Shall we look to the Lord together?
Lord, we are so thankful. Once again, we are found together in Your very presence. We declare together: we are what we are; it is all about Your mighty grace.
We thank You that we can gather this way for this week. It is all because of who You are. You are a faithful God. You are faithful to Yourself, faithful to Your promises, and faithful to Your people—those whom You love, and to whom You give Your all.
Tonight, once again, we find ourselves in Your presence. Our hearts want to focus on You, and You alone, because You alone have the words of everlasting life. So we commit our hearts to You. Be with us. Bless us together, not for our sake, but for Your name’s sake. In Christ’s mighty name, we pray. Amen.
Before I came into this auditorium, I just wondered, “What should I say at the outset?” Because this week we have been emphasizing the urgency of time.
In conversation with a few brothers and sisters, there was mention of the possibility of another conference next year. We can talk about it. We can think about it. But we have no assurance or certainty that we are going to have another conference next year.
Most of you brothers and sisters in this auditorium know that I have had the privilege of accompanying Brother Kong on many of his trips. On many occasions, he would say, almost with tears in his eyes, “We have no way of knowing that we will have another gathering like this.”
We have no way of knowing. But if we have such a time, we are going to treasure it, because it is given to us by Almighty God. We cannot take it lightly.
This past week, these few days, we have been blessed mightily by the Lord through His Word. Those words spoken to our hearts are not just for us; ultimately, they are for His glory.
This afternoon, I want to re-emphasize a few things that I shared the past two times I was up here with you. I would like to read from Acts 2. Can you hear my voice a bit stronger this afternoon than before? If not, please let me know.
This passage is very crucial to me, because without these few verses, there would be no subsequent events that could possibly take place. As I shared the first evening, all God’s activities through the Holy Spirit are based on one thing and one thing alone: the exaltation of the Lord Jesus.
That is how it all begins, and that is why our faith rests on a sure foundation. There is a Man on the throne. That is the foundation and ground of our living faith.
Let us read Acts 2:22-36.
Men of Israel, hear these words:
Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God unto you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by Him in the midst of you, even as ye yourselves know;
Him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay:
Whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death: because it was not possible that He should be holden of it.
For David saith concerning Him,
I beheld the Lord always before my face;
For He is on my right hand, that I should not be moved:
Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
Moreover my flesh also shall dwell in hope:
Because Thou wilt not leave my soul unto Hades,
Neither wilt Thou give Thy Holy One to see corruption.
Thou madest known unto me the ways of life;
Thou shalt make me full of gladness with Thy countenance.
Brethren, I may say unto you freely of the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us unto this day.
Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins He would set one upon his throne;
He foreseeing this spake of the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was He left unto Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.
This Jesus did God raise up, whereof we all are witnesses.
Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear.
For David ascended not into the heavens: but he saith himself,
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand,
Till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet.
Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly, that God hath made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified.
Brothers and sisters, this is a tremendous message—tremendous. Without this mighty declaration by Peter, there would be no subsequent events that could take place. All the activities that follow are based upon the exaltation of the Lord Jesus and the operation of the Holy Spirit in human hearts.
That is a very crucial truth that we need to grasp.
When you see, with spiritual eyes, the exaltation of the Lord Jesus in glory, that is the foundation of our faith. Our salvation—our full salvation, our so-great salvation—is because God has already secured a Man in glory.
That is our full salvation. That is the end of our salvation: a Man in glory.
We need to have this matter settled. Foundational faith is absolutely crucial. If the ground is not laid properly, there can be no superstructure upon that foundation.
We see many young people who cannot grow spiritually, even though they have a longing to grow, because they lack this foundational truth. They need to grasp it, take it by faith, and take it as their own.
I thank the Lord for this conference. It is always a time of spiritual enlightenment to me. Every time I come to a conference of this nature, I learn so much—fresh, new things from the Word.
At the same time, we have to readjust our past understanding. The further we move on, the more we discover that some of our previous understanding, which we thought was adequate, was never adequate for the coming days. What was good for one time may not be sufficient for the days ahead.
