Will you please turn to the Gospel according to John, chapter 3? John, the third chapter, verses 35 and 36.
The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand.
He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life;
but he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life,
but the wrath of God abideth on him.—John 3:35-36
First John, chapter 2. We begin with verse 3 through verse 6.
And hereby we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.
He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;
but whoso keepeth His word, in him verily hath the love of God been perfected.
Hereby we know that we are in Him:
he that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also to walk even as He walked.—1 John 2:3-6
Chapter 3, verse 7 through verse 10.
Little children, let no man lead you astray: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous;
he that doeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning.
To this end was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because His seed abideth in him; and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God.
In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.—1 John 3:7-10
That is all we will read for the time being.
We have been sharing together on the ministry of John the Apostle. We mentioned again and again that the ministry of John is the ministry of recovery. And because his ministry is the ministry of recovery, it is most relevant to our days.
I think we all agree that we need to be recovered. I think we all agree that the testimony of Jesus needs to be recovered among God’s people. As we are approaching the end, this recovery is a must. Therefore, the ministry of John is very essential to our days.
The ministry of John has certain characteristics. Number one: his ministry is the ministry of the beginning.
In the Gospel according to John, we find that he begins with, “In the beginning was the Word.” Then, in the first Epistle of John, he says, “That which was from the beginning.” And then, in the book of Revelation, the Lord Jesus Himself testifies:
I am the First and the Last, and the Living One;
and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore,
and I have the keys of death and of Hades.—Revelation 1:17-18
Therefore, we find that the ministry of John is the ministry of the beginning. When things are not what they should be, the only thing to do is to return to the very beginning.
It is not enough just to go back ten years. It is not enough to go back one hundred years. It is not enough even to go back two hundred years, to the great revival movements in church history. It is not enough to go back to the sixteenth century, to the Reformation. It is not enough even to go back to the church fathers. We have to go back to the very beginning.
It is only when we go back to the very beginning that things will be corrected and return to God’s original purpose.
In the beginning was the Word.
—John 1:1
In other words, in the beginning you do not have any other thing. You do not have things, you do not have people, you do not have teaching, you do not have doctrine. You do not have forms, you do not have systems. You do not have ritual, you do not have ceremony. In the beginning, you do not have anything—but you have the Word: God manifested, God expressed, God revealed. This is what we have.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we must go beyond things. We must go beyond people. We must go beyond even teaching and doctrine, however accurate they may be. We must go beyond everything and go right back to the beginning: to God, to Christ, to the One who declares the Father.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
—John 1:14
Grace is what He does. Truth is what He says. In the Gospel according to John, you will always find something He did, and then He said something. What He did was grace; what He said was truth. And this is what we must return to.
Now, the second characteristic of the ministry of John is that his ministry is the ministry of life.
John is not interested in things. He is only interested in life. Therefore, you will find in John 1:4:
In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.
—John 1:4
Here in his Gospel you find a life—a life that comes from above, a life that touches death and hunger. And when that life touches death, it swallows up death. It heals. It changes. It transforms.
This life is now in you and me, because in 1 John you find this Word of life—the life which we have seen, heard, touched, and contemplated. It is in us. And because this life is in us, we need to return to life.
The problem today is that we are concerned with many things except one thing: life. Our question is always whether it is right or wrong, whether it is good or evil—as if, by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we can solve problems.
But we are told very definitely:
In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
—Genesis 2:17
That is the reason why you find death all around. There is death among God’s people because we are concerned with right and wrong, good and evil, instead of going back to life.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, the question that we need always to ask is: Is it life? If it is life, it is of God; it will bring in life. If it is not life, even if it may be right, even if it may be good, it will produce death.
I think the more we go on with the Lord, individually and together, we will discover how true this is. The ministry of John is a ministry of life.
And then, of course, the first ingredient of life is love.
John the Apostle is called the Apostle of Love because he is the apostle who speaks in terms of life, and life is love.
In the Gospel, we find how love touches men and situations. There was a situation in Cana of Galilee: the wine was exhausted. Joy was going to turn into sorrow. And there you find love touching that situation and bringing everlasting joy to it.
