Good evening, brothers and sisters.
We have had a very precious twenty-four hours—some very rich ministry of the Word, and on a great theme: the testimony and the way.
I am interested, just for myself, to see how many of you are here this year for the first time. Would you raise your hands? Well, that is quite a large number.
I know that we are using terms here that are familiar to people who have been here for years, but we are talking about two great matters: the testimony of Jesus and the way.
Now, just to make it as simple as I can as we introduce this tonight: What is the testimony of God—the testimony of Jesus?
Well, in the final analysis, it is everything that is true about God and Jesus.
Israel was to be the steward of the testimony of God. Now, that included not only His laws, but His ways—the testimony in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy concerning who God was. This is what Israel was to be an eyewitness of in the world.
They were to say, “No, no, no. There is only one God, and He is the Lord. He created the world. He is unseen. He is loving and forgiving, compassionate, and makes covenant with His people.”
What a tremendous thing to think about. What a testimony to bear. What a God.
But, you see, it is not enough just to know words, or to know the Ten Commandments. Israel was to live the reality of this God whom they said they knew.
Now, what is the testimony of Jesus? Again, it is a very great matter, as our brothers shared this morning. It is all the truth about who Jesus is.
Our brother shared wonderfully from the book of Revelation what Jesus finally said about Himself: the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. What a Jesus we have.
We as Christians are to bear the testimony of Jesus. It includes the Word of God.
John was exiled on the Isle of Patmos for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. But John was in trouble not merely because he could talk about Jesus. He was in trouble because, when he spoke the truth about Jesus, Jesus was in him, empowering and making real the testimony.
And for that, John was in trouble.
We are to bear the testimony of Jesus. So, you see, this is a great matter. I want young and old alike—and perhaps some of you who have not heard these references when we simply say “the testimony”—to understand that we are talking about something very great.
And also, when we speak about the way, we mean the way for us to live in this testimony of Jesus. That is a great matter in itself.
As you know, when Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” He was speaking of much, much more than merely the way of salvation. He is the life that we are to live.
This is a great matter. My three brothers and I are joined together in sharing during these times concerning the testimony and the way.
Tonight, I would like us to look at some Scriptures in our theme.
Let us begin in 1 Samuel 3, where our brother took us last night—where Samuel first heard the call of God. Let us notice the first four verses for the background.
Now the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no frequent vision.
And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place—now his eyes had begun to wax dim, that he could not see—
and the lamp of God was not yet gone out, and Samuel was laid down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was,
that the Lord called Samuel: and he said, Here am I.
Let us also turn to Luke 14:16.
But he said unto him, A certain man made a great supper; and he bade many:
and he sent his servant at supper-time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready.
And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a field, and I must needs go out and see it; I pray thee, have me excused.
And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them; I pray thee, have me excused.
And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.
And the servant came, and told his lord these things. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor and maimed and blind and lame.
And the servant said, Lord, what thou didst command is done, and yet there is room.
And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and constrain them to come in, that my house may be filled.
For I say unto you, that none of those men that were bidden shall taste of my supper.
Then one verse in Hebrews 3:7:
Wherefore, even as the Holy Spirit saith,
Today if ye shall hear His voice.
Finally, back to Genesis 3:8–10:
And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
And the Lord God called unto the man, and said unto him, Where art thou?
And he said, I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
Our Father, we come to You tonight in the name of our Lord Jesus. We thank You for the Word of God that is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, and that discloses all the secrets of our heart and divides between soul and spirit. There is nothing hidden from His sight.
We thank You that we can come, and we know that there is no one who can hide from Your calling. We pray tonight, as we share together and continue our thoughts on these great themes, that You will penetrate our hearts with Your call and desire for us.
Leaving all excuses behind, may we follow after You and walk in the way of this testimony.
Lord, do help us tonight. We are tired in body and distracted by many things, but, oh, we pray that You would open heaven and allow us to hear and to see the truth of the testimony of Jesus and the way in which to walk.