Therefore, we need a fresh awakening, fresh revelation, and a fresh encounter with the living Lord Himself. That is absolutely crucial.
It is good to know. It is good when someone gives you some kind of assignment. For example, at this conference I was given these three messages. I have no way to tell you how much I had to go back to the Lord.
Do not be afraid when the older brothers and sisters in your local assembly give you some small responsibility. Take that to the Lord for your spiritual growth and for a deeper understanding of the Person of Jesus Himself.
All things work together for good for those who love Him. Do not take small assignments carelessly or lightly. They are from the Lord, and they are of great value to Him and to us.
I want to re-emphasize that the foundation of our faith is the work of the cross. That includes His death and burial, but it also includes His resurrection, ascension, glorification, and sitting down at the right hand of God, because the work is done.
Whenever glory is mentioned, it means the work has been done to God’s complete satisfaction. That is glory. Glory speaks of His full satisfaction and His full approval.
Thank God, this Jesus Christ—Who He is and what He has done—is not for Himself; it is for us. Thank God for His great love. All that He has secured in His Son is for us, and then He gives His Son to us so that we may experience Him inwardly and spiritually, not merely individually, but together.
For all that is in the heavenlies, which we can enter into and experience firsthand, we need the operation of the Holy Spirit within us. The Holy Spirit’s one work and one mission is to reproduce the Lord Jesus in us.
The work of God, in a way, has three aspects.
What the Lord Jesus Christ has secured for us does not change whether we know it or do not know it, whether we enjoy it or do not enjoy it. It is already there. That is a settled issue.
To bring us into the good of it, we need to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. This too is the work of the Holy Spirit: the work of the cross applied through the Holy Spirit.
We have full redemption accomplished, and then the Holy Spirit does the transforming and conforming work in us—not just individually, but together. In the end, what the Lord gets is a corporate testimony, a bride, a corporate man—not merely many individuals.
Brother Sparks used three words: first, redemption; then reconstitution, the orderly making of us; and finally, presentation—the presentation of that perfect work in its finality when He comes.
In John’s Gospel, on the first day John the Baptist saw Jesus, he said:
Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.
That is His work, completely done, and thank God for that.
Then, on the next day, when John saw Him walking, he said:
Behold, the Lamb of God!
And two of his disciples left him and followed Jesus. That speaks of our walk with Him. It speaks of our experience with Him as a Person.
Our redemption is not merely what He has done for us; our redemption is a Person. God so loved us that He gave His Son. His Son is our full redemption. Our forgiveness is through Him. Our justification is Christ. Our sanctification is Christ. Eventually, our glorification is also Christ.
The fullness is Christ worked out, and that is glory.
Then, in John 3, John the Baptist introduced the Lord Jesus as the Bridegroom:
He that hath the bride is the bridegroom.
That is the final goal. The Holy Spirit wants to secure for the Lord Jesus a companion, to be with Him in the ages to come.
We need to see through God’s eternal purpose in this way. To see the finished work requires revelation. Without revelation, we will never see it.
How we need to cry to the Lord to give us spiritual vision, to see the Person of the Lord Jesus. Without revelation, we will not be able to see the preciousness of the finished work of the Lord Jesus and how it applies to us.
Understanding can be mental, but revelation is inward. It is always through the Spirit. When it is by revelation in our spirit, transformation takes place from within.
We need to pray that the Holy Spirit will not merely give us understanding, but will give us revelation and obedience: obedience to embrace that revelation and to ask the Holy Spirit to make that revelation part of our lives.
Brother Kong used to say, “If revelation is not a vocation with us in a practical way, we are nothing but visionaries and dreamers. There is no spiritual reality.”
This afternoon, it seems important to me to speak about the person—or the persons—the Lord is looking for, through whom this wonderful purpose, realized in the Lord Jesus Christ, can be realized in us, His people.
The Lord is always looking for a vessel who is in agreement with Him for the full realization of His purpose in His people.
We are called according to purpose. We are saved according to purpose. But for that purpose to be realized, we have to be the kind of men and women to whom God can commit His purpose and fully realize it.
He is always looking for the right person to whom He can commit His work and see it through to its completion.
