Please turn to Hebrews 8. We will read one verse, Hebrews 8:11.
And they shall not teach each one his fellow citizen,
And each one his brother, saying, Know the Lord:
For all shall know Me,
From the least of them unto the greatest of them.
Please turn also to John 14. We will read from John 14:15-20.
If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments.
And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: ye know Him; for He abideth with you, and shall be in you.
I will not leave you orphans: I come unto you.
Yet a little while, and the world beholdeth Me no more; but ye behold Me: because I live, ye shall live also.
In that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.
Finally, turn to 1 John 2:27.
And as for you, the anointing which ye received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you; but as His anointing teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in Him.
Dear Lord, how we praise and thank Thee that Thou hast gathered us together again in Thy presence. We believe there is something Thou wouldst say to us. Thou wouldst bring us into the fullness of the purpose of God.
So, Lord, here we are. Open our understanding. May Thy word come directly from the throne into our hearts and do all the work of transformation, that we may be conformed to the image of Thy beloved Son.
How glorious is Thy eternal purpose concerning us. Oh, dear Lord, we just come and bow ourselves before Thee, commit this time into Thy hand, and ask that Thou wilt complete the work Thou hast already begun. We give Thee all the glory, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, I hope we all know that the burden we have in the morning time is new covenant living. We thank God that He is a God of covenant. He loves to make covenant with men. It is His condescending love towards us.
He knows how unfaithful and untrustworthy we are, and for that reason He is willing to bind Himself, as it were, under a legal document to encourage our faith in Him.
As we have already mentioned, even though God made His covenants with the children of Israel and not with the nations, yet in a very real sense we also were under the old covenant of law. As we find in Romans 2, the things of the law have been written upon our hearts. Our conscience and our thoughts work together either to accuse or to excuse us.
So, in a sense, brothers and sisters, before we believed in the Lord Jesus, we were all under the old covenant of law. It is, “Thou shalt; thou shalt not.” In other words, the responsibility is upon man. Whenever responsibility is put upon man, man always fails. This is what man is.
But thank God that He promised the children of Israel that one day He would make a new covenant with them. It is not a covenant of law; it is a covenant of grace. In other words, it is all God saying, “I will, I will, and I will.” And because He will, therefore you are.
When our Lord Jesus was having His last supper with His disciples before His crucifixion, He gave us the Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s Table. At the end of the supper, He took the cup, blessed it, and said, “This is the new covenant in My blood, given for you.”
So, brothers and sisters, we do thank the Lord that we are no longer under the old covenant of law. That should not be the way we live. We are now under the new covenant of grace.
To believers, all God’s dealings with them are according to the new covenant. To put it another way, all our dealings with God are based upon the new covenant. Anything outside of the new covenant, brothers and sisters, in the sight of God, is nothing. Only that which is within the new covenant is acknowledged by God.
Once we lived under the old covenant of law. There was no hope, no God. But thank God, in His mercy and grace, He has provided the Saviour, our Lord Jesus, for us. Through Him, we are all being brought into the new covenant position.
So, first of all, let us be very certain that we are not a people under the old covenant of law. That means we should not live our lives according to the old covenant of law. He has already delivered us, and He has already entered into a new covenant with us.
He says to us, “From now on, all My dealings with you are according to the new covenant, and therefore all your dealings with Me must be of the same nature.”
Dear brothers and sisters, I want to emphasize and re-emphasize this because how often we forget. Somehow, very easily, we slip back to live under the old covenant of law. To put it another way, we try to put our confidence in ourselves, as if we were able. It has been proven that we are unable, but somehow we are not convinced, and we fall back again and again.
First of all, we need to take our stand firmly upon that ground, that rock foundation. From now on, our lives are to be lived under the new covenant of grace.
In this new covenant, we find that it is very simple—not as complicated as the old covenant of law. In the old covenant, you not only had the Ten Commandments as the foundation, but also all these statutes and ordinances to keep. But in this new covenant, there are only three articles.
