Unity in variety marks all the works of God, and no one should go beyond or depart from what he personally is given. Paul says,

• “What hast thou which thou hast not received?” 1 Corinthians 4: 7;

• and the apostles are models for us in that respect. Paul in the same epistle says,
  • “I received from the Lord”, 1 Corinthians 11.

• Peter was not commissioned to give us the truth of the body, so he never even mentions the word; nor was John. Does that mean they were not supporting the truth? Of course not.

• But if you want to know anything about the body, you have to go to the one to whom that truth was committed, that is Paul; yet the writings and ministry of all these apostles are in perfect unity.

• There is marked variety, but perfect unity; and we need them all.

Mr. Darby in one of his letters speaks of a company of Christians in early Church history who were called Paulicians, because they specialised in Paul only;

• they ignored and discredited or denied other parts of Scripture and kept to Paul; and therefore they went astray.

• Mr. Darby refers to this as ‘the ruin of the Paulicians’. Others erred by accepting Peter only.

• Departure is inevitable thus because the whole truth is not retained in its setting.

• And how could we dispense with John? No, we need them all; we need the variety. Distinctions – or diversities – of gifts, but one Spirit.

• Mr. Darby said the Paulicians became hard. They were high in their thoughts, thinking only of the heavenly side of the truth, and they became hard in their practices.

• But if you bring John alongside Paul you could never be hard. No one steeped in John’s ministry would be hard – Paul himself was not hard – he was a most tender man;
  • but the ministry – truly outstanding and unique – given to him was however a certain feature of the truth. The ministry given to John was another feature.

The great matter undertaken by the Lord Jesus himself was the declaration of God.

• We do not go to Paul to learn about the declaration of God, or to Peter or to John.
  • Only “the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father”, John 1: 18, and in whom all truth resides, could declare God.

• That declaration is complete and final and glorious in its uniqueness.

• If we were to say, ‘Because Peter and John do not mention the body, I am not interested in it’, well, we should seriously err. We have to go to Paul for the opening up of that wonderful disclosure;
  • and if we were to say that because Peter and John and Paul do not refer to the great Name of God declared in Matthew 28: 19 therefore we take no notice of that, how foolish and ignorant we should be!

• In the Lord Himself was the full declaration of God.

• It is good to see how Scripture is framed in that way. We have gradually got far from it in our thoughts, and we need to get back to it.

We were speaking this afternoon about making room for the Spirit even in directing all matters of the service, taking directions from Him and not setting up human organisation.

• So we need the help of the Spirit that whatever the Lord has given to anyone of us might become available to all,

• without involving our being challenged – as has so often happened – because it is not on precisely the same line as what somebody else is saying and with what they are saying at any particular time.
  • “What is that to thee”, John 21: 22, the Lord said.

• If it comes from the Spirit – and the Spirit is sovereign – it will fit according to God. If it comes from our natural minds, it will not.

• What the Spirit has distributed to each one will be found in practice, if we take heed to it, to fit in in perfect harmony and unity with what is given to others,
  • and, further, to be indispensable, and we need to get the gain of it all if we are to grow up in the truth.

The same principle applies to practical body services. We should, for instance, make room for brethren who have a special capacity for visiting.

• It speaks of those who give in simplicity, and those who show mercy with cheerfulness. Paul speaks in this chapter from which we have read,
  • “Enjoin on those rich in the present age”.

• Well, a person who is allowed to be rich in the present age, if it is in God’s ordering, is in that way an enrichment of the Church.
  • God very rarely entrusts to the same man spiritual wealth to minister and material wealth.

• But material wealth is part of the endowment or provision that God makes for His people.

• Not everyone is capable of being entrusted with material wealth, but those “rich in the present age” are to use their very means for the edifying of the body. It is put that way in Romans 12:
  • “He that gives, in simplicity”.

• There are some who have the capacity to give, God has put it under their hand, and they give in simplicity without attention to themselves, or seeking to gain influence, but soberly as entrusted by, and responsible to, God. So Paul here enjoins such
  • “to be rich in good works, to be liberal in distributing, disposed to communicate of their substance”.

• As members of the body we all have some function to fulfil. Another thing said in Romans 12 is
  • “He that shews mercy with cheerfulness”.

• You might think, well, that is surely a very ordinary sort of thing, to show mercy and do it cheerfully, but there are some specially capacitated for that.

• They have a distinctively suited way of expressing this in deed and manner and word; they are specially furnished and we should make full use of such, full use for the body of every kind of ability given in the body.

• We need to get back to these fundamental things, because it is in these fundamental matters that we find Christianity so wonderful and so living.

Now as to the activities in the chapter to which I am referring, they are of different kinds. Paul says after referring to certain injurious features,

• “But thou, O man of God, flee these things”.

1. The first activity is that you are running away as hard as you can, and you are always running away.

2. Next, you are pursuing as hard as you can and doing that constantly. These things seem to be contradictory.

3. Thirdly, you are fighting as hard as you can. The authorised version says, “Fight the good fight of faith”.

4. Fourthly, we are to lay hold of eternal life with all our might. ‘Lay hold’, as the note says, is the same as ‘seize’; it is an energetic action.

5. Finally we are solemnly enjoined to “keep the commandment spotless, irreproachable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ”.

• So we are to flee, to pursue, to fight, to lay hold, and to keep the commandment. We ought to try to keep these things in mind, because we are apt to forget them.

• For instance, when the test comes as to that from which we are to flee, maybe we fail to run away.

