The Increase of God

By T. Austin-Sparks


Reading: 1 Cor. 3; Heb. 5:11-6:3.

"We desire each one of you to show the same diligence unto the fulness of hope.... that ye be not sluggish, but... through faith and patience inherit the promises."

"Walk worthily of the Lord... increasing in the knowledge of God." - Col. 1:10.

"Holding fast the Head from whom all the body being supplied... increaseth with the increase of God." - Col. 2:19.

"The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another." - 1 Thess. 3:12.

"We exhort you brethren that ye abound more and more." - 1 Thess. 4:10.

"Speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into HIM, who is the Head, even Christ; from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love." - Eph. 4:15-16, A.R.V.
The Lord's thought for His children is fulness; and in connection with all the works of God there is always the thought of fulness; that which the Lord desires for His children is fulness, increase, abundance, growth, development. When the Lord was on earth, He met the need found in the multitudes of people with an abundance and fulness, although having very little naturally with which to meet it. We see His thought is abundance - "and they all ate and were filled and they took up that which remained over of the broken pieces twelve baskets full." (Matt. 14:20).

His utterances likewise are full of this thought, "Give and it shall be given you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over," Luke 6:38. There is fulness and abundance.

If we but realised the possibilities of the Holy Spirit resident within us in correspondence to the energy that He energises in us, how different things would be; "Having the eyes of your heart enlightened that ye may KNOW... what the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to that 'energising' of the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenlies far above all." (Eph. 1:18-21. A.R.V.).

"I was made a minister according to that gift of the grace of God which was given unto me, according to the working [energising] of His power. (Eph 3:7).

"The Lord Jesus who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory according to the working [energising] whereby He is able even to subject all things unto HIMSELF" (Phil. 3:21). "I labour also striving according to His working who worketh in me in power " (Col. 1:29, A.R.V.)

"There are diversities of workings [energisings] but God who worketh [energiseth] all things in all... but all these [energiseth] the one and the same Spirit dividing to each one severally as He will" (1 Cor. 12:6-11).

"It is God who energiseth in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).

The Lord's thought is to add, to give increase, to bring into fulness.

But there is a side of responsibility where we are concerned, and we need to ask whether the measure of power working in us has to do with ourselves; as to how much we limit those powers, energising, working in us? The Holy Spirit in the power of the Lord Jesus is capable of realising "far above all that we can ask or think," but so often we limit the work by getting in His way. There is a tremendous stress in the New Testament to our going on to the fullness; 1 Cor. 3, and Heb. 5 lay special emphasis on our responsibility to go on.

The Golden Measuring Rod

The measuring rod of God has been set up in the midst of His people, and everything is brought to that golden measuring rod set up in the House of God. To the last detail all that has part in the House of God is brought to that rod - the measure of Christ, and tested by it as to whether it is meet for the Divine requirement.

The measuring rod is the Lord Jesus HIMSELF, HE is the fulness of God, "In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," (Col. 2:9) and everything has to be brought to measure in the Lord Jesus (Col. 2:12 - "In HIM ye are made full.") to be seen whether it comes short; "Lest any of you should seem to come short" (Heb. 4:1). "Lest any man falleth short of the grace of God." (Heb. 13:15). "Wherefore, having the doctrine of the first principles of Christ, let us press on unto full growth." (Heb. 6:1 A.R.V.).

God has a very full standard of completeness in the Lord Jesus in relation to spiritual life, and truly for the child of God there should be no other kind of life, but all the life a spiritual life, where everything is brought by God's Holy Spirit to God's measurement in Christ. Are you coming short of God's measurement in Christ for your business life? If there is anything crooked in your business life the Holy Spirit will bring the straightness of the Lord Jesus against that thing. Also with the home life both personally and unitedly, everything is brought by the Holy Spirit to God's degree and standard in Christ Jesus and tested by HIM. And it is made manifest if there is crookedness, and where there is a falling-short of God's requirement you get conditions which make for unhappiness.

Likewise our secret prayer life, and reading of the Word of God, all must come to the measuring rod of God. Everything in the House of God, i.e., the Lord's people, is brought by the Holy Spirit to God's measurement in Christ, to be tested whether all is according to Christ. The ministry of the Word should be to the straightening out of all to the straightness of Christ. Sometimes it is a cutting off, if we have gone beyond the measure of Christ. We are not so much in peril of doing this, but rather of falling short and not coming up to the "stature of the fulness of Christ." The Holy Spirit's operations with us are according to the standard of God in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Spirituality

Let us look at some of the things which relate to the increase of God. Firstly, and in some sense all inclusively, it is a matter of spirituality.

"Whom having not yet seen ye love, in whom though now ye see Him not, yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." (1 Peter, 1:8). "He endured as seeing Him who is invisible." (Heb. 11:27). "Enduring as seeing." This is a measure of spirituality. With us faith is still largely measured by sight, and the Lord is seeking to bring us to the place where we are spiritual; the natural side of things does influence us so much, and the Lord is trying to cut in between this approving and apprehending by the senses.

Paul could not speak to the Corinthian believers but as to carnal; yet this first letter to the Corinthian Church is largely occupied with "spirituals"; "Now concerning spirituals, brethren," (1 Cor. 12:1). And yet this declaration "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual" (1 Cor. 3:1). Now what has happened? These Corinthian believers were tremendously interested in the spirituals, yet they were not spiritual, not really growing, and to have these things on the gift side does not represent maturity. Interested in these spiritual gifts and probably possessors of the manifestation side of things as the spirituals, yet not spiritual.

Love, the Law of Increase

What are some of the laws of real spiritual increase? LOVE, 1 Cor. 12. If I have all gifts, and have not love, I am nothing, I am not spiritual. In the opening passages note how "increase" is linked with "love." What was the reason of the Thessalonian believers' quick growth? Look at the testimony they bore. Paul found he had no need to speak of them, for wherever he went they were known. "From you hath sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Acaia, but in every place your faith Godward is gone forth, so that we need not to speak anything." (1 Thess. 1:8). What was the secret of their increase? The letters to the Thessalonians are often thought to be the elementary letters, but, the order in which God has sovereignly arranged the letters of Paul, represents far greater facts than mere chronological order. Romans begins with justification by faith; Thessalonians ends with the coming of the Lord, and with the coming of the Lord you have got to have maturity. And Thessalonians represents coming, to maturity in a very rapid way, a coming, to an "End Time" place - the holding the word in much affliction (1 Thess. 1:6).

The key to the Thessalonian position is LOVE; yes, spiritual increase is by love. Along that way is growth and maturity. You can have all the gifts and be very immature. Spiritual increase is not by knowing all these things, the way of growth is not by faith's power externally manifested, but more by inward endurance. Do you want to know the way of the increase of God? It is by LOVE.

What the Lord needs is an open pure spirit towards HIMSELF, and love toward ALL saints, the Lord will bring into His greater fulness where there is a genuine love one to the other - IN HIM. The sure way of being locked up and limited is to have a closed heart to any of the Lord's children. LOVE is the way to spiritual increase. The Ephesian letter in which there is the fullest unveiling of heavenly truth in the deepest teaching concerning the Church, the Body of Christ, there is from start to finish the golden thread of LOVE running all through, this is significant when you consider what the letter contains.

1 Cor 13 is the great chapter on love, and is put over beside all the "gifts." Love is the real spirituality that is spirituality. Love is the most difficult and the greatest of all gifts. "Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own affections." (2 Cor. 6:12). You are so narrow, so limited, like a closed hedge, pent up, cramped! "Our heart is enlarged, ye are not straitened in us."

The measure of our spiritual life is no greater than our heart; the knowledge that is in the head is not the measure of spirituality, the way for your release, emancipation, increase, abundance is the way of the heart. Spirituality is not mental agreement on things stated in the Word, it is the melting of one heart to another - to all saints. The devil has locked up a number of the Lord's children as in a padded room of their own limitations; frozen their love by something between them and other children of God. The way out is by increase of love; and we shall remain locked, up until we are there!

In the book of Leviticus where the offering to the Lord is introduced, we read "If any man of you bring an offering to the Lord"; then there follows the nature of the sacrifice, what it is to be and what it is to be like, and "he shall offer it of his own voluntary will." In Leviticus it is voluntary, "If any man," "of his own voluntary will." In Numbers the offering is obligatory and dealing with another aspect of truth. In Leviticus it is a matter of the heart, a voluntary matter, a coming into the presence of the Lord in fellowship; it is the heart going out to the Lord, and wanting something for the Lord, that the Lord should have something. That is fellowship, that is worship. Then notice the character of the offering to be given, it must be that which wholly speaks of the Lord, it must represent the Lord Jesus. Leviticus opens with the heart going out voluntarily to God, that HE shall have something, and what He shall have is His own satisfaction and be wholly according to Christ. Spiritually this is seen to be a matter of love to the Lord, the desire to have all things according to Him.

True spirituality is the measure of love of God shed abroad in the heart, all the spirituals rest upon and have their rise out of Love. Not power, or knowledge, or different gifts, these are not the first things, the first thing is love. That leads to the increase of God. There are other things that lead to increase but love is first and basic to all other. Any threat to fellowship among the Lord's people is the way of arrest in growth.

"That He would grant you according, to the riches of His glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled into all the fulness of God." (Eph. 3:16-19).

