the Lord Jesus and asked Him to cast the devil out of her daughter, He answered her, "It is not meet to take the children's bread and give it to dogs." You know what the children's bread means. She asked this simple question, that He should cast the devil out of her daughter. The Lord said, "It is not meet to take the children's bread and give it to you, a dog." Why the children's bread is to cast the devil out of the soul of man. Brethren, it is God's intention that we should eat that bread. Every child of His by right divine hath this household bread. Oh, how Jesus must yearn that we should all eat this bread and suffer no more defeat! Shall we not believe the Lord Jesus? Shall we not eat this bread and live? Shall we not have the power of the bread of heaven within us, and, empowered by His strength, shall we not go forward? But, you ask, How is this strength to be obtained of God? What is the process of it? In brief words it seems to me this: God the Father is the source of blessing and of power; God the Son is the channel of this power; God the Holy Ghost is the supplier of this power; the cross of Christ is the flood-gate of this power; and it is through the window of the Holy Word of God that we see this wonderful vision of power. As the Lord Himself said, "Thou mayest be rich;" "I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed; and eye salve that thou mayest see." All spiritual cataract shall be removed, all colour-blindness shall be removed, and we shall be able to see, even as God Himself desires us to see. No man can see God's face and live. Yea, Lord; but see Thee we must, and die then we will. Shall we not see God to-night- see Him with the child's eye of faith? I do believe that God wants more children about Him. He wants men and women of simple, child-like faith. He set a little child in the midst, and taught the grown doctors. Often He teaches grown men and learned men by the simplicity of the faith of a new-born converted child. But you may ask not only what is the process of this, but what is the fulness of blessing. I won't dwell upon this point, but I must utter a few words about it. The fulness of blessing seems to me to be this: First of all, freedom from the curse. God is not able to bless us until He removes the curse from us. Every part of the thunderbolt of the wrath of God has been gathered up by the hands of the wounded Christ, and absorbed into Himself. Sweat and thorn, and sorrow and death-all the curse has been drawn up into Jesus Christ, and He hath become a curse for us. What is the result? That He hath restored us again into the presence of God, That is the meaning of the Ascension. Man is gone up to God again; man is in the presence of God again. "I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." This is a blessed truth, that Christ hath delivered us from the curse, and now we are free. He hath not only restored unto us this wonderful position in the presence of God, but He hath actually installed us in His own position in the presence of God. He actually gives us His own place. There was no place for us in heaven; justly we had forfeited our place. The dear Lord Jesus saith, as He goes forth to die, "Give them my place, Father!" And the Church of Christ has taken, by Divine leave, the place of Jesus Christ, and the Church is with Jesus, even on the very throne of God. In the next place, God hath restored unto us our lost powers. We had lost four powers. The first was this power over sin. Christ hath restored us this wondrous power. "Sin shall not have dominion over you." What do you think of that? Sin shall not reign over you. "Thou shalt not serve sin henceforth," saith God. "By the abundance of grace you shall reign in life." I quote God's words, my brethren. Oh! let there be no dispute over plain truths. Do not let anything interfere with your blessed acceptance of the simplest words of God. They are intended for us. Christ hath broken the bondage and set us free. What else? He hath given us a power over the law. The law of God was in all ages what at creation we should have wished and intended; but sin hath broken the law. Now God hath restored us power over that law, "that the righteousness of the law should be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." Again, the Lord Jesus hath given us this third power: power over the devil. "Resist the devil, and he shall flee from you." "He is your servant. I have conquered him. He is a conquered foe. Resist him, and he shall flee from you." Your faith in this doth not destroy the power and truth of God's word. He hath Himself shown us how to resist the devil. When the devil came to Him, He only said just a verse of Scripture, "It is written." When the devil became more troublesome, He said, "It is written." And again, when the devil became confusing as well as troublesome, He said, "It is written." Three "it is writtens" will defy and resist and drive off even the devil himself. There is one other thing: God has given us the power over-power over death. He by death hath delivered us from the power of death and from the power of the king of death, even the devil. Oh! wondrous is this fulness of blessing. promises of God are true. Oh, Jesus, Thou and I have often exchanged promises, and Thy promises. have always been honoured and true and faithful even to this hour! But there is yet something more; the fulness of blessing is not yet exhausted. Not only hath God done all this for us, but He has put on our side all the peace of God. God cannot break His peace with His children, because the peace is on our side, and the Son of God is our peace, and He cannot break the peace with us. And, moreover, He hath also given us and put on our side all the power of God. "All power is given unto Me;" all authority, Not only so, but God But there is something further. God has not only restored these four lost powers, but He hath conferred upon us four of His own wondrous pro-and it is all given unto us. perties. He has given us first of all His possession. The Lord Jesus willed us into His own possessions. "My peace I give unto you." 