We want to turn first in the Old Testament to the book of Isaiah. I just want to read a few verses in Isaiah 6.
In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up,
And His train filled the temple.
Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings; with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
And one called out to another and said,
Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory.
On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen.
All day and all night they will never keep silent.
You who are the Lord’s remembrancers,
Take no rest for yourselves and give Him no rest,
Until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.
Therefore, I will always be ready to put you in remembrance of these things, even though you already know them and have been established in the truth which is present with you.
I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of remembrance,
Knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.
And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you will be able to call these things to remembrance.For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory: “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.
But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.
For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent.
You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.
Also, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules.
The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops.Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel.
Our Father, we come to You in the name of our precious Lord Jesus. We thank You for all of these testimonies and Scriptures of remembrancers who, despite circumstances, remembered their Lord.
We ask that in this day, in this desperate hour, You would raise up remembrancers to link us to a moment when You choose to remember Your people and revive us again.
Lord, we come to You. How desperately we need You. For myself tonight in speaking, only hollow words unless Your Spirit speaks them; and for everyone sitting here, only a sleepy sound unless You quicken hearts to hear what the Spirit would say to the churches.
And so we depend upon Thee and come to You, remembering You. In the name of our precious Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.
This passage we read in Isaiah 62 finds Isaiah, a man of at least seventy years old, who should be in retirement from his life as a prophet. But there he is up on the wall, appointed by God Himself, by the Messiah, to be up on the wall as the Lord’s remembrancer, along with others who feared the Lord and remembered His glory.
Isaiah’s vision of the glory of the Lord went back more than fifty years. Now, as an old man, he is on that wall, reminding the Lord, bringing to remembrance that glory, bringing to remembrance something else he has seen over the years.
For after being transfixed by a vision of the glory of the Lord, since that time he had also seen the glory of Zion. And he would not be silent. He wanted the glory of God to come down to the glory of Zion, and he would not be quiet until that took place.
And so our brother remained on the wall until he was martyred, as most believe happened to him, for his faithful prophecies.
Timothy stands before us as another brother standing on the wall. He also stands, much like you and I, wondering if he will be faithful to this charge given to him.
He stands before the testimony of Paul’s life. It is not even that Paul has to say anything, because Timothy has seen this man pursuing and pressing on toward the mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. He has seen it.
And now, just about the time that Paul is ready to be martyred, he passes a torch on to Timothy and says, “It is yours to carry.” Oh, my goodness. How to pursue? How could anybody possibly be like the Apostle Paul?
But indeed, unless young Timothy can find the grace of the Lord, as it says in 2 Timothy 2:1, and be strong in the grace of the Lord Himself—in a firsthand encounter of resurrection life—he will not make it through faithfully. And Paul is exhorting him as a father to a son.
So he presents to Timothy four pictures of what this pursuit toward the mark is all about.
The first, I believe, is a picture of the marathon runner. Now, in ancient days, those marathon runners had a torch. They had to run so many miles and pass it on to the next.
Paul starts out by saying, “Timothy, I want you to be a link of testimony. I want you to take the things you have received of me, take that torch and run, and hand it over to faithful men who will hand it over to faithful men.”
There are four runners in that race. It is effort, it is faithfulness, and it is holding a testimony, sometimes in a dark place.
Timothy, I want you to know that this pursuit, this passion, involves suffering as a soldier who has laid aside personal pleasures, who has foregone getting his big flat-panel television because he is in a tent, because it is time to fight, because it is time to be faithful, and because he wants to please the general who called him into service.
Timothy, this passion and pursuit is an athletic contest, and unless you follow the rules of holiness, do not think you can make the crown and the prize. There are rules. There are disciplines. You must be faithful.
And as a farmer, be patient, be patient, be patient, and you will receive the reward. Now, dear Timothy, my son, listen to what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in these things.
And then he says, “Remember Jesus Christ.”
Now, does that not sound strange? I mean, Timothy is a servant of God. Why would Paul even say that: “Remember Jesus Christ”?
Well, some Bible scholars say that all he is saying is simply this: the Lord Jesus ran this kind of route. He was moving toward the prize for the joy set before Him, and He went through such suffering, such discipline, and such self-denial. So you do the same. Remember Jesus Christ did it; you do the same.
And, you know, brothers and sisters, that should be enough for us. Just to remember what our Lord did for us should give us the faith to take hold of His grace and be faithful in that path.
My wife and I have been reading recently some excerpts from the life of C. T. Studd, the famous missionary to China, India, and then Africa. His motto was, “If Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice I can make is too great for my Lord.”
That is it right there. Jesus went this way; I go this way. What a wonderful, objective man of faith this dear missionary was.
By the way, I have also been reading some regarding the Moravians, as I made a little reference to the other night. We know of Count Zinzendorf being transfixed by that famous picture in Düsseldorf: “This I have done for you. What have you done for Me?”
