Selections for Saints
William Kelly
Table of Contents
Trials
“It is a sign that the Lord is grieved with a Christian when He leaves him without trouble for His Name’s sake. The Lord Jesus Christ knew tribulation to the utmost; but in Him it was only the trial of the good that was within, and the bringing out of His perfection. And poor as we are, we too may know trial apart from our evil. The Lord has two objects in view when He lays His hand upon a Christian in the way of chastening. It may come either because there has been something wrong, or because there is a danger of it little felt by me. When David was out of his tribulation he falls into a snare. When his circumstances were full of trouble, then it was that he, inspired, of course, by the Holy Ghost, poured out those sweet strains that we read with joy to this day. The desire to get out of trial is a dangerous thing for the soul. The trial may be sent to show us what we really are, or, what is better, to prove what God is for us and to us: but it is also sent to prevent us from falling into sin. The Lord, in His love, thus often averts the evil which He sees and we do not. I doubt not that there is another and a deeper character of suffering, even fellowship with the sufferings of Christ, which must not be confounded with the Lord’s faithful discipline, though, sometimes, I suppose, the two things may be in a measure combined.”
Marah
“The Lord Jesus Christ is to us like that tree which was cast into the waters of Marah. He went into the bitterest waters of death, which have thus been changed into sweetness and refreshing for us.”
Job
“It is no new thing for the Lord to allow the efforts and enmity of Satan for the blessing of His saints. In the case of Job we see this very thing, indeed the Lord probed His servant far more deeply. At each successive trial from Satan, Job retained his integrity, and blessed the Lord; but the Lord showed Job himself—the very thing he needed for the full blessedness of turning away from self to the Lord. Then He showed him God, and Job’s comfort was at last as deep as his self-abasement. Job had no idea that he thought too much of himself; but that was just what God had to show him he did. He loved to recall the time when the fruits of godliness in him drew forth the respect and esteem of men. But God showed him how evil a thing it was to be looking at the effects of grace in himself or upon others. What the enemy of God and man could not do, Job’s friends did. He could stand against the temptations of Satan, but he was provoked to folly by his friends coming and condoling with him, and giving their misdirected opinions. When a person talks much about grace, there is not very much to be found of it there, we may be sure. Job had to be put into the furnace to find out that there was a great deal more beside grace in him. But though Satan might tempt without success, and his friends only provoke, when the Lord Himself comes in, then at once Job is thoroughly humbled. He sees himself in the light of the presence of God, and exclaims, ‘Behold I am vile.’ ‘I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.’ But the end of the Lord is as good at least as His beginning. He is ever pitiful, and of tender mercy. And it is when Job thinks nothing of himself that the true stream of grace flows out, and he prays for his friends. ‘And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends.’”
Priestly Sympathy
There is an analogy between Jesus and the Jewish priests as to the sympathy, but not as to the ground. (Heb. 5.) One who is perfectly free from sin, if there is love in the heart, is at full liberty to sympathize with the sorrows of others. On the other hand, it is true that there must be a nature capable of understanding what sorrow is. But scripture never says that Christ was subject to infirmities, much less that being in infirmities is necessary to sympathy with those who are in them, but rather being out of them, while possessing a nature that apprehends in itself the sufferings it brings into. The mother sympathizes with the babe in the pain she does not feel. But it is important to remark that Christ is contrasted in His priestly sympathies with men who have infirmity. The law made such priests, but the word of the oath, the Son consecrated for evermore. (Heb. 7:28.) The high priest, taken from among men, had compassion, for that (while priest, note well) he was compassed with infirmity. That was mere man’s way of sympathy; for he had to offer for his own sins. Instead of this, Christ, in the days of His flesh, when He was not a priest, cried to Him who was able to save Him from death―took the place of lowly, subject, sorrowful man―received the weight of it in His soul; and then, being made perfect, acts as a priest. He is never said to have been infirm like us, but in all points tempted. He suffered, being tempted, and is able to succor those who are tempted. When God visited Israel in Egypt, He said nothing about wandering in the wilderness: only that He would bring them out of Egypt and into Cannan. The circumstances of the wilderness are used in grace to make us know Christ better, but they are not necessary in God’s plan―i.e., salvation and glory. Priesthood comes in to supply the need of the wilderness: it maintains the link between us and the heavenly places, redemption having set us so high and we being actually so low. We have no need of priesthood to sit in heavenly places. Christ is there, and therefore we are in Him. Being what we are, priesthood is requisite to sustain us in accordance with our heavenly position. Christ must fill all the distance between the throne and me as a poor failing saint. Fighting is not the characteristic of the wilderness, but patience. It is in Cannan, i.e., the heavenly places now, that we get conflict.
Romans 16:19
If the man of the world would escape evil, he has need to know it; while the Christian walks directly in good, following the pathway God has marked out for him. If he walks with wisdom, following what is good, he has no need to know the evil. But if he knows not the good way, he is embarrassed: he is forced to try several routes.
Luke 15 & 16
The grace of God toward us is shown in three parables in chapter 15.
