Him. One sees what is available for him in God. He sees something of the greatness of God's power towards them that believe, according to the working of the mighty power which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places. Faith grows by knowledge, "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." The more we know of God the more there is for faith to lay hold of. The more we understand of what God has undertaken to do in our case, and of His power to carry out His purposes, the more we see of the ground of confidence and reliance. Thus, dear friends, you see how far growth in the knowledge of God has to do with growth of the spiritual life. The knowledge of God is bound up with effective and well-pleasing service. "That I may know Him" is the desire of one intelligently intent on serving Him. The need of further knowledge of God in order to effective service is seen in the case of Moses when at the first he went forth to deliver Israel. At that time Moses knew God; he had given up a great deal for God; he had turned his back upon the glories of Egypt to identify himself with a down-trodden. people. Yet, when he went forth in service he went forth in a way that was not right, and at a time that was not right. He showed himself to the people, and so he was led into the wilderness, and kept there for forty years, to learn more of God and His ways. When he went forth thereafter how different! Then it was not so much Moses that was before the people as it was God. When Moses first went forth, it was his personality that was conspicuous; but when he went forth the second time, it was God's personality that was conspicuous. And so remarkable is this, that if one were to seek to write a biography of Moses he would find, I think, a striking lack of material compared with what one would expect in the case of so great a leader. There is so much, simply, of "God said to Moses and "Moses said to the people." He was, as it were, hid in the shadow of God's hand. He became a mouthpiece of God. How wondrous in greatness and effectiveness the service he was thus enabled to render !

As regards service, love must abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. A little child loves his father; and, getting into his father's study in his absence, and finding the papers scattered over his father's study-table, he seeks to arrange them. He does it in love, and does it in a desire to

please his father. He arranges the papers in a heap according to their size. When the father comes and finds what has been done, and that much trouble has been unintentionally given him by his boy, he says, "My child, you have done this in love, but you must not do it again: for father wants to keep his papers distinct and separate." So it is in the work of God. Zeal must have knowledge added to it. It is quite possible in these days for a great deal of work to be done which will prove itself to be like wood, hay, and stubble, having to be burned up. Why? Not for want of zeal, not for want of energy, not perhaps for want of love; but because the worker did not seek to know the mind of God.

There is, further, through growth in the knowledge of the Lord, a growing apprehension and appreciation of the spirit in which He works. Peter knew the Lord, and when he said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," our Lord answered, "Flesh and blood have not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven." Yet when Peter shortly after said to our Lord Jesus, who was showing that He must suffer many things, and be killed, "This be far from Thee, Lord," he was displaying a serious non-acquaintance with the spirit of his Lord. Again, James and John loved the Lord. They were zealous in His service. They would have given up, as they had already given up, a great deal for Him; but how little they understood of His spirit when, displeased with the Samaritans who would not receive Him, they said, "Wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" How different when John in later years, grown in the knowledge of the Lord, went forth to service, strong in the love of Jesus, and in His matchless tenderness, with the exhortation, "Little children, love one another." How much need we workers feel of learning more of the Lord's spirit, more of the spirit of His love, of His compassion, of His patience, and, above all, the spirit of His delight and carefulness in fulfilling the will of His Father in heaven and finishing the work which He had given Him to do!

It is, then, as we get acquainted with God Himself and apprehend Him-as we know His mind and His heart, that we are able to work in intelligent accord with Him, and especially that we are able rightly to represent Him. Christ said to His Father, in reference to His disciples, "As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the

world." We are sent to represent Him, as He represented the Father. And how shall we do so, and continue to do so, amid all the conflicting influences that surround us, unless we have Him much before us, and are taken up with His beauty and glory?

Growth in the knowledge of God has a great deal also to do with restfulness of heart in the experience of God's varied providential dealings. How often one finds people who speak of God's dealings as mysterious! There are many of His dealings that are mysterious; but there are many dealings called mysterious that are in no wise so to one who has iearned something of God Himself. When trials and afflictions come upon some Christians, they are ready to faint or turn aside almost; and the like afflictions, coming upon others, beget no faintness and no readiness to turn aside. They are full of a quiet chastened rest. They know whom they have believed, and they know something of His will and ways. Now, did I not say well that this expression, "that I may know Christ," was like a summary of the Christian life? Growth in the knowledge of Christ, and in the knowledge of the Father through Christ, is bound up with the work of our sanctification, our conformity to Christ; with our service, and with our restfulness and peace.

