Just before making the promise in connection with the seventh overcometh, Jesus gives two preliminary promises which set forth His fellowship with us in the present state and our fellowship with Him at His heavenly banquet. Jesus is now visiting the churches on earth in this widespread revival of Christian holiness, and by this revival He is knocking at the door of all the churches and saying, that "if any man will open the door to Him, He will come in and sup with him. " This sets forth that fellowship which Christ has with His disciples in their present state in the flesh that He comes down in the person of the Holy Spirit, and identifies Himself in all the affairs of life with the conditions and experiences of His followers.

If in walking through a field we pierce our foot with a thorn, instantly the nervous system, which is a perfect telegraphic arrangement, will notify the brain of the wound in the foot. If the brain were not thus notified, there would be no consciousness of pain in the foot. It seems that the suffering is in that part of the body pierced by the thorn, but in reality the suffering is in the brain, which is the center of the entire nervous system, and the center of all sensation. Instantly on receiving the dispatch from the afflicted member of the body, the brain comes clown as it were into the foot, and enters into perfect sympathy with that member. The Holy Spirit has told us that Christ is the Head, and that His disciples, who are united to Him in the Holy Ghost, constitute His mystical body, and that if any member of that body is in a suffering condition, the head shares all the phenomena of pain or pleasure, which any member of the body may undergo. Hence we are told that in all our afflictions Jesus is afflicted.

When Saul of Tarsus was galloping to Damascus to torture the little flock of believers, he was arrested by the Head of the Church, who said, "Saul, Saul, why persecuteth thou me?" Jesus identified the humble saints in Damascus with Himself, as our head feels the torture of any of our bodily members. Saul thought he was crushingout some fanatics, but those fanatics turned out to be the vital members of the eternal Christ enthroned at the right hand of God. This same thing has been repeated thousands of times, and is still transpiring in man y parts of the earth. The humble and despised ones, who are in many instances looked upon as irregular cranks and unmanageable extremists in religion, are the members of the living Christ, and He still comes down in spirit and enters into every infinitesimal detail of their private lives. We have never yet half believed all that the Scriptures teach us concerning that perfect measure with which Jesus identifies us with Himself. If we are living in blessed obedience to Him and trusting Him alone and fully on all lines, He makes every single interest of our whole being and life to be His own. He feels every pain that we have, whether physical or mental or spiritual. He in spirit weeps with us when we weep, and prays with us when we pray, and suffers with us when we suffer.

The Holy Spirit is in the divine realm what our nervous system is in our bodies, and with infinitely more accuracy and certainty than our nerves can transmit a sensation from our extremities to the brain, the Holy Spirit, as the divine nerve, transmits every variety and every degree of sensation in the believer to His divine Head, the blessed Jesus. This is the purport of the promise, "I will sup with him." To sup with a person means to share with them what they may have, whether good or bad, joyful or sorrowful; the poor crust and a cup of water, or the feast of fat things. Hence Christ supping with us not only implies His inevitable and personal participation and consciousness with all our temptations, and tears, and struggles, but also that He just as consciously and as directly participates in all our joys. He is happy in our happiness, and smiles with our smiles, and has a pleasure in every pure and innocent joy of His children, and rejoices in His spirit at every step they take in Christian progress. When on the earth He affirmed that He rejoiced in spirit at the downfall of Satan, but if that was a source of joy to His immaculate heart, how much more so does He rejoice in our new birth, and our sanctification, and every act of our loving obedience and trust to Him?

This participation of Jesus of the love of His disciples is set forth in the Song of Solomon in these words, "My beloved is mine, and I am his. He feedeth among the lilies." Several times the expression is used that Christ feeds among the lilies, and goes down into His garden to smell the fragrant blossoms and the spices. The lily is a Scripture type of a purified believer, whose white, clean heart gives forth in its love, and faith, and hope, and obedience, and heavenly aspirations, those sweet perfumes which are more fragrant to Jesus than all the odors of spicy Arabia. We are told in the Scripture that the prayers of the saints smell sweet to God, and they are emblematized as sweet incense of burning spices.

Love always feeds upon love, and the heart of love has a mystical way of feeding itself just as truly as the body has of taking nourishment. When a mother sits by her sleeping babe, engaged in her daily work, and ever and anon fixes her soft, maternal gaze upon her little darling, could we see the interior mechanism of her soul, thoughts, and affections, we would discover that her loving heart was feeding on that babe in a mystical way just as really as the fish feed on the sea, or as the mind feeds on books, or as the body feeds on bread. In like manner Jesus bends over those who love Him with a perfect heart. He enjoys their prayers, their songs, their testimonies, their unselfish and loving efforts to promote His glory. Every loyal thought that we have toward Him, every desire we have to see Him, and to serve Him, every sacrifice we make to extend His salvation among men, is a little banquet to His infinite heart. And all this is transpiring, and so few of us ever take into our thoughtful appreciation even a small tithe of His personal, profound, and perpetual interest in us. Could we see all this as we shall see it some day, how it would invigorate our love, and fortify our zeal, and relieve our loneliness, and make our very hearts flutter with a bewildering sense of His dear presence in us and with us every moment of our lives. O, why is it that we do not believe Him more, and then surely we would love Him more. If we in reality perfectly apprehend the truth of His words, "Lo I am. with you all the days, even to the end of the age," how that living faith would transform our inner and outer lives, and beget within us that habit of recollection and of practicing the presence of God, which would throw the very luster of heaven upon our spirit and our behavior. And yet He is true to His own word, and whether we fully apprehend it or not. He does sup with us if we sincerely throw the door of our hearts open to Him for His unreserved possession.