First, Revelation 1:8, 17-18:
I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty.
Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the Living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
Revelation 21:6-7:
And He said unto me, They are come to pass. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
He that overcometh shall inherit these things; and I will be his God, and he shall be My son.
Revelation 22:13:
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Hebrews 12:1-2:
Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,
lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,
and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith,
Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising shame,
and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Shall we just bow together in a word of prayer?
Heavenly Father, we thank Thee once again that we are found here in Thy presence. Very simply, Lord, as we come to Thy Word, we pray that Thou wilt grant that that spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus will be granted to us.
We, Lord, need that this last time together is not just an outline of truth or the definition of doctrine. We want it to be more than that, Lord. We want to meet with Thee, and we pray, Lord, that Thou wilt cause Thy Word to live to us.
Grant, Lord, that that Word may come to dwell in us. Grant that it may be an implanted Word which we receive this morning. Dear Lord, grant this, we pray.
We thank Thee for the anointing once again for hearing and for speaking, which Thou hast provided for us. By faith we take it, that this may, Lord, be a time of divine ability, and therefore divine fulfilment. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Now, the burden that I have been sharing with you in the evening times of this week has been all to do with living faith—what it is, the necessity of it, and the need to exercise it.
Here we are once again at the end of yet another conference. Each time we come to the end of these conferences, I wonder whether we shall have another one—not simply and only as to whether it is right that we should have another one, or whether the Lord is going to direct us to have another one or not—but I sometimes wonder whether international conditions may make it quite impossible for, for instance, someone like myself to be able to be present at such a time.
One is conscious in these days that the settled conditions of a decade or so ago are quickly passing, and we are moving into times of great trouble, great change, and great danger.
So here we are once again at the end of yet another conference. How quickly these days go, and how wonderful it is to be able to come together, to share together, to see the Lord together, and to experience Him together.
Now, I want to say one last word about living faith. What I want to talk about is living faith and the end of the Lord—not living faith and the end, but living faith and the end of the Lord.
Someone might wonder what we mean by the end of the Lord, but we have that marvellous little phrase in James 5, when we are to behold the patience and endurance of Job, and behold the end of the Lord. What was the aim of the Lord? What was the goal of the Lord?
So, if you want to understand it as living faith and God’s goal, or living faith and God’s aim, or living faith and the end of the Lord—because the Lord has a goal for you and for me. The Lord has a goal for that company of believers that you and I are in. The Lord has a goal for the service which He has given to you and to me.
We want to consider for a few moments something about this. You know, we can all start with faith. We have to start with faith. There is no other way to enter the salvation of God, to enter the family of God, to enter the household of God, to enter the kingdom of God, except through the gift of living faith.
That is the way every single human being, no matter what their race, colour, nationality, social class, temperament, or condition—every one of us enters the same way:
By grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
not of works, that no man should glory.
You know, it is one thing to enter with faith. It is another thing to finish with faith. I am now old enough to have seen many people start with great faith—living and practical faith—and today they are nowhere.
It is one thing, when we are young, to start with all the great thrill of a life before us, everything fresh, not yet disillusioned, not yet depressed by the circumstances around us, and so on—to begin with great hope, great ideals, and a certain amount of real faith. It is another thing to finish the course.
How few believers finish on course. When we look at church history, how few movements of the Spirit of God have ended with the Spirit of God. They have begun with the Spirit and ended with the flesh.
Jesus said—not once, but a number of times—first introduced by the Lord God Almighty in Revelation:
I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord, Who is and Who was and Who is to come.
Then the Lord Jesus says, not once but a number of times, “I am the first and the last. I am the beginning and the end. I am the Alpha and the Omega.”
He is not only the beginning; He is the end. The old preacher said, as recorded in Ecclesiastes, “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.” So, if it is wonderful to begin with the Lord, it is much more marvellous to end with the Lord.
If the Lord has brought us into something tremendous and wonderful—fathomless in grace and riches, fullness and power—what will the end of this matter be?
Every one of us who has tasted of the Lord in reality knows how marvellous it is, how wonderful it is, to start with the Lord, to see the Lord. How much more wonderful it will be to end with Him—to come to the Lord’s end.
