We will be back with you again in this part of the state, and be able to share with you from the Word of God.
I would like to turn you to a number of Scriptures. I think most of them will be very well known to you. Let us turn first to the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, Romans Chapter 8. We will read from verse 28.
And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose.
For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren:
and whom He foreordained, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified.
Then, in the Ephesian letter, Chapter 3, we will read from verse 8.
Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;
and to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which for ages hath been hid in God, who created all things;
to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God,
according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord:
in whom we have boldness and access in confidence through our faith in Him.
Then, in the Old Testament, in the prophecy of Isaiah, Chapter 46, I am going to read just two verses, verses 9 and 10.
Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is none else;
I am God, and there is none like Me;
declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done;
saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.
Lastly, in the Old Testament, in the book of Job, Chapter 42, the first two verses.
Then Job answered the Lord, and said,
I know that Thou canst do all things,
and that no purpose of Thine can be thwarted.
Shall we have a further word of prayer?
Beloved Lord, we just want to thank You. We are here in Your presence, and we are gathered in the name of our Lord Jesus. We praise You, Father, that You have made provision for us, and we want to avail ourselves of that provision, Lord. We do not want to rely upon our own energies, talents, or gifts.
Lord, we need You this evening. We need You, as we have already asked, to draw near to us and reveal something more of Yourself to us; to deposit something more of Yourself in us.
Lord, hear us then as we commit ourselves to You, and as we stand by faith into that anointing, grace, and power which You have made available to us through the finished work of our Lord Jesus. We take that anointing now for the speaking and for the hearing, that Your purpose in our time together may be fulfilled, and something may be done in all our lives to the praise and glory of Your name.
We ask this together in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. Amen.
As I thought about this time together with you, there is a little phrase, a very well-known little phrase, in Romans Chapter 8 and verse 28. I just want to underline it. It is almost the title of this time together, this evening and tomorrow morning: “Called according to His purpose.”
Job said, “I know that no purpose of Yours can be frustrated.” God is not purposeless. He has a real purpose, and everything He does is according to that purpose.
Sadly, most Christians are unaware of that purpose of God, or at best we have a very limited understanding of it. We believe that the purpose of God is salvation: that we be converted, born again, and become children of God. We do not see beyond our salvation, as if salvation were in itself the end of the Lord—the last word, with nothing more outside of it.
Now, as I have often said, we do not want to devalue our so-great salvation or belittle it. It has cost the Lord Jesus everything to bring that salvation to us. But our salvation is but a means to an end. Our being saved is according to His eternal purpose.
In other words, the Lord has saved us with a goal in mind. He has saved us with an aim in mind. He has saved us with a purpose. Everything He does in our lives, from the day we are saved to the day we see Him face to face, is according to that purpose of His.
There is something else that is very wonderful about this. The Apostle Paul says in Ephesians that God has purposed according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Thus, the coming of the Lord Jesus was the focus and centre of an eternal purpose of God.
Another rendering is, “according to the eternal purpose which He secured in Christ Jesus,” or “realised in Christ Jesus.” We begin to discover two things. First, God’s eternal purpose has everything to do with the Lord Jesus. Secondly, when we are saved, our position and status are changed. From being out of Christ, we are placed in Christ.
In Christ, we discover—or are meant to discover—God’s purpose. The tragedy is that most Christians are in Christ, where God has placed them through His saving grace and through the power of the Holy Spirit, but very few have any understanding of this eternal purpose which He purposed and secured in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So we make two marvellous discoveries right at the beginning:
Everything that God does with His children, whether individually, in families, or corporately, is to do with the Lord Jesus. All God’s purpose is through the Lord Jesus. He realises His purpose in you and me in and through the Lord Jesus. There is no other way for God’s purpose to be secured in your life.
Everywhere I go, people ask me what the will of God is for them. We all start at the wrong end. We put the cart before the horse.
