I would like to read some words together, first in the second letter of the apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians, chapter 11, from verse 1.
Would that ye could bear with me in a little foolishness: but indeed ye do bear with me.
For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ.
The burden on my heart has to do with our relationship to the Lord Jesus in these last days. It seems to me that, as we move into the last era or phase of world history, the enemy is going to try to do every single thing to corrupt believers, to compromise believers, and to alienate believers—not only from the Lord, but from one another.
The end or goal of all our service, all our work, and all church life is that we should be presented at the end as a pure virgin to Christ. If that does not happen, then our service has failed, our church life has failed, and our knowledge of the Scriptures has failed. Everything has proved to be faulty.
Because the end of the Lord is that you and I should be finally wed to the Lamb. So the goal of all the ministries, all our fellowship, all our work and service, is this matter of being presented to our Lord Jesus as a pure virgin.
It is interesting to me: two words, simplicity and purity. The apostle says that he is so afraid for these believers at Corinth that the enemy should corrupt their minds from the simplicity and purity which is toward Christ.
In other words, this literal translation—this simplicity which is toward Christ, this purity which is toward Christ—is something to do with a relationship to Him: an intimate, real, living relationship toward Him. We can never have that relationship unless there is a simplicity about us.
Now, this simplicity does not necessarily mean that we are puritanical, in the sense that we are severe. What it means is singleness. The Greek word is a word that means “single”; it is the opposite to the word “double.”
It means that there should be a singleness of heart and vision. That is the simplicity. It is not just a question of our way of life, our dress, or these kinds of things. They may be symptomatic, but that is not the real issue.
The real issue is whether you and I have a singleness of heart and mind which is toward the Lord Jesus all the time—which keeps us toward the Lord Jesus all the time. Because it is a singleness of heart and mind, it turns us all the time toward Him. He is kept in our minds; He is kept in our vision all the time.
Another word for this is unaffectedness. How many Christians are affected? They have an affectation. They project an image that they feel would be pleasing to the rest, but it is not the real person.
Most of us, given a year or two in Christ, become affected people. We are no longer those unaffected, real people we were when we were saved. The most delightful thing in any fellowship is when folks get saved, because when people first get saved, they are totally real and totally unaffected.
They say the most outrageous things—not out of malice, but simply because they are unaffected. Of course, we would not dream of saying things like that later. We may still think them and feel them, but now we know how to present a picture of what we think is acceptable to everybody.
This simplicity is an unaffectedness: no affectation, real and genuine. And this purity is a purity from defilement—an uncontaminated spirit.
Now, I have one or two matters to do with the relationship to the Lord Jesus that I would like, by the grace of God, to communicate to you. I wish we could cover all the various and important aspects of relationship to the Lord Jesus, but I am trusting the Holy Spirit to kindle in my heart those particular aspects that will supplement some of the things already said and, as it were, keep our hearts focused on Him.
I want to begin this morning by speaking about a relationship to the Lord Jesus as our covering.
I would like to read a few more Scriptures, if I may. In this second Corinthian letter, chapter 5, verse 21:
Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Now I read that again:
Him who knew no sin, He—that is, God—made to be sin for us, or on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Turn to the Old Testament, to Isaiah, chapter 53, from verses 4 to 6:
Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows;
Yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way;
And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
And then back to the New Testament, Romans chapter 8. I will read the first four verses, and then from verse 31.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
That the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. That is covering. Let me read it again: there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth;
Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, Who is at the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Even as it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Heavenly Father, we want very simply to recognize in Your presence that without the ministry of Your Holy Spirit, our words will be of no avail. We thank You, Heavenly Lord, that You have said Yourself, “The Spirit of truth shall lead you into all the truth.”
We want, Lord, speaker and hearer alike, to thank You for the anointing which is ours in our Lord Jesus. We take it by faith this morning. Will You grant, Lord, that our time shall be an anointed time, so that Your word comes to dwell in us richly in all wisdom and knowledge? We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I have said that I want to speak about the inward knowledge of Christ as our covering. I have used the word covering because I wanted, for a moment, to get away from some of the more theological words we use: justification, being clothed with righteousness, or atonement.
