Remnant Times: as Illustrated in the History of Enoch, David, and Daniel.

Notes of lectures by W. T. Turpin.

London: G. Morrish.

Preface

These addresses, similar in character to "Our Pilgrimage and His Rest," are sent forth with the humble desire and earnest prayer of the author that God may be pleased, in His sovereign grace, to overlook their many defects, and to use them for His own glory, and the blessing of His beloved people.

W. T. Turpin. Brighton, November, 1876.

Contents

The Christian's Pathway and Hope

The Christian's Dwelling-place

Separation. Dependence. Suffering

The Christian's Pathway and Hope

Genesis 5:18-24; Hebrews 11:1-6.

The principles of the times to which the Old Testament primarily relates are very different from the principles of God's ways and dealings with His people now. If however you look at the Old Testament worthies, saints of God in those days, particularly those that are enumerated in Hebrews 11 it is very interesting to see how God raised up for Himself independent witnesses to the great principle which was to obtain as soon as ever His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, had finished the work that God gave Him to do, and had gone into heaven. What I mean is this, that the principle of Judaism was one that acted upon the sight and senses of men just as they were. All this had its time, had its day, had its object, and God worked through it for purposes of His own; but in the midst of it, whilst it was in its full force and vigour, the blessed God had, as I have observed, independent witnesses for Himself out of that very nation, who were the people of sight, with reference to what was to come out, and what has come out in our days, that is, the simple principle of faith.

Now, at this present moment, such is the position of a Christian, that if I am governed by anything that I see, I have left the path of faith. I know that it is a very searching thing for one's heart; but, I repeat, the moment I am governed by anything that I see around me, or if I act with reference to it as a motive or object, or look to it for guidance, or direction, or understanding as to my path, I have left this simple, blessed, pathway of faith which God has marked out for His own. You may say that when you look around amongst the saints of God, you see a thousand instances, where the act is with reference to what is seen; but then it is all important, beloved friends, whilst confessing the failure, not to act as if making a principle out of our failure. There is oftentimes a great tendency to do that in our hearts, to make a principle out of that which is really nothing more nor less than a breakdown with us as to the blessed and wonderful ground God has called us out unto. What He has really called us out to be a witness unto, is the blessed fact that we have an invisible God; and faith acts with reference to Him as an object that is not seen by any power of human ken or understanding. This was the wonderful thing in Moses (though I only refer to it in passing). You find the Spirit of God saying of him in Hebrews 11, that he "endured, as seeing the invisible God."

You see, the two things that characterise a Christian are these, he has an invisible object in the heavens, that is, Christ glorified at God's right hand, and an invisible power in him here — the Holy Ghost that dwells in a believer's body. So that we have an object entirely outside everything that is seen here in this world, and a power dwelling in our bodies (for my body is the temple of the Holy Ghost), and that power that dwells in my body acts on me and in me with reference to that object, and gives me motives and strength and everything from that object. The moment we descend from that, we are inconsistent with our calling — it is not faith, not the principle that looks beyond everything else to God, sees God, and acts with reference simply to God, and receives power from God. I believe half of our difficulties, individually and collectively, at this present moment, arise because we have not simply acted upon that principle. Most of the difficulties that saints of God experience in their individual path would be obviated, if they simply walked by faith.

Let me say this, and I say it humbly, I believe the difficulties we have collectively are created because of our low state individually; that is, there is a lack of individual faithfulness, there is some want, some feebleness, individually. A good corporate state is the result of a close individual walk with God. You never have corporate power apart from individual faithfulness. And what I believe is this — I often think it over, and pray about it — the reason of our corporate weakness just now is, that we have overlooked individual state before God. The individual state of our souls before God tells immensely upon the corporate relationships that we have to sustain as members of the body of Christ. Suppose I am not walking with God as one in the relationship of a child of God, as an heir of God, and fellow-heir with Christ, how can I ever comport myself as a member of the body of Christ? It is impossible; and you may rest assured of it, where a person is deficient as a member of the family of God, he is sure to bring trouble into the church of God. The one thing tells upon the other. This it is which is on my heart in taking up this subject a little to-night. One reason why the Old Testament is so exceedingly beautiful is this, there is brought out in it, the intense individuality of our place with God. You find individual godliness, individual piety, individual walk with God, though, of course, it is after the measure and order of those times. The walk with God must be up to the revelation of God for the time being. This it is of vital importance to maintain. It would not be "walking with God" now for a person simply to live up to the measure of what Enoch knew. It was "walking with God" for Enoch at that time: but there is now, for God's people; a revelation of God, and a communication of His mind, far beyond what Enoch knew. And therefore, to know this walk with God, I must individually be before God according to the revelation of His mind to me by His Spirit, as He has been pleased to bring it out in His word.

