We turn to the letter to the Ephesians, chapter 1—the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. I want to read these well-known verses again, beginning at verse 15.
For this cause I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and the love which ye show toward all the saints,
cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,
having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling,
what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
and what the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might
which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places,
far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.
And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body,
the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
Shall we pray together?
And so we ask that the Lord will really give to us this spirit of wisdom and revelation.
O beloved Lord, we bow before Thee with full hearts. We thank Thee, beloved Lord, for all that Thou art to us. We thank Thee for Thy salvation. We thank Thee, Lord, for Thy life. We thank Thee for Thy fullness. We thank Thee for all the resources which are ours indeed.
We thank Thee, beloved Lord, for Thy power and authority. And as now we bow before Thee, Lord, we want to tell Thee that, as we come to this last time of these days together, we need Thee, Lord. We need Thee to give to us that spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Thyself.
O Lord, we pray that Thou wilt deliver us from a mere academic understanding of the things that have been said and of what Thou hast been seeking to do. Lord, we pray that the eyes of our hearts might be enlightened, that we might know these things in a direct and original way.
O Lord, cause Thy light to shine into our hearts. Enable us to see light in Thy light. Lord, wilt Thou grant, we pray, that Thy words may live to us all, and that they may dwell in our hearts richly in all wisdom and knowledge.
Lord, we thank Thee that the anointing is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ, and by faith now we come to stand into it, speaker and hearer alike. We, Lord, open our spirits and ask Thee that Thou wilt, Lord, overshadow and give and manifest that enabling power, not only to speak Thy word, but to hear Thy word. We shall give to Thee all the praise and the glory and the thanksgiving through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well now, we come to this last time of these days together. There is one burden in my heart that I would like to share with you finally.
We have said so much about fellowship, and rather spoken about seeing the Lord and knowing Him. Our brother Stephen Kaung gave that strong and, for all of you, unforgettable word on the counsel of God.
But the burden of my heart is that God would give us vision—that God would really open the eyes of our hearts and give to us that spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
My dear friends, I always get such a fear when I see everything going into notebooks. Conferences are dreadful places, because people sit there taking it all down. Now, I am not against it being taken down when there is a shining into the heart and when there is vision. But oh, the danger of just pouring knowledge, of just accumulating doctrinal and biblical truth.
What we need above every other thing is that the Lord should reveal Himself to us, that with the eye of our heart we should see the Lord.
I believe that spiritual vision is an absolute necessity. And I venture to say that, as we move into the last phase of this age, spiritual vision will be the determining factor as to whether we shall go through or break up.
Our adherence or loyalty to truth academically or mentally understood will not stand us in good stead when the trial of our faith comes in all its severity. It is only what a man or a woman has seen that will have so apprehended them that they will be unable to deny it.
The apostle Paul once said:
Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.
—Acts 26:19
Of course, I want to say straight away that when I speak of the necessity of spiritual vision, I am not talking here about visions. There may be a place for visions. There may be a place for dreams. But I am not talking about visions; I am talking about vision.
I mean understanding the Lord, understanding the will of God, understanding the time in which we live, and understanding the purpose of God concerning the Lord Jesus Christ and those who have been brought into Him.
Perception. Spiritual seeing. Understanding. That is what we mean above every other thing.
If you turn to that well-known word in Proverbs 29:18:
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
The old King James Version says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Another version says, “Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint.” But really, the Hebrew word for “cast off restraint” comes from the binding up of a woman’s hair. It simply means that when you take it out, the whole lot falls down.
It is the word we find concerning the children of Israel when they worshipped the golden calf. They had cast off restraint, and were dancing and worshipping the golden calf.
This word vision in Hebrew has the thought of teaching, of prophetic understanding—not merely foreseeing a picture or having a vision in that sense, but an understanding of the Lord’s word.
You will remember that in 1 Samuel it says there was no open vision in those days. In other words, there was no prophetic understanding, no prophetic word, no interpretation of the mind of God. There was no understanding of the mind of God in those days.
