing to God than perhaps all that Herod had done in connection with the rebuilding of the temple.

• So the house is maintained in continuity, and that is why I called your attention to the proper reading of chapter 2: 9, In the authorised version it reads: "The glory of this latter house", etc., but it should read:
  • "The latter glory of this house shall be greater than that of the former".

• There is only one house in God's mind.

But I want to bring before you the fact that the house had lapsed into a ruined condition, and the time had come in the ways of God, and He stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, to have the house built again.

• I do not mean in the sense that Solomon built it; as I have said, there was only one builder in that sense; but it was to be set up again, it was to be brought out of that waste condition in which it was lying
  • so that all that God connected with it might be established: all the thoughts of God, whether in connection with His own glory or with the blessing of His own people, or still further with the outgoing of blessing

• – because while in a sense it was Jewish, God never limited it to the Jews; for instance, when the Lord went into the temple, as recorded in Mark 11, He quoted the scripture
  • "Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?"

In God's purpose there was always a group of nations around Israel, and God had blessing in view for all the nations in connection with that house. Now I think without any argument we might simply look at it as a fact.

• Not only Zerubbabel – Zerubbabel was governor of Judah at the time – and Joshua, who was the high priest, but the whole of the remnant had the wonderful privilege of building up that house;
  • they had gone back for that ostensible purpose, but there had come in a decline, and they had been betrayed into this decline by a spirit of selfishness; they were occupied with their own ends, and the house of God was allowed to lie in this waste condition.

• What answers to this at the present time? There is the house of God, and just as of that material structure in the city of Jerusalem Solomon alone was the builder, so the Lord Jesus Christ is alone the builder of the house of God.

• He is the builder because in the Lord Jesus Christ you have the answer to both David and Solomon. In the days of His flesh, while He was here as a Man among men, He gathered together the material; but that material was put together after the resurrection and exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ to the right hand of God.

• The house has been built by God, and let me emphasise too the continuity of that house, for we have now passed from the types to the antitype; we have passed from that material structure in Jerusalem to that spiritual structure
  • – that wonderful building where Jews and Gentiles are built together for an habitation of God in spirit, or, to use the language of Peter in chapter 2 of his first epistle, "that spiritual house".

But what has taken place? Well, in a sense, there has been an answer to what took place with the children of Israel.

• Speaking generally, there was something which answered, a number of years ago, to the return of the remnant from Babylon. God wrought, not now through a Cyrus king of Persia, or any king or earthly potentate for that matter,
  • but God was pleased to take up His own vessel or vessels; indeed, one might speak of one particular vessel that He was pleased to take up, and there was inaugurated what really answers spiritually to a return from Babylon.

• Many beloved people of God were brought out here and there from the systems around them to the principles of His house; they were brought out – to a clearer gospel? Yes, and that is all right so far as it goes, but they were brought out with reference to the house of God.

• I know the truth of the Head in heaven was first seen, and then it was seen that His body must be here, and afterwards the truth as to the house of God came out; and I think in our day, if one might speak soberly,
  • God has been pleased to give a great deal of light with regard to His house, not only with regard to it as a spiritual truth,

• but in a practical way so that there might be return to the principles of the house of God.

Well, now a word further. I venture to say this, and I beg you to receive it in grace. I think there has been that which answers a good deal to what was the case at the time of Haggai's prophecies

• I think there has come in a spirit of selfishness, and the days in which our lot has fallen are days of material prosperity, and many advantages have been brought before the people of God with regard to advancing their interests here,
  • and more or less there has been decline, so that at the present time I believe God is speaking in a very solemn way to us as His people, very much as He did through Haggai to the returning remnant from Babylon in his day – speaking to us with reference to the house of God.

• I do not attempt to make very much application, only to bring it before you as the Spirit of God knows just where we are spiritually, each one of us,
  • so that the Spirit of God might use the appeal. I do not care to use it on you, and I do not know that you would care to use it on me, but I would like to leave it with you and just to say that

• I believe the Spirit of God would bring it home to each one of us, so that there might be on our part what answers to verse 12, We find –
  • "Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the Lord".

