1870 36 Isaiah is convicted, cleansed, given a ready devoted serving heart, and finds a tenderly sympathizing heart — all in the divine presence. It is as to his nature that he is convicted — what he has in common with others: this is true conviction. In devotedness he yields himself without knowing what it may cost him. (Isaiah 6.)
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1870 44 Israel in the wilderness had nothing to do for food or raiment: the Lord provided. They had no care as to their circumstances: the Lord called them either to rest or to motion. But they had activities of the sanctuary as much as faith pleased or as conscience demanded, in worship, communion, and confession, through their different offerings. They had the ordinances of holiness to practise, the future ways of Canaan to learn, and all this and the like in great variety. They began their action by erecting the tabernacle. The Book of Leviticus shows this.
Fragments Gathered Up.
1870 48 Compare the faith of the Shunammite in 2 Kings 4 with that of her of Zarephath in 1 Kings 17. The latter put her dead into her bosom, the former on the prophet's bed. Death reminded one of her own sin; it reminded the other of God's resources.
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Jacob had seventeen years in Egypt ere he was called hence; Paul was called up from the midst of his labours. (2 Tim. 4) It is a bad symptom of previous ways when a pause is needed, like that in Egypt to Jacob.
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Ishmael as an old bottle burst in the day of Abraham's feast: so did the elder brother in Luke 15. The Galatians were in danger of becoming the old bottles again. Ananias, in Acts 9:13, savoured of this.
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Ananias, in Acts 9, was something of a Jonah, unprepared for full grace. And so shall we be, if we do not come to God ourselves as "the chief of sinners," taking up all sin as in our own persons.
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The brazen altar is the measure of man's responsibility; but saving has nothing to do with responsibility. God saves us for Himself, and brings us to Himself.
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There is no veil in Hebrews, therefore the holiest and the holy are not distinguished; the holy things could not be guilty, but they could be defiled.
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The saints are perfectly in and perfectly out, whether in John's Gospel (John 9) or in the Epistle to the Hebrews. (Heb. 10; 13.)
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The law taken in its positive action would be for a child of Adam, but in an unfallen state.
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1870 54 Faith overcomes all accusing recollections, hope overcomes all present attractions.
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1870 77 It is in the point of death that the sufferings of Christ meet, whether for righteousness' sake and that which He underwent in order to sympathy with them when suffering under God's government, on the one hand, or in atonement, on the other. Christ suffered onward up to death; then He also made atonement for sin. Some of the remnant also may suffer unto death, as faithful under the trials of this government; but then, like Christ, they will obtain a better resurrection. Of course the atoning part is exclusively His.
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1870 80 In Job we have man put to the test — man renewed by grace, upright in his ways — to show whether he can stand before God in presence of the power of evil, whether he can be righteous in his own person before God; and, on the other hand, God's dealings by which He searches the heart and gives it the consciousness of its true state before Him. It is God that sets the case of Job before Satan who disappears from the scene.
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The olive tree (Rom. 11) extends from Abraham's time on to the millennium.
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Faith brings to God and separates from the world.
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1870 133 "The whole world wondered after the beast." I ought not to wonder about evil. I ought to trust God to foil Satan.
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1870 143 Revelation 3:8 tells of the Lord's love to the church. Nothing marks the low state of things more than this, that the thought of legality is connected with God's looking for works. It is not so at all. Christ desires that the life He has given should appear. If you say to Christ, I will give no works, He says, You do not care for My love. If we really cared for His love, we should wish to hear Him say, I wish for this thing — that thing. It is the jealousy of His love that cannot bear that another should be in our hearts in His place.
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In Eliezer's dealings with Rebekah, it is jewels first; with Laban, it is bringing into the house before the jewels. The Spirit alone acts in the power and confidence of grace. Laban was a legalist.
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1870 147 The affliction of Christ was infinitely deep; but His perfect communion with His Father caused all the anguish, that in others broke out into complaints, to be in secret between Him and His Father. It is very rarely expressed in the Gospels: He is entirely for others in grace.
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It is very afflicting and very humbling when we are obliged to confess that God's enemies are right as against His people. The only comfort is that God is in the right and that in the end He cannot fail to accomplish His gracious promises.
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The great truth now is what Christ is. At the Reformation it was His work. If He reveals what He is, it is but to add, "I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it." Here is liberty. It is an open door for all blessing.
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I do not think Peter's conscience was reached before the third time of asking. He felt (not passed over) the gap in his heart as forgiven and in favour; but God must have the conscience fully reached to have confidence and communion.
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1870 156 Babylon. — On her forehead her name was written. A drunken world does not see it; but a saint ought not to mistake it. We should judge from the outside of it; and if we are in our place, in the Spirit, in the wilderness, we shall not mistake. But if we tamper with it, we have lost the sense of it: we have drunk some of the wine, if we do not discern it.
Fragments Gathered Up.
1870 160 Christians may be viewed as the seed of Abraham (Gal., Heb.), part of the line of the heir of promise on earth, and not only as those united to Christ as His body, a new and special and heavenly thing true of us on earth. (Eph., Col.)
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Matt. 26:46. — When the enemy is at hand, it is the time for action, not for watching and praying.
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1870 170 God can bless in a direct manner with the light of His grace, when the soul is brought into its true place, to what it really is in His sight. Then, whatever its state may be, He can bless it in respect of that state, with increased light and grace. If I have got far from Him and careless in walk, when I have the consciousness how far I am, He can fully and directly bless. But the soul must be brought into the recognition of its state, or there would be no real blessing. I should not see God in unison with it. For its sensible did not answer to its real in God's sight.