But I will point out to you where, in my mind, there appears to be a very interesting analogy between the time of Enoch and the times we are passing through. If you reflect for a moment on the times in which we find Enoch, and compare them with those in which our lot, by God's mercy, is cast, you will find a very close analogy between the two. People have often said, "It is all very well to talk about Enoch 'walking with God,' but he had not half the trials, half the difficulties, that saints of God have in these days;" but that, beloved friends, is a very superficial view of the history of Enoch's times, as God has given it to us in His word. If you remember, the times of Enoch were simply these — he was surrounded by, and going through the midst of, a system of things that Satan has improved upon at the present moment; it was nothing less than Cain's world. Enoch lived in the midst of the world as Cain made it. I say Cain's world, and remember this, we ought, when we speak of things, to speak of them as they are. God never made the world as we see it. He made the earth, but He never made the world, or age, as it really means. No one supposes that the ordered system of things round about us is the production of God's hand. Satan is the god and prince and head of that. God made the literal earth of course, but this ordered system of things that is round about us, where we see such terrible departure from God — God never made that, He is not the author of that. Satan has manufactured the ordered system of things that is around us, out of the total revolt of man. That is exactly what Cain's world was, in principle, in Enoch's days. Now there were two things that entered into the constitution of it. I will only just touch on them. There was a religion, and a city. Those were the two great constituent parts of that system of things in which Enoch lived.

There is a great fact embraced in those two things. Cain was the founder of a religion that disowned the claims of God in righteousness, seeing that man had fallen from God. He also overlooked the fact of the curse that had come in through that fall. A few words may not be out of place as to Cain's sacrifice. He brought to God of the fruit of the ground. It was not that he lacked in energy, or that he wanted in earnestness, or that the man was unruly. Cain toiled on the earth, and, though cursed, it yielded its fruit to him, and he brought the fruit of the earth that was cursed, as if there had been no curse at all, and offered it to God. Observe, beloved friends, and there is a great principle involved in this — the moment that the fall exists as a fact, as well as the utter departure of man from God in nature and in practice, we can bring nothing acceptably to God except through the death of Christ; and the moment that we attempt such a thing, it may be unwittingly, we have fallen under the power of Cain's religion in principle. That which characterised and marked what I call the religion of which Cain was the inventor and founder, was bringing to God an offering, and doing it so as to deny the great principle, "without shedding of blood there is no remission." You can trace it in the history for yourselves.

Then, if you look at the city, it is exactly what we have all round us at the present moment. There was manufacture, there was the art of man cultivated to its greatest possible extent, ingenuity taxed beyond all conception, to produce something which would make the world, out of which God had been rejected, bearable to man. This was Cain's world. Herein lay its religious, political, and moral aspects.

Well now, it is a very blessed thing to find God calling out a man in the midst of a scene like this, surrounded as he was on all hands by that which disowned God; and it is a comforting thing, too, to our hearts, to find the Spirit of God giving us a record, such as you have in those verses in Genesis. With that state of things on every hand, right and left, here is a man that is called forth as a witness to the power of God, so far at least as it was known then, being kept in the midst of all that, and as it says, "walking with God." Beloved friends, it is exactly what you and I are called to in these days; we are called to "walk with God." I will tell you what very much struck me lately. I heard a beloved servant of God say that when he left this country, and went abroad, he came across many of God's people who had gone out from England to settle there, and he asked them how it was they came out there. He got one reply from one, and another from another, but not a word that indicated to him in the least that there was anything like an exercise of soul before God as to His pleasure in the matter. And he said to one something like this — "Well, but I read in scripture that Enoch walked with God,' and I also read in scripture that God says, I will guide thee with mine eye.' What do you know of that?" Well, the only reply he got from several to whom he spoke after that fashion was simply an evasion of this direct appeal to their conscience. Now, beloved friends, all that is very serious; and here is the solemn part of it, these very people were not unintelligent people, they had a very good knowledge of dispensational truth; they understood the scripture, as God has given it to us, outwardly at least; they could tell you the bearing of certain parts of scripture, and so forth; but when it came to this practical question of individually "walking with God," and communion with God, and guidance by God's eye, and this principle of faith, which carries beyond circumstances to that blessed One who is up there in glory, they were completely, as is often said, at sea. I say that is very solemn, and I think that you and I have to be on the lookout. We have to take care, beloved friends, that our outward intelligence is not in advance of our personal communion with God. Be assured of it, the moment it comes to be so, Satan has got materials at hand with which he will make terrible havoc. The outward understanding of the things of God apart from this blessed question of personal walking with God," is a weapon in the devil's hands by which he will sow all sorts of seed, producing terrible results by-and-by, if we are not on our guard.