What we need is not just faith to begin; we need faith to complete. We need faith to finish, faith to arrive at God’s goal for you and for me and for us together.
First of all, living faith and myself—living faith and yourself. Now, I am not thinking about that dreadful self. I am just thinking about you. We could say living faith and you personally.
Here is a wonderful little word in Philippians 1:6. Now, will you notice that one of the sad things about our new versions is that, in trying to bring language right up to date, of course, in modern English we have no way of finding whether a “you” is plural or singular.
But in the old version—and I am not saying that you should all use the old version, as the old lady said, “The King James Version was good enough for St. Paul, so it is good enough for me”—I do not necessarily feel that you ought to use the old-fashioned version. But it is useful in the sense that, in the old version, “ye” always refers to the plural, all of us, and “you” to each one of us individually.
This is what the Holy Spirit says through the Apostle Paul:
Being confident of this very thing,
that He Who began a good work in you will perfect it
until the day of Jesus Christ.
Being confident of this very thing: that He Who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ. What a marvellous word. What a marvellous word to end a conference with, do you not think? I do.
Listen to it again—the wonderful certainty, the surety of it. Being confident of this very thing: that He—not you, not us, not me, but He, the Lord Jesus—Who began a good work in you will perfect it.
That is, bring it to full growth; bring it to completion; bring you to the goal inherent within that beginning of that good work; bring it to the end of the Lord. Perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.
You know, many Christians are almost afraid of the coming of the Lord. They feel, “Oh, how terrible it will be if the Lord should come tomorrow and I am not really ready.”
So we have a kind of civil war inside of us. On the one hand, we want the Lord to come and end this whole mess, bring in that kingdom of righteousness and peace, and somehow bring to the world the rule of God—not only inwardly, but outwardly.
We all want it, and yet, in another sense, we are very afraid of it. We feel, when that day has come, “Will I really have gone on with the Lord? Will I be ready for the coming of the Lord? Will I be ready to see the Lord? Will I be shamefaced when finally I stand before Him? Will I then wish that I had settled the issues in my life, that I had really been devoted to Him, that I had paid the price of discipleship?”
There is no need to have these fears. None of us will ever feel that we are perfect. The nearer we get to the Lord, the more conscious we will become of how unlike the Lord we really are.
We shall become, as we get nearer to the Lord, more conscious of what needs to be done in our lives to conform us to the image of God’s Son. But if we will only walk with God, and if we will only take those steps in living faith day by day, week by week, year by year, we have nothing to fear when the Lord comes.
Live according to the light that God has given you. Be absolutely obedient to the leading of the Holy Spirit in your life, whatever the cost. Do what He says, and you have no need to fear the coming of the Lord.
You can stand before Him clothed in His righteousness and knowing, at least, that you have gone on with Him.
I always thought it was a most wonderful thing that when C. T. Studd, that great pioneer of the gospel in many parts of the world, and particularly in Central Africa, was dying, he said, “There is one thing I can say: that with all my mistakes and faults, whatever the Lord has told me to do, I have done it.”
What a marvellous way to enter into the presence of the Lord. You cannot ask more of a servant.
You know, when you have a servant—not that these days anybody has servants, but I mean in the good old days, when there were servants—you did not look for pedigree in your servant. It was no good a servant coming to you who had noble blood, a long aristocratic pedigree, and a string of degrees after their name, if they could not hear.
The one thing required in a servant was to hear and obey.
Sometimes we get the idea that as long as we know everything, God will be so pleased. God is not pleased with knowledge in itself if it makes us independent of the Lord, if it puffs us up. What the Lord wants to find is a teachable spirit, a hearing ear—someone who hears what He says and does it.
Now, again, let us take a further look at this matter. Being confident of this very thing, that He Who began a good work—has He begun a good work in you? Have you been saved? Have you been born of the Spirit of God? Have you started to take those first steps of faith in the Lord, settling things, obeying the Lord, going on with the Lord? Good.
Now, He Who has begun this good work in you will perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ. In other words, from God’s side, He undertakes all responsibility for bringing you from the beginning to the end—from your start to the goal that He has set for you.
He undertakes responsibility. If you do not get there, it is simply because of disobedience on your part or mine.
