The enemy seeks to divert us from it by every means; in his power.

• The light of it has been recovered, but little practical expression of it has been seen.

• It is urgent for us to give expression to it in our locality – to make in this place a working expression of it.

• Dignity, intelligence and affection are connected with the thought of the assembly.
  • Dignity because it is composed of those called out by God. The meaning of the word implies this.

  • Intelligence because those called should, normally, know why and for what they are called.

  • And affection because the assembly is a corporate whole, and this can only be in the power of divine affections.

The assembly is presented in these passages in three ways:

1. The assembly of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. The assembly of God in Corinth.

3. The assembly of God which He has purchased with the blood of His Own.

In the first case we might have thought that Paul would have referred to these young converts simply as Christians, but

• instead he brings this great idea of the assembly before them, although in an elementary way.

• It is true the epistle is mainly on family lines and, indeed, this underlies the truth of the assembly; for growth is needed if assembly affections and intelligence are to develop.

• Paul had been among them as a nursing mother and a nursing father; in his measure, showing them the Father in his care for them, so that they knew their place in divine affections.

• They were Thessalonians, but there were no other Thessalonians like them.

• They had heard the call of God and it had separated them from the Thessalonians who were idolators.

• They were in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now we need to carry this first aspect of the assembly with us. We are of the assembly of the ‘Hornchurchians’. An understanding of this would have two effects.

1. Firstly, it would give us tender regard for one another as considering the actual local setting in which we are found, and for other local assemblies.

   If we think of the assembly of the ‘Londoners’, for instance, we think sympathetically of what it means to our brethren to carry the testimony in such a city as that.

   The epistles to the Thessalonians are full of such tender sympathy and affection.

2. Secondly, it would give us a sympathetic and evangelical outlook on the townsmen around us.The Apostle says,
   • The Apostle says, “from you sounded out the word of the Lord” – that is, from the assembly.

3. Though the assembly, as such, does not preach or teach, yet all true activity works from and to the assembly; and sympathetic affection
   • “towards one another and towards all”, 1 Thessalonians 3: 12, is proper to it.

In 1 Corinthians we have a more dignified appellation – the assembly of God in Corinth.

• We cannot consider this expression without getting a profound impression of its dignity and of what it should mean to the place. It is the anointed vessel.

• It also involves what Peter speaks of in 1 Peter 2 as applied to a local setting – the spiritual house, the holy priesthood and the royal priesthood.

• The holy priesthood is connected with the assembly of God in its service Godward. They know how to come together as giving the Lord His place.
  • They have the Lord’s cup, the Lord’s Table. They eat the Lord’s Supper and show forth the Lord’s death. And that Lord is the Lord of the whole earth.

  • They are thus free to take up the great priestly service Godward.

• Then they are also a royal priesthood. What a thing to have persons who know the Godward side, moving here in royal apparel
  • – shewing forth the excellencies of the One who called them out of darkness into His marvellous light –

• moving in the dignity and grace suited to members of God’s household!

The Corinthian epistle has especially in mind the assembly as convened. It is said to be Temple of God and Body of Christ.

• It is the place where prophecy is heard and an outsider coming in is compelled to own
  • “God is among you of a truth”.

In Acts 20 no locality is mentioned, although Ephesus is particularly in mind.

• What is in view is the care the assembly requires down here, and it is care of a most exacting kind.

• Those who take up this care should have its universal character before them – the assembly of God which He has purchased with the blood of His Own.

• It includes all saints on earth at any given time, in their various localities. It is on earth that the assembly needs care.

• Paul speaks of shepherding and oversight. A shepherd leads, feeds and loves – and the assembly needs these activities –
  • while vigilant oversight is also required lest any of those who compose it should be drawn away by those speaking perverted things, i.e. right things perverted.

• Satan twice hindered Paul from going to Thessalonica – 1 Thessalonians 2: 18 – to build them up on assembly lines. He is constantly attacking the truth of the assembly.

• He uses men, he may use any of us, to speak the truth in a perverted way, emphasising unduly other features in order that God’s main thought may be put into the background in the minds of the saints.

• If the assembly has its right place in our affections every other feature of the truth will find its due place. It is the core, the centre that needs attention.

• We need to be in the warmth, dignity and intelligence of the assembly – held together in it by divine love –
  • so as to be able to go out as consciously having part in it, as saints by divine calling. If so, we shall attract others in the town in which we are placed.

How great the need for new material to be brought in!

• But let us keep the assembly before us, for if this is functioning properly, every other feature of the truth, including the evangelical feature, will be there in power.

• Let us get to the root of things, for if there is weakness in any feature, we can be sure it is due to weakness in our assembly relations.

The latter part of this book, dealing with Joseph, has family relations in view.

• Personal history and family relations are necessary if God is to have a habitation here.

• The habitation is in Exodus where, in connection with the Passover, it speaks of the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel, meaning a corporate whole.
  • Following that the tabernacle, God’s habitation, is set up.

• It is important to keep in mind that the distinctive testimony of the pesent moment is collective. That is why the enemy’s attack is against collective truths – the body of Christ, and the house of God.

• Publicly in Christendom as a whole, features proper to the body and the house are not found. Satan’s attacks on those truths are unceasing.

• But if we are to have our part in a practical way in the body of Christ and the house of God, it must be the result of personal relations with God.

