Lord, we thank Thee tonight that, as Thy people, we do turn our eyes and our faith unto Thee—Thou who hast never disappointed Thy people. Reclaim tonight Thy own speaking to us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, praise the Lord. I do not know where you all come from. I confess to you, when Frank and Luella moved out here and I came out the first time, I thought, “You know, no longer being in crowds out there in the woods.” But hungry people have a way, do they not? John went out into the wilderness, you know. They found him.
When I come to the last service, there are about eight or ten things pressing in my heart, and I do not know how to fit them together. So I just sort of start. If they do not fit well, you will understand.
I feel the need to remind us tonight that this is a late hour in which we live. I believe the Lord is going to do some quick things. He is doing a quick work, and it is going to be a marvelous thing—something our hearts can hardly comprehend.
We are prone all the time to figure out what the Lord is going to do and then try to groove it into our expectations. But I think I have good news for you: He is going to do exceedingly abundantly above what you can ask or think. I am safe in that, do you not think? It is a new thing, and it is going to be very different.
I thought I had the Lord figured out for some time, but He never fits into my little narrow conception of things.
I have been doing some studies in the Book of Matthew because it is a book that deals so much with the kingdom. The Lord keeps pressing my heart regarding the kingdom—the reality of the kingdom in our life right now.
We are prone always to think of the kingdom of heaven as something way off there, and we put it in the future. But I believe there is a present spiritual reality of the kingdom that we have to know now if we are going to have any abundant entrance into anything that will be unveiled later.
The kingdom is a now thing—the spiritual reality of it. I think of that verse over in Romans where it says the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Someday, right? Huh? Planned? You mean now? That is right. Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit—that is now. It is a reality He wants His people to live in right now.
When I think of what God is doing at this present hour and the new thing, I feel that the Lord has been sort of teasing me with four things I found in Matthew. I do not call this interpretation, but it has been an application through my own heart. You know, there is a difference between interpreting and applying.
The Lord can be very broad in His application, and sometimes He allows us to be rather broad in the application. It might not be a proper interpretation. But I was reading in Matthew 9. If you want to read just a couple of verses with me, I found four things in verses 16 and 17.
No man putteth a piece of undressed cloth upon an old garment; for that which should fill it up taketh from the garment, and a worse rent is made.
Neither do men put new wine into old wine-skins: else the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins perish: but they put new wine into fresh wine-skins, and both are preserved.—Matthew 9:16-17
I saw four new things. Let me share this with you in passing:
The Lord seemed to say to me that it goes progressively like this. The first word seems to speak to me of when an individual comes to know the life of the Lord and is clothed in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus. He has life.
God today is bringing into emphasis the fact that people are not just born again, but they come to live by the very life of the Lord. The basis of all is the life of the Lord Himself. Every place I turn, people are not just talking about being saved, but it is a matter of enjoying and sharing His life.
That is why it is a new piece of cloth. The only trouble with this new cloth is that every time you have life, life seems to be attached to something. You go back with life to an old garment, and what do you do? Tear things up.
The garment, I think, speaks of fellowships. You patch some more life onto an old environment, and it just does not work. Every place today there are home groups; there are people who have the life of the Lord and a common basis. There is a real sense of fellowship.
I think that is why we are here tonight. We have found a common denominator: the life of the Lord Jesus, the livingness—not doctrine, not persons, not a particular emphasis, but just the life of the Lord Himself, clothed in His righteousness like a new piece of cloth. It needs to be added now to the garment. It is part of a body; it is a corporate expression. This is the fellowship we enjoy.
The fellowship cannot exist for itself. Home meetings last just so long if they exist merely for fellowship. You know that. Fellowship gets introverted; it gets turned in. The Lord says fellowship is unto something. It is for something. It is with the Lord, and it is for something other than just ourselves.
So it leads us on to the next new thing, which I believe is the empowerment, or enduement, of the Holy Spirit. We just call it enduement.
I am utterly amazed that the Holy Spirit is being poured out in areas every place I turn. People come to me and say, “Oh, thank God, the Holy Spirit has come upon my life. It has been a new wine, a new measure of His empowerment.” This is happening.
