The life of faith, in its every
step, is intensely individual. No one can have faith for another, and no one
ought to intrude upon another’s path. We may encourage one another to trust God
and to strengthen each other in the Lord. But let us be careful in counseling
another to do this or that unless we discern that there is distinct faith for
it. It is a serious thing to go beyond our depth—to feel the surging of the
tide of circumstances—if our feet are not on the rock. Can you imagine Abraham
asking anyone if it would be "faith or folly" for him to leave Ur of the Chaldees? or Moses asking the advice of others as to his leaving the court of
Pharaoh? We must receive instruction from the Lord and act before Him;
otherwise it will all end in confusion and disaster. Let us act upon the maxim,
"Never go before your faith and never lag behind your conscience."

Let not the persuasive arguments
of a thousand friends induce you to do anything with a doubtful mind. 
"Whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23). Look to the Lord
for guidance in every matter. See if you can do it to His glory; if not, lay it
aside.

                    
Responding to Painful

                        
Circumstances

You may be in painful
circumstances while seeking to do the right thing before the Lord. If you
really wait on Him, He will teach you when to speak and when to keep silence.
There is danger of speaking in haste of temper rather than in a spirit of love
when replying to the godless remarks of the unconverted. Further, we must
remember that there is often far more powerful testimony in solemn and
dignified silence than in talking for talking’s sake.

                     
Acting Impulsively

Let us dread to act under mere
impulse. It is always well to be sure of every step we take—to be able to give
a "Thus saith the Lord" for whatever we do or refuse to do. Very much
damage is done to the cause of truth and godliness by impulsive acting. We
greatly value calm, deep-toned decision for Christ—a decision produced by
genuine love to His Person and profound subjection to the authority of His
Word. These things are most needful in this day of man’s will, man’s judgment,
and man’s reason.

Trust Christ and act boldly for
Him. "If your eye be single, your whole body shall be full of light"
(Matt. 6:22). But if you are looking at circumstances, weighing consequences,
or conferring with flesh and blood, your eye is not single and you will be in
darkness and perplexity.

"When your eye is
single," that is, when you have but one object before you,
"your whole body also is full of light; but when your eye is evil, your
body also is full of darkness. Take heed, therefore, that the light which is in
you be not darkness. If your whole body therefore be full of light, having no
part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a
candle gives you light" (Luke 11:34-36).

How striking the contrast! Instead
of stumbling on the dark mountains, the obedient soul not only has light for
his own path, but he is actually a light-bearer for others. The moral progress
in the above passage is striking. There is first the single eye—the simple,
earnest purpose of heart to go right on in the path of obedience, cost what it
may. Then the body is full of light. But there is more:"If your whole
body therefore be full of light, having no part dark"—no reserve,
no chamber of the heart kept locked up on account of friends, self-interest,
worldly ease, or anything else—"the whole shall be full of light."
Thus you become transparent, and your light shines so that others see it. Not
that you think so, for a single eye never looks at self. If I make it my object
to be a light-bearer, I shall get full of darkness and be a stumbling-block.

Finally, my dear friends, let me
entreat you to yield yourself without reserve to the Word of your Lord. Do not
allow your "friends" to stand in your way. Will your friends answer
for you before the judgment seat of Christ? Can they now fill your heart with
that sweet peace which can only be found in the path of obedience? They do not
deserve the name of friends if they stand in your way in following Christ. May
God lead you forth into that blessed sphere in which you can walk with Him, work
for Him, and find all your springs in Him! To Him we earnestly commend you.

(From Short Papers, Vol. 2,
by C. H. Mackintosh; copyright 1975 by Believers Bookshelf, Sunbury, PA; used
by permission.)

"Remember those who have the
rule over you [or your leaders or your guides], who have spoken unto you the
Word of God; whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation [or
the outcome of their well-spent lives]" (Heb. 13:7).

In the Epistle to the Hebrews we
find a whole chapter devoted to human examples of faith. A great cloud of
witnesses looks down upon us in the eleventh chapter, and in the closing
chapter of the book, the writer speaks of their "guides" or
"leaders." They were to remember those who had passed away and
imitate their faith; they were to obey those who remained, realizing that they
were charged with weighty responsibilities, and were to salute them in all
honor and affection.

Scripture not only warrants but
commands the remembrance of those whom God has given as leaders of His people.
To forget them means, too often, to forget the truth they brought, and paves
the way for that "building the sepulchres of the prophets" by a
godless posterity who are indifferent to every warning spoken by those prophets
(Luke 11:47). There is a sober, discriminating way of dwelling upon the
ministry of faithful servants which encourages our own faith, quickens
conscience, and stirs afresh to follow them as they followed Christ.

Most biographies are written from
a human standpoint; the man is before us rather than his message. Such
biographies are not helpful; but who has not been stimulated by the narratives
of devotion, self-denial, unresting toil of faithful men at home or abroad? We
realize on either hand that they were men "of like passions with
ourselves" (Jas. 5:17), and that a Power wrought in and with them which is
for us too.

The passage we have quoted at the
beginning shows us how we can properly "remember our guides." First
of all, what makes their remembrance profitable is that they spoke to us the
Word of God. It was not for special personal excellence of character, either
natural or gracious; nor for great activities and results in the Lord’s work,
considered in themselves. What gives value to the remembrance of the leader is
the Word of God with which he was identified, the message he brought. 

We read of one of David’s mighty
men, Eleazar the son of Dodo, that he stood alone against a great host of
Philistines when "the men of Israel had gone away." He smote them
"till his hand was weary and his hand clave unto the sword; the LORD
wrought a great victory" (2 Sam. 23:9,10). His very name, "God is
help," turns from the man to God. What could he do single-handed against
the host of the enemy? His arm grew weary, but the weary hand cleaved to the
good sword, and we see no longer the feeble arm of man, but the power of God
behind that weary arm, hewing out victory with that sword. The man has become
identified with the sword, and God can use such a one.

So are all God’s mighty men;
feeble, and with weary arms, they cling to that "sword of the Spirit which
is the word of God" (Eph. 6:17). Their very weariness and feebleness makes
them cling like Jacob who, his thigh out of joint, could no more wrestle but
cling (Gen. 32:24-26). Such men God can use, for they are identified with their
sword, with the Word of God. To remember such is to remember the sword, the
Word which they brought. There can be no higher honor to a servant of Christ
than to identify him with the truth he ministered and to think of the sword he
held in his feebleness. The world may honor its soldiers, its men of wealth,
its benefactors, its entertainers, its athletes, and build them monuments. They
are its departed great men. Believers recall the memory of those who have left
their greatness in our hands, the Word of God. To do this is simply to have
mind refreshed and heart stirred by that which abides forever.

We are also to consider the issue,
or outcome of their walk. What has their life ended in? It has now ceased. A
rich man’s life ends, so far as what he leaves behind is concerned, in wealth;
a statesman’s in power and influence. In what shall we say the life of Christ’s
servant has ended? What has he left as the sum of that life? It is significant
that the very next clause gives what is really the answer:"Jesus Christ
the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8). The issue of their
life is the abiding Christ. They have passed off the scene, but Christ, the
object of their ministry, abides. With Paul they could say, "To me to live
is Christ" (Phil. 1:21). Christ is the end, the goal of their life. To
depart and be with Him is far better. Happy indeed are those who are called to
lay down their burden and enter into His rest. They loved and served Him here;
they enjoy unclouded peace and rest as they wait with Him there. The outcome,
the end of all their life’s work, toil, testimony is Christ. They enjoy
Him to the full now; they have, as it were, left Him as a priceless legacy to
us here.

Their life was a life of faith—the
refusal at once both of creature righteousness and creature strength. They had
learned to "rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the
flesh" (Phil. 3:3). We are not called to do, in detail, their work. God
calls and fits each of His servants for some special work, peculiarly suited to
the special gift with which he is endowed. We are not to be imitators of one
another, but ever to be imitators of the faith that casts the feeble
upon the Mighty.

Lastly, we note the warning not to
be "carried about with divers and strange doctrines" (Heb. 13:9). The
servant of Christ ever stands for His truth against all opposition of error.
His ministry, in so far as it was under the guidance and in the power of the
Holy Spirit, brought home to heart and conscience the truth of God and the
Person of the Lord.

Do we not need to be especially on
our guard in these days against the subtle inroads of error? The Person of the
Son of God, His atoning work, His Church, the destiny of man—are all objects of
the enemy’s attacks. Let us hold fast the truth, and Him who is the truth, and
His Word of truth.

We have, then four characteristics
of a proper memorial of departed leaders:(1) The Word of God ministered by
them; (2) the outcome or issue of their life, Christ for them and for us ever
the same; (3) the faith which occupied them with this blessed Person; and (4)
the warning against error. If we ever have these features before us, there will
be only profit in remembering those who have gone on before us.

There is nothing that the men of
this world dread more than solitude and reflection. They would rather be
overpressed with engagements than have leisure for thought. The conscience, ill
at ease, will at such times lift up its voice; but its warning voice must be
hushed by the convenient word "duty" and its honest speech is soon
and willingly forgotten. Sins—many sins—are there, and the thought of God as
the judge of sin is dreadful. The condition of the soul is such that it cannot
bear the light; therefore darkness is loved (John 3:19). The activities of this
present life are sought and welcomed, that the crushing weight of reflection
may be escaped. The pleasures of the world, too, in due time and place, serve a
similar purpose.

Thus every care is taken that
solitude may be avoided, and that there may be no opportunity for calm and
serious reflection. The solemn and eternal realities of the soul have no
portion of thought or time allowed them, the higher, nobler, and better part of
man is totally neglected and left uncared for and unprovided for,
notwithstanding its deep, pressing, and eternal need. "For what shall it
profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what
shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Mark 8:36,37). Such alas! is
man—man without the knowledge of God, without the knowledge of his condition as
a sinner, and without the knowledge of Jesus as the Saviour of sinners.

But turn for a while, O my soul,
from the contemplation of a scene so heart-rending; though strong, yet tender,
are the links that would draw thee there, and lead thee to wean loved ones from
it and win them for Christ. Cherish a spirit of meditation in the sweet solitudes
of the soul’s separation from the world, where the scene is radiant and joyous
with the presence of the Saviour. The wider the separation from the world, the
deeper the communion and the richer the blessing. When heart and spirit have no
sympathy with the world, then really, though in the world, they are yet
far away from its bustle and all its unhallowed scenes. A mighty chasm now
separates believers from this present evil world:"They are not of the
world," says Christ, "even as I am not of the world" (John
17:16). The position of Christ in resurrection is the definition of our
position as seen in Him. The calm, reflective quiet of the soul in communion
with the Person of the exalted Lord is what characterizes its sweetest moments
while here on earth. These may be found in the sick room, in the quiet country
home, or in the very seat and center of this world’s activities.  All
depends on the state of the heart. To be alone and yet not alone, how blessed!

"My meditation of Him shall
be sweet" (Psa. 104:34).

(From Meditations on the Song
of Solomon.)

(James 1:23-25)                              

"If any be a hearer of the
Word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a
glass." He may have ever so clear a view of himself; he sees clearly what
he is like for a moment; but he as soon forgets all. "He beholds himself
and goes his way." The image is faded and gone. He "straightway forgets
what manner of man he was." Oh, how true this is! It is that glimpse of
conviction by the truth that comes before souls when they are forced to discern
what the spring of their thoughts is, what their feelings are when the light of
God flashes over and through a man; but how soon it passes away, instead of
entering in and abiding within the soul! It is the power of the Spirit of God
alone that can engrave these things on the heart. Here the apostle is exposing
the absence of an internal work where intelligence is severed from conscience.
On the other hand, there is power and permanence with him who fixes his view on
"the perfect law of liberty."

What is "the law of
liberty"? It is the Word of God which directs a man begotten by the Word
of truth, urging and cheering and strengthening him in the very things that the
new life delights in. Consequently it has an action exactly the opposite of
that exercised by the law of Moses on the Israelites. This is evident from the
bare terms:"You shall not" do this, "You shall not"
do that. Why? Because they wanted to do what God prohibited. The natural desire
of man is after evil, but the law put a veto on the indulgence of the will. It
was necessarily negative, not positive, in character. The law forbade the very
things to which man’s own impulses and desires would have prompted him, and is
the solemn means of detecting rebellious fallen nature. But this is not the law
of liberty in any way, but the law of bondage, condemnation, and death.