Let us turn to 2 Chronicles 16:9.
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.
That is enough. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth, looking for hearts that are wholly toward Him.
Another translation reads that He is looking for people whose hearts are perfect toward Him: an undivided heart, a committed heart.
Now let us look at John 7:17.
If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from Myself.
This verse begins with “if.” In Scripture, whenever there is an “if,” it is conditional.
Let us also read Philippians 2:13.
For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure.
This week we have been hearing about the matter of free will. It is a choice.
For God to work His will into us, we have to yield our will to Him. It is not automatic. It requires our absolute cooperation.
God will not force His will upon us, because He has given us a free choice. As we have heard this week, we can choose our own destiny. But God warns us that, if we want His best—His will—we must yield our will to His will.
You can say that is consecration. Consecration is yielding our will to Him. When He gets hold of our will, He will make known His will to us. He has to have it in His hand before He can do anything.
All the work that God is doing through the Holy Spirit is based first upon our being in Christ Jesus. That is where all the work begins.
When young people commence higher education, they register and enroll only after they have been accepted. Then their real education begins. Spiritually, once we become a new creation in Christ Jesus, our real spiritual education begins.
Unfortunately, we sometimes think that once we are a new creation, we have arrived at the end already. Therefore, we can become passive. But in reality, it is just the beginning—just the beginning.
We need fellowship, and we need to adjust our understanding of God’s Word, because we are all inadequate in knowing the truth as we ought to know it.
This afternoon I want to speak about David, the man after God’s own heart, and what made him a man to whom God could commit the secrets of His heart.
Before we turn to David, let me say this in passing: God does not believe in a vacuum. God intends to fill emptiness. If we are not filled with God, we will be filled with something else.
We are vessels. If we are not filled with God, then we will be filled with something else. God is always looking for a way to fill us with Himself, but Satan is always looking for a way to fill us with things other than God Himself.
That is the conflict of the ages: Where is Christ, and how much of Christ is in us? Yes, we have Christ, but do not stop there. How much of Him is there?
God intends to fill us with Himself in a full way.
This is a very sad story about Saul. If Saul was not out of the way, there was no way for David to come in. But God had no choice; He had to remove Saul.
Saul was anointed. He was king. The Lord gave him a chance, but he disobeyed. He never inquired of the Lord. The Lord gave him every opportunity, but eventually the Lord had no choice but to depose him and bring in His man.
This speaks of the cross: the removal of that man who can never please God, putting him out of sight once for all. Through resurrection out of the cross, God brought in a new humanity through Jesus, One who can completely satisfy Him. We have that Man in glory.
Let us read 1 Chronicles 10:13-14.
So Saul died for his trespass which he committed against the Lord, because of the word of the Lord, which he kept not; and also because he asked counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to inquire thereby,
And inquired not of the Lord: therefore He slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse.
The Lord never does anything without a reason. It hurts Him to do it. God is for life; God is not for death. Judgment and death are not God’s desire for us. He is for life, that we may live.
But death is the consequence of disobedience. When we are away from the source of life, that is death.
Saul died for his unfaithfulness, because he did not keep the Word of the Lord. Keeping the Word is crucial. You cannot say, “I love the Lord,” and ignore His Word.
We all have this problem: we separate the Person from His Word. But in Scripture, the Person and the Word are one—inseparable. God’s Word tells us Who God is, what He wants, and what He is like.
I want to encourage young brothers and sisters: read diligently. Seek with all your heart. Revelation comes through the Word by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit uses the Word to reveal Christ in our hearts.
Verse 14 says:
But he inquired not of the Lord: therefore He slew him.
That is a very powerful statement. He did not inquire of the Lord. The Lord was there, but Saul ignored Him.
We all have seen the danger of ignoring the Word of the Lord. Today, if the Holy Spirit speaks to you, harden not your heart. The consequence of ignoring God’s heart is very severe.
Every time God speaks to us, it is to bless us, to free us, to liberate us, and to bring us closer to Himself.
How are we delivered from sin? How are we separated from sin? Because God says so. It is His Word, and we believe. We are separated; we are delivered. We need that kind of faith.
