We welcome everybody for this conference on spiritual inheritance. The theme itself causes our hearts to overflow.
This theme is—for those of you who looked up even the word inheritance in preparation for coming here—you realize that you go through a door that leads to another door, that leads through another door, and this matter is unending. Great is our spiritual inheritance. There is so much that one could say.
The famous illustration in the Bible of entering into the inheritance is when the children of Israel entered into the promised land. Of course, they crossed the Jordan, and so they were in the land of their inheritance. But they did not know the springs of En-gedi. They did not know the waters from the well of Bethlehem. They did not know the wonderful fields in Sharon. They were in the promised land, but there was so much to be discovered.
I think all of us feel that way as we are gathered here. We are so glad that we are gathered for this theme. And if ever there was a theme for which we could say, “We have been drawn by destiny,” this is it.
Have you ever sensed that you have been drawn by destiny, that your life has greater value than you could ever know? You are drawn by something and by Someone into a plan that is greater than we could possibly imagine.
Where do we begin in Scripture to describe it? We will just read a few, then pray, and start in. Then we will just have to stop at a certain time, and somebody will pick it up from here tomorrow morning. Let us go all the way back to Genesis 1:26.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth.”
And God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
And God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moveth on the earth.”
Let us look in the New Testament at a few portions that are very familiar to us: Ephesians 1. Just a few verses where inheritance is mentioned.
He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him, with a view to an administration suitable to the fulness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth.
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestinated according to His purpose Who worketh all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be unto the praise of His glory.
In Him, ye also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed—were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, Who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, unto the praise of His glory.
Then let us go back to 1 Corinthians 2:6.
Yet we do speak wisdom among those that are full-grown; yet a wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nought. But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God foreordained before the ages unto our glory; which none of the rulers of this age hath known: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
But as it is written, “Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man, whatsoever things God prepared for them that love Him.”
For unto us God revealed them through the Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
Finally, in the Gospel of John, at the end of the Lord’s prayer, John 17:22-24:
The glory which Thou hast given Me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and lovedst them, even as Thou lovedst Me.
Father, I desire that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world.
Our Father, we come to You tonight in the name of our Lord Jesus, the Son Who is heir of all things. We thank You that we can gather, and be so gathered, even according to destiny, and believe that everybody who is here is here for a reason.
Now we ask, Lord, in this first meeting, that You would quicken our tired bodies, quicken our hearts to be attentive to this good theme, and that by Your Holy Spirit You would grant us wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the key that opens up all the meaning of our great inheritance.
We thank You that we gather together tonight and depend upon You. Lord, help us in this brief hour. We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Well, I do not know where you would start if you were going to be speaking on spiritual inheritance. It might be healthy to try to define what spiritual inheritance is, but you find that the more you search it out, it becomes a definition something like this: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, the things that God has prepared.”
How vast is this spiritual inheritance. How hard to describe. Paul says that this matter has been revealed by the Spirit, but unto the mature. We do realize that spiritual inheritance is something that we need to reach a certain place of destiny to understand—even to begin to understand.
I just read that passage in John 17 because here we see something of spiritual inheritance put this way: the Lord Jesus took the glory that the Father gave Him, and He passed it along to us.
There is a passing of glory to glory to glory. The Son is the One Who has revealed the glory of the Father to us, and now the Son is the One Who is placing the glory of Himself in us. So the inheritance is a glorious thing. It is an eternal inheritance. It is a spiritual inheritance.
In the end, we have to simply say what we already sang in this hymn. I mean, this is a Sunday school answer, so we have to be held accountable to step beyond this. But in the end, our inheritance is the Lord, and His inheritance is us.
Well now, thank you very much. It has been a good weekend, huh?
Simply put, if I were to ask you—if I came up to you after this message and said, “Well now, what, after all, is your inheritance?”—of course you would say, “Christ.” I would have to give you the gold star for Sunday school answers that are correct. But may the Lord, by His Spirit, help us to look a little deeper into this whole thing.
I would like to start—and the reason I went back to Genesis is because the truth of the matter is, this matter of inheritance is a major theme throughout the whole Bible. There are hundreds of references to the word inheritance, or heir, or these various inheritance words within the Bible.