Now let me say this straight away: where there is no understanding of the ways of the Lord, sooner or later the people perish. They go to pieces. It does not matter whether they are the redeemed ones of the Lord or not; the principle is the same.
Where there is no understanding of the Lord, no seeing of the Lord, no understanding of His purpose, there is no cohesion. There is no direction. There is nothing that holds us all together into one and teaches us, as it were, to move together and flow together. We perish. We go to pieces.
The apostle Paul, writing that letter to the Ephesians—perhaps the most tremendous revelation, in one sense, in the whole Bible—comes to a point at the very beginning where he suddenly stops.
It is as though he says to the person to whom he is dictating the letter, “I wonder whether we ought to put in this prayer burden of mine for them all.” Then he evidently feels, “I think we should,” and so he stops his thought for a moment and says:
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory,
that He may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,
having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling,
what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
and what the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe.
—Ephesians 1:15-19
In other words, the apostle Paul was terrified that that letter should just become, as it were, an academic literary object—that it might become merely the ground for Bible study, sermon material, or a means of some people getting a livelihood producing Bible outlines, little sermons, and little messages.
No, said the apostle Paul. He was terrified that, once we start to reduce that which God has shown us—this heavenly vision, this understanding of God’s purpose concerning the Lord Jesus—into human language and define it in human words, people will take it academically.
They will think that if they can just get it up here, they have got it. God preserve us from people who have got it up here. They are the biggest menace the church has got.
Some of us tend to think that the greatest danger to the work of God is people who are ignorant of the purpose of God. Yes, in one way. But an even greater menace is people who have got it up here and have no understanding of it. They can give us outlines. They can define truth. But when it comes to the practice of it, they do not know the first thing.
The apostle Paul stops and says, “Now listen, I want you to know—everyone who reads this letter—I want you to know that for those for whom primarily it was written, I got on my knees and I prayed: ‘O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, do not let this letter be merely academic.’”
“Do not let it stay in the realm of mental appreciation, just in the realm of doctrinal truth. Lord, give to those who are the recipients of this letter that spirit of wisdom, understanding, and revelation in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus.”
The apostle Paul explains his whole experience in Galatians 1:15-16:
But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother’s womb, and called me through His grace,
to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles;
immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.
—Galatians 1:15-16
It is absolutely true that the apostle had a vision of our Lord on the road to Damascus. But it was much more than something dramatic and sensational. When the apostle saw the Lord, he saw something far more. He said, “It pleased God to reveal His Son in me.”
In his salvation, from the very beginning of his conversion, he began to understand something: that he had been incorporated into Christ, that he had become one with Christ. Now, we shall come to that in just a moment.
This matter of vision is a principle. I cannot say that it is the principle of fellowship necessarily, but it is a general principle in the whole work of God. It is a necessity, not a luxury.
Many of us tend to think that such vision is only granted to the elite among the people of God, to those who are going to be very greatly used in the Lord’s service. But this is not something for a special inner circle, nor is it a luxury which you will be greatly blessed if you should happen to have.
It is a necessity, dear child of God. It is a necessity for every single one of us. In the days of shaking and sifting that are surely coming, when the enemy will do everything possible to withstand the work of God, destroy the building work of God, and somehow halt the completion of the house of God, we must be, above everything else, men and women of vision.
It does not matter where we turn in the word of God; we find this matter. People tend to think that perhaps it was just something in the New Testament. No, no, no, it is not. Clearly, everything began with Abraham, and it all began with vision.
What does Stephen say?
The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran.
—Acts 7:2
The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Ur of the Chaldees, in Mesopotamia. That is how it all began.
There is this idea, so common in some circles, that Abraham was some smelly, illiterate, wandering Bedouin shepherd, stumbling down the desert with a few straggling goats and sheep and a camel. The idea is that he could neither read nor write and had not an ounce of education in him.
Abraham was nothing of the kind at all. He came from Ur of the Chaldees, which was one of the great cities of antiquity. It was a city proud of its sophisticated civilization.
