Good evening, brothers and sisters. It is wonderful to be gathered together in the presence of our Lord, and it is our privilege to come and sit at His feet.
No, brothers and sisters, He alone has the words of eternal life. I have yet to get an understanding in my own heart as to why the Lord has chosen to use human, failing vessels to speak His word. But He has done it, and we just have to learn how to be faithful in what He has called us to do.
But we need to look beyond the human vessel and listen for the Lord’s voice to our hearts.
I wonder, when you brothers and sisters received the announcement of the topic for this time of fellowship together, what was your immediate response? “Spiritual ascendancy?” No idea, right?
Well, it is wonderful of our Lord that He sees there are important matters about our life in Him that we tend to overlook, sometimes because they seem to be too difficult. Seemingly, the Lord in His mercy has brought this matter of our ascendancy—our spiritual ascendancy—before us for some fellowship.
And I just trust that it will be the beginning for many of us to pursue this matter. Because, you know, brothers and sisters, there is no way that we can adequately deal with this topic in a session. It needs a lot more time, a lot more thinking about, and a lot more meditating on.
And so, I would like to suggest to us that we give ourselves to reading, primarily, the word of God. As our brother Dana mentioned to us this afternoon, those three letters of Paul that he wrote when he was chained to a Roman soldier—Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians—are very, very valuable.
I had the same impression that our brother Dana had. When I was reading these letters that Paul wrote, somehow, as he was restrained in that circumstance, it did not in any way hinder his being able to focus on our Lord Jesus and all that He has accomplished.
So be encouraged, my brothers and sisters, to read those three letters of Paul: Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians.
But I would also like to encourage you, in addition to those three letters, to read some other very valuable Scriptures that can help us in this matter of spiritual ascendancy. I would suggest that we read the letter to the Hebrews.
You know, my brothers and sisters, the letter to the Hebrews is that wonderful letter that gives us a bigger picture of our Lord Jesus as our great High Priest. This is what He has been doing and, for two thousand years, has been functioning as our great High Priest.
And so I think there are some wonderful things that the Holy Spirit can show us from the letter to the Hebrews. But I also think that we can gain a great deal of help by reading the Gospel of John, the first epistle of John, and Revelation.
Because I think this was another man who was very much occupied with this matter of spiritual ascendancy. Now, I did not have the kind of training that would equip me to make a decision about when John wrote his Gospel.
But would it not be interesting, brothers and sisters, if it was that John wrote the Gospel of John after he had the experience on the island of Patmos, after he wrote the book of Revelation? I could be way off, okay? But at least you see that when John writes his Gospel, he is writing about an ascended Lord.
And so maybe it could be. Even when we are reading the first epistle, he is still concerned about this matter of being true to what we have seen, being true to what we say. So I wonder if there is not something there.
But I think we can also be helped by spending some time reading and meditating on the Gospel, the epistle, and the book of Revelation.
So, as I sought the Lord about what I felt He wanted me to share, I tried very hard to focus on those three letters, because some of you know that the book of Ephesians has a very special place in my life and in my heart.
So I tried to say, “Well, I need to share this, and this, and this.” But when it came right down to it, it seemed to me that the Holy Spirit was saying, “No, I want you to focus on John 14, 15, and 16.”
And so this is where our focus is going to be for the two sessions that we have together. Tonight, the Lord helping us, we want to fellowship about the Spirit of ascendancy; and tomorrow evening, the Lord willing, on the glory of ascendency.
So we want to begin tonight by reading some verses out of these three chapters in John 14, 15, and 16. If you will turn with me there, please.
You know, brothers and sisters, as we turn there, let me just underline something that our brother was sharing with us this morning. It has to do with this matter of why God created man.
Now stop with us; just think with me for a moment. Why did the Lord need all these problems? I mean, before He created us, there was a chaotic condition that we have described in Genesis 1:2. But it seems to me that the real problems began after He created man.
So we have to ask the question—at least I have to ask the question—why would the Lord ask for all these problems? Well, He has something very, very special in His heart.
I was helped wonderfully this morning when our brother pointed out to us those two trees in the garden. One tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the other was the tree of life.
Have you ever stopped to consider what would have happened to Adam and all his descendants had he eaten of that tree and not eaten of the other tree? What would have happened to him?
Well, what would have happened to him is, as our brother mentioned, God’s uncreated, eternal, divine life would have come in and taken up residence inside of Adam’s spirit. Immediately, I believe, he would have become a heavenly man.
Now, my understanding of what our brother shared this morning goes right along with what I have come to understand. That is, Genesis 1:2 is a description of the earth after Satan’s rebellion.
God’s plan was to recover that darkness, that emptiness, that void that was there. He wanted to recover that. And you notice, as our brother mentioned, that after God restored—at least enough restoration so that man could live upon this planet—then God said:
Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;
and let them rule.
Now it seems to me that what was in God’s heart is that He wanted man to be His representative, His agent, if you please, here on the earth, representing the will of heaven.
We understand, I trust, that in the heavenly realm, where God dwells, everything is absolutely perfect. The will of God is being perfectly done. His kingdom is clearly and totally manifested.
And so, my brothers and sisters, when God sees what happened to this part of His universe, He cannot be satisfied until that has been totally restored to its original place.