All the way back at the very beginning, when we look at Adam and Eve, we can already see that there was this destiny in view of inheritance. What an amazing thing.
Adam and Eve were blessed by God. You remember, I just read those verses. He says, “Be fruitful and multiply, and have dominion over the earth.” We see that man had a great destiny, which David put this way in Psalm 8: even though we are a little lower than the angels, we have been crowned with glory and majesty.
For this is not just the purpose of the Son of Man—that is, Jesus Christ. It is the purpose of man.
Two of the themes that we find running throughout the Bible in regard to inheritance are sonship and kingdom. Right here at the beginning with Adam and Eve, you can see God’s destiny for man. As a son, he was to be fruitful and multiply; and as a man, he was to take dominion, to inherit the earth.
This was the beginning for Adam and Eve, but we are aware of how much greater a destiny Adam and Eve really had than just to rule the earth. There was more than that.
This matter we call spiritual inheritance was very much involved. Through living upon this earth in relationship to God, by taking that tree of life, Adam was to discover that life was so much more than just living on this earth, ruling over animals, and having a lot of kids.
There was great destiny involved in Adam and Eve’s creation, in their calling, and in their blessing. That is why it was such a tragedy when Adam and Eve fell. They had no idea, when they took that fruit and disobeyed the command of God, what they forfeited. But indeed, they forfeited their spiritual inheritance.
This matter of spiritual inheritance is something that lies over the top of all that is involved in life. You and I live on this earth. Maybe you get married; we have children; we have jobs. This is all part of life. But spiritual inheritance is an understanding of life that transforms life in glory.
We have a job, but if you sense yourself being drawn by destiny, your job has a fuller purpose than just to put in your time and make money. You have a marriage, but drawn by destiny, the marriage takes on a greater significance. You have some ministry, a role in the church as a Christian, and yet that job is so much more important than we realize.
Over all of our life, there is this hidden destiny, if I might put it that way—a hidden provision that will transform life and fulfill God’s original purpose, which is till His glory fills the earth.
It is not that He is going to do away with that. Who likes dirt? No, He is going to glorify dirt. In the new heaven, the new earth, and the New Jerusalem, it will still be human. It will still be physical, but it will have been transformed in glory. That is what we call the full inheritance, which involves the physical and the spiritual wed together.
So there were Adam and Eve, just begun. Along the way, they were to be eating of the tree of life and taking dominion. But when they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and fell, they forfeited all of that.
We see a very important, tragic lesson that we find in our own lives repeatedly. It is this: when we are in relationship to the Benefactor, the Creator, the Owner, we can have dominion. We can enjoy the things of this world. We can be a steward of God’s kingdom.
But if we break that relationship, if we stop eating from the tree of life, we in the end can no longer handle even the physical side of the inheritance.
So there were Adam and Eve. There they were in the Garden of Eden, which is just a picture to me of what life is like when God is walking with us. He is the Benefactor; we are the inheritors; and we are learning how to live in this wonderful world enabled by His life. How glorious this life is going to become.
But now comes the fall. There is no more tree of life. There are just our own wits about us, and it ends up—Adam, not Adam himself, but man—can only build Babylon.
Man tries to build. Man tries to gain the world. This is a great tragedy we see in history right now: all men trying to gain the world, losing their soul, not aware that you cannot steward even the things of this earth without that divine life.
There is a spiritual inheritance at the end that goes along with a full, glorious revelation that we see in the New Jerusalem, when all is transparent and full of the Lord. Every stone, every gold piece, every jewel—transparent with the glory of God. That is what life is going to be like one day: the spiritual inheritance and the outward inheritance, if we want to call it that, fully together, fully glorious.
But now something is going on in the history of man with the fall. This outward inheritance has become corrupted. A person can build a kingdom, but it will only last a while. Everything becomes like that great statue of Daniel. It does not matter if it is gold, silver, copper, or iron: it is going to fall down when the big stone of the kingdom comes and brings it down, because it is corrupt.
