Fight the good fight of the faith, lay hold on the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called, and didst confess the good confession in the sight of many witnesses.
I charge thee in the sight of God, Who giveth life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, Who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession;
that thou keep the commandment, without spot, without reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.
Again, dear Lord, we commit this time into Thy hand. We want to thank Thee because Thou art the beginning, and Thou art the end. So, Lord, as we come to this last session of this conference, we do commit it into Thy hand, and pray and trust Thee that Thou wilt speak whatever is left to be spoken.
Lord, we are all here. Do whatever work needs to be done in each and every one of us, until Christ is fully formed, to the glory of God. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
I believe, brothers and sisters, that this time the burden that the Lord seems to give to me, and I would like to share with you, dear brothers and sisters, is very simple: lay hold of eternal life.
Thank God, He has given eternal life. It is His gift. And yet we are exhorted to lay hold of eternal life—not in the sense that God will take back eternal life from us, but in the sense that there is danger of not reaching the fullness of the gift of God given to us.
He wants us to lay hold on eternal life. That is to say, whatever eternal life is, that we may experience it, we may have it, and we may enter into the fullness of that life. That is the will of God.
We say eternal life is the gift of God. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. But eternal life is not a thing; eternal life is a Person: God’s beloved Son.
So when He gave His beloved Son to us as eternal life, He has given us all. There is nothing more that God can give, and when God gives, He will never give anything less, because this is what God is.
We thank God that, by His grace and mercy, we receive Jesus as the Son of God, the Christ. And by receiving Him, He came into our very spirit—a new spirit. When He came into our spirit, He came to be our life. He came to live; He came to fulfil God’s eternal purpose in giving us that gift of eternal life.
Thank God, He has also given us the Holy Spirit, the energy and power of God. The Holy Spirit dwells also within our new spirit to manage that wonderful life that God has given to us, that that life may really grow according to His law, His nature, and His order. That is the way that we can really lay hold of eternal life.
The Bible tells us what is the mystery of the gospel. The mystery of the gospel has been hidden throughout the ages, but now it has been manifested to us. We see the riches of the glory of that mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
This is the mystery of the gospel: Christ in you. For what? He is in you, the hope of glory. Now, brothers and sisters, in the Bible we find that glory is a term most difficult to define.
The only thing we know is that whenever God appears, there is glory. There is the Shekinah glory of God, because God is glory. And with Christ in us, there is the hope of glory.
To put it another way, it simply means that He will glorify us. He will transform us. He will conform us to the image of His beloved Son, and glory will appear even in and through us. So that is the mystery of the gospel, and we are all in it.
The Lord Jesus said, “I come to give life.” That is to say, He comes to give Himself to us. But it does not stop there. He said, “I am come to give life, that you may have it abundantly.”
Now, what does He mean? It simply means that you will be able to experience, to apprehend, to live to the fullest what that life is. He does not want us to barely live.
We may be very satisfied if we only can live, because we have been condemned. We had no hope, no God. But one day He saves us, and we can live—and live even eternally. Well, that is good enough for us. We thank God for that.
But as we have already said, we may be satisfied, but God will not be satisfied. He will not be satisfied unless it satisfies His nature, His character, and His virtue.
So He wants us, dear brothers and sisters, not only to have His life in us, but that we may enjoy that life and experience that life to the fullest of what that life is. He does not want us to be barely alive, to live a miserable so-called Christian life.
You know, if we have only a hope for this age, then we will be the most miserable of all men. People in the world can enjoy the world; they can do whatever they want to please themselves. But we, who have the life of Christ in us, cannot.
And if we have only hope to barely live on this earth, then we are the most miserable of all men. But thank God, this is not God’s will for us, because He wants us to experience Him—His Christ, His Son—to the fullest.
Let us consider what that life is. To put it another way: who Christ is. God wants us to see His Son as much as He sees His Son.
The Bible tells us in Colossians 2:9:
For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
I often think: what is the fullness of God? Can anyone really comprehend, even exhaust, the knowledge of what the fullness of God is? We say God is infinite. His fullness is beyond limit.
You can think of the love of God. Thank God, we have tasted a little bit, but that is only a tiny little bit, because His love is without measure. We think of His righteousness. Oftentimes we think we are righteous, that we are doing the right thing, not knowing that in the sight of God it is like dirty rags.