In the first and second we have the absolute grace that seeks: Christ the Good Shepherd, and the Holy Ghost lighting up the light of truth. Nothing at all is done by the persons, who are the mere objects of saving grace. The great subject is, grace is God’s joy: the shepherd is happy, the woman is happy, and the father is happy. It is God’s happiness to have souls back, and He is saying here, “I am going to save sinners, whether you Pharisees like it or not.” In the third parable, we have the prodigal’s reception by the father when he comes back: first, the working of sin, next the working of grace, and then the father’s reception. We have the whole series of gracious dealings, till the man has on the best robe, and is at the father’s table.
That is, grace, in chapter 15 has come, and visited man, and takes him out of Judaism and all else (for God will not have the Pharisee); and then we find that man is a steward out of place in chapter 16. In the Jews, the whole thing was tried under the best of circumstances. Man, Adam, was a steward, having the Master’s goods under his hand, but he is turned off because he is unfaithful; and then comes this question: How can I―if I have these goods under my hand as steward, and am turned out of place―how can I take the mammon of unrighteousness, and use it to advantage? I do not use it for myself now, but with a view to the future. The steward might have taken all of the funds to spend, but if so, that would not do for the future; and therefore, while he can, he uses it to make friends then and there; that is the aim of it. Just while I am here, I have the mammon of unrighteousness, and, as we have in 1 Tim. 6:17, I am not to trust in the uncertain riches, but so use them as to lay up in store a good foundation against the time to come. I turn this mammon of unrighteousness into friends, that, when it fail, I may be received into everlasting habitations. I am put out of all that man has as man, that I may have it yet for a time; but by use of it, I get reception into everlasting habitation. I use this world for the future. “They shall receive you” is a mere form for “you shall be received.” Suppose it is now a person under grace; we find him acting in grace with things here, in view of the future; it is his preference, he would rather look out for the future. “When it fail” is when all this scene is gone, and the life ends; that is, stewardship is over. Then, in the third case, our Lord draws the veil, and says, “Now look into the everlasting habitations.” The poor man Lazarus died, and was carried by the angels into the bosom of Abraham. Here is a rich man using all for himself now, and you see the result; then do not use the world for your present enjoyment, but use it in view of another world. “Remember that thou in thy lifetime receivest thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, but thou art tormented.” If we do not use this world’s things in grace, after all we cannot keep them; and, therefore, he says, you have the privilege of turning them into friends available for the future. It shows how the other world belies the whole of the present. God’s blessing on a Jew was marked by the possession of such things, but the Lord shows the other world to tell him how all these things are changed.
J.N.D.
Delivered From This Present Evil World
Christ has declared His Father’s Name to you. If you know why it was, you know that you are living in a world guilty of the sin of rejecting Christ, and that He thus permitted Himself to be rejected that in Him you might be accepted; that He might pay the ransom price for your soul, and set you free. This He tells you, and declares that what He does, He does surely. Do you want security for it? You have the Word of God and the oath of God for it, “that by two immutable things wherein it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us.” Has God made such a declaration to you? O, wondrous intelligence! Then is He of inestimable value to your soul!
As a sinner you were lost, but, as a sinner, He has declared that there is hope―that there is joy―that there is salvation, and that He brings it to you. He does not wait for you to come for it, for then you would never receive it; but He brings it to you―He makes known the Father’s love―that “it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom;” that God the Father is pleased, satisfied, glorified; and He brings you to the same acknowledgment of satisfaction in Jesus, who lived for you, who died for you, who rose for you, and “who ever liveth to make intercession for you.” O, what a claim He has on you to live for Him! Can it be possible that you still love the world? that you are still fond of the world which hated Christ, and drove Him out of it? The world is the enemy of God. Will you then be its friend? Oh, may the Lord draw off our affections that are now drawn out and placed on the things of the world, and fix them on Himself―on Him who changes not, but is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever!”
J.N.D.
Not of the World
“They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” said the Lord Jesus (John 17:16). They are no longer in connection with the world; they have done with it as a rule of life or conduct; its fashions, pursuits, customs, and desires no longer guide them. Instead of being led by them they are led by the Spirit, and choose those things which the Spirit delights in.”
God's Righteousness
(Rom. 10:4)
The righteousness of God is in Christ―Christ the end of the law for righteousness to every believer. Christ is the object of faith and the end of the law. For though Christ was in view in the law, these words mean rather that He was its accomplishment so that the law ends in Him. He closes the ancient order of things. The whole principle of the first Adam, namely, the principle of the responsibility of man before the righteousness of God, dies in Christ. But in Him also everything recommences on a new footing. Christ is Himself God’s righteousness―righteousness which becomes the portion of the believer, and which sets him before God in a position of acceptance. It is in Jesus Christ that we pass from the first state to the second, from the responsibility that has failed to real righteousness.
Cast Thy Burden Upon the Lord
“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” (Psa. 55:22)
There are two points in this verse. “Cast thy burden upon the Lord.” Whatever the trial or difficulty may be, cast it upon the Lord. It is not that the trial goes always—here (in this Psalm) it would not till judgment came; but “He shall sustain thee.” It is better than the trials going. It is the direct coming in of God to ourselves, to our own souls, the sense of His interest in us, His favor, His nearness, that He comes in to help us in our need. It is a divine condition of the soul, which is better than absence of evil. God is a sure help to sustain us.
