The Cross and the City of God
by T. Austin-Sparks
Rev. 21:9-11 "He carried me away in Spirit to a mountain great and high and showed me the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, her light was like unto a stone most precious, as it were a jasper stone clear as crystal."
Rev. 21:15 "The building of the wall thereof was jasper and the city was pure gold as it were transparent glass."
Rev. 21:21 "The street (way) was pure gold as it were transparent glass."
Rev 22:1 "And He showed me a river of water of life clear as crystal proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb."
Rev. 3:12 "I will write on him the Name of my God, the name of the City of my God... that cometh down out of heaven from my God, and my own new Name."
Heb. 11:10 "The City which hath the foundations, whose builder and architect is God."
Heb. 11:16 "God is not ashamed to be called their God; He hath prepared for them a City."
Heb. 12:22 "The City of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem."
Heb. 13:14 "We seek the city which is to come."
Gal. 4:25-26 "Jerusalem which is above is free which is our Mother."
Phil. 3:20 "Our citizenship in Heaven."
Our main difficulty in contemplating the City of God will be to get the literal and material out of mind, we are dealing pre-eminently with what is spiritual.
The City of God is not merely a place to which we are going, but is the Church of God of which we are part.
We are going to Heaven, a place; we are not going to spaceless clouds for all eternity; but in considering the City of God, the Heavenly City, the New Jerusalem, we are considering the Church, the Body of Christ; and are only dealing with the nature and characteristics of that City as related to the ultimate things. We are not now touching questions related to times and dispensations. The last thing in the Word of God is a City and everything heads up to that. He is related to the City and the City to Him.
It is a concrete and all inclusive presentation in finality of all the spiritual elements and features of divine life in the individual and in the Church; the full and final expression of conformity to the image of God's Son; "chosen and fore-ordained to be conformed to the image of His Son." Rom. 8:29.
Here in Rev. 21 we see the City of God, a realization of that fore-ordination told of in Rom. 8:29, and it is only another way of contemplating the glorified Son of Man, in His corporate expression and all that is in Christ for the believer being realized.
We must ever remember, the one central and dominating factor is the Lamb in the midst of the Throne, because everything here is the expression of Calvary's work and is the realization of all that the Lord Jesus came to do by His death and resurrection. The elements of divine life are spirituality, heavenliness, transparency, elevation, stability, fullness, love, fellowship, sovereignty, government, openness and exclusiveness, light, inwardness, glory, and many more.
We are dealing with spiritual factors that go to make up the Church of God, the New Jerusalem, and when you see the Church of God presented here in Rev. 21 you have it presented in its final fullness in Christ, to which we are now moving. Compare Eph. 1:21-22, as things are now it is the building of the Church, the growing up into Him.
Let us stay awhile with the features and the characteristics of the City of God.
The First Feature is Heavenliness and Spirituality
It "came out from heaven" therefore it must have been first in heaven before it could come down out from heaven.
"They looked for a heavenly city" Heb. 11:10. "He looked for the City which hath the foundation whose builder and maker was God."
"Our citizenship is in heaven" Phil. 3:20.
We find much in the Word of God about material for the heavenly City, and the suggestion runs clearly through the Word that since the fall, everything God has brought in is heavenly and not earthly. God's people are of heaven, a heavenly people, and not of the earth; a heavenly seed, and the heavenly seed began in type with Abel, and there can be traced out the heavenly line all through the Word.
Cain is a man of the earth and as such is rejected. Later Israel becomes the type of the heavenly people - they are a people taken out of the earth, extricated from the earth and its ways, taken out from Egypt, through the blood of the Lamb Who is now their true life and its source; cut off by the Red Sea and out in the Wilderness under government of the "Pillar of cloud" - the Holy Spirit; a people as out from the earth and unto God. This in type constituted a heavenly people, a people from above and not of the earth.
The predominating color in Israel's camp was heavenly blue. Each had to have a piece of blue like unto the High Priest's ephod; typical of heavenliness.
John's Gospel is pre-eminently the Gospel for the Church and its main emphasis is heavenliness and spirituality - "born anew" "born from above" "born of God."
The word 'LIFE' in John is always related to the heavenlies, it is heavenly life "I am the life" "I am come that ye might have life." He came to give in His own person this life: "In Him was life" "I am came down out of heaven."
In John 2 He takes up the relationship of the Lord's people. John 2:4 literally is "woman what have you and I in common?" As in Matt. 12:48-50 "...but He answered Who is my mother and who are my brethren? For whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother." Yes, the heavenly relationships of this born-out-from-God people transcend earthly relationships all the time; it is a bond in the spirit, deeper and more abiding than any earthly bond; the interests of the heavenlies and the Lord's things far transcends interests of worldly relationships and concerns. The more you have in common with the Lord, the less you have in common with the world, and the greater the strain when you have to be in it though not of it. You violate the laws of your spiritual life and nature if you ignore this spiritual relationship, and cripple your own spiritual effectiveness; it will be impossible finally for the heavenly people to have any fellowship in spirit with the old creation.
Rev. 21:22 "I saw no temple there" Why? The people are a worshipping people - they are worship; it is spiritual worship not localized.
John 4:20 "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, but ye (Jews) say that in Jerusalem must men worship." The Lord answered, "the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for such doth the Father seek to be His worshipers." The Father is the seeker of the eternal City as well as its builder and architect.
The entire sustenance of the Lord's people is spiritual and heavenly (see John 6). Life, sustenance, development, maturity, the whole basis of life and growth of the City of God is spiritual. Spiritual growth by heavenly food and spiritual sustenance by feeding on the living Bread from heaven - "I am the Bread of Life."
And all service is out from above - heavenly, words and works from above; that which the Father doeth and speaketh, John 5:19,36. How does He see what the Father doeth? Only by the Spirit - Matt, 10:20. "For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you." All this is not of the earth, it is heavenly, and is all gathered up and related to the heavenly Person, the Person from above, the Lord Jesus "I came forth from the Father." John 6:28. "I came down from heaven." John 5:38, and yet having all abiding residence in heaven even while on earth. "No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." John 1:18.
Pass to the Ephesian letter, written especially for the Church. How much it has to say about "in the heavenlies"; compare Eph. 1:3; 2:6; 4:10.
The Lord's people are so slow to accept the implications and cost of this. We do so want something on the earth, something of the nature of a quick return for our labor. Some gratification to our senses, something to see. We do groan so constantly under the labors of the Lord to get us cut off from the earth and to get us a heavenly people. We so often fail to see what the Lord is doing. We must be extricated from earthliness if we are to be made heavenly in character, and this is going to cost if we yield to the Lord's hand. The power that raised Christ from the dead, the exceeding greatness of that might is called into operation to get the Church into its right place in the heavenlies, cut off from the earth, in order that it might come down out from heaven (Eph. 1:19-20) God's great might called forth to extricate us from earthliness. Ps. 87 - "His foundation is in the mountain, the Lord loveth the gates of Zion."
Rev. 21:10 "He carried me... to a mountain... and showed me the Holy City, New Jerusalem... the bride and wife of the Lamb."
It is interesting to note, the same angel took him into the wilderness to see Babylon, Rev. 17:1-5. No need for a high mountain from which to see that wicked city, it is of the earth; but the Holy City is most high.
In Psalm 87 God's City is set over against all other cities mentioned in the Psalm.
Egypt and Zion
Whenever Israel's spirituality was low they turned to Egypt for help; when, because their faith was out of order, they found the Lord no longer sufficient.
A little natural resource will mar the City of God and bring a cloud. In the City of God all natural resource is cut off, not permitted by God, and by God cut off, brought to an end.
Egypt doesn't come into the New Jerusalem, they are two different worlds, one earthly the other heavenly.
"Glorious things are spoken of thee, O City of God." Ps. 87.3. Have you dealt with Egypt by knowing the cutting off from natural resources? Do we accept this law of the City of God? Natural resource in spiritual things is not admitted in the City of God, and all natural resource must come to an end. Once you know the Lord as your resource you are not depressed to hear natural resources are cut off, you don't want Egypt. Egypt has got to be smitten, and the Lord is smiting Egypt for us and taking away our natural resources in spiritual things.
The "natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, and he cannot know them." 1 Cor. 8:14. This cutting off from natural resource is foolishness to the natural man; is it foolishness to you?
"Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man... but unto us God revealed them through the Spirit"; "the things of God none knoweth save the Spirit of God"; "we received not the Spirit of bondage, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things which were freely given to us by God." 1 Cor. 2:9-12.
To see the City of God needs spiritual capacity. The Blood of the Lamb comes in between you and Egypt, the sea rolls between and after that the earth is but a wilderness, resourceless for them, they now live by a heavenly life in a whole and utter dependence upon God. Egypt has been smitten and is lying behind on the other side of the Red Sea; oh blessed position! "I will make mention of Egypt, but God loveth the gates of Zion."
Babylon and Zion
Here we see the glory of natural religious man, for we note that Babylon is always religious. Turn to the book of the Revelation and we find Babylon dressed in religious garb. Babylon is always religious, the religion of fallen man, Satan inspired. Gen. 10:8-10, the beginning of this kingdom was Babel. What you can make or reach by your own effort, that is man's product by his own resources. Note, that Babel was the first city built on the new earth, the earth that had come through the flood of divine judgment on that ground, typifying the ground of regeneration, this religious construction of man's ambitions in the realm of religious activity. And this thing, this religion of natural man is with us today; yes, it will patronize God, even bringing His Name into it, as of old - Babel - "Gate of God," but touch it with the eternal fact and purpose of the Cross, bring Calvary's work and claim upon it and man will rise up in enmity against the preaching of the Cross by the Holy Spirit, and defend his natural religious work and worship, and in the background will be discerned the Satanic hate and rebellion against God; and we see also in it Lucifer's bid for universal worship. Isaiah 14:14. It is our own glory in the realm where things are exclusively of God; yet how often there is found even here a personal interest in the things and work of God. Is not this so with the spirit of jealousy, disclosing a secret reservation of some personal interest? Or it may be pride, and assertion of "my right," wanting to be something, wanting to see our efforts produce something for God. All this will result in confusion and loss of effectiveness.
See the difference between the Corinthian and Ephesian believers. At Corinth they wanted something with man's name on it (1 Cor. 1:12-15). In Ephesus it is in the heavenlies with God's Name on it (Eph. 1:3,22, 2:20).
Philistia and Zion
Philistia: type of man's natural mind intruding into divine things; the people of Philistia are always in the Word called uncircumcised. Man's natural mind taking hold of divine things apart from the Cross. In Babylon we see natural man's effort. In Philistia we find natural man's reason taking hold of the things of God and intruding into them.
There is a preaching a of the Cross in the wisdom of words that makes it of none effect (1 Cor 1:17). The Devil does not altogether put out the Cross; the Cross can be preached without the preacher having been to the Cross; this is a subtle work of the devil.
Tyre. Business world; expansion the order of the day, but expansion and activities under the authority of the Prince of this World, the commercial spirit brought into the things of God, using the World's way, advertisement, much machinery, organisation, etc., this is not the way that the City of God is built.
Ethiopia, turn to Acts 8:26-30. The Ethiopian reading from Isa. 53:7 - Philip meets him with the question "Understandest thou?" and he replies "How can I except one teach me." Here is the type of the darkened mind concerning the Person of the Lord Jesus. It takes the light of God to shine into our hearts, to reveal the Lord Jesus. It takes divine shining to show Who Jesus is. 2 Cor. 4:6.
Over against these cities, Zion is placed, and is different. It is not that which we see in the other cities, it is different, and those born there find also their well springs there. Zion is heavenly, and the Lord loveth the gates of Zion; and those born in Zion say "All my wellsprings are in thee; nothing now in Egypt, Babylon, Tyre, etc".
Zion and Jerusalem though inseparable are not the same, Zion is only a part of Jerusalem, the citadel where the King dwells. Zion typifies the Lord Jesus. He as Zion is altogether different from all these other things represented here. He is God's Ultimate, and that to which God is moving; the result of the spiritual process which is going on now.
The Lord is seeking a people cut off from the earth and its ways, and brought into relationship with Himself, and it must be true of them that their affection is set on things above, not on the earth. Col. 3:1,2 - "If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God."
Remember resurrection and ascension is one act, see John 20:17. "Touch me not for I am not yet ascended unto the Father... but I ascend unto my Father and your Father." "Touch me not," "don't make of Me something earthly on the part of natural affections." He is now a heavenly Lord and that fact has got to be recognized.
We have got to be a people whose life is wholly on the things of God, living out from heavenly resources and fulfilling a heavenly vocation; partaking of a heavenly nature. This is made possible by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, for the Bride, and to take her back to the Resurrection Man, that she may come forth as Bride out from heaven. Are we walking, living, in the Spirit, being cut off from the earth?
We are "in Christ," in the second Man, the Lord from heaven, are we living our life in Him? Is this true of us in life, nature, sustenance, service, are we looking for the Lord from heaven?
The City of God is most vividly distinctive from all that marks other cities of the earth; compare Rev. 21 with Matt. 11. "Woe unto you"; and it is not without significance that Matt. 11 closes with "Come unto Me." Come out from those cities upon which judgment is announced - come unto the city of Rest - that in which God finds His satisfaction. "Come unto Me and I will give you rest"; His City; in these Spiritual elements - where He is pleased to dwell.
"The throne of God and the Lamb shall be therein." Rev. 22:3. |
A Proliferation of Christian Devotionals and Sermons
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
The Cross and the City of God - Chapter One
The Ministry of Tears
by T. DeWitt Talmage (1832-1902)
"God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes" (Revelation 7:17)
Riding across a western prairie, wild flowers up to the hub of the carriage wheel, and while a long distance from any shelter, there came a sudden shower, and while the rain was falling in torrents, the sun was shining as brightly as ever I saw it shine; and I thought, What a beautiful spectacle this is! So the tears of the Bible are not midnight storm, but rain on pansied prairies in God's sweet and golden sunlight. You remember that bottle which David labeled as containing tears, and Mary's tears, and Paul's tears, and Christ's tears, and the harvest of joy that is to spring from the sowing of tears. God mixes them. God rounds them. God shows them where to fall. God exhales them. A census is taken of them, and there is a record as to the moment when they are born, and as to the place of their grave. Tears of bad men are not kept. Alexander, in his sorrow, had the hair clipped from his horses and mules, and made a great ado about his grief; but in all the vases of Heaven there is not one of Alexander's tears. I speak of the tears of the good. Alas, me! They are falling all the time. In summer, you sometimes hear the growling thunder, and you see there is a storm miles away; but you know from the drift of the clouds that it will not come anywhere near you. So, though it may be all bright around about us, there is a shower of trouble somewhere all the time. You think it is the cannonading that you hear along the banks of the Danube. No. It is the thunder of clouds of trouble over the groaning hospitals, and over the desolated Russian and Turkish homes. Tears! Tears!
What is the use of them anyhow? Why not substitute laughter? Why not make this a world where all the people are well, and eternal strangers to pain and aches? What is the use of an eastern storm when we might have a perpetual nor'wester? Why, when a family is put together, not have them all stay, or if they must be transplanted to make other homes, then have them all live? The family record telling a story of marriages and births, but of no deaths. Why not have the harvests chase each other without fatiguing toil, and all our homes afflicted? Why the hard pillow, the hard crust, the hard struggle? It is easy enough to explain a smile, or a success, or a congratulation; but, come now, and bring all your dictionaries and all your philosophies and all your religions, and help me this evening to explain a tear. A chemist will tell you that it is made up of salt and lime, and other component parts; but he misses the chief ingredients - the acid of a soured life, the viper sting of a bitter memory, the fragments of a broken heart. I will tell you what a tear is; it is agony in solution.
Hear me, then, while I discourse to you of the Ministry of tears, and of the ending of that Ministry when God shall wipe them all away.
First. It is the Ministry of tears to keep this world from being too attractive. Something must be done to make us willing to quit this existence. If it were not for trouble, this world would be a good enough Heaven for me. You and I would be willing to take a lease of this life for a hundred million years, if there were no trouble. The earth cushioned and upholstered and pillared and chandeliered with such expense, no story of other worlds could enchant us. We would say: "Let well enough alone. If you want to die and have your body disintegrated in the dust, and your soul go out on a celestial adventure, then you can go; but this world is good enough for me." You might as well go to a man who has just entered the Louvre at Paris, and tell him to hasten off to the picture galleries of Venice or Florence. "Why," he would say, "what is the use of my going there? There are Rembrandts and Rubens and Rapbaels here that I haven't looked at yet." No man wants to go out of this world, or out of any house until he has a better house.