But another interesting note, something that grabbed hold of his life for the remainder of his life, happened when he was sixteen years old. He formed a club with others who loved the Lord, called the Order of the Mustard Seed.
With these young boys, they prayed that they might live holy lives. They also prayed, because they were all lords—young men of wealth and means—that even though they would have to be lords of the manor, they would spend their money to send missionaries out into the world. They had this purpose in their hearts.
But there was a saying underneath the face of Jesus on the little badge of the Order of the Mustard Seed:
His wounds,
Our healing.
Just as C. T. Studd, in the most objective way, followed Christ even in his sufferings, Count Zinzendorf understood something we might call mystical in this. Now, he did not have our brother Stephen Kaung to differentiate for him the difference between vicarious suffering and non-vicarious suffering.
But if you read the sermons of Count Zinzendorf, this comes up time and time again in his messages to the saints: we must sacrifice our lives. And here is how we do it: “His wounds, the healing of the world.”
We must abide in the wounds of Jesus. That is the way he put it. Hide yourself in the wounds of Jesus. Sacrifice your life just as Jesus did. Be wounded for the sake of the Lord, and others will be saved.
That was their motto as they went out as missionaries. That is why they sold themselves into slavery, because they understood there was this abiding in the wounds of Jesus. We do not talk like that anymore, but it was abiding in His wounds that would cause the healing of others. So they always had this desire to sacrifice their lives.
Remember Jesus Christ.
But there is, of course, something more here, and we learned it this morning from our dear brother Stephen. If you notice verse 8 again in 2 Timothy 2, it says:
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel.
Paul must certainly mean, “Timothy, you remember Jesus Christ. You have known the power of His resurrection. You have known how to live in resurrection life.”
Now, do you hear all this suffering before you? This battle before you, this marathon race before you, this athletic contest before you, this sowing of seed before you—all of the toil. Do you hear all of this? Remember: you know the resurrected Jesus. You know what it means to live by His life.
Lay hold, by the grace of God, of the life of Jesus Christ, and be a faithful soldier in this time. Remember Jesus Christ.
I spoke the first time on the fact that when man remembers Jesus Christ, then our God, our sovereign God, chooses to remember us.
For Christians, perhaps this sounds anticlimactic. But when we remember the Lord, our Father remembers us by giving us Jesus Christ.
Once it was the blessing; now it is the Lord. “Oh Lord, remember me. O Lord, I stand here in the name of Jesus. I stand to be a testimony of Jesus. I stand asking for Your help.” And the Father gives us Jesus.
The Father remembers the remembrancers, and it is for us to remember Jesus Christ.
Now, we know as Paul writes these things, many of his fellow servants are no longer remembering but are going away from the Lord. The Lord is saying, “Timothy, be faithful. Remember Jesus Christ.”
Jesus Christ come in the flesh is God’s remembering in mercy. Did He not remember the world when He sent His only begotten Son?
Did He not remember Adam when He sent the Seed that would be bruised and healed, but would crush the head of the enemy? He was remembering Abraham when He sent the Seed to be the father of faith to all who have faith in Christ.
He remembered David when He brought the Messiah to set up the kingdom forever and ever. So He has remembered even the nations. He has remembered Israel by the sending of Jesus.
Jesus is the Lord’s mercy to us in our desperation.
Now tonight, if we only knew how soon the Lord’s coming was and how desperate the times were, I suppose we would all think we would be on the walls as the Lord’s remembrancers.
But we find that even in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus said, “Please watch and pray with Me,” they could not. And so it is true today: many people seem asleep in a very desperate time.
It looks like things are going well on the surface in many places. But if we only really knew how close things were, how desperate things were, there would be people up on the walls.
As a matter of fact, one of the signs that the Lord is about to do something is that we find people up on the wall, the Lord’s remembrancers, who night and day are calling out for God to revive, for God to recover, for Jesus to come back.
Some are old, like Isaiah. Many years they have been faithful. There are some dear saints who are old and physically enfeebled, and they are still up on that wall, crying out day and night. Surely the Lord will remember these prayers.
But we also want to speak here tonight to those of you who are young and those of you who are middle-aged. The Lord wants us all on the wall. If you understood what it means to be the Lord’s remembrancers, you would understand the high calling of this time: to be up on the wall.
But, you see, we must have something we remember. If we have no spiritual experience, what can we remember? If we are to get up on the wall and remind the Lord, what can we remind Him if we do not know?
And so I have just asked these questions as a means of fellowshipping.
How can you remember if you have never seen the first gaze of the Lord of glory? How can you remember the Lord if you have never known that first love?
How can you remember and be a remembrancer if you have never known that first life together under an open heaven?