I say God is parachuting in behind walls where He never could get in. Right? I had been down in a home in Raleigh—a Catholic home. They love the Lord. He parachuted right in. A couple of weeks ago I was up in Cleveland in a big Episcopal church. If the Lord could get in that place, He would have to parachute. And He did.
Three or four hundred have come to really know not only the life and fellowship, but the enduement—the Holy Spirit really coming upon us. This is wonderful. I thank God.
But it is as though the Lord has been saying, “Life, fellowship, enduement”—all of these things, in their place, are something very new and very wonderful that we see today. But He wants something else.
What does a new wineskin represent? I can hardly do better than to say it is the total expression of all that He wants—His life, His fellowship, His enduement. This is all that God is preparing.
I think it is something utterly new. I have great anticipation. Men are all the time trying to fit the things they have back into the old, and God’s word all the way through is what? New, new, new, new. Do not forget it. It is new—something new.
This is my anticipation tonight. The people that I meet are often fearful of what the Lord is doing today because they think we are talking about something they have seen, something they have experienced, or something they can imagine. Then I would be fearful too.
My heart is set in this hour for the thing that God is going to do, which is totally of Him: a vessel that will be able to contain. There are a lot of folk who are getting new wine, but you do not know how badly they need the proper vessel, because they leak out all over.
God is very careful, and the expectation here is that both wine and wineskin are preserved. He does not put the new wine into something old, lest you lose both the wine and the skin.
So He is doing something new. Praise the Lord. Well, how do I fit that in with the rest? That is the first chapter. Now I need an eraser, right?
Do you understand what I am trying to say? It is just the Lord’s word to me. New life—oh, pray for more. Coming into new fellowship with people you never thought you would fellowship with, and suddenly you find somebody else has the same word of life. God, by His Spirit, brings them into a part of your life. Praise the Lord.
Do not get stalled in anything. All four new things are what He wants. He is working to bring His people into a new vessel for the expression, the real exhibition, of His own life. I rejoice in this.
About the time that we get introduced to something new, our real danger is what the Lord seemed to say to me the other day. Turn this time to Luke 9. I would just like to share this with you for a moment.
Sometimes I feel that I only speak out of the things the Lord has been dealing with me about, and then maybe it is not really pertinent to others. But I will stay with you anyway.
One of our difficulties is that we get some vision of what we think the Lord is going to do and the new thing He is performing, but we fail to realize that there is a difference between vision, which can come in a brief moment, and understanding.
Vision is one thing. How many have ever had the Lord unveil something, and you thought you understood—you really knew? But in the process of time, as things went on, it took some readjusting and developing in your understanding. What you saw and the way the thing really worked out were not quite the same.
Vision is one thing, but understanding comes sometimes a little differently. Let us see it here in this incident, Luke 9, beginning with verse 27.
But I tell you of a truth, There are some of them that stand here, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.
And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings, that He took with Him Peter and John and James, and went up into the mountain to pray.
And as He was praying, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment became white and dazzling.
And behold, there talked with Him two men, who were Moses and Elijah; who appeared in glory, and spake of His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
—Luke 9:27-31
Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep. When they were awake, they saw His glory and the two men who stood with Him. As they departed from Him, Peter said unto Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here.”
What a vision they had. They saw the glory of the Lord in His transfiguration, and the two who represented the old—Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets. “It is good for us to be here.”
Notice immediately what people who get a vision want to do: “Let us make three tabernacles. Let us build—one for Thee, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
That is the eagerness of the flesh upon seeing something of vision. “Oh, Lord, I have got to do something.”
I want you to notice the first danger that really comes when you have vision without understanding. The first danger is that we try to add the Lord, make room for Him, in the old program.
They were deeply grounded in the law and the prophets, both in their life. You can highly appreciate how precious that was to Peter, James, and John. The whole Jewish economy—the law and the prophets—was until Jesus; then came grace and truth.
Every time we see something new, we get a glimpse, and it really attracts us. Our first tendency is to make room for Him, try to include it in, try to fit it into our life, to fit Jesus into the situation. You cannot do that, friend.
What God is doing in this time is something totally new. May I say it with all the emphasis I can: you cannot fit the Lord into any old program.