Then you find a Samaritan woman, thirsty and seeking things. Love touched that person to such a degree that she left her waterpot, ran into the city, and testified. Love touched the situation.
Again and again, through the whole Gospel of John, you find that it is love touching people and touching situations. From the first chapter to the twelfth chapter, it is love touching the world. From John 13 through John 17, you find love touching the believers.
How our Lord Jesus loved His own and loved them unto the uttermost! Because of that, He was willing to wash their feet. He was willing to do the lowest work—the work of a servant, of a slave—to serve them.
Because He loved us so much, His new commandment is that we love one another, that we do what He did to us. Because of His great love toward us, He will not leave us on earth as orphans. He said:
I go; it is for your profit.
I go, but I will send unto you another Comforter,
and He will be with you, and will be in you.—John 16:7; 14:16-17
He will never leave you nor forsake you. How He has provided the Holy Spirit to us to be our constant Companion, constant Guide, and Teacher—just love.
This love is not only toward the world and not only toward the believers. From John 18 to the end of John 20, you find love toward the Father. How He loved the Father, to the extent of being willing to lay down His life to do His Father’s will:
Not My will, but Thine, be done.
—Luke 22:42
That is love. And because He has so loved us, the last chapter of the Gospel of John is that we may love Him. This is the only thing that He asks of us. He does not ask anything else. He asks just this: “Do you love Me? Do you love Me more than these? Do you really love Me?”
As you come to the first Epistle of John, you find the same thing: it is love. We know what love is because God has given His only begotten Son to us. That is love. He laid down His life for us, and therefore we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
Even in the little epistles—the second and third Epistles of John—you find love in truth. Love and truth are not contradictory; love and truth are complementary. Sometimes we think that if it is truth, there cannot be love; or if it is love, there cannot be truth. But here you find love in truth.
It is not because you love that you compromise the truth. Instead, it is love in truth. This is what you find in these epistles.
The book of Revelation tells us that He loves us, washes us from our sins, and has made us kings and priests unto God. When you come to the end of the book of Revelation, you find that love overcomes. Love conquers everything. Love divine, love excelling.
So, brothers and sisters, the ministry of John is the ministry of life, and the first ingredient of life is love.
You know, when things are more normal, you can talk about authority, and you should. But when things are very abnormal, do you think talking about authority will help? It will bring more rebellion.
The way to deal with extremely abnormal situations is life. Love conquers the unconquerable. This is the ministry of John the Apostle.
Now, this evening, we would like to go into the third ingredient, the third characteristic of the ministry of John. The ministry of John is the ministry of the absolute.
You know, John is such a person. He knows only black or white. He does not understand gray. With him, it is always absolute.
Well, brothers and sisters, there is a big difference between being absolute and being dogmatic. To be dogmatic is of the flesh; to be absolute is of the Spirit.
To be dogmatic is to be hard, cold, self-righteous, self-confident, and self-assertive. It is a vice that we must avoid, because it only divides and destroys.
But to be absolute is of the Spirit, because you see what God sees and you stand with God for what He is. It builds up. It edifies.
He who is absolute is not dogmatic at all. He who is absolute will be strict with himself, but he will be very sympathetic with other people.
Take our Lord Jesus as an example. Who is more absolute than our Lord Jesus?
His relationship with God—yes, absolutely. You remember, in the Gospel according to John, He says:
The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father doing.
—John 5:19
And the Son cannot say anything of Himself. He says only that which He has heard of the Father. The relationship of our Lord Jesus toward the Father is an absolute relationship. There is no argument. There is no ground for compromise.
Not My will, but Thine, be done.
—Luke 22:42
It is absolute. Again and again, you find in the Gospel that our Lord Jesus says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you.” Amen, amen, I say unto you. There is no maybe, perhaps, or probably. No, it is absolute.
When you read the Sermon on the Mount, do you not find Him saying, “Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time,” but “I say unto you”? He says, “I say unto you,” because He is the way, the truth, and the life.
