The House of God
Later Ministry by G. R. Cowell
– Part Three

At the present time, God’s chief interest on earth is His house, which is the assembly of the living God, the pillar and base of the truth.

• And in the type, Jacob learned in Genesis 28 that heaven’s interest was concentrated at that point.

• Jehovah had stationed Himself at the top of the ladder, angels of God were ascending and descending upon it and Jacob said,
  • “this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven”.

• The great reality, the anti-type, is now existing and it is a great thing to get into our souls that the attention of heaven is concentrated upon what God has established upon earth as His chief interest at the moment.
  • God’s chief interest is never given up by a faithful lover of Christ.

So whatever the day, a true lover concentrates on that upon which Christ is concentrating, God is concentrating, and also the Spirit of God. That is really the test for us at the moment.

• We have been through experiences and many have taken the ground of having come out to the Lord.

• But then, the reality of our devotion to the Lord, as to how far we have really come out to Him is being tested.

Psalm 66 depicts trials that saints pass through. It says in verse 11, “Thou broughtest us into a net”.

• God may permit us to get into a position where we seem to be caught and we cannot see a way out. If you get into a net it is no use struggling, for the more you struggle the more you get entangled.

• Once you are in a net, you are shut up to God to release you. You have to give up your struggles.
  • “Thou broughtest us into a net, Thou didst lay a heavy burden upon our loins; Thou didst cause men to ride over our head; we went through fire and through water”, and then it says,

  • “But Thou hast brought us out into abundance”.

• It is all God’s doing. God allows discipline. He brings us into it and He brings us out.

• In discipline of this kind we could not get ourselves out, we have got to stay there till God brings us out – a great test for faith. But then God does bring us out, as it says in verse 9,
  • “Who hath set our soul in life”.

• So the Psalmist is full of jubilation because he has been in this position and he is out, full of praise to God, starting the Psalm,
  • “Shout aloud unto God, all the earth”. Then it says in verse 10,

  • “For Thou, O God, hast proved us: Thou hast tried us, as silver is tried”.

• Think of the fining pot for silver and the furnace for gold! When we are in the fining pot what can we do about it? We cannot get out of that.

• The Refiner and Purifier of silver is watching as the heat gets more and more intense until His end is reached. So it says,
  • “Thou … hast proved us: Thou hast tried us as silver is tried”.

Saints all over the earth have gone through a time of being tried and proved and it is astonishing what devotion to the Lord, what courage and faith have come to light.

• But still, there is to be further testing even yet. The Lord would continue the refining process and increasing the heat until there is purification of motives so that there is no dross left.

• The Lord knows our hearts. How much dross, how many mixed motives may be there.

• The trials are to bring about a pure heart so that we are considering for Christ and Christ alone. It is wonderful liberty to be brought into.
  • “If I were yet pleasing men. I were not Christ’s bondman”, the apostle said.

• It is bondage to try to please men but perfect liberty to please Christ. Thus the process has gone on and it is in the course of such a process that people make vows. So the Psalmist goes on in verse 14,
  • “I will go into Thy house with burnt-offerings; I will perform my vows to Thee, which my lips have uttered, and my mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble”.

• May we be set to perform the vows we have made when in trouble.

People often make vows when in trouble. God wants committal of that kind and puts us through trials to bring it about.

• Jacob’s is the first vow in Scripture and was made when he was in trouble. Think of Jacob that night.

• We have got broken families today and there was a broken family, Esau ready to kill his brother.
  • That kind of spirit is abroad today, the spirit of Edom, hatred that but for the laws of the land, might lead to murder, burning at the stake and so on, and families are divided.

• Here was a divided family. Jacob afraid of his brother and his brother prepared to pursue him with the sword without pity.

• So Jacob was having to leave his father and mother. He was indeed in trouble. He was a homely man living in tents.

• He was not used to the field like Esau, a man of the field, a man of the world, a man who always wanted to be out and about.
  • Jacob was not like that. He loved home life.

• And now the very thing he loved was taken from him and there he was, a lonely man, outcast from his own home. Genesis 27. What a desperate plight for a man who loved his home!

• But God took account of him. How wonderful that God takes account of us in our troubles! How He would turn them to account!

• How could He have got access to Jacob otherwise than this? Taking everything away from him that He might, in grace, come near Himself and give him
  • one of the greatest disclosures that has ever been vouchsafed to man, the light of His House, the most wonderful home of all.

The first mention of a thing in scripture is always important. The principles brought out here as to the house of God are remarkable.

• The holiness of the place, the way the top of the ladder reached to heaven, the fact that it was the gate of heaven. What glorious light was coming in!

• Here was something God had set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven and it was the gate of heaven,
  • heaven’s bounty was being dispensed. That is great light as to the house of God.

God took the opportunity of Jacob being there, in those terrible heart-rending conditions, to give him this light.

• It says the sun had set. Poor Jacob, alone, away from home, what had he got? He had got nothing as far as this world was concerned.

• And then God came in and he suddenly got more than any man on earth.
  • Even Abraham had not had light like this.

• Jacob was given distinctive light for himself from God although not yet equal to it in his state of soul. What an impression it made upon him!

• And then God told him what He had got in mind for him, saying,
  • “Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places to which thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee until I have done what I have spoken to thee of”.

• Think of God being prepared to commit Himself in such a manner to one man in such a desperate plight.

• Yet in some measure God has committed Himself to each one of us like that.

• He has appeared to each of us at a point in our history that He has made opportune and in some way He has conveyed to our souls that He will not leave us until He has accomplished His purpose of blessing. What a wonderful committal on the part of the Almighty God!
  “I will not leave thee until I have done what I have spoken to thee of”.

But then, it was in that night of trouble that Jacob made his vow. The vow was a responsive committal.

• God had committed Himself, saying, “I will not leave thee”. And Jacob vowed a vow, saying,
  • “If God will be with me, and keep me on this road that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and a garment to put on, and I come again to my father’s house in peace – then shall Jehovah be my God. And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar shall be God’s house; and of all that Thou wilt give me I will without fail give the tenth to Thee”.

• I have heard it spoken of as a poor sort of vow but I believe it is a vow which, in the general principle of it, God would desire every young person here to make. Have you ever done it?

• God has committed Himself to you, have you ever committed yourself to Him?

• It is in line with Paul’s teaching in Timothy. He says to Timothy,
  • “Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content”, 1 Timothy 6:  8, A.V. And that is all Jacob asked for.

• What young man do you know who, if God had said to him, I will be with you all the way, would have asked for so little?

• He virtually says to God, ‘If Thou wilt give me enough to eat and enough to wear, I will be for Thee, and of everything Thou dost give me I will give a tenth to Thee!’ And what does that mean?
  • It means the best tenth.

