Adoss Newsletter No 10 July 2014

Sinner, see thy God beside thee,

In a servant’s form come near,

Sitting, walking, talking with thee!

Sinai’s mount no longer fear.

Zech 4:10
Who hath despised the day of small things

Adoss Newsletter No 9

June 2014

A Day of Small Things

By Σωσθένης Ὁἀδελφὸς – Sosthenes the Brother

 

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,

 

Where is Heaven?

A brother said in our bible reading yesterday ‘Heaven is where Jesus is’.   Paul said And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:’ (Eph. 2:6). We tend to think of heaven as a long way away – beyond the millions of light-years of the observable universe. In one sense it is – to the unbeliever it is an infinite distance away. But for us it is so close.

Sinner, see thy God beside thee,

In a servant’s form come near,

Sitting, walking, talking with thee!

Sinai’s mount no longer fear.
A.P. Cecil (1841-1889

Little Flock Hymn Book (1962, 1973) No 112

He came close to us. We can be close to Him.

walking-in-assembly-cover_edited-1
Walking in the Light of the Assembly

Last month I wrote about this publication. Since then I have received quite a number of valuable suggestions from persons whose judgment I value. The result has been numerous changes. There will be more. Click here for the latest download version

Accordingly we are not going to print, for the foreseeable future at any rate. Please feel free to distribute it by e-mail

 

Whom do we promote?

I get some very encouraging mail. For example a sister in Pakistan has translated Walking in the Light of the Assembly into Urdu and is having it printed. I look forward to corresponding more with her, and others she might meet with.

I get some mail from people after money. I guess this is to be expected. I do acknowledge them, but tell them that a church does not need any building, supplies or funds to operate.

But I had one from a gentleman who claimed to be ‘Prime Minister of Jesus’ and one of the two witnesses in Rev 11! Who does he think he is? I sent him the verse:

Lord! let me wait for Thee alone:
My life be only this –
To serve Thee here on earth, unknown;
Then share Thy heavenly bliss.
 
J N Darby 1800-82

Our Visit to Scotland

We have just returned from Scotland where we were able to enjoy fellowship with a number in Glasgow and in two meetings on the Moray Firth   We stayed in Gardenstown. It is sad that the general spirit of these places has changed, these villages largely populated by newcomers and the owners of second homes. When we were on holiday up there when I was a boy, there were 250 in the meeting in Gardenstown alone – now there are 2 or 3 tiny gatherings of souls not in fellowship with one another, or those we break bread with.

But we had an encouraging conversation with an Australian Free Prebyterian (Wee-wee-free) Minister who we met on a train.

 

And a Tragedy

 

Bruce Pye d. 2014
Bruce Pye d. 201

Many readers will be sorrowing over the sad home-going of Bruce Pye, a young man killed in a bike accident last Saturday in New York. Two sisters from our gathering have gone to the funeral. It is easy to say ‘with Christ which is far better’ when we are talking about a demented person in their nineties. When it comes to a young man of 34, do we really believe it? I hear he gave a word that week on being ready to see Jesus. He was ready; are we?

 

God’s blessings

Sosthenes Hoadelphos

Psalm 43

Why art thou cast down, my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God; for I shall yet praise him, [who is] the health of my countenance, and my God.

Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; deliver me from the deceitful and unrighteous man.

2For thou art the God of my strength: why hast thou cast me off? why go I about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

3Send out thy light and thy truth: *they* shall lead me, *they* shall bring me to thy holy mount, and unto thy habitations.

4Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto the God of the gladness of my joy: yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God, my God.

5Why art thou cast down, my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God; for I shall yet praise him, [who is] the health of my countenance, and my God.

Darby Translation

J N Darby – The Road – It is not with Uncertain Step, We tread our desert way

It is not with uncertain step
We tread our desert way;
A well-known voice has called us up
To everlasting day –

C.M.
1 It is not with uncertain step
We tread our desert way;
A well-known voice has called us up
To everlasting day –
2 The voice of Him who here has trod
Alone the trackless way
(And marked the road which leads to God)
Where once we, lost, did stray.
3 He leaves us not alone to trace
Our path across this waste;
But leads us still with living grace,
Homeward, whereto we haste.
4 See! open stands the heav’nly door,
Whence glory shines below,
To light the way He’s gone before,
The coming bliss to show.
5 In patience then we tread the road –
Our faith and courage tried–
And trust the love that bears each load,
Our hearts from grief to hide.

