We have but little conception of
what an assembly would be were each one distinctly led by the Holy Spirit, and
gathered only to Jesus. We would not then have to complain of dull,
heavy, unprofitable, trying meetings. We would have no fear of an unhallowed
intrusion of mere nature and its restless doings—no making of prayer, no
talking for talking’s sake, no hymn book seized to fill a gap. Each one would
know his place in the Lord’s immediate presence; each gifted vessel would be
filled, fitted, and used by the Master’s hand; each eye would be directed to
Jesus; each heart occupied with Him. If a chapter were read, it would be the
very voice of God. If a word were spoken, it would tell with power upon the
heart. If prayer were offered, it would lead the soul into the very presence of
God. If a hymn were sung, it would lift the spirit up to God, and be like
sweeping the strings of the heavenly harp. We would have no ready-made sermons;
no teaching or preaching prayers, as though we would explain doctrines to God;
no praying at our neighbors, or asking for all manner of graces for
them, in which we ourselves are lamentably deficient; no singing for music’s
sake, or being disturbed if harmony be interfered with. All these evils would
be avoided. We would feel ourselves in the very sanctuary of God, and enjoy a
foretaste of that time when we shall worship in the courts above, and go no
more out.

We may be asked, "Where
will you find all this down here?" Ah! this is the question. It is one
thing to present an ideal on paper, and another thing to realize it in the
midst of error, failure, and infirmity. Through mercy, some of us have tasted,
at times, a little of this blessedness. We have occasionally enjoyed moments of
heaven upon earth. Oh, for more of it! May the Lord, in His great mercy, raise
the tone of the assemblies everywhere! May He greatly enlarge our capacity for
more profound communion and spiritual worship! May He enable us so to walk in
private life from day to day as to judge ourselves and our ways in His holy
presence, that at least we may not prove a lump of lead or a waster to any of
God’s assemblies.

Even though we may not be able
to reach in experience the full expression of the assembly, yet let us never be
satisfied with anything less. Let us honestly aim at the loftiest standard, and
earnestly pray to be lifted up thereto. As to the ground of God’s
assembly, we should hold it with jealous tenacity, and never consent for an
hour to occupy any other. As to the tone and character of an assembly, they may
and will vary immensely, and will depend upon the faith and spirituality of
those gathered. Where the tone of things is felt to be low, when meetings are
felt to be unprofitable, where things are said and done repeatedly which are
felt by the spiritual to be wholly out of place, let all who feel it wait on
God—wait continually and believingly—and He will assuredly hear and answer. In
this way the very trials and exercises which are peculiar to an assembly will
have the happy effect of casting us more immediately upon Him; and thus the
eater will yield meat, and the strong sweetness (Judges 14:14). We must count
upon trials and difficulties in any expression of the assembly, just because it
is the right and divine way for God’s people on earth. The devil will
put forth every effort to drive us from that true and holy ground. He will try
the patience, try the temper, hurt the feelings, cause offence in nameless and
numberless ways— anything and everything to make us forsake the true ground of
the assembly.

It is well to remember this. We
can only hold the divine ground by faith. This marks the assembly of God, and
distinguishes it from every human system. You cannot get on there save by
faith. And, further, if you want to be somebody, if you are seeking a place, if
you want to exalt self, you need not think of any true expression of the
assembly. If the assembly be in any measure what it should be, fleshly or
worldly greatness in any shape will be of no account in it. The Divine Presence
withers up everything of that kind and levels all human pretension.

Finally,
you cannot get on in the assembly if you are living in secret sin. The Divine
Presence will not suit you. Have we not often experienced in the assembly a
feeling of uneasiness, caused by the recollection of many things which had
escaped our notice during the week? Wrong thoughts, foolish words, unspiritual
ways—all these things crowd in upon the mind and exercise the conscience in the
assembly! How is this? Because the atmosphere of the assembly is more searching
than that which we have been breathing during the week. We have not been in the
presence of God in our private walk. We have not been judging ourselves; and
hence, when we take our place in a spiritual assembly, our hearts are detected
and our ways are exposed in the light; and that exercise which ought to have
gone on in private— the needed exercise of self-judgment—must go on at the
table of the Lord. This is poor, miserable work for us, but it proves the power
of the presence of God in the assembly. Things must be in a miserably low state
in any assembly when hearts are not thus detected and exposed. It is a fine evidence
of the power of the Holy Spirit in an assembly when careless, carnal, worldly,
self-exalting, money-loving, unprincipled persons are compelled to judge
themselves in God’s presence, or, failing this, are driven away by the
spirituality of the atmosphere. Such an assembly is no place for these. They
can breathe more freely outside.