Behold, the Bridegroom!
and other
Ministry by Russell Besley

Luke also says that He "was led by the Spirit in the wilderness", not into the wilderness. Think of the grace of that blessed One here, as waiting upon the Spirit!

• Such was the grace of Christ, such was the perfection and glory of the Man upon whom the eye of God could rest with delight. As there, He was tested, fasting forty days and forty nights, and He hungered.

• There was no outward or visible sign of the presence of God; indeed, what was outward and visible would rather suggest that for the moment He was left.

• So it is with the saints now; their path may be one of trial and difficulty, even down to extremity; but with Jesus in the utmost extremity, there was unfailing quietness of heart; never was there a breath of mistrust in His blessed heart Godward, although in such circumstances.

Now, at such a time, the devil came up suddenly upon Him, and he raised the question as to His being the Son of God:

• "If thou be the Son of God, speak to this stone, that it become bread".

• The Lord Jesus, as led by the Spirit, was fully prepared, however He might appear in outward circumstances. He was ever ready for the will of God.

• If in our path in the wilderness we were led of the Spirit, I do not think we should ever be taken unawares. The Lord replied:
  • "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God".

  • As Matthew puts it: "by every word which goes out through God's mouth".

I read the incident of His baptism in order that we should note the word which He had out of the mouth of God.

• We have had before us, while together, the thought of divine communications, and I conclude that the majority of those who are here have known what it is to receive them.

• I am not speaking now exactly of ministry, or the word livingly in the Scripture, but of some distinct word from the Lord from heaven. That powerful mighty voice that comes from the unseen world.

• Satan may have heard the word addressed to Christ, but apparently he overlooked it. The Lord did not overlook it.

• What was the word out of the mouth of God by which Jesus lived at that time? It was the word that had been delivered at His baptism:
  • "Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight".

• At that moment circumstances were adverse; it would appear that the opposite might be true.

Think of the Lord here as a Man upon earth, in the wilderness, fasting forty days and forty nights, hungering, and assailed by the adversary, and yet that blessed, lowly Man lived by a word out of God's mouth.

• Think of the glory of the One who was there. Surely the wilderness blossomed as a rose, the glory of Lebanon was there; all that will be displayed by and by when His glory shall fill the whole earth. Satan was completely foiled.
  • I would ask: 'Have we a word in our souls out of the mouth of God by which we can live?'

• That word came out of the mouth of God into the heart of Christ as He prayed. Luke says that, He was baptised and praying. How one would desire that the things of God might lift us above the control of what is natural.

• When baptised we have really said, 'Let us die with Him'.

• When Jesus was baptised there came a word,
  • "Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight".

• We are in the last days, we are in perilous times; and the difficulties, instead of becoming fewer, will become greater, and more in number.
  • Have we a word out of the mouth of God by which we can live? Have we waited upon God in prayer with regard to our baptism unto the death of Christ?

• We are not going to be governed by the words out of the mouth of "the beast", but by the words out of the mouth of God.

• If we know what it is to live by those words, in every attack that is brought against us Satan will be foiled; the attack will be fruitless, except that there may be glory to God in the saints, and that is no small thing.

Well, Satan was foiled. There was something there which he could not apprehend. He had come in between Adam and God, and brought in distance, but here was One between whom and God there was no distance.

• Satan in his relentless hate is determined to overthrow Him. It would appear that the pride of Satan's heart was what overthrew him at the beginning, when as the covering cherub his heart was lifted up with pride; and now he resorted to the same line in order to overthrow Christ:
  • "And the devil, leading him up into a high mountain, shewed him all the kingdoms of the habitable world in a moment of time", and he offers Him all these. "I will give thee all this power, and their glory; for it is given up to me, and to whomsoever I will I give it. If therefore thou wilt do homage before me, all of it shall be thine".

• In other words, he says if you will recognise me you may have this world. But the glory of Christ was that He would have no power, and no glory, unless it was given to Him by God:
  • "Thou shalt do homage to the Lord thy God, and him alone shalt thou serve".

Satan's lie is used as an attack upon us; he presents all the power and glory of this world in order that we might come under his influence as the god of this world.

• We were speaking this afternoon of the literature, science and arts of this world; Satan is endeavouring, and he has long endeavoured, to impose the influence of these things upon the saints, so that they may be dazzled by what he has got.

• Christ was found in the path of complete and absolute subjection to the will of God in this world. I suppose the temptation was peculiarly subtle, because the kingdoms of the world and their glory will yet be His, but He will take them up as the One who has died.

But the adversary attacks again, and goes back to the original line, as to Jesus being the Son of God, and he takes the Lord and sets Him on a pinnacle of the temple.

• The strategy of Satan puts things in a religious setting. How we need to be on our guard, how we need to pray! How we need to wait earnestly, daily, upon God, that we might be proof against the subtleties of the adversary.
  • Satan says, "If thou be Son of God, cast thyself down hence",

• and then he quotes a scripture, or rather misquotes it, from Psalm 9
  • "He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee in all thy ways: They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone", verses 11-12.

• Was it necessary to put God to the test? Not for Christ, for He knew Him. The word was before us in the afternoon as to knowing God. Christ knew God, as a Man in wilderness circumstances, and needed no evidence of His faithfulness to Him.

• There was nothing in the heart of Christ to which appeal could be made that He should cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple as though to call public attention to Himself.

How many of us have been subjected to a similar line of temptation, perhaps unknown to ourselves, the outcome of the manoeuvring of the adversary

• so that we might stand in conspicuous places, and use the places – religious places – for our own advancement to call attention to ourselves, goaded on by the adversary!

• Alas, how many have fallen victim to the wiles of the adversary, and have dashed their foot against a stone. They will never walk again; never! They will never walk with a stately going like that which marked Jesus. There are those, upon whom we look with tears today, who have dashed their foot against a stone.

The reply of the Lord to this part of the temptations is remarkable. You will note that His words were,

• "It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God".

• As if He would indicate to the enemy that He had a word from God of which Satan knew nothing; it was not a written word which could be read, but a spoken word which would be heard in the ear.
  • Jesus had a place so near that He had heard a word which would regulate Him at that moment. Precious favour!

• For us it is the same, for while the written word is to us the law and the testimony, yet there are times when a special application of it forms a word which is spoken and which we hear.

May God grant that our sense of the danger of the power of the adversary against us, of the subtlety of his manoeuvres, may call us to lowliness of spirit that would commune constantly with God,

• and that our thoughts may be of the glories of the One who went through death, and there closed our history in His infinite love.

• As we commune with Him we shall be proof against the attacks of the adversary, we shall realise that Christ has died to all the glory of this world, and we shall be preserved in the circumstances in which we have to walk.

• I am not, I hope, magnifying the difficulties unduly; there is power for us infinitely greater than the greatest difficulty.

• The danger is there, and one would desire that we should walk in the light that we have gained in knowing God, and have power to rise up higher and yet higher in the knowledge of the glories of Christ, as known to the heart of the Father.

• The end for which revelation has come is that God might be known, and, in being known, that He might be loved.

May the Lord grant us grace for these things for His blessed name's sake!

The man and the woman did not know what these skins spoke of, but God did, and He accepted them because of what He knew of the precious worth of Christ, who was to come.

• In our day, the believer is clothed in God's view with all the perfection and blessedness of what God sees in Christ and all His finished work. How beautiful the believer looks to God, and if only we understood this, what restfulness and happiness would be ours!

The same thing appears all through, all down the ages of time. Man has turned away, but God has followed him. Cain turned away from the light which God had given for faith,

• that "if thou doest not well, sin [offering] lieth at the door", Genesis 4: 7.

The beasts had been slain to provide the coats for Adam and Eve; why then should Cain draw near with an offering in which no life had been forfeited? But God did not leave him in his path of self-will, He drew near.

• True He inquired for his brother and what he had done to him, but there was also the pleading voice, uttered, alas! without avail.

• Cain went out from the presence of the Lord to bear the sentence imposed upon him, because he would not repent and turn to God in self-judgment and confession of his sin.

When David sinned it was God who moved towards him by sending Nathan the prophet – 2 Samuel 12; but, alas! the history of God's people all through is marked by their folly and sinfulness in turning away from Him.

• And yet the record abounds with instances again and again of God following them by raising up servant after servant to plead and appeal to them to return.

In Jeremiah's day God says, "I spoke unto you, rising up early and speaking, and ye heard not, and I called you, and ye answered not", Jeremiah 7: 13.

• Think of God speaking thus figuratively of Himself, as though it was a man speaking of rising up early. How touching is the earnestness depicted in this; rising up early to plead with a people who had turned away from Him.

• It should have been the people who rose up early in the morning to seek the blessed God from whom they had turned away. But, no, it is God who is doing this; He who had done so much for them all through their history.

It was God who came down at the beginning to bring them out of Egypt; it was God who divided the waters of the Red Sea.

• It was He who gave the manna from heaven to feed them, and the flowing waters in abundance to satisfy their thirst.

• It was God who drove out all their enemies before them and brought them to rest in the good land which flowed with milk and honey.

• But it was the people loved and cared for by the blessed God, Jehovah, who turned away, and yet, as I have said, He followed them, "rising up early and speaking" in order to bring them back.

Jeremiah says again that "Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt, unto this day, have I sent unto you all my servants and prophets, daily rising up early and sending them", verse 25

• So we see that it was not once, nor twice, but daily that God sent His servants, rising up early to plead with His wayward people. Such is the tenderness of God's heart for His people whom He loves.

The apostle Paul had a great sense of this when he wrote to the Romans. He said,

• "But unto Israel he says, All the day long I have stretched out my hands unto a people disobeying and opposing", chapter 10: 21.

• All day long; not only as rising up early in the morning, but stretching out His hands all the day long to plead – a most touching thought for believers who have got away from the Lord, and there are many of them. Isaiah speaks, as the apostle Paul says, of a "a people disobeying and opposing".

• What about disobedience? How much there is! Think of the many in Christendom who disregard the Lord's commandments. This applies to some who have professedly separated from evil.

• And yet the Lord has not given us up. He loves His people, He loves all of them, and if we do not seek Him in our failure and departure, He is seeking us.