• And how much we fail in the positive things – the pursuit – the laying hold – the fight; sometimes we may be cowardly and do not fight.

• All this really leads up to keeping the commandment spotless and irreproachable, and, finally, to worship.

• If we do not continue in these various enjoined activities we shall to some extent be hindered as worshippers,

• but if we are energetically fulfilling them we shall be worshippers like Paul himself, who is prostrate in worship as he freely goes on to this further doxology, speaking of,
  • “The blessed and only Ruler … the king of those that reign, and Lord of those that exercise lordship … To whom be honour and eternal might. Amen”.

• He finishes the epistle in prostration of soul before God, in one of the most profound doxologies he utters.

It is worth looking into all the doxologies of the New Testament, and all the cases where it speaks of those who glorified God.

• There are at least fourteen doxologies to God as God, and to God as Father there are about twenty.

• There are five or six to the Lord Jesus, and numerous instances of the glorifying of God.

• You may be surprised to find how rich the New Testament is, the gospels, the epistles, and the Revelation, with worship, but here is one of the most profound notes of worship in the whole of the Scriptures:
  • “Who only has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor is able to see”.

• And yet He has been fully declared, and we may know all that is open to us as creatures to know of our glorious Creator and God.

But to return to these needed activities, Paul has already spoken about the love of money being the root of every evil, and about many unwise and hurtful lusts.

• These are the things that govern men; they govern Christians, alas, for it speaks in verse 5 of the teaching which holds gain to be the end of piety, the teaching of men corrupted in mind and destitute of the truth – they are professing Christians.

• Beloved brethren, how much all this has entered into the system we have left! Gain of some kind has been considered the end of piety; and especially now, because strangely and sadly enough what has happened is that
  • men we loved and esteemed and, who in days past really had the truth, now have sorrowfully to be described as corrupted in mind, and destitute of the truth.

• Young people we know have turned for help to men whom we esteemed for long years, and who certainly once had the truth; but they have found that they are now destitute of it.

• This is exceedingly sad and solemn that once genuine Christians who had the truth have come under corrupt influence, and have become in result already corrupted in mind – an awful thing – and destitute of the truth.

• What have they got left? Well, only gain, and material gain gradually becomes a dominating and deceiving matter.
  • “Holding gain to be the end of piety”

• – the position in that system we have in love for Christ abandoned.

• We have through grace a position in the divine system; why should we hanker after one in any system of man or men?

• And so, with these motives, governing not only men in the world but professing Christians, what are we to do? Paul tells us,
  • “But thou, O man of God, flee these things”;

• because every lust and unbridled desire that moves amongst men has an answer in each of our hearts, and the only thing to do when they present themselves
  • – whether it is love of money or place, or whatever it may be, anything but Christ –

• the only thing to do is to run away.

• We are not to be bold, imagining we are strong enough to meet it. We have it in 2 Timothy 2,
  • “youthful lusts flee”.

• That is not merely for youths. Youthful lusts pursue us as long as we are in flesh and blood conditions; we have to flee from them all our lives.
  • “Thou, O man of God, flee these things”.

• This may seem very negative but it is Scripture – and how essential!

• I feel it necessary for myself, and I have to be prepared, day by day, like Joseph to run away when the things that have destroyed so many, seek to capture me.

• It is the Sodom aspect of things; they had to flee from Sodom and not look back. If you look back you may be caught.

• Similarly, there are some who, as it were, look back at the old system, and maybe their place in it, and, alas, they have been caught, it has overtaken them.

• May God yet bring them and all others out into the clear unmistakable light of day!

The next thing is – pursue; so while running away from certain things, you are always trying to catch up with others.

• You could never say you have fully caught up with any of them. Who can say he is fully a righteous man – that he has rendered and renders to all their dues in the sight of God
  • – to his family, his business people, the brethren and to God?

• Nevertheless we are pursuing righteousness, that is our earnest objective,
  • “to fulfil all righteousness”, Matthew 3: 15.

• Likewise, who could claim to be a fully pious man, bringing God into every detail of his life?

• But you are pursuing it, it is what you seek to do; you desire to walk with God in every detail of your life.

• You may perhaps fail every day in some particular, yet you get back to God and have things right with Him; you are pursuing piety.

• Then it says pursue faith – faith is the complement of piety. Faith enters into God’s things, and God’s world, and God’s thoughts;
  • piety brings God into my things; and you cannot maintain one without the other.

  • If you give up piety you will surely make shipwreck of faith.

• Conscience enters into the matter of piety, and so it says,
  • “maintaining faith and a good conscience, which last some, having put away, have made shipwreck as to faith”, 1 Timothy 1: 19.

• Giving up a good conscience means I cease to walk before God, under His eye alone, in the realm of piety, and, as sure as I do that, I shall make shipwreck as to faith.

• So we are to pursue and, while not able to claim that we have fully overtaken any of these things, we continue to stretch out to be here in full righteousness, full piety, full faith, then love.

• You cannot be righteous without love.
  • “Love is the whole law”, it says in Romans 13.

• A man who does not love and – putting God first – put others before himself is unrighteous, because righteousness in the full sense is that I act like God.

• Man’s highest dignity was to be in the image of God – to be what God made him, but we have all sinned and come short of that glory; we have failed to be in the true image of God.
  • We are to be like God in every way, and God is love.

• Then, it says pursue endurance, because if you are not able to endure, you are not much good in the testimony.