In actual fact, in Hebrew, the word atonement—Kippurim—means covering. It just means covering. The Day of Atonement is the day of covering. When an animal was sacrificed for atonement, it was for covering: for the covering of our sins, that we might come into the presence of God.
These marvellous Scriptures underline the necessity of knowing the Lord Jesus as our covering, as our justification. This matter is so often relegated to the kindergarten spiritually. Christians tend to think, “Well, what do we want to talk about this for? We all know this. We are converted. We are saved. We all know Jesus is our covering. This is kindergarten business. This is superficial.”
My dear friends, there could be nothing more untrue. Nothing will lead into greater error than considering that the matter of Christ as our covering is kindergarten. It is foundational.
Now, that is a very different matter. It may be elementary, but it is foundational. In other words, every single thing in the Christian life—in our salvation, in our service, and in our church life—is founded on the simple fact of the finished work of the Lord Jesus: that He is our covering.
When we have this mentality that this matter is a kindergarten matter, we tend never to consider it. We go on to what we call the deeper things: what it means to be crucified with Christ, to know the indwelling of Christ, to be disciplined by the Lord, to serve the Lord, to be the church of God, to be built together as living stones, and to worship the Lord.
But because we consider the matter of Christ as our covering to be kindergarten, we have a fatal weakness right at the heart of our whole life, whether it is personal or corporate. And the enemy knows it.
He will come at us with all kinds of condemnation, raking up the past and bringing before us weaknesses and failings, past or present. In some cases, it gets to such a state that people think of it as future.
There are people who are bound by a future guilt complex. “Although I am going to fail. I know I am going to fail. I am so unworthy; I just know that I am going to fail the Lord.” So they will not do anything. They will never worship, contribute, participate, or expose themselves to their brothers and sisters, because they are sure they are going to fail anyway.
My dear friends, I am now old enough in the Lord and have travelled far enough, I think, at least in Christian work and in the circles of believers, to know one thing: this company here today, I have no doubt, is filled with guilt complexes.
I have no doubt that if we were absolutely honest, there is almost a guilt complex to every individual in this assembly. There are skeletons in the cupboard—locked up in the cupboard, never brought out, obviously—but they are there. Skeletons in the cupboard. And they haunt us.
It is this matter that brings a sense of unworthiness all the time, a shadow over our relationship with the Lord and our relationship with one another.
That is why I say: to know Christ as our justification, to know Christ as our covering, to know Christ as our garment of righteousness, and to know what it is to abide in Him—that is foundational. It is vitally necessary to each one of us and to the church.
To know Christ as the One through Whom we are justified—that is, the One through Whom it is just as if we never sinned; to know Him as the One in Whom we are covered completely, not partially, completely—past, present, and future.
To know Him as the One through Whom we are clothed, in such a way that we can come into the presence of God without self-consciousness: spontaneously, joyfully, reverently, and know in our heart the Spirit of God shed abroad, crying, “Abba, Father.”
To know Christ as the One through Whose work we are made the righteousness of God. You know, I think it is an incredible statement when you really sit down and think about it:
Him Who knew no sin, God made to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Have you ever thought about that? Him Who knew no sin, God made to be sin for us—not just made to be the One Who bore away the sin, but made Him sin for us—that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Can you believe it? Listen to it again. It is better than my preaching:
Him Who knew no sin, God made to be sin for us, that we—you and I—might become God’s righteousness, divine righteousness, in Him.
It blows the mind. If it were not the word of God, we would think it some strange cultic teaching. “It cannot be true,” we would say. Does it really say that the Lord Jesus was made to be sin for us, that we might become God’s righteousness in Him?
How can it be so? But that is what the word says.
He was wounded for our transgressions;
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement of our peace was upon Him;
And with His stripes we are healed.
