We turn to two psalms, both of which we have read before in these studies on covering. The first is Psalm 91.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress;
My God, in Whom I trust.
For He will deliver thee from the snare of the fowler,
And from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover thee with His pinions,
And under His wings shalt thou take refuge:
His truth is a shield and a buckler.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night,
Nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
For the pestilence that walketh in darkness,
Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
A thousand shall fall at thy side,
And ten thousand at thy right hand;
But it shall not come nigh thee.
Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold,
And see the reward of the wicked.
For thou, O Lord, art my refuge!
Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation;
There shall no evil befall thee,
Neither shall any plague come nigh thy tent.
For He will give His angels charge over thee,
To keep thee in all thy ways.
They shall bear thee up in their hands,
Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder:
The young lion and the serpent shalt thou trample under foot.
Because he hath set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him:
I will set him on high, because he hath known My name.
He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble:
I will deliver him, and honour him.
With long life will I satisfy him,
And show him My salvation.
That speaks mainly of being preserved from evil, of being secure and safe.
Now, if we turn to Psalm 118, here is another psalm that may not at first sight appear to be about this matter of covering, but in fact it is.
Oh give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good;
For His lovingkindness endureth for ever.
Let Israel now say,
That His lovingkindness endureth for ever.
Let the house of Aaron now say,
That His lovingkindness endureth for ever.
Let them now that fear the Lord say,
That His lovingkindness endureth for ever.
Out of my distress I called upon the Lord:
The Lord answered me, and set me in a large place.
The Lord is on my side; I will not fear:
What can man do unto me?
The Lord is on my side among them that help me:
Therefore shall I see my desire upon them that hate me.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
Than to put confidence in man.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
Than to put confidence in princes.
All nations compassed me about:
In the name of the Lord I will cut them off.
They compassed me about; yea, they compassed me about:
In the name of the Lord I will cut them off.
Thou didst thrust sore at me that I might fall:
But the Lord helped me.
The Lord is my strength and song;
And He is become my salvation.
The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous:
The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly.
The right hand of the Lord is exalted:
The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly.
I shall not die, but live,
And declare the works of the Lord.
The Lord hath chastened me sore;
But He hath not given me over unto death.
Open to me the gates of righteousness:
I will enter into them, I will give thanks unto the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord;
The righteous shall enter into it.
I will give thanks unto Thee; for Thou hast answered me,
And art become my salvation.
The stone which the builders rejected
Is become the head of the corner.
This is the Lord’s doing;
It is marvellous in our eyes.
This is the day which the Lord hath made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
Save now, we beseech Thee, O Lord:
O Lord, we beseech Thee, send now prosperity.
Blessed be He that cometh in the name of the Lord:
We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord.
The Lord is God, and He hath given us light:
Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.
Thou art my God, and I will give thanks unto Thee:
Thou art my God, I will exalt Thee.
Oh give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good;
For His lovingkindness endureth for ever.
Dear Lord, we do once more this evening tell Thee, Lord, we are utterly dependent upon Thee, both for speaking and hearing alike. Take, dear Lord, this time and make it live to us, we pray. Hide these poor lips, and grant, we pray, our beloved Lord, that we shall hear what Thy Spirit has to say to us. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Now, any of you who are back from holiday, who have missed the last study—or even two studies—I can only suggest that you listen to the tape. I think it is quite important, because we cannot go over again what we have said in this matter.
We have rambled through the Old Testament, if for no other reason than to give some understanding of the profundity of this matter, and really the mystery that surrounds so much of it.
Then, last week, we spent the whole evening on what covering really means. We discovered that it simply means to be in Christ. It is as simple as that. Out of that come such phrases as the name of the Lord, the blood of the Lord, and the righteousness of the Lord. All these are different ways of looking at being in Christ.
We spoke about abiding in Him, our life hid with Christ in God, and what it is to be hidden in Him—covered. To abide is to stay where God has put us, to remain where God has positioned us in His Son. That is the believer’s position: not just related to His Son, but in His Son.
Then we spent some time on what it means to put on the whole armour of God: “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ; make not provision for the flesh.” We found this in Romans 13, related to the armour of light, and then in Ephesians 6: the whole matter of putting on the whole armour, every piece, every piece.
