1 Samuel 30: 18-20; 23-25
Luke 24: 27-31; 41-44
Mark 14: 17-24
RG We have been reading locally through Ezra and Nehemiah and seeing how God operates in recovery, first of all sovereignly, and then on the line of responsibility. I wondered if it would be helpful to consider further the line of recovery. The first chapter of Genesis might seem a slightly unusual chapter to start the enquiry with, but as we consider it we can see that, indeed, it is a work of recovery and a very great one, because verse 2 shows that something had come in to spoil God’s original work in creation, and this chapter shows how God can recover matters according to His own will. But God does not simply replace things as they were; He brings in something additional, and that is a great feature of recovery. There is glory for God in it. I wondered if the basic principles set out in Genesis 1 would help us because there is no doubt that we are in a time of remarkable recovery. We do feel the state of decline that has come in, but I believe that we should not be overcome by that but rather see that what God is doing is according to His mind and will, and He will complete it perfectly.
In the scripture in Samuel we have the thought there of recovery, what abides through exercise. I went to this reference to David at Ziklag because there was an element of responsibility - more than an element: David was at fault in what he had done, first of all in regard of the Philistines and then in leaving Ziklag, but nevertheless God brought in recovery and He brought in an advance in His work in David. Magnanimity came out in David in his dealings with those with him that showed that he had got the benefit of what had come in.
In Luke’s gospel we read from two sections, the first one dealing with those who had been on the way to Emmaus. This shows how the Lord worked even in the forty days in which He was here after the resurrection. It sets a stamp on the whole dispensation. The Lord also worked with Peter in recovery in those days.
And finally Mark, as the brethren well know, was a recovered man and what he writes about is the essential character of the Supper. It is well known, and has often been said amongst us, that Mark does not even say, ‘Take, eat’; he just says, “Take this”, as if he would concentrate the minds of those to whom he was writing on the Supper itself and on its value.
MJW You have spoken of recovery in the sovereign sense, in the sovereignty of God. Can you say something about that?
RG We know that in the book of Ezra recovery was set on, but it was really set on by God. That is always the case, but it is brought into prominence there because of the activities of king Cyrus, God having raised him up for that purpose. In Nehemiah it was more a question of the individual exercise of one of the saints who felt conditions. What would you say about it?
MJW I think it is a very important thing to see the sovereign side because God does things for Himself. He does them for His own satisfaction and in view of a testimony as well, and I think it is a very stabilising thought, before we think of any matter connected with our responsibility, which must go along with it, of course.
RG Yes; we do need to be encouraged, I think, in the light of the fact that God has recovery in mind, but, as Paul brings out in 2 Timothy, it is very much a sovereign matter: “if God perhaps may sometime give them repentance to acknowledgment of the truth“ (chap 2: 25), but it does not say ‘never’. The door is still open, and the Lord is working, I believe, in recovery.
GR Recovery in Genesis is outside of man altogether. It was before man was ever created, having passed through the first words, “In the beginning God” and calamity coming in, but then God acting sovereignly with His own ideas and His own thoughts.
RG That is helpful because one of the reasons I went to this chapter is that we see God working by Himself and for Himself, and what He has in mind is what is for His own glory. We see something of the thoughts that were in the divine mind. It says, “and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters’. The first thing God would tell us is that His feelings were involved, His sympathies.
DJW What could you say to help us that, in this chapter, it is always “Let”? It is almost as if God is working for Himself. It is as if He knows that there is going to be a response to His desires.
RG Well, God sees the end from the beginning, as we know, and He knew what the outcome of all this would be. I link it in my mind with the verse in the Psalms that says, “For he spoke, and it was done”. That would, I think, connect with the initial thought of creation. But then it says, “he commanded, and it stood fast”, Ps 33: 9. I think that applies to this section because what He had in mind really in this was the incoming of Christ. What do you say yourself?
DJW Do we get the bearing presently? God looks for something responsive to Himself, but there is something that can respond to His command.
RG Yes. It is not merely an arbitrary act of power. It is an act of power, and great power indeed. But what God was looking for was a sympathetic condition of things into which He could introduce His own thoughts, and I think your reference to the word “Let“ bears on that.
