April 22, 1941
We have been reading an aspect of the death of Christ in the 12th of Exodus and I want to read of three other aspects. There are four very significant and outstanding types of the Lord in the Old Testament, I mean as to His death. Of course, there are many others besides, but these four are related so that everyone will understand the typical nature of the Bible. The first one is the passover Feast; the second is the Red Sea; the third is the brazen serpent, and the fourth is the River Jordan. There are these four different aspects of His death, which is the foundation of everything. I am quite aware, dear friends, how easy it is to try and link types with things that you cannot say are strictly types. There may be illustrations but a type shows a vivid manifestation of what we have in the New Testament as the reality. In 1 Corinthians 10:11 we are told, “All these things happened to them (Israel) for types, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” We will look for a few minutes at this first one. “This month shall be to you,” the Lord has said here by the mouth of Moses, “the beginning of months, the first month of the year to you.” In Chapter 12 of Genesis, not Exodus, God called out His servant Abraham and told him he must get out of his country and from his kindred and his father’s house and go to a land that He would tell him of. He told him also that his seed would greatly multiply; that they would be greatly oppressed and persecuted, and at the end of four hundred years He would bring them out, not as individuals but as a nation. It is not the birth of an individual but of a nation, and God said to the people the first time as a nation, “This month shall be to you the beginning of months, the first month of the year to you.”
Everyone must have a beginning, and Abraham’s history had its beginning in Genesis 12, and Israel now as a nation are starting from the land of Egypt to the land of Canaan in the beginning of months. Everybody in order to be in heaven at least must have a Divine beginning, you must have a Divine start. It is what is called elsewhere, “Ye must be born again.” There was a natural beginning that brings us into the kingdom of nature, and there must be a Divine beginning to bring us into the kingdom of God. Many people may question “How do you begin? How do you start?” What is the very first thing that a man must do to start for glory? You will find that in verse 22 of Exodus 12: “And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the basin; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning.” That is how Israel is to begin, and that is how you are to begin if you are to be in the land of Canaan. The bunch of hyssop precedes the blood. Blood is not the first thing but the bunch of hyssop is. The man was to kill the lamb and the blood was poured into the basin, and then the man was to take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood in the basin, and strike the lintel over the door, and the two side posts.
The bunch of hyssop means repentance toward God. Solomon spake of the cedar in Lebanon and the hyssop that springs out of the wall. The cedar tree is a lofty, proud, outstanding, beautiful thing, but the hyssop is common. You can pluck it out of every wall in the land of Palestine. It is so cheap, so worthless, that you would not give a thought for it. When a man takes a bunch of hyssop, he finds out his unworthiness; he finds he is worth nothing. It took Jonah a long time to get there. “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
When the dying thief on the cross said: “We indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds,” he had the bunch of hyssop. When that woman was following the Lord in the Gospels she said: “Son of David, have mercy upon my daughter, for she is grievously tormented.” She had no right to call him the Son of David for she was a Gentile, but the Lord will not send her away. The disciples said: “Send her away; she is crying after us.” No, beloved friends, He will not send anybody away, but He will educate you. Here, then, she said: “Lord, help me.” He said: “You are not down far enough. It is not meet to take the children’s meat and cast it to the dogs.” She said: ‘Truth, Lord, but the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the Master’s table.” Now she had the bunch of hyssop, and heard Him say, “Great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”
So we might go on with other cases, but until you get the bunch of hyssop you have not made a definite start. Not the blood first, but repentance toward God—breaking down, owning your need. “Ye shall take a bunch of hyssop,” and unless you have taken it, you have never started at all. You may sing the hymns, hear the addresses and give a kind of assent to the gospel but unless you have taken the bunch of hyssop as the dying thief did, and as that woman did, and as Job did, you have never yet taken one single stride toward the glory of God. It is the very beginning. “This month shall be to you.” Never mind the other fellow. “This month shall be to you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.”