The second point is the infallible faithfulness of God. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Tried they may be, but He cannot suffer evil in the world to prevail, nor will He. We may learn to trust by the evil, but in trusting we know the Lord will keep, and the extreme character of the evil only shows the rather that God must come in―makes His intervention necessary.
J.N.D.
Letters of Commendation
(2 Cor. 3:1)
It is plain that there was then, as now, the practice of giving and receiving letters in commending stranger brethren to the assemblies. And a valuable means of introduction as well as a guard it is, provided we hold it in spirit, not in letter: otherwise we might fail doubly―in refusing those who ought to be received, where circumstances have hindered the requisite voucher, and in receiving those who, being deceivers, can supply themselves with any letter which may the more effectually mislead. The aim of all such provisions is to afford adequate testimony to the assembly of God, which is in no way bound to a form however excellent, if wanting, provided perchance other means of godly satisfaction leave no reasonable hesitation to those who judge fairly and in love. It is mischievous when that which God uses for our mutual comfort is perverted by legalism into an instrument of spiritual torture, as may be sometimes the lack of a commendatory note, or some kindred formality.
(From “Notes on II Corinthians; G. Morrish, London; 1882. P. 38”)
The Judgment Seat of Christ
We shall appear, too, before His judgment seat, not to be judged, but to render account to God―a striking proof of the deity of the Lord Jesus. We are already accepted, so that the righteousness of God will by no means put us again on our trial; and if it is a question of us on this point in any way, it will be to show that we are “the righteousness of God in Christ.” But in this circumstance what a discovery shall we not make of the tenderness of Christ, and what shall not be our admiration, when we shall know all the watchful care wherewith the faithful Saviour has surrounded our weakness, during the passage through the desert! Seen in this light, this moment presents something delicious to the mind.
Our Rights
The Lord grant that we may walk in His grace now—not dragged down into the spirit of the world, nor standing for our own rights. The moment we begin to talk about rights, in the sight of God the only thing we have a right to is to be lost. If the Lord were to deal with us on that ground, when―how could we be saved? But He has forgiven us all our wrongs, and has given us the joy of standing for His rights. The Lord grant that we may be true to Him and to His cross!
Abel
Abel started in life, we may say, not according to the rule and direction given to Adam, “to till the ground from whence he was taken.” Abel, on the contrary, was a keeper of the sheep. This discloses at the outset that Abel had no intention of improving the scene around him, or of deriving by his own efforts anything from earth which would mediate between him and God. The sense of death was before his soul, and to be delivered from this could alone satisfy him. He was a keeper of sheep. Not listless and unoccupied, he tended his flock, passing from pasture to pasture as their need required. As he expected nothing to spring from the earth to relieve him, so no one place on it was his permanent abode. He was a laborer, a wanderer, and, suffering from the curse, he felt there was one on everything around him, and himself under the penalty of death in such a scene. Tending a living flock brought him into association with life— the very thing his own spirit needed.
He therefore (by faith) took of the firstling of his flock, what was the “beginning” and the “strength,” and he offered it to God. It was God’s own, typifying the life of Christ. This he presented to God, and it met his own sense of death; but he still had more to meet before he could encounter the presence of God. There was the need of acceptance also. This was met and answered by presenting the “fat,” which is the excellency of the animal, only obtainable through death―the result in resurrection of the death of Christ, which now satisfies the conscience as to its full acceptance with God. Thus Abel entered into the mind of God as to his own state before Him, and thus he obtained witness that he was righteous, not merely as to what he did, but how he stood. Happy as accepted of God, he has to learn the place and suffering of one so blessed down here. If he were accepted of God, he must be dissociated from a scene which was under God’s curse. If he were delivered from the sentence of death, death could be no penalty to him; but he must expect it where everything is contrary to the life in which he was accepted; consequently he is called to give unequivocal proof that acceptance with God and deliverance from judgment are such real blessings that actual death cannot deprive him of them. This is his testimony and this is his discipline.
Stephen, the first martyr of resurrection, gave better evidence in his death than in his life of the virtue of Christ’s resurrection, and his own soul advanced more into its realities in the moment of his death than it could during his lifetime. His last testimony was the brightest. While they, the agents of the world’s evil, were stoning Stephen, he was only responding to their fatal blows by consigning his spirit to the One they denied and disowned, and to prove how perfect and assured he was in Christ’s care and charge of him, he knelt down to expend all the strength their malignity still spared him in their behalf!
Take Heed How Ye Hear
(Luke 8:18)
“Take heed how ye hear.” Christ is looking for the results of His sowing. There must not only be the hearing, but the possessing, and in this rests the responsibility; for if you keep the word which you have heard, more shall be given you. If, on hearing, I possess that which I hear, not merely have joy in receiving it, but possess it as my own, then it becomes a part of the substance of my soul, and I shall get more; for when the truth has become a substance in my soul, there is a capacity for receiving more.