We find them in Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Hebrews 8:10-12. As we mentioned yesterday, so far as God’s purpose is concerned, He always begins with the highest, because God is the God of glory. But so far as our experience is concerned, we always begin with the lowest and, by the grace of God, are brought up to the highest.
The first article is that God says He will write His law upon our hearts. He will be our God, and we will be His people.
The second is that you do not need to teach your fellow brothers and fellow citizens, “Know the Lord,” because everyone shall know Him in himself or herself, from the least one to the greatest one.
The last article is that God will not only forgive our transgressions, but He will remember our sins no more.
As we are sharing together, according to the order of our experience, we begin with the last one. That is what we did yesterday morning. By the grace of God, He has forgiven all our sins—not only forgiven, but forgotten.
Unfortunately, we find that God’s people always try to go back to the past. But when they do that, God says, “I cannot remember anything. What are you talking about?” Thank God, this is our position and our place before God.
Now this morning we would like to go a little further. When you are saved by grace, do you know how much work God has done in your life?
Usually, when we think of how we are saved and what it means to us, we think that our sins have been forgiven. Sin is a big thing in our past life. To have our sins forgiven, to escape hell, and to have the promise of heaven seems to us the greatest thing in the world.
When your sins are forgiven, that heavy burden upon you rolls away. Such peace reigns in your heart, and you feel as if you are walking in the heavens. It is a great thing to us.
But, brothers and sisters, so far as God’s salvation is concerned, that is the smallest thing to God. To us, it is the greatest thing; but to God, it is the smallest thing. Why? Because when we are saved, He has done great things to us.
To have our sins forgiven is negative. But there is something very positive God has done in our lives. Number one: we are born again. We are born of the Spirit.
When we were in sins and transgressions, our human spirit was dead unto God. We lived by our soul and our body; that was all. But thank God, when we believed in the Lord Jesus, the Spirit of God gave birth to us. That is to say, our dead spirit was quickened into new life.
It is called a new spirit. That does not refer to the Holy Spirit; that refers to the human spirit. So everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus has a new spirit. Because we have a new spirit, our communication with God is reconnected.
The Holy Spirit, with our spirit, cries out to God, “Abba, Father.” Brothers and sisters, this is more precious than having our sins forgiven. It is positive: we are now the children of God.
Not only that, but our Lord Jesus came into our new spirit, and He Himself became the new life in that new spirit. Formerly, we only had a soul life, a created life. But now we have a new life, an uncreated life, God’s own life.
Christ Himself is the life of our new spirit. Is not this much more precious than having our sins forgiven? Much greater. Every believer has Christ dwelling in his new spirit to be the very life of his spirit.
Do you think that is enough? No. At the same time, God gives His own Spirit to come into our new spirit and dwell there. Every believer has the indwelling Holy Spirit. The promised Another Comforter has come.
When our Lord Jesus was on earth, He was the Comforter to His disciples. In other words, He was the One who lived alongside them, helped them, and was responsible for them.
When He was leaving, His disciples were in grief because they felt as if they had lost their parents. They would be left orphans. So our Lord Jesus promised them in John 14, “I go, but I will ask the Father, and He will send you another Comforter”—another of the same kind, not of a different kind.
This Comforter, when He comes, shall dwell in you and be with you. When our Lord Jesus was with the disciples, they lived together day and night, but sometimes He sent the disciples out and they were separated. He could not be with them all the time because He was in the flesh, and His disciples were in the flesh too.
Even though the relationship was very close, it was outward. But now it is different. This Another Comforter comes and dwells in you. He will be with you forever. He will never leave you nor forsake you.
Why does the Holy Spirit dwell in our spirit? What is His work there? Only one work: He is there to see to it that we may be changed, transformed, and conformed to the image of Christ. That is His work.
Brothers and sisters, if you see this, what does it mean? It means that God has made every provision for us to live the Christian life.
As we find in 2 Peter 1:3-4, by His divine power He has called us by His glory and virtue, and He has prepared for us all things concerning life and godliness. In other words, His divine power has provided, for those who believe in the Lord Jesus, everything you need concerning life and godliness.
