Dear heavenly Father, we are most grateful to Thee for giving Thy only begotten Son to us. We are thankful that Thou hast called us to Thy table to remember Thy love, Thy tremendous love for us.
Lord, we do sense Thee because Thou art here with us. We do think that we are standing on holy ground. Lord, we want to bow and worship Thee, and we just pray that Thou wilt open Thy Word to us.
Lord, our desire is to know Thee, and to know Thee is eternal life. We commit this time into Thy hands. We thank Thee for this time, and we trust Thy Holy Spirit to do the work and to give Thee the glory. In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.
This morning, I would like to borrow a passage from the Old Testament, but substitute a different word in it. And I think that substitution will not change the meaning.
Will you turn to the book of Job, Job 28? We will begin with Job 28:12 and read through verse 28. We will substitute the word “wisdom” with “reality,” and “understanding” with “truth.” So let us read it.
But reality, where shall it be found?
And where is the place of truth?
Man knoweth not the value thereof,
Neither is it found in the land of the living.
The deep saith, It is not in me:
And the sea saith, It is not with me.
It cannot be gotten for gold,
Neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.
It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir,
With the precious onyx, or the sapphire.
The gold and the crystal cannot equal it:
And the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold.
No mention shall be made of coral, or of crystal:
Yea, the acquisition of reality is above rubies.
The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it,
Neither shall it be valued with pure gold.
Whence then cometh reality?
And where is the place of truth?
Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living,
And kept close from the fowls of the air.
Destruction and death say,
We have heard the fame thereof with our ears.
God understandeth the way thereof,
And He knoweth the place thereof.
For He looketh to the ends of the earth,
And seeth under the whole heaven;
To make a weight for the wind;
And He weigheth the waters by measure.
When He made a decree for the rain,
And a way for the lightning of the thunder:
Then did He see it, and declare it;
He established it, yea, and searched it out.
And unto man He said,
Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is reality;
And to depart from evil is truth.
Yesterday morning, we concluded our time with the criteria of spiritual reality. First of all, spiritual reality must be spiritual. It cannot be anything physical or material.
We know from Scripture, in John 4, in the conversation of our Lord Jesus with the Samaritan woman, He said:
God is Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.
We mentioned also that one of the criteria of spiritual reality is life. In Psalm 36:9, which we have already mentioned before:
For with Thee is the fountain of life:
In Thy light shall we see light.
We mentioned also that another criterion of spiritual reality is substance. It cannot be anything superficial, just on the surface, anything that is passing. It has to be eternal. And, brothers and sisters, our God—He is in the beginning, God. Only He is the substance.
And, of course, we also mentioned that it has to be divine. And our God is the only God that we worship. So, brothers and sisters, where can we find reality? We cannot find it anywhere else other than in God.
I think this is very evident. You remember Moses in Exodus 33 and Exodus 34. He asked to see the glory of God. I think there is no request higher than that of a human being—to ask to see the glory of God.
And God’s answer to him was:
Thou canst not see My face: for there shall no man see Me, and live.
But I will pass by thee. I will hide thee in the cleft of the rock, and when I pass by, I will cover thee with My hand.
So thou canst see My back, but not My face.
In Exodus 34:5-6, we find that God passed by and declared His name: “the Lord, the Lord, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in goodness and truth”—abundant in reality.
In the song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32:4, he said:
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
Just and right is He.
Psalm 31:5 says:
Into Thine hand I commit my spirit:
Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, Thou God of truth.
God of truth—God of reality.
Also, in Isaiah 65:16, referring to the restoration of Israel, we find:
He who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth;
And he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth;
Because the former troubles are forgotten,
And because they are hid from Mine eyes.
The words “God of truth” in the original are “the God of Amen.” He is the God of Amen, the God of reality.
When we think of His law, Psalm 119:142 says:
Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness,
And Thy law is truth.
And when we think of His Word, John 17:17 says:
Sanctify them in the truth:
Thy word is truth.