Are you in the world enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season, having forgotten the Lord who bought you?

• The Lord is appealing to you in many ways, by this word which I am speaking, for He has laid it on my heart to appeal to you through the pages of this book.
  • He says, "Return, backsliding children; I will heal your backslidings", Jeremiah 3: 22.

• Note the word "children"! He has not given you up, although you may have given Him up. He thinks of you as among the children, He loves you and desires your affection for His own heart.

The Lord knows that He is being done without, even in the place where His name is professed. For in addressing the church in Laodicea He says, Revelation 3: 20.

• The church at Laodicea refers to the state of the professing church today, and we are all in the profession.

He says, "Behold, I and at the door and am knocking". Behold! It is a thing to look at, to consider, the Lord Jesus standing outside the professing church.

• Think of Him having to stand; no one has had the care to give Him a seat. He is outside and He calls to His loved ones to behold it.

• Oh! look, beloved people of God, look at your Lord outside, and standing, and you are carrying on your services and meetings without Him. He feels it, but He is not turning away; He says even though He is outside and standing, "as many as I love", verse 19!

• Love is still there, it is there for you, for us all. It is there to the end. "Having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end", John 13: 1.

I do not believe that the great place believers have as stones according to God is rightly valued by many. Grovelling instincts would not mark so many of the people of God if the great place we have been given were better understood.

• Many believers are seeking after temporal, material things and even overstepping the bounds of righteousness to acquire them. Would to God we were wiser!

• We have part in an edifice which God is building which is eternal. It is seen, in type, in the earthly house which Solomon built. Any who are acquainted with the varied glories of the earthly house must be greatly impressed by its magnificence.

• Utterly destroyed now, under the government of God, it was magnifical, but the latter glory of the house will yet exceed the former glory.

• And Peter has all this in mind when he writes to impress the saints that they are part – they are stones – of this spiritual house. We are stones in it and God would have us rise to a sense of the greatness of it.

In 1 Kings 5 we are told that "the king commanded, and they brought great stones, costly stones, hewn stones".

• Now, I would suggest that every believer is a great stone. The smaller we are in our own estimation the greater we are morally. In the sense that every believer is the handiwork of God, nothing could be greater.

• Train your mind to think of believers as being great. None are to be despised for all are great in this regard. They are great stones.

• You, young believer, young as you may be, are a great stone in a great building that is going to shine with the lustre of the glory of God. Could anything be greater than that?

And the passage we have read speaks of costly stones, meaning that they are rare. And every believer is a costly stone. I beg of you, for a moment, to think of the cost at which every one who loves the Lord has been acquired.

• You cannot match a believer anywhere in the creation. He is costly; he is rare! The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son has been shed to acquire him, and we should learn to think of this.

• Have you risen to the thought that you are precious, costly, rare? If so, should we wrap our bodies in the adornment of the world that spat upon the face of Jesus? I charge you in the presence of God, take care of your bodies for they are
  • "the temple of the Holy Spirit", 1 Corinthians 6: 19.

• We live in a day when people lightly sin against their bodies, and I am not sure that those who take the name of the Lord Jesus upon them are wholly clear in this respect. Remember – your bodies belong to the Lord! He has bought them!

• I ask you, beloved brethren, have you presented your bodies as living sacrifices, holy, acceptable unto God? It is your intelligent service, but you cannot present your bodies holy unless they are holy, practically holy.

And then there are hewn stones. We are stones that have been hewn out. It may have been some word of special power in the gospel that reached you. God knows. It must have been the sovereign work of God in new birth in your soul that brought you out.

• To be hewn implies that there has been actual work to make the stone what it is. We hold things in a different way when we see that. Why has sudden illness fallen upon a brother? Why such distress? God is producing a hewn stone.

• And having secured you, God never intends to let you go. I have felt the power of that for many years. I earnestly beg of you, if you are conscious of the hand of God being upon you, do not frustrate it.

• I tell you frankly, I fear God. I know that He loves me. I know what it is to bow down and say, "Abba, Father", but I fear God. I fear His government. It is an awful thing to have to do with God. May that hand have freedom to do what it will!

But we also have the word that there are glistering stones. That is a wonderful thought; stones that are radiant with a light that is not resident in themselves. Are you glistering? You should be full of spiritual animation!

• Certain believers seem to have no animation. Why should we not be full of joy with our spirits rising up in response to God? We can sit and sing that all will be well, but do we get a bit down when we go to business? Why not sing? Are we a poor setting forth as believers in the eyes of the world?

• Ours is the real joy of what is spiritual, and we, as glistering stones, are furnished for the house of God. It is a lovely idea; God's dwelling-place! It is a spiritual edifice built of spiritual living stones that are great and costly and hewn and glistering. This is the work that God is doing!

Well, Peter says, "yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up".

• We have come to the One who was cast away indeed of men. Do you know Him as such, belonging to what God is building outside of this world altogether?

• We have come to know the Lord Jesus in connection with that with which decay is impossible, where death is not known. We have come to the One cast away indeed of men but with God chosen, precious.

So it says, "yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ".

• The idea of a sacrifice is different from an offering. Offering speaks of what it is to God, sacrifice is what it is to me.

• What does it cost me to offer up a spiritual sacrifice? Had you been able to bring a bullock in the days of the material sacrifices, how happy you would have been! But what spiritual sacrifices are you bringing?

• What a thing it is to get alone with God and to be moved in our affections towards Him. Your morning reading of the Scriptures would take on a different character, and when you come to the meetings the brethren would notice that something has happened. You would be a changed man.

• We must have spiritual sacrifices! It is only worthy that God should have them.

And now I wish to allude to ourselves as stones in another setting and I would ask the brethren if they have known what it is to be stones in a valley or brook.

• In the face of the great giant, Goliath, David went down into a valley, or brook, because there were smooth stones there. Now I want to ask the dear brethren, Have we gone down into the valley, accepting the cross of the Lord Jesus?

• As accepting this, the work of the Spirit – the water passing over us – will smooth us. And He can use smooth stones. Have you ever felt hurt in your spirit that the Lord has had to pass you by because you were too big? Let us come down into the valley. Would you not like to be a smooth stone?

• David, who is a type of Christ, went down into the valley and chose five smooth stones out of the brook, and they were put into the shepherd's bag. That is where David put the stones. But, as there, we may have to wait to be used. Are you prepared to wait? You must wait until David puts his hand upon you.

• David took one stone. It was enough to do the work in hand. Are you and I prepared to wait for that? David had five stones in his bag, and it is not without significance that we read later that there were four relatives of Goliath of whom it is said that they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants. 2 Samuel 21: 15-22.

I do not think that I have ever had a harder lesson to learn than to wait. But the Lord's time is a time of absolute triumph. Why? He waits only on God. That is the secret.

• The preparation in the valley, in the brook, is that we may be used by Him. That is the side to see here.

• The other side is that of our place in the house offering up spiritual sacrifices to God. May the Lord help us, beloved brethren, in these things.

The psalmist has evidently been greatly impressed with his knowledge of God, for he says,

• "Jehovah our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!", Psalm 8: 1.

God's name excels every other name, not only locally, but universally, as it says, "in all the earth". Whatever part of the earth you care to bring up for comparison, God's name excels every other name there.

• There are illustrious names, some of which are universally valued and honoured; but mainly they are local or national – not excellent in all the earth, for in other parts of the earth they are unknown. But with God, His name is excellent in all the earth!

• There are, as I said, great names, but I do no one a dishonour if I remind you that no earthly name is excellent in all the earth, for if you were to examine them, you would find something there which is discreditable. But not so with God-no one could discover anything to discredit God.

• The whole history of time may pass under critical examination, but His name is excellent in all the earth, whose majesty is set "above the heavens;" so there is nothing to be ashamed of in being here for God. Indeed, there is something to be ashamed of if you are not here for Him, if you have not yet learned what is truly excellent.

First of all, let us consider God's name in relation to His word. Many a man has given his word, and has been compelled to retire from it, but not so with God.

• You remember the wicked Balaam said,
  • "God is not a man, that he should lie … Shall he say and not do?", Numbers 23: 19.

• What a word for the king of Moab to hear, who desired to curse the people of God. Surely His name is excellent in all the earth!

• You recall that after the flood, God gave His word that He would never overthrow the earth by water again. He said,
  • "I set my bow in the clouds", Genesis 9: 13

• – not in the firmament, but in the clouds. God said that advisedly.

• When we were passing over the Atlantic recently, the sky was lowering, and it looked tempestuous, but in the eastern sky there stretched a rainbow with an arc dipping each end into the sea. As I looked on that, I thought of God's name – it is excellent in all the earth! Will He ever break His word? Never. You may trust Him.

• You may trust a brother, and he may fail you because he is incapable, but it is never thus with God. Never! Throughout all generations, to the last hour in time, that word will stand; God can be trusted, and you may rely upon Him.

• Beloved, what stability does this give us! We are not trusting in things that are today, and tomorrow are gone; our trust is in the living God, and we have a foundation in Him that is immutable – for His name is excellent in all the earth. Whether north or south, east or west, God is to be trusted, and would have us rely on Him who is invisible.

• Think of man's intruding into God's domain. Men laugh to scorn those words,
  • "Seeing him who is invisible", Hebrews 11: 27.

• What a paradox they are to puny man! But not to the person who knows God, for although He is invisible to the natural eye, even Job could say,
  • "Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not", Job 9: 11 – he knew it.

• We have known seasons when God has been very near to us, which have enhanced Him to us; such seasons give us a status on the earth, but not of it.

• I would remind you also of the word God spoke to Noah, after He had smelled that savour of rest:
  • "Henceforth, all the days of the earth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease", Genesis 8: 22.

• God has always been true to His word, and ever will be.

We may speak of God's name in relation to what He does. I venture to say that God has never done a single thing that could be amended. I am somewhat amused, at times, when I hear of scientists who imagine they could amend the acts of God, and so make a better world than He. Forsooth, what nonsense! His name is excellent in all the earth, and there we stand.