To cure this wish to stay here, God must somehow create a disgust for our surroundings. How shall He do it? He cannot afford to deface His horizon, or to tear off a fiery panel from the sunset, or to subtract an anther from the water lily, or to banish the pungent aroma from the mignonette, or to drag the robes of the morning in the mire. You cannot expect a Christopher Wren to mar his own St. Paul's Cathedral, or a Michelangelo to dash out his own "Last Judgment," or a Handel to discord his "Israel in Egypt"; and you cannot expect God to spoil the architecture and music of His own world. How then are we to be made willing to leave? Here is where troubles comes in. After a man has had a good deal of trouble, he says, "Well, I am ready to go. If there is a house somewhere whose roof doesn't leak, I would like to live there. If there is an atmosphere somewhere that does not distress the lungs, I would like to breathe it. If there is a society somewhere where there is no tittle-tattle, I would like to live there. If there is a home circle somewhere where I can find my lost friends, I would like to go there." He used to read the first part of the Bible chiefly, now he reads the last part of the Bible chiefly. Why has he changed Genesis for Revelation? Ah! He used to be anxious chiefly to know how this world was made, and all about its geological construction. Now he is chiefly anxious to know how the next world was made, and how it looks, and who live there, and how they dress. He reads Revelation ten times now where he reads Genesis once. The old story, "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth," does not thrill him half as much as the other story, "I saw a new Heaven and a new earth." The old man's hand trembles as he turns over this apocalyptic leaf, and he has to take out his handkerchief to wipe his spectacles. That book of Revelation is a prospectus now of the country into which he is to soon immigrate; the country in which he has lots already laid out, and avenues opened, and trees planted, and mansions built. The thought of that blessed place comes over me mightily, and I declare that if this house were a great ship, and you all were passengers on board it, and one hand could launch that ship into the glories of Heaven, I should be tempted to take the responsibility, and launch you all into glory with one stroke, holding on to the side of the boat until I could get in myself! And yet there are people here to whom this world is brighter than Heaven. Well, dear souls, I do not blame you. It is natural. But after a while you will be ready to go. It was not until Job had been worn out with bereavements and carbuncles and a pest of a wife that he wanted to see God. It was not until the prodigal got tired of living among the hogs that he wanted to go to his father's house. It is the Ministry of trouble to make this world worth less, and heaven worth more.
Again: it is the Ministry of trouble to make us feel our complete dependence upon God. King Alphonso said that if he had been present at the Creation, he could have made a better world than this. What a pity he was not present! I do not know what God will do when some men die. Men think they can do anything until God shows them they can do nothing at all. We lay out great plans, and we like to execute them. It looks big, God comes and takes us down. As Prometheus was assaulted by his enemy, when the lance struck him it opened a great swelling that had threatened his death, and he got well. So it is the arrow of trouble that lets out great swellings of pride. We never feel our dependence upon God until we get trouble. I was riding with my little child along a road, and she asked if she might drive. I said, "Certainly." I handed over the reins to her, and I had to admire the glee with which she drove. But after a while we met a team, and we had to turn out. The road was narrow, and it was sheer down on both sides. She handed the reins over to me, and said: "I think you had better take charge of the horse." So we are all children; and on this road of life we like to drive. It gives one such an appearance of superiority and power. It looks big. But after a while we meet some obstacle, and we have to turn out, and the road is narrow, and it is sheer down on both sides, and then we are willing that God should take the reins and drive. Ah! my friends, we get upset so often because we do not hand over the reins soon enough.
Can you not tell when you hear a man pray, whether he has ever had any trouble? I can. The cadence, the phraseology indicate it. Why do women pray better than men? Because they have had more trouble. Before a man has had any trouble, his prayers are poetic, and he begins away up among the sun, moon, and stars, and gives the Lord a great deal of astronomical information that must be highly gratifying. He then comes on down gradually over beautiful table lands to "for ever and ever, amen." But after a man has had trouble, prayer is with him a taking hold of the arm of God and crying out for help. I have heard earnest prayers on two or three occasions that I remember. Once, on the Cincinnati express train going at forty miles the hour, and the train jumped the track, and we were near a chasm eighty feet deep; and the men who, a few minutes before, had been swearing and blaspheming God, began to pull and jerk at the bell rope, and got up on the backs of the seats, and cried out: "O God, save us!" There was another time about eight hundred miles out at sea, on a foundering steamer, after the last lifeboat had been split finer than kindling wood. They prayed then. Why is it you so often hear people, in reciting the last experience of some friend, say; "He made the most beautiful prayer I ever heard"? What makes it beautiful? It is the earnestness of it. Oh, I tell you a man is in earnest when his stripped and naked soul wades out in the soundless, shoreless, bottomless ocean of eternity.
It is trouble, my friends, that makes us feel our dependence upon God. We do not know our own weakness or God's strength until the last plank breaks. It is contemptible in us, when there is nothing else to take hold of, that we catch hold of God only. A man is unfortunate in business. He has to raise a great deal of money, and raise it quickly. He borrows on word and note all he can borrow. After a while, he puts a mortgage on his house. After a while he puts a second mortgage on his house. Then he puts a lien on his furniture. Then he makes over his life insurance. Then he assigns all his property. Then he goes to his father-in-law and asks for help! Well, having failed everywhere, completely failed, he gets down on his knees and says: "O Lord, I have tried everybody and everything, now help me out of this financial trouble." He makes God the last resort instead of the first resort. There are men who have paid ten cents on a dollar who could have paid a hundred cents on a dollar if they had gone to God in time. Why you do not know who the Lord is. He is not an autocrat seated far up in a palace from which He emerges once a year, preceded by heralds swinging swords to clear the way. No. But a Father willing, at our call, to stand by us in every crisis and predicament of life.
I tell you what some of you business men make me think of. A young man goes off from home to earn his fortune. He goes with his mother's consent and benediction. She has large wealth; but he wants to make his own fortune. He goes far away, falls sick, gets out of money. He sends to the hotel keeper where he is staying, asking for lenience, and the answer he gets is, "If you don't pay up Saturday night you'll be removed to the hospital." The young man sends to a comrade in the same building. No help. He writes to a banker who was a friend of his deceased father. No relief. He writes to an old schoolmate, but gets no help. Saturday night comes, and he is moved to the hospital. Getting there he is frenzied with grief; and he borrows a sheet of paper and a postage stamp, and he sits down, and he writes home, saying: "Dear mother, I am sick unto death. Come." It is ten minutes of ten o'clock when she gets the letter. At ten o'clock the train starts. She is five minutes from the depot. She gets there in time to have five minutes to spare. She wonders why a train that can go thirty miles an hour cannot go sixty miles an hour. She rushes into the hospital. She says: "My son, what does all this mean? Why didn't you send for me? You sent to everybody but me. You knew I could and would help you. Is this the reward I get for my kindness to you always?" She bundles him up, takes him home, and gets him well very soon. Now, some of you treat God just as that young man treated his mother. When you get into a financial perplexity, you call on the banker, you call on the broker, you call on your creditors, you call on your lawyer for legal counsel, you call upon everybody, and when you cannot get any help then you go to God. You say: "O Lord, I come to Thee. Help me now out of my perplexity." And the Lord comes though it is the eleventh hour. He says: "Why did you not send for Me before? As One whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." It is to throw us back upon an all comforting God that we have this Ministry of tears.