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-June 1931, Vol 9-3

In keeping with T. Austin-Sparks' wishes that what was freely received should be freely given, his writings are not copyrighted. Therefore, we ask if you choose to share them with others, please respect his wishes and offer them freely - free of changes, free of charge and free of copyright.

Three Examples of Faith

With New Testament Eyes: 35 - Three Examples of Faith

By Henry Mahan


1 Kings 17:8-16; 1 Kings 18:29-39; 1 Kings 20:31-32


Long ago, when the Roman Empire flourished, someone said, 'All roads lead to Rome.' Those who study the Scriptures with a desire to know the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent (John 17:1-3), will do well to learn this first: in the Scriptures all roads lead to Christ--his person, glory, and redemptive work (Acts 10:43; John 5:39). From Genesis to Malachi the Old Testament Scriptures declare, 'Someone is coming;' the four gospels declare, 'He has come, behold, the Lamb of God;' and the epistles declare, 'He is coming again.' I want you to consider three examples of faith (recorded in 1 Kings) and how they relate to us; the faith of the elect, the faith of the evangelist, and the faith of the enemy.

1. The faith of the elect

1 Kings 17:8-16. Our Lord Jesus referred to this widow in Luke 4:25-26, when he preached in Nazareth and set forth his sovereign power and mercy as the Messiah (Rom. 9: 14-18).

God sent a famine upon the land for many years. The word of the Lord came to Elijah, God's prophet, to go eastward and hide by the brook Cherith, and there he would be fed by the ravens and drink of the brook (1 Kings 17:1-4). 

After a time, because there was no rain, the brook dried up (1 Kings 17:7); and the Lord commanded the prophet to go to Sarepta, to a city of Sidon. 'Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee' (1 Kings 17:9). Elijah found the woman gathering sticks to build a fire. The prophet told her to fetch him a little water in a vessel, and as she went to get the water, he said, 'And bring me a morsel of bread.' The woman replied, 'All I have left is a handful of meal in a barrel and a little oil in a cruse. I am gathering those sticks to build a fire and cook one last cake for me and my son. It will be our last meal, and then we die.'

 Elijah answered, 'Don't be afraid; go build the fire and prepare the meal; but make me a little cake first and bring it to me; then prepare one for you and your son. For thus saith the Lord, the barrel shall not be empty and the oil shall not cease until God sends rain' (1 Kings 17:10-14). The widow did as she was commanded, and the promise of God was fulfilled toward her (1 Kings 17:15-16).

How wonderful and sovereign are the ways of our God. He will reject the strength and wisdom of the flesh that he may have all the glory (1 Cor. 1:25-31). In the time of famine, he would send his prophet to a Gentile city, to the poorest of women, a widow, to be fed and cared for.

This woman was one of God's elect; for, though she knew it not, God had already prepared her heart to receive his prophet and his word. 'I have commanded her' (Psalm 110:3; Gal. 1:15-16; 2 Thess. 2:13).

The woman heard the words of the prophet and the promise of God to bless and sustain her; and she believed, the evidence of her faith being that she prepared a cake for the prophet first and brought it to him. Like Abraham of old, she believed God against all human reason, logic, and hope and staggered not at his promise (Rom. 4:17-25).

The faith of God's elect might be summed up in this way:

Knowledge - 'I know whom I have believed.'

Confidence - 'I am persuaded he is able to keep.'

Committal - 'That which I have committed unto him.' (2 Tim. 1:12.)

2. The faith of the evangelist

1 Kings 18:29-39. In the third year of the great famine, Elijah called the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of the groves to Mt. Carmel and challenged them to call on their gods, and he would call on the name of the Lord, and the God that answered by fire, let him be God (1 Kings 18:19-24). After the false prophets had utterly failed, after crying all day, Elijah's confidence and faith in the living God is seen in two things: (a) His soaking the sacrifice, wood, and altar with twelve barrels of water (1 Kings 18:30-35).

(b) His brief, God-glorifying, sixty-three word prayer (1 Kings 18:36-37). 'The fire of the Lord fell.' 'I believe, Lord, help thou mine unbelief.'
3. The faith of the enemy

1 Kings 20:31-32. Ahab sinned against God in sparing the wicked Benhadad, whom God had appointed to destruction, but the faith of these enemies in the mercy of the king of Israel and the way that they came to him is certainly a lesson for all guilty sinners who seek the mercy of God. Come in the sackcloth of repentance, with a rope about your neck, justifying God's right to destroy you, and owning your just condemnation (Luke 23:39- 43). God is plenteous in mercy to those who seek mercy (Psalm 130:2-8), but the proud he will send away empty. Death, the wages of sin, we have justly earned and deserve; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord (Rom. 6:23).

Hold fast that which is good

By A.B. Simpson


It is good to be able to receive new truth and blessing without sacrificing the truths already proved or abandoning foundations already laid. Some persons are always laying the foundations, until, finally, they appear like a number of abandoned sites and half-constructed buildings. Nothing is ever brought to completion. 

If today you are abandoning for some new truth the things that a year ago you counted most precious and believed to be divinely true, this should be sufficient evidence that a year from now you will probably abandon your present convictions for the next new light that comes to you. 

God wants to continually add to us, to develop us, to enlarge us, to teach us more and more but always building on what He has already taught us and what He has established in our lives. While we are to prove all things, let us hold fast that which is good, and whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing (Philippians 3:16).

Ready to Move

By Mrs. Charles E. Cowman


"For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor.5:1).

The owner of the tenement which I have occupied for many years has given notice that he will furnish but little or nothing more for repairs. I am advised to be ready to move.

At first this was not a very welcome notice. The surroundings here are in many respects very pleasant, and were it not for the evidence of decay, I should consider the house good enough. But even a light wind causes it to tremble and totter, and all the braces are not sufficient to make it secure. So I am getting ready to move.

It is strange how quickly one's interest is transferred to the prospective home. I have been consulting maps of the new country and reading descriptions of its inhabitants. One who visited it has returned, and from him I learn that it is beautiful beyond description; language breaks down in attempting to tell of what he heard while there. He says that, in order to make an investment there, he has suffered the loss of all things that he owned here, and even rejoices in what others would call making a sacrifice. Another, whose love to me has been proven by the greatest possible test, is now there. He has sent me several clusters of the most delicious fruits. After tasting them, all food here seems insipid.

Two or three times I have been down by the border of the river that forms the boundary, and have wished myself among the company of those who were singing praises to the King on the other side. Many of my friends have moved there. Before leaving they spoke of my coming later. I have seen the smile upon their faces as they passed out of sight. Often I am asked to make some new investments here, but my answer in every case is, "I am getting ready to move." --Selected

The words often on Jesus' lips in His last days express vividly the idea, "going to the Father." We, too, who are Christ's people, have vision of something beyond the difficulties and disappointments of this life. We are journeying towards fulfillment, completion, expansion of life. We, too, are "going to the Father." Much is dim concerning our home-country, but two things are clear. It is home, "the Father's House." It is the nearer presence of the Lord. We are all wayfarers, but the believer knows it and accepts it. He is a traveller, not a settler. --R. C. Gillie

The little birds trust God, for they go singing
From northern woods where autumn winds have blown,
With joyous faith their trackless pathway winging
To summer-lands of song, afar, unknown.

Let us go singing, then, and not go sighing:
Since we are sure our times are in His hand,
Why should we weep, and fear, and call it dying?
'Tis only flitting to a Summer-land.
--Selected

Beside the Drying Brook

Elijah 2 - Beside the Drying Brook

By F.B. Meyer


We are studying the life of a man of like passions with ourselves, one who was weak where we are weak, failing where we would fail. But he stood, single-handed, against his people and stemmed the tide of idolatry and sin and turned a nation back to God. And he did it by the use of resources which are within reach of us all. This is the fascination of the story. 

If it can be proven that he acted under a spell of some secret which is hidden from us ordinary persons or that he was cast in an heroic mold to which we can lay no claim, then disappointment will overcast our interest and we must lay aside the story. Elijah would be a model we could not copy, an ideal we could not realize, a vision that mocks us as it fades into the azure of the past.

But this is not the case. This man, by whom God threshed the mountains, was only a worm at the best. This pillar in God's temple was, by nature, a reed shaken by the breath of the slightest zephyr. This prophet of fire who shone like a torch, was originally but a piece of smoking flax. Faith made him all he became, and faith will do as much for us if only we can exercise it to appropriate the might of the eternal God as he did. All power is in God, and it has pleased Him to store it all in {16} the risen Savior, as in some vast reservoir. These stores are brought into human hearts by the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost is given according to the measure of our receptivity and faith. Oh, for Elijah's receptiveness, that we might be as full of Divine power as he was, and as able, therefore, to do exploits for God and truth!

But, before this can happen, we must pass through the same education as he. You must go to Cherith and Zarephath before you can stand on Carmel. Even the faith you have must be pruned, educated, and matured so that it may become strong enough to subdue kingdoms, work righteousness, and turn armies of aliens to flight.

Notice, then, the successive steps in God's education of His servants.

1. GOD'S SERVANTS MUST LEARN TO TAKE ONE STEP AT A TIME. 

This is an elementary lesson, but it is hard to learn. No doubt Elijah found it so. Before he left Thisbe for Samaria, to deliver the message that burdened his soul, he would naturally inquire what he should do when he had delivered it. How would he be received? What would be the outcome? Where should he go to escape the vengeance of Jezebel, who had not shrunk from slaying the prophets less dauntless than himself? If he had asked those questions of God and waited for a reply before he left his highland home, he would never have gone at all. Our Father never treats His children so. He only shows us one step at a time, and He bids us take it in faith. If we look up into His face and say: "But if I take this step which is certain to involve me in difficulty, what shall I do next?" the heavens will be mute save with the one repeated message, "Take it and trust Me."