I believe that just as it was back there, when an old period was fading—hear me tonight—the whole period was fading and Jesus was ushering in something new. There was tremendous rending and tearing. There was an awful, awful, devastating controversy taking place. It was so hard to make room for the new.
Men were willing to add something a little new, but they were not ready for the old to be devastated and laid aside. That was the transition back then when Jesus was on the scene and grace and truth were being introduced by Jesus Christ. The old was giving way.
Back in 1948, I had a real sense, when we saw Israel becoming a nation, that God was beginning a transition. I was ministering before in those days, and it seemed like ministry was after a certain order. But it is totally different today. Beloved, we are in a real transition.
The reason there is a shattering going on tonight—I do not think it takes much of a prophet at all. Anyone with any kind of sight and sense can see it. There is an awful shaking going on, and the shattering of all things. The period of grace that we have lived in is giving place to the kingdom. Something new is bursting forth.
Well, Lord, help us to see. You cannot make room for Jesus when He introduces a new order. It is devastation to all that the old represented.
It is rather interesting right here that Luke adds an apology. When Peter had made the statement, “It is good for us to be here. Let us make three tabernacles: one for Thee, one for Moses, and one for Elijah,” Luke adds, “not knowing what he said.” Poor Peter. He did not understand.
You cannot add the Lord. You cannot make room for Him. He has to be central. There is only one room for Him—it is the room—and all the others are set aside.
Too many times we try to add Him, make another room. You cannot do it, Frank. You will be in total confusion. There will be a heavy cloud that comes, and that is exactly what happened.
While he thus spake, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud.
And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is My Son, My chosen: hear ye Him.
—Luke 9:34-35
How many of you have ever been in the cloud? I do not mean up there. I mean cloud down here—confusion. You cannot, you see. That is what is happening.
I do not know how to say it tonight. It is not prophesying at all. I am just saying that we are in an hour where people are in a cloud. The reason is because an old order of things is giving way to a new order right now.
It is a devastating thing because people are trying to hold on to Moses and the prophets, just as Peter did. We are trying to hang on to some of our old, and God is introducing something new, bursting forth.
“This is My beloved Son.” He is central. He alone is worthy. One house, one building, one tabernacle—He is it. Just build one.
Then I love this little thing which is the key to all the building and all that God wants: “Hear ye Him.” My prayer for us tonight is that we will incline our ear, that the Lord will really get our ear. What is He saying today?
Today, if ye shall hear His voice,
Harden not your hearts.—Hebrews 3:15
All the time we go about, as it were, trying to produce what we think the Lord wants, or to pick up the old a little bit, rebuild the tabernacle of Moses and Elijah, or whatever tabernacle of grace and truth there is today. He says it is not even the tabernacle of that. “I must bring in a new order.”
Something new is taking place.
To get to the real thing we have been dealing with in the last couple of meetings, we have been talking about God’s raising up a priesthood. I want to go into the kingdom aspect tonight.
You remember it says in Revelation 1:5-6:
Unto Him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood; and He made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto His God and Father; to Him be the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
—Revelation 1:5-6
Your margin would render that just a little better: “He made us a kingdom of priests.” Not merely kings and priests, but a kingdom of priests.
Let us ask the question tonight: What is God really after? What is He really after in the universe?
I think it is interesting when you go back to the very beginning. As He placed Adam in the garden, Adam stood as the first king in a lovely garden. His word to Adam was, “Multiply, replenish the earth, and subdue it.” Adam, I put you here in a kingly sphere, with a kingdom before you.
The first picture of the kingdom we get is what we call a universal kingdom: the kingdom of God in His reign throughout all created intelligences. The kingdom of God—He reigns over all, all that has been made. It includes the angelic; it includes all the handiwork.
When He put this first man in the garden, He wanted someone to act in His behalf as a king right down here. We know the story. Instead of Adam fulfilling and living under the purpose—the thing that God really wanted—Adam turned to his own way. We call it the Fall.
Instead of Adam assuming his kingly rights and privileges, fulfilling what God wanted, he turned and went his own way—an independent course. We find the fall of man. Adam missed his right to kingship. He was cast, as it were, out of the garden, no longer having the right to eat of the tree of life.
In a sense, we look at the whole human race and see that in that one terrible act, we all, like sheep, have done exactly the same. Now, what is God’s purpose?