And so far as God’s works are concerned, Psalm 111:7 says:
The works of His hands are truth and judgment;
All His precepts are faithful.
So, brothers and sisters, when we talk about spiritual reality and ask where we can find it, we cannot find it anywhere else but only in God Himself. He is the God of truth. He is the God of reality. He is the One who is from the beginning, and there is no end to Him. Everything that is of Him is real; it is reality.
My brothers and sisters, the problem is that God is the greatest mystery in the whole universe. He is transcendent. He lives in unapproachable light. No one can see Him and live.
He is far above, far beyond our reach. We hear reality, but we cannot see it. We cannot grasp it, because our God is transcendent.
Now, even in Old Testament times this was true. Hebrews 1:1 says that God, having spoken in many ways and in many manners to our fathers in the former days, did somehow reveal Himself—reveal His reality—to man.
But even so, we find that such revelation was rare, and it was not full. The glory of God did appear to Abraham. Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. The prophet Isaiah did see the glory of God in the temple, and Ezekiel saw the glory of God.
Now, brothers and sisters, in Old Testament times God did, in some way—but in fragments, in pieces and bits—reveal Himself so that people could know Him. But still, you find that God is distant. He is there, but He is far, and you can only worship Him from afar.
The reality is there, but it cannot be reached.
Thank God, one day the Word became flesh and tabernacled among men, full of grace and truth.
Brothers and sisters, the God who hid Himself has now come upon this earth. The incarnation of our Lord Jesus is one of the greatest things in the universe, because reality came upon this earth.
God is love, and our Lord Jesus is full of grace, because grace is the expression of life. How do we know love? It is by grace.
God is light, but our Lord Jesus is full of truth, or reality. And it is by truth that light is known.
Our Lord Jesus, He is reality in the flesh. Now we not only can hear about reality; we can see reality, because spiritual reality has come in the person of our Lord Jesus. He has come into the midst of mankind.
In John 1:18, we are told that no one has ever seen God, but the One who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
No one has ever seen God. We cannot see Him. But the One who is in the bosom of the Father, He comes to declare Him. And this declaring is more than just announcing or telling us about the Father. His declaring is demonstrating, showing us what the Father is really like.
Our brother mentioned John 18, and that is when our Lord Jesus was before Pilate. In John 18:37:
Pilate therefore said unto Him, Art Thou a king then?
Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king.
To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.
Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice.
And Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?”
Brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus came to bear witness to the truth. That is to say, He bore witness to reality. What is reality? That is His witness. His whole life is a demonstration of reality.
There is nothing in Him that is not real, nothing in Him that is merely external. What expresses outwardly is what He is inwardly. He is transparent. Nothing in Him is merely something passing or changing.
When He says anything, what He says is truth; it is eternal reality. That is the reason why, especially in the Gospel of John, He often says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you.” The word verily is actually the transliteration of the Hebrew word amen: “Amen, amen, I say to you.” What I say is reality. It is eternal. It is not something passing; it lasts forever.
When people heard Him, they realized that what He said, He said with authority. It was different from the Pharisees and the scribes. They may say the right thing, but there is no substance in it. But when our Lord Jesus says anything, there is substance there. It is real.
And all His works are real. Our brother, I heard, mentioned signs and wonders last night. I am sorry I was not able to be here. How people were attracted by the signs and wonders that our Lord Jesus did! But His works are beyond outward signs and wonders. They are truth; they are reality. He is revealing Himself to us.
You know the chorus that we sing, “Show me Thy way, O Lord.” In 1970, I was in New Zealand. I was invited there among a number of people who came out of the Apostolic Church, and they traced their origin to the Welsh Revival.
There was great emphasis on prophesying and speaking in tongues, and I was invited to be the speaker among them. This was the chorus that they sang at that time: “They have seen signs and wonders, but now they want to know Him.”
Brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus is reality personified. He is reality manifested, revealed.
God, who is transcendent, now in the incarnate Son becomes immanent. He is with us. He is no longer at a distance. He is near us.