If you were to ask me what the biggest concern is amongst the people of God—especially younger people, those recently saved—I would say without hesitation that the question I am most often asked is, “How can I know the will of God?” People come and say, “I do not know whether I should go this way or that way. I just do not know what the will of God is for me.”
Sometimes we put the cart before the horse. If we could only, by the Spirit, begin to see what God’s eternal purpose is, then we would begin to understand what His will is for us. Do you understand what I am trying to say?
Once we get the broader horizon, we ask: What is God driving at? What is God’s goal? What is the aim of the Lord? Why did He create the universe? Why did He create mankind? Having created mankind, why has He persevered with us? Why did He send the Lord Jesus into the world to save us, when we are such a load of problem and trouble? Why, when He has saved us, does He faithfully, loyally, and mercifully go on with us, never giving us up—almost pursuing us with this aim in view?
What is the aim? What is the goal that the Lord has?
Before I go a step further, I want to underline one further thing. God intends completely to fulfil His whole purpose concerning the Lord Jesus and all whom He has given to Him. If you are one of those who have been given to the Lord Jesus, God intends to fulfil His purpose concerning you.
That is a tremendous thing. After all that Job went through—the trauma of losing everything, everything going wrong, Satan seeming to have full sway in his life—at the end of it all he says, “I know that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.”
Through it all, there were values that God had worked into Job’s life—values which could have come no other way than the way he had to walk. Now he could see that, with God, no purpose of His can be thwarted, frustrated, or shelved, if you like.
This has to be a tremendous encouragement to us. We have the same thing in Romans Chapter 8, where it tells us that all things work together. It is not just some things that work together; all things work together to them who love God, who are called according to His purpose.
Is that not marvellous? It means not just the good things, but the bad things—all things. It means not just those wonderful angelic ministries, but sometimes, unfortunately, the attentions of Satan. Everything is taken hold of by God and, in some marvellous way, used by the Lord to work in the believer’s life and bring that child of God to God’s end.
That is surely a tremendous encouragement. In this passage, Paul speaks of those whom the Lord foreknew, whom He also predestined; those whom He predestined, He also called; those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified—as if the whole thing is finished.
Right from before time began, through to the ages of the ages, it is as if the whole thing is completed in the heart and mind of God. You and I are in time, with all the problems of time, and we are in the process of discovering that God foreknew us, predestined us, has a purpose in saving us, has justified us, and is going to glorify us.
I want first of all to introduce this subject, and then get down to the practical side of things. How can you and I live according to God’s eternal purpose? How can we give the Lord full freedom to do in us what He wants to do?
I am talking about our individual lives, our homes, our work life, and our life as servants of God. It has tremendous scope. How can you and I give the Lord the freedom to do in us what He has to do in order to fulfil this purpose in our lives?
First, we must give the Lord Jesus the place that the Father has given Him. It is so simple. If you do not give the Lord Jesus the place the Father has given Him in your life, in your home, in your work life, and in church life, there is no way that the purpose of God can be fulfilled in your life.
This purpose of God is centred in the Lord Jesus. If you do not give the Lord Jesus the place the Father has given Him, then you paralyse the work of God in your life. You nullify it. You neutralise it.
That is why, when we appeal to people to make the Lord Jesus Lord, we are actually saying: when you surrender to the Lord, when you make Him Lord, when you stop your arguments, settle the outstanding issues in your life, and simply say, “Now be Lord in my life,” you have given the Lord freedom to do something in your life. He is now Lord. Now He can begin a great work in your life.
This is the first thing I want to say. The Scriptures end with this declaration of the Lord Jesus: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” It is as if the Lord Jesus is saying, “If you do not give Me the place the Father has given Me in your life, there is no way that the purpose of God can be fulfilled in your life. You are putting yourself outside of God’s purpose.”
Do you understand? You can talk until you are blue in the face about the will of God for your life, because much of it is self-centred. We want to do the will of God in a way that we will be glorified, fulfilled, popular, and come to status and position.