The early part of Genesis deals with men having personal relations with God, leading up to Jacob,

• to whom light as to the house of God was committed;

• and I have in mind to shew that personal relations are in view of the house.

• We are brought to a point where a man is introduced to whom the light of the house was committed – Bethel, the house of God.

• It was committed to a man whom God says He loved,
  • “I have loved Jacob”, Malachi 1: 3.

• Personal relations with God bring about people that God loves and God will dwell with those He loves. A person normally dwells with those he loves, and God does that.

• His house is formed of those He loves and these lovable features are brought about by personal relations with Himself.

• Personal relations with God must involve displacement in us of what is offensive to Him, for those that are in the flesh cannot please God; no feature of the flesh can give God any pleasure at all.

• All that was offensive to God was dealt with in the cross of Christ, but God works that it might be dealt with in us; that features of the flesh might be displaced and give way to features of Christ.

• The result is that men are secured whom God loves, ‘Jacob have I loved’.

• It should greatly affect our hearts that God is willing to have personal relations with us.

• Sin came in, yet God indicated at the earliest time that although man had become sinful and alienated from Him, He was open to be approached,
  • and prepared to enter into personal relations with man, not only on one initial occasion, but in continuity; although it must be on His terms.

• Personal relations with God and Christ go on throughout eternity. There is nothing greater than that God is prepared to bring me into personal relation with Himself, not only for time but for eternity.

Now these three passages I read speak of three pairs of young men, or boys as the last two are called.

• They illustrate the principle of displacement.

1. The first pair represent the man of faith and the man of works, and teach us that the only principle upon which we can have relations with God is the principle of faith.

   It is not only the principle upon which we begin, but

   • “The just shall live by faith”;

   all our personal relations are to continue on the principle on which we begin.

2. The second pair bring before us the man after the flesh and the man after the Spirit, another line of exercise which runs concurrently in our soul history.

   Things are often separated in Scripture which run along together in our soul’s history.

   • In the first case it is a question of faith, and essentially has to do with our justification.

   • The second is a matter of spirituality, without which we cannot enter into or lay hold of the blessing or inheritance.
     • Sarah says, “the son of this handmaid shall not inherit with my son – with Isaac”.

     It is a question of the inheritance and the character of the blessing, which is sonship.

3. In the third pair we have the godly man and the man of the world, Jacob and Esau, a line of things which links with our practical life down here.

I trust we can see clearly these three lines:

1. the line of faith which gives us justification and acceptance with God, and is the principle by which we are to live;

2. the line of the Spirit which relates to the way we lay hold of the blessing and the inheritance;

3. the line of godliness which is to govern our practical pathway down here and qualify us for our part in God’s house, which is connected with the mystery of piety.

   No one can be truly in the house of God in a practical sense without godliness; there is no room for the world in the house of God.

As I say, we have to begin with the matter of faith. Most of us here, I trust, have begun our personal history with God.

• If there is anyone here who has not, the youngest can begin now on the line of Abel, the one who heads the list of faith in Hebrews 11. Abel has marked out the way of approach to God from the earliest times.

• He brought to God of the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof, and you will notice it says,
  • “And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering; But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect”.

• Notice how the offerer and the offering are identified; God had nothing to say to Cain and his offering.Not that Abel was any better than Cain.

• Not that Abel was any better than Cain. In fact if we are to begin at all on a right basis, we must begin with Romans 3: 23,
  • “for there is no difference: For all have sinned”.

• There was no difference in this respect between Cain and Abel, everything was dependent upon the kind of offering they brought. In themselves neither could have any standing before God at all.

• But the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering.

• That is the way we start our personal history with God. We bring, so to speak, the right kind of offering, and come to God by faith of Jesus Christ, on the ground of Jesus and His finished work.

• We believe in the God Who
  • “raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification”, Romans 4: 24-5.

• That must be the beginning of personal relations with God. It is open to anyone here tonight to make a start, a most blessed thing.

• Coming to God in God’s way and on God’s terms by faith of Jesus Christ, God will have respect unto us and our offering. How could He have other than respect to the Lord Jesus and His finished work on the cross?

• And the offerer is identified with his offering; accepted in all the virtue of his offering. What a wonderful way in which to start our personal relations with God! in all the value of the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work.

• He glorified God at the cross in such a manner that God glorified Him, and will glorify us with Him.
  • “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew not sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him”, 2 Cor. 5: 21.

All this enters typically into Abel’s offering, and it is the only basis on which to begin personal relations with God.

• But then, if we begin in this way it involves a real work of repentance in us, and means the displacement of that which Cain represents.

• His name means ‘acquisition’; he represents the self-confident, self-reliant character of the flesh which will never bow to God and His rights nor to His terms.

• Scripture speaks of, “the way of Cain” Jude 2, a man going his own way in divine things; a man of pride and self-righteousness. That principle is in all of us, and it has to be displaced.

• Eve represents the subjective work in us, because Cain was completely displaced in her affections. If our start is right and we go on with God, the man that Cain represents ceases to be an object of admiration.

• Naturally Cain is the man we admire. When he was born Eve said, “I have gotten a man from the Lord”. She was proud of her firstborn, all her hopes were centred in him.

• Abel means ‘vanity’ or ‘breath’, the recognition of his insufficiency. This feature will always mark a man of faith, the recognition that he has no strength in himself.

