Lord, we can only pray from our hearts, under a very deep sense of need, of dependence, and of longing, that Thou wilt take hold of this work and fully possess every moment of this time and of this day. Give Thyself in very great application, wisdom, love, and power, to securing the completion, so far as this time is concerned, of the part Thou didst have in mind in bringing us together.
I would say, after feeding that multitude, “Gather up, gather up the fragments that remain over, that nothing be lost.” That nothing be lost. We believe that this is Thine own desire, that nothing be lost; and we pray that Thou wouldst bring this very definitely into this day. That nothing be lost. We ask in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.
In our occupation with the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through this week, and our tracing of its applications to different situations and conditions represented by the letters of the Apostle Paul, we have this morning arrived at the letter to the Ephesians and the meaning that the cross has in that letter.
I hope that you may have read it before the meeting, or that at least some knowledge of it exists in your mind, so that it is not necessary for me to give you the content of the whole letter. We are not concerned with that at this time, but with this one focus: What has the cross to say to us through this letter?
The actual mention of the cross in the letter is infrequent. References to it by way of implication are very evident. You will recall that early on the Apostle addresses these believers as those who have been quickened together with Christ and raised together with Him.
That thought occurs more than once in the letter, implying that these believers had come by way of death, burial, and resurrection; and that they now stood on the other side of the cross. The cross had had its place and largely done its work in them. Standing on resurrection ground, they were now able, at least, to be shown what the meaning of the cross is in its greater fullness.
Again, we are impressed with the spiritual sequence of things in these letters. We have said that their divine arrangement is so different from the human chronological arrangement. You move in real spiritual sequence through these letters as they are given to us in their present order.
That is very apparent in the movement from Galatians to Ephesians. In Galatians, something had to be got out of the way. The head of that giant, Goliath—Judaism, and every other “ism” represented by it—had to be cut off. That giant had to be decapitated and put aside: all legalisms of every kind.
Everything that makes Christ smaller than He is, makes the gospel smaller than it is, or speaks of a wrong limitation, has to be put out of the way before you can get to Ephesians. For, as we are going to see, Ephesians is emancipation.
The cross means emancipation from all circumscribed horizons, from all limitations and restraints. You are going to move in a big room when you come into this matter. Anybody who knows this letter knows what a boundless thing it represents.
I am not going to recapitulate many things that I have said in a little book with which some of you may be familiar, The Stewardship of the Mystery. But I can remind you that this is the letter, more than any other in the New Testament, of superlatives.
Paul, a man of tremendous intellectual ability and ability in other ways, was hard put to find language to express what he had come to see. His superlatives topple over one another and spoil all his grammar. He piles up phrases such as “exceeding abundantly above all.” It is the letter of superlatives, and therefore we can rightly sum it up as the letter of emancipation from every limited horizon.
There is real aptness in this sequence. In the Old Testament, Ai’s issue had to be settled, and Achan—the element that would bring the people back onto earthly, Corinthian ground—had to be removed with all that belonged to him.
It looks very cruel, very unkind, ruthless, to put Achan and his family to death. But you must remember that the Bible moves on spiritual principles. Anything that is of the kind represented by Achan, and anything related to the kind of thing Galatians represents, has got to be wholly and entirely put out of the way.
Paul said, “Let him be anathema.” There is to be no compromise with any “ism” that limits Christ or establishes ground smaller than Christ. All that being dealt with thoroughly, we can now move on into these great expanses of Christ which this letter represents.
I can only indicate a few things, with the most restricted comment. You will have to take them away and think them over throughout your future time with the Lord. There is one thing into which all these matters are gathered: here in this letter we have a whole series of transitions from the limited to the unlimited.
First of all, there is the transition from the earthly to the heavenly. All who know this letter know that its characteristic phrase, repeatedly used, is “in the heavenly places.” A tremendous movement has taken place in the horizon: from earth, from the earthly, to the heavenly—in Christ Jesus.
Now, I know quite well that this is a difficult idea to grasp. The natural mind immediately pictures something far away, somewhere “out there.” What do you mean by that? What do you mean by “the heavenly places”? It is said that some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.