Suppose you hear the truth of the Lord’s second coming and see your portion as the bride of Christ, and you do not lay hold of it practically, so as to possess it (have communion with God about it, which is possession), you will presently lose the expectation of His coming and forget your place of separation from the world, and the truth will gradually slip away, because you are not holding it in your soul before God. Consequently your soul becomes dead and dull, and you lose the very truth you have received. Thus, if one lives daily as waiting for the Lord from heaven, there will be no planning for the future, no laying up for the morrow; such a man will learn more and more, as other truths will open around this one grand central one, and he will be kept in the truth. If, on the other hand, he drops this center truth by saying, “He cannot come yet; so many things must happen first,” then is the process of his communion with God hindered, for, as we have said, it is according to what a man has heard and holds with God that there can be any growth; for what is the use of teaching me that the Lord may come tomorrow, if I am going on living as though He were not coming for a hundred years? Or where is the comfort and blessedness of the truth to my soul, if I am saying in my heart, “My Lord delayeth his coming?” Though I cannot lose my eternal life, yet if I am losing the truth and light I have had, I shall be merely floating on in the half-current of life, half world and half Christ, and all power of Christian life will be dimmed in my soul. If the truth is held in communion with God, it separates to Himself. Truth is to produce fruit, and you have no truth that does not bear fruit. Truth must build up the soul. “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.” Christ becomes precious in and by the truth that I learn; and if it has not that power, it all drops out, comes to nothing, and is taken away. If Christ is precious to me, I shall be waiting for Him with affection, and if it is not so, the bare truth will soon be given up.
“Nothing is more opposed to Christ, yet nothing more common among Christians than a pretentious, self-asserting spirit, which will boast of the distinctive possession of the truth which we know, even though it most condemn us. God looks for reality in a world of shadows and untruth; He looks for the possession and reflection of His revealed light and truth where darkness reigns; He looks for divine love where only self is found, though in subtle forms; He looks for the faith which reckons on Him according to His Word in the face of all difficulties and dangers.”
The person who asks for a command for everything is a person who does not want a command; and because he does not think there is one, he asks, Where is it? He who has an obedient heart does not ask for a command, but finds it. Directions and motives to obedience he sees everywhere in the Word, but the power is through the Holy Ghost revealing Christ.
Faithfulness is always in proportion to faith; and where faithfulness breaks down, it is because faith has been dim before.
Any Other Gospel
We may rejoice to know of persons preaching Christ, or even the law; because God uses the preaching of the law to convince many a sinner. Yet we are not to suppose, because God works even where there is a perverted gospel preached, that the children of God ought to make light of error. It is one thing to acknowledge that God works sovereignly, but it is another when the question for us is what is His true testimony. There we are bound in conscience never to allow anything except the simple and full truth of God for our own souls. One ought never to listen to anything short of that, and truth can avoid hearing error. I am not now speaking of mistakes that may be made in preaching. A slip or ignorance is not a perversion of the gospel. It is one thing to listen to what may be a mere mistake; but to go where one knows beforehand that the law is mingled with Christ, is sin.
People may say, This is unjustifiably strong language. But am I going to set myself up to judge the Holy Ghost? For we must remember that the apostle wrote not as a private man, but that which the Holy Ghost wrote for our instruction. And what he tells us is this: “There be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ: but though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which I have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” Let a fair person weigh such a word as this, and then judge whether any language of mine can too strongly insist upon the duty of a Christian in reference to a perverted testimony of the gospel. For this is what was coming in among the Galatians.
(From “Lectures on the Epistle to the Galatians” by William Kelly. G. Morrish, London. P. 22, 23.)
~~~
“The foundation is gone if anything is brought in to justify a man except Christ, who ought to be dearer to me than all other things―dearer even than Christian institutions. To care for Christ is the very best evidence of a saved soul. But I do not admit that there is a lively care for Christ, where a soul knows His will in anything, and does not make it of the very first importance.”
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“There is no one part of foundation truth on which Christians are generally feebler than in their apprehension of the place into which the resurrection of Christ brings the believer. It is the death of Christ that terminates all our questions. If it were our own death, it would, as judgment, be ruinous; but the death of Christ has precisely as much, yea, infinitely greater, efficacy in the way of grace. And Christ rising into a new condition, where there is no possible condemnation, the believer passes before God into the same sphere. The power of God in the death of Christ puts away evil; the power of His resurrection brings us into the good of which He is the center and the head.”
(William Kelly)
Nearness to God and Communion
It is important to remark two things: First, that moral nearness to God, and communion with Him, is the only means of any true enlargement in the knowledge of His ways and of the blessings which He imparts to His children, because it is the only position in which we can perceive them, or be morally capable of so doing; also, that all conduct which is not suitable to this nearness to God, all levity of thought, which His presence does not admit of, makes us lose these communications from Him and renders us incapable of receiving them. (Compare John 14:21-23.) Secondly, it is not that the Lord forsakes us on account of these faults or this carelessness; He intercedes for us and we experience His grace, but it is no longer communion or intelligent progress in the riches of the revelation of Himself, of the fullness which is in Christ. It is grace adapted to our wants, an answer to our misery. Jesus stretches out His hand to us according to the need that we feel―need produced in our hearts by the operation of the Holy Ghost. This is infinitely precious grace, a sweet experience of His faithfulness and love. We learn by this means to discern good and evil by judging self; but the grace had to be adapted to our wants, and to receive a character according to those wants, as an answer was made to them―we had to think of ourselves.