When I was a boy living in the sporting world, I knew a man who could run nearly 12 miles per hour, and another who could run 100 yards in 10 seconds. He always got a good start. He passed his competitors in a few moments. With his good start in a few seconds he passed the fellow who did not get such a good start. I wish to ask you: “Have you started? Have you begun? Have you taken the first step?” You have not unless you have the bunch of hyssop in your hand, or in other words, realizing your lost, ruined, hell-deserving condition. And the better start we have, the better we get on along the road. Some are born weak. They are constitutionally weak from the very beginning, largely due to the fact that they did not get a good start. The more you realize your lost condition, the more you appreciate the Gospel. The bigger your bunch of hyssop, the more you enjoy the great salvation. “Ye shall take a bunch of hyssop.” That is the way to begin for the Glory-land.
The bunch of hyssop comes first, and then it must be dipped in the blood in the basin. Now observe that in the opening of Chapter 12 of Exodus we have three steps. “Every man a lamb,” that is individually, and then, “Every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb.” Then the next thing is the lamb for a house, and then in verse 6, “You shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.”
The first thing is, “Every man shall take a lamb.” Make no mistake as to this. You cannot merge yourself in the crowd. “They shall take every man a lamb” for himself. Your father, your relative, your friend, cannot take it for you. “Every man shall make your count for the lamb.” It is intensely individual. You cannot merge your identity; you cannot lose yourself in a circle of relationships. Every individual shall take this bunch of hyssop in his hand and it is for himself personally. In these days there is a danger of merging our identity, losing ourselves in the crowd, going and coming, coming and going, but here it is intensely individual. Dismiss for the moment the thought of your godly father, your praying mother, or that friend of yours who is a believer, and remember that you have to do with God face to face. “Every man shall make his count for the lamb”—I for myself, you for yourself.
It is wonderful privilege to be brought up in a Christian family, but there is danger in it too. There is the danger of thinking that because your father and mother and godly people have prayed for you for many a day, and a lot of other things besides, instead of making it an individual matter, you are merging yourself in the crowd. Here it is— “Everyone shall make his count for the lamb.”
The next thing is the lamb for a house. In other words, when I sprinkle the blood for myself, as God said to the Philippian jailer, through Paul when he asked: “What must I do to be saved?” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house.” God intends the household of every Christian man and woman to be saved, but you have, “Every man must make his count for the lamb,” which saves you from merging yourself, and makes it intensely individual.
The next thing is after I myself am sheltered by the blood and am redeemed to God, to say to Him: “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” Do not imagine for a moment because your parents are saved, they will land you in heaven. It is a wonderful advantage, a tremendous asset to be born into a Christian family, but do not forget this—that even children of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. Those who are privileged in the outer circle, the external circle, may never be brought into the inside one. The Kingdom of heaven has an aspect of profession as well as a living aspect.
Here is the second thing. First, “Every man shall make his count for the lamb.” Take that home, dear hearer. Do not allow the devil to cheat you out of the kingdom because you belong to a Christian circle of father, mother, family and friends. That will not land you in the glory of God. On the contrary, the outer darkness is always for professors. “The children of the kingdom are cast out into outer darkness,” those who are privileged by the reading of Scripture in the homes, who are brought up in a Christian way; that will make hell all the darker because of these wonderful privileges.
Now I come to the third point. “Ye shall keep it up to the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening”—not kill them, but “kill it.” Would to God we saw more of this! The first time it is intensely individual. Second, as a believer, I am to bring my household up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Now it is the whole assembly of the congregation. Here is the unity of the redeemed. They shall kill it, why they killed thousands that night, yet it says, “They shall kill it,” “one lamb for the whole assembly. Revelation 5 shows John remembered it. There is the Lamb in the midst of the throne, and ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands who said with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.” The more we get hold of these collective ideas the more we shall be knit together. One lamb for the whole assembly. First, for the individual, then for the house, and then for the whole Church of God. “The whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.” You identify yourself with all those who belong to the Slain Lamb.
This then is how we begin. “This month shall be to you the beginning of months.” Have you started? Have you begun the race? I repeat again, beloved friends, the better our start, the more of a start we have, helps enormously on the rest of the journey. Has everybody here started? “This month,” not next month, “This month shall be to you the beginning of months; it is the first month of the year to you.”