Godliness simply means to be like God. That is the work of the Holy Spirit in each and every one of us. Nothing is lacking. Everything needed for us to be transformed and conformed to the image of Christ has been provided.
We are the recipients of all the provision. All we need to do is cooperate. That is all. This is the Christian life.
It is not a life in which you try hard to live such a noble life, a so-called Christian life. Every need has been provided. It only takes one thing: believe. Grace can only be received by faith and nothing else.
After we have believed in the Lord Jesus, we are not supposed to live in the old way. I think that is clear to everybody. We know how to live our natural lives; we have been living for some time already, some longer and some shorter. But we do not know how to live this new life as a Christian.
Unfortunately, many among God’s people think they know how to live as Christians, and they try to live it out. But unfortunately, nobody has ever succeeded—ever succeeded.
There is only one way to live this Christian life: by believing in all that God has provided for us.
After we believe in the Lord Jesus, something happens. It is as if we are drowning and somebody comes and rescues us. After you have been rescued, how do you feel about that man? You want to know him. You want to know what kind of person has saved you. You want to be like him, and you want to please him. That is most natural.
For a believer, one who believes in the Lord Jesus, there is something supernaturally natural in him or in her. He wants to know his Redeemer. He wants to know the Lord. He wants to know what kind of character his Lord has, what the Lord loves, what He hates, and he wants to do everything to please Him.
If such a desire is not there, it may show that you are not truly saved.
You remember the virgin in the Song of Songs. In the Bible, it never refers to the people in the world as virgins, because the people in the world are adulterers and adulteresses. Only those who have been saved by grace are considered virgins.
As virgins, we are all engaged to one Person: our Lord Jesus. This virgin, who used to be a rebel like the prodigal son, has had her neck kissed by the Beloved. We are all stiff-necked, but God’s love has kissed our neck and softened it.
That is where we are when we begin our Christian life. What is the desire of the virgin after her neck has been kissed by the Beloved?
Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth.
What does it mean? It means she wants a closer relationship with the Beloved. This is supernaturally natural to every believer. If you are really saved, there is a supernatural desire within you: you want to know the Lord, you want to please Him, and you want to know His will—what He likes and what He does not like.
In the second article of the new covenant, it says that you do not need to teach your fellow citizens and fellow brothers, “Know the Lord.”
In the old covenant time, they also wanted to know the Lord. But how could they know the Lord? The law was written upon stones. They were given instructions, statutes, and ordinances, but they needed somebody to teach them.
Among the children of Israel, during the Feast of Tabernacles, they gathered together to listen to the law being read and explained to them. That was the way they knew the Lord.
In Hebrews 8:11, the first word translated know is ginosko. It means common knowledge, informational knowledge—knowledge accumulated from outside.
That is the way we learn as we grow up. We accumulate knowledge from outside. We are taught, and as all this information is gathered in our brain, we become more and more knowledgeable. Everything comes from outside.
That was the way they knew God in the old covenant time: they knew God by being taught. But when they were taught, it was only informational knowledge. It was in their minds, not in their hearts. That is why it was very difficult to obey the law. They knew it, but they did not feel after it. They had no love for it.
But the Bible tells us that now we are under the new covenant of grace. You do not need anyone to teach you, “Know the Lord.” How, then, do we know Him? Everyone shall know Him in themselves.
The second word translated know in Hebrews 8:11 is another Greek word, oida. It means conscious knowledge, intuitive knowledge, experiential knowledge. It is not knowledge that you get from outside; it is knowledge that comes from within you.
This inward knowledge begins with the least one. As soon as you are born again, it is there. It grows within you if you exercise it, until you are changed, transformed, and conformed to the image of Christ.
Under the new covenant, knowing the Lord is not something external, but something inward. Unfortunately, in Christianity today, we have forgotten that inward way of life.
As soon as we are saved, we are instructed: “You need to read your Bible every day. You need to pray every day. You need to go to church on Sunday. You need to do this; you should not do that.” We are instructed from outside.