• Sometimes when people think about the tithes they think of the last tenth but that is not the idea of the tithe.
  • The tithe was put first, the best was for God. And the lover of God would have it so.

That was Jacob’s vow. For himself, just bread to eat, and a garment to put on.

• It would be good if we were more like that, not entangling ourselves with the affairs of this life, but content with getting through.

• God has said He will see us through; how it must please Him when we say, ‘That is all I want; just to get through. I want to stand in relation to Thine interests’. The house of God, you see, is to be the chief concern.

Now God remained with Jacob, as He said He would, till He brought to pass all that He had spoken of;

• and in chapter 35 you see the end of Jacob’s history relative to the house of God.

• God had brought him into suitability to His house, and He was therefore no longer at the top of the ladder but talking with him in nearness.

• God is a wonderful God. Had He come down to be near Jacob in the 28th chapter, Jacob would have been too terrified to take anything in, or to speak.
  • “How dreadful is this place”, he said.

• You see, he was not ready in his state of soul but God works in him till he is ready. At Padan-Aram He appears to him and says,
  • “I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar, where thou vowedst a vow to Me”. God had not forgotten it.

• Does it not touch your heart sometimes, when God reminds you years afterwards what you said to Him years ago? He has not forgotten it even if you have.

• He said, ‘Go and return to Bethel where you anointed the pillar and vowed a vow’. So away Jacob goes, and he puts everything out of his house which was out of keeping with the house of God.

• He had learnt how to behave himself, he knew what was needed – how to behave himself in the house of God. He gets rid of all the idols, washes his garments and he comes to Bethel now in a right state.

• Instead of God being at the top of the ladder, God is right down beside him. That is what God wants. He works with us till we come to that, that we are at home with God.

• We are at home with God in His own house, and He talks with us. It does not mean that He does all the talking. He is listening to us as well, a mutual communion.

• We want to know such communion – fellowship is the same word.
  • “If we say we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie …”, 1 John 1:  6.

• There were dark things with Jacob but they have been dealt with, the idols have been buried and now there is true communion.

• He talked with him. God could talk with Jacob and Jacob could talk with God. He was a homely man in his natural surroundings and now he is at home with God.

• The reason he could be at home with God was because God said his name was not going to be called Jacob any more.
  • Typically, he had been through the exercises of Romans 7 and 8.

• Let us all get through, brethren, with the exercises of Romans 7 and 8 so that we become princes of God having learnt to give place to the Spirit.
  • To mind not the things of the flesh but the things of the Spirit,

  • to walk not according to flesh but according to Spirit

  • and to let Christ be in us so that the body is dead on account of sin and the Spirit is life on account of righteousness.

• Thus a man becomes a prince of God. Then we are ready for the holy conditions of the house of God, to be at home with the Holy One Who inhabits eternity. That is like Jacob in chapter 35.

Now he performs his vow. It is one thing to make your vow. You make your vow when you are in trouble but take heed to perform it.

• I want to raise the question with each of us here: are we performing our vows? You say you came out to the Lord, and I am not going to question that.

• You came out to the Lord with freshly revived affections. What is happening now? Are the affections waning?

• When you first came out you wanted to be more truly separate than ever. I have heard many people say that.

• You left a false, carnal, imitation separation – Satan attacks through imitation – but desired true separation of heart and ways to God.
  • The Lord has heard your vow, but are you performing it? Are you more separate than ever in the right sense?

• Because a vow is of no value unless it is performed. The Psalmist says,
  • “I will perform my vows unto Jehovah, yea, before all His people, In the courts of Jehovah’s house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem”, Psalm 116: 18-19.

• Scripture speaks about making vows, and it speaks about performing vows, and we have come to the time for performing. Let us each challenge ourselves as to whether we are performing the vows we have made.

• The Lord would help us to perform them. The Holy Spirit would help us to perform them. We have got no strength in ourselves.

In this second scripture Jacob performed his vow in that he poured the drink offering on the pillar. It says he poured a drink offering on it and he poured oil on it.

• The first time, in chapter 28, he poured oil on it only. He had it in his soul, as a matter of light – typically – that what was required to maintain the pillar character of things down here was the Holy Spirit.
  • Nothing can be done without the Spirit, you must have the oil – the flesh profits nothing.

• But then it was an abstract idea. Now, in chapter 35 he has come to what is concrete. He poured the drink offering and then the oil. The drink offering was himself, typically.
  • Paul says, “I am already being poured out …” 2 Timothy 4: 6.

• Paul’s drink offering was completed when he poured himself out on the pillar. In that way Paul performed his vow. At his conversion he said,
  • “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” That was Paul’s committal. He virtually said, ‘I will do anything You direct’.

• Have we each made a committal like that? The Lord did direct Paul. He was to bear His name before nations and kings and the sons of Israel, and to suffer much for that Name.

Paul performed his vow according to 2 Timothy 4, “I am already being poured out”, he says. The drink offering was almost completed.

• He had said to the Philippians that he would rejoice to be poured out as a libation on the sacrifice and ministration of their faith.

• He poured himself out relative to God’s chief interest on earth. Outwardly things had gone to pieces, all in Asia had turned away but he gave up nothing. Let us in our day give up nothing.
  • “Fight the good fight of faith”, he says in 1 Timothy; and “I have fought the good fight” in 2 Timothy. He would not give up one item of the Christian faith.

• Give up everything of man, discard it with abhorrence. Think of a man-made priesthood! It is abhorrent to God. Everything man-made religiously is abhorrent to God.

• But, on the other hand, give up no item of the Christian faith. So Paul says,
  • “I have fought the good fight, I have run the race, I have kept the faith”, 2 Timothy 4: 7,

• and it involved Paul being poured out as a drink offering. It says of the Lord Jesus,
  • “He poured out His soul unto death”, Isaiah 53: 12. That was the great drink offering, when Jesus poured out His soul unto death, Paul following on.

• So let us exhort one another to perform the vows which our mouths uttered when we were in trouble. This is the day of performance. May God grant that we may perform them!

Maybe many will be allowed to lapse, alas. What will you say at the judgment seat of Christ?

• But even if there are only a few available, let us perform our vows.
  • “Luke alone is with me”, he says, “Demas has forsaken me”.

• We may withdraw from a system governed by commandments of men, and yet forsake Paul. 2 Timothy 2 precedes this.
  • Paul had already had to say, “Let those that name the Name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity”.

• Do not think that is a recent thing that began in the last century, it began in Paul’s day.

• Coming out to the Lord has marked the whole dispensation; time and time again movements that began in power have become so corrupted that the Lord has called people out.

• As brethren, in our conceit we have tended to attach everything to ourselves as though 2 Timothy 2 never applied till recently.
  • It has applied from Paul’s day onwards.

• The Lord has repeatedly called people out to Himself because man corrupts everything. As the Spirit of God makes a fresh move, man corrupts it and there is another call out. That is what has been going on century after century.