Much service, sadly, in Christendom is self-centred service: glorifying ourselves, building our own empires, erecting our own systems, and leaving behind our memorials—some huge, hoary institution. You understand what I mean. It is all very sad.
The fact of the matter is that you have to give the Lord Jesus His place. If you and I give the Lord Jesus His place—the place the Father has given Him in our lives—we cannot go wrong.
We are moving into days of terrible superficiality, terrible shallowness, and growing apostasy. Listen very carefully to me in this. Everybody thinks of apostasy as connected with institutional, traditional denominations, as if somehow they have departed so far from life and truth that they are going anyway.
But, my dear friends, you cannot—as the Greek word says—fall away if you have never occupied the position in the first place. Do you understand? When Scripture speaks of a great apostasy, it is talking about real believers: those who know the Lord, who have been born of God, but whose Christian life and service have become so shallow and superficial, so skin-deep, that when this falling away begins, it will sweep them with it.
I have to say that, in my estimation, large numbers of evangelicals and charismatics are coming into this category today because they are forsaking the Word of God as the foundation upon which we are built in Christ.
So I tell you again: do you want to be kept out of that apostasy? Do you want to go right through to the end of the Lord? It is so simple. Do not look upon it as complex. All the greatest things in the spiritual world are utter simplicity.
Just give the Lord Jesus the place the Father has given Him in your life, in your home, in your business life, in church life, and in service. Every time we are tempted to go to the left or to the right, we shall hear a voice behind us saying, “This is the way.”
The second thing is this: if you and I want to know the purpose of God fulfilled in our lives, we have to give the Holy Spirit absolute sovereignty.
If we quench the Holy Spirit, grieve the Holy Spirit, ignore the Holy Spirit, or bypass the Holy Spirit, we nullify the purpose of God in our lives and in our ministry. The Holy Spirit is the one Person of the Godhead who makes the Lord Jesus real to us.
There is so much fallacy in this matter. Some who love the Lord say, “Well, as long as we have the Lord Jesus, that is all.” But, my dear friends, why do we have Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? I know some interpretations of the Trinity are gross, as if there were three gods. It is much better to use the term tri-unity: three in one and one in three.
We know that the Lord Jesus was the eternal Son. From the very beginning, He was the Son. Why did He become man?
Some of our modern songs are marvellous, but every now and again I choke on some of the phrases they use. One speaks about how “He came down and took the form of a man.” That is not what Scripture says. It gives the impression that Jesus put a man on like a skin, as some outward covering.
My dear friends, when the Lord Jesus was born in Nazareth, God took a step that He would never undo. The Son became man. The Word became flesh. If I may put it reverently, the Lord Jesus, who is both God and man in the mystery of His person, goes eternally into the glory. Amen.
That is why, when the Lord Jesus returns, He returns in the same body that walked on this earth, with the same scars in His hands, His feet, and His side.
When the Lord Jesus says, “Abide in Me, and I in you,” how could He mean that if He is at the right hand of God? As the old creed says, He is at the right hand of God, from whence He shall return to judge the living and the dead.
How are we to abide in Him if God is located in the Lord Jesus? The Lord Jesus is not the same as the Spirit. Of course, He is God, so He is everywhere, without beginning or end, as are the Father and the Spirit. Yet Jesus is God located: we see Him in terms we can understand. We see the heart of God in Him. We see the mind of God in Him. He is man as well as God.
How does He dwell in me? How am I in Christ? How am I to abide in Him, and He in me? Only by the Holy Spirit. There is no other way.
The Holy Spirit will never draw attention to Himself. Nevertheless, He cannot be ignored, bypassed, belittled, devalued, quenched, or grieved without nullifying the purpose of God in our lives and church life. There is no way.
The Holy Spirit is here as the vice-regent, if you like, of the Lord Jesus. He makes the Lord Jesus real to us. He takes the things of the Lord Jesus and declares them to us. He brings us into the reality of the Lord Jesus. He is the One by whom the Lord Jesus dwells in us, and we in Him. He is the One by whom we abide in Christ, and Christ in us.