PJH The prophet Isaiah says, “Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for thou art my servant; I have formed thee: thou art my servant Israel; thou shalt not be forgotten of me”. He goes on to say, “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee”, chap 44: 21, 22. It is what God has done, but it is something that we have to do: “return”.
RG Yes, the marvel of the matter is that God creates conditions in which we can return. That door is open. I do not want to start too many lines of thought, but I do feel we should carry this in regard of our preaching of the gospel that not only has God produced the initial work of salvation in the finished work of Christ, but He keeps the door open that we might be recovered if we turn aside.
JAT Is the work of recovery sovereign at the initial touch that we are converted by?
RG God’s work, as our brother has pointed out, is sovereign. It proceeds from Himself and we add nothing to it, but there is a side also which we cannot forget, that we are responsible. God does not secure automatons; He secures persons who are in sympathy with Himself and elevates them to the place finally of sonship.
BWB Is it important that the Spirit of God comes in so early here, and obviously the Spirit of God has had to do with the recoveries in our own day, beginning with the Reformation, and more particularly perhaps in Mr Darby’s day. It was a distinctive movement of the Spirit over against the deadening of Christendom, do you think?
RG Yes, that helps. Who told Moses that all this took place? Do you think that the fact that the Spirit of God has imparted these facts - it must have been the Spirit of God who imparted these facts to him - would show that God is seeking to produce a sphere of things which is sympathetic to what He is doing? Would that be right?
BWB Yes, and the Spirit of God has ever had the end in view, do you think? That is what you get in the end of Revelation: “the Spirit and the bride say, Come“, Rev 22: 17. He is here to secure that vessel distinctly for the heart of Christ. It is a mission that goes all the way through, perfect in its inception, perfect in its completion.
RG That is helpful and it is something that we must carry in our affections because if we look at the breakdown - and we have to; we cannot ignore it - but if we look at it only, we could be overwhelmed. Romans says, "Adam ... is the figure of him to come”, chap 5: 14. That is, God had the final thought in mind when He set out on this original work.
MJM Is there something very appealing about the activity of the Spirit here in “hovering”? Was that anticipatively in relation to results that He would be looking for?
RG Yes, I think that is good because if things become difficult, or failure comes in, I think the enemy would seek to persuade us that matters are fixed, and there is no redress, no way back, but as some of us have proved experimentally, God can work in recovery over a very long time, and produce the results He has had in mind while we have learned the lessons involved.
JMcK Is the introduction of light as the first element here important? It is a question, is it, of divine revelation?
RG I think that is good because one of the things that struck me about this in reading it over was that God brings in light first, but then He puts things in their place. That is, “God divided between the light and the darkness”, and then He put a name on it: “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night”. To me that is a feature of recovery. We know well from experience that when exercises come up, things tend to be opaque and we have different views and different opinions. What God would do is show where His mind is, and He does that by naming things. Would you agree with that?
JMcK So the power to discriminate is with God Himself.
RG Yes, and it is not just a question of seeing that God is working. That is vital, but He would have us to be with Him in what He is doing and learn, speaking reverently, as He goes along, learn the lessons involved.
PJH Is there an idea here that God intends man, by His creation, to be occupied with the day? It says, “And there was evening, and there was morning”. It does not say, ‘there was morning; and there was evening’.
RG Well, the Lord said when He was here, “The night is coming, when no one can work”, John 9: 4. That had a bearing when the Lord said it, and still does. Work belongs to the day. The Thessalonians were told they were “sons of light and sons of day”, 1 Thess 5: 5.
RDP God bringing in recovery has in mind the maintenance of that recovery, does He not? I was thinking we have spoken of the Spirit in the initial matter of recovery, but the Spirit also maintains things at a level to which God recovers them, does He not?
RG Yes, that is another important thing that could be developed. There is always the tendency when recovery comes in, that then things decline a little and we accept the decline and a little lower standard, that things are difficult and so on. But what you say is right. The Spirit who has acted in recovery maintains the recovery at the level of divine thoughts.
RDP No doubt we will come to it, but the Supper really has that in view, does it not?
RG Well, do you not think the Supper is a tremendous divine provision? Israel’s history, of course, related more to months, but we have what is daily and what is weekly because we need that to preserve us from the darkness.
SJH Would you say something as to the process of recovery? God could recover in an instant and yet He chooses to take us through a pathway of exercise and strengthening and growth for His glory. Could you help us as to that?
