As we enter into another year, we also commence once more the readings and study of that storehouse of divine knowledge, a source of supply for all our needs. As the Apostle Peter expresses it, “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue” (2nd Peter 1:3). Let us endeavor through the months ahead to apply ourselves (while opportunity remains) wholeheartedly to the grace and loving mercy of the Father, in Jesus Christ our Lord. As the Apostle Paul in writing to the Colossians says: “. . . That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving” (Colossians 2: 2-7). And then the apostle offers a cautioning note, lest the health and growth of the new man should suffer. “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2: 8-10).
We have then, my dear brethren and sisters, no greater example, no greater manifestation of the Father’s will than that taught in the life and works, words and deeds of our beloved Master, who was truly a teacher sent from Yahweh-Shiloh (One sent). “For never man spake as this man” (John 7:46). But not only a Teacher came from God (as Nicodemus confessed, as he beheld the miracles that He did), but a Shepherd also, who leadeth the way in which all His sheep must follow. “. . . I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). We all have need of this divine Teacher of the ways of the Spirit. We are all so apt to be led astray by our own minds, and, as Paul warned, by the philosophy and vain deceit of men, and consequently be blinded entirely to the enlightenment of the Spirit’s teaching, because it is so opposed to our own natural way of thinking. As Paul further remarks: “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Romans 8:7). As we allow our minds to dwell upon the many lessons of Scripture, there is nothing more obvious or striking than the nature of the flesh as opposed to Spirit. And it is these fleshly thoughts, ambitions and worldly enterprises of the natural mind that must be overcome, conquered and destroyed (like the great colossus of Nebuchadnezzar’s image), and brought into subjection to Yahweh. As the Apostle Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 10:4,5: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds: Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” Until we realize that this is the work that must be accomplished by the Spirit in our lives, we shall never grasp the full meaning of “Blessed is he that overcometh!”
Well might we heed that first lesson so sorrowfully learned in the Garden of Eden, that lesson of folly that brought about sin and death. It is a well known saying that we learn from the mistakes of others, and this form of teaching is widely used in the instruction of Scripture. “These things were written for our learning and admonition”, therefore the folly of others forms a lesson for us. The reasoning of the serpent was the subtle, influential reasoning of the flesh, exciting the mind of the flesh to take and to indulge in that which naturally appealed to it, namely: “The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.” This natural appeal to the flesh which they obeyed, their disobedience to the Word of Life, was the cause of the fall of our first parents from grace, and this it is that we must overcome. It is a foundation principle upon which all Scriptural lessons of overcoming are based. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was symbolic of all that is so captivating to the flesh and subversive of the higher principles of divine wisdom. It was forbidden to the children of God on pain of death.
It was this prince of the power of the air, this spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience that our Lord came to overcome This overcoming was manifest in His temptations in the wilderness. “. . . be of good cheer,” He said to His disciples. “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). John says to the brethren: “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of the truth, and the spirit of error” (1st John 4:4-6). Let us then, dear brethren and sisters, look unto Him who is “the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2).
As we consider Him, we are brought to see the conflict He had in overcoming sin’s flesh; we are brought closer to this inner battle against flesh when we listen to His prayer to the Father: “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine be done . . . And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22: 42; 44). Paul expresses it in these words: “Who in the days of his flesh, when he offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned the obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hebrews 5:7,8). Yes, brethren, He was human, and was moved to strong crying and tears, and even feared. In common speech this is rendered: “Although he was God’s Son, yet he learned obedience from the suffering which he endured.” There is a great deal in the statement “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience from the sufferings which he endured (or bore patiently)”. He was not a sinner, nor did He disobey. But the act of obedience brought upon Him suffering, in the experience of which he learned its priceless value, and that value can only be known by such godly and patient suffering. If this was true in the Lord’s case, how much more in our own! The true value of obedience can be known only by the experience of suffering. As the Apostle Paul states: “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2nd Corinthians 5:17, 18.) Our Lord in His overcoming learned this lesson. Peter learned it. David learned it, and we must all learn it. When Jesus began to reveal to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer, Peter stood in His way. ” . . . Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee” (Matthew 16:22). Could there have been anything more natural for Peter to say? Can we not hear ourselves saying it? Why should the One we trusted in to restore the kingdom from the oppression of the Romans, reasoned Peter, suffer many things of the elders, chief priests and scribes and be killed? Had not he trusted that it should be Jesus who would restore all things? Who would be greatest in the kingdom, the disciples had argued by the way only a short time before. Would not he (Peter) sit also upon the throne and rule over one of the twelve tribes of Israel with the Master? For his Lord to suffer now and die was too much for Peter to accept. The crown was too bright to see Christ suffer these things and then enter into His glory. We recall the words of Jesus not long before: “Let these sayings sink deep down into your ears . . .” (Luke 9:44). His rebuke to Peter was painfully true and pregnant with meaning when He said: “. . . Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men” (Matthew 16:23). The lesson conveyed in this stern rebuke is more readily grasped when we listen to Jesus as He addresses all His disciples: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will love his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16: 24,25). The Master must go to Calvary, and Peter must follow Him there, and not be an offense to him by standing in His way. “Blessed is he that overcometh” is the exhortation to all. But as Peter was soon to learn, “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong . . .” (Eccl. 9:11). The battle is in the long run to him who shows mercy and love to all.
“I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:30). This was the glorious hope of the disciples, and our hope also. But for Peter and for us all, there was necessity of purging of the dross, a cleansing of the temple, that He might glorify the meek with salvation and give a crown of life to him who overcometh. “Simon, Simon”, the Lord said to Peter, “behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Luke 22:32). Peter, like David, failed in his courageous attempt to follow his Master. Their weakest moments and greatest failures became the turning point in their lives.
David cried in the anguish of his soul: “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop (a bitter herb, an inward cleansing), and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51: 6,7). The turning point in the lives of these men of God was their conversion.
“But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1st Corinthians 1: 23-25).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One