Well now, let us look at this blessed character, "walking with God." What does it involve? The first thing that must be clear in our souls is, as to whether our relationships with God are understood in our consciences. May I ask you now, Are the relationships which God has been pleased to bring His people into, as Christianity reveals them, are they understood by you in your souls? Is it all right, may I ask, between you and God, as to these relationships? Is there any cloud on these relationships, as between you and God, any unsettled question between you and God in any of these relationships? You perceive it is impossible to "walk with God" if this is not clear. It is no use speaking of "walk with God" if the relationships between me and God which He has been pleased both to form and to reveal, are not clearly entered into, and understood, and enjoyed. Or, supposing there is unjudged sin upon my conscience, how can I "walk with God?" It is folly to talk of it. Look at the bearing of that for a moment. Suppose a person with unjudged sin upon his conscience, takes his or her place in the assembly, that person is a member of the church of God, and walks in the outward expression of it; but look at the trouble that person brings in, and the weakness, and the difficulty. I do not believe we think enough of these things, and I believe you will find that they account to a great extent for the immense amount of feebleness and weakness that one finds amongst God's people. You see, the Lord puts it very clearly before us; He says, "Let a man so examine himself." You could not have any thing more intensely individual than that. He says further, "For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep," that is, many die. Unjudged sin — sin tolerated in the assembly — was the thing that brought in trouble at Corinth. Of course that was a special instance, but the principle is the same; and if you come to the assembly of God now, if any of those comprising it have not got the joy, and the peace, and the satisfaction of their individual relationship with God, if that relationship is not clear and distinct, and further, if there is any evil unjudged or tolerated, there is sure to be weakness, and difficulty.

It is a wonderful thing to find how few there are who know that we are in relationship with God, as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The utmost that many get to as to this question of relationship — it may appear strange to say so, but it is true — the utmost that a large number of Christians get to is, that they are pardoned criminals. That is the extent of it pardoned criminals. I say it is a terribly solemn thing. How can I "walk with God" as His child, if I do not know my relationship? How can I "walk" with Him as a member of the body of Christ, if I do not know that relationship? and if all that pertains to the responsibility of that relationship is not maintained? All this enters into this question of "walking with God." The relationships in which my soul stands to God must be without anything that compromises them on my side. If this is not so, then there is trouble and difficulty.

Well now, there is another thing in connection with this "walking with God," which is exceedingly blessed. We see it in Enoch. He had but one object. I will say a word about that, because it is most important. He had one object before him. Now you will always find that where there is this simple walking with God, there is this one object. There is the relationship enjoyed, there is the soul in the sense of this relationship, but besides this, there is an object. You will find it brought out most beautifully in Hebrews 11 in the end of that fifth verse. "Before his translation," (I will speak of that presently) "he had this testimony, that he pleased God." That was the one thing that was before him. Beloved friends, may I ask you affectionately, is that the one thing before you? Take everything in your life, take every circumstance in your history as a Christian, take everything that your hands are engaged in, your business relationships, your home relationships, your church relationships; is that the one thing that is simply before your heart? Is it this, that you want "to please God?" This is very searching. "He had this testimony," that is the most lovely communication that we can possibly conceive of, that before ever he left the world of Cain, with all the hindrances, all the attractions, that were in it, "he had this testimony, that he pleased God." You see, the eye was entirely off everything but God; there was the one thing that commanded him and controlled every movement of the man, the intense desire "to please God."

You will notice a contrast, and a very beautiful one, between this and what is said of Abel. There you find that God testified "of his gifts." (Ver. 4.) It was there a question of the acceptance of an offering. Abel is an accepted man, and he brings the blood and the fat as an offering to God, recognising the claims of a holy God, and the ruin in which Adam had involved the world. He brings and places the lamb between him and God in righteousness, a victim chargeable, so to speak, with all that pertained to the judgment; but there was the excellency of the sacrifice as well, for there was the fat. He brought the fat and the blood, and God bore witness to him of his gifts. But where it is a question of a man walking with God, the testimony was, "You have pleased me." It is a wonderful thing to have that testimony for myself, to have that divine secret between God and my own soul, that secret that nobody knows anything about but God.

