The Lord has something more that He wants to give to us. We are so easily satisfied, but He has more.
A crisis is good for us when it shakes us out of what we are and plunges us into Who He is. That is a tremendous liberation.
I believe our life on this North American continent is too comfortable. We easily equate spiritual blessing with earthly things, and things become more important to us than the Person, the Lord Jesus Christ.
How often we ask for things—not only physical things, but spiritual things. We ask for gifts, power, evangelism, and church life. Oftentimes, we forget the one thing we need to ask for: the Person of the Lord Himself. Nothing can take His place.
The Lord has really been teaching me a new lesson: we often pay attention to things rather than to the Person. Perhaps we are afraid of going through a real crisis. Yet a crisis can shake us out of ourselves and plunge us into the fullness of Christ.
Many things happened while the Lord Jesus was on the cross, and they are all recorded in Scripture. We talk about them and preach about them, but there is one thing we can miss: when He was hanging on that cross, everything that was not Christ was shaken.
I feel that we need a spiritual earthquake to shake us out of where we are, so that we can plunge into Christ, immerse ourselves in Him, and enjoy the testimony of Who He is—the fullness of Christ.
Just remember: God is after fullness for His people. Christ is God’s fullness, and the church is to be the deposit of the fullness of Christ. That is our mission.
We need to pray the right prayer: “Lord, we need You. We need You. We need more of You. Do not let us be satisfied with what we have. Enlarge us, empty us, that You may pour out Your riches and Your fullness upon us.”
The testimony of Jesus Christ is Himself. When He can see Himself in us, that is His testimony.
Lord, what can we say to You? We are so privileged to come to some understanding of what is in Your heart.
We thank You for the theme of this conference. We know that this is what You desire for Yourself: to see Your testimony and fullness in Your people.
Lord, create in us a hunger for more of You. Remind us that there is always something more in You that You want to give to us.
Shake us out of ourselves, that we may be shaken into Who You are, and that Your name indeed may be glorified.
Make us like John the Baptist. May we become smaller and smaller, and may You become greater and greater, so that You may be the great I AM in all of us.
We give You all the praise. Amen.
Lord, we thank You that You are with us. If You are with us, what more do we want?
We thank You for Your presence with us this evening. Our hearts look up to You. Speak Your words to our hearts. Through Your word, may we see You.
Deliver us from merely hearing messages. We want to see You. We want to hear You. We want to bow our knees and worship You.
Be Lord over this meeting tonight. To You we give all the glory, in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.
This is our last evening session for this conference. I thank the Lord for this conference, but this conference is not ultimately for us. It is for the Lord Himself, because the Lord is after something for Himself.
I remember a conference last year. At the end of the first message, I heard a brother say, “That message we heard is enough. We can all pack and go home, because what we heard from that first message will be enough for the rest of our lives.”
Our brother often used to say the same thing: what is shared in a conference may take the rest of our lives for the Holy Spirit to work into us as reality.
We praise the Lord for speaking to us. The reason He speaks and speaks again is that we are so slow to respond to what is in His heart. Yet the Lord is very patient with us. He will not give us up.
He has committed His testimony to us, and He is there to fulfill it.
Before we go to the Gospel of John, I would like to share a couple of thoughts.
Brothers who are more advanced spiritually often put it this way: all our problems and all our difficulties are because we have an inadequate knowledge of Who Christ is.
If we truly know Who He is, we will be set free from many of the problems we face.
This evening I would like to use a few words that we find in the book of Genesis—the beginning few words. Those words are of great significance because they are the first words God uttered that are recorded for us.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
—Genesis 1:1
These words are profound. There is great depth in them. Often we read them casually, but through those few words God was introducing Himself to us: “I am the beginning of everything.”
The reason He began is because He has a plan and a purpose. He has the will, the ability, the power, and the faith to see that it is ultimately fulfilled.
Put it in our language: God is in real business. He has something in mind, and what He has set out to do, He will surely do.
Our God cannot fail. If God can fail, then He is not God.