The amazing thing is that, in His great wisdom, He has chosen to create us as His agents of restoration. And so it means that we need to be a people whose focus is in the heavenly realm.
Now, when we read our Old Testament, it becomes very evident to us that man fails. But just because man failed does not mean that God was going to give up. He already had in His heart a way, and it was by His Son coming into this world.
We will touch more on that a little bit later. But, brothers and sisters, when our Lord Jesus came, He came to do a work that would make it possible for the whole universe to be totally restored. You and I have a part to play in that.
I find it very, very interesting, my brothers and sisters, that in Matthew 16, when the Lord Jesus had been asking His disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” He then said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter said:
Thou art the Christ.
Thou art the Messiah, the Anointed One of God. And the Lord Jesus responded:
Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to thee, but My Father Who is in heaven.
And thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I shall give unto thee the keys of the kingdom.
And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven.
In other words, earth is to respond to what heaven is doing. So it means that the Lord needs to have a heavenly people here on the earth, who are actually living in the heavenly realm, at His disposal, and functioning under His influence, power, and authority.
What you find in the New Testament is that we are a heavenly people. We are born from above. Heaven has come down, and we have received God’s life. This happened the moment you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.
You became a citizen of heaven. This is your place of citizenship. You may live in different places here on the earth, but your primary citizenship is in the heavenly realm.
In Hebrews 3, the writer refers to us as those who have a heavenly calling—partakers of a heavenly calling. Not a calling to go to heaven, but a call from heaven to be a heavenly people here on the earth.
And so I think that what we have here, my brothers and sisters, is basically the same thing that we are talking about in spiritual ascendancy: allowing heaven itself to rule in the lives of individual believers and then in the assembly.
If there is any place on the face of this globe where there ought to be a clear manifestation of the kingdom of God, it should be in the church. The church is also to be that vessel here on the earth that the Lord is able to use to manifest the reality of His heavenly kingdom.
So anyhow, let us go to John 14. Let us read first of all the first seven verses, and then we will read some out of the remaining chapters—John 14, 15, and 16.
John 14:1:
Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, believe also in Me.
In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
And whither I go, ye know the way.
Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know not whither Thou goest; how know we the way?
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me.
If ye had known Me, ye would have known My Father also: from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.
John 14:15:
If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments.
And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth: Whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: ye know Him; for He abideth with you, and shall be in you.
I will not leave you desolate: I come unto you.
Yet a little while, and the world beholdeth Me no more; but ye behold Me: because I live, ye shall live also.
John 14:25:
These things have I spoken unto you, while yet abiding with you.
But the Helper, even the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you.
John 15:26:
But when the Helper is come, Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear witness of Me:
And ye also bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning.
John 16:5–15:
But now I go unto Him that sent Me; and none of you asketh Me, Whither goest Thou?
But because I have spoken these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.
Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Helper will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send Him unto you.
And He, when He is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
Of sin, because they believe not on Me;
Of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold Me no more;
Of judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged.
I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth: for He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak: and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come.
He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.
All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine: therefore said I, that He taketh of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.
Let us ask the Lord to help us.
Lord, we want to lift our voices tonight, and out of a grateful heart we want to give You thanks for what You have already done and what You have already spoken to us during this day.
Lord, we thank You for the opportunities You have granted us to be in fellowship with one another. We want to thank You so much that You have brought this matter of spiritual ascendancy before us.
We ask You very simply, Lord, to be merciful to us and to grant us understanding—spiritual understanding—of what it means. How we thank You for Your word. How we thank You for Your Holy Spirit.
We trust tonight that the Holy Spirit will take the written word and the spoken word and make it a living word to each one of our hearts. Lord, do touch our hearts.
We have such a tendency to ignore the things You want to say to us, or not to listen carefully, and, Lord, even to quickly forget what You may say. Lord, help us. Do something in our hearts right now that will enable us to hear You, to respond to You, and to obey You.
And we ask it in Your name. Amen.
There are some verses in Ephesians—I had to get to Ephesians sooner or later. There are some verses in Ephesians 4 that I would like for us to begin with: Ephesians 4:8–10.
Wherefore He saith,
When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive,
And gave gifts unto men.
Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth?
He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.
Well, back in the Gospel of John, when we read this Gospel, we discover that when you get to John 13, things begin to take a little bit of a change. In reality, John 13 through 17 all occur on one evening.
It is interesting how John 13 begins. It begins by saying that Jesus, having loved His own, loved them to the end.
Now, in John 13, the way He loved them was by showing them about love through washing dirty feet. He instructed them that they should also do the same to one another. The same thing that He had done for them, they were to do for one another.
And this, to me, is one of the greatest displays of love that we have, remembering Who it was that did the foot washing—Who He was before He came here, what kind of a life He lived here, and, as we discover in Philippians 2, that He took the form of a bondservant.
He took the lowest position and was willing to wash the feet of these twelve men. This was one way in which He displayed His love. He also said to His disciples, “The same thing that I have done to you, I want you to do for one another.”
Now, when we get to John 14, the Lord demonstrates His love in another way. He sees how troubled their hearts are, how, for some of them, sorrow has entered into their hearts.