The chastisement of our peace: guilt complexes, skeletons in the cupboard, accusations, condemnation, shadows from the past—no peace in the conscience. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned every one to his own way;
And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Not just the sin, not just the transgression, but the abomination of evil—the most depraved, the most vile, the most filthy sin and transgression. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
That is why the apostle said, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” Who is he that condemns? Who can lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is Christ Who died—yea rather, Who was raised again—Who is at the right hand of God, Who ever lives to make intercession for us.
Oh, my dear friends, to know Christ in this way is all-important. I do not believe any of us are going to come through these last days unless you and I know inwardly, deeply, and ever more fully Christ as our covering.
The enemy will find out something that he will trip us up with, something that he will besmirch us with, something that he will run a sword right through us with. This is not kindergarten business.
This is what Paul meant when he said at the end of that Ephesian letter:
Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
There is a covering. It can protect us. Do not relegate this to evangelistic meetings. This is a gospel in which the whole counsel of God is contained, and which every believer needs to hear again and again and again and again.
In Christ—what a glorious position! I remember years ago, when I was young in the Lord, one of the first times I ever heard that beloved servant of God, T. Austin-Sparks. He said, “The whole New Testament is summed up in this little phrase: in Christ.”
That is where you and I are. If you and I have been saved by the grace of God, if you and I have been born of the Spirit of God, if we have been justified through the finished work of the Lord Jesus, we are, by God’s positioning, in Christ.
Not just related to Him somewhere up there—we are in Him. That is our sphere. That is our realm. That is why the Lord Jesus said again and again and again, “Abide in Me,” or, “Remain in Me.” “Remain in Me.” That is where your place is. Do not get out. Stay where you have been placed. “Abide in Me, and I in you.”
In these last days, we need to know the Lord Jesus in this way. If you and I are going to overcome by the grace of God and stand at last in His presence, it will only be through the blood of the Lamb.
That is what John saw in those great apocalyptic visions in Revelation. He saw Satan, the great accuser of the brethren, cast down upon the earth because his time was short, going everywhere accusing, accusing, accusing, accusing.
Do you think that you and I are going to stand up to him with our pathetic righteousnesses? Do you think that we can stand up to him and say, “Well, I am a devoted believer”? He will see to it that we come up against other believers who rob us of our devotion.
“Oh, but I am this; I am that.” The enemy will see to it that our circumstances rob us of all joy, all power, and all freedom of action. He has very little time.
And then come these wonderful words:
They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb.
That does not just mean shouting, or using the phrase “the blood of Jesus” as some kind of charm. I have heard people say, “Blood of Jesus, blood of Jesus, blood of Jesus,” as if that is going to do anything—a kind of Christian Hinduism or Buddhism. It is nonsensical. It is superstition.
What does it mean, “They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb”? It means that when they spoke out the words, “the blood of the Lamb,” they understood that it was the finished work of the Lord Jesus.
They understood at least something of what He had done for them: that He was their covering. Every accusation of the enemy found its target in the Lord Jesus, for He was made sin for them. He was the One Who bore their sins and their transgressions.
All their iniquity was on Him, so every accusation found its target in the Lord Jesus, for He had taken their place. He became the focal point for enemy accusation and condemnation.
Those dear believers had become the righteousness of God in Christ, so that with the shield of faith every fiery dart of the evil one was deflected. It never found its mark.
How few people understand the work of the Lord Jesus. I think one of the greatest sadnesses amongst believers today is that so few of us understand the finished work of the Lord Jesus.
I would just like to take a few Scriptures. That is all I will do. I will take a few Scriptures that I believe are probably known to everyone in this place, or nearly everyone, and I just want to underline them. I pray that the Spirit of God will lead us to the heart of this matter through these statements of God’s word.
Dear friends, in that consciousness I can tell you that Christ is your covering. I can tell you that He was made sin for you on your behalf. I can tell you that, if you have believed in the Lord and trusted in the Lord, you have been made the righteousness of God in Him.
But, my dear friends, I know very well that it can remain mere theology or theory. Only the Holy Spirit can free your heart and your mind from guilt complexes. They are so insidious. Like an octopus, they have at least eight arms, every one wrapped around some part of you.
The only word that I know of which can free a person from those skeletons in the cupboard, those shadows from the past, and those guilt complexes which bind us so terribly, is the truth.