When we look at ourselves, when we look at God’s people and the condition we are in, it is easy to be disappointed and discouraged. We become discouraged because we look at the tangible and the visible.
Yet it is very difficult—almost impossible—to see Him Who is invisible. But when we see Him Who is invisible, that is our great deliverance.
No matter how we feel about ourselves as a company of God’s people, God has already committed His testimony to us. He has committed it to us because He has said that He Himself will accomplish it.
We need to have faith in our God. God’s testimony remains the same and unchanged, and God is going to work that testimony into us.
We may resist Him. We may delay His work. But ultimately, He will be successful. Hold on to what He is doing.
God is in real business, and He is also looking for people who mean business with Him.
For His part, He has already totally committed Himself to us. But on our part, our commitment is often partial and inconsistent. When we come to a conference, we are committed; when we go home, it is often a different story.
God is looking for those who mean business with Him, but it is hard for Him to find such people.
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.
—2 Chronicles 16:9
In a very practical way, the Lord is looking for those whose hearts mean business with Him. He is looking for those to whom He can commit Himself, so that His testimony may radiate through them.
Throughout church history, and even in our day, the Lord has found a few here and there who were really committed to Him. How the Lord used them!
We are blessed today because of those who committed themselves totally to the Lord. Because of their total commitment, we are blessed.
The Lord is looking for such people. His eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth because such people are rare. He has to search for them.
The problem is not with God Himself. The problem is with us. We are delaying His work; we are slowing down His work. But in the end, He will succeed.
Here and there, there will be those who respond. I would call them the overcomers. If the Lord can gain those overcomers, it is a guarantee that He can gain us all.
We need that kind of people today in our local fellowship—those whose hearts are totally toward the Lord. Through them, the testimony of Jesus Christ will come to us. They are channels of blessing.
Pray that in these last days the Lord will raise men and women whose hearts are perfect toward Him.
During these last few days, we have heard much concerning the testimony of God—the testimony of Jesus Christ. Though the messages may have approached the matter in different ways, actually it is one matter.
The Lord Jesus came for the purpose of making His Father known to us. The only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, came to declare Him.
In the Gospel of John, how often the Lord speaks of “My Father.” It was not merely something upon His lips; the Father was with Him.
The Father gave everything to His Son and showed His Son everything that He was going to do.
Christ is God’s purpose to us. Christ is God’s will to us. Christ is God’s work for us.
Outside of Christ, God has no other purpose. Outside of Christ, God has no other will. Outside of Christ, God has no other work. Everything is in Christ, and Christ is everything.
We have to get hold of that. It is a foundational truth, and we must stand on that truth.
This evening, I will try to share from some of the signs found in the Gospel of John. The Holy Spirit uses those signs to show us Christ and to work Christ into us.
The theme of the Gospel of John is the testimony of Jesus Christ. According to John, the testimony of Jesus Christ is Jesus Christ Himself.
No one can testify for Him. No one is qualified to testify for Him. Our testimony is not that we testify for Him; our testimony is that He, in us, testifies of Himself through us.
What comes out must not be us. What comes out must be the Lord Jesus.
In the Gospel of John, there are seven declarations of “I AM.” The “I AM” speaks of union with Christ. Once we are in union with Christ, all that He is becomes ours.
How God the Father is to His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, so also should He be to us if we are in Christ.
If I am in Christ, God cannot love me less than He loves His Son. Because I am in Christ, the love that the Father gives to the Son is also given to me.
These are things we may have heard many times, but we need to be refreshed again.
John’s Gospel is God’s reaction to the spiritual condition of His people in John’s day. There was a spiritual decline. The testimony of Jesus Christ had been weakened.
The world came in. Men came in. Tradition came in. We became fixed in our ways.
Once we come to a fixed position, we limit God. But God will not allow us to limit Him, because He is so great. He refuses to be limited by anyone.
Our deliverance from our smallness is to see how great Christ is—not just through messages, but through an inward seeing in the Spirit of Who He really is.
