I
consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing
Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them
rubbish, that I may gain Christ. Philippians 3:8
Man has constructed his
own interpretations of Christianity and of truth, brought in his own systems
and has confused things so much that you really do not know, unless you have
clear discernment such as Nehemiah had, what is of God and what is not of God.
There are multitudes of good, honest, sincere Christian people who really are
in the most awful fog as to what is of God and what is not of God religiously.
Man's religious systems have brought about that confusion and multitudes of
honest people believe with all their heart that the thing that they are in is
of God, and it is just possible for them to get such an awakening to see the
whole thing was man-made and not of God at all; "...much rubbish."
Paul was one of those. Reflect upon his past life, privileges, and inheritances
which he at one time believed were so utterly and absolutely of God for him,
and that he really was in God's will. He came to a time when he said: "The
things which were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ... for whom I
suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain
Christ"; and yet he was so devoted to all that as a traditional religious
system in which he at one time was living as out from God, which had now become
merely an outward thing of forms and external laws. He believed, nevertheless,
that it was all of God until the light shone, until he saw that in comparison
with the fullness of Christ it was refuse. It is a strong word that he uses;
the word he uses is "stuff to be flung to the dogs." Saul of Tarsus
throwing his Judaism to the dogs! He did it when he saw Christ. You can never
come out of the rubbish until you see Christ.
Ask the Lord to reveal to
you the fullness of Christ and you will find things which have gripped and held
you become as mere refuse, stuff to be flung to the dogs. There was much
rubbish in the place which once represented a clear line of division between
what was of God and what was not of God; confusion, mixture. I shall not
attempt to apply that more thoroughly. The Lord will have to show us by
revelation what the rubbish is, but there is the simple statement and it
contains a truth, and you and I will really have to ask the Lord to show us
even in religious matters, where man ends and God begins, or where God ends and
man begins, so that we shall be delivered from everything that man has imposed
or added upon what is of God, and we shall be able to get right down to
foundations, the rubbish being removed: and there is a very great deal of
ecclesiastical rubbish about in these days that must go. That is a real difficulty
in recovering the full testimony of the Lord Jesus.
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