“Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth. My soul waiteth upon Thee for quickening. Fill me with the knowledge of Thy glorious will, all Thine own good pleasure in Thy child fulfilled.”
Lord, this we make our individual prayer. No words could better express our desire at this time. So we say again: Speak; Thy servants hear. And when Thou dost speak, enlarge and quicken us to run in the way of Thy commandments, for Thy name’s sake. Amen.
We are well launched into this matter of the place and meaning of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, as it is found in the various letters of the New Testament.
There is a wonderful thing about these letters and their message. Although they were immediate communications from an apostle to companies of the Lord’s people here and there, relating to existing situations, under the Holy Spirit’s sovereign government they became documents for the whole dispensation—just as much for us as for those to whom they were originally written.
The apostle did not know that he was writing the Bible. He did not realize that people down through thousands of years would be studying every word that he wrote, every syllable that he put down, and that their lives would be affected throughout all the centuries. The effects and fruit would appear in the coming eternity. He had no idea of that, but the Holy Spirit did.
We are found here, a little company, in that sovereign ordering in relation to these writings—these personal letters of shepherd-apostles concerned for the sheep.
Another thing which we have already indicated is quite wonderful. The same sovereign Spirit of God governed and controlled the arrangement of these letters. They are altogether out of chronological order, but the Holy Spirit ordered that one should come first, another second, another third, and another fourth—in a precise spiritual order, a sequence, a wonderful progressiveness in the spiritual life.
We have considered the place of the cross in the letter to the Romans: how foundational it all is there, and how inclusive of all that follows. Then, with such wonderful wisdom and understanding, the first letter to the Corinthians comes next, beginning to break up that inclusive and comprehensive foundation laid in Romans and to apply it.
Surely everybody here has seen that this is the next thing: the cross and the true humanity. Something has got to be settled before you can get any further. Everything waits upon the recognition of, and response to, this very wonderful thing.
The Corinthians, perhaps at least six years after the apostle had gone to them, received this letter; and in it was revealed for all time that there can be, and often are, as there were in Corinth, two kinds of Christians—two kinds of Christians, Christians in two categories.
There are soulical Christians, whom Paul calls natural, and there are spiritual Christians. They are in two very definitely different categories, as this letter shows. Read it again and see what one class is and what the other class is. They are so clearly and definitely defined.
The one category shows the necessity for the application of the cross right into the very heart of Christians. It is called for in a very serious and solemn way in many Christians who, like these Corinthians, are fleshly Christians. God only knows how they need the work of the cross to change them from one kind of Christian to another, from one category to the other—from the natural, or merely soulical, which is another word for the self-kind of Christian—into spiritual men and women of the Spirit.
I am not staying again to emphasize that distinction, but it is here. That is the first real application of the cross after its inclusive meaning has been set forth and broken down. Within the whole circle of the meanings of the cross, this is the first thing that has got to be settled.
We are coming this evening to the great transition from the first letter to the second. What a transition it is! It is really a progression as well as a transition. That is, it is not only a changeover on the same level; it is the development of a new level, or kind, of Christian life.
It is a wonderful transition, a wonderful progression in the spiritual situation and process.
Now let me say again: I trust that you are seeking to take very careful notice of these things, because I want to say once more to you, dear friends, I am not here just to give you more doctrine, teaching, and information.
If God does not carry these things into our being and create a real issue in us, we may have the substance of a convocation, but we need never have another one. This thing should be driven right down into us.
So I repeat: this difference, this distinction, which is brought out so clearly and fully in the first letter, needs to be faced. I would ask that you go back and read that letter again in the light of what we have pointed out. Read it carefully—not only word by word, but sentence by sentence—and you will see how true it is.
Before we can move on, we have to have a settlement about this matter of the distinction brought to light in the first letter to the Corinthians. There has got to be a settlement with us about this: a recognition of the fact that two kinds of Christians are possible.
One kind is a purely soulical type of Christian. They are a fact. The other type is the truly spiritual Christian. These are distinct kinds, and the fact of that difference has first of all to be faced, settled, and accepted before we can go anywhere.
The Word will get no further with us until we have recognized it as a fact revealed in the Word of God: that you can be a carnal, natural, soulical Christian, or a person of the Spirit.