• The man of faith is entirely dependent upon God, and thus entirely opposite to the man of the world.

With Eve we see how this displacement took place. What she must have gone through we can little enter into, but when Seth is born she says,

• “God … hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel”,

• not another seed instead of Cain. Cain had been the object and admiration of her heart at one time, but all that had been displaced.

• She wants the line of Abel continued. Abel is now the man of her heart.

• She has judged Cain, he is a murderer. We need to come to that judgment about the man of works. He is a murderer wherever you find him. The Lord said,
  • “Ye are of your father the devil … He was a murderer from the beginning”, John 8: 44;

• they were descendants of Cain morally, and they crucified the Lord Jesus, the Leader and Completer of faith, just as Cain himself slew Abel.

• Personal relations with God will result in displacement so that the ideal before our hearts will be the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Model, the Leader and Completer of faith – another Seed instead of Abel.

• What a wonderful thing it is to have as our subjective ideal the man of faith, the dependent man. Enoch is the climax of this line of things.

• Cain goes out and builds the world system without God, whereas there is the line of faith by which Abel is continued, leading up to Enoch, his name meaning ‘educated’ or ‘disciplined’. He was fitted for translation.

I pass on to Isaac and Ishmael. We are tested, as we pursue our christian path, whether, having begun in the Spirit, we are going to seek perfection in the flesh.

• The great tendency of nature is to put itself under law and make the principle of law the rule of life. Law never applied to the Gentile.

• Christ came, as far as the Jew was concerned, to redeem them from the curse of the law that we might all – Jew and Gentile – receive sonship.

• God has no thought of the principle of law being the rule of life for the christian. The character of blessing we have in Christ is sonship, and as sons with Him we inherit all things. We are exhorted to
  • “Stand fast … in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage”, Galatians 5: 1.

• All this implies personal history with God. Sarah says,
  • “the son of this bondwoman shall not inherit with my son – with Isaac”.

• How did the bondwoman’s son come into being? It is the idea of having begun in the Spirit and then seeking to be made perfect in the flesh.

• We receive the Spirit on the principle of faith. If we walk by faith we shall need the Spirit.

• If we give up faith we go back to works of law and to walking in the flesh, and all spiritual prosperity must cease.

• To think that a man like Abraham, and woman like Sarah should fall into this! It shews that few, if any, escape. It is a matter of soul history with God to learn these lessons.

• We may have set out on the path of faith and desire to lay hold of the blessing – Abraham has the light of it – but we bring our own fleshly efforts to achieve the end.

• We put ourselves under all kinds of rules which we would not confess to anybody else.

• Fleshly efforts in divine things produce a mixed product – a right father but a wrong mother. You can get fond of mixed products, as Abraham became fond of Ishmael, but it is only self in the end.

• You have light, and you are going to be the most earnest and devoted christian that ever lived, but
  • you have to learn that you can never make one bit of headway spiritually or receive any spiritual impression except in the power of the Spirit.

• All is on the principle of pure grace, divine giving, everything of God and nothing of ourselves.

• One of the greatest hindrances to spiritual progress is this mixed product represented by Ishmael. For thirteen years after his birth Abraham had no divine appearing.

What a barren time for Abraham, who had been accustomed to God appearing to him and speaking to him.

• I have to come to it, that every bit of spiritual wealth and blessing I acquire is on the basis of grace, God’s free giving.

• It comes by the Spirit; no amount of fleshly effort will get me a single thing, no effort of my mind, no legal rule of life.

• It is God, in grace, in the power of the Spirit, unfolding to me the blessedness of sonship, a free gift from Him. All that makes nothing of me.

• If we entered into this how humble we should be! But God loves to give. Do not let us think because we cannot acquire these things by fleshly effort that there is any danger of a shortage of supply.
  • He is the great Giver, “how shall he not with him also freely give us all things”, Romans 8: 32.

• He is waiting to impart wealth. As we go on in personal soul history with Him He would continue to enrich, bless and communicate, continue to bring us more into the blessedness of sonship.
  • “For ye are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus”, Galatians 3: 26.

  • “But because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying Abba, Father”, chapter 4: 6.

• The epistle to the Galatians exhorts us
  • “if we live by the Spirit let us walk also by the Spirit”; and it speaks of being “led by the Spirit”.

• Let us make more room for the Spirit! He who sows to the Spirit reaps life everlasting.

• This implies spiritual diligence in contrast to fleshly effort – diligence to follow up every spiritual impression received.

It is a great thing to come to it that Ishmael is just self, and is a rival to Christ. It says,

• “He shall dwell before the face of all his brethren”. Genesis 16: 12,

• and “he settled” [i.e. died] “before the face of all his brethren”, chapter 25: 18

• – the best that religious flesh can do, for it cannot live before God.
  • The word to Abram is “I am the Almighty God: walk before my face, and be perfect”.

• This is not being made perfect in the flesh, for flesh has no place before God.
  • Only as we walk in the Spirit, in the liberty of sonship, can we walk before God’s face.

• What blessed liberty is ours to walk before the face of God revealed in Christ; to walk before Him in the power of the Spirit, that Spirit that cries in our hearts Abba, Father. That is the way of perfection.

It is hard for us to give up this mixed product: of Abraham it is said,

• “the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight because of his son”.

• Everyone of us has to go through this in some measure. Sarah went through it; she had suggested the mixed product, but now she is right.