Therefore, every time you and I belittle the ministry of the Holy Spirit, we do so at great danger. If we want to see the purpose of God fulfilled in our lives, homes, work life, church life, and service, then we need to give the Holy Spirit the sovereignty He must have. He is absolutely sovereign.
The Holy Spirit is the One who transmits and communicates the Master Builder’s actions into fulfilment. The Lord Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build My church,” but the Holy Spirit is the agent by whom the church is built.
The third thing I want to say is just as important: we have to recognise the absolute authority of the Word of God.
The Word of God is the supreme and unique authority for the child of God, for our homes, for our business life, for church life, and for the service of God.
We are living in days when people are reinterpreting the Scriptures. Some gross examples we see straight away, when people begin to alter the Lord’s Prayer into, “Our Mother who art in heaven.” We know that is absolutely wrong. Then there are versions in which God becomes “it.” But there are many other ways in which we do not recognise the authority of God’s Word. We belittle it and change it.
This is the whole story of departure from God through history. People take something, and then little by little they change it because they say it does not suit their conditions, climate, or age. They discuss it amongst themselves and reinterpret the Word of God. Every time people have done it, it has marked a departure.
You can trust God. When God says something, you do not have to argue about it. Once it is clear that God has said it, keep to it. Obey it. You will discover that God takes responsibility for you.
We are moving into times when the whole structure of society is being changed—the very thing we were told in the Word of God would happen in the last days. Marriage is being questioned. With a sixty-four percent divorce rate in the United States alone, and even higher rates in Sweden, it is only a question of time before the whole marriage relationship is questioned and something else is brought in, considered to be better. What are Christians going to do?
There are many other things I could speak about that are on their way. The seed is already planted and growing very well in our society. Christians are going to have to ask, “What are we going to do?”
Take the feminist movement. There is absolutely no doubt about the need to stress and emphasise the equality between man and woman. There is no inequality between men and women. Male and female are absolutely equal, but their functions are different. That is what feminism does not recognise.
If something is in the Word of God, departure from it or contradiction of it is not going to bring anything other than sorrow, misery, and corruption. In the Christian world there is now a ferment going on over this matter. The whole atmosphere is changing, and children from their earliest age are being taught something quite different.
You and I have to come to this: either you recognise the Word of God as a revelation of God, or you do not. If you do not, then you can treat it relatively, speaking of some things as cultural and belonging to another age, with nothing to do with us and no bearing upon our lives. But then you have dismissed the Word of God, or at least a very large part of it.
Once you have accepted that position, you can go much further with the enemy. It is like the thin end of the wedge. You will work and work and work until you do not have a Bible.
But if you and I recognise the authority of God’s Word, then we can begin to understand. I know there have been many misinterpretations of the Book; there is no doubt about that. But once we are clear as to what the Word of God says, there is no other course. We obey.
We do not go by the opinions of men, not even the opinions of believers, as if they were sacred or as if we were some kind of democracy. This Word is the Word of God. Once we are clear that the Lord is saying something to us, we have to obey.
This is the most important thing to underline:
This Book is the revelation of God, and within it is everything you and I need for the purpose of God to be fulfilled in us.
Let me begin to talk a little more personally. Tonight, if I have time, I want to cover three areas. If not, we will take up the rest tomorrow. I would like to speak about the church, church life, the eternal purpose of God and church life, and perhaps the service of God. But tonight I want to talk about God’s purpose for you, God’s purpose for your home, and God’s purpose for your business or work life.
God’s purpose for you is not merely that you be saved and justified—tremendous as that is. To be justified is to be declared righteous.
He who knew no sin, God made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
That is an unbelievable statement. Think of justification: your sin transferred to the Lord Jesus, and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus transferred to you. When God sees you, He sees the righteousness of the Lord Jesus; when He looked on His Son, He saw your sin.
