PH 3:14-21{I turn to the second prayer in Ephesians, and the first thing I call your attention to, is the importance of what the apostle is about to press in this prayer. Little touches of any kind mark the importance of the subject. He says: " I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." It is a little thing, but it shows the contrast between the two prayers.
As has been already said, there are two things in these two prayers: the one is standing; the other, state; and the state, as I will show you, becomes a cause of more anxiety to the servant of God than the standing; not that the standing is not important, but that the matter of deepest anxiety is state. I go further:-and I will show you examples from Scripture to prove what I say-everything you do here is according to the state you are in at the time-not according to your standing, but according to your state.
The danger with us who have learned something of our standing is to overlook our state. We are anxious till we know our standing; there is a legality about us which makes us anxious until we do know it; when you first come to know it, it is like the sun rising after a dark night; but if you stop there you are sure to go down. Many a saint has felt the wonderful joy and delight of discovering his standing which he had been reaching after, and then failed utterly, as to keeping this joy, through not maintaining the state corresponding to it. You see how important it is when you come to look at the servant. He says: " I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." As has been often remarked, it was " the God of our Lord Jesus Christ" in the former prayer; in this "it is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Here is the state into which wa are brought with God; it is not only seeing the thing, but enjoying it-entering into it.
The standing is yours without any effort, yet it is always in the standing that you acquire the state. But then there is another thing. It is that not only I have a state Godward but I must have a state Satanward. You must have a state which is fitted to meet the character of the evil of this present scene, and, according as you have that, you are able to do " according to the power that worketh in us."
In the sixth chapter the point is, that, if you give up your state, you lose the benefit of your standing, though it is only because you have this standing that you can get the state. The danger first is that a person does not see his standing; that will go into presently; but that is not so dangerous a place as seeing the standing and not walking up to it. There is a divine instinct in the saint that craves to reach the thing the heart wants-to get hold of the standing.
Have you read the history of Joshua? As soon as the children of Israel got into the land they were warned not to forget God, for, if they did, they would be worse off than they were in Egypt where they had the river, for they would have no rain. I am sorry to say I have seen many who have accepted the standing, but who have then given up the state in keeping with it, saying that it was impractible, and who have thus perished "off the good land "-rather have lost the blessings of the standing. They have no rain-no present ministration from God.
In Eph. 6:1010Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. (Ephesians 6:10) I find: " Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." Here I have come to the highest point: I am to be strong " in the power of his might." In the first chapter I get the power acting towards us: " The exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working, of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places." That was the mighty power working to us-ward. But now you are to use this power that has been acting towards you; you are to " be strong" in it, that you may be able to resist Satan, and, that too, not now as an open adversary-not coming forth as a roaring lion-but, in the most subtle way possible, he is going to try to divert you from the path you are in. Therefore you must have on the whole armor of God, "that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." Suppose a person gives up his state what good will his standing be? Satan will soon wile him off that.
That is just' where the Ephesians themselves went wrong, so that we find them in Revelation as having "lost their first love." I do not doubt that they lost first what is asked for in this prayer in the third chapter. He says: I have shown you in the first chapter where God has set you, and now what I am laboring for is, that you should have from God directly all the benefits that flow to you from this standing. If you do not, you cannot act against, or withstand the power that will seek to divert you from this standing.
You will find, beloved friends, that there is a direct opposing power seeking to divert us from the place God has set us in; so the first thing the soul must get is a firm hold of that place. Therefore I will turn to: How I get a standing; and I will just mention two or three standings to make it plain to you.
I will take the first from the eighth of Romans: " There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." That is a standing. I have nothing in the world to do as to it, but only to accept what God gives me, and open my mouth wider that He may fill it. There is no such thing as my getting a standing; that is to say, there is no such thing as effort on my part to get it; but there is every kind of effort-of exercise-nay, more-of labor, when I have a sense of what a wonderful standing God has brought me into, that I may be practically what God has made me to be. I believe this is a thing that we are most defective in, and I say, I am laboring before God night and day, so that my state may be practically up to my standing. A title, without means to support it, merely lays a person open to ridicule and censure. It is not now a question of the standing, but the question is: Have you means to support it?