But directly God's servant took the step to which he was led, and delivered the message, then "the word of {17} the Lord came to him, saying: Get thee hence, ...hide thyself by the brook Cherith" (1 Kings 17:3). So it was afterwards; it was only when the brook had dried up, and the stream had dwindled to pools, and the pools to drops, and the drops had died away in the sand -- only then did the word of the Lord come to him, saying, "Arise, get thee to Zarephath" (1 Kings 17:9).

I like that phrase, "the word of the Lord came to him." He did not need to go to search for it; it came to him. And so it will come to you. It may come through the Word of God, or through a distinct impression made on your heart by the Holy Ghost, or through circumstances; but it will find you out, and tell you what you are to do. "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do" (Acts 9:6).

It may be that for long you have had upon your mind some strong impression of duty; but you have held back, because you could not see what the next stop would be. Hesitate no longer. Step out upon what seems to be the impalpable mist, and you will find a slab of adamant beneath your feet. Every time you put your foot forward, you will find that God has prepared a stepping- stone, and another, and another; each appearing as you come to it. The bread is by the day. The manna is every morning. The strength is according to the moment's need. God does not give all the directions at once, lest we should get confused. He tells us just as much as we can remember and do. Then we must look to Him for more. So we learn, by easy stages, the sublime habits of obedience and trust.

2. GOD'S SERVANTS MUST BE TAUGHT THE VALUE OF THE HIDDEN LIFE.

 "Get thee hence and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith" (1 Kings 17:3). The {18} man who is to take a high place before his fellows must take a low place before his God, and there is no better manner of bringing a man down than by suddenly dropping him out of a sphere to which he was beginning to think himself essential, teaching him that he is not at all necessary to God's plan, and compelling him to consider in the sequestered vale of some Cherith how miked are his motives, and how insignificant his strength.

So the Master dealt with His apostles. When, on one occasion, they returned to Him, full of themselves and flushed with success, He quietly said, "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place." We are too strong, too full of self, for God to use us. We vainly imagine that we are something, and that God cannot dispense with us. 

How urgently we need that God should bury our self- centeredness in the darkness of a Cherith or a tomb, so as to hide it, and keep it in the place of death. We must not be surprised, then, if sometimes our Father says: "There, child, you have had enough of this hurry, and publicity, and excitement; go and hide yourself by the brook -- hide yourself in the Cherith of the sick chamber, or in the Cherith of bereavement, or in some solitude from which the crowds have ebbed away." Happy is he who can reply, "This Your will is also mine; I flee to You to hide me. Hide me in the secret of Your tabernacle, and beneath the cover of Your wings!"

Every saintly soul that would wield great power with men must win it in some hidden Cherith. A Carmel triumph always presupposes a Cherith; and a Cherith always leads to a Carmel. We cannot give out unless we have previously taken in. We cannot exorcise the devils unless we have first entered into our closets and shut our doors and spent hours of rapt intercourse with God. The acquisition of spiritual power is impossible, unless we {19} hide ourselves from men and from ourselves in some deep gorge where we may absorb the power of the eternal God; as vegetation through long ages absorbed these qualities of sunshine which it gives back through burning coal.

Bishop Andrewes had his Cherith in which he spent five hours every day in prayer and devotion. John Welsh, who thought the day ill-spent which did not witness eight or ten hours of closet communion, had it. David Brainard had it in the woods of North America, which were the favorite scene of his devotions. Christmas Evans had it in his long and lonely journeys amid the hills of Wales. Fletcher of Madeley, who would often leave his classroom for his private chamber and spend hours upon his knees with his students, pleading for the fullness of the Spirit till they could kneel no longer, had his Cherith. Or, passing back to the blessed age from which we date the centuries, Patmos, the seclusion of the Roman prisons, the Arabian desert, and the hills and vales of Palestine, are forever memorable as the Cheriths of those who have made our modern world. Our Lord found His Cherith at Nazareth, in the wilderness of Judea, amid the olives of Bethany, and in the solitudes of Gadara. Not one of us can dispense with some Cherith where the sounds of earthly toil and human voices are exchanged for the murmur of the waters of quietness which are fed from the throne and where we may taste the sweets and imbibe the power of a life hidden in Christ by the power of the Holy Ghost. Sometimes a human spirit, intent on its quest, may even find its Cherith in a crowd. For such an one, God is an all-sufficient abode, and the secret place of the Most High is its most holy place.

3. GOD'S SERVANTS MUST LEARN TO TRUST GOD ABSOLUTELY. 

{20} At first we yield a timid obedience to a command which seems to involve manifest impossibilities; but when we find that God is even better than His word, our faith grows exceedingly, and we advance to further feats of faith and service. This is how God trains His young eaglets to fly. At last nothing is impossible. This is the key to Elijah's experience.

How strange to be sent to a brook, which would of course be as subject to the drought as any other! How contrary to nature to suppose that ravens, which feed on carrion, would find such food as man could eat; or, having found it, would bring it regularly morning and evening! How unlikely, too, that he could remain secreted from the search of the bloodhounds of Jezebel anywhere within the limits of Israel! But God's command was clear and unmistakable. It left him no alternative but to obey. "So he went and did according to the word of the Lord" (1 Kings 17:5).

One evening, as we may imagine, Elijah reached the narrow gorge, down which the brook bounded with musical babble toward the Jordan. On either side the giant cliffs towered up, inclosing a little patch of blue sky. The interlacing boughs of the trees made a natural canopy in the hottest noon. All along the streamlet's course the moss would make a carpet of richer hue and softer texture than could be found in the palaces of kings. And, yonder, came the ravens -- "the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning... [and] in the evening" (1 Kings 17:6). What a lesson was this of God's power to provide for his child! In after days, Elijah would often recur to it as dating a new epoch in his life. "I can never doubt God again. I am thankful that He shut me off from all other supplies, and threw me back on Himself. I am sure that He will never fail me, whatsoever the circumstances {21} of strait or trial through which He may call me to pass."

There is a strong emphasis on the word THERE -- "I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there" (1 Kings 17:4). Elijah might have preferred many hiding places to Cherith; but that was the only place to which the ravens would bring his supplies; and, as long as he wan there, God was pledged to provide for him. Our supreme thought should be: "Am I where God wants me to be?" If so, God will work a direct miracle rather than suffer us to perish for lack. If the younger son chooses to go to the far country of his own accord, he may be in danger of dying of starvation among his swine; but if the Father sends him there, he shall have enough and to spare. 

God sends no soldier to the warfare on his own charges. He does not expect us to attend to the duties of the field and the commissariat. The manna always accompanies the pillar of cloud. If we do His will on earth as in heaven, He will give us daily bread. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33).

We will not stay to argue the probability of this story being true. It is enough that it is written here. And the presence of the supernatural presents no difficulties to those who can say "Our Father," and who believe in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. But if corroboration were needed, it could be multiplied an hundred-fold from the experience of living people, who have had their needs supplied in ways quite as marvelous as the coming of ravens to the lonely prophet.

A little boy, having read this incident with his widowed mother one wintry night, as they sat in a fireless room beside a bare table, asked her if he might set the door open for God's ravens to come in; he was so sure {22} that they must be on their way. The burgomaster of that German town, passing by, was attracted by the sight of the open door, and entered, inquiring the cause. When he learned the reason, he said, "I will be God's raven," and relieved their need then and afterward. Ah, reader, God has an infinite fertility of resource; and if thou art doing His work where He would have thee, He will supply thy need, though the heavens fall. Only trust Him!

4. GOD'S SERVANTS ARE OFTEN CALLED TO SIT BY DRYING BROOKS. 

"It came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up" (1 Kings 17:7). Our wildest fancy can but inadequately realize the condition to which the Land of Promise was reduced by the first few months of drought. The mountain pastures were seared as by the passage of fire. The woodlands and copses were scorched and silent. The rivers and brooks shrank attenuated in their beds, receding continually, and becoming daily more shallow and still. There was no rain to revive vegetation or replenish the supplies of water. The sun rose and set for months in the sky, the blue of which was unflecked by a single cloud. There was no dew to sprinkle the parched, cracked earth with refreshing tears. And so Cherith began to sing less cheerily. Each day marked a visible diminution of its stream. Its voice grew fainter and fainter till its bed became a course of stones, baking in the scorching heat. It dried up.

What did Elijah think? Did he think that God had forgotten him? Did he begin to make plans for himself? This would have been human; but we will hope that he waited quietly for God, quieting himself as a weaned child, as he sang, "My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him" (Psalm 62:5).

Many of us have had to sit by drying brooks. Perhaps some are sitting by them now -- the drying brook of popularity {23} which is ebbing away as from John the Baptist; the drying brook of health, sinking under a creeping paralysis, or a slow consumption; the drying brook of money, slowly dwindling before the demands of sickness, bad debts, or other people's extravagance; the drying brook of friendship, which for long has been diminishing and threatens soon to cease. Ah, it is hard to sit beside a drying brook, much harder than to face the prophets of Baal on Carmel.