It is true that Christ now is in heaven. It is true that there is a supernatural realm in which principalities and powers, the rulers of this darkness, and wicked spirits operate. But it can all be very impractical if it is only a mental conception, a remote and abstract idea.
The first thing said about this is that we have been made to sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Are we in heaven? In another sense, we are sitting here in this place, very literally so. Probably, as the hours go on with the talking, you feel it is very literal that you have to sit there! It is very real.
So an element of reality must come into our understanding when we read repeatedly, “in the heavenly places.” What is really meant by that? Well, in Christ, in heaven, we have our place. All our resources are in Him and come from Him. Our government is to be from heaven. There are many other things.
But even so, it has got to be brought more definitely into our knowledge and experience: the experience of being in the heavenly places. Until that is settled, all this about emancipation from limited horizons is only a beautiful conception. What is it in practical reality?
Let me say at once: for all practical purposes in the Christian life here and now, in this world and in this life, it is an inward thing. Very simple—very simple.
If you have really been born again—and you know quite well that that is not the exact translation of the original language; it is “born from above”—if you have really had the experience of the new birth from above, what is your first consciousness? What is your first awareness?
Something that you come to realize right at the beginning is that you have parted with this world and this earth. That is, you no longer belong here. Something has happened that has been in the nature of an inward translation.
Your interests—the interests which once were yours—are no longer your interests. Your associations change. Your own people now are the Lord’s people. Your gravitation is toward heavenly things. It is an inward awareness and consciousness.
As we go on in life with the Lord, that becomes more and more real. We are on a spiritual pilgrimage, a spiritual pilgrimage inside ourselves. Our pilgrimage is away—away, away. We find it increasingly difficult to be at rest or at home in the things of this world and in the things which the people of this world have as their ultimate.
That is very simple, is it not? But note that the Apostle is saying this to people who had gone a fair way on the journey. He had been with the Ephesians, and said to their elders:
I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God.
They had gone a long way, and yet here he is, in this particular connection and in others, saying to Christians along the way: “Your life is not here. Do not expect anything here. Do not look for anything here. All your resources are outside and come to you from outside.”
As truly as the manna had to come from heaven in type and symbol in the wilderness, day by day, so you have to learn to live every day from above. I say that it is almost elementary and simple, but what is your experience?
I say to you, after a number of years of seeking to walk with the Lord, today—with all the grey hair, all the years, and all the experience—never a day comes when, more than ever before, I am not conscious that unless the Lord supplies from heaven today, I am not equal to it. Those are not words. It has to be like that.
Even after the greatest fullness I might have had yesterday, even if I closed the day with very rich provision from the Lord, I begin the day as though I had never had it. I start all over again. It is true; it has to be right.
That is the first great horizon into which we are emancipated: from earth to heaven. The whole way of life, if it is a true spiritual life, is governed by that transition.
If the cross has really cut in between us and this world, if we have really reached the sixth chapter of Galatians—the last word about the whole earth-bound situation—
But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
If we have really reached that point of the cross, where the cut is made, then we are in a position to know this enlarged realm of heavenly sustenance, heavenly provision, and heavenly goodness.
He hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. There is an inward consciousness of being seated together with Him. Every spiritual blessing! It would be impossible to deal with all that phrase contains, but consider some of the blessings the Apostle mentions.
Chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. Have you ever tried to contemplate that? Is that a blessing? There is no accident in our salvation. It is the outworking of an eternal counsel.
Chosen in Him; predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son; redeemed, in Whom we have our redemption; enlightened; endowed. These are words in Ephesians. All is in Christ, our possession in the heavenly places.
We could extend the conference for another month! This is where the conference ought to finish, you know, with twelve baskets all over. The magnificent conception and context into which we have been brought—what a horizon! The greatness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
There is another transition: from time into eternity. “Before the foundation of the world” is where it begins, and “unto the ages of the ages” is where it ends. We are lifted completely out of the power and limitation of time.
In other summaries of the blessings in Christ which we have considered this week, it is said concerning the love of Christ that neither life nor death can separate us from it. These are the great things within the compass of this earth—life and death—but they lose their power out here in the horizon of eternity.
How I would like to dwell upon the counsels of God from before the foundation of the world concerning the Church—the Church. But I must add this little bracketed statement: the word “predestinated” can limit your horizon if you are not careful.
