I’m glad to be back here in Richmond. It is always a joy to see what the Lord is doing in different parts of the world, and especially here.
Let us have a word of prayer before we read some Scriptures.
Oh, dear Lord, we come before You—or rather, we continue to be before You in Your presence. We know that You are the only One able to satisfy all the needs of everyone present here: all the needs of Your church, all the needs of the individual believers, and all the needs of the age, which are to worship You.
We thank You for this time together. We thank You for Your presence, for Your speaking to us, and for Your continuing to speak to us. Amen.
Amen.
Now, I understand that you have behind you a week of heavy teaching and glorious revelations. You have fed on the Word of God and on the Spirit of God, ministering Christ to you. And now I am going to speak to you about being hungry for God.
I do not know why, but this subject has been with me for more than one year already. It came especially to me through one psalm that the Lord showed me several months ago: Psalm 84. I am going to read three Scriptures: one from Psalm 84, another from Psalm 42, and Psalm 73:25.
First of all, Psalm 84:2. I think you all are familiar with this psalm. We will start from the beginning:
How amiable are thy tabernacles,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh cry out unto the living God.
The 1901 version says in the second half of this verse, “My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God,” or, “unto the living God.”
As the hart panteth after the water brooks,
So panteth my soul after thee, O God.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.
Whom have I in heaven but thee?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee.
Now let us go back to Psalm 84. All these Scriptures speak of something that is, at least to me, very basic to any knowledge of the living God. It is the longing, or deep desire, for the living God Himself.
There is a capacity in the human heart and spirit that can receive nothing less than God Himself. Nothing less than the living God Himself is able to satisfy that deep-down desire in our hearts.
As we shall see later on, this desire has been created in the human heart. It is there with all men, with all human beings. That is why, throughout the ages, people have sought for something more, something spiritual. They try to satisfy their hunger and deep desire with whatever they like. They try this, they try that, and we are living in an age where you can try almost everything in order to be satisfied.
I am not speaking only of the unbelieving world. I am speaking also, and especially, to believers. In the Christianity of today, we have so many things that we can try in order to be satisfied. But what this psalm teaches us, out of the deep experiences of those who wrote it, is that there is nothing that can fully satisfy this desire except the living God Himself and whatever is in relationship to Him.
Psalm 84 and Psalm 42, from which we read two verses, were written by the sons of Korah. Probably some of you know something of their history.
Korah, of course, is known as a very bad type in Scripture. He is the type of a rebellious man—the one who wanted to get something to which he was not appointed, the one who was not content with the position God had given him. He wanted more.
Indeed, it seems that he had a desire, but it was in the wrong direction. He wanted to take things that were not for him, and that is why he became a rebel and was punished.
I cannot go into that now, but you will find several Scriptures pointing out that some of his sons survived his punishment. They were still part of the Levitical system in the Old Testament. They were helpers to the priesthood, and during their history they went through deep dealings.
What came out of their experience are some of the most precious psalms you will find in the whole Bible. I think those who know that will agree with me. This precious Psalm 84 has so much depth in it. We could speak for a long time on this single psalm.
But one thing struck me most: this desire, this deep longing. I asked myself, “Where did this longing come from? How can there be people who are so deeply longing for spiritual reality—for God?”
They did not merely long for a god. They longed for the living God. That is something deeper than merely having a desire for God, for the things of God, or for the kingdom of God. Sometimes we use these phrases without knowing what they mean to us. But they say, “for the living God.”
The phrase is repeated. First, they say, “for the Lord,” or “for God,” and then they repeat, “for the living God.” This desire is so deep that, according to the older version, even their flesh is crying out for God.
This gives us an idea of what these people went through. They were hungry for God. They were thirsty for God. They speak about being watered and refreshed by living water.
How do we apply the history of the sons of Korah to our own lives? We have a problem, and I think it is our common problem. Probably it is especially a problem after a conference like the one you have just had.