• The shittim wood of the tabernacle was the wood of endurance, it was to bear the gold, so if you cannot endure, how can God put gold on you;
  • how can He rely on you to represent Him if when tested you are apt to fail and perhaps show the flesh?

• So after the reference to endurance there is meekness of spirit. I cannot say much about these things, I am merely seeking to exhort myself with the brethren to maintain these two activities – fleeing and pursuing.

• Running away so that we do not get caught and captured by the various lusts which hold men in bondage;
  • and pursuing things which in their full sense are always beyond us;

• but we continue pursuing and as long as we do so, we shall be conscious of the pleasure and approval of God.

Now the passage goes on to something different. You have to fight, otherwise you become a casualty. Do not think a Christian here can ever leave off fighting!

• We have to be warriors in the spirit of Jesus to the end of our days, because Christianity is now a battle. We are in a world whose god and prince is against Christ and us.

• Influences governing men are manipulated by the prince of the power of the air, the winds of doctrine and every other wind of influence, they are all against us, and
  • Satan’s objective is not only to hold men under his authority as god and prince, but to invade what is for Christ and to get in amongst Christians.

• In time of war sentry duty is a prime essential; hence the Lord repeatedly says,
  • “Watch … What I say unto you I say unto all, watch”;

• and Paul too, that wise and devoted warrior.

• If an army does not maintain sentry duty it leaves itself exposed and would soon be overthrown; so the first duty for each of us as soldiers, is to be on sentry duty night and day, to guard the base,
  • and the essential base to be guarded is our own hearts.

  • “Keep thy heart more than anything that is guarded”, Proverbs 4: 23.

• So you maintain sentry duty, to ensure, first, that no rival to Christ shall ever enter your heart. Satan will use anything to displace Christ.

• We have been tested as to this. We have had lots of meetings, and many mercies and favours, but when the test came we found that Christ was either the last, or nearly the last in our affections.

• So very many things were discovered to be actually more to us than Christ –
  • the position, our place, our prominence, or reputation, money or service, whatever it may be, big meetings, excitement,

  • and, as so often, our social links amongst the brethren were all more to us than Christ when we came to analyse things.

• We have to get back to the fact that Christ alone has supreme right to our hearts.
  • By faith He is to dwell there, unrivalled, and so controlling the whole of our lives.

• But if He is to have that place, we have unremittingly to keep on sentry duty, and if we maintain that in our own hearts, there may be some way in which God will use us in a wider way as a sentry.

• We read of shepherds watching their flock by night; there is that kind of sentry duty too, but if we are not keeping our own hearts with all diligence we shall not be any good at keeping the saints.

• That is what the Lord had in mind in certain of His injunctions; while Paul too, before reminding the elders of Ephesus how he himself watched there for three years night and day with tears, enjoins them,
  • “Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all the flock”, Acts 20.

But then, the whole duty of a soldier does not relate to himself,

• “Strive earnestly in the good conflict of the faith”.

• We have to be vigilant lest anything should come in not in keeping with the faith.

• Of a truth, things have flooded in, and are still flooding in, that are not in accord with the faith; well, where are the soldiers in view of meeting this position?

• Our sentry duty collectively has been lacking. Things have got in, as Jude says,
  • “certain men have got in unnoticed”;

• but if the sentries were all on duty, they would not thus get a footing unawares.

• But if they get in, they have to be met, and the faith so precious is a big thing to fight for, it is the whole system of Christian teaching and doctrine. Beset by foes it can be attacked on many fronts simultaneously.

• In this world of which Satan is the god and prince, the truth and those who contend for it are surrounded all the time like a beleaguered city, with a keen and skilful enemy looking for any opportunity to make inroads; and very vigilant sentry duty is needed.

• Paul shows us in this epistle the character of the initial attacks.
  • “The Spirit speaks expressly, that in latter times some shall apostatise from the faith”.

• You might say, ‘Whatever does that mean? Maybe that they are openly going to give up the truth of the atonement, or the deity of Christ’.

• The sentries would, however, be alert to that, if somebody came and, for instance, denied the deity of Christ. But as we read on it says,
  • “Giving their mind to deceiving spirits” –

• that is the enemy that is all around us, spiritual powers of wickedness in the heavenlies, the universal lords of this darkness and their armies are around about us,
  • and they get hold of men who give their minds – they may not realise it – to dominating influences, to deceiving spirits and teachings of demons.

• You say, ‘teachings of demons, that must be terrible teachings, something very debased even in the eyes of men’. But it does not say that; what it does say is,
  • “speaking lies in hypocrisy, cauterised as to their own conscience, forbidding to marry, bidding to abstain from meats”.

• Many religious-minded people would say, ‘Well, what devotion! Think of people loving the Lord so much that they give up marriage’.
  • Well, some might do so, and some might rightly give up marriage for the Lord’s sake.

• But the law teachers – who have become thus so easily, to get power over their brethren – finding a few devoted souls prepared to give up marriage for the Lord’s sake, say, ‘You should not get married’,
  • and then they make a law of it, “forbidding to marry”.

• If a man feels the Lord has called him not to marry, that is one thing, but forbidding people to marry is another.

Similarly there is the bidding to abstain from meats. This is deceitful doctrine, it is the teaching of deceiving spirits, speaking lies in hypocrisy;

• because to the uninstructed mind it may seem good. Such is the character of the early attack, and Paul calls it apostasy from the faith.