But strangely, when our Lord Jesus was on earth, many saw Him. Many thought they knew Him. They knew that He was the carpenter. They knew His brothers in the flesh. They even knew His sisters in the flesh.
They saw something in Him that was different. He was on earth, and yet He was in heaven. There was a heavenliness in Him. He was in the flesh, and yet He did not walk according to the flesh; He walked according to the Spirit.
They saw something in Him that was different, but they could not figure Him out. Some said He was Elijah. Some said He was even John the Baptist come to life. Some said He was Jeremiah because He wept. Some said He was one of the prophets, and some said He was the prophet that Moses prophesied would rise from among their brethren.
Brothers and sisters, strangely, reality was already in the midst of the people, and yet they missed Him. Why? The natural man cannot receive the things of God. The natural man considers them foolishness.
When our Lord Jesus said, “I am the bread of life,” and said, “If you do not drink My blood and eat My flesh, you have no eternal life in you; but if you do, you have eternal life,” they said, “What are You talking about?” To the natural man, it was foolish talking. They could not understand it.
So even though reality had come into this world, they saw only His outward appearance. They could not see the reality.
Only to a few did the Father reveal His Son. I think we are all familiar with Matthew 16. Our Lord Jesus said, “Who do men say that I am? I have been in their midst for some years now. They have seen Me, heard Me, and touched Me. Who do men say that I am?”
Of course, the disciples would not report any evil reports of Him. They tried to please their Master and brought only the good things: “You are Elijah. You are Jeremiah. You are John the Baptist. You are one of the prophets.”
But the Lord said, “Now whom do you say that I am? You have been with Me day and night. Is there something you see in Me more than what the world saw?”
And thank God, Simon Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And you remember what our Lord Jesus said: “Simon Bar-Jonah, thou art blessed, because this is not something given to you by flesh and blood. It is My Father who has revealed it to you.”
Brothers and sisters, even when reality is on earth in the person of our Lord Jesus, you can touch Him outwardly and yet still not know Him. It needs revelation from the Father. But in those days, not many received such revelation.
Our Lord Jesus said in Matthew 11:27:
No one knoweth the Son, save the Father;
Neither doth any know the Father, save the Son,
And he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him.
Now, do we really believe what the Lord has said? No one knows the Father—no one. Do we believe that? Do we really believe that the Son is the only One who knows the Father, because He is in the bosom of the Father?
And do we believe that no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son has revealed Him? So, without revelation, it is impossible to touch reality.
Brothers and sisters, spiritual reality is beyond human beings. No matter how clever you are, you just cannot touch it. Even though God, who lives in unapproachable light, has now come upon this earth, and reality is manifested, available, attainable, and approachable, if there is no revelation from above, you still cannot get it.
Thank God, before our Lord Jesus went to the Father, He said, “I am going,” and the disciples were very sorrowful. But the Lord said, “It is good for you that I am going. I will go and ask the Father, and I will send another Comforter to you, the Spirit of truth. He shall be with you, and He shall be in you, and He will never leave you.”
And this Spirit of truth—in John 16, which we have already mentioned a number of times—when the Spirit of truth shall come, He shall lead you into all truth. The Lord said, “He will take what is Mine and reveal it to you.”
It is the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth. He is the Spirit of reality.
In 1 John 5, the apostle John mentioned this matter of testimony. He said:
This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood.
And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the truth.
God the Father is the truth, the source of reality, but He is transcendent and unapproachable. God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, is truth incarnated. The truth has come upon this earth, making Himself available to us.
But it is the Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth. You know, brothers and sisters, even when our Lord Jesus was on earth, only relatively few people received a revelation from the Father concerning the Son. But today, what a privilege we have!
Today, all who believe in the Lord Jesus have the Holy Spirit. That Spirit of truth dwells in us. Now, do you know that you have the Spirit of truth in you? Do you know that He is in you, teaching you?
Not only is He teaching you all things, but He is leading you into all truth. In other words, He makes reality not only present on earth, but He makes reality real in your life.