These are the questions I have presented before us because the Lord wants remembrancers, but there is need for spiritual history. There is need for those who say, “I know Him in the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.” Those are remembrancers.
Now first, I would like us to go back to the section in 2 Peter. Here, I am sure you noticed in the Scriptures that we read, Peter is pressing upon the saints to stir them to remembrance.
It is especially powerful in light of the fact that he says, “The Lord Jesus has told me that my life will soon be over.” Peter is no longer messing around. What he is saying is of greatest value to him.
He says, “Could I put you in remembrance?” Actually, in 2 Peter 1:12, 13, and 15, he mentions this matter three times. First as a verb: “I want to put you in remembrance.” Then, “to stir you up by way of remembrance.” And then, “after I go, you will be a remembrancer.”
Then, if you look in 2 Peter 3:1:
This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you, in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of remembrance.
There is something Peter wants us to remember, something of vital importance. Well, what is it? It is all about the race.
What he is calling them into remembrance is this: “I want you to be growing in your spiritual life. I want you to be attaining in your spiritual life. You have received many precious promises, and you can become partakers of the divine nature. But there is a need for adding. There is a need for increase.”
He lists these things beginning in 2 Peter 1:5: faith, moral excellence, knowledge, and so on.
Then he says in 2 Peter 1:8:
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And in 2 Peter 1:10-11:
Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble;
For in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.
Now, I want to remind you that there is a wonderful reward, an abundant entrance into the kingdom, waiting for you. But there are conditions.
What are the conditions? Well, basically, it comes down to this: is there increase in your pursuit? Add to this, add to this. Is there increase? If these things are increasing, you will be a useful servant, but you will also be attaining to that abundant entrance into the kingdom.
Listen, dear brother and sister, if your life is adding spiritually, you have no worries. You will not stumble. If you are adding, if you are adding, this is Peter’s wonderful promise to the saints.
As Peter brings them into remembrance of these things, we see how he moves into the first time he saw the Lord of glory.
It is connected with this pursuit, because the idea is that if we are pursuing to glory, we must see the goal in glory in order to come there. Have you seen the Lord of glory?
Peter is saying, “Dear brothers and sisters, I am about ready to go home, and my departure is near. You see me: I am still adding. I am still learning brotherly love, love, faith, diligence, moral excellence. I am still adding and increasing in these things. My departure is near, but I want to give you the clue.”
“The pursuit began when I saw the Lord of glory up there on the mountain. I saw the majesty, and I heard an utterance from the Majestic Glory: ‘This is My beloved Son.’”
Peter could have mentioned the time that he saw Jesus and knew that He was the Messiah at Caesarea Philippi, but he did not mention that. Or he could have mentioned the times he saw Jesus the healer or Jesus the teacher. All those things he spoke about, and Mark wrote down, and we have the Gospel of Mark. That is Peter’s testimony of the earthly life of Jesus.
But it is as if Peter is saying that when it comes to attaining to glory and this upward call, it necessitates us seeing the Lord of glory: the goal, the end, the One that spoils us, the One that gives us the desire to go on.
When Paul said to Timothy, “Remember Jesus Christ,” it is as if Paul said, “Do not remember your ministry. Do not remember me. Do not remember your gifts. Do not even remember your reward. Just remember Him.”
If you get your eyes fixed on Him, then even if your ministry is a failure, you will still press on. Even if everything you have tried to do collapses, it is okay. You will not get bitter; you will press on because you have the goal. Remember Jesus Christ.
Peter says, “I am on this way. I am waiting for abundant entrance into the kingdom. And I tell you, I remember. I remember when I saw the majesty.”
“Oh, I had known Jesus. I had walked with Him. I had talked with Him. He had corrected me. I had made so many mistakes. I saw Him as a man. I saw Him as the Messiah. But, oh, when I saw Him in glory, something happened.”
I am telling you: if you would run this race, you must see the Lord of glory.
We know from the record of the Bible that many of the great saints recorded there were people who saw the Lord of glory: Abraham, Jacob, Isaiah, Job, David, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Gideon, John, Peter, Paul, and Stephen.
Those are twelve superstars. We put them in the hall of fame of the faithful. The one thing they all had in common: they saw the Lord of glory.
You know, we stress vision a lot. This is what we are talking about.
Many people, especially at the Lord’s table, have a precious moment when we take the wine and the bread. In the midst of it, many times we see Jesus the crucified, who died for us. The Lord always wants us to do this in remembrance of Him.
But do we know the glorious One, that Son who has made it to glory and now is bringing us to glory? Have we seen the Lord of glory?
I am going to ask a question and try to answer it as best I can. Is it possible for every Christian to see the Lord of glory on this earth?
When you compare yourself to the Apostle Paul, Job, or Isaiah, you feel, “Well, they got a head start. They saw this kind of supervision, and I have never quite been there. What about me? Is it possible for me to see the Lord of glory?”
