THE HEIR AND THE PROOF OF TIME BY the time we reach chapter 15 of Genesis a new idea has come into the forefront of the narrative. The land is still in view, with all that that signifies of God's claim to have a kingdom on the earth, but from now onwards attention centres on the son, expressed in the term 'thy seed'. Abraham's problem, seeing he is childless, is, Who is to inher ...read
THE HOLY SPIRIT We have spoken of the eternal purpose of God as the motive and explanation of all His dealings with us. Now, before we return to our study of the phases of Christian experience as set forth in Romans, we must digress yet again in order to consider something which lies at the heart of all our experience as the vitalizing power of effective life and ...read
The Latent Power of the Soul And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no man buyeth their merchandise any more; merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stone, and pearls . . . and cattle, and sheep, and merchandise of horses and chariots and slaves (Gr.bodies); and souls of men. (Rev. 18.11-13) Please note here that in this passage the list of merchand ...read
THE MAN IN THE LAND Fellowship is something we should highly prize because God prizes it highly. If there is life in me, and not merely pretence, and if the same is true of my fellow believers, then however simple they may be, when I meet them I should encounter life in them, and encountering it I should appreciate it. We must learn to value our fellow Christians and ...read
THE MEANING AND VALUE OF ROMANS SEVEN We must return now to our study of Romans. We broke off at the end of chapter 6 in order to consider two related subjects, namely, God's eternal purpose, which is the motive and goal of our walk with Him, and the Holy Spirit, who supplies the power and resource to bring us to that goal. We come now to Romans 7, a chapter which many have felt to be ...read
The Mind Behind the System Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted from the earth, will draw all men unto myself" (John 12:31, 32).
Our Lord Jesus utters these words at a key point in his ministry. He has entered Jerusalem thronged by enthusiastic crowds; but almost at once he has spoken in veiled terms of l ...read
THE NEW LIFE INDWELLING It is only through knowing God first as the God of Isaac that we can move on to know Him as the God of Jacob. Unless we know our inheritance as something already secured and settled in Christ and given to us by God, we have no foundation for going on. To be brought under the discipline of the Spirit, without first knowing that assurance of a work o ...read
THE PATH OF PROGRESS: BEARING THE CROSS In our previous chapter we have touched several times upon the matter of service for the Lord. As we come now to look at the provision that God has made to meet the problem created by the soul-life of man, it will be helpful if we approach that problem by considering first the principles that regulate all such service. God has laid down specific pr ...read
THE PATH OF PROGRESS: KNOWING Our old history ends with the Cross ; our new history begins with the resurrection. " If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold they are become new " (2 Cor. 5. 17). The Cross terminates the first creation, and out of death there is brought a new creation in Christ, the second Man. If we are 'in Adam' all ...read
THE PATH OF PROGRESS: PRESENTING OURSELVES TO GOD 7 THE ETERNAL PURPOSE Our study has now brought us to the point where we are able to consider the true nature of consecration. We have before us the second half of Romans 6 from verse 12 to the end. In Romans 6.12,13 we read: " Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof : neither present your members unto sin as instruments of ...read
THE PATH OF PROGRESS: RECKONING We now come to a matter on which there has been some confusion of thought among the Lord's children. It concerns what follows this knowledge. Note again first of all the wording of Romans 6. 6: ---Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him ". The tense of the verb is most precious for it puts the event right back there in the past. It is ...read
THE PATH OF PROGRESS: WALKING IN THE SPIRIT Coming to Romans 8 we may first summarize the argument of our second section of the letter from chapter 5. 12 to chapter 8. 39 in two phrases, each containing a contrast and each marking an aspect of Christian experience. They are: Romans 5.12 to 6.23: In Adam' and 'in Christ'. Romans 7.1 to 8. 39: 'In the flesh' and 'in the spirit'.
We need to ...read
THE PEACEABLE FRUIT It is now time to glance over the latter part of Jacob's history and see the evidences of the fruitfulness in him of all this inward discipline by the Spirit of God. Already when Jacob met Esau he was different. We find him uncertain, hesitant, not quite knowing what to do, though clearly he still has in him a good deal of his old nature. Genesis 3 ...read
The Powers of the Age to Come What does the writer to the Hebrews mean when he says of Christians that they have "tasted ... the powers of the age to come" (Heb. 6:5)? We would all readily agree that there is a splendid future age to which we look forward. In it the kingdom that is now "in the midst" of us in terms of the mighty acts of the Spirit of God (Matt. 12:28) will then ...read
The Principle of Praying Thrice "And He left them again, and went away, and prayed a third time, saying again the same words." - Matt 26:44
"Concerning this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me." - 2 Cor 12:8
There is one particular secret about prayer that we should know about, which is, a praying three times to the Lord. This "thrice" is not limi ...read
THE STARTING-POINT OF RECOVERY We begin with Abraham because the divine plan of redemption begins with Abraham. When we open our New Testament the first words we read are these: 'The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.' Immediately the genealogy begins: 'Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judah and his brethren.' ...read
THE STATUS OF AN HEIR The distinctive feature of true Christianity is that it compels people to receive. The letter to the Galatians draws a close parallel between ourselves and Isaac, and shows that we are people who receive just as he did. We are heirs (3. 29; 4. 7). We partake of the promises (3. 22; 4. 28). There is an inheritance in view, and we enter into that inh ...read
The Trend Away from God Having every one of us been in bondage to sin, we readily believe that sinful things are Satanic; but do we believe equally that the things of the world are Satanic? Many of us, I think, are still in two minds about this. Yet how clearly Scripture affirms that "the whole world lieth in the evil one" (1 John 5:19). Satan well knows that, generally s ...read
THE WEALTH OF THE CHILD OF GOD THE sacrifice of Isaac is the believer's deepest lesson. It puts to us very straightly the question, Is our hope and expectation still in God, or is it in God and the Isaac we are holding on to? Or, worse still, is our hope in our Isaac only? After all, only God can fulfil His own purpose. When I was without Isaac, I looked to God. With Isaac, I st ...read
THE. CROSS AND THE SOUL LIFE God has made full provision for our redemption in the Cross of Christ, but He has not stopped there. In that Cross He has also made secure beyond possibility of failure that eternal plan which Paul speaks of as having been from all the ages " hid in God who created all things ". That plan He has now proclaimed " to the intent that now unto the prin ...read
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