The law of liberty brings in the
positive for those who love it—not the negation of what the will and lust of
man desires so much as the exercise of the new life—in what is according to its
own nature. Thus it has been often and very aptly described as a loving parent
who tells his child that he must go here or there; that is, the very places
which he knows perfectly the child would be most gratified to visit. Such is
the law of liberty. It is as if one said to the child, "Now, my child, you
must go and do such and such a thing," all the while knowing that you can
confer no greater favor on the child. It has not at all the character of
resisting the will of the child, but rather the directing of his affections in
the will of the object dearest to him. The child is regarded and led according
to the love of the parent who knows what the desire of the child is—a desire
that has been in virtue of a new nature implanted by God Himself in the child.
He has given Him a life that loves His ways and Word, that hates and revolts
from evil, and is pained most of all by falling through unwatchfulness under
sin, if it seemed ever so little. The law of liberty therefore consists not so
much in a restraint on gratifying the old man as in guiding and guarding the
new; for the heart’s delight is in what is good and holy and true, and the word
of our God on the one hand exercises us in cleaving to that which is the joy of
the Christian’s heart, and strengthens us in our detestation of all that we
know to be offensive to the Lord.

Such is the law of liberty.
Accordingly, "Whoso looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues
therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man
shall be blessed in his deed [or rather, doing]."

(From Help and Food, Vol.
25.)

Have you ever thought much of the
exercise of meditation, and how frequently it is spoken of in Scripture (Gen.
24:63; Psa. 1:2; 19:14; 49:3; 63:6; 77:12; 119:99,148; etc.)?

Perhaps it may be from want of
this holy exercise, and really comprehending it, that the Church of the living
God is wanting in unity of doctrine and in spirituality of mind.

The study of God’s Word may be
concentrated, deep, constant, like searching for a vein of gold; and memory may
marvelously retain and bring forth what study has discovered. But meditation is
not the discovery of more or new things, but a calm sitting down with God to
enrich oneself with what study has discovered, and feeding with Him upon the
stores which memory has laid up.

Study and memory make the ready
and admired speaker; but meditation makes the sweet, living exhibition of Jesus
everywhere, whether speaking or silent (Josh. 1:9; Psa. 104:34; 119:15). Truths
from an infinite, all-wise God have in them more than the best meditative
faculty has ever or can ever digest.

May the Lord unfold to you and me
some of His own rich stores. They are so deep! But I am only at the surface of
them. They are our inheritance, and our "inheritance shall be
forever" (Psa. 37:18).

(Reprinted from Words of Truth,
Vol. 6.)

The differences between law and
responsibility are immense, and it is important to understand them. Law
comes to man and says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and
your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27). It says, Do this and live, but if
you fail in any measure, your doom is sure. Such is law, both in
character and purpose. It is unbending. It cannot forgive. It demands of man
what is right, but it gives him no power to do the right. It forbids and
condemns the wrong, but cannot change the heart of man who naturally loves evil
and hates restraint. Like a dam across the river forbidding the waters to flow
on, it stands as a bulwark against evil, only to find out that the flood breaks
over the dam and still flows on. Law manifests the evil but does not cure it.

Responsibility is what
comes with receiving gifts from God. If, as Creator, He has bestowed upon man
abilities, talents, a mind and a will, each and all of which make him a
creature superior to all others, man is responsible for making use of all this
in the way suited to the purpose God had in giving them. If as Redeemer He bestows
new gifts upon man, those new gifts bring their own responsibilities.

When God came to Abraham and
called him to leave his native land and kindred and go to a place which God
would show him, it was because He had bestowed upon Abraham that which enables
a man to confide in God as a little child confides in its father, trusting
implicitly in the love that guides him. Faith had been imparted to
Abraham. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God"
(Rom. 10:17). While dwelling in his own country the God of glory appeared to
him and said, "Get out of your country, and from your kindred, and come
into the land that I will show you" (Acts 7:2,3).

Abraham was thus brought into a
new relationship with God, and this relationship brought responsibility. The
true God having made Himself known to Abraham, Abraham could no longer serve
false gods. Having been bidden to leave his native land and go to another, he
could no longer feel at home where he was, but must go on as bidden. He may
have been checked and hindered in this, but his new responsibilities pressed
upon him.

It was not till after his father’s
death at Haran, part way to Canaan, that Abraham seemed free. From that moment,
"they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came" (Gen. 12:5). They did not stop this time, but pressed on to
the end. But all those days of Abraham’s dwelling in Haran, the responsibility
of obeying God was upon Him; while he lingered there, we hear of no word of any
appearance of God to him or of any altar built by him. But as soon as he came
to a stopping place in Canaan, the Lord appeared to him and he built an
altar. There is the obedience of faith on Abraham’s part, grace and blessing on
God’s part. The relationship between God and Abraham was of God’s pure grace;
it involved responsibility on Abraham’s part to believe and obey.

The responsibility was a very
different matter from the law which was given 430 years later. "Get out
… and I will make of you a great nation" (Gen. 12:1,2) is very different
from "Do this and you shall live" or "Cursed is everyone who
disobeys." The principle is different, the purpose of both is different,
and should not be confounded. One reveals God while the other reveals man and
leaves God still in the thick darkness and amid the thunderings and lightnings
of Sinai.

Christians are not under law, but
they have wondrous blessing and grace and privileges and promises. This brings
corresponding responsibilities, and this, if we understand our weakness, as displayed
in Abraham, casts us the more upon God for grace to meet those
responsibilities. The more a child of God realizes his absolute dependence upon
God, and what God has in Christ for His people and gives them whatever they
need, the more will he glorify Him, and the more will such an one enjoy the
grace of God. A sense of our responsibility as children of God will bring us to
Him for strength and wisdom and all else we need. It will, of necessity, make
us a prayerful people.

But law sets men to trying in
their own strength to do what is right, to keep the commandments. Under grace a
believer walks in newness of life, walks after the Spirit in love, and thus in
him the righteousness of the law is fulfilled (Rom. 8:1-4). Under law a soul is
in bondage, trying to do what his fallen nature makes impossible. He is never
at rest, always coming short. One’s own doings are ever before the mind of the
earnest legalist, and such a mind is never at peace. What brings peace is the
knowledge of the grace of God through the work of Christ on the cross, thus
keeping Him ever before us as the Friend who loves us better than anyone else,
and is never weary of us.

As the sense of our responsibility
presses upon us, we find all we need in Him. It is not trying and fearing and
hoping under law, but turning away from all else to Christ, finding in Him
strength and wisdom and every need fully me.

(From Help and Food, Vol.
31.)

"Meditate upon these things
… that your profiting may appear to all" (1 Tim. 4:15).

It has pleased the Lord to teach me
a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than 14 years. The point
is this:the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every
day is to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about
is not how much I might serve or glorify the Lord. Rather it is how I might get
my soul into a happy state and how my inner man might be nourished. I might
seek to set the truth before the unconverted, to benefit believers, to relieve
the distressed, or to behave myself in other ways as it becomes a child of God.
But if I am not happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened in
my inner man day by day, these things might not be done in a right spirit.
Before this time my habitual practice had been to give myself to prayer after
having dressed myself in the morning. Now I have seen that the most important
thing I have to do is to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to
meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned,
reproved, and instructed. Thus, while meditating upon the Word of God my heart
is brought into experiential communion with the Lord.

I have begun therefore to meditate
on the Scriptures early each morning. The first thing I do, after having asked
in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon His precious Word, is to begin to
meditate on the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse, to get
blessing out of it. This is not for the sake of public ministry of the Word but
for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. Almost invariably I have found
that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession or
thanksgiving or intercession or supplication. Thus, though I do not give myself
to prayer but to meditation, yet it turns almost immediately more or less into
prayer.

Having been for a while making
confession or intercession or supplication, or giving thanks, I go to the next
words or verse, turning all into prayer for myself or others as the Word may
lead to it. All the while I keep before me that the object of my meditation is
food for my own soul. The result of this is that there is always a good deal of
confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my
meditation, and then my inner man almost invariably is nourished and
strengthened.

I often find that the Lord is
pleased to use that which He has communicated unto me to minister to other
believers at some later time. This occurs even though it is not for the sake of
public ministry of the Word that I give myself to meditation, but for the
profit of my own inner man.

The difference, then, between my
former practice and my present one is this:formerly, when I awakened, I began
to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent almost all my time till
breakfast in prayer. I almost invariably began with prayer except when I felt
my soul to be more than usually barren, in which case I read the Word of God
for food or for refreshment, or for revival and renewal of my inner man, before
I gave myself to prayer. But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an
hour, or half an hour, or even an hour, on my knees, before being conscious of
having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc., and often after
having suffered much from wandering of mind. I scarcely ever suffer now in this
way. My heart is brought into experiential fellowship with God; I then speak to
my Father and to my Friend (vile though I am and unworthy of it) about the
things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.

It often now astonishes me that I
did not sooner see this point. In no book did I ever read about it. No public
ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private discussion with a
fellow-believer stirred me up to this matter. And yet, now, since God has
taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything that the first thing the
child of God has to do morning by morning is to obtain food for his inner man.

As the outward man is not fit for
work for any length of time except we take food, and as this is one of the
first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. What is
the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God. Again, it is not
the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our
minds, just as water runs through a pipe; rather, it is considering what we
read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.

When we pray, we speak to God. Now
prayer, in order to be continued for any length of time in any other than a
formal manner, requires a measure of godly desire. The season when this
exercise of soul can be most effectually performed is after the inner man has
been nourished by meditation on the Word of God where we find our Father
speaking to us to encourage, comfort, instruct, humble, or reprove us. We may
therefore profitably meditate, with God’s blessing, though we are ever so weak
spiritually. In fact, the weaker we are, the more we need meditation for the
strengthening of our inner man.

Thus there is far less to be
feared from wandering of mind than if we give ourselves to prayer without
having had time previously for meditation. I dwell so particularly on this
point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of
having derived from it myself. I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my
fellow believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God, I ascribe to
this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace
through deeper trials, in various ways, than I had ever had before; and after
having now more than 14 years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of
God, commend it.

In addition to this, I generally
read, after family prayer, larger portions of the Word of God when I still
pursue my practice of reading regularly onward in the Holy Scriptures,
sometimes in the New Testament, and sometimes in the Old. For more than 26
years I have proved the blessedness of it. I take, also, either then or at
other parts of the day, time more especially for prayer.

What a difference it makes for the
soul to be refreshed and made happy early in the morning, compared to meeting
the service, the decisions, and the trials of the day without spiritual preparation!

What is the Christian’s rule of
life? The answer is Christ. Christ is our life, rule, pattern, example, and
everything; the Spirit is our living quickener and power to follow Him; and the
Word of God is that in which we find Him revealed and His mind unfolded in
detail. But while all Scripture, rightly divided, is our light as the inspired
Word of God, Christ and the Spirit are set before us as the pattern, life, and
guide, in contrast with law; and Christ is exclusively everything. Power
accompanies this, for we are "declared to be the epistle of Christ
ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God;
not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart…. But we all, with
open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the
same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor.
3:3,18). In this chapter Christ is presented in contrast with the law. We are
seen to be Christ’s epistle—His letter of recommendation to the world. And
verse 18 shows that there is power in looking at Christ to produce such an
epistle in us. Such power cannot be found in a law. So in Galatians 2:20 and
5:16, in contrast with law, the apostle shows the Spirit to be the power of
godliness.

We have an Object governing the
heart:One to whom we are promised to be conformed, and One to whom we are
earnestly desirous of being as conformed as possible now—One who absorbs our
attention to the exclusion of all else. We are predestinated to be conformed to
the image of God’s Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren
(Rom. 8:29). My delight in Him is the spring of action and motive which governs
me. And my love to Him and the beauty I see in Him are the springs of my
delight in being like Him. It is not a rule written down, but a living
exhibition of One who, being my life, is to be reproduced in me and by me:
"Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the
life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body" (2 Cor. 4:10).