• It is an attack on the realm of piety, laying laws on men’s consciences which God never put on them, and therefore coming between them and God;
  • so that simple, devoted, but uninstructed souls say, ‘Well what a wonderful thing to be devoted like that, I will do that; this is the latest ministry. It is the Spirit’s voice!’

• How often – sad to say – we have heard that! No doubt this was said to be the Spirit’s voice for the moment but far from being His voice,
  • the Spirit Himself says that it is teachings of demons in its deceitfulness.

• So what happened so early, and has been rampant ever since, was the founding of monasteries and nunneries; I have evidence of devoted souls who love the Lord among nuns, and no doubt there are such among the monks.

• And that system – how we love human systems! – has taken them captive, and used their very devotedness to put them in prison for the rest of their lives instead of being free to serve the Lord as he would have them.

• What a wicked thing it is! How subtle thus our foe is! He does not make a straightforward attack on the Person of Christ, he goes round to the back door, and says, ‘I will help you with your devotedness; I will bring in a rule that nobody should get married’.

• In just the same way he has brought in a rule that nobody should eat with anyone except those in the same so-called fellowship.

• It sounds all right to some, but as taken on, it is apostasy from the faith; it suppresses conscience and comes between the conscience and God; it leads to Christians giving up faith and a good conscience.

It is thus we discern the artfulness of the foe and the artifices of the devil.

• This is what the true believer is faced with and we do not know what form his next attack may take, so we have to be constantly on the alert.

• It is not a question quite of a frontal attack or a sudden alarm in Christianity, it is a continuous alert calling for unremitting vigilance.

• It is not a question of a sudden decision to mobilise – we are always mobilised, because as we well know, those of us who through grace have moved out, the war never stops.

• The enemy is now attacking in another way, seeking to cause further division, so we cannot relax.

• The fight goes on, the good fight of faith, looking out over the whole of the truth, the faith, and not surrendering any feature of it.

• As God has been fully declared in Jesus, we must not let any feature of it slip. It has cost too much! There is to be an answer in the saints to every feature in which God has been made known.

• He has been made known in the One who infinitely separate, came into the world and came near to men, to save sinners.

• And to say that we cannot eat with men, even publicans and sinners, in the course of seeking their blessing and salvation, and that if we did what Jesus did we should be sinning,
  • is a terrible attack on the whole body of Christian faith.

• We are to fight the good fight of faith, so we would encourage one another here today to be good soldiers of Christ Jesus. It says in the beginning of 2 Timothy 2,
  • “Take thy share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ”,

• but as the note states, according to other authorities it should read, “Christ Jesus”.

• This alternative reading appeals to me very much, to be a good soldier of Christ Jesus, the glorified Man; He is the Captain; He is leading on to victory, and we are all to be good soldiers of Christ Jesus.

Then 1 Timothy 6 says, “Lay hold of eternal life to which thou hast been called”.

• Now this is the most favourable time to lay hold of eternal life, when all the props have been knocked away; because as long as we have got temporal mercies to live in, the natural heart will tend to live in them;
  • and those temporal mercies may be temporal spiritual mercies – the saints who lived at the time of the big meetings at Jerusalem with the apostles there, might have said,

  • ‘What a favoured meeting we are in, how thankful we are to be at Jerusalem with all these mercies!’ But they were only temporal. They could be taken away at any time.

• You might be in all those things and know little about laying hold of eternal life.
  • But when all props are knocked away you begin to ask yourself, ‘what now have I really got?’

• Whenever temporal mercies, things which can be seen, are taken away, we begin to learn that what is unseen is eternal, that even spiritual temporal mercies are not eternal, and
  • it is a good thing when something pulls us up and says, ‘Now, what have you really got that is eternal?’ The point is,
    • “Lay hold of eternal life”.

• Be in earnest about it. Now is the time to do it.

I have often mentioned the refugees going out from Jerusalem at the time of the scattering, they went everywhere evangelising the word.

• What they may at first have felt when they had to say farewell to the big meetings and the apostles!

• They did not know where to go, but in losing everything temporal they found they had lost nothing that was eternal but would be proving it in a fuller way than ever.

• And in such conditions we begin to learn what Paul said,
  • “As grieved, but always rejoicing… as having nothing, and possessing all things”, 2 Corinthians 6: 10.

• I suppose there are many of us here who can say we have never been so happy spiritually in our lives before, yet we have never been so sorrowful.

• These paradoxes are wonderful when you experience them; and God allows circumstances to bring us right up against them.

The thing is to lay hold of eternal life. You say, ‘What is that?’ It is home life.

• Eternal life is home life, divine home life; it means you are already living in your eternal home, in the affections of home.

• The first feature of eternal life is that it is my eternal portion to abide in the Son and in the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit.

• Forever I shall live in the affections of the Son and of the Father, and be carried in the current of the affections of the Father to the Son,
  • and of the Son to the Father, and ever in the embrace of the Father’s love, loving us as He loves Christ.

• I shall live in that eternal home forever, in those wonderful affections, and live in them with the brethren.

• Where do I live now? Where am I living? If we are simply living in meetings we may not really be touching eternal life at all.

• What we need to learn at this time is to lay hold of eternal life, to learn to live in the affections of the Father and of the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit, in the intimacy of family life, divine family life,
  • and to live in them with as many of the brethren – while loving them all – as are available to us.

• Then you are living in what is eternal, in relationship on which death casts no shadow.

• It of course cuts out all social links even with the brethren. Such links, special friendships and links of that kind, will not pass over, for our life is in affections beyond death and that belong to new creation,
  • which all flow from the Father and His love for the Son, and His loving us as He loved the Son, and we loving one another as Christ loves us.