Of course, we could spend a lot of time on that. We have tried merely to touch on it, to indicate what is meant. But let me pause to add this word.
A truly spiritual person—that is, a person governed and led by the Holy Spirit, who lives in the Spirit—is one who brings everything to the Lord and asks His mind about it.
Even your dress, and anything else about your personal appearance—your manner, your behaviour, your talk, or your silence—should be brought to the Lord.
A spiritual person learns the power of the Spirit to be quiet and silent when it is right to do so. The cross needs very really to be planted right into the tongue of many Christians—not necessarily mischievous tongues, but tongues that are not controlled by the Holy Spirit.
“Women adorn themselves in modest apparel.” Do you believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures? Look at the vast number of Christian girls who dress in a shameful way, attracting attention to themselves and making themselves conspicuous.
A Christian girl should dress in modest apparel. I could say a great deal about all that sort of thing, but a spiritual person will go to the Lord about these practical matters and ask, “Lord, is this glorifying to Thee?”
The Holy Spirit is able to put His finger upon things like that—upon all sorts of things, thousands of things—and to make us aware that something is not quite right in this or that. We become a little uncomfortable, perhaps without knowing why, and then go to the Lord. It is just that.
I remember many years ago a dear woman who came to us. She came from a Roman Catholic background and was in a very affluent position in a large business house in London as the chief buyer.
She had her hair cut short, wore an abundance of decorations, and dressed accordingly. She came to us, concerned about spiritual matters, and stayed in our guest house.
No one said anything. In contrast to the simplicity and modesty around her, no one said a word. She stayed on, went into London for business, and came back.
Presently, we noticed that she was letting her hair grow. It did not look too good to begin with, perhaps. Then we noticed that some of the earrings were missing, and other changes were taking place.
Not many months passed before she was altogether changed—not dowdy, not careless, but nice, really nice: good in dress and appearance.
Then it was time to say, “What made you change? Why did you do this?”
She said, “The Lord just spoke to me about it. If anybody had ever mentioned that to me, I would have walked out and never come back again. The Lord spoke to my heart.”
She became a servant of the Lord. She is now in India, having served the Lord there for many years, and before that in Spain. She is getting on in years now, in her eighties; but that is something that came out of a walk with the Lord in the Spirit.
You understand what I mean by a spiritual person. The Spirit of God does it.
Well, have I said too much? I told you last night that you were going to be hurt. If it hurts, I trust that it is the Holy Spirit, and that you will say, “Go on, Lord, go on. Do not spare anything.”
I have indicated, briefly and imperfectly, what we were talking about: the difference between a soulical Christian—not necessarily an unsaved person, but a merely soulical Christian—and a truly spiritual Christian.
Until that difference is recognized and accepted, and we have had a transaction with the Lord in which we say, “Now, Lord, if that is the truth, it is in Thy Word, and I believe it must be true. I commit myself to Thee to be made a truly spiritual child of God, in all that means,” we cannot pass into the second letter to the Corinthians.
You see, the cross comes in there, does it not? The cross comes in. Ah, yes, it is a cross indeed when it touches us in these very practical matters. But it is the cross.
Now we have to go on to consider the nature of the transition and its necessity.
The second letter to the Corinthians is occupied with the ministry of the Lord’s people. The whole letter is occupied with this matter of the Lord’s people in ministry.
I am not going to stop to define that immediately, but I want you to notice this to begin with: the apostle has more to say about himself personally in this letter than in any other letter that he wrote.
You know more of Paul after you have read this letter than you would ever know by reading all his other letters put together. It is the most autobiographical of his writings.
Although he has so much to say about himself, he is saying it, in the first place, about himself as the Lord’s servant—the Lord’s servant.
In the second place, he is transmitting all this to the church at Corinth. In effect, he is saying, “What is true of me as the Lord’s servant has got to become true of you—not merely of special people among you, but of you as a church.”
That means each individual making up the church in Corinth. This ministry is corporate ministry, not merely individual ministry. It is corporateness.
So he is speaking here about the ministry of the church in its locality. Of course, you can immediately make that objective and say, “A group of people.” No—you, me. It applies as much to us as to the whole church. It comes down to the individual. There cannot be a church without individuals.