The land of Canaan was a land that "drinketh water of the rain of heaven." That was the support. The standing was the land, but the rain of heaven was to support them in it-to keep up their state. So we get here in Ephesians: " That ye being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height"-the whole platitude- the whole domain-" and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God;"-in fact that you may be able to comprehend. with all saints the love that has brought you there. Standing is not enough. You may be in the land " that drinketh water of the rain of heaven," but what if you are indifferent? what if you are neglectful? Then there will be no rain, and you will perish from off the land.
Now I take the very first standing which the epistle to the Romans sets forth. " Being justified by faith we have peace with God." Supposing a person goes on carelessly, it does not at all alter the fact of his title, but he will lose the enjoyment of it; and I believe this is one of the reasons why persons want to hear over and over again of the putting away of their sills: it is just that they are not walking blamelessly-that they are not walking up to the standing that they have received.
I turn to a passage in the thirteenth of Romans to show that you must keep your state up to your standing. " The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ." Now mark, this is written to those who have been told of the fact of their justification by faith, and of their standing in " no condemnation." God Himself had laid help upon One that was mighty; His arm had brought salvation; He had sent His Son. This Son was the righteous Man; He met all the mind of God both in public and in private life, until His path as a man culminated on the Mount of Transfiguration, where God accredited Him as His beloved Son in whom He was well pleased. There "his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light," and, when His disciples " were awake, they saw his glory." From this point Christ descends to go into death, and in that death man was brought to an end. Man is gone, which is what baptism expresses; whilst in the Lord's supper I find the Man-the first Man in resurrection. And, in that resurrection, find that I am not only cleared from the old thing, but that I am being formed into the likeness of the One who has delivered me; I am of the same order-of the stock and lineage of this last Adam. " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." It is not that He saves many-though He does save many-but the idea there is, that the corn of wheat shall have many grains-many like Himself.
I find saints do not know that they are new creatures, though they know that they have new feelings. Now in Christ, I get a perfect Man who bore the judgment that rested on me, and came out of it as the Head of a new order. I was a brother to the dying man, but now I am a brother to the risen Man. He was never a brother to me. I thank God, that I can say to-night that I am much more distinctly, and more irrevocably, a brother to the risen Man, than I was to the dying man. I am unalterably of the stock and lineage of Christ.
People may say to me: you do not act much like Christ. Well, that is what I am coming to. As we were saying this morning, I may be a goldfinch and never sing a note; I am one before I sing. If I were a goldfinch only because I sang, that would be making my standing dependent on my state. No bird sings before it flies; I have no way of exhorting you unless I can tell you that you are born of God, not merely that you have new desires. You are a new material-a new creature, and you ought now to have a likeness to Christ; and the problem is, that you are to work out Christ in the old frame-work.
But the frame was made by Himself. I will not let you find fault with your bodies, because lie made them. You may find as much fault as you like with the flesh, but that is not your bodies. Our bodies are " members of Christ." Christendom has fallen into the great mistake of making our bodies members of the church, which is quite contrary to Scripture. Our bodies are "members of Christ;" this puts us in the place where He is Lord of the body. He is the Head of the new man. Taken individually my body is a member of Christ: "We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." You are a new creation; and this new creation is to be exhibited in you. This new creation is developed by occupation with Christ in glory; He is the power of it; the life of Jesus is manifested by " bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus." " I am crucified yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.".
A Galatian was a Roman who had gone back from the eighth of Romans. It was not that he denied sins put away, but that he did not see deliverance from sin; he had lost his true standing. What he stopped at was not that God had sent Christ to remove everything out of the way; but he did not see that God now forms me of the very same nature as of that once unique One on earth. As long as that blessed One was here, He was a solitary Man upon earth; but now He, being raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, forms a new class of men of the same order as Himself; and, every believer is of this same class. And now the problem for the believer is to live Christ in his body upon earth.