One piece missing, and you are uncovered. The enemy will direct all his attack against the one spot that is uncovered.
Now, this evening I want to speak about the danger of getting uncovered. So, of necessity, this evening is going to be a little more negative, and I dare say, to some, a little frightening. However, we will trust that the Lord, over it all, will make something much more positive and help us to keep our eyes really clearly on the Lord.
If the believer is in Christ, what is the danger of getting uncovered? Satan has an overall objective, one supreme aim upon which he bases his whole strategy and plan: it is to get the child of God uncovered.
This is the overall objective of the devil. It is precisely the same with the church. We speak of the recovery of the church. Think about it for a while: the recovery of the church. It is the enemy’s objective concerning the whole church to get it uncovered, and thus to destroy it.
It is the supreme aim of Satan to get the work of God, in its many aspects, uncovered. He has got to draw us out of Christ. He has got to entice us away from our position in Him so that we are no longer abiding in Him, no longer remaining where God has placed us. Positionally we are there, but practically we are out.
Out. The enemy’s whole plan is to entice us—entice us. He cannot do it by simply saying, “Look here, get out.” Every child of God, even the youngest believer, would recognise that as Satan.
If something shouted at you, or even whispered at you, “Get out of Christ. Get out of Christ. Do not abide in Him. It is not safe for you. It is not good for you to abide in Him,” we would say, “That is the enemy. I resist that.”
But Satan is the most intelligent being in the universe, and his intelligence has somehow or other been passed on to the whole hierarchy of evil. He knows exactly what he is up against. He is not going to make a frontal attack like that.
He has got to work by wiles, by guile, by deceit—as an angel of light or a minister of righteousness—with all the appearance of good. Somehow or other, he must entice us so that, little by little, surely, he can draw us out from our position and get us uncovered.
Now, the devil is very much like a chameleon. He colours himself to his surroundings. So he watches us. He finds out our weaknesses—our temperamental weaknesses, weaknesses that come from our background, weaknesses that come from our circumstances—and he colours himself so perfectly to our weaknesses and failings that we sometimes have great difficulty distinguishing that it is the work of Satan at all.
If Satan cannot get us to be careless about putting on the whole armour of God—or putting on the armour of God at all, shall we put it that way?—then he will seek to get us careless about some one vital piece.
There are some believers who do not really know how to put on the whole armour of God and so to be able to stand. But when he finds that a believer does know how to hide in the Lord, then he turns his attention to getting that one to leave out one particular and vital piece of the armour, whatever that might be.
So that, in one way or another, his supreme aim can be reached; and that aim is to get us out from under covering. Satan knows better than any believer that the child of God has absolute safety in Christ.
He knows that there is nothing he can do until the child of God is uncovered. Now let that sink into you, because it is the positive side of it. There is absolute safety for every child of God whilst we abide in Christ. Satan cannot reach us. He has to meet with Christ first.
Our life is hid with Christ in God. Before Satan can discover us, before Satan can reach us, before he can touch us, he has got to come to God and Christ. Our life is hidden with Christ in God.
When we are abiding in Him, the first person he meets is Christ. He meets the righteousness of Christ, the power of Christ, the authority of Christ, the mercy of Christ, and the work of Christ. He meets it all before he can get at the believer when we are abiding in Christ. There is absolute security.
Let your hearts be lifted up this evening. As it says in the Scripture, “Confirm the feeble knees, and lift up the hands that droop.” Do not let the enemy, by his propaganda, get you to believe that somehow or other it is almost a lost cause—that we are all so stupid, all so dim-witted, that we are bound to get uncovered and bound to have a lot of trouble from Satan.
Trouble? Yes. But it is the trouble that comes to the Lord Jesus first.
In other words, there is a wonderful safety for the child of God whilst he abides in Christ, whilst he remains hid with Christ in God, whilst he has the whole armour upon him.
Satan knows that there is absolutely nothing he can do until he has got us out from that position. Therefore, with all his intelligence, all his deceit, and all his guile, he will do every single thing to get us out. Nor will he give up.