Again: it is the Ministry of tears to capacitate us for the office of Sympathy. The priests under the old dispensation were set apart by having water sprinkled on their hands, feet, and head; and by the sprinkling of tears people are now set apart to the office of sympathy. When we are in prosperity, we like to have a great many young people around us, and we laugh when they laugh, and we romp when they romp, and we sing when they sing; but when we have trouble we like plenty of old folks around. Why? They know how to talk. Take an aged mother, seventy years of age, and she is almost omnipotent in comfort. Why? She has been through it all. At seven o'clock in the morning she goes over to comfort a young mother who has just lost her babe. Grandmother knows all about that trouble. Fifty years ago she felt it. At twelve o'clock of that day she goes over to comfort a widowed soul. She knows all about that. She has been walking in that dark valley twenty years. At four o'clock in the afternoon some one knocks at the door wanting bread. She knows all about that. Two or three times in her life she came to her last loaf. At ten o'clock that night she goes over to sit up with some one severely sick. She knows all about it. She knows all about fevers and pleurisy's and broken bones. She has been doctoring all her life, spreading plasters and pouring out bitter drops, and shaking up hot pillows, and contriving things to tempt a poor appetite. Doctors Abernethy and Rush and Ilosack and Harvey were great doctors; but the greatest doctor the world ever saw is an old Christian woman. Dear me! Do we not remember her about the room when we were sick in our boyhood? Was there any one who could ever so touch a sore without hurting it? And when she lifted her spectacles against her wrinkled forehead so she could look closer at the wound, it was three fourths healed. And when the Lord took her home, although you may have been men and women thirty, forty, fifty years of age, you lay on the coffin lid and sobbed as though you were only five or ten years of age. O man, praise God if, instead of looking back to one of these berouged and bespangled old people fixed up of the devil to look young, you have in your memory the picture of an honest, sympathetic, kind, self sacrificing, Christ like mother. Oh, it takes these people who have had trouble to comfort others in trouble. Where did Paul get the ink with which to write his comforting epistle? Where did David get the ink to write his comforting psalms? Where did John get the ink to write his comforting revelation? They got it out of their own tears. When a man has gone through the curriculum, and has taken a course of dungeons and imprisonments and shipwrecks, he is qualified for the work of sympathy.
When I began to preach, I used to write out all my sermons, and I sometimes have great curiosity to look at the sermons I used to preach on trouble. They were nearly all poetic and in verse; but God knocked the blank verse out of me long ago; and I have found out that I cannot comfort people except as I myself have been troubled. God make me the son of consolation to the people. I would rather be the means of soothing one perturbed spirit today, than to play a tune that would set all the sons of mirth reeling in the dance. I am a herb doctor. I put in the caldron the Root out of dry ground without form or comeliness. Then I put in the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley. Then I put into the caldron some of the leaves from the Tree of Life, and the branch that was thrown into the wilderness Marab. Then I pour in the tears of Bethany and Golgotha; then I stir them up. Then I kindle under the caldron a fire made out of the wood of the Cross, and one drop of that potion will cure the worst sickness that ever afflicted a human soul. Mary and Martha shall receive their Lazarus from the tomb. The damsel shall rise. And on the darkness shall break the morning, and God will wipe all tears from their eyes.
You know on a well spread table, the food becomes more delicate at the last. I have fed you today with the bread of consolation. Let the table now be cleared, and let us set on the chalice of Heaven. Let the King's cup bearers come in. Good morning, Heaven! "Oh," says some critic in the audience, "the Bible contradicts itself. It intimates again and again that there are to be no tears in Heaven, and if there be no tears in Heaven, how is it possible that God will wipe any away?" I answer, have you never seen a child crying one moment and laughing the next; and while she was laughing, you saw the tears still on its face? And, perhaps, you stopped her in the very midst of her resumed glee, and wiped off those delayed tears. So, I think, after the Heavenly raptures have come upon us, there may be the mark of some earthly grief, and while those tears are glittering in the light of the jasper sea, God will wipe them away. How well He can do that.
Jesus had enough trial to make Him sympathetic with all trial. The shortest verse in the Bible tells the story: "Jesus wept." The scar on the back of either hand, the scar on the arch of either foot, the row of scars along the line of the hair, will keep all Heaven thinking. Oh, that great Weeper is just the one to silence all earthly trouble and wipe out all stains of earthly grief. Gentle! Why His step is softer than the step of the dew. It will not be a tyrant bidding you to hush up your crying. It will be a Father who will take you on His left arm, His face gleaming into yours, while with the soft tips of the fingers of the right hand, He shall wipe away all tears from your eyes. I have noticed when the children get hurt, and their mother is away from home, they always come to me for comfort and sympathy; but I have noticed that when the children get hurt, and their mother is at home, they go right past me and to her I am of no account. So when the soul comes up into Heaven out of the wounds of this life, it will not stop to look for Paul, or Moses, or David, or John. These did very well once, but now the soul shall rush past, crying: "Where is Jesus? Where is Jesus?" Dear Lord, what a magnificent thing to die if Thou shalt thus wipe away our tears. I think it will take us some time to get used to Heaven; the fruits of God without one speck; the fresh pastures without one nettle; the orchestra without one snapped string; the river of gladness without one torn bank; the solferinos and the saffron of sunrise and sunset swallowed up in the eternal day that beams from God's countenance!
Why should I wish to linger in the wild, When Thou art waiting, Father, to receive Thy child?
Sirs, if we could get any appreciation of what God has in reserve for us, it would make us so home sick we would be unfit for our every day work. Professor Leonard, in Iowa University, put in my hands a meteoric stone, a stone thrown off from some other world to this. How suggestive it was to me. And I have to tell you the best representations we have of Heaven are only aerolites flung off from that world which rolls on being the multitudes of the redeemed. We analyze these aerolites, and find them crystalizations of tears. No wonder, flung off from Heaven. "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."
Have you any appreciation this evening of the good and glorious times your friends are having in Heaven? How different it is when they get news there of a Christian's death from what it is here. It is the difference between embarkation and coming into port. Everything depends upon which side of the river you stand when you hear of a Christian's death. If you stand on this side of the river you mourn that they go. If you stand on the other side of the river, you rejoice that they come. Oh, the difference between a funeral on earth and a jubilee in Heaven - between requiem here and triumphal march there - parting here and reunion there. Together! Have you thought of it? They are together. Not one of your departed friends in one land, and another in another land; but together in different rooms of the same house -the house of many mansions. Together! I never appreciated that thought so much as recently, when we laid away in her last slumber my sister Sarah. Standing there in the village cemetery, I looked around and said: "There is father, there is mother, there is grandfather, there is grandmother, there are whole circles of kindred"; and I thought to myself, "Together in the grave - together in glory." I am so impressed with the thought that I do not think it is any fanaticism when some one is going from this world to the next if you make them the bearer of dispatches to your friends who are gone, saying: "Give my love to my parents, give my love to my children, give my love to my old comrades who are in glory, and tell them I am trying to fight the good fight of faith, and I will join them after a while." I believe the message will be delivered; and I believe it will increase the gladness of those who are before the throne. Together are they, all their tears gone. No trouble getting good society for them. All kings, queens, princes, and princesses. In 1751 there was a bill offered in your English Parliament, proposing to change the almanac so that the first of March should come immediately after the 18th of February. But, oh, what a glorious change in the calendar when all the years of your earthly existence are swallowed up in the eternal year of God!
My friends, take this good cheer home with you. Those tears of bereavement that course your cheek, and of persecution and of trial, are not always to be there. The motherly hand of God will wipe them all away. What is the use, on the way to such a consummation - what is the use of fretting about anything? Oh, what an exhilaration it ought to be in Christian work. See you the pinnacles against the sky? It is the city of our God; and we are approaching it. Oh, let us be busy in the few days that shall remain for us. The Saxons and the Britons went out to battle. The Saxons were all armed. The Britons had no weapons at all; and yet history tells us the Britons got the victory. Why? They went into battle shouting three times "Hallelujah!" and at the third shout of "Hallelujah" their enemies fled panic struck; and so the Britons got the victory. And, my friends, if we could only appreciate the glories that are to come, we would be so filled with enthusiasm that no power of earth or hell could stand before us; and at our first shout the opposing forces would begin to tremble, and at our second shout they would begin to fall back, and at our third shout they would be routed forever. There is no power on earth or in hell that could stand before three such volleys of Hallelujah.
I put this balsam on the recent wounds of your heart. Rejoice at the thought of what your departed friends have got rid of, and that you have a prospect of so soon making your own escape. Bear cheerfully the Ministry of tears, and exult at the thought that soon it is to be ended.
There we shall march up the Heavenly street, and ground our arms at Jesus' feet.
When? (and other devotionals)
When?
BIBLE MEDITATION:
“I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.” John 9:4
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
Robert Moffett, a great missionary statesman, said, “We shall have all eternity in which to celebrate our victories, but only one short hour before the sun sets in which to win them.”
Life’s setting sun is sinking low. There are only a limited number of days in which to save souls. Are you going to spend your days investing in the things of this world, or putting up treasures in heaven? When?
Are you going to start sowing seeds of salvation or are you going to plant happiness in this life alone? When?
Are you going to do something nice for your wife? When?
Are you going to write your father? When?