• Think of what she had been through! Such is the deep exercise we have to go through. She says,
  • “Cast out this bondwoman and her son”.

• She realises that Ishmael is only a rival to Christ.

• We need to walk together in the light that Christ is everything and in each one.

• When Ishmael is about we are in bondage and Christ has not His place. He is a mocker and persecutor.

• How blessed to be in a sphere where
  • “Christ is everything and in all”.

Now I pass on to the last passage, Jacob and Esau – a complementary side of the truth dealing with our practical life and conduct here.

• We all have practical lives to live, including home and business life; and this side of things is set out in Jacob.

• We have a detailed account of his home life before and after marriage and of all he went through in connection with his family.

• We also get a portrait of him in his business. He went through all kinds of trials, but the general trend of his life was such that God says
  • “Jacob have I loved”.

• God loved that man and that is what God is after in His personal relations with us –
  • to secure practical features which He loves, so that we become suitable material for His house,

• the kind of people with whom He delights to dwell now and for ever!

It says in this passage, “the boys grew”, and as things developed it came to light that

• Jacob was a homely man dwelling in tents.

• He had much to go through to become a finished product, but what the man was began to shew itself early.

• Esau was a skilful hunter, a man of the field. They were twin brothers, and the principle of displacement came into evidence at their birth, and even before their birth. It says,
  • “the children struggled together within her”,

• and at their birth Jacob held his brother’s heel; he had the name of supplanter on that account.

• These elements represented by Jacob and Esau are so very closely interwoven in our make-up that they could only be represented by twin brothers.

• Esau is the big man, the man of the world.
  • We have had the man of works, and the man after the flesh;

• now we have the man of the world which the field suggests.

• Once again we find the father sadly astray, shewing that light alone does not help us in these matters.

• It says, Isaac loved Esau. Isaac loved what God hated, a most solemn thing – yet a man with much light, and in a way, spirituality.

• We have to be on our guard as we get older as to what we admire in our children.

• We may have rejected the world for ourselves, but look out upon the world for the young ones.

• Esau is the kind of man we delight in naturally – the man who can turn his hand to anything, the man to make a fortune.

• We should say, A fine young man, sure to get on in the world, a man who can make his way in any society. Chapter 27 verse 15 speaks of his costly clothes – New Translation.

• That man has to be displaced in practical life here. This comes very near to us.

Have we yet learnt to admire Jacob? Let us be honest as to what we do admire in practical life down here. Is it a homely man dwelling in tents?

• Such a one has learnt to just use the world, but not dispose of it as his own. He does not regard his house as a permanent place, but has learnt to use it as a tent.

• Have we learnt to admire and love that kind of man?

• When only instinct could have been working, he took his brother by the heel; he displaced the other man altogether. This comes home very closely to us.

• One notices how small features of the world, little things have affected us, not only sisters but brothers;
  • little things that may add to our appearance amongst men of the world. How apt we are to take on these little things!

  • God would have us to accept the complete displacement of that man.

• Jacob was not only a homely man and tent dweller, but the blessing of God and the birthright were his chief concern. We cannot justify the way he got it.

• But getting on in the world was not the object of his life, the absorbing object of his life was to be blessed by God and to get to know God.

• He learnt to bring God into all his circumstances, and as thus being marked by godliness, he became a man to whom God gave the light of His house. God could dwell with such a man.

I would refer to our local conditions, because we need true Jacobs in our localities if we are to get on together – men whom God loves, and whom we love too, homely tent dwellers.

• If you bring in the big man of the world – Esau – what disruption occurs! The epistle to the Corinthians shews that the Esau element can come into the assembly.

• Instead of being homely people at Corinth, delighting to have a man like Paul amongst them, they had given place to the man of the world usurping authority in the church.

• The professing church is full of these skilful hunters, ambitious men seeking big positions. There were no homely conditions at Corinth.

• How can you have the joys of the house of God in such conditions as at Corinth?

• If you read the genealogy of Esau later in this book, it is full of kings and dukes. This feature of the flesh – bigness – is always near to us.

• In the Lord’s pathway here it repeatedly manifested itself in His disciples,
  • “they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest”.

• That is the Esau idea. The whole world is run on that basis, and the skilful hunter gets to the top. How easily that can come in amongst the saints!

• Even a mother can influence her sons wrongly in that regard, as the mother of the sons of Zebedee who asked the greatest place for her sons.

• When the Lord instituted the Supper, there was a murmuring among them who should be the greatest.

• It is so opposite to the character of Jacob. God says, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated.

• God hates the big, self-important man; God loves the homely man dwelling in tents.

• Our practical life, with all its trials and testings, is to help us to get rid of this big man,
  • so that we may know what it is to have God with us in our circumstances,

• and thus qualify to be with Him in His circumstances, and have part in His house.

May God help us on these three lines –

1. to be here truly as men of faith;

2. as men who walk after the Spirit

3. and also as men who bring God into all the practical circumstances of their lives, so

• that we may have the sense of divine approval and be amongst those whom God loves, for His Name’s sake!

In the passages we have read, an appeal is made to the saints viewed in three aspects:

1. first viewed as priests under the heading of Levi for, in verse 4 of chapter 3, it is the priesthood which is in mind.

2. Then in verse 11 of chapter 2, the appeal comes to us viewed as Judah, that is, viewed as belonging to the line of royalty.