Christ is a source to me of all
those things in which I long to be like Him. Beholding with open face the glory
of the Lord, I am changed into the same image. No rule of life can do this.
"Of His fullness we all have received, and grace upon grace (John 1:16
JND). A rule of life has no fullness to communicate. Hence He says,
"Sanctify them through thy truth:thy word is truth…. And for their
sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the
truth" (John 17:17,19). It is the Spirit taking the things of Christ and
revealing them to us which thus forms us into His image. What a blessed truth
this is! How every affection of the heart is thus taken up with that which is
holiness when I see it in One who not only has loved me, but who is altogether
lovely! Hence I am called to "walk worthy of the Lord unto all
pleasing" (Col. 1:10), and to "grow up into Him in all things, which
is the head, even Christ" (Eph. 4:15).

The Object I am now aiming at is
not now on earth; it is Christ risen. This makes my conversation to be
heavenly. Hence he says, "If you then be risen with Christ, seek those
things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection
on things above, not on things on the earth" (Col. 3:1,2). It is by
looking at Christ above that we get to be like Him as He was on earth, and to
walk worthy of Him. We get above the motives which would tie us to earth. We
are to be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding so as to walk worthy of the Lord (Col. 1:9,10). No mere rule can
give this. The law has no reference to this heavenly life. So we are to discern
things that are excellent. Even Abraham did not, in the most excellent part of
his life, walk by rule. He looked for a city that has foundations and was a
stranger and a pilgrim in the land of promise. If we are reduced to a mere rule
of life, we lose the spring of action.

The discernment of a Christian
depends on his spiritual and moral state, and God means it to be so. He will
not be a mere director. He makes us dependent on spirituality even to know what
His will is. The perfection of Christ is set before us as attainment. The
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ is our measure, our model, our
rule, our strength, and our help in grace, the object of our delight, and our
motive in walking.

Happy is he who keeps by His side
to learn how he ought to walk, and who understands the riches that are in
Christ and the beauty of His ways, and who enjoys communion with Him, pleasing
Him every day more and more!

(From Collected Writings,
Vol. 10.)

The Song of Solomon has been
called the book of communion. We have that beautifully set forth in the first
seven verses of the second chapter. The bride and the bridegroom are conversing
together. We delight to speak with those whom we love. One of the wonderful
things about love is that when someone has really filled the vision of your
soul, you do not feel that any time that is taken up communing with him is
wasted. Here then you have the lovers in the country together and she exclaims,
for it is evidently she who speaks in verse one:"I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys." Generally we apply those words to the blessed
Lord; we speak of Him as the Rose of Sharon. We sing sometimes, "He’s the
Lily of the Valley, He’s the Bright and Morning Star." It is perfectly
right and proper to apply all these delightful figures to Him, for we cannot
find any figure that speaks of that which is beautiful and of good report that
cannot properly be applied to the Lord. But the wonderful thing is that He has
put His own beauty upon His people. And so here the bride is looking up into
the face of the bridegroom saying, "I am the rose [really the narcissus, a
blood-red flower] of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys"—the lily that
thrives in the hidden place, not in the town, not in the heart and bustle of
the city, but out on the cool countryside, in the quiet field. Does it not
speak of the soul’s separation to Christ Himself?

It is when we draw apart from the
things of the world, apart to Himself, that we really thrive and grow in grace
and become beautiful in His sight. I am afraid that many of us do not develop
spiritually as we should because of the fact that we know so little of this
heart-separation to Himself. One of the great griefs that comes to the heart of
many a one who is seeking to lead others on in the ways of Christ is to know
the influence that the world has upon them after they are converted to God. How
often the question comes from young Christians, "Must I give up this and
must I give up that if I am going to live a consistent Christian life?"
And the things that they speak of with such apparent yearning are mere trifles
after all as compared with communion with Him. Must I give up eating sawdust in
order to enjoy a good dinner? Who would talk like that? Must I give up the
pleasures of the world in order that I may have communion with Christ? It is
easy to let them all go if the soul is enraptured with Him; and when you get to
know Him better, when you learn to enjoy communion with Him, you will find
yourself turning the question around. So when the world says, "Won’t you
participate with us in this doubtful pleasure or in this unholy thing?"
your answer will be, "Must I give up so much to come down to that level?
Must I give up communion with Him? Must I give up the enjoyment of His Word?
Must I give up fellowship with His people in order to go in the ways of the
world?" Dear Christian, do not think of it as giving up anything to
go apart with Him and enjoy His blessed fellowship.

Let us consider a word of warning
against two opposite evils that are working among Christians at the present
time. These are legality on the one hand and levity on the other.

The first of these evils, taking
up the law as a rule of life, is dishonoring to God and utterly subversive of
one’s peace and liberty. It is needful to set forth the free grace of God, the
value of the blood of Christ, the standing of the believer before God in
perfect righteousness and acceptance in Christ. These precious truths, when
applied to the heart in the power of the Holy Spirit, must deliver it from all
legal influences.

But it frequently happens that
persons, when apparently delivered from legality, run into the opposite evil of
levity. This may arise from the fact that the doctrines of grace are only taken
up intellectually, instead of being wrought into the soul by the power of the
Spirit of God. A great amount of evangelical truth may be taken up in a very
light way by persons in whom there has been no deep work of conscience, no real
breaking down of nature, no thorough subjugation of the flesh in the presence
of God. When this is the case there is sure to be levity of spirit in some form
or another. There will be a very wide margin allowed for worldliness of various
kinds—a liberty given to nature wholly incompatible with practical
Christianity. In addition to these things, there will be exhibited a very
deplorable lack of conscience in the practical details of daily life—duties
neglected, work badly done, engagements not faithfully observed, sacred
obligations trifled with, debts contracts, extravagant habits indulged. All
these things we place under the head of levity, and they are, alas! too common
among the very highest professors of what is termed evangelical truth.

Now we deeply deplore this and
would desire to have our own souls, as well as the souls of all our Christian
readers, really exercised before God about it. We fear there is a great deal of
hollow profession among us, a great want of earnestness, truthfulness, and
reality in our ways. We are not sufficiently permeated by the spirit of genuine
Christianity, or governed in all things by the Word of God. Thus the soul gets
into a bad state, conscience does not act, moral sensibilities become blunted,
the claims of truth are not responded to, positive evil is trifled with, and
moral relaxation is allowed. So far from there being the constraining
power of the love of Christ, leading forth in the activities of goodness, there
is not even the restraining power of the fear of God keeping back from
the activities of evil.

We appeal solemnly to the
consciences of our readers as to these things. The present is a deeply solemn
time for Christians. There is a demand for earnest, deep-toned devotedness to
Christ; but this cannot possibly exist where the common claims of practical
righteousness are neglected. We must ever remember that the self-same grace
which effectually delivers the soul from legality is the only safeguard against
all levity. We have done very little for a person, if anything at all, if we
bring him/her out of a legal state into a light, easy-going, careless,
unconscientious condition of heart. And yet we have frequently marked the
history of souls and noticed that when they were delivered out of darkness and
bondage they became far less tender and sensitive. The flesh is ever ready to
turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, and therefore it must be subdued.

It is necessary for the power of
the Cross to be applied to all that is of the flesh. We need those deep
spiritual exercises that result from positive entrance into the power of the
sufferings of Christ. We need to meditate more profoundly upon the death of
Christ.

The Cross, beloved reader, is at
once the cure for both legality and levity. Christ "gave Himself for our
sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the
will of God and our Father" (Gal. 1:4). By the Cross the believer is as
completely delivered from this present evil world as he is forgiven his sins.
He is not saved in order that he may enjoy the world, but that he may get done
with it entirely. We know few things more dangerous for the soul than the
combination of evangelical truth with worldliness, ease, and self-indulgence
… the adoption of a certain phraseology of truth where the conscience is not
in the presence of God … a merely intellectual apprehension of standing
without any earnest dealing with the practical state … clearness of
doctrine as to title without any conscientious reference to the moral
condition.

We trust our readers will allow
the word of exhortation. It is not an agreeable task to call attention to
practical evils, to urge the solemn duty of self-judgment, to press upon the
conscience the claims of practical godliness. But there are times when the
true, practical condition of things among Christians weights heavily upon the
heart and rouses the soul to make an urgent appeal to conscience in reference to
matters of walk and conduct; I believe the present to be such a time. (Ed.
note:This was written well over 100 years ago! How much more needed it is
today!) The devil is ever busy and on the alert. The Lord has granted much
light upon His Word for some years past. The gospel has been brought out with
particular clarity and power. Thousands have been delivered from a legal state.
And now the enemy is seeking to hinder the testimony by leading souls into a
light, careless, carnal condition—leading them to neglect the wholesome and
indispensable exercise of self-judgment. It is the deep sense of this that has
suggested a word of warning on "Legality and Levity."

(From Miscellaneous Writings,
Vol. 6, Loizeaux Brothers, Neptune, NJ; used by permission.)

In these days of hurry and bustle,
we find ourselves face to face with a terrible danger—no time to be alone with
God. The world in these last days is running fast; we live in what is called
"the age of progress." "You know we must keep pace with the
times," so the world says. [Ed. note:This was written 95 years ago!] But
this spirit of the world has not confined itself to the world. It is, alas, to
be found among the saints of God. And what is the result? No time to be alone
with God. And this is followed by no inclination to be alone with God.
Can there be any condition more deplorable than the condition of a child of God
who has no inclination to be alone with his Father?

Nowadays how many of God’s dear
children have picked up the "spirit of the age"; and how many
Christians are pushed into service for God, or thrust themselves into it, who
have had no "apprenticeship," no desert training. They have taken a
terrible short-cut into the front of the battle, a short-cut that has cut off
entirely the school of God!

How different is this from what
meets our eye in the pages of our Father’s Book. If we look at Abraham, we find
him sweetly communing with his God, far away in the plains of Mamre, sitting in
his tent door in the heat of the day (Gen. 18:1), while his worldly nephew is
keeping pace with the spirit of the age in ungodly Sodom. We find Joseph at
least two full years in God’s school—although it be an Egyptian dungeon—before
he steps up to teach her "senators wisdom" (Psa. 105:22) and
"save much people alive" (Gen. 50:20).

We find Moses at God’s school in
the back side of the desert (Exod. 3:1). Then, but not till then, he appears
publicly as the deliverer of the people of God. For David also the wilderness
is the school of God. There he slays the lion and the bear (1 Sam. 17:34-36)
when no human eye is near. He gets the victory alone with God. Fresh from God’s
school, he steps before the thousands of Israel; and while all Israel follows
Saul, the people’s man, trembling, there is one who trembles not, and he is the
one who has been at God’s school in the wilderness alone with Himself. Little
wonder, then, that the Lord wrought a great victory in Israel that day!

We might multiply instances from
the Book of God. We might tell of Elijah, a bold witness for God, who was
longer alone with his God than standing in the place of public testimony. He
found the solitude of Cherith and the quiet seclusion of Zarephath (1 Ki.
17:3,9) a needed training before he delivered the messages of God. John the
Baptist was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel (Luke 1:80).
The apostle Paul’s journey to Arabia seems to have been for no other purpose
than to be at God’s school in the desert (Gal. 1:17). But from the instances we
have noticed, nothing can be clearer than this, that if you and I are to be of
any use to God down here—if we would glorify Him on the earth—we must have time
to be alone with Him.

Whoever or whatever is put off,
God must not be put off. Whether we are "gifted" or not
"gifted," every one of us must have time alone with God. It is in the
closet that the "lions" and the "bears" must be slain. It
is in the secret presence of God, with no one near but Him, that the spiritual
Agags must be brought out and hewn in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal (1 Sam.
15:33). Then, when we appear before our brethren or the world, we shall find
ours to be the "strong confidence" which is the portion of all who
have to do with God in secret. The "Goliaths" shall be slain; God’s
work shall be done. We need not fear that God will not use us. It is only by
being in God’s school that He can use us—not perhaps in the dazzling way that
the world and many Christians admire, but in His own way, in a way that will
most honor Him.

The Lord makes all these things
clear to us while we are alone with Himself. It is only then we really do God’s
work, it is only then we do it in God’s way, it is only then we do the very
things God has fitted us for and at the very time appointed of the Father. What
secrets we get from the Lord alone with Himself! If we do not care for the
secret of His presence, what does He care for all our boasted service! It is
ourselves He wants, and it is only service flowing out of the joy of His
presence that is worthy of the name. It is only such service that shall stand
the fire of the judgment seat, and bring joy in the day of Christ that we have
not run in vain nor labored in vain.