When we turn to Romans 8:29, we read:
For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained
to be conformed to the image of His Son,
that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
What a wonderful word. Here again, listen to the certainty of God’s Word. Whom He foreknew, those He also foreordained, or predestined, to be conformed to the image of His Son.
So all the foreordination of God is behind your being changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus—your being conformed to the image of God’s Son. How wonderful, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Here is our problem. It is not knowledge, is it? It is not zeal. It is whether you and I are being changed—changed into the likeness of God’s Son.
Second Corinthians 3:18 says:
But we all, with unveiled face,
beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,
are transformed into the same image
from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.
You know, some Christians have veiled faces, because, having found the Lord to begin with, they do not turn to the Lord from then onwards. If we want to have an unveiled face, we must be always, as it were, in spirit turning to the Lord. We have to be dependent upon the Lord.
Then we behold, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord. We do not see the full glory of the Lord, but dimly, in one of those metal-type mirrors—if you have ever seen one of those old antique-type mirrors—you can see your face to a certain extent, but not as clearly as one day you are going to see when you are in the presence of the Lord Himself.
At present we see His glory as in a mirror, darkly—sort of dimly. But we see it, and as we behold the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, changed into His likeness, from glory to glory.
Do you have problems? Well, I can tell you one thing: if you have not, come to me. I have been walking with the Lord for many years, and I have still got lots of problems. In fact, I think my problems are greater today than ever they were earlier.
Difficulties, problems, mountains in the way of your being conformed to the image of God’s Son. You say, “Now, what are you talking about?” I will tell you a whole lot of things.
First of all, there are the difficult people in my circumstances. Everyone has difficult people in their circumstances. All of us. Sometimes it is a husband, sometimes it is a wife, sometimes it is children, sometimes it is parents—but everybody has difficulties.
Sometimes it is an employer, sometimes it is an employee, but everybody has that particular person who just manages to destroy your sanctification. You come to a conference like this, and this conference may seem to be so wonderful. You go back walking on air, but it is not very long before that person has brought you back down to earth.
Problems. Very often it is our relationship to these problematic ones that somehow stops our being perfected unto the day of Jesus Christ. If we could only see that they are God’s treasure.
I think you have all heard the story of Charles Haddon Spurgeon—how there was a lady who wrote to him every Monday after he preached on Sunday. She started with all his grammatical mistakes. Then she went on to his mistakes in pronunciation. Then she went on to his illustrations—whether she felt they were vulgar, or whether she felt that they were not well thought out. Finally, she ended up by commenting on the substance of the message.
You cannot believe it, that this anointed servant of the Lord, who was one of the greatest preachers that England had ever known, was reduced to a neurotic state by the letter from that sister every Monday. So great were his nerves over that letter that he used to have restless and sleepless nights, wondering what she would say about the coming Sunday.
Is that not amazing? Thousands of people came to hear Spurgeon, and thousands of people were blessed, and hundreds were converted week after week—truly converted. Yet this one letter from this one rather poisonous sister brought the great servant of the Lord to a place of absolute destitution and desolation.
In the end, he told his wife that they had to pray for the removal of this person—by hook or by crook. Otherwise, his ministry would be finished.
So they prayed and prayed. One day, when Spurgeon was praying, the Lord said to him, “Do you want Me to remove your treasure?”
He said, “Treasure? What are You talking about?” And the Lord said to him, “This person is your treasure.”
He said, “How can this one be treasure?” The Lord said, “Because I am working treasure in you.”
From that day, Spurgeon took a new step in the Lord and actually waited for the lady’s letter. It continued to the end of his ministry. It was only at the very end that he discovered who it was.
Now, you know, we all have problems. Strange enough, when you perhaps think of me, you would think the kind of thing that would get me down would be something quite enormous—an elephant-sized problem, something that would trample over me and destroy me.
But it is not always so. It is amazing what can get a servant of the Lord. It is amazing what can get you down. Another thing is, what gets you down does not get me down. I may almost laugh at the thing that is getting you down, and yet, to you, it is a satanic messenger—something that could destroy you, something that destroys your going on with God.