   The charge against Judah is that he had profaned the sanctuary of Jehovah which he loved and had married the daughter of a strange god, chapter 2: 11.

   Judah should always be married to the sanctuary, but he had forsaken the wife of his youth.

3. Finally, there is an appeal to the saints viewed as sons of Jacob, in chapter 3, an appeal to bring the whole tithe into the treasure house. Jacob is the one who vowed as to the tithes.

So, at the close of the dispensation, God would bring us back to first principles, in each of these three ways –

1. to first principles relating to priesthood,

2. first principles relating to kingship,

3. and to first principles connected with the sons of Jacob, which designation covers our lives as “common persons”;

   not that anything is really “common” with a christian, but as sons of Jacob our circumstances are to be contributory to the house of God in the thought of the whole tithe.

I wondered if we might get help together in considering these three lines of thought.

H.F.R. I think it would help us to a whole-hearted committal in these three ways, so that God might get His best.

G.R.C. The result is that at the end of the dispensation God gets His jewels. Those recovered had no status, it simply says that they feared the Lord.

• But undoubtedly these three features marked them, so that God singles them out as a peculiar treasure.

F.W.K. The first thought is: “I have loved you”.

G.R.C. God would go back to the beginning on His side. Everything has its source in that fact that God loved them.

• What is presented to us as to the priesthood in chapter one, is very stimulating:
  • “From the rising of the sun even unto its setting My name shall be great among the nations; and in every place incense shall be offered unto My name, and a pure oblation” – New Translation.

• God is putting that before us to encourage us to take up priestly service, not only on formal occasions but every day: and nothing less than that will meet the honour which is due to God.

• We ought to have a far greater sense of the honour which is due to the God we know as Father, for He is a great King and His name is to be revered among the nations;
  • and what is due to Him and the only thing which will truly honour Him, is the maintenance of continual priestly service from the rising of the sun unto its setting.

• If christians took this up they would never have a dull or boring day.

H.F.R. I was thinking of the days of the Lord; how perfectly He set forth this thought.

C.L. Would the first day of the week give character to this priestly service? The Lord begins there and in Him is seen in perfection the Son honouring the Father, and would He not bring us into that?

G.R.C. I am glad you bring the Lord into it. You see in Him perfection. perfection in a Son, the Son of the Father. The word in Malachi chapter 1 verse 6 is:

• “A son honoureth his father”,

• and the Lord Jesus says,
  • “I honour My Father and ye dishonour Me”, John 8: 49.

H.F.R. Would that enter into what John and the other apostles contemplated:

• “We contemplated His glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father”?

G.R.C. “As an only-begotten with a father” – How perfectly He carried out the service of the Priest, the Levite!

• How perfectly He, the root and offspring of David, devoted Himself to the sanctuary, as He says, in spirit.
  • “The zeal of Thy house devours Me”;

• and then how perfectly He brought the whole tithe into the treasure house. The treasury had never been so filled as when the Son Himself was there – John 8: 20.

C.L. We need to understand treasury teaching. It is an elevating kind of teaching.

G.R.C. As to this question of priesthood, we must not belittle the special occasions, and the Lord’s supper is the greatest occasion;

• but possibly we have limited priesthood too much to the special occasions.

• We have thought of it in connection with the supper and the prayer meeting but scripture speaks of the rising of the sun even unto its setting.

H.W.E. There is the thought of the morning and evening lamb.

G.R.C. That is what is in mind. Incense shall be offered unto My name and a pure oblation. The oblation refers to what went up from the burnt offering altar;

• there was a lamb offered morning and evening with its oblation, and following that Aaron went in and offered up incense on the golden altar.

• It was “a continual burnt-offering” and “a continual incense”.

A.F.B. In Peter you have the thought of offering up spiritual sacrifices. It is a continual thing.

G.R.C. The only two occasions when christians are called priests are in that chapter and in the first chapter of Revelation, and

• both refer to people who have been “evacuated”.

• Peter is writing to strangers scattered abroad by the gentile powers, and John was in Patmos, shewing that this daily priestly service goes on in the most untoward circumstances.

• No one need be discouraged in the most trying circumstances – even if alone in Patmos.

S.R. The thought of His name is very prominent in the 11th verse. It occurs three times.

G.R.C. I thought it was an important matter right through the book – it speaks finally of those who feared the Lord and thought upon His name.

• The Old Testament closes with the thought of God as a great King, Whose Name is to be revered among the nations. This continual service is due to His name, before angels and men.
  • “Incense shall be offered unto My name”.

• His honour is connected with it.

H.F.R. Does Luke commence with these two thoughts: the incense seen in connection with Zecharias.

• At the time of the offering of incense he was offering it in the order of his course,
  • and then Simeon coming into the temple at that time would shew how continually he was carrying on the priesthood;

• and the Babe in his arms – what a pure oblation!

G.R.C. Those persons coming forward in Luke show how successful this prophetic word was.

• It sustained a remnant about four hundred years, a remnant of those people who, having returned from the captivity, had, as a whole, become cold and, to some extent, apostate.

H.F.R. At the present day there has been a recovery from Babylon but there is a danger of settling down and not giving God His portion.

G.R.C. We should be much concerned about that danger.

• Ezra is thought to have edited the scriptures, putting them in order, and as a result, there was a greater knowledge of scripture than there ever had been,
  • but things waxed colder and colder until there developed the “Scribes and Pharisees” of our Lord’s day. We are in danger of that.

