Be on your guard not to be carried away by the
deception of people who have no principles. Then you won't fall from your firm
position. 2 Peter 3:17
From the high altitude of the
first years as set before us in the book of the Acts, the church began to
decline. When we get out of the apostolic age we find that decline steadily
going on, until the church publicly, generally, becomes a thing of this world,
even becoming politically attached to the earth. The battle all through the
ages has been in this very connection, as to whether the church would maintain
or retrieve the loss of its heavenly high position, or for any reason at all,
by prosperity or adversity, accept something lower. What is and has been true
throughout all its history is true today and is true with us. It is true in the
case of every individual believer, as it is of the whole – the tendency to come
down; and everything from the side of the enemy is directed towards creating a
lower level of things than God intended, and therefore a lower level than that
to which the Lord can wholly commit Himself. It is only as the Lord’s position
for His people is held that the Lord can commit Himself.
It is at this point that we need
to recognize something that may solve some problems or just give the final
answer to a lot of our difficulties. That to which the Lord really does commit
Himself wholly is the spiritual side of things, not the temporal side of
things, even in relation to His work. He may facilitate; He may help; He may
send resources; He may rule and overrule in temporal matters; but we would
agree that it would be very dangerous for the Lord to make that His realm of
complete operations. That is, whenever a difficulty arises in the temporal
realm, if the Lord immediately came right in and swept that out of the way and
gave an easy, clear path to His work and His servants, it would really militate
against true spirituality, and it would bring the whole thing down to a
temporal level, and you can see what would happen. Multitudes would come in
because of the advantages. "It is a good thing to be a Christian; God does
everything for you if only you will be a Christian," and so you become
"rice Christians," as they are known in certain parts of the world.
So the Lord neither can, nor will, nor does, commit Himself fully to the
temporal aspects of His own work.... Spiritually the position in union with a
heavenly Lord means fullness, and the measure of fullness depends entirely upon
that heavenly life and the heavenly nature of everything.
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