Why does God let them dry? He wants to teach us not to trust in His gifts, but in Himself. He wants to drain us of self, as He drained the apostles by ten days of waiting before Pentecost. He wants to loosen our roots before He removes us to some other sphere of service and education. He wants to put in stronger contrast the river of throne-water that never dries. 

Let us learn these lessons, and turn from our failing Cheriths to our unfailing Savior. All sufficiency resides in Him -- unexhausted by the flight of the ages, undiminished by the thirst of myriads of saints. The river of God is full of water. "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:13-14). "Drink abundantly, O beloved!" (Song 5:1).

One Step at a Time

By Theodore Epp


1 Kings 17:2-7

Obeying God always comes first, then He reveals the next step. Too many of us, in doing the work of God, want to see the end result immediately. But that is not trusting God, that is trusting sight. Faith does not see; it trusts and obeys. When Elijah had delivered His message to Ahab, the Lord told him what his next step was to be. Tradition says that this brook ran into the Jordan about 15 miles above Jericho. Its waters came from the mountains of Ephraim from a spring concealed under a high cliff and shaded by a dense jungle. It is probable that it was in such a spot that God hid His servant--a place of safety made known after Elijah's first step of obedience.

The ravens were to bring Elijah his food at Cherith. Suppose, however, he had thought he knew a better hiding place and had gone back to some spot in the mountains of Gilead? He could have starved to death, for the ravens had not been commanded to go there. The ravens were told by God to go to the Brook Cherith, by those high cliffs near the Jordan River where a special stream was fed by a spring. There God would protect Elijah from Ahab. The brook bordered the land of Samaria, the very land over which Ahab was king. There God protected His servant.

"Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams" (1 Sam. 15:22).

Direction Of Aspiration

By Oswald Chambers


'Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters ... so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God.'
Psalms 123:2

This verse is a description of entire reliance upon God. Just as the eyes of the servant are riveted on his master, so our eyes are up unto God and our knowledge of His countenance is gained (cf. Isaiah 53:1. R.V). Spiritual leakage begins when we cease to lift up our eyes unto Him. The leakage comes not so much through trouble on the outside as in the imagination; when we begin to say - "I expect I have been stretching myself a bit too much, standing on tiptoe and trying to look like God in stead of being an ordinary humble person." We have to realize that no effort can be too high.

For instance, you came to a crisis when you made a stand for God and had the witness of the Spirit that all was right, but the weeks have gone by, and the years maybe, and you are slowly coming to the conclusion - 'Well, after all, was I not a bit too pretentious? Was I not taking a stand a bit too high?' Your rational friends come and say - Don't be a fool, we knew when you talked about this spiritual awakening, that it was a passing impulse, you can't keep up the strain, God does not expect you to. And you say - Well, I suppose I was expecting too much. It sounds humble to say it, but it means that reliance on God has gone and reliance on worldly opinion has come in. 

The danger is lest no longer relying on God you ignore the lifting up of your eyes to Him. Only when God brings you to a sudden halt, will you realize how you have been losing out. Whenever there is a leakage, remedy it immediately. Recognize that something has been coming between you and God, and get it readjusted at once.

No Looking Back

By A.W. Tozer


There is an art of forgetting, and every Christian should become skilled in it. Forgetting the things which are behind is a positive necessity if we are to become more than mere babes in Christ. If we cannot trust God to have dealt effectually with our past we may as well throw in the sponge now and have it over with. Fifty years of grieving over our sins cannot blot out their guilt. But if God has indeed pardoned and cleansed us, then we should count it done and waste no more time in sterile lamentations. And thank God this sudden obliteration of our familiar past does not leave us with a vacuum. Far from it. Into the empty world vacated by our sins and failures rushes the blessed Spirit of God, bringing with Him everything new. New life, new hope, new enjoyments, new interests, new purposeful toil, and best of all a new and satisfying object toward which to direct our soul's enraptured gaze. 

God now fills the recovered garden, and we may without fear walk and commune with Him in the cool of the day. Right here is where the weakness of much current Christianity lies. We have not learned where to lay our emphasis. Particularly we have not understood that we are saved to know God, to enter His wonder-filled Presence through the new and living way and remain in that Presence forever. 

We are called to an everlasting preoccupation with God. The Triune God with all of His mystery and majesty is ours and we are His, and eternity will not be long enough to experience all that He is of goodness, holiness and truth. In heaven they rest not day or night in their ecstatic worship of the Godhead. We profess to be headed for that place; shall we not begin now to worship on earth as we shall do in heaven?

Providence of Loss

By Mrs. Charles E. Cowman


"It came to pass . . . that the brook dried up" (1 Kings 17:7).

The education of our faith is incomplete if we have not learned that there is a providence of loss, a ministry of failing and of fading things, a gift of emptiness. The material insecurities of life make for its spiritual establishment. The dwindling stream by which Elijah sat and mused is a true picture of the life of each of us. "It came to pass . . . that the brook dried up"--that is the history of our yesterday, and a prophecy of our morrows.

In some way or other we will have to learn the difference between trusting in the gift and trusting in the Giver. The gift may be good for a while, but the Giver is the Eternal Love.

Cherith was a difficult problem to Elijah until he got to Zarephath, and then it was all as clear as daylight. God's hard words are never His last words. The woe and the waste and the tears of life belong to the interlude and not to the finale.

Had Elijah been led straight to Zarephath he would have missed something that helped to make him a wiser prophet and a better man. He lived by faith at Cherith. And whensoever in your life and mine some spring of earthly and outward resource has dried up, it has been that we might learn that our hope and help are in God who made Heaven and earth. --F. B. Meyer

Perchance thou, too, hast camped by such sweet waters,
And quenched with joy thy weary, parched soul's thirst;
To find, as time goes on, thy streamlet alters
From what it was at first.

Hearts that have cheered, or soothed, or blest, or strengthened;
Loves that have lavished so unstintedly;
Joys, treasured joys--have passed, as time hath lengthened,
Into obscurity.

If thus, ah soul, the brook thy heart hath cherished
Doth fail thee now--no more thy thirst assuage--
If its once glad refreshing streams have perished,
Let HIM thy heart engage.

He will not fail, nor mock, nor disappoint thee;
His consolations change not with the years;
With oil of joy He surely will anoint thee,
And wipe away thy tears.
--J. D. Smith

God Knows

By Mrs. Charles E. Cowman


"He knoweth the way that I take" (Job 23:10).

Believer! What a glorious assurance! This way of thine--this, it may be, a crooked, mysterious, tangled way--this way of trial and tears. "He knoweth it." The furnace seven times heated--He lighted it. There is an Almighty Guide knowing and directing our footsteps, whether it be to the bitter Marah pool, or to the joy and refreshment of Elim.

That way, dark to the Egyptians, has its pillar of cloud and fire for His own Israel. The furnace is hot; but not only can we trust the hand that kindles it, but we have the assurance that the fires are lighted not to consume, but to refine; and that when the refining process is completed (no sooner--no later) He brings His people forth as gold.

When they think Him least near, He is often nearest. "When my spirit was overwhelmed, then thou knewest my path."

Do we know of ONE brighter than the brightest radiance of the visible sun, visiting our chamber with the first waking beam of the morning; an eye of infinite tenderness and compassion following us throughout the day, knowing the way that we take?

The world, in its cold vocabulary in the hour of adversity, speaks of "Providence"--"the will of Providence"--"the strokes of Providence." PROVIDENCE! what is that?

Why dethrone a living, directing God from the sovereignty of His own earth? Why substitute an inanimate, death-like abstraction, in place of an acting, controlling, personal Jehovah?

How it would take the sting from many a goading trial, to see what Job saw (in his hour of aggravated woe, when every earthly hope lay prostrate at his feet)--no hand but the Divine. He saw that hand behind the gleaming swords of the Sabeans--he saw it behind the lightning flash--he saw it giving wings to the careening tempest--he saw it in the awful silence of his rifled home.

"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!"

Thus seeing God in everything, his faith reached its climax when this once powerful prince of the desert, seated on his bed of ashes, could say, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." --Macduff

"I am the Lord that healeth thee" (Ex. xv. 26).

  
Days of Heaven Upon Earth

      "I am the Lord that healeth thee" (Ex. xv. 26).
     
      It is very reasonable that God should expect us to trust Him for our bodies as well as our souls, for if our faith is not practical enough to bring us temporal relief, how can we be educated for real dependence upon God for anything that involves serious risk? It is all very well to talk about trusting God for the distant and future prospect of salvation after death! There is scarcely a sinner in a Christian land that does not trust to be saved some day, but there is no grasp in faith like this.
     
      It is only when we come face to face with positive issues and overwhelming forces that we can prove the reality of Divine power in a supernatural life. Hence as an education to our very spirits as well as a gracious provision for our temporal life, God has trained His people from the beginning to recognize Him as the supply of all their needs, and to look to Him as the Physician of their bodies and Father of their spirits.
     
      Beloved, have you learned the meaning of Jehovah-rophi, and has it changed your Marah of trial into an Elim of blessing and praise ?

Largeness of heart. 1 Kings 4:29

  
Our Daily Homily

      Largeness of heart. 1 Kings 4:29
     
      WE must all admit that our soul is too narrow. It holds too little, knows too little, is deficient in willpower, and, above all, in capacity of love; and when we are called to run in the way of God's commandments, we break down in despair, and cry, "If I am to be a runner, Thou must first enlarge my heart."
     
