(Lately given at Duluth, Minn.)

My purpose, brethren, is to seek to give you a fair insight into this Epistle as a whole; as when one receives a letter of a dozen pages from a friend, he reads it all through at once, then returns to details one by one. When we thus possess the general drift of any of these Epistles, their details are better understood and full of blessing.

The occasion of Paul's writing this Epistle was that the assembly had gone wrong in some things,
and his object is to set it right before God. This he does by first pointing out the things which had brought them to that low condition.

Of old, God planted a garden and set man in it to dress it for fruit. So now Christ in the midst of His people is cultivating them with a view to their being made fruitful to God, and our wilderness journey is His instrument to that end. The assembly here on earth is the garden of the Lord to produce for Him fruit that will abide forever.

The apostle, as Christ's servant, sets to work here weeding out what has intruded itself in this garden, then carefully fences it in-separates it to the Lord, and therefore from all that is contrary to His mind.

When we remember that Satan is the prince of this world, the great enemy of Christ and His people, instead of its being a surprising thing to us that he should seek the ruin of the assembly, indeed we should expect that it would be the special object of his attack.

It is solemn to notice his method of attack, as well as how thoroughly it succeeds with God's people, when he first of all succeeds in throwing them off their guard:he has a wedge to drive into the assembly, the point of which is the world, the host of evil following after. You cannot help noticing in the first four chapters how the wisdom of the world had been imported into the assembly, and general worldliness with it. That being successful, the flesh in its shameful immorality follows in the fifth chapter, so that the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters are devoted to ministry called for by that fact. Then the thick end of the wedge is plainly seen in the eighth, ninth and tenth chapters, where the apostle has to point out that communion at the table of demons in idol-temples had already ensnared some of them.

Satan well knew that if he could introduce the world in the form of worldly wisdom it would so weaken their souls that the other steps would be easy. It is ever so; he does not bring in at once that which would shock their moral sense, but rather that which the world around them would smile upon; then what dishonors them and the gospel; then what displaces Christ. The snare is so gradual, they hardly detect it.

The way it manifested itself in them was, that they were following man as man, even though these men might be servants of God. There, out in the world was this great man, and that great man-great thinkers, whose wise thoughts were adopted and followed by their disciples, and the same had come to pass among them. It is in this connection that he reproaches them with walking as men. Notice, he does not say as wicked men. To walk as men was to walk in the mind of the world, and whether it be the world in its respectable wisdom, or in its gross immorality, to follow the world is practically to be against God.

Fullest provision was made for them in this matter of wisdom, as all else, in Christ, and the Spirit of Christ given to them to lead them into all truth, as well as to minister all needed power to follow it.

If even the thinnest veil comes in between the soul and God, God loses His place in the soul, and it is thus prepared for any amount of departure from God. We find therefore that the world's wisdom having come into the assembly, there is now tolerated among them "that wicked person" (see chap. 5:) whose wickedness was so gross, that out in that world, whose wisdom they had adopted, it would be regarded as shameful. The assembly, under the leading of her cunning enemy, is now outdoing the world in wickedness. What a triumph of Satan; what a fall for the assembly!

The apostle not only gives the needed instruction for the assembly to clear itself of this wickedness, but adds, continuing up to the end of the seventh chapter that which is the mind of God for maintaining holiness among His people.

In chaps. 8:-10:, it is no longer the assembly bringing in something from the world, but, instead of the Lord's table being understood and fully satisfying their souls in the blessed communion it expresses, there is the going out and partaking of the cup of devils. This, of course, as the apostle shows, cannot be. The one destroys the other, for they are opposite. "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and the table of devils."Moreover in the eleventh chapter, they were turning His supper into something for themselves, so that one was hungry and another satiated. It would seem that they had a supper-a kind of love feast, before the bread and wine in remembrance of Christ were passed; but instead of its being really a love feast, here was a group of them forming a social circle which excluded their poorer brethren; feasting themselves to excess, while the others were despised and went hungry. Thus despising their brethren, they really despised the Lord and His supper.