Dear people of God, there is only one way to face these mountains in our personal life, these difficulties, these problems: with living faith. Has the Lord said, or has He not said, that He Who began this good work in you will perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ?
How gracious of the Lord that He did not say, “He Who has begun this good work in you all.” Then we could say, “Ah, that lets me out. The Lord is going to do it, but not in me. He will do it in the others, but not in me.”
But He did not say that. He said, “He Who has begun this good work in you will perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ.” Here is an anchor ground for living faith.
What is stopping you from going on with the Lord? Is it some relationship, some person who is a real problem to you? Or maybe it is something altogether different. Maybe it is something you have inherited from your background.
People have strange complexes, and they say, “Well, I have got this from my family background. My grandfather was like this, then one of my aunts was like this, and of course mother was like this, and I am afraid I have got it.”
Whatever it is, I find that in counselling people this comes up more than anything else. People come back and say, “What can I do? I cannot do it. It is no good.”
Now listen: when God saved you, you are not going to tell me that He did not know who you were, that He did not know your grandfather, your aunt, your mother, and you. Are you going to tell me that He did not know you when you were in the womb of your mother? That He did not watch over the formation of your personality and temperament, even though you were born in sin?
God knows everything about you, and He knows everything about your ancestors. In fact, He knows a good deal more than you. Most of you, especially being Americans, do not know overmuch about your ancestors. But God knows everything—everything.
There is not a complex inherited in natural life that the Holy Spirit is not able to touch and overcome. There is not a thought somehow within our temperament that the Holy Spirit cannot, in some marvellous way, counter.
If it is an imbalance, some excess that belongs to your personality, the Holy Spirit is able to do it. What we need is living faith. We do not need an enormous amount of faith bigger than our problem. What we need is a grain of faith in a great God, Who has faithfully promised that He will perfect that good work unto the day of Jesus Christ.
Can you really believe against yourself that He Who has begun a good work in you will perfect it? Could you actually say by faith before this meeting is out, “Lord, You are going to conform me to the image of Your Son. I take it today.”
“If I have never taken it before, insignificant as I am, unworthy as I am, with all the problems that I have in my life, You are going to do it because You have said it. Oh, give me grace to be obedient.”
That is the key: obedience. Do not just talk about faith. Obedience is the matter.
It would not have helped anybody if Abraham had said, “The God of glory has appeared unto me, and He has told me to get out of Ur of the Chaldees. Is that not marvellous?” “Do you believe, Abraham?” “Of course I believe.” “You mean God appeared?” “Of course God appeared to me.”
“And where is He going to?” “I do not know. But I only know that there is some marvellous city which hath the foundations.” Yet he stays in Ur of the Chaldees. I ask him, “Did not God say, ‘Get out’?” “Well, yes, of course He did, but I have got great problems. I have got father, and I have got nephew Lot, and I have got Sarah, and a number of other things. We have had no children yet. I think it might be a good idea to stay in Ur of the Chaldees in a settled condition and have a family. Then, when the children are growing up a little, we will go.”
There would never have been a story of the faith of Abraham, because that faith of Abraham was not just up here. It was evidenced in his obedience.
By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
My point is this: could God bring you and me to a position of faith over ourselves—our insignificance, our unworthiness, the problems that are in our lives?
Could we speak the word of faith over ourselves, to the mountains that are in our lives, and say, “The Lord is going to do this work. This mountain will become a plain before my Lord—before the Lord in my life—because He has a vested interest in bringing me to His end.”
I want to side with God against myself. Oh, if you will only learn to side with God, if necessary against yourself, so that He may be able to do this wonderful work in you.
There are so many problems. May I just say one other thing about that? Once you take this step, you can be sure the enemy will pile a few more problems upon you.
The enemy is a past master at phantomising things. In other words, I am always very interested in American English. It is incredible to me that you folks over this side, who have simplified life so greatly in many ways compared with our conservative way of living on the other side of the Atlantic, are now getting into the most incredible words this long. I love it. It is most interesting, but I could not do it myself.
Here is a new one for you—I am quite sure we could not say it on my side. Satan likes to phantomise things. That is, he likes to blow up something to enormous dimensions in front of our eyes, because he knows that if we look at what appears, we shall quail with fear, collapse in a heap, and be paralysed.