It demands all the individuals to make up the Body, all the members to make up the Body. Therefore, let me underline this: what is here about ministry is shown by this letter to apply not only to Paul, though to him in the first place, but to every member of the church at Corinth—and that means every member of the church down through the ages into this very present time.
It is ministry that is before us. First of all, what is ministry? What is ministry?
Could you answer that question? Is it getting your Bible, studying it, knowing something about it, preparing an address, and then going out? Is that ministry?
Is it putting on a certain kind of collar and attire, and now you are a minister? That is not ministry.
One of the most pathetic tragedies—yes, to me, comedies also—that I have ever met concerns a man who, for thirty years, had been ministering the Word here, there, and all over the place.
He had been the leader of what was called a spiritual work. He was fully occupied with this; all his time was given to it.
Then one day I went to a convention, and I saw this dear man coming towards me down the road. He made his way to me and said, “You see, brother, I am now in the ministry.”
He was wearing a clerical collar.
“I am now in the ministry.”
You know, in a certain sense it was a comedy of comedies. That is not ministry.
Forgive me; I do not mean to make light of these things. It is too sad to have these false conceptions and notions of what ministry is.
If you were asked to put down on a slip of paper your definition of ministry, what would you say?
Here you have this great New Testament document, as it has turned out to be, on the ministry of the church and its members. What does it reveal ministry to be?
What is it?
It is just and only this, but it is definitely this: the ministration of Christ to other people.
Bringing Christ into view—not mentally, but livingly—and giving Christ, so that when you have been somewhere, something of Christ is left behind. Something of Christ is left behind.
People do not merely know mentally something more about Christ; they have touched Christ by your presence. They have realized Christ by your presence.
Now, I am going to show that in this letter. But that is ministry. If there is anything at all in this letter, it is speaking ministry: that people who come into contact with us, and with whom we come into contact, come into contact with Christ.
As we go on through life, poor creatures though we are, and with all the limitations that attach to us, somehow or other we are leaving a trail behind us—an influence, a sweet savour of Christ.
People will learn, having known us, to say, “Well, yes, there were plenty of human faults, if you like, but something of Christ came to me because of that woman, that man.”
That is very testing, is it not? Very challenging. It demands spiritual people. But that is ministry.
Put out of your mind all these other ideas: professionalism in ministry, ministerialism, all the rest of churchianity and ecclesiasticism. Get rid of it. Come right down to this: my presence has to be a ministry of Christ in this world.
When people are in real spiritual need, I must have something to minister to them—something of Christ. Christ, by the Spirit, is ministered through me.
It sounds very simple, does it not? We have set up a lot of high-flown ideas about ministry, but this is practical and very real. That is the ministry in this message.
The apostle gives us some illustrations of this in the letter. I wish you had all read it before you came here this evening so that it would be fresh in your minds, because we have only an hour. By the way, read the letter to the Galatians before tomorrow night.
Here the apostle gives an illustration of the meaning of ministry in the terms I have used.
First of all, he takes up this wonderful matter of Moses coming down from the mountain with the tables of stone, the law, and the glory of God upon his face.
He came down with glory upon his face. His face was shining with the glory of God. As he moved towards the camp, that glory upon his face was so strong that the people could not dare to look.
When he went in to read the law, the people would not dare to look because of the glory. It was necessary for Moses to put a veil over his face.
There was a face full of glory, but the people were unable to live in the good of it, to live by the power of it, to appreciate it, or to enjoy it. It was all veiled to them because of their lack of spiritual capacity.
It says they could not look upon his face. They could not. They had not the capacity required for looking at the glory of God.
Paul takes up the whole story and brings it into this dispensation. He says that when they turn to the Lord Jesus, the veil is taken away.
Then he says this wonderful thing, this marvellous thing upon which, dear friends, you can feed for the rest of your life without any exhaustion:
God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,”
shined in our hearts,
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ.
There is no veil. We now have spiritual capacity. We are spiritual people; we have the Holy Spirit.
The face of Jesus Christ holds the revelation of the glory of God. There is no other revelation of the glory of God than in the face of Jesus Christ.
That word face, of course, is symbolic. You know a good deal about a person by looking at their face, do you not? You feel something about the person. The face is supposed to be the index of the person—their character, the content of their life.