• The call out of the last century was special. And do not forget it was not a call out of Rome like that which occurred at the Reformation. It was a call out of the Protestant sects.
  • There are those who would not compromise with Rome nor with the legal system we have left and yet they are prepared to compromise with Protestant sects. Did JND then come out for nothing?

• We love all the Christians in them, and we are glad that there is a measure of soundness as to the fundamentals of the gospel, such as justification by faith. But why did JND come out, why did the Lord call him out?
  • Some brethren are acting as though it was all for nothing.

• Everything man-made is abhorrent to God. Where man has interfered with things, we must go out if we are to be with God according to His own desires. What is man-made is part of the camp
  • and we are told in Hebrews 13 to go forth to Him without the camp

  • and we are told – chapter 8, and following – about the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man, and about holy places not made with hands.

• We have come to something which is not man-made – the Divine System.

• What is man-made I must have done with. What God has set up I must cling to, for it remains inviolate.

• Evil had already come in like a flood when Paul wrote 2 Timothy. He speaks of
  • disputes of words, profitable for nothing, to the subversion of the hearers; profane, vain babblings; foolish and senseless questionings; and of those who turn away their ear from the truth and turn aside to fables.

• These things were present while Paul was still on the scene. So he says,
  • “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity”.

• Demas had been there with Paul, but he had forsaken him. He had given up the fight – “fight the good fight of faith”. He is a warning to us.

• We take the ground of having come out to the Lord and here was a man who was in the separate path with Paul but had forsaken him. If he had made vows, it is clear he did not perform them. It is a sad statement, the last we hear of him,
  • “Demas has forsaken me, having loved the present age”.

• What a grief to the prisoner there in Rome, about to be martyred, to be thus forsaken. Demas wanted an easier path, like the others who turned away from Paul.
  • These things are put in Scripture to test us as to whether we are performing our vows.

• Tychicus was faithful – “Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus” – he was under command. Then he says to Timothy, “Use diligence to come before winter”.

• Let us get to Paul before winter. There may be worse times coming, the thing is to go to Paul and to be fixed in our adherence to what Paul stood for, before worse times come. What would happen to a Demas should worse times come?

So it is a great thing, God having committed Himself to us through grace like He did to Jacob, to be true in committal to Him, to make our vows and perform them. May the Lord help us to do it; we cannot do it in our own strength.

• When Jacob poured the drink offering on the pillar he poured the oil on that. Once he had poured the drink offering he would get the gain of the oil and that is very true.
  • It is the man who has committed himself who gets the gain of the Spirit, not the double-minded man who is unstable in all his ways.

• The Lord is available to help us, and the Spirit is available to help us so that we can make our committal and pour ourselves out, in our measure, confident that there is almighty power to sustain us. The oil is on the drink offering.

I read the passage in Numbers because it is the Nazarite’s vow bearing on what I am saying. If you look at the order of things in Numbers it is most interesting.

• God had come down to dwell and in the first four chapters of Numbers the whole nation is organised around the dwelling place of God. It is God’s thought for His people. Peter says,
  • “Ye are … a holy nation”.

• The early chapters of Numbers show us the holy nation, mobilised for war and for service. We ought to think of ourselves more in that way.

• In the holy nation conscription for military service applies, no one is exempt, and as Levites we are numbered for service from a month old and upwards.
  • The Levites were to serve the tabernacle, the habitation of God.

• Then we are all priests, a kingdom of priests, we belong to the priestly family. It says in Numbers 3:  10,
  • “And Aaron and his sons shalt thou appoint that they may attend to their priest’s office”; not optional but a divine appointment.

• So you see, you have been conscripted as a soldier and you have been numbered amongst the Levites to work the work of the Lord.
  • “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord”.

• That is the Levite. It was said to the whole company at Corinth, men and women.

• And then you have been appointed to attend to the priest’s office. That pulls us up. How much do you attend to the priest’s office? It is the highest office.
  • A priest of God is called to a greater office than the greatest earthly monarch or ruler.

  • He is to attend to his office. Are you attending to the priest’s office?

• Thus the nation was mobilised in every stratum, around the tabernacle where God was, God being the Centre of the nation.
  • In our day, we belong to all three strata.

Following that, you get in chapter 5 the trial of jealousy, because you may outwardly appear to be right but what about your heart?

• “I am He that searches the reins and the hearts”, the Son of God says.

• So we come under His all-searching scrutiny as to whether we are not only in the place appointed but in it in the energy of first love.

Then chapter 6, the Nazarite’s vow. There is this wonderful setting out of the holy nation every person in his place for strenuous service, whether military, or levitical, or priestly.

• And the persons who will be sustained in it and go through are those who vow the vow of the Nazarite:

• separated to Jehovah; not separated merely from evil things but separated to God even from legitimate things – separated from wine and strong drink.
  • What I understand by this is that the soul no longer relies on any form of natural stimulation to keep it going.

• We know how our natural hearts get stimulated. How, for instance, we work with renewed energy if there is hope of earthly prospects. But that kind of stimulation is not for the Nazarite.

• “God gives us all things richly to enjoy”, but Paul gives us the outlook of the Nazarite in 1 Corinthians 7:  29-31, when he says, among other things,
  • “they that buy as not possessing; and they that use the world as not disposing of it as their own”.

  • He also says, “they who have wives be as not having any”.

• This does not mean that a man neglects his wife, he is specifically told not to do so in that chapter. But as to what stimulates him and keeps him going, it is not earthly possessions or prospects, but God.
  • “The God of the gladness of my joy”, said the Psalmist.

• He does not need wine or strong drink to make him merry. He has God, the gladness of his joy.

• Do not think I am condemning those little thrills we get in life, I do not want to preach asceticism. I know how simple things of life are apt to give us a thrill and renewed energy yet I must put before you what Scripture says.

• That the divine ideal is the man that does not need those things to keep him going.
  • God is his stimulation.

• Think of what a man like that meant to Israel and what a number of persons like that would have meant amongst the holy nation.

• Paul was a true Nazarite. What things were gain to him he counted loss for Christ. His fulness of joy in the epistle to the Philippians was not the result of anything natural at all.

• There he was in prison and had lost everything yet he says,
  • “Rejoice in the Lord always”.

• You could not stop him rejoicing because of the God of the gladness of his joy.

• And even if it came to the point of laying down his life for the Philippians,
  • “If I am poured out”, he says, “as a libation on the sacrifice and ministration of your faith, I rejoice”.

• That is the spirit in which the Nazarite carries out the obligations divine love puts upon him.

• You can see how, if we were marked even in a small degree by such joy, the testimony would go forward.

• The analogy between Numbers and what we have had before us already is clear enough, for it is still a question of the house of God and the testimony.