      How little we know of the experience which Madame Guyon describes when she says: "This vastness or enlargedness, which is not bounded by anything, increases every day; so that my soul in partaking of the qualities of her Spouse seems also to partake of his immensity."
     
      "There is," remarks one of the old Puritans, "a straitness, slavery, and narrowness, in all sin; sin crumples up our souls; which, if they were freely spread abroad, would be as large and wide as the whole universe. No man is truly free; but be that hath his will enlarged to the extent of God's will, by loving whatsoever God loves, and nothing else, he enjoys boundless liberty, and a boundless sweetness." God's love embraces the universe. He "so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son." We who have partaken of the Divine nature must also love as He does.
     
      Thomas a Kempis says, finally: "He who desires glory in things outside of God, or to take pleasure in some private good, shall many ways be encumbered and straitened; but if heavenly grace enter in, and true charity, there will be no envy, neither narrowness of heart, neither will self love busy itself, for Divine charity overcometh all things, and enlargeth all the powers of the soul." Give unto us, 0 God, this largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore.

Aeneas and Dorcas

  
George H. Morrison - Devotional Sermons

      Aeneas and Dorcas
    
      And it came to pass, as Peter passed throughout all quarters, he came down also to the saints who dwelt at Lydda--Act 9:32
    
      In the City, Peter Found One Who Needed Healing
    
      When the fierce fires of persecution had died out, Peter set forth on a tour of visitation. He was eager to find how the churches had been faring Jesus was whispering to him, "Feed my lambs." He went from town to town and village to village, comforting, cheering and inspiring and it was in this tour that Jesus led him to the bedside of the palsied disciple in Lydda. Lydda was some thirty miles from Jerusalem on the high road from the capital to the coast. It is a little town that has had a strange and chequered history; its story is full of sieges and assault. Tradition tells us that St. George was born there--St. George, who fought with the dragon; but it is not through St. George, it is through St. Peter, that the name is so familiar to our ears. Aeneas, then, lived in Lydda, and Peter found him there (Act 9:33)--found him, I take it, because he was looking for him. It is the things we look for that we are quick to see, and Peter had won the eyes of Jesus now. If a Jewish merchant had come down to Lydda, he would have discovered much, but never Aeneas. It took a Christian missionary, filled with love, to find this sickbed and show it to the world. What do you find when you go to a strange place? What do you see when you travel in foreign countries? Is it only the mountains and the waterfalls and castles and the dresses so different from those at home? 

A Christ-touched spirit will see far more than that--it will see the need of saving and of healing The man of science finds new species of plants; the explorer finds strange customs and observances; but the apostle finds a certain man who has been eight years bedridden with the palsy. The boys who read Homer or Virgil have heard of another Aeneas. He was the hero and the champion of Troy. And once, when that Aeneas had been wounded, he was healed by the intervention of the gods. All that is fable; but this story is no fable. Peter said to Aeneas, "Jesus Christ maketh thee whole." And his palsy left him that very hour, and he arose immediately.
    
      Peter in Joppa Raises Dorcas and Stays with Simon the Tanner
    
      A few miles from Lydda lay the town of Joppa, and Joppa was the seaport of Jerusalem. Those who have read Charles Kingsley's Heroes, and who remember how Perseus rescued Andromeda, will be interested in knowing that the old world believed that it was at Joppa that Andromeda was chained. It was here that the materials were landed which were used in the building of the Temple. And it was from the port of Joppa that Jonah sailed when he thought to fly from the presence of the Lord. Here, then, lived Tabitha called Dorcas, and Tabitha means gazelle. The gazelle was one type of beauty for the Jew. And whether Tabitha was beautiful in face or not, we all know that she was beautiful in character. Probably she had been a fine sewer as a girl; but in her girlish days it would be fancy work. The fancy work never became real work till the pity of Jesus touched her womanly heart. She was not a speaker; she never addressed meetings. I dare say she envied the ladies who could speak. But she learned that there was a service quite as good as that, and that was the service of a consecrated needle. In the glimpse which our verses give of Tabitha, we see how deeply and sincerely she was mourned. And we can picture the joy of many a home in Joppa when the news came that Tabitha lived again. The tidings traveled through all the town, we read, and many believed in the Lord. And then our passage closes with telling us that Peter lived for a long time with the tanner Simon. 

Do you know why the Bible tells us Simon's occupation? It is because the Jews thought tanning disgraceful work. No rigid and formal and self-respecting Jew would ever have demeaned himself by lodging there. And the narrative wishes to show us Peter's mind and how he was rising above Jewish prejudice, and how he was getting ready for the vision that we shall have to consider in our next lesson.
    
      Peter in Raising Tabitha Imitates His Lord in the Raising of Jairus' Daughter
      
      Now let us note the close resemblances between the raising of Tabitha and the raising of Jairus' daughter. Peter had never forgotten that memorable hour, and now he could not follow his Lord too closely. Peter had been boastful and self-willed and impetuous once; he had loved to suggest and dictate and take the lead. But now, with all the past graven on his heart his passion is to follow in Jesus' steps. Had Jesus put all the mourners from the room? Then Peter must be alone with Tabitha. Had Jesus said Talitha cumi? Then Peter will say Tabitha cumi. Had Jesus taken the maiden by the hand, and given her back again to her rejoicing friends? Then Peter will present Tabitha alive. The one point of difference that I find is this: our verses tell us that Peter knelt down and prayed. In that one clause there lies the difference between the work of Jesus and that of His disciple. For the power of Peter was delegated power. It was Christ who was working and to Christ he must cry. But Jesus was acting in His inherent sovereignty. In His own right He was Lord of life and death.
    
      Three Little Lessons
    
      Three minor lessons shine out from these incidents.
    
      (1) We may witness for Christ even in making a bed The first sign of power demanded of Aeneas was that he should arise and make his bed. Now the words may not quite mean what we understand by them. His bed was a carpet and had to be stowed away. But they do mean that in a little act like that--the rolling up and disposing of a rug--a man may show that Christ has dealt with him. You remember the servant girl who was asked by Mr. Spurgeon what evidence she had to show that she was a Christian, and she replied that she always swept under the mats now. I dare say she never thought about Aeneas, but the two arguments for Christ are close akin.
    
      (2) The sight of a man may be better than a sermon. "All that dwelt in Lydda saw him, and turned to the Lord." And
    
      (3) We must help with our hand as well as with our prayer. When Peter was left alone beside dead Tabitha, we read that he kneeled down and prayed. Had he not prayed, he had not wrought the miracle. But when Tabitha sat up, wrapped in her strange garments that hampered her limbs and made it hard to move, then Peter gave her his hand and lifted her up. I wonder if he remembered how Jesus had said, "Simon, Simon, I have prayed for thee," and then, on that wild night upon the lake, had put forth His hand and held him up? The heart and hand of Jesus had saved Peter. The heart and hand of Peter won back Dorcas. And it takes both the he art that prays and the hand that helps to bring the kingdom even a little nearer.

An Acceptable Present to the Lord of Hosts

An Acceptable Present to the Lord of Hosts - 1843

By J.C. Philpot


Preached at Eden Street Chapel, Hampstead Road, London, in 1843

"In that time shall the present be brought unto the Lord of Hosts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto: a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, the Mount Zion." Isa 18:7
When presents are made to earthly monarchs, they are almost always of a costly and valuable nature. In fact, it would seem an insult to offer to an earthly monarch any present that did not, in some degree, correspond to the exalted situation, which he occupies. But "Gods thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are our ways his ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts" (Isa. 55:8, 9)

"The present" that is "brought unto the Lord of Hosts," spoken of in the text, is of a very different character from what is usually offered to earthly sovereigns. A nation flourishing in arts and arms, occupying a fertile and extensive territory, carrying on a wide and lucrative commerce, and sending its fleets and armies all over the globe--such a people might well be a present acceptable to an earthly monarch. But when we look at the text, and see what sort of people is presented to the Lord of Hosts, we find a nation of a very different character brought unto him. We read there of a people "scattered and peeled," of a nation "meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled;" and that this broken, and, as they might naturally be called, useless people, are brought "to the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, the Mount Zion," as an acceptable offering to him who lives and reigns there.

Now, reason would dictate, and, indeed, it is the prevalent religion of the day, that an offering, which is to be made to the Lord of Hosts, should be such a one as agrees with his holy and righteous character. We find, therefore, the generality of ministers exhorting everybody to give to the Lord the prime of their life, their strongest affections, their noblest mental and bodily faculties, with all the piety, zeal, diligence, and holiness that they can muster, and to lay them down at the feet of the Lord of Hosts as an offering acceptable in his sight. And though this never is done, and, from the utterly fallen state of man, never can be done, we find the preachers no less constantly exhorting, and the people no less perpetually approving of this as the only excellent way.

But when we look at the text (and we must adhere to the word of God, however contrary to our carnal reason) we find that "the present which is to be brought to the Lord of Hosts," is not of a righteous people, a people zealous, and diligent, a people active in good words and works, "but people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, the Mount Zion." Without further preface then, I shall, from these words, endeavour, with Gods blessing, to describe what the character, the experimental character I mean, of that people is which is "brought as a present unto the Lord of Hosts."

