And the God of all grace, who called you unto His eternal glory in Christ, after that ye have suffered a little while, shall Himself perfect, establish, strengthen you.
To Him be the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake, which is the church;
Whereof I was made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which was given me to you-ward, to fulfil the word of God,
Even the mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations: but now hath it been manifested to His saints,
To whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
Whom we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man fullgrown in Christ;
Whereunto I labour also, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily.
As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and builded up in Him, and stablished in your faith, even as ye were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth.
For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory.
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father,
From whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man;
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
May be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.
Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
Unto Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen.
Beloved Lord, we are so thankful that we can come this evening like this into Your presence. We are not asking You to join us; we are joining You. We are coming into Your presence. You are the One who has called us together.
And, Lord, we want to thank You that You have provided an anointing for our time together. We want to stand by faith in that anointing, both for the speaking of Your word and the hearing of Your word.
Dear Lord, let this be a time when we meet with Yourself, when something of Your word comes to dwell in us. O Lord, hear our cry and meet with us this evening, for we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. Amen.
I have had on my heart that phrase in 1 Peter 5:10: “And the God of all grace, who called you unto His eternal glory in Christ.”
Last night I spoke on that: called to His eternal glory in Christ. I cannot go over what I said last night. All I can say by way of introduction this evening is that there is no substitute word for the word glory.
Some modern versions have tried to use different words such as honour, magnificence, or splendour, but none of these words is adequate. Really, there is no alternative word. We have to use the word glory, just as we have to use the word grace. Grace is grace.
The Holy Spirit has to reveal the meaning of glory, just as He has to reveal the meaning of grace. And every child of God—it is their birthright to know this mystery: “the riches of His glory among the Gentiles.”
Grace and glory are twins. You cannot have glory without grace. They belong together. The only way a human being will ever reach the glory of God is by the grace of God.
There is a beautiful phrase in a greatly loved psalm, Psalm 84. It says:
For the Lord God is a sun and shield:
The Lord will give grace and glory.
The way to glory is through the grace of God.
Tonight I want to speak from the passage we read together in Colossians 1:27:
To whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Not Christ for you. That is wonderful, but it is not Christ for you who is the hope of glory. You cannot have any hope of glory if Christ is not for you. Nor is it Christ above you. You cannot come to the glory of God if the Lord Jesus is not your Lord.
Nor is it Christ before you. If you do not keep your eyes on the Lord Jesus, you will never come to the glory of God. But Paul does not say that.
Nor is it Christ behind you. I fear that this is what many Christians have: a Christ behind them, always there, as it were, to clean up the messes, overcome the mistakes, and get us back on the road.
Every child of God knows Christ behind them. They try to live the Christian life, and of course they make a mess of it. We all do. We are born that way. No human being can live the Christian life, but that is something every one of us has to learn by experience—generally by failing and falling.
We say, “Help me, Lord. Help me, Lord. Get behind me, Lord. Support me, Lord. Be the One who comes behind me, cleaning up the mess I am making.”
But it is not Christ for you, Christ above you, Christ before you, or Christ behind you. It is Christ in you.
There are not so many Christians who have ever had that revelation. Yet it is an essential part of the birthright of every child of God. It has to be revealed—what a difference it makes when suddenly you realise: He is in you.
He is in you.
It says 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 is where the Apostle Paul’s ministry began: when the Spirit of God revealed Jesus in him.
You remember the Damascus road. He saw the Lord. The Lord actually spoke to him. The Lord revealed Himself to him. But then there came a point—perhaps during the three years in Arabia, I do not know; perhaps when Ananias laid his hands upon him—when suddenly he understood.
He was born of God. He was a child of God. That Jesus who said, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest,” was not distant from His people.
Paul would naturally have said, “I am not persecuting You. You are dead. You are gone. I cannot get at You. I am getting at all these people who are causing problems among us—these disciples of Yours.”