I see the tragedy of a certain form of predestinarian theology. I know companies of the Lord’s people who were going on in freedom, liberty, life, and joy—moving on and rejoicing—and then this thing came in: predestination and its theological interpretation.
They began going round and round in it, and could not get anywhere beyond it. It is like a dead hand—a dead hand. Be careful, because predestination has nothing to do with individual salvation. Do you get that? It has to do with the eternal vocation of the Church.
I say that as intended to be helpful, to throw the horizon back and deliver us from this awful bondage. It is one of the “isms,” you know. Great man, good man, John Calvin; but when it comes to Calvinism, be careful.
Thirdly, there is transition from the temporal to the spiritual. This is something very helpful, something that we can grasp. It really is a deliverance and an enlargement to realize that the temporal—the things of this life and the things of time—are governed by the Spirit.
The things that make up our daily life, things happening under the permissive will of God and other things under the directive will of God, all that has to do with our human life here, are governed by the Spirit if we are in this realm in Christ.
As I have said, in Romans you have the whole thing gathered up comprehensively, and then the letters following break it up. So out of Romans we read:
And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose.
That is a temporal matter: your sorrows, your losses, your disappointments, all the experiences of trial and difficulty, all the things that come into our lives. We call them temporal things because they belong to this life and to time.
Yet, if we are in this realm in Christ Jesus and the cross has really cut in and emancipated us from the finality of temporal things, then those things are governed by spiritual interests.
How often a temporal experience becomes a finality with us. We think, “That is that; it spells the end of everything.” No. In this realm in Christ, temporal things are governed by spiritual interests.
Must I labour that point? We look back on things that happened to us—things that were very difficult and very hard—and we thought that they were the end. Yet we can now see that they had very real spiritual value, and that we should not have come into the knowledge of the Lord in which we stand today but for those things.
They have not been narrowing things, but enlarging things. “The things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance…” Things that happened have worked out for enlargement.
There is transition from the temporal to the government of the temporal by the spiritual. That is a very large emancipation when you can get there. By the grace of God, we can say in the presence of something that seems devastating and desolating, “There is some spiritual value in this that will justify it, that will vindicate God’s wisdom in allowing it.”
Something in this, though I cannot see it now, I shall come into sooner or later. I shall look back upon this place and see it as part of the pathway. He led them by a right way.
The ground may seem to go down, down, down, and yet the verdict is that He led them by a right way. However circuitous it may seem, if it is going to reach His end, it is right.
Now, it is easy perhaps to say these things, but these are things we have to learn: to be emancipated from the domination of the temporal and come under the government of the Spirit. Follow that up.
This letter is full of that. Let me remind you: chapter 4—“walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called.” You have to walk amidst conditions in this world that are very different from the heavenly calling. These Ephesians had to live it. They had to walk it out.
How everything would have dragged them down, pressed them down, tipped them down—this and that and the other thing. Yet, in the midst of it all, walk worthily of the calling wherewith you were called.
Let the greater horizon lift you out of these temporary things. It gives you a motive, a moving instinct, for living here in this world—the instinct of another dimension.
To be very practical, lift out of this letter the temporal matter of husbands and wives. It is very practical, is it not? Very practical in the world in which we live. That relationship is one of God’s great training grounds.
When you first get married, you have entered into utopia. You think, “There will be no more trouble. That man is absolutely perfect. That woman—there is never anyone like her. We are never going to have any trouble together.” Well, I do not want to spoil it!
And I am not speaking out of a history of disappointment. No, no. But we all know that this relationship is one of God’s schools in which we have to learn very much of Jesus Christ.
It is a temporal thing, is it not? But look at the horizon into which this letter puts it:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself up for it.
Is that not lifted into another dimension? Is that not a transition? My word! The Apostle says, “This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church.” He is speaking about husbands and wives, but he is speaking about Christ and the Church.
Can you bring even your marriage relationship onto the ground of Christ and His Church, and of His giving Himself for her? The other side is supplied as well, but the point is that marriage is lifted out of the crude realm in which we know it in the world.
Sometimes you are tried by your husband or your wife—perhaps, may I say, almost to breaking point. I do not want to divulge any secrets, but I know human life well enough. Oh, yes, I know it.
