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Rev. A. B. Winchester 35
fruit and grows, as it does also among you, since the day when first
you heard it, and learned to know truly the grace of God. And thxis
you were taught by Epaphras, my beloved fellow-bondsman, who is a
faithful servant of Christ on your behalf. And it is he who has de-
clared to me your love for me in the Spirit. Wherefore I also, since
the day wh6n first I heard it, cease not to pray for you." Now that is
not just the way that we speak about things of that class. We would
say, "Since we heard of the awful darkness of those in the heart of
Africa and India, we have begun to pray for them." But the Apostle
says, "Since I heard of what you have in Christ, since I heard of your
increase in spiritual treasure, since I heard of your devotion to the
cause of Christ, since I heard of your love to all the saints, I just
couldn’t help but pray for you."
Beloved, since I have had Russia on my heart and mind for many
months, and since I have been thinking of many there who struggle
under the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit and are coming slowly into
the light, coming into the light that has been kept from them by
forms of Christianity which somehow were obscuring rather than re-
vealing, I have prayed with greater devotion than ever.
"Wherefore I also, since the day when first I heard it, cease not to
pray for you, and to ask of God that you may fully attain to the
knowledge of His will." That is the first thing. "That ye may fully
attain." Not merely to have some little knowledge, but full knowledge,
of His will. Everything depends upon that, beloved. What is the use
in any of us who do not know what a moment or what an hour is to
bring forth, making plans, if these plans are not in harmony with
the will of God? Get to know His will.
The second thing. "In all wisdom and spiritual understanding."
Wisdom is adaptation of knowledge to worthy ends. Spiritual under-
standing is a different understanding from academic understanding.
You may get a man trained in our universities and colleges so that
his mind is most efficient for all rational purposes; you may have all
that and still have a man absolutely devoid of spiritual understanding.
I don’t want to stop on that. You know First Corinthians, the second
chapter, tells the whole thing. The natural man cannot understand
the things of God, simply cannot until he is born again (1 Cor. 2:13, 14).
The third thing is, "That ye may walk worthy of the Lord." We
all want to try and do the best we can,—^that’s what the world says.
"To walk worthy and be worthy" of what? "Of Him." "To walk
worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all things." Who is adequate
to that? The person who thinks he is, or she is, is certainly written
down by that very act, as being utterly blind. We must have the
Spirit of God before we can walk worthy of the Lord.
Then the fourth thing, "That ye may bear fruit in all good works."
I must not stop on this. Fifth, "And grow continually in the knowl-
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