Then we have these three circles—individual, “Every man shall make his count for the lamb.” Salvation is a tremendous thing and meant for you personally. Then the second circle—the Lamb for a house. Finally it extends to the whole Church: “The whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.” We lose enormously, beloved hearers, by not understanding the collective principle. Some of our meetings are very poor in that way. When I go into the assembly I merge, I lose my identity. I, I, I, is unsuitable; it is “we.” We are no longer there as individuals: “The whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.” Anything else immensely destroys the idea of worship.
In the Passover there is the blood on the doorposts. God sees the blood. It is for Him to see, not for me. “When I see the blood I will pass over you.” The bunch of hyssop is the first thing, and the next thing is to use it. That is the next step. The Israelite strikes the upper door post and side posts with blood from the hyssop. He puts that blood there for himself. When God sees it He passes over that house: “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” There is the start. I urge you, if you have never taken that start yet, start, dear hearer, before you sleep tonight. Make sure of it.
You apply the blood of Christ for your own soul. God sees the blood. It is for His eye, but you yourself strike the upper door post and the two side posts. The blood in the basin will not save you. The blood in the basin means that Christ has died for everybody. The blood on my door-posts means He has died for me. I put the blood there for myself.
“He died for me upon the tree,
His blood is accepted, the sinner goes free.
That sinner who will on Jesus rely,
And comes for the pardon God cannot deny.”
I presume there is not one here tonight who does not believe that Christ died for all. He did, but that will never get you to heaven. You must put the bunch of hyssop in the blood that is in the basin and strike; put it there for your own self. The blood in the basin means He died for all; the blood on the door posts means He died for me. I urge everybody who has never taken that blessed step to put that blood on the doorposts tonight. God will see you, and you will be as safe as He can make you. There is the start—the strike and safety. The start, the strike, and then I am saved—safe under the blood. Again I say, it is God who sees it. The blood is for Him in Exodus 12, but you have to apply it for your own individual self. Do not lose yourself in the crowd. Do not merge your identity by saying: “Of course, I know Christ died for sinners; I know He died for all,” but you must get on to another step, and that is the blood put there for yourself, a simple act of faith for God to see, and He passes over you.
The Israelites pass over in Chapter 14, but God passes over in Chapter 12. That means He will never judge you; He will never damn you. You are as safe as if you were in glory.
We have had three S’s—Start, Strike and Safety, and now one more word beginning with S from verse 15: “Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread.” That next S is Separation, no leavened bread found in the house. Leavened bread is outside; and no leaven in, that is inside—complete separation to Christ. Leaven, as you know, applies to either bad doctrine or bad moral standing, so that after I am saved and after I have started, after I have put that blood on the doorposts by striking with the hyssop, then I am to be a separated man. I am not to eat leavened bread. It is not to be found in my house.
Separation to Christ, dear friends, is a reality. I know we may use the phrase. I am quite aware of our sanctimony, but am I entertaining leaven in any way? Am I separated to Him? Not a bit of leaven was to be found in their house. None must be eaten by them.
Now we turn to the fourteenth chapter of Exodus. Here, as you know, the Israelites have already started from the land of Egypt, and come to a place called Pi-hahiroth. The devil thought: “Now I have got them! The Red Sea in front, the Egyptians behind, rocks on the right side, and rocks on the left. Now I have got them shut in. They cannot go ahead. They cannot go back. They cannot climb the mountains. And here are the Egyptian hosts behind them.”
Now the Lord speaks to them through Moses: “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of Jehovah, which He will show to you today: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, you shall see them again no more forever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.” You know, dear friends, in this wonderful salvation we have a tremendous foe, the devil. They had to do with Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and while they are saved from God’s judgment in chapter 12 they are not saved out of Egypt. They are not safe from Pharaoh; they have yet to be delivered.
These are distinctions, beloved friends, which the Scripture makes. I repeat again, they are safe and sheltered; they started; they have struck; they are a separated people; but yet they are not out of Egypt, the land of Pharaoh, but, thank God, Pi-hahiroth means the opening of liberty. They are completely shut in—the Red Sea in front, the Egyptians behind, and the mountains on either side, and the enemy says: “I have got you.” But, I say reverently, God says: ‘No; I have got you. You think there is no way out, no way through. Moses, speak to the people and say: “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” That is not merely safety under the blood, it is salvation clean out of Egypt, that ungodly world which the devil is god and prince of. That is the meaning of Egypt.