With our Lord Jesus, everything is absolute. He never needs to change His word. He never compromises.
When He testified before the Sanhedrin and before the Roman governor, He did not compromise one bit. He knew that if He acknowledged that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God, He would be condemned to death by the Sanhedrin. But He said:
Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you,
henceforth ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power,
and coming on the clouds of heaven.—Matthew 26:64
For this reason, He was condemned to death. Before the Roman governor, when asked, “Art Thou the King of the Jews?” the Lord said, “Thou sayest.” And He was condemned to death by the Roman Empire.
Even His enemies had to acknowledge it. They came to Him and said, “Teacher, we know that Thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth. Thou carest not for any man.” They were trying to use that to catch Him, but our Lord still told the truth. He never compromised. He is absolute in all His ways.
But was our Lord Jesus dogmatic, arrogant, cold, hard, or harsh? No. He knows our frailty. Of course, because He is absolute, He expects us to be absolute too. Yet He knows our frailty, and how sympathetic and tender He is. He is hard on the hypocrites but very kind to sinners.
So, dear brothers and sisters, to be absolute does not mean that you have to be dogmatic, self-righteous, and look down upon everybody else as if you are the only one who is absolute. Not at all.
Look at John the Apostle. Naturally, he had a very intense temperament. Everybody’s temperament is different. Thank God, He makes everybody different. Not only are our faces different; even our temperaments are different.
I often say temperament is the shape of the soul. Your soul has a shape, and that is your temperament. Some people’s temperaments are very tense and intense. Other people’s temperaments may be very relaxed. Some are very quick; others are very slow.
Some people take things quite easily. Other people are very serious. These are temperaments. There is nothing wrong with temperaments. They are simply your shapes. That is all. They are neutral.
Now John naturally had a very tense and intense temperament. He was an introvert—meditative, contemplative, looking inward. That kind of person tends to be very tense.
Was he absolute toward the Lord? He thought he was. He loved the Lord very much.
Can you remember once, when the Samaritans would not receive the Lord because His face was toward Jerusalem? Actually, these Samaritans were not against the Lord; they were against the Jews. But because the Lord was facing toward Jerusalem, these Samaritans would not receive Him.
Here you find John and James, the sons of thunder. Oh, they were so absolute toward the Lord. They came to the Lord and said, “Lord, how could these people not receive You? Do You want us to call down fire from heaven to burn them up, as Elijah did?”
And the Lord said:
Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
—Luke 9:55
Absolute—but dogmatic.
Again, in the same chapter, Luke 9, John said, “We saw someone casting out demons in Your name, but he is not with us, so we forbade him.” The Lord said:
He that is not against you is for you.
—Luke 9:50
Do not be so narrow. John thought he was absolute toward the Lord: “Oh, I love the Lord absolutely.” But he was dogmatic. He was narrow, intolerant, and self-righteous.
It was not until the Lord did this transforming work in his life that the intense temperament was still there, but it was under the control of God. When our temperament is under the control of the Holy Spirit, it is mellowed and regulated.
Then you find John still absolute, but no longer dogmatic. He became very loving and full of kindness. But that is not weakness.
Dear brothers and sisters, we are living in days when everything is compromised. Truth is compromised. Actions are compromised. The common notion today is that there is nothing absolute; everything is relative. This is the theology of the day.
What it really means is that there is no absolute standard. Do you think this is the time when there should be a recovery—a recovery to the absolute?
Do you think this is the time that we should see that there is One who is absolute? Our God is absolute. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
There is no shadow or shade with Him. He never changes. His name is the same. He is the absolute One. His truth is absolute. His righteousness is absolute. His justice is absolute. His love is absolute. His forgiveness is absolute.
When you touch God, you touch the absolute. With God, there is nothing relative at all. With God, it is just absolute.
Unless we are delivered from the sense of being relative—in other words, knowing ourselves—we have to acknowledge that we are not as absolute as we should be. If anyone thinks that he is absolute, he is not absolute at all; he deceives himself.
If we really desire to be absolute people of God, we know we are not absolute. So allow me to put it this way: God is absolute; Christ is absolute. His love toward us is absolute. His truth given to us is absolute. Of course, He expects us to be absolute toward Him.