So many, in their limited conception of things, think only of God creating us so that He can save us and take us to heaven. If we are not careful, it sounds as though God created somebody so He would have somebody to save.
Without realizing it, the Fall becomes necessary. Oh, we would not really think it through, but that is the sort of limited approach. The average person is just waiting to get to heaven, as though that is the goal.
Is heaven the goal? Is that God’s purpose, or does He have something else—something other? What is God’s purpose? How can a young man or young woman get into God’s purpose unless the Holy Spirit enlightens and helps them to see the real motivation of life?
The real purpose of life can never be fulfilled if we are just sort of twiddling our thumbs and waiting for the rapture: “Praise the Lord, someday I will go to heaven.” This is what is wrong in the church tonight.
In the meantime, folks say, “Well, save souls, get some more faith, help some more, grow in grace, work a little harder, you will feel better. The Lord will reward you, give you some more crowns.”
That has been the message I grew up under too long. I do not wonder that a generation of young people are growing up and saying, “There is something else. What is it?”
Oh, may the Lord help us to be more clear and enlarge our hearts to see that the kingdom is very real to Him. Adam was placed as the first ruling king, the first one through whom God was going to accomplish something.
When Adam was placed here, the one who had already revolted saw an opportunity to hinder the purpose of God. He steals into the garden and whispers in Eve’s ear. Adam, with his eyes wide open, makes a choice.
It looks as though the first thing God had placed here is going to miss the purpose and God’s thing is going to go awry. But we see that man in his fallen condition—the first Adam in his desperate condition—and God has a way.
Through the work of the cross, God comes down, robes Himself in human flesh in the person of the Lord Jesus, in order that He might recover for the Lord something of this first king and his family that have gone astray.
He does not merely bring them back and offer forgiveness for what they have done. Adam went his own way; he needs forgiveness. Through the precious blood, God offers forgiveness—the incorruptible blood of the Lord Jesus.
But when God created Adam in the very beginning and placed him here, Adam had an open door that he might become something more than he was. Adam enjoyed the created life that had been given to him. All that God could give him by creation was image and likeness.
Adam enjoyed the created life of God as one of God’s created beings. It is kind of a shock to some people when they realize that Adam did not have divine life. He had the created life of God.
The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
—1 Corinthians 15:45
What does that mean? Adam had a soul—mind, emotion, and will. He could think, he could react, he could choose. He was a living soul. But I believe that in the innermost part of Adam there was a room: the human spirit, a place that was made for God.
God waits to be invited into that room. He waits for man to receive of the tree of life, which is the life of God coming into his own spirit.
But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name.
—John 1:12
So there is a difference now. Let us be very clear. When Adam was placed in the garden, Adam enjoyed by creation the image and likeness of God. Adam needed to eat of the tree of life to have the divine life of God.
The snare of the liberal and the world today is the conception that there is this one big brotherhood of man. Now, that is true if you speak of the brotherhood of Adam. We all have created life, and that is the brotherhood in the first Adam.
But there is a vast difference between enjoying the natural life—the created life that comes through our father Adam—and those who come to enjoy a divine life, a begotten life, that comes from our Father. That is when we are begotten of God. We look up and say, “Abba, Father.” It is something very different.
I grew up somehow with the mentality that Adam had divine life and lost it, and that God’s program is just to restore man back to what had been lost in the garden. That is it—just restoration back to a damaged Adam. No. God is working out something far more wonderful.
In it all, there is something of a kingdom purpose that we want to see tonight. Here is Adam, the first king. He goes his own way, he misses out, and it looks like the kingdom purposes of God are going to be missed.
But God sends His own lovely Son, who comes down, and through the shedding of His own precious blood, man is brought back to the very line that Adam had lost. He is forgiven for what he has done.
But Adam needs something else. What is it? He has been set out of the garden. He cannot eat of the tree of life. God needs not only to forgive him for what he has done, but once again to make the tree of life available.
Except that you cannot eat the tree now as innocent man; man is sinful. Therefore, we enjoy the privilege of a Lamb slain, whose blood is shed. Our eating of the Lamb now is the basis for our receiving the life.