• What a wonderful circle of love, fervent love! Think of when we shall be thoroughly ungirded and be loving one another with all our hearts, without any reserve! Well, Peter says ‘Do it now’.
  • “Love one another out of a pure heart fervently”, 1 Peter 1: 22.

• We have not to leave anything in that could mar, we have to keep the link on the level of new creation, the affections that will abide for eternity.

• We must begin, each one of us, by abiding in the Son and in the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit; then from that we can bring the brethren in. Even the little children were told that, in John’s epistle,
  • “If what ye have heard from the beginning abides in you, ye also shall abide in the Son and in the Father”.

• So no one here need say, ‘Well, I am not long converted. I could not live in those relations’.

• But John is speaking in fatherly affections to the little ones in the family and he puts them first – John assumes that the older ones in the family will be doing it – saying to the little ones,
  • “As for you, let that which ye have heard from the beginning abide in you” – go on in what you have heard from the beginning – thus, he says,

  • “ye also shall abide in the Son and in the Father”;

• and that word “abide” means you stay there, it is your home. You are not a visitor. So we can test ourselves as to how much we know of eternal life.

In ordinary natural life, a man may come to you in the course of your business and say, ‘Where do you live?’ ‘Oh’, you say, ‘22, in such and such a road and town’ – you give the address where your affections are set.

And then it says, “all things subsist through Him”.

• That is, He sustains everything. The material system could not continue apart from Him and His power.

• And that One who does it all is my Saviour, my Lord, my great High Priest, and therefore we can trust Him implicitly to sustain the divine and spiritual system which we apprehend by faith through the Spirit.

• The true tabernacle which the Lord has pitched and not man is far more real than the material system. It will abide forever.

• But then, if He is upholding the spiritual system, it means that none of us need be out of it in the experience of our souls. He can uphold each one of us. He never forgets any of us.

• Unless our will is at work, and thus we prevent it, He will uphold us all in relation to the spiritual system of which He is the Centre.

• Whether we are many or few, even if we are alone like John appears to have been in the isle of Patmos, He can sustain us in relation to this great spiritual system which is more real and abiding than the physical one; He, the Great Priest over the house of God.

Now these scriptures present Him thus, and the passage in Exodus is very affecting. It views Him typically as in the presence of God bearing all our names upon His shoulders.

• In the type there were six on one and six on the other of the sons of Israel according to their birth.
  • “Aaron shall bear their names before Jehovah upon his two shoulders for a memorial”.

• So through God’s grace, our names will never be forgotten.

• Not that we would want our names to be thought about, we want everyone to be occupied with the Name which is above every name, the Name at which every knee will bow.

• Nevertheless we are marked out beforehand for adoption, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. So that our names will never be forgotten, they are borne before God, as a memorial, by Christ Himself.

• I believe this chapter helps us to understand what it says in Hebrews,
  • “now to appear before the face of God for us”.

• Infinitely great in His own Person and His own rights, both rights of Deity and rights of Manhood, His rights are absolute and perfect.

• And yet He has been pleased to go in as our Forerunner, as though we were important.

• We have no importance in ourselves, but we are important through the sovereign choice of Divine love which marked us out beforehand for sonship.

We are essential from the standpoint of the heart of God desiring the full response of His creatures.

• We are needed for the display of His glory and the glory of Christ.

• Thus Christ has entered in as our Forerunner, and He appears before the face of God for us. I am not saying that He is not doing many other things. Who can tell how much falls upon Him in the great offices He holds?

• But Hebrews is very explicit from this standpoint that He appears before the face of God for us, and all our names are borne as the type indicates upon His shoulders according to birth.

• We belong to the assembly of the firstborn whose names are enregistered in heaven. They are engraved on the very shoulders of the High Priest, and also on the breast-plate.

• So that not one of us is ever forgotten before God. We are ever presented before Him in all the perfection in which He has taken us on relative to His purpose; first of all in the glory of sonship, as viewed in the stones on the shoulders, and secondly on the breast-plate.

1. In the one we are all on the same level, and we could not have a higher level, for we have sonship in the highest way the creature will ever know.

2. But on the breast-plate we are there in the distinctiveness that marks each one. In God's realm of things there are no two alike, and yet everyone bears the features of Christ and it takes the whole company to express Him.

• Men excel in making things alike – mass production; but what marks the divine realm is variety, and yet unity,
  • because the whole variety is in all its details the expression of Christ; therefore it makes one whole as seen in the assembly.

• It is one whole; perfect harmony in all the variety; because it is all Christ –
  • "The fulness of him who fills all in all".

• So on the breast-plate the stones were according to the names of the tribes; the distinctive character of each, every one having a distinctive place of his own which no other can fill, and all borne on the breast-plate before God.

• The memorial is always there in the presence of God. Under His eye, in that sense, He sees us all as held in the heart of Christ, according to the particular setting purposed for each.

How blessed to think of the Lord Jesus thus appearing before the face of God for us, carrying us there according to our place in divine purpose;

• and at the same time, in priestly grace and power, able to put His hand upon us in our weakness down here, and so support us,

• that we can be maintained according to the measure of our growth, in the light of that purpose and walking according to it!

• That is the great function of the High Priest. He maintains things in their perfection before God as a memorial before Him;
  • our place there secure, the place prepared, because He is there, and holding it for us as it were.