As a matter of fact, we often become Christians in an outward way. I remember when I first became a Christian, I was told that we must keep Sunday and should not do any work on Sunday.
As a student, on Sunday I dared not study because I thought studying was work. If there was an examination on Monday, that was the thing I dreaded most because I could not study on Sunday. My fellow students knew about it, so when there was an examination on Monday, they borrowed my notes. I could not touch them.
Then what did I do? I had nothing to do, so I played ball. That is Christianity.
Brothers and sisters, this is not the way for us to be Christians. A Christian, from the very beginning, walks inwardly before God. That is the way God’s people have forgotten.
How does it work? After you believe in the Lord Jesus, you know within yourself that you cannot live as you lived before. Now you are different, so you have to live differently. But how?
How do you know the Lord? Not by outward teaching, but by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. As soon as you believe in the Lord Jesus, He begins to teach you. When we first believe in the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit, with our spirit, cries out, “Abba, Father.” That is how it begins.
If you learn to walk in that inward way, you will find that He teaches you to know the Lord from the very beginning of your Christian life. As you draw near to the Lord, the Lord draws near to you, and He speaks to you.
Let me use an illustration. If you have ever read Against the Tide, the biography of Watchman Nee, you will find such a story there. I love to tell it because I knew the people involved.
In central China there was a mountain called Kuling Mountain. It was a famous mountain because it was a resort place. Missionaries usually spent their summer there.
When Brother Watchman Nee was sick, he went to the mountain to rest. He ate his meals with a family whose surname was Yu. I knew the head of that family personally. He was the only electrician on the mountain. He was not a believer and was half illiterate.
While Brother Nee was eating with the family, he began to preach the gospel to them. Thank God, both the husband and wife turned to the Lord.
After the summer was over, the visitors went down the mountain, but this brother lived on the mountain. In winter it was very cold, and he had the habit of drinking wine. In China, wine was often warmed and drunk with the meal.
Every winter his wife warmed the wine, and they would have their meal. But every time he drank, he became drunk. When winter came after he had become a Christian, his wife again warmed the wine and they began to eat.
The brother said, “Now we are Christians. We should pray first.” So he started to pray, but suddenly stopped and asked, “Why, can Christians drink?” His wife said, “I do not know.”
The brother said, “Go and get the Book.” Brother Nee had left him a Bible, and he tried to find whether the Bible said Christians could drink wine. He had never read the Bible before and was half illiterate. Thank God, he did not find it.
If he had found Paul saying to Timothy, “Use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake,” it would have been disastrous. So his wife said, “The wine is getting cold. Bring it first, and when Mr. Nee comes back next summer, we will ask him.”
The brother said, “Well, that is right. But let us pray.” He started to pray and stopped again. He said, “Can a Christian drink?” Three times this happened. Finally, he told his wife, “Take the wine away.”
Later, he came to Shanghai and visited Brother Nee. He told him the story. Brother Nee asked, “Why did you not drink that wine?”
He said, “Because my resident Boss did not allow me.” He did not even know the name Holy Spirit. He said, “My resident Boss did not allow me to do that.”
Brothers and sisters, do you see how the Holy Spirit began to teach him to know the Lord?
In 1 John 2:27, you have the anointing within you. The Holy Spirit, who dwells in our spirit, is an ointment. But the word used there is anointing; it is a verb. In other words, there is action there.
The Holy Spirit is there and is in action. He is anointing you, and He has a job to teach you in all things—not only the big things, but also all things, even the small things.
We often think, “For big things, we pray; for small things, we decide.” But that is not Christian life. Christian life is this: whether it is big or small, it is the Lord who decides. Seek the Lord, and He will show us.
The Holy Spirit who dwells within us is like an anointing. When an ointment is applied to your wounds, it gives a soothing feeling. It is not like a great wind blowing through, a great storm, an earthquake, or a fire.