Restoring Grace Is Not Communion
In a case like this the Holy Ghost occupies us with ourselves (in grace, no doubt), and when we have lost communion with God we cannot neglect this turning back upon ourselves without deceiving and hardening ourselves. Alas, the dealings of many souls with Christ hardly go beyond this character. It is with all too often the case. In a word, when this happens, the thought of sin having been admitted into the heart, our dealings with the Lord to be true must be on the ground of this sad admission of sin (in thought, at least). It is grace alone which allows us again to have to do with God. The fact that He restores us enhances His grace in our eyes; but this is not communion. When we walk with God, when we walk after the Spirit without grieving Him, He maintains us in communion, in the enjoyment of God, the positive source of joy―of an everlasting joy. This is a position in which He can occupy us―as being ourselves interested in all that interests Him―with all the development of His counsels, His glory, and His goodness in the Person of Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Son of His love; and the heart is enlarged in the measure of the objects that occupy it. This is our normal condition.
J. N. D.
Not Sinners, But Saints
The death of Christ has annulled my existence before God in the flesh, by faith. Suppose there is a man who is a thief, and he is put into prison to be punished, and he dies in prison; what is to be done with him? The life that sinned is no longer there to be punished―the man must be buried and be put out of sight. So, speaking of Christ as taking, in grace, the sinner’s place, it is said, “In that he died, he died unto sin once.” There is an end of the whole thing. And now, the very principle I get, the thought of being dead and alive again, is this perfect law of liberty, in which the flesh has no kind of title in any shape or way. You are not alive in the world; you are dead with Christ. How then can you go on as if you were still alive in the world?
It is never right for believers when met together for worship to speak of themselves as sinners. We worship, not as sinners, but as saints. We cannot be at home, as sinners, in God’s presence; whereas, worship supposes drawing near to God. If, as individuals, we are confessing sin, or if the whole Church is confessing sin, that is a different thing; but where it is a question of worship, we do not worship as sinners. “God be merciful to me a sinner,” was a man wanting justification, not worshipping. You cannot worship as a sinner―you ought not; because all that a sinner ought to do, is to prostrate himself before God and cry for mercy―and that is not worship.
From the Bible Treasury, Vol. 2, p. 208
Possessing Our Heavenly Blessings
Israel had to fight in order to acquire possession of their inheritance. The land was given to them in title but, in order to enjoy their possessions, they had to fight for them; and so have we now. There is no such thing as enjoying the heavenly portion of the Church without conflict with the enemy, and that is the reason why so many do not enjoy it. If the Christian does not enter into his full, heavenly portion here below, it is because he is occupied either with himself or with the world, or some other idol of the enemy, and then he cannot enjoy it. The great object of Satan is to hinder our enjoying, tasting, and living on our heavenly blessings in Christ; and in the same proportion that the world or the flesh is allowed, and so the door is left open to Satan to darken our eyes, we cannot see the goodly land. There must be victory over Satan before we can enter in. The adversary has not merely power through men’s lusts here below, but specially in connection with the heavenly places―power of hindering Christians from enjoying their portion there.
How We Learn the Truth
After the Church is called to heaven the Jewish remnant may have the New Testament before their eyes, but there will be no power to apply the New Testament facts to their own souls, as far, at least, as present peace and communion are concerned. What a proof that not merely the Word is required, but the Holy Ghost to open it out, for the rest and enjoyment of the soul! Some of us, even as Christians, have had no light as to certain truths, until, in the grace of God, He was pleased to remove the film from our eyes.
And God does this ordinarily by specific means; for it is not His way to enable persons to take up the Bible and understand it independently of His provision for the perfecting of the saints. God teaches His children, but in general it is through those He has given for the good of the Church, and, though never tied down to that order, He does not set aside the wise and gracious arrangement He has formed and will perpetuate as long as the Church endures. Nourishment is ministered by joints and bands, and thus all the body, knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. That which would enable us to do without one another is a thing that God never gives or sanctions.
Suppose a person were cast upon a desert island, God would bless him in his solitary reading of the Word with prayer; but where there are other means and opportunities, such as assembling ourselves together for instruction, for reading the Scriptures, for public preaching, exhortation, etc., to neglect or despise them is the will of man and not the guidance of the Spirit of God.
The Delight of God
Has it ever come into your mind what sort of a thrill the delight of God in Christ must cause in heaven? And is it indeed true that we are accepted in the Beloved, and that God loves us as He loves Christ, because, we are in Him and He in us? What in you can interfere with the delight of God in His Son? His delight in believers is not in themselves, but in connection with Christ and redemption. His blood has washed all my sin away, my soul is in Him―one with Him; all my guilt and misery judged on the cross.
Oh, it makes one feel very little; it sinks one into insignificance as being nothing and Christ everything; God is looking on His Son with ever the same delight, seeing His members and loving them as such! It is pure grace from first to last.