Most Christians are occupied with so many things—truths merely as truths. They want to know many things. They ask, “How do you understand this?” It is good to ask questions, because we have to know and be rooted and grounded. But answers, merely answers to our questions, do not satisfy the deep-rooted desire and longing of our hearts.
There is a legitimate intellectual desire for intellectual knowledge, and that has to be satisfied. We all know that. We have many books that have been brought out in the last twenty or thirty years which can satisfy these intellectual desires.
But mere intellectual satisfaction is not the living God.
In this same psalm, in Psalm 84:5, we find:
Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee;
In whose heart are the highways to Zion.
It is a wonderful verse. I really like it. But have you ever realized that it does not say, “In whose head are the highways to Zion”? It does not say that.
Wherever I go, I find people who know all about the highways to Zion. They have been taught. They have attended conferences where these things have been brought out in a glorious way. You all know brothers who have ministered along this line.
But somehow you realize there is something lacking. They can give you all the answers.
Last year I was in a conference. After the whole week, a sister came to me and said, “Last year, the brother who spoke answered all my questions during that week. He touched so many things, and all the questions I had in the past were answered. I was so happy.”
“But this time it is so different. After listening to your messages, I do not think my questions have been answered. Do you know what? In my heart there is a deep longing for God—for the living God.”
She was pleased with that. She said, “Answers do not satisfy you fully. We have to go on to something deeper—to meeting God Himself.”
Not answers, but God Himself will bring us to the place we have spoken of: the place of eternal worship. It will be our history with God Himself throughout our days here. Every fellowship we have together should be a meeting with the living God—meeting Him, and Him meeting us. That is so essential.
There are other things that can, in a sense, supplant the living God. For instance, human relationships. You get related to somebody and you are filled. You come to know people and a fellowship, and you are thrilled: “How nice! They are so open. They are so friendly. They invite you, and you feel at home.”
But wait a little while, until the honeymoon with your church has passed. Then you discover that this fellowship can never satisfy.
It is not human relationships or friendly people that will satisfy the desire after God. I have seen people who enjoyed the most glorious conferences and fellowships imaginable, yet they were left empty.
They did not see through and meet God in all this. They were occupied with mere outward things, human things, and they never broke through into the divine sphere.
Then there are all the “how-to” things. Americans are famous for “how-to” books. They come to Europe: how to care for your garden, how to cook well. But there are also books on how to meet, how to have fellowship, and how to have a New Testament church.
It is wonderful to read these books and learn all about the techniques of church life, church affairs, and handling this and handling that. But finally, after reading these books, adapting these methods, and trying to set up something according to what you have seen intellectually, you are left empty.
I read in the newspaper yesterday or the day before that in the Richmond area they have closed down a nine-year ecumenical project. It was an experiment in ecumenical fellowship. For nine years it went on, and now they had to close it down. Only four or five people were left.
They had all the ideas about meeting together on neutral ground and all these things. But finally, God was not there—at least, not the living God. Perhaps they had an image of God. Perhaps they had very solid theology. But finally, they were left empty, and the thing was finished.
There is another thing: sometimes we feel we have a desire for God, but it has to be according to our taste. I do not know whether you understand what I mean. My English is very poor, so I always have to check whether people understand me.
Let me give you an example. We had a couple come from Kenya, from the mission field. They were Pentecostal in background and had many experiences along that line. They felt that we were an open meeting and an open fellowship, and that they could minister to us. Actually, they did, and we learned quite a lot through this dear couple. They stayed with us for three years.
After three years they went back to Kenya for further missionary work in a Pentecostal Bible school. But the amazing—and tragic—thing was that we were not according to their taste.
They would not receive what they could have received in our midst. They looked for something special. As long as there was hope, according to their view, that the Lord would bring in their taste and all the things to which they were accustomed, they stayed. But when that hope faded, they said, “Now we have to leave.”