That is an honest question, and it deserves an honest answer. Here is the honest answer: absolutely. It is the privilege of every child born of God to see the Lord of glory.
Now, we cannot say in reality that everyone who is God’s child has seen Him. But it is your privilege and your right.
Peter gives us a most wonderful understanding of how we enter in to see the Lord of glory. It is not a matter of sitting up on a mountain sometime, hoping we see a vision. Peter was not expecting a vision that day when he saw the Lord transfigured.
It is not that we need to say, “Lord, I need a mystical experience.” One thing that causes me a little ambiguity is that we have so many songs now talking about standing before Him, seeing His face, and seeing the Lord of glory. We sing, “Oh Lord, I am desperate for You. I want all there is to You. I want to see You every day, in the morning and in the evening.”
No, you do not. If you really got the answer to that prayer, you would be wiped out very quickly. It is too much for man to bear.
There are two things that can happen. Either we get this sentimental notion—and among young people there is a sentimental notion and desire to see the glory of the Lord, which is good, if you translate it into reality—or we may think that singing about it is the experience.
If we think our singing about it is the experience, then we may be short-circuiting something that is a great motive in our life in this matter of pursuing the mark.
How do we see the Lord of glory? After Peter shares his own experience of seeing the majesty on the mountain and hearing an utterance from the Majestic Glory, he goes on to say, “But we have something more sure than that”: the Word of God.
I want to make this absolutely clear because I do not want us to be over-mystical. Some people are great mystics. They love mystical stuff. Some people are very practical, and they always feel a little left out in these mystical meetings.
But I want to declare something that I believe with all my heart: every aspect of spiritual reality that there is to be had can be experienced in a combination of the prophetic, living Word and the Holy Spirit bringing you into reality.
I believe in visions. I am amazed by the stories coming out of the Islamic world now of Jesus appearing and saving people in straightforward visions. It is an amazing thing. I believe in visions, and I believe that God gives even to His children, at some point and perhaps at some time, an actual vision of the Lord of glory. Praise God. We cannot sell the Lord short.
He has so many different ways of showing up. We cannot put Him in a box. But here is the norm: if we lay hold of the Word of God.
Peter says in 2 Peter 1:19:
So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.
If we pay attention to the Word of God—that is, seek God through His Word—the Holy Spirit, who desires more than anything else to reveal the Lord in all His glory and all His largeness, wants to reveal Him. But we need that platform of the Word of God.
I loved what Lance was saying last night when he was talking about gaining the prize. He spoke of what happened when he was newly saved, when suddenly the Word came alive. He started asking questions, and the Lord started talking to him.
That is exactly the way nine out of ten Christians will see the Lord of glory. But you have got to pursue.
Jesus spoke a strange principle: “To him who has, more shall be given, and he shall have an abundance.” If you pursue the Word of God by the Holy Spirit—not merely the letter—you will find the Lord.
I am one of those guys whom the Lord uses as an example of how wrong you can be about knowing the Word of God. I went to cemetery—seminary—and studied the Word of God according to the doctrines of a particular denomination.
I came out with the letter, and I had pretty much mastered it. I even took Hebrew and Greek. I speak as a fool: I had mastered the letter of the Word—which I had not really done; I had just taken a lot of courses on introductory stuff.
Such a joke. But, you know what? By God’s grace, this Word has begun to master me.
C. T. Studd absolutely changed F. B. Meyer’s life. As a young man, F. B. Meyer said, “I want what you have got.”
One morning, he heard C. T. Studd pacing back and forth at four o’clock in the morning. F. B. Meyer said, “What are you doing? Let’s get some sleep.” C. T. Studd said, “I am just checking the Bible to see if there are any commandments the Lord is telling me to do that I have not obeyed yet.”
Now there is a man who saw the glory of the Lord. You cannot wrestle with this Word, with the help of the Holy Spirit, without coming into the Spirit of this Word and the Lord behind the Word. Our Lord is the living Word.
Do not get over-mystical and say, “You know what I have to do? I have to sit in the corner where it is totally dark. I have to look at a picture on a computer for thirty seconds, then close my eyes, and I can see a vision of Jesus.”
What lengths Christians will go to in order to get some bogus vision in front of them. There is all this controversy about what Jesus really looks like, and all this stuff on the internet about how He really looks.
This is what the Lord wants? He wants us so that we can see exactly what color His eyes were and how long His hair was?
You can see the Lord of glory without actually seeing a face or a body. Your spirit sees the Lord of glory when the Spirit of God reveals Him to you.
The Word of God is the normative experience. But there is no limitation to God. Through the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers, saints have met the Lord of glory.
There are saints who were on their knees praying about something, and they saw the Lord of glory. Praise God. I am very thankful tonight that there are two brothers sitting here through whose preaching I first saw the Lord of glory—through anointed preaching.