But we must bear in mind that the people of God are always to be looked at in two points of view. First, as standing in the Son of God, their eternal Covenant Head; and, secondly, as standing in Adam, their temporal covenant head. Viewed in Christ, they stand accepted in him "without spot or blemish, or any such thing." The church, as an unspotted, lovely bride, was betrothed unto Christ in eternity before ever she fell in Adam. Thus in this sense therefore, the church, as the spotless wife of the Lamb, is a present fit for the Lord of Hosts, for she stands righteous in Christs righteousness, holy in Christs holiness, comely in Christs comeliness, and perfect in Christs perfection. But, viewed in fallen Adam, as a partaker of his depraved nature, and viewed experimentally when brought to know the plague of her heart, she stands "full of wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores."

The people spoken of in the text, as presented to the Lord of Hosts, correspond to the church in this latter point of view. We will, therefore, with Gods blessing, examine in detail the description here given of them; and I think we shall find six distinct marks stamped upon them by the blessed Spirit. 

These six marks are, that they are "scattered," "peeled," "terrible," "meted out," "trodden under foot," and their land one which "the rivers have spoiled." Every one of these striking epithets deserves, and, therefore, demands a distinct and separate examination.

The Holy Ghost, then, has stamped the people of God in the text with these peculiar marks; for I do not consider that, experimentally viewed, a particular section, a distinct part of Gods people, are here intended, as though some experience were described in the text which a few only of the living family are acquainted with. But I view the text as descriptive of all the family of God, and that the marks stamped upon them here are such as are universally affixed to all the manifested election of grace.

I. The first mark stamped upon the people of God is that they are a "scattered" people. Considered even locally, as far as their earthly habitations are concerned, we find this "scattered" condition of Gods people to be a matter of fact, a thing of daily and universal experience. Wherever we go we find that the people of God are a scattered family. It was so in times of old. The church at Jerusalem was speedily "scattered" abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria (Acts 8:1). James writes "to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad" (James 1:1); and Peter to "the strangers scattered throughout Pontus..." (1Peter 1:1). Thus now we do not find whole towns and villages of Gods people, but dispersed by twos and threes through the country; a few in one town, and a few in another; one or two in this village, and one or two in that; generally the butt and scoff of all the rest; abhorred by a world lying dead in sin. And, indeed, when we consider how few in number Gods quickened people are, it must needs be so. The world at large "lieth in wickedness," while the elect are but "one of a city, and two of a family" (the subdivision of a tribe) (Jeremiah 3:14), "two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof."

But the word "scattered" not merely implies their dispersion, locally considered--that they are a scanty, and, therefore, a scattered people, but it also has reference to the work of the blessed Spirit in their souls, as making them to be internally, what they are externally--scattered in feelings as well as in persons.

When the Holy Ghost takes a vessel of mercy in hand, his first work is to scatter. He moves in that track which he gave to Jeremiah when he commissioned him "to root out and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down," as well as "to build, and to plant." This divine work was known experimentally by Hannah when she said, "The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up: The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up" (1Samuel 2:6,7). The first work, then, of the Spirit of God in the heart is to scatter to the four winds of heaven everything in self that is comely and pleasing to the flesh. All a mans self-righteousness when the Lord lays judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet is broken to pieces. We may, indeed, with much pains, great diligence, and severe labour, gather together the broken fragments: but no sooner have we got together what the Spirit has dispersed than the Lord blows upon them again and scatters them once more to the four corners of the earth.

Nor is his self-righteousness, his legal obedience, and his hope of heaven founded thereon, scattered only, but that also which wears an evangelical garb, such as all his holiness and all his attempts to make himself spiritual, all his diligence to recommend himself to the favour of God by laying hold of the gospel, with all his anxiety to read, understand, and experimentally enjoy the word of God, all that he would thus heap up, and fain persuade himself that by so doing he was a believer in Christ, is scattered and dispersed: so that when he looks at his religion he finds it a thorough wreck. His religion now no longer resembles a ship in harbour, with all her masts, and yards, and rigging perfect, just ready to ride proudly over the wide waste of waters, but it rather resembles the same ship driven by a storm upon the rocks, with the waves beating over her, and just about to part asunder.

The Spirit of the Lord is compared in Scripture to the north wind ("Awake, O north wind,") (Song 4:16), which is rough and searching, and blows away the chaff from the threshing floors. It is the blowing of this north wind, which tries the living family before they are led to see what the mind of the Spirit is in thus acting. They try sometimes, for instance, to collect their thoughts in prayer, and fix their affections upon God: but all is scattered in a moment. They look at their evidences, try to bring them together, and out of them to make a good hope through grace: but when they come to weigh them up singly one by one, a gust of conviction or of doubt springs up which so scatters all these evidences that there seems to be scarcely one left. They seek after spirituality of mind, and to have their affections set on things above, not on things on the earth. But no sooner do they feel their hearts and affections mounting upwards, than some vile thought rushes in, which brings a train of others, like a troop of unclean birds falling upon a sacrifice. 

When they come to a place of worship they beg, perhaps, with some earnestness on the road, that the word may come to their souls with power from God himself: but no sooner does the preacher begin his prayer or sermon than something carnal, sensual, or devilish rushes into their minds, or some gust of unbelief or infidelity blows across them which scatters all their thoughts, and leaves them no collectedness, fixedness, or attention. Thus, to their dismay, instead of being able to get together a religion in which they may stand firm; instead of amassing a store of hopes and evidences to which they may confidently look as a safe and happy passport into eternity, the more they look the less religion they find; and all that they have gathered together becomes one mass of confusion. This was the case with Job when the Lord had scattered his religion, when, as Elihu said, "God thrusteth him down, not man" (Job 32:13), and he poured forth that bitter lamentation, "I am full of confusion."

II. But we will go on to consider another mark stamped upon them--"peeled." In order to get at the spiritual meaning of this expression, I must call your attention to what is written in (Ezekiel 29:18), where the Lord said to his prophet--"Son of Man, Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled." But what made their shoulders peel? The burdens which they bore. The soldiers in Nebuchadnezzars army had to carry the mattock and spade, to throw up the fortifications against Tyre. The soldiers in ancient times wore very heavy armour, and carried upon their shoulders spears and other weapons of war, by the continual pressure of which the skin was often literally peeled off. Thus, when the nation spoken of in the text is said to be "peeled," it implies that they are a burdened people, nay, more, that they are a continually burdened people. It was not one days service before Tyre that made the shoulders of Nebuchadnezzars army peel, but the continued labours which they were called to perform, the unceasing burdens which they had to bear. 

And thus the expression in the text implies that the people of God are not burdened merely once or twice in their lives; but that theirs is an unceasing warfare, a succession of burdens, and that they can never put their armour off, or lay the weapons of their spiritual warfare aside, but that they must continue to watch and fight, toil and suffer to the end of their days as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.

This mark, then, demolishes at a blow all those crude fancies and visionary ideas of men, who assert that the child of God never has but one spiritual burden in his life, that of sin under the law, when first quickened into spiritual life; and that, when relieved of that load by a gospel deliverance, he never more groans under the weight of sin, but rejoices and triumphs in Christ over death, sin, and hell, until he changes time for eternity. One would think that the testimony of Paul was sufficient to disprove this when he said, "We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened" (2Corinthians 5:4); and again, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" But I think that the simple expression of the text, that the people who are brought as a present to the Lord of Hosts are "a peeled people," is sufficient to shew that the family of God are appointed to wear upon their shoulders continual burdens.

But what are these burdens? The burden of sin is one which the children of God more especially labour under in the first teachings of the Spirit; and this at that time not so much from the workings of their corrupt nature, into the desperate depravity of which they are not at first usually led, but from the guilt of actual sin committed by them. But there is also the burden of temptation, which never seizes a man so powerfully as after he has known something of the power of atoning blood. And thus the people of God who, in their first exercises, have to bear heavy burdens of guilt and convictions of sin, after they have received some manifestations of Gods favour, have to bear the burden of temptation. Indeed Gods children could not bear the heavy burdens of temptation at first. The raw recruit, who is learning his drill on the common, is not sent into battle immediately. He has to be taught how to handle and use his arms and all the exercises needful to make him into a soldier, before he can endure actual service. So the child of God is not sent to fight Gods battles when merely learning his drill. But when he is, in some degree, inured in service, then he is sent to undergo the actual hardship of war.

Unless a living soul has some standing ground in Christ, he cannot endure the burden of temptation. If the powerful blasts of temptation came upon one who had no standing in the divine life, they would sweep him away. But when the Lord has given the soul some standing in Christ, through some knowledge of him, it is founded upon a rock, so that however assaulted and apparently overwhelmed, it is not carried away by the floods of temptation that come out of the dragon. Infancy, naturally, is not the season for hard labour. On whom do we lay the heaviest burdens? The child or the man? Who are selected to carry the greatest weights? The weak or the strong? Is it not in grace as it is in nature that the stronger the man the heavier the burden? the broader the shoulders the weightier the load? How unscriptural, then, as well as how contrary to the teachings of the Spirit in exercised souls, is that vain idea that a man, after his first convictions and deliverance, is to slumber in his arm chair for the rest of his life, as a pensioner who has obtained his discharge, never again to see the flash of the sabre, or hear the thunder of the artillery. Such a doctrine as this is contradicted by the experience of the saints in all ages. These have ever found that the stronger a man is in Christ the heavier are his burdens; the richer his enjoyment of the love of God, the more powerful are his temptations: the firmer his standing in the Son of God, the more fellowship has he with Christ in his sufferings.