If he has not got you out in a year, he will go on for a second year, a third year, a fourth year—ten years, twenty years, thirty years. Right at the very end, he will try to get you out. He will not leave. His whole aim and object is to get you uncovered, to get you out.
You may be young in the Lord; the enemy is out to try and get you out. You may be old in the Lord; the enemy is out after you to get you from under covering.
It is much more than merely a question of negatively being safe in Christ. Let your heart be lifted once more on this whole matter. It is not simply that you are negatively safe in Christ—that no harm can come to you, that the enemy cannot touch you or reach you whilst you are in God’s Son.
Let us go on to the other side. Satan knows very well that whilst we are in Christ, we are not only safe, but we must win. He knows better than any one of us that the overcomer is the Lord Jesus Christ. He knows that everyone who is in Him will overcome. Everyone who stays there must win.
He knows that he can do nothing about it. It is a battle already fought and won. That is why we have the most wonderful Scriptures—Scriptures that Satan cannot bear.
Consider 2 Corinthians 2:14:
But thanks be unto God, Who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ.
Now, if the apostle Paul had said merely that God sometimes leads us in triumph in Christ, it would still have been marvellous in our eyes. But he said, “always leadeth us in triumph in Christ.” Another version puts it that the believer has been put in a train of Christ’s triumph.
It is Christ Who is the victor. It is Christ Who has won, and the believer is in the train.
Or again, think of 1 Corinthians 15:57:
But thanks be to God, Who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then he goes on and says:
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.
Thanks be unto God Who giveth us the victory. Satan knows that through Christ victory is given to us. It is given to us. It is an already obtained victory, given to us.
You know, just as an aside, you will notice that this particular victory he is talking about is all to do with dead people. People who are dead—can they do anything about raising themselves from the dead? Of course not. But, says the Scripture, “Thanks be unto God, Who giveth us the victory.” The whole lot will rise in Christ. That is the kind of victory that is ours.
Satan cannot do a single thing about it. Every time we put a dear believer’s body into the ground, we signal the end of Satan’s reign, the end of his power. So great is this victory of our Lord Jesus Christ that not even the bodies of the saints are going to be left. They are going to be raised incorruptible.
The redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ is so great that it covers the body. That is the victory which is ours, obtained for us through Calvary. Thanks be unto God Who giveth us the victory.
Well, if I go into the grave one day and you all lay me in it, and the Lord tarries for another twenty or thirty years, what will become of my body? We will not go into it, but there will not be much left after thirty years. But think of it: I will not be able to do anything about it.
I may be in the presence of the Lord, beholding the face of the Lamb. But think of it: when the trumpet of God sounds, that old body of mine, that corruptible thing which has gone back to dust and gone back to earth, will be brought back together—reconstituted—a redemption body like His. What a victory!
Now, if victory means that, what about the kitchen sink? What about the children? What about the office? Satan knows that in Christ we have the victory. Thanks be unto God Who giveth us the victory. It is not merely that we are negatively saved; it is that we are positively victorious.
Victory does not mean that you have one of those seraphic and theatrical smiles pinned up from ear to ear. Some people think victory is that kind of thing, but it is not.
When the psalmist said, “I shall yet praise God, Who is the help of my countenance,” that was victory. He could not praise the Lord at that point, but he said, “I will do. I will be through this.” Satan wrung his hands when he heard the psalmist say that, and wrung them even more when he wrote it down.
How could some believer say such a thing when I have made him so miserable that his chin is on the ground? There he sits down and says, “I shall yet praise God.” How is he going to praise God? “I will make it worse for him.”
Why, the psalmist is saying, it is not merely that things are going to turn, or that my circumstances are going to turn. It is that suddenly the Lord is going to bring me out into a place where I can praise Him. Victory is mine.
Thanks be unto God, Who giveth us the victory
Through our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is the only way you will get victory: through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the way my body is going to be raised one day, if I am put into the earth; and yours, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, if God can work a miracle like that, and all the saints from the whole age are going to be raised incorruptible, then be steadfast, unmovable. Do not let the kitchen sink move you out of Christ. Stay in Him.