He takes what is of Christ—what Christ has done for us, the finished work of Christ on Calvary’s cross—that makes reality available. Now He takes that which is available and makes it attainable, touchable, experiential to each one of us.
We cannot say today that we have not heard reality, because we have heard it in God. We cannot say that we have not seen reality, because we have seen it in our Lord Jesus through the four Gospels, because the life of our Lord Jesus is the life of spiritual reality.
And we cannot say today that we cannot experience spiritual reality. Why? Because the Spirit of reality is in us. Everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus has the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of reality, in him and in her. It is only by the Holy Spirit that we are led into experiencing spiritual reality.
Now, how does the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, lead us into all truth? There are two ways.
First, the Holy Spirit reveals reality within us. He tells us what is real and what is false.
The anointing that is in you teaches you in all things, and whatever He teaches is true and is not false. If you listen to His teaching, you abide in Christ.
Brothers and sisters, how do we really know Christ, know God? How do we really know reality in our lives? It is by the teaching of the anointing.
The Holy Spirit within us is teaching us. He is teaching us and telling us what is not real and what is real—what is merely knowledge, mental knowledge, and what is spiritual reality; what is appearance and what is substance.
You find that the Holy Spirit is teaching us all the time, trying to divide all the imitation, the counterfeit, the pretense, the deceit, the deception, and the substitute from reality. He is trying to show us where reality is. That is the work of the Holy Spirit in us every day.
Our problem is that we are so busy with outward things that we do not have the quietness to hear the still, small voice.
You know, actually, when we are talking, the Holy Spirit is in us teaching us reality. When we are talking too much, He restrains us within and says, “That is enough.” When we are exaggerating, He tells us, “You are not telling the truth.”
When we are boasting of ourselves, He shows us that it is ourselves, not Christ. Unfortunately, we do not listen to Him.
You know, sometimes even in talking, the momentum seems to carry us on. We know inwardly that something is telling us, but we cannot stop. But afterward, we feel uncomfortable.
When you are talking, you are very comfortable. But after you finish, you feel uneasy. It seems as if a cloud has come between you and God. Your fellowship with God is interrupted. You have to repent and return, and then you find it is really connected again.
Brothers and sisters, I think this is just common life. You do not seek spiritual reality in some great experience. Spiritual reality is right here in your daily life.
Oftentimes we think we know the Word. We read the Word of God many, many times. We think we know it, and we even preach it and tell it to other people.
But one day, when the Holy Spirit begins to enlighten us, when He begins to speak to us in the written Word, suddenly you discover that all you had before was merely theory. You did not have the substance.
But when the Holy Spirit reveals, you touch the substance, the reality. And He is teaching us every day.
He is in us to glorify Christ. You know, the Holy Spirit does not speak of Himself. The Holy Spirit speaks only of Christ. That is His mission. He will glorify Christ. He will take the things of Christ and reveal them to us, so that Christ may become a reality in our life.
This is not something spectacular. Brothers and sisters, we are often brainwashed into thinking that to get into spiritual reality, something very spectacular has to happen. No. The Spirit of truth in you is daily bringing you into spiritual reality.
But do you cooperate? Do you obey? Do you really surrender yourself to Him?
But that is only one way. The Holy Spirit has another way to lead us into all truth: revelation inside and discipline outside.
Do not think that anything happens to you by chance. To a believer, a child of God, nothing happens by chance. Our heavenly Father watches over us.
Our Lord Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air.” They are so worthless, and yet your heavenly Father takes care of even that little bird that is valued at nothing. How much more? Even the very hairs of your head have been numbered.
Well, we do not know how many hairs we have. As you get older, probably you get less hair. But we never know how many hairs we have, and certainly we have never numbered them: number one, number two, number one thousand, number ten thousand, a million.
You never remember, in the morning when you comb your hair and some hair drops off, that your heavenly Father knows exactly which numbered hair has come off. Now think of it. If this is true—and it is true—can you believe that anything happens to you by chance?