RG What you say is worth thinking about because in recovery we learn two things: firstly, we learn what we are, that is, we have failed, and we learn lessons in regard of that; but the second and more important thing is we learn what God is not just in relation to the great scope of things, but what a God He is in relation to my need. Colossians speaks about “growing by the true knowledge of God” (chap 1: 10), and that is a very important thing.
DBB Would you say more about the way that God divides and names to help us?
RG God divides things up. At this stage we do not exactly get moral teaching as to that. We know, as someone has remarked already, about Day and Night and the moral connection. I think that God divides things up so that we might arrive in an orderly way at right divine thoughts. Now, I would link that with Romans 7. We learn painfully to divide things up and then put a name on them: “no longer I …but the sin that dwells in me“, v 17. “No longer I”, that is the work of God in me, “but the sin that dwells in me”. It is important because what I have found, and others no doubt too, is that when times of difficulty or exercise come, we so tend to get our eye off the main point and become taken up with personalities and opinions and so on. And God here says, ’This is Day, and this is Night’, and that is a distinct help. Say what is in your own mind.
DBB The enemy will always try and muddle things and bring in confusion by it, but God divides things. It is clear; it is concise; and it is exact.
RG Well, He does and in order to help us, not only does He put names on things, but He gives us a standard by which to measure everything, and that is Christ.
PHH Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, “now I know partially”, v 12. Things might not be clear-cut to us. He also says, “If any one think he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know it”, 1 Cor 8: 2. Would that bear on what you are saying?
RG We were speaking about Paul’s exercises in Acts 16. Paul was in the path of faith; he was in the service of the Spirit; he was doing what was right; but he came to a point when he had certain things in view and the Spirit of Jesus forbade him, so he thought of something else and that was not allowed either; and then it says after his vision, “concluding”, v 10. I submit that that was the work of God in the apostle and those with him coming to a right judgment under the hand of God. But things are not always clear-cut.
PHH We require patience with one another. I might be quite clear in my mind that a certain thing is right or wrong, but my brother might not see it that way, might he?
RG Well, the thing that humbles me and which comes back to me is that it was at the time in my own spiritual experience when I was most convinced that I was right that I was furthest wrong. You say, ’Oh well, you just do nothing then, just do not have any exercise’. No, that will not do, but we must be dependent and obedient. Can you help us?
RWF I was hoping that you might tell us a little about the dry land.
RG Say what is in your mind.
RWF I wondered if it was something fundamental within recovery that there is a firm basis upon which we can stand, but it is not dry as parched or arid, because the paragraph goes on to speak of what is very productive almost immediately. You can add to that.
RG What you say is helpful. I suppose we could have spent the whole reading on this chapter, but when God was restoring things here as He was, it says, “let the dry land appear” when, in fact, the dry land was under water at the time. Waters covered the face of the deep. God still viewed it as dry land. That is what it was in His mind. It was productive. He so arranged things, the waters were taken away and the dry land appeared and, as you rightly point out, it became productive under God’s hand. I have a feeling that there is quite a lot of dry land at the moment under water. I know that might sound a little strange, but it suggests that there are persons exercised but not free. There is something of the work of God there, and we pray for such.
RWF We pray for such about those in whom God’s work is as having potential. It seems to me that thought comes in early with the Spirit of God “hovering over the face of the waters”. What was in view was something entirely productive through the Spirit’s power. The same thing applies, does it not, to the dry land? What you say is interesting.
RG Yes, I believe it does apply. My own exercise has been to try to have a balanced view of things as they are at the moment. We are in a time of remarkable recovery. We are in a time when there have been some remarkable failures. But we must not be obsessed by these but rather see what God has in view as to the potential that was there and what may yet be brought into usefulness.
DJW I was thinking of what you said about what proceeds the day before, that God divides between waters and waters. Man could never do that.
RG No; we do well to go through these exercises, although we cannot achieve anything on our own. God is the One who works sovereignly. But we must not allow that to take away our sense of responsibility. I have a responsibility to act in relation to the truth.
JMcK Does the reference, “the earth brought forth” link with that? That is, that it is not stated exactly as an act of divine power. I wondered if that linked with exercise divinely generated that brings results.