This is what we have in Jesus Christ. God introduces the blood that brings forgiveness and His life. We are begotten.
When He brings us to forgiveness, that would merely bring us to the plane that Adam was on. But when we receive Jesus as our tree of life, or the Lamb as our very life, we are lifted to a higher plane than Adam ever knew.
What a privilege is ours—not only to have the negative things dealt with, to be forgiven for what man has done. I am afraid there are a lot of folk who only know pardon; they think of it only in the realm of pardon.
But God’s full provision to us is two incorruptible things. Peter says it is the incorruptible blood by which we are redeemed. Then, a couple verses later, he says we are born again of incorruptible seed through the Word. Two incorruptible things.
In these two things, man is lifted into a new relationship—a begotten relationship. The question is: when man enjoys forgiveness and life, then what?
What is God’s purpose? I do not want to be funny; it is too serious. But my heart is burdened because we need an enlarging of our scope of understanding.
It is wonderful to know the grace of God provided through Jesus Christ. Grace and truth came by Him. But that is to introduce us to something else. What is the other? What else is God after?
When Adam turned to his own way, God introduced a means by which, through the work of the cross and His lovely Son, He could bring man back. Lo and behold, instead of a goal, we have another gateway. That is not the goal; it is the gate to the fulfilling of God’s purpose.
What is this purpose that God is working out? What does He want? We read it a little while ago in Revelation: He has washed us and made us a kingdom of priests.
Out of this priesthood there should be a showing forth, an extolling, an exaltation of Him in all His loveliness—not just a priesthood, but a kingdom of priests.
As I move around among the Lord’s people, there is an emphasis on priesthood today. Thank God. Praise the Lord. We are made priests, offering up spiritual sacrifices. This is wonderful. But there is the kingdom of priests. What does it mean for God to develop the kingdom?
All that Adam failed in, now God is going to accomplish through a kingdom of priests. He is moving from within here to establish the kingdom of priests as a means by which one day the whole of His government will spread throughout, and He will take the universe. God shall be all in all.
In the meantime, where are we today? Here we have the universal kingdom—all the nations, all the spheres of government. It is interesting: when you get into the Word of God, you find that all government and all authority issue from one place.
The kingdom of God, in its eternal and universal aspect, holds all kings in His hands, and He can turn them like rivers wherever He will. When a Hitler rises up and a Stalin comes on the scene in their awful treachery, it seems as though they are not really under God. But do not forget: government is a universal thing.
He allows tyrants momentarily. They are fitting in, and He is using them in His permissive way and in their place.
What is freedom? That is the definition we need today. “Adam, I give you freedom.” How do we interpret freedom? We interpret freedom as the right to do what I want to do. The right to do what I want to do is the modern definition of freedom.
“I am free to do anything I want to do.” How long do people like that stay free? They drink as much as they want until pretty soon they cannot control it, and they are not free anymore.
I believe the freedom God gives is the power to do what is right—what a man ought to do. Adam had the right to do what? He went his own way. He did what he wanted. That is abusing freedom. Freedom is for something. It is not just from; it is for something.
God delegated authority to the first Adam. The first Adam failed. Now He has delegated to His lovely Son, the Lord Jesus, who has come in. Through Him, He is bringing back and bringing into being the kingdom that He is after.
There is such a thing as resident authority and authority that is delegated. You can delegate to someone, but until the individual accepts the position, it is not only delegated—it must be accepted.
How many of you know fathers who do not accept their delegated position? It is easier to say, “Mama, you do it.” How many do you know mothers who do not accept their delegated positions? They turn it over to the teacher in school, the babysitter, or somebody else. They do not accept their delegated position.
Oh, one day, when God opens our eyes and helps us to see the place, the position He has delegated to us, with our hearts and eyes wide open we begin to say, “Lord, I accept the calling. I accept the place. I accept what You have given me.”
It is one thing to know that God has delegated; it is another thing, in a spiritual way, to come to accept what He has delegated. Along with accepting, then, in a true sense, we come to the next thing.
If I really accept the place, the calling that God has given me, knowing the order of things, then I have the responsibility of representing Him in the calling that I have. Authority must be represented.
It would be good if we could go through the Old Testament and see all the principle of representation. Every time I turn around, I am beginning to see that all the incidental things the Lord has hidden represent something.