I have a longing in my heart: “Lord, do not bring me to a place where I am in a fixed position.” If I fix myself, then God cannot move on with me. He will bypass me and work in somebody else, and I will miss out while others come into the good of it.
God’s intention is that we must all move on with Him, from grace to grace. There is no end to it.
If Christ has an end, then He is very small. But the end is glory. You cannot measure glory; it is always beyond us.
How we need God to set us free from ourselves if His testimony is to be committed to us.
For Christ to work Himself into us, that is the work of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is not primarily interested in signs and wonders. His one mission is to exalt God’s beloved Son. His one mission is to incorporate God’s beloved Son into all of us.
Our testimony is Jesus Christ. Only Jesus Christ, fully formed in us, can satisfy the Father’s heart.
Before we look at the signs, let me share one thought. In every sign that we find in the Gospel of John, before Christ can work Himself into the situation, the Holy Spirit first creates a crisis.
Unless we are brought into a real spiritual crisis, we may never receive revelation. Our easy life is not conducive to spiritual revelation.
In all these signs, God allows a crisis to come into the situation. It comes to the point where it is either the Lord Himself or nothing.
We are brought to a place where we have no other choice but to fall upon the Lord. That is grace.
If the Lord can work in such a way that we simply hold on to Him, that is grace—real grace. Grace is unto purpose, and the purpose is to lay hold of Christ, Who is indeed the grace that we need.
We avoid crises because we think they are bad for us. But in these signs we find that crises are necessary.
The first is the marriage in Cana. The second is the healing of the nobleman’s son. The third is the infirm man at Bethesda. The fourth is the man born blind. The fifth is Lazarus.
And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:
and Jesus also was bidden, and His disciples, to the marriage.And when the wine failed, the mother of Jesus saith unto Him, They have no wine.
And Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.
His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.
Now there were six waterpots of stone set there after the Jews’ manner of purifying, containing two or three firkins apiece.
Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim.
And He saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the ruler of the feast. And they bare it.
And when the ruler of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and knew not whence it was, but the servants that had drawn the water knew, the ruler of the feast calleth the bridegroom,
and saith unto him, Every man setteth on first the good wine; and when men have drunk freely, then that which is worse: thou hast kept the good wine until now.
This beginning of His signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed on Him.
—John 2:1-11
What a glorious ending to that incident: He manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him. That is what He came for.
All the signs point to Christ. The mother of Jesus did not fully understand the Lord Jesus. All she could think about was solving the immediate problem they faced.
Without wine, that wedding would have been most embarrassing for the couple. We do not know why they ran out of wine. Perhaps there were more guests than expected. We do know that Jewish wedding celebrations often lasted several days.
I am sure that this young couple prepared as much as they could. Young couples planning a wedding think of everything. They want that wedding to be perfect, not only for themselves but for their guests as well.
Yet this crisis was allowed by God for Christ to manifest His glory and for the disciples to truly believe in Him.
From this incident, we learn that the Lord wants us to know that He is the God of fullness. When the Lord says fullness, He means fullness.
There were six large stone waterpots, each containing twenty or thirty gallons. Six is the number of man.
When the Lord comes into our situation, for the first time we discover how empty we really are. When we compare ourselves with one another, we may think that we are rather full. But when we compare ourselves with Christ, we discover how empty we are.
We have nothing.
The Lord told the servants, “Fill the waterpots with water.” Those waterpots had been empty for a long time. Someone had neglected his duty, because when guests came in, they needed water to wash their feet.
The stone waterpots were empty, and no one was aware of it. But the Lord knew that they were empty. He said, “Fill them to the brim.”
The moment the Lord gave the command, “Draw out,” the water became wine. When the Lord comes into our situation, there is transformation.
We cannot transform ourselves. When He comes, He transforms. There is no need for us to try to transform ourselves; we must allow Him to come into our lives. Then transformation begins.
His transformation is a lasting transformation. The six waterpots filled to the brim speak of His fullness for us.