• It is called the tabernacle of testimony in Numbers; and the Nazarite’s vow comes in
  • to ensure that the thing will be carried through in buoyancy, not as a hardship, not as feeling it irksome, but out of the stimulation of divine love.

Paul says to Timothy, “Occupy thyself with these things; be wholly in them”.

• Surely the Lord has this in view as an outcome of the present trials. What results there will be for God!

• Incense will be offered to His Name in every place and a pure oblation as in Numbers 7 – see also Malachi 1: 11 – and we shall get the blessing set out at the end of Numbers 6,
  • “The Lord bless thee, and keep thee; the Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace”. Then it says,

  • “And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them”.

• In this setting of committal to Himself He can trust His Name to be upon them. There will be nothing out of accord with His Name. Everything they do will be for the honour of His Name.

May the Lord help us to be in keeping with God’s Name so that, from His side, He can without reserve link His Name with us. May it be so for His Name’s sake!

We are called into the fellowship of God’s Son. The fellowship relates to believers who want to be true to Him in every department of life.

• The benefit of answering to this fellowship, of seeking to be true to the One who is our Lord, is that we enjoy the membership of the body.

• If we are not walking in keeping with the body we are unsuited to take our part as a “holy priesthood”.

• The fellowship is a defensive principle in order that these institutions of the body and the house remain workable in this world. It is to preserve us in relation to them.

• The more we value them the more we shall be true to them. We do not want to forfeit our part in this practical fellowship.

The truth of the body came direct to the Ephesians from Paul, but the truth of the house came to them by way of Timothy.

• They were left well established in the first but it was that they might not forget the second.

• The body underlies the truth of the house. It is the house of God. God dwells where everything is pleasing to Him and in the body there is nothing but what is of Christ.

• In a company of believers where everything is of Christ, God can dwell complacently.

• Everything in the tabernacle typically spoke of Christ, so God could dwell restfully typically.

• Christ’s own body was the temple when He was here. Now His body – the saints – is the temple.

The body is a great matter. It is essential for the bride and the wife.

• Bridal affection and wifely consideration are Christ’s portion and, if God is to have His portion, the body is essential.

• If only one feature is not of Christ it will disturb God in His dwelling.

• The truth of the body will affect people when they are touched by the gospel for they will then discern it.

• It is connected with mystery. The “treasures of wisdom and knowledge” flow in from the Head if the body is functioning.

• Then we are built up and God will find pleasure in what is complacent and then His presence will be known.

• He has taken up residence in the saints with a view to all men coming to the full knowledge of the truth.
  • See JND’s note on 1 Timothy 2: 4 and ColossianS 1: 10; 3: 10 and Ephesians 1: 17.

The body is a spiritual conception. The house is a different view of persons who love Christ.

• The same persons are viewed collectively as members of Christ’s body and as living stones in God’s house.

• The link is in Ephesians 2. We are reconciled to God in one body by the cross – an inner thought – and, Jesus Christ being the corner-stone,
  • we are “built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit”.

• The living stones being built together is a public thought. It is for men to see. So that what men see in the house of God is “prayer for all men”.

• In Timothy this is what we begin with, though in Ephesians we end with “praying at all seasons – for all the saints”.

The light of the body comes to us first, as it did with Paul. “Why persecutest thou me?”

• There the Lord names what was already there, unnamed in Acts 2.

• We do not share the truth of the body with other families.

• God formed the animals from the ground but the rib was taken from Adam’s side to form Eve. It was a special creation.

• God built the woman and in doing this He secures His own house and city, the bride and the Lamb’s wife.

• In her very origin the assembly must go above every other creature whether angel, principality or power. She is taken out of Man.

• Think of who He is: He fills all in all. Of necessity she is above every created being. Adam says,
  • “This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”.

• It is distinctive. So we have the highest place in creation and if we laid hold of this in power in our souls we should put a higher valuation on every member of the body.

• As we answer to the fellowship into which we are called it makes way for a practical expression of this.

• If we are true the moral hindrances are removed, we are together in peace and can work out the truth of the body with those who are available.

• If those who have the light of it work it out in a real way, God will gather. To see it working out will gather. Scripture says,
  • “according to the working … of each one part …”, Ephesians 4: 16.

There are many members of whose joint of supply we miss the gain. Clericalism is one cause of this.

• There is a danger of gifts becoming ‘clergymen’. Then gift ceases to meet the purpose for which it is given.

• The measure of the effectiveness of gift is the measure in which the saints can go on without it.

• If the saints are under one man they never grow up. They may do good things but they do not undertake what God meant them to do in the body.
  • “With a view to edifying the body” follows the list of gifts in chapter 4.

• We may be delivered from the idea of one man who wears different clothes and is called a minister but
  • this really means that if a gifted brother is absent, the meeting does not fall flat when he is not there.

• The more his gift has effect in his locality, the better they get on without him! Paul laboured to present every man perfect in Christ. This was toil.

In the liberty of sonship known and functioning in their place in the body they are perfect in Christ.

• The body works for itself. It is for the “self-building up in love”. This is mutuality.

• “One another” is a body term; “Love one another” is basic; “Members one of another” and “each” come in all references to the body.

• It is the opposite of clericalism where things are left to one or to a selected number of men.

In Romans 1: 12 Paul puts “yours” first. He puts himself last in “established us with you”. Historically it was the other way round.

• Notice the way he speaks of the Corinthians despite their state. He values the work of God. He says,
  • “I am the least of all the saints”.

• Though their blessing came through him he put himself lower in esteeming them “more excellent”.

• Christ Himself is presented as descending first, then ascending to fill all things. Now it is “the assembly”, in the future it will be “all things” through the assembly.

All that flows in to build up the body comes from the Head. This is the filling out of Genesis 2. Every bit is built into the body through the joints of supply. It all comes from the Head.

• Each member is working in accordance with the Head and receiving from the Head. Life is essential, for it is a great living organism.

• Every member is thinking of the benefit of the other, working for the good of the whole body. The vessel is being built up to be His counterpart.

• This is worked out practically in our localities, however few members are available, the body works. If members are lost, the other members work harder so that the body gets through. This is so naturally.

• This is the mystery. The natural man cannot conceive of just a few sitting together, conscious of Christ among them –
  • Christ in us, Christ among us, Christ with us, Christ shewn in our spirit one towards another as looking to the Head, drawing from Him and being built up. The Spirit is in charge.

• The gifts are from the Head in Ephesians. What is needed is given. Grace is available to each one.

• Gifts are always needed to help as each generation comes along. All are given in view, however, of being done without so that the saints function in this way.

• We sit not knowing what we shall get and the treasures flow in. That is of more value than just to be where a gift is.

“Where two or three are gathered together to my name, there am I in the midst of them” is the promise that the body will work and

• “holding the truth in love” is the essential feature.