'My joy shall remain in you." "The love that the Father gives Me, I give you." And there is one thing more of His possession-it was power. This is a remarkable fact about our blessed Lord Jesus, that by His death all the property which He had-and He had a very wondrous property-belongs unto us who are His heirs. God willed it, so that at the death of His Son all should be ours. "All things are yours." And this, also, is interesting. Our Lord not only died, and by His death gave us all His property, but He rose again and administers His own will. He has gone up to the Probate Court of the King, and He is seeing that His will is administered on our behalf, so that His possessions are ours, and they cannot and shall not be alienated. He has given us not only possessions but He has given us His promises. Cash the promises of God, brethren. They are the cheques of God; cash them. If you are in distress, cash a promise. Promises are the power of God done up into portable packets; every packet, or every promise, contains as much seed as will sow any undertaking on the barrenest spot under heaven. Spend freely the wonderful promises of God. Your Father has plenty more. To make sure that we should have His promises, God gave us the Promiser, and so the promise is the Promiser, and I have got the Promiser Himself. He can draw me out a cheque at any moment just as I want it, and supply all my need. Oh there are such promises to the consecrated believer. Plunder Him and you please Him; bind Him with His own promises, and He is more free to bless you. I know, brethren, after long years of experience, that the has given us all His word to be on our side also. He hath given the Lord Jesus, who is the Word, and He has given to us to have the divine Word on our side. He hath given us such wonderful privileges.] Not only this; there is something more-He has given us all the purity of God to be on our side. I think brethren often do not see what was fully meant when God the Holy Ghost came down. All the holiness of God is now dwelling in the Church of Christ. Not the Father's pity only; not the Son's power only; but the Holy Ghost's holiness also belongs to the Church of Christ, and is by the gift of God on the side of redeemed man. Now may I say how you may appropriate this? You know the book of the Ephesians is the book of the fulness of the blessing of Christ; it is the book of Joshua to the New Testament. You know there are in this book of the Ephesians five "heavenly places" mentioned. The first is this-the heavenly place of blessing. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Here, then, is this wonderful storehouse of blessing. Why, you might have known that God meant to bless you if you had only read your Bible. When He began the creation, and was going forward with it, He blessed everything He did. He blessed all the creation He had made. He blessed the human creature and even the day and the time into which He put the creature, man. But you say, "By sin we have lost the blessing." I am not so sure of that. You remember that when God came down to Eden He cursed the serpent, and cursed the ground, but He did not curse man. Man was the offender, but He did not curse him. Where was the weight of the hand? It was on foundation of the world." bearing the curse for man. "the Lamb slain from the Trace in a few words the blessing of the Lord. The Lord blessed Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the patriarchs. Nay; He did much more. He instituted an order of blessing. He said: "On this wise shall ye bless the children of Israel "-so full of blessing is the heart of God. All through the Old Testament we read so much of the wonderful blessing of God. You remember that the last word of the Old Testament is "Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse; but when the Lord Jesus came, and was revealed, heaven opens with "Glory to God in the highest." And when our Lord began His ministry we find Him saying, "Blessed are they that mourn." "Blessed are the pure in heart," &c. He blesses great classes; He cannot stay to bless individuals-He is so full of blessing. Oh! friends, this is my Lord Jesus, and I love Him for it. "Blessed," He said, and He says it to night, 66 are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." I believe that, Lord Jesus, from my very soul. All through His life He blessed the children, and He went on blessing men, until at last, as He was going away to heaven, His hands were lifted up in blessing, and He went away in His unfinished work of blessing. Then you remember, when He rose from the grave, the Lord invented a new blessing, so full was He-a resurrection beatitude, "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." He knew we should be here at Mildmay, and so He gave us a blessing for to-night. Oh! it is a lasting blessing. Follow it still on. There was one blessing of God floating down the stream of time, unanchored and ungarnered; yet we read of it in the midst of the Acts of the Apostles. Suddenly the hand of inspiration draws it in, and it is secure :-"It is more blessed to give than to receive." It is the principle of the Acts of the Apostles. It is upon this noble principle that they did their glorious acts, by the power of Christ. So if you follow it on you get blessing upon blessing in the revelation of the Lord Jesus. He keeps on saying, "Blessed is He that overcometh." "To him that overcometh will I give," and so on. Oh! brethren, do you not believe in the blessing-the fulness of blessing? we appropriate it? Why this verse tells us :— "Blessed be