We thank You, as we commit this time to You, that it is now in Your hands. Do help us, we pray, in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
We come together and we rejoice. We rejoice as we share together in these times of ministry of the Word. We rejoice simply in being together—worshiping, singing, praying, fellowshipping, and meeting old friends. It is a wonderful time to rejoice, and indeed we should rejoice.
But, as our brother shared last night when he began, this is also a time of sorrow.
I wonder whether you sense that. Even with the joy that we have in anticipation of the blessed hope of our Lord Jesus’ return, do you still sense the sorrow that is in this world?
The Bible says that in the last days the sorrows will increase.
I want to begin tonight by saying that the sorrow is the sound of the Lord God and the lack of response to Him as He says, “Adam, where are you?”
I do not know whether we can fully appreciate how much God loves every man and woman. Sometimes we think He must care little for sinners—except us, of course, who by grace were saved.
But in these last days there is a tragedy working out its final expression: the tragedy of the unanswered call.
A call is not something merely heard; a call is something heard and answered.
In these days, as it were, our Lord is still speaking—even now, in these final hours, with wrath being stored up and sins increasing. Still our Lord is calling out and saying, “Adam, where are you?”
There is sorrow because of love.
Jesus came to earth out of that sorrow. Jesus sends us out into the earth with His testimony so that this sorrow might be alleviated as men are drawn to Jesus Christ.
God does not wish that any should perish. He loves every man and woman, young and old. He has not given up on a soul.
And so the sorrow goes forth in these last days: “Adam, Adam, where are you?”
There is a gnawing sense among sinful men. They are not willing to admit it. Adam says, “Let us eat and drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” But there is a gnawing sense of a God who is calling—and of a God from whom they are hiding.
Do not think that sinners do not know that God is calling. It pricks their heart. It causes them to hide, to accept fantasy over reality, to live in a fool’s paradise.
Even in these last days, it is a tragedy being worked out, just as it was in the days when Adam was upon the earth.
But it affects us all, you know, because that unanswered call is a tragedy not only among the sinners of this world.
The story in 1 Samuel speaks to us of the tragedy of Israel, to whom God says, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love,” and yet Israel refused Him.
There is sorrow in God’s heart as He calls out to Israel, “Where are you?” Yet in the darkness, no one seems to hear His voice except this little boy.
I wish I could stop there and simply say, “Well, that is Israel.” But indeed, there is a sorrow in this matter of the church.
Did you ever think there would come a day when our God would have to say to the church, which has been called and saved according to His purpose:
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
What has happened?
Or consider the prophetic statement in Hebrews 3, where the writer is speaking to Christians:
Today if ye shall hear His voice.
God’s call goes out. Many are called. Who will respond?
This is a tragedy happening in our day. Perhaps you do not sense it very deeply. After all, we are all in denial about the real situation in these end days.
But it seems to me that the tragedy is underscored when we contrast Genesis 3 with what preceded it in Genesis 1 and 2.
In Genesis 1 and 2, we see, in the simplest way, the beginning of the testimony of God.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Now that is a testimony. Who is God?
He is not only the Creator; He did everything in order. He did everything teeming with life, teeming with fruitfulness. His own estimation was, “This is good.”
Our God is a good God. Why did He create the heavens and the earth? According to His good pleasure.
Think about it. This is the testimony of God. This is who God is.
He said, “Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the earth.”
There is a generous and loving God. Most people want to die with the most toys, but here is God, the Owner of the whole universe, saying, “Let us give man a part of this whole thing. Let us make man like Us.”
God loved man. God so loved the world—everyone in it. He made with generosity in His heart. Can you imagine what God had planned for man?
Then we see that He did not leave man alone. He said, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” He made a helpmeet.
What wisdom, what love, what understanding God has. Even if Adam had dominion over the whole world, it was still a lonely universe. So God said, “I will make a helpmeet.”
This is the testimony of God.
God created Eve, and then God placed them in paradise—with everything they needed. He made covenant with them: “I have provided everything. Now till the soil; tend the garden.”
This was a vast domain, not merely some garden like Central Park. The plan was that Adam and Eve, through bearing children and cultivating the garden, would expand as man took dominion over the whole earth.