May each one of us have an open
ear to the Master’s voice when He says to us, "Come ye yourselves apart
into a desert place" (Mark 6:31), remembering that though He were the Son
of the Father, we find Him time after time departing "into a solitary
place," and there praying, although in doing so He had to get up a
"great while before day" (Mark 1:35). The faithful witness Himself,
as well as His faithful and trusted servants in every age, required a desert
experience—a wilderness teaching alone with God. Beloved, so do we!

(From Help and Food, Vol.
21.)

John 1:17. "The law was given
by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Law and
grace are diverse principles; the law demands, grace gives.

Gal. 3:10,13. The law says,
"Cursed is every one who continues not in all things that are
written in the book of the law to do them." The law has cursed every
soul that is under it, for none have fully kept it. In contrast, Christ has
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us."

Rom. 10:4. "Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness of every one who believes." Christ not only
fully kept the law and glorified God in all His life, but died for our sins,
bore for us the law’s curse, and He is our righteousness before God.

Rom. 7:4-6. "Wherefore, my
brethren, you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you
should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we
should bring forth fruit unto God. The believer has "become dead to the
law" by Christ’s death, that we should be married to the One who is
raised from the dead.

Gal. 2:16-21. "I through the
law am dead to the law" (condemned, put to death by it, and so dead
to it) "that I might live unto God." This deliverance from the law,
and joy in God’s grace, gives power to please God and walk in His ways.

Gal. 5:1. The apostle’s
exhortation is:"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage,
that is, the yoke of the law which, the apostle Peter says, "neither our
fathers nor we were able to bear" (Acts 15:10).

The apostle Paul writing to the
Galatian saints who had received the gospel, had been saved by it, and
delivered from the bondage of the law, asks, "How do you turn again to the
weak and beggarly elements, whereunto you desire again to be in bondage?"
(Gal. 4:9). He also testifies to them:"Christ has become of no effect
unto you who are justified by the law; you are fallen from grace" (Gal.
5:4). These are searching truths for those who would, in this
"dispensation of the grace of God," put themselves under the law.

Some may say, and have said,
"This doctrine of `grace’ for the life and walk of believers is a very
dangerous doctrine, for it allows them to live in sin, to please themselves,
with no restraint. This very question is raised and answered in Romans 6. The
answer is, "God forbid. How shall we who are dead to sin live any
longer therein?" The truth is, the true believer, being born of God,
now hates sin (as before he loved it), and his earnest desire is to live and
"walk in newness of life." He loves God and hates sin. "The love
of Christ constrains us, because we thus judge that … He died for all, that
they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who
died for them and rose again" (2 Cor. 5:14,15). Love to our blessed
Lord is the power for the new life.

The standard for the daily walk of
the believer is a high standard; it is higher than the law, it is Christ
Himself. "As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him"
(Col. 2:6-8).

Col. 3:1. "If you then be
risen with Christ, seek those things that are above, where Christ sits on the
right hand of God."

1 John 2:6. "He who says he
abides in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked."

1 Pet. 2:21. "For even
hereunto were you called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an
example that you should follow His steps."

John 10:27. "My sheep hear my
voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."

The believer in Christ is born
again—born of God (1 Pet. 1:13; John 1:13). He is justified by faith, and at
peace with God (Rom. 5:1). This is all of God’s grace. "It is of faith,
that it might be by grace" (Rom. 4:16). Again, in Eph. 2:8-10, "For
by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God:not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God
has before ordained that we should walk in them." Think of it,
fellow-believer; what marvelous grace!

Acts 13:39 shows what the law could
not do for the believer:"By Him [Jesus] all who believe are justified
from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of
Moses." Since "no man is justified by the law in the sight of
God" (Gal. 3:11), how can the law be either the rule of life or of daily
walk for him who is not under it (Gal. 5:18), who is dead to it (Rom. 7:4), and who is by faith united to the risen, glorified Man at God’s right hand? In
Gal. 2:21, the Holy Spirit’s emphatic statement is, "For if righteousness
come by [or, is through] the law, then Christ is dead in vain," that is,
has died for nothing. With the Word of God in his hands, how can the believer
go back again to the law, when the law is not of faith, but is the
ministration of death, written and engraved in stones? (2 Cor. 3:6-11).

In what we have had before us from
the Word of God, it is plain that the law has no claim upon the believer. He is
looked upon as freed from the law. His standing before God in grace
is perfect, because it is in Christ, being accepted in the beloved (Col. 2:10;
Eph. 1:6)—not accepted in himself, or anything he has done, or for any
righteousness of his own, but accepted in the full value of Christ’s finished
work for him.

(From Help and Food, Vol.
33.)

He is coming! our Beloved!

We shall soon behold His face,

Who hath filled our earthen
vessels

With the treasures of His grace;

Who, through all our desert
journey,

Leadeth onward by the light,

O’er the path of faith that
shineth

Through the watches of the night.

He is coming! we are looking

For the Day-star in the sky,

And the groaning creature waiteth

The Redeemer from on high:

For He comes to purge His kingdom,

And His sovereign throne to take—

Bid the sword of God in judgment

And avenging power awake.

But, ere judgment-seals are
opened,

He will come from off the throne,

With the voice of the archangel

Home to gather all His own.

And the saints of all the ages

His redeeming shout shall hear—

Quick and death, o’er death
triumphing,

Shall in glorious life appear.

All who trod faith’s pilgrim
pathway

In the ages that have passed,

Every promise of Jehovah

Shall reap blessedly at last;

And the bride, made meet divinely

For His glory by His grace,

Shall behold, beyond the desert,

Her Beloved face to face!

When redemption’s song resoundeth

O’er creation’s vast domain,

Every tongue shall tribute render

To the Lamb that once was slain—

Judah’s Lion, God’s Anointed,

Lord of all, by all confessed,

Heir of all, shall all inherit—

Satan shall be dispossessed!

From the heavenlies, foiled,
defeated,

All his power on high o’erpast,

The accuser of the brethren

With his angels shall be cast.

To the earth the foe malignant

Shall in vengeful wrath descend,

For he knoweth his dominion

Draweth near its doomful end.

But, ere dawneth earth’s
redemption,

Comes a night of utter woe:

Unrestrained, the power satanic

As a flood shall overflow.

Though the "everlasting
gospel"

Coming judgment maketh known,

In rebellious pride the creature

The Creator would dethrone.

For the worship due Jehovah

Shall the antichrist demand;

Then apostate Jew and Gentile

God shall smite with wrathful hand:

And when passed the tribulation,

And while men’s hearts fail for
fear,

On the clouds of heaven coming

Shall the Son of Man appear.

He will come in kingly glory,

And omnipotent in might,

To redeem His earthly people,

And his enemies to smite.

He will come as the Avenger

Of unrighteousness, of blood,

And in fury tread the winepress

Of the holy wrath of God.

He will come His purchased kingdom

To redeem from Satan’s sway,

And the nations’ hosts embattled

With the sword divine shall slay:

Sin’s dominion shall be broken,

And the arch-deceiver chained,

And the Light shall shed its glory

Where the power of darkness
reigned.

Richly blessing and fulfilling

Every promise to His own,

King of kings He’ll reign in Zion—

David’s Son on David’s throne;

And the nations, yielding homage

Unto God’s anointed King,

Shall their glory and their honor

To His glorious city bring.

From the holy, heavenly city

There shall living waters flow,

And the Tree of Life perennial

Shall its healing leaves bestow;

And to utmost isles of ocean,

And from shore to farthest shore,

The Sun of Righteousness o’er all

Its gladdening beams shall pour.

In the light and love begotten

Of the knowledge of the Lord,

All kindreds of the earth shall
dwell

In peace and blest accord:

And the jubilant hosanna

That a glorious Israel raise

Shall before His throne commingle

With the Gentile songs of praise.

When the Second Man assumeth

Over all His sovereign sway,

All defiling blight shall vanish,

And the curse be done away.

Earth shall yield in blest
profusion;

Every creature-groan shall cease;

All creation bask in blessing

‘Neath His benison of peace.

Ah, but e’en the age of blessing

And of glories that transcend,

Shall, like every age preceding,

At the last in judgment end.

For the carnal seed of Adam,

Born in sin, and sin-defiled,

Still impenitent remaineth,

And to God unreconciled.

E’en Messiah’s reign millennial,

Though restraining, judging sin,

All unrighteousness suppressing,

Changeth not the heart within.

And the hosts at heart disloyal,

(Though they have obedience
feigned)

Swell the rebel ranks of Satan

When on earth again unchained.

Long the fight ‘tween Light and
Darkness

Over all earth’s ages spread,

But the Woman’s Seed shall surely

Bruise at last the serpent’s head.

And when darkness’ power embattled

Dares contest God’s sovereign
claim,

Fire divine in judgment endeth

Earth’s sad tale of sin and shame.

But of man’ neath sin’s dominion

Shall the direful fruit be shown,

When the dead, arraigned for
judgment,

Stand before the great white
throne.

Long hath God forborne with evil,

But ’twill reap its due at last,

When the wicked from His presence

Are in outer darkness cast.

Power and place supreme were given

Unto the Incarnate Son,

Things on earth and things in
heaven

All to reconcile in one.

All the will Divine accomplished—

All destroyed that held in thrall—

Christ delivers up the kingdom:

God shall then be all in all.

For redemption’s full fruition

Lies beyond time’s little span;

God Himself will tabernacle

In eternity with man.

All things new, behold! He maketh;

Former things will pass away;

O’er new heavens and earth
irradiant

Dawneth God’s eternal day!

And the sons of
God angelic,

Who acclaimed
earth’s primal morn,

Shall rejoice
with joy exultant

O’er a fallen
world re-born.

They had seen
God’s gracious purpose

Through the
rolling years unfold,

Now the
glorious consummation

They’ll
adoringly behold.

New Jerusalem!
God’s city!

Grace enthroned
in light divine,

Shall through
never-ending ages

Tho His praise
and glory shine.

And within its
pearly portals

Ransomed myriads
shall adore—

All the glories
of Immanuel,

Blest beholding,
evermore!

And the earth,
in new creation—

Blest abode,
divinely fair—

Shall in holy,
blest communion

God’s eternal
Sabbath share.

And the songs
of earth and heaven

Shall as
fragrant incense blend,

Gladsome praise
and glory giving,

That shall
never, never end.

O beloved, He
is coming!

We shall soon
behold His face,

And in highest
heights of glory

Learn how deep
the depths of grace.

All the
triumphs and the glories

Of our souls’
Beloved we’ll see—

But o’er all
His crowning glory

Evermore the Cross
will be!

     (From Help
and Food, Vol. 38.)

"You are not under the law,
but under grace" (Rom. 6:14).

In Part I of this miniseries, we
considered the meanings of law and grace. We listed the negative consequences
of taking the law to be our rule of life and the positive consequences of
having Christ as our rule of life instead. We then began to give examples of
dangers of overemphasizing "you are not under the law" and
underemphasizing "but under grace." This is sometimes called
antinomianism, meaning "opposition to the law." We considered the
dangers of using freedom from the law as an excuse for sin and of teaching that
the Old Testament is not applicable to Christians.

                
More Dangers of Antinomianism

Negating the Sermon on the
Mount. A certain teaching has come to my attention on three different
occasions:(1) I heard it taught at a Bible Conference; (2) a sister in Christ
told me it was taught in her Sunday school class; and (3) I recently found it
taught in a book. It has to do with Matt. 5:40-42:"If any man will sue
you at the law and take away your coat, let him have your cloak also. And
whosoever shall compel you to go a mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks
you, and from him who would borrow of you turn not away." The teaching is
that this passage does not apply to Christians today because it is
"kingdom truth." Lewis Sperry Chafer, a leading proponent of
dispensationalism, writes that there "are some aspects of the kingdom law
never attempted by Christians (see Matt. 5:40-42), but its whole character,
being legal, is opposed to grace" (Systematic Theology, Vol. 4,
page 245). My first answer to this is that if such acts as described by the
Lord are done only as obedience to law, then they will have no merit before
God. But how can we say that such practices would be "never
attempted" by those under grace. Surely grace would lead us to go even
further than what is here prescribed by the Lord to His disciples.