ACTION POINT:
Make a promise to yourself right now that you will not put off until tomorrow what you should be doing today.
“I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.” John 9:4
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
Robert Moffett, a great missionary statesman, said, “We shall have all eternity in which to celebrate our victories, but only one short hour before the sun sets in which to win them.”
Life’s setting sun is sinking low. There are only a limited number of days in which to save souls. Are you going to spend your days investing in the things of this world, or putting up treasures in heaven? When?
Are you going to start sowing seeds of salvation or are you going to plant happiness in this life alone? When?
Are you going to do something nice for your wife? When?
Are you going to write your father? When?
ACTION POINT:
Make a promise to yourself right now that you will not put off until tomorrow what you should be doing today.
~Adrian Rogers~
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The Power of Imitation
"Therefore I urge you, imitate me." 1 Corinthians 4:1
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We are masters at imitation. Whether we are copying someone else or they are copying us, we are continually being influenced and adapting our personality to the conformity of others. We may not realize that the things we do or wear or say are a result of imitating someone or something in our culture.
Paul understands these issues when he says to the Corinthians "imitate me." They were living in the world and enjoying being of the world. Paul knew that they needed a living example to follow. He became their example, a real person from whom to watch and to learn. Paul also knew that their only hope was in Jesus. He was the One they must ultimately learn to imitate.
Second Corinthians 4:18 says that, "we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." Our focus should only be on Jesus Christ our Savior. This world and all that is in it will someday be gone. Where will you be when this happens? Do you choose your friends wisely, those who set the example in Christ as Paul did? Or are you influenced more by the world's temporary offerings, instead of Christ's eternal promises? How accountable are you to set godly examples for those who are imitating you? Ask the Lord to help you become the role model and example that He wants you to be for others. His Holy Spirit will guide you in this role.
~Daily Disciples Devotional~
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And the rest, some on boards, some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land (Acts 27:44).
The marvelous story of Paul's voyage to Rome, with its trials and triumphs, is a fine pattern of the lights and shades of the way of faith all through the story of human life. The remarkable feature of it is the hard and narrow places which we find intermingled with God's most extraordinary interpositions and providences.
It is the common idea that the pathway of faith is strewn with flowers, and that when God interposes in the life of His people, He does it on a scale so grand that He lifts us quite out of the plane of difficulties. The actual fact, however, is that the real experience is quite contrary. The story of the Bible is one of alternate trial and triumph in the case of everyone of the cloud of witnesses from Abel down to the latest martyr.
Paul, more than anyone else, was an example of how much a child of God can suffer without being crushed or broken in spirit. On account of his testifying in Damascus, he was hunted down by persecutors and obliged to fly for his life. but we behold no heavenly chariot transporting the holy apostle amid thunderbolts of flame from the reach of his foes, but "through a window in a basket," was he let down over the walls of Damascus and so escaped their hands. In an old clothes basket, like a bundle of laundry, or groceries, the servant of Jesus Christ was dropped from the window and ignominiously fled from the hate of his foes.
Again we find him left for months in the lonely dungeons; we find him telling of his watchings, his fastings, and his desertion by friends, of his brutal and shameful beatings, and here even after God has promised to deliver him, we see him for days left to toss upon a stormy sea, obliged to stand guard over the treacherous seaman, and at last when the deliverance comes, there is no heavenly galley sailing from the skies to take off the noble prisoner; there is no angel form walking along the waters and stilling the raging breakers; there is no supernatural sign of the transcendent miracle that is being wrought; but one is compelled to seize a spar, another a floating plank, another to climb on a fragment of the wreck, another to strike out and swim for his life.
Here is God's pattern for our own lives. Here is a Gospel of help for people that have to live in this every day world with real and ordinary surroundings, and a thousand practical conditions which have to be met in a thoroughly practical way.
God's promises and God's providences do not lift us out of the plane of common sense and commonplace trial, but it is through these very things that faith is perfected, and that God loves to interweave the golden threads of His love along the warp and woof of our every day experience.
--Hard Places in the Way of Faith
--Hard Places in the Way of Faith
~L. B. Cowman~
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Unless They Are Agreed
Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? (Amos 3:3).
In order to walk with God, one must agree with Him. In order to experience the fulfillment of His promises in our lives, we must agree with what those promises say—whether we understand how they could ever come to pass or not.
When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she would give birth to a son, she asked, "How can this be, since I do not know a man?" (Luke 1:34).
A pretty fair question, don't you think? It seemed impossible to Mary. She could not get her mind around how Gabriel's announcement could ever come to pass.
I love the angel's response to her question, "The Holy Spirit…" (Luke 1:35). That is the answer to your impossibilities as well. When you can't understand how a promise from God could ever be fulfilled, the answer is "The Holy Spirit!"
At this point Mary could have said, "No way! This makes no sense to me. I don't accept it!" But she didn't. She said, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38).
Mary agreed with God's promise and accepted it. Then the miracle happened.
Whatever you are facing today, make the decision to agree with God and His promises. The Holy Spirit can bring His Word to pass!
~Bayless Conley~
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
The Sign of the Prophet Jonah - Chapter 3
The Sign of the Prophet Jonah
by T. Austin-Sparks
We have already seen that Jonah's dilemma - purely a mental one - was the result of an innovation on the part of the Lord. Jehovah is here breaking into the life of Israel and sending Jonah out to minister to the heathen, the Gentiles. For this Jonah had no precedent, nothing like it had happened before. There had been many references made to the Gentiles, but nothing as to a direct saving ministry to them. The Gentiles were at this time locked up in a reign of death. Israel was locked up in tradition, formalism, declension, exclusiveness, and religious pride.
Nineveh was the most renowned city of heathendom then on the earth. There would be no meaning in preaching a coming judgment to the people of Nineveh if repentance and thereby salvation was not possible.
This all being so contrary to all that Jonah knew, would make him very careful for his reputation; to say nothing of the peril to Israel's interests that the saving of Nineveh would mean. He does not seem to have revolted from preaching the judgment, but from the mercy of God if they repented (Jonah 4:2). But what did this signify in the mind of God? Was God doing really a new thing?Was this something in the nature of a vagary or new idea with the Lord? No, surely not!
There is Nothing New with the Lord
If Jonah was the sign in the matter of death, burial, and resurrection, the issue is clearly seen to be "that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs" (Eph. 3:6).
Surely it is not difficult to see that with the resurrection of Christ of which Jonah was a type, the Church comes into view (John 12:24, etc).
Thus we see -
1. The Church's Constitution
"Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name. And again he saith, Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people. And again, Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people. And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentles, in him shall the Gentiles trust." - Romans 15:8-12.
"How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel; whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, in this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ." - Ephes. 3:3-9.
"Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." - Col. 1:26,27.
The words of scripture speak for themselves, and little need be added. A glance at their context will make quite clear that the Church is constituted by resurrection union with the Lord Jesus.
What is of immediate concern to us here is that God must and will
have His people and the full range of His testimony and glory. When Paul was in Corinth the whole situation was intensely difficult. The conditions set forth in Romans 3 are the actual local colorings of Corinth from where the letter to the Romans was written. The word of the Lord to Paul in the midst of such a setting was "I have much people in this city." It reminds us of the Master's words earlier. "Other sheep I have." The Lord had them before ever the Gospel was preached to them, before they had known anything about His salvation: He had them. In that "foreknowledge of God the Father". They were His, and "all that the Father hath given me shall come unto me"; even in Corinth, Rome, and so on. Thus we see that "Ephesian" truth, (if that is a right way of putting it) is implied in Jonah's commission outside of the limits of the Jewish covenant. This was the principle which so greatly provoked the Jews of Nazareth when the Lord told them that, while there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah the Prophet, it was to an outsider, a Sidonian widow alone that the prophet was sent; and while there were many lepers in Israelin the days of Elisha it was only Naaman, a Syrian - an outsider - who was healed. The sign of the Prophet Jonah then reaches on to embrace the nature of God's eternal purpose realised in resurrection, and the Church is the abiding shrine of that sign and testimony.