But mark this, with a soul that has God before it, a soul that acts with reference to God, you may be always sure of this, there will always be the most thorough, complete, self-abandonment in everything. It is no good for persons to be saying they have God before them, when it is manifest that they have got self before them, in whatever form it may be. If I have God before me, if I am acting with reference to Him, if I see the One who is invisible, if I am thinking of pleasing Him, I have the testimony in my conscience that I please Him, and that keeps me up; it is a secret spring of satisfaction and joy in my heart that none else knows anything about. It is a blessed and wonderful thing, because it separates the affections of your soul from the ten thousand motives and influences that would act upon you, and puts before you just the One who should be the centre of your thoughts.

So that you see, "walking with God" at any time, in Enoch's day or now, whichever you take, embraces this blessed motive-power as the spring and source of everything — "I have now to please but One." My eye is on that One; I consider what would be suitable to that One; I think only of that One. It is not a question of myself, or of what people would say about me; it is this one simple, blessed, wonderful thing, that I have God to please. "I have now to please but One!"

Look at all this in the path of the perfect man, the Lord Jesus Christ, upon this earth. In Psalm 16, where we see Him as a dependent man, we find Him saying, "I have set Jehovah always before me." What a thing for your heart and mine, if we set the Lord always before us! Think of what subduing power there would be in it! What a satisfying object! What a sanctifying influence it would have upon us, if there were just the simple reference to that blessed unseen object — the seeking Him out, "He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him out." The meaning of it is, that He is set before the soul as an object for consideration before all others - that is the thought of the Spirit of God, "seek Him out." You place Him before your eye, and the affection of your heart beyond and above all others; and "He is the rewarder." What is the reward? Just this — the blessed consciousness that He gives your heart, as between Him and you, that you have pleased Him. The Lord give us, beloved friends, to know more of what it is to study His pleasure, to please Him! And while that will secure divine energy, it will also secure divine subduedness and restlessness; and this we need. There is enough of energy in all of us for service, but there is not restfulness for communion. That is a solemn point. There is energy enough to carry one hither and thither in service, but for communion there must be rest and repose; the result of which blessed, passive, quiet condition of soul is having to do with that blessed One who is in heaven, and my heart kept and sustained by the fact that I have studied His pleasure, pleased Him.

Well, now, with reference to this "walk with God," this that characterised Enoch, this to which you and I are called now, what does it contemplate? I do want to say a little word, strongly and decidedly, yet affectionately, about this. What does it contemplate? This "walk with God" contemplates something as to the present, and something as to the future. What is it as to the present? Mark this — suffering, loss, shame, degradation, every step of the way! That is what is contemplated in a person who walks with God in an evil day: because it is not walking with God when the rule of everything is godliness, it is walking with God when everything is in revolt from Him. That is the character of the time, such as it was in Enoch's day. Therefore it is suffering, and I will tell you more than that, beloved friends, it is self-abandonment. Believe me, if there were a little more self-abandonment amongst us, many of our difficulties would vanish. Self-abandonment is God's way through difficulties. Look at the difficulties we have around us on every hand. Where do they come from? No doubt from the very contrary to self-abandonment. If it is a simple question of God, His claims, His pleasure, His interests, His thoughts, why the difficulties are overcome at once! And if God's will is sweetest to me, even though it triumphs at my cost, look how well out of the difficulty I am! We know the doctrine, I was going to say, beloved friends, too well. You understand what I mean. I do honestly think it in my own soul, that many of us have never really thought of these things out on our knees before God. We are becoming educated, it is true, but it is the most deplorable thing in the world to imagine a set of people educated up to certain things. The tendency of the time is to have everything easy. You have everything now, as it were, chopped up for you, broken up so easily for you, and, worse than that, positively an attempt made to garnish and make attractive the things of God to the natural ken, and we are reaping the sorrow of it; because, instead of the truth having gone like an arrow into our consciences, right through our very souls, and ploughed us up, so to speak, so that we are overcome with a sense of the greatness, the wonderful greatness, of this truth of God, and are brought into the presence of God, feeling the very gravity of it — each thing has been accepted, as if there was nothing involved in it. That is simply what it is. People take things, and accept them, as if there were nothing involved in them. Just like a piece of history that is recorded for you in a clever book; you accept it, and believe it, it may be, but it puts you under no sense of responsibility.