Let us turn to Acts 13:22.
And when He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king; to whom also He bare witness, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who shall do all My will.
I do not want to be cruel to Saul. Saul is a type of the flesh, while David is a type of the spirit.
David was not a perfect man. We know about his failures—terrible failures. But one thing we can be sure of is that David’s heart was perfect toward God. Every time he sinned, he agonized over it and repented. That is what made his heart right.
Repentance is not only for sinners. Repentance is needed by all the saints. Who is perfect? Who has a perfect walk? Who has no failures? Who will never suffer defeat?
We all do, and how we need to repent. The church also needs to repent. We have failed miserably to uphold God’s testimony. We all fail. But God is looking for the heart. We need to repent, and we need to be humble.
David was a man after God’s own heart, one who would do all His will. In other words, to do God’s will requires complete submission.
If it works to Christ, so be it. Whatever it means, so be it. The Lord needs that kind of people.
If you read through church history, every recovery involved men and women who were prepared to sacrifice their lives for the truth they found in the Word. When they took that stand, it cost them everything. It cost them everything.
Last September, seven of us went to Chile for a short visit of two weeks. More than twenty years ago, the Lord gathered a few brothers who were saved in college.
The first thing God did—or the Holy Spirit did—in this group of young brothers was to give them a love for God’s Word. They had the conviction that they would not deviate from what was revealed to them in the Word.
They began to gather in simplicity: two or three, two or three. When they tried to do that, they suffered tremendous misunderstanding from the organized churches, because people did not know what to call them.
They had no name. They were simply Christians and believers. They gathered to worship, to fellowship, to remember the Lord, and to share His Word.
There was no formal organization, but their relationship with each other was spiritual. It was all life—the life of the Lord Jesus with one another.
For some twenty years, the Lord really blessed that work. They thought they were the only ones on the earth. They were so lonely; they felt they were the only ones.
Then, a few years ago, some brothers visited them, and they finally discovered that there were others of like faith who were true to God’s Word.
Last September, when we visited, it was something to behold—especially when they came to break bread together in homes, in small homes, just like the Book of Acts: one cup and one loaf.
Some of us wept when we saw that manifestation, because the Lord is doing something wonderful there in that country.
Brothers and sisters, for us, moving on with God means moving back to His original purpose. Do not forget that. We have to go back to God’s original purpose.
David was a man to whom God could commit the secrets of His heart. I want to share a few thoughts about how this came about: the stages of intimacy with the Lord.
There are things that God freely gives because of His love. If you ask, you shall receive. The Lord is so generous and prepared to give; if you ask, it is yours freely.
But there are other things that you have to seek. All you see is changed into hidden treasure. It is hidden. If you do not see it, you will not find it.
There are things locked up in a safe. If you do not have the right key, you are not going to find the secret. Where do you hide your most important documents? In a safe.
You have a special key, and you entrust that key only to one or two people in whom you have full confidence. God has many things that He wants to give us because He is bountiful. But if all we do is ask, we may never grow.
To seek requires effort on our part. It requires commitment. You have to mean it. Then treasure will be found.
Treasure is often in a secret place. Isaiah 45 speaks of hidden treasure. To find it, you must dig deeply. You know the effort required to harvest precious stones and diamonds. In the same way, there are things that are locked up.
Let us turn to Psalm 25:14.
The friendship of the Lord is with them that fear Him;
And He will show them His covenant.
This is the first stage in cultivating intimacy with the Lord: simply being together.
It is like two people who love one another and want simply to be near one another. It is closeness—a closeness in which they long for each other.
I heard this story from Brother Stephen Kong. There was a father with a very lovely little daughter. Every evening, the two of them would sit together for a long time, simply enjoying each other.
Then, all of a sudden, this little girl disappeared for several weeks. She was no longer sitting with her father as she used to do. The father became lonely and wondered why his little girl was drawing away from him.
The little girl was thinking, “What can I do to please my father?” So she worked privately to make something for him—a little piece of handiwork. Two weeks later, she presented it to her father, thinking that he would really appreciate it.