I always tell people in New York, when they say it is too far to go down to Richmond or out to Farmville, “Listen: as long as the prophetic Word is preached, I am here.” Whether I am speaking or not does not make any difference, because I saw the Lord back when I was thirty years old and had no idea what I was doing.
But in the middle of somebody preaching, I saw the Lord of glory. How can you explain it? By preaching, you can see the Lord—not in the person, but I completely forgot about the person speaking. Something happened in the process.
By fellowship we can enter in, or even in the breaking of bread the Lord can reveal His glory. Do not look for an image of the Lord before your eyes.
But I can tell you there are evidences that you have seen the Lord of glory. Can I give you those evidences?
First, you sense your nothingness, and you sense His immenseness. Have you ever been in such a moment? Maybe it was when you were worshiping.
Suddenly, you became aware of how big the Lord Jesus was, and you were ashamed that your view of Him was so small. You thought He was a little Savior who could barely save you and keep you. Suddenly, He is everything and you are nothing.
But seeing that you are nothing is not the same as seeing that you are a failure. When you really see the Lord, of course you know you are a failure, but it does not make any difference. You are just nothing. So, of course you are a failure—big deal. Look at the immensity of Him.
Those things happen at the same time. You cannot separate that experience.
Two other things happen when somebody is touched by the glory of the Lord. There is a capture.
Hast thou heard Him, seen Him, known Him?
Is that not thine, a captured heart?
When you see the Lord of glory as He really is today—not when He died on the cross, but as He is today, full of glory, with eyes of fire—however the glory comes through, it absolutely captures.
And one other thing: it does a sanctifying work in your life. Something happens, and you cannot be the same scruffy person you were before.
Many young people have already seen the Lord of glory. So unique is this generation the Lord is raising up. I have been with them in youth meetings, and I am telling you, some of them have seen the Lord of glory, and they are only twenty-two years old—or eighteen. What an amazing thing.
It comes through the Word of God made alive by the Holy Spirit, and it comes in many other ways. Leave it to the Lord to reveal Himself to you. But I have news for you: if you are a pursuer, you will find. If you are a seeker, you will find.
Why are you not seeking? Ah, this is the problem.
Peter says in 2 Peter 1:9:
For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.
Here is what happens in so many cases. The enemy wants to set up an obstacle so that you cannot remember the Lord. If you could remember the glory of the Lord, you would be pressing on. But he brings that cataract blindness mentioned so often in the Bible: people who are seeing but not seeing.
This was the problem of the Jews, who, because of the repetition of their ceremonies and practices, came to this kind of blindness. They thought what they were doing was sufficient for the Lord.
The Messiah will have to come and remove the blindness from their eyes. Interestingly, in John 9, where Jesus actually heals a man born blind, first Jesus has to deal with disciples who were blind, and then with Pharisees who were blind.
There is a blindness in our life. There is a shadow where we see Him, but like cataracts, we lose the contrast, the colors, the vividness. We forget what it was like to really see.
That is what happens when you remember the Lord. But you cannot remember the Lord unless the Lord reveals Himself to you and takes off those blinders, because we in ourselves develop these obstacles, these cataracts.
Somehow we have been captured by this Lord of glory, but we wiggle out of captivity. That is why consecration is such an important daily process in our life.
Once we wiggle off the altar, we forget. Those precious young people who have seen something of the glory of the Lord, perhaps in a small way, may have already forgotten it.
And, of course, sin pollutes that holiness without which you cannot see the Lord. Many precious young people are pure of heart, pure morally, and pure in their desire for the Lord. They have seen the glory of the Lord. But then they get involved in compromise, in things we consider marginal problems, and suddenly they cannot see the Lord of glory anymore.
I say that because young people are easy to describe this of, but adults are really suffering badly. Do you remember what it is like to see the Lord of glory with clear eyes, in full technicolor, with nothing between?
Maybe you cannot quite remember. We need to repent.
We rationalize unholy things. Brothers who love the Lord with all their heart get back to drinking a little bit, and then a little bit more, and a little bit more. The next thing you know, something of holiness has been lost.
Entertainment is entertainment, and we cannot say anything bad about entertainment per se. But something gets hold of us, and we get more and more involved in this, that, and the other thing. The next thing you know, something unholy, profane, or common has happened to us, and we lose the Lord of glory.
Do you believe it is that small a thing that can cause blindness? If you have seen the Lord of glory, you know how precious is the vision. You know what a wonderful thrust it is when you see this largeness of God.
If you have a small Christ, you can take hold of Him. But when you really see the Lord as He is, you get lost in infinity. Oh, what a motivation it is to be lost in the infinity. You are moving forward because you have the Lord of glory. You are a remembrancer.