What a wonderful plan.
“I know the thoughts that I think toward you,” says the Lord, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope in your latter end.”
This is God’s heart.
Then we see the testimony of God when He says, “Sabbath. Shabbat. Rest.” He is happy. What an accomplishment—this creation. What a great testimony. God does all things well.
This is the testimony we find in the first two chapters of Genesis.
Then we come to Genesis 3.
Do you see the tragedy? Can you imagine it? By contrast, look at this man.
What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?
For Thou hast made him but little lower than God,
And crownest him with glory and honor.
But here is Adam in Genesis 3: small, peevish, selfish, self-preserving, blame-inflicting—a sinner.
That is not what man was supposed to be like. Look at Adam here. It is a tragedy.
The greatest thing in life is tremendous: God calls man to walk in His testimony. Think about that. This is a tremendous, vast thing.
God calls man: “Adam, walk in My testimony. Let us begin in the garden in the cool of the day. I will come and talk with you daily. Let us get to know one another.”
That is a good place to start—in the secret place.
Every afternoon God met with Adam. Now Adam is hiding. Such smallness.
Who could ever imagine what God had planned in His heart for Adam and Eve? It is a tragedy.
“Adam, where are you?”
God is calling out. I wonder: Do you think there was pathos in His voice? Do you think He was angry? Do you think He really did not know where Adam was?
I think there was sadness there.
God’s desire, as we have found out through the testimony of Jesus, is to dwell with man and for man to dwell with Him. This is God’s desire.
Now He comes to man one day, and man wants nothing of it. Do you sense the pathos in that? To me, it seems like a sorrowful moment.
And even today, when we look around, what do we see? We see a God calling out, but are men coming to Him and saying, “Here am I, Lord. I have come to do Thy will. I want to obey Your covenant. I want to follow You”?
Is that what God is hearing today as His voice goes out across the earth?
In 1 Samuel, we see this picture of Israel. It is very picturesque in those first verses:
The word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no frequent vision.
How can you be God’s people and not have a vision of God? The Word of God was infrequent and was not spread abroad.
Oh, they had the Word of God. They had it right there in the ark—the Ten Commandments and the other commands given through Moses. But the Word of God was not going forth.
The leader was going blind. Surely there is some spiritual significance in that. The lampstand was flickering, as if on its way out.
Now there is a picture of tragedy.
This depicts the end of the period we refer to as the time of the judges. They had no king. Every man was living the way he wanted to live.
Israel, as a nation, had crumpled into tribes that competed and sometimes fought one another.
Where was this nation that God had called?
Remember when God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, how He said:
I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto Myself.
Now therefore, if ye will indeed obey My voice, and keep My covenant,
then ye shall be Mine own possession from among all peoples:
for all the earth is Mine:
and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.
All of that had now been reduced to one little boy.
Is that not a tragedy? The call was meant for all Israel—for all twelve tribes, all the men, women, and children in those tribes.
And now, here we are in 1 Samuel 3, and the whole testimony is in the hands of one little boy, the only one who listens to God.
Once God began to speak to Samuel, all Israel suddenly knew that God was speaking.
It is a shame. It is a tragedy. Where are all the other three million who were called to hear His voice and to follow?
In this passage, we see a vital link that I want to mention so that we have a little context. There is a vital link between the testimony and the way.
That vital link is the call.
We can talk about the eternal purpose of God, the testimony of Jesus, the glory of God’s eternal purpose, all the fullness that will be in the future in glory, the New Jerusalem, and all these things.
And regarding the way, we can speak of the way of the cross, the way of bearing the ark, or the way of holding the lampstand.
But if there is no call, then the testimony remains here and there is no way forward. There is, as it were, a chasm between the testimony and the way.
We could hear all weekend long about the testimony. Does that mean that we can walk in it? Not unless we hear and respond to His call.
The call is that moment in history where God’s eternal purpose is heard and responded to. It is a moment in history.
Throughout the ages, we see how this took place among God’s people.