• We know but very little of the creation; but when we sit down and meditate upon God's works therein, how magnificent they are! The tiniest insect that hums in the summer breeze has a place in God's creation, for He never created anything aimlessly. The mountain that towers in the clouds – has that been put there for nothing? No.

• Whether it be the heavens above or the earth beneath or the waters that cover the sea, they alike proclaim forever the transcendent wisdom of our God, and we stand by this. Are we going to be driven from our foundation by all the foolish cavilling of man? No, not for one minute! We say with a calm resolution,
  • "Jehovah our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!" and stand by that.

God's name is excellent with regard to what He gives. He has given the best. Think of what He has given to us! Take the earth for example; think of the resources of it! We touch only the very fringe of what there is to know of it.

• Inventors are crowned with laurels, but the Creator of the things that they discover is forgotten. Do we speak of the marvels of radiography and other discoveries, but forget to render homage to Him who brought the whole universe into existence by His word?

• What God has given is great, and we can praise Him for all His works. Every morning, the light of which breaks on our lives, is only a reminder of the innumerable gifts He has given. Where should we be without them? – and yet we often rejoice in the gifts, and, alas! forget the Giver. Is this right? We know it is not.

• May God grant that there may be found in our souls a greater sense of the excellence that there is in Him, and in His greatest gift, His Son. The world has turned away from Him; it took all that He gave, and misused it. God gave His Son to die in woe unspeakable, in anguish indescribable; He was scorned, despised, spit upon, and hated by the world that has turned away from God and from His grace.

• But His name is excellent in all the earth, and will yet be made known through Him who in death has declared that name. There shall be glory to God
  • "in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages", Ephesians 3: 21.

• I do feel that we need to understand the immense value of what we have in God. His name, as revealed, sets forth what He is, and so excels everything in all the earth.

Well, I now desire to say a word with regard to Christ and His name. The writer of Hebrews was laying out before believers that God had spoken in His Son,

• "whom he has established heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds", Hebrews 1: 2.

• He refers to this great and glorious Person as having a name more excellent than angels. Now, angels have a name, they have renown; Psalm 103: 20 speaks of them as "mighty in strength;" and Job 38: 7 speaks of the sons of God shouting for joy when the earth's foundations were laid – a wonderful intimation of what took place in view of God's counsels in grace.

• But think of Christ – He inherits a name more excellent than angels. Angels were named sons of God, they were created beings who derived their origin from God; but think of the moment when Jesus became Man and could respond to God as His Son. He occupied that place on the earth as God's Son, not merely as a son, but the Son!

• And He inherited a name more excellent than angels, for no person ever appeared before or since who could fill out that name: neither Michael nor Gabriel, nor any other angel could fill out that unique place which was His. Yet the proud world despised Him, scorned and crucified Him.

• We shall yet be acquainted with the greatness of angels, for Michael and Gabriel are great personages. Think of Gabriel saying,
  • "I am Gabriel, who stand before God", Luke 1: 19;

• and yet the religious leaders of today dare to place this lowly Man on a platform of equality with other men. It is blasphemous sacrilege, and our souls revolt against it.

• We have in Him a Person whom we know, and we are sitting at His feet learning heavenly wisdom from Him; never was there a teacher like Him at whose feet we may sit without fear. You do not require to graduate at the universities; it will damage you, for there is the awful danger that you trust in your own mind, and he who does that quenches the Spirit; let us sit at the feet of Christ, and learn heavenly wisdom from Him.

• We know men who have done this, and their wisdom is apparent to all. Let us follow their example, and so become wise.

• A man counts it a great day when he can bring forward his son and say, 'This is my son'. God has said
  • "This is my beloved Son: hear him", Mark 9: 7.

• He only whose name is excellent is to be heard.

Let us now examine the thing worked out in a man's soul. Saul of Tarsus, although no ordinary man, attached no value to himself at all, yet he was highborn, and was educated at the feet of Gamaliel.

• He was also free-born. When the captain of the military guard in Jerusalem said to Paul,
  • "I, for a great sum, bought this citizenship",

  • Paul could say, "But I was also free born", Acts 22: 28.

• Paul had a great status on the earth under the providence of God; and we must take care that we recognise and respect God's providence. There is a Satanic effort in the world to break it down, but providence must be respected among us.

• Paul had seen a glory in Christ that surpassed all other glory, and he gave up everything for Him; he was content to suffer the loss of everything for Him, and, as he writes, to
  • "count also all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord", Philippians 3: 8.

• Here was a man who had much on this earth in the way of status and masterly ability, but he laid it all down at the feet of Jesus – that anointed, blessed Man whom God had exalted. Now I ask: Has Christ a like place in your heart? You may hold the doctrine of it, but have you got the thing? You may be as sound as possible in doctrine, but what is that without the thing?

• You can very soon tell whether a person has counted things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, for in such a case He is the dearest and the most treasured Object of the heart. Do you dress as though you belonged to a Person so illustrious, or do you adopt the fashions of the world to adorn the body that belongs to the anointed Man?

• Do you want to speak like persons who are in darkness and at a distance from God? What language do you speak – that of Wall Street, or the language of heaven, the most dignified that the universe will ever know?

• Beloved brethren, we want to be like Christ, to be suitable in our bearing, in our deportment and speech and dress, so that we can be taken up and put down on that golden street!

• Let me ask you, dear young brethren: Has Christ got the supreme place in your hearts? Oh, it is a lovely thing to know Christ. How it refines one to meditate on His glory, and to commune with Him! We thus become morally great, even as Paul could speak of
  • "the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord".

• That holy, anointed Man dominated his whole life, and everything else was as filth to him.

• I do urge the younger ones to stand out nobly from this world, to set themselves to know Christ, and to give Him the first place in their hearts, even as Paul did. Remember, that if you are trafficking with this world, you have not got Christ as the hidden Man of the heart. May God give it to us to know Him thus increasingly, so that we shall stand out in this world as those alluded to in Psalm 16 as
  • "the saints that are on the earth … the excellent", verse 3.

• There are none to equal them. They are royal and ennobled people marked by a peculiar glory. Some may think that this country is the most excellent nation, but that is wrong! – the saints of God are the most excellent in the earth

• Have you seen the light of the glory of heaven in the face of a little crippled woman in a cottage? Have you ever seen the very joy of the golden street coming into the soul of a dying brother? Oh, how wonderful it is thus to know the saints! They are indeed the excellent on the earth.

• My dear young people, set yourselves to be identified with the people of God. You boys and girls at school, choose your companions among those who belong to Christ. You children of Christian parents, let me affectionately entreat you to choose your companions among God's people. They are the excellent on the earth. Love them, serve them.

• I am not concerned about their failures, but about the moral glory that I have seen in them, day by day, and in every land that I visit. I am glad to know the saints, without regard to class or colour, as the excellent on the earth!

Now, we have to remember that we can trust in nothing as inherited by us. Paul spoke in 2 Corinthians 4: 4 of the

• "radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ".

• He had in mind the glory of Christ shining from him. Whilst the apostles had a place of precedence among the saints, they had only a place, really, in the enjoyment of the thing, which is proper to all Christians. Paul spoke of the excellency of the power, that it might be of God and not from us; he alludes to the radiance of the glory that should shine in the body of the ordinary Christian.

• That is a wonderful thing; our first qualification is that our bodies should be transparent vessels, so that the glory may shine forth, not only by what we say, but by what we are. I could point to people who have never said a word to me, yet I have seen the radiancy of the glory of Christ there.

• No doubt, the reference is to Gideon's men, whose pitchers were broken in order that the light might shine forth, but the apostle has in mind the greatness of divine power on our behalf, so that the light may shine forth, not by breaking the vessels, but by their transparency, which is a greater thing; and we have the excellency of the power of God on our behalf in view of this.

• I know by experience that there is great power in the evil influences of the world, but I know a power that excels; it is the power of God. So he says that the excellency of the power may be of God, upon which we may count. You can always have that power demonstrated to you from the Lord on high – I commend it to you; I beg you to put it to the test. When you feel the power of the world against you, say, 'Lord, help me'.

• I would like you to leave tonight with a sense that the power is available for you, and that you know how to apply it, a power that excels all other. Now, we have to be on our guard, because we occupy a position of excellent greatness; we have a power that excels on our side.

I turn for a moment, before I close, to speak of love's way in relation to gift. Gift is really an expression here, in man, of Christ on high. Whatever form the gift may take, that is what it is.

• he apostle often alludes to the matter of gift. He says,
  • "Desire earnestly the greater gifts", 1 Corinthians 12: 31.

• Showing that gift is open to desire. It is a great thing to have gift as power from the ascended Man, but we must ever remember that there is something greater than gift, and that is love; and love, the divine nature, is open to us all, it is
  • "a way of more surpassing excellence", as Paul says.

• Now, what is needed among us to hold us together, and to help us in relation to Christ Jesus and to God, is love, love that
  • "has long patience, is kind, … is not insolent and rash, is not puffed up, … does not impute evil", 1 Corinthians 13: 4-5

• Do we know this more excellent way of love? Without it, my dear brother, I am nothing! One may ask, 'Here is a brother who has given his body to be burned. Has he love?' Without it, he is nothing.

• 'Here is a sister who is well off, and gives everything for the poor. Has she love?' Without it, she is nothing.

• 'Here is a brother that can preach with the eloquence of an archangel; everybody is flocking to hear him. Has he love?' Without love, he is nothing; he is no more than "sounding brass or a clanging cymbal", verse 1.

• Love is of God – it is the way of surpassing excellence. Love will suffer; love will die. The One who set forth love in all its greatness did not stand for His rights, much less fight for them.

• Love in Christ suffered, died, gave all! This is the way of surpassing excellence, of which this world knows nothing. The world is full of lust and hatred and envy, but I know a place where divine love is, even among God's people. It is a way of surpassing excellence.

Prayer fortifies a believer as having to meet the influences of the world, and of his own heart, but what I have very much before me now is the experience of waiting upon God.

• Evidently there are wonderful things – things that eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor that have entered into the heart of man – which God has prepared for those that wait for Him.

• The apostle in the epistle to the Corinthians gives a beautiful touch, as showing that those that wait upon God are those that love Him.