A lot of ladies’ fashionable jewellery today is modelled on pieces of jewellery found in Ur of the Chaldees. They had their ladies’ hairdressers, their banks, their stock exchange, their postal system—Ur had all kinds of things.
Of course, we understand from the Talmud a little more about Abraham. We understand that he was an idol-maker. His family controlled the whole business of making idols for the city. One day, so the Talmud says, he thought to himself, “Isn’t it strange that we make these things and then bow down to them?”
And then the God of glory appeared to him. We do not know how. Abraham saw the Lord. He did not merely see God; he saw the God of glory.
He was not limited in his understanding. He not only saw the day of the Messiah; he not only saw the gospel from afar. But even more remarkably, it says:
By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
For he looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
—Hebrews 11:8, 10
Where did Abraham get any idea of a city? He had to let go of a city. He went out to become a sojourner in the desert. He went out to live in tents. He never, ever settled in a city.
How, in actual fact, did Abraham look for the city that has the foundations? You see, when the God of glory appeared to Abraham, he suddenly saw that this strong, enduring, sophisticated, civilized, educated city of earth had no foundations.
Maybe if you had been in Ur of the Chaldees—as if you go to Washington—you would think, “This will never disappear. These magnificent buildings, wonderful avenues, monuments, this great system of civilization, this capital of a great superpower—it will never disappear.”
It will. If the Lord tarry, the whole thing will one day disappear, as surely as Ur of the Chaldees has disappeared. It was a tremendous thing for Abraham, knowing Ur with its boulevards, avenues, buildings, monuments, sophistication, and education, suddenly to see that that city had no foundation.
Do you know, Abraham saw more than many true believers in the new covenant? How many real believers see what the city of God is? Very few indeed. They look at you as if you are crazy if you begin talking about the city of God.
All they know are hymns about treading streets of gold, pearly gates opening, and perhaps having cups of tea in some heavenly city. That is all they can understand about the city of God. But that is a Sunday-school idea.
What Christian has seen what Abraham saw over four thousand years ago? Where did Abraham see the city which has the foundations? Now, my friend, we come to it.
He did not see some plan of a city. He did not see some physical city. When he saw the God of glory, he saw in the God of glory the city of God. By seeing the Lord, he saw the place of God’s glory. He saw the dwelling place of God’s glory.
From that moment Abraham was spoiled; he was never the same again. Any man or woman who sees something of the Lord is spoiled for anything less. Once the God of glory appears to us, we are never the same again.
We see something. We are no longer inhabitants of earthly cities; we are sojourners, we are pilgrims. We have seen the city which has the foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God.
Abraham saw so much. O dear child of God, the least of those in the body of Christ under the new covenant are greater than these Old Testament saints in their privileges. Do you realize how you are devaluing your status in Christ if you do not even see what the city of God is?
Abraham saw it. It changed his whole life. It changed his lifestyle. It changed his whole direction for time and eternity. Have you been gripped by something like that? That is vision.
God began everything with Abraham through vision: “The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham.” But take another one. I would love to talk much more about some of the others. I would like to speak, for instance, about Jacob.
Jacob saw the Lord. And when he saw the Lord, that great swindler, that great twister—the biggest twister in the Middle East—was changed. His name, Jacob, which means “supplanter” or “twister,” was changed to Israel.
Jacob saw the Lord, and when he saw the Lord something happened. He was given a change of name, and his name was to become the name of the people of God throughout all time: Israel.
I want to go on to Moses. It all began with vision with Moses. He had an academic understanding when he was younger.
Moses was the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, brought up in the palace. Again, if we understand some of those things which are extra-biblical—if they are truth, and there is no reason to believe they are merely myth simply because they are extra-biblical—we understand from the Talmud that Moses was the hero of the Libyan campaign and highly decorated by Pharaoh for his victories.
We get a hint of this in the Bible. We are told that he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt and the pleasures of sin.
But Moses only academically saw something. When he saw an Egyptian fighting with a Hebrew, he stepped in and slew the Egyptian. Then he fled for his life, and for forty years he was in the backside of the desert keeping a lot of silly sheep.