We were sad, but the Lord taught us many lessons through those three years, and we were thankful for them. Yet many Christians care chiefly for their feelings. Things have to be according to their taste, and they get angry if people see things differently or do things differently.
They may know all about worship, but they come into a fellowship where the worship is different, and they say, “Well, the Lord is not there.” They cannot see through because they are occupied with their own taste instead of being open to meet the living God among a people worshipping Him.
All these things can never satisfy our hearts. We are left empty. So many Christians continue to do all things, but with an empty heart.
All the tragedy of formalism, doctrinal fights, and similar things comes from an empty heart. God is not there. Their deepest need has not been met. So they cling to their ideas and try to bring people under their ideas because, at the root of it all, their hearts have remained empty. They did not touch God Himself.
We have one Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:11.
He hath made everything beautiful in its time:
Also he hath set eternity in their heart.
God has set eternity in the heart of human beings. Here is the Scripture which says that God Himself is responsible for this emptiness—this capacity that is at the root of everything we can experience in spiritual things.
The Darby translation says “the world,” but the Hebrew word is olam, which speaks of eternity. There is eternity in the heart: a capacity for eternal things. This capacity must be filled with eternity, with nothing less than that.
But we do not want merely to be religious; we want to be Christian. Let us turn to Genesis 1:26-27, the familiar verses concerning the creation of man.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;
Male and female created he them.
Twice we have the phrase, “in His own image.” You all know Who is actually the image of God. In the New Testament, we are told that Christ is the image of God.
We are created after God’s image, and that image is Christ. Nothing but Christ Himself can fulfill and fill this eternal capacity in our hearts. What we need is a revelation of Christ Himself.
As God revealed Him to the apostles and prophets in the New Testament, only this revelation of Christ Himself can satisfy our hearts and link us with the living God. That is the only way to touch the living God: by Christ Himself as the image.
If people are occupied with many things and remain empty, what must God do to open a way for them to receive this revelation of Christ—the only thing that can truly satisfy them and cause them to drop all the things that prevent them from meeting the living God?
He has to create hunger—powerful hunger for God. He puts something into the heart, a certain unrest, until people come to the place where Christ becomes their eternal rest and satisfaction.
The sons of Korah provide a good example. The Kohathites, the ancestors of the sons of Korah, had to carry the utensils of the tabernacle and the ark.
Then, when you come to the books of Samuel, you read how God allowed the ark to be lost. How could He allow such a thing? We always think the ark was precious to His heart, for it expressed the throne of the Lord in those days.
Yet when the Philistines took the ark, it seemed that God did not care. Why? Because the people did not care. Eli the priest and his sons did not care for the ark. So God allowed it to go into the hands of the Philistines for seven months.
When the ark came back, the people were harvesting in the fields. When they saw it coming back, they rejoiced. Why? Because during those seven months of deprivation they had been deprived of the presence of the ark. God had moved in their hearts toward it.
Once you have lost something that should be precious to you, a strong desire for that which you have lost comes back into your heart. The longer it lasts, the stronger the desire becomes.
When the Lord, in His sovereignty, brought the ark back, the people rejoiced greatly. They cherished the ark. It came into the house of Abinadab, and it was taken into his home and cared for. It is lovely to see.
But then the whole people of Israel no longer cared for the temple. That is one of the problems. Once you have experienced the preciousness of true spiritual fellowship—an openness to the Lord, where He meets needs, reveals Himself, and gives ministry—you can get used to it.
It loses its attractiveness. It becomes something common to you. That is a great danger.
Do you know what happens sometimes? The Lord, in His sovereignty, lets go. Suddenly, that which has been so precious to you disappears. You cannot tell why or how; it is simply no longer there.
Why does God allow this kind of thing? To bring you back to the place where you cannot live without it. It becomes a question of life or death: “Either I get this back, or I am dying.”
That is the point to which God wants to bring us when we begin to be careless about His ark and His testimony.
This happened to Israel. There was a kind of doctrine in Israel: “We are invincible because we have the temple. We have the right king, the proper priesthood, and everything God has commanded.”