Do we know that we are empty without the Lord Jesus? It is good for us to know that we are empty, because God will step into that situation and show us that He is our fullness.
This first sign in John is foundational. All the other signs are based upon this one sign. When the Lord gives Himself to us, He gives Himself in fullness.
He never gives His life to us in measure. The reason we do not experience fullness is that we restrict that fullness through our self-life.
The more empty we become of ourselves, the more He can fill us with Himself. Our testimony is the fullness of His life in us.
The healing of the nobleman’s son is another sign. Apparently, this nobleman heard that the Lord Jesus was in Cana and had heard of His miracles.
When he discovered that his son was at the point of death, he immediately went to Cana to plead with the Lord Jesus to come to Capernaum and heal his son.
It was a desperate need—a real crisis.
The Lord is compassionate, sympathetic, and loving. But His love and compassion are not sentimental. His love is true love.
The Lord’s reply may have seemed harsh to this sorrowful nobleman:
Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will in no wise believe.
—John 4:48
The Lord saw through his heart. The Lord knew that many came looking only for signs.
Ye seek Me, not because ye saw signs, but because ye ate of the loaves, and were filled.
—John 6:26
Sometimes we approach the Lord with the wrong motive, and we want the Lord merely to answer our prayers.
This nobleman had a kind of natural faith. He came to Cana because he had faith in the Lord Jesus, but his faith was in signs and wonders rather than in the Lord Himself.
The Lord was drawing him away from looking merely for signs and wonders and was seeking to draw out faith in Himself.
The nobleman pleaded:
Sir, come down ere my child die.
—John 4:49
That was a desperate plea. If You do not come, he dies.
Then the Lord Jesus said:
Go thy way; thy son liveth.
—John 4:50
Is that enough? Is the word that comes from the mouth of the Lord enough?
Most of us do not find it enough. May the Lord have mercy on us.
Campbell Morgan put it this way: the nobleman was brought to a place where he came to the conclusion, “Sign or no sign, whether You come with me to Capernaum or not, I have no choice now. I take Your word.”
How merciful God is. His dealings may seem harsh, but they are good. He wants us to know Him in such a way that we know He is enough because He says so.
There was a real crisis, but a wonderful lesson was learned: His word is enough.
His word is life. His word is spirit. His word is true. His word is Himself.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
—John 1:1
Everything came about because God spoke, and it was. God is still unchanging, and His word is still true.
The testimony of Jesus is His word.
The man at the pool had been infirm for thirty-eight years. It was a desperate situation.
As I meditated on this passage, I admired this man because he had such endurance. He had been lying there for thirty-eight years in that one condition.
He lay with a group of sick people near the pool. He said, “I have no man,” and it seems that no one was willing to carry him all the way into the water.
If I were in his condition, would I lie there for thirty-eight years? I do not think so. After a few days, or perhaps a couple of weeks, I might give up. It seemed like a hopeless situation.
Yet somehow there was in this man a ray of hope. The Lord Jesus came into that situation.
Wilt thou be made whole?
—John 5:6
The man answered that when the water was stirred, he had no one to put him into the pool. By the time he moved near the edge, someone else had already gone down before him.
Spiritually, we are all crippled like this man. We can never rise up by ourselves. We have no strength. We are powerless.
The flesh keeps us tied down to the earth. Even if we determine to rise up, we have no strength. We are totally incapable.
Then the Lord spoke a few words:
Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
—John 5:8
We need the Lord to speak just a few words to us. When His word comes to us, it carries the power of His life, and we can rise up and walk.
That is something we all need.
A place of comfort can be a place of grace, but if we are not careful, what is a blessing can become a curse to us.
If comfort is all we seek, our comfort becomes a curse. We have a great temptation in this North American continent, because we all seek the comfort of this life.
If we are not careful, our comfort can become a curse and then become an idol to us. Our comfort takes the place of Christ.
Our job, our home, and our possessions can become idols. Some people live for their homes. Their homes are not for use but for display.
We all have that tendency. If we are not careful, all these earthly things can cripple us spiritually and hinder us from rising up and following Him.
