Just as the children of Israel sought a path through the trackless wilderness on the way to the land
of promise, so the children of God presently seek a path through the wilderness of the world to
the promised blessings on the other side. It is a path plainly marked to those who know the will
of God, but how often do we leave that path and weary ourselves with wandering until we come
again to that point on the path from which we departed. To follow that path which God has laid
for us (that is, to do His will) is a responsibility and privilege men have as God’s creatures. The
Scriptures amply show how unregenerate men have completely failed to fulfill this responsibility.
But those who are born anew in Christ have power and incentive to do His will. As servants, we
are to obey our Lord. To do His will is to truly own Him as Lord. Having life from Him, we are
to walk worthy of Him, manifesting that life, and we ought to be filled with the knowledge of His
will (Col. 1:9,10). As children of the Father, we are to hearken to His commandments. "Be ye
therefore imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love, even as the Christ loved us"
(Eph. 5:1 JND). We are called to be nothing less than imitators of God. Why? Because we are His
beloved children; we have the Father’s nature, having been created anew in Christ "in truthful
righteousness and holiness" (Eph. 4:24 JND).

One has said that it is the privilege of every child of God and every servant of Christ to be as sure
that he is in God’s way as he is that his soul is saved. Indeed, the same voice that tells us of God’s
salvation tells us of God’s pathway. If one views the journey of Israel through the wilderness as
representative of the Christian’s journey through the world, it is evident that the pathway is well
marked. For how could the Israelite pilgrim miss seeing the pillars of cloud and fire or miss
hearing the silver trumpet (Numbers 9,10) ? Also, Christ, who is the perfect example for the
Christian’s walk, did always the will of the Father and never hesitated or erred as to what the
divine will was. Yet how many times are we perplexed as to what the will of God is in a matter!
Is not such ignorance of God’s will often due to our neglecting to seek His mind until we have
thoroughly muddled things and are apprehensive about the outcome? Or perhaps we do not
perceive that the Lord has intentionally left many things in generalities to cause us to seek Him
for specific guidance. We would like a convenient and comfortable means of knowing God’s will
and therefore erroneously use the Scriptures as a recipe book of instructions. Or perhaps we have
reached the regrettable point where to submit to His will requires more of us than we are willing
to give. Christ said, "The light of the body is the eye:therefore when thine eye is single, thy
whole body also is full of light" (Luke 11:34). Just as the natural eye is the entrance way for light
to guide the natural body, so the spiritual eye, if it be fixed on the God of light, will fill all the
spiritual man with divine light for divine guidance. The single-eyed Christian is one who allows
his conscience to be placed directly in the presence of God, thus learning what he is in God’s sight
and what God is for him. The single-eyed Christian is one whose only desire is to seek God, to
walk with Him, to know Him in His perfect love and righteousness and holiness. The body then
is full of light; the will of God is known.

Many depend heavily on circumstances for divine direction, and God may indeed direct in this
manner. But to be bumped from point to point by natural obstacles is not to discern the will of
God. Guidance by circumstances is as guidance of the horse and mule which have no
understanding of the will, thoughts, or desires of their masters, but must be held in with a bit and

bridle. To guide us so is merciful on God’s part but very sad on ours. "Be ye not as the horse, or
as the mule, which have no understanding:whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle"
(Psalm 32:9). The promise and privilege of him who has faith and the single eye is, "1 will guide
thee with Mine eye" (Psalm 32:8). God has given us the promise of directing us in such a manner
that by being near enough to God, we can receive guidance by a single glance from Him. Note
the great intimacy implied here and the subtleness of the communication. It is not a shouting or
a waving of the arms as from a distance, but it is being close enough to God to see His eye and
being familiar enough with Him to be guided by it. But to be guided thus, every part of the heart
must be in contact with Him. One is reminded of Peter who, when inquiring about the betrayer
of Jesus, sought the answer from that one who leaned upon the breast of Christ, the disciple whom
Jesus loved. Peter knew instinctively that the secrets of the heart of Christ were revealed to those
who, knowing the love of God, sought His intimate presence. Total commitment of one’s self to
Him is called for here. The will of God ought to be both the motive and rule of all that we do.
Mere frequent inquiries at our pleasure as to His will never suffice to disclose to us His mind.
Ready perception of the will of God, as being guided by His eye, can be realized by hearts which
have no object except the will and glory of God.