Let us try briefly to analyze this
teaching. First, what do these people mean when they say that the Sermon on the
Mount is "kingdom truth"? I suppose they are saying that this
behavior will characterize those who are saved during and survive the Great
Tribulation, and live on earth during the 1,000 year (or millennial) reign of
the Messiah. Now what people are going to reign with Christ during the
Millennium? Is it not the Church that is raptured to be with Christ just prior
to the beginning of the Great Tribulation (1 Cor. 6:2; Col. 3:4; 2 Tim. 2:12;
Rev. 20:6)? Are we, the Church, held to a lower, lesser standard of behavior
than those over whom we will be ruling? Are we who presumably are going to
enjoy the closest relationship to Christ (as bride with the Bridegroom)
throughout eternity given a lower standard of morality in this present life
than others who will have eternal life? If the Church’s position in Christ
signifies a greater measure of God’s grace, then "shall we continue to
sin, that grace may abound?" (Rom. 6:1).

It is true that there are a few
expressions in the Sermon on the Mount that suggest an earthly heritage, such
as might apply to the millennial kingdom, for example, "Blessed are the
meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (Matt. 5:5). But surely the moral
teachings found in the Sermon on the Mount concerning anger (5:22), lusting
after a woman (5:28), our response to panhandlers (5:40-42), loving our enemies
(5:44), and how to give, pray, forgive, and fast (6:1-18) must be a part of the
"instruction in righteousness" for which "all Scripture … is
profitable" (2 Tim. 3:16).

Here is a final question to
ponder:How do you think Jesus Himself would have responded to one who took His
coat? I believe the Bible gives us the answer (see John 19:23). Christ is not
only our Saviour and Redeemer, He is also our Example (John 13:15; 1 Pet. 2:21;
Phil. 2:5-8; 1 John 2:6).

Negating Old Testament
Illustrations of New Testament Teaching. At a Bible Conference we were
studying a passage in one of the apostle Paul’s Epistles that exhorted the
believers not to commit fornication. I made a comment about the tendency today
for people to redefine fornication and adultery to suit their own sinful
practices (Mr. Clinton and Ms. Lewinsky are prime contemporary examples of
this); these people are really trying to find loopholes in God’s law as the
Pharisees did (Matt. 23:16-19; Mark 7:9-13). I went on to refer to the Old
Testament verses that say over and over again, "You shall not uncover the
nakedness…" (Lev. 18:6-19). These verses reveal the scope of what God
intended in His prohibition of fornication and adultery. In God’s eyes, sexual
activity that is forbidden outside of marriage includes uncovering the
nakedness of another with our eyes (for example, pornography or voyeurism) or
with our hands (for example, necking, petting, or fondling).

After saying my piece, I was
reprimanded by a brother for "teaching the law." I was taken aback by
this, to say the least. I know that this brother would not find it acceptable
for a Christian to engage in these immoral activities. But I gathered from his
comments to me that he thought we should be preaching and teaching only the
grace of God and the love of Christ; if we do this everything else will fall
into place in the Christian’s life and he/she will not need exhortations from
the law.

I agree, as stated in Part I, that
the power for living in the way that God wants us to live comes only from
focusing on Christ—His love, His sufferings, His death, His resurrection, His
place now in the glory, and His coming again for us. However, I observe from
reading Paul’s Epistles that we Christians need regularly to be reminded from
God’s Word as to the basic principles of what God is like and what He expects
from us, along with the ministry of Christ.

The Epistle to the Ephesians is a
prime example of this. This Epistle is often considered to contain the most
lofty truth of any book in the Bible, and to contain the least amount of
corrective ministry of any New Testament Epistle. In the first three chapters
we revel in declaration upon declaration of God’s purposes for His people, our
spiritual blessings (1:3), our inheritance in Christ (1:11), our position in
Christ as seated in Him in the heavenlies (2:6), our salvation flowing from
God’s grace (2:8), Christ dwelling in our hearts (3:17), and the revelation of
"the love of Christ which passes knowledge" and of "Him who is
able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think"
(3:19,20). As we read these wonderful passages, do not our hearts expand in our
desire to live more faithfully for Him who gave His all for our sakes?

But what do we find in the last
three chapters of this Epistle?

"Be ye therefore followers
[or imitators] of God" (5:1).

"No … idolater has any
inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God" (5:5).

"Let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth … neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor
jesting" (4:29; 5:4).

"Redeeming the time, because
the days are evil" (5:16).

"Honor your father and
mother" (6:2).

"Let not the sun go down upon
your wrath…. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger … be put away from
you, with all malice" (4:31; compare with Matt. 5:21,22).

"But fornication and all
uncleanness … let it not be once named among you as becomes saints…. No
whoremonger nor unclean person … has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God" (5:3,5).

"Let him who stole steal no
more" (4:28).

"Wherefore putting away
lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor" (4:25).

"Covetousness, let it not be
once named among you…. No … covetous man who is an idolater has any
inheritance in the kingdom of Christ" (5:3,5).

We see that the apostle Paul, even
when writing to the recipients of the most exalted truths concerning their
position in Christ, did not leave it up to their own thoughts and imaginations
as to how to follow Christ. If we look carefully at the preceding ten
paragraphs, do we not find allusions (some clearer than others) to the Ten
Commandments? The order found in this Epistle is most instructive:First the
groundwork is laid of our position in Christ as recipients of His love, grace,
and spiritual blessings. Then we are reminded of a few of the ways we can and
should respond to such grace. "The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and
just, and good" (Rom. 7:12). "This is the love of God that we keep
His commandments" (1 John 5:2,3). As being "not under the law but
under grace" (Rom. 6:14), our focus is on Christ, not the law; this is
what gives us the power to keep God’s Word. But at the same time, as we read
the Scriptures, we are continually being given "instruction in
righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16) and are being challenged as to whether we are
coming up to even the minimum standards of holiness that God has set
forth for His people.

Yes, we all need "instruction
in righteousness" along with the ministry that empowers us for living
righteously.   A few months ago I was reading a book to one of my
grandchildren. The book contained occasional exclamations such as "gee"
and "gosh" which are euphemisms for "Jesus" and
"God." When I came upon such words I substituted more neutral
exclamations such as "wow" and "hey." My daughter-in-law,
looking over my shoulder, asked me later why I changed some of the words. When
I explained it to her she said she had never been taught the connection between
those words and the third commandment. She appreciated what she had just
learned because she wanted to do everything possible to please her Lord and
Saviour. While the instruction related to the Ten Commandments, this clearly is
not a case of being "under the law," but is "instruction in
righteousness."

Believing that one can be a
Christian and still do whatever he pleases. We have to tread carefully here
for the ground is treacherous. We dare not say anything that would suggest that
our salvation is based on anything other than God’s free gift of grace through
faith (Rom. 6:23; Eph. 2:8). At the same time, the Bible shows us over and over
again that we are to look for "fruit" and "works" as
evidence to support one’s statement of faith in Christ. Here are some examples:

"Faith, if it has not works,
is dead, being alone…. Faith without works is dead" (Jas. 2:17,20,26).

"I am the true Vine, and My
Father is the Husbandman. Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes
away" (John 15:2; compare Rom. 11:17-21).

"Not every one who says unto
Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the
will of my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 7:21).

In the Parable of the Sower there
are three groups that initially give the appearance of being saved, even
showing "joy"; but only those in the last group are really saved, in
that they "hear the Word, and understand it, and also bear fruit, and
bring forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty" (Matt.
13:18-23).

On several occasions I have heard
of professed Christians who reportedly have made the following kinds of
statements:

"I am content to know that I
have put my trust for salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ and have the assurance
of going to heaven. I do not care for rewards or anything else. Therefore, I
intend to live out my life the way I want to live."

"I have the assurance of
going to heaven; it does not matter if I commit such and such a sin because I
know I will not lose my salvation."

"The Bible says that we are
not under the law but under grace. That means that God by His grace gives us
freedom to do whatever we want to do without judging us."

I fear greatly for the eternal
welfare of the people who make such statements. We are not
in a position to make judgments as to who is truly saved and who is not.
Thankfully, this is totally in God’s hands and "the Lord knows those who
are His" (2 Tim. 2:19). But I believe that if we encounter any such
people, we should not take for granted that they are saved. Rather we should
give them the gospel on the assumption that they never really were saved, and
never truly have come face to face with that Man of Calvary who was forsaken of
God because of our sins, that we might never be forsaken.

(To be continued.)

Fairest of all the earth
beside,

Chiefest of all unto Thy
bride,

Fullness Divine in Thee I
see,

Beautiful Man of Calvary.

Drinking a dire and
dreadful cup,

Crucified Jesus lifted up,

Bearing our guilt and
misery,

Sorrowful Man of Calvary.

Granting the sinner life
and peace,

Granting the captive sweet
release,

Shedding His blood to make
us free,

Merciful Man of Calvary!

That Man of Calvary

Has won my heart from me,

And died to set me free,

Blest Man of Calvary!

               
M.P Ferguson

Of all the disciples of Christ who
pass before us in the Gospels, perhaps none are more marked by single-hearted
devotedness to Christ than Mary of Bethany. She makes nothing of self but
everything of Christ; hence, on the three occasions that she comes before us,
she is found at the feet of Jesus. We see her first at His feet as a learner
(Luke 10), then as a mourner (John 11), and finally as a worshiper
(John 12). May we, as we read her story, profit by her lowly and devoted life.

                  
At His Feet as a Learner

                       
(Luke 10:38-42)

As sinners saved by grace, we have
been at the feet of the Saviour discovering that, in spite of all our sins, He
loves us and has died for us. If we are to make spiritual progress, the
"one thing needful" as believers is to take our place at His feet and
hear His Word.

This plain but important truth is
brought before us in the scene described at the end of Luke 10. Journeying on
His way to Jerusalem, the Lord came to "a certain village" and a
"woman

named Martha received Him into her house." She gladly
opened her home to the Lord, and at once set herself to minister to His bodily
needs. This indeed was right and beautiful in its place; and yet the story
clearly shows that there was much of self in Martha’s service. She did not like
to have all the burden of this service, and felt grieved that she was left to
serve alone. There was one thing lacking in her service.

The one thing needful—the one
thing that Martha missed—was to sit at the feet of Jesus and hear His word. She
loved the Lord, and with all her energy she zealously set herself to serve the
Lord; but her zeal was not according to knowledge. She set herself to work
without having first been in the company of the Lord and without being
instructed in the mind of the Lord. As a result she "was cumbered about
much serving" and "careful and troubled about many things,"
complaining about her sister, and even entertaining the thought that the Lord
was indifferent to her labors.

Alas! do we not, at times, act
like Martha? We may take up service according to our own thoughts, or under the
direction of others. From morning to night we may busy ourselves in a continual
round of activity, and yet neglect the one thing needful—to be alone with the
Lord, and in communion with Him hear His Word and learn His mind. Little wonder
that we get distracted and "troubled about many things" and complain
of others. It is easier to spend whole days in a round of busy service than a
half hour alone with Jesus.        

In Mary we see a believer who
chose the "good part." Clearly she had a keener perception of the
desires of the heart of Christ than her sister. One has said, "Martha’s
eye saw His weariness, and would give to Him; Mary’s faith apprehended His
fullness, and would draw from Him."

Martha thought of the Lord only as
One who was requiring something from us; Mary discerned that, beyond all the
service of which He is so worthy, the desire of His heart, and the great
purpose of His coming into this world, was to communicate something to us.
"Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ," and at the end of His path He
could say, "I have given unto them the words that Thou gavest Me"
(John 17:8). By the Word of God salvation is brought to us (Acts 13:26), we are
born again (1 Pet. 1:23), we are cleansed from defilement (John 15:3), we are
sanctified (John 17:17), and we are instructed in all the truth of God "that
the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim.
3:16,17).

Martha set herself to do good
works without having been thoroughly furnished by the Word of God. In Mary we
learn that communion with Christ, and instruction in the Word of Christ, must
precede all service that is acceptable to Christ. He delights that, in His own
time and way, we should minister to Him; but, above all, He delights to have us
in His company that He may minister to us.