But that is not the purpose of God in its entirety for your life. That is the beginning, the initial introduction. Nor is it simply that you should serve God. That is tremendous too: that you should be fruitful and bring others to the Lord. It is right, but it is not the full purpose of God for you.
What then is God’s purpose for you? Why has He called you—called according to His purpose? What is that purpose in calling you? Into what has He called you?
Listen carefully. God’s purpose for you and your life is that you should be changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus.
That is no small job.
We have an enormous, complex problem. It is not for nothing that the Apostle Paul spoke of himself as the least of all saints, and then in his last letter as the chief of sinners. The nearer he got to the Lord, and the nearer he came to the end, the more sinful and unworthy he felt himself to be.
But the purpose of God is clear. Listen to Romans Chapter 8:
For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son.
God has predestined you to be conformed to the image of His Son—to be changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus. The more I see of myself, the less I see of the Lord Jesus. The more I go on, the more I think it is impossible for the Lord to do this work.
Yet here it says that those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of God’s Son.
Look at this other wonderful Scripture in 2 Corinthians Chapter 3, verses 17 and 18:
Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
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.
Think of it: the Lord will not rest until you are changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus. What a problem He has given Himself!
Every one of us is a complex problem, one way or another, as far as God is concerned. We argue with the Lord, kick up a fuss, murmur, hold back, raise unnecessary issues, and drag our feet. Who is ready willingly and happily to surrender to the Lord for this work to be done in our lives? I do not know anybody.
Even those who are sweet and noble by nature can become suddenly vicious when it comes to this matter of being changed into the likeness of the Lord. Their very nobility becomes something they want to hang on to, and they feel that it does not really need to be changed. It is already Christ-like; they were born with it.
What stripping the Lord has to do! What situations He has to bring us into! I am not joking. This is where the Lord gets the name of creating bad times. He does not do it out of malice, but sometimes He has to create circumstances to strip us.
He has to lead us into relationships so that we are stripped of all our natural nobility and sweetness. For the first time, we see that we are not like the Lord, that we were not born with Christ-like qualities.
For a long time, we argue. We say, “The other person is satanic, demonic, absolutely evil.” Half the divorces are on this issue. We cannot accept it. We will not live with it. We are so sweet and pure. Of course, we have some faults—everyone has some faults—but the other person is the dark horse, the evil, the impossible, the demonic.
Do you believe that the Lord sometimes allows us to get into these relationships in order to strip us? He brought Jacob into a relationship with Laban, did He not, in order to strip him? We could say the same of many others in the Word of God.
What lengths the Lord has to go to! He creates situations and circumstances. He brings us into relationship with people who are very difficult to us. The whole purpose of the Lord is to bring us to the place where we cry to Him that something may be done in our lives.
For the first time, we know that we have no natural grace and have to take the Lord for grace. We have no power and have to take the Lord for power. We have no love and have to take the Lord for love. Do you understand what I mean? Now, for the first time, we are living on the basis of reality. Now the Lord is able to fulfil His purpose in our lives.
We do not think that when we are in these situations. We want to run a thousand miles from them. We feel that this is the end of our Christian life, the end of our ability to worship the Lord, the end of any sweetness.
This is the Lord.
When we fell as human beings, such a terrible work was done in us. When we became as God—that is, self-sufficient and independent—such a terrible work was done in us that it takes the Lord almost a lifetime to reduce us to the place where we need Him.
We do not really believe we are that bad. That is why we have such bad times when we fall into sin. When we fall, we are horrified—horrified. We think we are actually spiritual. Then we think the Lord is shocked. He had no idea!
We are so shocked that we feel we cannot come to the Lord. “He will not have anything to do with me now. Now He knows what I am like. I was able to hide all this from Him until now, and there was a lovely facade. Now it is all gone. It is no good worshipping the Lord or praying, because He is so upset.”
My dear friends, this is what the Lord was waiting for—the very thing He was seeking to bring us to.
Peter would never have become the first apostle if he had not fallen. He was of such strength of character and personality that he would have carried self-manufactured Christianity into the service of God and destroyed the church at its birth.