John Nelson Darby (1800-82)

Little Flock Hymn Book (1961/1973) No 411

Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs 1978 No 101

J N Darby – Little Flock No 411 – Lord! let us wait for Thee alone

 C.M.
1 Lord! let us wait for Thee alone:
Our life be only this –
To serve Thee here on earth, unknown;
Then share Thy heavenly bliss.
2 Lord, we would wait, in labour still
In Thy blest service here:
What Thou hast giv’n us to fulfil –
Thy will – to us is dear!
3 We well can wait! Thou waitest yet
The word of that dread hour,
Which shall Thy foes for ever set
As footstool of Thy power.
4 Yet, Lord! were once Thy will fulfilled,
How better far with Thee,
With Thee, our joy, our strength, our shield,
In cloudless light to be.
5 Lord, be it soon! Thou know’st our heart,
In this sad world, no rest
Can find nor wish but where Thou art:
That rest itself possessed!

 

John Nelson Darby (1800-82)

Little Flock Hymn Book (1961/1973) No 411

Part of JND’s poem   The Call – What powerful, mighty Voice, so near, Calls me from Earth apart

The Spirit in which we should be when the Church is Forced to Exercise Discipline

We ought to remember what we are in ourselves, when we talk about exercising discipline – it is an amazingly solemn thing. When I reflect, that I am a poor sinner, saved by mere mercy, standing only in Jesus Christ for acceptance, in myself vile, it is, evidently, an awful thing to take discipline into my own hands.

Excerpts from a Paper by J N Darby entitled ‘On Discipline’

J N Darby
John Nelson Darby

We ought to remember what we are in ourselves, when we talk about exercising discipline – it is an amazingly solemn thing. When I reflect, that I am a poor sinner, saved by mere mercy, standing only in Jesus Christ for acceptance, in myself vile, it is, evidently, an awful thing to take discipline into my own hands.

But the church may be forced to exercise discipline, as in the case of the Corinthians, 1 Cor. 5. I believe there is never a case of church discipline but to the shame of the whole body. In writing to the Corinthians, Paul says, “Ye have not mourned,” etc.: they all were identified with it. Like some sore on a man’s body, it tells of the disease of the body, of the constitutional condition. The assembly is never prepared, or in the place to exercise discipline, unless having first identified itself with the sin of the individual. If it does not do it in that way, it takes a judicial form, which will not be the ministration of the grace of Christ. Its priestly character in the present dispensation is one of grace.

All discipline until the last act is restorative. The act of putting outside, of excommunication, is not (properly speaking) discipline, but the saying that discipline is ineffective, and there is an end of it; the church says, “I can do no more.”

As to the nature of all this, the spirit in which it should be conducted, it is priestly; and the priests ate the sin-offering within the holy place, Lev. 10. I do not think any person or body of Christians can exercise discipline, unless as having the conscience clear, as having felt the power of the evil and sin before God, as if he had himself committed it. If that which is done is not done in the power of the Holy Ghost, it is nothing.

It is a terrible thing to hear sinners talking about judging another sinner, sinners judging sinners, but a blessed thing to see them exercised in conscience about sin come in among themselves. It must be in grace. I no more dare act, save in grace, than I could wish judgment to myself. “Judge not, that ye be not judged; for with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again,” Matt. 7:1, 2. If we go to exercise judgment, we shall get it.

 

The full paper is published in JND’s Collected Writings Vol. 1 Ecclesiastical 1 page 338.

 

J N Darby – A Song for the Wilderness – This world is a wilderness wide

THIS world is a wilderness wide;
I have nothing to seek nor to choose;
I’ve no thought in the waste to abide;
I’ve nought to regret nor to lose.

J N Darby
John Nelson Darby

THIS world is a wilderness wide;
I have nothing to seek nor to choose;
I’ve no thought in the waste to abide;
I’ve nought to regret nor to lose.

The Lord is Himself gone before;
He has marked out the path that I tread;
It’s as sure as the love I adore;
I have nothing to fear nor to dread.

There is but that one in the waste,
Which His footsteps have marked as His own;
And I follow in diligent haste
To the seats where He’s put on His crown.