Now, why is this the case? Why are their hearts troubled? Why are their hearts full of sorrow?
If you read the context in John 13, at the end of that chapter the Lord Jesus has said to Peter, “Before the sun comes up, before the cock crows, you will have denied Me three times.”
Now think about it, my brothers and sisters. Suppose this was you, and the Lord said to you that before the sun comes up tomorrow morning, you are going to deny Him three times.
I think by this point in Peter’s history, he was beginning to believe what the Lord said. There were some times when he questioned and tried to bring correction to the Lord, but I think that somehow Peter was beginning not to argue about these things.
So think about it. If the Lord said to you, “By tomorrow morning, three times you will have denied Me,” and you remembered how Peter said, “Lord, I will never deny You”—sorrow would fill your heart. I mean, his heart was troubled.
And then later on the Lord Jesus talks to His disciples about sorrow having entered into their hearts. The reason they were sorry, I believe, was because of what the Lord was beginning to tell them.
For more than three years, these twelve men had been closely following the Lord. I think we can safely say probably day and night for those three and a half years, these disciples had been with Him. They had left family, they had left jobs, et cetera.
So you can understand that for many of these disciples, their idea was that the Lord Jesus was going to go to Jerusalem and set up His kingdom, and their idea was that they would be with Him.
You remember, on one occasion, when the Lord was telling them this, two of them came—well, actually, they sent their mother—and said, “Lord, we want You to give us this position.” One was to be on the right hand and one on the left hand.
They were actually quarrelling about this matter when you come to John 13. Their idea of the kingdom was an earthly kingdom, not a heavenly kingdom.
And so they had all these ideas, along with these thoughts in their hearts: “Here I have given myself these three years, and now, almost out of the blue, the Lord begins to say to them, ‘I am going. I am leaving you.’”
These were flesh-and-blood human beings, just like us. I think we can begin to understand why these things began to enter into their hearts.
It is in this kind of situation that the Lord begins to speak to these men, to bring comfort to their troubled hearts and comfort and encouragement to the sorrow that they have.
So this is what is in His heart as we read John 14, 15, and 16. John 17 is also a great demonstration of the Lord’s love, as He pours out His heart in deep intercession for those disciples, along with those who would come to believe in Him.
Now let us go back to the Ephesians 4 passage. Before we can fellowship very much about this matter of the ascended life, we need to understand that it begins because our Lord Jesus has ascended.
The only way that you and I can know an ascended life, to enter into spiritual ascendancy, is because of what our Lord Jesus has done. Let us trace His history from His descending until He ascended.
Ephesians 4:9 says:
He also descended into the lower parts of the earth.
So that means that our Lord Jesus, being eternally God and eternally with God, descended from that position and came here to this earth.
He came here to this earth to accomplish a work that is absolutely necessary for God’s universe to be totally restored. It could not be done by fallen man. It was what was in God’s heart when He created man, but Adam became totally disqualified because of his disobedience.
When Adam was told not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he blatantly disobeyed. He allowed to come into himself and all his descendants the spirit of disobedience.
We became sons of disobedience simply because of the life that was in us. No one had to teach us how to disobey. Now, we need to learn obedience, but no one has to teach us disobedience.
What had to happen is that God had to have a man—a human being—who would live perfectly, who would obey perfectly, so that He could put Him in that position of recovering and ultimately give Him the position of ruling over all things in the universe.
Adam failed. And so God sent His Son to be the One to come here and accomplish the necessary work.
He descended from His position as being equal with God and came here to this planet, this planet Earth. You know, brothers and sisters, I continue to be amazed when I read my Bible.
It seems to me that, of all the places in this universe, this little piece of dirt by comparison—just a little piece of dirt—is the focus of the biggest part of the Bible. Why?
Because God cannot rest until it has been fully restored to what it originally was. This has been His focus.
Originally He said, “I want man to be My agent.” Man failed. God the Son became a man and lived here. He lived perfectly, did perfectly His Father’s will, demonstrated over and over again the reality of the kingdom of God, taught about the kingdom of God, brought disciples to Himself, and lived a perfect life.
Remember when He came to His baptism? His Father was so pleased with what He saw in His Son that He could not be quiet. He had to say something. From heaven He spoke and said:
This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.
If you carefully read your Bible, you will find that God was never able to say that about another human being. He could only say it about His Son: “I am well pleased with Him.”
I find in Him everything I ever wanted man to be—in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are fortunate in that we have four records of some of His life: the four Gospels. We have a wonderful history of how He lived, how He served His Father, and how He lived in the reality of the kingdom of God.
But the longer He was here, the more intense was the reaction from the people here, especially religious people.
Did you hear what our brother Dana said this afternoon about being religious? My brothers and sisters, we need to take ourselves before the Lord and say, “Lord, purge me of every vestige of religion.”
Because it is religion and religious people that become the enemies of what God is doing. Look at the Apostle Paul—I mean, Saul of Tarsus. If you are going to rank people in terms of their good religion, I think we would have to put him close to the top. But he ended up being an enemy of the work of God.
It was religious people who reacted. I think most of the multitudes appreciated Him. He loved them, cared for them, performed miracles, and blessed them. But it was religious people, under the influence of the ruler of this world, who opposed Him.