I have to appeal to people, not merely as those who have seen the Lord of glory, but I appeal to you: do you remember the first time you saw the Lord of glory?
Maybe you just saw a little bit. Maybe you felt you had a touch of glory at some moment. You can remember.
But here is the wonderful news: please, brothers and sisters, if you pursue, you receive more. This is not a one-time knockout punch. You see the Lord of glory in 1973, and then He never shows up again.
The whole idea is that He shows as much as you can handle. If you pursue after Him—“Ah, I saw something that spoiled me. I am heading out”—then He shows you some more. You wrestle with the Word some more, and you find Him some more. You wrestle some more, and you find Him some more. He is all over this stuff.
Some of you are bored with the Bible. Do you expect to find the Lord of glory? You need to repent of your attitude about the Word of God. I tell you, it is your way in. Praise God: every Christian can see the Lord of glory. The Holy Spirit will take this and quicken it for you.
But we must pursue.
Maybe we should stop all this praying, “Oh Lord, show us Yourself, show us Yourself.” Sometimes I feel we are sort of like Philip. He said, “Oh Lord, would You please show us the Father?” And the Lord said, “Have I been with you so long?”
We say, “Oh Lord, show us Your glory.” And the Bible opens: “Have I been so long with you?”
“Oh no, I do not want to have to do any work. I want to sit in a stupefied mysticism and just receive some vision.” No, no, no, no, no. The Lord wants to show Himself to all of His children, that we might be remembrancers.
But we have to repent of stuff. You know that stuff in your heart. You know what is wrong, but you are rationalizing about it. Are you going to be a justifier of your wrongs for the rest of your life, or are you going to admit you are wrong and repent?
Say, “I would rather have the Lord of glory than any of my rationalizations.”
There are people who spend a lot of energy rationalizing why the wrong thing they did was right. “Well, I moved to that job. It was the right thing to do. I made more money.” Or was it right?
Now you know it was wrong as you look back. You cannot make any difference anyway, but why not just admit it? Some of you moved right out of fellowship life. You made the wrong move. But if you will not admit it, it is hard to get on to second base.
Why not just admit you make mistakes? We are all going to make these mistakes. So what? The Lord is so large. You know how He has overtaken your mistakes and, by His mercy, turned them around into something good.
But do not justify all the foolishness of your self-serving life. Do not justify it as forgiveness.
“Lord, now, at this late time in my life, I want to be on the wall. I want to remember the Lord of glory. I am a remembrancer. Oh Lord, send Your mercy again to Your children. I am one of the causes of the dissipation. Oh God, forgive me.”
“I am on the wall. You know us. We are just the clay, and You are the potter. God, send Your reviving and recovery to us.”
We need people on the wall who are clear themselves.
Maybe somebody has never seen the glory of the Lord. You have heard of Him, but like Job, you have never seen Him. May you pursue; you will soon find. The Spirit of God wants to lead us into all the truth, but we must run after Him.
He gives us the carrot: you run, and you receive more. You see more. You are captured more. It is easier to run. You have got to get going, young people.
Shame on you if you have let sin ruin the Lord of glory in your life. Shame on you. The Lord has such high things. He wants to bring in something brand new.
Because I shared the other night, I believe the time is for another recovery of God in this world. How the Lord wants to remember. The Lord wants to remember in mercy His people who are suffering in desperation, and yet He has to wait while those on the wall remind Him.
Have we seen, had that first look? Every one of us can enter into this spiritual reality. It is not for mystics and a few; it is for everybody.
Then we come to Revelation 2. We are so familiar with these words.
After the Lord commends the Ephesian brethren for love and faithfulness, the Lord is after so much more. He says, “I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”
We know that the church of Ephesus had first love. They could not have left it if they did not have it. We see in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians that they had it—wonderful, full of love for God, full of love for mankind. What a loving church.
After Paul ministered there, Timothy was sent in and continued to minister there. Even after AD 70, the Apostle John, the apostle of love, went there. What a wonderful church this was. But somewhere, they left it.
The implication has to be that there was something subtle, something gradual, something even unintentional that got in there. Our first love is a very precious thing, but if anything obstructs the heart, we leave first love.
It is subtle. I believe the saints in the Ephesian assembly were devastated when the Lord told them this, because they were serving harder than anybody else. They had more knowledge. They even had more spiritual knowledge, and they were judging false and true with this increased knowledge.
They were fervent in their work, and they had more knowledge. But when the Lord showed up and shone the light on them, He said, “Remember. You remember the first love.” And they had forgotten the first love.
How can you forget the first love? Are we too busy? How does it slip away?
What is first love anyway? This causes a wide range of opinions. We are so sentimental; we are always thinking about love in all kinds of squishy terms.
Emotions have always been a large part of love, including in the days when Revelation was written. But love was expressed more in the will than in emotions: a passion that did the first works, that took up the cross without counting the cost.