• But on the other hand, having been touched with the feeling of our infirmities, having learned obedience from the things He suffered,
  • Jesus is ready to stretch out His hand and uphold us at all times, saving completely those who come to God by Him.

• He upholds all things; He can uphold you, He can uphold me.

• You may be going through a testing time; you may find that your enemies are those of your own household. The test may come home in a poignant way day by day.

• But the One who is upholding all things by the word of His power can uphold every saint, and maintain each in the enjoyment of the place that is his,
  • as represented on the shoulders in sonship and as represented on the breast-plate in his own distinctive place in the testimony.

• We are thus able to function in the place given to us in Divine sovereignty in the body of Christ, and to serve God in His house, though here in conditions of weakness.

• How great the service of the Great High Priest! He has offered the one great Offering which has laid the sacrificial foundation for the whole system, that is the offering of His body once for all;
  • and now He is upholding the system for which He laid the foundation.

• The love and the power that took Him into death and enabled Him to bear our sins, to be made sin for us, and to go through everything to inaugurate the system,
  • is the same love and power that can sustain us in it, whatever the suffering of the moment, whatever the test!

You say ‘I would like to be maintained thus’. Well, I will tell you how to be. Be like John, the disciple whom Jesus loved.

• John does not tell us his name, because we should all take up that ground. All our names are on the breast-plate. He loves us all the time according to what we are in the purpose of God.

• He loves you; you have your special place in His heart. You were on his heart when He died. You are on His heart now before God.

• Paul could say, He loved me and gave Himself for me. Paul as much as says, ‘I know that when Jesus died, He was thinking of me; I was on His heart, and He carried me through death’s dark tide’. He bore my sins; He was made sin for me.

• Did you know that Jesus was thinking of you when He died? In divine counsel He thought of you in a past eternity, He thought of you in the time of extreme suffering on the cross. He knew what your sins were, and He bore them in His own body on the tree.

• And now He is still thinking of you all the time. You are still on His heart as He appears before the face of God for you.

• So if you want to be sustained in the divine system, and I’d like to be, I would exhort myself with you. Let us lean on the breast of Jesus, where the breast-plate is. Your name is there, and it is your privilege to lean there.

• John knew it, the disciple whom Jesus loved. Let us also lean where our name is – on His breast.

• Why not enter the Holy of Holies, and lean on the breast of Jesus, the Great Priest who is appearing before the face of God for you? How blessed to be in the presence of God as leaning on His breast!

If you lean on His breast you come into great gain in every way, which I will speak about in a moment; but I want to speak first about the Urim and the Thummim – ‘Lights and Perfections’.

• Great glory attaches to Jesus in this respect. The plural means the fulness of the thing, and the word ‘Perfections’ involves the thought of completeness.

• Fulness of light is in the Person of Jesus, and fulness of perfection. One answers to the other. One relates to what He is from God to us –
  • “The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him”, John 1: 18.

• The full outshining of God is in the Person of the Son; He is the effulgence of God’s glory.

• Everything that can be known of God is expressed in Him, in His glorified manhood. Think of the glory of God radiating in the face of a Man!

• The face of a man is a remarkable creation, it was created with a view to man expressing God, being God’s image and glory.

• Thus the face of a man is capable of expressing love, kindness, gentleness, compassion, even anger of a right kind, mercy and so on. The face of an animal cannot do that. The face of a man can.

• He is the Image of God because He is God, yet a glorified Man; and radiantly, in His face, is expressed every feature of the Divine glory. God’s righteousness is displayed in Him, so also is God’s majesty.

• The time will come when earth and heaven will flee away, because of His majesty. They will flee from the face of Him that sits on the throne – Revelation 20.

Think of the face of Jesus; what a study it is! In regard to the assembly, His eyes are dove’s eyes,

• but when He looks at the assembly as in responsibility His eyes are as a flame of fire, and they search us through and through.

• What are those eyes, as a flame of fire, looking for? To see whether He finds Himself in your heart, as the controlling object, enthroned and enshrined, to the exclusion of any rival.

• It is a blessed thing to be in the presence of Jesus, and even when we have to meet that all-searching gaze, to let Him have His way,
  • because He is searching us in love and in the jealousy of His love, He has a full right in looking to see if He has the supreme place in your heart, your motives unmixed for Christ.

And so there is perfection of light in Him – all the light of God. The Father’s glory shines in Him;

• “he that has seen me has seen the Father”,
  John 14: 9

• – God made known in sovereign love and grace.

• But then there is the perfect answer in the Thummim, ‘The Perfections’. There is the perfect answer in Manhood to God.

• Both sides are seen in Christ; the expression of God to man, and the expression of perfect Manhood toward God in completeness and finality – the Urim and the Thummim.

• And they are on the breast-plate of the High Priest in order to be available to us.

• If we are leaning on His breast we get the good of the fullness of light, and we are in the consciousness of being taken into favour in the fullness of His perfection, taken into favour in the Beloved,
  • and our longing desire will be to be more and more in keeping with those perfections; to walk as He walked; to be in every way conformed to Him.

I would like to distinguish here between the Ark and the Priest.

• In the holiest you see the Ark of the Covenant, covered in every part with gold, and the Cherubim of glory overshadowing it.

• The Ark is another type of Christ referring to Him, as one might say, in His fixed position as the Head and Centre of God’s system.

• There could be no tabernacle system apart from the Ark and the Mercy-seat, and the blood on the Mercy-seat –
  • the Lord in His settled position as the Head and Centre of the system, God perfectly glorified in Him, and He glorified in God.