And so ultimately He was crucified—the cruelest, most humiliating way of punishing a criminal. Yet He was totally innocent. He was crucified.
We need to be very careful that we are clear in our own understanding: even though this was instigated by blind religious people and carried out by Roman soldiers, behind it all, God had designed it.
This is none other than the Lamb of God. The cross became God’s altar, and there the sacrifice was made.
When, in John 19:30, we hear our Lord Jesus saying:
It is finished.
Brothers and sisters, nothing else needs to be done in order for God to fully recover this planet and His universe. It is going to require some more time, because God has His own ways, and we need to try to understand those ways.
One thing He wants to happen is that He wants you and me to know experientially what it means to live an ascended life—to live as a heavenly people. Our citizenship is there. Our calling is there. We need to have a vision from there.
Our Lord Jesus was crucified, and then He was buried in a tomb. Three days later, He was resurrected. He appeared to His disciples over a period of forty days.
Then, in Acts 1, we have a record of how He called them together. Let us just read that.
Acts 1:1–9:
The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was received up, after that He had given commandment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles whom He had chosen:
To whom He also showed Himself alive after His passion by many proofs, appearing unto them by the space of forty days, and speaking the things concerning the kingdom of God:
And, being assembled together with them, He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, said He, ye heard from Me:
For John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days hence.
They therefore, when they were come together, asked Him, saying, Lord, dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?
And He said unto them, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within His own authority.
But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
And when He had said these things, as they were looking, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight.
What we have now, my brothers and sisters, is the Lord descending—God the Son, the Son of God—being born as Jesus of Nazareth and living a perfect life; being crucified, placed in the tomb, resurrected, and then, after forty days of appearing to His disciples, lifted up and ascending back to the right hand of the Father.
If you read John 14, 15, and 16, the Lord repeats this matter of going back to His Father, the One Who sent Him. He is going back there.
First of all, I think we need to spend just a moment asking the question: Why did the Lord find it necessary to appear to His disciples during that forty-day period?
They had been there and witnessed His crucifixion. They were very clear about His crucifixion. They were clear about His burial. But when they went to find Him, the tomb was empty. He was not there.
But where was He? Did someone steal the body? What happened? Then, over those days, the Lord appeared to different disciples.
On the occasion in Acts 1, if we can take Paul’s record in 1 Corinthians 15, where he said that He appeared again to about five hundred brethren, maybe this was the occasion when five hundred brethren were gathered together there on the Mount of Olives.
They witnessed with their own eyes, after the Lord had instructed them, the Lord Jesus in His resurrected body ascending back to the right hand of the Father.
So what we have there is what Paul describes in Ephesians 4:
When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive,
And gave gifts unto men.
Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth?
He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.
Our Lord has taken this journey, if we can put it this way: leaving heaven, becoming a man, living a perfect life, being crucified, being buried, being raised from the dead, and ascending back to the right hand of the Father.
But notice what Paul says in Ephesians 4:10:
He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.
In other words, there is a specific responsibility that our Lord has been given as He has sat down at the right hand of Majesty on high: that He would fill all things.
I do not pretend tonight, my brothers and sisters, to be able to explain to you all that means. But I will tell you what is in my heart. I believe it means that our Lord Jesus has been functioning for two thousand years in this matter of recovering and restoring the earth so that it fully satisfies the heart of God.
He has been doing that work. The amazing thing is that you and I have been called to be co-workers with Him.
God, being God, can do anything He wants. He is not limited in any way. But in His great love and great wisdom, He has redeemed us. He has bought us back. He has reconciled us. He has justified us. He is in the process of sanctifying us.
And He wants us to be used as instruments in His hands to continue this work. We need to be clear about this: when Jesus said, “It is finished,” everything necessary for the recovery work to be completed had been completed.
But the process of actually bringing it about, God has chosen still to use human beings like you and me.
Maybe you were not clear about it. I know I was not. When I came to know the Lord Jesus, my main concern was that I was a sinner and desperately needed to be forgiven of my sin. My life was quickly going down the tubes, and I needed someone to save me from myself. And He did.
For right then, that was all I knew. I had no idea that included in this experience was a call—a heavenly call, a call from heaven to come and join with our Lord Jesus and be co-workers with Him in this great work.
His responsibility, my brothers and sisters, as Paul says in Ephesians 1, is to head up all things in Christ, to make Him Head over all things.
Now, brothers and sisters, think about this. If our Lord were practically, in reality, Head over all things, do you think things would be different on this planet? Do you think things would be different in your life? Do you think it would be different in the assembly where you meet?
If He were literally, actually, in reality, Head—that is, if He were in charge of everything that was going on—I think things would be different.
Well, brothers and sisters, this is His responsibility as the ascended Lord, having sat down at the right hand of Majesty on high: taking on this responsibility as our great High Priest and as Head over all things to the church, to do this amazing work of filling all things.
You remember there in Ephesians 1, the church is His body:
The fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
Sometimes, when I am reading a verse of Scripture and I do not understand it, I read it very quickly. “The church, which is His body, the fullness of Him Who filleth all in all.” What does it mean? Fill all in all—with what? With all.