That is how it is used here. There is in Jesus Christ an unveiled revelation of the Father, and that has shined into our hearts.
This is not an objective thing, some aurora or halo outside. It has come into our hearts. In other words, by the blessed Holy Spirit, we have come to see the Lord Jesus inwardly. The wonder of God in Jesus Christ has streamed into our hearts.
The apostle is saying by implication that, if the light of God’s glory came upon the face of Moses and was seen by all the people, then in the same way what has shined into our hearts ought to be seen by people.
You cannot have the light of the knowledge of the glory of God shining in your heart without people knowing something about it. That is ministry.
The ministry is the glory of Christ revealed in our hearts.
Then Paul uses another illustration, which has already been mentioned in this conference: the living epistles.
He moves into another realm, perhaps into the realm of what were called ostraca—broken pieces of earthenware which were cast out from every home with the rubbish.
Messages were written on these pieces of earthenware and sent like letters. That was how people communicated their messages and information. They were taken many, many miles.
A boy might be in the Roman army far away. His letter was not a nice thing like your air letters; it was a bit of pottery, with a message written on it from father and mother.
When these were received and the message had been taken, the pottery was broken and thrown outside. It was called the ostraca. That is where we get our word ostracism from: something thrown out.
Paul takes that and translates it into the life of the believer in the matter of ministry.
He refers again to Moses and the tables of stone, and says, “Not on tables of stone, but on tables which are hearts of flesh, written upon by the Spirit of the living God.”
You become a living epistle. He will presently say, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels.”
Here you have an earthen vessel with a message. We are earthen vessels, and in us has been written by the finger of God the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
In effect, we are living epistles, read and known of all men.
What do these documents say? What do these human vessels say? These vessels are fragile, but what do they say?
They are making known the glory of God in Jesus Christ. There you have it. That is ministry.
It is challenging and testing, but that is ministry according to this letter: the ministry of living letters.
A transition has taken place. First of all, there is a transition from the outward tables of stone, on which something has been written and put outside, to the inward—into the heart, heart, heart.
Ministry is something inside first, not objective. It is not a library, not a collection of commentaries to be pulled down and used to make a sermon.
It is what the Holy Spirit is saying to you in your heart about the Lord Jesus. Those other things may be useful afterwards, but first of all, what is the ministry inside of me?
What is the burden, to use prophetic language? What is the burden of the Word of the Lord in my heart?
“Thy words were found, and I did eat them;
and Thy words were unto me a joy and the rejoicing of mine heart.”
The transition is from the outward to the inward. That is ministry: what you have got inside. That makes the ministry.
It is also a transition from the letter to the Spirit. The apostle draws that contrast: “The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.”
There is a place for the letter, but there is also mere verbiage of truth—even though it may be Christian truth. There must be a transition to the spiritual meaning and interpretation of the truth, to the livingness of the thing.
The letter must become living. That is ministry: transition from death unto life.
It all amounts to this, using Paul’s own words here and elsewhere: the inward revelation by the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ as the manifestation of God’s power.
I am not saying this apart from the Scriptures, independently of the Scriptures, or as a substitute for the Scriptures.
I have had, in my life and ministry, very sad instances of people who have set aside the Scriptures and said, “The Lord has shown me so.”
I have said, “But that ‘so’ is not according to the Scripture.”
“No, that does not matter. The Lord has shown it to me.”
You are not surprised that there is confusion in such a life. No—through the Scriptures. Oh, keep in the living Word, live in the Word.
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.”
It is through the Word that the Holy Spirit reveals.
Some of us know quite well what it is to have a fairly large and comprehensive knowledge of the contents of the Bible, so that we could take the place and outline of almost any book of the Bible at any given moment, and yet never have seen in a way that completely revolutionizes our lives what it means.
What it means—that is a very different thing from merely what it says, is it not?
It is the Holy Spirit, through the Word, revealing Christ within. That is the ministry of the church, and that is ministry.
The nature of the transition, and the cost of the transition, now comes before us.
It is here, of course, that the cross comes in, because such a life of testimony, such a life of influence, such a life of ministering Christ—such ministry—is very costly. Do not make any mistake about it.
We should dwell long and earnestly upon this matter: the cost of spiritual ministry.