RG Yes, I think so. So Mark’s gospel speaks of the husbandman who sows the seeds and it says, “and the seed should sprout and grow, he does not know how”, chap 4: 27. That is the potential and the power are there, “first the blade, then an ear, then full corn in the ear”, v 28. It is God-given.
BCB Would you say there are some exercises we might need to go through on this journey that are not explicitly good? Some days it explicitly says, “God saw that it was good”. On the second day there is no reference to that.
RG What is in your mind?
BCB Well, I was just thinking that in my experience I might go through something, I might be on this journey and it is painful, it is difficult, and I could not say that it was good, but I do know over all that “all things work together for good”, Rom 8: 28. I was just wondering, since the second day has this idea of dividing and it is necessary but not explicitly good. I am asking for help.
RG Yes. It has been said, as we well know, that what was introduced in this day was the expanse and it was that into which sin came. At the end of all this, when God reviewed the matter in verse 31, it says, “and behold it was very good”; you might say, why have the expanse then? But the whole point is the expanse was entirely necessary for the working out of God’s thoughts in relation to the present time.
JAT Does the death of the Lord Jesus, His sufferings, death and resurrection, have a bearing on the matter of recovery? I was thinking in John’s gospel it was a very serious matter that Peter took on himself to go and fish at one stage, and others were influenced by it. I thought of the grace of it, the Lord Jesus having risen, and this was the third time that He appeared being risen. It says, “And early morn already breaking, Jesus stood on the shore”, John 21: 4. I thought that was a very wonderful thing.
RG I thought about reading that; it is a supreme example of how the Lord wrought in recovery. Think of His patience with those disciples, Peter and John and others, and Peter particularly. What does He say? ’You denied me’? No, there is no word of that. “Lovest thou me more than these?”, v 15. He appealed to the best in Peter, brought it out and showed Peter that he had things to learn. He brought him on. He did not repel him by words of criticism. I am not saying we should overlook evil; but wisdom would enter into the way we deal with one another.
JAT Could we expect this in this day that we speak of as a day of breakdown? It says, “and though there were so many, the net was not rent”, v 11.
RG Well, that is what was referred to earlier. There is a side of things which is not going to break down; and that is God‘s work; and John‘s epistles bring that out, that there is a side of things - we may have to view them abstractly - which is not subject to failure.
JAT It might link with Paul. He says, “Love never fails”, 1 Cor 13: 8. I thought that was something like the net that was not rent.
RG Yes, we have failed; the recovery may have failed, so far as man’s responsibility is concerned; but God has not failed. He never has; He will not; and we need to cling to that.
GR There is no doubt about it that God is always going to have worship, but I was thinking of what we have been taught in John 4 that "the Father seeks ... worshippers", v 23. That brings in the feeling side. He works with persons and develops feelings in them like unto the Lord Jesus. What God is doing, He is doing in recovery.
RG Yes, that is helpful. It is what our brother said earlier on in the meeting. Why does God pass us through the things that He does? Could He not have maintained the recovery in all its original integrity? It was not. There was more to be learned; there was more to be brought in in the way of light. But God has done what He has done to show us the resources He has in Himself, the resources in grace and patience and forbearance. We will not learn these things in heaven; they will not be needed. We learn God now in a way in the wilderness testimony and pathway that we could learn in no other setting.
MJM Does the division we have been referring to really have in view the establishment of an area of things where there is not to be any division?
RG Yes, that is exactly what is in mind. As quoted earlier, "Adam ... is the figure of him to come”. What God was working in view of was perfection, but in His wisdom He allowed things to come in that permitted the display of Himself and His love.
TSO Is time an important component in relation to recovery? I was just thinking that God is the God of eternity, but yet there is this passage of time when things develop and I wondered if that was an important feature, God’s patience and working, and also the way that it has an effect and impact on our own selves and brings out what is of God.
RG Yes, that is helpful. Time is important. I think it begins for us when the great lights are set to rule the day and rule the night, and it finishes when it says in Revelation, “And the city has no need of the sun nor of the moon, that they should shine for it; for the glory of God has enlightened it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb”, chap 21: 23. It is an interesting thing to me, and something I would say to our younger brethren: God is doing things in time which will stand the test of eternity. It is a remarkable thing that God has come into time with its limitations and operated within these limitations and yet produced what is of eternal value.