Because He is altogether righteous. He is the Righteous One. The only standard for righteousness is God Himself. He is holy, and because He is holy, no one can really approach Him. Whoever should approach Him will be smitten dead.
We do not really know what holiness is—how He is altogether different from anything, from any person. He is all by Himself, the Holy One. Even the angels dare not look at Him because of His holiness. And who are we, that we can see Him or approach Him?
We do not really know what holiness is. We do not know what wisdom is. We do not know what might is, what authority is, or what greatness is. You know, when you think of the fullness of God, it is so full that it is altogether beyond our understanding.
But thank God, all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily—solidly, substantially. Nothing more, because there can be no more; and nothing less.
This is the life, eternal life, that is within us. Brothers and sisters, the fullness of God is something that we can only see from afar, as it were. But it is the will of God that we should be complete in Him.
So the life that is within each and every one of us is an abundant life. But this is on God’s side. This is the truth. Yet the Lord said, “I am come that they may have life,” not just have life, but have it abundantly.
So the question now is this: We have the abundant life within us, but do we have it abundantly? If we really consider our own Christian life, are you satisfied? Do you really feel full? Or do you think you are barely living?
You are struggling so hard in order to live a Christian life, and you experience more defeats than victories. Life seems to be pretty miserable, poor. But that is not God’s desire for us.
It is because of ourselves, because we insist that we want to live by ourselves. And when we insist, God will not force us.
You know, our God, when He created us, created us according to His image. He is the supreme will in the whole universe. No one can tell Him what to do. So when He created us according to His image, He gave us a very precious thing, and that is a free will.
We are created with a free will. We can choose. We can decide. That is the reason why He put the two trees in the Garden of Eden, because what is free will if you cannot choose?
He does not want us to be an automaton. He wants a living person. He respects our will, even though He is almighty, and He will never force our will. If you do not want it, He cannot force it.
I remember once D. L. Moody held a very special meeting only for atheists and agnostics, and they all came by tickets. Then Moody began to preach the gospel to them, and people’s hearts were touched.
So, at the conclusion of the meeting, someone stood up and said, “I want to believe in Jesus, but I cannot.” And Moody answered, “It is not that you cannot. It is because you will not.”
Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
So, brothers and sisters, you find that it is our will that God always respects. The reason why today, dear brothers and sisters, we are still struggling in our spiritual life, our Christian life, is not because God has not provided. It is because we do not will it. We do not want it.
We want to do it in our way, and God has to stand by with longsuffering and patience, waiting until we come to the end of ourselves. Then you will find that He begins.
So first of all, may the Holy Spirit impress upon each and every one of us that God has not only given us eternal life—abundant life, the life of Christ—but He also wants us to have it abundantly. That is the will of God.
And why is it that God wills it, and it seems as if you also will it, but you do not experience it? Now, why? Well, the reason is that we do not know how strong we are.
Oftentimes we bemoan our weakness. But if you really know the Lord, you should boast of your weakness, because it is your strength that hinders God’s working in our life.
Some people are very strong in their emotion. Their emotion rules over their life, and everything is directed by their emotion. Other people are very strong in their mind. They are wise; they are clever. They are always planning and scheming, just like Jacob.
Other people are very strong in will—strong-willed, stubborn, an iron will. And we do not know how strong we are.
These things may serve us if we live our own lives. They are good servants. But these things are the enemy of God when we come to God.
As long as we live by ourselves, either by our emotion, by our mind, or by our volition, God has to stand by and wait—wait until you say, “For me to live is Christ.”
Do you know that this declaration of Paul—do you think it is easy to say that? We say that all the time: “For me to live is Christ.” But is it real? Who is really living?
How can we be delivered from ourselves unless the law reveals to us our absolute hopelessness?
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?
You know, we are told that in the old Roman days, this is how they punished a murderer. If somebody murdered another one, they would bind the living one, the murderer, with the murdered body until the poison of that dying, dead body would penetrate him and he died. That is the meaning of, “Who can deliver me from this body of death?”
Have we really come to this point in our Christian experience? If we, by the grace of God, have come to this point, then thank God. Immediately in Romans 7:25, he said:
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Then we begin to see:
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me:
and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
I am still here, but I live by faith. So every Christian lives by faith. Now, I do not like the term some people use when they say, “I live by faith,” because they have no other job and they depend upon the Lord for their living.
But, brothers and sisters, unless we live by faith, how can we live? We are all living by faith. Faith is looking away from ourselves. Faith is looking at Him. That is faith.