Jesus came to call Israel. Do you remember what He said?
Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
I read the parable of the great supper because this was the response. The rich man prepared a feast, and when it was ready, he said, “Come; for all things are now ready.”
But Israel responded, “Oh, yes, the feast—but please have me excused.”
One said, “I just got married. Sorry.”
Another said, “I have a new business. I just started a new job. I cannot get the time off. I have to work the weekend. Please have me excused. Not now.”
Another said, “I am busy with my investments. I bought some land. Please have me excused.”
Basically, the parable speaks of the fact that Jesus and the gospel were turned over to the Gentiles—those in the highways and hedges. They were invited to the feast to which Israel had been called but did not come.
That is tragedy enough, but I do not think it is too much of a stretch to say that every Sunday, when we come to the Lord’s table, there is a voice going forth saying, “Come. Everything in the feast is now ready.”
It is the feast of our Lord Jesus. He has finished the work. He has done it all. “Come, feast with Me, My children.”
And sometimes, even in the church, we see something of this tragedy worked out.
It is a tragedy if we come to the Lord’s table and people are checking their phones, their watches, and wondering when this section will be over. “I do not get much out of this feast. Please have me excused. What are we doing now? What is coming after? Who is speaking?”
It is a tragedy.
Do you think we understand what this feast is about?
Or people come, as Jesus spoke in other parables, improperly dressed. Instead of wearing the garments that the Bridegroom has bought and paid for, they come in all kinds of wrong garments.
And I am not talking about the clothes they are wearing. I am talking about garments spotted with the flesh.
Would it not be a tragedy if Adam came into the church, sat there with an attitude, and said, “I am just a spectator this morning. I am going to share nothing, sing nothing, say nothing. I am going to watch other people, watch them closely. Maybe I can criticize them for something.”
Laodicea is a tragedy. Lukewarmness is a tragedy.
It speaks of an assembling of people who have not heard the voice come forth. We sing, “Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it,” but with lukewarm songs and lukewarm, refried prayers.
Is that it? Is that our testimony? Is that all we have? Is that what a feast is?
Only Adam can take the feast of victory—the feast of the new creation, the feast of a God who loves us, the feast of a better covenant, the feast of a holy calling—and turn it into something trite, small, religious, narrow, and half-hearted.
I speak as a fool when I say: I wonder what the Apostle Paul would think if he came among the assemblies and saw our feast.
What do you think?
“Brothers, where are you? Brothers, where are you?”
“Oh, please have me excused. I am just out of it today. Personal problems.”
We should not push this tragedy off on Adam alone, though we could talk about Adam’s tragedy and see it around us all the time.
As we enter into the last days, there is lost Adam everywhere. We have so much lost Adam in New York City. People do not know their left foot from their right. They do not know how to go out or come in. They do not know truth, love, righteousness, or holiness.
It is a tragedy taking place—people getting smaller and smaller and smaller.
I remember years ago, I was in a young people’s meeting, and Lance was speaking. During the question-and-answer time, one young person asked, “Do you believe in evolution?”
Lance said, “I believe in devolution.”
Man has never equaled Adam. Since the fall, man has become worse and worse and worse.
You may be of the young and evolutionary brand and think man is getting better, smarter, and healthier. But despite whatever outward cosmetic things we are doing to make ourselves last longer, we are watching the tragedy of devolution.
New York City is a tragedy. The United States is a tragedy.
When you look at politics, government, finance, commerce, health care, or even religion: smaller, smaller, narrower, divided. It is a tragedy.
A day will soon come, according to the Bible, when man will be so trivial, so shrunken, and so narrow that somebody will come on the scene and boast of nobility, wisdom, and might.
I used to think, when Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1, “Not many wise, not many noble, not many mighty,” that all those people were outside the church and that there were only fools in the church.
But I am coming to believe that, when you look around the world, there are not many noble, not many wise, not many mighty—even among those who think they are.
But God can still choose the foolish things to confound the wise.
The antichrist will feign wisdom, but it will be a wisdom from beneath. He will feign nobility, but it will only be the pride of the arch-spirit empowering him.