But it finally came home to the apostle that when he touched those disciples, he touched the Lord Jesus. Touching them, he was touching the Lord Jesus.
The Holy Spirit said, in effect, “Now you are part of the Lord Jesus. Anyone who touches you, Paul, touches Me—His Son.”
“When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me.”
I remember when I was first saved. I only knew the Lord Jesus objectively.
Now I must say this: there is a danger in thinking of the Lord Jesus as bread, as water, as the air we breathe, as life, and as power. There is a danger that we become so subjective that we forget there is a Man at the right hand of God.
We forget that this Jesus is at the right hand of God. He is waiting to return. He still has marks in His hands, a scar in His side, and marks in His feet. He has not aged one whit in the thousands of years since He ascended in the cloud.
This Jesus is returning as King. He is coming back—of all places, it might be a shock to some—to Jerusalem. There He will be found: this Jesus.
When I was first saved, I only knew the Lord Jesus objectively. I remember the day I saw Him. I do not know whether it was in a dream or a vision, but I saw Him. I remember the words to this day that He spoke to me. I was only fourteen years of age.
I tried to be such a good person. I read all about John Wesley and how he spoke to one person a day about their soul’s salvation, and I determined I would do the same.
I filled my mouth with Canaanite phraseology—the language of the Christians around me. They were Baptists, good people, born of God. I filled my mouth with their language and spoke like they did. I had reasonable intelligence; it did not take me long to learn the lingo.
But I did everything to make myself a good Christian.
When I went to university, I was the pet terror of the students, because I at least spoke to one a day about their salvation. It went something like this: “You are a sinner. I am a Christian. You are unsaved; I am saved. I am going to heaven; you are going to hell.”
More or less, that was the way I believed I had to do it. The result was that every time I walked along one of those corridors or hallways, every student vanished into doors on either side.
I have often wondered how many got into lectures that were nothing to do with the School of Oriental and African Studies. Here was someone studying Japanese who got into a class on Hausa, Swahili, or something else.
Anyway, I always remember how they vanished. I always had a place in the student common room. Whenever I went in, they all cleared away, and I was able to find a place to sit.
But I was desperate inside my own heart, because although I knew what a Christian should be, somehow there was a discrepancy between what I was and what the Bible said I should be.
My old pastor, Alan Redpath, spotted that I was in trouble. He sent me, in the post, a little booklet called But How?
When I got that little booklet—I remember it was a blue booklet—I thought to myself, “But how?” I had said that again and again and again.
Every time the pastor preached about victory, quiet victory, and being more than conquerors, I thought, “But how?” Every time they sang wonderful hymns about chains falling off, I thought, “But how?” When we sang hymns about the guilt and power of sin, I thought, “But how?”
It was always with me: “But how? But how? But how?” We heard wonderful things, but the one question in my heart all the time was, “But how?”
I determined to take this little booklet, and I went to one of the dustiest, smelliest old parish churches, right next to the School of Oriental and African Studies. I got on my knees. The place was nearly claustrophobic from the smell of dust. I doubted whether anyone had cleaned the windows in a hundred years.
The smell from the cushions in the pews was the dust of a hundred years. But heaven opened for me.
As I read that book, it was as if heaven itself opened. I remember very clearly that the first thing which came to me as an enormous shock was this: the Holy Spirit is yours.
I thought to myself, “I hardly know there is a Holy Spirit. I know the Father. I know the Son. But the Holy Spirit—who is He?”
He came as a revelation to me. The only way I could know Jesus, and know what it was to have His life and power, was through the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of God whispered in my heart, “I have been given to you with all the keys to your life, and you have stolen them.”
And it was then that I said to the Lord, “O forgive me. I have completely ignored You, dear Holy Spirit. I had hidden the keys. You had the keys to every part of my life.”
The second thing that came home to me was a revelation: the Holy Spirit has been given to me to reproduce the life and nature of the Lord Jesus in me.
That was a tremendous revelation for me. It was a revelation that Christ was in me by the Holy Spirit.