• If we do not do this we discredit the truth. He was considering the body in giving these gifts for it is
  • “until we all arrive at … the full-grown man”.

• Manhood is in view. We need gift all the time because none of us has “arrived”, though the “fathers” do know Him.

• Growing up to the knowledge of the Son of God is the family side.

• “The measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ” is the other side – the building. Adam’s relation to Eve is in view. She was builded out of Adam.

Our local meetings have a very precious character for the body works.

• Gift would want to be out of sight if it was there, else it might block the whole thing.

• According to Timothy the sisters are silent and it is only as the brothers are in the gain of the body that sisters’ impressions are realised.

• There is a need of pauses and of waiting on the Lord, keeping our knowledge in the background, feeling our way for what touch comes in from Christ at that moment.

• What one receives in his local meeting are his richest impressions and these help him in his wider sphere of service.
  • Paul agonises in prayer that there might be a state for this – hearts comforted, knit together in love, etc. Gift is not mentioned in Colossians.

• When Paul left a local company he never knew if gift would be there again for travelling was difficult in those days.

• So he would seek to get them growing up to Christ as Head sufficiently for the body to work and the basic necessity is comfort and being “knit together in love”.

• We need not be troubled if our locality is isolated for, as set together bodywise, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are available to us. There is a need of this working out in our localities.

• When we have rounds of meetings and special brothers coming, how much have we taken in? It could leave us as babes. Gift is needed and must not be despised but it is not an end in itself.

Romans lays out a happy and practical order of life. We cannot always be together bodywise, though the body should be acting.

• There are many services, different for different ones, and all are so as to keep up the body temperature to love.

• We have all been given a full time job and we must get on with it; he that gives, in simplicity and so on. Romans 12.

• It is important that we should know what to do to keep the right temperature of love and it is according to the measure of faith dealt to each one.

• All brethren can do something better than I can for each is given the measure of faith to do it.

• We want to learn to take our place in the body. It is the first element in God’s will. We present our bodies for God’s will.

• Doing what is right in our homes is most important in its place but our function in the body is of all importance.

The link between our responsible working in the body and the house is in Hebrews 3: 6. If God is to enjoy His house, and the Lord as Son, the holding fast comes in on our side and the boast of hope.

• Peter gives us the priestly vestments in chapter 1.

1. “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father”; this is the calling into the priestly family.

2. “Sanctification of the Spirit”; this is the anointing.

3. “Obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”; this is the ram of consecration.

4. “Gird up the loins of your mind”; this is the priestly girdle.

5. “Be sober”; this is the linen vest.

6. “Hope with perfect steadfastness”; this is the high cap of the priest

   – the headgear, in the military view is the helmet, Ephesians 6.

To be worthy of God in His house involves that we are always buoyant, rejoicing, filled with glory.

• The knowledge of the Son of God keeps us buoyant and anointed with oil. Every face is shining in the house of God.

If asked for the reason for the hope that is within you – Jesus is coming – your face speaks of it. This governs the service of the house. Stephen is a good example.

• After the stoning of Stephen they all went off as refugees. They had been used to big meetings in Jerusalem but they went everywhere evangelising the word.

• Wherever two or three settled the priesthood functioned.

• The enemy tried to scatter the fire but started a lot of little fires instead of putting it out! It was so unnatural to see refugees full of joy that people believed.

• Barnabas could not do any more for them at Antioch, so fetched Saul, the very man who had turned them out of Jerusalem!

• They were first called Christians in that city. It was there that the world saw the visible expression of Christ. The body was working there. The more you try to suppress Christianity the brighter it shines.

If you are going on bodywise you may think order does not matter, but it does! For everything is to be done worthily of the One whose house it is.

• The house is the pillar and base of the truth. Recent conflict is on this point – what springs up from what is within is testing.

• The house brings out holy responsibilities. Everything must be in keeping with the One who dwells there. He is the King of the ages. All is done comelily and in order.

• The truth is held and expressed. One feature expressed at the expense of another is not truth. The whole idea of truth is that every feature is held in perfect balance.

• There is a substantial testimony as to truth in the house. It is a living organism, befitting a living God.

Jesus says, “on this rock I will build My assembly”. Peter’s confession, “Thou art the Christ”, stands related to the body and this building is on body lines.

• It is for the satisfaction of Christ but, as Son of the living God, He is considerate for God and so we get the view of the house.

• Everything is living. Order is not deadness and God has taken up residence on the basis of this. Verse 16.

• There was a representation of God here in the Lord Jesus – little children were blessed in His arms.

• A continuation of what was seen in Him is, on our side, dependent upon piety.

• If we bring God into our circumstances – faith is entering into His circumstances – we represent Him rightly – that is piety.

• It is a terrible thing to misrepresent God in His house.

The actual temple, the tabernacle, Jesus here on earth, God manifest in flesh are, speaking reverently, all temporary. The earlier residences were typical.

• We belong to the true tabernacle, which the Lord has pitched, not man. Now it is the tabernacle period, the wilderness conditions.

• The house of God is not permanent in its present form but both it and the body are permanent. All Christians on earth at the present moment are part of the body.

• The “habitation of God in the Spirit” is seen in a permanent setting in glory. It needs a tent over the tabernacle now.

Glory is the outstanding feature of the temple and the tabernacle.

• Love is mentioned regarding the body and the house and so God is known and expressed.

• Our highest duty is to represent God in every act and word and so “prayers for all men” come first in Timothy; not prayers for the saints as in Ephesians.

• From the testimonial standpoint the most important thing is prayer for all men. It should not be missing from collective or household prayers. If it is, we do not rightly represent God.

• We are never out of the house, whatever circumstances we are in. It would be terrible if a man came into our prayer meetings and never heard any prayers for all men.
  • God would be misrepresented and the gospel would be separated from the assembly.

• This is the answer to the Lord’s prayer in John 17, “That the world may believe that thou hast sent me”.

• It makes us sad to think of the divided state of Christendom but cannot there be some expression of all this amongst us?

I wish, dear brethren, to speak of sound teaching, sound words and a sound mind. The first passage we read refers to

• “sound teaching according to the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God”.

• I would say, dear brethren, that this is the standard of sound teaching, and that whenever you get false teaching, it will mean a departure from the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God.

• Paul speaks in this passage of those who desire to be law teachers,
  • “not understanding either what they say or concerning what they so strenuously affirm”.

• That idea is rampant in Christendom. Christendom is governed largely by law teaching. Nearly every sect has its rules and regulations.

• Paul refers in Titus to “commandments of men” and in Colossians “according to the teaching of men and not according to Christ”.

• It is innate in our nature, if we are not under the control of the Spirit, to lay down the law; law teachers are always laying down the law for others.

• The Lord said in Matthew’s Gospel that they tie on men burdens which are hard and grievous to be borne and they do not touch them with their little finger.