• Everything is in keeping with the Cherubim of glory; God shining out from between the Cherubim because His glory is met, God shining out in the same blessed Person,
  • “Thou that sittest between the Cherubim shine forth”.

• We see the shining forth in the face of Jesus. All that is a fixed matter as it were. He is the effulgence of God’s glory, and the expression of His substance.

• But the priest is an active type of Christ; Christ viewed, not in His fixed position, as I might say, but as in the activities of His love, even in offering Himself.

• It was the High Priest bringing the high priestly offering when He offered Himself without spot to God. He went in, in the power of His own blood, and now He sustains the system, and He is active in it.

• It is wonderful to think of the activities of Christ ever living to intercede for us.

• He does not simply rest in the fact that He is the Head and Centre of the system, but He is active to maintain the system in activity, in order that all might be maintained in living light, and living response.

• The Urim and the Thummim suppose that. It is not only that all the glory of God is shining in the face of Jesus, but how it applies to particular circumstances.

‘Who that glorious blaze of living light shall tell!’ Living light sheds light.

• It is always shining, the effulgence of God’s glory,
  • but we need it in detail to shine and give light on particular situations, and that is the idea of the Urim.

• It is that fulness of light brought to bear day by day on the various situations that arise in the testimony.

The active operations of Christ in love are to maintain us in the gain of our calling and to bring light on every situation.

• Our God is light, and He will give us light for every footstep and so the Urim was the place of enquiry. Numbers shews that. That is why I read that scripture.

• Joshua was chosen to go before the people, but Eleazar was there to enquire for him of the Urim.

• Joshua did not know what to do from day to day any more than we do. He did not know how to apply the light of the calling to particular situations.

• And so Eleazar was there, the priest with Urim and Thummim; and it says in that chapter,
  • “He shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall enquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before Jehovah: At his word shall they go out, and at his word they shall come in, he, and all the children of Israel with him, even the whole assembly”.

• That is where I believe we need to take advantage of the Urim at the present time. We are continually being faced by situations which we have not faced before, and we want to walk worthy of the calling in all those situations.

• We want to be in keeping with our names as they appear on the breast-plate, and not to sully the shining of those precious stones; and to be in keeping with the names on the shoulder plates; to walk in the dignity of sonship.

• And if so we need light on every situation. We are ever to dwell in the full light shining in Christ as the effulgence of God’s glory. That is the kind of fixed position.

• But then we come to a situation where we cannot see how the light applies, and then we need the Urim – the active service of Christ to shed that full glorious light from between the Cherubim on to the situation, on to our path, and to make the thing clear to us.

I believe that is what we are needing very much at the present time.

• There are many situations arising locally and universally; and we need to avail ourselves of the Great Priest over the house of God.

• And how do we avail ourselves of Him? – by going into the Holiest.

• As the High Priest He will stretch out His hand in sympathy, to he1p us and uphold us in the pathway here; but to get the benefit of Him as Great Priest we must go inside and retire into the presence of God;
  • and if we want to be sure of getting all that we go in there for, we must lean upon His breast. That is where our names are.

• Why not take up the, position that He is maintaining for us before God on His heart on the breast-plate?

• The breast-plate of judgment conveys to me that He can give us discernment at any moment how to act relative to the place we have before God;
  • so that we do not stoop below our calling, our place on the breast-plate, our place on the shoulders.

• And so Joshua by the light of the Urim was to govern himself, both he and all the children of Israel, and the whole assembly.

• Whether it was an assembly matter, or a matter relating to the children of Israel, that is more our responsible walk down here, or his own place and responsibility in service, all was to be guided by the judgment of the Urim.

• It says there, he shall enquire by the judgment of the Urim. It is divine light illuminating the situation so that we get a right judgment as to how to move.

• It is wonderful to have a Great Priest like this: I am speaking of the figure, the type. Let us go in for the reality. Do not let us stop short at the beautiful theory. Let us go in for the thing itself.

• Having boldness therefore, brethren, to enter the Holy of Holies by the blood of Jesus; the simplest Christian is entitled to enter there.

• Our claim is the blood of Jesus, and that is the claim we all have; and therefore from this standpoint, young or old, experienced or inexperienced, we all are on the same ground when we enter into the holiest.

• It is by the blood of Jesus we have boldness to enter and by the new and living way which He has dedicated for us through the veil. That is how He has inaugurated the system. How much it has cost Him to inaugurate the system!

• So do not let us fail to avail ourselves of that new and living way; let us continually resort to the Holy of Holies and find the Great Priest there,
  • and get a fresh consciousness that our name is on the breast-plate, borne on His heart before God, and let us get near to His heart.

John speaks of all these things in a practical way in his gospel. I am speaking in typical language; he gives the reality, and he says,

• “there was in the bosom of Jesus the disciple whom Jesus loved”.

• Jesus was going to God as the Great Priest. He was about to go in, and He washed their feet that they might have part with Him, in going in; and John had no intention of remaining at a distance.

• If his name was on the breast-plate he was going to be there himself. So He is in the bosom of Jesus, and he leaned on His breast at supper; and he inquired of the Urim, “who is it that betrayeth thee?”

The Lord extends that in chapter 15 of John. He said

• “abide in me, and I in you”; then He said,

• “Abide in my love”.

• That is, keep in the sense that you are borne on His heart as a memorial before God.

