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S. Van Mierlo

Summary of the Divine
Plan

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The Message of the Kingdom

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Three Spheres

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Alphabetical Analysis

Also -

HOPE

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THE ABOVE HEAVENS

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"Practical Truth in
Ephesians"

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A Study in Pentecost

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Heavenly Places

by Charles H. Welch
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Bible
Studies

The One Great
Subject of

The
Word

RIGHT DIVISION

By Charles H.
Welch

RIGHT DIVISION

by E.W.
Bullinger

RIGHT DIVISION

by Tom Ballinger

Present Truth

The Foundations of Dispensational Truth

Introduction To Acts 28

Dispensational Expositions

ACTS
28. The Dispensational Boundary

None Other Things

The One NEW MAN

Tested
Truth

Things That Differ

Before and After Acts 28:28

Who is
YOUR Apostle

The Ministry of
Paul

LO-AMMI

A
Study in Pentecost

The Elect Remnant

Time and
Eternity

Death,
Soul and Hell

Do YOU have an Immortal
Soul?

Satan

The Gift, Hope
and the Prize

The Fullness

Three
Spheres of Blessing

The Bride and
The Body

Structures or
Parallel Lines

Adoption

Children
vs. Sons

Earthly Things

EONS AND
WORLDS

Predestination

"Written"

Dispensational Outline Of The Books Of The N.T.

75 DIFFICULT
QUESTIONS

Gementria in Christ's
Geneaolgy

Stablished -- Strengthened -- Settled

by Dr. E.W. Bullinger

The God of all grace who hath called us unto His eternal
glory, by Christ Jesus, after that we have suffered awhile, make you
perfect. stablish, strengthen, settle you. To Him be glory and dominion
for ever and ever. Amen" (I Peter 5:10,11).

These words contain a prayer for a very special blessing. But in order
to obtain it we are cast upon the God of all grace -- God, who performeth
all things for us. Thus we have in this verse four things:
(1) The God
of all grace.
(2) His effectual calling.
(3) The necessary
suffering.
(4) The certain blessing.

1. The God of all grace

We must not dwell on the first of these (if we are to consider the
others), for it is a subject in itself -- a vast subject. For we are lost
in wonder, love, and praise, the moment we enter upon the consideration of
"the God of all grace," and survey His sovereign grace, His redeeming,
grace, His saving grace, His justifying grace, His providing grace, His
abounding grace, His exceeding grace: and all this uninfluenced grace,
invincible grace, inexhaustible and immutable grace.
What grace! All
treasured up in Jesus Christ who is "full of grace," and He alone. It can
never be said of any mortal as it is said of Mary, "Hail, Mary, full of
grace!" in perversion of Luke 1:28, in all the Romish versions. No! all
grace is treasured up for us in Christ, and He holds it at His own
disposal. Let us pass on to the second point.

2. His effectual calling

"Who hath called us unto His eternal glory," not, who is calling
us, not, who may call us, but "who hath called us," a past,
completed act, and that not to a temporal glory, nor to a fleeting
transient glory, but to a glory which knew no beginning and can know no
end. If He has called us, it is to His eternal glory. If He has called us,
we shall have experienced our inability to obey. That is why it is here,
"The God of all grace." When God commands, the first thing
we do is to discover our inability to obey; it is this which fills
us with anxiety to be saved.
When He calls, we immediately discover
that we are like Mephibosheth in II Samuel 9. We are at Lo-Debar, a "place
of no pasture." We have nothing really to sustain us, we are clothed in
filthy garments, we are not worthy to come into the King's presence, not
meet to sit at the King's table, and, moreover, "lame on both feet" (verse
13). When King David called Mephibosheth, how could he obey ? But David
called him not for his own sake. He said, "Is there yet any that is left
of the house of Saul that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan's sake?"
(verse 1). "Fear not: for I will surely shew thee kindness for Jonathan
thy Father's sake " (verse 7). Still, how could he obey, being lame on his
feet? We learn in verse 15, only by being sent for, fetched and carried.
And so with us. The Lord Himself must be the carrier, the sender, the
fetcher, or the appointer of those who shall do so.
Like the man sick
of the palsy; he was carried to the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is written,
"Jesus seeing their faith." Why is it that we immediately and universally
think of the four and not of the five. Why do we exclude the man himself ?
Had he no faith, no desire? How do we know but that it was he who urged
his friends to carry him? It is only our own perversity that thus
limits God's grace. Yes, and "When Jesus saw their faith" He saw the
desire of His own heart, the work of His own hands. Where there is the
Master's gracious call, there will also be His careful carrying.
"Who
hath called us unto His eternal glory?" How does He call? By Jesus Christ,
it says. Yes, it is all by Christ, with Christ, through Christ, in Christ.
Called by Christ to the experience of identification with Him in the glory
of God the Father, we are comforted with the fact that as the Head is, so
are the members of the body of Christ. .As the Father sees Him, so He sees
His members. They are glorified together in the purpose of God. But as
Jehovah the Spirit brings them into the apprehension of what they are in
Christ, it is then that they discover their corrupt and depraved
condition. It is then they cry, "I am black," "I am vile," "I am undone."
But the declaration of His grace-filled lips is, "Thou art all fair, my
love, there is no spot in thee." That is glory! Can we believe it? Only as
He brings this precious truth home to us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
It is thus that we, as the members of His body, realize something
of the glory we possess in and through Him.