• They have plenty of excuses for themselves but they lay burdens on others. Paul refutes that by speaking of
  • “sound teaching according to the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God”.

I would like to speak for a moment about this word “sound”. It means ‘healthy’.

• It says of the prodigal son that the father had received him “safe and sound”, Authorised Version; “safe and well”, New Translation; but it is the same word.

• It is a great thing to have healthy teaching, healthy words and a healthy mind.

• This is not a morbid mind. The morbid human mind goes on with its reasonings and can never reach up to God.

• The only way we can have a sound or healthy mind is by the Spirit of God.
  • “The mind of the Spirit is life and peace”;

• and through having the Spirit, the apostle says, “we have the mind of Christ”. The mind of Christ is a sound healthy mind. It comes from God.

I think that Luke 5 sets out in parable form, from the Lord’s own lips, the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God.

• The shepherd is seeking the sheep till he finds it;

• the woman is sweeping the house till she finds the lost piece of silver;

• the father is running to meet the repentant son and is covering him with kisses.

• As J.N.D. says, the chapter shows God’s own joy in love. That is the idea in the term “the blessed God”:
  • the God who finds His own joy in acting in love, in free-hearted giving, and free-hearted forgiveness to repentant ones.

• And all the various false teachings that have come in – including those that we have had experience of – are contrary to the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God.

• You can test all of them by bringing them up against the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God. Are they in accord with that? If not, we must reject them.

• Whether it is law teachers or whether it is those who would teach that principles must be surrendered and would turn grace into licence;
  • neither line of teaching is in accord with the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God.

• When the son returned he returned on the basis of true repentance; and it says,
  • “bring out the best robe and clothe him in it”.

• There must be nothing in evidence but the best robe, as we might say in the language we used this afternoon, that which belongs to the sanctuary.

• The robe suggests that in which you appear publicly. The glory of the blessed God would clothe us in the best.

You may say Ephesians is the best robe, and so it is – “accepted in the Beloved” –

• but the teaching of Ephesians does not suppose that you come out down here in any other character of garment than that in which you are before God;

• that is, that you come out here to display Christ.

• If you are accepted in the Beloved you want to display the Beloved in all your ways and movements here – to walk as He walked.

• Christ upheld all that was due to God in every way during all His pathway.

• He expressed in fulness the kindness and love of our Saviour God to men, without surrendering a single principle, without in any way saying or doing anything that would come short of God’s glory. He was perfect in every way.

So if our teaching is according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, it will not deviate to the right hand of legality nor to the left hand of licence.

• It will go straight forward and it brings men to God in the power of the grace which not only sets them up in His presence in perfect acceptance in the Lord Jesus Christ, but,
  • by the gift of the Spirit, sets them up down here to display in their life and walk the character of the man in whom they are accepted above.

• James says in chapter 1 that the one who is a forgetful hearer of the word and not a doer is like a man who looks at himself in the mirror and goes away and directly forgets the kind of man he is.

• He contrasts that with those who look into the perfect law of liberty and are not forgetful hearers but doers of the word.

• What the Spirit of God means in that is that you get an objective presentation of Christ; Christ our righteousness, Christ our life, our sanctification, our redemption, all is there in Him.

• We are justified in Him, we are sanctified in Him, we are redeemed in Him, and you say, ‘that is wonderful! that is the gospel’.

• But then, looking on the perfect law of liberty and becoming a doer of the word means that as I look at Christ like that – Christ in glory, the glory of God shining in His face –
  • I say that He, the glorified Man, is my righteousness; He went to the cross and took my place there, and now on that basis it is a matter of righteousness for God to give me His place there.

Christ is my righteousness – I could not have a better righteousness; He is my life, and I look on the glory of the Lord, who is my righteousness and life: there I see the kind of man I am.

• The danger is to go away and forget the kind of man you are.

• If I want to see the kind of man I am, I look at Christ who is my righteousness, my life; I was chosen in Him; I belong to Him; I am of His order; I am among a company who are said to be all of one.

• Shall I, going away from looking at the glory of the Lord, straightway forget the kind of man I am and display the flesh?

• It is perfect liberty to look at Jesus, knowing that God has made Him to be wisdom for me, and righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

• It is the perfect law of liberty to look at Him, and keeping my eye on Him, to walk here in the Spirit in accord with Him, feeble perhaps in measure, but the flesh not in evidence. May God help us all into this!

• How often the flesh gets the better of us! But it need not, because we have the Spirit. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death – Romans 8.

• That is the perfect law of liberty. And all that is involved in the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.

2 Corinthians 3 and 4 involve the gospel of the glory of the Christ, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

• Let us then reject any teaching not in accord with that.

• This gospel makes no room for man in the flesh at all; neither the pretensions and the claims which the legal man would assert, nor his looseness and self-gratification.

• And if we understood that, God would be the God of the gladness of our joy. We would not need to look elsewhere for stimulation.

• We may try to find stimulation in what in itself is right. Who has not done that? Who is not doing it at the moment?

• You may try to find stimulation in your service for the Lord, in your devotion to the Lord, in anything else; things that are right in themselves; the best things, it may be.

• But if you are trying to find your stimulation or satisfaction in anything short of God Himself, you will never find them and you will never serve God as you should.

• You may try to find satisfaction in lesser things, natural things, which may be right in themselves. But you can never find satisfaction outside of God.
  • “As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God”, Psalms 42: 1.

• That is the fruit of the work of the Spirit in the soul. A man cannot rest short of being before God and of being conscious that God is His everlasting portion.
  • “God is the rock of my heart and my portion for ever”, says the psalmist, Psalms 73: 26.

1 Timothy 6: 3-5

I would now make a remark or two about 1 Timothy 6, because this same word is used of the very words of Jesus.

• “If anyone teach differently and do not accede to sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ”.

• Now these words must be healthy – what could be better? –
  • “and the teaching which is according to piety, he is puffed up knowing nothing”.

We must note the forthright way in which the Spirit of God speaks. Such a man knows nothing. He is “sick about questions”.

• That is the opposite to a sound mind. You can get mentally sick, and how much mental sickness there is about!

• Why not get back to the words of our Lord Jesus? They are ‘wholesome’ words.

• What I see is that the legal man and the man who wants a wider path both build on the sand.

• They are both sick about questions and disputes of words, because they do not properly and truly accept the words of our Lord Jesus – Luke 6.
  • He says, “he that comes to me” – and this is a continuous thing – “and hears my words and does them. I will show you to whom he is like. He is like a man building a house who dug and went deep and laid a foundation on the rock”.

• What you will find when you come to false teaching, is that there is no rock. It is the words of a man, when you get down to it, or the opinions of men.
  • If you challenge such persons, you will find they have no bedrock.

• Let us be all building on the rock. And let us seek grace to judge our own minds, so as to get free from mental sickness.