I know we have the temptation of speaking things in grandiose ways, but may God deliver us from doing this. At the same time, may we see what He is talking about: that the whole universe displays and manifests the fullness of Him, the Lord Jesus.
It has been given to Him to do this work of filling all things, of bringing everything back. Not just because it was accomplished when He died on the cross, but now He takes that accomplished work and works it out in practical terms.
You and I are very much a part of this whole process.
Now let us come to this matter in John 14, 15, and 16: the Spirit of ascendancy.
For two thousand years now, our Lord Jesus has been seated at His Father’s right hand. He has been given the name that is above every other name. He has sat down at the right hand of Majesty.
In other words, my dear brothers and sisters, tonight, as we are here in this little meeting place in Harvey Cedars, New Jersey, there is a man. There is a human being, a flesh-and-blood human being, seated in the highest position in the universe.
And you and I have been called by Him to be co-workers with Him. Let us not forget where He is. He is at the right hand of the Father.
The question remains: How, from that exalted position, does He do the work that He has been given to do? How does He fill all things?
If He is there and we are here, and we still have this messy situation on this planet, how is it going to be brought about that this is restored and recovered until God is totally satisfied?
Back in the Old Testament, in Joel 2, we find a promise given:
I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh.
There was a promise. So there in Acts 1, Jesus commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised. What had the Father promised? That in the last days, He would pour forth of His Spirit upon all flesh.
You remember in the first chapter of John’s Gospel, when our Lord Jesus is introduced, John first of all sees Him as the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.
But further on, John’s testimony is that God had spoken to him and said:
Upon Whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and abiding upon Him, the same is He that baptizeth in the Holy Spirit.
When you read John 14, 15, and 16, you find our Lord Jesus repeatedly saying that when He ascends, He and the Father will send the Holy Spirit.
Our Lord is trying to bring comfort and encouragement to these twelve men, and in turn to us, so that we realize that we are not without hope. Our Lord Jesus has continued for two thousand years, and He will continue until the work is sufficiently done for Him to return to this planet.
In these verses in John 14, 15, and 16, the Lord Jesus seems to be focused primarily on helping His disciples become informed, to have the information necessary for them not to become discouraged.
He begins to say to them, “When I am gone, something wonderful is going to happen. I am going to send another One to you.”
Probably most of us have heard the first few verses in John 14 read many times at funerals. I think it is very, very unfortunate that these verses only get read at funerals.
It gives us the idea that what our Lord Jesus is talking about is something that is going to happen when it is all over. But think about it: if you were one of these twelve men, and you came to understand that this One to Whom you have committed yourself is leaving, and your heart is troubled and sorrowful, what help would you receive from someone saying, “In the sweet by and by, there is going to be a house for you”?
It would not bring any encouragement at all. I think the Lord here is talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit.
In My Father’s house are many dwelling places.
Not only in the future, but for now. Even in the Old Testament, my brothers and sisters, in Psalm 90:
Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
And Psalm 91 says:
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
We do not need to let ourselves get caught up with a lot of sentimentalism. Sometimes it is our sentimental ideas that we superimpose upon these verses of Scripture which rob us of the encouragement that we need—the encouragement our Lord Jesus was trying to give to these twelve men.
He is leaving, but He says:
Believe in God, believe also in Me.
In My Father’s house are many abiding places.
Probably some of you have heard this so-called Christian song, usually Western country: “I only want a mansion over the hilltop.” Where do you think that came from? Somebody, I think, took these verses of Scripture and used them to talk about some idea of heaven.
But I do not think that is what our Lord is talking about. He says in John 14:3:
I go to prepare a place for you.
I will come again, and will receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
So, brothers and sisters, when we talk about spiritual ascendancy, it means that with the coming of the Holy Spirit, we can now experience for ourselves what it means to have a place of abiding in God.
The Lord willing, maybe tomorrow night we will fellowship about John 15:
I am the true vine, and ye are the branches.
Abide in Me, and I in you.
It is the same word that we have here: “In My Father’s house are many abiding places.”
Our Lord is wanting to help these men understand, as He says later on, that it is not a disadvantage for them for Him to leave. As a matter of fact, it is to their advantage that He goes. Because if He does not leave, then the Holy Spirit will not come.
Think with me tonight, brothers and sisters. When our Lord Jesus was here in His physical body, if He was in Jerusalem, He could only be in Jerusalem. If He was in Galilee, He could only be in Galilee. If He was in Nazareth, He could only be in Nazareth. If He was in Capernaum, He could only be in Capernaum.
Yesterday, when I came to the conference, it seemed like the Lord dropped a verse of Scripture into my heart. It is Hebrews 13:8:
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and forever.
What the Holy Spirit also seemed to speak to my heart was this: Jesus Christ is the same in Brazil, the United States, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. He is the same.
How is that possible? How is it possible if He is seated at the Father’s right hand and we are down here? How is it possible for us to know Him? Only one way: the Holy Spirit has come.
The Holy Spirit has come with a very wonderful mission: to take the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
When He died on that cross, and those words came out of His mouth—“It is finished”—one word: finished, complete. My brothers and sisters, I believe that when our Lord Jesus spoke those words, the whole created order shook. It was affected by that completed work.