For the path where my Saviour is gone
Has led up to His Father and God,
To the place where He’s now on the throne;
And His strength shall be mine on the road.

And with Him shall my rest be on high,
When in holiness bright I sit down,
In the joy of His love ever nigh,
In the peace that His presence shall crown.

‘Tis the treasure I’ve found in His love
That has made me a pilgrim below;
And ’tis there, when I reach Him above,
As I’m known, all His fulness I’ll know.

And, Saviour! ’tis Thee from on high
I await till the time Thou shalt come,
To take him Thou hast led by Thine eye
To Thyself in Thy heavenly home.

Till then, ’tis the path Thou hast trod
My delight and my comfort shall be;
I’m content with Thy staff and Thy rod,
Till with Thee all Thy glory I see.

John Nelson Darby (1800-1882)

Written 1849

Edited version in Little Flock Hymn Book  (1962, 1973) and in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs 1978 – No 139

The Story of a Young Lady Intent on Entering a Mixed Marriage

Two principles regulate the ways of God with regard to us.

God keeps our hearts to cause them to see what His purpose is.
Christ intercedes for us with respect to our infirmities.
You have to understand the big difference between weakness and will. Both hinder us, but God distinguishes one from the other. “The word of God … is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Heb 4:12). Nothing, not one thought, is concealed from Him. His word is simple, plain, and clear; it speaks in your conscience: do you hear it? Or are you foolishly deluding yourself, feeding upon the illusions that you cherish? Are you resisting God, and provoking Him to jealousy? You cannot escape: He has a hold over your conscience, and will never give it up.

unequal-yoke

The original article by J. N. Darby was entitled ‘Reflections on Mixed Marriages’ and is in Darby’s Collected Writings, vol. 16 (Practical 1) p.171)

A young Christian lady, Miss A., accepted an offer of marriage from a worldly unbeliever.   She tried to hide this from both her family and the Christian assembly she attended. However a brother from that assembly heard about the attachment, and spoke kindly to her, warning her of the sorrow that could ensue from such an unequal yoke.   She persisted with the course she was on, and left home to live with a Christian friend.   The friend was surprised at her request to facilitate the relationship, knowing that her fiancé was an unbeliever.   However, shortly thereafter she fell ill with a violent fever, and admitted that this was the chastening of the Lord. She died three days later, having been convicted of what she had been doing.   She died full of joy, and in complete self-judgment.

The following might have been from a word given at her funeral by JND. I don’t know. Here is a summary.

 

God can interfere in discipline to free His children from the sad spiritual consequences of their unfaithfulness.   This young lady clearly knew she was acting against the will of God.  But she did not know how, or have the strength, to stop.   God was forced to take her away from this world, to keep her from a sin which she did not desire to commit, nor which she had not the strength to resist.

God knows the influence that the world has over the Christian’s heart – it appears amiable.   Those, who are near Christ, are shielded in grace from its influence. Satan is at war with the believer, surprising us when we are not on our guard.   He transforms himself into an angel of light, appealing to our worldly feelings and desires. When we are clothed with whole armour of God, resisting the devil is not the problem, because Christ has already overcome him. But he snares us, and we have to know our hearts, and discover the traps that he has set.   A heart that is simple and occupied with the Lord, escapes many things which trouble the peace of those who are not near Him.   But the troubled and tormented soul finds complete joy and restoration in the saving grace of the One that he has so foolishly forgotten. The Lord knows how to deliver as well as having compassion on us.

Two principles regulate the ways of God with regard to us.

  1. God keeps our hearts to cause them to see what His purpose is.
  2. Christ intercedes for us with respect to our infirmities.

You have to understand the big difference between weakness and will. Both hinder us, but God distinguishes one from the other. “The word of God … is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Heb 4:12). Nothing, not one thought, is concealed from Him. His word is simple, plain, and clear; it speaks in your conscience: do you hear it?  Or are you foolishly deluding yourself, feeding upon the illusions that you cherish?   Are you resisting God, and provoking Him to jealousy?   You cannot escape: He has a hold over your conscience, and will never give it up.