2 Timothy 4: 1-5

Now in 2 Timothy 4, it says, “But thou, be sober! in all things”.

• You will find that being sober means I having a sound, clear mind. If you look at the note to verse 5, it says, ‘a mind not muddled with the influence of what intoxicates’.

• It does not imply watching or being awake. Sometimes in scripture soberness implies vigilance, watchfulness. Of course, a drunken man cannot be vigilant;
  • but this word, which is often used, is sober clearness of mind, resulting from exemption from false influence, not muddled with the influence of what intoxicates.

• Now you know, false teaching is very intoxicating. What stems from the human mind appeals to the human mind. It comes from man in the flesh and it appeals to man in the flesh, and Satan works on the flesh. He is behind these things.

• People get intoxicated. I have met people who are positively intoxicated with the present evil teaching that has come in amongst brethren.

• If you try to reason with them, you might as well reason with a drunken man. You put scripture before them and it means nothing. They have lost their power of thinking, in that sense.

• So we may not only get sick about questions but intoxicated in our minds with what is false.

• If you read what Mr. Coates says on Revelation 9, you will find that he refers to the overwhelming attractiveness of evil teaching when it firsts attracts the natural mind.

• If you are in the Spirit, you will judge it at once. We have an unction from the Holy One and know all things – 1 John 2: 20. We can judge at once whether a thing is truth or error.

• But if you rely on your natural mind, you will find the false teaching is overwhelming in its appeal, and that is why some remain under it, even though the unction tells them at first that it is wrong. They come under this overwhelming appeal of what is false.

• What is from the flesh and from the devil appeals to and intoxicates the natural man. So you find today some so intoxicated with false teaching that scripture has no power with them at all.

• You will find others who are sick about questions and disputes of words.

• But let us all seek help from God to have a sound healthy mind, a sound healthy teaching, sound wholesome words. What a great thing to be free from sickness of mind!

• Humanity as a whole suffers from sickness of mind. You have all kinds of heresies and evil teachings. People say, ‘however could some be deceived by this, by that and the other?’

• People say of Mormonism, for example, ‘however could it be?’ but you see, you can get intoxicated with these things. They become overpowering. They come from the devil, working on the human mind, and what the human mind develops appeals to the human mind.

Unless you rely on the Spirit, the unction, you will come under its power if you give your mind to it. So it says,

• “giving their minds to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies and hypocrisy”.

• it has come close to us. We have been right up against it. We must remember Satan can transform himself into an angel of light.
  • He would say, ‘yes, you have a desire to be separate to God, to be really true and faithful to Him. I will show you the way to do it’.

• But instead of separation, he brings in segregation, which is just a human idea;
  • in place of true devotedness, he brings monasticism,

• another human idea, but overwhelming in its appeal, even to godly souls who give their minds to it.

• The thing is to give your mind to scripture, to sound teaching according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God,
  • and to sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the teaching which is according to piety. Let your mind be on those things.

• My desire in speaking tonight is that we might all get free from sickness of mind, sickness about questions and disputes of words.

• We must have a clear mind governed by the Holy Spirit, seeing things in the power of the word of God which is penetrating, quick and powerful.

Now in 2 Timothy 4, Paul says, “I testify before God and Christ Jesus, who is about to judge living and dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, proclaim the word”.

• This is something for each of us to take home. This is what will deliver souls, what will heal minds that are sick about questions, what will deliver from the intoxication of false doctrine.

• We are to “be urgent in season and out of season”, proclaiming the word. This is not simply the gospel preaching, as we call it. This brings the word of God to bear on every circumstance and every individual.
  • “Convict, rebuke, encourage, with all long-suffering and doctrine”.

• These days are a great test of endurance, and a great test as to whether we can put up with long suffering. And then we are warned, you see, as to how evil teaching would get a grip. It says,
  • “For the time shall be when they will not bear sound teaching; but according to their own lusts will heap up to themselves teachers, having an itching ear; and they will turn away their ear from the truth and will have turned aside to fables”.

• Teachings that have come in of late, of which we have had experience, are fables.

• But because they can be named like that by those who have the Spirit and avail themselves of the unction, it does not mean that they present themselves like that to the public mind or to Christians generally.

• It is a question of deceiving spirits; Satan as an angel of light suggesting he can tell you a better way of doing what you desire to do than scripture would tell you.

“But thou”, it says, “be sober” – that is, do not let your mind get intoxicated – “in all things, bear evils, do the work of an evangelist. Fill up the full measure of thy ministry”.

• Now how can we do the work of an evangelist if we have not imbibed sound teaching according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God?
  • “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”.

• There will be no difficulty in doing the work of an evangelist if we are amongst those who are maintained
  • in a living faith in Jesus, in coming habitually to Jesus glorified, finding our souls completely watered and satisfied, and thus rivers flowing out.

• Do not think that this means simply accepting invitations to go and preach. It is a pretty poor thing, this ‘institutionalism’ that we have got into, thinking that our duty is done if we have gone and preached now and again on a Lord’s Day evening.

• That is not doing the work of an evangelist; that is not rivers flowing; the work of an evangelist goes on from morning to night.

• Neither Philip nor those refugees, scattered after the persecution of Saul of Tarsus, asked for desks and meeting rooms in order to preach at 6.30 p.m. on Sunday.

• They went everywhere, evangelising the word; from Monday morning to Saturday night, and perhaps especially on Lord’s Day. And they were ready at all times for the movements of the river.
  • “Approach and join this chariot”, Acts 8: 29.

• That was the river moving. The river of God’s grace was going out to reach Ethiopia in that simple way. The river of God’s grace is coming to us here in Marlow tonight.
  • “Go with them, nothing doubting”, Peter was told, Acts 10: 20. That is how the river moved.

The moment we begin to think that we must organise this and that; any intrusion of man into the matters that relate to God only blocks the way.

• Men think that their suggestions will help. They say, ‘That is an idea; let us do it; let us do this and that’. But all it does is to play into the enemy’s hand.

• It shows that we have not learnt to rely on the Holy Spirit to manage matters. Is He not capable of raising up those He needs and sending them out?

• Instead of thinking about what others have done, why not be doing things ourselves from morning till night? Why not be a channel for the rivers?

• People ask why we do not do more in the gospel. They are thinking of platforms, halls, advertisements, special occasions. That is not doing the work of an evangelist.

• A lot of that just blocks the way. God sovereignly uses these things. Wherever the river can go, it will go.

• Although blocked, although the Spirit may be grieved, if there is a way of using it to bless men, God will use it. But in themselves, men’s efforts can only damage.

• This does not mean that we do nothing. One of the lessons we have to learn, if we are going back to the beginning in our thoughts, is to let the Holy Spirit guide; let Him work.

• Where we see that He is moving and doing things, we must move with Him. It is not for us to take the initiative. There is plenty of scope in a twenty-four hour day for doing the work of an evangelist.