Or, if you like, you can use another word: utter. He is absolute toward us; therefore, we must be utter toward Him.
Dear brothers and sisters, the more you draw near to Him, the more you realize you are not as utter as you should be. Because of this sense of our weakness, we tend to accept relativity as the norm of life. In other words, we try to lower the standard. But God will never lower His standard. He is absolute.
On the one hand, we need to acknowledge that we are not as absolute, as utter toward Him, as we should be. Yet, on the other hand, we will not ask God to lower His standard to meet us at our level. We still have to look to Him for the absolute, and not for the relative. This should be our attitude.
You go back to the Gospel according to John, and you find how absolute is what the Lord says. In the first passage we read, the Lord says:
He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life;
but he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life,
but the wrath of God abideth on him.—John 3:36
That is an absolute sentence. There is no in-between. Either you believe in Him and have life, or you do not, and the wrath of God is upon you. Either life or death.
Again, the Lord Jesus said:
Except ye believe that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.
—John 8:24
Very absolute. There is no maybe, probably, or perhaps. If you do not believe that I am, you die in your sins.
In the whole Gospel according to John, you find that He declares Himself as the great “I AM.” When God appeared to Moses in the wilderness, in the burning bush, Moses asked Him, “What is Thy name, that I may tell the people?” And God said:
I AM THAT I AM.
—Exodus 3:14
Again and again in the Gospel according to John, the Lord Himself declares that He is the I AM.
Before Abraham was born, I am.
—John 8:58
The Jews understood it, so they wanted to stone Him. Even when they came to the garden to arrest Him, the Lord asked, “Whom seek ye?” They said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” The Lord said, “I am He,” and they fell backward and fell to the ground.
To our Lord Jesus, there is no doubt, no shadow, no shade. He is the great I AM.
I am the bread of life.
I am the light of the world.
I am the good Shepherd.
I am the door.
I am the true vine.
I am the resurrection, and the life.
I am the way, and the truth, and the life.—John 6:35; 8:12; 10:11, 9; 15:1; 11:25; 14:6
Here you find our Lord Jesus is the I AM. In other words, He is the absolute. He is the truth, the I AM.
Because He is the I AM, what should be our attitude toward Him? Our attitude should be this: seeing that He is the I AM, then He is all in all to us. That is being absolute toward Him.
Either He is all and in all to us, or He is not our Lord at all. That is the absolute relationship that He demands of us.
It is for this reason that in the Gospel you find again and again that He says:
If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
—Matthew 16:24
Whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple.
—Luke 14:33
His demands toward us are absolute because He is absolute in His way with us.
Now, brothers and sisters, so far as our experience goes, we know we are not absolute. We are relative. But we should be relatively absolute. God is absolutely absolute, and we are relatively absolute.
In 1 John, you find that the Apostle John says:
If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.—1 John 1:7
If we walk in the light—as we explained yesterday, this is not outward light; this is the light of life. We have this life of Christ in us, and this life emits light within us.
Now suppose you are a newly born believer. You have the life of Christ in you, but because you are a newly born believer, the light of life that shines upon you is just one candlelight. It is a very small light. It cannot be compared with God, who is light. We may say that God is one hundred candlelights. There is a vast difference in degree, but they are the same in kind.
Here we walk in the light. What light? The light of life that you have. Now, the light of life you have may be only one candlelight. But if you walk in that light—that is to say, you are not walking in the shadow, in the shade, or in the twilight—God expects you to be one hundred percent obedient to the amount of light you have today. That is absolute. That is your absolute.
It is true that your absolute is relative to God’s absolute, but you have to be absolute in that relative light.
It is only when we are walking in this way that our fellowship with God is not interrupted. Suppose you have two candlelights, and you walk only under one candlelight. There is a part in shadow. Immediately, you find you are not absolute.
Your absoluteness is relative, that is true, but you are not absolute. Because you are not absolute, your fellowship with the One who is absolute is hindered.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is the way we grow in the Lord. This is the way we grow from little children to young men and to fathers. We have to be absolute in our relative light.