• That is to say, there was an answer to the appeal, not only on the part of the leaders, the governor and the high priest, but on the part of the whole remnant.
  • It says: "with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet".

I think we are too much in the habit – and so far it is right – of dwelling exclusively upon the one side of the truth of the house as built by the Lord Jesus Christ,

• and that many of us have used the truth of the house of God in that sense like a pillow to lie down and repose on, with the comforting thought that we are in and of the house of God,

• and that we are there as the Lord indicates, as sons – the son abides in the house for ever, he cannot have his wages paid at any time and be turned off as a servant.

• I fear that many of us have dwelt upon that side exclusively, and with the effect of its producing indifference. So I have a little difficulty in attempting to bring before you what this prophecy seems to emphasise – that is, our part in connection with the house of God.

Now, before going further, I should like to say this – from the very first time that God had a house here in this world you will find that the truth of the house of God became a touchstone and a test of the condition of His people.

• For instance, we find decline and we find revival – revival after revival – in the history of God's earthly people, and you will always find this, that when there was a decline that decline was marked by neglect of the house of God
  • and when there was a revival that revival was marked by a profound interest in and exercise with regard to the house of God.

• I might instance, perhaps, that last and most wonderful revival in the days of Josiah. The house of God was in a dreadful condition; all manner of rubbish had accumulated there,
  • and you remember how Hilkiah – the father of Jeremiah – the high priest, in connection with removing the rubbish from the house of God discovered the Book of Moses – 2 Kings 22: 8 – the book containing the mind of God,

• and it was put into the hands of Shaphan the scribe, who carried it to the king, and it was read in the presence of the king.

• I only speak of it as emphasising this fact, that there was a wonderful revival, and that revival had its beginning in the interest which there was in the heart of the young king with regard to the house of God.

• He seemed to wake up to the fact that God's house was not what it should be, and in connection with this the book was found which contained the mind of God, and it became the occasion of a wonderful turning to God on the part of the people of God.

Now that was so then, and it has always been so. We find it with regard to the blessed Lord when He was here.

• Of Him you know it had been written in one of the psalms, and the disciples were able later on to recall it to their memory, in connection with the Lord's action, when He went into the temple, John 2, how it was written concerning Him,
  • "The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up".

• When the Lord was here He took up every interest of God, and there was a perfect answer in Him to the mind of God.

• I have already alluded to that action of the widow woman, Luke 21. I do not suppose it attracted any public attention, but the Lord Jesus Christ saw it, it came under His eye. He took great account of it and He declared that she had put in more than they all.

• So you see how the house of God became a test; if there was spiritual decline that decline was manifested in neglect of the house of God, and if on the other hand there was a work of God – if there was anything like what would lead to a revival, there was great interest taken in the house of God.

Hence, I think it is a touchstone at this present time: it is a great test for us, we might well put the question to ourselves and to one another:

• 'What is your interest in the house of God? Are you so concerned about the house of God and that there should be among us that which would answer to going up into the mountain and getting the wood and building the house?' Haggai 1: 8.

• This work was not official; it was common to all the remnant at that time; the word of the Lord to them was,
  • "Consider your ways, Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house".

• It was Jehovah's house then, and God's house now is the "assembly of the living God". We have nothing in scripture about little models or reproductions of it, it is the house of God.

• It is true that the remnant in Haggai's time were only a little handful come back from Babylon, but that was for God's house; and the handful were interested in the house of God;
  • and it is a great question for us – how far are we interested in the condition of the house of God? how far is there in any of us that spiritual energy in regard to it so that there is getting the right material so to speak, and building it up?

I should like to call your attention to the encouragement the Lord gives them, He appeals to them; He says,

• "Ye have sown much, and bring in little".