If we allow God to guide us and to choose the path, He will, in His lovingkindness, choose the
best for us, the path of greatest blessing. If we choose, we cannot but dishonor Him and deprive
ourselves of blessing. How foolish to tread paths of our own devising and lose forever blessings
that were to be eternally ours. How cold-hearted to disregard and to dishonor Him who loved us
and died for us. "We … do not cease praying and asking for you, to the end that ye may be filled
with the full knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so as to walk
worthily of the Lord unto all well-pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and growing by the
true knowledge of God" (Col. 1:9,10 JND).

(Ed. Note:For further reading on this subject, the reader is directed to J. N. Darby’s Collected
Writings, vol.- 16, pp. 19-30, and C. H. Mackintosh’s "God’s Way and How to Find It" in
Miscellaneous Writings, vol. 2.)

"And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:These things saith He that is Holy, He that
is True, He that hath the key of David, He that openeth and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and
no man openeth; I know thy works:behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can
shut it:for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept My word, and hast not denied My name" (Rev.
3:7,8).

How much we need to remember that "these things saith He that is Holy, He that is True." As we
think of the Church in its scattered, divided condition, and as we would desire to see it restored,
we would ask, "What are we to do for its restoration?" Shall we proclaim to all Christians that it
is the will of God that His people should be together? Shall we spread the Lord’s table, free from
all sectarian names and terms of communion and fling wide open our doors and invite all that truly
love the Lord to come together? For in fact the "one loaf" upon the table does bear witness that
we are "one loaf, one body" (1 Cor. 10:17 JND); and there is no other body that faith can own
but the body of Christ. Why should we not then do this?

1 answer:"Tell them by all means that the Lord has welcome for all His own:but tell them it is
the ‘Holy and True’ who welcomes, and that He cannot give up His nature." How has the true
Church become the invisible Church? Has it been without sin on her part? Is it her misfortune and
not her fault? Take the guidance of these seven epistles in the Book of Revelation and trace the
descent from the loss of first love in Ephesus to the sufferance of the woman Jezebel in Thyatira,
and on through dead Sardis to the present time. Can we just ignore the past and simply, as if
nothing had happened, begin again?

Suppose your invitation to "all Christians" were accepted and you were able really to assemble
all the members of Christ at the table of the Lord_to bring them together with their jarring views,
their various states of soul, their entanglements with the world, their evil associations. How far,
do you suppose, would the Lord’s table answer to the character implied in its being the table of
the Lord? How far would He be indeed owned and honored in your thus coming together? With
the causes of all the scattering not searched out and judged, what would your gathering be but a
defiance of the holy discipline by which the Church was scattered? Would it not be but another
Babel?

Can you think that visible unity is so dear to Christ that He should desire it apart from true
cleansing and fellowship in the truth? Surely this address to Philadelphia is completely in
opposition to all such thoughts. It surely is not without significance that the Lord presents Himself
here as the Holy and True.

Those who will gather as did the Philadelphian saints of old, gather unto Christ. And it is Christ
who gathers. Those who have a common faith, a common joy, a common occupation are gathered
together by Him to form that which is the outward sign of the spiritual bond that unites us. He
who knows what gathering at the Lord’s table means knows how communion at that table can be
hindered by the presence of what is not communion. How is the power of the Spirit hindered by
those who have unexercised consciences and have hearts unreceptive to divine things! The

Scripture rule for times of declension is that we should walk "with them that call on the Lord out
of a pure heart" (2 Tim. 2:22). The way to find these is not to advertise for them, but to "follow
righteousness, faith, charity, peace," walking on the road in which they are walking.

It results from this that if we really seek the blessing of souls, we shall guard with more
carefulness, not with less, the entrance into fellowship; we shall consider Him who is Holy and
True. Careless reception is the cause of abundant trouble and may lead to general decline. "Evil
communications corrupt good manners" (1 Cor. 15:33). Men cannot walk together except they
are agreed. When trial comes, those who have never been firm of purpose, never, perhaps,
convinced of the divine warrant for the position they have taken, scatter and flee from it with
reckless haste, carrying with them wherever they go an evil report of what they have turned their
backs upon. Such persons are, generally speaking, outside of any hope of recovery and often
develop into the bitter enemies of the truth.