What a tragedy. Man is chasing, chasing after something that he cannot attain to. He cannot steward. He does not have the life. He does not have the wisdom. He self-destructs. I am sorry, I am afraid it does not matter if it is Democrat or Republican or whoever. There is too much corruption.
Soon, all of the dreams—the glorious dreams of utopia—seem to fall by the wayside, every couple of years here in the United States anyway. There we are, just scratching and scratching and scratching, unable to attain because we were never meant to attain without the life of God.
So man goes through this whole history, learning these lessons, being corrupted, building statues, and, as it says in Romans 1, not even acknowledging our Benefactor, the Owner of this world, the Creator. Not even acknowledging Him, but trying to gain the world and all the time losing our soul.
Now, the tragedy in the Bible is when Christians are trying to gain the whole world at the loss of their soul, because Christians should know that God does not want to give you the inheritance of this world. This world is passing away. Why would He give you an inheritance of something that is going to pass away?
Of course not. But it seems that a lot of believers sure are working awfully hard to try to grab a piece of something that is shaken and passing away.
Of course, it is through this life and our experience in this life, as we try to come in by the life of God into some kind of dominion in our realm—our family, even the place we work—that we learn the lessons of the glory of our Lord and the greatness of what He can do.
So we see, even back in Adam and Eve, do not think that God was satisfied with it: “Okay, Adam and Eve, now you rule the Garden of Eden. Wonderful. That is all I care about. Keep the vegetables coming.” There was so much more.
Are we drawn by destiny? How about your life? Is there the “so much more,” or have you lost it? Is it just the outward stuff?
As we look throughout Bible history, it is wonderful how the Lord draws men into a sense of destiny. We realize how it is by grace that the Lord draws anybody into a sense of spiritual inheritance.
There was Abraham, of course. He saw a revelation of the God of glory, and that transformed his whole life. He was already in his sixties, at least, when he saw the God of glory. Suddenly, he realized that life is so much more than just living here on this planet.
He began to sojourn based on a promise. Now, it says in Hebrews 11 very clearly: by faith Abraham went out, not knowing whither, in search of the promised inheritance. What was that? God says, “I am going to give you a land.”
So he started out just looking for the land. But is it not interesting? By the end of his life, he was looking for a city whose Builder and Maker was God. What happened in the process? It started out being land, and then he ended up seeing something more.
As a matter of fact, by the end of his life, he had no land. Yet there was something of walking in his spiritual inheritance by faith. There is something about spiritual inheritance that, in the end, is the glorious end; and yet it is a present reality to those who have faith.
There is a present enjoyment and life in our spiritual inheritance now, even before the full inheritance comes about. Abraham walked through this world with no land like a king. He walked in nobility. People feared him. He walked in such richness, and the richer he got, the less he cared about it, because he was now looking for the city.
God also gave him a second carrot. The first was the land; the second was a son, of course. But do you not know, he walked most of his life without his son? Once he gained his son, Isaac, his physical son, the day came when he was willing to sacrifice his son.
Now think about it. In the ancient culture, your richness was determined by how many sons you had, because that was who you could leave all your wealth to and everything. It all had to do with your son. Here was Abraham’s son, and he was willing to give him up and sacrifice him. To whom? Why?
Because he had already seen his inheritance. God was his inheritance. He saw it. You see, that will be the key which, in my simple mind, I will be sharing with you tonight and tomorrow night. Abraham saw, “God is my heritage.” There is something even worth sacrificing my son for: this spiritual inheritance with this God Who revealed Himself to me. What a glorious life.
Abraham died without attaining much land. He had a burial plot to his name, but he had gained his spiritual inheritance through that walk of faith that he lived, right?
Then we take somebody like Moses. Moses had an interesting commission after being in the wilderness for a number of years. God commissioned him to go get the children out of Egypt and bring them into their inheritance. That is quite a task: bring them into the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey and all sorts of things.
Moses, of course, reluctantly realized that there was something a lot more going on here. He went down to Egypt and, through the great hand of God, delivered those children. Is it not interesting? Moses never went into the promised land during his lifetime. He just saw it from a mountaintop.
