Louis, look to the Lord in prayer.
O Heavenly Father, as we gather together in Thy presence, we ask Thee to remove any veil that may be upon our hearts, that we can behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled face.
Lord, we do desire to see Thee. We do desire to know Thee. We ask Thee, O Lord, that by Thy Holy Spirit Thou wilt be revealed to us, to every one of us, and bring us into that knowledge of Thyself which is life indeed.
O Lord, we ask Thee that from the very beginning Thou wilt grant us the spirit of wisdom and revelation unto the full knowledge of Thyself.
We acknowledge, O Lord, that in ourselves and by ourselves, no matter how we try, we will never be able to know Thee as we ought to know Thee. So we just humble ourselves before Thee from the very beginning of our time together, and ask Thee, O Lord, that Thou wilt be gracious to us.
Thou knowest how much we depend upon Thee, that Thou wilt reveal Thyself to us in such a way that we may see Thee as we have never seen Thee before, that we may worship Thee as Thou oughtest to be worshipped.
O Lord, we just commit this time into Thy hands and ask Thee, O Lord, to anoint all of us with Thy Holy Spirit. Unto Thee be all the praise and glory, in the precious name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Will you please turn to the Gospel according to John? The Gospel according to John, Chapter 1. We will read the first three verses.
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through Him;
and without Him was not anything made that hath been made.—John 1:1-3
I believe, brothers and sisters, we all know that Christianity is Christ. Christianity is not a system of theology. It is not a well-organized thing of religion. But Christianity is Christ Himself. It is the Person of our Lord Jesus and His work.
That is the reason why you find, in the early days, people were called Christians: because they were Christ-men and Christ-women.
At the very beginning, people thought that they were just another sect of Judaism, and they treated those who followed the Lord Jesus as such. But very soon they found out that it was not. They began to see that not only the Jews believed in the Lord Jesus, but many, many Gentiles believed in the Lord Jesus. It was not a sect of Judaism; it was something entirely different.
They did not know at the beginning what to call it. Gradually, they found that these people were indeed different from all people.
These people believed in the name of the Lord Jesus. These people gathered together unto the name of the Lord Jesus. These people prayed to the Lord Jesus. These people talked about the Lord Jesus. These people lived for the Lord Jesus, and these people died for the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus was everything to these people.
And when this began to be evident, then they began to call the disciples Christians, as you find in Acts 11:26.
The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.
—Acts 11:26
They were called Christians because they were Christ-men and Christ-women. Christ was everything to them.
Paul put it in a very typical way. We find in Philippians 3. In Philippians 3, Paul said, in Verse 8:
Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord:
for Whom I suffered the loss of all things,
and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ,
and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law,
but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith:
that I may know Him,
and the power of His resurrection,
and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death;
if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.—Philippians 3:8-11
To know Christ, to know the power of His resurrection, to have fellowship with His sufferings, to be conformed to His death—everything is Christ.
Count Zinzendorf said, “I have only one passion, and my passion is Jesus Christ.”
Brothers and sisters, as we gather here this evening, I believe that this is true. Let us tonight have only one desire. Let us have only one passion. We want Jesus. We would see Jesus. We want to know Him, because knowing Him is eternal life. There is nothing that really matters to us but Jesus Christ.
And this is the purpose of our gathering together at this time: we would see Jesus; we want to know Him.
Dear brothers and sisters, to know the Lord Jesus, we need to know Him both in history and in revelation. We need to know Him both in truth and in grace.
If we know Him only in history, as Someone who existed on earth two thousand years ago, that knowledge may be true, but it is not living. It is past history.
If we only know Him by some kind of feeling, some kind of experience, it may be living, but how do we know it is true?
So, for us to know the Lord Jesus in a real way, we have to know Him both objectively and subjectively. We must know the historical facts of Him, and we must receive revelation to understand these facts—the meaning of these facts.
So I think what we would like to share together this time is the reality of Christ. How can we know the reality of Christ? How can Christ be real to us, to every one of us?
In order to know Christ in a real way, we have to know Him both in history and in revelation. We need to know the facts about Him, and we need to know the meaning of these things. By the grace of God, we will do this during this time.
Now, this evening we would like to begin from the very beginning. If you want to know a person, where will you begin? Naturally, you will begin with his birth.
His birth is normally the beginning of his life. There may be a few whose history begins even before they are born. Can you think of any?
You remember Jacob? When Jacob was in his mother’s womb, there he was struggling with his brother. So his history actually began in his mother’s womb before he was born.
And you know another one in the New Testament: John the Baptist. When Mary came to greet Elizabeth, John, who was in the womb of his mother, began to leap with joy.