Think of it: Pharaoh’s daughter’s son keeping sheep. Sheep were greatly despised by the Egyptians. For forty years, I suppose, for the first ten years Moses thought great thoughts of visitations from God, and of how he was going to be carried back in a great revival into Egypt to his people. But it never happened.
Twenty years went by, and his thoughts were a little more modified, but he still believed that somehow or other something was going to happen. Thirty years went by, and it was beginning to get difficult, but he held on to the idea that somehow or other something was going to happen.
But when the forty years were up, the whole thing had died in him. Then one day in the desert, keeping his sheep, he saw a fire in the desert.
Those of us who have lived in the desert have seen those fires. I remember the first time I saw them. I asked the Bedouin who was with me at the time, “What is that fire out there?” He said, “That is one of those thorn bushes. It is dead and dried up, and the sun has ignited it.”
Moses never took any notice of it. He saw a fire in the desert and went on dreaming his dreams. Then he looked back ten minutes later, and it was still burning. He went on dreaming his dreams.
After twenty minutes, he thought, “Why, that really is some bush.” And after perhaps thirty or forty minutes, he thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight.”
He went over to where this thorn bush was burning. When he got there, I have no doubt it was not a very big thorn bush. He saw that the bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then, out of the thorn bush, out of the flame of fire, the voice of God came:
Moses, Moses, draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
—Exodus 3:4-6
Moses saw the Lord, and he saw the Lord in a form that was to transform the whole life of Moses, the whole direction of Moses. For when he saw the Lord in the thorn bush, Moses saw himself.
It was as if God was saying, “Dear Moses, you are just like this old dried-up thorn bush: no value, ugly, worthless, insignificant, and full of thorns. You are like that, Moses.”
“You thought you were a great palm tree once, stately and majestic. I reduced you to a dried-up thorn bush. You thought you were an acacia tree, the loveliest tree in the desert, out of which the tabernacle furniture was made. I reduced you to a dried-up, dead, old thorn bush.”
“Moses, you are the dried-up old thorn bush: most commonplace, worthless, ugly, and prickly. And I am the fire. Moses, when I get into you and you come into Me, then My purpose will be built.”
Remember, out of the thorn bush Moses said, “Whom shall I say sent me?” God said, “I AM. That is My name. Not ‘I was,’ nor ‘I will be,’ but ‘I AM THAT I AM.’”
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
—Exodus 3:14
Do you know, it was as if God gave Moses a blank cheque. People often get frightened of that name, “I AM THAT I AM,” and think it means something about the eternity of God, the all-sufficiency of God, the omniscience of God, and all the rest of it. All of which is true.
But, my dear friends, when it comes to what God was doing, He was giving Moses a blank cheque. “Moses, do you need love? I am love. Do you need power? I am power. Do you need grace? I am grace.”
“Do you need humility? I am your humility. Do you need strength? I am your strength. Do you need wisdom? I am your wisdom. Do you need direction? I am your direction.”
“Moses, I am in you. I am in you, and I am all that you need in you, Moses. So go to Pharaoh, and My purpose will be fulfilled.”
Moses was so much the old dried-up thorn bush that he said, “Lord, I stammer. I cannot speak.” He never thought of that before. The Lord had such mercy upon Moses that He said, “Then take Aaron your brother, and he will do all the talking.”
Ever afterwards Moses did all the talking and Aaron did all the work. God knows how to humour us when He does His work so well that, in the end, we ourselves have no confidence in ourselves—not in a single atom of ourselves.
Do you begin to understand how wonderful it is? I used to wonder, when I was young in the Lord, why the Lord did not choose a palm tree, with a wonderful blaze of glory at the top of some majestic, straight palm tree, and the Lord looking down and saying, “Moses, Moses, do not come near here. This is holy ground.”
Would it not have been wonderful? Especially as a palm is a symbol of righteousness and majesty. Or suppose the Lord had come out of an acacia tree, that most beautiful and delicate of all the trees of the desert. Bible expositors would have had such a wonderful time with it.