• I believe that all the persons whom God has taken up from the beginning have been accustomed to wait upon God, and I raise the inquiry as to whether we are accustomed to wait upon God.

• I suppose we have all, in varying measure, had the experience that we have spoken to God about a matter, and have received no reply. What are you going to do? Are you going to abandon the pursuit, or are you going to wait upon God?

• The waiting process tests us much, but it is a most delightful experience to wait on God, with the sure and certain sense in our souls that none ever waited on God in vain. It is part of our education for the realm in which we are to dwell presently, that we should wait on God.

I think Noah stands out as one who waited on God. Noah recoiled from the condition of things in the earth where he lived, and he took an opposite course; he was a righteous man, and God regarded him as such. The time came when God told him that the end of all flesh had come before Him.

• Now, God frequently indicates what He is about to do before He does it, and Noah had to learn to wait on God as to what He was about to do. As waiting upon God, your heart rejoices in the sense that you are in His confidence, and that you have a secret with heaven.

• It is a wonderful experience to be in the secret of God's mind. Noah enjoyed that, and as he built the ark, during the long period that elapsed while it was preparing, Noah was waiting upon God. Day by day he would no doubt commune with God as he waited upon Him.

• And even after Noah was put into the ark, and the door was shut by the hand of God, he had to wait. I am perfectly certain that Noah acquired, as the outcome of waiting on God, a moral greatness that distinguished him from the whole generation in which he lived.

Then one might refer to Abraham. The God of glory appeared to him, as distinct from Noah.

• The God of glory appeared to him in a land of idolatry, and He called him to come out of country, kindred, and father's house, and we are told that he went out, not knowing whither he went – because he was waiting on God.

• What did it matter if he did not know whither he was going if he had God to wait upon? He arrived at a knowledge of God through that experience, which I suppose he could not have derived in any other way.

• Then, in offering up his son, he was told that the thing was to be done on one of the mountains that "I will tell thee of". Abraham still further waited upon God, and all through his experiences we find that this thing characterised him – save, alas, with certain lapses ̵ that he waited upon God.

Our place as brought into relation with God, in His family as His children, and in His household, gives us our privilege of waiting upon Him.

• The thought of waiting upon God far exceeds the idea of making requests to Him, and leaving it there. There may be requests which we make, and which we leave, but that is not waiting upon God.

• Waiting upon God is that the affections of the heart turn constantly towards Him, ever having in mind what we have spoken to Him about, or that of which He may have spoken to us. It may involve patience, but it is amply rewarded.

• May I ask whether we, as believers, are intimate with heaven? Do we know the gates, the doors? Do we realise that we have been called into holy intimacy with God, not to be so only when we arrive in heaven, but now? Do we understand this?

• In the world great prices are paid, and great efforts are put forward, in order to be allowed to speak to royal personages. You need pay no price to speak to God. It is your rightful place to be near to Him, and to commune with Him continually.

• Nothing, surely, can be greater in the life of a believer than to be intimate with God, and to know what it is continually to wait upon Him.

I might remind you of others besides Noah and Abraham: of Joseph, of David, and of many others who knew what it was to wait upon God.

• There were those who through long hours of dreary darkness knew what it was to wait upon God. I want you to understand that none ever waited on God in vain. As surely as the sun rises in the morning, so surely will God answer you if you wait upon Him.

• But He may keep you waiting, and the process of being kept waiting tests us all, but it educates us greatly. When once you have passed a period of waiting upon God – waiting on and on, and no answer, no apparent issue – the moment will come when the dawn will appear and the light will stream in where it was dark, and God will show you His way.

In the life of Jesus here, perfect though it was, great and Holy One of God as He was, there was this particular element of waiting upon God.

• Think of the Lord being in Jerusalem; He knew about His Father's business – what great affairs were in His hands. Think of a boy of twelve years old in the temple.

• The One who was going to bring about the reconciliation of all things, the One who was going to effect atonement, and the One who was going to destroy the power of death and overthrow completely the whole power of evil. Did He not know what was before Him? He says,
  • "Did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father's business?", Luke 2: 49.

• Think of Him going down to Nazareth and waiting. Think of that One turning daily, frequently every day, turning heavenward, and waiting on God. Which is greater – to accomplish great things for God, or to enjoy nearness with Him?

• The Lord valued the holy intercourse that He had with God. So He went down to Nazareth, and it says He was in subjection to His parents.

I ask you, Are you really in touch with God? Do you know Him?

• I have found believers in obscurity. One comes to my mind now who lived in a little wooden cottage, who could speak in the most intimate way of having to do with God. Never shall I forget the look that came into her face as she spoke to me. She said, 'Do you think God will ever fail me? No', she said, 'never'.

• Are we really intimate with God, beloved? Do we know Him? God is working at the present time to bring us near to Him. We have become nigh by the blood of Christ; we all have access in the power of one Spirit.

• But do we know this nearness? Do we know what it is to wait upon God? Oh, it is lovely to get into the company of one who is accustomed to wait on God.

The time came in the life of Jesus, in His precious life, when He came up to the baptism of John. And Luke tells us,

• "all the people having been baptised, and Jesus having been baptised and praying, that the heaven was opened", Luke 3: 21.

• Jesus was praying, not preaching yet, not raising that voice, which in its power could cause the dead to hear. No, He was waiting, waiting on God – praying. It is a most touching consideration.

• A lowly, humble Man, standing by the water, coming up out of the river, standing there. Oh, how precious to heaven, a lonely Man standing praying by the Jordan, what a lovely sight. Waiting on God. What will God do?

• God opened the heavens, and the Spirit in bodily form as a dove came down and abode upon Him. A manifest representation to all who were there that that Person was approved of heaven. That was the answer. The voice was for His own heart, that He had the place as the beloved Son.

We are missing much, dear brethren, if we do not know what it is to wait – to wait only upon God.

• You may say to me, 'I am in difficulty as to my home; I have to leave the place in which I am living, and I do not know what to do'. Well, when you do not know what to do, do nothing, but wait upon God to come in; for certainly He will.

• What about your family? Are we accustomed to letting things drift? Are we as parents accustomed to letting our children drift into the world? This will not do, brethren; you and I as parents, and heads of households, are responsible to wait on God for them.

• Oh, you say, 'It is an impossible case'. What? Impossible to whom? Have you never read those words,
  • "With God all things are possible", Matthew 19: 26.

• You say the case is a hopeless one. I challenge that. I ask you solemnly, is any case hopeless when you bring God in? No, there must be this practice of waiting on God, and the Lord Jesus in His lowly, humble life pre-eminently set it forth.

There came the moment of the transfiguration. Jesus went up the mountain knowing what was coming, for He had alluded to it, and that shows that nothing ever took the Lord by surprise.

• I have often had a desire that I might be nearer to God, so that things might not take me by surprise. I am thinking just now of the coming of the Lord Jesus. I believe that if one could only wait, and wait upon Him, He would give a definite indication that He was coming. Have you any intimation from Him as to whether He is coming?

• What is your own personal experience with the Lord? Is so great a moment to come without any kind of intimation in the hearts of those who love Him? I question it. When did you ask Him last when He was coming? Just before He ascended they said,
  • "Lord, is it at this time that thou restorest the kingdom to Israel?", Acts 1: 6.

  • And he said to them, "It is not yours to know times or seasons, which the Father has placed in his own authority", verse 7.

• I have a strong impression that there will be those here on the earth who will be in the secret of the fact that the Lord is just about to come. I would like to be among them. I believe there will come into the souls of many of the saints – I do not say all, no doubt it is open to all – an impression in the hearts of believers that the Lord is at hand. That is my impression.

• I would like to wait upon Him so that we have some indication from Himself that He is about to come. I would love, if it were possible, to be able to put my book down, or leave whatever I am doing, and just wait, and say, 'Lord Jesus, come', and we shall be gone. I am convinced that the Lord would have us wait on Him as to it, for it is at hand.

• If He comes in the dead of night, remember it is daylight on the other side of the world; or if darkness there, it will be daylight here. I would love to wake out of sleep and have the sense that the Lord is coming, and so be ready in affection to greet Him. That is what we desire, I am sure, and it will be the outcome of waiting upon Him.

• How many days do we pass without ever referring to the Lord about the matter at all? There should not be one day.

• I went into a brother's house and I noticed a paper on the wall with these words: 'Perhaps, today'. How lovely to be in the household of a brother who, on his knees in quietness with you alone in his room, with his whole soul moved and throbbing with affection and attachment to Christ, says, 'Oh, Lord, is it today?'

• If we wait upon Him we will get some intimation from Him that His coming is imminent.

I was referring to the Lord going up the mountain as knowing that the transfiguration was about to take place, for He had intimated it to the disciples.

• Yet, having ascended the mountain, we find Him praying, or waiting on God, and as He prayed – not after He prayed – as He prayed, His countenance was altered and His clothing was also changed. The fruit of waiting upon God was this transfiguration.

• It is open to us all to enjoy waiting upon God, and we shall prove how true it is that,
  • "Eye has not seen, and ear not heard", 1 Corinthians 2: 9,

• how He will act for those that wait upon Him. What will God do for those that wait upon Him?

I pass on, and think of the moment of the Lord's crucifixion, and recall the remarkable words of Psalm 40: 1 in connection with it,

• "I waited patiently for Jehovah".

• Think of that moment on the cross – Jesus nailed to the cross and abandoned of God, enduring the wrath of God against sin. Think of Him there, waiting, and He says,
  • "he brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay", verse 2.

• Although abandoned, He waited for God to come in, and God brought Him up out of the horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set His feet on a rock, and established His goings, and put a new song in His mouth.

• Look what an array of things come in now as the outcome of waiting, and waiting patiently upon God. The most magnificent devotion that the universe will ever witness was seen there. It was not only that He prayed to God: He did that, but He waited on Him.

• You, or I, or any saint at any time or in any place, can never come into such circumstances as those; and yet here is the eternal witness that God will answer him that waits on Him.

• He was heard for His piety; His inmost feelings clung to God although He was forsaken, and He waited on God; and the establishment of a universe of glory will be the answer to it.

