Why is it that the 'people of God are not in the full enjoyment of the gospel? Many whom one recognizes as fully the Lord's have but little joy in the Holy Ghost. The reason often is that they have not got a clear view of the gospel.; and in others, where it has been clearly seen, it is not sustained as it should be for their comfort and the glory of the Lord Jesus.
If I fail as much as Peter, or more than any other, the truth is that Christ is still sitting at the right hand of God for me; my 'inconsistencies cannot change that truth of God. They had heard "from the beginning " that "Jesus is the Christ." He says, "Let that, therefore, abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that, therefore, which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father." This is the marrow of peace when the soul is fried-God's certificate to the soul, that the value of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ belongs to it individually. People say It is mine because I have had such deep experience; I feel so and so. But God has not said that. He has said that there is the testimony of His Christ, and that if that dwell in me I: shall continue in the Son and in the Father.
You have lost peace. Why? Because doubtless you have forged a link of your own, and not had that of God's invention; so that, directly your joy or experience is gone, you are miserable. Keep fast hold' of the testimony of God about His Christ. A person keeping hold of this cannot have a single bit of rest apart from the person of the Lord: Jesus and God's testimony about Him. There is nothing more gracious than God not allowing peace apart from the way He has given it, for nothing else has sanctifying power. Though only fit for the antichrist, God has taken me up and connected me with his Christ; and, if I turn away from Him, how can I know that all He has is mine?
God's plan is to have a people connected with Himself, with His house on high as their dwelling-place, and for them to act here according to the position that God' has set them in there, though they' have the flesh within, with its lusts and desires. And can any thus placed' go and connect themselves with that which crucified the Son-with that whose friendship is " enmity with God "-without losing as an immediate result peace of heart and conscience? Why does a Christian's peace ooze out? Often, one must reply, because he is walking carelessly through the world, forgetting it is the place where Christ was crucified. My cup of joy can never be full if the world be the place where I am found, and I am walking in its spirit. (G. V. W.)