The strange thing is, if we go forward, we find the phantom shrivels to what it really is—something sometimes very small, and sometimes something that is not even there.
Do you remember the story of Christian in The Pilgrim’s Progress? Do you remember when he came to that whole place that was like a graveyard, and on either side were all whitened, bleached bones—evidently of previous pilgrims? I do not think they were; I think they had been concocted by the enemy. But still, that is what they looked like: previous pilgrims.
As he looked, he saw two lions roaring. Christian lost all his faith, was paralysed, and said, “Oh, I cannot go forward.” But the Lord said, “Go forward. The path lies straight on.” Yet he could not go forward. He said, “If I go by, I shall be like those bones within a few years. I will be eaten by these lions.”
But in the end, the voice said, “Go forward.” Christian said, “I will go forward. I will trust Him. Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” He went forward, and to his amazement found that the lions were chained.
He found that he could just walk in between both lions, so that when their paws came out, he just had a little leeway to get through. You understand?
The enemy will do this with you. He has got some lions, and you cannot see the chains. Only faith ever sees the chains. You think, “Those lions will devour me. It is no good. I cannot go forward in this. I cannot do this. I cannot do that. I cannot overcome this problem in my temperament. I cannot overcome this problem in my family.”
Listen: those lions are chained. You will find a way right through them, and it is the way of faith. Nothing else will take you forward until you are prepared to go forward in cold-blooded obedience to the Lord, trusting Him.
Oh, how we need living faith for ourselves, do we not? I sometimes think we can talk till we are blue in the face about church life and the need to function as the church, but frankly, when all of us are sitting there with huge problems that we have no faith about whatsoever, how can anyone participate?
Everyone has such an enormous problem, or enormous problems, that they feel they cannot do anything anyway. You will find that there is no way forward unless there is living faith.
May God give to you living faith, being confident of this very thing—this very thing. Do not get out of it. This very thing: that He Who began a good work in you will perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ. God help us.
Then there is another matter: living faith in the church. Now, I am thinking of the church down here. I am thinking of our fellowship in the areas from which we come.
I think of this little word in 1 Corinthians 1:8-9:
Who shall also confirm you unto the end,
that ye be unreproveable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful, through Whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Oh, what a marvellous goal God has set for the fellowship of His people. How He desires that we should really come into the good of all that our brother Stephen has been talking about in this matter of the unity of the Spirit.
Oh, the problems we have to overcome, the difficulties that somehow have to be faced with living faith. It is not only a question, sometimes, of disunity; sometimes it is a question of participation.
Many of us will sit like dead ducks in any Christian meeting. We just sit there, taking it all in, never giving anything, never participating, never becoming involved, never being committed. There is no possibility of church life in that. There is no possibility of genuine fellowship.
The fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, can only be a sharing. God is faithful, through Whom you were called into the sharing of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
This church in Corinth had some marvellous things, you know. If you read in 1 Corinthians 1:5, it says that in everything ye were enriched in Him, in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you.
What a marvellous company. Really, if we did not know all the problems they had in this company, we would just be filled with awe and admiration. What a marvellous company of believers—enriched in everything, coming behind in no gift, the testimony of Christ confirmed in them.
We would be so excited if every one of the companies of believers represented here in this place this day had the testimony of Christ confirmed in them. We would say, “God is doing something in America. Something is really happening in this matter of the Spirit of God recovering the nature of the church.”
The testimony of Christ is confirmed in this group, and that group, and the other group. They are enriched in everything, in all utterance and all knowledge. They understand the end of the Lord. They understand the eternal purpose of God. They not only know about God’s redeeming purpose; they understand His eternal purpose.
Oh, dear, deep gifts—not one lacking. How marvellous. We could well be thrilled.
But this company had such problems—such factions, such divisions, lining up behind personalities, behind teachings, and all these other things. I do not need to say too much about it because we have had quite a lot of ministry on the matter.
But you see, the problems—if we do not face them. Oh, that dear Apostle Paul. Some of us—I in particular—would have given up this company at the start. The first breath of immorality, then division, then lawsuits amongst them—well, I would not have wanted anything more to do with the muddle.