The total of our life is quite an unveiling of whether we really understand the authority that has been delegated, whether it has been accepted, and whether we are in the place of representing.
I have a friend who had just been reading this portion in Romans. It says:
Whosoever resisteth the authority withstandeth the ordinance of God: and they that withstand shall receive to themselves judgment.
For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. And wouldest thou have no fear of the authority? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise from the same:
For he is a minister of God to thee for good.
—Romans 13:2-4
The one who has been placed in a position may have needs and all the rest in his life, but he is God’s minister there in the order of things.
My friend was coming to visit us last February, I think it was, driving up from Missouri. About seven o’clock that evening they got weary and stopped in a little city. He got out and was walking up and down the block, and he happened to meet a policeman standing at the corner.
You would have to know my friend. He is a rather talkative, warm sort of a fellow. He walked up to the policeman and said, “How do you do, sir? Did you know you were the minister of God?”
To his amazement, the policeman smiled back and said, “Yes, sir. Romans 13:4.” They shook hands, and he said he had found a policeman who really loved the Lord.
They had a good time of fellowship for a few minutes. The policeman said, “Yes, sir, I have come to realize that because I am under authority, I have authority.”
A wonderful principle. It gets to the basic thing that I am trying to say tonight. Sometimes we look at those who serve the law, preachers, and others, and we give them a special calling. I am after you tonight.
Does God have a place for you? Does God have a sphere for you? A calling for you? Sweetheart, does God have one for you? And you? We are all ministers of God in our sphere. We accept that which has been delegated to us, and we represent in our little sphere.
Oh, dear Lord, help us to represent You—a wife, a husband, a teacher. I do not care what it is.
For he is a minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that doeth evil.
Wherefore ye must needs be in subjection, not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.
For this cause ye pay tribute also; for they are ministers of God’s service, attending continually upon this very thing.
—Romans 13:4-6
There is an awful tendency today to play down and ridicule order and government. I say to you, government may not be all we would like it to be, but thank God for government. Thank God for the order of things.
We have a responsibility, I do believe. Have you accepted, and are you representing, the Lord in whatever sphere and calling is given to you?
The kingliness which God begins to prepare in us comes as we see the order of government. Every one of us has a calling. Every one of us has our individual sphere—something delegated to us, a place to fill.
As we learn to accept and represent the Lord in the way He has called, this brings about the first principle of the kingdom working within us. I am under authority. I have a place to fulfill. I represent the Lord, one way or another.
God is really after those who will experience the reign of the Lord—not just over all things, not just through all the government that has been established, but who have come to know and experience the government of the Lord in their own life personally.
When the Lord brings this about, we have what is known as the church—those who have the life of the Lord. This is the first sphere in which God is saying, “Oh, if My church can be the kingdom, if it can be the kingdom reigning, taking over the world, extending God’s own government.”
The tragedy is that there are many who have the life of the church—that is, they have the life of the Lord—and they know what it is to be in this sphere. But there is a difference between those who have the life and those who have the mere profession of things.
What happened in the world system today is that this mustard seed which God planted, which was in a mystery form to represent this very life of the kingdom, took on a different nature and character.
The little mustard seed that was to grow up, which really represents this realm of the kingdom, became a great big abnormal tree. How many of you ever saw a mustard seed become a tree?
It is the perversion of an enemy who came in. Read Matthew 13. The thing that should have been this became something bigger. Out of this we have a professing Christianity. It looks like a big thing all over the world today.
But you know and I know that this big thing, with all the birds of the air coming to make their nests, is not what we would call those who have the life of the Lord, those born again by the Spirit of God.
Oh, what a wonderful thing it would be if those who have the life of the Lord could become the priesthood, could become the kingdom that would bring in the purpose of God.
As I said this morning, the tragedy is this: there are many who have the life of God, who enjoy sins forgiven, who have all of this, but they do not know the reality of God’s reign in their own life.
I ask you: how many Christians who have the life of the Lord do you know who have the inward reality of the kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit?
They are called to be a kingdom. They are not just professing, like a big tree that has become abnormal and misshapen.