Whatever is the tendency of the day is the danger of the church of God; whatever is the character of the time is a temptation to the saints of God. Well, the character of this time is to make everything as easy, and as smooth, and as possible for man as can be, to save him trouble, so that he may have everything with the least possible anxiety or care. But there is no royal road to learning in the school of God. The moment I enter that, there is no way for me to be schooled except through my conscience. If my conscience is not reached by these things (and if it is not a question of my conscience before God, it is terrible work), there is no "walking with God," there is no divine sense of the greatness of these things. That is what you and I ought to have in our souls, and God has got but one avenue to reach the heart of fallen man, and that is through his conscience? and if the thing does not reach my heart through my conscience, I am not reached at all divinely. This is solemn indeed.

Now, just let me explain to you what I mean by "walking with God" now; and I shall address a word or two to those who are young in the things of the Lord to-night. I do not mean young in the sense of youth merely, but in the sense that recently only they have known the Lord, or taken His things as theirs. Alas! how little we have the sense of what the acceptance of divine realities will entail upon us. You cannot but observe, as a general rule, that the tendency is, in dealing with the truth of God, to make something of people, instead of making nothing of them. It is all wrong. There is some deficiency in the soul, and some lack in the heart, where that is the object put forward. The moment divine truth lays hold of me, the effect of it is to make nothing of me — not a little, but nothing; and not only so, but it brings home to me this fact, that I must suffer here in the midst of this world. I do not want to depress any one, or make any of you morbid, but I ask you seriously, did you ever entertain this question yourself, with reference to the wonderful place you are occupying, to which God has called you out? If I walk with Christ in that place, must it not somehow entail surrender? Have you ever so regarded it, beloved friends? I say it with all reverence, I desire not to cherish one irreverent thought in my soul, but, looking at the pathway of the Lord Jesus as a man here, was He successful as a man? Was it not shame, scorn, contempt, reproach, loss, all the way from the holy mount to Calvary? Was it not downward with Him every step? Was it not surrender with Him: surrender, too, of what belonged to Him in right and title? He was very different from us. You and I have no right to claim, everything is pure grace with us: but with Him it was the abandonment and surrender of everything that belonged to Him, from the throne of God to the cross. Is that the pathway that you and I are called into? You see how little we weigh these things. I doubt, beloved friends, whether the oldest of us has ever sufficiently weighed them. There was a time, at the commencement of this blessed revival of God's truth, when men suffered for the reception and maintenance of it. That time has passed, and there is corresponding weakness and feebleness, because there is not the sense of the gravity of what the reception and maintenance of this truth entails upon the saint.

If I set out to follow One who had not a place where to lay His head, I cannot go on with this principle — trying to make the best of everything around; on the contrary, I seek to have as little as I possibly can in it; this I cannot help, if I am truly "walking with God." Here, then, is what this path entails now, and I feel it important for me to state it this evening. I should not be the messenger of God to you if I did not state what is the conviction of my own conscience solemnly before God. If I set out to "walk with God" in these days, according to the revelation of His mind as He has given it to me in Christianity and in His book, I make up my mind for this — this is the one thing that is before me — "It is enough for the servant to be as his master." I would rather see people shrink back; I would rather a person looked at it, and said, "This involves certain things in it; this brings certain claims with it; give me a little time, let me think of it, let me weigh it over before God, do not let me run rashly." I would rather see people like that, I would rather see them looking the thing, as it were in the face, because I know when they do that, when they do bring the thing before God, in quiet waiting upon Him, He will, to a genuine, true, and honest soul, make known His mind; and, further than this, He compensates such an one first. That is what He does; He compensates. Do you mean to tell me that the sense that I have pleased Him is not a compensation? If I have that, I am compensated at once, even before I suffer, and God delights to do so when He sees the heart true and exercised before Him.

Oh, I feel that the gravity of these things is not sufficiently before our hearts in these days. It is not a small thing to step out of everything around me, that I may simply answer to the mind of Him who is up there. It is not a small thing, or a trifling thing, be assured. May God keep any of you from thinking it a light thing! May God keep your hearts from ever attempting to bring down the immense solemnity of a divine position to the poor, miserable, wretched, contemptible level of things down here, taking away all pith and reality out of it! It is the tendency of these times: I believe we are not outside the danger of it. I know we are seriously in danger of overlooking state of soul. There is the danger of working upon the mere outward intelligence, instead of God working upon the soul through the conscience. May the Lord deliver us from this; it is most dangerous!