2. The Church's Power
As a corporate whole, represented on earth by one united people, the world does not see the full meaning and measure of this testimony. It sees divisions, schisms, and internal conflicts and disagreements, but the miracle of the child of God persists, and in another realm of higher intelligences the testimony is recognized to the full (Eph. 3:10). There is little doubt but that - given spirituality - (that is, a fellowship in life with the Holy Spirit) the powers of death will exhaust themselves without success in the matter of the testimony of the Resurrection of Christ in His people. Viewed superficially there may often appear to be a triumph on their part. The merely human factors may entirely come to an end. The man or woman may "despair of life" in more ways than one. Understanding and sentient assurance may be totally eclipsed. The individual's own victory may go, and on every count be termed defeat. But it is God's victory not ours, and it is not that He "causeth us to triumph" (this is an inaccurate translation) but He "leads us in the train of His triumph." Paul said this (2 Cor. 2:14) immediately after he had touched upon one of the periods of most questionable success in his life - from man's standpoint, of course. The Lord had the victory even while Paul seemed almost under. The Lord already has His end, and it cannot be taken from Him, but the working out or working back to it is a tremendous business in which man is involved in a practical, active, co-operating way. The truth of the representative and inclusive resurrection of the Lord Jesus has to be wrought into the very being and life of the Church and its members.
3. The Ministry of the Church
The disciples had every fact concerning Christ which they were intended to preach from the moment of His ascension. But they did not have the inner spiritual meaning of those facts. Hence they had to spend the interval in prayer rather than preaching. Vital ministry is not just as to the great doctrinal facts of Christ, but the inner revelation of their meaning; and this comes by being "baptized into His death," and "raised together with Him." While there is an initial and crisic aspect of this, it is a thing which in principle operates continuously. The more this is entered into in experience the more effective does ministry become. The Church does not exist to be just a notification or expostulation of the great facts of the Person and work of Jesus Christ; but it is intended to be a representation and embodiment of the power and spiritual nature of those facts. It is not what is said but the influence emanating, and the irresistible force, not only over the minds and wills of men, but over the power of the devil. It is the power of the Church, and the power of the Church is "the power of His resurrection."
The Nature of the Strength of the Church
"Since then the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death He might bring to nought (nullify, destroy) him that had the power (marg. might) of death, that is the devil." Here we have clearly stated the very object and reason of the incarnation, that His partaking - sharing - of flesh and blood was to destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. It means that, God was not going to destroy the devil apart from flesh and blood; God would not as God destroy the devil, but He would as man destroy him. This is the key and way into the Ephesian letter, and sums up the whole truth of the letter, and lets you into the deep truth: the building up of the Church which is His Body. This letter is filled with the building of the Church.
There are two main characteristics of the Church in its building up.
1. "that God... the Father may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him... that ye may know."
The Holy Spirit's strength is needed for knowing Him - the Lord Jesus; the Holy Spirit's strength is needed for knowing the Hope of His Calling and the glory of His inheritance in His saints.
2. "That He would grant you according to the riches of His glory that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man... to the end that ye... may be filled into all the fullness of God."
The Holy Spirit is needed for energizing, on the ground of spiritual revelation, unto all the fullness of God. The Holy Spirit and the strength of His Might is needed for illumination and for energizing into that fullness.
Do we see that the building of the Church is going on by the super-surpassing power of God by His Spirit? The full force of the words here is tremendous, literally it is: "the all else excelling power of God's almightiness"; this is the energy, the force by which this building is going on; the Church, His Body as a whole is in view all through this letter, yet this which is spoken of the whole has got to be true of every member of that Body: and it will really only be fully true in the whole completed Church, for the fullness is to be and can only be realized by the Church - the Body of Christ.
When it is budded, then the all-excelling power of God's almightiness is brought into fullness of manifestation.
Note here, deeper than the letter of the word, but deep in the language of the Apostle is made manifest, that it is the same Power of God which in created faith in you. Faith is not only a grace it is a miracle; a miracle of God. Faith in us is the miracle of the resurrection, and our possessing faith, that faith which was wrought in Christ in the power of His resurrection; this is more than just "saving faith" as we say. But even simple faith unto salvation is not our own, of ourselves, it is the gift of God, and saving faith is a mighty thing, it has in it all the potentialities of that faith by which He raised the Lord Jesus from the dead.
Faith is the gift of God, and being the gift of God has in it the germ of the exceeding "greatness of His power... the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead" - raised Him from the abyss to the Throne by "the all else excelling power of God's almightiness."
And there is the tremendous emphasis on what the Lord must do in the Church; it is that the Church may receive from the Lord by the Holy Spirit a revelation of the calling, a revelation of Him, and then receive by the same Spirit a strengthening in all might into the inner man according to that working (inward energizing) of the strength of His Might, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. In both cases it is to be an expression of the same exceeding greatness of His power, that was seen in the raising of the Lord Jesus from the dead; the all else excelling power of God's almightiness.
We must remember the Lord Jesus was not the first one to be raised from the dead; there was Lazarus; the widow's son, Jairus's daughter; and in the Old Testament times the Shunamite's son, and the man thrown into Elisha's sepulchre; these all rose from the dead, but had to go back again to the grave, it was only a temporary thing, and at length they had to surrender to death. But the raising from the dead of the Lord Jesus was other than that, when He rose something happened that made it impossible for death to have any more claim upon Him, and that something was the all excelling power of God's almightiness to destroy, bring to nought him that had the power of death.
Death and the Disintegration of the Creation
Right away at the beginning, when death entered through sin, everything broke up, chaos everywhere, disintegration, nay, more, decomposition: the very component character of creation was lost, fallen apart in death. Then came upon that a moving of God and out of it an ordered creation arose, the cosmos; then when sin again entered and death by sin, a further disruption, disintegration; all relationships break up by death.
Here is a body: while there is life it is held together by and under a controlling living head, all the separate members are brought into order and co-ordinate functioning in subjection to a government of life from the Head, making it one whole body: life passes out of that body, there is now no central controlling force, all organs cease to function, and there is disintegration - it has lost its life-controlling power. That's death in a body or a whole creation. There is one responsible for that; Satan achieved his object, which was to break creation away from its Headship, and get in between the government of life of the Head, and the Members. Death is separation of anything from its base of government and life. The cosmos demanded a head to hold it into ordered creation, by sin came severance from its government of life, and it fell into unrelated parts, into disintegration and decomposition. Man himself became a chaos, the earth ran riot and became chaos.
Christ Unifies a Disintegrated Creation in Himself as Head
It may have been in upsetting the order of the universe this earth as a planet fell out of the ordering of God and chaos was brought about through him who had the power of death.
The Lord Jesus comes into the chaos and takes the nature of flesh and blood and through death destroys him who had the power of death.
And God hath made this same Jesus Head over the Body, His new creation; and you have the new creation under its divinely appointed Head, and so a bringing about of spiritual order in the fullness of His power (Eph. 1:22-23). The Church is not just a congregation of units, the Church is a body with all its members and organs brought into a functioning relationship of co-ordination under the controlling life of its Head, partaking in that life and governed by that life. This new creation, this Church which is His Body is God's answer to what happened back in Genesis.
Now we begin to see what the Church really is, and what the Church is a product of and what the resource of the Church is.
At the beginning of the letter to the Ephesians you have manifested the nature of the Church, and at the end of the letter, the nature of the Church's warfare, it is the same conflict as away back in Genesis, but we are not up against it in the old creation, but against it in the strength of the New Adam, in the exceeding greatness of His might.
In the first part of the letter we get the first great statement by revelation of the Holy Spirit, of the Eternal Purpose and then the mighty energizing by the same Spirit into that Purpose: and then shown the spiritual forces against that Purpose, seeking to bring about chaos and then in between, you have the Holy Spirit trying to tell you, that your daily affairs, relationships, daily duties, business concerns and all that touches your life from the kitchen to the study, in private life and public life are to be brought up into the heavenlies; for if the enemy can get into the common intimacies of daily living he will bring in disorder, chaos; he is out to bring about a break of relationship between the Sovereign Head and the Members and also seeks to create strain, and provocation between member and member.
Lift everything into the light of the Eternal Purpose, and there is nothing private, personal or isolated, it is in detail and as a whole related to the whole Body, and it is the one battle with the enemy. Don't regard the happenings in home or business on the level of the ordinary world system; bring all up into the light of the Eternal Purpose and when brought there, into all these things can be brought the operation of the greatness of His Power by which He raised Christ from the dead.
If we live our life down here on the ordinary system, the enemy will make an awful mess and there will be defeat. As the Lord's people we cannot live our life on the world's line of things even in the most ordinary connections, because of the strange forces of antagonism against us; we cannot meet with the ordinary resources, we need extraordinary resource with which to meet them.