Nothing explains truth like practice; but; when I come to practice it, I find that I must have it fairly balanced, otherwise it is not workable. I often find in practice, that I have been extravagantly strong on some points and weak on others. Now, if I look at Christ in glory, I see the One who has accomplished the work, and brought in righteousness. Where is righteousness to be looked for? Only there. If I look at Him there, I am transformed " into the same image from glory to glory," But, if I stop there, I do not get rid of the old thing. I find in the next chapter another point; and that is, that I am to carry about in my body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in my body. You will see, if you look at that tenth verse of the fourth of Corinthians, that it does not say to get the life in you, but to have the life manifested.
What I want you to see is, that the way I develop the new creation, is by being occupied with the Head of it-with Him who is the source of it. If we were angels, there would be no need of negation, but, as it is, there must be death in us; there must be the negative as well as the positive. We have to get rid of the bad; and, what is strange, the more good we get, the more bad we have to get rid of. We acquired, in the garden of Eden, the knowledge of good by doing evil, without the power to follow the good; and we acquired the knowledge of evil. without the power to withstand it. Conscience and knowledge, two things men boast so much of, were got by an act of disobedience; and neither will ever bring a soul back to God. We have, by nature, no idea whatever of evil; that is why, when I hear a person say, I do not see the harm of it, that I answer: It is just because you have not learned enough good. And that is why a worldly saint will go through the world the easiest, and also do himself the least harm by going through it. It is only the worldly man who can say: I do not find it does me any harm. The man who knows most of Christ is always the one who is most apprehensive of Satan; whereas, if you get a dull Christian, and talk to him about the devil's power being here and there, he will say: God forbid! Do not talk of such a thing!-The fact is he is not walking with Christ. A saint walking with Christ sees satanic power everywhere;-the very Air is full of evil spirits, and has a pernicious influence upon the soul.
True enough, I have to be occupied with Him who is the Head of the new order of things, but I have to do with negation besides: I have to carry about the dying, that the life may be manifested. It is not that the life is not there; it is that it may be manifested. Like a candle in a lamp; if the candle be in a dark lantern of course it cannot be seen; for the candle to be of any use, the lamp, in which it is, must be transparent. And so I have not the least hesitation in saying, that there is more grace in everyone in this room than they can express, because the body is opaque. And why? Because they have not denied self; self gratification hinders them in the manifestation of Christ. So we read: " I keep under my body." It is the body that becomes the theater of this wonderful grace. The body is the place in which all the evil has been done, but now the Lord says: I have redeemed it; it must now be my place-my garden. It has been growing all the weeds that Satan could plant in it, but now it must grow flowers for me.
Have you accepted the standing that "there is no condemnation"? Then you must walk carefully to maintain the state in character with that standing. In Romans we are told to " put on the armor of light," which is a different thing to the whole armor of God that we get in Ephesians. This " armor of light " is our state: it is " put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ." If you do not keep up the state, what will be the consequence? Why that you will make " provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof."
Now it is most lamentable, but I believe it is most true, that many an honest hearted person comes to the Lord's table with the thought, that Christ's blood there washes away the sins of the past week; if it be not so, the hymns and prayers are inconsistent, for, the most of those that I hear, speak of the benefits that accrue to us by the death of Christ; and thus it comes to be a sort of repetition of the mass. I am remembering the results to me of the death of Christ. But let me ask you: What is the Lord's table? It is a very different thing to this: I express there that I have communion with the body of Christ; it is not with the benefits; it is with the Benefactor. And I am thinking of Him at the moment when He broke with everything here; I remember Him where He was when He opened the door so that I might have fellowship with Him.
I refer to this, because I see that souls are losing what they have got in their standing It is true that " there is now no condemnation," but there is another, and a very serious, thing that they have forgotten; and that is, they have " forgotten that they were purged from their old sins." And why? Because they have not kept up the activities of life; they have not kept up their state. You practically lose the standing when you lose the state; it is the state which really shows that you are fit for the standing. Among men a title is given because the one who receives it has the state fit to support it; of course I mean where a man is not born to it. So God says: I give you a standing, and I am determined you shall have means to keep it up-a state according to it.
