If any one says, " I have faith in the blood, and I am sure I shall be in heaven at last," and that person is mixed up in all the rubbish of this world., does God take no count of it? Yes, and most surely God will bring, will drag His people out of Sodom, perhaps just as the whole thing is about to be destroyed. He knows how to pull them out, and I delight to see Him doing it, forcing them out, and making them go up hill into glory, whether they like it or not.
The Lord makes His people act, not by their feelings, but by the reality of the place they are in; makes them act as those who are in His presence.
If the world offers a Christian any advantage, he should look at it and say, " It will not become me to accept it-I am one seated in heavenly places, I have but one object in life." Whatever the world could offer him he should turn from it, because a man cannot have two objects, if he be a heavenly-minded saint. The savor and root of everything, to such an one, is Christ up there, and he does not want to be a prosperous man down here, where Christ had no place.
What a thought! to be so one with Christ, so living Christ, that we have to put as a test to everything, "Would my Lord like this or that?" The Christ of God, who has made me one with Himself, what does He think of it?