the God and Father, it is appropriated by praise. Just turn round, and bless God your Father, for having blessed you with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. Have you done it? Blessed Father, I bless Thee, and the brethren here bless Thee to-night for the gift of Thy love in Jesus Christ our Lord. It is in Jesus that all the blessing is stored up. He is the reservoir outside the city up in the hills of God, amidst the free breezes of heaven. There is the reservoir of living water, untainted, unpolluted, my Lord Jesus up there on the throne. As this wondrous water of life must rise up as high as its source, let the praise rise and return to the God who gives us this source of praise. The next heavenly place is the heavenly place of power. How is that to be appropriated? By faith. "The exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe." You say you do not see much of the power of God. I know why--you do not believe it. Oh! brethren, believe the power. Put your foot upon the power. Adam was put into Eden to keep and dress it, but he lost it. How did Noah secure his property in the new world? He built an altar upon it; that is the best thing you can do. Present yourselves body and soul to the Lord. How did Abraham secure his property? "Arise and walk through the length and breadth of the land." Make it your own, as Abraham did. How did Joshua secure his property-the covenant land? "Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given thee," saith the Lord. Tread down fearlessly on the promised land with the foot of faith; with the tread of faith keep the promised land as your own. This power of God must be used. Attach yourself to the power of God: link yourself on with it. There is tremendous force in the power of God. Go forward in the force of the Holy Ghost. Use it for the glory of Jesus. Jesus is raised from the dead. He was worn out and exhausted before His blood was shed, but three days after He was raised whole, with only the scars of victory upon Him. And the power that He hath can do wondrous things for us. According to the working of the power which God wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead." The third heavenly place is the place of our sitting with the Lord Jesus upon the throne of His Where is this fulness of blessing, and how shall power. Ah, we want this rest of faith, which claims all that Jesus is to us. Will you rest in this wondrous loving Lord Jesus, brother? Oh for the calm of God! When God rested, that was the first Sunday the Sabbath; and when Christ rested after His great work, that was the new Sundaythe Sabbath of His resurrection power and His ascension mercy. But now I touch for one moment on something more. There is this appropriation of the wondrous fulness of God, as referred to in the third chapter of the Ephesians, where the Apostle says, "To me who am the least of the apostles is this grace given, that I should preach the unsearchable riches of Christ." To communicate, to manifest, this is the way to keep. What you give you keep; what you keep you lose. Do you know this? You say you are not fit to preach for the Lord Jesus; you are not fit to speak for Him. Why it is the least of the Apostles who is fit. He is the only one chosen to communicate those unsearchable riches of Christ-to preach the fellowship of the mystery to the Gentiles. Not the mystery of the division- | not exclusion. My brethren, in the name of the Lord, let not one redeemed brother shut out another redeemed brother from the redeemed land. Oh, let us preach the fellowship of the mystery, and the mystery of the fellowship; let us preach oneness in the Lord Jesus of Jew and Gentile, and everyone who speaketh in the power of Christ. Then, in the last chapter of Ephesians, we have the last heavenly place-it is the heavenly place of victory. We read that we are called upon to put on the whole armour of God, to withstand the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, and to stand. My brethren, can you stand? This is appropriation—standing. Oh! stand your ground. Christ has put you in the forefront of the battle. He hath given you His own place of victory. Stand there, and, holding up the shield of faith, quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Yes, stand, and then you shall have the victory; and as you stand armed, what must you do? Oh! kneel down and pray with all prayer and supplication for all saints. The armed warrior must kneel and pray before he goes out to fight. In spite of the armour, and in the power of the Holy Ghost, he shall succeed. How then shall we appropriate this? Fulness, as has been well put before us this morning, can only be appropriated by emptiness. How may we be empty? By the full surrender of everything into the hands of Jesus. Are you afraid to surrender all into the hands of Jesus? Oh! the dear Lord is such a Father; He will not take advantage of you. Surrender fully, freely. What is the surrender? It is just leaning over into the bosom of Jesus a little too far until you have lost your balance and you are irrecoverably His. Lean over now, and thus be surrendered unto your Lord. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God"; but it is a blessed thing to fall into the hands of the dying God, and it is a more glorious thing still to fall into the hands of the risen interceding Lord. Then you shall be emptied also by defeat of self. I am sure of this, that the trials and the discipline God is putting you through are just the very thing to keep you fastened to the cross. It is the hammer of His providence that drives in the nails of trial to fasten you to the cross of Jesus, and all this discipline is but God Himself helping you to put self to death. Will you give Him leave to do it? Let us go this step furtherthere must be death. In every believer's house there is one dead. It is self. A dead self and a living Christ-this is the believer's household. Oh! there must be death. You must "bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." You must not be ashamed of it. When you are put down and put back, and humiliated, say: This is the dying of the Lord Jesus from the hands of my Father and Lord. You must always be delivered unto death for the sake of Jesus. Remember that this is the first word almost that God spake: "In the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely die." But it is true in a new sense. In the day that you eat of the tree of life you begin to die, immediately death has set in. You must mortify your members which are upon the earth. Shall we be thus emptied by the Lord and preserved empty by the Lord? How may we be kept emptied? May I say it ?—oh, it is a wonderful truth by substitution. You are not fit to bear away your own sin, remember. You are not fit to die for yourself, remember. You must have the Substitute. You are not to live for yourself, remember. "Not I that live, but Christ that liveth in me." You are not fit to think or will for yourself; "it is God that willeth." "It is God that worketh in you to will and to do." You are not fit to pray for yourself; it is the Spirit that makes prayer within you. God substitutes Himself for everything you can possibly do, and thus effectually dislodges self; and so even this night it is true, "it is not ye that speak, it is the Spirit of my Father that speaketh in you." Oh! that we might thus be preserved empty! There is a river of life rolling at your feet, brethren. The deep waters of the Holy Ghost are here before you deepening, deepening, up to the very throne of God. Will you not then baptise in these wondrous waters of the Spirit? Oh! that we may bow ourselves and bathe ourselves in the wondrous water of life to-night, that you and I might be hidden out of sight-not the feet merely washed, not the knees merely bathed, but the whole being baptised in the living water until we are lost in the wondrous living power of the Lord Jesus. Let yourself go. Let go the shore. Faith lets go the shore, because it sees the Unseen. Love lets go self for she loves another and she cries not for herself. Let go self and take the Lord. Launch forth on the great deep of God. Give yourself away to God. Once a Persian king proposed that there should be designs sent in to him for a temple to the sun. Many wondrous designs were produced, describing in picture and form, and figure and representation, the sun within the building; but one design was thissomething like a Crystal Palace which admitted the light of the sun itself. Oh! should we not be like such a temple of the sun? Will you not open doors and windows to the Lord Jesus? Let the golden summer morn of the presence of my Lord pass right through your being, my brother. Let the sweet voices of His holy word float in upon you. Let the perfume of His blessed promises be throughout the whole house. Give all to Jesus. "Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain." Yes, you must pray for it, although it is the right time for it. The Lord shall give showers of blessing. Do not be terrified if the heavens become dark with the rains of God's great mercy and love. "And to each man grass in the field." Do not be content until the moral verdure is wondrously fresh within you from the hands of God, in your soul and life. Then share with Jesus His life-work; go out and spend and be spent for Jesus; live Christ's life for Him; do not live it for yourselves; do not let there be confusion with the two lives. Have done with your own life and live His. Your life stopped on Calvary-His life goes on across the resurrection shore. Oh live His life then, and go about raising the dead with Jesus. He gives you blessed work in raising the dead; you must take away the stone, and He will speak the word of power. Then you must loose him and let him go. There is plenty of work for you to do in raising the dead. Then give the raised ones bread to eat; bring in the blind; and fetch in the lost, and go out over the hills to find them. The Saviour saith, "Church and Bride, believer and friend, come work with Me." We then as workers together with God beseech you that you receive not the grace of God in vain. This very night God answer us for Jesus' sake! "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow." THE FULNESS OF THE BLESSING: HOW TO BY PASTOR STOCKMAYER, My brethren, through the grace of our Lord, who is amongst us, working and blessing, I trust you will not be hindered by my language in receiving the message which the Lord has laid on my heart. trust that you will help me, so that I may not be hindered by this difficulty in seeking to bring before you clearly and simply this quickening, life-giving message. The subject of the day is "How to Communicate the fulness of the Blessing." In the presence of such perverted notions about truth as we always have in our hearts, let us remember that the subjects of this day and of yesterday are only two sides of one and the same truth. The way to receive blessing is to be fruitful; to be brought by the power of God out of our fallen state into such a position of heart as that the Holy Ghost may be able, through us, to bring forth fruit. And the fulness of blessing is to be in such a state as to bring forth, through the Holy Ghost, the fulness of fruit for which we have been created and planted by God. To have sound ideas and notions on this question, let us go back to Father Abraham. So far as we are children of God through Jesus Christ, we are children of Father Abraham. Jesus Christ is of the seed of Abraham. In Gen. xii. 2 you will see what God understands when He speaks of blessing. Abraham was the great and blessed one-"I will make of thee a great nation . . . and in thee |