G.V.W.
The Secret Revealed
“Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision.” (Dan. 2:19.)
Neither does he go directly to the king, nor even to his companions, to tell them that God has made known the dream to him. The first thing he does is to go directly to God. The God that had made known the secret is the One that Daniel at once owns. He is in the place of one that worships God. And allow me to say, that this is the grand object of all the revelations of God. Do not suppose it is a question of making known unto me my sin, and a Saviour meeting all the need of my soul. What God works by His Spirit in His saints is not merely that they should know that they are delivered from hell, or that they should walk as His children. There is a higher thing still. God makes His people worshippers of Himself, and if there is one thing in which God’s children fail more than another, it is in realizing their place as worshippers.
Extract From “Notes on Daniel” by William Kelly, p. 26, 27.
Understanding Prophecy
We need not go beyond scripture to understand prophecy. It is the right spiritual use of what is in the Word of God, and I bless God for it. If you find the simplest man who only studies with diligence the Bible in his mother tongue, and is led by the Spirit of God, he has the elements and the power of a true interpretation. But as sure as a man tries to find an interpretation here and there, by the help of history and antiquities, of newspapers, and what not, he is only deceiving himself and his hearers. Such is the universal sentence of God upon the soul that searches, is what is of man, the proper key to God’s secrets. I must find it from God Himself by a right use of what is His own Word.
Extract From “Notes on Daniel” by William Kelly, p. 32, 33.
The Revival of the Roman Empire
The Roman Empire is to be revived. And this, I believe, is the one great change that awaits the world at the present time. It will take men by surprise; and when accomplished, it will be the means of concentrating the power of Satan, and of bringing about his plans on the earth.
This has a very serious interest for us. We stand near the crisis of the world’s history; and even those who look for signs own that we are drawing near the close of the age, and of the times of the Gentiles. The reorganization of the empire is not far off. And it is solemn to remember that, when revived, it will not be a mere repetition of what has been done before; but the power of Satan will be put forth in a way never yet witnessed. “And God shall send strong delusion that men should believe a lie, because they believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
Very many of my Christian brethren may cry out that I speak uncharitably. The Word of God, however, is wiser than men. It is not a thought of mine, nor of any other man. None would have gathered such a prospect from their own minds. But God has most clearly revealed it. People may plead the wonderful works of God of late in one distant country and another; and the answer of blessing that is, as it were, echoing back from some quarters near us. But these things in no way contradict what has been stated.
We may always see these two things going on together, when men approach the verge of some mighty change. On the one hand, the general power of evil increases, and the pride of man swells to an unprecedented height. On the other hand, the Spirit of god works energetically, winning souls to Christ, and separating those who are saved from the destruction which is the necessary end of sin and pride. Hence, I believe, when any crisis of evil is at hand, what we ought to expect is this increase of blessing from God during the time of suspense which immediately precedes judgment.
Extract From “Notes on Daniel” by William Kelly, p. 50, 51
Understanding Scripture
The real difficulty of Scripture consists in its thoughts being so infinitely above our natural mind. We must give up self in order to understand the Bible. We must have a heart and an eye for Christ, or Scripture becomes an unintelligible thing for our souls; whereas, when the eye is single, the whole body is full of light.
Hence we see every day a learned man completely at fault, though he may be a Christian—stopping short at the Epistles of John or at the Revelation as being too deep for him to enter into While, on the other hand, you may find a simple man, who, if he cannot altogether understand these Scriptures or explain every portion of them correctly, can at any rate enjoy them; they convey intelligible thoughts to his soul, and comfort and guidance, and profit too. Even if it be about coming events, or Babylon and the beast, he finds there great principles of God which, even though they may be found in what is reputed to be the obscurest of all the books of Scripture, yet have a practical bearing for his soul. The reason is, Christ is before him, and Christ is the wisdom of God in every sense. Nor is it because a man is learned that he is capable of entering into the thoughts of God. Whether ignorant or learned, there is but one way―the eye to see what concerns Christ.
Where Christ is firmly fixed before the soul, I believe that He becomes the light of spiritual intelligence as He is the light of salvation. It is the Spirit of God who is the power for us to apprehend it; but He never gives that light except through Christ. Otherwise man has an object before him that is not Christ, and therefore cannot understand Scripture which reveals Christ. He is endeavoring to force the Scriptures to bear upon his own objects, whatever they may be, and thus Scripture is perverted. Such is the real key to all the mistakes concerning scripture. Man takes his own thoughts to the Word of god, and builds up a system which has no divine foundation.
Extract From “Notes on Daniel” by William Kelly, p. 90, 91
Dependence and Obedience
Beware of the fond conceit that, because of religious zeal, no harm can befall this country. Rather be sure of this: the more light, the more Bibles, the more preaching, the more of everything that is good there is, if men are not conformed to it and not walking in it, the greater the danger. If they treat it as a light thing, and despise it; if they have no conscience about practical bowing to the light of Scripture, they are most sure to fall under one delusion or another. For who is to say what is not of importance in Scripture, or by what means the devil gains power over the heart? Wherever the soul commits itself to a refusal to listen to God, gives itself up to disobedience to God in anything, who is to say where all is to end?