Jesus put it very simply:
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
That is, when the Holy Spirit takes the truth and suddenly opens the eyes of your heart so that you see, in that moment you are freed. Those guilt complexes, those skeletons in the cupboard, and those shadows will never have the same power again. They are gone.
Here is the first Scripture. You know it so well I hardly need turn you to it: John 1:29.
Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.
This was the declaration of John the Baptist when he saw Jesus, when he saw the Spirit of God coming down upon Him, and when he understood by that Holy Spirit coming down in the form of a dove that Jesus was the sacrifice of God for sin.
In that moment he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, Who beareth away the sin of the world,” or, “Who taketh away the sin of the world.”
Now, I think all of you know there is nothing more beautiful than a lamb. Is there any small creature in the world that symbolizes something more cuddly, more innocent, more pure, more sweet, more fresh, more new than a lamb?
I mean, I think a baby horse is a beautiful creature, but somehow a baby horse is not quite cuddly like a baby lamb. Now, I know I am speaking from a disadvantage because you do not really have so many sheep in the United States. I do not know what it is—you breed everything; you go for beef.
When I was in New Zealand, I had never seen so many sheep in all my life. I think there must have been hundreds to every inhabitant. They were everywhere. Britain is a country of sheep, especially Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. Of course, Israel is a country of sheep too. I am used to sheep.
There is nothing more cuddly than a lamb. A baby goat is not cuddly in the same way. A baby goat is very intelligent, but he is not cuddly. A little lamb is one of the most beautiful things. It just makes you realize how wonderful God is.
How He ever thought these creatures out, I do not know. I often think how marvellous it is to know the Lord—that Someone could create things. When you think of an alligator and then think of a lamb, and God created them both; then I think of a hippopotamus. I cannot think of anybody who could create a hippopotamus without humour.
Even a camel—I once heard a camel described as a horse put together by a committee. That is rather unfair, because the camel is a most remarkable creature. A baby camel is a very beautiful thing.
But there is nothing in the world that so symbolizes purity, innocence, sinlessness, harmlessness, and the absence of evil as a lamb.
Behold, the Lamb of God,
That taketh away the sin of the world.
The word in Greek is not “Behold, the ram of God”—a good, large, old sheep—but a lamb. It represents the sinlessness of Christ, His virgin purity, and the fact that He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.
In the whole of His thirty years, they could not bring one single charge against Him. His enemies and antagonists could not bring up one single thing from thirty years of life. He was without sin.
If you turn in the same Gospel to John 3:14, we read these words:
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up;
That whosoever believeth may in Him have eternal life.
My dear friend, there is nothing in the whole world more different to a lamb than a snake. I know there are some people who like snakes. I know people who keep them. I personally would never be able to keep a snake. It would take a miracle of grace for me.
I was with a group a little while ago, and we went to what they called a serpentarium. I was amazed at these dear, some of them old white-haired sisters. They wanted to stroke these snakes. When the keeper took out violently poisonous ones from the desert and held them, they said, “Can we touch them?”
For me, it is going to be a marvellous thing when, one day in the world to come, the child plays with the adder and sits around the viper’s nest. I think that is an amazing thing. But for now, there is nothing in this whole world more different to a lamb than a snake.
The way a snake moves, the way that awful little forked tongue comes out, the way it eyes you—there is nothing more unlike a lamb in the whole world than a snake.
Now, do you not think that perhaps John has made a mistake? He said, “Behold, the Lamb of God Who beareth away the sin of the world.” Later John the writer says, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.” What did he mean?
He meant this: the Lamb had to become the serpent lifted up. Something had to happen to the purity, innocence, and beauty of the Lamb, whereby He became, as it were, the uplifted serpent for salvation.
When Jesus was made sin for us, it was not merely that, as the Lamb, He took that sin upon Himself. He took the very poison that has entered into the bloodstream of mankind, which has resulted in all the murder, strife, wickedness, immorality, and unhappiness of world history.