• Of course we have to take this up in a spiritual way. There may be great activities which do not come to much.

• You may see people busying themselves in various directions; and the people in Haggai's time had busied themselves; they had sown, they had eaten, they had drunk, they had clothed themselves, had earned wages, there were all these activities, but it had amounted to nothing
  • – the Lord says, "Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes".

• There was no satisfaction in that! I hope you will bear with me, and not misunderstand me, I am often asked the question what about this and that; what about Sunday schools, etc.

• But I say, have you got satisfaction, spiritual satisfaction? It is no use going on with bustle and stir in religious activities merely to keep going. When we turn to the Lord as to it He lets the light in; He says,
  • "Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house".

• There is no premium upon laziness, but what is the use of going on with an endless round of religious activities when the house of God lies waste? God withholds blessing from His own people sometimes because they are wholly concerned and occupied with their own activities.

• You know a person may be very religious, very active, and may bustle and stir in a religious way and yet have no concern for the house of God. It is goodness of God not to let you find anything in this way; He withholds blessing, and there is the sense of disappointment, dissatisfaction steals over your spirit and it is good that God allows it.

Well now, I want to go back to the first point, because there is wonderful encouragement in it:

• "Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house".

• There is not only the suitable material but there is the suitable place where the suitable material can alone be found. The house of God was not built with wood that was found in the valleys or by the river-side; it was in those mountain heights – in those high altitudes that the material was found. I am sure there is a word for us in that.

• The house of God is not composed of earthly material, it is composed of heavenly material. The house was built here, but if I might be bold enough to say it, it was built from heaven and of heavenly material.

• It was the Holy Ghost who came down from Christ in glory that put the house together; and God has not changed His mind about the material that is to enter into the practical building of His house, for although it is not building it in the sense that Christ builds the house, it is building it in perfect keeping with that; it is the practical building of it.
  • Jude says, "Building up your selves in your most holy faith".

• It is that side of things. There is the earnest seeking and desire to promote in our souls and in the souls of each other that which comports with the heavenly character of the house of God; you go up into the mountains. It requires some energy to go up into a mountain, and there must be spiritual energy.

• But I say that only by the way: I pass on to what I wanted to draw your attention to.
  • God says, "Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord".

• It is your privilege and mine to contribute to that which gives pleasure to God. There is nothing outward about Philadelphia – Revelation 3 – but in the message to Philadelphia the Lord says, "I know thy works".

• How that ought to stir us up; how it ought to animate our souls! And so Jehovah says to the remnant, "I will take pleasure in it".

• It is not only that God will take pleasure in it now, but in connection with the building up of the house of God it will be for the pleasure and glory of God for ever. How wonderful!

• How the honours of this world, the approval or disapproval of man, how it all sinks into utter insignificance, it really is not worth our consideration for a moment in the light of this.

You will find the answer to it in verse 12, and in verse 13 we read:

• "Then spake Haggai Jehovah's messenger in Jehovah's message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith Jehovah".

• What has made the difference? There was a kind of distance between God and the people in the beginning of the prophecy – He has to expostulate with them, and has really withheld His blessing from them,
  • but the moment there is an answer to His appeal to them, Jehovah sends a special message through Haggai and says: "I am with you".

• We ought not to be content to rest short of that. I am sure I should be very sorry to say a word that would encourage pretension in any shape or form among the people of God,
  • but do you not think there is danger on the other side of the question, and that we are ready, so to speak, to give up? We ought not to give up; He says: "I am with you".

• You remember when Moses came down from the mount and found that Israel had made a golden calf, he said to Jehovah:
  • "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence … wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us?"

• I know it is a day of ruin and failure, but there is such a thing as being unduly occupied with the ruin and the failure: we ought not to be content to go on in a day like this without the blessed sense of His presence.

Then we get in verse 14 the going on of the work:

• "And they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts";

• and then there are further communications, and a little later on comes the appeal of the Lord to the prophet,
  • "Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, saying, Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?