It happened two thousand years ago. Here we are living two thousand years later. How is it that you and I can enter into that experientially?
Maybe we can read the Bible and believe that it happened, but how can it be ours experientially? The only way it is possible is that Someone takes that finished work and brings it into our experience.
Who is that Person? The Holy Spirit.
Notice with me in John 14:16:
I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.
Notice what the Lord said to them: “He may be with you forever.” He had been with them for three and a half years in the relationship of Master and disciple, but He was leaving.
But He says, “The One that I am going to send to you, He will be with you forever.” How can the Lord Jesus say to you and me, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” when, if you read the record, it is very plain that He left?
Notice John 14:16: “I will send you another Helper.” There are two important things here.
First of all, let us try to get some understanding of what He means by “Helper,” because the word in the original language is difficult to translate adequately. I think it would have been better if they had just taken it out of the original language and put it into English.
The word is parakletos. It means someone called alongside of you. Para—parallel—and kletos: parakletos.
The Lord Jesus says, “I am going to send One to you Who will help you in every situation that you will ever be faced with.”
He is going to be your Helper. He is going to be your Counselor. He is going to be your Advocate. He is going to be your Comforter.
But that word Comforter in the King James Version does not carry the weight that it needs to carry, because now we have our own ideas of comfort. It can mean that when I am not feeling good, someone gets a washcloth, puts it on my head, and says, “I hope you get to feeling better.”
Well, brothers and sisters, we may need that at times, but we need a lot more than that. We need Someone to help us in our situation.
The Lord Jesus said to them, “I will send you another Helper.” Now, the word another is very important.
Someone said, “If you can think it or feel it, then in the Greek language there is a word to help you express it.” They developed their language very wonderfully.
There are two Greek words for “another”: another of a different kind, and another of the same kind. What do you think the Lord Jesus said? Another of the same kind—just like Me.
Everything you found in Me, He will be to you. That is why He could say to them, “Your heart does not need to be filled with sorrow. You do not need to be troubled in your heart, because I am not leaving you. Even though I am leaving you, I am coming back again.”
But I am coming back in the Person of the Holy Spirit. When He comes back in the Person of the Holy Spirit, He is not only in Jerusalem, but He is in Nazareth simultaneously. He is in Brazil, He is in New York, He is in New Jersey. Wherever we are, He is there simultaneously.
That could never have happened if He had stayed in His human body. He could not have been the Helper to us all at the same time.
Our Lord Jesus said:
I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; even the Spirit of truth, Whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: ye know Him; for He abideth with you, and shall be in you.
My brothers and sisters, please understand that we are at no disadvantage today compared with if we had lived when the Lord Jesus was here on the earth.
If you had lived in Nazareth, or in one of those other cities that the Lord Jesus came to, and you saw Him in His physical body, sometimes sentimentally we say, “Would not it be wonderful to have been here when the Lord was here?”
I want to say to us, it is more wonderful now. I do not want to offend anybody, but it is more wonderful now than it was when He was here. Why? Because He can be simultaneously all of this to every one of us.
He says, “He will be with you.” And where else, my brothers and sisters? Inside of you.
When you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, you received, in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, life. But it was the Holy Spirit, Who is the Spirit of life, Who brought that and made it reality in your life.
He is now not just with you. When the Lord Jesus was with those twelve disciples, He was with them, but He was not in them.
Now He says, “When the Helper, another Helper just like Me, comes, He will not only be with you, alongside of you, but He will be inside of you. He will be within you.”
Which would you prefer? That is why I want us to see that we are at no disadvantage at all because we did not live during the time of our Lord Jesus. We are at a great advantage.
For example, suppose we were sitting in a room asking the Lord Jesus, when He was here in His physical body, some questions. One person would have the opportunity to ask Him a question, and the Lord would have to answer him. But now we can all ask Him simultaneously our own questions and receive the answers.
Look at John 14:25:
These things have I spoken unto you, while yet abiding with you.
But the Helper, even the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you.
How would you like the opportunity to get a university degree, and have your own personal professor all the way through? Pretty good, yes?
I do not know of a university where you can go and have your own professor available to talk to twenty-four hours a day. Well, brothers and sisters, we have something better than this.
We have One living inside of us. Notice what He says: “He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
He was speaking to these twelve men, to whom He had said many, many things. For some of us, our forgetter works very good, huh? You notice how easy it is for us to forget certain things.
But we have the Helper, Who is prepared to teach us all things and really help us remember the things He has already spoken to us.
My brothers and sisters, it seems to me that if we had obeyed ten percent of what the Lord has spoken to us, we would be different people, and this world would be a different place.
We need to know that, in the mercy of God, the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of God—has come to take up residence in us and make the reality of our Lord Jesus being ascended something that you and I can experience.
Would it not have been wonderful, brothers and sisters, to sit at His feet and ask Him questions about certain things? Well, we can do it.
We can come and sit in His presence and ask Him questions, and the Holy Spirit is there to communicate back to us what the answer is.
Sometimes we do not spend the necessary time. Sometimes we do not wait long enough and do not listen carefully enough.
But brothers and sisters, I want to say this to us: our ability to experience revelation, to be taught by our Lord Jesus, is one of our birthrights as a child of God.