The third thing came as I was getting up from my knees: “My estimate of you is that I crucified you.”
That was a revelation to me. I had been trying to make old Lance Lambert a good Christian. I studied the Word, I prayed, I witnessed to everybody. What a revelation it was: God had crucified me.
I said, “What have I been doing, trying to make that old Lance Lambert into a good Christian when God has crucified him?”
I got up from my knees, and the Lord said, “Just wait. There is one more thing.” I got down on my knees again, and the Lord said to me—I do not think He would necessarily say this to you, but this is what He said to me—“No more witnessing unless I give you the opportunity. No more witnessing.”
“O Lord,” I said, “okay.”
For the first time, He was Lord.
For three weeks, I had a ball. I never witnessed to a soul. I enjoyed the Lord. I so enjoyed the Lord. I thought I had been saved; I thought I had never been saved. I thought I was saved before, but now—oh, it was so wonderful just to be a human being and not to bother about myself any more.
After three weeks, one of the fellows in the college rugby team came up to me in the common room and said, “Can I ask you a very personal question?”
“Yes,” I said, “please do.”
He said, “We fellows have been talking. There is something different about you and us.”
Now, of course, if he had asked me that four weeks before, I would have said, “Oh, yes. You are a sinner, and I am saved. You are going to hell, and I am going to heaven.” Then I would have asked him to come with me to a meeting.
But this time I said, “I see.” I felt almost embarrassed. I said, “Well, we are both sinners. But I think the difference is, by the grace of God, He has saved me.”
To my utter amazement, tears ran down his cheeks. I thought to myself, “There is something funny here. I have been trying to get someone saved for two whole years and had not succeeded in one case, and suddenly a person walks up to me. I do not even witness to him, and he asks me—with tears coming down his cheeks in a crowded student room—‘How can I know God like you?’”
I said to him, “Well, you have to ask the Lord Jesus into your heart.”
“Where can I do that?” he asked.
“In church?”
“No,” I said, “you can do it anywhere.”
“Can I do it here?”
I was so amazed that my mouth dropped open. I said, “Well, yes, of course.”
Then he lifted up his head and simply said, “O God, You know what a sinner I am. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus, and save me.”
That was the beginning of my ministry.
God revealed the Lord Jesus in me. Now listen: this is not for special people. This is for every child of God.
Your family situation could be transformed. “Oh,” you say, “I have a terrible husband, a terrible wife, terrible children, terrible parents.” No, I am not talking about them. I am talking about you.
God could so change you that in the end there is an impact in your family, your business, and whatever problems you have. This is your birthright: to know that Christ, by the Holy Spirit, is in you—not only for you, but in you.
This is so tremendous once you begin to understand it, because everything is there for you. You remember how the Lord Jesus put it in John 15:4:
Abide in Me, and I in you.
If you are a child of God, the glorious fact is that your position is in Christ. If you are in Christ, by God’s grace Christ is in you. Maybe you do not know it. Maybe it has never come home to you with revelation.
Let me take you a step further, if you are still with me.
Christ in you is the only hope you have.
It is, however, hope. Christ in you: He is the hope of glory.
I am a Jew; you are Gentiles. This riches of the glory of this mystery is among the Gentiles. Is that not amazing? Yet most of you of Gentile background do not even know that Christ is in you.
So many are trying to be Christians—trying to be good Christians, trying to be zealous Christians. You will wear yourself out. You will exhaust yourself so much in trying to be a Christian that there will be no joy in it, only misery.
That is not the Christian life. The gospel is joy, peace, and righteousness in the Holy Spirit.
The only way the Christian life can be the genuine article is when God touches the eyes of your heart and you see, “He is living in me.”
I hope I have made it clear enough: Christ in you—glory. Do you get it? Christ in you—glory.
One day, He will be manifested in vessels of glory—in your redeemed body.
Let me take you a little further. In Colossians 2:9–10, it says:
For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,
And in Him ye are made full.