• We have the Spirit, and we have the glorified One to come to continually for satisfaction; why should there not be rivers of living water flowing out?

• If the Lord has at any time something special for one of us to do, the Holy Spirit can indicate that. He may say to you one day, ‘Go and talk to that man’, and who knows what the results of that may be?

• The thing is to be ready for the river and its movements – to be in the current all the time.

So we read, “do the work of an evangelist, fill out the full measure of thy ministry”. Ministry is a very wide matter.

• With Timothy, it would be a good deal of the ministry of the word,

• but the very same word, ‘ministry’, is used also for deacons and for practical services. It is all regarded in that way as a form of ministry, which the Lord may lay on anyone of us at any time.

• Instead of thinking then so much about grandiose schemes of evangelization, which may originate in the human mind, we must be sensitive to the Spirit.

• And let us do what scripture definitely tells us to do. Let us practise pure religion, for instance.
  • “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, to keep oneself unspotted from the world”, James 1: 27.

• How much of this is done? How many orphans and widows have we cared for?

• Our chief business in life – as it was man’s chief responsibility in the beginning – is to represent God. Man was made in God’s image and glory to represent God.

• Now God says that He cares for the orphans and widows. He can do things direct. He fed Elijah by the ravens direct; but then He fed Elijah through the widow of Zarepath – 1 Kings 17 – for God normally desires to do things through His people.

• If God is the Father of the fatherless and the judge of the widows – Psalms 68: 5 – then it means that we are to be that as representing Him, taking up that service.

• We do not know what God will do in another sphere if we begin with what is in hand. Stephen, for instance, began by serving tables – Acts 6.

• Let us begin with what is in hand. There are orphans and widows. Let us practise pure religion. It will provide an opening to do the work of an evangelist. In any case that work is open to you every day.

2 Timothy 1: 13-14

I now come to the first chapter of the second epistle of Timothy where Paul says,

• “have an outline of sound words”.

• This is something we need to take to heart. The note again helps us, Timothy was to have a summary or outline; he was to state clearly and definitely what he did hold.
  • Can everyone of us here state clearly and definitely what he or she holds?

• It goes on to say that the Greek means a systematic exposé in outline of any system of doctrine.

• You say you are a Christian and you are living in the last days. What kind of outline could you give of what you hold and what there is in the faith of your soul as to the present moment?

• There is no reason why we should not each have an outline of sound words. I would encourage everyone of us to get the main outlines of scripture.

• If you take the first two chapters of Genesis, tremendous principles are introduced. It says,
  • “he divided the light from the darkness”.

• Separation comes in the first few verses of scripture and separation goes right through scripture till the last chapter:
  • “Blessed are they that wash their robes”, Revelation 22: 14.

• That is the idea of an outline, seeing the scope of the thing through scripture.

• If anyone thinks of belittling separation, then just remember that it begins in the first chapter of the Bible and it comes out still in the last one.

• And then you see the thought of rule in Genesis 1,
  • “the greater light to rule the day, the lesser to rule the night”.

• This too runs right through scripture, Christ coming forth as the sun of righteousness, His face shining as the sun in Revelation.

• Then the thought of headship, of man and woman, Christ and the church, the idea of the garden of delights for God, the tree of life as a sustaining food, the river that went to water the garden.

• You see these great principles in the first two chapters of the Bible running right through and all appearing at the end of the Bible.

• To have an outline of sound words means that you are not moved away from these things – not tossed about like babes:
  • “In order that we may be no longer babes, tossed and carried about by every wind of that teaching which is in the sleight of men, in unprincipled cunning with a view to systematised error”, Ephesians 4: 14.

• We must remember that in all these doctrines there is unprincipled cunning. We are up against the sleight of men and the wiles of the devil.

• But the way to withstand them is to have an outline of sound words. This is needed if we are to have a sound mind.

We are in a very favoured position, because all these great principles, which scripture brings out, found their completion in Paul’s ministry.

• He completed the word of God – Colossians 1: 25 – that is, he finalised all the great lines of scripture which have come out from Genesis onwards.

• Paul brought in the substance of all that had been given in type, bringing in the key by which we can understand all that came out in the Old Testament. So that we are in a specially favoured time to have an outline of sound words.

• Scripture says, have it! Do not be dilatory about this. Otherwise, one day, you may be sick about questions and disputes of words; you may get intoxicated with false doctrine.

• Nor is it to be just a dry outline. Paul says,
  • “which words thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus”, 2 Timothy 1: 13.

• You will never get the outline in any spiritual sense unless you have faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

• This is not human exposition. It is a living soul-absorbing matter. Their hearts burned within them as the Lord expounded the scriptures – Luke 24.

• There is nothing that can thrill the heart more than to go over the outline of sound words. It thrills the heart to see something beginning in Genesis and developed through scripture right to the end,
  • and to see in scripture the great threads of God’s positive work ending in a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness.

  • Then, “keep by the Holy Spirit which dwells in us, the good deposit entrusted”, 2 Timothy 1: 14.

• That is the good deposit of the whole Christian faith. Keeping
  • “the commandment spotless, and irreproachable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ”, 1 Timothy 6: 14.

• We are to give up nothing, but cherish the whole testimony of God.

• In Genesis we do not get the sanctuary idea; we have to go to Exodus. But you see the thing develop as you go on, the thought of God dwelling,
  • and once it is brought in in Exodus, it goes right through until you find the tabernacle of God with men in the eternal state – Revelation 21.

• How marvellous these lines of scripture are!

2 Corinthians 5: 13

In the other scripture which I read, Paul says, “whether we are beside ourselves, it is to God”, 2 Corinthians 5: 13.

• If you see a Christian in an ecstasy, you might wonder whether he was intoxicated, but Paul brings out here what ecstasy really is. It is to God. The note again helps us. It says,
  • ‘His ecstasy was not excitement or folly, but if out of himself it was with God. If sober, it was the calculation of love for their good’.

• When Paul was not actively engaged in service for the Lord and for His people, he would retire into the holiest and be beside Himself with God. That was not excitement or folly.

• An ecstasy means that you are outside of yourself with God. It is unspeakable bliss to be with God, as unconscious for the moment, as abstracted from things here. That is where the Christian gets his relief.

• The thing for us is to be sound on every score; sound in teaching, sound in mind, sound in the faith, and thus from this standpoint to be sober in all things.

• If we want relief, we must be like Paul, beside ourselves to God.

May the Lord help us in these matters! We are living in crucial days and we need to see the contrast between Christianity and false so-called Christian doctrines, and false religions of other kinds.

• These with their excitement and intoxication draw crowds. We must not think that because they get crowds they are right.

• In Christianity we must cherish what is sound and sober. That is building on the rock. May the Lord help us for His Name’s sake!