DJW Is this reference to seed important as well? God’s work cannot break down. You referred to the failure from which recovery is necessary, but there is that which we can identify which is apart from breakdown. Is that something that brings stability into the soul?
RG Yes. I think it may be a lesson that I have to learn a bit more about. If I fail I tend so much to think of my reputation, what the brethren think. It is not that we would ignore what the brethren think but what we should rather think of is the work of God in our souls which is imperishable, and seek to be recovered to God’s full thoughts for us. Is that what is in your mind?
DJW The death of Christ has brought to light that which cannot break down. If I am to be recovered, I go back to what is pristine in that way; not that we go back to Pentecost, but in principle we have to touch the vitality of things which God Himself has introduced.
RG I think that is important, and John’s epistles help us greatly in that. John’s gospel sets out for us the principles that were seen in Christ, God’s thoughts displayed in His Son; but John’s epistles show the kind of persons who answer to that and what we get there, as we have been taught, is that we learn to take soundings. “I know”, he says as to certain things; “we know”. “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren”, 1 John 3: 14. I would say that again to our younger brethren. You might feel difficulties in your exercises and feel you are a bit of a failure, as we all have, but hold on to what is positive, what is real, the work of God in yourself. Do you love the brethren? Well, that is God’s work.
RWF Is the imperishability of God’s work what David came to? It says, “but David strengthened himself in Jehovah his God”, 1 Sam 30: 6.
RG Yes. Can you say a bit more about that?
RWF Well, I was hoping you would, but it seems fundamental to recovery. What struck me about that passage was that David took the whole matter on himself. He accepted responsibility, and responsibility which you referred to as following sovereignty. Recovery is something that I need to take up personally; I cannot expect someone else to do it for me.
RG Yes, that is important. God could make things exactly as He wished to make them, as we well know, but the glory of God lies in the fact that He can produce persons formed after Christ who are like Him; that is for His own glory. And persons in that state do take up responsibility and reflect what God is, and there is glory for God in that.
MJW What did you have in mind yourself about this scripture in Samuel?
RG I was thinking of the fact, as our brother has already pointed out, that David had failed. We do not put a premium on failure but we should be comforted by the fact that these saints have failed, and their failures are recorded for us, and God shows how they were recovered; so, “David strengthened himself in Jehovah his God”. He got his eye off all the other confusing issues and returned to the source. What do you say yourself?
MJW I am enjoying that.
JMcK Is it fine to realise the divine objective is the same. Whether we view it from the point of view of divine sovereignty or whether we view it from the point of view of the exercise He promotes in the soul, the objective is the same.
RG Yes, that is so. Do you think that we get a touch of that at the Supper, and the service of God, and what flows out of it? The service of God can be taken up rightly and fully in the light of the glory of God’s thoughts in purpose, but we begin to see what God has allowed in His ways in your life and mine coalescing with His purpose.
RWF It says, “David recovered all”. That is what God had in view. But through his exercise - it was very deep exercise - what actually occurred matched what God had in mind originally.
RG That is exactly what I am trying to get at. God saw the whole thing from beginning to end. David came to it through very tortuous pathways, but the end was reached. I do have the impression that an exercise is not really complete until there is glory to God from it.
DJW Is it significant that this recovery through the Egyptian comes through David feeding him with what represents what is collective, “a piece of fig-cake and two raisin-cakes”, v 12?
RG Yes, David was moved because of the exercises, severe discipline, to which he had been subjected. You can see the work of God beginning to come to the surface. He gets his eye on the essentials. This young man is not just made use of and discarded; he is brought into a sphere where these collective things are valued. Is that what is in your mind?
DJW When we come to Revelation, “the Spirit and the bride say, Come”; so there is what is pristine in bridal features, but then it leads to something else: “And let him that hears say, Come”, chap 22: 17. It widens out the circle. It seems as if David, in holding on here, you may say, to what is collective, which perhaps answers to the bride, is using the opportunity to go to a wider circle. I wondered if that was important.
RG It is. I was directed recently to read an address of Mr Raven’s in volume 1, ‘Fellowship, Privilege and Testimony’. It just bears exactly on what you are saying. There are the responsibilities of the fellowship, but then there is privilege and as we taste and touch that, then we come out in testimony and reflect what we have enjoyed in privilege.