Get a vision of the Holy Spirit to know the hope of His calling, and the riches of the glory of His inheritance and what the exceeding greatness of His power, and then get an energizing accordingly by the same Spirit and bring that into the daily meeting of enemy's provocations, and creating strains, etc., meet all his activities and subtleties in that "all else exceeding power of God's almightiness."
It is not necessary for us to be down on the level of others in meeting things; or in resources; for the exceptional circumstances of our life there is the exceptional might of God.
We meet something those who are not the Lord's do not meet, but we need not be cast down or brought under by that, for to meet it we have the "all else exceeding power of God's almightiness."
Oh! we need to grasp this, for we are not yet there in our daily experience, sometimes we have a touch of it, but we need to livein it, and walk up and down in the strength, peace and victory of it; we need to bring it right alongside our daily life, and realize it for ourselves in our daily walk and experience.
We are part of the Church His Body, and so need to see by revelation of the Holy Spirit the hope of His calling and then be strengthened, energized by the all might of His Spirit in the inner man and so meet these forces in the might of His strength that hath already conquered.
Heb. 2:14: "Since then the children are partakers of flesh and blood He also Himself in like manner partook of the same that through death, He might bring to naught, nullify, him that had the power of death, that is the devil."
We have not grasped the tremendous truth of these words and laid hold of them and brought them down into our experience and related them to ourselves.
He did it, it was an act, He has done it, He will never again be flesh and blood; He took flesh and blood to bring to naught the devil, and through death destroyed him that had the power of death.
There is an inheritance to enter into, a victory over him that had the power of death. Eph. 6:10-12: "our wrestling is against Principalities and Powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in high places," but we are not wrestling with a doubtful issue, it is a wrestling energized by this in created faith which raised Christ from the dead that makes the Lord's won victory ours in experience; it is not fighting for a victory but fighting in a victory, appropriating His victory as we go along.
The Holy Spirit by this in created faith is bringing us back to a position, back to that Cross, when He shook off from Himself the hostile princes and rulers and boldly displayed them as His conquests when by the Cross He triumphed over them (Weymouth, Col. 2:15).
There is a point of faith in the child of God which brings him into a position of immunity as to whatever the devil can do; he can torture him, tear him asunder, persecute him, bring about his death; and bring about such darkness of seeming forsaking of God, yet there is a point of faith in the child of God, that he is not moved by all these things. This increated faith of the Holy Spirit is the strength of the might that raised Christ from the dead.
See all the workings of the enemy since the cross, as they really are; it is all camouflage, and the devil can only get an advantage in so far as we are faithless; when faith gets to a certain point the devil is powerless and impotent; this is the victory that overcomes him, this in created faith of the Holy Spirit.
The old dispensation was ever looking towards Calvary and in the new dispensation it is an ever looking back to the accomplished work at Calvary of the Lord Jesus, Son of God, Son of Man. |
The Broke Pitchers
by T. DeWitt Talmage (1832-1902)
"And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal .... And they stood every man in his place round about the camp: and all the host ran, and cried, and fled" (Judges 7:20-21).
That is the strangest battle ever fought. God had told Gideon to go down and drive out of the land the Midianites, but his army is too large; for the glory must be given to God, and not to man. And so proclamation is made that all those of the troops who are afraid and want to go home, may go; and twenty two thousand of them scampered away, leaving only ten thousand men.
But God says the army is too large yet, and so He orders these ten thousand remaining to march down to a stream, and commands Gideon to notice in what manner these men drink of the water when they come to it. If they get down on all fours and drink, then they are to be pronounced lazy and incompetent for the campaign; but if, in passing through the stream, they scoop up the water in the palm of their hands and drink, and pass on, they are to be the men selected for the battle. Well, the ten thousand men march down to the stream and most of them go down on all fours and plunge their mouths, like a horse or an ox, into the water and drink - but there are three hundred men who, instead of stooping, just dip the palm of their hands in the water and bring it to their lips, "lapping it as a dog lappeth." Those three hundred brisk, rapid, enthusiastic men are chosen for the campaign. They are each to take a trumpet in the right hand and a pitcher in the left hand, and there must be a lamp inside the pitcher, and then at a given signal they are to blow the trumpets and throw down the pitchers and hold up the lamps. So it was done.
It is night. I see a great host of Midianites, sound asleep in the valley of Jezreel. Gideon comes up with his three hundred picked men and surrounds the camp on all sides, and when everything is ready, the signal is given and they blow the trumpets and they throw down the pitchers and hold up the lamps, and the great host of Midianites, waking out of a sound sleep, take the crash of the crockery and the glare of the lamps for the coming on of an overwhelming foe; and they run and cut themselves to pieces and horribly perish.
The lessons of this subject are very spirited and impressive. This seemingly valueless lump of quartz has the pure gold in it. The smallest dew drop on the meadow at night has a star sleeping in its bosom, and the most insignificant passage of Scripture has in it a shining truth. God's mint coins no small change.
I learn in the first place from this subject, the lawfulness of Christian stratagem. You know very well that the greatest victories ever gained by Washington or Napoleon were gained through the fact that they came when and in a way they were not expected - sometimes falling back to draw out the foe, sometimes breaking out from ambush, sometimes crossing a river on rafts; all the time keeping the opposing forces in wonderment as to what would be done next. The northern troops beat their life out in the straightforward fight at Fredericksburg, but it was through strategy they got the victory at Lookout Mountain.
You all know what strategy is in military affairs. Now I think it is high time we had this art sanctified and spiritualized. In the Church, when we are about to make a Christian assault, we send word to the opposing force when we expect to come, how many troops we have, and how many rounds of shot, and whether we will come with artillery, infantry, or cavalry, and of course we are defeated. There are thousands of men who might be surprised into the Kingdom of God. We need more tact and ingenuity in Christian work. It is in spiritual affairs, as in military, that success depends in attacking that part of the castle which is not armed and entrenched.
For instance, here is a man all armed on the doctrine of Election - all his troops of argument and prejudice are at that particular gate. You may batter away at that side of the castle for fifty years and you will not take it; but just wheel your troops to the side gate of the heart's affections, and in five minutes you capture him. I never knew a man to be saved through a brilliant argument. You cannot hook men into the Kingdom of God by the horns of a dilemma. There is no Grace in syllogisms. Here is a man armed upon the subject of the Perseverance of the Saints; he does not believe in it. Attack him at that point, and he will persevere to the very last in not believing it. Here is a man armed on the subject of Baptism; he believes in sprinkling or immersion. All your discussion of Ecclesiastical hydropathy will not change him. I remember, when I was a boy, that with other boys I went into the river on a summer day to bathe, and we used to dash the water on each other, but never got any result except that our eyes were blinded, and all this splashing of water between Baptists and Pedobaptists never results in any thing but the blurring of the spiritual eyesight. In other words, you never can capture a man's soul at the point at which he is especially entrenched. But there is in every man's heart a bolt that can be easily withdrawn. A little child four years old may touch that bolt and it will spring back and the door will swing open and Christ will come in.
I think that the finest of all the fine arts is the art of doing good, and yet this art is the least cultivated. We have in the Kingdom of God today enough troops to conquer the whole earth for Christ if we only had skillful maneuvering. I would rather have the three hundred lamps and pitchers of Christian stratagem than one hundred thousand drawn swords of literary and Ecclesiastical combat.
I learn from this subject, also, that a small part of the army of God will have to do all the hard fighting. Gideon's army was originally composed of thirty two thousand men, but they went off until there were only ten thousand left, and that was subtracted from until there were only three hundred. It is the same in all ages of the Christian Church; a few men have to do the hard fighting. Take a membership of a thousand, and you generally find that fifty people do the work. Take a membership of five hundred, and you generally find that ten people do the work. There are scores of Churches where two or three people do the work.
We have to mourn that there is so much useless lumber in the mountains of Lebanon. I think of the ten million membership of the Christian Church today, if five millions of the names were taken off the books the Church would be stronger. You know that the more cowards and drones there are in any army the weaker it is. I would rather have the three hundred picked men of Gideon than the twenty two thousand unsifted host. How many Christians there are standing in the way of all progress! I think it is the duty of the Church of God to ride over them, and the quicker it does it, the quicker it does its duty.