Somewhere away in a box of odds and ends, I have a bullet. I took that bullet from a gun with which a Christian man was going to shoot his wife. They were workers in the Church. That is terrible. It is perhaps an extreme case, but you see what can happen.
That relationship is intended by the Lord to represent something so great. If the enemy can really get in between husband and wife and smash that relationship, he has done a very big thing. He has robbed Christ of a testimony to Himself and His relationship to the Church.
There are few, if any, relationships against which the devil is more set than the true partnership of husband and wife. If he can spoil that, he gains a great deal, because, as the Apostle says, “I speak concerning Christ and the Church.”
Is that not lifting things out of one realm into another? That is Ephesians. It is not merely idealism; it is intensely practical.
We come to the next transition: the seen overshadowed by the unseen. I think that is implied in what I have been saying, but we may underline the phrase: the overshadowing of the seen by the unseen.
Dear friends, this is not merely a statement in words or a phrase. For me—not that I am anything important or a model—this is one of the most testing things in the Christian life.
I know few more testing words in Scripture than those used by the Apostle elsewhere:
For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory;
while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen:
for the things which are seen are temporal;
but the things which are not seen are eternal.
I repeat: I know few passages of Scripture more testing. The seen is so real—so real. It seems ridiculous to shut your eyes to it. These things are real. All the things through which the Apostle passed were real.
He speaks of being a night and a day in the deep, after shipwreck. Were those things real? Spend a night and a day in the sea, clinging to some bit of wood, and tell me whether it is real. No, Christian Science will not save you there.
When I was a young Christian, I was walking home from the City of London one evening after work. A man joined me in Hyde Park, and I was in agony with toothache. He asked what was wrong, and I told him. He said, “There is no such thing as pain. It is all imagination.”
Well, I was in my teens, and I was a boxer. My brother, who excelled as an amateur boxer, had taught me boxing, and had split panels of doors with the back of my head.
So I said to this fellow, “Look here, my friend, let me give you a real lift, right from the shoulder, on the point of your jaw; then you say there is no such thing as pain. Stand by your philosophy.” He was not willing to allow the test.
I think his philosophy broke down at that point without ever being tested. Do you see what I mean? No, no, no—it just will not do. It will not do at all. These things seen are very real. Pain and health are very real.
Yet the things unseen seem abstract and unreal. But the Apostle says that the effect of what we are going through, to bring about an exceeding weight of glory, depends upon our not being occupied with the seen but looking beyond to the unseen.
I say that is testing. You may spend your life and pour out your life, at cost and suffering, for the people of God, and come to the end of your life seeing very little for it. What you do see may include a great deal of discrediting of you and of your ministry.
The Lord, in His great kindness, sometimes lifts the veil a little. Someone comes along and says, “You know, thirty years ago I heard a message from you, and I have never forgotten it. It made a difference in my life.” Little bits like that—just a little bit.
But it is not enough to save you altogether from seeing the things that are seen. Afterwards, the greater things will be revealed. I believe, dear friends, that we are going to see very much more of the Lord’s values than we are able to see at present.
It may not seem very comforting to say that when you have gone from this world, and perhaps know nothing about it, the spiritual values of your life will come out. Not very comforting, is it? But is this not our salvation: looking not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen?
We do want to see, and we do want to be occupied with the seen, do we not? I say again, it is most testing. But there we are: the unseen, the spiritual, overshadowing the seen.
We will hurry on. The next transition is from existence to purpose—existence to purpose. It is quite a big takeover and enlargement of the horizon. Have you ever wondered why on earth you were born, why you came into this world?
Perhaps that has never troubled you at all, and if so, you think everything is all right. But you will have moments when you ask, “Did God make a mistake? Did He get hold of the wrong piece of material?”
I tried to argue with an elder brother once, many years ago, about this matter of salvation. He said, “I absolutely repudiate any responsibility. I was never asked whether I wanted to come into this world. I was never given a chance to say yes or no. I am here without any option being given to me, and therefore I take no responsibility for being here in this world.”
What could you say to that? What is the eternal purpose in your being here? Behind it all? Oh no, life is not mere accident. “Called according to His purpose.” “According to His eternal purpose” is the great phrase in Ephesians.