There are four great types of the world—Babylon, Sodom, Jericho and Egypt. These are four different aspects of the world. Egypt is the world in its resources. Here they are faced in front with the Red Sea, the Egyptians behind them, the rocks on both sides, and the word is: “Stand still.” God now makes bare His arm and dries up the Red Sea, and makes a pathway for His people first. They stand still and see His arm made bare. A number of Christians do not distinguish between salvation by blood (or faith) and salvation by power. “Thy right hand, O Lord, has become glorious in power. Thy right hand, O Lord, has dashed in pieces the enemy.” Now the devil is overthrown. The blood meets the claims of God in chapter 12, but the arm of the Lord meets the enemy in chapter 14. They stand still, and He makes a dry path before them. They walk over.
Have you taken that walk? If you have not, you are not saved as Scripture teaches. You are not saved according to the Divine pattern. You will never go to hell, never be damned, but what you want is deliverance, safety, salvation out of the world. They stood still and they saw His salvation. He made a dry pathway through the trackless deep in the Red Sea. The Red Sea is a figure of the death and resurrection of Christ. The blood on the doorposts is the shedding of His precious blood that will take us as far as the Red Sea. They walked down, and walked up on the other side. Read verse 30 of chapter 14. You see it is the Egyptians, the power of the world that held us in captivity, and the arm of the Lord is made bare in the death and resurrection of Christ, and the people walked over dry shod. Have you taken that journey? Have you walked out of this godless, Christ-rejecting world on the resurrection side. “He gave Himself for our sins that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father.”
You may think the testing is no deliverance, but do you not see in chapter 12 you are saved from God’s judgment, and in chapter 14 you are saved from the enemy and delivered from the land of Egypt, that ungodly scene?—“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world.”
It would be an immense help, beloved friends, if we all knew the meaning of Pi-hahiroth practically. It is salvation. It is a bigger word than being saved—deliverance from the world, that great moral system of which the devil is the god and prince. We use that word “saved” far too commonly. We say: “He is saved.” What do you mean by that? In nine out of ten cases he will never be lost; he will go to heaven if he dies. But, dear friends, we need salvation clean cut. We need to leave Egypt behind and walk across the Red Sea. “He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.” That is the Red Sea, the 4th of Romans. The 3rd of Romans applies to the 12th of Exodus, “Whom God hath set forth to be the propitiation for our sins through faith in His blood.” That is the only time in the New Testament we are told to have faith in His blood. But in chapter 14 we leave Egypt behind; we walk across the Red Sea; and in His death and resurrection we stand triumphant on the other side.
Read the 1st verse of chapter 15. Here they are, a figure of the Risen Christ standing on resurrection ground with all His people with Him. That is exactly what Psalm 22 says: “I will declare Thy Name unto My brethren; in the midst of the assembly will I sing praises to Thee.” We join Him in His song in the Ps. 22:22: “In the midst of the assembly. It is now the Risen Lord and His beloved people standing together on the resurrection side, and there His song is their song, His victory is their victory, His standing is their standing. “The Lord has triumphed gloriously.” “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord.”
Here is the choir. Here is the divine blessed antitype of Moses, the Lord Jesus Christ standing on the resurrection side of the grave, and we are in association with Him. His song is ours; His victory is ours; His position is ours. “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel.” Now we are in association with Him; now we stand on His platform, His level. “He has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.”
And now further on in verse 2: “The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation: He is my God, and I will prepare Him a habitation.” Now He has a dwelling-place. Habitation follows salvation. Most of the Lord’s beloved people have no regard for His habitation. They do not seem to think God has a house composed of all Christians, and that Christ is the Son over God’s house. He is the administrator in that house, the One who governs, controls and works.
I am not very fond of people saying: “The Lord led me this, that and the other.” What it says in verse 13 is, “Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them in Thy strength to Thy holy habitation.” Has the blessed Lord guided you to His habitation, to the Church of God, at least in principle? Do not misunderstand me. Do not think I imagine those known as “Brethren” are the whole thing, but we can be in the truth, the reality, of it. It is just as much for others as for them. It says here: “Thou hast led forth Thy people whom Thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them.” Oh, beloved friends, we do not make enough of this! To be guided by the Spirit of God to His habitation, to find out that God has a certain Divine principle connected with His assembly! And when you have found it you will stick to it too. “Thou hast guided them in Thy strength to Thy holy habitation.”
