It is only as you feed on the old corn of the land that you can really eat the manna. There is no power to be conformed to the life of Jesus on earth except as you " behold the glory of the Lord." A soul only in the wilderness may know the High-priestly care of the Lord, as in Hebrews, but he cannot be "changed into the same image."
There is a great aptness in the word "earthen vessels;" for thus in the very nature of the vessel there is that which obscures the shining out. So then comes the, process of breaking the vessel that the light may shine out. The question is, How is it to be broken? So we get all Means of breaking it in the words: " Troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed."
There is first the "ministry" that we have 'received-"the gospel of the glory of Christ;" and then there is the shining out in the vessel-the "bearing about in the body." Testimony and life are the weapons that God ever uses to defeat the enemy, as we find it in Gideon; first, the blowing with the trumpets, and then the breaking the pitchers. The exhibition of the natural life in a saint must obscure the life of Christ. Many afflictions would be spared us if we were always in. self-judgment-always " bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus."
(ED. D.)