Just like Elijah on Mount Horeb: there was a great shaking, but God was not there; there was a great wind, but God was not there; there was fire, but God was not there. Then God came in a still, small voice.
That is the Holy Spirit. He is like a dove: gentle, but persistent. That is the way the Holy Spirit works in us.
People ask me, “How do I know that the Holy Spirit is speaking to me? Have I heard Him?” We often think of hearing an audible sound. It is true that even today God may sometimes give an audible sign. I heard it once.
But, brothers and sisters, He speaks to us in such a still, small voice: clear, persistent, but not suppressing or oppressing. That is the way the Holy Spirit speaks.
In order to hear the Holy Spirit, you need to be quiet. The reason we do not hear the voice of the Holy Spirit teaching us is that we hear so many sounds around us.
We need to be quiet before the Lord. If we do, we will hear this still, small voice speaking to us, like an ointment applied to wounds. You feel it; you sense it in your spirit. It is persistent until you obey, and then you find the burden is lifted.
Brothers and sisters, this is Christian life. Sometimes, when you lose something and cannot find it, you become so anxious. The more anxious you are, the less you can remember where the thing is. Quiet down. Wait upon the Lord, and often you find the Spirit of God directs you to the place where you lost it.
You may want to go to a certain place, perhaps a place you frequented often before you believed in the Lord Jesus. But now you do not know whether you should go or not. The Holy Spirit will tell you whether you are supposed to go.
In every small thing in your life, He will guide you. To put it another way, do not live a nervous life because you are trying to hear the Holy Spirit all the time and become nervous about it.
I often say nervous Christians are good Christians. If you are not nervous, it shows that you do not care. But do not be nervous; just be quiet. That is all.
You will discover in your daily life, in small things and great things, how He guides you and teaches you in all things.
We have the habit, whenever we have a question and do not know whether we as Christians can do something, of trying to find a brother or sister who is more advanced than we are. Then we ask, “Brother so-and-so, Sister so-and-so, can I do this? Can I go there?”
Sure enough, if you are not a teacher, you want to be a teacher. Everybody wants to teach. So you have lots of teachers, and they will tell you, “Do this. Do not do that.”
You may do the right thing according to what they say, but there is no relationship between you and God. All your relationship is outward.
Christian life is intensely inward. It is not an outward way of life. If outwardly you are taught to be correct and orthodox, that means nothing in the sight of God.
It is an inward way of life, and this is the way we are supposed to walk from the very beginning to the very end of our Christian life. The leading of the Spirit is within.
Now, if that is the case, should we throw out all the teachers? We do not need them? Why does the Bible tell us that the Lord raises up teachers?
Remember one thing, dear brothers and sisters: the human soul is so precious in the sight of God that He will not let anybody else take care of a whole human soul. He wants to take care of it Himself.
Your soul is so precious to the Lord that He dares not entrust you to people. His Holy Spirit is given for that very purpose: to take care of you.
Why, then, do we need teachers? Teachers are not supposed to dictate or govern. Teachers are supposed to correct and encourage.
When a person comes to you and asks, “Brother so-and-so, Sister so-and-so, can I do this? Can I do that?” what should you do? I think the first question should be, “Have you gone to the Lord about it?”
Go to the Lord first. After you have gone to the Lord and have some sense, then come and get confirmation or correction. That is the work of teachers—not to govern, but to help.
We have only one Teacher: the Holy Spirit. Brothers and sisters, this is Christian life. I hope that from the very start of our Christian living, we will learn to walk in this inward way.
Do not ever try to be a Christian only outwardly. That will not count. Thank God, He has made every provision for us already. Why not use God’s provision?
Dear Lord, how we praise and thank Thee. Thou dost love us so much, love us to the utmost. There is nothing, however small, that Thou hast not provided for us. Thou art truly our all and in all.
So, Lord, we pray that Thou wilt deliver us from being outward Christians, walking in our way of law. Teach us, O Lord, how to walk in the inward way of grace.
Show us how we can walk softly before Thee until, as Enoch, we walk with Thee until we walk to Thee. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.