Of old Moses could say of the
LORD, "Yea, He loved the people; all His saints are in Thy hand; and they
sat down at Thy feet; every one shall receive of Thy words" (Deut. 33:3).
This presents a lovely picture of the true position of God’s people—held in the
hand of the Lord, sitting at the feet of the Lord, and listening to the words
of the Lord. May we, then, choose this good part, and in due course do the good
work.

                  
At His Feet as a Mourner

                        
(John 11:32)

In John 11 we again read of the
two sisters, Martha and Mary. Sickness had ended in death casting its shadow
over the home. Their brother had been taken from them.

In their trouble they rightly
turned to the Lord as their unfailing resource, and very blessedly they pleaded
His love for their brother, saying, "He whom Thou lovest is sick." It
was indeed true that the Lord loved Lazarus, but we are also told that
"Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." As the story
proceeds we are permitted to see the way love takes in order to declare both the
glory of the Son of God and the compassions of the heart of Jesus.

Again we see the difference
between these two devoted women. Martha who, on the former occasion, had been
cumbered with her service when the Lord of life and glory had visited her house,
was now restless and distracted when death came into the home. Mary who, in the
former day, had listened to His word, could now quietly wait for Him to speak
and act. Thus we read, "Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was
coming, went to meet Him, but Mary sat still in the house." However, when
Mary received the word, "The Master is come and calls for you,… she
arose quickly and came unto Him."

"Then when Mary was come
where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell down at His feet." For the second time
this devoted woman is found in the lowly place at the feet of Jesus. The Jews,
mistaking her action, said, "She goes unto the grave to weep there."
She was doing what is far better, what faith alone can do; she was going to the
feet of Jesus to weep there. Even the world can weep at the grave of a
loved one, but it brings no comfort to the sorrowing heart. But to weep at the
feet of Jesus is to find the comfort of His love, for we weep at the feet of
One who, in His own time, can raise our dead and, in the meantime, can comfort
our hearts.

In this touching scene there is no
record of any word spoken by the Lord to Mary. We only learn that, in the
presence of her great sorrow, "Jesus wept."

The Jews wrongly interpreted these
tears as being a token of the Lord’s love for Lazarus. He did indeed love
Lazarus, but there was no need to weep for one whom He was about to raise from
the dead. It was the sorrow of the living that drew forth the tears of Jesus.
"When Jesus saw her weeping … He grieved in spirit and was
troubled," and His trouble found vent in tears, for "Jesus
wept."

When our loved ones are taken from
us, we still learn that our only real and lasting comfort is found in bowing at
His feet and pouring out our sorrow in the presence of the One who once wept
with these broken-hearted women.

                 
At His Feet as a Worshiper

                          
(John 12)

The beautiful scene that passes
before us in the beginning of John 12 took place just six days before the
Cross. The Lord’s devoted life, in which self was ever set aside to serve
others in love, was drawing to a close. At every step of His path He had been
dispensing blessing—spreading a feast, as it were, for all the world. Now, at
last, a few of His loved ones "made Him a supper."

Christ was in this needy world as
a Giver, but it was not often that anyone gave to Him. Once, in the beginning
of His way, a few wise men "presented unto Him gifts" and had fallen
down and "worshiped Him." Now, at the end of His path, they made a
supper for Him and again one was found at His feet with her gifts as a
worshiper.

There also had been a time when
Levi had made Him "a great feast in his own house" (Luke 5:29). There
the Lord had sat down with "a great company of publicans and of
others" in order to dispense blessing to sinners. Now He was in company
with a few of His own in order to receive the homage of saints.

Christ is the One for whom they
made the supper—the Center of the feast and the Object before every heart.
Lazarus and others were present but they "sat at the table with Him."
The blessedness of the occasion was that He, the Son of God, was present.

Again, the two sisters, Martha and
Mary, were present. Martha served, but no longer was she cumbered with her
service or complaining of others. She thought only of the One for whom they had
made the supper. For the third time Mary is found at the feet of the Lord, but
no longer to receive His words and His sympathy, but to give to Him the worship
of a heart that loved Him. Mary’s gifts, Mary’s acts, and Mary’s attitude all
breathe the spirit of worship.

Drawn by attachment of heart to
Christ she had sat at His feet, listened to His words, and learned something of
His mind. We see here that affection for Christ is the secret of all true
service. Moved by this love for Christ, she did the right thing at the right
moment. She might have left the ointment in the alabaster box and presented it
to Christ, but this would not have put the same honor upon Him. She poured it
out upon His feet. She did the right act. She might, at some earlier
moment in the Lord’s life, have anointed His feet with the ointment, but she
waited until the hour of His going to the Cross and the grave had arrived.
Moved by the instincts of love she did the right act at the right moment,
for the Lord said, "Against the day of my burying has she kept this."
Christ was everything to Mary. Christ was her life, and all that she had was
devoted to Him. The costly ointment and the hair of her head—the glory of a
woman—were used to put honor upon Christ. She was not even praising Him for all
that He had done or was about to do, but she bowed at His feet as a worshipper
because of all that He is.

Acting in this way she put honor
upon the One whom that world had rejected and was about to nail to a cross. She
forgot herself and her blessings and thought only of Christ. How blessed if,
when we make Him a supper, in a like spirit of worship we could each one pass
out of sight of ourselves and our blessings, and see no man any more save Jesus
only and His glory.

Thus acting we may, like Mary in
her day, be misunderstood by the world, and even by many true disciples; but at
the same time we will have the approval of the Lord as Mary did. In the eyes of
the world her act was mere waste. In Christianity today the one great aim is to
benefit man; all else is waste. Though the world may condemn, the Lord
approved, saying, "Let her alone" (John 12:7) and "She has
wrought a good work upon Me" (Matt. 26:10). Indeed, so highly did the Lord
appreciate Mary’s act that He added, "Wheresoever this gospel is preached
in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman has done, be told
for a memorial of her" (Matt. 26:13).

Moreover, the Lord said, "Me
you have not always." It will be our privilege and our joy to worship Him
in glory, but it was Mary’s privilege, and it is still ours, to worship Him in
the world where He is rejected, and in the face of the scorn and reproach of
men. Mary seized the occasion to render to Him this precious service. As one has
said, "She could not have done this service in eternity…. Love will find
new ways of expressing itself to Him then. But it will not be what He looks for
from us now. There will be no self to be denied, no cross to be borne, no world
to be surrendered, no reproach to be encountered then."

How blessed, too, was the effect
of her act of devotion to Christ, for we read, "The house was filled with
the odor of the ointment." Lazarus may hold sweet communion with Christ,
and Martha may serve Christ, but Mary’s act of worship that was so precious to
the heart of Christ was also a joy to all who were in the house. That which
gives honor to Christ will bring blessing to others.

We may rightly commune with Christ
about many things, we may rightly serve Him in many ways, but the worship that
makes everything of Christ will surpass all else in the day when we make Him a
supper. So will it be in that great day when all the redeemed are gathered
home. The new song will be sung that renders praise to the Lord for all that He
has done. Heaven and earth will join to celebrate His glory. Above all, we read
of those who "fell down and worshiped Him." Beyond all the mighty
work that He has done, and beyond all the glory that He has acquired, He
will be worshiped because of all that He is. Then we shall be able to say:

The heart is satisfied; can ask

no more;

All thought of self is now for-

ever o’er;

Christ, its unmingled Object,

fills the heart

In blest adoring love—its endless

part.

Does the teaching of Christ in the
Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) apply to the children of God today? I suggest
an affirmative answer to this question for reasons that I will now present.

In the passage referred to, the
Lord unfolds the moral character and principles that are to govern the action
and relation of His disciples in a time preceding the thousand-year reign of
Christ over the earth. It is plain that much of the Lord’s teaching has in view
a time of suffering, rejection, and persecution—conditions such as we know in
the present age, not those of the time when the glory of the kingdom fills the
earth. The kingdom in glory could not come without a people being prepared for
the Lord. The Lord’s teaching makes plain the moral character and holy
principles that govern those to whom the kingdom in reality belongs, whether
viewed in its aspect of present spiritual blessing, or of future manifestation
in glory in either the earthly or heavenly spheres.

The Lord’s rejection was a matter
of prophecy, with His ascension to God’s right hand and later coming in glory;
therefore an interval must be contemplated between His first coming as
"born King of the Jews" (Matt. 2:2) and the actual setting up of that
heavenly kingdom of which Daniel prophesied (7:13,14). What, then, did the
message mean that both John the Baptist and the Lord delivered, "The
kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 10:7)?

First, it is evident that the King
Himself had come. His works of power witnessed to Him. He was Master over all
creation, and of Satan too. Yet He was rejected—"His own received Him
not" (John 1:11). Did this necessitate the postponement of the announced
kingdom, or put in abeyance what would have then been set up if He, the King,
had been treated otherwise? No, for there was the predetermined purpose of God
to be fulfilled in any case.

It was not His purpose to set up at
that time the kingdom in glory, for it could only come when the Son of Man
should come from heaven. The nation of Israel, because of their fleshly desires
and carnal interpretations, were entirely mistaken in their expectations. They
had missed God’s mind in at least one important feature as made known in the
Old Testament. This was one reason they saw no beauty in Jesus that they should
desire Him (Isa. 53:2), and in due time their cry was, "Away with
Him" (John 19:15). He was not the man to rule over them.

It seems clear then that no matter
what the Jews expected, it was not the kingdom in glory that was being
proclaimed as near. God’s purposes were in process of accomplishment, and the
test for Israel in particular, yet also for the world, at this juncture, was
not whether they would have the kingdom in glory but whether they would have
God’s King of that kingdom. He was rejected. Did that mean that the
kingdom He announced as at hand was pushed off into the distant future? No; it
came, now exists, and in the form that was according to the purpose of God for
that foreshadowed interval which continues until the coming of the Son of Man
in the clouds of heaven to take His own throne. In its present form, as fully
revealed in the Lord’s parables, it fills the interval of which we have spoken,
and then continues in its form of manifested glory and power in what is called
the kingdom of the Son of Man.

What is the present form of
the kingdom that fills this interval? Its moral character, governing principles,
and condition in various ways is what very largely made up the Lord’s teaching.
To this belong the mysteries of the kingdom, those similitudes found in the
parables, and "things new and old" (Matt. 13:52). The kingdom in this
form embraces all who profess allegiance to Christ. Such are responsible to
show conformity to the moral character that the King Himself made known in His
teaching concerning the kingdom. This is surely to find manifestation in and
among those who gather together unto His name—His disciples. To them in
particular the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) is addressed.

The kingdom of heaven was at hand
during the Lord’s ministry on earth. It actually came when in resurrection He
could proclaim that all power in heaven and on earth was His (Matt. 28:19,20),
though that still did not mean the immediate restoration of the kingdom to
Israel (Acts 1:6,7). For during the course of the kingdom that had now come in
there were other purposes to be fulfilled that were not made known until the
apostle Paul was raised up to reveal the mystery of Christ and the Church (Eph.
3:9,10). The kingdom of heaven is not the Church, which is the body of Christ,
but this Church is in the kingdom. The kingdom embraces Christendom, the sphere
of profession which may be real or not; but all true disciples of the
kingdom since Pentecost and until the rapture (1 Thess. 4:13-18) are in the
body of Christ which is the Church.

Now whatever may be the high and
heavenly calling and position of the Church as revealed by Paul, it remains
true that the assembly of those who are gathered together unto Christ’s name,
whether before or after the conversion and apostolic ministry of Saul/Paul, is
that company in which the kingdom should find manifestation in its moral and spiritual
features and holy principles as made known by the King. This remains true, no
matter what higher and more intimate relation Church truth makes known. In
fact, all the practical teaching of the Epistles is in agreement with and only
emphasizes that of the Lord Himself in relation to the character and conduct of
disciples of His kingdom. These teachings of the Lord may be too little
observed and heeded as applying to practical Christian walk by those who firmly
hold to the truth of the Church and Christ its Head in heaven. Surely we,
of all people, should show ourselves good citizens of the kingdom of the
heavens, "for our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens
(Phil. 3:20, JND). The following Scriptures make mention of the kingdom as
having a present application:Rom. 14:16-18; Eph. 5:5-10; Col. 1:13; 2 Pet.
1:10,11; Rev. 1:5,6,9.