We would have said, “Now, you see, the tabernacle—the Lord’s dwelling place. You see, He was in the acacia tree. The Lord is in it, you see.” But the Lord took a dried-up old thorn bush.
Before you can become a palm tree by the grace of God, you must first become a dried-up old thorn bush. Before you can become acacia material for the building of God’s house, you must first know that you are a dried-up old thorn bush.
God is the fire; you are the thorn bush. But Moses saw more than that. By the eye of his heart he saw, “This is Israel. This old thorn bush is Israel.” God was saying, “I, the living God, am in the midst of My people.”
“I will be the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. I will be the manna from heaven. I will be water out of the rock. I will lead them all the way through. I will be a dwelling place. I will make them My dwelling place on earth.”
“Moses, never forget that My people are nothing other than a dried-up old thorn bush. If you put your hand in, you will get scratched.”
Moses found that out very quickly. Oh, how they murmured, how they rebelled, how they backslid. Nothing ever pleased them. They were the thorn bush.
One time Moses got so angry that he struck the rock: “Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?” We must have the greatest sympathy with dear Moses, those of us who work among the people of God.
Many times we would have struck the rock not once, but ten times, and said, “You rebels! We always have to bring the word of God to you. All you do is just bite and devour one another and murmur, and nothing is ever right.”
But Moses, because of that one failing, God said to him, “Moses, you have forgotten. You have forgotten. They are the thorn bush, Moses. I am the fire, and you have touched Me.”
“It was not your business to say what I did not give you to say. I am in this thorn bush. It is holy ground. Take off your shoes from off your feet.”
Remember that, dear child of God, when next you criticize some child of God, when next you do injury to them, when you despitefully use them. Remember: you may hear the voice of God coming to you, “This is holy ground. This thorn bush—I am in it.”
So we can go on and on through the whole Bible. The apostle Paul saw the Lord on the road to Damascus. Many people just think of that as some dramatic picture that he saw of the Lord, when the Lord said to him:
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?
—Acts 9:4
You will remember that Saul said, “Who art Thou, Lord?” And the Lord said:
I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.
—Acts 9:5
Now, most Christians know their Bibles so superficially that these statements run off them like water off a duck’s back. Have you ever thought of it? Just think for one moment.
Jesus was already dead, as far as Paul was concerned. Suddenly he was struck down, and light shone upon him brighter than the sun at midday. Out of that brightness the apostle Paul heard the voice: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?”
Saul said, “Who are You?” The Lord said, “I am Jesus.” Saul could have said, “But Lord, I am not persecuting You. You are dead. You have long since gone. I am persecuting those wretched people who have made an extreme fanatical sect out of Your teaching.”
Do you see what happened? On that day the apostle Paul saw the Lord, and he suddenly—perhaps only dimly at first, but then more clearly during the three years in Arabia—saw that the Lord Jesus’ people were His members. They were part of Him. When you struck them, you struck the Lord.
When you injured them, you injured the Lord.
Out of that vision came all of Paul’s ministry. All that he later says about the body of Christ and our being in Christ, I believe, came from that heavenly vision.
The apostle Paul said in the end, “Wherefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” Do I begin to make you see that this matter of vision is all-important?
O dear child of God, you can go to a theological seminary for ten years and it will kill you. You can go to Bible course after Bible course after Bible course, but if you do not have vision, then the whole thing is just knowledge.
And knowledge puffeth up. Only love buildeth up.
It is, of course, the right kind of knowledge that we need. Understand, I am not attacking knowledge. There is the knowledge of the Lord: “That I may know Him.”
The apostle Paul says that the Lord may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know. Not know about it, but know it. Not know about Him, but know Him.
O child of God, dear family of God, there have been many, many things that we have talked about these last days. But unless there is vision, everything will be lost in this if, in the end, God does not give us that vision of Himself.
May I say something more? We need to see the greatness of the Lord. We live in days of small things. Christ is so small that we can reduce Him to a formula. We can reduce Him to a certain number of methods and techniques. We can make Him somehow or other just a creed.