And that faith is not in us. It is the faith of Him Who loved us and died for us. In other words, we live by the faith of Christ. We believe that He is faithful. We trust Him. We commit ourselves to Him. We say, “I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.”
Now, that is the way that enables us to live and to say, “For me to live is Christ.”
The apostle Paul had learned the secret. He said he had been initiated into it:
I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me.
Because he had learned that secret. Now maybe we can put it in another way. You remember Paul in 2 Corinthians 4. We have just heard the children say that very subject.
Paul said:
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves.
We are all earthen vessels—opaque. But we have a treasure. Now, I often think, who will put a treasure in an earthen vessel? Nobody will. If you have a treasure, you will put it in a golden box.
But God is so wonderful. I think He is the only One Who puts treasure in an earthen vessel, so the thief cannot find it.
We are all earthen vessels—nothing, cheap, common. And yet God put the very treasure of His heart, His own beloved Son, in that earthen vessel.
But why does He put that there? For storage? No. That the radiancy of it might be of God, and not of us. In other words, He put that treasure in the earthen vessel in order that the radiancy of the treasure may break through the earthen vessel and shine forth to the glory of God.
That is exactly a picture of you and me. We often think of ourselves as an alabaster vessel, but God says, “You are just an earthen vessel.” But thank God, there is a treasure there.
And how can this treasure, the light of the treasure, penetrate through the vessel and shine forth its light? How? Unless that earthen vessel is cracked or broken.
Brothers and sisters, this is the reason why the apostle Paul said:
We are pressed on every side, yet not straitened; perplexed, yet not unto despair;
pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not destroyed.
That is his experience. And he said:
Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.
So this is the secret, brothers and sisters.
The Holy Spirit will not only reveal the truth to us, so that we see that we have nothing good in ourselves and are willing to look up to Christ, but the Holy Spirit will arrange our daily life—our surroundings, the things that we meet, the people we meet, the circumstances we are in. Everything He will arrange for our life.
As soon as we are saved, brothers and sisters, we are His. And in His love, by His Spirit, He begins to arrange our circumstances. To a Christian, nothing is by chance. Everything is arranged.
He loves us to such an extent that He has even numbered our hairs. I doubt anyone here knows how many hairs you have on your head. Even though scientists try to figure out how many hairs we have, we know everybody has a different number of hairs. But God knows how many hairs we have. He also numbers every hair.
And when you comb your hair this morning, He knows what number of hairs from your head have fallen off. Now, if this is the case, why do we worry? His care is beyond understanding.
He will arrange everything in our life: the people you are with, the circumstances around you. Some may be like mountaintops; others may be like deep valleys—all kinds of circumstances.
But remember, behind it is the hand of God. We call it the discipline of the Holy Spirit, the chastening of the Holy Spirit.
When we are in prosperity, we thank God. When we are in adversity, we murmur against God. But remember, it all comes from Him. That is the way that the Lord tries to break the earthen vessel.
So in the same chapter, 2 Corinthians 4, you find that our outward man is decaying, is being broken, that the inward man may increase and grow. That is the only way in our Christian living that we begin to experience Christ.
The death of Christ is a fact. On Calvary’s cross He died, and a soldier wanted to make sure that He died. So, you remember, they thrust a spear into His side to know that He was really dead. That is a fact. That is a great fact, because in His death we died.
But so far as our experience goes, it is the dying of Jesus. It is the power of death. The dying of Jesus is upon us to put to death all that comes out of ourselves—the good and the bad, the good flesh and the bad flesh, everything that is not of God.
And how? Through our environment. He will bring us to our wits’ end. But remember, this is not life’s end. He will shut us up around us, as if there is no way out, but thank God, we are not shut up. There is a way up.
We may be persecuted, but remember, we are never abandoned. And we may be knocked down many times, but we are not knocked out. We always come back. It is only by His life.
He has brought us to our end that He may become the beginning. Brothers and sisters, this is the process. This is the way that God is bringing us into the fullness of Christ. This is the way that He brings us to our end, and our end is His beginning.
Thank God for that. We need to be grateful for adversity as well as for prosperity.
Now, if you really are going through such working of God in your life, what will happen to you? What kind of life will you find yourself in? To me, I feel there are two things. If we look at Hebrews 6, verses 19 and 20:
Which we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast and entering into that which is within the veil;
whither as a forerunner Jesus entered for us, having become a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.