There is no security except in the path of holy dependence upon God and obedience to His Word. We do not well on choosing one part of Scripture above another because we get more comfort from it. There is no security save as we take all Scripture. It is very sweet that we enjoy the presence of the Lord, but, more than that, it is a fearful thing to be found in disobedience to the Lord. Disobedience is as the sin of witchcraft. There is nothing more ruinous. To disobey God is virtually to destroy His honor. It was so in Israel, and yet there is much worse to come, arising out of the lax and evil state of Christendom.
Extract From “Notes on Daniel” by William Kelly, p. 97, 98.
The All-Sufficiency of Scripture
Doubtless all facts and all science must confirm the Word of God; but the Word of God does not need them to prove that itself is divine. If it did, what would become of those who understand nothing of science and history? Persons who dabble much in one or the other, for the purpose of confirming the Scriptures, have never reaped anything but the scantiest gleanings, as far as the Scripture harvest is concerned. It is another thing if a person feeds upon the Word, grows in the knowledge of the Scripture, and then is called on, in the course of duty, to take up what men say about it; he will find that there is nothing, even down to the most recent discoveries of science, which does not pay unwitting obeisance to Scripture.
A believer that takes his stand on Scripture, looking up to God, and using whatever means are given through the Word and Spirit of God, has the real vantage ground: his confidence is in God, and not in the discoveries or thoughts of men. The man that is searching here below is subject to all the uncertainty and mists of this lower world. He who derives his light from the Word of God has a sun brighter than at noonday; and, therefore, just as far as he is subject to it, he will not, he cannot, stray. And the Spirit of God is able and willing to produce this subjection in us.
We all do stray, more or less, as a fact; but the reason is not from any defect in the Word of God, or any lack of power to teach on the part of the Holy Ghost. If we err, it is because we have not sufficiently simple faith in the perfectness of Scripture, and in the blessed guidance which the Spirit loves to exercise in leading us into all truth.
Extract From “Notes on Daniel” by William Kelly, p. 107, 108.
A Real Christian
We never can judge how low we have got until we see the place in which God first put us. Supposing I have to examine my ways as a Christian, I must bear in mind that a Christian is a man who is quickened with Christ and forgiven all trespasses, who is a member of His body and loved with the same love wherewith the Father loved the Son. Some are accustomed to think that, if a man is not a Jew or Turk or heathen, he must be a Christian. But when a believer hears that a Christian is one who is made a king and a priest to God, a purged worshipper―having no more conscience of sin, he becomes deeply exercised, feeling that he has not one right or full idea of his own calling and responsibility. He then begins to find a different standard of judgment in Christ, to measure how he ought to feel and work and walk for God, as well as for worship.
Extract From “Notes on Daniel” by William Kelly, p. 131,132.
The Study of Prophecy
If the study of prophecy does not tend to give us a deeper sense of the failure of God’s people upon the earth, I am persuaded we lose one of its most important practical uses. It is because of the absence of this feeling that prophetic research is generally so unprofitable. It is made more a question of dates and countries, of popes and kings; whereas God did not give it to exercise people’s wits, but to be the expression of His own touching their moral condition: so that whatever trials and judgments are portrayed there, they should be taken up by the heart, and felt to be the hand of God upon His people because of their sins.
This was the effect on Daniel, as seen in his prayer (chapter nine). He was one of the most esteemed prophets―as the Lord Jesus Himself said, “Daniel the prophet.” And the effect upon him was, that he never lost the moral design in the bare circumstances of the prophecy. He saw the great aim of God. He heard His voice speaking to the heart of His people in all these communications. And here he spreads all before God. For having read of the deliverance of Israel that was coming on the occasion of the downfall of Babylon, he sets his face unto the Lord God, “to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed unto Jehovah my God, and made my confession, and said, O, Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments, we have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly...”
Another thing observe here. If there was one man in Babylon who, from his own conduct and state of soul, might be supposed to have been outside the need of confession of sin, it was Daniel. He was a holy and devoted man. More than that, he was carried away at so tender an age from Jerusalem, that, it is clear, it was not because of anything he had taken part in, that the blow had fallen. But not the less he says, “We have sinned, and have committed iniquity.” Nay, I am even bold to say, that the more separate you are from evil, the more you feel it: just as a person emerging into light feels so much the more the darkness that he has left.
So Daniel was one whose soul was with God, and who entered into His thoughts about His people. Knowing then the love of God, and seeing what He had done for Israel, (for he does not keep this back in his prayer,) he does not merely notice the great things that God had done for Israel, but also the judgments that He had inflicted upon them. Did he, therefore, think that God did not love Israel? On the contrary, no man had a deeper sense of the tie of affection that existed between God and His people; and for this reason it was that he estimated so deeply the ruin in which the people of God lay. He measured their sin by the depth of divine love, and the fearful degradation that had passed upon them. It was all from God.