“We have the temple, the worship, the singing, the offerings, the blood, the history, and all our glorious ancestors. We have the holy of holies, and God lives in the most holy place.”
But a day came when God allowed the temple to be destroyed. What about the doctrine of the temple? Was not the temple the house of God? Yet God allowed it to be destroyed. He allowed the offerings to stop, and the people had to go into captivity.
There they felt completely lost. God sent them prophets. The prophets showed them their sin and the stubbornness of their hearts that had caused the exile.
In Babylon, they reconsidered their whole history. Because of this deprivation, because God took away the temple, the worship, and everything, His people in Babylon began to desire what they had lost.
They started to pray, “Lord, bring it back again. Bring back the glory to the chosen place. Bring back the foundations. Bring back the priests. Bring back everything.”
Think of Daniel, who faithfully prayed three times a day toward Jerusalem. Those in whose hearts the Lord could work had an open window toward Jerusalem. The Lord created in them a deep hunger for spiritual reality.
They did not merely long for the temple or for fellowship; they longed for God Himself. That was precious to God. Finally, a very small remnant could return and build the temple.
There is another way God creates and enlarges this capacity, this hunger for Himself: He takes away things that distract us from Him.
Think of Job. You all know his story. He had a high position. He was one of the chief men at the gate, where matters were settled. He was the man to whom everybody came.
Then a day came when he sat on the ash heap. All the people passing by mocked him. The same Job who had once sat at the gate in a high place had to take the lowest place. He was mocked, and he was desperate.
He fought with God and tried to find out, “Why on earth do I have to take this place?” But at the end of the book, in Job 42, he says:
I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear;
But now mine eye seeth thee.
That was something much deeper, much more real, than anything he had before. Here is the answer to all the trials of Job’s life. God took away his children, his wealth, his health, and finally, in a spiritual sense, even his wife stood against him.
Where was God? He seemed to be nowhere. But God was there all the time. Job could not see Him. He was left with his theology, and he fought for his theology, his thoughts, his imaginations, and his ideas about God. He was left with that, and he almost died.
Until finally he met God. God spoke to him and appeared to him in a wonderful way. Then he could say, “Now mine eye seeth thee.”
Everything was finally restored to him double. God never deprives us of things simply because He likes to do so. Whenever God has to take something from our lives, it costs Him something from His own heart. He does not like to hurt His people.
Do you think God is happy when He has to deal severely with us? I do not think so. Whenever God has to discipline us, so to speak, He disciplines Himself. He identifies Himself so fully with His creation. He loves His creation and cares for it.
God knew there was only one way to bring Job to the place where he would let go of everything but God Himself. When Job saw God, he was ready. That was the precious fruit of all those dealings.
Another Scripture that shows how God creates desire, hunger, and thirst for the living God is Isaiah 45:15:
Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself,
O God of Israel, the Saviour.
It is a strange picture. We think God is a God who reveals Himself. Is that true? Praise the Lord, it is true. He revealed Himself to Job. Yet the same Bible says, “Thou art a God that hidest thyself.” How strange.
But if you consider your experience, is it not true that once you have seen God clearly, the next day He seems to disappear? You face the problems of your own life and family, and suddenly God seems hidden. You cry out to Him, and there is no answer.
Why does God hide Himself? Does He play with His children? We are His children. Perhaps He trains us in this way. He hides Himself so that we may seek Him anew.
If He is all around us, we do not care. It is like a mother in the kitchen while the children play. As long as mother is there, they do not care. But when she disappears into the basement or somewhere else, suddenly the child realizes that mother is gone and cries, “Mommy, Mommy, where are you?”
God sometimes deals with us like children. If we are too used to His presence, He may hide Himself so that we seek after Him.
I have seen many people in the charismatic movement who worship much and are honest in it. They are lively and feel that the Lord is there. Yet sometimes something may happen in a meeting and the Lord withdraws somehow, but they go on. They are enjoying their feelings and do not realize that God is no longer there.