    "Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work: for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts", chapter 2: 2-4.

• You know elsewhere we get a very touching account of the scene that took place when this building was completed; some wept and some shouted; there were these various feelings; the older ones who recollected, as it were, what that house was in her first and pristine glory, they could but weep; others shouted. Yet here is the wonderful word again.
  • "Yet now be strong, all ye people of the land … for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts".

If you are not working on the line of the house of God, God will not help you. He will not encourage you. He will not say: "I am with you". He will not bid you "be strong".

Every thought of God is linked with the house of God, His glory is there, and when you come to the habitable world to come all the wonderful things that are embraced within the wide range of the purpose of God are linked up with that house,

• so that if I am really building in connection with the house of God it is not only that I am promoting so far the present spiritual prosperity and blessing of God's people,

• but I am really working in view of a day that is to come, and that is the principle of the passage here,
  • "Yet now be strong … according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye carne out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not".

• God is able to go back to the very beginning when they came out of Egypt; that is to say, God is prepared to place us now according to the word that He first covenanted with us –

• He is able to set us now as to our souls, however feeble we may be and however ruined the ordinary condition of things, in the present spiritual good – not of some later revelation – but of that which God really set up in the beginning of Christianity in the power of His Spiri.,
  • "For thus saith the Lord of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.

    "The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace".

What a range there is in the thoughts of God! How they reach on into the future when all the ways of God will find their completion and will come out in the most magnificent display in glory in that coming day.

• The Spirit of God connects everything with Christ. "The desire of all nations" is Christ. God reaches on to the future in this statement when everything – all that God is interested in now – will find its completion in that wonderful day of display: and God would encourage us if we were interested in His house.

• I repeat there is a good deal said about the ruin and the failure which is true, but, beloved, we must not stop at that; we are privileged to look on to that future day when all will be displayed in glory,
  • and if we, like Zerubbabel and Joshua, were set for the interests of the house of God, it would so absorb us that we should not have much time to fall out by the way;

• I am sure of this, that we should get on better with one another if we were occupied with the house of God – with the promotion in a spiritual way of that which is true in connection with God's house. I would that I had more ability to tell it out.

But I want just to touch in a practical way, upon one point more, and that is – that as soon as you get interested in connection with the house of God, God will raise the question of holiness.

• He has His own way, and it is for Him to raise it; and you will bear with me if I say that I think at the present time we need to have the question of holiness raised amongst us.
  • "Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No.

    "Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean".

• All this questioning of the priests has its origin in the mind of God, and you may depend upon it, it expresses the marvellous interest in God's mind in what is connected with the spiritual interest of His people here, and with His own house. So there is a word for us in it and a very practical word

• I ask, What are we touching? What about our associations? Are we exercised about them? We cannot maintain practical holiness and not be concerned about what we are touching.

• Do you think that by touching, that is, having association with people who are in unclean associations that you can impart the sanctity of the holy flesh that may be in the skirt of your garment? If you do think so you are wonderfully mistaken.

• The priest answered, "No". You will become unclean yourself. Uncleanness can be imparted but holiness cannot be imparted.
  • "Holiness becometh thine house, O Jehovah, for ever".

If we go back to the history of Jacob, when God said to him, "Go up to Bethel and dwell there", he got a sense of all the holiness that belonged to Bethel and

• he turned to his household and had a regular clearing-up time

• He had an instinctive sense that there were things in his household that would not stand the holiness that belonged to Bethel – the house of God.

I do believe the Lord would speak to us at this time in a very practical way. People are inclined to go here and there

• but if you touch the unclean thing in any way, instead of your imparting sanctity or help to that unclean thing that unclean thing will impart its uncleanness to you.

It has been a matter of exercise to me to speak to you of these things in a simple way so that there might be spiritual profit, and if the Lord is pleased by His Spirit to bring these things home to us, I am sure that our consideration of them will not be without spiritual profit to each one of us.