Do not worry, O Christian, if you have to do more than your share of the work. You had better thank God that He has called you to be one of the picked men, rather than to belong to the host of stragglers. Would not you rather be one of the three hundred that fight, than the twenty-two thousand that desert? I suppose those cowardly Gideonites who went off congratulated themselves. They said, "We got rid of all that fighting, did not we? How lucky we have been; that battle costs us nothing at all." But they got none of the spoils of the victory. After the battle the three hundred men went down and took the wealth of the Midianites, and out of the cups and platters of their enemies they feasted. And the time will come, my dear brethren, when the hosts of darkness will be routed, and Christ will say to his troops, "Well done, my brave men, go up and take the spoils! Be more than conquerors forever!" And in that day all deserters will be shot!
Again: I learn from this subject, that God's way is different from man's, but is always the best way. If we had the planning of that battle, we would have taken those thirty two thousand men that originally belonged to the army, and we would have drilled them, and marched them up and down by the day and week and month, and we would have them equipped with swords or spears, according to the way of arming in those times; and then we would have marched them down in solid column upon the foe. But that is not the way. God depletes the army, and takes away all their weapons, and gives them a lamp and a pitcher and a trumpet, and tells them to go down and drive out the Midianites. I suppose some wiseacres were there who said, "That is not military tactics. The idea of three hundred men, unarmed, conquering such a great host of Midianites!" It was the best way. What sword, spear, or cannon ever accomplished such a victory as the lamp, pitcher, and trumpet?
God's way is different from man's way, but it is always best! Take, for instance, the composition of the Bible. If we had the writing of the Bible, we would have said, "Let one man write it. If you have twenty or thirty men to write a poem or make a statute or write a history or make an argument there will be flaws and contradictions." But God says, "Let not one man do it, but forty men shall do it." And they did, differing enough to show there had been no collusion between them, but not contradicting each other on any important point, while they all wrote from their own standpoint and temperament; so that the matter of fact man has his Moses; the romantic nature his Ezekiel; the epigrammatic his Solomon, the warrior his Joshua, the sailor his Jonah; the loving his John; the logician his Paul. Instead of this Bible, which now I can lift in my hand; instead of the Bible that the child can carry to school this afternoon; instead of the little Bible the sailor can put in his jacket pocket when he goes to sea - if it had been left to men to write, it would have been a thousand volumes, judging from the amount of Ecclesiastical controversy which has arisen. God's way is different from man's, but it is best, infinitely best.
So it is in regard to the Christian's life. If we had had the planning of a Christian's life we would have said, "Let him have eighty years of sunshine, a fine house to live in; let his surroundings all be agreeable; let him have sound health; let no chill shiver through his limbs, no pain furrow his brow, or trouble shadow his soul." I enjoy the prosperity of others so much, I would let every man have as much money as he wants, and roses for his children's cheeks, and fountains of gladness glancing in their large round eyes. But that is not God's way. It seems as if a man must be cut and hit and pounded just in proportion as he is useful. His child falls from a third story window and has its life dashed out; his most confident investment tumbles him into bankruptcy; his friends, upon whom he depended, aid the natural force of gravitation in taking him down; his life is a Bull Run defeat.
Instead of twenty two thousand advantages, he has only ten thousand - nay, only three hundred - nay, none at all. How many good people there are who are at their wits end about their livelihood, about their health, about their reputation. But they will find out it is the best way after a while; God will show them that He depletes their advantages just for the same reason He depleted the army of Gideon - that they may be induced to throw themselves on His mercy.
A grape vine says, in the early spring, "How glad I am to get through the winter! I shall have no more trouble now! Summer weather will come, and the garden will be very beautiful!" But the gardener comes, and cuts the vine here and there with his knife. The twigs begin to fall, and the grape vine calls out, "Murder! What are you cutting me for?" "Ali," says the gardener, "I don't mean to kill you. If I did not do this you would be the laughing stock of all the other vines before the season is over." Months go on, and one day the gardener comes under the trees, where great clusters of grapes hang, and the grape vine says, "Thank you, sir; you could not have done anything so kind as to have cut me with that knife," "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." "Every branch that beareth fruit He purgeth that it may bring forth more fruit." No pruning, no grapes; no grinding mill, no flour; no battle, no victory; no Cross, no Crown!
So God's way in the redemption of the world is different from ours. If we had our way, we would have had Jesus stand in the door of Heaven and beckon the nations up to light, or we would have had angels flying around the earth proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ. Why is it that the cause goes on so slowly? Why is it that the chains stay on, when God could knock them off? Why do thrones of despotism stand, when God could so easily demolish them? It is His way, in order that all generations may cooperate, and that all men may know they cannot do the work themselves. Just in proportion as these pyramids of sin get up in height will they come down in ghastliness of ruin.
O thou father of all iniquity! If thou canst bear my voice above the crackling of the flames, drive on thy projects, dispatch thy emissaries, build thy temples, and forge thy claims; but know that thy fall from Heaven was not greater than thy final overthrow shall be when thou shalt be driven disarmed into thy fiery den; and for every lie thou hast framed upon earth thou shalt have an additional hell of fury poured into thine anguish by the vengeance of our God; and all Heaven shall shout at the overthrow, as from the ransomed earth the song breaks through the skies, "Hallelujah! For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth! Hallelujah! For the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord Jesus Christ!" God's way in the composition of the Bible, God's way in the Christian's life, God's way in the redemption of the world, God's way in everything - different from man's way, but the best.
I learn from this subject, that the overthrow of God's enemies will be sudden and terrific. There is the army of the Midianites down in the valley of Jezreel. I suppose their mighty men are dreaming of victory. Mount Gilboa never stood sentinel for so large a host. The spears and the shields of the Midianites gleam in the moonlight, and glance on the eye of the Israelites, who hover like a battle of eagles, ready to swoop from the cliff. Sleep on, oh army of the Midianites! With the night to hide them and the mountain to guard them and strong arms to defend them let no slumbering foe man dream of disaster! Peace to the captains and the spear men!
Crash go the pitchers! Up flare the lamps! To the mountains! Fly! Fly! Troop running against troop, thousands trampling upon thousands. A wild stampede! Hark to the scream and groan of the routed foe, with the Lord God Almighty after them! How sudden the onset, how wild the consternation, how utter the defeat! I do not care so much what is against me, if God is not. You want a better sword or carbine than I have ever seen, to go out and fight against the Lord omnipotent. Give me God for my ally, and you may have all the battlements and battalions.
I saw the defrauder in his splendid house. It seemed as if he had conquered God, as he stood amidst the blaze of chandeliers and pier mirrors. In the diamonds of the wardrobe I saw the tears of the widows whom he had robbed, and in the snowy satin the pallor of the white cheeked orphans whom he had wronged. The blood of the oppressed glowed in the deep crimson of the imported chair. The music trembled with the sorrow of unrequited toil. But the wave of mirth dashed higher on reefs of coral and pearl. The days and the nights went merrily. No sick child dared pull that silver door bell. No beggar dared sit on that marble step. No voice of prayer floated amidst that tapestry. No shadow of a Judgment day darkened that fresco. No tear of human sympathy dropped upon that upholstery. Pomp strutted through the hall, and Dissipation filled her cup and all seemed safe as the Midianites in the valley of Jezreel. But God came. Calamity smote the money market. The partridge left its eggs unhatched. Crash went all the porcelain pitchers! Ruin, rout, dismay, and woe in the valley of Jezreel!
Alas for those who fight against God! Only two sides. Man immortal, which side are you on? Woman immortal, which side are you on? Do you belong to the three hundred that are going to win the day, or to the great host of Midianites asleep in the valley, only to be roused up in consternation and ruin? Suddenly the golden bowl of life will be broken, and the trumpet blown that will startle our souls into eternity. The day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night, and as the God armed Israelites upon the sleeping foe. Ha! Canst thou pluck up courage for the day when the trumpet which hath never been blown shall speak the roll call of the dead; and the earth, dashing against a lost meteor, have its mountains scattered to the stars and oceans emptied in the air? Oh, then, what will become of you? What will become of me?
If those Midianites had only given up their swords the day before the disaster, all would have been well; and if you will now surrender the sins with which you have been fighting against God, you will be safe. Oh, make peace with him now, through Jesus Christ the Lord. With the clutch of a drowning man seize the Cross. Oh, surrender! Surrender! Christ, with His hand on His pierced side, asks you to.
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