But the leading and special idea contained in the expression "peeled," is a feeling of soreness and rawness. The skin peeled off makes the shoulder additionally pained by the burdens laid upon it. Thus the consciences of Gods living family are tender, and very susceptible of impressions. And herein they mainly differ from dead, hardened professors. Temptations are no burden to a seared conscience. The internal enmity of the human heart against God, the foul obscenities and daring blasphemies that the prince of darkness breathes into the carnal mind, are no burden to a man dead in a profession: nor, usually speaking, are they acquainted with the one, or assaulted by the other.

But when the conscience is made and kept alive before God, and the heart is tender and contrite so as to feel the impression of the divine fingers, when it is thus tremblingly and shrinkingly alive to the slightest touch of the heavenly hand, it is in an equal and similar degree sensitive also to temptation. And the more tender the conscience is, the more poignantly, for the most part, will temptations be felt. The more alive that the fear of God is in the heart, the more clearly will sin be perceived, and the more will it be hated and abhorred. You may depend upon it, that no persons are further from God than those who are really Antinomians. I say really such, for the name is often falsely applied to such as believe and preach a free-grace gospel, and walk in the fear of the Lord. But I mean such characters in the professing church as "continue in sin, that grace may abound," and, under shelter of the doctrines of grace, live and act contrary to the precepts of the gospel. "O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united." I would as soon think of uniting with notorious drunkards and libertines as with high professing Calvinists who, by their loose talk and conversation, cause the truth to be evil spoken of.

III. The third mark given of this people is that they are "from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto," that is, up to the time when the present was made. There is a little difficulty in the language of the text here; it says, "and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto;" as though the people scattered and peeled, were to be taken out of another people who were terrible. This need not, however, create, I think, an insuperable obstacle. The word "from" seems to have reference to the word "present:" and as we read that the present is to be made "of a people scattered and peeled," so the present "from a people terrible from their beginning," appears simply to mean that the people who are terrible are made a present of to the Lord. This seems to harmonize best with the general drift of the text. This expression terrible seems to my mind to carry with it two ideas. First, that they were spiritually acquainted with the terrors of God: and, secondly, that they were a terror to others. Now all the family of God, each in his measure (though we can lay down no standard of depth or duration) must know something of Jehovah as terrible in majesty: must have a sense in their souls of his inflexible justice, his hatred of evil, his eternal purity, and spotless holiness.

I am not going to define--I think it impossible to define, as I just now hinted--how deep those convictions shall be, or how long they shall last; but I believe every living soul, before it passes from time into eternity, must see something of Gods countenance as of purer eyes than to behold evil, and thus come before him with "reverence and godly fear." It would appear that the people here spoken of were "terrible from their beginning hitherto," that is, that they knew more or less of the Lord as terrible in majesty all through the stages of their spiritual life up to the moment of which the text speaks--till they were presented to the Lord of Hosts. Not that they knew him as such always, that is, continually, prolongedly as such; but that from time to time there were flashes in their conscience, whereby God was made known to them as terrible in majesty.

For instance, if they were overtaken by any backsliding, the terrors of God were arrayed against them. If they gave way to base lusts, the terrors of Gods holy countenance were made manifest in their souls. If they were caught by idolatrous affections, or entangled in the base workings of their carnal mind, they could not cloak these things over before the eyes of him with whom they had to do. They could not treat sin as a light matter, or say, "my sins are all washed away, and now sin and I have shaken hands and become good friends. It can do me no harm, nor destroy my soul." The living family, whose consciences have been made tender, cannot indulge such presumptuous notions, for they feel the flashes of Gods anger against sin in their consciences: and whatever sweet sense they may have had of the mercy of God in the face of Jesus Christ, sin will be ever a terror to them. Though there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, yet there will always be, as the case of David sufficiently proves, anger in the mind of God against the sin of his people.

But there is another sense in which we may take the word terrible, and that is, that the people of God are a terror to others. We find this intimated in the two witnesses mentioned in (Revelation 11:1). We read there of two witnesses who were to "prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth," and were "the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth" (Revelation 11:3,4). I believe that these two witnesses, primarily and chiefly, signify the ministers of Gods truth; and that they are two in number, agreeably to that word--"In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established." But, in a secondary sense, every manifested child of God is a witness for God and his truth. "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God" (Isaiah 43:12).

Now it is said of these witnesses that they "tormented them that dwelt on the earth;" and, therefore, when they were slain, those "that dwelt upon the earth rejoiced over them, and made merry, and sent gifts one to another;" so glad were they to get rid of them. Thus not only every faithful minister of Gods truth, but every quickened child of God also torments those that dwell upon the earth, that is, the carnal, who make the earth their paradise and home, and all whose affections are earthly and sensual. Every one in whose heart is the fear of the Lord, is, in a measure, a terror to the carnal. Paul made Felix tremble; and John Knox struck terror into the heart of Mary, Queen of Scots. There is an indescribable something in a child of God, which carries conviction even to those who are enemies to vital godliness. Their very principles are a terror to them. The doctrines of grace, for instance, which they hold, torment, and are a terror to Arminians, and their godly and consistent life makes them terrible to Antinomians. As, when Moses came down from the mount, his face shone, and the people "were afraid to come nigh him" (Exodus 34:30), the beams of divine communion visible in him striking a secret awe into their consciences, so "the divine nature" of which the people of God are "partakers" (2Peter 1:4), that is "the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." strikes a secret terror into the ungodly. Their very presence infuses a secret awe.

Let, for instance, any one of you who is known to be one of the sect everywhere spoken against, go into a chapel where there is a dead minister in the pulpit, you strike him with more awe than a thousand of his usual congregation. He hates you and yet he fears you: for he knows you are a witness against him. Thus the people of God are a terror to the carnal; and God means them to be such. When they cease to be a terror to others, when they cease to torment them that dwell upon the earth, they cease to deliver a faithful testimony. O may I be a terror to Gods enemies! O may God so endue me with the Holy Ghost that I may so take forth the precious from the vile, and preach his word with such faithfulness and power, as to make myself terrible to all his enemies; whether they are despisers of grace, or pretenders to grace; whether they grovel in the sink hole of Arminianism, or are towering on the barren heights of dead Calvinism. And terrible "from their beginning" too.

From the first day that the people of God are quickened to fear his great name, they are terrible to the carnal, and sometimes, perhaps, more then, in the early warmth of their zeal and boldness, than afterwards. We may, in some degree, measure the strength and activity of the divine life in our souls by this test; for directly we turn aside unto evil, and the power of that holy anointing is diminished which makes us a terror to others, we fall from the position in which God has placed us; and from our high standing as witnesses of the truth as it is in Jesus. Samson, with his locks cut, struck no terror into the Philistines.

IV. But to pass on. The next mark of this peculiar people is, that they are "meted out." The word "mete," is the old English word for "measure." "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." This people, then, that are to be presented to the Lord of Hosts are a nation "meted out," that is, measured up. This expression points not so much to their persons as to their religion; and declares that their faith is tried in the furnace. Their experience is measured by Gods standard, and thus judgment is laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet in their souls.

Most certainly wherever God the Holy Ghost begins and carries on a work of grace in the heart, he will weigh up, and mete out, from time to time, all a mans religion, and try every inch of the way whether it lies straight and level with the word and will of God. Depend upon it that the Lord who "weigheth the spirits" (Proverbs 16:2), and by whom "actions are weighed" (1Samuel 2:3), will put into his righteous and unerring scales both nature and grace, both human and divine teaching, and make us know which is full weight in heavens court.

The religion of the present day is too much to confuse everything of an experimental nature; to cover and obscure the work of grace in the heart. There is even among those who are sound in the doctrines of truth little or no discrimination of character, no appealing to conscience, no tracing out the lines of distinction between grace and nature, no exposing the awful delusions of Satan as an angel of light, no pointing out the dreadful deceitfulness and hypocrisy of our fallen nature. But the generally approved and well nigh universally followed system is to throw around all professors, whose creed is sound and life consistent, a mantle of universal charity, and ask them no inconvenient questions. But there can be no question that God will never suffer our religion, if, indeed, he has mercifully taken us in hand, to be huddled up in this confused way; but he will measure it all by his standard, and refine it in his crucible. It is in this way that we learn the reality and genuineness of his work. Thus, if he give faith, he will bring that faith to the touchstone, and prove it with heavy trials.

It is in grace as in nature. When we would ascertain the exact weight of a thing, we put it into one scale, and a standard weight into the other, till the scales are even. So when the Lord puts faith in one scale, he puts a burden in the other to try whether it is standard weight. And the greater the faith the heavier the trial. The father of the faithful had to slay his own son. If he communicate a measure of hope, there will be many things that cause despondency to be put into the opposite scale, that despondency and hope may be well balanced. If the love of God be shed abroad in the soul, there will be trials and temptations to prove it. Thus the child of God learns the meaning of the words. "Your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope" (1Thessalonians 1:3). Every token for good, every sip of mercy, every manifestation of love is examined and searched into, weighed up and balanced in the court of conscience, to know whether it is full weight or not. And in this nice and accurate scrutiny not only is religion weighed up, but also that which is not religion. Sins, open and secret, backslidings, idolatrous affections, covetous desires, presumptuous confidences, rotten hopes, and vain props--all are weighed up in the balances of the sanctuary. And as that which is received from God, when put into the balances, will be found sterling and genuine; so all that did not come from God, all that sprang from nature and the flesh, all vain confidence, bold claims, and presumptuous notions, when put into the scales, will have tekel stamped upon them-- "Weighed in the balances, and found wanting."