Yet something had transpired in those final forty years of his life that began when he saw God in the burning bush. Something transpired in his life as he saw God up on the holy mountain, when God said, “I am going to hide you in that cleft of the rock. I am going to reveal My glory to you as I pass by.”
As He passed by, what did God do? He said, “Now, here is My name. I am God, the Lord, compassionate, merciful, forgiving.” What a revelation.
I think, to my mind, Moses laid hold of his spiritual inheritance up there on the mountain. You know the story. Moses was already discovering that spiritual inheritance because sometimes he would come out of the tent of meeting, or come down from the mountain, and his face would be shining. He had already seen the glory. There was a picture of a transforming work going on.
Oh, Moses—his life was so much more than a shepherd. His life was so much more than a servant of God. His life was that he was taking care of God’s inheritance. He was discovering God as his inheritance. He was becoming God’s inheritance. What a tremendous blessing.
Of course, let us take David. What can we say about David? From the time he was a child, he was singing songs about God. He was running after God. He was a man after God’s own heart. He was running, worshiping, serving God. He had this little—whatever that thing is—lute, right? Something like that. He was just crazy about God.
God raised him up, and he began to win victories, victory after victory. Then he became king, and he began to reign. He reigned, and he ruled over the enemies, and he gained the city for God, and he brought the ark back for God. Then he said, “I am going to build the house of God.”
God said, “No, I am not going to let you do that. Your son will do that.” So David said, “Okay. Then here is what I am going to do the rest of my life: I am going to pout.” Is that what he did? Oh, no.
The rest of David’s life, he said, “Okay, I cannot build the house of God. Then here is what I am going to do: every victory that I win, I am taking all the money and preparing for the house of God. Every part of my life, every blessing that comes to me, every tribute sent to me by kings, I am taking it and putting it aside to build the house of God.”
You could not stop David. Why? Why? He never saw the house of God. Why?
We all know. Way back, before he actually became a king, when he was hiding in a cave—hiding from King Saul—he wrote this little song: “The Lord is my portion and my inheritance. My heritage is beautiful to me.”
There is a man who, at that time in the cave, had nothing. But he found his inheritance, and he held on to the Lord with a perfect heart, though he made mistakes, as we all know. We know all about that history.
Throughout the Bible, we see these people drawn by that destiny, drawn into the promise of their spiritual inheritance, and they lived life on a higher plane. They did not just go through the world like most people go through the world.
Now, we have to say, on the whole, the people in the Bible just wanted the outward stuff. “Just give me the land. That is all I care about.” There were those who looked beyond, but most people just wanted their inheritance.
Of course, when God gave the children of Israel their inheritance, what did they do? They left the Lord, Who is the only way they could maintain their inheritance. Falling away from the Lord, they forfeited their inheritance. Then they cried out for mercy, and God gave it back to them through a judge, let us say. They thanked God by falling away from Him.
So they lost their inheritance again. The story of the kings in the Bible is an account of the ups and downs of Israel and Judah, and it all depended on how much these kings cared for that which was beyond their physical realm. Those who loved the Lord and loved His house—whenever there was such a king—the whole country prospered.
God loves to prosper His children when they are not focused on that prosperity. But as soon as the king, or whoever was leading, got his eyes turned off the Lord and he looked and said, “Wow, am I not rich?” immediately he started losing his riches.
It is a good thing this is not the history of Christians, but just of the Old Testament days.
There is a principle to be learned. We cannot live even the earthly life—our earthly responsibilities—without taking from the tree of life and without sensing that there is something so much more important.
Oh, dear sister, there is something so much more important than just you living out your life on this horizontal plane. Brother, you have got to come to this conviction: as you look and see Christ, He is the key for us to see that we have a destiny and begin to walk by faith toward the fulfillment of that.
Of course, you know the history of a fallen people. It is so interesting to me—God’s grace and God’s mercy. Israel was on the eve of going into captivity because they had forfeited their land. “This is our promised land.” Now they had forfeited Jerusalem; they had forfeited the northern tribes; and they were about to forfeit Judah, because it had all turned to idols. They were not seeking God.
