You speak of betrayal, and this I see plainly in the words before me. It is a bitter draught when those of one’s own household lift up the heel. The lips that should bless, curse. The arms that should uphold, cast down. One reason for the appointment of the betrayal lay in the fact that it was ordained that man’s sin should reach its culminating point in his death. This sorrow you now taste our blessed Master drank to its dregs in Gethsemane and upon the tree. Yet mark this well: the fact that He was betrayed by one of His own familiar friends does not justify every claim of persecution or every hasty flight. Understand, my brethren, that no gifts can ensure grace, and that no position of honor or usefulness in the Church will necessarily prove our being true to our Lord and Master.
Your letter points me to a prophet and a glorious Church set forth after a certain pattern, bidding you to come out. I charge you, examine your own heart with great searching. It is true that you cannot come there unless the Church itself consents to your coming, but the Church takes upon itself none of the responsibility of your fitness. It says to you, "You may come to the Communion Table, but if you have deceived us, on your own head is the sin!" The chosen family was intended, by the Divine purpose, to dwell alone and maintain a peculiar walk of separation. The seed of Abraham was ordained to be, in the highest sense, a Nonconformist tribe, a race of separatists! But this separation is from the world, the flesh, and the devil, not a constant rending of every earthly tie under the banner of a new prophecy. The text tells us that there is a "whole family." It speaks not of a broken family, nor of two families, but of "the whole family in Heaven and earth." It is still one undivided household, notwithstanding all the graves which crowd the cemetery.
What is the mark of this family? Those who have been quickened and made to live, and introduced, therefore, into the family of God, have one mark, one never-failing mark. They all have it, and none others ever have it. Our text ascribes leading to the Holy Spirit! The great differences, surely they must have come from this, that the Church did not want to be guided by the Spirit! You long for deliverance, and deliverance there is. This deliverance came when the lamb was slain. The prisoner is ready to be executed, but there comes to him undeserved deliverance from all punishment, for the King's own Son has borne the penalty of all his iniquities! Does not this Truth of God make your mouths water, you who feel that you are going down to the Pit? The deliverance is not found in fleeing to a supposed perfect assembly, but in the Ransom which God Himself has found.
And what of that family which has caused you such grief? Woe to those who allow family prayer to cease! The practice of family prayer is the castle of Protestantism. It may be that the root of bitterness is not alone in their supposed hatred of you, but in an idol hidden in the tent. As she comes from a high-church family I must let her have her little symbols, I do not know for sure that she has a teraph, I have never absolutely seen it. But there it was and it was the nucleus of superstition! I charge you, look to your own tent first. You cannot expect, can you, to see the sons' wives brought unless the sons are on the Lord's side? May the Holy Spirit make you a true son indeed, one who walks not by the voice of a man who claims the office of a prophet, but by the inward witness of the Spirit, through the Word and prayer.
Consider Jacob at the brook Jabbok. I stayed at the brook Jabbok, and I said, ‘Lord, give deliverance from him whom I think bloodthirsty.’ I crossed the brook full of fear and trembling, but tell it, O let it be known for the comfort of others in like trouble with me, I met my brother Esau, and he fell upon my neck and kissed me. Your hasty flight may be the very thing God does not bid. If you would know the blessing of Acts, then pray as the saints did, for the Holy Spirit to be poured out. He dwells in the Church! Let us honor Him! Let us grieve Him no more, but put ourselves beneath His guidance and wait for His blessing! Those who have been much tried are in the peerage of the Church, but let their trial be for righteousness’ sake, not a self-inflicted wound. Remember there is coming another day in which the family union of the Church will be seen, and that is when the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised. Until then, let your feet tread the path of the commanded means of grace, not the whispers of a new prophet.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. 