Disgrace. Bringing the Lord’s name into disrepute. What an ugly company. But look at the Apostle Paul. What an attitude of living faith.
Do you know, in one place he says the most beautiful thing to me? He says, “I have espoused you as a pure virgin to Jesus Christ.” What an attitude of living faith.
He said, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” What an attitude of living faith.
All these people in all their mess, in all their factions, and in comes the Apostle Paul and says, “I am going to find the Lord in you. I am going to stick with the Lord in you, and I am not going to look at everything else. I believe God has a purpose for you. He has an end, and He is going to bring you there.”
Oh, I sometimes think of this beloved apostle, broken sometimes in health, with a messenger of Satan to buffet him, and he writes a letter. Sometimes people say it is a poor letter. I do not know whether I really agree.
People say that Ephesians is the zenith and Corinthians is the bottom. I am not really sure about that. When I take the twelfth chapter of 1 Corinthians, do you not think it is an amazing chapter? When I take the thirteenth chapter, we have come to one of the heart matters of God. When we take the fifteenth chapter, is there anything in the world quite like that amazing chapter on the resurrection of Jesus Christ?
Here is the Apostle pouring all these riches into a company that, from one point of view, is really worth very little. Only living faith could do that—nothing else.
I wonder whether we have living faith in this whole matter of the company of believers in which we are found. Do we really believe that the problems confronting us, the Holy Spirit is able to overcome? He is able to solve, able to untie.
Do we really believe that God can give me such an attitude that I can maintain the unity of the Spirit? Living faith in this company of God’s people.
May God help us in this matter. God has a purpose for us, you know. Problems are only allowed by God to bring out what is of Christ in us.
There is a little word in this Corinthian letter, in 1 Corinthians 11:19, and it says:
For there must be also factions among you,
that they that are approved may be made manifest among you.
I always thought that is one of the most remarkable statements in that letter. There must be factions amongst you, that the approved of God might be made manifest. In other words, these problems are allowed by God to bring out what is of Christ in us.
May God give us an attitude of living faith, that we might overcome where God has placed us and overcome in our relationship to our brothers and sisters—not compromising, not doing the expedient thing, never for one minute denying the heavenly vision or being disobedient to it, and yet holding to our brothers and sisters.
Living faith and the church: will it be built up? Will God be able to do the work He wants to do in us all?
Let me just say something about living faith in service. If you look at 2 Timothy 4:5-8, the words of the Apostle Paul are:
But be thou sober in all things, suffer hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil thy ministry.
For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come.
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith:
henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give to me at that day; and not to me only, but also to all them that have loved His appearing.
The service of God: has God committed to you some service? Has God given to you some ministry? Has He given to you some responsibility, called you into something?
I will tell you a truth. If God has given you something, it is easy to begin. Oh, how many young men particularly, and also young women, will begin in the service of the Lord with great hopes and high hopes, full of visions of tremendous movings of the Holy Spirit, awakenings, revivals, and recoveries universally.
We start out, and before long we find the Lord’s people are so difficult. The problems in service.
Brother Stephen spoke of a servant of the Lord who starved to death because his brothers and sisters did not care for him. I can tell you there are many servants of the Lord who are treated so badly by the Lord’s people that it must surely bring, in the end, some anger of the Lord upon them.
This is not to say that there are not other servants of the Lord who do not live very well, and sometimes, I am afraid, by fraudulent means, preach a gospel of gain. But there are so many servants of the Lord.
It is an amazing thing to me, when I go around the world, to see how money pours into false things and how, very often, that which is of God has a very, very hard time.
This is only one side in a servant of the Lord’s life. Stephen mentioned in our leadership times how wonderful it is if one can support oneself. It is, but you have to have a gift that way.
The Apostle Paul was quite remarkable, being able to make tents. He was a saddler. How clever he must have been. I would love to have seen the man working there, stitching things up. What an amazing thing it must have been for some of those saints to have a tent that was made by the Apostle Paul. Think of it.
Because you only think of camping tents. Many of those folks lived in tents. It was part of their life in Asia Minor, as it is to this day, to live in tents.
But financial support is only one aspect of many things in the service of the Lord. There are so many problems in the service of the Lord.