God had to bring him to a place where he fell so completely and deeply that he thought it was completely finished. Then the Lord started building on the basis of reality.
Many of us have to come to such an experience in our lives. My dear friends, I hope this is of some comfort to you. The whole purpose of God is to change you and me.
But let us be honest. I do not find a lot of honesty amongst the Lord’s people, but let us try to be honest. I say it to myself as well. We do not really want to be changed.
When it comes to the bottom line, we do not really want to be changed. We have lived with ourselves for so long that we have developed a symbiotic relationship. Do you know what I mean? We are all fallen men, and somehow we are not so sure that we want to live without him or without her.
God has to bring us into all these situations where we see there is no hope. That is why God has crucified us with Christ. No hope.
Now, having said that, let me give you a word of encouragement. Look at Philippians Chapter 1 and verse 6:
Being confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.
That should be a comfort to us. He who began this good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Once we begin to see ourselves—how destitute, problematic, and difficult we are—we need to take hold of the predestinating power of God. We need to take hold of that will of God, that purpose of God, and side with God against ourselves.
As the old Methodist hymn says, “A faith that cries, ‘It shall be done.’” Say it against yourself. It is a tremendous thing to say out loud, to declare with your lips what God says about you.
“Thank You, Lord. You are going to finish this work in my life. You are going to carry it through to the end. I know it is going to cost me, but I know You are going to do it. It shall be done.”
Say it. Do not get into that stupid false modesty: “Oh, I am not worthy enough. I know I am too small, too insignificant. I could not say something like that.” Faith is faith. Let the word of faith come through your lips.
Say to the Lord, “I am impossible, but You are going to do this work. I side with You against myself.”
Listen to this wonderful word, if you want another word of comfort, from 1 Thessalonians Chapter 5, verses 23 and 24:
And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.
Is that not a wonderful word? What is this strange word about our whole spirit, soul, and body being preserved entire? It is as if it were possible to lose something of our spirit, soul, or body. He says that your whole spirit, soul, and body may be preserved entire and without blame at the coming of the Lord Jesus. Then He adds: “Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.”
We all have problems and obstacles in our lives. We all have these circumstances I have already mentioned. Could you not, perhaps for the first time, begin to understand that that satanic circumstance in your life might be the Lord’s doing?
You may say, “You have no idea what kind of temperament I have, what type of personality I have. I wish I was one of those wishy-washy, anemic people the Lord can get along with so easily. I am very independent, stubborn, and obstinate.”
Actually, the Lord has a lot of problem with the anemic, wishy-washy people too, believe me.
You may say, “I do not think the Lord can do this work with me because I am so difficult and obstinate.” But when God saved you, He took in the whole difference.
Everything you were, all your history, all that makes you what you are, all the cultural things behind you, your genetic history, family history, and pedigree—everything, even things you do not know—everything that makes you the difficulty and the problem you are: when the Lord saved you, your life was opened before Him like an open book.
It goes right back to your great-grandparents, beyond to your ancestors, in fact right back to Adam. The whole thing is open before the Lord. He sees the whole thing like a computer; everything comes up on His screen. He knows everything about you that is to be known. There is nothing about you that He does not know, and still He saves you.
That is the thing to get hold of. He saved you in the full light of all that you are. Why do we not side with the Lord?
Let me give you a little illustration that has always meant a lot to me. When I was first in Egypt many years ago, whenever I had the opportunity, I used to go to an old town called Bilbeis. There was a whole great alley of silversmiths.
I used to walk along this alley of silversmiths, with their open cubicles and shops, and stop to watch them at work. I watched them refining silver. They would put it on the flame, then take it off the flame; put it on the flame, then take it off the flame—on the flame, off the flame.
At last, when I was with someone who could speak Arabic, I said, “Ask them how they know when to take the thing off the flame.” The scum was boiling to the surface. One old silversmith said, “When I can see my face in the silver, then I know it is time to take the silver out of the fire.”