God could have left you to yourself. He could have left you to experience very humiliating failures.   With Israel God said, ‘Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone’ (Hosea 4:17). What punishment! What chastening it is to be left alone by God.  But our God does not deprive us of the light of His countenance and the sweetness of His communion. He reaches us by His word, in order that our consciences may see things as He sees them.   Christ has loved us so much that He humbled Himself even to death for us. Stop, poor soul, and ask yourself if your proposed intention is agreeable to Christ, the One who gave Himself for you to save you? He has your salvation at heart; He loves you, and does not desire that you should suffer the terrible discipline consequent on the folly of following your own will.  God desires that you should not lose the enjoyment of His communion.   He is full of mercy and has compassion on us and on our weaknesses. However, He is tender and pitiful in His ways; but remember that if we are determined to follow our own will, God knows how to break it. God is not mocked, and what a man sows he will reap; see Gal. 6:7. The worst of all God’s chastenings is that He should leave us to follow our own ways.

He warns His children by His word. If they do not listen, He intervenes in His power to stop them.   He can then bless them.   See Job 33:14-30. There was a bad state in Corinth; some of them were sick and others had even died. But Paul says, ‘If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.’ (1 Cor. 11:31).   God is a consuming fire, and, when the moment of judgment is come, it begins at His house. (See 1 Peter 4:17).   I do not doubt that a large part (not all) of the sickness and trials of Christians are chastenings sent by God because of things that are evil in His sight. We have neglected our consciences, and God has been forced to produce in us the effect which self-judgment ought to have produced.  Things may need to be corrected so that we may live more in communion with God and glorify Him in all the details of our lives.

So as to our sad matter, it is absolutely impossible that a Christian should allow him or herself to marry a worldly person, without violating every obligation towards God and towards Christ.   If a child of God allies himself to an unbeliever, it is evident that he leaves Christ out of the question, and that he does so voluntarily in the most important event of his life.   He has chosen to live without Christ; he has abandoned Christ and refused to listen to Him. He has deliberately preferred to do his own will and exclude Christ, rather than to give up his own will in order to enjoy Christ and His approval.  What a fearful life-long decision it is, to settle to choose an enemy of the Lord’s for a companion! The influence of such a union will draw a Christian back into the world. The end of those things is death. (Rom 6:21). The fact is, that unless the sovereign grace of God comes in, the Christian man or woman will always yield and enter little by little upon a worldly walk. Nothing is more natural. The worldly man has only his worldly desires. The Christian, besides his Christianity, has the flesh.  Now he must abandon his Christian principles, and please his flesh, if he is to unite himself to one who does not know the Lord. And it cannot be a happy union; they will have nothing but quarrels – ‘How can two walk together except they be agreed?’ (Amos 3:3). He will have sacrificed his conscience, his Saviour and his soul to honour and/or money. His will is unrestrained, and he will have given up communion with his Saviour.

We see in the sad case of our young friend, that the discipline brought her to a judgment of self and the flesh. In her weakness, she laid down her burden at the feet of Jesus. She sought strength in Him alone. She accepted in her heart that she was only sin, that Christ was perfect righteousness, and God was perfect love.   Though she distrusted herself, I do not think that the young lady had been stripped of self.   Many Christians are in this condition.   When we come to a knowledge of how deceitful and treacherous the flesh is, Christ has a larger place in the heart, and there is more calm, and less self.

Before she was entangled in her affection, our young friend would have shrunk with horror from the idea of the action she planned. Her heart had abandoned God; it dreaded man more even than God.  God loved Miss A. and she really loved God. But God had to remove her from this world, because she did not have the courage to return to the right path. God took her to Himself. She died in peace, and through pure grace she triumphed.

What a solemn lesson it is for those who wish to depart from God and His holy word, to satisfy an inclination which it would have been easy to overcome at first, but which, when cherished in the heart, becomes tyrannical and fatal!  May God grant to the reader of these lines, and to all His children, to seek His presence day by day.

J N Darby – Love Divine – Father, Thy sovereign Love has sought Captives to Sin, gone far from Thee

FATHER, Thy sovereign love has sought
Captives to sin, gone far from Thee

Hymn by John Nelson Darby (1800-1882)

L.M. 

FATHER, Thy sovereign love has sought
Captives to sin, gone far from Thee;
The work that Thine own Son hath wrought
Has brought us back in peace and free.

And now, as sons before Thy face,
With joyful steps the path we tread,
Which leads us on to that blest place
Prepared for us by Christ, our Head.