Now listen very carefully to me. God has placed everything in the Lord Jesus. Outside of the Lord Jesus there is nothing. There is a divine veto on everything outside of the Lord Jesus. That is religion—Christian religion or any kind of religion. It is just religion.
But in Christ, God has given us everything: all the blessings, all the provisions, all the light, all the power. Everything you need is in the Lord Jesus. In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and in Him you are made full, or complete.
Ephesians 1:3 says:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
Where are these blessings? Every spiritual blessing—where are they? In Christ. Every one of them.
Thank God we do not experience all of them at once. We would be in a mental home. There is no way we could experience all the blessings of God at once. We could not contain it. We would go mad; it would unhinge us mentally.
But by the grace of God, it is little by little, step by step, day by day. There is a blessing for everything. Every blessing is yours in Christ.
Every promise is yours in Christ. 2 Corinthians 1:20 says:
For how many soever be the promises of God, in Him is the yea: wherefore also through Him is the amen.
God has, as it were, said, “In My Son, I say yes to every promise in the Book.” Every promise: yes.
Of course, the Holy Spirit has to apply it. When we come into situations, when we face problems, when circumstances do not seem very happy, the Holy Spirit takes one of these promises and it becomes ours. We stand on it, and through Him comes the fulfilment.
In Him: yes. Through Him: amen.
Philippians 4:19 says:
And my God shall supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
He does not say merely spiritual needs. Every physical need, every mental need, every material need—every need, spiritual, mental, physical, material. Where does God say He will meet it? In Christ.
Do you believe it? Do you really believe it? Do you believe that every promise is yes in Christ and that through Him will be the fulfilment—amen? Do you really believe that every spiritual blessing is yours in Him?
Do you really believe that every need of yours can be met, and is met, in Him—gloriously, richly, fully?
Do you believe that in Him is all the fullness?
I could go on. I could speak about life. Eternal life is not a thing; eternal life is a Person. Eternal life is the Lord Jesus, who said on more than one occasion, “I am the life. I am the resurrection and the life.”
That is why John the Apostle says in 1 John 5:11–12:
And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.
It is one of the most extraordinary things that, in conferences, convocations, conventions, and books all over the world, the theme is so often “the Christian life, the Christian life, the Christian life.”
Yet not once do you find the term Christian life in the Bible. Is that not extraordinary? Does it mean there is no Christian life? Not in those words.
You may get quite upset with me and say, “Do you mean there is no Christian life?”
What the Bible calls eternal life is the Christian life. It is very simple. For you younger ones, listen to me: “God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” That is the Christian life.
He that has the Son has the Christian life. He that does not have the Son of God—no matter how much he has been christened, baptised, or registered on some church register—does not have it.
As Spurgeon said, you can be baptised all the way from Land’s End in Britain to New England in the United States, and all that will happen is that you will get very wet.
God has given us life—life more abundant, resurrection life. In that life is exceeding great power: power to overcome in every difficulty.
God has placed everything in His Son. If you are a child of God, saved by the grace of God, He has positioned you in Christ, where all the supplies are. And now, even more wonderful, Christ is in you.
That means all this supply is not far away. It is in you, if you are a child of God.
I do not know whether it is sinking in. I heard messages like this, and they just went over my head. When it came home to me that the Holy Spirit had been given to me, I thought, “I hardly knew there was a Holy Spirit.” Yes, I had sung hymns about the Holy Spirit. I must have heard messages about the Holy Spirit.
It is amazing, is it not? God has given us everything in Christ; then, by His grace, He has placed us in Him, and He is in us. Ah, we have to grow with Him.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Then Paul goes on and says:
As ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.
Did you hear that? How did you receive the Lord Jesus? As a sinner. By the grace of God, you received the Lord Jesus. So walk in Him.
Do not get big-headed. Do not think you are something when you are not. But walk in the same way you received Him.
Now, what is a walk? I am sorry to pick you like this, under schoolmasterly discipline, but I want to get it over to you. Some Christians seem to think that their whole Christian life is a great series of jumps.
