THIS, dear friends, being an assembly of persons who intelligently profess to be Christians, the ground of our union with Christ is not a matter of question with us; for we each know that we are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. But it is, therefore, highly important that we should consider how we should advance in Christian alignment.
There are three great elements essential to attainment; first, an object; secondly, a principle; and, thirdly, a power. We never see great attainment without these three.
Observe how in all God’s doings there is an object, a principle, and a power.
God had an object in creating the world; for otherwise He never would have made it at all. God had an object in forming man, as well as in giving His Son to atone for the sins of believers, and that object was the manifestation of His own glory in the salvation of sinners.
Now we, too, have an object in everything we do. But the question is, What is our object? Is it the same as God’s object? Is it the glory of God? How it simplifies a matter, if we can honestly ask ourselves, “Is this for the glory of God?” Alas! what a death-blow this gives to nine-tenths of our words and our doings. May the Lord enable each of us to have His glory more for our object in future.
But of what use is an object without a principle on which to attain it? Think you that if Columbus had started in search of America, without knowing the principles of navigation, that he would ever have got there? I have heard of a young midshipman placed in charge of a vessel bound for Jersey. Jersey was his object. He steered not by headlands or circumstances, but by the principles of navigation, by his chart, and by his compass. As he journeyed another vessel hailed him, and asked, “Where are you going?” “To Jersey,” he replied. “Why, man alive,” said the other, “you have passed it by.” The young midshipman was startled, but he went down to his cabin; he looked at his chart and examined his compass, and came on deck again, and shouted through his speaking trumpet, “If I have, I have sailed over it;” and soon on the horizon he saw the wished-for isle. Oh, the value of principles. My friends, we ought to know what we are doing, and why we do it. Now, God has laid down very broad and very clear principles in Scripture for our guidance both towards the world around us, and towards the Church of God; that is, the body of believers. May God’s principles be our principles, and not our imaginations as to, what we may be pleased to call expedient.
But, dear friends, we may have a definite object, and that object may be the glory of God; and we may have definite principles, and those principles may have emanated from the Word of God, and yet we need a power. Have you never seen a beautiful ship out at sea; the sails are all set, the chart is before the captain, the compass is at his side, and his band on the helm, but there is no power; the vessel is becalmed. How often do we see Christians thus becalmed! Christians are powerless without the acting power of the Holy Ghost within them. And think you that the Spirit of God will ever fail the Christian who walks in His power, whether in worship, in wisdom, in service, or in conflict with evil? We tremble to trust the power of God. But look at the examples of the power of God recorded in His blessed Book.
Look, in the first place, at God’s dealings with Noah. The power of God was with Noah. God commanded that man Noah to build a great ark.
I don’t know what resources he had, but God commanded him to build a vessel larger than the Great Eastern. He built it on dry ground; so was the Great Eastern built on dry ground, and when first they tried to float it they failed; but the Lord called down a flood, and caused His ark to float over the waters. Is that the God we have to do with?
We find, again, that God had to do with a man called Joseph, and we know that God revealed to this man the meaning of a dream that the King Pharaoh dreamed; and we see this man Joseph called out of the dungeon to stand before Pharaoh, and he tells him his dream, which none other could. “Behold there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt; and there shall arise after them seven years of famine,” &c. Mark, in passing, Joseph’s exercise of faith. This man Joseph, who was down in a dungeon, was called to the highest position in Egypt, and he staked his whole reputation and position for the truth of his God. He got a revelation from the Lord God Almighty, that God was going to do a great thing, and without further questioning he acted upon it for seven long years. They must have said, “This man is mad; look at his extravagance, and of what use is it all―filling the granaries, and making provision against a day that will never come. Was there ever such plenty as at the present? Wherefore is he turning Egypt upside down?” But Joseph held on by the truth of his God, till he accomplished the purpose of God; and then God put forth His almighty power, and brought a famine. Oh, what well placed trust in God on the part of Joseph! Is this the God we have to deal with?
We find God dealing with Moses and Joshua. Oh, the power God showed to Moses! Oh, the power He showed to Joshua! I often think what the power must have been to have caused those walls of Jericho to fall. How wondrous to see the walls of the city totter and crumble by the word of His power! and that is the God we have to do with!
Look at Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! Is that story all a fable? This King Nebuchadnezzar cast them into a burning furnace, and presently he came and looked, to see what is in the midst of that furnace, that would have scorched your hand or mine? He sees four figures! Remember, this happened only the other day. Some 2,500 years ago! and He called them out, and out they came, and there was not the smell of fire upon them. And that is the God we have got to deal with!
We find the Lord dealing in power in later days, on the day of Pentecost. That was a strange occurrence: “When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place; and suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind.” Oh what a thrill it would send through us, if we heard a sound that we could recognize as coming “from heaven.” If you were ever out in a storm you would know something of a “mighty wind.” Listen: “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like at of fire.” This happened only the other day “Cloven tongues!” From whence this power? But that is the God we have to deal with!
Look, then, at Revelation. Mark the description it gives us. “I turned to see the voice that spake with me; and being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and His hairs were white like wool and His eyes were as a flame of fire, and Hit feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters.” Then, at the end of Revelation, we find a great white throne. “I saw a great white throne―(this is prophetic)―and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away,” &c. (down to end of chapter). What a prospect! And that is the same God whose Spirit dwells in us as the source of all heavenly power.
Ah, dear friends, if these things are so, have we been treating that God as He deserves? Have we? How guilty we must plead. Have we not rather been treating Him as if He were a God of straw? I say, an idolater that worship Juggernaut gives his god more honor than we give to the God of heaven. May God give us more to realize the God we have got to deal with! And oh, may He be, for the future, to us more a living power! God has not placed us down here, and brought us to the saving knowledge of Christ, for nothing; and depend upon it, the object God has set before us is the best we can choose. His principles are the wisest we can adopt, and His Spirit (which is in us, unless we be reprobates,) the only power whereby we can ever arrive at any attainment worthy of the name of Christian.