Mere existence—making the best of it, saying, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”—is not life in its true meaning. You are here, and unless you commit suicide, you just have to go through it. No: there is an eternal counsel, the counsels of God, and being chosen in Christ.
That is not merely making the best of life. No, it is emancipation from mere existence into great purpose. Dear friends, there is a great lack in the preaching of the gospel today.
The emphasis in so much preaching today is, “Get your sins forgiven and go to heaven. Be happy ever after. Have a good time.” Is it any surprise that you have little, tiny Christians who never grow up—immature Christians?
I do feel that in presenting Christ and the gospel to the unsaved, we ought to present the greatness of the eternal purpose concerning every life. If they grasp that—“Am I called to that? Is that the dimension of salvation?”—you will have a different type of person in conversion.
Someone says, “But you cannot bring to simple little children the great things of God.” That may be a natural argument. But some of the best Christians I have known were converted in a ministry to the saints in great richness.
At the Lord’s Table, or during morning ministry, when no one was thinking about unsaved people, some of the best Christians were born again. The greatness of divine purpose overshadows mere existence.
Let us look at another matter. Go into Ephesus, that great city, and what impresses you? What is it that those people are obsessed with and dominated by? The great temple of Diana of the Ephesians—one of the wonders of the world.
You know how much that temple meant to the Ephesians. They tried to kill Paul over that issue.
Great is Diana of the Ephesians!
They cried it again and again. All other voices were drowned by their acclamation of Diana and her temple, which they said had come down from heaven. Magnificent it was, with all its glory.
Yet Paul is representing something more magnificent and glorious than the temple of Diana: the Church which is His Body. Christ will present to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
The Church—the transcendent Church. Diana’s temple, with all its magnificence, fades from the horizon when the Lord brings into view this Church. Oh, the devil has done so much to spoil the great recovery of the true conception of the Church in its heavenly nature.
For years, there was all the clerical attire, the churchy atmosphere, the pulpits, the ministerialism—the whole thing. Then, through the grace of God, there came an opening of the true heavenly nature of the Church, the Body of Christ.
All that had held and gripped the horizon so strongly was exposed as nonsense—playing at churches, playing at chapel, a lot of nonsense in the presence of this unveiled conception. It was emancipation.
And, dear friends, that is small compared with the Apostle Paul. Look at the absolute dominion of Jerusalem, its temple, and its system in the life of that man. He had gone to the utmost limit of that system in every way.
He went out against those who called on Christ, binding men and women. Later, Paul stood by while Stephen, that young man with the light of heaven on his face, was put to death. This was the hold that system had upon him.
What would emancipate him? Nothing on this earth could get him out of that system and make it not only nonsense but abhorrent. You could never get him out by preaching, teaching, persuasion, coercion, or persecution.
There was no force on this earth that would lift that man right out into the Ephesian position. Why? He had seen Christ. He had seen the implications and significance of Jesus Christ in God’s universe, and one of the great implications was the Church which is His Body.
He came out so completely that, as you find him in Galatians, he was being persecuted by the very thing in which he had once found his very life. This is a large horizon. This is emancipation.
I trust that you understand it. I do not want to call anyone’s Christian life into question, but I believe that if the cross is known as the cross should be known, you will be out of every realm which has merely earthly limitation.
You will not have to keep asking, “Ought I to believe this? Ought I to leave that? Ought I to give up this or that?” No. When you come into something of this Ephesian horizon, the thing itself tells you. You have to say, “I am out. My spirit is out.”
So much is left behind. However great Diana of the Ephesians and her temple appeared, what a poor thing it was once you had seen the heavenly reality.
There is one more thing, though it is included in all that I have been saying. When you come to this letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle, when he has begun to get under way in the letter, is almost overpowered by the sense of hopelessness of getting it all over.
That is good ministry when you feel like that, you know. You have something in you, and you ask, “Now, how am I going to get this over?” That is what ministry will be.
It was not long, so to speak, before Paul put down the pen—I do not think he was writing it himself; he had an amanuensis—and dropped on his knees in the presence of the overwhelming magnitude of this great dimension.
“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father,” that He would grant unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened.
Ephesus was the seat of learning, books, and pagan mysticism. When these believers were converted and came to the Lord, they gathered their books of magical arts and made a great fire, burning them. The price of those books was immense.