But very few people’s history begins before they are born. You know, when you read a biography, oftentimes you find a biographer writing a lot of things before a person was born. He will write about his ancestry. He will try to go back in history to find his father, his mother, his father’s side, his mother’s side, and try to trace the influence of the ancestries upon that child who is going to be born.
Now, that is true. Our ancestry may have something to do with our life. They may exert certain influence upon our life. But, strictly speaking, our life begins at the time when we are born, because before we are conceived, we are non-existent.
But, dear brothers and sisters, when you deal with the history of our Lord Jesus, if you begin with His birth, you are entirely wrong. You will never be able to know the Lord Jesus if you know Him only from the time He was born.
Why? He was in existence long before He was born.
So, with the history of our Lord Jesus, we have to go back to the very beginning. You will find this is the way that the Apostle John presents to us the life of our Lord Jesus: “In the beginning was the Word.”
This beginning is even further back—way back—than the beginning you find in Genesis 1:1.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
—Genesis 1:1
That was the beginning of creation. But the beginning in John 1:1—“In the beginning was the Word”—is way back beyond the beginning of creation. It is the beginning of all beginnings. It is the beginning.
It is what our Lord Jesus said: “I am the first. I am the Alpha. I am the beginning.” That is the beginning. In the beginning, God was, because God is self-existent, self-existing. He is the “I AM THAT I AM,” the One who always is there.
In the beginning was the Word—the Logos—the eternity of the Word.
What is the meaning of the Word, the Logos? I will not try, and I cannot, lead you through all these curvy ways trying to explain the Logos. But I think the simplest way to know the Word is to be found in the same chapter, in Verse 18.
No man hath seen God at any time;
the only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father,
He hath declared Him.—John 1:18
No one has ever seen God at any time. God is Spirit; no one has ever seen Him. But the only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
In other words, the Word declares God. God, who is invisible, is being declared by His Son, the living Word. Through that declaration, we come to know God.
You will also find in Hebrews 1:
God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners,
hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son,
Whom He appointed heir of all things,
through Whom also He made the worlds;
Who being the effulgence of His glory,
and the very image of His substance.—Hebrews 1:1-3
God has spoken in the Person of His Son. His Son is the outshining of His glory, the expression of His very substance. Now, that is the Word.
In the beginning was the Word. In the beginning was the Son, and the Son is the Word—the declaration of the Father, the One who reveals the Father because He is the exact image of the Father.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” We are told by those who know Greek that the word with means a Person who has personality, and also a Person who is having fellowship with the One to Whom He is attached.
So here you find, in the beginning was the Word, and this Word was with God. This Word has a personality, and this Word is in constant fellowship with the Father.
Here you find the personality of the Word and the duality in the Godhead.
“And the Word was God.” The Word was not only with God, but the Word was God. In other words, the Word is very different from all created beings. The Word is very different from the angels. The Word is very different from the prophets of old.
The Word was God: the divinity of the Word. The Word was God—not only the divinity of the Word, but the unity of the Godhead.
So, dear brothers and sisters, in these few sentences we see the eternity of Christ. We see the personality of Christ. We see that Christ and the Father are one. We see the divinity of Christ.
Who is this eternal Son of God? He is the One in Whom we were made.
In Genesis 1, we are told, “God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” And God made man in His image, after His likeness. Now, whose image is that? The second Person of the Godhead—our Lord Jesus.
Once our Lord Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Even though at the time He was just a little over thirty—people thought He was fifty—He said, “Before Abraham was, I am.”
He is the great I AM. He is the One who appeared to Moses in that burning bush. And Moses asked, “What is Your name?” He said, “I AM THAT I AM. I am the self-existing One. I am always.” That is our Lord Jesus. That is Christ.
He is the One of Whom Isaiah said, in Isaiah 9: “Unto us a child is born, but a Son is given.”
He is the One of Whom Solomon spoke in Proverbs 8:
The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way,
before His works of old.
I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning,
before the earth was.
When there were no depths, I was brought forth,
when there were no fountains abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled,
before the hills was I brought forth;
while as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields,
nor the beginning of the dust of the world.—Proverbs 8:22-26
This is the history of our Lord Jesus. This is the beginning of His history. The One Whom we believe in is the eternal One, the eternal Son of God, the second Person of the Godhead, one with the Father.
But, dear brothers and sisters, it is more than that. Because in John 1 we are told:
All things were made through Him;
and without Him was not anything made that hath been made.—John 1:3
In other words, you find that He is not only the eternal Son of God—He is God—but you find that He is the Creator of all things.
We know that all things were created by the will of God. In Revelation 4 we are told, “By Thy will all things were created,” or, in some versions, “For Thy pleasure all things were created.”
When God decided to create all things, it was the second Person of the Godhead, the eternal Son, Who did the work of creation.