With the Nicolaitanes the evil was, that they turned the grace of God into lasciviousness. But do you mean to tell me, that a man who is walking in the consciousness of being free from condemnation, will not loath sin? The danger is with us lest we should get clear in our minds as to our standing, without being exercised as to whether we have the state that is in keeping with it. Surely attaining it should be our one great aim; it ought to be the labor of our heart to reach it.
I now come to another point; but I hope that I have made it clear to you that the standing is entirely God's own thought for us; He has wrought it out Himself; He meets us in it.
Now, when Abraham came to the land, the Lord met him in the place where He had told him to go to, and there gave him a standing: " Unto thy seed will I give this land." But, when he thus had the standing in the land, he gave up the state and went down into Egypt. Lot gave it up in another way. But it was the state they always gave up. Jacob did it in a still more remarkable way. After all the trouble he had had in getting back to the standing, and after the night of wrestling, he lets it drop-gives it all up-and gets overwhelmed in the world: he settles down at Shalem. There God says to him Go up to Bethel, and get the state that belongs to you.
But, whilst the standing is entirely of God's grace, and He never alters it, yet I lose all the benefits of my standing, if I lose the state in keeping with it. In the Ephesians you get the very highest standing, and the state in keeping with it. But I find, in the second of Revelation, that the candlestick is to be taken away from its place for this very reason, that they had lost their state: they had " left their first love;" they had lost their love for the Lord personally. The candlestick was what they were to hold as a light here.
I need not go through all the passages that I could to prove this to you. We find the Corinthians were indulging themselves; the Galatians were trying to correct themselves; and the Colossians were trying to make the old man religious. But I would say one thing more about standing before I pass on, and that is, there is nothing so painful to the Spirit of God as your not accepting your standing. I refer you to the third of Hebrews for this. He calls it there " the day of provocation." What was that? That they would not go up to their standing-they would not take possession of the good land.
People say: I do not assume to be heavenly. I know why; it is because you do not want to be heavenly.
It was " the day of provocation." Why would they not go up? Because they thought the difficulties greater than God. Christians say: If I take that ground I shall never be able to keep it up. I say: I am glad to see you have a conscience; but it is God's standing, and woe betide you if you do not take it up, for it is not my calling but God's. It is the " evil heart of unbelief " that refuses it. The standing is the simple, free gift of His own love to us. I do not believe there is any moment of more ecstatic delight to the soul than the one in which it finds that God's place for it is its own. It is a moment of unspeakable delight; it has reached the climax of everything, and it knows that it is there. It is a wonderful moment, but, I say, woe betide the person who is satisfied with stopping at it! What the Lord warns them about, on their getting into the land, is their state in it.
Grace shows me where I am; I discover the feebleness of my nature in reference to God, and I must act accordingly.
I turn to just one passage more, in the tenth of the first of Corinthians, to show you how the Lord's supper is brought in again. There we read, at the end of a long list of failures: " Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer." I believe this is put the last on the list, though chronologically it happened second, because, unless souls get beyond this-unless they accept their standing-there can be no progress. How can I progress, unless I accept the place God has put me in? How can I progress, unless I am in the Father's house? You may tell me you are a standard rose tree, and I do not doubt it, but I see no rose; and there will be none either, if a shoot be allowed from the briar.
There is only one spot that will satisfy God's heart for you, and will you not accept the position that the Father's love has secured for you? It is not sin that keeps men from the great supper; it is the world. Poor, wretched one! is this world going to keep you from God's great supper? " The great supper " is not salvation merely: it is entertainment. One said: "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God." That is the millennium. Oh! the Lord says, there is a greater thing than the millennium that is coming: there is the great supper now-a soul that is now in the peace, and rest, and enjoyment of the presence of God.
Now, in closing I shall Make rather a strong statement, and that is, that the whole scene will close with state-not with standing. " The Spirit and the Bride say, come." Is not that state? It is true that if they do not know their standing they can never say that; but you are never able to compete successfully with anything, unless you come into the combat in a right state. I do not believe what is so often said, that you do not know what the world is until you get into it. I read: " Who is blind as my servant? and who is deaf as my messenger?" It has been said a person never ministers so well in any meeting, as when he comes in as a stranger, knowing nothing of the troubles that are, in it.
