The Spirit does not gather saints around views, however true they may be. He always gathers around that blessed Person who is the same yesterday, today and forever. “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:2020For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20)).
If any speak of separation from evil without being humiliated, take care lest their position become sectarian. There is no service at the present time worthy of Him, if it be not done in humiliation. The church of God, so dear to Christ, is dishonored, scattered, ignorant and afflicted, and he who has the true mind of Christ will always take the lowest place.
Men taught of God for His service go forth from a place of strength, where they have learned their own weakness and nothingness. They find that Jesus is everything in the presence of God, and Jesus is everything for them in all things and everywhere.
Such men, in the hands of the Holy Spirit, are real helps for the children of God. They will not contend for a place or distinction or authority among the scattered flock. The communion of a man with God about the church will show itself in his willingness to be nothing in himself and to spend and be spent.
Neither anger, prudence or the pretensions of man can do anything in the state of ruin and confusion in which the church is now. When a house is ruined in its foundations by an earthquake, it matters little how one tries to make it an agreeable dwelling-place. We shall do better to remain with our faces in the dust. Such is the place which belongs to us by right, and, after all, it is the place of blessing.
I have read of a time when several were gathered together in such sorrow of heart that for a long time they could not utter a single word, but the floor of the meeting room was wet with their tears. If the Lord would grant us such meetings again, it would be our wisdom to frequent these houses of tears. “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Psa. 126:55They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. (Psalm 126:5)).
J. N. Darby (from Nearness to Christ, adapted)