Thou gav’st us, in eternal love,
To Him to bring us home to Thee,
Suited to Thine own thoughts above,
As sons, like Him, with Him to be

In Thine own house. There Love divine
Fills the bright courts with cloudless joy;
But ’tis the love that made us Thine
Fills all that house without alloy.

Oh, boundless grace! What fills with joy
Unmingled all that enter there,
God’s nature, Love without alloy,
Our hearts are given e’en now to share.

God’s righteousness with glory bright,
Which with its radiance fills that sphere –
E’en Christ, of God the power and light –
Our title is that light to share.

O Mind divine! so must it be,
That glory all belongs to God.
O Love divine! that did decree
We should be part, through Jesus’ blood.

Oh, keep us, Love divine, near Thee,
That we our nothingness may know;
And ever to Thy glory be –
Walking in faith while here below.

J N Darby 1880

Edited version in Little Flock Hymn Book  (1962, 1973) – No 87, 88

Edited version in Hymns for the Little Flock 1962 and 1973 Nos 87 and 88 and in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs 1978 – No 331

 

J N Darby – The Father’s Grace – Father, in Thine Eternal Power,

FATHER, in Thine eternal power,
Thy grace and majesty divine,
No soul, in this weak mortal hour,
Can grasp the glory that is Thine!

Hymn by John Nelson Darby (1800-1882)

8.8.8.8.

FATHER, in Thine eternal power,
Thy grace and majesty divine,
No soul, in this weak mortal hour,
Can grasp the glory that is Thine!

E’en in its thoughts of sovereign grace
It leaves us all far, far behind;
The love that gives with Christ a place
Surpasses our poor feeble mind.

And yet that love is not unknown
To those who have the Saviour seen;
Nor strange to those He calls His own –
Pilgrims in scenes where He has been.

In Him Thy perfect love, revealed,
Has led our hearts that love to trace
Where nothing of that love’s concealed,
But meets us in our lowly place.

But grace, the source of all our hope,
From Thine eternal nature flows;
Could to our lost condition stoop,
And now through Christ no hindrance knows;

Has flowed in fullest streams below,
And opened to our hearts the place
Where, in its ripened fruits, we’ll know
The eternal blessings of that grace.

And here we walk, as sons through grace,
A Father’s love our present joy;
Sons, in the brightness of Thy face,
Find rest no sorrows can destroy.

Nor is the comfort of Thy love,
In which we “Abba, Father” cry,
The only blessing that we prove:
Because that love is ever nigh,

A holy Father’s constant care
Keeps watch, with an unwearying eye,
To see what fruits His children bear,
Fruits that may suit their calling high;

Takes ever knowledge of our state –
What dims communion with His love,
Might check our growth or separate
Our hearts from what’s revealed above.

Oh, wondrous Love, that ne’er forgets
The object of its tender care;
May chasten still, while sin besets,
To warn and guard them where they are;

But ne’er forgets, but feeds them still
With tokens of His tender love;
Will keep till, freed from every ill,
They find their rest with Him above.

Oh, wondrous, infinite, divine!
Keep near, my soul, to that blest place,
Where all those heavenly glories shine
Which suit the brightness of His face.

Oh, lowliness, how feebly known,
That meets the grace that gave the Son!
That waits, to serve Him as His own,
Till grace what grace began shall crown!

[1879]

Edited version in Little Flock Hymn Book  (1962, 1973) – No 120

How to Know the Father’s Will

Finally “the meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way” (Ps 25: 9).
I have given you all that comes to mind at this moment, and little satisfaction, I fear. But remember only that the wisdom of God conducts us in the way of God’s will. If our own will is in activity, God cannot be the servant of it; that is the first point to discover. It is the secret of the life of Christ. I know no other principle that God makes use of, however He may pardon and overrule all. You have asked me for direction: God leads the new man who has no other mind than Christ, and who mortifies the old man. He purifies us thus that we may bear fruit.