You are unassailable when you are in Him. Satan cannot touch you whilst you are in Christ. Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.
That office which is so difficult; that brother whom you find so terribly difficult; that sister whom you can hardly get on with—think of it. Do not get moved away. Do not let the enemy somehow push you out of your place in Christ.
Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding, knowing that it is God Who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Victory is not merely some bubbly thing. It is something deep and intensely practical.
Then again, look at Romans 8:37. You know these wonderful Scriptures so very well.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
If only he had said, “By being delivered from all these things, we are more than conquerors.” That is how many people read this, but it does not say that. It says, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.”
In nakedness, in peril, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. When we are in Christ, we are more than conquerors. Out of Christ, we are abject failures—absolutely defeated.
We may have all the knowledge of the Bible in the world. We may have a past testimony of God’s goodness and grace, but it stands us in no good stead if we have moved out of Christ. Then we are a contradiction in terms: here we are, children of God, and yet abjectly defeated; children of God, and absolutely bound; children of God, and not experiencing what it is to be saved.
There are many things we could speak about in this connection. Think of Ephesians 2:6, where it says that we have been made to sit with Christ in heavenly places. No wonder the apostle says, “Do not forget—whatever else you do forget—do not forget to put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand in the evil day; and, having done all, to stand.”
Why, the apostle has seen something, that dear, dear apostle. He has seen that the weakest believer in Christ is unassailable, and the strongest believer outside of Christ is defeated.
He has seen that the person with the most superficial knowledge of the Lamb, who yet remains in Christ, will be absolutely victorious; and the person who could write a tome on the Bible, who moves out of Christ, will be absolutely paralysed.
Victory. Satan knows that we are not only negatively safe and secure in Christ; he knows that in Him we are victorious.
Therefore, Satan must get us to uncover ourselves if he is to paralyse the work of God, frustrate the work of God, and destroy the effectiveness of God’s working. He has got to get believers to uncover themselves. Whilst they are in Christ, he can do nothing.
We are, of course, warned many times about this danger. We have already pointed out in the last two studies the many, many warnings through the Word. I want to add a few more which are very solemn indeed.
Consider 1 Peter 5:8:
Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
What solemn words. Most of us do not think that the devil would ever get us, let alone devour us. But the apostle Peter, writing to elders as well as to the church, says, “Be sober.” This is serious business. “Be watchful.” Do not go to sleep. Do not turn off. If you are on one of those trips all around the world just at present, come back in your mind.
Be sober. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, is as a roaring lion. Would you not think a believer could hear a roaring lion?
I am told that if you go to a safari park, you can hear the lions roar at feeding time with all the windows wound up, the doors tightly closed, and going through at a gentle fifteen miles per hour. You can hear clearly the roar of the lions.
But some believers are so unwatchful that they never hear the roar of Satan. He is hungry, walking around, seeing whom he can devour.
How can he devour anyone in Christ? He must first devour Christ. How can he devour anyone whose life is hid with Christ in God? He must first devour God. Can Satan devour God?
The only way he can get at your life is to devour God, and thus devour Christ, and then you. But he cannot do it. So he walks about to see who is out of covering, who has got out of Christ, who is not abiding.
The moment he has got his meal—oh, many of us have been meals for Satan at times—and what a meal. Once Satan gets us, he really has a meal.
We shall come, if not tonight then another time, to the wonderful ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, without which none of us would ever come through. Thank God for that ministry. However, just at the moment, we have this rather more sobering matter.
Let us look at Revelation 12:9-12:
And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world; he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him.
And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accuseth them before our God day and night.
And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death.
Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe for the earth and for the sea: because the devil is gone down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time.
There is only one safe place for us to be, and that is in the heavenlies. There is only one safe place for us to be: seated with Christ in heavenly places. Then we overcome by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of our testimony, because we love not our lives even unto death.
Woe to us if we come down to the earth, descend to the flesh, and take again the old man as the basis. Satan has come down to that realm, and everyone who is found on it he will try to get.
Turn again to 1 Corinthians 11. These are supplementary to the Scriptures we have considered before, but they are solemn warnings. Consider 1 Corinthians 11:29-30:
For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself, if he discern not the body.