Perhaps something has been spoken that was not right, or something has happened that dishonored Him. He withdraws His presence, but people are not alert to Him. They go on, and sometimes they go on for years.
I am not saying that all worship of this kind is like that. No. But it may happen that God withdraws. Blessed is the man who realizes why God hides Himself: to draw us out from ourselves and from all the things with which we are occupied, in order that we may seek after Him and find Him.
We have a wonderful picture of this in the Song of Solomon. In chapter 3, the bride goes out into the streets seeking after her beloved. She longs for sweet and close fellowship with her bridegroom.
Then in chapter 5 she is in her room and has become lazy. She knows He will come and show Himself to her. He comes, but she is careless. She says, in effect, “Why should I come out? I have taken off my garment. I am on my way to bed.”
She is careless about His presence, and so He withdraws. Then she suddenly realizes, “It was Him.” She had become used to His coming and having fellowship with her. As soon as He disappears, she wakes up and realizes she has lost His presence.
She goes through the streets of the city. She is even beaten by the watchmen and guards. You can read the record in chapter 5. She has lost His presence, and she is willing to go a long way to find it again.
Finally, when He asks her to go with Him, she is ready to go wherever He is. We often have the mentality that we are here and the Lord must come to us. It is wonderful that He comes to us, but there are times when the Lord wants us to go with Him.
If we do not realize how He deals with us—how He hides Himself so that we will seek Him more—we simply sit still and blame God. But it is our fault. We did not care for His presence, so He withdraws in order that we wake up and seek after Him.
There is another thing connected with this hunger for God. Sometimes God allows division in His church. Why?
For a long time I could not understand why God allows some of His most precious places to break up, to be divided, or in some way to go astray. Why?
It is for the same reason we have seen: He wants us to seek after Him.
If you have seen the vision of God’s eternal purpose and experienced something of the church, it is easy to become filled with teaching about the church and preoccupied with the church as a thing.
Sometimes God has to break it in order to make you realize that you have made it a substitute for God. The church has become something that satisfies you, and you no longer care for God Himself.
So He sometimes allows a precious thing to be divided, split, or to go astray, in order to cause you to seek afresh for His way, His presence, and the living God.
As Christians, we have a right—indeed, a birthright—in the name of Jesus, to pray and to expect our prayers to be answered. Is that true? We have the name of Jesus, and many of us end our prayers with the words, “In the name of Your Son, our Lord Jesus.”
But is it not equally true that many of our prayers are not answered? At least in my own life, I have seen many prayers for which it seemed that God would not listen.
I asked, “Lord, what is wrong with my prayer?” Finally, I received the answer: “There is nothing wrong with your prayer. I want to deal with you. You take it for granted that your prayers will be answered immediately, but I want you to know Me in a deeper way.”
“I will answer all your prayers. I have heard all your prayers.” There is a precious phrase in the Bible. Sometimes you break out in tears when you are seeking after God and He seems so hidden. Then you receive the message given to Hezekiah:
I have heard thy prayer,
I have seen thy tears.
What a precious phrase. God hears every prayer that goes up to Him, and He sees every tear shed in His presence. He knows them all. He will answer every honest prayer ever made, even the honest prayer of unbelievers. He is faithful to what He has promised.
But if God does not answer your prayer immediately, do not be desperate. Wait for Him. Seek Him personally. Let Him work in your heart and create a hunger for Him that has never been there before. You will find that your prayers are answered in a way far beyond what you expected.
Job would never have expected to receive double after those months on the ash heap. He may have been pleased simply to be saved from his sickness. But God restored double to him. He had heard all the prayers.
If God does not answer immediately, perhaps He wants to create a hunger, a reality in your heart that cannot be satisfied with anything less than God—the living God Himself.
The psalm says “the living God,” not merely “God.” There is much teaching about God, the Trinity, and so on. But teaching about God will not satisfy you. It is God Himself.