But the father said, “What gives me pleasure is not what you give me. What gives me pleasure is you being with me.”
I have never forgotten that illustration. We often think that, in order to satisfy the Lord, we have to do something for Him or bring something to Him, without realizing that being with Him is all He longs for.
We do not understand what is in His heart. We do not understand Him.
The first movement of intimacy with Christ is simply being there. Not one word needs to be spoken. It is the communion of the heart—being together. That is where we begin.
It is like the vine and the branches. There is a naturalness in their being together. No effort—just there. You are the vine, and the branches abide. “Abide in Me.” Just be there. You do not have to do anything; simply be there.
In our society, if you do not say something, people feel uneasy. When you are with somebody and no one says anything, they wonder, “What is he up to now? What is she thinking now? Why are you not saying anything?”
We are conditioned that way, so we force ourselves to say something that is not true to ourselves. But we can never do that with our Lord. Come as you are. Be as you are. He accepts you as you are. Come to His Person.
We need to cultivate that kind of communion. We live in a very busy, active, always-moving world. We do not know how to settle down and simply be quiet. In other words, we do not know how to find true rest.
When we come to Him, there is rest. We rest in Him, and He rests in us. What fellowship that is. That is where we first begin.
Just be there with the Lord. Do not ask. Do not say anything. Just enjoy His presence. I tell you, that is heavenly.
The moment you open your mouth, you may spoil the whole thing. Peter was very capable of doing that on a few occasions.
Let us turn to Psalm 55:14.
We took sweet counsel together,
And walked unto the house of God in company.
After a prolonged period of silence in intimacy, whatever you say becomes very meaningful.
A person who is usually quiet may speak only a few words, but when he opens his mouth, what he says carries weight. It has meaning.
I remember being with Brother T. Austin-Sparks during the first year of our Banner Conference. We lived together, ate together, and sat with some of the brothers and sisters. Someone said, “I do not know how to carry on a conversation with our brother.”
If you did not talk, the atmosphere seemed awkward. But if you said something, you did not know what to say. You were afraid to say the wrong thing in front of such a spiritual giant.
But I tell you, what he said had weight. There is a saying in our country: “Talk is cheap.” Talk is cheap because there is nothing behind it.
After that prolonged silence, when you understand each other’s heart, what is spoken is from the heart—not merely to kill time. It is meaningful.
God cannot reveal anything to us in a hurried way. He needs our silence, and He needs our emptiness before He can speak to us.
Silence is blank and empty, making room for Him to say something. The One who breaks that silence should not be us; it should be the Lord Himself. We come into the Lord’s presence and simply wait. He will have a word for us.
Let us turn to Proverbs 3:32.
But His secret counsel is with the upright.
If you want to be in His presence, you must be right. You cannot be unrighteous in any way and be found in the presence of the Righteous One.
We are justified. We are made righteous so that we may come into His very presence. We are also reconciled.
Justification is our standing, but reconciliation means that we may draw near to Him. Justification means that I can stand here. Reconciliation means that I do not merely want to stand here; I can draw close to Him.
What a privilege.
Many of us know that we are righteous in our standing, but we fail to appropriate what has already been done in the matter of reconciliation. Our right standing is not merely for us to stand at a distance. It is for us to be very near to Him.
Then there is fellowship—not at a distance, but in closeness.
The secret counsel is with the upright. Upright in heart. If your heart is right, He will guide you in His perfect way. If the heart wants to do His will, He will show us His will.
If the heart is not prepared to do His will, He will not make known His will to us.
If you are upright, He will commit His ways to you. He will show you His way. He will give strength to you to be in the way, and grace to walk all the way to the end.
These are stages in the progression of intimacy with God.
Let us turn to Proverbs 11:13.
He that goeth about as a talebearer revealeth secrets:
But he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter.
The Lord is looking for someone in whom He can confide the secrets of His heart—someone who can keep them for Him and care for them with Him.
This verse is very precious: “He that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter.” A faithful spirit. A true spirit. Completely devoted. No deviation. Absolute commitment. No back door.