• We may be very accurate as regards the letter, but very cold; doing nothing for love, not even kindling a fire on the altar for nothing, not even shutting the doors.

W.H.C. Would the meaning of Levi’s name be a preservative to us? It means ‘united’. If we had a sense of being united to God in spirit it would preserve us in freshness and keep us from formality.

G.R.C. The Levites were united to the priests – Numbers 18: 2 – there was also the principle of unity in the way they worked together,

• and then in the levitical cities, they unified the whole position.

• That is what levitical service does, it unifies the whole position.

W.H.C. That is the way it works out – maintains links with God.

A.F.B. The Lord is testing us as to our personal links with God.

G.R.C. I am sure that is so. The thought of the congregation is a right thought if taken rightly. When God brought them out of Egypt He said first of all

• “Speak to the whole assembly”, and then He said

• “The whole congregation of the assembly of Israel shall kill it between the two evenings”, Exodus 12: 3 and 6.

• The congregation refers to the persons composing the assembly. Each person of the assembly was to take the matter up with God.

• The passover is thus the beginning of personal experience with God as well as assembly experience.

W.S. You could get no result for God otherwise.

H.W.E. What was your thought in regard to the table;

• “Ye profane it, in that ye say, The table of the Lord is polluted”.

• Is it the idea of fellowship?

G.R.C. What is primarily in mind is what is on the altar for God. It is the incense and the oblation which has been spoken of.

• But if there is something for God there, there will be something for man. Every clean person could eat of the peace-offerings.

• What you find is that around us people regard the table of the Lord as contemptible, and it is brought about by the habit of giving God the tail end of things, the tail end of our day, the tail end of our energy,
  • but the scriptural principle is: God first; and if that is done, there will be an abundance for men.

H.W.E. It would raise the question as to what our practical links are based on, whether it is what is social or whether it is for God.

G.R.C. In chapter 2, it says: “I also have made you contemptible”. We become contemptible in other people’s eyes if we are half-hearted christians.

• If a christian is whole-hearted he may be hated but he is not contemptible in this sense. God honours him.

W.S. A priest is a spiritual person who, in effect, lives in the thing. It is his life, it is the main thing.

G.R.C. That is what God is after. God wants the whole of our being and, first of all, in connection with this priestly service.

W.J. Is that the force of the covenant with Levi?

G.R.C. Yes, I think so. God had committed the whole charge to Levi, the whole charge of His offerings, and what was due to Him. He says:

• “They should teach Jacob His statutes … burnt offering upon thine altar”, Deuteronomy 33: 10.

F.W.K. It is said of Levi that God is his inheritance, and God is our portion in a peculiar way as our inheritance.

G.R.C. That would enable us to move in this whole-hearted way.

F.W.K. I was thinking of the Lord Jesus.

• “He wakeneth morning by morning. He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned”, Isaiah 50: 4.

• That is giving God the best.

G.R.C. It is a test as to how much time we spend in prayer day by day. To present incense to His name and a pure oblation requires giving yourself up to it for a time.

S.R. What do you mean by a pure oblation? Is it that we are to give ourselves up to it?

G.R.C. The pure oblation is Christ. But there should be a practical answer.

• You cannot come to God and speak to Him about Christ unless, in some measure, you are like Christ; otherwise it is hypocrisy.

• So that the more we apprehend Christ and bring Him to God the more there will be conformity in us.

• God found His delight in Christ –
  • “This is My beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased”

• – and then you have in Leviticus 23 the new oblation, the two wave loaves which represent the saints, as pleasurable to God.

S.R. There was to be salt in the oblation. Would that imply sincerity?

G.R.C. I think so, and the absence of leaven and honey would make for purity.

A.F.B. Is not the thought of the commandment a feature in this matter? It is by commandment.

G.R.C. It is handed down to us in the last days by Paul to Timothy –

• “I charge thee before God …”, 1 Tim. 6: 13-14.

• I think the commandment includes the whole priestly charge which was handed down.

• All that is due to God in His house is to be kept spotless and unrebukeable until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

• The appearing is in view in this book of Malachi.

A.F.B. It makes room for the covenant which has already been referred to.

• “My covenant was with him of life and peace”.

• This is in contrast to the dead formality which marked them. And then it says:
  • “He walked with me in peace and equity”.

• That is the practical answer.

G.R.C. Quite so, and the result is that they can speak of Him. The priests’ lips should keep knowledge.

• When the priest fails God brings in a prophet. Malachi means “Messenger of Jah”.

• But if we are maintaining the incense and the pure oblation Godward our lips will keep knowledge manward.

• We shall be able to give a right impression of the One Who is the great King, Whose name is to be revered among the nations. We shall have a word which will inspire reverence in other people’s hearts.

H.F.R. Does that come out in Philadelphia, in contrast to Laodicea:

• “Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will keep thee out of the hour of trial which is about to come upon the whole habitable world to try them that dwell upon the earth”.

• It is a true testimony. You feel Philadelphia had come to the true sense of what was due to God.
  • “He that overcomes, him will I make a pillar in the temple of My God”.

G.R.C. I believe the Lord would help us to come to a sense of the supremacy of God; what is due to Him.

— Smith “For my name shall be great among the nations”.

• It is the outcome of these offerings. The Lord’s whole pathway was to reveal God. “Preserve Me, O God”.