Oh, if only we saw the Lord and could see the greatness of the Lord. He is not contained in a teaching, a creed, or an experience. Nor does one believer contain all the fullness that our Lord contains. He is so infinite, so great.
When Daniel saw the Lord, he fell down as one dead. When Ezekiel saw the Lord, he fell down as one dead. John, when he saw the Lord, fell down as one dead.
This kind of vision is not the kind of vision that sends people on a world tour to tell people all around the world about the vision they had. God forbid.
This kind of vision is the death of the person who sees it. When they see the Lord in all His infinity, grandeur, mercy, and love, it is as if they die in His presence, and the Lord has to come and set them upon their feet.
Have you ever noticed that again and again in the Bible? When people see the Lord, they fall at His feet as dead, and someone has to come, set them up, put His right hand upon them, and say, “Fear not.”
Have you ever had such vision? Every time we see the Lord, we feel we know nothing. Every time we see the greatness of the Lord, we feel that we are so small and so little. It is as if we die.
O, to see the greatness of the Lord. When Isaiah, in the year that King Uzziah died, was in the temple praying and worshipping, he suddenly saw the Lord high and lifted up.
He could no longer see the temple. He could not see the sanctuary, for the train of the Lord’s glory filled and enveloped the whole sanctuary.
Dear child of God, may God give us such a vision of the Lord that we do not see things, but see Him. In the end, everything is in Him.
People make the church abstract from Him. They make it a detached thing: here is the Lord, there is the church. But, in essence, the church is Christ. It is being one body in Him. It is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, being built together as a habitation of God in the Spirit. It is all in the Lord.
If we could see that, it would save us so much. It is a wonderful thing when we see that our salvation is our Saviour.
It is not merely that He has finished the work. Thank God for that—the legal side of our salvation. But what a precious and glorious prize it is that He is our Saviour and ever lives to make intercession for us.
If we were reconciled through His death, how much more shall we be saved through His life? What a wonderful thing it is when the Lord gets right inside us. We are born of God. We find that our salvation is not a thing; it is a Person.
It is a wonderful thing when we find that our sanctification is a Person. People talk of holiness as if it were an experience, a second blessing. Thank God there is such an experience of our Lord, but it is all the Lord.
I had an experience when I thought that I had been crucified, died with Him, buried with Him, and was raised together with Him to walk in newness of life. Why, that is an experience of a Person. He is a Person.
Some people make much of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I believe there is an anointing of the Spirit. I would die on that point. I do not want to cause confusion, but I am sure there is an experience of anointing for service.
We need to know it as soon as we are saved, and the nearer the better, if not at our salvation. I know some people think God entered into it right at the moment they were saved. What a wonderful thing it is to know the anointing.
But the anointing is not a thing. People are looking for an experience that knocks them out, bowls them over, and sends them into ecstasies and all the rest of it. Well, thank God for those of us who have had an ecstasy or two in this poor world. It is something to have an ecstasy.
I do not begrudge anyone having an ecstasy—being caught up to the third heaven and seeing the Lord—so long as you keep your mouth shut when you come down, and do not go around making such a thing something that has to be traded all the time.
But, my dear friend, the Lord Jesus is the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit. The only way I was born of the Spirit was through the Lord Jesus. The only way the Holy Spirit came to dwell in me was by the Lord Jesus. The only way I can be anointed with the Holy Spirit and power is through the Lord Jesus.
It is not that I am good enough, or have got merit, or have got anything else. It is the work of my Lord that brings me into the anointing. It is all of grace.
So many people have asked me about the comment I made the other day about an anointing for a meeting. But that would be a subject all of its own: what is an anointing, how to stay in the anointing, how to abide under it, and how to distinguish it.
Dear child of God, the anointing is in Christ. The oil is upon the Head—even Aaron’s head—and runs down upon his beard, down to the hem of his garments, and includes every member of the body.
My anointing is the Lord Jesus. He has obtained something for me and poured forth that which you see and hear.
Whatever it is—whether it is some experience of the Lord or moving on with the Lord—it is all in the Lord. We need to see it. Oh, may the Lord give us such vision.