All these dealings have one single goal: to bring you together with God Himself. That is so necessary.
How does God fill this deep desire, if you are honest and feel that God is dealing with you along this line? Despite all the teaching we have had, perhaps there is still something empty. How does He fill this emptiness? There is only one answer: He reveals Christ to you.
I went through a period of dryness, a wilderness experience, in my own life about twelve or thirteen years ago. I was in a desperate state. I was a preacher of the gospel—can you imagine? Yet in my heart I did not know what to do.
I preached and studied the Bible, even more than before in Bible school, because people came wanting me to preach the gospel to them. Yet I felt as if every word I spoke was merely a word. There was nothing in my spirit responding to what I said.
Everything was true. Everything was doctrinally sound. But I felt as if I were speaking about something that did not exist. God was nowhere in my experience, although I had been a Christian for many years.
During that time, God began to do something. I did not have a sudden revelation or a vision. I had not been brought up in a charismatic environment. But slowly and gradually, God began to reveal Christ to me.
Suddenly I realized that the Christ I preached was not the Christ God had revealed to the apostles and prophets. I began to see glorious truths about Christ: the inclusiveness of Christ, the heavenliness and vastness of Christ, the eternity of Christ.
This did not come all at once. I was brought into it through the desperate situation I was in. I desperately needed the living God Himself, and He revealed Himself to me by revealing Christ to me.
It took time. It took God much time to teach me these things, but it came through this wilderness experience, through God’s dealings with me, and through prayers that were not answered immediately.
I kept saying, “God, You have to do something in my life. Otherwise, I will die. There is no way for me to go on.” I was on the verge of giving up my ministry. If you minister and feel you have nothing to give to people, the most honest thing to do is to give up.
But God did not want me to give up the ministry. He wanted to meet my deepest need. I realized—excuse me for saying it—that the only thing that could meet that need was Christ, the image of God, the fullness of God.
It was as if God poured spiritual substance out of His heart, out of Christ’s heart, into my life. I could not contain it.
That part of my experience, I believe, is true to some degree and measure of all Christians. If you are honest and feel empty within, do not try to substitute for what you do not have with something that may seem to satisfy you.
All these minor things—fellowship and whatever else—will never satisfy you. The nicest people will not satisfy you. If you try to get close to a famous minister and follow him, that minister will never be able to satisfy you.
Neither Lance nor Stephen Kaung nor any other brother can satisfy you. The Lord Himself uses this one and that one, but you have to meet God Himself. You have to meet the living God.
The very proof that He is living is that He reveals Himself and gives Himself to you. He is faithful. He pours out what is in Himself—what He has given to the church and to the world in Christ—into your life. Then you are satisfied, eternally satisfied, not only for a moment.
There may come periods in your life when another season of dryness appears. Never forget that this is part of our training. You cannot receive everything at once.
Even if you feel that heaven itself has been lavished upon your life, you can receive only as much of this fullness as your capacity can contain. The Lord has to enlarge that capacity.
He may bring another period of dryness. Nothing God has given and revealed to you will be lost; it is still there. But God wants to meet another need in your life, so He brings in another dryness and then comes again with another fullness.
Those more experienced in the Lord may agree with me that sometimes the longer you follow the Lord, the longer these periods of dryness become. I never understood that. I thought it would be different.
I thought the longer you knew God, the longer you would enjoy His fullness. But sometimes it is the opposite. There are short times of almost unspeakable glory and nearness to the Lord, followed by long periods of ordinary walking with the Lord in living faith.
Then there comes another time when God touches you, sheds His light upon your life, and changes or transforms something in you. Then another period of dryness comes, as far as your feelings are concerned.
God is not in your feelings. God is in your spirit. Feelings may seduce and deceive you, giving you the impression that God is with you when He is not. God is in your spirit, and you cannot see your spirit.