MJW It is interesting the other scripture you read in Samuel. Really what happened brings David into the truth of the expanse. He connects it with the greatness, width and blessedness of God’s thoughts in his own soul.
RG Well, that opens up a further line of enquiry. What happens to David when he is recovered is that he begins to reflect God in a way that he did not do before. He becomes magnanimous. My own feeling is, I say to myself first, that we should be the most magnanimous people on earth if we had a sense of what we have been saved from, and brought into, and recovered to.
RDP Is that what you had in mind in regard to not only what was initial was recovered but what was additional?
RG What men are trying to do now in regard to the financial market is put it all back the way it was before. That is what they want. God does not do that. God recovers what is of value, what is of His own work, but He always adds something. When you get the leper cleansed and the blood is put on his ear and hand and foot, and the oil is applied similarly, the priest then takes what is left of the oil and puts it on the cleansed person’s head, Lev 14: 18. That is that man has something he had never had before.
RDP So it says here, “This is David’s spoil”; but then David’s spoil is not just used for David; it is used for the saints, is it not?
RG That is the point. I sometimes think of it at the Supper. You look round and you see your brethren and we know something of each other’s history, and you just say, ’Well, that is David’s spoil’.
Perhaps we could go on to Mark. I do not have a great deal to add. It was simply the thought that Mark, as we know, was writing in the light of recovery as to the loaf at the Supper. Jesus said, “Take this: this is my body”, and then the cup.
MJW So what would you see? I am just trying to get your thought. “Take this”: so your mind is concentrated on what the “this” represents without being particular. Say what you have in your mind.
RG I suppose there are times in most of our lives when we have felt tempted to give up, or seek an easier path, or do something different. I think Mark (who had, as we know, turned aside) brings out here what he considers to be the vital elements of the testimony, and this is one of them. I do not want to make the Supper more than it is - you can hardly do that. The Supper is entirely necessary to our spiritual life.
JMcK Is there a reference to the completeness of His body here? “Take this: this is my body“.
RG That helps. That would be the primary thought in looking at the loaf: “this is my body”. I do not think we can exclude from that what Mr Pellatt’s hymn says,
The bread reminds us we are one
(Hymn 430)
but I think the primary thought is in relation to the Lord’s body and the fact that we break it. I do not know what the brethren think about this. It is just a personal impression, the fact that we look on it, and what it speaks of, and then we break it. We do not cut it up into orderly pieces - I am not being flippant; we break it. There is a certain suggestion of violence in that, the act of physically breaking the loaf, and it appeals to me that we have to remember that the blessings that it points to, the only way into them, is through the Lord’s death.
GJR Is there a suggestion of what is final in the breaking, a body given, never to be recalled in that condition?
RG Yes; Matthew says, “Take, eat”, chap 26: 26. Luke’s side is more the side of remembrance, but what you say is good, that the Lord’s death - we just have to be wise and careful with this - is not the foremost thought as we come together: it is Himself. We come together to remember the Lord. One of the hymns we have says:
We, Thy beloved, remember Thee, Lord, and Thy dying
(Hymn 311).
PJH The breaking really brings in the accessibility and anticipation and entering into a new sphere, “baptised unto his death” (Rom 6: 3), “identified with him” (Rom 6: 5); so we can enter into the joy of the cup which is “the communion of the blood of the Christ”, 1 Cor 10: 16.
RG Yes, I have often been impressed by the sheer simplicity of the Supper. You could hardly get anything simpler: a loaf; a cup. The enemy has tried to corrupt even that, but still, it is divine wisdom that the matter is so basic and so simple and yet it is so full.
BWB So when you come to 1 Corinthians 11 the prominent thought is “in remembrance of me” (v 24, 25), the personal, and Luke is on the same line. I distinctly remember the time when Mr James Taylor brought that out. He stressed the fact it was “in remembrance of me”, not so much what He had done, although surely we will never forget that, but the very point was in the Supper, the remembrance of the Person.
RG I think it is helpful to emphasise that, and right. He is before us. We come, as we have been taught, and see the brethren, and that is a valuable thing, a good thing. We take account of one another in connection with the work of God in each, but as our affections are drawn together, then Christ becomes the centre.
Newport
25th September 2010