Finally, I would like to draw these days to a close by saying something about the way God apprehends us through vision. How does God take hold of a person? How does He arrest a person? How does He apprehend them?
Always through this. Through such vision, we are apprehended by the Lord.
You know, the apostle Paul, once he saw the Lord, had no time for anything petty. In Philippians 3 he says some incredible things.
If I had written Romans, I would be insufferable. If I had written, even by the grace of God, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, and perhaps some of the others, I would be opening Bible colleges, running a theological seminary, conducting Bible-study courses, and all the rest of it.
I would not be saying:
I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
—Philippians 3:8
That I may win Christ. I would take the apostle Paul and say, “Paul, you are exaggerating. Win Christ? But you have already got Christ. Wake up! You have already got Him. He got hold of you on the road to Damascus.”
“Paul, you are clothed with the righteousness of God. Of course you are clothed with righteousness—you have written Romans. Why, if you had written that one letter, you have obviously won Christ.”
“Paul, Corinthians! Think of the twelfth chapter of 1 Corinthians. Think of the thirteenth chapter. Think of the fifteenth chapter. If I had written just one of those, I would feel I had done my job. I would sit down on a flowery bed of ease and wait to go to glory. I would have done my part.”
But Paul had written Scripture. He had given Galatians and Thessalonians. He had even spoken in 2 Corinthians 12 about being caught up to the third heaven and hearing things not lawful for a man to utter.
Now, I think that is the top of spiritual experience. You are going to come back and say, “I have had something from the Lord. I am going to tell you.” That is one great thing, is it not? But to be able to come and say, “I heard something I am not allowed to tell you”—that is the climax of all spiritual experience. Then you are really, as it were, in the spiritual Pentagon.
But, dear child of God, the apostle Paul had so seen the greatness of the Lord and the infinity of the Lord that forever afterwards he knew how much he did not know.
When you are a student, you think you know everything. You can dogmatically hold forth on this, that, and the other. But you get a university professor, and you find that he is much more careful. “Well,” he says, “it could be this or it could be that, but I think it is probably this.”
Why? Because he knows so much more. The student knows so much less and therefore can be dogmatic. But the professor knows so much more, and therefore knows that he knows so little. In other words, he knows that there is so much more to know.
Have you come there yet? I feel sorry for Christians who know it all. “You know it? Good day, I have got the Lord. I will introduce Him to you: point one, two, three, and four.”
“Do you want an experience of this too? Yes? Five steps—come to me. I will give you the five steps and you will be in. Do you want freedom from fear? Come to me. I have got seven steps here.”
Oh, when somehow or other we have seen the greatness of the Lord, it is as if we know how much more there is to know. We know how little we really know.
It is as if we have put to sea on an infinite ocean, and the more we go out into the ocean, the smaller the vessel becomes and the greater the horizon.
That is what vision does for you. Vision will always make you feel little and God infinite. It will always make you know how tiny you are and how fathomless God is.
But vision will also make you know that God’s infinity and your finiteness are linked together eternally; that His fullness and your littleness are one; that the old thorn bush and the fire of God have come together forever. That is vision.
The measure of our vision will determine just how far we go. Some people have only seen the matter of salvation. That is as far as they will go. They will be perfectly happy about only evangelistic things.
Thank God for people who have an evangelistic burden. Never treat it as kindergarten, as if by going on with the Lord you leave that kind of thing behind. God forbid. We have a commission from the Lord to make disciples of all nations.
Woe betide any company that has no outreach. They will die, because they have not got the passion of their Lord in them.
But having said that, if you only see salvation, that is as far as you will go. If you see a bit more—shall we say, the charismatic—that will be the limit of it. You will always be trying to get people into an experience, full stop.
Or perhaps you see something more and are always trying to get someone else into that. You have seen something about the second coming of the Lord, and so there is always the second coming of the Lord. You are great on prophecy, so you are always trying to get people to understand that.
But if we see the purpose of the Lord concerning the Lord Jesus and those who are in Him, dear friends, that will determine how far we go. It is without limit.