God is absolute. He would have nothing to do with people who are not absolute. He cannot. He requires absoluteness. Of course, we have to acknowledge that our absoluteness is relative, but we cannot simply be relative, thinking, “Well, we cannot be absolute; therefore, just be relative.” No, the Lord will not allow that.
The same is true even with our righteousness. If our heart does not condemn us, and God is greater than our heart, we can have fellowship with God.
You know, when I read this verse, I often think the logic is not right. If our heart does not condemn us, but God’s heart is greater—bigger—that puts me in a very difficult position. And yet we abide in Him, and He abides in us.
Now, when your heart does not condemn you, it does not mean that God does not condemn that thing. Here the heart means conscience. Your conscience may not condemn you. It may not condemn you as wrong, as if what you do is right.
That is our experience when we are young Christians. There are many things we do that our conscience does not condemn. Because we have a clear conscience, we have fellowship with God, and there is no problem.
Now, that does not mean that God does not know there is still something wrong with us. Certainly He knows. But He overlooks. Why? Because we can only walk in that relative absoluteness. There is no way for us to be absolutely absolute. But still, He requires that absolute response.
Our conscience judges between right and wrong, and it is related to our life. When our life grows, the sensitivity of our conscience also grows.
That is the reason why we should never be another person’s conscience. What your conscience will not allow you, you should never make the judgment for another person, because his life may not be at that level yet. The righteousness in that person may not be at the same level as the righteousness in you because of different levels of life. But each one has to answer to God according to his conscience.
The same thing is true with love. How the Lord demands that we love one another as He has loved us! It is absolute.
The way our Lord loves is absolute. He gave His life for us. He laid down His life for us. That is the reason why in 1 John it says that if we love our brothers, we should lay down our lives for our brothers.
It is absolute. But again, we all know our love. Because of that, how we need to look to the Lord continuously, that His love may so fill our hearts that we may love as He loves. It has to be absolute.
When you come to the book of Revelation, you find that in the consummation of time, everything is brought to the absolute. There is no gray color, no borderline.
There are those who are in the city, full of light, and there are those outside of the city, in the lake of fire. There is no borderline. There is no twilight, because our God is the God who is absolute.
So, dear brothers and sisters, as we are drawing close to the end, we feel very deeply that not only is the world trying to say, “There is nothing absolute; everything is relative,” but even among Christians we find that this is beginning to be the theology of today.
How we need the ministry of John. How we need to return to the absolute.
But again, we say, to return to the absolute does not mean that you need to be dogmatic. Oftentimes we think we are absolute, and we always feel that other people are not as absolute. So we begin to look down upon them and criticize them.
Dear brothers and sisters, when we do that, it simply shows that we do not know what the absolute is. We are just being dogmatic, that is all. It is destructive. It does not help.
If you really are absolute before the Lord, you know how you feel. You know you are not as absolute as you should be. Because of that, you will be most sympathetic and forbearing.
Take Peter as an illustration. Peter thought he was absolute toward the Lord.
Not only in Matthew 16 did he confess the Lord in such clear terms, but also in John 6, when the disciples of the Lord began to leave Him and said, “This word is hard,” the Lord challenged the twelve and said, “Would ye also go away?”
And Peter said:
Lord, to whom shall we go?
Thou hast the words of eternal life.—John 6:68
His testimony was clear. When the Lord began to share with His disciples that He would go to Jerusalem and be killed, and that all the disciples would be scattered as sheep when the Shepherd was smitten, Peter said, “No. If others will be scattered, I will not. I will die with You.” He was absolute toward the Lord.
Oh, how he must have looked down upon the other disciples! But after the resurrection of the Lord, in John 21, when the Lord Jesus asked him, “Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me more than these?”—that is very simple: “Do you love Me more than these? The fire? The food? The companions? Do you love Me more than these?”
Peter said, “Lord, You know I am attached to You. I cannot say I love You, but I am inclined toward You. I am friendly with You.”