We are quite satisfied to get to the habitation in the beginning with a song in our mouth, but has He led me by His Spirit to find out what His habitation is?—I mean the principle of it. “Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed: and Thou hast guided them in Thy Strength to Thy holy habitation.” We are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” As you know, beloved, the majority of the people of God do not regard their building together. It does not grip them. There is such a thing as being guided by Him to His holy habitation.
I meet on my travels here and there many a one who has left. What for? Have we lost today the Divine way of assembling?—“Christ the Son over God’s House,” and all that goes with it? There it is and there it will be to the end. If He has not led you there yet, I hope He will. I do not want to enlarge upon it but I pray very earnestly, beloved in the Lord, that you will stick to that. He has led you there. But how loosely we hold it. It has not gripped us as it should have done. It is not a matter of people having certain notions and becoming slaves to a certain way of meeting. It is a divine thing, if we are out of Egypt, to be guided by the Blessed Lord Himself to His habitation, the principles of it, the House of God, the Church of God, the Body of Christ, the holy Assembly.
Turn now to Numbers 21:9-11. We have seen in the early chapters of Exodus how the Lord delivered His people out of the land of Egypt. They stand with Him in triumph on the resurrection side of the Red Sea, and they sing the song together, and Moses leads. The Lord leads. He says in Heb. 2:12: “I will declare Thy Name unto My brethren; in the midst of the church will I sing praises to Thee.” He does not sing that song alone. The Lord joined us with Him in the song He has raised in resurrection. The type of that is Moses and Israel on the resurrection side of the Red Sea singing that great song of triumph to Jehovah.
Now we come to another figure, the brazen serpent. The brazen serpent was lifted up in the fortieth year after they had come out of Egypt. They had been forty years under the law; forty years tested in the wilderness. There is something in that. The Lord Jesus Himself says: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.” What is that? A testing place. The wilderness is what tests. What did testing bring out of Israel? Idolatry and apostasy. They said: “Make a god. Take us back to Egypt. We have had enough of this.” They were idolators, murderers and complainers. The wilderness brought out what the flesh was. But you know how far they travelled. For forty years they had been going round in the wilderness in a vicious circle. What they could have done in eleven days it took them forty years to do. From Mount Sinai, the mount out of which God delivered the law to them, to the glory land is only eleven days’ journey, and they were forty years on the way. The last of those forty years brought out such wickedness, murmuring, complaining, idolatry. They said: “Make us captives; take us back to Egypt.”
What is the brazen serpent? It is that aspect of Christ’s death in which the flesh is judged, not my sins put away, but the flesh in me judged, that sinful nature; that is the brazen serpent aspect of the death of Christ. When the Israelites looked on the serpent of brass they lived, but they did more—they set forth; they went right forward till they got to the land of Canaan. They are no more travelling round and round, and in a few weeks they entered the land of Canaan. We never grow until we learn to judge the flesh—the flesh in me. Oh, the horror of it! It does not improve you. You believe it does. Some people say: “How long have you been converted? What a wonderful thing!” No; it is not a wonderful thing. It is a wonderful thing if God keeps me. The flesh does not improve. It can murder, complain, disagree, despise the pleasant land, and say: “Take us back to Egypt,” but gazing on the serpent of brass cured them.
Look at those blessed verses Numbers 21:8, 9. It says they looked and they lived. Look and live, and that is far as we get.
“There is life for a look at the Crucified One.” But the moment you get that, this is what goes with it: “The children of Israel set forward.” They set forward, and they never ceased setting forward till they reached the land of Canaan. Judging the flesh, gazing on the serpent of brass, the flesh in me judged. Then you set forward for the glory land. In six weeks they got to Canaan and they had been forty years doing this. Christ showed that aspect of His blessed death in which our old man was crucified with Him, and the body of sin destroyed—saying “no” to the flesh.
