It has to be Settled
The whole history of the Church is one long story of this
tendency to settle down on this earth and to become conformed to this world, to
find acceptance and popularity here and to eliminate the element of conflict and
of pilgrimage. That is the trend and the tendency of everything. Therefore
outwardly, as well as inwardly, pioneering is a costly thing.
It is a costly and a suffering thing to come up against the
religious system that has ' settled down ' here. It is far more costly than
coming up against the naked world itself. The religious system can be more
ruthless and cruel and bitter; it can be actuated by all those mean things,
contemptible things, prejudices and suspicions things that you will not even
find in decent people in the world. It is costly to go on to the heavenlies, it
is painful; but it is the way of the pioneer, and it has to be settled that
that is how it is.
The Christian life is not by effort, and not by struggle;
not merely by trying to put into practice certain maxims, or by trying to attain
to a certain measure; but from beginning to end, and all together, it is a
matter of knowing the Lord Jesus within.