Do you get that? When all the scum on the surface has boiled away, if I leave it one minute more, I start to lose the silver. That was the old-fashioned way; you do not see it anymore.
Once the silversmith saw his face in the silver, it was the end of that trial. Now, dear friends, that is exactly what the Lord does with you and me. He works on us until He sees His face reflected in us. Then that particular time of testing has done its work. It has purified.
There are two other things I want to add before we finish on this. I want to speak about faith and fear.
There is no greater problem in the life of the individual believer than fear. Fear is the opposite of faith.
Faith brings peace. Real, living faith brings peace. Living faith brings rest—the rest of faith. Living faith brings us into life, joy, progress, and fulfilment.
Fear always brings torment. Fear always causes us to use common sense and to lean on our own understanding. Fear always leads us to corruption. In the end, fear always leads us to contradict the Word of God.
The Word of God is simple:
Perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment; and he that feareth is not made perfect in love.
In other words, where there is fear in our hearts—gripping us, energising us, manipulating us—there is no way we can come to the Lord’s end.
Fear is negative; faith is positive. Faith comes when we see the Lord. That is positive. The response of faith brings us into the Lord. That is positive.
Fear brings torment and divorces us from the Lord. It leads us to our own understanding, our own concepts, the passions of this world, the explanations of this world, and the solutions of this world.
This is very important in the matter of the purpose of God in your life. The purpose of God in your life is to change you into the likeness of the Lord Jesus. I am afraid there is no way that you and I can be changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus except through much tribulation, much discipline, and, if you like, much suffering. There is no other way.
Faith is the quality that brings us to the Lord and makes us side with God against ourselves. No matter what obstacles or problems we see, we can declare over ourselves the very Word of God personally.
We can say, “Oh, I thank You, Father, that You have begun in me a good work, and You will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” It sounds very powerful. It sounds presumptuous. It is not.
The Lord has predestined you to be changed into the likeness of His Son. Side with the Lord. The whole predestinating power and grace of God is behind your being changed into the likeness of His Son. Side with God against yourself, against your own unbelief.
There is one other thing that is very interesting in the Word of God. The Lord gave us the pattern prayer, and the one thing He takes out of that wonderful prayer to dwell upon is this: “If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you.”
You would think He might dwell on “Hallowed be Thy name,” or “Thy kingdom come,” but this is the one thing He emphasises. In other words, the whole work of God can be neutralised, nullified, and paralysed in your life if you cannot forgive others.
You and I have to come to this. It takes a long time. Sometimes I know people who have spent a whole lifetime in bitterness about other believers. Sometimes it is not even a believer; it may be an unbeliever. Some of us think that if we are bitter or unforgiving toward an unbeliever, that is all right because they are not the Lord’s.
But, my dear friends, whether unbeliever or believer, it makes no difference. The Word simply says, “If you cannot forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you.”
So we come to this terrible conclusion: if you and I have an unforgiving spirit, we can paralyse the purpose of God being fulfilled in our lives.
Why did the Lord take this one point up and make so much of it? Because repentance is linked to faith.
Think about it: repentance and faith. What is repentance? You say it is being sorry. Yes, it is being sorry. Can you say something more? You might say it is confessing your sin to God. Yes.
Now listen carefully: repentance is taking responsibility for your heart.
You do not blame circumstances. You do not blame your parents, husband, wife, children, or the leaders of the fellowship. You do not blame others. You take responsibility. You say, “I have sinned.” This is repentance.
There is very little repentance in Christian circles, because we think it is merely saying, “Well, I am sorry.” That is much more superficial. Repentance is to say, “I am responsible.”
Wherever I go, people come who have fallen out with leaders. I will not mention names, but all of you know the big people who are announced everywhere. They come to meetings, and afterwards they come up to me. Some of them I have known for years. They were once so happy with these people, but now they cannot say a single good thing about that brother.
They say, “He is almost Satan in human form. He has deceived me. He has done this and that. He has ruined our lives. He has ruined our family.” They are full of bitterness.