Their life is one spiritual leap after another. Somehow they are blown along by a spiritual nuclear explosion, and they think that is the way to become spiritual. Rubbish.
You may have enormous experiences, but there is no substitute for walking. What is walking? Step after step after step.
If I carry on long enough, I will get from here to Santa Barbara. How do I do it? Step after step after step. That is what John was saying this morning.
It is a series of steps, taken by grace through faith.
By grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
If you see Christ in you, it does not mean that you are mature, full-grown, or complete in the sense that the old English word perfect may suggest. It does not mean you have no sin, weakness, or failing. It means that you are growing toward full maturity.
You may have been saved by the grace of God through faith, but you are a baby. What excitement there is when, for the first time, a baby gets hold of something and stands. There is enormous excitement throughout the family: “Little Tommy has stood up!”
As if it were a miracle. Yet this has happened a million million times through the history of mankind. But when it first happens in a family, everyone is excited. The telephones ring: grandmother, grandfather, aunt—“Little Tommy has stood up!”
There is even greater excitement, and a little fear, when he takes his first steps.
Is it not sad when Christians become stationary—immobile? They cannot walk.
No matter who you are or how old you are in the Lord, we all have to walk in Him. Did you notice that? “As ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.”
As you walk in Him, step by step and stage by stage, you grow. You grow.
It is a marvellous thing to be a child of God. I often think to myself, in this world in which we live, how does anyone live without the Lord Jesus? Do you ever think that?
How has anyone lived in this world of ours, with all its sorrow, sin, problems, and difficulties, without the Lord Jesus?
We have to grow up in Him. It is a step-by-step thing.
Did you notice the passage we read in Ephesians 3:16? The apostle says, “I am praying for you.” This is what he says:
That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man.
The only way we can know the Lord Jesus is through His Spirit. How does He dwell in you? By the Spirit of God. “That ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man.” That is the first thing.
Here is the second thing:
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
This is walking in Him: that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith. The only way Christ can dwell in your heart is by the Holy Spirit and through God-given faith.
You take step after step, sometimes in the face of enormous difficulties—obstacles that seem to demonically laugh at you. But you believe Jesus is the Conqueror.
Only when you come through do you look back and say, “I learned something. Something more of the Lord Jesus became mine through that experience.”
Then comes the third thing:
That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.
I think it is one of the most wonderful things, as a believer, to know the love of the Messiah which passes understanding.
You will never get beyond the love of God. There is a Lover of your soul who will not let you go.
Dear child of God, I find this so amazing: strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man; Christ dwelling in your heart through faith; knowing the breadth, length, height, and depth of the love of Christ which passes understanding; and then, listen: filled unto all the fullness of God.
It would be blasphemy if it were not in the Book. How can one little human being be filled unto all the fullness of God?
What it means is that I am swallowed up by Him. Some Christians have a god so small that he is confined to their own little conceptions.
It is a tremendous thing to be filled unto all the fullness of God. It does not mean that I can contain in my little self all the fullness of God. It means that I am lost in Him.
I remember reading a sermon by Campbell Morgan. I did not hear it—that would make me too old, though I am old enough—but I remember reading it.
He said, “Why do Christians always think that arriving in glory is like a ship coming into harbour? I think of it as a ship setting out to sail.”
In other words, it is not that everything narrows down and narrows down. The horizons become broader and broader and broader: an eternity of exploration, an eternity of experience, an eternity in Christ, in glory.
Let us go through it again:
Strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man;
Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith;
That we might know the breadth and length and height and depth, and the love of Christ which passeth knowledge;
Filled unto all the fullness of God.
Then:
Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.
That is all the same: strengthened with power in the inward man through His Spirit, according to the power that worketh in us. This is Christ in you by the Holy Spirit.
Do you really believe you have a Lord who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that you ask or think? Or have you limited Him? Is He some kind of idol—a Jesus idol? He can go so far; He can do so much; but you set the limits. “He cannot do this. He cannot do that.”