• You are on the heart of the Great Priest, who brought you through death’s dark tide to live with Him in the presence of God. He also said,
  • “If ye abide in me and my words abide in you”;

• now that means you have the judgment of the Urim. Eleazar enquired for Joshua for the judgment of the Urim as to what the people should do.

• And the Lord says,
  • “If ye abide in me and my words abide in you”.

• You see you have gone in, you have been on His breast, and you have got light on the situation. And so His words abide in you, you know what to do from the judgment of the Urim. And then He says,
  • “If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will”.

• Because you know what to do, you know how to ask, you know what ought to be done –
  • “ye shall ask what ye will and it shall come to pass to you”.

• You see, you get the judgment of the Urim, you get the light of God on the matter, then the Spirit of God will help you to answer to the Thummim in your measure, and to walk according to that light.

• The Thummim is the answer in man to the light given from God, and the Great Priest would sustain you in both.

• He would see that you get the light of God on the situation, and He would sustain you in acting according to it.

• He is active in the whole matter before God to sustain us in the light of God and to sustain us in answering to the light.

So then, John 15 develops this further, because the idea of a friend in John is a bosom friend. John is the example.

• The example given in John 13 is a question that was troubling them. The Lord will shed divine light on a question which is harassing you at the moment.
  • “Who is it that betrayeth thee?”

• A great crisis was just coming. But then in chapter 15 there is the positive side. He says to the friends,
  • “all things which I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you”.

• Not only does He prepare us for a crisis, but divine secrets are unfolded. Who can tell what divine secrets will be unfolded as we know more of the breast-plate of judgment?

• There we learn God’s thoughts of the saints, and we cannot help them much till we get God’s thoughts; we need ‘the bosom’ outlook on the saints;
  • realising that, whatever the failure down here, they are still there on the breast-plate.

• He appears before the face of God for us, even for the most failing saint. The name is on the breast-plate and the shoulders.

• And the more we know of His presence and of leaning on His breast the more we shall value the saints as He does, and intercede for them in our measure. He ever lives to intercede for them.

Why am I so often in doubt as to what to do? Because I have not divine light on the situation I am nonplussed!

• I have not been into the Holiest. I have not leaned on the breast of the Great Priest!

• How near you are to the Urim and the Thummim when you take the place that is proper to you, on His breast; your name is there! Then you will get a judgment of everything according to God,
  • a judgment of what the saints are according to purpose,

  • a judgment of what God has in mind for them here in testimony, and what their walk should be;

  • an answer to every detailed problem.

• Entering the Holiest is not a thing that we attain to, it’s a thing given to us freely. But we can disqualify ourselves. The qualifications are
  • “let us approach with a true heart!”

• We can all have true hearts now and always.

• Our natural hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, so we have to keep our heart more than anything that is guarded, so that it may be all for Christ, a true heart.
  • “and full assurance of faith”.

• Now that is what honours Christ. It does not honour Christ if a soul thinks he must do something to merit going into the Holiest.

• What honours Christ is full assurance of faith, and boldness because of what He is and what He has done.

The other two things are the result of a true acceptance of the gospel, the heart sprinkled from a wicked conscience and our body washed with pure water –

• “He that is washed all over”, the Lord says, in John 13: 10, “needs not to wash save his feet”.

• So let us each one, however young, take up our privilege of entering the Holy of Holies, and learn from earliest days to get near to the Great Priest and to learn our place in His affections.

• We need the Urim and Thummim very much at the present moment, as to individual matters, local matters and universal matters.

• Let us therefore make sure that we do not miss the light available.

The scripture in Deuteronomy has been greatly perverted as to what Levi did.

• What it says here is true; if you are going to get divine light you must be free from all natural influences.
  • “Who said to his father and to his mother I see him not, and he acknowledged not his brethren, and knew not his own children”.

• We must be free from all natural influence, every extraneous influence.

• This does not mean you are going to be cruel to your father and mother, and inflict suffering on them.

• In the literality of it, it had to be done in the old testament, but that is not Christianity.
  • It says, “a man’s enemies shall be those of his own household”. But then the Lord says,

  • “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who despitefully use you”, and so on.

• There are some here who have found that those of their own household are their enemies. But do not come under their influence.

• Say to your father and mother in that connection I see you not, I will not allow you to influence me at all, I am here for the Lord. And so with your other relatives; be for the Lord.

• And if they are your enemies on that account, well, pray for them and bless them; show them more love, heap coals of fire upon their head. That is Christianity.

• The Christian soldier takes his share in suffering, not in inflicting suffering. All you have to do is to stand for Christ and take your share in the suffering.

• And thus we shall be free to get the benefit of the Urim and the Thummim.

May the Lord help us at the present moment that we may come into the gain of the Urim and the Thummim on the breast-plate of the Great Priest!

• This will result in response to God – whole burnt offerings upon His altar.

• If we think of the fulness of light that shines, the effulgence of God’s glory, I think we need to keep in mind at the present time that God looks for a response to every feature of the declaration.

• I cannot believe it is right to attempt to exclude any feature of the declaration of God from response to God. All should be in proportion, all should be according to scripture.

• And another thing to keep in mind is that the only Declarer of God is Jesus. No apostle could declare Him.
  • We need to take account of all that Jesus said about the Father, and about Himself, and about the Holy Spirit. In the light of this we can get gain from other scriptures.

• There is the full light shining and the Thummim is the full answer in Christ. But there is also to be an answer in men to every feature of the light.

• May God grant this also, for His Name’s sake!