The whole world will worship this man because they have become so shallow that they imagine this is something superhuman.
This tragedy is happening right now all around us.
One reason the Lord is adding to the testimony of Jesus Christ the fact that those who believe and walk in the way of the testimony testify of His redemption is so that all will know and have heard the call, whatever their response may be.
But I want to come back simply to ourselves tonight and ask the question:
Where are you? Where are you?
When God asked that question of Adam, of course He knew exactly where Adam was. But He asked the question so that Adam could understand where he was.
“Adam, where are you? Saint, where are you?”
God knows where you are. Do you know where you are?
I find tremendous confusion among the saints as to where we are. There are things we must get squared away if we are going to live and walk in the way according to our calling in Christ Jesus.
From Genesis 3, we see something else about the call of God. Please, let us strip away all Babylonian religion from the word call. We are not talking about a call to the ministry.
We are talking about a call into fellowship with Jesus Christ. We are talking about a call into Christ—a holy calling, a heavenly calling, a noble calling, a service calling, a glorious calling.
But here is what we see in Genesis about calling: a true calling penetrates to the conscience. It is not something received merely with the ear; it is something received in the heart.
When those dear ones on the Day of Pentecost heard the Apostle Peter preaching the gospel and extending the voice of God, they were pricked in their conscience. That is the call of God.
The call is not something superficial: “Do you want to be saved? Do you feel something?”
When God calls us, it penetrates our very hearts: “Adam, Adam, where are you?”
It is a very personal call.
Adam was honest enough to admit that he was hiding. He was a rather guileless man. “Lord, I heard You coming, and I was hiding because I am ashamed, because I am naked. I am hiding from You.”
Oh, that we would be as honest as Adam.
Israel’s history, of course, is a history of cover-up. Rather than admitting who they were and saying, “Oh, Lord, have mercy upon me, and by Your loving-kindness give me grace to obey Your covenant,” they covered themselves with religious leaves and busyness.
There was a lack of vision, and the Word of God was rare, but there was plenty of talk.
Do not forget: religious talk does not mean that we are hearing the testimony of God.
What a tragedy being worked out in Israel. But the Christian conscience must answer this question: “Dear one, where are you?”
Now, what do I mean by that? I want to be clear.
There are really only two places: Are you in Adam, or are you in Christ?
It is as simple as that. Yet I find that a lot of Christians are quite confused about it. They believe somehow that they are in Christ, but they are still in Adam.
I tell you, that is a contradiction, although I understand the confusion.
If a Christian is completely in control of his own life, then he is living according to the flesh. If he is living according to the flesh, then he feels like he is Adam, because that is exactly how Adam lives.
Many Christians are hiding because of something John tells us at the end of his first letter:
My little children, guard yourselves from idols.
What has got you in hiding?
Do you think John was so shallow and superficial that he was speaking merely of little physical household gods carved out of wood? Perhaps there are Christians who have such idols, but John is looking for reality in the testimony.
There are idols: obsessions, worldliness, mammon. There are all kinds of idols that make Christians go into hiding when the voice of God comes to their conscience and says, “Where are you?”
The response is: “Hide.”
Is that you?
The thing about young people is that they are still somewhat like Adam. If a young person is raised in a godly home and suddenly becomes very vocal and outrageously worldly, you know that person is hiding like crazy from the voice of God.
Do you understand what I am saying?
If they were raised in a godly home to hear the voice of God and then turn off into the world, they act weird and crazy. They are not halfway in the world; they go all the way.
It is a big ruse. It is a big hide. They can still hear the voice of God, but they are in denial. They are trying to pretend that they do not hear.
Those are some of your Christian friends, you know.
Where are you? Are you in Adam, or are you in Christ?
Perhaps the real question is not merely, “Adam, where are you?” but, “Adam, who are you?”
Brothers and sisters, I do not need to rehearse the gospel for you, but let me put it plainly.
There was only one Man who ever came upon this earth who said, “Speak, Lord; Thy servant heareth,” and heard all the way to Calvary.