3. The necessary suffering

"After that ye have suffered awhile." Have we been called to His
eternal glory ? Then we have the call to suffering also. Has Christ left
us the legacy of His peace (John 16:33)? He has left us the legacy of
tribulation also. Then in the world we shall have tribulation. Do the
consolations of Christ abound in us? Then the sufferings also abound (II
Corinthians 1:5). But we have this testimony concerning them: "That no man
should be moved by these afflictions: for yourselves know that we are
appointed thereunto, for, verily, when we were with you, we told you
before that we should suffer tribulation, even as it came to pass, and ye
know" (I Thessalonians 3:3,4). Is it not a mercy to know this blessed
truth, so that we may not be moved? To know that there is not a pain or
anxiety or trial or care but what comes in all wisdom, and is accompanied
by infinite love.
Have you experienced any of them? What have you done
with them? Does your conscience condemn you for having taken them to
anyone but to Him, who calls you by them to Himself? May the Lord ever
enable us to carry our anxieties, our cares, our distresses and our
sorrows to Himself. He alone can comfort us, He alone can deliver us in
His own good time. Hence we pray in our service, "We commend to Thy
Fatherly goodness all those who are anyways afflicted in mind, body or
estate, that it may please Thee to comfort and relieve them
according to their several necessities, giving them patience under their
sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions." Our hearts
respond to that. There is true fellowship there. "The God of all grace who
hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have
suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you."
Christian sympathy breathed in that prayer.
If we are called to His
eternal glory, we shall be called to suffering also. If we are called to
experience spiritual union with a risen Christ in the heavenlies, to enjoy
fellowship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:6), we shall
also experience conflict with wicked spirits in the same heavenlies
(Ephesians 6:12). The very place of favour is the scene of conflict. You
see this in the case of the Lord Jesus Himself. "Lo, a voice from heaven
saying, 'This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.' Then
was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the
devil." You see the same in His servant Paul (II Corinthians 12:1-10).
Paul was in the third heaven, blest with extraordinary revelations of
eternal glory, yet there was the necessary suffering, '"a messenger of
Satan to buffet him." "A man in Christ," yet a man "buffeted" by an angel
of Satan. But after he had suffered awhile he was stablished,
strengthened, settled by those gracious words, "My grace is sufficient for
thee for My strength is made perfect in weakness." This brings us
to...

4. The certain blessing

"Make you perfect." What are we to understand by these words? It is a
word of simple meaning, but full of instruction. It means to adjust, put
in order again. Among the Greeks it was the technical surgical term for
setting a bone, a medical term for making up and preparing medicine. It
was also a nautical term for fitting out, refitting or repairing a ship.
We have its various meanings, all true in a spiritual sense, expressed in
this prayer; it is the prayer for us to pray, and it expresses the work of
God for us.
The following are some occurrences of the word, and they
illustrate its use: (Matthew 4:21), "He saw other two brethren... with
their father mending their nets." (Galatians 6:1). "If a man be
overtaken in a fault, ye that are spiritual restore such a one."
(Hebrews 10:5), "A body hast Thou prepared (margin fitted)
Me." (I Corinthians 1:10), "Perfectly joined together." Who can
mend our ways and repair our nets ? Restore us when
overtaken in a fault, prepare our hearts, join us
together in the same mind, the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, but
the God of all grace?
It is He also who can stablish us. This
speaks of permanency. "It came to pass when the time was come that He
should be received up He steadfastly set His face to go to
Jerusalem (Luke 9:51); i.e., His purpose was stablished, fixed, settled;
nothing could move it. "And the Lord said, 'Simon, Simon, Satan hath
desired to have you (plural) that he may sift you (plural) as wheat,
but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, and when
thou art converted strengthen (i.e., stablish) thy brethren'" (Luke
22:31,32). That is the very thing Peter is doing by the Holy Spirit here
in our text. He was obeying by the Spirit this very command. May he by
these words stablish us his brethren now. His very example stablishes us,
for though Peter failed and fell, his faith did not fail, it was the faith
of the operation of God, and neither men nor demons, neither Peter's sins,
Peter's wavering, or Peter's doubting could ever mar the fair beauty of
that faith which stood not "in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God"
( I Corinthians 2:5).
Peter's faith had many a shaking, but it was
stablished upon the truth of his God, upon the person and work and
righteousness of Jesus Christ. A faith, so stablished by the "God of all
grace," reconciles the heart to His mysterious and sometimes perplexing
providences, and nothing shall ever remove it from its foundation. Peter
does not say that we are to arrive at any state of perfection, or at this
stablishing by praying, by believing, or by any act of faith or act of
surrender as it is popularly called. No. He looks to the God of all
grace to do it all for us.
"Strengthen." Why are those who are
stablished in Christ to be strengthened? Because in themselves they are
weak and often faint and weary. See how we read of this strengthening in
the case of Paul (II Corinthians 12:5-10). Paul had no strength out of
Christ, and yet he was "strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might"
(Ephesians 6:10). He could do all things through Christ strengthening Him
(Philippians 4:13). He was "strengthened with all might according to His
glorious power unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness"
(Colossians 1:11). God, having commanded strength for His people, secures
it to them in the Son of His love, and performs it in them
by His Spirit. Therefore this is their supplication. "Strengthen, O God,
that which Thou hast wrought for us" (Psalm 68:28).
"Settled."
Settled means grounded, founded as on a foundation. What mercy to be
grounded and settled in the faith so as not to be "moved away from the
hope of the gospel" (Colossians 1:23). It is a great blessing to be on
God's sure foundation, but it is a greater blessing to be settled thereon.
If we know anything of this spiritual settling upon the one foundation
which God has laid in Christ, that settling will be experienced in
connection with suffering, stablishing, and strengthening.
Those who
are by the God of all grace called unto His eternal glory, and are
suffering for a little while in fellowship with a despised and rejected
Lord, who are perfect only in Christ, those whom He is stablishing,
strengthening and settling in the faith, the fear, the truth of God, will
be able to sing the glorious doxology .of I Peter 5:11, "To Him be glory
and dominion for ever and ever. Amen."

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