With these considerations before
us, we may see that while parts of our Lord’s teaching may primarily relate to
Israel (Matt. 13:44), or to the nations (Matt. 13:47-50), or to the time after
the removal of the Church when another Jewish remnant will be raised up (Matt.
10:22,23; 24:3-32), or to the Church itself (Matt. 13:45,46; 16:18; 18:20; John
10:13-17), yet there is that which applies in moral and spiritual ways to the
believer today. This is true even where the reference is evidently to the
millennial form of the kingdom as in Matt. 5:5 ("the meek … shall
inherit the earth"), for is not the earth part of Christ’s
inheritance, and are not those who now believe co-heirs with Christ (Rom.
8:17)? Hence may not even such a word apply to those who as meek do not put
forth present claim as to inheritance here, but await the hour when He takes
possession as the Son of Man, the appointed Heir of all things (Psa. 8:6-8; Heb.
2:7,8)? Surely it is so, even though they are distinctly heavenly in destiny as
the body and the bride.

A further question is asked,
"Is a man not saved if there is no mercy in him?" the reference being
to the fifth beatitude—"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive
mercy" (Matt. 5:7). Now God is rich in mercy, and those who are His
children are to be imitators of Him (Eph. 2:4; 5:1). To find a man implacable,
merciless, unforgiving, unmercifully pursuing the erring, refusing to show mercy
and forgiveness to those who have injured him, raises serious question as to
whether that man’s sin-hardened soul has ever been softened by the blessed
inflow of God’s mercy meeting his own great need as ungodly and without
strength, no matter how loud the profession of the lips. It is by his fruits
that we know the real, the true believer. In this both Paul and James agree.
That believers should be merciful is to be expected. That alone is consistent
with the knowledge of how God has been rich in mercy for them. Thus they will
glorify their Father who is in heaven, and receive mercy according to His
perfect love and interest in His children, while also to show mercy to another
is the sure way to reap it in our own time of need. Not to show mercy is to
lack in righteousness, which is to act in consistency with the place we are in
and the way we have been put into it (see Matt. 18:21-35).

"Be ye therefore merciful as
your Father also is merciful" (Luke 6:36). "Put on therefore …
bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind" (Col. 3:12).

(From Help and Food, Vol.
46.)

She came not to hear a sermon,
although the greatest of teachers was there.

To sit at His feet and hear His
words (Luke 10:39) was not her purpose now, blessed as that was in its proper
place.

She came not to make her requests
known to Him (John 11:3).

There was a time when, in deepest
submission to His will, she had fallen at His feet, saying, "Lord, if Thou
hadst been here, my broth­er had not died" (John 11:32); but to pour out
her supplications to Him as her only resource was not now her thought, for her
brother was seated at the table.

She came not to meet the saints,
though precious saints were there (Matt. 26:8). Fellowship with them was
blessed likewise, and doubtless of frequent occurrence; but fellowship was not
her object now.

She came not after the weariness
and toil of a week’s battling with the world to be refreshed from Him, though,
surely, she like every saint had learned the trials of the wilderness; and none
more than she, probably, knew the blessed springs of refreshment that were in
Him.

But she came—when the world was
about to express its deepest hatred of Him (John 12:1)—to pour out what she
long had treasured up (verse 7), and of much value (verse 5), upon the person
of Him whose love had made her heart captive, and absorbed her affections.

It was not Simon the leper, not
the disciples, not her brother and sister in the flesh, but her Lord who
engaged her attention now. Jesus filled her soul—her heart and her eye
were on Him, and her hands and feet were subservient to her eye and to
her heart as she "anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her
hair."

Adoration, homage, worship,
blessing was her one thought; and that in honor of the One who was "all in
all" to her. How refreshing was such worship to Him!

The ungodly (verse 4) and the
unspiritual (Matt. 26:6-9) might murmur, but He upheld her cause, and showed
how He could appreciate and value the grateful tribute of a heart that knew His
worth and preciousness and could not be silent about it. A lasting record is
preserved of what worship really is by the One who accepted it and of the one
who rendered it.

Be it ours now, dear reader, from
hearts filled with the Holy Spirit, to break upon Him our spiritual box of
ointment in worship, praise, and thanksgiving.

(From Help and Food, Vol.
15.)

What was the bearing of the
doctrine of Christ respecting the kingdom of heaven upon the precepts of the
law? The Lord opens this subject with the words:"Think not that I am come
to destroy the law or the prophets:I am not come to destroy, but to
fulfill" (Matt. 5:17). I take this word "fulfill" in its largest
sense. First, in His own person the Lord fulfilled the law and the prophets in
His manner of life and in righteous subjection and obedience. His life here
below exhibited the beauty of obedience to God without flaw for the first and
only time. Second, His death provided the strongest, yet most solemn, approval
that the law could ever receive, because the Saviour took upon Himself the
curse that the law pronounced upon the guilty. There was nothing the Saviour
would not undergo rather than God should have dishonor.

Third, the Lord declares an
expansion of the law, or righteous requirement, giving to its moral element a
larger scope, so that all that was honoring to God in it should be brought out
in its fullest power and extent. The light of heaven was now allowed to fall
upon the law, and the law was interpreted, not by weak, failing men, but by One
who had no reason to evade one jot of its requirements; whose heart, full of
love, thought only of the honor and the will of God; whose zeal for His
Father’s house consumed Him, and who restored that which He took not away. Who
but He could expound the law in this way—not as the scribes, but in the
heavenly light? The commandment of God is exceedingly broad, whether we see
that it makes an end of all perfection in man (Psa. 119:96), or that the sum of
it has been fulfilled in Christ.

Far from annulling the law, the
Lord illustrated it more brightly than ever, and gave it a spiritual
application that man was entirely unprepared for before He came. And this is
what the Lord proceeds to do in the wonderful discourse that follows. After
having said, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in
no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled," He adds, "Whosoever
therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so,
he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do
and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I
say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of
the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of
heaven" (Matt. 5:18-20). Our Lord is about to expand the great moral
principles of the law into commandments that flow from Himself, and not merely
from Moses, and shows that this would be the great thing whereby persons would
be tested. It would no longer be a question of the ten words spoken on Sinai
merely; but, while recognizing their full value, He was about to open out the
mind of God in a way so much deeper than had ever been thought of before that
this would henceforth be the great test.

The expression, "Except your
righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you
shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven," has not the smallest
reference to salvation and justification, but to the practical appreciation of
and walking in the right relations of the believer toward God and toward men.
The righteousness spoken of here is entirely of a practical kind. God insists
upon godliness in His people. "Without holiness no man shall see the
Lord" (Heb. 12:14). There can be no question that the Lord shows in John
15 that the unfruitful branches must be cut off, and that, just as the withered
branches of the natural vine are cast into the fire to be burned, so fruitless
professors of the name of Christ can look for no better portion. 

Bearing fruit is the test of life.
These things are stated in the strongest terms all through Scripture. In John
5:28,29 it is said, "The hour is coming in the which all who are in the
graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth; those who have done good unto
the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil unto the resurrection of
judgment." There is no disguising the solemn truth that God will and must
have that which is good and holy and righteous in His own people. They are not
God’s people at all who are not characterized as the doers of that which is
acceptable in His sight. If this were put before a sinner as a means of
reconciliation with God, or of having sins blotted out before Him, it would be
the denial of Christ and of His redemption. But there is not the least
inconsistency nor difficulty in understanding that the same God who gives a
soul to believe in Christ works in that soul by the Holy Spirit to produce what
is practically according to Himself. For what purpose does God give him the
life of Christ and the Holy Spirit if only the remission of the sins were
needed? But God is not satisfied with this. He imparts the life of Christ to a
soul, and gives that soul the Holy Spirit to dwell in him. As the Spirit is not
the spring of weakness or of fear "but of power, and of love, and of a
sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:7), God looks for suited ways and for the exercise
of spiritual wisdom and judgment in passing through the present trying scene.

While the people looked up with
ignorant eyes to the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, our Lord
declares that this sort of righteousness will not do. The righteousness that
goes up to the temple every day, that prides itself upon long prayers, large
alms, and broad phylacteries, will not stand in the sight of God. There must be
something far deeper and more according to the holy, loving nature of God. With
all the appearance of outward religion, there generally was no sense of sin nor
of the grace of God. This proves the all-importance of being right, first,
in our thoughts about God; and we can only be so by receiving the testimony of
God about His Son. In the case of the Pharisees we have sinful man denying his
sin, and utterly obscuring and denying God’s true character as the God of
grace. These teachings of our Lord were rejected by the outward religionists,
and their righteousness was such as you might expect from people who were
ignorant of themselves and of God. It gained reputation for them, but there it
all ended; they looked for their reward now, and they had it (Matt. 6:2,5,16).
But our Lord says to the disciples, "Except your righteousness shall
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case
enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Allow me to ask a question here:
How is it that God accomplishes this in regard to a soul that believes now?
There is a great secret that does not come out in this Sermon on the Mount.
First of all, there is a load of unrighteousness on the sinner. How is that to
be dealt with and the sinner to be made fit for and introduced into the kingdom
of heaven? Through faith he is born again; he acquires a new nature, a life
that flows from the grace of God through the bearing of his sins by Christ upon
the cross.

This is the foundation of practical
righteousness. The true beginning of all moral goodness in a sinner—as has been
said and as it deserves to be often repeated—is the sense and confession of his
utter lack of goodness! Never is anything right with God in a man till
he gives himself up as all wrong. When he is brought down to this, he is thrown
upon God, and God reveals Christ as His gift to the poor sinner. He is morally
broken down, feeling and owning that he is lost unless God appears for him; he
receives Christ, and what then? "He who believes on the Son has
everlasting life" (John 3:36). What is the nature of that life? In its
character it is perfectly righteous and holy.  The man is then at once
fitted for God’s kingdom. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). But when he is born again he does enter there. "That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit" (John 3:6). The scribes and Pharisees were only working in and by
the flesh; they did not believe that they were dead in the sight of God;
neither do men now. But what the believer begins with is that he is a dead man,
that he requires a new life, and that the new life that he receives in Christ
is suitable to the kingdom of heaven. It is upon this new nature that God acts,
and works by the Spirit this practical righteousness. Thus it remains in every
sense true, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of
the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven."

(From Lectures on the Gospel of
Matthew.)

Mary was not afraid to be
unconventional. "What will other people think?" was not a motivating
influence in her life. We first meet Mary in Luke 10:38-42. The Lord Jesus had
come to Martha’s house in Bethany as a guest. Martha’s sister, Mary, "sat
at Jesus’ feet." This expression is a technical term meaning, "to be
a disciple of" (Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 4). In the Greek it
is identical to the expression, "at the feet of Gamaliel" in Acts
22:3. This was not the usual place of women, but when Martha wanted the Lord to
tell Mary to help serve the food, the Lord Jesus encouraged Mary in her
discipleship. Martha was probably the older sister (it was her house, verse 38)
and Mary perhaps knew what Martha expected of her, but she could not let pass
an opportunity to hear and learn from this One of whom she had, no doubt, heard
much.

Mary and Martha both grieved for
their brother Lazarus in John 11, and we see the family reunited in John 12.
This time Mary received rebuke from some of the Lord Jesus’ disciples (Matt.
26:8; Mark 14:4), Judas Iscariot perhaps being the most vocal one. It was not
just the cost of the ointment that startled them (although 300 pence was a
year’s wages for the average worker—Matt. 20:2), but the loosening of her hair
in public, considered scandalous in Jewish society (Anchor Bible Dictionary,
Vol. 4), and performing a task—anointing a guest’s feet—usually assigned to
slaves. Again the Lord Jesus defended her. Certainly He was not unconcerned
with the poor, but the Lord Jesus’ death and resurrection and our response to
these events and to Him personally are more important eternally than social
service. In both this passage and the passage in Luke, Mary demonstrates a
single-minded devotion to the Lord Jesus and a whole-personed surrender of
herself, her resources, and her reputation to Christ. She was unconcerned about
social conventions or the opinions of others. All that mattered to her was the
Lord Jesus Christ. Her reward was the Lord’s commendation of her devotion.