Well, now, there is one other thing. What is to be the issue of this "walking with God?" I have spoken a little about the present, what the present is connected with. It is, as I said, loss and suffering. I might speak of the other side of it, of the blessed reality of Christ's presence, of the sustainment of His love — how He cheers us on, how He walks the road with us, of the joy of being where He is: but I would rather leave the gravity of the thing on your heart. I do not think it any loss that you should have a sense of the solemnity of it.

What, then, is the end of it? It is this — just the very opposite to everything contemplated by a Jew in Old Testament times. A Jew looked for everything prosperous here, basket and store in abundance; he looked for everything being made straight to his hand as to the present. It was with him plenty, it was the increase of everything, plenty of corn and wine, plenty of everything this earth could afford — wealth, dignity, honour, ease. That was all perfectly well in its time; and was what a Jew looked for; it was his birthright, his inheritance here, and there was never a thought of being out of it — length of days, long life, was that which was before the Jew. But when I, as a Christian, look at this "walk with God," what is the issue of it? Look at it in Enoch. Is is just this — to be taken out of the world — it may be to-night! Do you believe that? Do you believe that the very next moment may be the cloud of glory? It is a subject that is common amongst us, this blessed hope of the Lord's coming, the blessed expectation of our returning Lord. Think how little the reality of it is before us? I remember the time when I first of all "saw" the coming of the Lord, as the expression is — when I first of all believed in the second advent — what a wondrous brightness, and freshness, and vividness, there was about it. May I ask you, how is it now with you? What about to-day? Is the freshness with which it came to your heart, twenty, thirty, forty, or any number of years ago, that which is welling up in your soul now? Do you calculate just minute by minute with reference to that? Is that the next thing before your soul? Is that the expectation of your heart, that you should be translated, that you should not see death, like Enoch? "He was translated that he should not see death, and was not found because God had translated him." There was a power of life in him that completely overcame the power of death, such a power of life as set aside death completely, the common lot of man since the fall.

Nothing shows me what the power of the redemption-work of the Lord Jesus Christ is like this — that there will be a people alive in the world who will not pass through death. So completely has His death been the answer to everything, that, in right of His prerogative, there will be a people alive when He comes who will not go through death. Do you believe, beloved, that to-night you might be caught up to the cloud of glory, "to meet the Lord in the air?

The way that these blessed facts of God have become stale with us is this — because we have received them as doctrines, the doctrines of a well-framed creed. There is a solemn part of it — it has become our creed. We are in danger, and no one, I trust, will feel hurt or grieved with me for saying this; I say it affectionately, I am in danger of it as much as you, I am in exactly the same position as you are yourselves, and therefore you need not be angry with me for saying it — we are just as much in danger of having our creed, and our "Thirty-nine Articles," as anybody else. Do not he deceived about it; the instant that the divine freshness and living reality of these blessed truths of God pass away from our souls, so that all we can say of them is, "That is my doctrine, that is what I hold," instead of their having a practical, operative, power upon us, searching us each moment — I say the instant that is the case, we go down, we have lost our standing, we have really dropped from the blessed, wonderful, divine power of these things, just to be, as somebody has expressed it, "as clear as the moon, and as cold as the moon." What a mournful picture that is! The Lord keep us from it.

I have spoken to-night as I feel He would have me do, though feebly I know. I believe, if there is one thing we need in these times, it is "walking with God" individually. If you and I were walking, individually with God, understanding what is entailed upon us now, and what we look for as the ultimate issue of it — to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and be with Him — we should banish the idea of trying to get on in the world, trying to surround ourselves with anything that would make us comfortable. How foreign the whole thing would be!

The Lord help us to look at ourselves in the light of His presence and His truth; that we may take it with us to-night; that our hearts may take these things right home, and in the secret of His presence, in the solitariness and quietness of His company, go over the thing with Him, our hearts before Him, with this thought upon them — "Lord, really is it I?"

May the Lord command His blessing; may He use His word to stir up our hearts to more personal, individual, walk and fellowship with Himself, in the blessed hope of being taken out of this world, at any moment, to see Him, and be with Him for ever!