Just so with the worldlings. What people call the world is but a step above themselves; people think they are not worldly if they do not aim at what is above them, and only keep what they have been always used to; there is no thought of surrender in them. If they have not grasped the peg above themselves they think they are not worldly. Thus every one becomes a judge to himself of what " the world " is. I come into a room and see a mirror, and I say: What is that for?-To look at.-Oh! then there is no use in that; and, if it is not for use, it is only for display; and that is worldliness. If I come from God's presence I may not know what all of you are doing, but I know what God's mind is about you. I do not need to read the newspapers to know what the times are. The way a newspaper writer forms his opinions is, he goes about in the clubs, and picks up people's thoughts on the subject in vogue, and then writes an article to support their pre-possessions, so that a man reading it is only the more built up in, his own ideas.
But -a man of divine power comes into the world for God, and forms his judgment of things from Him. He has been so occupied with Christ, that, though he may not know what is going on here, yet he comes with Christ's mind and color into the world, -and is not prejudiced 'by the things he has to do with. Just as with Moses. He comes and finds the whole congregation gone off into idolatry. Does he say: What ought I to do?—No; he knows what is suited to God; he takes the tabernacle and pitches it outside the camp.
It is God's purpose that we should know our standing, and I have nothing to do with obtaining it; but, when I come to state, I come to what is my enjoyment of the standing in which He has set me. And here I would say a word on one point in the sixth chapter of this epistle, and I speak it anxiously, beloved friends. It is, that standing will not do in itself for Satan; nothing will do for Satan but character. You must have " your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.": In fact you have to be a man in armor.
I believe, that it is quite possible for a person to enjoy in a measure having to do with God, and yet to be practically careless. But, the moment -Satan finds that I am set on gratifying myself, he says: I will have you there. Immediately he calls in question my standing, because my state is not up to it, and tries to divert me from the place of a heavenly man. He comes in with his wiles, and how am I to be preserved from his attacks? Nothing can keep me but character. Satan says, Oh, but you did such and such a thing yesterday!-Very true, perhaps I did, but I am not going to do it to-day. Peter denies the Lord; yet he can turn round on the Jews and say to them: " Ye denied the Holy One and the Just." He may' have denied Him yesterday, but he will not do it to-day. Often in going to a worldly Christian's house I have said: I must button up my coat here, for I shall get no quarter; there will be wiles all round to trip me up, and then afterward the casting it at me that I have fallen into them:
I have unbounded resources; but they are not here; and I must not lose my connection with Christ, if I would draw from them. It is not simply joy, but I Must be practically connected with Him as He says " Without me ye can do nothing." There is no practice like those armed men going round Jericho: there was patience, and prayer to God; they were occupied with the power of God. Do you think God has set us in this wonderful place, and made us strong in this mighty power, and that then we are not to know what God is to us in this place?—We are practically deficient in this; there is a great lack of armed men.
And then comes: " Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." It is not here praying for ourselves; it is praying for one another. And here the world cannot touch me; Satan cannot touch me; I am invulnerable to Satan whilst dependent on God. I never am conscious of being happy in praise or prayer to God, except as I am sure that He has taken it in. There is not a practical sense in souls of having to do with a great and wonderful unseen -God. It is only thus-having the sense of this divine power being for you-that it is possible to resist the force that is against you—to resist the power of evil that is setting in on every side to turn you away from your true place. I would say again, that, if you lose your state, you lose all the privileges of your standing.
Well, may the Lord direct our hearts into it in such a day as this. I can only press it upon you. The apostle says: " I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; " he felt what a solemn thing it was-how important that saints should have a state in character with their standing. I do ask you solemnly Have ' you walked in any practical self-denial during this-year-I will say? or are you looking out for every opportunity to gratify yourself? Are you saying: There is something pleasant to look forward to?-Do you ",take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake "? You may put up with them perhaps; but do you take pleasure in them? If you say: Oh! why should I not make the best of both worlds 2-I reply: Because you have got the best in the next with the One who suffered the worst here; and we are left here to be the expression of that blessed One who has set us in the light, and joy, and presence of God Himself.
(J. B. S.)