That was the Lord Jesus. When He was on earth, He had only one focus: the cross. He knew that there the Father’s will would be accomplished. He never deviated from that. On the cross He cried, “It is finished.”
To whom can God confide the secret of His heart? Thank God, with many of us that secret is no longer hidden. It is now an open secret.
That secret is God’s Son Himself. It is God’s Son fully formed in His people.
Every name was called the friend of God at least three or four times in Scripture. Let us turn to Genesis 18:16-19.
And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.
And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that which I do;
Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice; to the end that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him.
The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham that which I do?” Do you think this only has to do with Sodom and Gomorrah, or does it have to do with something more?
In this context, consider what the Lord is saying. “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?”
I do not think what the Lord was about to do was merely the destruction of Sodom. That is negative; it is overthrow and judgment. God is not for that. He has to judge because He is righteous, but judgment is not His desire.
He was looking at Abraham, His friend. How could He hide anything from Abraham?
If you read Hebrews 11, what did Abraham see? He saw the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Abraham, you are destined for that. Your offspring are destined for that. That is My doing, and I will not hide it from you because that is My purpose for you.
How wonderful. Sometimes we read Scripture in such a careless way. Can the God of glory do anything that is not glorious? The destruction of Sodom is not glorious, but the New Jerusalem is glorious.
How many saints today see that city? How many see that this is our destiny: the city whose architect and builder is God, and that we are part of it?
No wonder Abraham was God’s friend. God could confide in him, and Abraham saw.
Moses is another person. Scripture says that there was no one with whom God spoke face to face as He did with Moses.
For forty days and forty nights on the mountain, Moses was face to face with God. What did God show Moses?
The Book of Exodus has forty chapters. At least one-third of that book, from chapter 25 onward, is about God’s dwelling place.
During those forty days and forty nights, God showed Moses what He longed for: a dwelling place among His people. Moses was given that heavenly vision of the tabernacle, and he was faithful to all the details.
When the tabernacle was erected according to that heavenly pattern, the glory of the Lord filled that place. The work was completed.
Moses was instrumental because he communed with God face to face. Abraham was God’s friend; he saw the heavenly city. David saw God’s heart.
Toward the end of David’s life, that was his total devotion. Even though he would not be able to build God’s house, he contributed all that he could for its fulfilment. Solomon built it.
Today, God is looking for men and women who will have such an intimate relationship with Him that He can reveal the secret of His heart to them—so that they may understand it and fulfil it.
Finally, I want to say a concluding word.
The Holy Spirit, through the cross, is determined to produce the bride for the Lord Jesus. That is His one mission.
It is not merely other gifts or things that we see and witness today. How do we know? Because at the end of the Book of Revelation, the Spirit and the bride cry:
Come.
“Come, Lord Jesus.” That is the end.
Brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit has one mission, and He is determined to fulfil it: to produce a bride for God’s Son. That work is through the work of the cross by the Holy Spirit.
We are living in a very privileged time. We do not know how soon the Lord will come. May we be those so devoted to Him that we can hasten His return.
How can we hasten His return? We need to allow the Holy Spirit to finish the work that He has begun to do. Then He will come.
May the Lord have mercy on us. By the Lord’s grace, after we have heard all these words from the Lord, we become responsible.
But who can carry out this responsibility? It is not us, but the new Man in us. He alone can fulfil this tremendous calling and responsibility.
There is already a Man who has fulfilled the responsibility in glory, and that Man is in us to fulfil it properly one day. Then God will get all the praise and all the glory.
Father, we thank You for this afternoon and for the privilege of sharing Your Word together. We cry out to You: adjust our understanding. Purify our understanding.
Lord, we pray that You will help all of us to cultivate a life of intimacy with You: how to draw near to You, how to listen to You, and how to be instructed and corrected by You.
Lord, bring us into Your secrets, so that You may unveil something of Your heart to us.
Lord, we thank You for these few days in which we can be together. We can say that we are so unworthy, yet You call us with such a high calling. Oh, it is all by Your grace. It is all Your mercy.
We say: He who called us is faithful; He also will do it. We give You all the praise and all the glory, in Christ’s mighty name. Amen.