Beloved brethren, if God is to be known, and if He has revealed Himself to us, it is that we may have the joy of waiting upon Him, and He will never fail us. It is a thing that is called for in a godless world.

• I say most respectfully to the brethren, merely to offer our prayers is not enough. It is a great thing; there are christian households, alas, where prayers are not offered publicly; but there are others where prayers are offered.

• But what about this? Does not the head of the house know what it is to shut himself up alone and wait upon God? The most dire and awful need that ever arose in any house or family will be met if only we know what it is to wait upon God.

• The most awful dilemma into which a man was ever plunged shall be solved if we will only learn what it is to wait on God.

• The most distressing assembly difficulty which we have ever known, will be solved if we only know what it is to wait, and wait only upon God.

With regard to Christ, He had a place as a Person of the Godhead in the region of love, before ever this world was. There is no doubt about that. John 17: 24.

• But it has pleased God to make Himself known, not only in the majesty of His power in creatorial works – He has done that – but fully made Himself known.

• He has, however, not taken the way of coming into revelation in an angel. It has pleased Him to pass by angels and to take hold of the seed of Abraham, and to come into revelation by becoming a Man.

• As you perceive this, I think you must realise that it expresses the greatness of divine love. God has come into revelation by becoming Man.

• You will readily perceive that had God taken up angelic form, whether of an ordinary angel or an archangel, we should have felt that we had nothing in common with an angel. An angel knows nothing of human feelings, save as that which he may be capable of as an onlooker.

• The Lord Jesus Christ, while essentially divine, as the Son of God is perfectly a Man. Every human feeling, every human sensitivity is there in perfection.

• I do not possess human feeling in perfection. I am painfully conscious of it; but I know that the Lord Jesus Christ has human feelings in perfection.

• All our feelings are affected by sin, and the power of moral death having come in as a result of the fall. But in the Lord Jesus Christ there is the perfection of human sensitivity which belongs to no one else; and God has made Himself known in that blessed Man.

• I have sometimes sat quietly, or knelt in prayer and thought of the immensity of Godhead – the splendour of Godhead – and felt how entirely it is outside my range altogether.

• Then, as through, I suppose, the Spirit of God, one has been awakened to the sense that God has revealed Himself in a Man, our Lord Jesus, and that great and glorious Personage has come within our range, so that we may know what God is and who He is.
  • And that we may be instructed in His thoughts, and His desires; not through teaching only, for there is something greater than teaching, and that is influence.

• As having come under the rule of Christ – I do not use that word as applying it to anything arbitrary as we generally understand rule – one is instructed and educated in the knowledge of God not only by what He says, for He does speak, but by influence. There are things to be discovered by coming under His influence, and I am sure we know something of what this is.

• Now, as I said, the Lord occupied a place in Deity and in love. He was an object of affection and love in eternity, John 17: 24, but having come into Manhood, He became in a peculiar and unique way an Object of divine love. Hence He is referred to in Scripture as
  • "The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father", John 1: 18.

• The Lord alone has that unique place, but in addition to this place which the Lord will ever hold, alone, He, as Man, is also Pattern for us, for we read,
  • "that the world may know … that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me", John 17: '23.

• He is now Firstborn among many brethren and brings us to share with Him, as "firstborn ones". God's purpose for us is that we should be conformed to the image of His Son; He sent forth His Son that we might receive sonship; and we are loved as He is loved.

Referring to the first passage that I read, it would appear from the words of the prophet Isaiah that in chapter 48 there is an allusion to Cyrus, king of Persia. In chapter 45 also God speaks of him as being anointed.

• But though alluding to Cyrus, the chapter has Christ in view prophetically, and it says there,
  "He whom Jehovah hath loved".

• Now, as come into this world, the Lord came definitely to serve. I wish you to understand that Jesus, having come into this world took up service, and He took it up in the consciousness of being loved. "He whom Jehovah hath loved".

• There never was a moment in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ in this world, but He had the sense that He was loved of God, not a moment.

• There are multitudes of incidents in that life not yet made known, perhaps typified in the manna, placed in the golden pot and laid up in the sanctuary. There is the vast wealth into which we shall shortly be brought, when in those radiant courts of divine glory.

• We shall then be let into the great secrets of Jesus in humiliation, and we shall learn in a fuller measure how He had the consciousness of being loved by God. The motive power behind His service included the consciousness of being loved of God.

• A motive behind all our service, the heavenly impulse behind all our activities, whether they be levitical, priestly, or those of sonship, should be the sense that we are loved of God.

The proposal is a wonderful one in Isaiah 48. The power of Babylon, the power of the Chaldeans, is to be broken. Jesus is going to overthrow it for ever.

• Babylon has already fallen in our hearts, but the public overthrow is at hand. The world raises itself up today in its greatness; but let us remember the words,
  • "His enemies shall lick the dust", Psalm 72: 9.

• So that we can afford to serve, although results may not be apparent. Our great Master had to say,
  • "I have spent my strength for nought and in vain", Isaiah 49: 4.

• Yet He laboured and served in the sense that He was loved by God. And you and I must serve in the sense of being loved, whether among few or many, year in and year out, and possibly in comparative isolation.

• Was there ever any one who tasted loneliness like Jesus? When He said,
  • "I am become like the pelican of the wilderness … I have eaten ashes like bread", Psalm 102: 6-9.

• That glorious Person served with unwearying energy, because He ever dwelt in the love of God.

• I know of no other way in which we can serve, but in the sense of divine love. If our serving is carried on in the consciousness of divine love, then it will be maintained at the high level of sonship.

Now I pass on to the verse in John's gospel, John 3: 35, where it is said,

• "The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand".

• The Lord is presented here as One whom the Father loves, and He was conscious of being not only a Servant but of being the Son. I want you to understand that that was always behind His service. Though He took the place of Servant, He was ever conscious of sonship.

• I am speaking of what He was in manhood; for the place He had in sonship, as alluded to in Scripture, was known by Him in manhood.
  • "The Father loves the Son" – that is, in manhood – "and hath given all things to be in His hand".

• Think of the love of the Father to the Son – Man in this world – being such that He could put all things into His hand. What a hand! I want you to think of the Lord Jesus as being One in manhood of such moral greatness and glory that the Father could put all things into His hand. Not merely for a moment – it is not that He put things for a moment into His hand – but abidingly.

• Yes, that blessed One was here in this world, in the consciousness of being loved, in spite of rejection by man, and I suppose no gospel portrays the rejection of Jesus so pointedly as does the gospel of John.

• We find at one point that He was surrounded by enemies, and yet He had the consciousness of sonship in His holy manhood, and that all things were in His hand, placed there abidingly. What about the nations? What about the world? What about the affairs of this earth? The Father loves the Son, and He has put all things into His hand; and you and I are to be associated with Him. We can well wait patiently and serve, sustained by the love of the Father's heart.

• I suppose the allusion to all being given to be in His hand touches the point of the inheritance; for do not forget that we are heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ. The moment is not far distant – it already exists according to the affections and thoughts of the heart of God – when God will head up all things in Christ, and we are going to be with Him.

• All things are in His hand! What quietness and composure the knowledge of this would give to us. First, the place the Son has in the Father's heart, and then that He has given all things into His hand.

• Do you really believe that all things are in the Son's hand? So that whatever comes to you and to me, comes through that hand. And all things have been placed in His hand, as the abiding witness to our hearts of the love of the Father for Him, and of the character of the Person, the loved One of the Father's heart.

In the next passage that I read, John 5: 20, it says that,

• "the Father loves the Son and shews Him all things which he himself does".

• This unveils to us what was taking place in the life of Jesus, the blessed Son of God here on earth as He moved in the path of divine service. The Father loved Him, and He was able to show Him all things that He Himself was doing. Indeed, the Lord says that as He saw, He wrought, and as He heard He did and spoke.

• You will recall that, with regard to Moses, he was charged in Exodus that everything in connection with the tabernacle had to be made according to the pattern that was shown him in the mount. Now Moses was only a minister himself, and there is no suggestion that Moses was shown these things because Jehovah loved him. Jehovah trusted him; he was one who could be trusted. Hence he was shown, not only the pattern of the tabernacle, but the pattern of the things of the holy sanctuary. But when it is a question of Jesus,
  • "The Father loves the Son and shews Him all things".

  What God had shown to Moses was but an item of the "all things". But when it is the Son of God in manhood, "The Father … shews him all things which he himself does".

• You will remember that with regard to king David and to Solomon, and the building of the temple, David handed over to Solomon the pattern. Such accuracy was to be secured that the pattern of the things was handed over in writing so that there should be no departure from what was shown to David by the Spirit. The whole of the house, and the houses in connection with the temple were to be according to what was shown and given.

• But when Jesus comes in, "all things" are in view, the earthly and the heavenly system. The Father loves the Son and shews Him all things. Think of the place that Jesus has taken, think of the place that He had in manhood as Son, and He received these things as shown by the Father.

• I want you to note the name of Father; it does not say God. There is one God, the Father, it is true. But when it says "The Father" gave all things to be in His hands, and "the Father" shews Him all things which He Himself does, it implies that the whole movement is a movement of love.

• Moreover, we, being through redemption associated with the Son of God, are privileged to know what these "all things" are. Christ is the Firstborn, and we are with Him, and if we want to know what are the heavenly things, we have access to Him, and they have all been shown to Him.

• There is nothing of those "all things" outside the range of the Son in manhood, and the saints are associated with Him. God desires that the saints should be – indeed, they are now – the most illustrious assembly the world has ever seen.

• The Father loves the Son and shows Him – it does not say that He did show; it puts it that way in order to give it a living present force – He shows. And you and I are presently, perhaps in a few hours, to be caught up to form that great assembly on high. We need to give our whole mind to these "all things".

• The things in this world are beneath you. We are privileged to know the "all things which he himself does". He has shown them to the Son because He loved Him; and because He loves you and me we have been given a place in association with the Son of God. It is not only that the Father has loved Jesus but He also loves us.

Then in John 14: 21 it says, "he that has my commandments".

• What a word, we have His commandments. What are we doing with them? Can we, as sitting here together, say that there is not a known commandment that we are not keeping?