You see, in the same chapter, Proverbs 8, if you read on, you will find:
When He prepared the heavens, I was there:
when He set a circle upon the face of the deep,
when He made firm the skies above,
when the fountains of the deep became strong,
when He gave to the sea its bound,
that the waters should not transgress His commandment,
when He marked out the foundations of the earth;
then I was by Him, as a master workman:
and I was daily His delight,
rejoicing always before Him,
rejoicing in His habitable earth;
and my delight was with the sons of men.—Proverbs 8:27-31
When God created all things, the eternal Son was the Master Workman. He was a designer. He was a planner. He was the Architect. He was an Engineer. He was a Builder. He was everything so far as creation is concerned.
That is the reason why, when you come to Colossians 1, you find that in Him all things were created: the things in the heavens, the things upon the earth, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. Everything that is created was created in Him.
And the words in Him mean everything was designed from Him. He is the One Who originated, Who designed, everything.
Somebody designed the chair that you sit on. He conceived in his mind that chair, and it is according to his wisdom, according to his understanding, according to his taste, according to his pleasure, that he designed it. He has it in his mind, and then either he or somebody else builds it according to his design.
Brothers and sisters, all the things that were created were designed by the eternal Son of God. Everything was in Him created. He gave the design, the form, the character to everything, according to His taste, according to His character.
That is the reason why the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork, because everything was created in Him.
And not only in Him, but by Him. He not only designed them, but He also made them. And not only by Him, but for Him.
The reason why we exist, the reason why this earth is here, the reason why the universe is here, the reason why the heavenly hosts are here, is because the Father loves the Son and He gave all things to the Son.
That is the reason why you find in the Scripture that He is the Heir of all things. God has given all things to Him, that He may have the first place in all.
He is not only the eternal Son. He is not only the Creator of all things. But when you come into the purpose of God, you will find that He is the center of God’s purpose.
Ephesians 1, Verse 9:
Having made known unto us the mystery of His will,
according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him
unto a dispensation of the fullness of the times,
to sum up all things in Christ,
the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth.—Ephesians 1:9-10
What is the mystery of God’s will? God has a will, but it is called a mystery. Why? Because it is not known until it is revealed.
And you know, in Ephesians you find it is called the purpose of God through the ages—in other words, the eternal purpose of God. Our God is the supreme Will. Our God has a purpose, and He made that purpose even before the foundation of the world.
God has an eternal purpose. What is that purpose? That purpose has been a mystery through the ages until it was revealed by the Holy Spirit to the apostles and the prophets.
The mystery of God’s will is that, at the fullness of time, God will sum up all things in Christ—head up all things in Christ. That is God’s purpose.
In Colossians we are told that He may have the preeminence in all things, for all the fullness of God dwells in Him.
Dear brothers and sisters, if we want to know Christ, we have to know Christ in God’s eternal purpose. There, before time was, in eternity, according to God’s good pleasure, He decided that all things should be summed up in Christ. Christ shall be Head over all things. There is nothing that is not under Him.
But of course, in connection with that, according to God’s foreknowledge, He knew that after there was creation, there would be the rebellion of the archangel and there would be the fall of man.
Because of that, you find that our Lord Jesus is not only the Creator of all things. He is not only the Heir of all things. But you find He is also the Lamb of God, Who was slain before the foundation of the world.
In order to redeem fallen mankind, in order to reconcile all things to the fullness of God, the eternal Son had to come in time to this world to be that Lamb, sacrificed for us.
Dear brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus was the Lamb of God not after He was born. He was the Lamb even before the foundation of the world.
We are told in 1 Peter 1 that we are redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ, Who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world.
Our Lord Jesus is the Lamb from the foundation of the world. It is through that Lamb that we are redeemed, restored, united, and joined to Christ, and are heirs and joint-heirs with Him.
It is by the blood of the Lamb that He reconciles all things to His fullness. We have not seen that yet. It has to be worked out in His church first, and then, through the church, it will come to all creation.
Brothers and sisters, we are not only redeemed, but we are redeemed that Christ may be Head over us. We are redeemed that Christ may be all and in all to us. We are redeemed that God’s purpose may be first fulfilled in the church, and then through the church bring all things under the feet of the Son.
You know, in Ephesians 1 we are told that God has made Him Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
These are eternal things. These facts are revealed to us in the Word. We know that the Lord Jesus is the eternal Son. He is God. He is the Creator of all things. He is the Heir of all things. He is the Lamb of God. He is our Redeemer. He is the One Who reconciles all things to the fullness of God.
Now, brothers and sisters, when we see these facts, what effect should these facts produce in us?
God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth. How can we worship God? Where does worship begin? How can our worship be acceptable to God?