The Holy Spirit is in charge. He arranges all our circumstances: the people you are with, the people you meet, the words you have heard, the rumors you have heard, every idle word that you speak. Brothers and sisters, nothing comes to us by chance. The Lord so arranges.
Now, we think, “Why is it that I was born in the Kong family?” God arranges it. “Why is it that I have seven brothers and sisters?” God arranges it. “Why is it that I am in the midst of a group of believers?” God arranges it.
“Why is it that some brothers and sisters get in touch with you?” God arranges it. “Why is it that God puts somebody by you?” God arranges it.
Remember: the Holy Spirit arranges all our circumstances—not occasionally, but all the time. Where you are, what you do, whom you meet, what you hear—everything is arranged by the Holy Spirit. Why? He is trying to lead you into spiritual reality.
He knows how unreal you are. He knows how much of you is the flesh, how much of you is merely knowledge. He knows how much of your love is natural love, how much of your patience is natural patience, and how much of your gentleness is merely genetic in origin.
Some people are born more gentle than others. Some people are born harder than other people. The Holy Spirit arranges your circumstances to test you to the uttermost, beyond yourself. Why? Just to lead you into spiritual reality. That is what it is.
The instrument He uses is the cross. He uses the cross to expose and cut off all that is not real—all that is of man, all that is of yourself, all that is of the old creation: imitation, substitute, deception.
Brothers and sisters, we do not know how much we are disturbed. We do not know how much we are in darkness. We do not know how much we are living in the flesh. We do not know how much the world has influence over us.
We do not know how much is merely religion, appearance, and human effort—not real, not able to last forever, not able to continue into eternity. We do not know. But the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, knows.
Why do certain things happen to certain people and not to other people? Why are certain things easy for certain people but difficult for others? Certain things are a problem to certain people, but those same things are no problem to others. Why? Because God knows us.
If we are willing to submit ourselves under the mighty hand of God—that is the problem. When we are put into certain circumstances, we fight against them. We see man instead of God.
If only we would submit ourselves under the mighty hand of God, brothers and sisters, in due time He will exalt us. Christ is increased in us. Reality is increased in us.
This is the only way to spiritual reality. There is a cost we have to pay.
That is the reason why, at the very beginning, our Lord Jesus told those who came to Him:
Except ye deny yourselves, take up your cross, and follow Me, ye cannot be My disciples.
Ye are not worthy of Me.
There is a cost that you have to be ready to pay. But thank God, when the grace of God is finally manifested in your life, you say, “Lord, this is no cost. This is Your love.”
Because what I considered as cost to me was actually harmful to me. And God, in love, removes it and replaces it with His beloved Son.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is reality realized.
So you find that spiritual reality can only be found in God and nowhere else. Do not try to find spiritual reality anywhere else. You cannot find it.
Even destruction says, “We have heard a report of it, but we have never seen it.” Do not try to find spirituality in man. No matter how great that man may be, it is not there. The only place where you can find spiritual reality is in God.
And thank God, Christ Jesus is God becoming man, reality incarnated. Through His death and resurrection, He makes reality available to every one of us. And thank God, He sends the Holy Spirit, dwelling in each one of us, to lead us into spiritual reality.
So do not say that reality, spirituality, is nowhere to be found, and do not be content with a big lie. Brothers and sisters, seek spiritual reality.
Dear heavenly Father, Thou art the only true God. We thank Thee for sending Thy beloved Son into this world. We believe.
We thank Thee for making reality available to us through Thy beloved Son. And we thank Thee for the Holy Spirit, who makes reality real even in us, poor vessels.
Holy Father, we thank Thee for all Thy goodness to us. Lord, make us a grateful people. Deliver us from anything that is unreal, anything that is passing, anything that is a substitute.
Lord, we want Thee. We want the real thing. O Lord, be merciful to us.
We pray that our life hereafter will walk in a different direction, that we no longer seek vanity, but seek eternal life. We thank Thee, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.