Christ dwells by faith in your heart, not by feeling. I have never felt my faith, but I know I have a spirit. I know that Christ dwells in my spirit, and I know my spirit functions. That is something I know by experience, but I cannot feel it.
God is there, and God is training us. He is training us for the kingdom. The church is not merely a place where you enjoy life or spiritual things. You will enjoy things, but the church and life with Christ are a training.
The church is a training center for the kingdom. Did you know that?
Those of us who have done military service—as we Swiss all have to do—know something about training. Sometimes for two or three days you can hardly sleep during a certain period of service.
If you complain all the time, you will end up in prison in Switzerland. But if you understand that it is part of something needed—that dryness and the fact that God has hidden Himself are part of your training—you will go through it.
You will not complain. You will see the end of it all, and you will appreciate even the dry times in your life. They will become precious stones in the heavenly vision.
That is the work of the Holy Spirit. All the impossible things in our lives will be transformed into precious stones.
May God bless you and meet you from time to time. But never forget that our walk here on earth is still a walk by faith.
You have been taught about living faith, and you will have much opportunity to work that out. The Lord will work it out among His people. Never forget that the times when you must live by faith, when you perhaps do not see where you are in your circumstances, must be carried through by faith.
It is possible only when you see that this is growth toward God—that God is training you to gain the position in the kingdom He has prepared for you, to reign with Christ from eternity to eternity.
We are in the training center now—the training center of Richmond. How about the name of your fellowship? Christ Training Center at Pope Avenue.
Sometimes people ask, “What are you? What kind of fellowship do you have there in Abisrüti, Switzerland?” I cannot tell them. The only thing I can say is, “Come and see.”
But not only once—you have to come for half a year. After six months, you may not even know what it is all about. But come and see.
What is going on in our lives is that we are being trained for something great. We have spoken about our needs and our hunger, but all this training here on earth is for meeting His need.
Let me close with this: God has a tremendous need. His authority has been challenged.
The Lord has been teaching me much about His kingdom. I have been so occupied with the church that I have desperately neglected His kingdom. That is His need. His authority has been challenged. His name has been dragged into the dust by the enemy throughout church history.
The enemy can say, “What about Your people? They should be a kingdom of priests. What about these ugly people? They fight. They do everything You never taught them to do.”
In the eyes of the enemy, God seems to be defeated all the time. But God has a tremendous need, and it is to meet this need that we are trained here.
That is what the church is for: to bring in His kingdom, to vindicate His name, to know something of His authority, to carry it out, and to stand by faith for His name.
Hallowed be thy name.
That was the desire of the Lord Jesus. If we are in Christ, we have to share this burden: that God’s name may be vindicated as soon as possible.
The time is urgent. Let us not lose hope. Let us go on by faith and take the stand, as we heard this morning: stand and see the victory. God’s name will be vindicated.
The time will come when the Son of Man will put His feet on the Mount of Olives, and all the nations will see the King of kings. Then our position will be redeemed, whether we are with Him or not.
May the Lord grant that we are with Him all the way through.
Our Lord, we pray that You may create in our hearts such a hunger for reality. You are the only reality. You are truth.
The Lord Jesus is the incarnation of truth. He has shown us what truth is. You have revealed Christ to us to a certain degree, Lord. We want to be in Him, and we want to be with Him.
If there is something that has to be dealt with in our lives, Lord, just care for it. Choose the means that will bring us to the place where we really need the living God—not merely what we think God should be, but what God truly is in Christ.
We praise You, Lord, that the Holy Spirit is in charge of Your kingdom. We thank You for all the training through which we are going and for the faith You are giving Your people to go through these difficult times.
Keep us from being deceived. Keep us, in one sense, in unity. Keep Your testimony. Make us faithful in small things, that we may be trained for the place where we must deal with great things and great issues: the kingdom of God established in the whole universe, and Your glory returning to this creation and to the new creation.
O Lord, we thank You for whatever You have done and are doing. Amen.