Just before the eve of Babylonian captivity, by God’s grace, He revealed to Isaiah, as an old man, a wonderful revelation. It is an interesting thing to notice: if you read the first thirty-nine chapters of Isaiah, I think maybe once, but maybe not even once, is the word Redeemer mentioned. Suddenly, beginning in chapter 40 and onward, the Redeemer shows up.
For those of you who know a little bit about the Redeemer, what it means is the near kinsman shows up. This great promise was revealed to Isaiah, and he wrote it down. There will come a near kinsman who will buy back the forfeited property and inheritance that has been lost. He is coming.
By His blood, He will redeem the inheritance and bring it back to His children who have forfeited it. What a wonderful gospel of grace this was.
Of course, that is what happened when Jesus came. He came to redeem the inheritance. When He came to earth back in those days, He said, “Let Me tell you about the inheritance.” Now, the way He put it was this: He preached the gospel of the kingdom.
He said, “Now let Me tell you about the kingdom. It is yours. If you are poor in spirit, if you are meek, you inherit it. If you are pure, if you are a seeker, if you seek first His kingdom, all the other stuff will be added unto you. You will be rich, but you will not be concerned about that.”
You are a seeker; you are poor; you are pure; you are meek. That is it. You have got the kingdom. When He said that, of course, He was talking about the spiritual inheritance of the kingdom of the heavens.
But the Jews could not understand Him. Why? Obvious. They were looking for somebody to get rid of Roman rule. They wanted a political Israel kingdom, and they wanted a Messiah who was a military hero, a general of generals.
When the Messiah came in their midst, saying, “Let Me tell you about your spiritual inheritance,” they said, “No, no, no. Just get me free. Get me back on my job. That is all I want. Just give me a job.”
“Do not talk to me about destiny. What is my purpose? Do not talk to me about glory. Do not care. Do not care. I just want my stuff. I want my freedom.” So they rejected Jesus, and they crucified Jesus. In doing so, He became their Redeemer.
There in Ephesians, we read—if you will just turn back there for a moment—you will see that there are those two references to inheritance. The first one has to do with Jesus coming to bring the inheritance back to Israel, and the second has to do with His coming to bring the inheritance of Adam back to all Gentiles, all mankind.
We see here in Ephesians 1:11:
We have obtained an inheritance, having been predestinated according to His purpose Who worketh all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be unto the praise of His glory.
By that, he means the Jews. “We who were the first to hope in Christ.” Most Bible scholars believe that he is talking about the Jews in this particular case. There they were: the Jews had lost their inheritance, and then Jesus the Messiah came.
By this ratification by blood, He gave them a better covenant by which they could gain their inheritance. The difference is this: they lost their inheritance, and actually, it is a technical point, but the only way you can get it back through the near kinsman is that he buys it back. It is actually his, but you can enjoy it in him.
Now the Jews, through Christ their Messiah—He having died and risen again—could gain their inheritance, but they have to do it in Him, because it is His, not theirs separately. You know what I am saying? Of course it is theirs, but it is theirs in Him.
Then, of course, Paul’s gospel, which he spells out so wonderfully, goes on to say in Ephesians 1:13-14 to the Gentiles:
In Him, ye also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed—were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, Who is given as the pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, unto the praise of His glory.
God, through Jesus, not only restored the inheritance to Israel; God, through Jesus, the Redeemer and Savior, restored the inheritance that had been lost by Adam.
Adam, the first Adam, was crucified in Christ. Jesus, the last Adam, owns it all. Those Gentiles who believe become—it is incredible when Paul says this, especially for the Jews; it is hard to swallow—but the Gentiles, by faith in Christ, have become joint heirs with all the Jews.
We are all part of the same heritage because it is all in Christ, and it is all by grace, and it is all for us. As Hebrews says, Jesus has become the heir of all things.
Now, who wants to be in your spiritual inheritance? Well, we immediately see exactly how we will find it: in Him, our inheritance. In Him, we find God, our inheritance; in Him, He finds us, His inheritance. Oh, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.
We are in a tremendous sharing of glory to glory to glory as the Lord Jesus is restoring our inheritance to us. Now, all of that sounded awfully fuzzy. I know some of you have already fallen asleep, and I do not blame you. So, I am going to give you seven things.