He is able to do above all that we ask. That is one thing many of us do not do. C. T. Studd once said, “Why ask the Lord for a name when you can ask for an elephant?”
In other words, make your prayers big. “Ye have not, because ye ask not.”
He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Some of us dare not verbalise it. We dare not put it into words. We think, “O, if only the Lord would do so.”
Let me go one step further: are you limiting the power that works in you?
Back now to the subject. The more of Christ, the more glory. The less of Christ, the less glory.
One day, everything born of God in you—everything born of the Lord Jesus in you—will be glorified.
The more there is of the Lord Jesus in your life, the more glory there will be.
Some people have the idea that the kingdom of heaven is a kind of Soviet, a kind of Marxist state, where everybody is supposed to be equal. There will be no rivalry, jealousy, or anything like that; everyone will be exactly the same. It is nonsense.
One star differeth from another star in glory.
That is 1 Corinthians 15. If the Lord, by His Holy Spirit, is able to work in you a greater and greater capacity for the Lord Jesus, there will be more glory. Let me put it this way: there will be more to be glorified.
Your capacity for the Lord Jesus has to be in love. I will speak about that tomorrow evening, so I will not say more tonight. But that capacity for the Lord Jesus in you has got to be in love.
Christ in you: the hope of glory.
Unfortunately, today the way we use the word hope is not the way the Bible uses it. We use it as a kind of wishful thinking. We hope against hope. “Christ in you, hoping against hope for glory.”
That is not the meaning. It is not a vague “maybe, maybe.” “Maybe I am a child of God. I just hope I will reach the door.”
That is not the way this wonderful word hope is used. This is a certain hope—more certain than the coming of the dawn.
We hope for the dawn; that is, we wait expectantly for the dawn. Do you understand?
Christ in you, the hope—I always add the little word, though it is not in the original—a certain hope of glory.
Is Christ in you? Has God positioned you in the Lord Jesus? Has the Lord Jesus come into you?
That is the certain hope of glory. Certain.
You remember the other passage in Colossians 3:
Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth.
For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory.
Set your mind on Christ.
Now that is where I want to end this evening. As I always say, the moment I talk about the end, you can be pretty sure that we have another bit to come. I have good apostolic succession for that, because the Apostle Paul always said “finally” halfway through his letters.
I tend to follow that apostolic tradition.
I want to turn you to 2 Corinthians 3:17–18. This really is my last point for tonight.
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.
Did you get that? Chapter 3, I am sorry—did I say chapter 4? I am getting old.
There are some people awake here tonight.
Think again. Listen. It is the Holy Spirit again. It is the Lord Jesus—the glory of the Lord Jesus—the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus the Messiah.
But you cannot know that apart from the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who reveals Jesus to us and enables us to turn our eyes upon Him.
Is there any saint here who is older in the Lord? You have known the Lord and experienced the Lord for many years, but perhaps you have many problems and difficulties. Your eyes have turned away from the Lord.
They are on the enemy, the problems, the situation, and the difficulties. Turn your eyes upon the Lord Jesus. Only the Holy Spirit can enable you to do that.
Now listen again: with unveiled face.
Shall I say it again? With unveiled face.
Do you know what the problem is among so many Christians? They have a veil over their face.
You may say, “How can they have a veil over their face?” Unconfessed sin. That is the veil.
Disobedience. You know very well what you are being disobedient to. It could be the smallest thing in your life, the smallest thing that the Spirit of God has put His finger upon, and you will not listen.
That means you have a veiled face.
Worldliness is another problem. We are so worldly; we love the things of the world. Then there is selfishness.
Let me tell you a little story which has come back to me more recently.
Many years ago—more years than I care to remember—we held the Lord’s Table. A girl came in off the street. She was a waitress at a reasonably well-known little restaurant in the town. She had no Christian background.