We are incurring a great responsibility if we press or encourage people to take a position for
which they are not ready; in which, therefore, they act without faith. There is great danger in
leading others who do not have an exercised conscience to imitate a faith that is not their own.
"Whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23). No wonder there are wrecks all along the track
of a movement for which faith is so constantly required, and in which so many are endeavoring
to walk without faith. Let us remember that it is the Holy and True that is seeking fellowship with
us and that nothing but that which answers to this character can abide the test that will surely
come.

(From A Divine Movement and Our Path with God Today, by F. W. Grant.)

The fourteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians is remarkable as being the only Scripture in which the
order of the church when "come together into one place" is declared. This should surely give it
some importance in the eyes of those who believe that He who "loved the Church, and gave
Himself for it" has not ceased to love and care, and that the Head of it has not given up His
headship.

In this chapter, the apostle has especially upon his mind two things connected with the assembly.
These are prophecy and the gift of tongues. He saw the Corinthians priding themselves in the
latter and falling into utter folly in their pride, speaking with tongues that no one understood.
Prophesying apparently was practically ignored in the presence of the more showy gift of tongues.
That which was a sign to those that believed not was usurping the place of that which spoke unto
believers "to edification and exhortation and comfort." If in the assembly, then, the rule was that
all things should be done to edifying, the prophesying which was expressly intended for edification
was really the greater and the better thing. Thus he bids them "covet to prophesy" (verse 39).

What is the nature of this "prophesying"? According to the strict meaning of the word, a prophet
was one who spoke for another. This name was given among the heathen to those who spoke for
a god and made known his will to men. Prophesying does not necessarily imply prediction of
future events, although it may sometimes include this.

The prophet in the Scriptures was one who spoke for God. Thus, "man of God" was often the
beautiful and significant designation given to such a person. In days of darkness and apostasy, the
prophets stood forth on the part of Him whom men had forgotten, and brought His word and will
to them. The prophets dealt with the moral condition of those addressed, calling them to
repentance, encouraging, warning, comforting, exhorting, instructing in righteousness.

Now, if this be the basis of prophesying, it is no wonder that the apostle so highly values it. If
prophesying is speaking for God in the midst of His people, it is easy to see how people should
be exhorted to "covet it."

Prophesying is distinct from "teaching." It does not necessarily imply any gift for teaching, nor
indeed any gift for public speaking at all. "Five words" might suffice. The Word of God simply
read might carry its own simple and intelligible meaning to the hearts of all present. Neither
eloquence nor the power of presenting the truth in orderly arrangement are needed. The Divine
utterance might come in broken words and sentences, and be still the fulfillment of the injunction,
"If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God" (1 Peter 4:11).

Gift is not spirituality. The church at Corinth came behind in no gift; yet the apostle could not
speak unto them "as unto spiritual but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ" (1 Cor. 3:1).
It is no disparagement of gift to say that without the accompaniment of spirituality, the possessor
of the most precious gift might be quite incompetent to edify. And, alas, men change and men
decline. The highly gifted sometimes even by this means lead those who follow them the most
astray.

Hence, when the Church is gathered together, God will have no voice raised to exclude His. In
perfect wisdom He may put aside the most gifted at His will, to bring His word in by some poor,
plain man, who has been upon his face before Him, and has learned His mind where man learns
best, in the lowest school. He whom perhaps they would all have excluded from teaching them,
who, as to measure of gift, may be below any there, may be the very one brought forward to teach
them all.

And so the apostle puts this power of prophesying before the Corinthian saints, and exhorts them
to covet it. Only a soul having Christ as the motive and men’s blessing as the desire of the heart
could covet such a thing. "God’s men" must, of all men, be men of faith, content to wait on God
and walk with God.

But where are the "men of God"? Amiable, kindly men, 1 can find many; just, honest, and
upright, not a few. Saved men who know it, and thank God for it, are much fewer, but still many.
But where are the men, to whom "to live is Christ"? Where are his bondsmen, absolutely His? Is
it not what we all are, as bought with His precious blood? Is it what we are in practical reality?