He did not impute the judgments which had fallen upon them to the wickedness of the Babylonians, or the martial skill of Nebuchadnezzar. It was God he sees in it all. He acknowledges that it was their sin―their extreme iniquities; and he includes all in this. It was not merely the small people imputing their sorrows to the great, nor the great to the small, as is so often the case among men. He does not dwell upon the ignorance and badness of a few; but he takes in the whole―rulers, priests, people. There was not one that was not guilty. “We have sinned, and have committed iniquity.”
And this is another effect wherever prophecy is studied with God. It always brings in the hope of God standing up in behalf of His people—a hope of the bright and blessed day when evil shall disappear, and good shall be established by divine power. Daniel does not leave this out. We find it put as a kind of front piece to this chapter. The details of the seventy weeks show the continued sin and suffering of the people of God. But, before this, the end, the blessing is brought before the soul. How good this is of God! He takes occasion to give us, first of all, the certainty of final blessing, and then He shows us the painful pathway that leads to it.
Extract From “Notes on Daniel” by William Kelly, p. 150-152.
The Death of the Flesh
The death of the flesh must always be realized before the life of God may be enjoyed. This is important practically. In the grace that brings salvation, it is not that death must be learned first, and life afterward. Life in Christ comes to me as a sinner, and that life exposes the death in which I lay. If I must realize my death in order for that life to come to me, it would be evidently man set into his true place as a preparation for his blessing from God; which would in effect deny grace. “That which was from the beginning which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life.” That is to say, it is the person of Christ Himself, who comes and brings the blessing. After that, the soul learns that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” It learns that, if we say we have light or fellowship with Him who is light, and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. All the practical learning of what God is, and what we are, follows the manifestation of life to us in the person of Christ.
If you speak of the order as to a sinner, it is sovereign grace which gives life in Another; but if of the order of progress in the believer, it is not so. The believer having already got life, must mortify all that pertains to him merely in nature, in order that the life should be manifested and strengthened. This is all-important for the saint, as the other is for the sinner. Man in his natural state does not believe that he is dead, but he is laboring to get life. He wants life; he has none. It is Another alone that brings and gives it to him in perfect grace―seeing only evil in him, but coming with nothing but good, and bringing it in love. This is Christ. But in the believer’s case, having already found life in Him, there must be the judgment of the evil, in order that the new and divine life should be developed and grow. So that, while to the one it is life, exposing the evil, and meeting the man in death and delivering him from it, to the other it is the practical putting to death everything that has already existence naturally in him. All this must have the sentence of death put upon it, in order that the life be unhindered in its growth and manifestation.
Extract From “Notes on Daniel” by William Kelly, p. 173-175.
Understanding the Mind of God
(Dan. 10)
We find Daniel expressing in humbleness of mind his unfitness for receiving such communications. First, one like the similitude of the sons of men touches his lips, and he in instructed to speak unto the Lord. He confesses his weakness—that there was no strength left in him. But “there came again and touched him one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened me, and said, O man greatly beloved, fear not: Peace be unto thee; be strong, yea, be strong” (verses 18, 19).
Men, until they are thoroughly established in peace, until their hearts know the real source of strength, are not capable of profiting by prophecy. Here we find Daniel set upon his feet, his mouth opened, his fears hushed, before the Lord can open out the future unto him. His heart must be in perfect peace in the strength of the Lord, and in the presence of his God. Anxiety of spirit, the want of settled peace, has more to do than people think with the little progress they make in understanding many parts of God’s Word. It is not enough that a man have life and the Spirit of God; but there must be the breaking down of the flesh and the simple, peaceful resting in the Lord. Daniel must go through this scene in order to fit him for what he is to learn; and so must we in our measure. We must realize that same peace and strength in the Lord.
If I am in terror of the Lord’s coming because I am not sure how I shall stand before Him, how can I honestly rejoice that it is so near? There will be a hindrance in my spirit to the clear understanding of the mind of God on that subject. The reason of this lack of competence is not the want of learning, but of being thoroughly established in grace―the want of knowing what we are in Christ Jesus. No matter what other things there may be―nothing will repair this sad deficiency. I speak now of Christian men.
As for mere scholars dabbling in these things, it is as completely out of their sphere as a horse would be in being set to judge the mechanism of a watch. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God... neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned.” It is only a scribe of this age meddling with what belongs to another world, of which he knows nothing.
Extract From “Notes on Daniel” by William Kelly, p. 180-181.
Christ the Center of All
Whether in heaven or earth, Christ is the kernel of all God’s plans and means of blessing. And when our hearts are fixed on Him, there is peace, progress, and blessing. The reason why souls very often have not peace is that they are occupied with themselves; for they do not find what they think ought to be a Christian. Whereas, if I am looking at Christ, there is no difficulty. The question then becomes: Does Christ deserve that such an one as I should be saved? Can I deny it? The effect of this is that I am happy, and God can use me in His service. But if I am troubled about the salvation of my own soul, how can I be occupied in the service of others? The great question of self never will be settled till Christ is the center of everything to us. May it be so! He is the center for all God’s thoughts of love and righteousness, as well as of glory.
Extract From “Notes on Daniel” by William Kelly, p. 239-240.