G.R.C. If a priestly company is maintained on earth, then what is due to God’s name will be maintained.

W.J. “Jehovah of Hosts” places this on the level of privilege – to be among those who serve Him.

G.R.C. There is nothing which makes the heart so glad as this priestly service, It is a most glad occupation.

• You may have to speak to God about sorrowful things but you never leave His presence without a sense of gladness.

• People think a prayer meeting must be a dull place!
  • But God says: “I will make them joyful in My house of prayer”, Isaiah 56: 7.

S.R. His name is the test of our church exercises.

• “Let every one who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity”.

• It is the test all along.

G.R.C. We are all to understand that this priestly service is essential to the honour of His name.

W.H.C. The Lord, in teaching the disciples to pray, said:

• “Hallowed be Thy name”.

G.R.C. That is really the burden of this book. Men are affected if this kind of service is maintained; there is a moral savour about the Lord’s people which brings glory to God’s name.

Rem. It is very strikingly seen in Philippi, the place where prayer was wont to be made.

G.R.C. That is how things began in Europe. I believe men are affected by the demeanour of a dependent man and if they speak to him they find his lips keep knowledge.

A.F.B. It is a very beautiful touch that it is “in every place”.

Rem. “Pray without ceasing”.

G.R.C. The incense was never to cease.

H.W.E. It would link up our households with assembly service and privilege.

• Our households would not be a separate interest, but link up with the interest of God, on earth, perhaps where we break bread.

G.R.C. It would help the special occasions, as when we break bread.

H.W.E. This thought of daily, continuous priestly service would open our eyes a good deal. There is great scope. My impression is that “in every place” would refer to any tiny green and fertile spot.

Rem. Many of us may think ourselves outside the family of the Levites.

G.R.C. A christian who does not realise that he is a Levite loses the best of his calling. Every Levite was a first-born son, and that is what a christian is.

S.R. Would you say what you mean by being a Levite?

G.R.C. In this setting it is belonging to the priestly family. God said:

• “Israel is my son my firstborn. Let My son go that he may serve Me”.

• The service took the form of priestly service. They were to serve as priests. Levi was chosen to represent the firstborn and all christians are in that class.

• Only in the spirit of sonship can true priestly service be carried out. A son honours his father. If we are really in the spirit of sonship we shall carry out this service.

When you come to the thought of Judah, it is viewing the saints in a different way, bringing in the thought of what is kingly, and that side is never separated from priesthood.

• The testimony requires that kings and priests should be together. Both features should mark the brethren.
  • “And hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father”.

• Whilst among men kingship is used for personal aggrandisement or for the aggrandisement of the nation,
  • in God’s thought the moral power and dignity of royalty is to be used for furthering His house here on earth.

• The king takes account of what is for God on earth and he stands by it at all costs and I think that is what comes out in David, who is the great example of this. He says:
  • “The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up”

• and he vowed to Jehovah that he would not give sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids until he had found a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob – Psalm 132.

• That is what is in mind in Judah being married to the sanctuary.

• Whatever moral power we have acquired with God in a kingly way should not be used for our aggrandisement but should be devoted entirely to the sanctuary.

H.F.R. That is seen in David, his affection for the house.

G.R.C. I suppose, normally, a young believer begins on this line. When the children of Israel had come through the Red Sea, they immediately say

• “I will prepare him an habitation”, Exodus 15: 2;

• and the song goes on to refer to
  • the “Sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established”,

• which looks on to Solomon’s day.

• But the devotedness we begin with is apt to decline and God is challenging that point here.

• He says, in verse 14,
  • “Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth against whom thou hast dealt treacherously, yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant”.

• He is not going to release Judah from the vow that had been made. God will hold us to it.

A.F.B. This thought of royalty would bring in conflict; he is standing, in that way for God here.

G.R.C. You get that in David.

A.F.B. I was thinking of Gideon and his brethren. The Midianitish king said:

• “Each one resembled the children of a king”,

• and the whole book of Judges is one of conflict.

G.R.C. The moment you make the sanctuary your chief concern you come into conflict.

• Whatever came in in David’s life he was never deflected from what this scripture calls
  • “The wife of thy youth”.

C.L. Is that why, in Hebrews, it says “He sprang out of Judah”. There was no diminution. He sprang out of Judah.

G.R.C. If what is for God down here on earth is to be maintained, you need kingly power and to be wholly devoted to that end.

–Smith. Christ is son over God’s house.

G.R.C. You see in Christ the One Who devoted Himself entirely. David is only a type.

H.F.R. Solomon, in contrast to David, profaned the sanctuary and married the daughter of a strange god.

G.R.C. He set up a high place to Molec and to other gods on one of the hills near Jerusalem.

• It is important to see that the sanctuary in this passage is regarded as a daughter, and so needing protection and support down here in this world.

• What you find sometimes is that many whom God has endowed with sovereign gift, use it in a way which is divorced from the sanctuary.

• But whatever God gives in the way of leadership, whatever is royal in character, should be married to the sanctuary;
  • that is the end for which it is given, to care for the sanctuary down here.

• It seems to me a solemn thing which God holds us to.
  • “Jehovah hath been a witness between thee and the wife of thy youth”.

• God remembers when His business was not our chief concern, He remembers the vow we made.
  • “Yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant”.

• He is not going to release us from it.