You do not have to be someone in full-time ministry ministering the word of God. This is yours. If you just became a believer yesterday, then it is your birthright to be taught of the Lord.
It is the Holy Spirit’s responsibility to take and teach you all things, and to bring back to your remembrance the things that He may have already spoken to you.
John 15:26 says:
When the Helper is come, Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear witness of Me:
And ye also bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning.
Notice now: we begin to see that the Holy Spirit has a tremendous responsibility. His responsibility is to witness to us, to testify to us, and to help us come into a clear understanding of Who the Person of our Lord Jesus is.
If we go back to the Colossian letter in particular, as well as the Ephesian letter, you notice there is one thing that Paul is very much concerned about: this matter of fullness.
The church, which is His body, is the fullness of Him Who fills all in all. His prayer in Ephesians 3 is that they may be filled unto all the fullness of God.
In Ephesians 4, we read that He might fill all things. In Ephesians 5, Paul says, “Keep on being filled with the Spirit.”
Over in Colossians 1:19:
For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell.
And Colossians 2:9:
For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
As I shared with some brothers and sisters recently, brothers and sisters, our God never exaggerates. You will never find exaggeration in the word of God.
When He talks about fullness, it means exactly what it says: that all the fullness dwells in Him.
It is the Holy Spirit’s responsibility to take that fullness, give us revelation of it, and also lead us into the experience of that fullness becoming our experience.
The Holy Spirit’s responsibility is not to call attention to Himself. He is to focus our hearts and our attention on the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us go back to John 16. Beginning with John 16:6:
Because I have spoken these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.
Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Helper will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send Him unto you.
And He, when He is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
Of sin, because they believe not on Me;
Of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold Me no more;
Of judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged.
It becomes the responsibility of the Holy Spirit to bear testimony to the world regarding the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, brothers and sisters, when we begin to fellowship about this matter of spiritual ascendancy, I think there is something we really need to come to grips with in our own lives. It has to do with Who Jesus is—Who He really is.
We need a fuller, deeper understanding and appreciation of Who He is. We need to think about what Paul says in Colossians: all the fullness, all the fullness, is there.
Recently, in my own heart, the Holy Spirit has just solidified something. I have been impressed very much with what Paul says to the Corinthian believers in 1 Corinthians 2:
For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
Brothers and sisters, the world needs to see, or at least have the opportunity to see, Who the Lord Jesus is.
Now He is at the right hand of the Father, and the Holy Spirit has been sent. Yet He wants to bring conviction. He wants to convince the people of the world regarding the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
How is that going to happen? The Lord Jesus said:
By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.
I think that probably most of us have a sense in our hearts that we have not come to the place, in this matter of evangelism—I do not know what other word to use—where we have fully entered into reaching out beyond ourselves.
Recently I heard somebody say that evangelism is the overflow.
If you read the book of Acts, my brothers and sisters, what you discover is that these simple believers were so occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and so filled with the Holy Spirit that they did not have an evangelism campaign.
It was the overflow that affected the people where they lived. They were occupied with the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the responsibility of the Holy Spirit. His mission is to come here to make Him known to us, to make the Lord Jesus clearly known to us, to bring the life in an abundant way into our lives, to be responsible for our spiritual education, and to produce the character of the Lord Jesus Christ in us through the discipline of the Holy Spirit.
I think that what our Lord is saying here is that, as this continues to happen in us as His people, the Holy Spirit uses this as a way of bearing testimony to the world.
In other words, if these people, whose lives are evidently transformed, have believed in the Lord Jesus, then somehow conviction comes to those who have not believed.
Concerning righteousness, because He goes to the Father: the Father has fully accepted Him. This is God’s idea. This is God’s model for what He wants man to be.
Concerning judgment, because the prince of this world has been judged: Satan has been overthrown. Our Jesus, as the seed of the woman, has crushed his head. He is the Victor.
Even though Satan thought he was getting the victory on the cross, he found afterward that his own head was crushed through that work of our Lord Jesus on the cross.
Then John 16:12:
I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
It is so merciful of the Lord to respect our capacity. There are certain things that the Lord has to wait before He can speak them to us.
It was true with these twelve disciples. He said, “There are things I want to say to you now, but you are just not in a situation—your hearts are not ready—for Me to share these things with you.”
But John 16:13 says:
Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth: for He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak: and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come.
He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.
All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine: therefore said I, that He taketh of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.
So, brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit also understands our capacity. But please understand tonight that His desire is to lead us into all the truth.
Whatever measure of truth you have already been led into, please do not conclude that that is the end. There is more, and more, and more, and more.
When we fellowship about spiritual ascendancy, about being seated with our Lord Jesus Christ in heavenly places, I wonder if there is not a connection between being seated with our Lord Jesus and what Paul says in Philippians 3.
He said:
I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
Brothers and sisters, I think that to the degree that you and I come into a real knowing of our Lord Jesus, to the same degree we will enter into this matter of spiritual ascendancy.
Please do not allow yourself to think that you are at a disadvantage, having lived two thousand years after He was here on the earth.
The Holy Spirit is fully prepared and fully capable of taking all the truth that is in our Lord Jesus, leading us into an understanding of it, and leading us into an experience of it. This is what life is.