That is first love: sacrifice, willingly laying lives down as a sweet aroma, with no strings. First love.
We could use the words used this week: passion, pursuit, affection. I think Paul likes the word devotion.
But can I suggest what my feeling about first love is? Here again, you cannot remember it if you never had it.
I wonder if the Lord, when He talks about first love, is not talking about our first responsive love, but the first time we were truly overwhelmed by the love of God.
For some Christians, that happens at the moment of their new birth. I was so touched as a brand-new Christian when somebody gave me the book Power from on High, which was Charles Finney’s testimony of how he got saved.
When he talked about his salvation experience, he spoke about being alone in his office and out in the woods, being convulsed with waves of love as Jesus cleansed him from his sins and took possession of his life.
He talks about waves and waves and waves of love, and that he actually had God stop because he thought he would die at one point.
John Wesley talks about his heart being strangely warmed as he listened to somebody reading Martin Luther’s introduction to Galatians. His heart was strangely warmed.
He always went back to that time and called it a second blessing, because it released his life. He was a Christian before that day. Read the record. He loved the Lord. He knew the Lord had died for him. He served the Lord. He was a failure.
But when the Lord washed over him in love, it set him free. I wonder if first love is not when we have been overwhelmed by the love of God. Has that ever happened to you?
I know everybody who has been saved is thankful to God for the salvation we have. But when was that moment? Do you remember?
I mentioned the other night the charismatic movement as being one of the recoveries and revivings of God, when the Lord remembered His people.
Some of us are so old that we were around. This was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it seemed that something very sovereign happened here in the United States, from east coast to west coast, north and south. The Lord poured Himself out upon His people.
In my interpretation, I believe the Lord was remembering His people.
I was saved in 1964, and I was part of a wonderful denominational church. They loved the Lord. They actively witnessed. They worshiped God. They preached the gospel.
There were many Christians in the United States, in various denominational places and churches, here and there, who loved the Lord and were truly saved. They had sent missionaries out into the fields who were truly preaching the gospel, witnessing, and doing all they could do.
But we were a desperate lot. The Lord remembered His people and poured out His Spirit and His love upon His people. It set a generation free.
There was an ingathering of millions saved as a result of that recovery. I believe it was a recovery and reviving of God. Out of that reviving came a recovery, even of some assemblies that were formed at that very time.
The Lord remembered His people.
When you hear the testimony of charismatics—I have been a charismaniac for years, and I have been around them—more than half the testimonies are like this: “I felt the love of God.”
You ask a dear brother or sister, “How did the Lord meet you and come down upon you?” Most of them will say, “I had believed in Jesus. I was in a denominational church. I believed I was saved. But on this night, I felt the love of God tangibly in my heart. It broke me down. I cried. I came alive. I became a lover of Jesus.”
That is what happened in the charismatic movement. We like to talk about tongues, which were an evidence for many people, and other gifts, such as prophecy, that became more pronounced within these churches.
But the main thing is that the Spirit of God broke down that denominational thing. You had to be there to see it. Nobody cared, when the Spirit was moving, what denomination you were from. It did not make any difference any longer.
The question was, “Do you love Jesus?” “Yes, I love Jesus too.”
You could go out on the street under this unction of God in that day of recovery and ask people, “Do you love Jesus?” They might say, “No, but I want to.” I saw tens, fifties, a hundred people respond with that very word.
People were loving Jesus. The songs Christians sang were simply, “Jesus, I love You. Jesus, I love You. I love You, Jesus. Jesus, I love You.”
That was when they started singing Scripture songs. They wanted to express their love, and wherever they found love in Scripture, they made a song. “His banner over me is love.”
What a release in people’s lives. Most people would say, “I felt the love of God.” Imagine missionaries faithfully working in the field, then suddenly endued with power from on high and released from the religious thing that had been upon evangelical Christianity in the 1950s and 1960s.
It changed the whole complexion of the church of God. What a wonderful thing. The experience was, “I felt the love of God. I knew for the first time God loved me.”
Have you ever had an experience? It does not have to be that major. It is not something you have to boo-hoo about, or have convulsive waves of love come over you. But have you known that first love? Can you remember that so the Lord can call you back?
Here again we find strange obstacles in our hearts, which John rightly calls—and the song we sang calls—idols. It is the idols that steal our hearts away from our first love and our pursuit.
Your money is causing great problems. Your job is causing real problems. Your family emphasis is causing problems. All kinds of little foxes distract the heart from the Lover of your soul.
Here our Lord pours Himself out upon you and overwhelms you, and now we cannot remember Him. “I wish I could remember what it was like.”
So God comes down and says, “Remember from where you have fallen.”
Only if you have known this ravishing love of God in some real way can you remember what it was like. But here again I say to young and old, I think I am talking to the choir.