For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep.
This is not merely to do with the actual Lord’s table and the taking of actual bread and wine. It has to do with what that bread and wine symbolises, represents, and expresses.
It says that it is possible, because we do not discern the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, to get ourselves so uncovered that we become weak—that is, paralysed, ineffective, bound—and sickly. Some of these plagues which were promised would not come to us may come to us, either physically, actually, or spiritually.
And “sleep,” which you all well know is not some poetic little word about falling asleep spiritually, means to physically die. So serious is this matter of uncovering that it is possible not to lose one’s salvation, but to lose one’s physical life.
Now, in 1 John 5:16, we are told:
If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request.
That is physical death, not spiritual death. Oh, how well some of us know that Scripture, when we have prayed for a certain person, and prayed and prayed.
We did not understand that Scripture in those days. We prayed for that person’s healing, and every time we prayed, at the very moment we prayed in the name of the Lord, they had a far worse attack.
Until one dear old brother—not in this company—phoned me and said, “I cannot understand it. I have been the whole morning in prayer for so-and-so, but the Lord has said to me, ‘You are wasting your time.’” He said, “I even pleaded the trespass offering, but it was no good.”
Now, that is how solemn this matter is.
Just in case you still do not accept such a possibility, turn to 1 Corinthians 5:5. We know, of course, that the Lord did some extraordinary things, as He did with Ananias and Sapphira in the early days of the church. But the way you treat a chapel is not the way you can treat the church. The way you treat some congregation of believers is not the way you can treat the body of the Lord Jesus Christ when it is in expression.
All through church history, whenever the church has found some expression, however poor, men have withstood it, gainsaid it, or argued with it. The same thing has occurred again and again. Read the story of the Wesleys and Whitefields; go back earlier to some of the Quaker times. You will find it everywhere.
Here the apostle says in 1 Corinthians 5:5:
To deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Now, perhaps you do not understand that. Never mind. But let it be a sobering thought, and let the fear of God come to us in this matter. This is what uncovering can lead to: the destruction of the flesh, physically, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Coming back from perhaps the more extreme uncovering, such as that, to the more normal and general uncovering that most of us get into, we must say that so often, instead of heeding these solemn warnings and being alive to the danger, we are ignorant of Satan’s devices and designs.
Absolutely ignorant. As we often say, it has happened before we know where we are. That is a very good phrase in this connection: it has happened before we know where we are—and we are outside of Christ before we know where the outside is. Of course, it has happened.
Even then, in many instances, I know believers who do not know what has hit them. “Why? Why this? Why me? Why should it happen?”
Of course, we have to be very careful when we speak like this, because the people who should not take it to heart do, and the people who shrug it all off are the people who should take it to heart. It is the most extraordinary thing.
We have to be very, very careful, or we find suddenly that folks with some inexplicable problem—which is a thorn in the flesh and has nothing to do with this matter at all, but has come by sovereign and divine permission—begin to wonder, “Oh dear, have I uncovered myself? Where have I done it?”
But, you know, before we know where we are, this has happened. This is the whole problem.
Surely this is precisely why the Lord Jesus, in that pattern prayer in Matthew 6:9-13, taught us to pray that we should be kept covered. That is how I put it.
Our Father Who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And bring us not into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
You will see that in the Revised Standard Version, and in the American Standard Version, it is “from the evil one.” “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” The word “temptation” is trial or testing.
“Oh Lord, do not bring us into a trial that will entice us in such a way that we get uncovered, but deliver us from the evil one.” Do we pray enough in this way?
Just because we know we are justified, just because we know we are absolutely safe in the Lord Jesus Christ, this is no reason for saying, “I do not need to pray anything like that.” The Lord Jesus gave us a pattern prayer. He said, “When you pray, these are the essential things.”
One of the things you must always remember to pray is, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
I think that if such a consciousness of this danger came upon us that every day of our lives we were to pray this prayer—not necessarily these particular words, but saying, “Lord, now I am abiding; keep me abiding. Let an alarm bell ring in my spirit the moment I start to move out”—this is what the Lord means. Pray along this line. Do not simply take things for granted.