I always say to such people, “Unless you are prepared to repent, you will never come through.” Why? Because you would never have been deceived if there was not something deceivable in you.
You got into the thing because it was sensational and dramatic. You did not go by that anointing which is in the youngest believer and which distinguishes between what is right and wrong, true and false.
The Apostle John tells us of it. He says that you have an anointing from God by which you may know what is right and wrong, true and false. You do not need anyone to teach you. But we suppress it.
Repentance and faith are linked together.
There is something else about forgiving one another. There is not only repentance that leads to living faith and reconciliation; there is humility.
Humility is a quality above price with the Lord:
He that humbleth himself shall be exalted;
and he that exalteth himself shall be humbled.
I hope this is enough on the matter of God’s purpose in your life. I think it is wonderful. Here we are, a crowd, all very different. Every one of us has problems. We are all at different spiritual ages. Yet we are all presenting some kind of obstacle to the Lord, and the Lord has predestined every single one of us to be changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus.
Is that not amazing? He took us on knowing full well the whole story, knowing everything about us. He took us on. Is that not marvellous?
It is not immodesty or pride to side with the Lord against yourself and say, “Lord, You are going to do this thing in me. Your grace has saved me. Your power has brought me to Yourself. I will not accept that Your purpose in me is going to fail. By Your grace and through Your power, You will do it.”
Now let me talk a little about God’s purpose for your home. What is God’s purpose for a home?
It is not that it be merely a house—a beautifully furnished, very nice house. Nor is it merely a household well run, like a dental clinic or a hospital clinic. I have been in many homes that are run perfectly, but there is something impersonal, something lacking, some quality you cannot put your finger on that is not there.
I remember one Christian home I went into years ago. Even now it gives me the shivers when I think about it. It had linoleum from wall to wall in the bedrooms—and, by the way, this was in Scotland, in one of the coldest parts of Scotland. There were wicker chairs, an iron bedstead that I reckon Og of Bashan slept on, and a little gas fire which I thought had been there since just after the flood, with a meter beside it into which you put coins.
This was a home—oh! It was beautifully run. There was not a speck of dust anywhere. But it was not a home.
God’s purpose is not even merely that a family be there. You can have a household or a family, and somehow it is not home. It is like a lodging place. Everyone is in and out, out here and out there, then in again and back out. It is not quite like Atlanta airport, but you know what I mean. People are not there long enough for anyone to know who has come in or gone out.
That is not a home. Sadly, many American homes have become exactly like that. They never sit down for a meal together. They never touch each other in the sense that they really look at each other. It is very sad.
What is God’s purpose for a home? It is that it be a home. But what is a home?
In Ephesians Chapter 2, we are told that the whole building, fitly framed together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom we also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
Here we find something very wonderful. A human home is meant to be an expression of the heart and mind of God—His longing for a home.
Look also at Ephesians Chapter 3 and verse 14:
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.
Actually, in the original it says, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.” Is that not an interesting statement? All fatherhood comes from the fatherhood of God, and a home is meant to come out of a father and a mother.
When we turn in the same letter to Ephesians Chapter 5, verse 22 and following, we have the same thing in a different way:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself up for it;
that He might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word,
that He might present the church to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing;
but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Then he goes on to say that husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loves his own wife loves himself. No man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ also does the church.
Here we have the most amazing thing. We discover that a home is to be a testimony. It is to be an outline and expression of the relationship that should be between Christ and the church.
I am sure you all agree with me that the greatest onslaught at present in the United States—and indeed in the whole so-called Christian world—is upon the home.
It is the most terrible onslaught ever launched by the powers of darkness, and it has as its aim the destruction of the whole concept of the home.
God’s purpose for a home, please listen, is that it should be a place of love.
A place of loyalty.
A place of understanding.
And a place of long-suffering.
Now, I will say that again. God’s purpose for the home is that it should be a place of love, a place of loyalty, a place—