• What about the Lord's supper – are we all breaking bread? The commandments are binding. Love has the greatest force, an arbitrary commandment is not so binding.
  • "He that has my commandments and keeps them".

• You must keep them. Why? Because He loves you. You must never lose sight of the fact that He loves you, has loved you unto death.
  • "He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me; but he that loves me" – here we come in – "shall be loved by my Father".

• Has He given you the care of His people? What has He put into your hand? Why? Because He loves you. Is it because you are a competent brother? Not at all, it is because He loves you. It is the greatest trust that can ever be imposed.

• He has given you something in your hand because He loves you, and not only so, He will show you things, because He loves you. Take it to heart; the Father loves you, and as Jesus says,
  • "The Father himself has affection for you, because ye have had affection for me", John 16: 27.

• So that in our measure we have the opportunity of coming into the enjoyment of the love that He knew in limitless fullness. Think of having such a place of service. The Father has given it because He loves you.
  • We can take up the path of service now, and take up the things which are put into our hands, because He loves us, and we can take them up as conscious of our relation as associated with the Son of God.

• Do not step down from your dignity. Remember, whatever you are doing down here – the most menial service – will never rob us of this, that we are numbered among the sons of the firstborn family and we are loved.

I am not now about to speak to you of the assembly as typified in the moon, but of ourselves as persons who form the assembly, typified in the stars, not as isolated individuals, but as a constellation under the figure of the stars.

• I beg you, brethren, to seek from the Lord that you might be delivered from any kind of isolated position. I will show you later that it must become exceedingly perilous if we who form the assembly become isolated.

• From what I understand, although I am afraid I am somewhat ignorant of the stars, no star is independent of the others. Men used to think that the stars were independent, but they are rapidly arriving at the truth that the stars have been set by God in the heavens together as a whole.

And what is stated of the sun and moon, is also stated in reference to the stars, namely, that they are there to rule. The sun is to rule in the day, and the moon and the stars are to rule in the night.

• And I put it as an inquiry to us all, as to whether we are exercising an influence from God over this earth. As being one of the stars, you should be ruling, taking part in an influence of rule over this earth.

• I do not know whether you have been aroused in your affections as to this; and what kind of life you are living where God has put you – in the city, town, or village, where you are. But you should be a ruling influence for God, as being one of the great number of stars.

• It is a serious inquiry. I trust, dear brethren, that all of us here are exercising some degree, at least, of rule. I do not know whether I may address you as living in Woodstock, or Hamilton. But that place ought to be that much better off because you are there; and if it is not, then you are not filling out the divine design in giving you a place which is set forth in the stars in the heaven.

• A boy at school who is converted and knows the Lord ought to exercise some influence over the others, and if he is true to the Lord Jesus he will. I have no doubt there are some here who do.

• You may think you are only a little star, but a star is a very great thing in God's design, because the stars, with the small light, are to rule the night. There is a sense in which we are related, as I will show you, to the morning, but the main suggestion is in relation to the night.

Now in the prophet Joel we read in two places of a day which appears to be coming, when the stars will withdraw their shining. Joel 2: 10; 3: 15. This is a very serious matter for the world; but I raise the inquiry as to whether we are among the shining stars.

• Things may have come in which interfere with our shining, but God's end in putting the stars by power of creation in the heavens, is that they should shine; and we should be shining.

• Are you shining among the stars? Are you bringing heavenly light towards this earth, into the office where you are working – what kind of shining is there?

Are you a shining star? On the market, in the business, in the mill, in the workshop, and in the assembly, are you a shining star? Do you bring light in?

• We should be among the shining stars. It will be a terrible day, to which the prophet Joel refers, when the stars withdraw their shining. We should never withdraw our shining. We should at every time be shining as the stars in the firmament.

Job refers to stars as singing. I have noticed that there are some of the saints who do not sing. I have not yet asked them why. Maybe they cannot sing, but they can make a joyful noise I am sure. I doubt whether there is any one who really cannot sing.

• I have sometimes discerned the voices of the children in the assembly. Some one once said, 'Do you not think it is out of place for the children to sing? They sing loudly and are often out of tune'. No, I love to hear them; it does not distract me.

• I love to be among the saints and know they are among the singing stars. Job says, in view of creation,
  • "When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?", Job 38: 7.

• Music has a remarkable place in the divine realm. If you examine passages in Chronicles referring to music, you will find there is much to show that music, which is under the direction of God's Spirit, has an uplifting effect.

• It is a great thing for the brethren to be able to sing. The effect of it is the sons of God will shout for joy. The word shout is used generally as meaning a shout of victory or triumph. We should be able to bring in an element of harmony in singing that so affects the brethren that the sons of God shout for joy – not groan in misery. There is no such custom in the assemblies.

• Oh, but you say, the times are very difficult. They are; but has God changed? Has the precious truth altered? No. Oh, that the Lord may so help us in spiritual energy and power that we may be found among the stars that sing.

• It is the morning stars that sing – not the persons who are in the darkness of the night, and who say it is so difficult that I cannot see the way. You belong to the morning stars, and you should be with the morning stars singing, and the sons of God will shout with joy.

• By that means you will bring into the assemblies an element of holy triumph in what God is, and what the Lord is. Oh, that we may be found among those that sing. Do you know the Lord sang? It says, Matthew 26: 30,
  • "And having sung a hymn, they went out to the mount of Olives",

• teaching us that singing a hymn has an elevating effect, similar to this, that the sons of God shouted for joy. May He help us in this, so that we may develop in what is called for in Psalm 148, where the exhortation is to the stars to praise God.

• So that we may not only be singing in our own soul's happiness in the knowledge of what the Lord has done; but voicing our praises, rejoicing in what God is, and what He has done, and expressing our love for Him, and for His own Son.

• It is a great thing to be among the stars that are praising. You must understand, whenever there is an allusion to things of this character, there is a spiritual thought behind it, and the spiritual thought behind it is that we are called upon to praise.

• A person who is going on badly cannot sing praises. He has a bad conscience, and if he has not a bad conscience, he ought to have. So in order to have our part and place here among the stars that are praising, our walk must be according to God.

• Perhaps that is the reason, although one hesitates to think it, that certain of the saints do not sing. Is it because they are not happy? Is it because there is some secret thing in the soul – something that has been unjudged, some unforgiving spirit? Is this the reason why we cannot sing?

Oh, that there might be heart-searching and self-judgment, so that we may not only be among the singing stars, but that we may be among those who are praising God.

• It is a great service; God delights in it – to hear the voices of His people praising Him – and He delights to hear our voices raised in praise to the Lord Jesus, for in so doing we take part in that which is going on for ever and ever.

• The spirit of praise will for eternity be on our lips. May God put it there on our lips for praising Him.

I notice we sometimes have meetings that are placed open, to enable the brethren to speak to us; but why do we not speak to the Lord, and why do we not praise Him? Why do not two or three rise to address the Lord in praise? It would be a wonderful thing. We are called upon to

• "praise him, all ye stars of light", Psalm 148: 3.

• That is what God is looking for, and what heaven is waiting for.

Now, leading along this line, we come to another range of things entirely, and I remind the brethren of an instance that is recorded in the book of Judges, chapter 4, when the king of Canaan came up against the people of God.

• What immense power he had – great chariots of iron, and great forces against God's people. He had a great general in his army, as you remember, called Sisera.

• Now we have to remember that there are forces, unseen and unknown often, to us, which are against us. You know Satan and all his emissaries are against us. We have to enter into conflict, not with flesh and blood, but with the lords of darkness, who are against us because of our elevation to the heavenly places. That is where Satan is for the moment, and he will not tolerate that we should, in spirit and thought and affections, occupy the heavenly places.

• The Lord has gone up there. He has gone up far above all heavens, and Satan knows it, and he knows it is not long before he will be dislodged, and so he is against us.

• Now God's people appealed to Jehovah, and God took up two women, one of whom was a notable sister, Deborah; and God will often take up the sisters. Perhaps we brothers do not realise the place the sisters have, but we have to come to it.

• God will often, in an assembly, take up sisters, and He will work in them and through them, so that a victory is secured. That has happened more than once; and what the Lord showed in reference to this conflict of the king of Canaan with the people of God, was that the stars fought against Sisera. Deborah in her wonderful song alludes to it.

It says, "The stars from their courses fought with Sisera", Judges 5: 20.

• What a comfort it is to realise that the people of God may come in, as identified with an exercise which the Lord may awaken possibly through the women. God has done wonderful things through women in church history, and indeed in all history.

• We have to remember that there is an opportunity for us to have a part in the conflict against what is opposing the people of God. I want to ask you if you realise what it is to be found among the stars that are fighting. The stars, it says, from their courses fought with Sisera. Are you among them?

• There may be some conflict in the assembly where you are. Are you among them? I have heard brothers say, 'The meeting is so late, I am not going. I am so tired, and it is just a prayer meeting'.

• The stars from their courses fought with Sisera, it says. Are we prepared to sacrifice anything and everything, to take part in the conflict as fighting stars? That is what is called for.

• And the effect of the stars fighting against Sisera was that Jael came with a thing you would look on with disdain, to bring down a great military general. She took a tent-pin and a hammer; she knew the moment to strike, when he was off his guard, and she struck at the critical moment. Why? Because the stars from their courses fought with Sisera.

• Do we know what it is to be in conflict? I am sometimes asked if I have taken part in military affairs, and I always say 'Yes'. It involves fighting under this banner, which is Christ's banner, and His banner over us is love, and the conflict in which we stand for the truth is faced by us, and we stand in it because we love Him.

• We desire in all our dealings to be actuated by holy love, and holy love is intolerant of evil. We must take part here in Canada – in Hamilton, in Toronto, wherever we may be, as long as the assembly is on earth. We must have our part among the stars that "from their courses" fought with Sisera. Remarkable words.

• You must know what course you are on. There are ordered ways, or courses, for stars, and the fighting goes on. The war is on, engagement after engagement, until the last great battle will come, and the saints will be translated to heaven. The truth is being maintained here on this earth, and it is being maintained by the Lord in heaven, and the stars are engaged here in conflict.