There are few things more to be coveted for the assemblies of the saints than this "prophesying."
Men may teach truth, and teach it well; but that is quite another thing. The prominent place given
to prophesying in this chapter which regulates the assembly’s coming together, ought to assure
us of its special importance in this place. That importance is that the voice of the living God
should be heard by His people, distinctly addressing itself to their need, their whole condition at
the moment. How different a thing from, people speaking to fill up the time, or from one speaking
of something which has interested or impressed himself! "The word of the Lord by the prophets"
was none of these; it was a direct address from the heart of God to the hearts and consciences of
His people. "If any man speak," he is to speak "as oracles of God," as God’s mere mouthpiece.

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 fleshy 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 firstborn 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 1 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 my body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may he manifested in my mortal
body (2 Cor. 4:10).

Christ is a source to me of all those things in which 1 long to be like Him. Beholding with open
face the glory of the Lord, 1 am changed into the same image. No rule of life can do this. "Of His
fulness we all have received, and grace upon grace (John 1:16 JND). A rule of life has no fulness
to communicate. Hence He says, "Sanctify them through thy truth:thy word is truth. . . . And
for their sakes 1 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 1 see it in One who not only has loved me, but who is altogether lovely!
Hence 1 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 1 am now aiming at is not now on earth; it is Christ risen. This makes my
conversation to be heavenly. Hence he says, "If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which
are above, where Christ sitteth 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 which hath
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
fulness 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!

The Lord Jesus is called "the Son of God" in different respects. He is so called as being born of
the virgin (Luke 1:35). He is such by divine decree (Psalm 2:7, Acts 13:33). He is the Son, and
yet has obtained the name of Son (Heb. i:i-5).

Matthew and Mark first notice His Sonship of God at His baptism. Luke goes farther back and
notices it at His birth. But John goes back farther still, even to the immeasurable, unspeakable
distance of eternity, and declares His Son-ship "in the bosom of the Father" (John 1:18).

The bosom of the Father was an eternal habitation, enjoyed by the Son in the indescribable delight
of the Father. Another has called it "the hiding place of love"_inexpressible love which is beyond
glory, for glory may be revealed, but this cannot.

Can the love of God be understood according to Scripture if the Sonship of Jesus Christ be not
owned? Does not that love get its character from that very doctrine? Are not our hearts challenged
on the ground of it? "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son" (John 3:16).
Again, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10). Yet again, "We have seen and do testify that the Father
sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world" (1 John 4:14).

Does not this love at once lose its unparalleled glory if this truth be questioned? How would our
souls answer the man who would tell us that it was not His own Son whom God spared not, but
gave Him up for us all? How would it wither the heart to hear that such a One was only His Son
as born of the virgin and that the words, "He that spared not His own Son" (Romans 8:32) refer
to Him as a human Son and not as a divine Son?

As we trace His wondrous path from the glory to the heirship of all things, what discoveries are
made of Him! Read of Him in Proverbs 8:22-31; John 1:1-3; Ephesians 1:10; Colossians 1:13-22;
Hebrews 1:1-3; 1 John i:2; Revelation 3:14. Meditate on Him as presented to you in those
glorious Scriptures. Let them yield to you their several lights that you may view the One in whom
you trust, the One who gave up all for you, the One who has trod_and is treading_such a path;
and then tell me if you can possibly part with Him.

In the bosom of the Father He was. There lay the Eternal Life with the Father. He was God, and
yet with God. In counsel He was then set up before the highest part of the dust of the earth was
made (Prov. 8:26). Then, He was the Creator of all things in their first order and beauty;
afterwards, in their state of mischief and ruin, He was the Reconciler of all things; and by-and-by,
in their regathering, He will be the Heir of all things. By faith we see Him thus, and thus speak
of Him. He was in the everlasting counsels, in the virgin’s womb, in the sorrows of the world,
in the resurrection from the dead, in the honor and glory of a crown in heaven, and with all
authority and praise in the heirship and lordship of all things.

Deprive Him of the bosom of the Father from all eternity, and ask your soul if it has lost nothing
in its apprehension and joy of this precious mystery, thus unfolded from everlasting to everlasting.

1 cannot understand a saint pleading for such a thing. Nor can 1 consent to join in any confession
that tells my heavenly Father it was not His own Son He gave up for me.

The First Epistle of John deals particularly with the Person of the Son. It is the Son who is the
great object through the whole of it. The fathers, the young men, and the little children are
distinguished in this epistle, not on the basis of their general Christian character, but on the
measure of their souls’ apprehension of the truth concerning the Person of the Son. How divinely
and preciously consistent is all of this!

(From The Son of God.)