This was the subject of a letter, originally in French (JND French Letters No 436) and translated by myself.  The translation has been reviewed by another brother.  It is an alternative translation to that in JND’s Collected Writings.  How to Know the Will of the Father  vol  16 (Practical 1) p19
DJR Translation

436
Dear Brother

You could not suppose that a child who habitually neglected its father, and was always wholly indifferent to his mind and will, would not know what would please its parent when a difficult circumstance presented itself.   There are certain things which God intentionally leaves in generalities, in order that the state of a soul may be proved.  If, instead of the child, a wife was found there, there would probably be no hesitation in her mind; she would know immediately what would please her husband; even where he had expressed no positive will about the circumstance in question. Now you cannot escape this trial; God will not allow His children to escape it. “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be fun of light.” (Matt 6: 22).  This easy and comfortable means of knowing God’s will does not exist without reference to the state of our own soul.
There is something else.  Very often we are of too much importance in our own eyes and we imagine, however wrongly, that God has some will for us in the circumstances in which one is working.  In fact, God has nothing to tell us thereon, and all the agitation provoked in us by the thing which concerns us is only evil. The will of God is that we should know to take our place quietly, an insignificant place.  At other times, we seek to know God would have us to act in circumstances in which His only will is that we should not be found there at all, and the first thing to which our conscience would lead us, if it were really in activity, would be to make us leave them.  Our own will has set us there, and we would like nevertheless to lean on the hand of God and to be directed by Him in the path of our own will. Such is a very common case.

Be assured that, if we kept ourselves near enough to God, He would not leaveus in ignorance of His mind.  In a long and active life, God, in His love, may make us feel our dependence when we have a tendency to act according to our own will, and does not immediately reveal His own; but the principle remains, whatever it is: “if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light”.  Whence it is certain that, if the whole body is not full of light, the eye is not single.  You will say to me, That is poor consolation.  No, it is sweet and precious consolation for those whose desire is to have the eye single and to walk with God – not only to delivered objectively, so to speak, by the knowledge of His will, but to walk with Him. “If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him” (John 11: 9-10).  It is always the same principle. “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8: 12).  You will seek in vain to exempt yourself from this moral law of Christianity: the thing is impossible.  “For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing by the knowledge of God” (Col 1: 9-10).  The connection between these things is of incalculable value for the soul.  We need to know the Lord to walk in a way worthy of Him; and we grow in the knowledge of God.  “And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; that ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ” (Phil 1: 9-10).  Finally, “the spiritual discerns all things and he himself is discerned of no man” (1 Cor 2: 15).
It is then the will of God, and a will of grace, that men should be capable of discerning His will other than according to their own spiritual state, and, in general, when we think that we are carrying a judgment of the circumstances, it is God who is judging us, us and our state.  Our only business, I repeat, is to keep ourselves close to God.  It would not be the love of God to leave us to discover His will without that.  Such a thing might be convenient to a director of consciences; but the love of God cannot allow us to be spared the discovery and the chastisement of our own moral state.  Thus, if you seek how you may discover the will of God in the details, and apart from this state, you are seeking evil; and this is seen every day.  You will find a Christian in doubt and perplexity, where another, more spiritual, sees as clear as the day, surprised at what is making no difficulty, and understanding that it is quite simply the other’s state which hinders him from seeing it. “He that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off” (2 Pet 1: 9).

As regards circumstances, I believe that a person may be guided by them; and Scripture has pronounced on that, whatever it may be called: to be “held in with bit and bridle”; “I will instruct thee, and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye” (Ps 32).  Such is the promise and privilege of faith which keeps near enough to God to know only His mind towards him; He being faithful to direct thus and promising to do so.  God exhorts us not to be as the horse and the mule which cannot receive intelligently from their master the communication of his mind and his desires; they need to be held in with bit and bridle, which is better than to stumble, to fall or to run counter to the one who leads; but this is after all a sad state.  That is therefore what it is to be guided by circumstances.  God is full of goodness in concerning himself thus with us but it is a sad on our part.
Here, however, we must distinguish between judging circumstances, and acting in the midst of them; he who is led by them always acts blind as to knowing the will of God.  There is absolutely nothing moral in that direction; it is an external force that exercises a control.  Now it is very possible that I may have no idea beforehand of what I shall do, and that: I do not know the circumstances in which I may be found, and cannot consequently make any resolution in advance; and yet,the instant they present themselves, I judge with the clearest divine judgment what is the path of God’s will, what is the mind and power of the Spirit in the midst of these circumstances, and this demands precisely the highest characterof spirituality; instead of being led by circumstances, on is led by God in them, being near enough to God to be able to judge what is suitable, as soon as it is presented.  ‘Impressions’ are not everything,  God can suggest them no doubt, and by His Spirit, He does suggest a thing to the mind; but when it is perceived, its moral character will be as clear as the sun at noon-day. In response to prayer, God can remove from our heart certain carnal influences, and so leave their power in the spirit to certain spiritual influences which give importance to a duty, which had been perhaps entirely obscured by preoccupation caused by some object of our desire.  This may be even be seen between two individuals: one may not have the spiritual discernment to discover what is right; but if another shews the good to him, he sees it clearly himself.  All are not highway engineers, but a waggoner knows well enough a good road when it is made. Thus the impressions which come from God do not always remain simple impressions, but they are usually clear at the same time as they are produced.  I do not doubt, however, that if we walk with Him, and if we listen to Him, God often produces this clarity in the soul.