There was only one Son of Man who said:
Lo, I am come
(In the roll of the book it is written of Me)
To do Thy will, O God.
One.
Out in the clear, in the light, our Lord Jesus walked this earth as a sinless Man. Oh, precious Son of God.
Psalm 8, as the writer of Hebrews says, has not yet come to pass. Where is the man God purposed? We do not see him yet, but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels and is now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death.
Jesus is the only Man who ever responded to the call.
Therefore, He is the only bridge across the chasm between the great testimony of God and the living way. That is why Jesus could say, “I am the way.”
There is no way to enter into the calling of God, into the way of God, except in Christ.
Christ is our one call. Hebrews 1 says that in old times God spoke in many portions and in many ways, but in these last days there is one voice. There is one speaking of God: Christ.
Christ is our calling. He is our life. He is our way.
If we are not in Christ, we are hearing some voice, but it is not God’s voice, because God calls us to Christ. The gospel calls us to Christ. Once we come to Christ, the Spirit calls us to Christ and into the fullness of Christ.
Christ is the call.
If we are called into Christ, we are called to the right place, and now we are living in the right place. But are we living there?
This matter of the flesh really bothers many Christians and keeps them in hiding. The enemy loves to use it to make us feel guilty and make us small—small Christians.
At the Lord’s table, perhaps you sense a prompting that you should offer a prayer or suggest a song. But the enemy has you wrapped around his finger with condemnation.
You say, “I am not worthy. I cannot speak. I have nothing.”
You have the blood of Jesus. Get under the blood of Jesus and be a worshiper.
Who are you? Where are you?
This is the issue before us. It is time to come out of hiding. Get out from under that bushel. Be who you are.
If you are Christ’s, be Christ’s. Be full of Christ, speak of Christ, and bear the testimony of Christ. Come on, let us get on the way.
This world is tragically falling apart, waiting to see the testimony of something together and integrated, full of life, forgiveness, and compassion—all these precious things we heard this afternoon and last night.
Where are you?
We are called into fellowship with Jesus.
When we speak of the testimony and the way, we are speaking about the need for recovery. That means some things have been lost along the way.
Living in the way of the testimony is living in reality—responding to the call and walking in the call.
The Holy Spirit places and builds a Christ within you who loves to get up in the morning and talk with His Father. And He is in you.
The Christ in you is noble. The Christ in you is loving. The Christ in you is righteous. The Christ in you is holy.
Who are you?
We live a life of faith. We do not see all the evidence of these things, but there is a work going on within us. As our dear brother shared this afternoon, it begins in the secret place.
There is something of transformation going on, sometimes unknown to us, but going on all the time.
Are you in that place? Not hiding from Him, but, as our brother said, hiding in Him.
Are you there? Oh, what a place to be.
Let me put one more aspect of this before you. The testimony and the way are corporate, and this corporate way needs recovery as well.
Brothers and sisters, has our mind ever understood, or have our ears ever comprehended, the fullness of the corporate testimony when every brother and sister is alive?
Can you imagine what it would be to come together and truly be filled with the Spirit? I do not think Paul was merely speaking of individuals; I think he was speaking of the whole body being filled with the Spirit:
Speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;
giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.
What fullness.
Nobody is hiding in the shadows in any given meeting.
But when we have meetings where the government is of the few, the worship is of the few, the music is by the few, the offerings are by the few, the arranging of chairs, hospitality, and witnessing are all by the few, I say it is a tragedy.
How can a few bear the fullness and greatness of the testimony of Jesus Christ? It takes every brother and sister—everyone with one talent, two talents, or five talents—everybody in.
That is all.
We are not talking about great, profound things. We are talking about a life that can be sensed.
Even new believers may not know what they are doing, but they often have a life that infects the whole assembly when they come.
Why cannot the whole assembly have such a life?
Now, if you are in Christ, does that mean you come to a worship time or prayer meeting and everything is coming up roses? Of course not.
There is trouble when you are in the flesh. There is trouble when you have idols. If you are in Christ, is everything easy? No, of course not.