May I say something else? Vision always disturbs. I will say that again: vision always disturbs.
People seem to think that if you have got a vision, well, suddenly you are set up. You have got it now. You can get on the platform, press the button as you come, and they will all sit there with their mouths open, listening to these wonderful words pouring out of your mouth.
No, dear friends. Any man or woman who has a real vision is a disturbed person.
Abraham went out. He could not stay in Ur a moment longer. Moses went in. He could not stay in the desert a moment longer. He had to go into Pharaoh’s house.
Daniel got so disturbed that for three weeks he started on a prayer ministry. Oh my, what a battle he got into—principalities and powers resisting the angel who was coming, as it were, with the answer of God for Daniel.
Vision always disturbs. Paul could not settle for anything little. If you ask for vision, just remember what you are asking for. You are asking for spiritual disturbance.
Some of you who are quite happy to be denominational may find that suddenly you get very, very disturbed—not bitter and not superior, but disturbed.
Some of you who are in other things that have gone right off the rails will find that, if God gives you real vision, you are going to get disturbed. You will have to ask yourself, “If the lampstand goes, where do I go?”
Vision will always disturb.
Vision leads to burden and travail. Have you ever noticed how so many of the prophets speak of their prophecy as “the burden of the Lord”? Because they saw the Lord.
There is travail. Some of you have spoken to me about travail. It begins with this. No one will ever be trusted with travail who has not seen the Lord.
O my dear friend, I hope I have said enough in this closing time of these days to make you realize that I reckon all that has been ministered is futile unless God grants to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Himself.
That is not necessarily something sensational or dramatic. But suddenly, what you thought you dimly perceived with your brain comes, as it were, in a flash into your heart. For the first time you begin to see something.
That which you begin to see, you will see clearer and clearer and more clearly as you go on with the Lord.
For you brethren whom God is using, may I say this: vision produces ministry. Do you want a real ministry of the word, and not just one of those structured, systematized things? A real ministry of the word comes out of vision.
Daniel saw the Lord, and out of it came ministry, both in prayer and in words. Ezekiel saw the Lord, and out of it came a tremendous ministry. Isaiah saw the Lord, and out of it came one of the greatest ministries the people of the old covenant, and we in the new, have ever received.
John saw the Lord, and out of that came the book of Revelation. All ministry, in the end, comes out of vision. Paul saw the Lord, and out of it came his tremendous ministry.
There are many other things that vision does. It creates living faith. When we see the Lord, faith comes into our hearts.
The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham. By faith, he obeyed to go out, not knowing whither he went.
And faith changes us into the likeness of our wonderful Lord:
But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.
—2 Corinthians 3:18
Dear child of God, we need to see the Lord.
In the end, the permanent effect and value of these days will be precisely in the measure in which we see the Lord.
Moses saw the Lord again and again and again. He saw the Lord in a way as no other human being has really seen the Lord. Yet this has always captured me.
When the Lord asked Moses, “Is there anything you want?” he said:
Show me Thy glory.
—Exodus 33:18
That is the evidence of a man who has begun to see the Lord. When you begin to see the Lord, you want more.
I think many of us would have been satisfied with what Moses had already seen and heard. But, O Lord, this is what vision always does: we find we have to go on with Him.
Shall we pray?
Our beloved Lord, we do praise Thee this morning that Thou art the One who alone can give vision for Thy people.
O Lord, in this matter Thou hast shut us up to Thyself. We cannot get that from a Bible-study course, an outline, a Bible college, or even in a conference as such.
Lord, Thou art the only One who can give to Thy people that spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Thy Son.
O Lord, awaken us all to this matter, and may there be drawn out of all our hearts, Lord, a yearning and a longing to see the Lord.
Translate, Lord, all these things that have been ministered over these days, through whomsoever Thou hast used. Translate all these things, we pray, Lord, into reality through revelation.
O God, touch the eyes of our hearts and show us Thy glory, Lord.
And so, together, we commit ourselves to Thee, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.