He took that poison which is in the bloodstream of mankind right into Himself. And in the sight of God, the Lamb became the serpent.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned every one to his own way;
And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
In Hebrew, the word means “has caused to gather.” He has caused to gather upon Him the iniquity of us all.
Not just something superficial. Dear friends, do not get displeased—not just something superficial. That is why people treat the matter of their salvation in such a familiar way. They think that Jesus just, in a skin-deep way, put their sin upon Himself and passed it over.
My friends, your sin and mine entered into the very being of our Lord Jesus, and the Lamb became the uplifted serpent.
So I give you the next Scripture. It is in Mark 14:27:
I will smite the shepherd.
Isaiah prophesied:
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him;
He hath put Him to grief.
When Jesus took your sin and my sin into Himself, when He took the poison—not just the things, not only the penalty of the things, but the actual spirit of the whole thing—into Himself, God struck Him. God struck His own Son.
I will smite the Shepherd.
It pleased the Lord to bruise Him, to crush Him, to put Him to grief.
Are you ready for the next Scripture? Mark 15:34. In that moment, for the first time in all His being—I do not mean His life from Bethlehem, but for the first time in all His being as God the Son—Jesus knew what it was to be alienated from His Father:
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
Jesus passed into darkness. Nobody will ever fathom what happened—nobody, not in all of eternity. Only the Father and the Spirit know what Jesus went through.
It is as if He passed out of our sight into a darkness that He had never known. It was this darkness which, in the garden of Gethsemane, when the devil brought it before His vision, caused Him to say, “If this cup can pass from Me.”
My dear friends, it was not the physical torture. If it were, then Jesus was, may I say it, a coward; for there are many saints who have suffered far more physical torture than Jesus did: a few hours before the cross and six hours upon it.
My friends, I know people who have suffered dying three days on the cross. I know people who have been tortured and tortured and tortured until not a bone in their body was unbroken. Is that what Jesus meant, “Let this cup pass from Me”? No, my friends.
That was not what troubled the Lord Jesus. It was the fact that He was going to become the serpent, that the Lamb was going to become the serpent, that the Father would strike Him, and that He would pass out into darkness where no one would be able to understand.
So great was the darkness that even the sun was darkened. People stupidly say that was an eclipse. My dear friend, there has never been an eclipse as long as that. There is no way it was an eclipse.
Because, as the apostle said yesterday, all things hold together in Him. When God made His Son to be sin for us, it was as if something happened in the actual physical universe and the light, for a moment, failed.
Did you know that Jesus did this for you? It says in Hebrews:
He tasted death for every man.
Now, I think that is an amazing statement, because it does not say He tasted death for man. We just think, “Oh, Jesus had a few hours on the cross. Because He was God, He did not suffer that much. Because He was God, He could bear it. We could not have done it, but He did it because He was God.”
We think He just tasted death for man. Does it say that? No. And it does not say He tasted death for all men. It says He tasted death for every man.
That is, He tasted spiritual death for every single human being, condensed within those six hours on the cross. With all the sin of world history, all the personal sin, the national sins, the racial sins—every kind of sin—He tasted it.
And God smote Him. For you. That is what you should have borne. It is what I should have borne. But He bore it.
Now, my dear friends, are you ready for the last Scripture? It is in John 19:30. It is perhaps the shortest one of all. I think everyone here knows it.
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit.
The other Gospels say He cried with a loud shout, bowed His head, and died. John tells us that shout was a word. He was near enough to the cross to hear it:
It is finished.
Not, “I am finished.” Not, “My expectations are finished.” But, “It is finished.”
Matthew says that in that moment the veil of the temple—that great veil, which was so many hands thick—was rent from top to bottom, and the way into the holiest place of all was opened.
What was finished? Your sin. What was finished? The work of your salvation. What was finished? The right for you to have a legal, an eternally legitimate, foundation in the presence of God.
Now, my dear friend, are you going to tell me that you are an exception to this, and that God is going to despise the work of His Son and the suffering of His Son, and He is still going to rake up sins in your life? Do you really believe that?