If you are living in your spiritual inheritance, here are seven telltale signs from seven different Scriptures. It only takes, let us say, seven minutes, but it may take a little longer than that.
In Acts 20:32, the first part of our spiritual inheritance that we have to enjoy right now, even before the final inheritance, even before the New Jerusalem, the new heaven, and the new earth, is that we already live in a kingdom of grace right now because we have this spiritual inheritance.
And now I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you the inheritance among all them that are sanctified.
The wonderful thing about the kingdom is that you find it is a kingdom of grace. We have entered into forgiveness. We have entered into His love. We have entered into a new power; a new life has been given us.
Here, as children of this kingdom, this word of His grace—what is it doing? Building us up and giving us the inheritance. Is that not wonderful? Night and day, there is something working on you: the power of the living Word. It is working, building you into that wonderful inheritance.
A second thing we can know in this present spiritual inheritance that we have is this: we already read it in Ephesians 1:13. We have been given the Holy Spirit as the down payment, sealed with the Holy Spirit as the down payment of our inheritance.
What a tremendous issue this is. We have been given the Holy Spirit—just the beginning—that indwelling life, that One Who is leading.
The Holy Spirit is like that angel of the Lord, the captain of the Lord’s army, that led the children of Israel through the promised land from property to property. The Holy Spirit has come as our guarantor of that inheritance. Now He is leading us through the different properties of our inheritance.
It is the Holy Spirit that reveals all there is of Christ to us. This is just a down payment: this new enabling, this new indwelling, this new life. It is the Holy Spirit in us.
Number three: you can tell that you are in the spiritual inheritance because you are seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness, and these other things are added unto you.
Have you been drawn by destiny to the place where you are really seeking His kingdom, where you are seeking the King because you love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength?
These are those who are possessing the spiritual inheritance. They have a goal clearly before them. It is not about your job. It is not about making money. It is not about being a happy family. It is all those things included in this package. You are seeking the kingdom first.
For the fourth thing, we turn to 1 Timothy 6:17. It is the other side of Matthew 6:33.
Instruct those that are rich in this present world not to be highminded, nor to have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, Who richly supplieth us with all things to enjoy.
Now, here is the other side. When you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, He adds other things unto you. We do not trust in those riches. You may have them today and not have them tomorrow. You may have a job today and not have it tomorrow, but you do not trust in that.
No, you trust in God, Who gives you all things to enjoy. Now that is somebody who has obtained the spiritual inheritance. You can enjoy the things God has given you. You can steward the things that God has given you. You can give away the things God has given to you, because they do not belong to you. You are looking after God, and He is taking care of you.
All these things shall be added unto you. Have we come to that place? Have we been drawn into that confidence? Seek first the kingdom of God. He will add all these things. Do not trust in riches; trust in Him Who freely gives us all things to enjoy.
Number five: 2 Peter 1. I am just showing you a few Scriptures that show you what you already know.
In this spiritual inheritance, which we have now as Christians, verses 3 and 4 tell us that we have His divine power.
Seeing that His divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that called us by His own glory and virtue.
There is a big plan that God has as He calls us toward glory and excellence. But for the present moment, He has given us His divine power, which has given us everything we need—everything we need for life and godliness.
Can I add: and service in the kingdom of God. We have been given everything because we see Him Who is our inheritance.
Number six: 2 Corinthians 4, a very familiar passage to all of us. Let me put it this way: Paul said to the young believers in Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe, “Through much tribulation you enter the kingdom of God.”
Our spiritual inheritance is the kingdom of God. Through much tribulation, you enter the kingdom of God. But now, in 2 Corinthians 4:17, we see that this much tribulation has been turned into light affliction because of the eternal weight of glory and our eternal perspective.
For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Now there is somebody who has their focus on the spiritual inheritance, and that much tribulation becomes our light affliction. You know how Paul says even in Romans 8 virtually the same thing? He says, “Our present tribulation is nothing to be compared with what is going to be.”
Do you see that? That is somebody who has their eye on the inheritance. You see that.