First of all, we have to know His worthiness. Because we know that the very word worship, in old English, is worth-ship. Because He is worthy, therefore we worship Him.
Unless, dear brothers and sisters, we know how worthy He is, our worship will be weak and incomplete.
Oftentimes, when we come together to worship the Lord—of course, when we come together to worship Him at His table—when we see the symbols, the tokens, the bread and the wine, when we think of the Lord Jesus Who came to this world and died for us, when we see Him as the Lamb of God, it touches our hearts, and we begin to worship Him because He is worthy.
But, dear brothers and sisters, if we want our worship to be complete, if we want our worship to be high, as it were, we shall not only see Him Who has come and Who has died for us and has done all these things for us.
Thank God that He has come. Thank God He has died for us on Calvary’s cross. Thank God for His blood. Thank God for His life.
But, brothers and sisters, as we worship Him, we need to worship Him Who is from the beginning. We need to worship Him Who is the beginning.
If we see Him as the beginning, if we see Him as the Word, as God, if we see Him as the One Who created us, if we see Him as the One to Whom we belong—we are for Him—dear brothers and sisters, our worship will be increased. Our worship will be deep and rich.
One reason why, when God’s people come together to worship the Lord, our worship is so feeble—I do not know how you feel, but sometimes, oftentimes, I feel, “O Lord, if we are not satisfied with worshiping You in such a manner, how will You be satisfied? How can You be satisfied?”
Is it not the longing of our hearts that we may worship Him in spirit and in truth, that we will worship Him as He is—not only for what He has done, but for Who He is?
We need a revelation of Him as the eternal Son of God. Brothers and sisters, I do believe if we know Him as the eternal Son of God, as the center of God’s purpose, as the Heir of all things, we can only bow down and worship Him.
He is God—my God, my Lord. I believe this will be the first effect of knowing Christ as the eternal Being.
Then secondly, we need to know Him as the center of God’s purpose.
Oftentimes I feel that we do not know where our center is. Fallen mankind is such that he always thinks that he is the thing.
How we need to be delivered from self-centeredness. Oftentimes, even our spiritual pursuit is still centered upon ourselves: “I want to be spiritual. I want to be admired by people that I am spiritual.”
Even in our service to the Lord: “I want to have a monument set up for me. This is my work. I work for God.” And even when we sacrifice, we want to get a blow.
Brothers and sisters, how can we be delivered from our petty self? If we catch a vision of the eternal purpose of God centered upon Christ.
Brothers and sisters, you have a part in God’s eternal purpose not because of you, but because of Him. If it is not because of Him, you have no place whatsoever in God’s purpose.
May I say that your life on earth is nothing at all. If there is something of value, of eternal value, it is because you are related to Christ. Christ is the thing.
Brothers and sisters, we need to have our center centered. We need to look away from ourselves, and we need to look to the Lord. He is God’s everything. And is He our everything?
That will give us direction. Lots of God’s people have no direction, no purpose, no meaning of life. But if we see Christ—the purpose of God is to head up all things in Christ—then we have a direction. We know where we are going. We know what we are seeking.
It is not that here is something good, and off we go; and there is something exciting, off we go. No. We are seeking after Christ, not after anything—not even an experience, not any isolated truth, however true it may be.
But we stand upon Him, upon Christ. We want to know Him. We want to let Him have the first place in our lives. We want Him to be all and in all to us in every area of our life. Let Him be all. Let Him have the first place.
Brothers and sisters, this is our direction. And if only Christ may have His first place in us, then there is something worthwhile. Otherwise, it is nothing. It gives us direction, it gives us meaning, it gives us purpose.
And thirdly, if we have a vision of Christ as the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, brothers and sisters, we know that His death is no accident. We know that our redemption is no accident.
We know that even before the foundation of the world, there is the love of God. God loves us so much that He gave His only begotten Son to us, and that was determined before the foundation of the world. What love is that?
It will give us a deeper appreciation of the love of God, knowing that it has its root way back in God, in eternity. Though He knows us so well, though He knows mankind so well, though the history of mankind is such—He knows it all—and yet He loves us with an everlasting love.
He never changes His mind. Not because we are so bad, so unworthy, does He change His mind and say, “I am not coming.” No. The Lamb—the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world—in time He came and died for us.
Dear brothers and sisters, do not doubt such love. If you see this love, it will draw from our hearts love to Him Who loved us so much, even from before the foundation of the world.
So I do believe, dear brothers and sisters, if we know Him in eternity, we will love Him with all our hearts and worship Him as He is worthy.
So I think probably for tonight, we will just stop right here.
Can we just spend a few moments in silence before the eternal Son of God? And then, if anyone feels that you can pray aloud—but loud enough to be heard—short prayers, worshiping Him, adoring Him, thanking Him, showing our appreciation to Him.