I am not saying you can live in sin. Get it clear on this: I am not saying you can live in sin. But what I am saying is this: I cannot believe that the Lord Jesus, Who died for you, never lives to make intercession.
When the enemy comes to God and says, “What about this? What about that? What about the other? What about this man, Your servant’s life?” I do not believe God is going to say, “Oh, yes. Yes, all right.”
Jesus is there. He intercedes. He says, “Father, that man—remember, I bore their sin.”
Him Who knew no sin God made to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Oh, listen to the words. I sometimes think the Old Testament is more evangelical than the New:
I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions.
Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
Most of us imagine that somewhere in the kingdom of God there is a kind of register, and in the register are recorded all the crimes, sins, failings, weaknesses, and everything else we have ever done. They are forgiven, but they are still there.
They are forgiven, but if God wanted to, He could rake the thing up and say, “Well now, look, do you not remember?” It is not true, my dear friend. It is not true.
There is a register. It is a register of all the crimes, wickednesses, iniquity, and sin that you can imagine, and on the cover it says, “Jesus.”
And if there is any register for you, your name has got the righteousness of Christ. That is how God sees you.
Oh, my dear friends, is there any way you and I are going to come through in these days that lie ahead? We shall never be presented to Christ as a pure virgin unless we are one hundred percent clear on our justification.
The enemy is going to knock us out. He may wait years, but he will knock you out in the end unless we are one hundred percent clear on this matter of justification.
May I say something else? Nobody will ever be unaffected unless they understand their justification. You see, all this affectation is because we are insecure. We are not really sure that we are accepted for what we are.
So we try to project an image that will be acceptable to one another and to God. Have you ever noticed in prayer meetings? I always think prayer is the best way of gauging it. Now, that will frighten some of you to death, but prayer meetings are the best way of gauging someone’s spiritual temperature, or even a fellowship’s spiritual temperature.
You see these great big men who have voices like foghorns, and when they get into prayer, you cannot hear a word they say. I cannot believe it.
You see some of these girls who could, honestly, we say, talk like fishwives—voices that could be heard down at the James River. But when they get into the prayer meeting, they are all so weak and sweet. You would not believe it, would you?
They have got the idea that if they project an image, God will say, “Oh, what a humble brother. What a humble brother. Listen how quiet he is. What a broken sister.”
You see, we have got some idea that we are not really accepted by God. Therefore, we have to project something. We are affected.
My dear friend, it is only a real, inward understanding of Christ as our covering that means that for the first time you and I can become real people. We can be unaffected. We can be open, even, if I may say so, with our weaknesses and failures and thoughts which need correction and discipline and everything else.
But we can still come into the presence of God unaffected, because we know He has saved us. We have a foundation under our feet when we understand the justification that is ours in Christ.
The Holy Spirit cannot even deal with us safely if we are not clear on the matter of justification. He cannot expose our need, break us, or discipline us with safety if we are not clear on justification.
For once the Holy Spirit begins to bring out the real depravity of our nature and the real needs that are within us, we would go to pieces because we think God will forsake us.
But if God is going to do something in you and me, He has to start to uncover what we really are. He cannot do that if we are not clear on Christ as our covering.
It is this very knowledge of ourselves that drives us to the Lord. The dear apostle began by speaking of himself as the least of the saints, but in his last letter spoke of himself as the chief of sinners. The further he went on with the Lord, the more he knew how rough he was, but he went on because he knew Christ as his covering.
So, my dear friends, we must finish with this: this sense of sin, this sense of weakness due to imperfection, this sense of failing, this sense of unworthiness, or this sense of inadequacy—these are the things the enemy will trip us up with unless you and I know Christ as our covering.
That is the only way we shall overcome. Thank God for the Lord Jesus.
I pray that God may open your eyes to see in a way you have never seen before what Jesus did for you on the cross. May it burn into your spirit in such a way that it becomes the foundation of your life: for the discipline of God in your life, for the work of the cross in your life, for the power of the Holy Spirit in your life, for your service, and for the work God gives you to do.
May it become the foundation for your fellowship with other believers and your participation in the life of the church. May God grant that we may all overcome.