This brings us to see that what God is doing today is calling forth those who, out of hunger and deep longing, are crying for the reality of the kingdom. It is not merely a sphere.
Who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
—Colossians 1:13
When we are born of the Spirit of God, we are translated into the kingdom of His dear Son. That is the church. But how many do you know who have been translated into that kingdom, while the reality of the kingdom is not being wrought out in them?
If we had a few more hours, I would like to take you into God’s working of the reality in us. It is the thing we see in Matthew. Oh, if there is anything that might burn tonight, it is that those who have been translated into this sphere will now move into the reality of it in their own life.
What is happening in groups every place we turn? Hearts and individuals are crying out, “Oh, dear Lord, for more reality—the reality, the reality.” Not just an outward kingdom into which we have been translated, but the reality of the kingdom working within us.
This is why we expect righteousness—the standard of God—joy, and peace. These are the marks of the priesthood of the Lord.
The whole of the church should experience the reality. This morning we were speaking of how Israel had made the golden calf. They had missed the thing that God was after.
Moses stood at the gate of the camp and asked, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come unto me.” Who was it that came over to stand by Moses? The Levites.
The Lord will always have a group who will stand with Him for His purpose. It is not that the Levites themselves are going to get in on something so much better. It is that when God looks down, He is able to see that the Levites are living unto Him for the needs of the others.
Let us get no ambition, as it were, no self-righteous attitudes. If there is any hunger and longing within us for reality, it is something the Lord has stirred. We have heard the call: “Who will stand by Me?”
Let us answer, “There to be the kingdom of priests that will praise Him.”
It just could be, I add in closing, that those who know the reality of the kingdom now are those who will have an abundant entrance to reign with Him in the kingdom that will one day appear, when the kingdom of the heavens comes.
This is the motivation. This is the desire. This is a longing that somehow pulls at my own heart. Oh, Lord, that Your purpose, so far as once again recovering all that Adam lost, Your perfect will be fulfilled.
As a kingdom of priests, the church comes into the reality and takes over the reign. The reality will extend finally throughout the whole, until in due time, when the Lord Jesus has put all authority and every contrary force under His feet—Head plus Body ruling—the Lord with His many-membered Body ruling.
All things are brought into a universe of one will. Then He will turn it over to His Father.
The question tonight is: Why worry about all the universe until He has first settled this little universe right here?
Unite my heart to fear Thy name.
—Psalm 86:11
From whence come wars and fightings among you? We talk about people fighting wars out here. You stop the Vietnam War; you stop all this. But where is the real fighting? From whence come your wars? They have their first thoughts right here.
God’s work with us tonight is this: Have we really come to know the lordship of Jesus Christ, His rights and His claims over our life? Do we submit to Him to bring, first of all inwardly, a spirit of obedience and a spirit of submission within?
It becomes very practical when I see my place—whether it is in the church, in the home, or wherever it is. Once I am caught by the Lord’s claim and see His wonderful chain of command as it works throughout all the order of things, I realize I cannot move on to be part of a kingdom of priests until it first begins with a submissive spirit.
You can tell that the life has been conquered. Shall we pray?
Lord, we thank You in this closing hour for Your working. Every place we see Your people, there is a groan and a longing within—not just that we might know how to submit, but that the sphere of the Lord, a sphere of submission, will reign within.
That which happened when Adam turned to his own way is being overcome, as the Lord Jesus has come and, by His Spirit, is taking each of us—His little kingdoms, individuals—and bringing us into our life, into our calling.
Oh, there are some tonight who have not settled it for themselves. Help them, dear Lord, to see, to accept the place You would put them. There is so much lawlessness in this way. So many of Your children have never really come finally to that one thing: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?”
Lord Jesus, I submit to Thee. We claim that for our hearts individually. We know when You can do this, there will be the real overflow of praise. It will be the real joy, the real peace, the righteousness reigning within.
We come to experience the reality of the kingdom. We have heard about it; we have talked about it as an outward thing. We want to know the reality of it in our lives.
Thank You, dear Lord. All that Adam lost, You are bringing into being through the Lord Jesus, the last Adam. He is the Head, and we are members of Him.
Oh, give us a little bit of what Your purpose is regarding the kingdom. We will give You the praise, the honor, and the glory, as we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.