Brothers and sisters, I do not know how you view it, but to me this is a great adventure—a great adventure—to come to know our Lord Jesus in a fuller, richer, deeper way.
Sometimes, as our brother testified this afternoon, we have to go through some very deep waters, sometimes through the fire, and sometimes through experiences that we would never ask for or even want to imagine that we would have to go through.
But it is in the midst of these kinds of situations that the Holy Spirit is able to bring us into the truth of Who our Lord Jesus is.
It is easy for us to say:
The Lord is my shepherd.
But is He really, practically, in reality? Do you know Him in this way?
The Holy Spirit is not at all satisfied with just some mental understanding. He wants you to know by experience the reality of Who our Lord Jesus is.
The Holy Spirit has been commissioned to come here during this period of time between the ascension of the Lord Jesus and the return of the Lord Jesus.
The third Person of the Godhead is here on this planet to represent and to lead us into the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ—to lead us into a fuller and richer knowing of Him.
He says in John 16:
He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.
You know, brothers and sisters, I do not know what is the most valuable thing in your life. The world is always scrambling, always trying to find a way of capturing that central place in our hearts.
Seemingly, the list of things that the world comes up with to capture us is endless—always new things, more exciting things.
But it is the Holy Spirit’s responsibility to bring our focus into and onto the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, to glorify Him, and to focus solely on Him.
When we consider this matter, that after our Lord Jesus ascended, the Holy Spirit has come, there is something that you and I need to be concerned about.
When you turn to Acts 2, the first verse says, “When the day of Pentecost was fully come.” Those who have studied this carefully tell us that it means when that which Pentecost represented in the Old Testament had reached its fulfillment.
That is, the purpose of celebrating the day of Pentecost in the Old Testament had been fulfilled with the coming of the Holy Spirit, just as the Passover was fulfilled when our Lord Jesus was crucified.
Pentecost is now the fulfillment of the promise of God and that shadow which we had in the Old Testament.
It says that the Holy Spirit came upon that day. Then in Acts 2:4, there is a very interesting phrase:
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
There is a lot of controversy among God’s people about this matter of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, being filled with the Holy Spirit, and being born of the Spirit. When does it happen? Do you have to have a second experience? Et cetera, et cetera.
Brothers and sisters, please let us not lose our focus. What the Holy Spirit has come to do is to reveal the Person of Jesus Christ to us and to bring us into our own personal experience of knowing Him.
The beginning of knowing Him is not the end. He is not satisfied to stop there. He wants to move on step by step into a full knowing of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He also wants to form the character of our Lord Jesus in us. There is a wonderful verse in Romans 8:
For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Brothers and sisters, how many lifetimes would you have to live to try to produce even some of that? Impossible. But it is the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2:4 simply says:
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
That means that the Holy Spirit had access into their lives. He was free to work in them and free to work through them. The reality was that they were living an ascended life.
Read the book of Acts from this perspective sometime. What you will discover is that heaven came down in a way that heaven had never been free to come before.
There was a manifestation of heavenly life being manifested through those believers in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.
What was this? It was Christ. It was the Lord Jesus. These people were experiencing the ascended life of our Lord Jesus in very practical ways.
For example, when somebody was in need, what was the response? There was no need. Why? Because they considered that nothing they had was their own.
Where do you find that on the earth? You do not find it, my brothers and sisters. This has to come from another source. This is ascended life coming into these lives and changing their ideas about their possessions and their responsibilities.
They were simply filled with the Holy Spirit. So if we are going to know ascended life experientially, we are going to have to know it by experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit of God.
He is the Spirit of Jesus. He is the Spirit of Christ. He is the Spirit of God. May we also meet whatever conditions are necessary for us to be filled—not just one time, but over and over and over again.
Now let me close with one example that I heard from our brother Lansky a number of years ago. He was trying to share with us something about this matter of the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
He said, “Suppose you have a bucket in your hand, and you walk out to the Atlantic Ocean.” Now, we were on Long Island, so he was pointing in another direction.
He said, “Suppose you go out there with your bucket, dip the bucket in the ocean, hold the bucket up, and say, ‘Oh, my bucket is filled. I have got the ocean in the bucket.’”
Well, that is true to a certain degree. But he said, “Let us think about it another way. Let us take the same bucket and throw it out in the middle of the ocean. Let it fill up and fall to the bottom.”
Then what happens? Where is the bucket? And where is the ocean?
So, brothers and sisters, somehow we can see that we are to be immersed, that we are to be filled with the Holy Spirit. But we are also to be in this place of being lost in what the Spirit of God is doing.
May the Lord help us to know that it is the Holy Spirit Himself Who makes practically a reality of the ascended Lord Jesus, manifesting His life and living His life out through us here.
Let us pray together.
Lord, we rejoice before You tonight that You have provided a way, by the coming of Your Holy Spirit, for us to know what it means to live an ascended life.
Lord, the same life that enabled You to live while You were here, the same life that enables You to rule and reign and fulfill Your Father’s will, has now been given to us through the Holy Spirit.
Lord, may we, each one in this place tonight, know in a fuller measure the working of the Spirit of life. And we ask it in Jesus’ name.