You still have to fight the good fight of faith. You still have to deny yourself. Just about every meeting you attend, you have to deny yourself.
Come and say, “Lord, not for me—for You. I walk the second mile, not for me, but for You.”
We are all pressed down, but in those experiences it is precious to the Lord when we come and gather together anyway.
I used to live in Huntington, and we had a saying for a while: The first step of overcoming is just showing up.
I know that sounds terrible. Sometimes you come and you have nothing. You just show up and say, “I do not have a prayer. I have lost every Scripture out of my brain. I am in such a bad state, I do not see how I could be any value at all, Lord.”
The first thing I do then, as someone in Christ, is go into that secret closet, close the door, and say, “Lord, I have not got anything.”
You will come out with something.
This is not Christians walking in Wonderland, with everybody always on top. Listen: overcoming means overcoming.
It means overcoming the daily things in life that give you an excuse to hide in the bushes and not be out in the open.
Every time we gather, how the Lord wants to recover assemblies full of life.
I am thankful because there are saints who are faithful to pray. They are always at the prayer meeting. Sometimes even their prayers sink, but they are always there, willing to pray for the burdens that the church has whether they feel like it or not, whether they have something to say or not.
The Lord knows their hearts.
We should have a lot of mercy for people who even show up at the prayer meeting. What do you know when somebody shows up at a prayer meeting? They have probably already been through three victories just to get there.
Bible study is easier to attend from home now. We have people coming into Manhattan for Bible study, and others say, “It is on livestream. I will just stream it.”
So they are watching the Bible study on their computer while the television is on and they are watching the Yankees.
I do not know. I still believe that if the saints are going to be built together, they have to meet together.
I do not believe we can simply have church online. There is a church now, something like church.org, and they do not even meet in a place. They meet online. Of course, there is one place you can send contributions—thank you very much—but otherwise there is no place.
They say, “We do not need a place. We just need the Lord.” There is one person here, another person there, and it is all done through Skype or whatever. It is amazing.
But I think you need to be gathered together if you are going to be built together. You need to see how somebody looks, how they smell, and what their eyes are doing while they are speaking if you want to be built together with them.
You need to see the saints exercise and lose their place, not have something that has been edited and cut clean.
This whole matter of the testimony and the way is a burden in our hearts for the recovery of a corporate expression of the reality of Jesus Christ.
It starts with that simple question: “Where are you?”
And you say, “Here am I, Lord. Speak; Thy servant heareth.”
I do not know where you fellowship, what you are up to, who you think you are, or where you think you are. There is only one place to be: in Christ Jesus, full—all the way in.
That is how you will get through, from victory unto victory: in Christ Jesus.
His blood is sufficient. His Spirit enables us. This is the place He wants us to be.
I asked Ben if we could sing “Rock of Ages” this evening. I would like to read two verses that we sang tonight. I wonder whether those who are sincere-hearted here, and whose conscience has perhaps been aroused and exposed, might be open to where they are and where they want to be.
The hymns that last forever usually come from a hymn writer who has been touched very deeply in his conscience.
I wonder if you could join me in this prayer of our dear brother:
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Save me from its guilt and power.Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.
Oh Lord, I pray tonight that You would find us all out. Do not allow any of us to hide behind religious vegetation.
Lord, we feel the call going out across the earth: “Adam, where are you?”
Lord, we do not want that call to be a tragic reality in the church. Oh, recover us, Lord. Bring us out into the open.
We would cast aside our folly and only cling to You. Oh, forgive us, Lord. So many times we have been physically somewhere but spiritually absent. Oh, forgive us, Lord.
Lord, we come to You because we want to walk in the way and bear this tremendous testimony of who You are. But we want to begin in the reality of saying, “Lord, find us. Lord, find us and bring us back.”
We want to walk where You want us to walk, as our brother shared this afternoon.
Lord, get to our conscience. Get to our heart. Get to the quick of our lives.
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
Oh Lord, bring us into Thy living way as we respond to Your call and come out in Christ.
We pray in His precious name.