• May the Lord give us preparedness of heart to be here as good soldiers; as Paul says to Timothy,
  • "Take thy share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ", 2 Timothy 2: 3.

This is what we need, otherwise we may have to be numbered among the falling stars, for there are such. The Lord refers, in Mark 13: 25, to a day that is coming when the stars of heaven shall be falling down, and there have been many among believers that might be numbered among the fallen stars.

• I do not know whether you have in mind any believers whom you know who are fallen stars. I have met them; I have seen them; some who once took a prominent part in assembly affairs, are now in the world. Persons who once had a place among the people of God, are now among those who are seeking to mutilate the truth.

• It is a solemn thing to feel that I may be there. Hourly watchfulness, diligence in prayer, is required that we may be preserved, that we may not be among the fallen stars.

There are certain who are referred to as wandering stars. Jude tells us of them, verse 13. He describes them so that there is no doubt as to them.

• There are people who have been numbered among the people of God, who are far from the truth, and I have no doubt they are wandering stars.
  • It says, "to whom has been reserved the gloom of darkness for eternity".

• If you have any fear that your course is such, I beg you in sincerity of heart, to get into the presence of the Lord. Allow those eyes that are as a flame of fire – Revelation 1: 14 – to search you, and inquire whether you really belong to Him, lest it be said of you, "the gloom of darkness for eternity". May the Lord help us in regard to these serious matters.

I want to turn to what I may speak of as an individual position, and the brethren will understand what I have in mind.

• We were speaking together in the afternoon of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the passage I read in the gospel of Matthew we have certain details which are not mentioned by Luke in his account.

• In Matthew's gospel mention is made of the wise men who came from the east, and they saw a remarkable thing.
  • They say, "Where is the king of the Jews that has been born? for we have seen his star", Matthew 2: 2

• – not stars, His star. And that star appears to have moved and stood over the place where Christ was. It is said that when they saw His star they rejoiced.

Now I put it to my own heart – indeed I have done so already, I trust, but one would do so again – and to all the brethren here:

• Are you the Lord's star in the place that the Lord has allowed you to be?

• That star in the east may have been a very wonderful star, and I conclude it was a marvellous star as to its shining, but all else is forgotten in this, that it was His star. The only thing for which that star shone was to show where He was.

• Now I ask you, in your family, what are you shining for? Is it to bring Him in? Is that what you are shining for? As a husband with a wife, how do you shine? Is it that she may know more of Christ, and that He may be greater to her?

• As father, do you shine that Christ may be known in your household, so that the children may know the Lord? Is He loved, and is a greater place given to Him than to any one in the house?

And in the assembly, are you a star that guides to Him? Is our influence where we are set such that it has this one result in leading every eye to Christ, so that He is known, He is worshipped, He is loved?

• Or have we risen to a position of leading, for the sheer love of being first? Such are not of His stars. No, you might think you are, but – you will excuse me speaking to you gently and affectionately – you are not His star. You will not lead us to Him, for He never took that place.

• You may say, 'But I am leader'. Where do you lead? Leading brother, where do you lead? Do you lead to this – that those who are seeking Christ, when they see you shining, find Him and forget you?

• His star had this effect – that when the wise men saw that star and went to the place over which that star stood, they forgot the star, and worshipped Him and that is what we must be as His stars.

• If you and I do not lead to Christ, we are diverting from Him. As His stars, the only thing for you and me is to guide to where He is, so that He is worshipped and we are forgotten.

I do not think that we perhaps value as we should the intensity of the Lord's desires to be with us, and to have us at home with Him.

• I am not speaking exclusively of the occasion of the Lord's supper, when the Lord Jesus may come to assembled saints.

• But I am speaking of the occasions when the Lord manifestly draws near to His people, in order to speak to them, and I am convinced that all will agree that the gain of the Lord's address to us is not possible if we are not at home with Him.

Now how wonderful it is that there are emotions, deep, measureless emotions in the heart of Jesus towards us. Think of that, think of the Personage as typified in Joseph.

• You might have said Joseph has enough to satisfy him in Egypt. Look at the pomp and splendour surrounding his place in the court, think of the eminence in which he is as the saviour of the world, and the revealer of secrets.

• But these were more or less official positions, dignities which invested him; and one might speak of the place of glory in which Jesus is in heaven. He has a glory in heaven surpassing the accumulated glory of all others. That is the glory which rests upon His brow in heaven, the once crucified, despised and hated Man – what a place!

• He has dignities investing Him. He has official glories in that place of light superb. You might say, 'Lord Jesus, these are enough to satisfy Thee'. No.

• What about these few shepherds who had come into the land of Egypt? That was where Joseph's heart lay; they were his brethren. Christ has in heaven glories, yet there are affections in that wonderful heart that can only be satisfied in having our companionship. What a wondrous consideration that is.

The arrival of the brethren of Joseph as he looked on them stirred the emotions of his heart, so that he had to cry,

• "Put every man out from me", Genesis 45: 1.

• The ministry of the truth in the power of the Spirit, from Christ in glory has in view to cause these elements in us, elements of the flesh, to go out. Now the question is, is every man going out?

• All that belongs to us as of this world is a distinct hindrance to the manifestation of Christ amongst His people. One Egyptian remaining there would have restrained the intense emotions of the heart of Joseph.

Now the ministry of the truth which we have received – many of us for many years – is, in the Lord's mind, to the intent that every man should go out. Now have we heard that voice of power, "Put every man out from me"?

• That was the command from the lips of Joseph. It was not a question now of disapproval of these elements, of these persons.

• It was that there were such intense emotions in the heart of Joseph that the presence of Egyptians, the presence of persons who were unsympathetic, would have restrained them, would have hindered him, and so he gave this command, put every man out.

Now are we prepared to disallow the flesh – are we prepared for that? It is a searching question, beloved brethren.

• I feel it deeply for myself, because the element of the world which is in us, and clings to us interferes with what the Lord desires to do; He desires to make Himself known to us. What a thing that this great and exalted Personage desires to make Himself known.

• He is not seeking the courts of the world, He is not knocking at any palace doors, He is knocking at the doors of our hearts, and He says, "Put every man out".

They went out, and the pent-up emotions of the heart of Joseph found an outlet in loud weeping – weeping of intense emotion, intense joy, and I think one has discerned the evidences of the Lord's intense emotions as having liberty to come among His people.

• You may say, 'I know nothing about that'. There is a reason for that. This priceless joy which is within the reach of every believer is only known at the cost of surrender.

• If we are harbouring and clinging to what belongs to us as in the flesh, clinging to what we may be naturally; whether it be in talents, or attainments, or social rank in this world, it is a hindrance to the most wonderful joy that believers here can ever know; the manifestation of the Lord Jesus in the intensity of His love for His own. That is what He is seeking in the assembly.

You understand now that I am speaking of movements on the Lord's side towards us, and not of movements on our side towards Him.

• The emotions of the heart of Christ are so precious that they cannot be divulged in the presence of Egyptians, so He says, "Put every man out".

• He gave vent to his love in loud weeping, and the Egyptians heard and the house of Pharaoh heard. It is not too much to say that this world has heard the joy that is known in the assembly, has known that such a thing is. It may have no intelligence in regard to it, but the thing is known, it has had its effect in the world.

Now that is the move on the part of Joseph to make himself known. The Egyptians have been disposed of – they have gone out.

• We are walking in a path of separation from the world, I hope. If not it is high time to begin, and it is not too late to begin. The cleavage between us and the world must be absolute in heart.

• The taking of the Lord's supper, if it is understood, is an avowal publicly, that Jesus is our Lord. That is the meaning of the Lord's supper; it is the Lord's supper. All of us here who are the Lord's have passed very definitely from the kingdom of darkness, to the kingdom of the Son of God's love.

• Supposing I went over to France, and petitioned the authorities that I desired now henceforth to be a citizen of the French Republic. I renounce every right here, and I take some steps to avow my allegiance to that government. Now the crossing over from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God's love is as real as that, and more so. Have we passed over?

• On the Lord's Day we eat that bread, and we drink of that cup, as a definite avowal that Jesus is Lord. The days that follow are to be in correspondence with that; otherwise the situation is dishonest – it is unreal.

So we have caused the Egyptians to go out, I trust. Joseph discovers now that there is another element to be dealt with. It says here,

• "His brethren could not answer him, for they were troubled at his presence".

• Now, why is it that the Spirit of God is quenched in the assembly of God? I am not speaking now of His being grieved – a most affecting consideration. Think of a divine Person being grieved. I am not speaking of His being grieved – I am speaking of His being quenched.

We were speaking this afternoon of certain manifestations of the Spirit that take place in the assembly of God, in relation to the body of Christ.

• When the Lord manifests Himself in the way of ministry, or in the way of His presence as coming among us, there are occasions when those who are there are troubled. I suppose we all know what it is to have sat uneasily during an address.

• Sometimes a word of ministry causes uneasiness. Why? If the Lord speaks, if He speaks in a voice of thunder, we are not disturbed unless there be some secret question there that has never been touched. Is this condition of things obtaining among us, beloved brethren?

• Do allow me to talk plainly and affectionately. Are any troubled at His presence? Have you a good conscience? Are you silent in the assembly? That is abnormal.
  • The Lord's desire is that all should come near to Him, and the Lord's voice is heard in the assembly in the way of ministry, or He may pursue His own ends by the Holy Spirit in a manifestation.

• The Lord speaks in a remarkable way on occasions to His people. But He does it for what? So that all distance may be removed.

I am greatly exercised as to why there are certain ones who appear to take no part in the functioning of the assembly. This is a condition of things that should not be.

• In the type, Joseph desired that all the brothers should be free with him, and I am sure that his heart was deeply moved as he felt that they were troubled at his presence.

• One desires to speak with due care, and reverently, of the Lord. What must He feel when He finds us troubled at His presence? You ask a brother in the assembly, when you can get near enough to him so as not to wound his spirit, and you say, 'My dear brother, why do you never take part in the assembly?' The usual answer is, 'I am not free'. Why is that?

• I believe every one should be free to function in the assembly. Every sister should be free in her sphere; the young sisters should be free – they should be holy women. There should be a difference between them, and the women of the world, as light is from darkness.