Fulfil thy ministry.
Stir up the gift of God, which is in thee through the laying on of my hands.
Only if we have living faith will we stir up the gift that is in us. You see, we can begin in the first flush of a gift being given to us, of a calling, of a ministry entrusted to us. It is all marvellous when we begin, but after a while the fire dies down.
The very circumstances within us, within our own families, within our close relationships, can sometimes bring a servant of the Lord to the place where he is battled.
Sometimes it is the Lord’s people. They do not care. They do not pray. They do not encourage, because we do not want to encourage what is wrong.
But most people will say something when there is something wrong in a person’s life, but very few will encourage. We are all like this. We do not encourage what is of God, but we do point out what is not.
Living faith on the part of those called to service. Has God given you a ministry? That ministry He means to be fulfilled. Is there a course that you should be running? He wants you to come to the end of it. He wants you to finish it.
Is there a faith that He has entrusted to you? He wants you to keep it. May God help us in this matter.
The greater the ministry, the greater the problems and difficulties, the mountains that God will allow to develop in its way. Those mountains are only a means of experiencing the Lord in a deeper measure and being able to come through with this confidence: “This ministry God has given to me is of Himself.”
So, dear ones, let me just finish then: living faith in the ultimate.
In Revelation 21:9-10, we have that final vision in the Bible:
And there came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls, who were laden with the seven last plagues; and he spake with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.
Living faith and the ultimate. It is no mistake, no coincidence, that the Bible ends with the bride, the wife of the Lamb, the city of God.
What an extraordinary mixture: bride, wife, city. I have said this to some of you before. It is an extraordinary mixture of figures and types. Nobody thinks of his wife as his city, or as a city. Some wives might be rather fortress-like and rather foursquare, but nobody thinks of his wife as his city.
Nobody thinks of a city as a bride. The two things are so opposite, and yet the Bible ends with a wife, a bride, which is also a city.
When the Bible begins, it begins with a garden, but it ends with a city. It begins with a man and a woman who are married together, but the Bible ends not with an earthly marriage but with an eternal marriage. How amazing this is.
Of course, a bride or a wife symbolises and expresses the most intimate relationship known to mankind: a fellowship of love, a fellowship of sympathy, a communion of two human beings, a complementing of one another.
It speaks of love, sharing, union, and communion.
That is how the Bible ends, as if God is saying, “Do not put anything else first. The thing I long for more than anything else is the love of My people. I have loved them. I desire their love. I have given Myself to them. I want them to give themselves to Me.”
“I want to bring them into a union with Myself so that out of that union there may be communion forever. I do not want an eternal bureaucracy, an eternal civil service of technocrats—those who know the technique, those who know the regulations, those who can put into effect the laws and everything else. That is not what I want.”
“I want a heart relationship with My people forever. I want those who respond to Me, who are animate, loving—not frigid—loving, responsive. That is what the Lord requires above everything else.”
Oh, my dear brothers and sisters, when we look at this whole matter, can you see how God longs for a bride? How He longs for this wife of the Lamb? How He leads us in His way?
Where do we need living faith in this? Because the love of many can wax cold because iniquity abounds. What an excuse.
Iniquity abounds on all sides, and apparently the Lord does not step in. The Lord does not make it easier. He does not do anything immediately. Because iniquity abounds, our love can be eclipsed.
We have questions about the Lord. We have questions about the love of God. We have questions about the mercy and compassion of God. We need living faith.
Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
Perfect love casteth out fear.
Sometimes, if we think the Lord is a tyrant, or if we think He is mean, or if we think He is unmerciful, uncaring, selfish, or only after His own ends, fear comes into our hearts—fear of ever committing ourselves to Him, fear of ever subjecting ourselves to His will, fear of ever going on with Him.
But perfect love casts out, hurls out, all such distrust of the Lord. We need living faith.
No one will ever be an overcomer. No one will ever be part of that bride, that wife of the Lamb, who has not exercised living faith all the way through—walked by faith from the beginning to the end.
Living faith and the ultimate.
God is not just interested that you have vision. He wants you to have vision. God is not just interested that you should understand and recognise what His end is. He wants you to understand and recognise it.