Having now brought them face to face with the Lord Himself unto whose name they gather together, and led them to realize what was due to Him, they are now brought where they can be helpers one of another. That is God's order for us; if the Lord has His proper place in our souls, depend upon it we will give one another his due.

Out of sixteen chapters, eleven close before the subject of ministry is touched upon. What a lesson for us, dear brethren, as to where we should put ministry. How can ministry be what it ought to be if the Lord is not revered and obeyed in His assembly?

What a striking figure is used in chap. 12:to set forth how the Head of the Church can minister through each one of His people. I once asked the question in a meeting at a certain place, "How many ministers are there in this assembly?" A brother thought " there were three." Just three brothers in the assembly who opened their mouths! I said, "How many parts of my body are to be of use to me, to minister to me? " Why, all, of course, was the only answer to be given. Now, how many parts of the Lord's body are to be of use to Him? Two or three out of a whole assembly? Brethren, do we know the truth of our common membership in the body of Christ, or is it to be a truth which will put us to shame, as we show how little we act upon it, in seeking, all of us, to minister as the Lord has appointed?-whether it be publicly or quietly, each in his or her place, seeking to contribute to the blessing of the whole body.

Isn't it an unsightly thing when some member in a man's body is out of proportion to the rest, or any feature unduly large or unduly small ? Now, when one brother, or a few brethren, in the assembly are either allowed or compelled to be, and do, everything almost, is it not something much like that? Let us, then, covet proportion in the body of Christ, in its members, as we would covet proportion in the members of the human body. Let me add that while ministry outside the assembly, say in preaching the gospel, is not touched upon in this case (for it is ministry to the body itself I am now speaking of), yet it will certainly follow that if ministry have its full flow in the assembly, there will be also activity in reaching out to others, as we know there should be.

In the thirteenth chapter, love is shown to be the motive which will rightly set all these parts of the body in action. "Love seeketh not her own" is the grand secret of all true and effective ministry.
these gifts are fourteenth chapter, he shows how all lese gifts are to be governed when the whole assembly is together. All must be done decently, and in order. All must be governed by the thought that it edifies. Then, as God in creation has given to the man a certain place, and to the woman another, so, in the assembly, men are there, as everywhere, to be men, and women to be women. Not that this debars women from ministry, for be it remembered that though the prophesying spoken of in this fourteenth chapter is in the assembly and by the men only, in the eleventh chapter he has already spoken of women prophesying – outside the assembly, of course; not in a public, but private way.

The fifteenth chapter gives us the foundation of the assembly, and its hope; Christ crucified and risen, is the foundation. " If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." Then Christ's return is the hope-the time when God will complete His glorious purpose in us:"Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming."

In the last chapter he has a word to say on a commonplace matter, which, nevertheless, is in the line of ministry too. Temporal need is referred to, and temporal ministry therefore receiving regulation also:"Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him." No mere impulse on some great occasion, as when the apostle would come and there would be a general stirring up of heart, but a deliberate purpose of heart before God to tax the weekly income. The proportion is left to the heart of each one-not the rich only, remember, dear brethren, but ''every one of you."

Coming back to the beginning again for a brief word in closing. Here is an assembly that came behind in no gift. They had knowledge, they had utterance, but, with all that, they were not spiritual. They were not growing as they should grow. They were walking as men. They were not growing as they should grow. They were in a condition of childhood. Let us learn wisdom from the apostle's example in dealing with them. He does not give them what might be termed something grand, some heart-thrilling unfolding of truth, but gives them that which, if they take it, will bring them right with God, and where, therefore, they can receive further truth. It indeed does this in effect, as his second epistle to them bears witness.
Thus the Lord's garden has been weeded; its wall repaired and strengthened; fresh seed sown in; and
an increased harvest in prospect for that blessed eternity, in view of which everything has been done.

"How good is the God we adore ! "