If Satan, as you put it, raises obstacles, it only shows that they are only obstacles (allowed God) for a good reason, obstacles raised by the accumulation of evil in the circumstances which surround us by the power of evil over other people.

Your third question supposes a person acting in ignorance of God’s will, which should never be the case.  The only rule that can be given as to this is, never to act when we do not know this will.  If you act without knowing it, you will be at the mercy of circumstances.  God overrules all, for this is the case supposed by your question; But why act in such a way as would be if I were ignorant of the will of God?   He will stop me perhaps, because, if I do not walk sufficiently near to God in the sense of my nothingness, I will perhaps lack the faith to accomplish what we have faith enough to discern.

If we are doing our own will or are negligent in our walk, God in His grace may warn us by a hindrance if we pay attention to it, whilst “the simple pass on and are punished” Prov 22: 3).  God may permit, where there is much activity and labour, that Satan should raise up hindrances, in order that we may be kept in His dependence; but God never permits Satan to act otherwise than on the flesh.  He does evil, if we leave the door open between us and him, because we are away from God; but otherwise God uses it only as an instrument to test us to take us away or correct what would be a danger to us, or something that would tend to exalt us.  God allows Satan to cause suffering, and the flesh and the outward mind, in order that the inward man may be kept clean and safe.  If it is a question of anything else, we have only to take our “buts” and open the door to the enemy to trouble us by doubts and difficulties as if they were between God and us, because we no longer “see far”, for “he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not”.

Finally, the question is wholly moral. If any particular question is raised which at the first blush we cannot solve, we shall find very often that it would not have arisen, if our position were good, if spirituality had guarded and kept us instead of making us err.  In such a case, we have only one thing to do, which is to humble ourselves as to matter which it is about, then to examine whether Scripture does not present some principle suitable to direct us. Here evidently spirituality is everything.  Where it can be applied, the principle of looking at what Jesus would have done in such and such a case is excellent, but how often we are not in the circumstances in which He would be found.
It is often useful to ask ourselves whence comes such a desire with us, or the thought of doing this or that; I have found that this alone decides more than half of the difficulties in which men can be found.  The rest of those which remain are the result of haste, or of a former evil.  If the thought is of God and not from the flesh, then we have only to wait on God as to the manner and means by which we shall soon be directed.  There are cases we need direction without motives, as when we hesitate about whether to make one or another.  A life of more ardent charity, or a charity exercised in a more intelligent way, or set in activity in communion with God, will clear the motives of charity which were not but selfishness.  And if, you ask, charity or obedience are not in question?  Well!  Then it is for your first to give me a reason, a motive, for acting in whatever way it is.  If it is your own will that you are pressing, you cannot make the wisdom of God te servant of your will; this is another numerous class of difficulties that God will never solve.  In these cases, He will in grace teach us obedience, and will show us how much time we have lost in our own activity.

Finally “the meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way” (Ps 25: 9).

I have given you all that comes to mind at this moment, and little satisfaction, I fear.  But remember only that the wisdom of God conducts us in the way of God’s will.  If our own will is in activity, God cannot be the servant of it; that is the first point to discover.  It is the secret of the life of Christ.  I know no other principle that God makes use of, however He may pardon and overrule all.  You have asked me for direction: God leads the new man who has no other mind than Christ, and who mortifies the old man.  He purifies us thus that we may bear fruit.

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