At the Lord’s Table, we always said, “If you are not the Lord’s and cannot commit yourself to the Lord, do not take the bread and wine.”
As the bread was being broken and the wine poured into the glasses, she saw the Lord.
She came up to me afterwards and said, “As that bread was being broken and the wine was being poured out of that decanter into the glasses, I saw the Lord. It was the person of the Lord that I saw, and I committed myself to Him.”
I said a few things to her about being faithful to the Lord, always obeying the Lord—“Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it”—you know, the normal things.
She had a great smile on her face and said, “Thank you.” As she went out of the door, she wheeled round and said, “Oh, there is one thing—one thing I am not going to do.”
I said, “What is that?”
She said, “I am not taking this lipstick off.”
I said, “Nobody has talked about lipstick. Did you hear anyone talk about lipstick or makeup?”
“No,” she said, “but I noticed that a lot of the ladies have nothing on their faces.”
“Well,” I said, “that is their business. Maybe they like to be that way.”
“But I am not taking it off,” she said. “I have very pale skin, and I do not want to look like a ghost.”
I said, “My dear girl, will you make a promise for me?”
“Yes,” she said. “What is it?”
I said, “Promise me you will never take that lipstick off—unless the Lord speaks to you.”
“I will,” she said, and she made the promise.
Perhaps nine months later, I suddenly noticed in one of the meetings: no lipstick. So I went straight up to her afterwards and said, “What about the promise?”
“Oh,” she said, “the Lord spoke to me.”
Now, please ladies, do not all kill me afterwards for this. I do not see anything wrong with cosmetics or lipstick. I think it is much better to look alive than like a whole lot of corpses just about to drop into their coffins.
And if the Lord has spoken to you, it does not mean it is forever and ever. She actually wore lipstick again after a few years.
But that one act of obedience brought her into a dimension of spiritual understanding, and from that point she grew.
When God speaks to you about giving up television, sport, novels, a friend, or a relationship, you may argue and argue and argue. You say, “Why? There is nothing wrong in this. It is legitimate. It is not sinful.”
But a veil comes over your face. You no longer behold the glory of the Lord, even as in a mirror.
So often, an act of obedience on a very small issue leads you into a universe of spiritual understanding. Upon small acts of obedience hinge enormous revelation and experience of the Lord Jesus.
We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory.
What does that mean? I can only tell you from my own experience.
I cannot say, when I look back over my life, that it has been from glory to glory. I can only tell you that it has been from tribulation to tribulation. But I have discovered that this is exactly what it means.
Every time the Lord puts you into a difficult situation and you are at your wits’ end, He enlarges your capacity for Christ. At the end of it, you have more of the Lord Jesus—more of Him.
It is from a smaller capacity for glory to a greater capacity for glory. This is the work of the Holy Spirit.
So, dear child of God, do not give up. Do not give up.
There is a beautiful little word in Isaiah that says:
The Lord redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel.
Jacob was a twister. There was very little glorious about Jacob. But when God met him, touched the seat of his strength, and broke him, he became Israel.
God redeemed Jacob, but He will be glorified in Israel. Are you a Jacob? Do not give up. Do not give up.
The worst Jacob in the world can see the face of God and live. Then Jacob becomes Israel, and Israel is the ground of glory.
May the Lord work in you this night. May He take this little phrase in Colossians 1:27:
The riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
A certain hope of glory.
Shall we pray?
Beloved Lord, our prayer this evening is that You will touch our hearts. We can hear all these words and hear the illustrations, but unless, Lord, by Your Spirit, You touch the eyes of our heart and give to us that spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Yourself, it is all to no avail.
Unless You enlighten the eyes of our heart, Lord, it is all to no avail. Therefore, Lord, we call upon You this evening.
If there is anyone with a veiled face, help them to turn to You in honesty; confess any sin; be done with any compromise; be done with any worldliness; obey You in whatever You are asking.
We know, Lord, that by Your Spirit You will give new vision, new illumination, and new revelation. Hear us, for we ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. Amen.