How, then, do we get uncovered? How do we get uncovered? I think that is the really important question. How?
I can only list some of the ways that are representative of many others. I cannot possibly go into all the many ways—they are multitudinous—in which we can get uncovered. But I can take just a number and, from these, give you some understanding from the Word of God of how you get uncovered.
First of all, not walking in the light. Look at 1 John 1:5-7:
This is the message which we have heard from Him and announce unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
Will you just note that if we are not walking in the light with God, as God is in the light—not according to our ideas, but according to His, because that is more objective—then we are not walking in the light as He is in the light. It is objective, not subjective.
It is not what I see as light, so that I can say, “Well, I had not seen that. I simply had not seen that.” Walk in the light as God is in the light. The Book is your guide. You will see light in His light.
Walk in the light as He is in the light, and the blood of Jesus Christ goes on cleansing us from all sin. Now, what happens if you do not? No fellowship with God, and no cleansing. You are uncovered.
If communication with God is broken and you still go on thinking you have it, you get into deception, and from deception to bondage. As he says, “If we walk in darkness, and say we have fellowship with Him, we lie, and do not the truth.”
Such a simple thing. Satan knows this very well. What does he do? He brings two people together who, at the beginning, are walking in the light. Then he brings out difficulties, and before you know where you are, no more light.
No more light. Things are hidden, things are buried, things are pushed under the carpet, the dust is swept under there. “Had it been put down?” Something has happened. Something has happened. No more walking in the light.
I know some people who are afraid to go to certain meetings or even hear certain speakers. Now, why? If we walk in the light as He is in the light, unless something intuitively tells us, “If God meets you in this, it will break you,” shall we go back?
Without knowing it, we are uncovered. We have got back from the light. Instead of walking, instead of progress in light, there is deterioration into darkness.
If we walk in the light as He is in the light, the only way you can get more light is to obey the light God has given you. That is a law in fellowship with God.
How do you get uncovered? God puts His finger on something in your life, and you say, “No.” God puts His finger again upon it, gently, and you say, “No.” God puts His finger again a third time, and you say, “No!”
God does not do it again. Sometimes He does not. Sometimes He does. But from that point: darkness. You can sing the hymns, you can read the Bible. Those who have no discernment still think you are going full steam. But those who have any spiritual discernment at all will know that something has been turned off.
Walking in the light as He is in the light. Now, do not, for God’s sake, just shrug off such a thing as this. Think to yourself what the Word of God says: “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” But if we do not?
A second way of getting uncovered is simply not to forgive—not to forgive any single other human being.
Think again of the pattern prayer:
Forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
Why did the Lord do that? Why did He teach us to pray, “Forgive us as”? In other words, if there is someone I cannot forgive, dead or alive, I get uncovered.
Now, do not again try to get out of it. Look at 2 Corinthians 2:8-11:
Wherefore I beseech you to confirm your love toward him.
For to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye are obedient in all things.
But to whom ye forgive anything, I forgive also: for what I also have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, for your sakes have I forgiven it in the presence of Christ;
That no advantage may be gained over us by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his devices.
Have you ever noticed that? “That no advantage might be gained over us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his devices.”
Even the apostle says, “This man whom I have delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, I forgive. Now that he has repented, I forgive. You forgive, and I forgive, because if I do not forgive, Satan will get an advantage.” Uncovering. We are not ignorant of his devices.
Some of the modern versions say “his designs,” but it is the same idea behind it: what Satan is up to. Not forgiving, not forgiving.
Do you remember the story in Matthew 18 about the two debtors? Bob mentioned this the other Sunday morning: one who owed so much, and a man who owed very little.
The master forgave the man who owed so much, but that one would not forgive someone else who owed very little to him. He was prepared to put pressure on him. So the master said, “Throw him into jail. He shall stay in jail until he has paid every single penny.”
Then the Lord explains in Matthew 18:35:
So shall also My heavenly Father do unto you, if ye forgive not every one his brother from your hearts.
Some of us have parents we cannot forgive. Some of us have children we cannot forgive. Some of us have relatives we cannot forgive. Some of us have bosses we cannot forgive. Some of us have some Christian brother or sister whom we cannot forgive.