It is thus that "the dross is taken away from the silver, and there comes forth a vessel for the finer." This is the trial of faith, which is to be "found unto praise, and honour, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" (1Peter 1:7). This is the rod upon the lot of the children; for "judgment must begin at the house of God; .... the righteous scarcely be saved;" and the Lord "sits as a refiner and purifier of silver to purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto him an offering in righteousness."

And now tell me, soul, what is thy case? Do you know anything of this measuring work? Is your religion, more or less, daily and weekly weighed in the unerring balances of the sanctuary? And do you find a secret hand in your conscience, that from time to time, as it were, takes your religion and measures it before your eyes, stamping some as genuine, and some as false; some as from God and some as from Satan; some as the fruit of heavenly teaching, and some as springing from a deceitful and hypocritical heart? Be assured, if you are a people to be presented to the Lord of Hosts, in the day when he maketh up his jewels, your religion must be weighed in Gods balances, and stamped by him as genuine before you close your eyes in death.

V. A fifth mark given in the text of this accepted people is, that they are "trodden under foot." This expression seems to indicate two things--firstly, the treatment they receive from a world lying dead in sin and dead in a profession: and secondly, the feelings that pass through their own hearts. If God has made your hearts honest before him, if he has communicated spiritual life to your souls, you will be "trodden under foot." The world, dead in sin, will trample you beneath their proud hoofs; and the world, dead in profession, will make your body as the ground, and as the street that they may go over. The laws of our land may, indeed, prevent any such literal treatment of our persons: but do they spare what is equally, in our right minds, dear to us? Does not the self-righteous Arminian tread under foot the doctrines we dearly love? Does he not call them doctrines, which lead to licentiousness, and say that they are the invention of men, the fruit of a heated brain, and not to be found in the Scripture? Nay, have not some, in the height of their zeal for freewill, gone so far as to call them "doctrines of devils," and "damnable doctrines," awful speeches indeed to come from the mouths of professing men.

And as the Arminian, on the one side, will trample down the doctrines, so will the notional Calvinist, on the other, tread under foot your experience, and stamp his iron-bound heel upon all the convictions of your burdened spirit, and the trials of your troubled soul. Those who are at ease in Zion, dwelling "careless, after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure" (Judges 18:7), who are never exercised or tempted, but "lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall," and, therefore, "are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph" (Amos 6:4, 6), will trample under foot the exercises, temptations, and burdens of living souls. And of all professors, none, I believe, will trample under foot the living family more than conscience-seared Antinomians. The godly fear, the tenderness of conscience, the respect to the Lords ordinances, and the obedience to his precepts which the regenerated family manifest, provoke the contempt and enmity of those who have a scheme of doctrines clear in their brain, but whose hearts are rotten as touchwood. Nor will they shew less contempt of your rising hopes and tender affections, and all the ebbings and flowings of divine life in your soul: despising and treading under foot everything short of or different from, the presumptuous confidence in which they stand themselves.

Expect, if you are a people whom God has formed for himself to shew forth his praise, to be trodden under foot: to have your motives misrepresented, your words to be the butt of calumny, and your actions to become food for the lying tongue to propagate its malicious falsehoods. To be despised and contemned of all men, and yet to be beloved and blessed by their God is the universal lot of all the living in Jerusalem.

But there is another sense in which we may understand the expression, "trodden under foot," and that is, as I have hinted before, in the feelings of their own hearts. In this sense they may be said to tread themselves under foot. In my right mind, I seem to care little to be trodden under foot by the contempt of professor and profane. I have, indeed, even felt pleasure at being counted worthy to suffer reproach for Christs sake. But to be trodden under foot by myself; to feel that I deserve to be trodden under the righteous feet of Jehovah into a never-ending hell, and on account of my numerous and base iniquities to merit to be trodden under foot by the saints of God--this, this cuts deep.

And not only so, but to have myself to trample down all that I once thought was religion, my holiness, piety, and consistency, zeal, knowledge, and devotedness, to have to take them with my own hands, and cast them on the stones, and trample them under feet--this cuts deeper still. But the Lord will bring us to this spot, to tread under foot all creature-righteousness, and natural piety, as well as all the zeal, activity, and restless diligence that springs from, and feeds the flesh. As Babylons children, they must be taken and dashed against the stones (Psalm 137:9). God will teach us, sooner or later, to trample under foot everything but the blood and righteousness of the Lamb as our salvation and justification: and to reject all wisdom that does not spring out of himself.

VI. The last mark which is given in the text of this peculiar people is, "Whose land the rivers have spoiled." This people, then, had once a land: yea, what they thought was a goodly land, one rich in natural gifts, and teeming with everything bright to the eye, and alluring to the senses. This is the land of our nativity, our "Ur of the Chaldees," our Egypt. What a fair and bright land was this in the days of our romantic youth! And have we not in those days, stood, as it were, upon some lofty height, and looked with eager delight upon the scene of happiness that we fancied lay outstretched before us, promising to ourselves days of health, and wealth, and comfort in this world? But the rivers have spoiled the land. The waters of Gods providential dispensations have flowed over it, and utterly marred it. Instead of being now a fair land, it has become a sandbank. We were looking for happiness in the things of time and sense. Some bosom idol, some bright prospect, some well-planned scheme, some dream of love or ambition was to be our paradise; not knowing that the sword of the cherubim, which turned every way, was planted at the gate. Rivers have burst forth from unexpected quarters, and forever spoiled that land for our resting place. But, again, there is another land, which we once fancied to be fair and beautiful--the land of natural religion. We cultivated with much pains and diligence the soil of our own hearts--we toiled, dug, and planted; but reaped not; sowed, but gathered no crop into the garner. 

The rivers of conviction, flowing out of the sanctuary, spoiled the land. Have you not found, that when you were cultivating piety, a flood of conviction broke out and spoiled all the crop? Or when you had ploughed, and sowed, and harrowed the field, and were looking forward to the growth of diligence, zeal, prayer, praise, faith, hope and love, instead of finding a harvest to reap, a flood of doubt and fear, conviction and distress, burst forth, and carried away not only the crop, but well nigh the cultivator himself. And yet, perhaps, when the flood had gone off, and the rivers a little ceased from the land, you began to cultivate it again. After the crop was swept away, you tried hard after another; but no sooner did you begin to work, and get the seed sown, and the field in a husband-like order, than the rivers flowed over it, and spoiled it again.

But there is another sense in which the words may be taken; and that is as indicating the rivers of mercy and peace that flow out of the love of God through the channel of the Saviours blood. What is this world? It is polluted. It is not our rest. It is defiled by sin, and marred by sorrow, so that a child of God can here find no abiding city. Rivers of conviction out of God as a God of justice, and of mercy out of God as a God of love, flowing in different channels, but tending to the same purpose, have spoiled the land: and it is a fair and goodly land no more.

Here, then, is a description of the people of God, of those that are to be presented to the Lord of Hosts. Does it not seem a singular description? It is not, indeed, generally received by the professors of the day, but that does not alter its reality or its truth. But there is a certain period spoken of in the text when they are to be presented, for it says, "In that time shall the present be brought unto the Lord of Hosts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, the Mount Zion." And what time is this but that which is described in the preceding verses? "For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches."

"In that time, " when it seems fit for nothing, but to be stubbed and burnt as a useless stump. When it is fit for nobody, and apparently still less fit for God, is the present to be made to the Lord of Hosts. Then will this people, scattered and peeled, be brought by the Holy Ghost, an acceptable offering unto God, as being washed in the blood of his Son, and clothed in his spotless righteousness. And observe where they are to be brought, the spot where the offering is to be made, "to the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, the Mount Zion." And what is Zion, but the place "where God has commanded the blessing, even life for evermore?" Brought to Zion where Jehovah reigns in the hearts of his redeemed, and where the "blood of sprinkling speaketh better things than that of Abel." Brought to see its solemnities, to be enriched with its treasures, and rejoice in its glory.

Thus if we are brought as a present to the Lord of Hosts, we shall come to Mount Zion--to the city of the living God, to banquet upon the Gospel feast, to eat and drink Gospel wine and milk, without money and without price. And by what road, and through what teaching? As having been pious from youth? As having been educated religiously in the Sunday School? As having said so many prayers, and having performed so many pious exercises? As having mastered our besetting sins and fiery passions? As being better than others, holier than others, more religious than others? If we come so, we come not as the text speaks. Such qualifications will not render us an acceptable gift to the Lord of Israel.

The nation that is presented to him is "scattered" upon the mountains without a Shepherd: "peeled" under the heavy weight of trials and temptations; "terrible" to themselves and to others, from the work of God in their hearts; "meted out" by the Spirit of the Lord putting a standard in their conscience, to bring all that they are and have to the test; "trodden under feet" by men, and by themselves; without a country, without a home; for "their land the rivers have spoiled." But in this abject state of destitution, poverty, nakedness, and necessity, brought as an acceptable present to the Lord of Hosts--to the place where he hath recorded his name--even to Zion, where he lives and reigns, as the God of all grace.

If this is true, and who can gainsay it? If these are the works of God, and who can deny that they are? then, only, so far as we have some divine and experimental acquaintance with these things in our souls, have we any Scriptural testimony, that we are either come to, or are on our way towards Zion.

And, may I not add, if you live and die without knowing somewhat of this experience, you will never enter the gates of glory, but be among those to whom the Lord will say, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels!"