• What we need to see is that any kingly power we may acquire is to be used for the maintenance of the sanctuary.
  • Kingship has that end in view in God’s mind.

C.L. It is not of ourselves, it is of God. He is the great King.

G.R.C. Then you see that the result of this union is that he sought a seed of God. What brings about a continuance of the testimony is this kind of devotedness.

• It is when people are married to the sanctuary that they get a divine seed.

• You get an illustration of it in Paul himself. No one was married to the sanctuary like Paul. In this respect he is the David of the New Testament.

• He used his apostolic gift wholly and solely for the furtherance of the sanctuary, never for his own selfish ends at all.

• He speaks of three of his children, Timothy, Titus and Onesimus. He brings forward three exemplary children.

• If we want to see an increase for God we need to be married to the sanctuary, for a man like that is bound to have children.

H.W.E. This would be maintaining the pure seed, no recognition of man after the flesh.

F.W.K. The Apostle was after that at Corinth, that he might secure them.

• The Apostle was jealous for them that they might be secured whole-heartedly for the sanctuary and the priestly service.

• Do you see in the way he treated them in Corinth how this principle shone in Paul?

G.R.C. If Paul had selfishly used his power at Corinth he would have come at once, with a rod and exposed the false leaders who were belittling him.

• They were reigning as kings in the wrong sense without any regard to the sanctuary, using their gifts to reign as kings.

• But Paul comes in as a real king, and he says, as it were, I will not use the power which I might use but I will deal with you in such a way that the sanctuary will be preserved in your midst.

F.W.K. In the second epistle you get those wonderful tears of affliction and affection.

G.R.C. What is in Christ Jesus never breaks down.

• But a true king says, God must have something on earth and I will stand for that, and he will use all his power to maintain what is for God down here.

• The care meeting would be an occasion for kingship.

S.R. In Peter it speaks of “A kingly priesthood”.

G.R.C. Then finally He says:

• “Take heed to your spirit”

• and I think that is a great thing for every one who seeks to serve in a practical way; he has to be careful about his spirit.

• You can come into a situation with great light and gift and you can say the right thing and perhaps do the right thing
  • but if you have not the right spirit you can never truly serve the sanctuary.

• David had the spirit of Christ in all his affliction. If we are really married to the sanctuary we shall have that spirit.

F.W.K. Moses in a moment of crisis shone in his spirit.

G.R.C. If our spirits are wrong we are dealing unfaithfully with the wife of our youth. It says:

• “Take heed to your spirit”.

In the last section, I thought what would come out of this kingly and priestly revival would be that

• we should become true sons of Jacob in the sense that we should regard our own circumstances and affairs down here

• wholly from the point of view of how far they contribute to the testimony. I think that is the idea of the whole tithe.

• We have been dealing with the divine sphere of things, but we also have our own houses and businesses to see to.

• If we are vitally touched on kingly and priestly lines we shall say that the only value of these things is the measure in which they contribute to the things of God
  • and we shall be prepared to bring the whole tithe into the treasure house.

H.F.R. How this would have its bearing on the previous part! There is no priestly service unless we are devoted in this way in ordinary things.

G.R.C. In this respect God is going back to earliest impressions.

• If we have a real touch at the beginning, we make a start on all these lines. We give thanks to God and become priests.

• Then we feel that nothing matters but the assembly on earth – the sanctuary – and finally we are constrained to vow like Jacob.

• I think Jacob’s prayer in one way is a fine prayer.
  • “If God will … give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on … then shall the Lord be my God … and of all that thou shall give me I will surely give the tenth unto Thee”.

• He was not asking great things for himself, only food and clothing, and of all that he received the first tenth was to be for God.

H.F.R. Jacob would never have been too busy in his business to come to the meeting. It is a most important matter to put God first.

G.R.C. If you are too engrossed in business to attend to the things of God you are defeating the object for which, as a christian, you are carrying on your business.

A.F.B. All our circumstances, whatever they may be, should contribute to the wealth of the house of God.

G.R.C. Bring the whole tithe into the treasure house.

A.F.B. Whatever the ways of God may be with me, all should get the gain of it.

G.R.C. What am I wanting for myself out of it? Jacob only wanted food and clothing. He does not use his circumstances to make himself great.

• If God gives a man material wealth, it is useful and in principle he can bring it into the treasure house.

H.W.E. It is the same idea with Joseph. In the third year he buys their bodies and their lands and a fifth of it is for Pharaoh.

G.R.C. If we put God first, I expect we shall not limit it to a tenth. We must not think of Jacob as taking nine-tenths for himself.

• God’s portion came first.

• You may say: If I take up this line my business will go to pieces; but God has said if we bring the whole tithe he will open the windows of heaven.

• God would like us to be sons of Jacob. Jacob supplanted the selfish man.

W.H.C. In his affections Jacob was never deflected. I was thinking of Abraham and Isaac who surrendered their wives, but Jacob never surrendered Rachel.

G.R.C. Jacob was an example of a faithful man. He was faithful because God was faithful to him. None of us is faithful on any other ground.

• Abraham represents the ‘called’, Isaac the ‘chosen’ and Jacob the ‘faithful’.

You get a wonderful example of this whole tithe coming in, in connection with the widow, when the Lord sat over against the treasury. She cast in the whole of her living.

• The old dispensation closes with one person at least casting all her living into the treasury.