If we are earthbound, our testimony is gone. Our testimony is that we are not of this world; we are citizens of heaven. The gravity of our life is not earth, but heaven.
And as He passed by, He saw a man blind from his birth.
And His disciples asked Him, saying, Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
—John 9:1-3
Through this sign in John 9, the Lord gives us a glimpse of what His work is all about. His work is to give us spiritual sight.
He does not give us spiritual sight merely to see many things. He gives us spiritual sight to see, first of all, Himself.
That is our problem. When we are given spiritual sight, instead of looking to Him, we look at each other. We look at ourselves, and immediately we become blind again.
Problems make us blind. Looking at brothers and sisters can make us blind. Looking at ourselves makes us blind. Looking at our problems makes us blind.
We need spiritual sight to see Him.
The Lord gives spiritual sight for a purpose. He does everything with a specific purpose in mind.
Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and finding him, He said, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?
He answered and said, And who is He, Lord, that I may believe on Him?
Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen Him, and He it is that speaketh with thee.
And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped Him.
—John 9:35-38
The Lord gives us spiritual sight because He wants us to see Him. He wants us to worship Him.
We are given spiritual sight to see Jesus, because He is God’s everything for us. Apart from Him, there is nothing. Apart from Him, there is no beauty. Apart from Him, there is nothing meaningful.
When we see Him, we see everything. He is our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption, our humility, our love, and our unity.
Why try to manufacture unity? Unity is Christ. If we are in Christ, we are one. If we see Him, we are one. When we see Him, we can only worship Him.
Where else can we go?
Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.
—John 6:68
Spiritual sight is for seeing Him, because that is the Father’s will. We are to see His Son and listen to His Son.
When we come to Lazarus, we come to death. Death is a terrible thing. Humanly speaking, when death comes, that is the end.
But if the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ is committed to us, His life is enough to overcome death.
The Lord said:
I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
—Matthew 16:18
The threat of death is always there, but His life is the overcoming life over death.
In this world, death has the last word. But in Christ, resurrection has the last word.
The Lord can raise up a more effective and more glorious ministry. Therefore, when we are committed to the Lord, there is no need to fear.
The Lord will be successful in His work. We can fail, but He cannot fail.
God is a God of resurrection. Out of nothing, He can give life. Out of death, He can bring life.
This kind of work is for God’s glory. When light comes out of darkness, that is glory. That is testimony. When God comes in, He gets all the glory.
We are living in tremendous days, and we have no idea what lies ahead. If we are committed totally to the Lord’s testimony, we will experience that resurrection life.
I am the resurrection, and the life.
—John 11:25
Do not fear the crises in your life. They are occasions for Him to step in, so that He can show you Who He is and what He wants to be in you and in me.
That is the testimony of Jesus Christ.
We cannot be His testimony in ourselves. We are so fleshly. We are not qualified.
The only thing we can do is let go of ourselves. Then He takes over. That is the work of the cross. That is the work of Christ.
The end of His work is glory. The Lord said that Lazarus’s case was for the glory of God. Resurrection is not our arguing; it is His doing.
God cannot fail. He is in real business, and His business will be successful.
In a sense, God’s end is already secure in Himself. That is our testimony.
God is working what He has already accomplished in Christ into us. We are standing on that sure foundation. What is true of Christ will be true in us.
That is why the Holy Spirit is working in all of us.
The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to find those whose hearts are loyal to Him. If He can find such hearts, He will commit Himself totally to them.
We can say to the Lord, “If that is what You want, that is what I want.” And He will do it.
Lord, we can only thank You, because You fail not.
In the beginning, God.
—Genesis 1:1
You began what You began. You know what You are doing. You have the faith and the power to accomplish it.
Do it with us. Do it in us, individually and corporately, that we may bear the testimony of Jesus Christ and that God may be glorified.
Thank You for this conference. Thank You for speaking to us. Do Your work. Do not allow us to hinder Your work. Do it in and through us.
To You be all the glory.