I am not talking to people who are insensible to the love of God. We have even been done in and overwhelmed by the love of God. But now, do you remember that? Are you a remembrancer up on the wall?
I keep mentioning this word remembering, and I would like to explain what I am trying to say. To remember is not merely to have, as an old man, an occasional objective remembrance of something. There is something more in that Word of God when it says, “Remember Jesus Christ.”
There is something of a stirring up by the Spirit into a living reality of something. I do not know how to put it, but I will give you an example.
When I speak, I usually have notes. Sometimes, two years later, I am thinking about speaking on a similar topic, and I look at notes from two years ago. Immediately, I can remember the content of the message, but I cannot remember the spirit of the message.
I cannot remember the burden that was behind the message. Sometimes I say, “What?”
But sometimes, knowing I have to speak a word—I am in Russia, they are asking me to speak the twenty-eighth time, and I find a scrap of paper with notes—I say, “God, I know these words. I know these Scriptures. Oh Lord, that I might remember what You wanted to say. What is it You are trying to say? What is Your burden here?”
“Lord, if You would stir me up in remembrance, I could remember this.” Then I remember, and by God’s grace, when it happens, it comes alive to me. It is a living burden in my heart. Now I can share it. Otherwise, it is just paper; it is just knowledge.
I know you remember the Lord. But has He stirred you up to remember the first love, to remember the time you saw the Lord of glory? That is something precious.
Peter says, “I want to stir you up by way of remembrance until you are in continual remembering, and even after my departure, become a remembrancer.”
Oh, my dear friends, it is time to be on the walls. We must remember Jesus Christ, not in an objective way: “Oh yes, I remember all these things.”
People share testimony, and we get nostalgic about “the good old days.” Yes, you remember the good old days. No, the Lord does not stir us up to nostalgia.
When He stirs us to remember, He is stirring us because that same spiritual reality is still possible today, because the Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
It is not just old goods that you remember. It is a reality that can be retasted, and with greater depth.
First love may seem like simple love, young love, the espousals of our youth. The Lord says, “I remember those promises you made in your youth.” Sometimes first love seems to be like that.
But no, no, no. First love remembered goes deeper and deeper. Then, after a while, first love remembered becomes motivation by the blessed hope. It is all about Him. You cannot wait for Him to come back, and your life is poured out for the saints.
What are you doing now for the rest of your life? Are you just sitting there in your little retirement, or something? How about pouring out your life?
There you go. Remember the Lord, because in the days of first love you did that—no questions asked.
I think we have it all wrong: “Count the cost before you do something.” I think when you have first love, you do not count the cost.
We are much too sneaky, much too calculating. That is not first love. No, no, no, no, that is not first love.
If the Lord could bring us into a remembrance of from where we have fallen, the whole point is to repent and come back and do the first works. That is a whole other subject in itself: repent and do the first works. What a wonderful statement.
Now, brothers and sisters, I finally want to say once again: we live by faith and not by sight.
Our days are not filled with getting up every morning at seven o’clock and saying, “Lord, show me Your glory,” and then having yet another vision. Just as you can count on me going and getting shredded wheat for cereal, the Lord shows His glory every day. No, it does not work like that.
We live by faith, not by sight. And as we live, we pursue by grace.
We pursue the Lord in His Word, by the Spirit, learning things from Him in our circumstances, in assembly life, and by the Word of God. Along the way, the Lord chooses to reveal Himself to you in yet a richer and fuller way.
This is the life before us. Let us not just be some sort of whimpering mystics, asking God to do something while we passively do not pursue. This is not the right way.
We are strong in the grace of God to pursue after Him. With that little vision we have of Him, no matter how small it is, He will give us more. Will you pursue for more?
The Lord uses your circumstances, your jobs, your family situations, the fellowship situation—all these things—in your experience. You cannot just throw all that out. That is part of how we are going to find the Lord in a living way.
So next time I speak tomorrow night, I am going to share on: “Do you remember the first life?” The Lord cannot recover if we do not remember the first life under an open heaven. May the Lord help us. Let us pray.
Lord, I do not want to be a revivalist tonight, pressing for reviving, pressing for repentance, pressing for confession of sin. I leave all that to Your precious Spirit, who wants to reveal the Son of God to all Your children.
You want us to know and live in first love. That is what You want for all Your children. Yet we know that at any given time, there are only some who will hear what the Spirit is speaking to the church.
We pray that for those dear people, You would touch us again. You would touch us again. Overwhelm us with Your love. Show us more of the Lord of glory, and help us stand upon our feet and pursue.
Pressing on toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Oh Lord, we would take the grace with the glory of the Lord before us, even as Peter found great motivation through the ups and downs, the loss and the gains. Yet he followed, pursuing the Lord of glory that he saw on the mount.
Oh, give us that same majestic goal. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.