Ministry, as it is commonly called, is not always a costly thing to those who carry it out mechanically. But this kind of ministry is very costly. As I say, that is where the cross comes in.
Is it not rather impressive that in this second letter to the Corinthians the cross is not mentioned by name? And yet there is no letter in the New Testament where the cross is more implicit, more powerfully implied.
The outstanding words in this letter are “the sufferings of Christ” and “the afflictions of Christ, which abound unto us.”
You can look that up. I believe that some nine times the sufferings and afflictions of Christ are referred to in this letter. It is only another way of speaking of the cross.
The cross is in the life of the servant and the service of the Lord.
The apostle Paul keeps himself in view, in a right and proper sense, in relation to service. What a lot he says in this letter about his suffering.
Perhaps you have not studied it, but this dear man had to go through much. Later he gives us a catalogue of outward adversities—shipwrecks, privations, perils on sea and on land, robbers, and all that kind of thing. Well, that is pretty hard.
But there is another list which you collect from this letter. He refers to it, though not completely; you have to arrive at it by deduction. The strange thing is that it came to him from Corinth—from these dear believers who owed everything spiritually to him.
Think of the things they said about him.
First of all, there were cliques in Corinth. They said, “I am of Paul,” “I am of Apollos,” “I am of Cephas,” and another superior group said, “I am of Christ,” meaning, “We are not of Paul.”
There were sections which were not having Paul.
Then there were the things they said about him. They said, “His bodily presence is weak.” I suppose they were referring to his body, his physical appearance, the scars and marks of his sufferings and physical afflictions.
“His bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account. His letters are weighty and strong, but…” They called him an autocrat. They said that he was doing everything for his own interests, trying to get a following for himself, even using the funds for his personal ends.
All these things are in this letter. The man is criticized by those who owe him so much. It humiliates.
And he says, “The more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.” It is the cry, you might say, the sound of a broken heart.
It was not merely what he met from the world. He could get on with that and go through with that. But from his own side there was false brethren, false strength, treachery, disloyalty, and many other unkind things.
These are all called the sufferings of Christ, the afflictions of Christ which come upon us.
Then there is that outstanding incident. He says:
We were pressed out of measure, above strength,
insomuch that we despaired even of life:
yea, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves.
Pressed out of measure, with the sentence of death.
Then there was the thorn in the flesh. It did not come from the world, nor necessarily from other Christians. It was something that the Lord allowed.
There was given to me a thorn in the flesh,
a messenger of Satan to buffet me.
For this thing, he besought the Lord three times that it might depart from him. You can imagine him saying, “Oh, Lord, can You not be pleased to relieve me of this thing? It makes the going so hard, so difficult. Take it away, Lord.”
No answer. Back again: “Lord, do something about this thing. Take it away.” No answer.
The third time—and we see our Lord in Gethsemane three times praying, “If it be possible, let this cup pass”—the third time, the Lord answered.
How did He answer?
My grace is sufficient for thee:
for My strength is made perfect in weakness.
The apostle’s response was:
Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses,
that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Have I said enough to show that a ministry like this—a ministry which has been set forth here—is a costly ministry? Suffering is inevitable.
Why? Because God is more concerned with quality than with quantity. God is supremely concerned with the essential, the intrinsic value—not the broad spread and the superficial, but the deep and the real.
He is concerned with the thing that is going to reproduce because of its intrinsic value.
When this man is gone, what God is doing in him will last through two thousand years at least, and grow and grow and grow. It fills the whole world through the sufferings of this man.
The costly ministry—this kind of ministry. Have I put you off ministry?
Well, it depends entirely upon what your hearts are set upon, dear friends. Do we merely want to be ships that pass in the night, speak to each other in passing, and then disappear forever out of sight?
Do we want to be some butterfly flitting across the world without any vital impact or influence?
Do not be like that. Is that what you want to be—come and gone, with nothing very much to show for it when you have gone?
Or do we really, in our hearts, want it to be like this: something that will live on and grow and grow when we are gone?
That is the most testing thing for anybody: to live for a time to come when you will not be here to know about it.
I wonder—perhaps Paul does know. I do not know the secrets of what is known when one has gone into the presence of the Lord. But I sometimes wonder if Paul could come back here into this world today and see all the world full of books written about his letters, and all the churches and Christians reading him, studying him, and talking about Paul, what he would say.