We have no idea that this unforgiveness is getting us uncovered. Inexorably, we have been pushed out of our position in Christ by our unforgiving spirit.
Unless God can get us through on this matter, unless we can forgive as He forgave us and He gives us such a revelation of His forgiveness to us that we can forgive, we will be out—no longer hid with Christ in God.
A third thing—I think we have time for two more—is not loving one another. Maybe you never thought that just by this simple way of not loving one another, we get uncovered. Of course, it is partly to do with not forgiving, but just look.
Consider 1 John 2:10:
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him.
We often miss these little phrases, I think, even when we know our Bibles well. The Revised Standard Version puts it, “He who loves his brother abides in the light, and in it there is no cause for stumbling.”
Phillips puts it, “The man who loves his brother lives and moves in the light and has no reason to stumble.” The New English Bible puts it, “Only the man who loves his brother dwells in light; there is nothing to make him stumble.”
In other words, if I do not love my brother, I am not only not dwelling in the light, but I am uncovered. I shall stumble. I shall fall. Is this why so often many believers fall?
When we first become children of God, we love all the saints. We think they are the sweetest, godliest, most innocent lot that ever you set your eyes upon. But when we get to know them, oh dear, the shocks we have, the disappointments we have, the disillusionments we have.
Betrayal. Many other things. We are let down, and in the end we wonder, “Can I love? Can I love? Can I love?” But if I do not love my brother or sister, I am out from covering.
Again, it is an absolute law. The moment I no longer love, that moment I am being pushed out of my position in Christ. Do let it sink in. Covering is one of the most important things in the whole Word of God.
A fourth thing: an untamed tongue. James 4:11-12:
Speak not one against another, brethren. He that speaketh against a brother, or judgeth his brother, speaketh against the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judgest the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
One only is the lawgiver and judge, even He Who is able to save and to destroy: but who art thou that judgest thy neighbour?
Turn back to Galatians 5:14-15:
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
Now there is uncovering. Can any Christian be consumed? Yes—yes. If you bite and devour one another by the kind of loose talk we can indulge in, that chatter, chit-chat, talebearing, whispering, and all this kind of thing, we bite and devour one another. We are in danger of being consumed.
The thing will come back like a boomerang, a great backwash that will consume much. I have seen it happen again and again: backwash which has come and swamped person after person.
There is a tremendous amount in this matter of the tongue. Go back to James 3:2:
If any stumbleth not in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also.
And James 3:9-10:
Therewith bless we the Lord and Father; and therewith curse we men, who are made after the likeness of God:
Out of the same mouth cometh forth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
Then consider James 3:8:
But the tongue can no man tame; it is a restless evil, it is full of deadly poison.
A restless evil, full of deadly poison. It is a sobering thought that this is addressed to believers. James goes on in the next chapter and says, “Speak not one against another, brethren.”
This tongue with which we bless God, sing His praises, read His Word, and pray is the same tongue we can use against one another. But it is not only against one another that we can use the tongue. We can use it against the Lord and not even know it.
How again and again we can say things about the work of God which Satan hears. People say, “Ah, but God knows my heart.” Yes, but the same God Who knows your heart said that by every word that proceedeth out of your mouth, you shall be judged.
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. God does not simply look upon the heart and say, “Oh, it is all right, it is all right.” God knows very well that the kind of thing that comes out of the mouth is a little straw showing which way the wind is blowing.
The tongue can no man tame. Oh, there are many things. I think that of all the ways in which we get uncovered, the tongue is one of the major causes.
Sometimes I nearly bite my tongue. You say something before you know where you are, and you just feel dirty. Oh, you think, “I feel dirty. I am uncovered. I should not have said that.”
Sometimes you listen to someone else telling you something about another believer, and you know in your heart that you ought to say, “I do not want to hear it.” But you listen, and afterwards you feel dirty. You are uncovered, because you have not dissociated yourself. You have become a partaker in that sin, and you are unclean. You are uncovered.
Sometimes we can talk so inadvisedly about the work of God, the will of God, and the purpose of God. I think of years ago, when people said this, that, and the other about the way we were going, the will of God, and the purpose of God.