All the learning, all the mysteries of paganism, were there in Ephesus. Yet Paul prays that He would grant unto them a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Why? He is speaking about the mysteries of Christ, and they are mysteries indeed.
The eyes of your heart. You Ephesians, who had all this in books—there is a horizon of spiritual knowledge and spiritual understanding that leaves all that as mere ashes, nothing at all.
You can have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him which is beyond all human ability to comprehend. That is what he said to the Corinthians:
Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not,
and which entered not into the heart of man,
whatsoever things God prepared for them that love Him.
But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit.
Spiritual men receive spiritual things which the natural man can never know. There is darkness within the heart by nature. But we are not moving in abstract realms. Do you not know something of this? You may know very little, but you know something of this: the eyes of your heart have been enlightened.
You have seen things that you could never have grasped or understood until you were born from above. You may not be able to explain it any more than the man born blind in John 9 could explain his experience when they tried to put him through his paces.
“How did He do it to you? Explain it.” If I had to give an explanation and definition, what could I say? The only thing is: “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”
You may not comprehend all the truth, but you know the principle. There is a work of the Holy Spirit leading us beyond all our own abilities, intellectually or in any other way, and bringing us to see things—see things.
It is startling—very startling—that angels do not know what is being revealed to the Church.
Which things angels desire to look into.
I do not want to get you too far afield, but what I am saying is that here is a horizon of understanding and knowledge which, by revelation of the Holy Spirit, takes us far outside this poor mental capacity, or any other capacity. It takes us outside and overwhelms us.
That is how it ought to be. Thank God, for some of us, having come through that great crisis of the cross, a new dimension of spiritual knowledge and understanding has opened. Though today we have to say we are only on the fringe, and there is always so much beyond us, nevertheless it represents a very great transition from what was before.
How does this happen? It is the place of the cross, is it not? The cross planted in our natural minds in order to bring us into the spiritual mind, taking us through death onto resurrection ground.
The Lord Jesus lived and laboured under certain limitations—not limitations in Himself, but limitations in others, in His disciples. How He tried to make them understand, but their horizon was simply the natural one.
He cried:
I have a baptism to be baptized with;
and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!
There is the prison: His spirit was imprisoned by the understanding, apprehension, and grasp of those men around Him. “I am straitened till it be accomplished.” They could not enter into the greater dimension of spiritual understanding until He had gone through the baptism of His passion, the baptism of the cross.
After it was accomplished, the change in their apprehension, comprehension, and understanding on the Day of Pentecost is literally amazing—literally amazing.
Think how they had regarded the cross before: an appalling prospect. “If that ever happens, we lose everything. Our hopes and expectations will be blighted and devastated.” Then look at the other side of it. The cross had done something to liberate them.
Listen: these limitations, and such emancipation in us, will only be dealt with by the same process. We must, by grace, die to this whole life as we have been speaking of it, and rise and come out onto resurrection ground—the ground of the true spiritual man.
Then we begin to see. We could never see these things before. Things at which we once looked as the end, as impossible, as devastating—these are the things through which the Lord brings us into the meaning of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Dear friend, you must take this to the Lord. I cannot put you through it. I can tell you about it and tell you that it is real, but I cannot put you through it. I cannot do it.
You must go to the Lord and say, “Now, Lord, that is truth. I commit myself to Thee. I ask Thy grace to see me through the cross. I commit myself. Do the thing. Do the thing.”
And when the pressure is on, when the cross is being applied, when self is being put out, the Lord is doing the work. It is only by the working of the cross that we come into this great emancipation.
Lord, relieve us of all burden that is tension and stress, whether mental, nervous, or physical, and bring us into something of the apprehension of the wonder—the wonder—of that cross and its tremendous possibilities, what it can do.
The wonder of Christ apprehended in a spiritual way. We do not know how to pray, but we are going to say: Now, if God has said anything here today and this week through Thy servants, if it is God’s truth, do not let it pass into forgetfulness or be stored up in artificial reservoirs.
Make it a river, or a spring, breaking up in us unto life. Cover all mistakes, every defective presentation and personality. May it be Christ, and history provide with us nothing else—with ourselves, please—in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.