I was minister of a church in North London once, and the name of that church was the name of a well-known Doctor of Divinity of bygone days. The church had been made a memorial to him.
The great Dr. Parker, minister of the City Temple, London, came to the funeral of this man and took the funeral service.
There was something written about the great man who had gone to the Lord—something very congratulatory, very wonderful. Dr. Parker was listening.
He said, “I wonder if Dr. Raleigh”—that was the name of the man for whom the church was built—“if he could come back here today, would recognize himself. And I wonder if he would agree that the people thought of him like that.”
Well, you know, it is the afterwards, very largely, which is going to tell what the value of our ministry and our life has been.
Paul has something to say personally about that.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God,
and not from ourselves.
“Our outward man is decaying.” Go on. The pressure, the trouble, perhaps in a short lifetime or a full lifetime—at most, altogether inadequate things so far as we are concerned for the destiny and purpose of God.
Have you ever said to the Lord—as I have many times—“Lord, You have got a poor piece of clay here, a very poor piece of clay. I do not know why ever You chose it”?
Yet the great apostle Paul called himself a poor piece of clay, a vessel of weakness, “that the exceeding greatness of the power might be of God, and not of us.”
He goes on with his catalogue: “We are pressed on every side, yet not straitened; perplexed, yet not unto despair; pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not destroyed.”
The intrinsic fruit of suffering—the fruit of suffering.
I am not hiding this from you. It depends upon what kind of ministry you desire.
Surely you know, dear friends, if you have any experience at all, that the people who have helped you most deeply in your spiritual life have been people who have gone through the fires, who have come to know the Lord in suffering.
Is it not true? You know quite well that people who have not suffered cannot do much for you. They cannot help you. You have to say, “They have not been through suffering yet. They cannot help it.”
Well, here it is: what ministry is, its nature, its meaning, its value, its eternal worth, its spiritual character, and the cost of it.
I would not for anything depress you. I would not leave a cloud over your heart. God forbid. But I know this is true.
I believe that there are enough people here—if not all, at least enough people—who would really respond: “I want to make my life of some eternal account.”
“Lord, do whatever You will, but do this one thing: when I have lived my life, let there be spiritual and eternal values that may show themselves again in other lives. I may not be here to see it or know anything about it, but nevertheless, Lord, that is not the point.
“My pleasure, my gratification, my satisfaction is not the point. It is what You get.”
Are you really committed to the Lord on that basis? Would you therefore take up your cross? That is, of course, the Gospel way of putting it in a figurative form. You do not get it like that after the actual cross, but what it means, you do get: taking up your cross, denying yourself—your soul—and following Him.
I will add no more. You have enough to think about.
This is ministry: the unveiling of the Lord by the Holy Spirit’s illumination in our hearts, and the spontaneity of it.
It is spontaneous. Oh, thank God for the spontaneity of this.
You do not have to struggle and strain for ministry. I did that for years: having to get up sermons, find the straw for the bricks, and keep things going because I was paid a salary to be a minister. Oh, the agony of it all!
Then came that great crisis of Romans 6. Since then, that stream, that kind of stream, has gone out spontaneously—an open heaven, and a spontaneous, living ministry.
Well, is that enough? May the Lord give us silence and serious exercise about this, and a real committal, so that when we have gone from this place, everything is not gone with us—that we were here for something that remains.
So there may be that which has to be corrected, or straightened out, or more clearly apprehended; but we have sought to convey to Thy people something of the burden laid upon our hearts. We can only commit the issue to Thee.
Blessed Lord, make this night really and eternally profitable. Let there be intrinsic values from these lives.
Oh, make us these living epistles, read and known of all men. Make our hearts tables upon which the Spirit of God writes the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
All that this figurative speech really means, make real in us, we pray.
Give us grace that we may triumph—triumph in affliction, triumph in suffering, triumph in adversity—and know that these are the sufferings of Christ, fellowship with His Son. They must therefore be very profitable, very fruitful, if they are His.
So be it.
Now may Thy hand be upon us as we leave this place, not wanting to lose anything that is really living and spiritual. Nevertheless, save us from dissipating what Thou, Lord, hast tried to say.
So be it, for Thy glory, praise, and honour, for ever and ever. Amen.