Even when the Lord asked him three times, he dared not go beyond his measure. He knew his measure. Because he knew his measure, the Lord said:
Feed My lambs.
Tend My sheep.
Feed My sheep.—John 21:15-17
In other words, here you find a person who says he is not absolute, and the Lord takes him as absolute. The Lord can use such a person to help other people.
Dear brothers and sisters, the ministry of John is the ministry of the absolute.
Well, of course, we can go on and on. The ministry of John has another aspect. I will not go into it; I will just mention it. It is the ministry of the ultimate.
It is not only the ministry of the beginning; it is the ministry of the end, of the ultimate. Why? Because our Lord Jesus is the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.
With the Apostle John, he is never satisfied with anything but the ultimate.
In his search for truth, he did not stay with John the Baptist. Many disciples of John stayed with John and never left John the Baptist. But John the Apostle, in his search for truth, first came to John. When John pointed out Jesus as the Lamb of God, he left John and followed Jesus.
He always looked for the ultimate. When he found the ultimate, he stayed with Him. That was John: always ultimate, never stopping short of the end.
If you read his Gospel, his epistles, and Revelation, I think it is evident: everything is ultimate.
In the Gospel of John, you find the ultimate of Christ. In the Epistle of John, the ultimate of Christians. In Revelation, the ultimate of God’s purpose.
If you only had the three Synoptic Gospels, and suppose you did not have the Gospel of John, the fourth Gospel, what would happen? Our understanding of the Lord Jesus would be halfway.
The three Synoptic Gospels show us that our Lord Jesus is the Man, the Son of Man, the perfect Man. He is the King. He is the Servant of God. He performs many miracles. He teaches many teachings. But all you find in the three Gospels is what He does and how He lives as a man among men.
This is not the ultimate of Christ. If our knowledge of Christ is only physical and earthly, we misunderstand Him completely.
It is the fourth Gospel that presents Christ as heavenly and spiritual. John is not interested merely in telling us events and miracles. All the miracles recorded are signs. In other words, he is not interested in the miracle itself; he records them because they are signs. They tell us something deeper.
What is it? He is telling us that this Jesus comes from heaven. Even while He is on earth, He is still in heaven. It is heaven touching the earth. He carries with Him a heavenly atmosphere. He is gathering us to Himself, to that heavenly realm.
Then you find that it is intensely spiritual. When He is dealing with the world, and the world comes after Him for the things of this earth, He withdraws Himself. In His last time with His disciples, He speaks of, “I in you, and you in Me”—intensely spiritual.
After He was resurrected, He would not allow Mary Magdalene to touch Him. In other words, from now on, it is a spiritual relationship—intensely spiritual.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, only that which is heavenly and spiritual is ultimate. The physical and earthly are not ultimate. It is the heavenly and the spiritual that are ultimate. That is what John presents to us: Christ, the heavenly and the spiritual. That is the ultimate of Christ.
Again, when you come to the Epistle of John, you find the ultimate of the Christian. Now, what is a Christian? A Christian is one who knows.
If you come to the end of the Epistle of John, the fifth chapter, you will notice the word know many times: know, know, know, know. The word know is not objective knowledge. The word know is subjective, conscious, experiential knowledge.
The ultimate of a Christian is an inward, experiential, conscious knowledge of God.
We know we are of God. We know He hears us. We know we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. We know. That is the ultimate of a Christian.
Of course, Revelation is the ultimate of God’s purpose: the end.
The end is the holy city, New Jerusalem. God, amen.
Brothers and sisters, we need the ministry of John. Shall we pray?
Our Heavenly Father, we ask Thee, O Lord, that these may not just be words. Lord, by Thy Holy Spirit, may Thou reveal the truth to us and lead us into Thy truth.
Yes, we know how helpless we are when we are trying to touch something which is the ultimate, the absolute. Human words are just inadequate—impossible. But Lord, we know this is true, and we ask Thy Holy Spirit to make all these things very real and very practical to us.
Do not allow us to live in words and theory and philosophy. This is not our intention. But, Lord, we ask that we may live in that reality which is eternally true. We ask in Thy precious name.