They laughed at it. They derided it. They told us that we were a lot of fools, that we had big ideas, that we thought we were going places, and all that kind of thing. God taught us some lessons: do not argue; do not get involved; keep your mouth.
And where are they? God said, “Ye shall seek them, and shall not find them.” It is absolutely true. Not one of them can we find.
When we take on something, God leaves us to fight it out. But when someone speaks against you or says things against you, leave it to the Lord. He takes it on.
The tongue. May I show you a few other Scriptures? Proverbs 13:3:
He that guardeth his mouth keepeth his life;
But he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.
“He that guardeth his mouth keepeth his life.” You may say, “But do you not know many people who do not guard their lips, and they are still alive?” No, it does not mean that. It means that he who guards his mouth keeps his soul in life.
But go on: “He that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.” Uncovering. In other words, a person who simply opens their mouth and says everything—destruction. They become uncovered.
Again, look at Proverbs 21:23:
Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue
Keepeth his soul from troubles.
Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles. He keeps covered. The one who watches his mouth and his tongue keeps covered.
Then Proverbs 17:20:
He that hath a wayward heart findeth no good:
And he that hath a perverse tongue falleth into mischief.
Oh, dear child of God, how easily this little tongue that no man can tame can get us uncovered. We can say things about a message we have heard. We can say things about someone else’s way with God. We can say things about a company. We can say things about a work of God.
I have heard things said about OM that I have trembled for—not here in this company, thank God—because it is so possible to say something inadvisedly with the lips and uncover yourself.
Without knowing it, you are opposing God, and God has heard. If God hears the conversations of those who fear His name and writes them in a book, will He not also hear the conversations of those who speak inadvisedly with their lips?
It is not simply that God wants to cause trouble or be severe. We have an enemy—an enemy who listens to everything, who picks up so many things, and goes, as it were, into the presence of God and says, “So-and-so said so-and-so.” Uncovering.
There are many, many other ways that we shall have to leave to next week, all kinds of ways that I think we ought to look at. As we have to stop at this point this evening, I feel just uncomfortable.
We all have this tongue. It is a comfort, in one way, that the Lord has said that the tongue can no man tame. He says every beast is tameable, but not the tongue. But God can do the impossible. He can tame the tongue.
He can teach us how to get those inner frustrations that so often come out in our words dealt with; those deep roots of bitterness, how they can be pulled out. He can show us how we can positively experience all that God has given us in Christ.
How do we get uncovered? If only it were simply a matter of not claiming the blood of Christ, as some people think. If only it were a simple matter of somehow or other defaming the name of the Lord.
Getting uncovered is a complex matter. There are multitudes of ways in which we can do it. Only God can show them.
But let us be positive, finally. There is absolute safety for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. Although we have not got there this evening, we will next week. Never forget: the Lord Jesus ever liveth to make intercession.
In other words, when you have used your lips inadvisedly, when there is an unforgiving spirit, when we cannot love someone as we ought, when somehow or other our tongues run away with us, the Lord is praying.
He said of Peter, who got himself uncovered—and all the others, the other eleven—“Satan has desired to have you, or obtained you by request, that he might sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for you, that thy faith fail not.”
In other words, they got uncovered; Satan had come in; but the Lord Jesus was interceding. They will come through.
Thank God for the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who sees us and our situation much better than we do; Who understands us much more deeply and fully than we understand ourselves; Who loves us with a love that is stronger than death; and Who ever lives to make intercession.
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?
It is God that justifieth.
Shall we bow together in prayer?
Now, Lord, we commit ourselves to Thee. We pray that Thou wilt not allow this study to be merely negative, just one that may be somewhat frightening. But we pray, beloved Lord, that positively we may all know what it is to enjoy absolute safety in the Lord Jesus Christ, and to know, dear Lord, that in Him we must overcome.
Lord, show this to every one of us, we pray. Where we have got ourselves uncovered, or when we get ourselves uncovered, show us, we pray, how to get back quickly. Oh Lord, as swiftly as we can.
Dear Lord, show us this, we pray, and write this message in our hearts. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.