Finally, going along with that, I suppose, in 1 Peter 1:3-4:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who according to His great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.
The final thing about somebody who is gaining their spiritual inheritance is this: they have a hope of glory that causes them to be buoyant and resilient through this life.
Do you have a hope of glory? Is that really our possession? If it is, there is a buoyancy that results. Hope is a tremendous force in a person’s life.
You see what is going to happen. Look at what he just said there: an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, will not fade away, reserved for you. So, reserved. Do you see it?
There are so many saints in this world—I was just talking to a brother just a moment ago—who have nothing of the world’s goods, absolutely poor, in destitute situations, and they are absolutely buoyant because of the hope of glory.
Shame on us that we have so much, and we have no hope. Hopeless. We have gotten our eyes off the goal. Where is that spiritual inheritance?
Now the Lord has gathered us together, and His purposes are very specific. He wants all of us to enter in. He wants to say to all of us, “Good job. Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the inheritance.” That is what He wants to say to everybody here.
For some of us, it means just keep pressing on into that spiritual inheritance. You see it like Abraham saw it, and Moses saw it, and David saw it. Press in. Keep running that race. Keep looking unto Jesus. That is it.
For some of us, we have got to have our eyes turned away from our absolute preoccupation with the things of this world. It has turned us away. It has made us those who cannot properly steward our lives as servants of the kingdom. It is a shame.
For those who are still on the outside looking in, Jesus is your inheritance by faith. We should enter in. There is so much to find in this spiritual inheritance. There is a door that leads to a door that leads to a door that leads to a door. It is ours to discover.
But we have got to get our eyes above just what is going on around us. I was just reading the other day something that Tozer wrote in one of his little—well, I guess one of his messages he gave. He said, “If you get your eyes focused on the daily newspapers, you will hear a lot of bells and whistles and noise, but get nothing of any value.”
He says, “But there are some things that are very valuable to God, and the person who sees those has gained spiritual reality.”
There is so much clanging around us, is there not? Oh, New York City. It is unbelievable. We live on Eighteenth Street, right in Manhattan. Wonderful place.
When we rented this place, we did not know that on Nineteenth Street there is a firehouse. I do not know why firemen feel like they have to blow the sirens at three o’clock in the morning, really. There is nobody driving down Eighteenth Street.
But in order to get anywhere east, those fellows on Nineteenth have to come down Seventh and down Eighteenth Street, with those sirens blazing at three o’clock in the morning. Now, there is my heritage.
There is so much noise. So many people wheeling a phone over here, and they have got something else over here, and the Lord is trying to talk to us: “Turn aside. Turn aside.”
So the Lord has gathered us here. Is that not wonderful? The Lord has gathered us here. I do not know what we will be able to comprehend. If you did not comprehend much tonight, it is okay. I am bewildered by the greatness of this whole thing myself.
Why do we not say, “Lord, show us the inheritance. Lord, we do not want to be cheated. We do not want to lose that which You have given us in Christ Jesus. Oh, it is so precious, our inheritance.”
Lord, we just come and make our plea to You: have mercy upon us. We are such dullards in our lives, hanging upon this globe so hardly. But Lord, we want to raise our eyes above and see that throughout all the circumstances of this world, You are trying to produce glory.
There is a spiritual inheritance that we can enter into now and taste, and comes into fullness, and pursue by faith. O Lord, make us those who live on a higher plane, who have seen, who want to enter in.
We thank You for the many who are here tonight, who truly have a hungry heart, truly seekers after the kingdom of God, truly those who have paid a price to keep following and to enter into all their inheritance.
O blessed inheritance, our God, great Benefactor of all things to us. You have blessed us in so many ways. We are rich beyond our comprehension because we found Christ.
Oh, may He be our treasure as we live through this world. Help us, Lord. Help us. You know we are prone to wander, Lord, we know.
But Lord, we ask that You would cast our eyes upon the greatness of our inheritance during this weekend, through our precious brothers, through our times of fellowship and discussion, and just around the meal tables.
May we enter into that great inheritance that is ours through Christ Jesus, in Whose name we pray.