God wants you. He is not going to be satisfied with anything less than you.
You know, there are people that you can be friends with, but not people that you could live with in marriage forever. Many, many people you can have good friendships with, good close relationships with, but it does not mean that you would marry them.
If you are going to marry somebody, it has to be somebody who really meets the need of your heart.
This matter of the bride and the wife of the Lamb is as if God is saying, “Do I meet your need, your deepest need? Or are you only interested in Me for what you get out of Me? You are going to get eternal salvation, joy, peace, and all the things. Is that what you want?”
That is why God leads those who overcome in church life, in personal life, and in the service of God, in some very strange ways—in inexplicable ways. He will give to you sometimes problems that cannot be explained, so that you could easily disbelieve in the love of God, that He allows you to have such problems.
He wants to find out whether you really love Him. It is not that you lose your salvation, but you can lose your place in the government of God, in the rule of God.
You see, the other side to this bride is that it is a throne. It is a city, and there is the throne of God and of the Lamb in it. It is an amazing thing.
Jesus said in Revelation 3:21:
He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne,
as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father in His throne.
Why this matter of throne? Having first seen that it is a matter of love and fellowship, union and communion, the second thing God wants to reveal to you is that He wants you to reign. He wants you to be able to rule with His Son. He wants you to be able to have dominion.
Do you know, the very first words God ever said to man were, “Have dominion.” All through the Bible you find that the whole question, the great issue, is authority, authority, authority.
Not only is there an enemy who has risen up against God’s authority, but we human beings find it almost impossible to exercise authority properly. This is the issue of human history.
Living faith and the Son of God. I sometimes wonder, will I ever come to the throne of God? I know it is by the grace of God. But if you cannot get ascendancy over your household, over your business, over your relationships, over the kitchen sink, over the children, will you ever be able to rule in eternity?
Living faith. Do you see how God will lead us into all kinds of situations in personal life, in church life, in the service of the Lord, that seem to put us underneath?
God said, “You shall not be the tail; you shall be the head. You shall not be underneath; you shall be above. You shall not have to borrow; you shall lend.” That is what God wants you and me to be.
Living faith and the ultimate. Only God can bring me to that city.
That city, that bride, is made out of gold and precious stone and pearl—all speaking of the Lord Jesus: the life of the Lord Jesus, the nature of the Lord Jesus, and each one speaking of pressure, suffering, affliction, and tribulation.
Gold refined so that it is transparent as crystal. You have never seen such a thing. All the impurities not only taken out, but brought to the place where you can see through it.
Precious stone formed in the dark places of the earth by intense heat and pressure—treasures of darkness.
Pearl, formed by a little piece of unwholesome and ugly grit falling into the softest part of the clam.
That is the only way you and I can come to the end of the Lord. That is why the Lord says:
I counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined by fire.
The price is experience. Are you ready?
Now I want to end. But you cannot be ready unless you have living faith. No one is going to allow God to bring the inexplicable into their lives unless they have living faith.
No one is going to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes, in all that that means, unless he has living faith—unless you, with the eye of your heart, have seen the ultimate goal of God.
You cannot look upon your affliction as a light affliction, which is but for a moment and worketh for us an eternal and exceeding weight of glory. You can only look upon it as something that is doing nothing.
May the Lord help us, then, in this matter of living faith. May I end where we began?
Have faith in God.
Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed,
and say to this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea;
it shall be done; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Shall we pray?
Now, Lord, we just very simply bow in Thy presence, and we ask that the Spirit of faith Himself will come upon us all, causing that little grain of living faith, buried in many of our hearts for some time—inoperative, ineffective, bypassed, ignored—causing that little grain of living faith which Thou hast given us to be renewed.
O Lord, help us, we pray, to begin to walk by faith and not by sight. Help us, Lord, that we might live on the principle of faith.
O Lord, give us a vision of the Lord Jesus, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith. Lord, many of us have had beginning faith, and we thank Thee for that, Lord. Now we need finishing faith.
Give us the kind of faith, Lord, that will go right through to the end—finish the course, fulfil the ministry, come to Thy end, Lord, for us individually and for us corporately.
We ask it all in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.