Mary’s devotion would seem to be
an example of Rom. 12:1:"Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." The Greek word latreia
used here for "service" is always used in the New Testament in
connection with service rendered to God; its verb form is sometimes translated
"worship" in both KJV and JND (Phil. 3:3; Heb. 10:2) and in KJV
though not JND (Acts 7:42; 24:14). Martha’s service (Greek word diakonia;
Luke 10:40; John 12:2) was people-oriented and this Greek word is never
translated "worship." But Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet, resulting
from what she had learned at His feet, surely was an act of worship.

Let us—brothers and sisters
alike—be less concerned about what other people think of us (good or bad) and
more self-abandoned in our devotion, service, and worship of our heavenly
Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

"Therefore all things
whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them:for
this is the law and the prophets" (Matt. 7:12).

This is in no way dealing with men
according to their ways, but the contrary. It is saying, as it were, "You
who know the heavenly Father, who know what His grace to the evil is, you know
what is comely in His sight; always act upon that. Never act merely according
to what another does toward you, but according to what you would that another
should do to you. If you have the slightest love in your heart, you would
desire that they should act as "the children of your Father who is in
heaven" (Matt. 5:45). Whatever other persons may do, my business is to do
to them what I would that they should do to me, namely, to act in a way
becoming the child of a heavenly Father. "This is the law and the
prophets." He is giving them exceeding breadth, extracting the essence of
all that was blessed there. This was clearly the gracious wish of a soul that
knew God, even under the law; and nothing less than this could be the ground of
action before God.

(From Lectures on the Gospel of
Matthew.)

"And the LORD God said, It is
not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for
him" (Gen. 2:18).

Abigail was truly a helper to her
"churlish" (or selfish and stingy) husband, Nabal. Even though her
husband was not a good man, she interceded with David on his behalf and spared
Nabal and his sons and servants from being slaughtered. At the same time she
spared David from the shame and guilt of shedding innocent blood (1 Sam.
25:23-31). The outcome for Abigail was that she received a blessing from David
(verses 32-35) and later, after Nabal died, she became David’s wife (verses
40-42).

Sapphira, on the other hand,
failed to be a helper to her lying, hypocritical husband, Ananias. The early
Christians unselfishly sold their property and shared the proceeds with the
poor and persecuted believers (Acts 4:32-37). Ananias was one of those who
"sold a possession" and "brought a certain part and laid it at
the apostles’ feet" (Acts 5:1,2). There was nothing wrong with this in and
of itself, but Ananias pretended that he was giving the entire
proceeds from the sale to help the poor. This was hypocrisy and it was sin
(verses 2-4).

This sinful act, which brought
God’s judgment of death upon Ananias (verse 5), was bad enough. But to make
matters worse, his wife Sapphira was a party to the entire matter (verses 2,8).
As Ananias’ helper, she had a wonderful opportunity to appeal to her husband to
tell the truth. Instead, she repeated his lie—and died with him (verse 10).

"He who converts the sinner
from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a
multitude of sins" (Jas. 5:20).

The so-called "Lord’s
Prayer" (Matt. 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4; perhaps more appropriately called the
"Disicples’ Prayer"), and the way it is often used, have been
severely criticized in some quarters. Some of the criticism is deserved because
of the way people have misused it by thinking that the number of times they
recite it has as much value as the words themselves.

Some of the criticism, however, is
undeserved, in my judgment. There are some who have gone to the opposite
extreme of teaching that this prayer has absolutely no relevance to the
Christian today. Thus we hear objections such as the following:

1. Praying to "our Father who
is in heaven" suggests that He is a great distance away from us.

2. Praying "Thy kingdom
come" is cruel because vast numbers of people will perish when Christ
comes to set up His earthly kingdom.

3. Praying "give us this day
our daily bread" is totally unnecessary when our refrigerators and
freezers are well stocked.

4. Praying "forgive us our
debts as we forgive our debtors" makes God’s forgiveness of us dependent
upon our works.

5. There is no mention of praying
"in Jesus’ name" (John 14:13,14; 16:24,26).

I do not propose that we adopt
this exact prayer for our use today. There are many more themes and topics of
prayer for the Christian than are covered by this one. Also, if we understand
what it means to pray "in Jesus’ name" (that is, we are confident
that Jesus is praying the very same thing for us), it brings great value to our
prayers. But I do propose that every theme of this prayer and every
principle lying behind it can indeed be a valid topic of prayer for the
Christian today.

Let me begin by quoting two highly
esteemed authorities on this point:"Such prayer intelligently used
[my italics] is in [no] wise inconsistent with Christian position" (F.W.
Grant, The Numerical Bible, Matthew, p. 92). "There is not a clause
of that prayer, I believe, but what one might proffer now, even to ‘Forgive us
our debts as we forgive our debtors’" (W. Kelly, Lectures on the Gospel
of Matthew, p. 153).

"Our Father who art in
heaven." Does this really denote distance when it will take only "a
moment, a twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor. 15:52) for us to be raised from earth
to heaven at the Rapture? It is blessedly true that our position in Christ is
"in the heavenlies" (Eph. 2:6 JND), so as we address our Father in
heaven we are reminded of the fact that we are there too, in Christ.

"Hallowed be Thy name."
In an age when the names of God and of His Son are being trampled on and used
so carelessly, well might we desire that His name be treated with the greatest
respect and holiness—beginning with ourselves.

"Thy kingdom come."
"For this kingdom of the Father we must look beyond all dispensations to
the sabbath of God’s own rest. To confound it with the millennium whould be an
entire mistake and necessarily lower its character terribly" (F.W. Grant, The
Numerical Bible). Should we not desire the eternal state in which Christ
has "delivered up the kingdom to God" after having "put all
enemies under His feet" (1 Cor. 15:24-28)? Consistent with our desire for
the coming of our Father’s kingdom would be our desire that Christ should be
the absolute Ruler of our personal lives.

"Thy will be done in earth,
as it is in heaven." It seems that with each new generation man has more
of an attitude of doing "that which [is] right in his own eyes"
(Judg. 21:25). How much better off this world would be if its inhabitants
desired God’s will, rather than their own to be done. Again, it is well
to make it personal:"Not my will but Thine be done in all
that I say and do today."

"Give us this day our daily
bread." Let us acknowledge daily our dependence upon the grace and mercy
of our Father for our every physical, material, and spiritual need. Even if our
refrigerators, freezers, and pantries are well-stocked today, things can change
quickly with a prolonged power outage or an unexpected layoff from one’s
employment.

"Forgive us our debts, as we
forgive our debtors" (see also verses 14,15). It must be remembered that
the disciples are being taught to pray to their "Father." The prayer
is for a Father’s forgiveness of His child’s sin and waywardness, rather than
God’s judicial forgiveness of our sins when we first trust in Christ. Just as
King David could not enjoy his salvation until he had repented of his
sin concerning Bathsheba and her husband (Psa. 51:12), so we will not be able
to enjoy a sense of God’s forgiveness of our sins if we show an
unforgiving spirit toward others. Furthermore, if one who says he/she is a
believer in Christ but is steadfastly determined not to forgive one who
has deeply offended or sinned against him/her, we might well wonder if that
person has truly entered into a relationship with Christ as Lord and
Saviour.

"Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil." Let us not be like Peter who boasted,
"Lord, I am ready to go with Thee, both into prison and to death"
(Luke 22:33). This prayer expresses a proper lack of self-confidence
with regard to handling trials and temptations, as well as a proper dependence
upon God in case He should lead us into a trial or testing.

In conclusion, I am not advocating
the adoption of this prayer as something we do by rote or routine. But from
time to time it would be well to ask ourselves whether we are including the
different elements of this "Disciples’ Prayer" into our own prayers
to "our Father."

Have you ever wondered what is the
attraction of reunions of military units? Why would people want to be reminded
of some of the most uncomfortable if not painful and even terrifying times in
their lives? I used to wonder about that but as I have gotten older I have come
to appreciate in a limited way (I have never been in the military) the strength
of the bonds that are forged when people work for a common goal, battle a
common enemy, depend upon each other for their survival, and suffer together.

Priscilla and Aquila are never
mentioned separately, but always together. Their marriage is an example of how
working, serving, and suffering together can strengthen the bonds between
husband and wife.

Priscilla and Aquila worked
together at their secular occupation (tentmaking, Acts 18:3). (For the purposes
of this article, secular occupation will mean the work by which one provides
for the physical needs of oneself or others.) I believe that in an ideal
environment all husbands and wives would do this. Unfortunately, in modern
society few couples can work together in the same secular work. However, even
if they are physically separated during their secular work, they can carry it
out with a common purpose; they can have a partnership of attitude. For
example, let us suppose the husband of a young couple with children goes out to
some job or business, while the wife stays home to care for the children and
house. The husband should not regard his job as a means to inflate his ego or
to make a name for himself in the business or professional world. The purpose
of his job is to glorify God, provide a means to lay up treasure in heaven, and
to provide for the physical and material needs of his family. Likewise, the
wife in spending the money her husband earns and in caring for the home should
not have as her goals keeping herself and the children in the forefront of
fashion or making her home the showplace of the neighborhood, but to glorify
God, have the means to lay up treasure in heaven, and provide for the various needs
of the family.

If the wife works outside the
home, her purposes should be the same ones; her work should not be a means to
pursue selfish ends. There should be this oneness of attitude toward the
purposes of secular work even if the couple cannot engage in exactly the same
work.

The husband and wife should also
minister together to the emotional, educational, and spiritual needs of the
family. Both should be interested in the training and discipline of the
children. Both should share the interests and activities of the children. Both
should provide time in their schedules for family worship, family
communication, and family recreation.

Aquila and Priscilla not only
worked together in their secular work; they also worked together in their spiritual
ministry. Together they traveled with the apostle Paul to Syria (Acts 18:18),
together they ministered to Apollos (Acts 18:26), and together they provided a
place in their home for the assembly (1 Cor. 16:19). Both are referred to as
Paul’s helpers in Christ Jesus (Rom. 16:3). The ideal Christian couple should
be seeking ways to serve the Lord together and to help one another develop and
use the spiritual gifts of each. A husband and wife can minister together in
teaching children, in visits to homes and hospitals, in tract distribution, and
in ministering to the saved and unsaved in their own home. If the husband has
been given a gift for public ministry, the wife can have a part in this as they
study the Bible and pray together. The wife’s spiritual and scriptural insights
spoken to her husband privately may be very helpful to him as he ministers
publicly. Even if their roles in the ministry are somewhat different, they
should have the partnership of a common purpose.

Serving the Lord together promotes
the unity of the couple as well as the interests of Christ. In fact, the unity
of the couple is one of Christ’s interests (Eph. 5:28-31). Working
together to promote spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being in each
other, in their own children, and in persons outside the family will form
special ties between husband and wife that can be formed in no other way.

What about suffering together?
When Paul met Priscilla and Aquila in Corinth, they were essentially refugees,
having been expelled from Rome along with other Jews by the Emperor Claudius
(Acts 18:1,2). They had suffered the loss of their home. Evidently they
eventually returned to Rome because Paul sent greetings to them and the
assembly meeting in their house when he wrote to the Roman believers (Rom.
16:3-5). Paul says of Priscilla and Aquila, "[They] have for my life laid
down their own necks [or risked their lives]" (Rom. 16:4). This may have
been during turmoil in Corinth (Acts 18:6,12-16) or turmoil in Ephesus where
Priscilla and Aquila lived after leaving Corinth (Acts 18:19; 19:23-41).
Obviously, being close friends of the apostle Paul could be dangerous. We know
of all too many incidents where trouble and suffering such as unemployment, the
death of a child, or the serious illness of one spouse has driven married
couples apart. But this should not be. It is a privilege to suffer with and for
Christ and it is a privilege to suffer with and for other Christians, including
our spouse. Love develops and deepens as we go through trials together. The
veterans who still gather to share their memories and comradeship years after
the battles in which they fought know this, and it is a principle suggested by
Scripture as well (Rom. 12:15; 1 Cor. 12:26; Heb. 13:3).

Like Priscilla and Aquila, let us
respond to Christ in such a way that all of life’s experiences, pleasant and
painful, draw us closer together in our marriages as well as in the assembly.