It is only to be expected that, as the apostle so earnestly pursued after the knowledge of God for himself, so he would desire on behalf of the Christians he wrote to a like mind. And such is the case. In one epistle after another he prays for those written to, that they may grow in the knowledge of God. On behalf of the Ephesians he bows his knees, "that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ may grant unto them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of their understanding being enlightened, that they may know what is the hope of His calling, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in His saints, and what the exceeding greatness of His power towards them that believe." When by the Spirit we are taught from the Word what is the hope of our calling, we know something more of God who has set this hope before us; when we know by the Spirit through the Word the glory that belongs to us as God's people, God's inheritance, then we know something more of the Author of that glory; when we know the power of God towards them that believe, then we know something of the marvellous capa

bilities of God to do great things for those who are nothing and less than nothing in themselves.

Again, on behalf of the Colossians, he says, "We do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God." The knowledge of God's will is the means of knowing the "walk" which is well pleasing to God. And if we know His will, and carry it out in the well-pleasing walk, we shall be not only working Christians but learning Christians-fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.

In what way shall we pursue the knowledge of God? There should be not merely the reading of the Word, and seeking to understand its depth and fulness and bearings, but receiving it as the utterance of a living Person who is speaking. For the Bible is not merely the writing which in the past God inspired, but the present-day utterance of His lips. God speaks to-day; we read and we listen. We read with prayer, and by the Spirit who is given to us we get to know and to appreciate God. But specially in pursuing after the knowledge of God there must be, my friends, a great deal of unlearning. God says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are My ways your ways." If then we receive God's thoughts and ways, there must be a laying aside our own thoughts and ways. This is true at the time we call the time of conversion; but it is true all the way through. What Christian of a few years' standing cannot tell of things he held in the early days of his Christian life which he has had to lay aside through the fuller knowledge of God and His thoughts? Apart from such meekness and subjection of heart, apart from receiving God's ways, and putting away our own ways, there cannot be the attainment we seek. There must be the casting down of imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God.

Again, I think that in pursuing after the knowledge of God there must be a walking with God. If we know God and do not walk in the light, we cannot go on to know Him. The knowledge of God is practical, and is bound up with living according to God. "Hereby," says John, "do we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments." Dear friends,

we may know Him through His writings, but we shall know Him better provided we have the Spirit, if we are walking with Him day by day, and we cannot walk with Jesus unless we take His path, and go in His ways, and subject our judgment to His judgment. The very expression "walking with God," is suggestive of acquaintance and fellowship. There are communications in such circumstances such as are not made to all. There is an increase of knowledge that comes as a reward of loving obedience. "The secret of the Lord," says the Psalmist, "is with them that fear Him." "The meek," those who have a spirit like His own spirit, "will He guide in judgment, and the meek will He teach His way." "If any man," says the Lord Jesus, "love Me, he will keep My words, and I will come in to him, and sup with him." The man who trusts Christ knows Christ, but when he goes on keeping Christ's words, and Christ comes in and sups with him, surely there is a further knowledge of Christ given him. The man who fears God and walks with Him is the man who grows in the knowledge of God.

And lastly, in pursuing after the knowledge of God there must be a single eye. "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." A single eye is an eye not diseased, as I understand it-an eye that sees clearly, an eye that sees truthfully. We have not by nature an open eye; God has opened our eye. But even after He has opened our eye, we need the eye of our heart to be enlightened, and we, at least in some cases, need the eye-salve for anointing. An eye that sees singly is the eye of one whose heart is single. If our heart be fixed simply on Jesus, and on growing in the knowledge of Jesus, we shall grow in the knowledge of Him. We shall know Him if we follow on to know Him. "If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasure, then shalt thou ... find the knowledge of God.”