Here we see that term, “within the veil.” You know, brothers and sisters, if you really have His life and have it abundantly, what will be your life? You will find that you are within the veil.
Now, I believe every brother and sister knows what the veil is. In the Old Testament, between the holiest of all and the holy place was a heavy veil. It separated the holiest of all from the holy place.
In the holiest of all there is nothing but the ark, the mercy seat, and the glory of God seated upon the mercy seat between the two cherubim. In other words, the holiest of all is where God dwells—nothing else.
But there is a veil there. People cannot look through; people cannot enter in, because people are sinful and unholy. The high priest, once a year, with blood and incense, entered into that holy place behind the veil, once a year, and then quickly came back out, because the way to the holiest had not yet been opened.
But thank God, when our Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross, at the time when He said, “It is finished,” we find in Matthew that the veil within the temple was rent from top to bottom.
The way to the holiest is open. So in Hebrews 10 we are told that now we have boldness to enter into the holiest of all. How? By the blood of the Lamb, and by the new and living way which He has dedicated for us. And we have Christ Jesus as our High Priest.
And the veil in Hebrews 10, it says, is His flesh. It is the body of our Lord Jesus. When His body was broken on Calvary’s cross, then the veil in the holiest of all was rent from top to bottom.
He has opened a way to the holiest of all. He has dedicated that way, and it is a new and living way to each and every one of us. So, brothers and sisters, how can we live in the very presence of God? By the blood of the Lamb.
But more than that, by the new and living way He has opened for us through His flesh. It is a way dedicated and opened for us to walk in it. In other words, we are in the good of His blood, but we are called to go the way that He has gone before us.
Our flesh must be broken. It is by the working of the cross in our life that our flesh is broken, our self-life is broken, and then we know that we have Christ as our High Priest, living forever and interceding for us incessantly, that He may save to the uttermost all those who approach God through Him.
Brothers and sisters, it is now our privilege to live within the veil. With open face, we behold His glory and are transformed from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit.
So it will be our experience that we will daily live in the presence of God.
You know, I remember our dear brother Watchman Nee said that when he was a young Christian, he read that book by Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God. So he began to practise it.
But he discovered it was not that easy. Because, you remember, he thought he was in the presence of God, but when he became engaged with other things, he forgot that he was in the presence of God. It became a real problem to him for many years. He did not know what to do.
So finally the Lord showed him, “You cannot live in My presence through memory, because your memory may fail you.”
Now, how can you live in His presence incessantly? The outward man has to be broken. Then you live with the inward man, and you are in the presence of God.
I find this is a better way, because this is not through our self-effort. It is really by His grace.
And then I think the other thing that really characterises a person who really lives the life of Christ abundantly is in Hebrews 13, verse 12:
Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered without the gate.
Let us therefore go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.
For we have not here an abiding city, but we seek after the city which is to come.
Brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus was crucified outside the city of Jerusalem. To put it in a spiritual way, He was crucified outside of the camp of Judaism.
You find throughout His life He did not belong to that camp. If you belong to the camp, you are safe; but if you do not belong, you will be persecuted. And yet our Lord Jesus, throughout His life, was proven to be outside the camp. He was cast out.
And outside the camp, He bore His reproach. That is His testimony to the world. And brothers and sisters, if we really follow the Lord wherever He goes, I believe this will be the same testimony we have to bear in this world.
What is the camp to us today? It is also a religious camp. It is Christianity.
If we are within that camp, then we are in that Laodicean situation. It seems as if the Lord is knocking at the door; He is outside.
But we follow the Lord. The Lord said, “If you suffer with Me, you shall also reign with Me.” So that will be our testimony: that we do not belong to this world—not only to this secular world; we do not even belong to this religious world.
We will be those who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes. And this will be our testimony to the world.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we do thank the Lord. Every good thing, every good gift, comes from Him. We are such hopeless, helpless people—nothing, earthen vessels everywhere, cheap.
But thank God, He loves us so much that He has given His all, His only Son, to us. And He wants us to be characterised by His Son, so that when people see us, they will see Him.
May the Lord bless us. Shall we pray?
Dear Lord, we do want to thank Thee for this time that Thou hast gathered us together. Lord, we believe that Thou hast a message for us, and we pray that we may really hear Thy heart cry and respond by Thy grace. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.