• The fact is the elements of the world have got in among the people of God, and we must cause the Egyptian to go out; that is what must be done. Think of people coming into the assembly, and you do not know them from people of the world. Dear brethren let me say, in all love and gentleness, these things ought not so to be.

Why should we imitate the fashions of the world? Why not imitate the fashions of heaven? That is where we belong, and in demeanour and dress we want to bear the moral marks of heaven, and what is outward is an indication of what is inward.

• Now what about affection for Christ? We are definitely pledged in love to Him. What about our pledge? What about your body? We were speaking in the afternoon about our bodies being holy. Think of a holy vessel. Think of a holy body, in which the emotions of sin are disallowed. Think of a heart devoted absolutely to Christ.

  I believe there is a custom in the apostate church, a most terrible imitation of the church, of what is called taking the veil – absolute devotion to Christ. Love calls for that.

• Could anyone view the cross in all its anguish and desolation, without giving a whole heart to Christ? He gave His whole heart to us then; nothing deterred Him – shame and spitting, agony immeasurable. Such was the devotion of Jesus to you. What is the answer, dear brethren? What is the answer to it all?

Now there were in the hearts of the brethren of Joseph deep questions that had never been settled, and I believe there are questions which are not settled in the hearts of the saints.

• Have you forgiveness of sins? 'Oh', you say, 'I am breaking bread'. I was not asking if you were breaking bread. I asked have you had your sins forgiven? Is the matter really settled? Are you really clear that you are forgiven? Have you got peace with God? Do you know that you are justified?

• What about being justified? God delivered Jesus for our offences. What a thing to do. Why, it was God against whom I had offended; it was the blessed God against whom I had sinned; it was He against whom my will had risen in repeated opposition; He it was who delivered Jesus for our offences, and He raised Him again for our justification.

• Have you believed that? 'Oh', you say, 'I believe Jesus has risen'. No, that is not what it says. I have no doubt you believe He is risen. Have you believed that God raised Him for your justification?

• When that wonderful testimony is believed, God justifies the person. No one justifies himself, it is God who justifies.
  • As Paul says, "Who is he that condemns?", Romans 8: 34.

• The believer is clear from every charge; he is justified, and he has peace with God, and, as having the Holy Spirit, the love of God is shed abroad in his heart.

Now do we know what these things are? Do you know that you are justified?

• Justified means that no charge can be brought against you, neither now nor at any time. Now what about the dominion of sin? What kind of life are you going to live?

The soul history outlined in the epistle to the Romans is of vast importance, in order to give believers restfulness in the presence of the Lord Jesus. The Lord showed unto the disciples His hands. He showed them what He had done; that is the force of showing His hands. See Luke 24: 40.

• I suppose there is hardly an occasion when the precious death of Christ is before us, but we think of what has been secured by Him. He showed them His hands – His hands, no doubt marked with the print of the nails – as indicating what He has done.

The effort of the enemy is to rouse all that is natural in me, to do my own will; that in its essence is sin. But sin's dominion is to be destroyed.

• We are to pass over from the life of the flesh, living here in the indulgence of the flesh, into life in the power of the Spirit. We are to live unto God now, and henceforth. We are entitled to reckon, to count ourselves to have died unto sin, but alive unto God. Now this is very practical.

• You may say I understand the truth; but that will not do. The understanding of the truth will only bring condemnation upon the conduct, unless there be the pursuit of its way. To understand the truth and yet allow sin to work is a very serious matter. You are not to live any longer in sin.

Now these experiences are typified in the behaviour of Joseph's brethren; they were troubled; and there are those now who are troubled, they are not free. I know I am touching what is practical.

• We are to be a holy people, we are to walk in righteousness. Sin's dominion is to be destroyed in the believer; otherwise the holding of the truth is of no value, and we shall come under the discipline of God.

• If you will not surrender the flesh, and the life of the flesh, then you will come under discipline in order to bring you to things. Paul says to the Corinthians,
  • "On this account many among you are weak and infirm, and a good many are fallen asleep", 1 Corinthians 11: 30.

Now, beloved, the Lord's love is so intense, He desires to make Himself known to us, and to make us know that we are His brethren.

• Think of world-bordering; think of persons walking in alliance with the world; think of reading the wretched literature of the world, when the Lord would come to you and say, "I am Jesus". What a word!

• Do I live unto God? Is it true – is it really true – that I live in the power of the Spirit? How can I have anything to do with this world, save to walk humbly, and in a lowly manner through it?

• Oh, for a heart to love Him more faithfully. Oh, for zeal that would walk in conformity to the light of the truth here, so that one might never be troubled. How wonderful and lovely to hear a brother rise and speak to the Lord – with not a cloud between himself and Christ.

• Yet I may hear another, you know what I mean, laboured and stumbling. Have you ever been there yourself? One troubled in the presence of Jesus. They were troubled, troubled! Oh, dear brethren, I feel the Lord is speaking to us. Would that we might have grace to hear His word. He longs to make Himself known to us.

• Think of how those men must have felt when they saw Joseph in all his royal apparel, probably the chain of gold about his neck, and the ring upon his hand! Think of the glories of the Son of God, the despised and crucified Man, the exalted, glorified, heaven-seated Son of God! Beloved, what shall we be in heart, and life, and practice, so as to be at home with Him?

• To be His brethren morally we must hear the word of God and do it. We shall then be restful in His presence. What were you reading on Saturday? Were you smoking on Saturday?
  • "I am Joseph your brother", Genesis 45: 4.

• Think of the Lord's intense emotions as desiring to be with us, and we have been troubled. He says,
  • "Come near to me", Genesis 45: 4,

• do not stand afar off; draw near to me. It is an affecting word.

The Lord would have us, dear brethren, occupy this wonderful position. Joseph said,

• "I am Joseph".

• The Lord looks upon us as His brethren, of whom He is not ashamed. I have sometimes felt deeply bowed in the sense of that. I know what I am. I know of the smallness and littleness of what I am; but think that I am ranked as one of His brethren.

• I can speak with holy confidence, He is God blessed for ever, but He would have us at home with Him. The emotions of that heart will never be satisfied until He has us at home with Him. May He bring it to pass for His blessed name's sake.

Now in the last chapter of Leviticus we have the matter of estimation according to God, and estimation according to the valuation of the priest.

• Doubtless you have noticed in reading the passage, that the valuation of the male differs from that of the female. At your leisure it will interest you to note the difference between the valuations; they are not regular.

• According to age, the valuation of the male and the female differs. I believe the spiritual meaning of the valuation of the male and the female suggests for us the valuation according to what we are according to divine purpose.

• The valuation according to what we are in God's ways here; that is the measure of what is actually wrought in us, what is entered into by us. You might say to me that every one is valued alike. Well, every one stands in divine favour, and stands before God in divine righteousness; all stand in the blessedness of what Christ is as risen.

• But you must understand that when it comes to a question of the world to come, and possibly eternity, there are variations. For instance, when one thinks of the apostle Paul, the great place that he has in relation to the divine structure, one will readily conceive that he has a distinctive place in valuation, even in relation to the ways of God on earth, and the assembly of God.

• But speaking of matters in the main, the valuation of the male and female, has respect to the place divinely given to us according to the purpose of God, and the place we have in relation to the formation wrought here in us in the power of the Spirit.

• The valuation all through in the male is higher, showing that the place we have in the divine reckoning, and the estimation in respect to the place divinely given according to purpose and counsel, is always higher than anything we have reached here.

So I want you to understand the blessedness of what it is to view ourselves, as taken up before ever the world began, in the purpose and counsel of God, and the place given to us in that connection.

• Things are not done in any sense by the Lord in estimation, as we should say, by guesswork. I have seen men estimating here on earth, and they run their eye over a building and say, so much. The Lord never does a thing like that. The estimation is accurate, and is according to the shekel of the sanctuary; it is God's estimation.

• I want you to think that the Lord has estimated your value. He knows exactly the place that was given you according to purpose, chosen of God in Christ, and the place that you will have in the divine structure. He knows, too, your actual state, what has been formed in you.

• There is an estimation from five years old. Think of a young convert, a boy or girl converted yesterday. They were the subjects of divine purpose before ever the world began, and the Lord estimates them according to that, and He estimates them also according to the work that is actually there.

• You may say it is faith that is there. It may be a very simple faith; but because a person is only recently converted, it does not follow that the measure of faith is small. On the contrary, in a person recently converted, often the faith is wonderful. Never discredit what is in a young person, because they are young.

• I have often thought that I would have given anything to see older persons with the faith of a little child. I dare say you have noted in a child, a most extraordinary faith. So that you must never underestimate the young people. Always try to remember that they have been estimated according to the estimation of the priest.

• So that we, as brothers and sisters in the assembly of God, would do well to become intimate with the sanctuary, to be much in the presence of the Lord. Somebody said once, 'What a wonderful thing for the priest to have access to the holy place'.

• I remember saying to a clergyman once, in a railway train, 'It must be a wonderful thing to be a priest'; and he looked at me and said, 'Indeed, it is'. I said, 'It must be a wonderful thing to be able to go into the presence of the Lord'. He looked at me with the utmost astonishment and said, 'I am afraid I do not know much about that!'

• Are you accustomed to the sanctuary? Do you know what it is to go in and speak intimately with the Lord, who is the great Priest in the house? What an indescribable something there is about such people. I do not know any human language to describe it – persons who are intimate with the holy place, so that you have some sense of His estimation of you. It is a very sobering thing.

Now God may have to resort to a sign, in order, perhaps, to give a sense of the estimation.

• You remember that the heads of the tribes of Israel had to lay up their rods before Jehovah, after the rebellion of Korah and his company, and the word was that God would speak to the man whose rod budded. Now what is the estimation?

• You recall how they had to come and take their rods. Think of coming and finding your rod just as it was before – no buds, no blossom, no almonds on it. But God showed by whom He was going to speak. It was Aaron; and there are times when you and I have to lay up our rods and learn that God is not going to speak by us.

• What is His estimation of me on this occasion – not last week, but now? It must be a living thing, and it will impart great power to us in