Do not imagine all these types mean the same thing. It is the same death but not the same thing, the same idea; and the idea of the brazen serpent is that judgment in me of that vile flesh that never goes on a yard with God. I could never get one single yard ahead; I would go round and round. After they looked on the brazen serpent they set forward, and never ceased doing so till they reached the other side. That is the cure, beloved friends, of murmuring, hankering after the world, allowing the flesh to have its own way—the judgment of the flesh at the cross. The flesh was judged, and they set forward. The view in this aspect is the crucifixion of the flesh.
Shall we turn to Joshua 3: “The priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.” Jordan means our death with Christ, not our natural death, but our spiritual death in Him, not His death for us, but our death with Him. The Red Sea is His death for us; Jordan is our death with Him, our old man crucified with Him; and the Ark of the Covenant, a figure of Christ, goes into Jordan. The moment it does, Jordan dries up. That is another passover. What a number of passovers there are! In chapter 12 the Lord passed over when He saw the blood. In chapter 14 the Israelites passed over the Red Sea and got into the wilderness. Now they come to Jordan, and they pass over that.
Dead with Christ, risen with Christ, blessed in Him with “all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies.” I hope I am not puzzling you.
A dear old servant of Christ used to say sometimes to people: “Are you over Jordan?” They thought he meant literally dying, and thought he was not quite right. He meant, Are you dead with Him spiritually, our old man crucified with Him—dead with Christ, buried with Christ, quickened with Christ, risen with Christ, “Our life hid with Christ in God.” “When Christ our life shall appear we shall also appear with Him.” That is identification with Him in glory. It is a profound question to ask, and a serious one. Am I over Jordan? In other words, Have I got to the heavenly side of things in my intelligence? There is nothing about the undertaker, except the spiritual undertaker. You are dead with Christ. That is what Jordan means. So many hymns talk about when you come to Jordan. Beloved friends, you have already come there. It means you are dead with Him in Colossians, quickened with Him in Ephesians, and on the other side, seated in the heavens with Him.
These are not fairy tales, they are tremendous truths. Am I over Jordan? Am I getting some grapes? Am I eating the old corn of the land? Am I in the heavenly land in my spirit? That is when you are over Jordan, not when you actually die—not at all. When the Ark went in, Jordan dried up. “What will you do in the swellings of Jordan?” There are no swellings. The Ark has dried that all up and I walk over dry-shod.
There are then at least these four aspects of the death of Christ, and there are many others besides these of the Passover Lamb, the Red Sea, the Brazen Serpent and the Jordan. If you enter into them you will not only be saved out of hell fire and coming judgment, but landed on the other side. You say: “I am not dead.” No, you are not physically dead, but haven’t you died with Christ and got to the other side? Don’t you set your mind on things above? “Blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Him.” So at Eshcol in the land they got those lovely grapes, and it took two men to carry a bunch.
We ought to be on the other side now. We shall be on the other side when we die, but while I am alive my heart can go there. The Holy Ghost will take me there. He will take you there if you will only let Him. Put your foot down in the heavenlies. You say: “I like something practical.” Did you ever read this? “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the heavenlies.” That means the moment you put your foot down as a heavenly man, the devil will be after you. If you go to sleep, he will leave you alone, he will let you doze on. Put your foot down and say: “I am a heavenly man.” If you do not live like it, you ought to. “Blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ,” not with Him. If we get over to that new land where the grapes are, we will know the giants are there. Ephesians 6 shows we must fight. “Having done all to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth.” You cannot advance, because you have got to the top. “Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth.”
May the Lord bless to us my wandering, scattered thoughts. If I am dying, literally dying, I want to go to heaven when I die. I will tell you what will take me. “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin,” but if I want to understand His mind, and know I am a heavenly man on earth, and want to be something like Him here, enjoying spiritual blessings in the heavenlies, I need more than a verse, more than a chapter. I need the blessed Spirit of God to give me the spirit of wisdom and understanding in the knowledge of Him. Beloved friends, put your foot right down in that country. You say: “I am not putting my foot down.” But you can put your foot of the inner man down there and say: “Here I am, I am blessed with all spiritual blessings. I want to stand, and having done all to stand.” Stand therefore. Be sure, dear friends, if we are not energetic in the pursuit of the knowledge of God’s Man, we shall lose what we have got practically. We can never stand still in Divine life. We either advance or recede. We go on or go over. Stand still we cannot. May the Lord teach us more of the meaning of His blessed wonderful grace.